Illusion is Reality
Chapter 110
-In your eyes-
As soon as his little sister was out of the room and earshot, in human terms - more importantly, along with the humans she was currently with - Blue turned back to the rest of her human family who had stayed behind in the room with him: Kari, Seb, and Wanda. (Abi, Shermie and Carla herded the other kids out with the teenagers' help, including the younger half-demon twins.)
"...So. Penalty? Or and you going to try and murder me for awhile," he asked Seb's Ford's 'mom'. "...I don't normally offer to take penalties from other people for doing things less-than-optimally, you know," he said, a little more slowly, as he stared at her and got a little better gauge on her current level of anger just then.
Kari breathed in slowly and let it out even slower. "Penalty. You, sit down there, and tell me what you did wrong just now. And then I will correct you when you get it wrong."
Blue blinked.
"...Like talking to a female-human Stanley," he said with no small respect, as he walked over to where she had indicated, and pulled out the chair.
"...also, if you keep making this same mistake, you will need to eat a pinch of sugar for each time you do it."
"I don't make the same mistakes twice," Blue told her. "And 'eating sugar' isn't a proper 'penalty' for- wait." He stopped, then looked at her wide-eyed.
"...But I didn't get to saying the part about logic errors sometimes when I haven't eaten or slept enough, yet," Blue said, looking more than a little bit nonplussed with her, leaning back just a little bit in his chair (away from her).
Kari just glared. Oh she was going to put the fear of God into this boy, or just the fear of her, either one worked really. She was the matriarch of this family and she wasn't going to let this child have his way, hurting them. No. Never again.
"And the Stanley-look, too." Blue groaned, and dropped his chin into his arms down onto the table, looking away from her. "I did the 'high-energy' thing, which Stanley keeps telling me he doesn't want me to do around other humans, because that causes fights. In particular, as topical here, usually has Sixer trying to shoot at me with guns, or otherwise throwing things at me, sometimes himself." Blue's shoulders came up a little bit, behind his pillowed head. "I got the timing wrong, obviously. Needed to give the abbreviated example to my sister, but didn't abbreviate it far enough to not do more than make you Stanford-son tense in place, or maybe only jump a little. ...I don't like not being to laugh at all, though. It's hard. I use it for all sorts of things."
"You don't have to stop laughing." Kari sighed. "Just… not in front of Stanford, you can magic yourself silent, can't you?"
"She was looking for input from all of you. Silencing my own response for only him to not hear it would have made him paranoid about what I was saying to another Bill Cipher, moving like that, that I wasn't letting him hear! It would've been worse, led to a worse outcome, caused an even-worse reaction from him." Blue looked up at her. "If I talked about murdering people without going 'high-energy' first, he'd think too much about how I can murder anyone, anytime that I want, easily - but that he'd have no visual or verbal indication to warn him that I might be about to go off doing it first, before I started doing it. Also would lead to all the paranoia. I'm setting up patterns that can be followed," Blue told them. "Patterns of action, reaction, and behavior. For prediction. For security. -My sister needs a more-than-just-words reminder that she should act at least a little differently outwards when she's contemplating people needing to die when she's around people she actually trusts. Because she doesn't like doing that, killing people, and she wants other people to potentially be able to stop her, to tell her 'no' and to stop, if they know she's thinking about doing it, especially if they know a better way of handling things that she could potentially be taking instead. -It's a stop-and-check point," he told Kari, shoving himself back up to sitting upright again. "I'm trying to be a good big brother to her, here," Blue told her with a stressed tone to his voice to her next.
"But you wouldn't murder anyone here. Not if Miz doesn't want you to." Seb managed to get out. (Ughhhhh, Blue sure talked a lot, didn't he? Seb was starting to kind of wonder if Blue even needed to breathe. It was hard to even get in a word edgewise, to say anything without basically having to talk over the too-wordy demon. Why the hell did Blue always talk so much, anyway?)
"Yes," Blue said patiently, turning in his chair to look over at him. "I don't want to murder anyone here. Also, no; I don't want to murder anyone here right now, in particular or in general swaths of entire populations, or any other amount larger or smaller than that or in-between, even if Miz wanted me to for some reason. -But do you really think that your Ford is going to believe that? Ever? From me?"
"Yes." Seb stressed. "Because you're not the same Bill that tormented him. He gets that."
Blue eyed him. "If I thought that doing that would get me what I wanted that much easier and faster, instead of just causing me all sort of problems I'd have to spend more time and energy having to go back fixing later instead, I'd torment him too in order to get it," Blue told him simply. "Efficiency. And he has no control over that. -He may be a six-fingered Stanford, but they're not complete idiots, most of the time."
"But you wouldn't, not if Miz doesn't want you to, which she doesn't," Seb repeated.
"-And then he'd get all worried about doing something wrong about-or-around my sister, and losing the so-called 'protection of her good favor'. -I'm not sabotaging her in that way; that's sabotage. Good big brothers don't do that. -Best to let him know-and-think that it's a separate issue entirely - which it is," Blue told him. "If I needed to do something like that, I'd talk it out with her and convince her, first. Or let her help me come up with a 'better working'-alternative instead. She'd agree with me; it won't be the other way around. -The problem isn't that I don't know how to think, it's that I'm missing INFORMATION. I'm not an idiot."
Blue not quite glared at them both. "My Stanley has been going through most of this with me. What I'm probably missing here are where all your Ford's mental trip-wires and internal lines are, to not cross over them so badly because I don't know where they are in-advance, to have some time to think through and reorient myself with a different strategy if I'm wanting to do that with him, that's all. -And no, telling me those probably isn't a good idea, because then you are telling me all of his pressure points, and here comes the paranoia! -You don't want him not trusting you and your 'judgement' anymore when it comes to me, now, do either of you?"
But Blue didn't wait for a response before continuing with: "Miz is a me-who-is-also-me, and she still thinks she has to be a 'Bill Cipher'. Except she thinks that 'Bill Cipher' is 'a triangle with magical powers', 'a fancy demon, snappy dresser'," Blue said next, almost sing-song, then waved it all off in disgust. "And she's trying to fill in the gaps with just about anything she can think of. She's struggling with that, for good reason. -I'm trying to tell her it's okay to just be herself, even if that doesn't match what she thinks she has to do or be or become, that has been imposed on her from outside herself," Blue told them both quite seriously next. (Seb exchanged a glance with Wanda and his mom, and then just let out a sigh. Right. Blue was a kid. Guess they were just gonna sit back and let Blue talk and talk until he talked himself out. Let him finish his rant, and then correct him on where he went wrong, or just finally tell him their own views on the subject.)
"But she thinks that I'm some authority on being the best-worst kind of me - which I AM, I'm the BEST of the WORST, and the best at being 'THE WORST' - and if I don't give her some examples of what I sound like and seem like when I'm full-offense, ready to attack, wheeling-and-dealing and pulling the worst sort of shit to keep myself alive and also keep everything going according to plan, she'll make something up on the spot the next time she runs into things then when I'm not right there to shield her from them myself, and I don't think you want to know what that looks like." The three of them just stared at him. They hadn't expected him to say that. Seb wasn't even sure how Blue got to this side of thinking. ...He also didn't like the idea that Blue thought he had to step in and save her from stuff! ...Except for that one time with the kidnapper, okay, that had been pretty bad. For an all powerful demon god, Miz was… vulnerable in more ways than Seb was comfortable with. Her lack of a self preservation instinct was probably a big part of that.
"-She doesn't have enough control of herself yet to make sure she always gets what she wants, she needs help with that and with other things, and I'm giving that help to her now. She wants something workable, that won't cause her so many problems, and I'm trying to help her ease herself into something like that. I DON'T need or want a little carbon-copy of myself; I want her to feel comfortable being herself! I love her. She's my little sister," Blue told them. "And if you have a problem with me about any of that, then you can just go off and BURN," Blue told all of them next, quite darkly. "I know you have your own competing priorities, but she's one of the very-few of MINE. -I only have two of them now, instead of just the one, and she's the newest-second one of them, here."
Blue rolled his eyes. "Is that enough information for all of you to be 'judging me' and my own judgment on my own actions here, now, past, future-coming and -planned?" he said, propping his head up in his flat palm. (He didn't look particularly happy at this idea, though.)
The three Pines all looked around between them, figuring out who wanted to try tackling all of this first, now that he'd finally stopped talking. Wanda stepped up, as the 'mother' here.
"Miz needs good human role models." Wanda told him simply. "And that means we need to set boundaries that she has to learn and know she can't cross."
"My little sister doesn't just need a 'good little happy human' role-model example, she needs a 'worst big-bad demonic triangle' one, too, because sometimes stupid boundaries do need crossing," Blue noted dryly. "It's the only way she's ever going to be able to find a way to balance out being a human triangle demon, ever. Because that's what she is. She's already Decided, even if she doesn't think she's decided yet already. I've Seen it," Blue told them. "When I See things, I know what I'm looking at, even if the 'who' part of it comes a bit later."
Seb glanced over at his mom, but she seemed to be deferring to him and Wanda on this one. ...and Wanda wasn't picking things up again (since she didn't know anything about magic). Ah, okay then. He looked back at Blue, feeling rather put out by all this, to be honest. (In some ways, this was worse than what had happened in the climbing room. It was definitely more frustrating!)
"...Look," Seb sighed. "I get it. You just want to be a good big brother to Miz, I get that. And I… I want to be a good parent. And also brother." He made a face at that. "And that means that I'm going to have to play 'Devil's Advocate' against your points, now doesn't it?" which was ironic considering the situation here. "And I'm saying that you can show her about being all demony-demon, I'm all for it, cuz sometimes you gotta act like that...but we're gonna show her the human parts."
"That's fine," Blue said, seeming completely unperturbed by this. "That's expected, and balanced out properly-and-fair. Yes?"
"Yes." Seb stressed. "And that means I'm going to have to say no to your 'making people sort of immortal in the sense that they can reincarnate as whatever they want', plan. Since that's something that a human wouldn't want to go for. Most of them, at least."
"Yes," Blue said, blinking at him. "We already discussed this. -You will be coming up with your own thing to do that will make everything work here in this 'set yourself. Thinking about things to make and enact a possibly-different thing that will work for everyone, even the host of 'most' humans and other beings that you think might say 'no' to what I think would fix everything, too. I am fine with that, and I will watch and take notes. -Why are we restating this now?" Blue asked him from where he was seating, then he frowned slightly. "...You ARE going to be actually working on figuring something-else out that you know will work for everyone here now, and in the future for them always-too. YES?"
"Yeah, I'll figure out somethin' else." Seb groaned, "Ugh, I barely got my own life back in order, why do I have to fix everyone else's life now?" (Not that he was actually going to be rearranging the universe for everyone. He couldn't care less about the rest. He only really cared about doing enough to protect his family from demons. Seb was a little selfish that way, but fuck it, the universe was the Axolotl's fucking job, not his! The Axolotl said he could live happily with his family, that's what he was supposed to do! This was supposed to be just a life with his family! He didn't want to have to deal with any more 'saving the world' kinda thing! The last time he 'saved the world' he DIED!)
"You don't have to do it all yourself," Blue reminded him. "But if you don't give the rest of them an easy-enough way to get what they want for themselves, in a way that does not disrupt things for you, they will just come and take away all that you have, to bring you down like the rest of them too," Blue told him simply. "And if you want to talk 'human', then…" Blue barely paused for a split-second moment. "-Human history is littered with civilizations falling over and over again, because of this reason. Because those that had the most did not even attempt to raise everyone else up along with them. So then the 'outsiders' and 'outcasts' and 'wrong-ones' join together and come back with a vengeance, to destroy everything that they have always been told that they are not allowed to have. That is how things work currently. -That is a 'human-based' example of a large part of what needs to be fixed, and why no-one can-or-should-or-will be left out of any of all of this, moving forward. All the outcasts and misfits and weird-ones deserve to enjoy life and have fun themselves doing things, too."
"...sounds accurate to what I know of humanity." Seb clapped, totally and completely done with this way too one-sided conversation already, "Okaaay, well. I've got too much of a headache to be thinking about this right now, not without fucking things up." (Last thing he needed right now was to say something that set the insane demon off again, thinking Seb wasn't going to do enough of whatever the hell the demon wanted him to 'work on', or whatever, instead of what he was actually going to do instead.) He glanced around. The dining room was emptied of the kids, Carla and the others had gotten the toddlers out of the room and, knowing them, they were probably watching cartoons right now. Good, he wouldn't want them hearing about all this. Having the TV on would help with that.
"That's fine; you have some fifty years of time at least, we can continue this later," Blue agreed with him. "Sleep is important." Blue paused. "Do you need help getting rid of your headache? Or is it only lack-of-sleep induced? Drinking more water with the lemon-added usually helps." (Blue wondered for a moment if he should 'looking-spell' his little sister's other chosen brother over, to check for the source of it, just in case.)
"It's lack of sleep and thinking harder about things that stress me out than I've been willing to put myself through for a while now." Seb grumbled, not wanting Blue to help him 'get rid of his headache'. (Blue was a Bill, so his suggestion for non-sleep headaches would probably involve either heavy drinking or just cutting his head off and replacing it or something equally stupid, Seb figured.) "But sure, I'm going to drink something and go to bed." He glanced at Wanda. "...it's still sort of early, so the kids probably won't want to go to bed." She nodded, "It's fine, I'll stay up to watch them."
Blue nodded. "I will also drink some water, and sleep for four more hours. Then more-food-again-quickly. Then two working, thinking up non-lethal defenses for the immediate-right-now for you. Then, two more of sleep. Then more work again until food-again at the same breakfast-time as you-all, and then I will be on the same local-schedule as the rest of you here." He stopped, then glanced over at Kari. "Unless you are not done talking with me on this right now, yet. ...We could continue talking-further now, if you are not done yet, or we could put this on-hold for more sleep, to pick up again later. I have done that with my Stanley before, several times. That's normal," Blue let Kari know, as an across-'set reference, as Seb got up from the table. (He really wanted to leave soon; he wasn't kidding about that headache.)
"I can keep talking with you. You still haven't told me what you think you've done wrong is." Kari tapped her fingers on the table, her long nails making little clicking sounds as she did so.
Blue sighed.
"I didn't take the time to 'looking-spell' every last aspect of all your sons' lives before walking in on your dinner, when I should have expected that Miz might want to talk about killing someone, and that I might need to be able to get the timing right on the high-energy things before I talked with the rest of you about whether or not it would be 'hurtful' to you if I Looked over all of you lives with or without your permission. So I just should have Looked at everything instead so I'd know it all anyway, and just not reference specific events that I Saw when talking with any of all of you after, since I doubt I'll be talking with any of you enough that the subject of actually-asking if I've Looked at you before-without-asking would come up in conversation so easily?"
"Talking about killing people in such a way would upset most people." Kari sighed. "It's more about your tone, how gung ho you were about it. How delighted you sounded for the chance to kill someone. That's the main problem here."
"And if I had the right shortness of timing, you all would think it was a 'joke', or at least realize that in no way did I mean to do the killing to any of YOU all, there and right-then. But it would have to have still been long-enough for Miz to still take as an example, if she needed to. You humans joke about death and dying and murder of others all the time, you know."
"Yes, unfortunately, we do." Kari rolled her eyes. Especially the young people these days.
"She wasn't joking in that moment," Blue told Kari. "I helped make sure that she rethought the consequences of that. I gave her an example of what type of acting-out the thought of killing someone else should entail, one way of how differently it should be from all the other thinking. And I got the timing wrong when it came to your Stanford," Blue repeated. "Or some other part of it set him off more than the other-parts of it did. Trip-wires. -Either way, I'll need to think of some other way to delay the explanation-example without making him paranoid or prone to trailing after and trying to go off listening in or asking Miz directly about it after, and also without delaying too long challenging that 'wouldn't it be easy if I just snapped my fingers and killed that person dead without any more thought' that my little sister may have been about to have right there and then. Yes? Or no?"
"Miz already knew that killing the president of the United States wouldn't have been acceptable. Nor would it have been useful in any way." Wanda glared. She, Seb and Kari were the only ones here to debate against Blue, and she wasn't going to back down.
"Yes," Blue said. "And yes-maybe. But she ALSO has problems remembering what is important at all times, and keeping that in mind. That includes many 'knowns' that involve 'this is or is not acceptable for humans to do in this location and age'."
"...true." Wanda admitted. But Miz normally only forgot the speaking-type or touching-type of stuff. Killing was something major that Miz was much more careful about.
"She should not be killing people with a snap of her fingers thoughtlessly." Blue said, while Seb snorted ("She still can't snap her fingers, I've seen her try," Seb muttered, as he headed out of the room), "Not without actually thinking things through, all the things that would follow if she actually went through with it right then. I will NOT leave that to chance; she is afraid of becoming a thoughtless being who enjoys killing for the sake of killing, and I will help her with this. -She rethinks quickly when it's someone else who would be doing the thing for her," Blue noted. "And she usually rethinks to a different standard for someone else than she does for herself. -Things she would say are 'unfair' and 'wrong' for other people to do, or have to do, or want to do for her, she does not currently say the same things about when it comes to herself. -Have you noticed this, too?" Blue asked of Wanda.
"...yes, Sebastian does that sometimes too." Wanda thought back to when he was willing to let the twins cause trouble at school without caring about how it troubled everyone else around them, up until Wanda had pointed out to him that he was being just like Carol which finally made him realize that he couldn't be so entitled like that. Really, as much as Wanda hated Carol, she was a very good example to hold up when she was trying to talk Seb and Miz out of doing something. If it was one thing they all hated, it was Carol and everything she did.
"Then maybe her human example should be you," Blue told her, "And Seb can play 'advocate' against each of us however and whenever he wants." Wanda looked at him, unsure if that was supposed to be sarcasm or not. "I suppose… but that wouldn't be until tomorrow." Though she didn't really know if she was okay with Blue staying here, then again, this was Stan and Carla's house. They got final say. Speaking of… where was Stan? It shouldn't have taken that long to take Ford to bed?
"Here we go Sixer. Easy now…" Stan lowered Ford onto his bed in the guest room. Ford was grimacing as he continued breathing. He was ok. That Blue wasn't the same Bill. Like how Seb wasn't Bill. Like how Miz wasn't Bill- He breathed. Miz's little hand holding his own was a good anchor, her presence (along with Stan's) the only things keeping him from having a meltdown. "Hah...hah...hah…" Ford gasped. The two stayed with him, just being there as he slowly calmed down. Stan held his shoulder and Miz climbed into Ford's lap. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to his chest like some sort of hot water bottle.
He breathed, gasping a shuddering breath over and over until he finally felt his chest wasn't imploding in on himself, like he was dying.
Finally, his breathing was back to what counted as normal for him. His shaking stopped. Only then, did Miz finally speak up.
"I'm sorry," she told him quietly. "I didn't… think you'd react to him so badly." In retrospect, she probably should have, but sometimes she forgot that all the things she found 'super COOL' about her brother were the kind of things that other people found 'scary as fuck'.
"...not your fault. He's… the way he is. And it… doesn't work with my emotional well being." Ford almost managed to joke, if it weren't for the sober tone. He rubbed his hands along Miz a little, snuggling her closer. "I… thought I'd gotten over it, to be honest." He laughed bitterly. "Guess I haven't."
"...do you hate him?" Miz asked.
Stan's grip on Ford's shoulder tightened, but Miz wasn't paying any attention to him, all her focus on looking up at Ford's expression. Which was tight, a pinched look, like he was eating something particularly bitter. Finally, he let out a sigh. "No. I don't really like him, but I don't hate him."
"...why?" Miz wanted to know. Because that other Stanford had hated her 'just because', had found any reason at all to hate her simply for existing-
Ford leaned his head down, resting on hers. "...because you love him," he told her. "So that means there's something about him that's worth loving. So, I don't hate him."
And Miz wasn't sure mere 'relief' was the right word to describe how she felt. "...I'm glad." She finally said. Stan chuckled. "Yeah, he's a bit of a jerk, but he seems to really care 'bout ya, William. So he can't be all bad." He slipped back into Miz's other name, the one that Stan had first met her as. Those 13 years behind the portal had been hard, but Stan always remembered what William had done for him and Ford. To help them survive. He would always be thankful for that. Stan reached out a large hand to ruffle Miz's hair. "And heck, so long as he's not more than talk, I think we can handle him." Stan leaned in to loudly whisper, "But Sixer's gonna need lots of cuddles to feel better."
"I am not a child, Stanley." Ford deadpanned, squeezing Miz lightly again. Stan just gestured at the two of them. Ford blushed but didn't let go. "I'm just paying off our Deal." Ford said, reaching one hand away from where it was wrapped around Miz to begin petting her head. Stan laughed, "Sure Sixer."
Stan, seeing as Ford was feeling better now, stepped back and straightened with a sigh. "Well, I'm headin' back out, need ta make sure Ma didn't kill the little brat." He gave Ford a grin and waved before leaving the room, hurrying down the hall once the door was closed and he was out of earshot, just in case his mom really was trying to kill a trillion year old demon with the dinner fork or something...
Stan didn't have to wrestle his mom off a demon, luckily, but he did hide behind the doorway and listen to the conversation in the dining room.
It was a little scary, 'cause sometimes it sounded like three older women figuring out how to handle a problem child, instead of always sounding like two women and a younger problem-child getting scolded who didn't realize that was what he was to everybody else.
Also, despite how they talked about Miz's issues as a growing demon who still hadn't really figured herself out yet, Stan felt like he was still more suspicious and worried about what Blue would do. Miz was weird, sure. But she didn't go around killin' people or seriously considering such a thing, that Stan had seen at least. That he knew of… even if she was kinda mad at certain people.
"-hat are you so worried about with Miz? She might not know what's right or wrong, but she's normally such a good child." Wanda sighed. "She's very good with the twins and hasn't harmed anyone at all in the months she's been with us. Even with Carol, as angry as she was, her first thought wasn't to kill her..."
"She's not just a child," Blue said, "She's-"
And then Stan felt a chill go down his spine, because that demon just stopped talking there like he'd forcibly swallowed his words.
And Blue didn't say another word after that.
"Blue? Are you alright?" Stan heard his Ma's voice.
"She has morals that are flat-ish like my six-fingered Stanford's, yes," Blue said next. "It's been a little difficult for me to follow and handle, sometimes."
Stan's eyes narrowed. That sounded like half a lie, at least. And the demon wasn't running his mouth off anymore, not like he had been before.
"...what do you mean by flat?"
"I- don't think you want me talking about that, because Seb doesn't want to talk about- some things right now," was what Blue said next. "Yes?"
"...alright. Well, is being morally flat-ish a bad- a dangerous thing?" Wanda asked instead.
"Sometimes. Yes." There was a pause. "She used to be suicidal." That got a horrified gasp from the other women. "I am trying to make sure that she will never feel anything that may lead to that anymore. Loneliness. No-one to talk to or be with. -That she will not forget that she will never be alone ever again, because she can always come talk to me; I will be 'there' for her forever, even if I'm not always in a physical place that is physically-close to her own physical location. But-" Blue stopped again, then let out a huff of breath.
"'Losing' people to death and them not coming back is a problem," Blue said next, and now the demon actually sounded tired. "-You say that the way I am thinking of doing things will have humans not wanting to come back more than a few times? That would also be a problem, that I need to solve too. Forever needs to be forever for her." There was a pause. "And also me, too. I'm planning on having my own Zodiac around for a VERY long time; things will not work out very well on my end without at least a few of them with me. And then there could be spillover, too. -The artificial lizard-maintained boundaries between 'sets are starting to come down now, things are only going to get harder from here," he said, finally starting to get at (at least the outermost part of) the main reason why he wanted the 'make everyone effectively immortal' thing to be an actual thing.
"Miz is in a unique position in her own 'set," Blue told them next, quite soberly. "If she wasn't, I would still be over there with her, trying to help her fix the structure of the whole place up right now, not coming to visit here instead. -But doing that right now might risk her losing some of the built-in protections that she has there, for at least some parts of her existence. She can wait longer than you all can, when it comes to working on increasing the protection and defense against other demonic intruders in her own 'set, because she already has some things that work like that for her there right now. At least some, along with her own power and abilities, too."
Neither woman quite understood this part, what with it involving magic or what, but they understood enough to know that Miz's dimension apparently worked differently from their own for some reason. Kari sighed. "So, you want us to not be able to die, because that would hurt your sister?"
Wanda winced. Yeah, Miz had lost her children and her original human family already… so… would it be unfair for them to just happily pass away of old age, years from now, and leave her all alone again? She had her alien friends, but… it wasn't the same as having parents… was it? She was beginning to suspect that wasn't good enough for Miz.
Blue was silent for a long minute. And then...
"When my brother died the first time, I was angry beyond rational belief. But I didn't think of killing anyone, because the only, closest concept I had to that at the time was 'arguing' and 'getting in someone's way' to try and stop someone, to get their attention and try to change their way of thinking. Talking, not any other real form of action. The concept of 'fighting back' came later, and the concept of 'killing' wasn't something I truly comprehended until shortly before I… WELL, the closest concept would be 'forcibly-ascended myself', I suppose, and then 'crashed and burned' later, after staring that damn lizard right in the face." Blue sounded very grim. "But after that… for reasons I don't want to get into, I thought I had killed my brother, instead. I was confused. And then the rest of the dimension burned down around me completely. Not that I meant that to happen. But I had no control, after understanding death and not just the concept of killing, but an idea of what it felt like to kill. The idea of having family die while thinking I was a monster, not wanting to be around me anymore. Right before I was about to be 'left behind'." There was a short pause. "She is a me-who-is-also-me. I don't believe that she's been handling 'losing' more and more of the people around her who she cares about all that much better than I did. And I know it's been taking a toll on her. I don't want it to get any worse."
Kari stared at Blue. Finally, she spoke, "How old were you when your brother died?" Because the way he talked about it, about what he knew and understood about the world and how to react to such a loss, didn't sound… well, he hadn't understood the concept of 'killing', so how young must he have been? Kari was feeling rather horrified at the idea that Blue must have been a child when it all happened, a young one...
"Time was different there. So were how lifespans are counted, compared to here. There is no real comparison." There was a pause, then a sigh from the demon. (Kari had given him a long look, until he'd continued.) "I was young. They killed him because he didn't 'measure up', right before the 'time' he would have been starting to potentially be considered almost an adult. He was always old enough to take care of me, from the time that I first started being able to memorize and recall things consistently." Blue paused. "I don't know how angry Seb might be, at what I have already told you. I suspect much of it was very similar, but there have to be significant differences, for him to not-want to talk about any of it at all. -I don't generally talk about it in my own 'set for reasons." He paused for a moment. "Mostly because I don't want demons or others trying to use the information against me. None of you can do that here. And I'm not telling you... anything that… is specifically… -it's fine!" (Stan grimaced at how false that last exclamation of the demon's rang out.)
"That's horrible… what happened to your brother… and what happened to you." Kari told him. From the way he spoke, and if this Liam boy was his older brother, Blue must have been young, a child. And Liam… had also been a child. That was horrible in a way that Kari couldn't even put into words. And apparently Sebastian had lost his brother back in his past life too? She wanted to go and stab whoever had hurt these babies. Kari wondered… if part of the reason Blue was the way he was… was due to losing his beloved brother at such a young age?
They talked a little more, with Blue impressing on them how important it was to stay alive and safe, for Miz's state of mind. (He never tried to give them other reasons for it, only ever talked about it in relation to Miz.) Wanda admitted he had a point, but… even if the idea of dying and leaving Miz alone was scary, she still didn't think being made immortal was the answer.
...she especially didn't think making everyone, everywhere, immortal was the answer either.
They finally had to put the 'negotiations' on hold because it was getting late. They bid Blue a goodnight, told him where another guest bedroom was, if he wanted a real bed and not the pool chair. Blue chose the pool chair again, "For efficiency." Wanda went to put her children to bed, getting Miz as she went.
But when Wanda went to Ford's room to search for her daughter, she found Ford sleeping peacefully with the girl in his arms. She couldn't bear to wake him, not when he looked so comfortable, and really, if Miz being there helped the poor man, Wanda wasn't going to stop them. So she closed the door quietly and went to bed herself.
The next morning saw Blue sitting next to Miz at the table, a veritable stack of take-out containers surrounding them, and Miz nomming happily away at one of them (while whimpering quietly and taking big gulps of her mango lassi in-between, whenever the spice got too much for her). Apparently, Miz had caught her other demonic brother before he'd gone out again for his own food, and gotten him to grab some for her to eat, too.
Blue was eating largely more sedately than his little sister was, taking small sips of his drink (which looked like water). He was actually quiet for most of the meal, until the subject of people's plans for the day came up, Miz asked her brother what he was wanting to do, and then...
"Work on the list." Blue then looked up at Seb. "Best thing I've come up with so far, for a protective-defense for you all in such an immediate time-span involves barriers, for all of you - which will need to be tweaked beyond the base spell to incorporate Miz's Deal with you all -" ("What the what now?" Shermie sputtered. "Magic nerd stuff." Stan waved off.) "-and immediately-useful usable power-enhancers for those of you at least partially-demonic, for a more-active defense if desired. -Was planning on visiting the 'Falls anyway, to check a few things. I can get enough unicorn hair from the glade there for it, no problem. I'll do the 'hair-washing stylist' 'scam' thing; should work here, they don't know me," Seb was greeted with by Blue, first thing. "Can discuss the 'five things' and get your yes-or-no answers on the other four of them after that," he told Seb. "Unless you changed your mind about the whole 'eyepatch aesthetic'," Blue added, gesturing at it with the hand that didn't have a fork in it. "I'm fine, thank you." Seb responded dryly.
"I could also trade some of my hair for their hair again." Miz butted her head lightly against Blue's side. "They think black hair like mine is really pretty, since they're used to more vibrant colors on their own manes."
"I was going to wash and comb their hair, and have them either pay two silver coins for the service, or two gold coins and any hair that came out with the brush or comb; locks of hair for a cut-service. Didn't think of black hair dye. That would take longer to do the human way, though; potentially less efficient short-term." Blue took another bite to eat. At Wanda's puzzled look, Blue elaborated with, "They consider silver to be worth more than gold, because the color goes better with their coloring for the adornments and ornaments they like to wear when they all decide to 'dress up'. Silver and black go with everything; make all the colors of their manes, tails and coats just 'pop'."
"So… unicorns… are real?" Wanda raised an eyebrow. Seb snorted. "Yeah, didn't you see the photos she sent me to show the twins?" Zach grinned, "They're really pretty!" Zoe nodded. "An-and Mabel said their blood tastes like SUGAR!" Mabel coughed, "You shouldn't try it though. They kick really hard."
"'You should not eat them', because they're sentient-sapient Beings," Blue stressed to Seb's spawn, "And yes, they also 'kick really hard' too," he ended, correcting the local Mabel's assertion. "Don't be savages."
"Aww…" Zoe whined. "But what if they taste really good?" Which made Miz sit up and look interested. "No." Wanda told her daughters firmly. Damn those two. They were so odd sometimes.
"What if you taste good to them? Would it be okay for them to eat you instead, even as you're screaming out 'no' 'stop' because you are a person too?" Blue posed to them in reply, before taking another bite.
"If they can kill me in 1 on 1 conbat!" Zoe said simply. "Then they beat me and they winned, so they get to eat me." She pointed off and away in the direction of the living room, "The animal show says that's what happens to animals who lose a fight." ("Who the hell let them watch the Revelation Channel?!")
"Only if you both agree to both of those terms first, because you are both intelligent enough to talk to each other and decide on that beforehand," Blue told her next. "And never agree to those terms. -If anyone who can talk tells you that they want to eat you for any reason, after combat or otherwise, you say 'no' and you BURN THEM, understand? No biting people who can talk. That means no biting of YOU, either."
"I bite Dipper all the time." Zoe said, entirely nonplussed. Dipper groaned. "And I keep telling you that I don't like it!"
"WELL, you're lucky he hasn't bitten you back yet," Blue told her, twisting his neck towards her and snapping his teeth in her general direction, "Because he has a MUCH bigger MOUTH." He turned away from her slowly. "And more and bigger TEETH! Could take more of a bite out of you than you can out of HIM." "No-No! Because I have more big teeth that are pointy and bite more hard!" Zoe crossed her arms triumphally.
"Wait, I can't bite her back. She's a child!" Dipper complained. Mabel snickered. "She only bites you because she liiiiikes you~"
"Of course you can bite back, Mason, you're physically capable of it. Just tie her up and have at it. Multiple bites at once, if the number and sharpness of teeth involved is up for debate. You can probably set a net trap for her that she'd just fall right into, that easily. -Better make it fireproof though," Blue said to him casually.
"But it's wrong for me to bite her. It's mean." Dipper pulled at his hat.
"If she bites you and won't learn to stop until you bite her back, because she realizes what will happen if she does that again, then it's wrong that you're not biting her, not the opposite. Idiot." Blue took another sip of his drink. "Either explain it to her in a way she will understand, get somebody else to explain it to her for you, or 'put up and shut up' with her being 'mean' to YOU forever. She likely won't learn otherwise, without some sort of lesson," Blue told him, with a careless wave of his hand. "Or she WILL learn her lesson later, when someone else is the one to bite her instead, and she loses an arm or leg over it because she picked the wrong person to bite. -When are you thinking about bringing them to see the woods in the 'Falls, by the way, Seb? With all those lovely biting monsters, both big and small?" Blue asked of Seb lightly with a slightly-raised voice, cutting into the other entirely separate conversation going on between Seb and the rest of the human adults on the other side of the table, while eyeing Dipper as he said this.
"...I'd feel bad for the monsters." Seb muttered and then got elbowed by his wife. "Seb!"
Dipper glanced over at Wanda. "Aunt Wanda, would you mind if I bite Zoe?" Wanda sighed. "Zoe, please stop biting Dipper. Or anyone else. Only bite in self defense. Please."
"But he makes funny faces!" Zoe protested. Wanda stared. "That's not an adequate reason."
"It is hilarious when he does that, yes!" Blue grinned at her widely. "But if you want to see something EVEN BETTER," Blue said next to her in conspiratory tones, "You can get him to do all of the even-more hilarious flailing TOO if you-"
"Nope." Kari was paying attention to what was going on at the other side of the table now, with Blue having called out to Seb, and she raised a squirt bottle and sprayed Blue with a short stream of water from it. "You're getting into 'messing with' territory now."
"GAH!" Blue scrubbed at the side of his face repeatedly, then turned around and glared at her. "...FINE," he grumbled, as he settled back into place. "Could have just SAID it, without all the water. 'Nope' is a 'no'...
"It's fun." Kari deadpanned. "And a physical reminder to you, when you do something I don't want you doing." (The other adults looked from Kari over to Blue at this point, as their mom spoke up to him after spraying, several of them wondering what the demon was going to do next.)
"I DON'T need physical reminders. Water-tossing like that is AN ATTACK. -If I was going strictly by my Stanley's guiding-'rules' right now, I would be free to attack you now, and… drop an entire bucket of water on your head as a counterattack. Or three. ...Or five? Probably go with three." Blue muttered out in annoyance, as he flicked his free hand and all the remaining water steamed off of him, leaving him dry. "Whatever I want to use as a counterattack, really, but he recommends usually going with mostly in-kind."
The triplets were sniggering behind their hands. Kari sprayed them too. "No laughing at Blue." She held her serious face even as the three of them sputtered and wiped their faces. "It's not an attack because I'm not aiming for your eyes, nose or mouth. And for humans, throwing water at each other is something we do for recreation anyway."
"Stanley disallowed it," Blue repeated. "No water-tossing or -throwing of any sort, at me or from me. NONE. Any water-throwing is an attack."
"Did he disallow it because he worried whether you'd be able to tell which were real attacks and which were 'playing' from the kids?" Kari questioned him next.
"...among other reasons," Blue grumbled out, taking another sip of his drink while not looking at her. "Mostly because some people think things are loopholes to get away with actual attacks while pretending 'oh but it's not!', and you really DON'T want me playing with loopholes when it comes to water in getting back at anyone STUPID enough to try and pull THAT one on me," he told her next.
Kari turned to everyone else. "None of you are allowed to attack Blue with water or anything else. Physically." She turned back to Blue. "Am I allowed to squirt you? I find myself rather enjoying this." She saw Stan making faces at Blue behind his back and squirted him again. "Manners, Stanley."
"Do you want to get bitten shortly after the next time you do it?" Blue asked her in return. "I'm VERY sure that I can make a set of consequences for you doing that to me that will have you not-enjoying doing that to me rather quickly." He stabbed his fork into his food, then pulled another tofu strip out of the pile to take a bite out of it roughly.
"...you're no fun." Kari actually cracked a grin at him.
"I am fun in all the ways that matter!" Blue declared in self-righteous tones, waving his fork around. "You just aren't asking me to play any games with you yet that you will actually like the outcome of maybe," he said almost primly, settling back in.
"Well, we were going to play around the pool today." Kari told him. "Which involves a lot of throwing water at each other. I'm sure Stanley has a closet full of Mega-Moisters around here somewhere."
("Heh heh… moist...") Miz giggled.
"Then it's a good thing that I'm going to the 'Falls to Look around and get that unicorn hair for Seb for you all instead, now, isn't it?" Blue said next, as he set down his fork. "No 'accidental' attacks to be had."
"...fine. No water attacks." Kari sighed. She put her spray bottle down.
"GOOD," said Blue. He stood up from the table and picked up his own empty containers and used plastic cutlery to toss them away. "I should be back in a few hours. -Miz, should I clone-and-take a phone with me? Or no?"
"I've got an extra." Miz pulled it out. "I sometimes let Zach borrow it." Zach grinned, "Because I'm 'sponsible!"
"Fine," Blue noted, walking back over to the table, to take up the offered phone from her. "Do I need to give a more-detailed itinerary to make Seb's Stanford less paranoid about my being in the 'Falls? Or would that lead to the opposite, instead," Blue asked of Miz next, as he pocketed the phone. (He doubted this local Stanford would think of tracking him through it, let alone realize that he was also perfectly capable of 'spoofing' any signals from it that could be used to locate him too, if he wanted to.)
Ford shrugged, in a much better mood today after a night of peaceful dreams, courtesy of Miz, "I don't particularly mind. You're not going to kill or maim anyone or anything, yes?"
Blue looked down his nose at him (ew, noses). "'Killing or maiming anyone' is NOT the plan, yes. But I might have to blow a few 'anything's up after checking out the local human zodiac prophecy on those walls in that cave over there," he said darkly.
"Then it's fine." Ford sipped his coffee. "As long as no one gets hurt, or trapped in the cave after said blowing up. Also, please don't come close to the Institute/Research Center. It'll completely mess with the weirdness reader and it would be a pain to adjust it again."
Blue rolled his eyes at him. "I wasn't planning on going near your stupid house, let alone getting 'picked up' by anything inside it. I KNOW how to mask ALL of my own energy signature PROPERLY. Try and teach a being of pure energy how to use a computing device next maybe, why don't you." Blue was already looking irritated at being underestimated in this respect. "And I'm not going to explode the stupid cave," Blue shot back at him next. He shoved his fists forward abruptly, and a green-colored portal appeared. "If I'm exploding 'anything's, then I'm going to be exploding the FOREST instead."
And with that said, Blue took the phone from Miz's hands and stomped right on through the portal he'd just made.
Ford's eye twitched. "He thinks exploding the forest is less bad… than exploding an abandoned cave?" Miz rolled her own eyes. "I'll text him."
The green-colored portal flickered, flickered, flickered once more, then closed itself again.
Miz grimaced at the text she got back from him which read: There's actual things I care about that are important in the stupid cave. OF COURSE I'm going to blow up any monsters I find in the forest-trees if I can; THEY DESERVE IT!
"Well, at least he won't be exploding people." Miz shrugged. Ford sighed. "I'll tell Fiddleford to cancel any study trips to the forest today." They had some new interns this summer after all. He couldn't help but look at where the portal was. Part of him really wanted to check it out… but the other part of him wanted nothing to do with portals ever again. (Well, none that were made by a 'Bill' at least. He glanced over at Miz, well, 'William's didn't count.)
Blue came out of the portal right in front of the caves, facing outwards-
...and immediately took a step to the side, waiting.
After a good twenty seconds, and no idiots trying to jump through it after him, the portal closed on its own, and it left Blue standing there, frowning.
Then he got a text message, and he flipped his phone open to read-
...something that in no way sounded hysterical, or 'you better open that portal back up' or 'come back here right now'.
Instead, it was just a; Ford would prefer you destroy the caves instead of the forest.
Blue glared at that and typed a quick reply, in the vein that that deserved, and shoved Miz's spare phone down into his pocket.
...Where was all the mistrust? Shouldn't they have been clamoring for his head or something? He didn't like this at all…
They were probably planning something behind his back there for when he came back. Maybe something to do with all that water...
Blue shook his head back and forth roughly. Focus. -He had things he needed to do here. He would handle the rest of it all LATER.
Blue walked his way into the caves, alone.
"So… how much you wanna bet that Blue's going crazy paranoid about all of us not being crazy paranoid about him?" Ford wondered, lazing out on a pool chair, sipping an iced coffee. Stan looked up from where he and Dillon were tossing a beach ball from one side of the pool to the other. "Hah! I know when to hedge my bets, and I ain't takin' this one."
Miz's phone buzzed with a text message. She opened it.
I can See those idiots with my 'looking-spell' from HERE, and as long as they don't plan on TYING YOU DOWN and USING you as some kind of bait, I DON'T CARE what they TRY to do, I can wreck it REMOTELY, AT A REMOVE.
Miz giggled and typed back They're not planning anything… except what they want for lunch. Speaking of… "What're we having for lunch?" she asked Wanda. The blonde hummed, "I think it's Seb's turn to cook today."
You mean you're talking about lunch. THEY just tried lies and misdirection about 'crazy paranoid' and bets. Probably speaking in code. PINES. was what she got back from him next.
Miz rolled her eyes. So… does that mean it's working?
I'm NOT paranoid; THEY'RE out to GET me. ...Probably. Except Kari. THAT woman just wants to waterboard-squirt me to death.
They're not out to get you. Miz huffed. They just think it's funny that you think they are.
That was a JOKE, little sis. was what she got back next after a bit of a pause, then: HUMANS think there is always someone out to get them SPECIFICALLY. Not their entire species. Or just everything-living in the area that they are in. Bunch of EGOTISTS.
Really~? Miz raised a skeptic eyebrow. Well, are you doing okay over there?
The caves were annoying. Seb is NOT a six-fingered hand. was what she got back from him. Did NOT blow anything up. Too DISGUSTED. DERANGED lizard screwed things up WORSE than I thought before. A pause. Going to check out the carvings and murals in the ex-Blind Eye's domain in the basement of the museum for completeness, then the grocery store for supplies for the 'SCAM'.
Well it sounds like you're having a busy, productive day. Miz sipped on her tropical drink, while the rest of the Pines played in or lounged around the pool nearby. Ooh~ pineapple passion~ So you saw that the Zodiac's different from yours, right?
Yes. Also, yes. (Blue wasn't all that pleased to find out that, not only had the stupid deranged lizard shoehorned Seb into it, but it had done it on a Zodiac nearly-identical to... one Blue assumed was almost-fully or completely-fully compatible with Seb's own, which he'd Seen Seb and that local Ford arguing about from what his 'looking-spell' had grabbed for him during Weirdmageddon. -From what he'd heard and 'seen', Seb's Zodiac was the same as his own. He'd agreed with Seb about the brain-frying until he'd seen the cave wall in-person. But now? Now he knew that the local DERANGED lizard had screwed up with this Bill SO badly that it had thought it had needed to add a being of pure energy to this Zodiac here, in order to supercharge the circle up enough to potentially contain him… if any of them had 'Known' what they were doing - and Seb probably had not, because the stupid lizard had shot itself in the flipper right there, now, hadn't it? So chalk THAT one up on the DERANGED stupidity side a bit more...)
(That said, just because their Zodiacs might have looked largely the same, with the seemingly-same symbols, didn't necessarily mean that they were both meant-and-made to function the same way. Blue had had to rethink a few things when he'd looked at what he had, and what the two of them had been fighting about. Because Seb hadn't actually contested the local Ford's assertion that the use of the circle would kill the local broken-Bill. That implied that Seb had himself also thought that forming the circle would do that thing, too.)
(Maybe that could have been because Seb had known how to turn and tune it to that effect, but with the way Seb had talked about Knowledge, Blue didn't think so. Because from what Seb had said, it was clear that Seb didn't have any memories of any of his Knowledge, only of what he had Seen. ...And if the circles here worked differently, and it was the same lizard residing over both 'sets involved, Blue couldn't yet discount the potential problem that someone wanting to kill Seb here, in whatever form he might transform or bootstrap himself into later, might be able to still take him down by finding Seb's old 'set, by convincing Seb's Zodiac to hold hands and destroy him. -He'd have to talk about the possibility of this with Miz later; probably sometime when they were both somewhere away from this particular local lizard, possibly the Void.)
(There was also that potential problem of Seb not having locked down the whole dimension to other-dimensional travel coming in, yet. There might not be demons-from-the-outside here in this 'set (...yet… because if Seb wasn't careful...), but that didn't mean that there might not still be a particular sort of idiot out there, or two, wanting to make a name for themselves, who might have a brain wave at some point that killing the beings that had managed to kill Bill Cipher might be an easy way of doing that.)
Miz hummed. "Well, that's nice for him. I feel kinda lazy, just lying here." Especially since her brother was off working to help her protect her human family.
Ford reached over to pet her head absently. "As you would say, 'it's fine to relax and spend time with the family, don't always work'." She nuzzled his hand. "Yeah, you're right." She turned towards the pool and called out, "Oi Seb! I want lunch~!"
"Aw, come on…" Seb whined. He was blindfolded and walking around the shallow end of the pool. The kids were playing Marco Polo right now and Seb hadn't been able to catch any of them! He was tempted to start cheating actually...
"You're losing anyway, go make lunch." Stan laughed, tossing the ball again to Dillon. Seb pulled off his blindfold and pouted. "Just for that, I'm making broccoli today!"
"Gasp! You're so cruel!" Stan fell back into the water dramatically. Dillon threw the ball at his head. Carla rolled over on her pool chair. "As long as someone's cooking and it's not me." She said sleepily. Ah… summer… no work, just… relaxing...
"Will Blue be coming back for lunch?" Kari asked, keeping her newest demonic 'grandchild' in mind. Miz typed that into her Com and texted him to ask.
I'm not done yet. Still have three rooms under the museum to check physically in-person. A pause. Can come back with food to eat there with you before I go to the glade. Should I get something for you to eat, from the grocery in the 'Falls, too?
It's fine, Seb's making lunch. And apparently there're gonna be some broccoli so you can eat some too.
I don't NEED their food. I can get my own. A pause. I will bring brussel sprouts and beans and sugar to replace the things I ate, and also-maybe carrots too, because they were offered by Kari even if not-eaten-by-me in the end. Such efforts should be rewarded. Do you want me to get anything for you? Or should I stay away from lunch-there instead?
Hm… maybe a bag of Pirate's Treasure cheese corn puffs? Miz rather liked that snack item. But Seb and Wanda didn't have much junk food. And Miz never complained, since what they did have was fine.
I will get several for you and bring them to you there. You can Scan them all before eating them, for variety later. was what she got back next. Anything else you want?
Um... Miz thought about it. Say hi to Soos for me?
If I see him, and he also sees me, then I will say 'hi'. came the not-quite cagey reply. Miz let out a huff. Fine~ don't socialize with other humans. Hm… maybe she'll make Blue hang out with her and the kids when they watched cartoons during lunch. They were allowed to eat in the TV room as long as they were tidy.
By about the time that Seb was done making lunch and calling everybody to the table (via text message, it was way too long a walk), a green portal opened up at the far wall of the dining room and a seemingly empty-handed Blue walked straight through it. He turned slightly in place and gestured the green portal closed behind him.
"Welcome back!" Miz greeted him. The kids waved. "Hi~! Did you have fun?" Zoe asked.
Blue blinked at this, then turned and smiled.
"Work first, fun later," he said, walking himself over to the table, to stand next to Miz. He shoved a hand into his pocket. "Still working, just stopping because it is time to eat more food."
He pulled out a handful of small white-ish looking triangles and set them down on the table in front of him. Then, he picked up one of them, made a twisting sort of motion at the edges of it, and… in short order (and another half-twist) he was holding a rather full-looking white plastic shopping bag.
"Here," he said to Miz, holding it out to her. It had a good dozen bags of the snack food she'd requested inside, filling it almost (but not quite) to the brim of the bag.
"YUMMY!" Zach made grabby hands to get some.
"These are for Miz," Blue told the young spawn of Seb, also Miz's other, chosen younger brother. "She will Scan them first so she can make more whenever she wants, and then you can ask her if she wants to share," Blue told Zach, before setting the bag down on the table in front of his little sister.
"So you didn't bring any for us?" Zach looked up at Blue with wide, sad eyes.
Blue turned away and started working at un'fold'ing the next bag. "Miz didn't tell me you wanted anything," he replied simply.
"Miz, share." Zoe pulled at her hand softly, her big eyes trying to see the snacks.
Blue un'fold'ed the next bag, and lifted his hand to make a gesture at it, then stopped. He aborted the gesture, picked it up, walked it over, and set it down in front of Kari. (The bag contained an unopened one pound bag of sugar, a good two pounds of fresh carrots and brussel sprouts each, and three bags full of green beans.)
Blue turned around and walked right back over to Miz's side again after that, not even waiting for a reply.
"Well…" Miz's face was entirely too smug. "If you finish your lunch, including your veggies, you can have a bag." The twins (and Diego) gasped before going back to their lunch, stabbing the gross broccoli and trying to eat them. Miz watched this all for a bit before she waved a hand and the fridge door opened. Another gesture had some cheese floating out and the door closing after it. "Here, I can melt some cheese on top to make them easier to eat," she told them, to their awed thankful expressions.
"You have them well-trained," Blue noted to Miz, as he sedately un'fold'ed the next bag (radishes and onions - the former already cut and bagged, but in need of a good final washing and cutting-off of their ends).
"They're good kids to begin with." Miz smiled, floating the cheese over Zoe's plate and showing her how to hold her fire to melt the cheese without burning it. She did the same for Zach and then melted Diego's cheese for him, since he didn't have fire powers. "Besides, I did the same with my friends. Especially 8-Ball. Mainly on the whole, cleanliness part. He's very messy."
"HM." Blue un'fold'ed another bag, and this one had a small metal pot with a lid, a cutting knife set (still in its packaging), and a medium-sized plastic bowl inside it, along with a small picnic 'party pack' of six sets of plastic utensils. He pulled it all out and set it all off to the side for a moment.
Their initial conversation was one of many going on around the table. But unlike the other conversations, which switched topics, or ebbed and flowed as the other Pines distributed food and began eating, Blue largely stayed quiet as he sat down and got ready to eat things himself by continuing to un'fold' and unpack his other plastic bags.
"I'm done!" Zoe cried, hands in the air and cheese smeared all across her face. Miz leaned over to wipe her off with a napkin. "Ok, lemme check your work…" Zoe bounced in her seat with anticipation as Miz inspected her bowl. "Hm… good… good…" Miz hummed. "But…" She reached over into Zach's bowl and plucked out two broccoli. "Don't think I didn't see you sneaking these into your brother's bowl, little missy." Miz put them back in Zoe's bowl and sat back. "Just 'cause he eats with his eyes closed, doesn't mean I do."
"...aw…." Zoe pouted and picked up her fork again.
"Why does he eat with his eyes closed?" Blue asked of Miz, glancing over at her for a moment as he finished eating a lemon, and worked on un'fold'ing yet another white plastic bag.
"We don't really know," Seb said with a shrug (because yeah he was keeping an eye and ear on the pushy demon, along with Wanda and Kari). "Ever since he was a baby. It's not harmful though, so we're just hoping this is just some quirk that goes away as he gets older."
"I can't open them!" Zach complained as he swallowed.
"HM." Blue turned towards the child sitting just on the other side of Miz. "Why can't you open them?" Blue asked Zach directly.
"Don't know." Zach frowned, he just… closed his eyes when he ate, he just… did.
"What happens if you do open them?" Blue restated.
"I can't eat. I cough. It feels weird to have food in ma mouth." He opened it wide for Blue to see. Blue grimaced a bit at the state of his mouth. (Ew. Bacteria.)
"Weird good? Or the wrong kind of weird," Blue asked him next almost thoughtfully, after Zach got done 'showing off' his mouth. Wanda was frowning in thought. Frankly, she hadn't thought this was something too serious and hadn't really talked to her son about it.
"Like… weird icky. Like it's wrong doing both, like… I don't want it in my mouth anymore because-because there's too much- too much things together- and it feels bad?!" Zach opened his arms wide.
Blue reached into his just-opened plastic grocery bag and pulled out one of many boxes of matzo crackers, then ripped off the top, and the packaging open.
"HM," said Blue again. He looked down at his crackers. "Sounds like some kind of a Mental-mapping problem. I used to have that problem with limbs, and-" He stopped talking abruptly, broke off a cracker, and flicked it into his mouth.
"So ya think the kid has something wrong in his head?" Stan asked, confused. (He'd started paying attention again to that side of the table again when Seb had.) Seb nudged him hard. "Don't say there's something wrong," he hissed quietly. Wanda glared too. "Don't say things like that!"
"I said Mental, not brain." Blue rolled his eyes. "I'd need to Look at him to figure out the actual source," Blue told them. (Stanley had been pushing him not to do that to people, though. Stanley wanted him to get a sense of what it was like for humans not being able to do that all the time - which was stupid, but Stanley didn't ask for too many things. He hadn't 'asked' either - he'd claimed that doing it was RUDE in some way, instead of the opposite that Blue knew it to be instead - it had been more of a challenge than anything-else. So Blue was still trying out not-looking when he didn't HAVE to, sometimes.) "Depends on his physical makeup. Could be a sensory glitch; could also be a way to heighten his sense of taste."
Miz hummed. "I know I had a bit of trouble adjusting to my vessels at first. Or when I was a triangle before that. Used to keep trying to move as a human and it didn't work, but then afterward I kept trying to move like a triangle and it didn't work."
"Or Bill pouring soda in my eyes…" Dipper unconsciously rubbed his eyes. ("I didn't pour soda in your eyes!" Blue noted easily enough.) Seb and Mabel shuddered. ("I think he meant our local Bill." Miz correctly gently.)
Turning back to address the table, Miz blinked. "Which is… yeah? Since our eyes were our mouths…"
"Easier arrangement for an exoskeleton, among other things," Blue noted, as he picked up another cracker. "I got used to the idea eventually," he said next, sounding almost absent-minded (as he was distracted by what he was thinking about - possible human Mental mapping issues of that type and causes), as he tossed the next cracker-piece into his mouth. (He hadn't finished his meal yet, and he'd been distracted, thus not thinking as much about the other non-demonic Pines in the room as he'd been responding to his little sister-)
"Wait, so that wasn't what you started as?" Dipper stared (and Dillon started paying attention at this point, with both Stan and Dipper now paying attention to the demons at the other end of the table). Miz raised her hand, "Eye to mouth was normal to my Flatlands-" (and Seb softly added his past self was the same) "-But brother was a triangle. Like, actually a triangle." (Blue stopped chewing for a moment, as he reprocessed what the local Mason had asked, at what he himself had said, and what both Seb and Miz had said next. ...And what Miz had just shared further about him that he had not been meaning to get into here. Or anywhere he didn't have to. Because...)
The next time Blue blinked, he was looking at Miz out of the corners of his eyes, pupils slightly cat-slitted. (He wasn't too pleased with her right now, for sharing that little piece of information with the locals. But, maybe if-)
"Like in that book Phillip talked about…" Dillon muttered. "That one of his maybe relatives wrote." (Blue twitched.)
Blue closed his eyes slowly and went a bit still (maybe it was a different book, not THAT one-) and when he reopened his eyes, he was looking down at his crackers again.
Blue kept eating his crackers.
"What the what now?" Stan blinked. "What book? What writer?" and they were all thoroughly distracted and forgot about the topic of Zach's eating habits.
"Some guy named Edwin Abott or something?" Dillon scratched his head.
"Wait… you mean… Flatland?" Dipper blinked.
('Aaaand THERE it is,' Blue thought in an internal mutter to himself, forcing his stupid human-ish vessel not to bristle in place. 'Well, there goes THIS dimen-')
"That's… so COOL!" Dipper actually grinned. "So like, literal mathematics, as a living organism? I did a whole video about that on my ThemTube channel-" (Blue stilled in place, then slowly turned his head to look over at the local Mason.) Dipper excitedly pulled out his phone. "I've got like, a whole plotline in my math tutorials about it. Some fans mentioned Flatland in the comments so I checked it out. That's amazing!" He turned to Blue, for once, not looking stressed or worried about his presence, instead, he was nearly vibrating with excitement. "So you were literal math? That's so COOL!" he repeated. "Uncle Ford! Did you hear that?!"
Ford, who had looked up at first hearing Dipper's excited tones, was nodding slowly. Book?! A book he hadn't read!? How was that possible! "That's fascinating to think about. How would a being of pure geometry work? Even the Exwhylia were physical…"
Blue didn't twitch. He didn't move. Blue looked down at the local Mason with absolutely zero expression on his face. (He deliberately refused to respond to the local six-fingered Stanford for the moment.)
And then Blue turned to Miz and looked at her, also without expression.
"I wasn't watching you all while I was buying things at the grocery store," Blue said coolly. "I see now that I should have been."
Blue turned away from her, and ate another cracker. Miz tilted her head. "What's wrong?" She asked, not really getting what seemed to have upset him this time. "Did I say something wrong?"
"Nothing," Blue told her, in the same tone of voice. "It's fine. Nora played plenty of jokes on her older sister, too. That is for older brothers also, yes?" he continued on neutrally, then ate another cracker. (And Blue thoroughly pretended to ignore all of the focus and attention he was getting from every last one of the older Pines sitting at the table, just then.)/small
Shermie let out a 'HAH' at that. "I used to pretend Stan messed with me to get him in trouble." Stan gasped. "So it WAS you!" Then Stan chuckled. "Well I used to hide Ford's socks so he had to go to school without them-"
"That was YOU?!" Ford shot up from his seat. "You ass!" "You see?! And you blamed me, you bitch!" Seb complained. And worse of all, he never got to mess with them back because he got beaten up if he tried! The four Pines brothers got up, glaring at each other and tried to start hitting each other. Kari merely told them, "Please step away from the table," and they all moved a few feet away before continuing their 'fight'. It was really the lot of them slapping each other ineffectually.
The youngest twins and Diego had lost interest in the discussion going on at the table at this point (they were busy cheering on their respective dads instead), but meanwhile, Dipper was already busy with pulling out his journal and a working pen (and in his excitement had missed Blue's somewhat-frigid response to Miz, which otherwise might have warned him that continuing on this topic was unwise).
"-So what was it like? Being math? Wow this is so cool-" Dipper clicked his pen rapidly. "Did you eat? You didn't have mouths- or eyes, I'm assuming, how was consumption done? I've had all sorts of theories but hearing it from you would be so much better-"
Blue eyed the local Mason over this - eyelids lowered slightly, zero expression on his face.
And then Blue decided to be the bigger brother and go along with Miz's little 'poked fun' joke at him here. (At least, until it all ran out and they finally all started laughing at him for being what he was, and coming from where he had came from.)
(For her part, Miz wasn't sure why Blue was so upset. No one here was racist against triangles, so far as she could tell?)
(But of course, Blue didn't know that. And, given his own one trillion years of experiences…)
(...Blue wouldn't have believed her if she'd told him. Even if he'd thought she wasn't lying… Blue would have just thought she'd been confused and getting things wrong all over again, like she had on several other occasions prior on various other facts previously, in both his own dimensional set and her own.)
"S-sorry if it's too invasive-" Dipper stammered out, still pretty excited as he clenched his journal and pen in his hands. "I just… I think you're really cool. And I've never had a chance to talk to any alien- or something, like this before. Not in person, you see- I mean, I guess Miz counts but she's not math-"
"-Did you want a question answered, or are you going to just keep on talking?" Blue said to him finally, just as coolly and level-voiced as he'd been talking before. (Rather ironic, if not hypocritical, given how he himself seemed to spend all of his own time talking without stopping when his own topics for discussion came up.)
Dipper flushed. "Sorry. I'm just… so excited. I've been a huge fan of the book since I discovered it a few years back." Dillon laughed. "Phillip feels the same, he loves stuff about different societies built super differently from our own. He had a whole drunken rant to me about The Giver once."
Blue waited until he stopped talking.
"You ask me what's it like 'being math' like I'm not still 'math'," Blue said next. "What do you think that I am, exactly?" He eyed him sidelong, waiting to see...
That made Dipper sparkle even more. "That's so cool!" His voice rose in pitch until Mabel smacked him. "Calm down before all the glassware explodes Dip-Dop!"
Blue's eyes went a bit more cat-slitted, as he watched this (liar). He ate another cracker.
"So… like, what are the equations that make you up?" Dipper continued clicking his pen. "I mean, I guess the Pythagorean theorem only works for part of it… I mean, you're not a 2 dimensional shape right now…"
"Asking for the secrets of the universe kid?" Get in line. "There's a trillion years between me-then and me-now," he told Dipper. "And last I checked-"
"If the answer is 42, I swear I'm going to sue Douglas Adams." Ford deadpanned as he struggled against Stan's grapple. Miz looked over, "He's dead." "HE'S DEAD?!" Stan threw Ford to the floor and he "oofed!"
"-your 'Seb' didn't want to talk about things. Just because I slip-up sometimes when I haven't finished eating enough-" (really, he should've not said anything out loud that would give his little sis such an opening for 'teasing' him over things that would never change, that had been idiotic of him) "-doesn't mean I don't catch things later once I have." Blue waved the cracker he was holding at him. "So Seb made a random comment before about being a little different than me in that regard, so what? Doesn't mean he doesn't care about me talking about something close enough to what things were like for both of us back then." He popped the next cracker into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed it.
"Pretty sure I wasn't really 'math'," Seb called over from where (all of the Pines brothers were still wrestling with each other, and) he had Shermie in a headlock, not that it lasted long as Shermie easily overpowered him. "And even if I was, that wasn't the reason why I don't talk about my past." (Blue didn't bother to ask 'what is?' - with that clarification out in the open, he thought he had a rather better handle on that now, as coming down to two things: don't say you want Liam back, don't call Liam by-name.)
"Pffth." Dipper rolled his eyes. "That just means you weren't as cool as Blue is." to which Seb gasped. "You take that back! I am SO cool!"
"Fine," Blue said to Seb, and oh, he'd take it to the hilt, now. If only to see that Seb unable to laugh about things himself, by the time they got to 'unveiling' the joke. "Don't come crying to me when you can't handle it," Blue called out to Seb next, before turning back towards Dipper (while ignoring Sherman's "HAHA! He called you boring~!").
"You want to know what it was like, being me?" Blue said quite evenly, eyes still wide open, pupils cat-slitted to thin. (He'd give them all one. FINAL. chance…)
"I mean, not everything, you are over a trillion years old, I don't think we've got enough time for that…" Dipper admitted sheepishly. "I wanna know how different it was from Miz's dimension, she told me about it months ago."
"Alright then," Blue said next (upon the local Mason's declared 'want' and his sister's own silence on everything here). "Then why don't I just hit the broad strokes," he said, his voice sliding into something truly ugly at the last.
And Blue looked Dipper dead in the eye and told him, "It was hell." He leaned down in front of him, eye to eye. "It was hell, absolutely and all-encompassing. It was hell, without even realizing it was hell at first, until your brother is gone and you know that they killed him and nobody will even let you go into his room, his space anymore, because oh 'who are you talking about?', 'what are you talking about?', 'you don't have a brother', until one of them finally cracks and says, 'stop talking about him, just pretend that he never existed like you're supposed to, and move on'. So you wait, and you do what you are told until you don't. You find the key to his space eventually and you steal it. You go in there and you read all his books, find all the hidden notes he left there hidden for you in that 'fake wall' of his, blackmail your way into that 'resistance', conspire with the one being there who has any real INTEGRITY at all - who's a Line, by the way, and smarter than any other Shape you've met, second only to your brother in that regard. So that just proves how every last thing you ever knew about anything was absolute BULLSHIT all along - and you aren't even surprised at this point, just angry to be relieved. And you see your first color, learn every damn thing you can wrap your tiny little Mind around, take what that Line gives to you after she decodes it herself and kills her father for it, burns his library down to buy herself enough time to find you, because she won't escape what's coming and she knows it, but she wants- needs to pass along that one absolutely essential bit of knowledge off to somebody, so she goes to you, to the one other being she knows who actually cares enough to also want to make it worth something, to bring absolutely everything down… and at the end of the day? I actually did what she wanted. I made it count. I made it worth something. I pulled it off, what she wanted. And the whole damn place burned down. It all came down, and went down even farther. All of them. All of those stupid little people with their flat minds in that flat world with their flat dreams of KILLING EVERYONE who was just too different and too SMART for them to handle and oh, I turned it right around on them, instead." Blue was grinning maniacally now. "My 'original' birth parents probably died in that fire - that's fine, I didn't want them, either - and the parents I was reassigned to as a perfect up-and-coming REPLACEMENT for MY BROTHER? Those two both died before that - they got off easy," he drawled out, eyes blazing. "Nora died before I did, but I know she took at least a few more of them down the death-spiral with her. Let her burn down my shop-space, with her and them inside, while I ran off to try and handle the rest, try and get us some real HELP for once." Blue's chest was heaving at this point, his body was shaking slightly, and he looked thoroughly and exactly as insane as he was. "Would you like to hear what it was like to die, too? What it took to do that, to drag myself up-and-up-and-up by sheer desperate searching angry unending willpower alone, and finally stare up at that lizard, sitting right at the top of EVERYTHING, right in its own damn face? And then as a 'Flatlander' learn what it was like to fall and fall and fall right back down again, to fall and then burn and-and-and- and then worse? And then REFUSE TO DIE next? And that not even being the START of ANYTHING, yet?!" Blue was standing there shaking where he stood, still leaning in, eyes wide, staring directly into Dipper's own.
The brothers had stopped fighting at this point. Everyone was listening to this, what Blue had just yelled out, in shock. Dipper leaned back, intimidated and feeling… kinda awful actually. "Oh." He sobered quickly. "That sucks, man. I'm sorry you had to go through that." But although he looked distressed, he didn't look… scared. Or horrified to learn what Bill had done. Not at all. But it wasn't a pitiful expression either, just… sad.
"Oh, so Seb HAS explained how all the things work with the giant STUPID lazy lizards then, to you, has he?" Blue told more than asked him, and he straightened back up. No grin anymore, though his eyes were still wide. "And told you exactly how much that 'FREE WILL' is a JOKE, along WITH it? -Yes I DID 'HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT'," Blue told him next, "AND SO DID MY BROTHER," with a nasty downturned twist to his lips, "Because the STUPID lizard spun up my dimension and MADE US THAT WAY." Blue just about snarled out at him. He turned away from the teen then - and SMASHED a fist down into his bag of cracker boxes, just to remember that he could feel other things (that he could feel other sensations that were connected to 'touch' again now). "WELL, TO HELL WITH THAT THING."
Blue panted for a moment, then twisted his head back towards Dipper and said, "I got to the end of my prophecy, and now I'm FINALLY past it!" Blue told him with a snarl, and an almost sinister slow-growing grin. "Took me seventy billion years of decoding that damn Prophecy I managed to BLACKMAIL out of that stupid thing to begin with, and then all that dead time spent deciphering THAT, to know what I needed to do; and all the hard work on top of THAT then, making more Deals than the stars in every sky, of the sort needed to fill several galactic oceans full of corpses, all done in order to go off and fulfill my own Prophecy all by myself, all that work, and all those Deals - because self-fulfilling prophecies that DON'T require work are ANYTHING-BUT. Self-fulfilling just means that you only have a chance at fulfilling it your own damned self - another cosmic joke there, kid! That lizard threw every damn roadblock in my way that it could and I forced my way through every last one of them instead with sheer willpower and smarts and wit on top of all-that - I MADE the IMPOSSIBLE work on the daily for me! And all the while, in-between all the other demons trying to kill me for being 'a joke', and all the beings in existence calling the lizard that did this to me merciful? -I STILL GOT OUT. And now? NOW I'M GOING TO MURDER THE HELL OUT OF THAT THING." Blue fixed him with a steely-eyed look next, "And I'm GOING to get WHAT I WANT."
And with that all said, Blue raised his hands out from his sides, in a sort of 'come at me!' pose, and called out to the rest of them - two-toned in voice again in his rage, through all his wide wide grinning: "So who's laughing at me NOW, huh? -Come on now, let's hear it now, shall we? Let's hear it for the stupid FLATLANDER triangle who beat ALL THE ODDS by rigging the Game, refusing to lose, and is standing in front of you now, free of EVERYTHING that was EVER meant to contain him! -Cue the laugh track of mockery here - let's GO people, WHAT'S THE HOLD-UP!?"
Blue finished his rant, heaving for air and waiting for his little sister's joke to end - now that the punchline was here - and for everyone to laugh at him, now.
But none of them were laughing at him for having made him talk about it. For pushing him that far. None of them were mocking him for deserving all that, because he was 'just a dumb triangle'. In fact, Mason was frowning.
"It wasn't right for them to do that to you," Dipper said finally. "Not the other Flatlanders, or your lizard… But I still think you're cool..." Dipper said softly. "And you're free now, right?" (Blue stared at him for this. He kept staring at uncomfortable shifts in place from a few of the other adults, and complete silence from all of the rest.)
"Blue… our dimensions were the shittiest places in the universe. I… I know what you went through. Why would I-we laugh? My brothers know about my Flatland, I told them…" Seb rubbed his face. "I might not have been math, but that… was almost how it sort of went for me too. The whole 'being adopted' thing too. I didn't burn, though I almost wished I did, with how things ended up happening. I'm sorry you had to go through that, your Ax is a complete asshole..." He paused. Then he looked up at Blue with a complex expression. "You had a Nora too?" he asked.
...And all this left Blue mentally stuck. He simply did not have the capacity to understand what was happening here. He'd told some of his Zodiac a very small, limited piece of this, yes - but they were his Zodiac. (They'd better NOT damn well ever laugh at him over this; they were HIS - they shouldn't laugh at him. Not about this.)
Every demon he'd ever shown himself to as a triangle - a real triangle - had laughed and then IMMEDIATELY tried to kill him.
-And when it came to the beings in his 'set? No other being had ever taken him seriously upon catching sight of the 'real' him, and every human Stanford who had ever read that thrice-damned Flatland book had thought even less of him still.
So he'd taken on the not actually-flat form of that other-himself that he'd Seen a long time ago - in an act of self-preservation really - because he'd had no-other choice. And he'd STILL largely been treated as a joke even then - being three-dimensional-plus-time instead of two and HATING it. He'd gotten laughed at then for being a 'stupid triangle' still, one who'd somehow gotten himself stuck in an unstable decaying dimension, while Mentally stuck in the Mindscape - and absolutely NOT A SINGLE ONE of them, being or demon, recognized the absolute incongruity that existed there between the first and last of those two things - until he finally got his shit together and started crushing ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE who laughed at or otherwise opposed him in any way, past-present-or-declared-future, under his literal figurative heel.
...And then they'd all stopped laughing as much, and some of them had finally started to begin to consider taking him seriously-
He'd kept that mental form - even after he'd been able to change it, learned and practiced how to change it even-further, the outer edges of it, into any damn thing that he wanted to - and he'd done it as the biggest 'fuck you' to every universe out there. To show them that, oh, he'd play their Game all right, but he'd damn well do it on HIS OWN TERMS as a triangle demon, so there!
...He STILL had to completely and utterly CRUSH and then thoroughly murder some of the newer demons who arrived in his 'set, to this day, when they didn't know any better (YET). When they thought they could get away with laughing AT him, and survive their own stupidity somehow... (-SPOILER ALERT! THEY NEVER, EVER DID!)
So, unable to process any of these humans reactions (and lack of reaction) to him really at all (he'd NEVER experienced people being sympathetic to his life and circumstances before; there was no fight here and nobody was trying to kill him or ignore him now - he did not understand this), Blue latched onto the one thing he'd just heard from them that he could comprehend here instead - the last part of what Seb had just said to him, his question.
And Blue slowly lowered his arms.
"Her name wasn't Nora, it was-" and Blue said it in his click-clack-chirping native Flatlander language. "'Nora' is just the closest translation of her name to this stupid language you all use here." He paused. "Line, had an older sister; loved books, favorite color green, cursed like an isosceles every time the Shapes in the Resistance said 'no' to something actually doable and did something 'reasonable' instead; gave her a hat once for free because she would have just found a way to impossibly steal it away from me instead if I didn't? Because she was just that impossible and lovely? Same Line?"
"...yeah. Mine was like that too," Seb told him with a small smile, looking fond. "Though I gave mine a pendant instead."
"Could call it a pendant instead. But I like hats better. I think the other one did, too," Blue said (of the other triangle he'd Seen that had confused him). "Stanley called them idea-hats when I explained them to him." Blue was swaying slightly in place, twitching. Because he'd never really talked about all of this with anyone else before. He'd never let even the least little bit of his original anger at what had happened to him before he'd started screaming forever out.
And with the floodgates starting to crack already the least little bit…
"-You know the worst part about all of it?" Blue said abruptly next, tilting his chin up slightly, not really looking at any of them as he said it. (He was going to have to kill them all anyway, once Miz finally 'fessed up' to her VERY poorly-thought-out little joke - so why not?) "I'm pretty sure I figured out why the stupid old hateful lizard actually did it. Why it made me the way that it did, planned everything out by design and then Prophesied and backed me into a corner of who I had to become. And the damn thing probably thinks I'm going to go off and do it now, too. Because I can do it." Blue looked over at Seb, and if there had been a burning rage in his eyes before, now it was an entire dimension on fire. "I can do it," Blue repeated. "I'm just not going to. -The damn thing wants me to kick all the demons out for it. Kick them all out, back to the Outside where they all came from." (Probably thought it was pulling one over on somebody somewhere with that one, setting that all up with him, too.)
Miz blinked at that. Well… apparently brother knew how to get them banned from the game, so that could be it… she wondered if she could find out for real somehow… she was still curious if she'd be able to get to the Outside if she tried hard enough.
Blue's lips were curling back from his teeth. "It thinks that I'd do that. ME. -After what it put ME through, growing up in that place?" Blue was shaking with rage now. "It wants me to kick them all out, and I know EXACTLY how to do it, of course I do, yes. -But I'm NEVER going to do that," Blue told him. "Because I found out in the process of finding that out, that- that place where they're all coming from, coming into my dimensional set to have fun inside? To escape out and away from everything? IT'S WORSE OUT THERE THAN WHERE WE GREW UP. -Chaos TAKE that thing, I'M going to make sure that they ALL can stay." (He'd used the lizard's Rule-enforcement against SOME of them before, yes, but once he'd MURDERED that stupid thing, HE would be the one controlling all that access, and HE WOULD decide to let them all back in! Even the ones that had pissed him off so badly, that-)
"And I'm going to make it all work," Blue said next firmly. "Beings, demons - people. -We're ALL people, and we're ALL going to have FUN. Together. ALL of us. -Level playing field, all of the choices, make everything fun and everything fair." He let out a huff of breath, and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "-I'll keep them there, you won't have to worry about that part of it; they won't ever come here, they won't want to leave my own 'set, by the time I'm done with things," Blue said to him with a his hand, looking away from Seb. "-I'll get you your unicorn hair after I'm done eating. It's fine. Yes?" Blue said, dropping the previous topic of discussion - him - like it had never even happened. (And Blue was looking almost calm again by the end of things here.)
Seb sniffled softly and wiped the tears from his eye. "S-sure..."
(Most of the rest of Seb's family were unsure what to say, or even if they should say anything at all. If Seb's past life had been similar… how awful would that have been?)
"Ugh," Blue said next, pushing the palm of his hand up against his forehead, and blinking his eyes closed for a moment. "Still didn't eat enough yet. Forgot I wasn't supposed to talk about dying and corpses
," he muttered out next. He spent the next minute ripping the rest of the cracker boxes open in the bag, and then starting to stuff his face with the contents, one cracker at a time.
But despite talking about all that awful stuff, no one seemed mad at him. Even Kari didn't look angry with him despite Sebastian sniffling lightly and looking all 'sensitive' and 'hurt'. Blue didn't understand.
'This joke is getting old,' was all that he thought. He supposed he'd have to wait for the punchline; he knew they'd have to drop it on him eventually, though.
...but the punchline never came. At least not at that particular meal with him present.
Wanda was so uncomfortable and incredibly sad at all this. Once Blue had quieted down again (and unlikely to explode at anyone again), she and Miz looked away from him for a second and they both noticed Zach was curled up under the table, whimpering. Oh no…
While Miz crept under to pull Zach towards herself, Wanda checked on Zoe (leaving Zach to Miz), Carla checked on Diego, and Abigail looked over her own two teenaged children and Dillon for Carla. (And Wanda shared a look with Carla and Abigail; they were going to come up with a plan for how to handle this better, if Blue started acting out like this again. Maybe she could have Miz put up one of those perception filters for the children to not have to be exposed to this...)
(To their relief, Zoe and Diego seemed okay, though a little upset at everyone else's upset feelings and what had turned into loud yelling before. The teenagers looked ok too, just… startled and saddened from what they'd just learned. None of them seemed scared by any of what had just happened, thank goodness.)
"Zach? Are you okay?" Miz frowned. She didn't expect this to happen. (Yes, she had wanted people to finally know Bill Cipher's backstory… since Seb refused to talk about it, but Kari wanted to know… she did! Miz Felt, and Heard it!) Miz hadn't expected Blue to… blow up like that. And Zach was upset now. Probably from the yelling, he was such a sensitive one. "It's okay, no one's mad at you?" Miz rocked her little brother back and forth. Slowly, Zach's whimpering stopped, but he didn't uncurl.
"What's wrong, Zachy?" Miz worried. "-urning…" He mumbled. "What was that?" Miz asked gently. Zach shook his head. "Burning… not fair. They're all not fair…" Which confused Miz, but she just pet his hair and continued hugging him. Finally, he calmed down enough to uncurl. "Are you okay Zachy?" Miz asked again. He nodded slowly. "I…" then he shook his head. "I'm really sad." He said instead. Miz nuzzled him. "Yeah, it's really sad, what Blue went through. And Seb too."
Quietly, Zach asked, "...and you?"
"Yeah. My past isn't all that happy either." Miz smiled bitterly. "But it wasn't as bad as theirs. Things were kinda swapped around. I was the older brother. And… I wasn't… right. So I was separated from my family…"
"...they took you away?" Zach sniffled.
"More like they wouldn't let me go home." Miz muttered. "But… things got bad, and well… it's… not important. Maybe I'll tell you when you're older. Don't want you crying again…" (Zach cried a lot, kinda reminded her of…) The toddler sniffled and curled up closer with his head on Miz's chest.
After Miz brought Zach back up from under the table, and the rest of the kids checked out as okay, everyone mostly just went back to eating. (Zach stayed where he was, sitting in Miz's lap and ate.) Blue was quiet as he ate again, having said (far more than) his piece.
...And no one laughed at Blue. They weren't even snickering or grinning at him, like they were waiting to see his expression shift into… who-knew-what, crazy humans. Yeesh, they were even sending him… some kind of sad looks, or something. (The liars.)
Sebastian got a few hugs from his brothers and wife, but aside from a slight melancholy… he… almost looked… relieved. (Not torn up as Blue had expected him to be.) Seb's shoulders had been hunched up at first, but they relaxed over the course of lunch again, until he was even smiling. A little bittersweet, but it was a smile. He'd always been too afraid to talk about his triangle past life, so… Having someone else do it for him… actually wasn't bad?
And Blue didn't understand any of this.
"Can I have a snack now?" Zoe spoke up when she finally managed to eat all her vegetables. She and Diego had been pretty quiet, cowed somewhat by how angry Blue had sounded. But he wasn't mad at her, so she thought it was ok to ask for snacks again.
Blue handed her one of his crackers - well, reached out with a hand and dropped it onto her plate for her, really - then went right back to eating. Zoe shrugged and ate the cracker, even if it wasn't the corn puff snack she'd meant.
And, with the figurative ice broken somewhat with that question asked by a child...
"So, what the hell was your question supposed to be, kid. What equations make me up? -They DON'T," Blue said next, speaking up again in neutral (and much less aggressive) tones after at least a good ten minutes of silence on his part, following his earlier outburst. "I'm not made up of equations, that's just what is used to make us, when we make each other. -I'm a concept," he told Dipper. "Shapes and Lines are living concepts, given form."
Because why not? Why not tell him, after all this? Blue was always up for any Game, even if it was one that was an apparently still ongoing 'let's make this guy the butt of a joke'. Chaos, he'd even laugh along with them at the end of things, once they finally started laughing at him! And then, once the joke was all done and over with, well, then he'd kill them.
Miz would understand. They'd deserve it. He'd explain it to her, somehow. Eventually.
(Blue really did like a good joke. -He appreciated them, really. And he really loved the results he got to See after he hit all those punchlines so hard.)
"That's… amazing." Dipper was a little more subdued now, but no less interested. "So… you could just… create a child, with an equation?"
"Set of equations," Blue told him, "And instructions to go along with them. -They dumbed it down at some point; anyone could do it, it just required time and energy and intense concentration, with a want, an intent, to do it… time and energy, focus and will..." He let out a breath as he moved from eating crackers to working on the radishes - not even bothering with trying to keep things more 'human'-looking or within supposed human bounds at this point, not anymore. (They were well past that now, with them all knowing he was a two-dimensional triangle, and NOTHING like them, or any of them had ever been, AT ALL, EVER.)
Blue pulled water out of the air and into the pot for washing with a thought and a gesture, then turned the lid upside down for use as a makeshift carving board for cutting off the little end-bits with one of the knives. He got to work doing that for himself, and used the medium-sized bowl for holding the end product once he was done with all the food-prep, charring each washed-and-cut radish fully-'clean' at the end before dropping it in.
"Would have to explain the mechanics of the place, for that one to make any sense to you at all," Blue told the local Mason next, without looking away from his work.
"Alright." Dipper was quiet again for a while. (People were still giving Blue those weird 'sad-ish' looks, too. Yeesh.)
"...So, like… could you make your own child with an equation?" Dipper asked next. (He was pretty sure that Blue was… not gonna blow up at them over this stuff again? He wasn't getting up in his face over anything like he had been before. And nobody was giving him warning off looks or gestures or anything, not even his dad or mom. They seemed a little worried but no one was stopping him.)
"Set of equations," Blue repeated. "And maybe. Or maybe not. I suspect so. I'd actually have to try and solve them first, to backtrack it and figure that one out. But solving them first would require wanting to solve all of them first. And that's not something I'm about to do anytime soon, potentially 'accidentally' making a new being when I'm trying things out. -I'm NOT doing that. Not by myself, or with anyone else," Blue noted. ("Good, that's the responsible thing to do," Kari nodded - paying a bit more attention to Blue now than she had been earlier that meal, ready to verbally jump in and stop this thing if he looked about to start yelling again - while Shermie groaned out, "Yeah, yeah…") "And as for how to go about solving them in the way they were intended to be solved, by those dumbed-down instructions? Like I said before: that explanation requires another explanation before that."
Blue glanced over at him, as he popped a charred radish into his mouth. Blue chewed the radish up, swallowed it, and then...
"Crash course in an actually flat Flatland, kid," Blue told him next, and he lifted up a hand, palm up-
-and condensed a sheet of ice right out of the air on top of it, about two feet wide and just as deep, about a half-inch thick.
"Flatland is flat," he told Dipper. He brought the ice sheet down almost to Dipper's eye-level, and set the knife he was holding on top of it, point facing him. (Abigail and Shermie flinched, looking like they wanted to protest, but they saw that Dipper didn't seem too worried… yet.)
"Breadth," Blue said, and spun the knife exactly in place, greater than 360 degrees, closer to 450. "Depth," he said next, and shoved the knife point-first sideways, perpendicular to Dipper's own eyes in a sharp smooth jab, forward and back - straight lines, constant speed, no seeming acceleration or deceleration; just an inhumanly smooth back-and-forth motion. Dipper leaned back a bit despite himself, wary but not afraid.
"No height means no sun," Blue told him next, vaporizing the ice sheet in a burst back into water vapor to disperse back into the air, as he fluidly dropped his arm back to his side (while fluidly rotating the knife in his hand to be held up flat against the side of his arm). "No sun means no night or day." Blue frowned. "The light came from everywhere, but it was… 'muted'. There was a period of some-light, and then there was a period of less-light. Non-directional, ambient light, with no real shadows or gradients. ...Never did figure that one out, mostly because I never had anything else to compare it to, until after the whole damn place broke, and then..." Blue shrugged, as he set the knife back down on the table and picked up another charred radish, to pop it into his mouth for further consumption.
"Didn't have a sun in my flatland either," Miz added. "We didn't really have a day night cycle, just a timer that moved through the day to tell us when it was legally nighttime and we had to go to sleep. And when to wake up, eat, work and so on." She kicked her legs a little. "And as the lowest caste, I was expected to follow the schedule the Council made for me. Which included enforced curfew and house arrest…" She considered it. "But I think that was actually unique for me since the Council just didn't want me out of their observation."
"...that's… worse than how it was in my flatland…" Seb muttered. "That's some dystopian future levels of governmental control…" Dipper noted. Miz gave him a flat stare. "Have you seen the state of the world right now?" Dipper groaned. "Don't even remind me, it sucks."
"Then fix it," Blue said simply. "Doesn't your sister want to be World President someday, anyway? Might as well start now, with Seb at your back, while he's planning on working on things too." He ate another charred radish.
Mabel gasped. "What if I became president?!" Miz slyly added, "Or the new ruler of Earth…" Ford reached over to nudge her. "No, no taking over the world."
"Sort of required, when creating an overarching leadership position that doesn't exist, yet." Blue picked up another charred radish. "Could be a 'peaceful' takeover," Blue noted dryly. "With hugs." ...And potential wide scale brainwashing, since a 'revolution of hugs' wasn't all that likely for humans in general, unless a sentient pathogen or telepathic hive-mind controlling parasites were involved. Blue popped the radish into his mouth and chewed.
"Mabel can't even do her own taxes yet, much less manage a whole planet," Shermie snorted. Seb cackled, then reminded them: "Couldn't even handle running the Shack for a week!"
"It's called delegation," Blue told them. (He sounded like he was holding back something that was… maybe exasperation?) "Effective leaders don't do every last piece of shit for everyone all by themselves. They lead. Some of them even lead from the front."
"Welp, can't do any worse than the idiot currently in charge," Shermie sighed before glaring at Stan. "See? This is what happens when you don't take the elections seriously!" The poor man twitched.
Stan shrugged. "I still don't see the problem, I mean, the country's not on fire and I'm doing fine." Shermie slammed a hand on the table, "Well just 'cause you're fine doesn't mean that everyone else is-"
"Can we please not talk about politics? Please?" Carla sighed. "I just want to relax this summer. Please?" (Maybe it was wrong to ignore what was happening in the world right now, but she just… didn't want to think about it. She couldn't do anything about it anyway… all she wanted was to have a stress free summer… she'd finally gotten her life with Stan back into some semblance of order!)
The men glared at each other before sitting back down. ""Fine."" They both agreed.
"Hey brother! Wanna go watch TV with me and the kids?" Miz was quick to change the subject, after what had happened last night, the last time anything like politics had come up. (She also didn't want to risk Sixer having another PTSD episode again.)
"Work first, fun later," Blue repeated. "Eating, then work, then TV-together later-maybe." He finished eating the last of his charred radishes, and finally got around to peeling one of the two onions.
The kids were all finished eating their lunch, and already snacking on the popcorn-ish snacks that Miz had given them. "Can't we go to watch TV already?" Diego asked. Carla looked over at Wanda and the other woman nodded. "Alright. Go wash your hands and face first." The kids cheered. """Okay!""" before jumping from their chairs and running off. Miz deftly caught the bag of snacks before it could fall. "Geez…" she said fondly. (She was glad Zach was feeling better.)
Blue didn't really respond to this mass exodus from the table and meal, other than to lightly char the raw onion he was holding next, to then lift the peeled partially-'cooked' onion to his mouth and take a bite out of it like an apple. (He made somewhat almost happy-sounding 'click-cheep'ing noises intermittently in the back of his throat as he crunched down on it and chewed.) Stan looked a little disgusted at the way Blue was eating it (a reaction to him which Blue largely ignored).
Once Blue was done eating his two onions in silence, he repacked and re'fold'ed the un'fold'ed bags of stuff that he'd gotten, and shoved all the little 'folded' triangles back in his pocket, stepping back from the table.
And then the demon turned and 'two-handed punch'ed a new green-colored portal open again. (This time, Ford saw a small glimmer of light hovering just in front of Blue's forehead, right before the demon did it; it was in the small, thin-outlined and almost-dim shape of Bill Cipher's All-Seeing Eye. Fascinating. He'd always wondered about that, but had been too timid to ask his own Bill, and after the betrayal, he hadn't had any desire to ask again. And with Miz, he was once again too unsure to ask her. And here was yet another Bill Cipher, once again, tempting him with all sorts of scientific investigative potential!)
"Bye~ come back soon~ and stay safe~" Miz waved.
"Yes, and yes, and yes," Blue called out to his little sister, then:
"Don't even think about it," Blue said levelly, from where he was standing, not looking at Stanford at all, "Or I'll give you your own 'experiment number', first. See what you think about 'cages', from the inside, 'for investigative purposes'. With field notes." Stupid half-baked idiot-Stanfords and their unimproved ways of thinking, could practically smell (ew) the improper neuron firings from where he was standing-
Blue walked through the portal. It closed only a few seconds after he was through.
Miz glanced over at Ford with a raised eyebrow. He was blushing and looking away. "It's nothing," Ford told her. Miz hummed but didn't press the subject, getting up from the table and putting her dishes in the sink. "Well, I'm gonna go watch the Those Little Ponies marathon." She waved and left the room.
But at this news, Mabel jumped to her feet. "Wait, is that what the kids are watching? I'm coming too!" she smiled. (Her smile was a little strained though, from everything that she'd learned tonight.) And then she was gone too. Quick to try and distract herself from sad thoughts. (It's all anyone wanted to do now.)
There was silence in the dining room for a while, between Dipper, Wanda, Kari and her four sons remaining. Then Dipper sighed. "Is it bad that I kinda feel bad for Blue?" he asked. "I mean, he is a... triangle demon, who's kind of pushing world takeovers still?" Kari shook her head. "Sympathy isn't wrong. And the poor dear has been through a lot."
"Did the Axolotl really… set up his life the way it was?" Ford asked Seb. The former demon sighed. "I dunno. I hope not, because my Ax is an asshole, but he can't possibly be that much of an asshole…"
"...how long is Blue going to be staying here?" Dipper asked next, feeling rather tired already. Interacting with Blue was… exhausting. He'd been kind of nasty, yelling at him just then, but Dipper kind of felt guilty about having pushed him on something that had been kind of a landmine without realizing it, too. It left him with some very mixed feelings on it all right then.
Dipper was also starting to feel pretty worried that things were only gonna get worse, with the way Blue had been acting about expecting to get… laughed at? By them? For telling them about something horrible that had happened to him? What the heck was that, even? -Maybe if they were all terrible Bill Ciphers or something, then they would do that, but they weren't! Dipper couldn't understand how Blue could think that anyone human would laugh at someone for having to go through that- well okay, maybe Gideon? But the idea of Blue maybe thinking they were all like Gideon instead? Was almost even worse.
"...who wants to be the one to tell him to leave?" Stan deadpanned. Everyone shook their heads. "Nope. Not me. Not gonna be the one to drop that on him," Dipper said, pulling down on his hat.
"Besides, he's a guest. We can't ask him to leave," Kari told them all. "And Miz loves him. Which one of you is willing to go tell Miz to make her brother leave?" Wanda asked, glaring at them. No one wanted to volunteer. "Yeah, thought so." Wanda rolled her eyes. "So just ignore him if you really don't want to interact with him."
""""Fine."""" The ones who survived Weirdmageddon sighed.
Blue was back via green-colored portal in not one, not two, but three hours later. He looked just a bit haggard as he walked through the portal and back into the kitchen-slash-dining area again, if the rough slump of his shoulders was anything to go by, let alone the actual sweat.
(He missed his 'suit. He was still working on body/vessel temperature regulation; it was a really finicky thing to get right, even more than changing blood pressure levels over time.)
He was scrubbing a hand through his hair in frustration as he walked through the portal's event horizon. (He hadn't meant that to take so long, but when he'd finally left the lunchtime meal here and got in there, into the glade via the 'Falls, he'd not been in a mood that really lent himself to feeling like lying to any of them. So he'd called himself the not-human demon that he was right from the start.)
(...And once they'd realized he wasn't lying about not being human, and Blue had continued using his usual 'shortcuts' - via magic instead of Weirdness here, because Stanley - to get things done, word had gotten around the glade very quickly, and the entire damn blessing had wanted a piece of his 'services under offer'. Even using his 'powers' a bit, handling three unicorns at a time, it had still taken him freaking FOREVER before he'd gotten the lot of them done and himself away from them all. -Chaos take it, some of them had had burrs in their coats that Blue swore must have been there for MILLENNIA-)
The demon didn't bother with the kitchen table for what he felt he needed to do; he just moved over to the corner of the room and (after a quick cleansing spell cast on himself) he turned around, sat down with his back to the wall, legs splayed out, and pulled out his 'folded up' plastic grocery bags again.
He un'fold'ed them all right away this time, one-by-one - no distractions.
And then he pulled up one knee to his chest and leaned forward, reaching for the bag with all the locks of unicorn hair in it.
He'd been hoping to not have anyone bother him while he was doing this, working - for their own benefit by the way! so they should know better than to be interrupting him, anyway! He just wanted to get this over and done with, just work without interruption for once, so he could just concentrate properly and get it all done in one long work session. But there came the sound of rapidly-approaching footsteps...
-and then Zach ran into the room and over to the fridge. He didn't seem to notice Blue as he pulled the large silver fridge open and frowned up into it.
Blue considered this.
Blue didn't speak up to tell him to leave, and he also didn't bother trying to put up a filter to hide himself, or cancel out what little noise he was making rummaging through the plastic bags. (Efficiency. -Calling out would pull notice and absolutely draw his attention; Seb's spawn might leave on his own if he didn't do that leaving him alone and able to concentrate on his own work. Filtering would likely be a waste of energy; if Blue was sensed without a perception filter up, it probably wouldn't be a problem because this demon-spawn was young enough - and likely smart enough - that-)
(Well. Children were usually fine, and Blue didn't like being ignored. Filtering would have him ignored for certain. He didn't really mind questions and talking from most children usually, because they were usually- fine. It was fine.)
Zach stood up on his toes and reached for the apple juice. He couldn't reach. He stood back with a huff and then held up his hand again, squinting at the carton. Slowly, a blue glow shimmered around his hand and the carton. He grunted with effort as the carton slowly slid toward him. It was slow going, he needed more power to lift heavy things.
Blue didn't say anything, though he did watch (back and forth, between what he was doing and the little child's effort) as he worked, while starting to set up the strands for the first thin chain of unicorn hair 'twine'-rope. The 'looking-spell' flickered in and out at his forehead. (Zach was his little sister's chosen little brother, after all. She wouldn't be happy if something fell from above down on top of him and squashed him!)
The carton wobbled as it floated down from the shelf in the fridge. Zach hissed and made a whining sound in his throat as his hand trembled. But finally the carton was grabbed by his physical hands and Zach cheered. "YES!" He jumped with triumph. Then he looked around. "...Where does Diego keep the sippy cups?" he wondered aloud.
"Third cabinet, upper left from the sink," he heard a voice call out to him, and Zach jumped in place. He turned to stare at Blue, wide eyed, and then his face split into a wide smile. "Thanks!" he told Blue, before running over to the cabinet and raising his hand to try and psychically open the doors.
"Mm," said Blue, as he stuffed a stick under his bent knee (between both sides of his leg) parallel to the floor, and then slipped the loop-end of the start of the unicorn hair to-be-braided rope-string over the end of it. That left it to dangle down freely but closer-in, for him to more efficiently be able to reach all of it while maintaining tension in the braid of it with his fingers, palms, and hands. (That interaction had gone… within the standard deviation of his current expectations. Even if he realized now that the question hadn't actually been meant to be directed at him. -It was fine.)
Getting the sippy cups was much easier. They were lighter than the carton of liquid. Zach huffed, wiping his nose and sniffling. He wasn't nose bleeding this time, but he could feel that it'd happen if he tried again without resting first. Still, he got what he came for. He placed the cup on the ground, next to the carton, and popped the lid off. He unscrewed the cap of the apple juice carton and picked it up, trying to pour it into the cup, and spilling a bit on the tiled kitchen floor. It didn't spread far, didn't even make it past the edges of the 'kitchen' and into the 'dining room'.
(Blue quietly flicked a hand and 'cleaning-spell'ed the puddle - getting rid of the 'impurities', and evaporating the water that remained, all that was left at that point. He did it knowing full well at this point how his sister felt about 'wasted food' and food-related 'messes'. Better to clean it up now than have her getting all focused about-and-on it, layer.)
Zach blinked when the spill disappeared. He put the carton back down and put the cap back on. Then he closed the sippy cup too. Only then, did he finally look back up at Blue. "Thank you mister Blue." He grinned.
"Mm," said the demon. Then, "You can call me Blue. 'Mister' is for humans." He said this without looking up, as he pulled out a few silver coins and seemed to be starting to pull them into long metal rods, then a thinner flexible cascade-chain arrangement...
"Ok Blue." Zach nodded and went to open the fridge again, frowning up at the shelf. His head was already starting to hurt. So he didn't want to try floating the carton again. He looked over at Blue again. "Um… can you help me put this back?" he asked. (Blue considered this. Miz would help him if she were here; calling her to help the demon-spawn herself would be a waste of energy and slow him down because she was very distracting, and Miz would be overall unhappy to learn that she'd have to leave the room again instead of staying and spending time with him, because he wasn't done yet and he needed to concentrate. So… it would be more efficient for Blue to do something for Zach in her place, than not.)
The 'looking-spell' eye hovering in front of Blue's forehead flickered a little bit brighter, then back to more dimly again.
"Are you trying to make it look like you didn't take it down in the first place?" Blue asked him as he slid the silver chain into the center of the unicorn hair loop, pushing it out of the top of the knot, and started braiding, "Or do you just want it in again and fitting?"
"Just put it back in. 'Cause you're 'apposed to put it back. Or-or it goes bad." Zach nodded.
There was a slight pause. "There is a space on the second-lowest shelf of the door, that you can slide it down into, if you turn it to have the shortest-side facing you and try putting it in that way. The bottles will move enough that the space will become large enough for it, and it will fit."
Zach turned and looked. Then he picked up the carton and turned it around in his hands, rotating it and pushing it in. "Thanks!" he said again. Then he closed the fridge door, grabbed up his sippy cup, and toddled over to sit down a few (Zach-sized) steps away from Blue. He cradled the sippy cup in his hand as he blinked his large eyes up at Blue. "What 'cha doing?"
"I'm working on making protective-defenses for Seb to have and to use, as many as Seb might want," Blue told him, as he picked up more hair, and started to add that to the current weave.
Then Blue stopped for a moment and reached for his phone in his pocket, pulling it out and typing a quick message-query to Miz. (How many protective-defense items of the same type, and active-defense items of the same type but different than the first, does Seb say he wants? Ask him, and then write it to me, yes? No need to have her come in here right now and be more distracting, and then less-happy with life because of him not spending all of the time with her, just then.)
There was a buzz of notification as Miz texted back, Around… 25- no like… 30? Seb would want all his family safe. As well as Soos and Melody and his other friends in Gravity Falls.
Not all of those beings are part-'demon'. The active-defense power-enhancers won't work for them. Does he still want thirty of those? -ASK him for the numbers of both of those for me, or write that you don't want to. DON'T assume. Blue typed back to her next.
There wasn't an immediate response this time. (Looks like Miz was asking Seb.) Blue put his phone back down and continued his braiding, adding more unicorn hair as he needed to, as he went. Zach was sipping on his juice with his eyes closed, sitting close by and looking entirely at ease. After a few sips, he opened his eyes again. "So you're a boy, like me?" Zach asked.
"I am a triangle," Blue told him, not looking up from his work, as he continued his braiding. "I never did all the paperwork to figure out what my gender would be, compared to any other species out there. But I self-identify myself as 'a guy' when it comes to human ideas on 'gender identity', yes." The first chain was long enough as this point, and he tied the hair off in another loop at the other end of the metal silver chain.
"I'm a boy!" Zach nodded. "I decided this!" He closed his eyes and drank some more apple juice. He let out a gasp for air after he finished. "How did you decide? I just felt like being a boy feels better than being a girl," he told Blue.
"Define: boy. Define: girl. Define: better," was Blue's response to him. "What are the things that you like and not-like about each concept, as you think they may apply to you?"
"I don't like being called 'princess'." Zach said matter of factly. "And when boys at school say I need to be their princess or their queen, I don't like that." He paused. "Dunno about girl and boy. Miz says that it doesn't really matter? And that I can just be what I want." He hummed, still not sure about all that. But Miz could change if she was a boy or a girl, so he thought maybe she just had a different way of thinking about it. "But I want to be a boy. So that means I'm a boy."
"If you want to be a boy, then be a boy, yes," Blue told him, as he pulled down the first chain, to lay it off to the side for the moment, and started making a loop-knot from the next small handful of unicorn hair. "But if you don't know what a boy is, then not worrying about it and being yourself is much better. Be a Zach."
"But the other kids at school said I'm a girl because I'm a girl. And missus Carol says it's wrong for me to be a boy."
"Your body is currently female. That is bio-sex. You are a boy; that is gender as you express it and tell it to others. They are confused," Blue informed him. "You may also be at least somewhat confused, still," Blue told him next, "If you think being a girl means that you have to be some other boy's idea of a 'queen' or a 'princess' that is 'theirs'." Blue looked up at him. "Are you sure that you are a boy, and not some other gender? There are many others than you can pick."
"Well I like boy best right now." Zach blinked.
Blue smiled at him. "But you don't know how to explain what a boy is, yes?" (This is why he liked children: they said what they meant, as best as they could; they admitted it when they weren't sure about something, almost immediately; and they did not usually get offended, or angry, or otherwise think he was stupid when he asked them clarifying questions directly or indirectly.)
Zach shook his head. "The teacher says boys are boys and girls are girls. It doesn't make much sense," he pointed out. "But I don't like being called a girl."
"Are you a boy?" Blue asked him.
"Yeah!" Zach nodded. "I like being a boy."
"Then you are a boy. Boys are boys," Blue told him. "Their circular logic non-sense can work for you too, you know." He went back to his work: metal coons to rod-strands to a chain, added into the loop-knot, braiding and adding more hair and braiding further...
Zach's eyes widened and he grinned. "Cool!" He shuffled his little feet, clad in soft, colorful socks, and scooted over on the ground closer to Blue. "Are you makin' a neck-lece?"
"Bracelets, actually," Blue told him. "But I'm making them longer than they need to be, just in case. I certainly have more than enough material for it…" he muttered.
"...like friendship bracelets?" Zach practically sparkled. His cousin Mabel told him about friendship bracelets before. They were something that people make for the people they love.
Blue paused in his braiding for a moment, searching through his already-Seen memories.
"No," Blue told him. "I am not friends with Seb, and Seb is giving them to himself-and-others without expecting any more 'friendship bracelets' back in return."
Zach mumbled a little, rocking back and forth on the ground. "Do you want a friendship bracelet?" he asked next.
"You would have to define what you mean when you say 'friends' to me, first," and the expected function of said bracelet first, "Before I can decide if I want one," Blue told him, as he continued his work. Because… "The word 'friend' can mean very different things coming from different people, I have found." (Especially six-fingered Stanfirds.) Zach hummed. "Well, you're Miz's brother. But you said that you're not my brother yet, even though Miz is my sister. But you're nice and I like you. A-and you help me out. And I like you." Zach repeated, "So that means you're my friend, right?"
"Not necessarily," was what Blue told him next. "Define: nice."
"You don't yell at me like missus Carol. She's mean. So you're nice." Zach said, like that was obvious.
"I haven't yelled at you YET," Blue told him. "And I was yelling some at other people earlier. -How do you know I won't yell at YOU? I can think of many, many things that could happen, that could have me yelling at you," Blue told him next as he worked.
Zach tilted his head. "Well, are you going to tell me that I'm wrong for being a boy, and tell me that I'm stupid for being a boy?"
"'Being a boy' is not 'wrong' or 'stupid', it is a state of being," Blue told him. "Actions and not-doing-other-actions are what tend to be 'stupid' idiocy, if you do either of them at the wrong stupid times."
Zach clapped his hands in delight. "Then you're nice!" he decided. It was simple in his mind. Blue was nice, even if he was angry sometimes. After all, he was making friendship bracelets for him and everyone- and not even asking them to have to be his friends in return! Blue must just be a grump-puss like DreamWish from Those Little Ponies. He was always being angry and mean, but he still makes all the healing potions and medicine for Everypony in the village!
Blue looked up from his work and eyed him. "I could tell you you're being 'wrong' or 'stupid' for other reasons," he told the child next.
"Well, if they're somethin' I'm actually wrong about, or bein' stupid about, then that's fine." Zach shrugged easily. Because he knew that sometimes he and Zoe did kinda dumb things, and so did daddy and his uncles! And everyone always called them dummies for it! So that was fine. "But I'm not wrong about being a boy," he insisted. "I'm not a f-freak." He voice wavered a little at that, but he managed to keep strong. Miz told him there was nothing wrong with him. Daddy and mommy said so too.
"What's wrong with being a freak?" Blue asked him, while not looking up at him as he took down the second completed initial loop-braid and started work on the next. "I'm a freak. Some of my best friends are freaks, too."
"...I thought being a freak was a b-bad thing…" Zach admitted. Then he considered Blue. "You don't look like a freak?" Then he paused. "Is freak actually a good thing?"
Blue took a moment to stop what he was doing, and look up at him, and grin.
"Being a freak is the BEST thing!" he told Zach conspiratorially, leaning in slightly. "-And being a freak can also be the WORST thing, in that you can decide to be 'the worst', and then no-one can stop you from doing whatever you want!" Blue grinned out at him. "-Don't tell anyone else. If they know that, then THEY might want to become a freak, too. -Only tell people you trust, who you are fine with being freaks with you, too," he told Zach next, looking back down again. "Then surprise the REST of the world with it all later, once you're ready to destroy anyone and everyone as you see fit! -Or paint them all over with purple- and pink-colored frosting. Pretty sure those are the same thing when it comes to humans." Blue bobbed his torso in place a bit, with a bit of a low thinking-hummmmmm as he continued on with his braiding-work.
"I like frosting!" Zach said in pure delight. "I bet I could ask Miz to-to build a frosting cannon!"
"I am sure that my little sister would be happy to help you take on that challenge, if you ask her," Blue told him next, with the very smallest of smiles (but also a bit of a mischievous chaotic twinkle in his eyes).
Zach giggled, falling back and rolling around on the ground. "You're cool!" He decided. "And I like you!"
"You are an interesting young little half-demon spawn yourself," Blue told him. "And I like what I have been seeing from you so far." Blue blinked, and when he opened his eyes he was looking up and over at Zach from the same posture. "...I can ALSO be 'hot', you know," Blue told him next, as he slowly raised both his hands up to be pointing upright, and both of his hands, down to well past his wrists, went up completely in blue flames.
And as Zach stared at this, Blue winked at him and grinned, and then the flames went entirely out.
Blue then looked back down and caught hold of the chain of his braiding, ready to continue on (relatively) sedately again.
Zach sat back up and his hands caught on fire. "I can do that too! But mommy says I shouldn't- 'cause then the house will burn down." He said that last part almost as a quote of what his mother had told him plenty of times. Burning houses down was a bad idea.
Blue paused at this. "Well, you shouldn't be burning down any houses if you can not-burn them down instead, yes." But… (understanding a few things about fire was important - critical, to Blue's way of thinking - when one was an untrained spawn who had easy access to fire-casting as an innate ability.)
And then Blue sighed and he held out a hand, out towards Zach, in a loose fist, his palm facing downwards towards the ground.
His hand, down to about two inches past his wrist to his arm, caught fire again, flames leaping up a good six inches from his body(-like vessel), surrounding both his hand and his arm.
"Bring your hand close to feel this," Blue told him. "As carefully as you like. -What do you feel?"
"It's hot," Zach noted. Much hotter than his own flames, which could burn stuff, but wasn't entirely painful to the touch.
Blue nodded. He flexed his hand outwards into a flat palm, and then in again, back to that loosely-closed fist.
"And now?" Blue asked him.
Zach waved his hand near Blue's and hummed. "I don't feel it."
"Try putting your hand in it," was Blue's next suggestion, continuing to talk to Zach in instructory tones. "As carefully as you like."
Zach blinked at him. Then, entirely trusting, he put his hand into Blue's flame.
He wasn't burned. He could feel the flame moving around him and licking at him, but… it felt like air, almost. It didn't feel warm, or feel cold. It didn't feel hot either, and he wasn't burned.
"Take your hand away," Blue said to him. Zach did so, sitting back on his knees again. "How you do that?"
"Practice, knowledge, and control. So that I know what I am doing." Blue flexed his hand again: spread out to flat palm, back to loose fist again. "-And now?" Zach tried feeling it again and gasped. "It's cold!" he squealed. This was so cool! He wondered why daddy and Miz didn't show him magic like this; then again, Daddy didn't use his magic very often except to float him and his sister around when they were running around the house.
Blue nodded, and then waved all the flames away. "Temperature control. -You can't always tell how hot or cold something is, just by looking at it. It looked the same to you, all three times that you felt it, yes? -You can probably do this, too. If you practice. Carefully. It requires a lot of control." Blue went back to his braiding. "If you want to learn how to do this, you should talk to Seb or Miz. I likely won't be here much longer, on this trip, to teach you myself, if you want to learn."
Zach nodded. "Daddy tried to teach me an' Zoe before, but then our heads hurt and we started bleeding. So daddy stopped. Miz says we need to be bigger first."
"'Stopping if it hurts you' is wise," Blue told him. "But if you can do small things, like today, without hurting yourself, then you should practice not just 'small things', but very-small things," Blue told him. "It is easier to learn the basics of control, and fine control, when you don't have as much power to have to wrestle with, to have to constantly tame - and keep tame - first. Now is probably the best time for you to first learn how to have a 'fine touch': to control what you are doing better, and to learn how to change and constrict and expand your own energy flow use, while it is a smaller drip-drip-drip instead of a large fire-hose," Blue then told him, tying off the next ending-loop, pulling it off, and starting the next. "Also, how to do more things, without feeling as tired. Doing the same things with less, getting less tired from doing them: efficiency."
Zach didn't really follow with all of what Blue said, but lifting small things was easier. He looked over at his sippy cup on the ground. He squinted at it and the cup was enveloped with a blue glow before floating up to his hand. He rubbed at his head. Ok… he shouldn't try anymore for a while. "So… pwactice everyday?" He asked before closing his eyes and drinking from the cup.
"Just a bit every day, if you can do it without hurting yourself," Blue told him. "If it hurts when you do it, stop immediately. If it hurts before you do it, DON'T start. That would be like… HM. Having a bleeding wound, and then giving yourself a broken arm?" (Trying to rip off his own arm, really. Blue knew better than to put it that way to this kid, though.) Zach nodded at this. He sipped his juice again. "Do you wanna come watch cartoons with us?" (Yeesh. Looks like he hadn't avoided the ending 'Miz-question' after all!)
"I need to focus on this," Blue told him, as he continued on braiding (watching what he was doing, as he did, his 'looking-spell' flickering a bit, as it did, as he went). "I can't watch cartoons at the same time; this requires some focus. Work first; fun later. This is important for me to do first."
"Ok. It's like when daddy's working." Zach understood that. He pushed himself to his feet and toddled off. "Come play with us when you're done, okay?" He called back over his shoulder.
"I just might do that very thing," Blue told him, "After I'm done with this, next," with a bit of suppressed laughter in an almost-teasing tone.
Seb, hiding behind the doorway, didn't know how to feel. Blue almost sounded… like a reasonable adult, or rather, he'd sounded like… like an older sibling, or something. And, well, Seb knew Blue was Miz's big brother, but he hadn't thought that crazy triangle could be so… calm.
He was going to go in but thought better of it. Leave the guy alone. He was making protection bracelets for him and his family and friends… for FREE. Seb frowned. He… well, he hadn't actually really believed him when Blue had said he wanted to help. But… he was serious. And he really was doing all this work for him. For Seb. Even though Seb had refused him at every offer, had shot him down without even listening half the time. Seb glanced up at Ford, who was hiding behind the doorway too. His brother's face showed that he'd realized the same thing.
In silence, the two crept away from the doorway and well out of earshot, going into another room altogether, before Zach made it out the doorway and ran into them there. As the door to the guest room closed behind them, Seb finally spoke. "Well, shit. I feel like a douchebag now..."
Ford had a contemplative look on his face. "A kind Bill Cipher. I thought Miz was the only one." Seb gave him a deadpanned, "Thanks, Sixer."
"You know what I mean!" Ford flushed. "Well, at least, I can see why Miz loves him." He smiled. "He's a good brother, and I'm glad they found each other."
"Eh, I still won't let him convince me of his crazy plan though." Seb huffed with folded arms. "But I guess I'll at least listen to him explain it better." He flopped onto the bed. "...and I really do need to practice my powers more."
"Well, we should leave Blue alone to work." Ford patted Seb's shoulder. "I guess this means the kitchen is gonna be off limits?" Seb asked.
"It'll be fine. We can order out for later," Ford laughed, "And Stanley can foot the bill. He owns a penthouse; he can afford to pay for dinner."
"Hah! He'd better! Damn miser!" Seb cackled. "But seriously, if he tries to get Miz to give him more gold again, I will set him on fire." He sobered. Ford snorted. "Oh no! That would be simply awful!"
The two laughed and left the room to go back to their respective chill out activities. Seb was gonna relax by the pool with his tablet and Ford was going to the living room to have the children's show as background noise while he filled in his new journal entry on Bill ('Blue') Cipher.
Illusion is Reality
Chapter 110.5
-It was just a job-
Since the kitchen was a 'no-go' zone while Blue was working, Seb and Ford had asked everyone to leave him alone; they ordered some Japanese food for dinner. Miz had insisted, wanting to have some sushi. Zach and Zoe were 'Ooooh'ing at the very pretty fancy maki she ordered. "What's that?" Zoe tried to reach for Miz's food and flinched when her big sister straight up hissed at her.
"Mine." Miz wrapped an arm protectively around her take out container. "Mine."
"...you really like sushi that much, huh?" Stan stared as Miz practically growled when Seb, as a joke, tried to reach for her food with some chopsticks. "Mine." Miz repeated. "Not sharing this."
"...so," Dipper muttered, "She's fine with sharing some food? I mean, she's fine with making food for us… but…"
"Making food is for sharing! This is mine!" Miz stuck an entire maki roll into her mouth, her cheeks bulging out as she chewed. Carla glanced over at Wanda, who also looked surprised. "Well, Miz likes to claim her food, but I've never seen her defend it quite like this before," the blonde admitted. Kari raised an eyebrow. "Well, have any of you tried to take her food before? From her plate?" They shook their heads. Kari laughed. "Well, there you go," she said, like that explained everything, which it did. Blue and Miz really were siblings. She giggled to herself.
"Come on you two," Wanda pulled her twins back, not wanting them to risk anything, if the way Miz's hackles were raised meant anything. "I got a little bit of sushi too. I don't normally eat it, but you can try some of mine."
"What's sushi anyway?" Zoe asked, staring at the colorful food in her mommy's container. "It's raw fish." Wanda told them. The kids all went 'Ewwww~' as they wrinkled their little noses. "I thought you're not 'apposed to eat raw food?" Zoe huffed. Wanda laughed. "Well, there are some foods where it's okay to eat them raw. But you have to be very sure it's prepared right."
"...but Miz steals food from US all the time!" Dipper complained. Miz, seeing as no one was going to take her precious fishy goodness away from her, grinned at Dipper. "Well you don't claim or defend it well enough!" Dipper groaned. "I shouldn't have to!" Mabel shrugged, "I steal food from you all the time." Shermie looped an arm around his daughter, "So do I!" the two high-fived. "I hate all of you." Dipper deadpanned.
They all heard footsteps and Blue walked into the dining room proper. He was scrubbing a hand almost absently through the hair at the back of his head repeatedly a few times, and he had an odd sort of look on his face.
Miz perked up. "Blue! We have dinner!" She held up a container. "It's a spicy vegan curry with only stuff that you can eat." She'd made sure.
Blue's expression shifted from what it was, to amusement, to whatever that look was again.
And then it shifted back to amusement again as Blue said, "I have dinner, too. Do you want to share the curry and what else I have brought?" Miz nodded. She shifted over where she was sitting on the ground (everyone was eating dinner in the living room) and patted the ground beside her.
Blue got a flash of a wide grin, which he seemed to stifle quickly (though now the look of amusement was being less stifled, along with whatever the hell else was going on with that demon), as he pulled four small white triangles out of his pocket, and sat down on the floor next to her. (Most of the Pines had shifted away from Miz a bit at this point, following Wanda's example with her children - not wanting to run afoul of Miz's claimed food and appetite. Only Seb, his brothers, and Kari remained nearby.)
"I remember what you wrote to me about that devil and the Abrahamic-like god that is here. That the stupid lizard delegated a few things to, in this dimension?" Blue said to her, seemingly apropos of nothing. "So I decided to check a few things here out."
Shermie, Kari, Stan and the other blinked. "Wait, God's real?" Shermie cried, getting a smack on the arm from Kari for that. (At this point, the rest of the Pines started paying attention again, even the children.) Seb shrugged, "Ah, yeah."
Blue looked over at them. "Yes?" Blue said, not sure why this was news. "Did Seb not explain about the stupid frilly pink lizard-god that spins up all the dimensions? -And apparently sometimes delegates some of them to local demi-gods that it also-makes too, when it is the deranged lizard that is here and wants to be even more lazy here, too?" he asked of them all.
Everyone turned to stare at Seb, who flushed. "I didn't think it was important?" Kari continued to stare. Seb shrunk in on himself, and began explaining quickly. "Okay so… the Axolotl is a lazy bas-jerk, and he created the Abrahamic God to do all the work for him. And all the other Gods too. Because he didn't want to do any of that, himself."
Everyone continued staring. Zoe raised her hand, "Miz gots a crush on mister Lucifer!"
"No I don't!" Miz protested loudly, making an 'uwu' sound and slumping over onto the couch she was leaning against. Ugh, wasn't a crush! Okay, maybe a tiny crush, but she got over it!
Blue immediately whiped his head around to look over and down at her. "Did you not-wear your glasses again? -Start wearing your glasses again around the 'aesthetically-pleasing-looking' ones! -Or whatever!" he complained to her, mussing up her hair.
"Uwuuuuu..." Miz continued to whine.
"Yeesh," Blue said after a bit of his little sister's complaining. "Thought you were getting better about all your 'squirmy feelings' things, which is the ONLY reason why I haven't been telling you to wear them around that local Ford," Blue complained at her next, as he pulled his hand away, finally letting up on the hair-mussing again.
Said Ford blinked. "Huh?" Everyone else immediately looked away and tried to seem innocent, not wanting to see what happened if Blue realized his little sister was with Ford. The owl was still confused. "What do glasses have to do with…" He looked over at Miz. "I thought you made your vessels to not need glasses anymore?"
Blue looked over at him. His eyes were wide, and his pupils went cat-eye narrow.
And then Blue held out a hand to Miz, without looking away from said Ford.
He made a 'gimmie' hand at her. Miz groaned and held out the special glasses that made people not look handsome anymore.
Blue took them from her and then reached out, and held them out to that Ford.
"Put them on," Blue told him succinctly, holding them out with one hand, as he made a gesture with his other hand, and an oddly-shaped layer of water condensed out of the air, to float in place before him, acting as a mirror.
Ford frowned, almost suspicious, but took off his own glasses and put on the other pair (Miz's?) of glasses. He blinked, looking ridiculous with how small they looked on his large face. Then blinked again. "...what prescription is it?" He squinted a bit as he looked through them.
"...Put them on OVER your glasses," Blue said neutrally, the 'you idiot' implicitly hanging there in the air. (It was about this point that most of the kids and reasonably-sane adults mostly lost interest in the proceedings - given that Ford hadn't immediately gone up in flames or started screaming or something, he was fine - and went back to eating and talking to themselves.)
"...oh." Ford took them off and put his own back on, placing Miz's over them, which took a bit of work, her glasses were quite small. (Miz had modified Blue's original cloned version of Stan's glasses as a base a bit, and made them smaller for herself.)
"Or just hold them in front of you and try to peer through them, if that's too difficult for you to do," Blue added next, rolling his eyes.
"No, I think I can see…" Ford glanced over. "What's this supposed to do?" he wondered out loud.
"...Look in the mirror, next," Blue said to him next. The dolt. Did he have to tell him EVERYTHING? (This was worse than Sixer, even!)
Ford, still looking confused, got his feet under his and stood up to go check the hallway mirror. Before he got more than a step though, Miz stopped him. "Wait!" He turned (standing), as did Blue (towards her in place, still seated), as Miz ran up to the confused scientist. "Here, just… take a sip of this and hold it in your mouth first!" Miz handed him a cup of water. Her other hand was pulling out her phone, swiping with her thumb to get the camera open.
Blue was opening his mouth, about to tell the local Ford to come back here and use the perfectly-serviceable water-mirror that he'd created for him for this that was RIGHT HERE- but then Blue stopped and closed his mouth again. (Blue decided to let his little sister have her fun WITHOUT him getting drenched with a mouthful of bacteria-laden water in the process, and waved the floating 'mirror' of refracted water he'd been 'holding' for the local Ford away again.)
Ford finished walking over to the mirror, and Miz hit the [Record] button right in time to catch him walking up, looking up, and then spit taking all over the full length mirror.
"...This would be funnier if I hadn't seen human-made robots follow simple instructions better than him," Blue said almost sardonically, as he leaned back on his hands where he sat and watched all this occur.
"Hey~ Don't be mean to my brother," Seb pouted but a grin slipped on his face.
Miz cackled as she clicked the [End Recording] button and immediately posted it on her interdimensional chat room to Mary. [Miz: OMFG lookie this idiot! AHAHAHAHAH!]
"-You aren't DEAD from CHOKING over there, are you?" Blue raised his voice and called out over to the local Ford there (because he was keeping both Kari's 'messing' and that Ford's 'sensitivity' issues in mind - thus, asking).
Ford sputtered. Miz spoke up absently as she continued posting the video into her various multidimensional chat rooms, "He can't choke on that kinda thing. I fixed his and Stan's lungs years ago."
Blue turned to look at her, and blinked.
"Did you ask first?" Blue said. Because that was a bit… internally invasive.
"...Ford was too sleep deprived to give a proper response, and they would have suffocated to death within minutes if I hadn't done so." Miz shrugged.
Blue rolled his eyes and sat back against the couch.
"-For next time, little sis," Blue said. "Just set up the right atmosphere for them in a bubble surrounding them, or change the Ruleset working on them, instead. Body-mods without a choice-given, and similar-decision-made, can have some… unintended consequences," the triangle demon ended rather ominously.
Stan shuddered. "There was a dimension where air was fingers..."
"...Yes?" Blue said. "What's your point?" Stan stared at Blue in a deadpan. "...I guess I don't have one. I'm simply letting people know." he said blandly. Ford came back to where the rest of his extended family (plus Blue) were sitting, coughing as he did so. "Miz!" He sputtered, she laughed hard, kicking her legs in the air.
Blue noted this (what the local Stan had just said to him), then turned back to the local Ford. "You can take the glasses off, now," Blue told him. "And maybe next time," he added, as Ford ripped them off his face and passed them back to him roughly, "You'll ask more questions, first. -Consider this a lesson where you should both learn this and REMEMBER IT WELL," Blue then said to Seb's Ford dryly, as he handed Miz's glasses back to her.
Ford grumbled. Blue might be kind (DEEP down) but he was still an ass. But also… he huffed at Miz, who was STILL laughing. "Did you have to do that?"
"Yes!" Miz cackled. Seb was wheezing as well, having burst out laughing a few seconds after the spit take, once he processed what was happening. "Text that to me!" he told Miz. Ford sighed. Oddly enough, Blue was, in fact, the only Cipher here who was not laughing at all. He wasn't even smiling; he just, pure and simply, looked annoyed at this whole thing.
"So, what's the point you're making here? That I shouldn't trust you?" Ford asked Blue far more calmly than he probably should be.
"That could be a point," Blue said almost (but not quite) evasively next. (Blue had told him the 'lesson' already; 'point's, to Blue's mind, were different.) "Do you think you should trust me?"
"To a point, yes." Ford told him simply.
"Why?" Blue said next (rather mystified at this, though largely not showing it).
"Because Miz trusts you." Ford said next.
"What does she trust me with, and why?" Blue said next to him, right back. (Testing him. Because he doubted that this one's logic was-)
"To not kill us, because she cares about us." Ford wasn't sure why Blue was trying to push him on this.
Blue rolled his eyes. "Miz," he said with a bit of an edge to his tone, "Trusts me with herself, NOT all of you. -She understands my motivations. And she knows that the SECOND I think any of you are more likely to cause her harm than 'her caring for you' holds me back from doing something about it, that little 'not killing you' idea vanishes like it was never even there to begin with. Try again."
"Well." Ford placed his hands on his hips. "If I do harm her, then what's to say I don't deserve to get destroyed for it?" he challenged.
Blue eyed him blandly. "What makes you think you don't already deserve that."
Miz looked up from her phone. "Fordsie?" Ford looked over at her. "I don't know," said Ford. "But I do know that I don't want to hurt her. She's my friend. And I care about her."
Blue gave him a long expressionless (rather unimpressed) look. He turned to Miz.
"Remind me, Miz," he said to her. "What are those other several words-and-phrases you used to describe him - besides that last one of 'shiny', which he definitely isn't?"
"...he's patient. Doesn't write me off for doing something he doesn't agree with… different, gentle…" She flushed.
"-None of which I've seen yet while I've been here," Blue noted, "Except maybe 'different', depending on what the definition in this dimension here is for that one of those-few." Blue frowned. "And-also, drumroll please for the one you just left out… 'Stupid'," Blue said, before turning back towards the local Ford. "-I've seen human toddlers express more self-determination, motivation, curiosity, and self-awareness, while also being better able to follow instructions, and ask more and better questions, than you. Today." (Frankly, Blue would have called his discussion with Zach earlier today quite pleasant, if anybody had known to ask him.)
Ford glanced over at Miz. "...you think I'm stupid?" He sounded rather more incredulous than hurt by this. Miz shook her head. "Not the bad kind of stupid. The cute kind."
Ford blinked (unsure how that compliment worked) as everyone (human) gaped. ("What 'kind' of stupid is 'cute'?!" Blue said, sounding almost offended by the very concept! Meanwhile...) Shermie let out a soft, "Damn, burn…"
"Don't hate Fordsie~ He's a good one!" Miz complained. ("I don't hate him. I'd actually have to give a damn about him to 'hate' him, first. Among other failings. -He'd have to beat out the stupid lizard for me to even consider 'hate'ing him first, and I'd end up killing him far before then," Blue waved off with another eyeroll.) Miz pouted. "-And you're not stupid Fordsie, don't misunderstand this. If I really thought you were stupid stupid, I wouldn't bother with hanging out with you." Ford blinked. Then rubbed his head. "Ah… thanks?" It was a roundabout compliment, but he thought he understood what she was getting at.
Blue, largely done with this whole concept (and rather unsure exactly what game his sister was playing with the local Ford here, but not about to interrupt her 'fun' without enough information to work off of and a very good-terrible reason), rolled his eyes at this and un'fold'ed one of his bags. Because meal-time was NOW. Then Blue pulled a glass bottle of cold-brewed tea out of said bag. He undid the lid and took a long sip.
Mabel looked back and forth between Miz and Ford, then she had an 'Eureka!' moment. "Oh! You mean he's a himbo!" Miz blinked. Flickered. Then she said, "Yeah I guess that kinda works? Not really. But close enough."
"-I think what my sister is trying to say is that she acknowledges that you are stupid in all the ways that matter to ME, when it comes to me making sure that my little sister will be safe here in this dimensional set for the forseeable future," Blue told him blandly next. "The other reason I wanted to come here, besides wanting to talk to Seb and offer him my help," Blue noted to the local Ford, as he raised his bottle of tea to his mouth again, "Was to get a good look at you, so that I could then tell my little sister exactly why she shouldn't be spending any more of her time hanging around you, because she hasn't been listening to any of my more-general warnings about all of you Stanfords, yet. -Stubborn," Blue directed at her next.
"I like him, though." Miz complained. "And he's my friend."
"Define: friend," Blue said, "Because that is debatable. He paused as he took another sip of his tea. "Especially since I don't hear him speaking up on the benefits versus costs of 'living forever'," he added, giving her another long, significant look.
"My definition for Friend exists on a case by case basis depending on the person in question." Miz sighed. Which was how all things normally fell in terms of her feelings towards them, barring a few things that were essentially her 'line' that shouldn't be crossed.
"You don't have that kind of Deal with him," Blue pointed out. (At this point, Kari looked over from her own conversation and quieted, and the rest of the Pines noticed this; they started quieting their own conversations and began paying attention to what was going on with Blue and Miz again.) "And you shouldn't ever even consider making that kind of Deal with him in the future," Blue said next, with a frown. "You have enough problems with your children dying," Blue reminded Miz, even though he didn't look very happy as he did it. "What do you think is going to happen if you ever lose someone you consider to be a Friend."
Miz went quiet at that. All the adults did too. Wanda got up to begin ushering the children out of the room.
And Blue looked up, saw this, and grimaced.
"...getting to be a trend," Blue said, letting out a breath and rubbing at his right temple with the side of his palm. "Fine. -A discussion for another time. Why be too predictable, when I can just shut up for the rest of the meal?" he said with another eyeroll, making a waving hand motion, "Or leave instead," he added next. "-Don't stop the children from eating on my account," Blue said to Wanda and the other adults, as he pushed himself up to his feet.
"...it's been nearly three days…" Miz said quietly next. She wasn't telling him to leave, or outright reminding him of when he was supposed to leave. She didn't want him to go. But she had to tell him anyway.
"-And I only meant to be away from my 'set for a day and a half at most, yes, I know and remember," Blue said to her, as he scooped up the other 'fold'ed white triangles (plastic bags) in one hand, and picked up his un'fold'ed bag of tea bottles with the other, stretching in place a bit. "Wouldn't have stayed this long, if I hadn't messed up this whole 'trip outbound' with the 'isolation' test that I tried just not working. Going to have to do a 'blind' time-jump backwards when I get back there-again, anyway. It's fine. Can't really get any worse, if I stay for another hour, or stretch it out to twelve days instead. -Not that I'm doing that," he said of the latter one of those two options, rolling his eyes, as he held the bag by its handle-loops over his shoulder somewhat casually.
Miz glanced over. "...will you be able to bring all that with you through a Door?"
"No," said Blue. "Not without trying something out that's completely untested, that I haven't even started finished half of all the math I might need for it, yet. -I need to finish the bracelets first before I leave, anyway. Leave you all to… whatever it is that you all will be doing, once I'm gone." (Probably laughing at him together over the joke they all thought they'd pulled over on him, and conspiring to kill him, besides. ...It was fine. Not like they would actually ever be able to pull any of all of it off.) "-Seb, how many of the protective-defense do you want for people in general, and the active-protective that work as power-enhancers for demons?" Blue asked Seb next. "Miz never texted me back."
Seb blinked before finally reacting. "Well, if you show Miz how it's done, she could make the rest, or more, if we need them." Seb told him. "Miz asked me and I was gonna go talk with you about it but… ah… kinda… didn't get to…" What with Blue working in the kitchen, and looking so focused and tired.
"It's fine," said Blue. "How many to start with this time? -And no," Blue continued. "Miz can watch and see how I do it, but explaining it to her would take longer than me completing them at this point, probably. Also: she does things differently than I usually do them; I don't know if her way will work as-intended. I can't guarantee her own work myself. I want to give you something that I KNOW will work."
(Blue had just gotten done helping his little sister fix her 'friend' Deals; he couldn't trust that she might put something extra in, or leave something out, if he left her to her own devices. Especially since part of what he was planning on doing with these bracelets was filling in some of the gaps that she had left in, in her current Deal with them all already, by giving them this.)
"I think ten to start would be fine," Seb blinked. He glanced over at Miz, who was chewing on another maki while staring at Blue's bag.
"And for the power-enhancers?" Blue asked him next.
"Just three. Me and my kids."
So, Seb and Zoe and Zach, since Miz was 'Seb's sister' and not 'Seb's kid'. Blue nodded.
"I'll go eat in the pool room," Blue told Seb (and the rest of them) next. "I'll need to 'take down' the wards I made there before I leave, anyway. -Miz, when you're done, come see me?" He looked up at Seb next. "I'll need you to come, too. Later. Bring your kids with you to me, so that I can tune the power-enhancer bracelets to all three of you specifically. Don't want ANYONE ELSE being able to use them, or mess with them."
Miz stood up, food in hand. "I can hang out with you in the pool room for dinner." She nudged his side with her head. "I'll be quiet and watch you work."
"No distractions would be good, yes. Don't want to get any of this wrong," Blue said, not quite agreeing with her on everything she'd just said. But he patted her on the head for her sentiment, before he turned and began walking out of the living room. "-You can stay with them if you want, and then come out to the pool room later. It's fine," Blue called out to Miz over his shoulder. "-Bring that Ford with you when you come."
And then the demon was gone.
Miz glanced at everyone and picked up the rest of her food. "I'm… going with him. And Fordsie… stay quiet, okay?"
Ford, still rather put off by how Blue seemed to… not hate him, but dislike him for reasons, nodded and followed her out. "But if he's going to insult me again, I'm going to get upset." He also ruffled Miz's hair. "And you're just lucky your prank didn't make me choke."
"You can't drown and you know it." Miz giggled. He'd managed to survive in the vacuum of space once, after all! (She hadn't been able to let Stan and Ford die out there, Seb needed them! And knowing that the two of them would be out of her reach once they left her set, of course being able to survive without even breathing was something she fixed them to have!)
Ford rolled his eyes. "Doesn't make it comfortable." He complained, just 'cause. A part of him realized he shouldn't be so calm about all this, but… seeing her laugh made him feel rather nice inside.
Blue also did leave the room voluntarily when he saw that he was making people uncomfortable(?), without being asked to do so. Well, Blue was more… grating… pushy(?)... obnoxious(?!)... but Ford found him still more tolerable than his own Bill Cipher. At least no one was getting stabbed. Ford sighed, what even was his life anymore, that he was defending a Bill Cipher?
Blue set his bag of bottles of tea down on the 'tea' table in the pool room, where he'd had tea with Kari just the previous day-cycle here.
He pulled out and un'fold'ed the other three bags of food quickly, and the smell (ew, noses) of barbecue wafted out of them into the air. Kosher barbecue, in fact. -Blue had found a nice little place in Brooklyn that he'd been able to talk into using a concoction and technique on the meat to wash almost all of the salt out of it for him; he'd also talked them into using a large bottle of sour barbecue sauce that he'd whipped up quickly before arrival, one that didn't require vinegar or added sugar to make, as part-and-parcel of his 'trying this method' collaborative-ask of them that he'd been paying for - his method and sauce-given, their cooks and base meats and equipment and time. The results had been good enough that, after taste-testing it during the process of cooking it, they'd ended up paying him for both methods and recipes, as well as handing over the entire meal to him for free, along with a few non-dairy extras that he'd thought Miz herself might like to try - just as he'd planned! HA! (Blue loved it when a good plan came together - when he got what he wanted, it was ALWAYS a blast!)
-Because of what Miz had written to him before, he'd looked up 'kosher' here, and realized that the techniques were exactly the same as the ones back in both 46'\ and 46 back in his own 'set, which he'd introduced as a lark. EXACTLY THE SAME. -And they worked the same, too!
Not being as sure about his own needs on consumption and eating here, given the unknown errors in his calculations that had lead to the mistake he'd already made earlier - likely due to one incorrect base assumption or another, they usually were - Blue had been 'playing it safe' ever since then, as it were. And the techniques used for making things kosher here? WELL, they worked just as well here at removing all the tiniest little potential incorporated fragmentary soul-bits from the animals the meat had come from here, in this dimension and on this Earth, as well as those same methods did back in his own native 'set on things over there in those Earth-containing dimensions - which was VERY. They worked VERY well. And with the cooking-thereafter killing all the bacteria and making them let go of any last soul-bits they might have still been hanging onto from what they had consumed… WELL!
Miz came in and sniffed. "Oooh that's niiice!" she purred. She popped the last of her sushi in her mouth and waved her hand to teleport the container into the trash and plastic recycle. Ford blinked at this display, as he carried his own plate and glass in, following her. "I thought you didn't eat meat," he asked Blue before Miz elbowed him and he shut his mouth.
"It's kosher, and it actually all works here just as well as it does in my own 'set there, too," Blue said succinctly, as he worked at quickly rearranging the containers he'd just finished pulling out of the bags - rather busily working under the assumption that his little sister (now here) would want some, given what she'd just said to him. "No little soul-bits from random eaten things for me to worry about having to spend more time and energy than I care to in cleaning them out first," Blue continued, as he finished up his quick rearrangement (getting ready to split the food between containers for sharing, then reached over and pulled out a chair for his sister to sit down in, next to him).
That made Ford blink. So… Blue was… kosher? Huh. That was… interesting? Almost as interesting as the idea that making food kosher apparently… made it so they didn't contain soul-bits? (That led Ford down another train of thought, that being that non-kosher foods that contained meat apparently contained soul-bits, which… sort of disturbed him. Ford glanced over at Miz, who'd always eaten pretty much anything without worrying about these soul-bits... )
Then Blue blinked.
"Miz," he said turning to his sister, protesting. "Why did you bring him here?"
"He'll sit in the corner and be quiet." Miz whined.
"Miz," Blue said patiently, "How many times did you and I having a meal and talking with each other at the same table as my six-fingered hand end in a not-very-good situation for him?"
"I can build a wall with the pool toys so you don't even see each other." Miz said, waving her hand and doing so. Ford was rather bemused by all this, taking his own food and walking over to sit behind the wall.
"That's NOT the point, and you know it," Blue said next. "It may take me awhile to pick up the patterns when they're that complicated and disparate, but I have noticed a trend where a Stanford Pines in the same room as the both of us talking ends up in distress. I'm NOT actually trying to break this one," Blue told her next, "Or mine." Blue eyed her over this.
"Just don't talk to each other, or interact and we'll be fine." Miz looked back and forth, not that she could see Ford now, what with him being surrounded by pool toys.
"The problem is him hearing us talking," Blue reminded her. "Yes? And this one is MORE 'sensitive'. That 'toy barrier' won't stop him from hearing us," Blue waved a hand, and the pool toy barrier collapsed. "It's ineffective for its intended use," Blue half-complained, half-noted in instructional(?) tones.
Miz pulled out some headphones and put on music before slipping them over Ford's head. The scientist actually laughed. "Ok, we're going with this, then?" He went back to his food, wondering what kind of music this was. Sounded very synthetic. But it wasn't… bad? He'd heard much stranger music out behind the portal. At least this wasn't a song made entirely out of the sounds of flushing toilets.
Blue scrubbed a hand through his hair, then gave up for the moment. "-This ISN'T going to end well," he told his little sister (after his Cipher-eye looking-spell flickered into being in front of his forehead, checking to make sure that at least the headphones would be capable of preventing the sound from being registered by the human sitting there). Blue pulled out another while triangle, un'fold'ed the bag that had his pot and plastic utensil sets inside it, and reached for the pot lid (to serve as a transfer plate) and utensils (for repartitioning of the foods between the carry out containers, and also for later container-to-mouth eating).
Ford was happy to just ignore Blue entirely, not even facing him, bobbing his head softly to the music. He wasn't sure what Miz was after here, but whatever.
"When I said 'bring him with you when you come', I didn't mean 'bring him if you came right away'," Blue told his little sister next. He'd thought she'd stay there, with the majority of her newly-chosen human (mostly) family members. He also hated being misunderstood!
"I just wanted to spend time with you…" Miz sat down in the pool chair next to him. "And he's off and distracted now, can't hear us or anything."
"I'm aware that those headphones are loud enough that he 'can't hear us or anything' when they're on," Blue said. (On the matter of what would happen to the local Ford if he stayed, Blue believed he'd already made his thoughts perfectly clear. So he only really cared what happened to this local Ford up to a very-short point. -So this local Ford was going to keep sitting there after his warning? And no-one in the other room tried to stop him from coming in here? And his little sister did that instead of putting up a proper perception filter barrier? WELL, then! -If that local Ford decided to turn around in his chair and watch the proceedings, trying to read lips, or took off those headphones himself, WELL, it would be his fault for not listening to his dire warnings, Kari's fault for not stopping him from following after and then being around two demons on his own when she knew one of them was already in a bad mood and had left the physical area to not do such around them, and Miz would only have herself to blame for trusting this idiot to not-listen in on them instead of putting up the proper shielding. This idiot would deserve to have his 'sensitivity' triggered by them both. The idiot. Miz would see...) It was why he was talking with her further on these matters at all right now, instead of shooing him out, or taking her elsewhere via portal to eat somewhere that Seb's Ford wasn't. (Blue didn't want to put up a perception barrier. He wanted to not be physically around that Ford as a preference; so if he needed to expend energy when this local Ford tried to 'peek' and pay attention to him anyway, instead of just leaving the room upon being caught out, Blue would spend it on a green portal long before he'd even consider putting up a perception field barrier instead.) "And I like spending time with you, too. I just thought-" Blue stopped there and didn't talk further… on that. "-That isn't what I meant when I said this isn't going to end well," he told her next, glancing over at the local Ford again.
Miz shrugged, looking over the barbecue. "Then what's the problem?"
"His behavior," Blue said, finishing divvying up all the food into relatively equal portions, in thirds across the containers, and then pushed two-thirds of those containers over towards her.
"...what's wrong with it?" Miz glanced back over at Ford, who was humming quietly to the tune.
"Like I told you before," Blue said to her. "He ISN'T ASKING enough QUESTIONS. Let alone the right ones. -Really, little sis," he said next, "What in the name of Chaos did you, or that other broken-Bill, DO to him, that he was following my every instruction blindly one step at a time?"
"...he was curious, mostly."
"'Curious' involves asking questions," Blue told her rather forcefully. "He asked absolutely NONE, of anyone there." Blue grimaced. "And none of the rest of them even so much as spoke up when I started ordering him around like a puppet," Blue muttered out next, as he sat down, before taking a bite of his food.
"Well, it's not that he doesn't have questions, he just doesn't ask. He probably didn't want to upset you." Miz pointed out. "Since he doesn't know what would set you off. I mean, you got upset at Dipper for asking you stuff." Miz sighed. "He doesn't want to start a fight with you."
"-I answered him, didn't I?" Blue said of that Mason. Even with that stupid ongoing 'joke' they all had going on, that even his own sister wasn't fessing up to. "There was no fight." Yet.
"You got upset." Miz frowned. "And…" She paused. "You're still upset."
"If I was 'UPSET'," Blue told her, "I would have murdered them just for daring to ask to begin with." He took another large BITE of his properly-prepared kosher meat, and chewed-chewed-chewed...
"Upset, not angry. Or maybe… you just feel… hurt, in some way? I'm not sure, but I'm a little worried."
Blue swallowed what he was finished chewing. "-I'm angry," Blue told her, "Because they're all just waiting for me to leave to be able to laugh behind my back allllllllll about it, thinking they're going to get away with that, later. And you are going along with it all, pretending." He gave her a very dark look, as he stabbed another forkful of meat up for consumption.
"Laugh about what?" Miz frowned, as her brother shoved that new forkful of food into his mouth. "About you being a triangle? Why would they laugh about that? They don't laugh at Seb for it, or me. They don't-" She huffed. "This isn't like your dimensional set. The people here don't… they don't care. They're not gonna look down on you for being a triangle. They haven't done that with me, and they won't to you."
"They don't laugh at you because you and Seb aren't 'triangles' that are 'math'," Blue told her. "You were never actually two-dimensional." And Blue stopped talking right there.
"Do you think they care about the difference?" Miz was trying hard to be patient. "Dipper thinks you're even cooler than Seb because you were math. That's the sort of thing people here, the Pines at least, think is amazing."
"You're contradicting yourself there already, o' little sister of mine," Blue told her next. "If he didn't care about the difference, then that Mason wouldn't think there's a difference-existent between me and Seb to make me 'cooler'. -They don't think I'm amazing; they think I can't keep my mouth shut like a 'civilized human being' at their dinner table while their children are around, if they just asked me to and then stopped talking to me during mealtimes. Or that I can't learn things without getting sprayed like a STUPID ANIMAL with water."
"I mean he doesn't care about the difference in terms of whether or not being math or not math makes you worth any more or less. And granny Kari sprays her own kids too. And you talking about stuff that they don't want the kids hearing goes for whenever the others are saying swears and stuff too."
"Then they should use the 'no' or the 'stop', like I told them to," Blue said, before shoving another piece of food and chewing angrily.
"Not everyone here gets that. The Stop and No being a thing they can ask of you. Things here have different definitions, and sometimes they change. Often times the can change depending on who you're talking to, or even how they're feeling at any particular moment." Miz was beginning to get a headache, trying to explain humans being humans and just being plain weird sometimes.
"I told Seb he could do that with me. I told Kari that I do that. You ALREADY know I will do that. I even used it as an example with your Zoe, while all of the rest of them were around and listening to what-all was going on that we were talking about." Blue looked immensely frustrated at this. (That he had a 'support structure' in place that nobody was using, and seemingly REFUSING to, for 'proper modern-human reactions', and then going about blaming him for it, expecting him to be 'better' instead of the demon-he-was, even though he felt he was already going above and beyond with how he was already trying to accommodate them all, all for his little sister's sake.)
"I don't think it's sunk in for them, how important 'stop' and 'no' are to you." Miz sighed. "They're… not very cautious…" She wracked her brain and finally said, straight out, "Your Set is a Drama with semi Dark Realism. This Set is a Slice of Life Comedy with Drama and angst elements. And some realism thrown in for the angst."
"My 'set is a Game, this 'set is a JOKE-that-isn't-funny," Blue stressed back instead, ripping another bite out of the meat on his fork. "And 'stop' and 'no' aren't important to ME," Blue corrected her, "They're important for humans. Supposedly. So says Stanley." And Stanley only insisted on that because of lines to not-cross and 'stop'ping before crossing them by 'listening' to others - as if he didn't understand how BOUNDARIES worked! Yeesh!
Blue slammed his fork down into the center of his kosher meat pile, not quite snarling. Then closed his eyes and did some deep breathing. -He wasn't done eating yet. He should finish eating. Testy. Logic errors were one thing that he'd eaten enough to stave off; losing his temper over all of this idiocy was another thing entirely.
"...so you're a little out of your depth here, huh?" Miz noted.
"-My 'depth' is FINE!" he snapped back at her immediately. "I know how to layer. -They're the ones who can't handle me. In case you hadn't noticed with that local Stanford Pines over there," Blue then pointed out, "I'm managing to handle being around fourteen Pines in attendance here," not counting his own little sister, "When I'm used to only having to manage four of them at one time. FOURTEEN. -They are the ones who are OUT OF THEIR 'DEPTH'! They can't even handle the two of us both being here at the same time, just us TWO." Blue pulled in a breath, managed to retain it (without ranting further on the subject) with significant effort, and glared down at the rest of his remaining food letting that breath out slowly.
"Yes." Miz nodded. "But they're still trying." She looked over at Ford. "He's very worried about you being here, but he's trying his best to go along with you, and the way you are, and when you ask things of him, he's trying, because he knows that I love you."
"And for all he should know about it, I might be playing you," Blue told her next promptly, looking up and over to her again. "If he cared about you at all, as a real 'friend' to you, he should be trying to tell if I'm a threat to you, the same way that I'm looking at him, to tell when he's going to go off the deep-end - when, and how badly," Blue informed his little sister, trying to warn her of what he knew was coming. "He's not thinking at all," Blue told her again, "And THAT is always-and-FOREVER the problem with Stanfords. They DON'T actually THINK THINGS THROUGH. EVER!" Which, to Blue's mind, should have been IMMEDIATELY apparent to her, the very moment that idiot had thought it a good idea to withhold those brussel sprouts from him not five minutes after meeting him! -Five minutes was NOT long enough to tell whether or not he'd be so inclined to immediately BURN THE WHOLE DIMENSION DOWN at the very-first sign of a slight or offense! Especially given what their own local broken-Bill Cipher had been like! Especially when it involved a CLAIM of 'THIS IS MINE!' -IDIOT!
"He trusts my judgement on you, I think." Miz laid down on the pool chair, feeling rather worn out with this back and forth.
"He should know how dangerous it can be to trust a 'Bill Cipher', just like I know how stupid Stanfords can be and are," Blue all but ground out at her right back. He shoved his food away, and pillowed his head in his arms on the table, feeling just as tired. (He didn't like this. He did not-like this. -Why couldn't his little sister just SEE that this local Ford…!)
"...can we just…" Miz bit her lip. "I don't want to argue with you." Sure, maybe it was too lenient for her human family to just… accept Blue so easily, but that was one of the things she loved about them. They were open and tried their best to accept the people that their loved ones loved. Stan was warming up to Phillip (even if he'd never admit it aloud) even!
"...yes..." came the agreeing reply, floating up from where Blue practically almost had his own head covered over with his arms on the table by this point. (Because really, they were both thinking along the same lines on at least this one particular point: neither of them wanted to keep arguing with the other on this at the moment.)
"Ford's trusting my judgement that you're good for me. Can't you trust my judgement that Fordsie's good for me?"
"Your judgment ran you afoul of several bad Deals with all of your friends, which I just got done helping you fix," Blue muttered out. And they'd involved not allowing her to think properly about the input she was receiving. Things like that took longer than just an Earth-day or two to 'settle out', in Blue's own experience.
But before Miz could complain at him that that's different! they've got nothing to do with how I think about Fordsie! Blue lifted his head up slightly and told her, "-You've never met any other Stanfords before aside from a bare handful. I know hundreds of dimensions of them, along with my own Sixer. You're asking me to ignore EVERYTHING I Know, when I can see this one here doing the same things with you that mine did with me before..." it all went oh so very wrong.
"I met yours, and the younger one. And there was another that I saw back when I first started exploring my Doors, and he was a bitch and a half-" Miz mumbled as she thought back on it. "But a few bad Fords isn't enough to make me cancel Ford. I don't even think you can cancel Ford…"
"Define: 'cancel'." Blue lowered his head back down onto the table. "You've never had one worship you like a god and then turn around and stab you in the back. -Or the front, but what's a little causality and misdirection among 'friends'," Blue told her succinctly.
"Fordsie doesn't worship me. And he's already gone through all that worship and then back stabbing with his own Bill. He's not… he understands that just because I'm a Bill, doesn't make me the same."
"He doesn't know about what I warned you he doesn't know about. His morals, once he finds out, are going to have him turning away from you, at best," Blue stressed out to her, under his breath.
"...Fordsie's morals aren't as firm as that Stanford." Miz muttered.
"If you're so sure of that, then bring him on over here, rip off those headphones, and we'll talk scenarios as a light appetizer while I cook up the magic mix I need to soak all this stupid junk within next," Blue told her, as he pushed himself back up into an upright seated position in his chair. He started pushing away empty food containers, and pulled out another two 'fold'ed white triangles.
"...can we at least finish the bracelets before we do that? So we can actually get some work done before the two of you start an argument?"
"Only if you want to have me staying another day to talk to him in the morning, after finishing this off and giving this all out to Seb and your little siblings tonight," Blue told her next. "Talking with him will have to be concurrent, not consecutive, for that timing and time-frame. I can't speed up this part of the process without risking the integrity of the things," Blue informed her. "Some things, it's better to just not try and 'clone', or anything else to reproduce 'synthetically'. Unicorn hair is one of those things." Mainly, because of the magical energy involved. Blue could technically clone them using Miz's method, but the magic itself that was inherently a part of them? He generally didn't try to carry over the magical energy of things he was using her cloning method for. He hadn't run enough testing to find a way to make sure that there weren't going to be any hiccups in that part of that, and that it would really come out the same. (The few times that he'd tried that before, it just hadn't worked. Like with that 'bottomless alcohol' bottle she'd made, and then left behind for him to look over and use.)
"...time stop bubble around the two of us. We finish the bracelets, with me learning how you do it, then you and Ford can start sniping at each other." Miz suggested.
"I don't want to snipe at him," Blue complained out at her, "And if it's magic you want to use for making that bubble, it'll cause interference," Blue stressed to her, pulling out all the gold coins he had, and dumping them into the small pot. "If it's science…" Blue shook his head. "I'm still not done mentally going through and reviewing what I saw for all the structures for that in this dimension. That still needs further checking. -Don't rush me," he told her. "This will get done tonight."
"Then I'll just watch you make a few and then I can make the rest while you talk to him?"
Blue reached into the bag and dumped thirty-seven silver-cored unicorn-hair-rope bracelets down onto the table, each long enough to make a good necklace (if it came to that). (Blue understood stealth, and he understood the appropriate placement of things; worst-come-to-worst, being able to wear one of these not just as a bracelet, but as a necklace instead that was less likely to snag on one's own hands or wrists, or wrapping it around a shoulder or thigh instead to keep it well out of the way and dually-hidden, was something he wanted to enable for them.)
"All the weaving is done," Blue told her. "And it will be MUCH faster to do this all in one batch, rather than two. -If you think that it would be better for me to talk to this local Stanford without you, I can leave you to watching the pot while we do it. If you can hold yourself to letting it go at the rates that I'm talking about, and NOT try to artificially speed anything up." He eyed her at this.
"...fine." Miz pouted. "I'll be patient."
"You can look at the weave of them now, before the process begins, as well as Eye'ing them during and after," Blue told her. (Their All-Seeing Eyes were both 'passive'-sensing and non-magical; using that to gather information during the process shouldn't cause any issues.) "Next is melting the gold," Blee waved a hand over the stainless-steel pot, and it did so in a flash of carefully-controlled heat, "And adding the crushed moonstones." Blue picked up a handful of moonstones from the last bag he'd un'fold'ed, and powdered them in his hands before letting them all fall into the mixture like sand. "It's about 1-to-1 by volume," he told her, as he did the same with another full handful. "Stirring next," Blue said, pulling out the stick from his bag and using it for that purpose now next, and watching as the whole thing went a bit more pearlescent. "Heat it a bit further..." he did so, using flames from outside the pot this time…
"...And you'll need to hold it there, at that current internal temperature of the mixture there, for twenty minutes," he told her next. "You need to heat it from the outside, NOT the inside - it's important to keep any more spells separated from the gold mixture by some other metal, at this point. Understand?" Blue got a nod from her. "Good. -From here, I'll need you to watch the flames, keep it at that temperature with no more than a quarter-degree variation in degrees-Fahrenheit, and once it hits all the twenty-minute mark, kill the flames and toss all of those woven things in. Use the stick again to stir it continuously counter-clockwise for five minutes - no faster than one full rotation in one second, no slower than one full rotation in three - then use that same stick to grab each of them out of there by their loops, setting them out on the table to cool." They shouldn't melt or otherwise try to combine-with the tabletop; it was fine. "Anything you don't pull out within three minutes after you stop stirring is going to be useless, so if that happens just leave it in there as waste," Blue told her next. "The mixture should be soaked up completely by them all, so it shouldn't be too hard to see them to grab them."
"Do I need to wear gloves or anything?" Miz questioned. Not that she'd get hurt by touching the stuff, at least, she didn't think so.
"If you want to," Blue said. "Any gloves made of material that is magically neutral are fine. Best not to dip your hands inside the bowl when you're doing the stirring, or removing the woven pieces at the end, because of the bubble of magical residue energy still down in the bottom of the pot - that's what the wood stick is for."
"Okaaay~" Miz leaned closer to watch the mixture. "It's pretty."
"Mm." Blue didn't really make determinations of 'pretty' himself. But his sister seemed to find many things 'pretty' (including him).
Blue stood up from the table then, and walked over to Seb's Ford. He came up behind his back, stopped, lifted his hands to the sides of Ford's head, and hooked his fingers into the headphones ar the earpads, then pulled and lifted the headphones away from the sides of the local Ford's head.
Ford jumped, hand on his chest. "Really? You could have gotten my attention another way!"
"Yeesh. How is THAT alarming to you?" Blue said, as he walked past him, "Jumpy-jumpy." Blue casually tossed the headphones into the scientist's lap along the way. He folded himself down into a nearby pool chair in front of Ford (one of the normal upright non-reclining ones).
"I'm uncomfortable with people touching me or my accessories without forewarning," Ford explained. "Also, I was in the middle of a rather nice song."
"That wasn't your 'accesso-'" Blue frowned then waved it off as he situated himself in the chair. "-Fine. Put it back on and finish it, if you want." But Ford just fiddled with the thing until it paused. Then he turned to give Blue his attention. "What did you need?" Ford asked.
Blue blinked at him slowly. "What do I need?" Blue echoed.
"Well you came to get my attention." Ford blinked. "I assumed you wanted something from me."
"Wants and needs are not always the same," Blue told him. "Especially when it comes to humans."
"Then what did you want or need from me?" Ford asked instead.
Blue worked his jaw like he was about to say something, then stopped for a moment. Then Blue said: "I want you to stop lying, and start asking more questions and actually thinking."
Ford raised an eyebrow. "Well, I was told off for being rude when I continuously asked questions to other people. And I wasn't sure what your level of comfort for my inquisitiveness would be. I know Miz doesn't mind when I ask her all sorts of things, but I wasn't sure about you."
"'Level of comfort'," Blue muttered, rolling his eyes. He leaned back in his chair. "'Comfort' is a non-issue. If I don't want to answer something, I'll damn well tell you so. I have my own agency. -You didn't think of asking me what I think about you asking questions of me. You didn't even think about asking Miz if it was a 'good' idea for you to ask me 'if it was okay', or to have her ask me for you, did you."
"Well, wouldn't that have been rude?" Ford blinked. "I confess, I am still learning about this sort of thing. What's considered rude or not. I'm told I don't have a good grasp on social interactions."
"Asking questions isn't RUDE as long as you're actually wanting to know the information you're requesting!" Blue told him, sounding exasperated (and barely holding back the severe annoyance). "And not just circling around some stupid other things that you aren't saying instead - which is a waste of my time, just get to the point of things already." The pupils of Blue's eyes went cat's-eye narrow on him. "If you STILL don't have 'a good grasp on social interactions'," Blue continued, "Then read a book on the subject. Or twelve. There are books for that, you know. And videos-online. And training. And practicing. -How have you not-learned this from your own family before this?! Even my Sixer is-" Blue forcibly stopped himself there.
Ford flushed. "I confess, I spent most of my young adult life ignoring my family. I refused to call or write to them, didn't even keep in contact at all."
"-And you're practically trying to excommunicate yourself from them now," Blue told him pointedly next. "I don't even have to try and See anything to know that. -Your 'house' is in the 'Falls; Seb's spawn don't know the woods, so they don't live there or anywhere-nearby; this Stanley obviously lives here. And you can't possibly be spending that much time around Kari," or she would have set him straight before now, being a 'mom' now, "So she's still living in New Jersey, yes?"
"Yes, Miz has been urging me to stay in touch with everyone. I'm still working on that." Ford shrugged. "That's actually why we were going to be spending this whole summer together. And, Ma's living here in New York as well, in an apartment in this building. Though Stan wants her to move in with him, he's worried about her age and whether she'll be safe living on her own."
"Then she's living almost-here." Blue resisted the urge to grit his teeth at this. (Stupid Stanley not wanting him to Look up things about people, making him look like an idiot for not already-knowing these things.) And, really? Kari moving in with this local Stanley, instead of-?! Yeesh. -How inefficient! "And no," Blue told the local Ford next, "You aren't 'working on that', because you aren't thinking!" Blue told him. "Did you ever talk to my little sister about how you could see them more often?" he asked the local Ford next, sidestepping the issues of where Kari was and could be living for now (because THAT was a topic for discussing with Kari-later, not this local Ford right-now). "Do you want to be able to work in the 'Falls during the day, and then spend the nights eating dinner with the rest of your family and doing other things with them elsewhere? Can you even 'visualize' what that would be like, to decide whether you want it or not?"
"I suppose she is capable of teleporting me and the others around," Ford admitted. "But I like having my space. Sometimes, I'm not mentally able to handle being around other people. I need my own time for myself, sometimes. To destress."
"Do you have a working portal, or don't you?" Blue said to him outright.
"No. It was destroyed and I don't plan to rebuild it."
"Did you ever consider that it would be easier to make one of those that moves you between two points in the exact same dimension?" Blue asked of him next, sounding a bit irritated at this point.
"Teleporters, you mean." Ford leaned back in his chair. "Well, yes. But that isn't what my points of research are at the moment. I might consider that later on down the line."
Blue closed his eyes, pulled in a breath, and he let it out slowly.
"You aren't hearing me. Of course you're not hearing me," Blue then muttered, scrubbing a hand through his own hair before dropping the hand and looking up at Ford again. "YOU are NOT being 'honest' with yourself about WHAT YOU WANT, and what you don't-want," Blue said to him next. "So much so that you aren't even thinking about it. -You know Miz knows at least one method for moving you between different places. Do you think she doesn't know several-more?" Blue asked of him. "If you asked her how to do a thing, when she is answering all of your questions, do you think she wouldn't tell you how to do it, so you could Delegate that work to someone else, to make that thing for you to use?" Blue stared at him without expression on his face. "Were you not paying attention to what I've been doing the last few days, that Miz is perfectly capable of Looking at, Seeing how it works - recognizing it really, in this case - and reproducing then for your use, if you ever thought to ask it of her, to potentially get a 'yes' or a 'no'? -If you had a 'gun' that fired off green portals for you, right now, that you could use like walking into the next room WHENEVER YOU WANTED," Blue told him, "Would that NOT cover BOTH your 'supposed' concerns about ;being able to have more time with the rest of them'," Blue gestured back towards the dining room area, "AND also giving yourself as much 'time-alone space' as you want, as far away from them as you want, whenever you want it? -And THEN the question becomes, as it always was BEFORE the whole point of this, 'do you ACTUALLY WANT to spend any time around them?' and 'how much?' -You aren't even thinking about it right now, not really, now are you?" Blue demanded of him next.
Ford didn't respond immediately. He just… considered Blue for a while. "You really feel strongly about this?" he asked instead.
"-That is only ONE recent example of the deficiencies in your own current thought processes," Blue rattled off at him. "What I 'feel strongly' about is what I already TOLD you. You aren't thinking about things AT ALL," Blue repeated to him, "Let alone thinking things through, which can only come later. Which means you're NOT being 'honest' with yourself. Which means you're LYING to yourself. -Which means you are lying to me and my little sister with every breath that you take! And you wonder and marvel at 'why I don't like you'," Blue told him in disgust, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Ah, I think I see why now." Ford nodded. "Well, there was a time where I thought through everything. Too much, in fact. It stressed me out a lot." He paused to reorganize his thoughts. "I do want to make the effort to see my family more often. But I don't know how much or little I want to, yet. And while I could ask Miz to tell me the methods of building whatever it is that I wanted from her, that isn't the point." Ford frowned. "I want to figure it out myself. Miz helps me when I get stuck on something, but I like to work through as much of it on my own as I can. It's more… satisfying that way." He glanced over at Miz, who was staring at the braided unicorn hair, turning it this way and that to see all the little details. "I like spending time with her. Asking for all the answers right away would mean less time with her. Since I'd be done with my work, and feel as if I didn't actually do the work myself, since Miz would have been the one to tell me how to do it."
"You aren't prioritizing the right things," Blue told him. "Her handing you a thing to use if you trust her, to use in the meantime, to get what you want in the meantime without having to wait until 'you're ready to put everything else aside to work on it' DOESN'T mean 'being done with your work'. You can 'figure it all out yourself' right now by using it to help you figure it out! -You don't build every car and airplane that you use for transportation, do you?" Blue said to him next in irritation. "You can use it for now, and learn how every last aspect of the device works all-together later." If this local Ford trusted her to do it, ha. And "If you care about 'visiting your family more often' more than 'learning about this before I use it first'. -You can think of using such a portal gun as extended schooling," Blue rolled his eyes, "Where you don't have to build the schoolbus or make your own shoes before you can actually get yourself to the building and walk your way inside. -You're all out of order," Blue told him, his pupils going cat's-eye slitted on Ford again. "And 'making excuses' for not-asking things. -Why."
Ford sighed. "I don't know what sort of answer you want from me. I just…" He rubbed his head. "I spent most of my life hating myself and my brother. I spent my life trying to achieve bigger and greater things, out of some sense of wanting to be better than everyone else, so that I wasn't just some disappointment." He grimaced. "And I'm working to move past that. So I don't entirely know what I want to do with my life now. I still want to make a difference in the world, I still want to do good for people. But I'm not…" He struggled to find a way to put it. "It's not my only purpose in life now. Not anymore. And I'm still coming to terms with who I am and what it is that I actually want." He shook his head. "And all that I do know, for now, is that I like to take the days as they come, and see what happens. Try not to stress out or have a breakdown. The simple things."
Miz smiled fondly, much to Blue's eye roll.
"I TOLD YOU." Blue looked a little exasperated. "I want 'honest' answers from you. That requires thought and not lying to yourself from you. And 'taking the days as they come and seeing what happens' IS the exact opposite of looking ahead. At least you're being consistent in your idiocy," he muttered, rubbing the side of his palm back and forth across his temple, as the side of his head. "Has it occurred to you that being around your family more might lead to less stress, if you let them do your future-thinking for you?" Blue sounded a bit disgusted at the idea of this overall, but not quite the same disgusted as before.
"...perhaps." Ford pouted. "But Ma wants me to settle down and have children." He shook his head. "Which becomes a stress on itself. And I don't think I'm in a state to be able to do at the moment." Or ever, the thought of having kids and possibly a wife or husband was so… foreign...
Blue blinked at him for a moment.
"You only spent thirteen years on the other side of that portal, in other dimensions," Blue said slowwly.
"...yes?" Ford blinked back.
"...And Seb's Stanley was there with you." Blue looked exasperated, and a little like he was getting a headache. "You didn't have to really TALK to people or pay attention to anything at all, did you," Blue said in descending tones.
"...yes? Stanley was in charge of socializing. I kept getting us shot at. He told me to stop doing that." Ford blushed.
The demon suddenly looked like he wanted to absolutely murder-
"-That STUPID DERANGED LIZARD," Blue thundered out, looking absolutely irate. He shoved himself back in his chair for a moment, seemed to be mentally struggling with something, then kicked his feet up and turned himself sideways in the chair, seeming to hunker down further in place as he not-quite tucked his head over the thin plastic armrest, tensing. Then the demon scrubbed both his hands through his hair, up and over the top of his head, over and over again, several times. ...Until Blue seemed so exasperated and angry at something that he seemingly gave up for the moment, letting his arms dangle back over the armrest, back behind his head, to glare up at the ceiling, clearly seething over something. (...about what Ford had just said?)
"...are you alright?" Ford asked, mildly concerned.
"Am I 'okay'." Blue scrubbed his hands through his hair again, closing his eyes as he did this. "-You didn't LEARN a DAMN THING."
"...I'm sorry?"
"Miz?" Blue called out to his sister, dropping his arms over his eyes at this point, only leaving his mouth free and uncovered. "Explain this to him, before I have to SMACK HIM all UPSIDE THE HEAD SEVERAL TIMES IN A ROW. Because THAT'S going to be what I have to do to him if I do it MYSELF."
Miz blinked slowly and then looked over at Ford. "...what do I need to explain to him?"
"All of the 'relationship'-things that don't involve 'wanting sexual intercourse', 'wanting children', or 'wanting' to 'settle down' with 'marriage', as a start," Blue told her. "ALL OF THEM. -Or at least the first few broad strokes of it, I don't care all that much about it," Blue ended in a mutter.
"Oh." Miz laughed. "Fordsie's asexual. He knows this."
"Then WHY is he LYING by ACTING like he DOESN'T?" Blue called out again, still not opening his eyes or removing his arms from covering his eyes and most of his head.
Ford sighed. "Okay, you asked me what my family wanted to 'future plan' for me. And Ma wants more grandkids. And has expressed a worry that I'm not giving her any." He rubbed his face.
Blue pulled his arms down to his lap and turned his head on his neck to look over at the local Ford. "Then WHY haven't you TOLD her about the asexuality?" Blue said to him next. "Do you think that she's STUPID? She understands Zach perfectly well," he told Ford, eyes narrowing.
"...yes. I told her. And for the most part she understands, but it doesn't stop her from wishing otherwise." Ford grumbled. "She even said I could adopt someday."
"Tell her to stop REJECTING you and your CHOICES, or you'll stop TALKING to her. And then actually stop talking to her until she stops." Blue had seen how this worked with humans; how to make it all work. "Either she's a 'mom', or she isn't. Yes?"
Ford gave Miz a helpless look. She shrugged. Ford turned back to Blue. "It's fine. I know she wouldn't force me to."
"STOP LYING," Blue told him. "It's NOT fine if you're complaining to ME, a 'Bill Cipher', about it, now is it?"
"...I suppose you're right." Ford actually chuckled. "I just… well." He rubbed his face which was heating up lightly. "I have...tried the 'romantic relationship' before and it didn't really work out?" He looked at Miz, who grinned slightly. Oh~ She didn't know that~
"I guess I'm not really experienced enough to know how to make it work." Ford looked away, off to the doorway leading to the rest of the apartment. "But I don't want her to be worried or upset with me…" He wasn't even sure anymore if his mother's persistence was just a joke or she REALLY was trying to make him do something about it.
"With the ways things currently are set up in this stupid 'set," Blue began ponderously, "You can't MAKE someone-else who is not-you 'not worried' or 'not upset' without BARGING INTO their skull and FORCING something on them that alters their physical-brain-chemistry for them - or-equivalent - and even IF you wanted to do that, that's just A MESS," Blue noted, narrowing his eyes at him again. "If she is a 'mom' instead of a 'mother', then she should want you to be happy, also. -Tell her what she is doing that is making you not-happy, so that your 'mom' - who wants you to not be not-happy - will stop doing the making-you-not-happy things to you. Because then she will know what she is doing that is making you feel not-happy, and not-do them anymore, because you told her that they are making you unhappy," Blue told him, sounding irritated as all get-out over this. (Possibly because…) "I should NOT have to explain how verbal communication works to you."
Ford winced. "I'm… a little too afraid to outright tell her. Seriously tell her…"
"Then you're not being 'honest' with HER, and if you can't do that with HER, who you 'know' cares about you, you aren't going to be able to do it with my little sister, either," Blue said next, gesturing to his little sister, then dropping a hand and sending Miz a 'see what I mean?' look.
Ford looked away and frowned, fiddling with his fingers. Well, he was AWARE he needed to learn this, he was working on it.
"Which is the PROBLEM here WITH YOU," Blue said to him, sitting a bit more upright. "I don't trust you with my little sister, because you - ONE - are NOT 'honest' with yourself - TWO - do NOT think things through to have any 'HOPE' of correcting this problem - THREE - are LYING to OTHER PEOPLE ALSO when you are lying to YOURSELF - FOUR - are NOT asking enough questions to think of WHEN you might want-or-need to think things through, to have ANY 'hope' of correcting THAT problem. Also: FIVE - you don't communicate with other people enough, who you trust enough to tell you when you are not thinking enough or questioning enough or not being honest with yourself or with other, which means external correction or adjustment is completely OUT, also." Blue looked ANYTHING but happy with him now. "NOW. Tell me: what was the source of your problem with the local Bill as you see it, and what did that lead to?" Blue said almost leadingly. "Because as far as I see it, YOU haven't learned A DAMN THING! -And you wonder why I don't like you, and don't want another Bill Cipher - my sister - anywhere at all around you." Blue let out a huff of breath.
"...So I just… have to be more honest…" Ford sighed. That was going to be hard. He barely understood himself.
"AS A START," Blue said. "Which requires that you think more. And communicate more. -Which includes asking more questions," Blue reiterated to him. "-What was the source of your problem with the local Bill as you see it, and what did that lead to?" Blue repeated once again.
"Well… he wanted to tear my dimension apart until it destabilized and killed every living person here… amongst other things." Ford deadpanned. "I had an issue with that."
"And what does that have to do with YOU?" Blue said to him next.
Ford stared at Blue incredulously. "I…. live here."
"You live here currently." (And that was-not and could-not-be the base problem there, to Blue's way of thinking, or this local Ford would've stopped trying to kill the local broken-Bill once he'd been in another dimension with Seb's Stanley - thus, not living in the dimension he thought Bill was planning on tearing apart anymore.) Blue rolled his eyes again. "-Tell me: how exactly did he plan on getting in here?"
"He wanted my portal- his portal- so he could materialize physically into this dimension. Since he needed that to be able to affect the physical world."
"And why were you building a portal in the first place?"
"Because he told me it was going to change the world- and yes, I DO realize that he wasn't technically lying about that part- but I just…"
"-You realize what he wanted now," Blue noted, crossing his arms. "Why did you believe otherwise about him in the first place?"
"Because I was lonely and he made me feel special!" Ford finally hissed out at the demon. And he didn't really want to talk about this, heck, he didn't want to admit that to himself- but this was a hurdle he had to get over, and possibly tell Ashton about, later.
"And when did you stop believing him? Believing what he told you, in the way that you first thought that he'd meant it? When do you think he started lying to you?" Blue said next, in exactly the same tone as the last several questions that he'd been asking him.
"...I…" Ford thought back. "I… was…" He lowered his head to rest in his hands. "I should have noticed earlier. He always told me that everything wrong in my life was Sebastian's fault… I should have known…" He shook his head, breathing deeply. "Fiddleford told me many times, but I didn't believe him, thought he was just being overly religious or something…"
Blue frowned slightly, just a little sidetracked for the moment upon hearing the last part of this. "The local Glasses knew about the local Bill? That you were talking with him?" He wanted to confirm he was understanding this point accurately, first.
"Not exactly, but he's not stupid, he knew there was someone I was talking to."
Blue gave him a long look. "So. A communication failure, between you and Glasses, and you and that local Bill. -And potentially-also you and Seb, I didn't look that far back." Blue eyed him. "Do you know why you did not notice earlier?" (Blue had his doubts that this local Ford was even that self-aware of his own failings on THAT point at all, given how little he'd apparently been talking with ANYONE who could've helped at expanding his own Mind, thoughts, and consciousness further. Blue would have to hear otherwise straight from this local Ford at this point, to ever consider believing otherwise. -Which was why Blue had asked him that exact question directly.)
"Because I wanted to believe him. Believe what he told me. It was… comforting, to think that there was a reason for what I went through. That I didn't deserve to be treated the way I was. That I was better than everyone else." Ford almost felt like he was talking with Ashton right now. (Which was weird.) And... that actually made it easier, because he had gone through this with him already.
"Well, THAT'S a whole series of logical fallacies right there," Blue muttered out (before he got back to his 'Socratic' teaching method - like that guy was the one who'd come up with it first? HA!) "Do you know why you thought all those things? And do you still think them now?" Blue had exploited them in his own Sixer at the time; if this local Ford could still be exploited in this same way, that would also be dangerous to Miz - for several reasons, and in several ways, Blue knew.
"I know why. My father…" He looked up at Miz and took courage to just deal with Blue's neverending questions. "My father abused Sebastian growing up. He called him a freak, which I won't go into a debate with you about. It was used as an insult, to tell Sebastian that he was not normal. And my father told me I couldn't be a freak as well, heavily implying that if I was then I would be treated just like Sebastian was...I took to comparing myself with my brother, I despised the way he was as I grew older and Filbrick's words started sinking in. I know Filbrick was wrong now, I got help and I need to work even more on it, to stop thinking that completely." Ford told him.
"When did you know Filbrick's words were wrong, and why?" Blue asked him next.
"A few years ago. I mean, consciously knowing he was a dick. After I started therapy." Ford winced.
"Why did you start therapy?" Blue queried him, in the very same way.
"...because I nearly killed Zach, when he was a baby. I was completely paranoid again, anxious and he had this… weirdness gene, even more so than Seb…" He shook his head. "I was stupid, and thought he was Bill…" Ford didn't want to admit it, he still hated himself for what he'd almost done. But it was what really made him realize he had to change himself, so that something like that would never happen again. Now he would do anything for his niblings, he was even more careful with them.
Blue damn near jumped to his feet at first hearing that, but he forcibly controlled himself there. (With an effort. A large effort was made, and made successfully…)
"I know what I did was wrong. And it made me realize I couldn't just… keep being the way I was. I had to change. I had to stop over-thinking things and getting stressed out." Ford told Blue firmly. "Because I didn't want to hurt the people around me anymore."
"Why don't you want to hurt the people around you?" was Blue's next question, perfectly straight-faced, just like most of the rest.
"Because I love them!" Ford heaved out. "My family- my niblings-" He rubbed his head. "I wasn't in a good state. I was going to lose them- if I had kept going as I did…"
"Why weren't you 'in a good state'?" Blue said next, leaning back slightly in his chair.
"Because I was sleep deprived from nightmares, because I hadn't gotten any better- I was messed up from what Bill did to me. And then Stan left and Sebastian left- and it was my fault. I wasn't…" Ford took in a shuddering breath.
Blue looked to the side for a minute and scrubbed a hand through his own hair.
"...And now you're about to start going around in circles again." Blue frowned, then looked back at him. The demon straightened up in his chair. "-Are you hearing yourself when you talk? Because I'm starting to think that you're so bad at 'social interactions', that you don't even know how to have a conversation with yourself," Blue said to him next. "Should I DEMONSTRATE?"
Ford actually laughed at that, only somewhat bitterly. "You might be right. I don't even understand myself half the time. It's something I'm working on."
Miz looked over at Blue, but the older demon just waved her off without even looking at her. "It's fine. I know how to break them down properly. That requires knowing how they're built-up."
"I kinda… don't want him broken." Miz pointed out.
"I noticed," Blue said dryly, flicking his eyes over to her for a moment. "I could have done that easily twenty questions ago. He'd fall over like a stiff breeze." He turned back to Ford. "'Stop' and 'no' are a thing. Use them if you need them," Blue said, huffing out a breath at him. "Now-"
Blue raised a hand up and snapped his fingers together.
"Well… he wanted to tear my dimension apart until it destabilized and killed every living person here… amongst other things. I had an issue with that. … I…. live here." Ford's voice echoed out into the air from nowhere, as a perfect played-back recording.
And in a slightly-lower tone of voice than he usually talked, Blue then said, "...So do my family, who I care about, and don't want to get hurt. I can't just leave and save only myself using this portal. I can't just grab them all and leave here, either. Because..." Blue trailed off looking at him.
Ford stared at Blue. "Well, yes. I can't just leave everyone else here. That would be wrong. It would mean just giving up and…"
"...I have to do something about this, because this feels like my fault. Because…"
"Well, yes. It WAS my fault… because I built the portal. Because I was stupid enough to build it-"
"...and I am absolutely responsible for another demon's actions and wants, and had no chance of being able to convince that demon otherwise at all…" (Blue barely held back the eyeroll at the level of double-think thinking those two things at the same time would involve.)
"I…" Ford paused. "I asked him to stop. I asked him to stop hurting me or hurting S-Seb-" Ford's expression went gray at the memory of what Sebstian had gone through.
"...and I am absolutely responsible for another demon's actions and wants, even when I let my own wants and needs be known, and they are ignored completely… why, exactly? And then I remember that..."
"I… I should have stopped him. I should have done something!" Ford breathed. "I'm the oldest brother, it- it should have been my job to protect them-"
(Blue not-quite gritted his teeth, as he said almost breezily, continuing to speak in that lower tone of voice, with a cadence just a smidge like a Ford.) "...and of course I was able to stop him and just decided I wouldn't, because it was too much trouble…"
"That's not how it-" Ford's hands shook. Miz looked worried but Ford shook his head at her. No, he wasn't going to break down here, he… he could do this.
"...oh, that's right," Blue said next in those lower tones. "I forgot. I had no control over the outcome of that situation at all. I'm not Bill Cipher. I can't decide anything differently for some other demon, because…"
"...because I wasn't good enough. I wasn't strong enough- Sebastian protected me- Stanley- they were both always…"
"...and of course Sebastian was able to stop him IMMEDIATELY and just decided he wouldn't, because it was too much trouble…" (Blue barely suppressed the eye-roll there.)
"Sebastian offered himself up as a sacrifice- to take down Bill-" At this point, Miz had walked over and Ford was holding her hand, drawing comfort in her presence beside him. The strength to keep going.
"...because he couldn't do anything to stop him immediately, either, and he even had all that practice at protecting other people that I didn't have, to know how to do it in the first place." Blue said to Ford, in his not-quite Ford voice. "He had no control over the outcome of that situation at all, either. He's wasn't that Bill Cipher. He couldn't decide anything differently for some other demon, because…"
"It…" Ford struggled.
"...wasn't his fault some other demon decided to hurt him. Was it?..."
"...no," Ford breathed out. "It wasn't Sebastian's fault- It…"
"...so was it my fault some other demon decided to hurt me, too?..."
"I…" Ford blinked. Then he seemed to slump in place, leaning over onto Miz, who whined a little ("Fordsie! You heavy ass!"), "...it wasn't… my fault?"
"DING! DING! DING! -Give the human a prize," Blue said in his normal tone of voice, straightening in place. "The demon had its own agency! It wasn't some stupid puppet you owned and were controlling your own damn self; it was deciding things for itself. Yes?"
"Yes…" Ford frowned. "But shouldn't some of the fault lie in me for helping him, unknowingly?" Though he didn't seem like he was asking for real, just… for clarity. Miz pushed at his face, "Fordsie! Get off~!" She whined. Ford adjusted his position so he wasn't squishing her anymore.
Blue rolled his eyes, and snapped his fingers again.
"Why did you believe otherwise about him in the first place?" came Blue's voice. Then Ford's voice: "Because I was lonely and he made me feel special!"
"...and I was lonely because I was living out in the woods all alone by myself and actively avoiding talking or communicating with anyone on a regular basis, who might possibly make me feel special in any way, or not lonely at any point. Because…" Blue said to him in those lower-tones again, giving him a long look.
"Well, yes. That part was on me." Ford sighed. "Because I was…" Here, Ford blushed. "I was being a bratty little bitch." he admitted. Miz giggled.
"...so maybe I should think about not being a 'bratty little bitch' anymore, since it seems to get me into a lot of trouble with people who I can't control, and leaves me feeling quite lonely and open to easy exploitation by others who have their own wants that do not necessarily completely coincide with my own..." Blue paused, then said in his more usual tones: "Yes?" Ford nodded.
Then Blue raised an eyebrow, and snapped his fingers again. "And when did you stop believing him? Believing what he told you, in the way that you first thought that he'd meant it? When do you think he started lying to you?" Then Ford's voice: "...I should have noticed earlier."
"...so that makes it all my fault that I didn't know what the demon was doing. Because clearly I am the real Master of the Mind around here, able to read Minds while knowing everything there is to know about everything, and I should have 'just known' exactly what he wanted to do without asking. Because I am also quite excellent at interpersonal communication with other humans, so much so that I'm even able to converse with all sorts of species of aliens without any problems whatsoever, as I know very well from my own portal travels abroad…" Blue said in those low-tones quite smoothly.
"...I suppose not. I was rather naive." Ford nodded.
"...and because I am naive and I know it, I asked a very large number of questions to make sure that I really understood what was going on between me and with him. But every time I asked him about that, he just lied to me over and over again…"
"...that did tend to happen, yes. He always redirected my questions and concerns, distracting me with something else." Ford ran a thumb along Miz's palm, where he was still holding her.
"...and not only was that a warning sign that I ignored, but because I am a 'bratty little bitch' who lives all alone and doesn't talk with anyone, I had all sorts of people that I was asking for a second opinion on all this, every time I felt unsure about all of this interpersonal communication and 'social interaction' stuff that I know I'm not very good at, with an alien who I didn't really know all that much about, because I wanted to try and get better at talking with him. I also thought it was a great idea to just stop asking questions completely when I wasn't getting them answered in a way I understood, because…" (Blue said it in neutral tones, but his eyes were glinting a bit.)
"You don't have to be so sarcastic about it, I made a lot of poor decisions." Ford didn't sound upset, just a little put off, pouting in fact.
Blue eyed him blandly, lowering his hand again finally. "-And all of these VERY 'poor decisions' involve you not talking with your family enough for them to give you advice and also stop you from feeling 'lonely' and not-'special'; you not asking enough questions of the people you trust and the people you are talking to who are making you feel unsure about things; and you not thinking that either of those two things is an option, or something that you might want, when you clearly absolutely need it. Because wants and needs are sometimes different, especially when it comes to humans. -All of which I told you earlier, but apparently you needed the example to go along with it." Blue gave him a look, as he raised his hand one more time, and snapped his fingers again.
"But shouldn't some of the fault lie in me for helping him, unknowingly?" Ford's voice rang out again from the air, as if it was still coming from an imaginary speaker.
"WELL!" Blue told the local Ford, in the demon's own usual tones, as he sat back leisurely in his chair. "If you keep making the same stupid mistakes again, after knowing what went wrong - which you know now, because I JUST TOLD YOU" in the human's own voice almost, even! "- then it's DEFINITELY your fault the next time it happens, for not learning your lesson the FIRST TIME 'around the block', on THIS one! -And as for the first one? WELL." Blue gave him a cat-eye slitted look. "If my Sixer tried to take any of the credit for all MY hard work into tricking him into doing what I planned to have him do, in order for me to get myself out of there, HA! -Might have to set him straight on THAT one."
And Blue tilted his head at him, propping his head up on a fist while giving Seb's Ford a very amused (and also annoyed) look, almost like he DARED this Ford to contest that.
"In summary~ Not your fault, like I always tell you~ But don't be a dummy next time and trust your family!" Miz hugged his arm tightly. Blue twitched a bit at this. (His sister still didn't understand yet, did she? Even with the example all-worked-out, right in front of her!)
"-And I am not wanting you around my little sister, for a reason," Blue said to him next (and also for his little sister's own benefit). "Several reasons, really. -Because it's clear to ME that YOU clearly haven't learned your lesson yet, and will then be a 'dummy' a second time around - this time with my little sister - and then I will have to MURDER you for her, which will be annoying. One: because Miz's new 'mom' and 'brother' and two new 'little siblings' seem to actually like you, and two: because she will possibly end up crying about it for awhile, no matter how it all turns out." (Seb, Blue didn't consider an issue, because Seb couldn't get out of his own 'set on his own without Miz's help in doing so, which Miz would not and should not be inclined to give him at that point, if Seb had a problem with this Ford needing to die for wanting to murder Miz first. Also, Seb was practically a sitting-duck at-present, with too many hostages to go around. Hence the bracelets Blue was working on, that should help mitigate that when it came to his little sister needing them-all protected against outside enemies-and-forces, in the first place.) "Understand?"
"Ah." Ford nodded. "I see." He sighed. "Well, I shall endeavor to be less of a dummy."
'Endeavor.' Blue rolled his eyes at the half-baked, not-even-a-promise from this local Stanford Pines. "And ask more questions. -And what would have happened if you'd done that with the local Bill Cipher? Asked more-and-better questions of him?" he asked of this Ford leadingly.
"He probably would have grown tired of me and either played his hand sooner, or left me to find someone else to screw over. Possibly go after Stanley or Sebastian instead…"
"-aaaaand let's just TABLE THAT little gem for a moment and move on to a different, but also-related question." Blue looked Seb's Ford straight in the eye as he moved on to the next piece of the main issue he had with this local Ford at present, as Blue saw it. "Out of everything you know now about the local Bill, list everything that you don't like about him. -GO."
"He hurt me, he hurt Seb, he wanted to kill everyone in the dimension once he collapsed it all-" (Blue twitched at the last of these.) "-He has no-" Ford paused, rethought and then continued, "He didn't care that we didn't want what he wanted to do to us. He didn't care that we didn't want to be killed, or tortured-" Miz spoke up as well, "Also, a bunch of people died in Gravity Falls during his Weirdmageddon." (Blue twitched slightly at this, too.) Ford stared. "Wait- really?"
"He destroyed a hospital, with people still inside," Miz pointed out. She'd Seen it, when she'd Looked for what had happened here. "And let his demons go hog wild through the town with no care to stop them from killing anyone. So… yeah. Brother made sure no one died during his takeover. I don't think Seb killed people in Gravity Falls when he was Bill..." she mused.
"What, Seb didn't even kill Time Baby the first time around?" Blue said of the reincarnated Bill Cipher demon, in pure disbelief. Because from the way Seb had been acting during the local one, that Blue had seen via his own 'looking-spell'-
"Oh he killed Time Baby, but he didn't kill any of the humans in Gravity Falls." Miz shrugged. "In fact, he got to kill Time Baby TWICE since he did it during the local Bill's Weirdmageddon too!" Ford shuddered at that. Did she have to sound so delighted by that?
"HA, thought so! Stupid Baby," Blue said, sitting back in his chair with a huff. (He was speaking to, and had his body pointed towards Miz, but his eyes.i were both on the local Stanford. And Blue had not missed that shudder.) "-Good for him!" Blue continued on brightly. "Getting to kill that stupid Time Baby TWICE. HA!" Then Blue paused, and blinked his eyes away from the local Ford for a moment, seeming to be reassessing something. "Ah… HM. Hm-hm-hm." He looked down at his hands in his lap for a moment, then frowned and lifted a hand to tap at his own forehead twice.
...And then Blue pulled in a breath, let it out slowly, and seemed to forcibly calm himself down a bit; it seemed to be some kind of practiced meditative breathing technique.
...Blue then reached into his pocket, pulled out a white triangle, and un'fold'ed it. It was the bag that had an inordinate number of those matzo cracker boxes inside it, and Blue shoved his hand into the bag and started to open up another box of those crackers from inside the bag. "-Continue." Blue waved a hand at Ford briefly (before going back to what he was doing with the box). "That can't have been all of it."
"Well, it was mainly the killing humans and not feeling bad about it that I didn't like, and the killing humans even when they said no."
Blue looked up at him as he got open his box and its inside-wrapper.
"Oh, come on," Blue said to him. "Give up the goods, local-'Hand! My Sixer can rant at me for HOURS about all the things about ME that he doesn't like." Blue popped a cracker piece into his mouth and chewed, and swallowed, and waited (momentarily). "...I don't have to start you off, now, do I? -Dimensions destroyed? Entire alien civilizations wiped out in droves? Planets made uninhabitable in all the wars that got kicked off because of a Deal or two made? Taking over other places ALL OVER the place, where they then ruled supreme? -NONE of this ringing a bell for you? Hello?"
Ford blinked. "Yes. Those were horrible things too, and fall under the whole 'killing and not feeling bad about it' category." He paused. "I suppose I should have clarified 'killing sentient, intelligent beings'."
"So what - same thing almost, right? But hey," Blue pulled out another cracker, "Just 'feeling bad' about it all once in awhile would have made it ALLLLLLLL BETTER for you, HUH?" He waved the cracker around a bit while he was talking, to accentuate his point, then popped that second cracker into his mouth when he was done with it and chewed.
"He had no remorse for what he did, nor did he ever care about the people who asked him to stop doing it." Ford sighed. "If there was any guilt or remorse, perhaps I could have talked to him. But there was none, he refused to listen to anything I said, he was set in his ways and thought it was all fun and what did it matter if everyone else wasn't having fun, so long as he was entertained?" Ford grumbled.
"Meaning, 'you didn't convince him' of whatever you were trying to tell him, not that 'he wasn't listening'," Blue said, relaxing back in his chair, almost like he was settling in a bit.
"He never even tried to listen to me! I told him to stop and he just kept on laughing!"
"Doesn't mean he didn't hear you," Blue said in practical tones, as he pulled out another cracker. "Could mean that he just didn't agree with you, maybe."
"And yet, he expected me to agree to what he wanted, despite never once trying out what I wanted!"
"Did you ever 'try out' murdering entire planets full of people?" Blue said, then grimaced slightly and partially waved it off. (Because he knew what-)
"No! Because I don't want to murder people!"
-There it was! "Then that's not a 'good' argument to do anything, now, IS IT. Just trying things out because someone asked you to do it. -Unless you're being a hypocrite, here." Blue eyed him. "Especially since you did want to murder at least one person that I know of."
Ford flushed. "Okay, I suppose you have me there. I did want to kill Bill-" ("HAH! Never gets old!") "-so I guess there's that…"
"You GUESS." Blue rolled his eyes. "Do you know even know how to-" But then Blue stopped abruptly. And eyed him for a moment. Then looked away again. He was quiet for another long moment.
"...What was the thing that was a 'He has no-' that you stopped and didn't say earlier, and said 'He didn't care' instead?" Blue asked him next, finally looking back at him again. (He popped another cracker in his mouth after this.)
Ford looked down at his hands, one of which was still wrapped around Miz's. "He never cared about me." Ford said finally. "He has no concept of how much I… liked him. He… he meant so much to me- I… I thought… he might have… liked me back… but he didn't. Never did."
"How much did you like him really," Blue said to him. "If you didn't want to let him into this dimension here, to give him what he wanted?"
"Letting him in wouldn't have been an issue, if he'd agreed to not kill everyone here and destabilizing our dimension- I wouldn't have minded letting him in if that were the case."
"Would he have ever agreed to that?" Blue said to him next, watching him almost blandly, before popping yet another cracker in his mouth.
"I had 13 years to ask him, and he never once agreed."
"Did you like him?" Blue repeated, leaving his hand in his lap.
"...I did. He was my friend."
"Do your friends try to kill everyone in your dimension and destabilize it."
"They shouldn't." Ford sighed. "I… couldn't be friends with him anymore."
Blue gritted his teeth.
"Did you like him?" Blue repeated. "Did you like HIM?"
"Yes. I liked him." Ford squeezed Miz's hand. "And as angry as I am with everything… a part of me still… likes him. A little."
Blue bristled almost like a cat in place, before forcibly settling himself, both hands gripping the front of his seat, bag of crackers in his lap mostly-forgotten.
"Did YOU. Like HIM. As he ACTUALLY WAS," Blue repeated, and expanded upon, "Or did you 'like' some made-up, only in your own MIND, MADE-UP, imaginary version of him instead. Which you MADE UP. That WASN'T HIM."
"...when he was acting as my Muse, I guess." Ford frowned. "But after he dropped the act I knew I shouldn't like him anymore. He lied to me, he didn't care about me and he didn't want to be my friend… He even tried killing Stanley and me many times. I really valued talking to him, I fell for the show he was making, believing he WAS my friend. But he wasn't. He betrayed me!" He scowled before his expression went back to neutral.
"So yes. I liked him being my Muse. Not his lying side. Not his 'trying to murder everyone' side. And that's a thing." Ford narrowed his eyes at Blue, with a small sneer. "You like people until they show you their true colors and intentions… And the thing is that...despite how I really actually hated him, the small part of me that valued him, and that was so grateful for the things he taught me… didn't let me fully change my mind for a while. Would have been easier if I didn't. I shouldn't have cared so much…"
Blue gave him a very long look. (The demon thought about directly informing this local Stanford that he had just DIRECTLY CONTRADICTED HIMSELF, saying that 'being his Muse' - which he said that he'd LIKED - was 'an act' meant that 'being a Muse' WAS 'his lying side' - which he'd professed to NOT LIKE - the idiot… but given how many times he'd had to repeat himself before, and how this local Ford couldn't even have a conversation with his own self, even WITH significant help-and-intervention, Blue decided to go slightly-indirect instead, approaching this-all from a slightly different angle.)
And then Blue said... "Would you have 'liked' him if he'd shown you all his 'true colors and intentions' right from the start? When it involved taking over and then destabilizing your dimension like that? And allllllll of the other things that he did, in all of those other places, that you don't like, that you think are so very important, that you didn't even think to ask any questions about, before anything ever really began? -Or was it just because he lied to you and that hurt your stupid little human feelings." (And yes, Blue was using this broken-Bill as cover for his questioning deliberately, because...)
"If… if I had known… I'd have been horrified. I would have told him there was a better way, that didn't involve the deaths of millions- there has to be another way. He's brilliant- he knew everything- he should have tried anything else-" Ford breathed. "I've asked him, if he could find a way to do what he wanted that didn't involve killing countless people… and he just… He laughed at me, saying he could do whatever he wanted. With or without me… just like he did after I confronted him." Ford closed his eyes in a grimace. "He didn't even want to try not killing people. He just liked to do it. He enjoyed torturing people and watching them suffer, it was fun for him-" Ford breathed in. "But if I had known, I would have tried to talk him out of it. But after the betrayal… he… I realized he wasn't going to listen." ('WELL. That's nearly the game-set-match right there,' Blue thought, because when Stanfords - including this one - equated 'listening' with 'agreeing with them', that meant that...)
"...Did you… have a crush on him?" Miz asked softly, pursing her lips. Ford's eyes widened. "Wh-What?! No! No-I didn't!" he said, lying his pants off. No way was he ever going to admit that-
"-Question for you, then." Ford looked over at Blue. "Call it a… thought experiment. My Stanley likes pulling 'imagination' ones with me. -Who are the millions?" Blue asked him (deciding to move on to the next piece of this). (Blue could have gone more-directly to where he was going than this, but this path would get them there eventually, too. ...Though he should probably leave the enlightening thought of the deaths of millions already happen every day, how is dying from old age or an 'act of god' THAT much different from dying at the hands of Bill Cipher for another, more-rainy day.)
"Wha?" Ford, still rather flustered by Miz's question, blinked as he tried to get back on track.
"The millions of deaths. Who are they? Are they edible plants?"
"The planets I watched him burn to ashes after me and Stanley managed to barely escape him during our years in space. Filled with people, thinking, feeling people." Ford grimaced.
"Mmhm." Blue steepled his fingers and looked at him over them. (It was a look that was still oddly-compelling, despite the bag of cracker boxes sitting in the demon's lap.) "Let's say that someone comes by and tells you that you're a horrible monster for the deaths of millions, and wants to kill you for it. -What do you say to them?"
Ford blinked. Then looked guilty. "I would apologize. I didn't mean to kill people."
"Do you know what deaths you are apologizing for, Stanford Pines? They didn't mean people."
"I… wait. What do you mean, not people?"
Blue gave him a put-upon patient look. "Say that someone comes by and tells you that you're a horrible monster for the deaths of millions of plants you have eaten, and there are all those people who went out and killed animals for you to eat, too. You paid for all of that, all of those deaths so that you could eat. And then there's all that bacteria that you've scrubbed and murdered from every last bit of your scientific equipment - how terrible! And now they are going to kill you for all of it. And you, what, apologize to them for it? And… what. Stop doing it ever-again? Let them kill you for it? What?" Blue made a 'gimmie' gesture at him.
"Well, that's… not entirely… fair?" Ford frowned.
"So you don't apologize, then. Why not?" Blue continued.
"For one. It's not a good example. Bill didn't kill 'plants', he murdered sentient beings. And in the case you've listed, well, I'll apologize for upsetting them with that sort of thing. But I won't let them kill me for it. I'll just tell them that blaming me for the death of bacteria would also pin blame on every other person who's ever washed their hands."
"So, you don't agree with them on the bacteria, and will keep on killing them and won't let anyone stop you, just talk down to them like they're stupid instead, and won't try and stop anyone else from doing the same thing that you're doing, either. I see. -How do you know that a bacteria to a human isn't like a human to a being of pure energy, anyway? Or that the difference in understanding is just that great, in the same way?"
"Well bacteria aren't sentient, intelligent thinking people."
"As far as YOU know and define 'sentience' and 'intelligence' and 'thought', maybe. I know a few large telepathic sentient sapient bacterial colonies of the 'grand unification' type who might want to have a word or two with you on that one there." (Assuming they didn't just try and murder him outright for his own professed views on the matter, HA!) Blue opened another cracker box. "-And, in line with our current thought-of 'experiment' here: sentient, intelligent thinking humans aren't sentient-sapient beings of pure energy, either. -What's your point?" Blue gave him an amused look. "-Really, too easy. Like tossing Pines in a water-barrel," Blue waved off, as Ford glared at him, and he pulled out another cracker.
"You're falling into the same trap, you know," Blue said as he waved said cracker at him. "It's a thought experiment involving 'imagination', you loon. And here you are, still mucking around with things down around the same level, instead of talking about the bigger-picture problems here instead, not even one-step-'up'! -Try getting creative," Blue told him. "Unless you'd rather stay at the same level, and I'll give you something to match.- Choose."
Ford looked down at Miz, who shrugged. Ford sighed. "Well, the bacteria here aren't sentient… are they?" He sounded rather worried now. Miz patted his hand. "They're not, technically." ("At least on this planet!") "But slime mold colonies are." Which had Ford looking contemplative. "Is that why Dr. Clark's colony managed to escape containment and envelop our security team?" Miz cackled. "They've been planning their escape for months!"
Ford groaned and ran a hand through his fluffy hair.
"But hey," Blue said next, "If THAT one's too sticky for you to want to have to think about, and you want to equate sentient-sapient intelligence levels as all of equal importance? Try this one on for size: let's say that you know for absolute certain that if you kill ten billion specific sentient-and-sapient people, that no Bill Cipher will ever be able to be a problem for you here in this dimension again. And you even know exactly who all those people are, and can get to them to kill them easily. -Do you do it?"
"Wait… you mean, like if I kill a number of people and that would make Bill Cipher never harm this planet?" Ford frowned.
"Yes," said Blue. "Do you do it?"
"Are they Bill's helpers, who also want to kill people?" Ford clarified.
"Could be. You know exactly who they all are. Are they?" Blue said.
"If I see someone who's going around killing and torturing people for fun, I will stop them. I don't think I'll kill them, but stop them. Hand them over to the authorities…"
"And what if they're people who can't be arrested?" Miz spoke up quietly. "If they're awful people who can get away scott free."
"What, like that local Bill? Who he killed, instead of 'just' stopping him?" Blue said. "Think you've got your answer already on that one, little sis. -You haven't answered my question yet, local-'Hand. Do you kill those ten billion people, to have Bill Cipher never harm this dimension and this planet again, or don't you?"
"...I won't kill them. There has to be another way." Ford whispered.
"What if there isn't?" Blue said next.
"...if doing so would protect people… if those 10 billion people were terrible people, who wanted to hurt and kill others… then… if there truly was no way… I might have to stop them… and… I don't like the idea of killing them... " Ford struggled. "I…"
"One more truly unfair question, then," Blue said to him next. "What if Seb and Zach and Zoe were part of that ten billion people?"
"Never." Ford said firmly.
"Ah," Blue said, "But if anyone tried to hurt his spawn, Seb would want to hurt and kill those others, making him a 'terrible person' now, wouldn't it?"
"But he would only be doing that to protect his children. He's not doing it because he thinks killing people is fun!"
"Yes, he would. -And if there were any other children or teenagers in that large number of 'terrible people', that would be 'just fine' for you, still, wouldn't it? Even if their families would likely fight for them, too." Blue eyed him, lifting his chin again slightly. "-Failure of imagination," he repeated.
"...there is no correct answer here." Ford deadpanned.
Blue just about snorted. "Oh, there's a correct answer here. It's the one that none of you are seeing, really! -Tell me," Blue said, "What's the difference between falling down and scraping your elbow, and dying horribly?"
"...you're dead in one of them." Ford didn't quite see what Blue was going for.
"And what is wrong with dying? What's the problem there?" Blue said next.
"...because you'll be gone. Dead." Ford really didn't see where he was going with this.
"Unless you're a ghost, a zombie, or a vampire, but then there are other problems there, too. -So let's skip those for now," Blue said to him next. "What if you come back, right after you die? Just as you are, nothing wrong or out of place? Immediately?"
"...is this about that new system that you want Sebastian to set up here?" Ford asked.
"Side-stepping all of the choices, and the lack of pain even at a horrible death? A very small part of it." Blue sat back in his chair. "The problem with dying is staying dead, and the pain involved. Losing what you had, and everyone else losing you. -Get rid of those, make it so you can pick yourself right back up onto your feet, and…?" Blue spread his hands out a little like he was offering up a party trick for some applause. "How is that any worse than scraping your elbow?"
"...in a world like that, murder would lose all meaning." Ford pointed out.
"Yes," Blue said. "That's kind of the point." Blue gave him a thousand-light-year stare. "-Because suddenly," Blue said, "Not only does it not matter whether you kill all those ten billion people or not anymore, because they'll all just come back after just fine... but it ALSO really doesn't matter if you leave that Bill Cipher alone to do whatever he wants to do with all that murdering and torturing anymore in the first place, either. Because 'dying horribly' doesn't hurt, and nobody stays dead. -So what's the loophole?" Blue asked him next, because there was one. (Technically, there were several. Technically.)
"People just killing each other all the time…?"
"And getting stuck in place, where the torture becomes physical instead of mental. So you need at least some choice of where you come back instead. And maybe a bit of a when," Blue said next quite agreeably.
Ford sighed. "None of that solves the main issue, of not killing people to begin with!"
"-Which is only as problematic as shoving somebody as you walk by them on the sidewalk anymore, with them maybe accidentally tripping and falling! SO WHAT! -By your own flat-ish 'moral' standards, how are those two things NOT morally-equivalent now, once the consequences are made to be nothing for each?"
"Because it's still wrong to want to kill someone for fun regardless of the outcome. If you're going after someone with the intent to kill them, for your own enjoyment, it means you derive JOY from others suffering-!"
Blue pulled in a breath, held it for a moment, then turned to Miz. "Little sis, they do have games like 'laser tag' and DDNMD and all sorts of video games here, don't they?"
"Yeah. Plenty of videogames where they can kill things all the time." Miz shrugged. "But they don't count those because 'NPCs aren't real people'."
"Yes, I know that, but in 'laser tag', you are 'killing' people with enough hits, and in DDNMD and some video games, you are sometimes killing other players'-characters, yes?" Blue said next.
"They're not actually dead!" Ford stressed. "If they replaced the laser guns with real guns with live rounds and the kids were told those were real guns, there are many who won't want to play anymore-!"
"-because having a way to enforce 'dead' players getting sent to the edges of the field immediately once they 'die' would make it less enjoyable and fair? When dying doesn't hurt and isn't more than a little bit of a hiccup in time and in space? -You could set up a game where the bullets are teleportation modules, and have the same effect. 'Port out the live player, 'port in a fake unmoving body."
"If people could actually be killed, for real, during laser tag, then there are many who won't want to play it!"
"By the first 'stay dead' definition? Of course! But by the second?" Blue asked him, then sighed and waved it off. "-Don't know why I'm surprised you can't see it, even after I already just got done explaining it to you." (WELL. At least he'd shown his sister how intractable THIS local Stanford was about people dying, even if they were brought back safe-and-sound not all that much later. Right?)
Ford gave Miz a hopeless look. Miz bit her lip. "I also, don't like people who just… kill those who can't defend themselves and don't want to be killed, for fun. I think it's really mean." She wiggled in place. "I mean… I sometimes torment Federation officers for fun, but it's usually because they did something that I don't like… is… is that… wrong?" She looked up at Ford. (Blue went still where he sat in place. Watching.) Ford sighed. "What sort of thing did they do, that you didn't like?"
"...abuse their position and authority on those who are helpless to defend themselves against them." Miz admitted. Ford sighed. "Well, it's not nice to mess with them regardless. But at least you had a reason, and weren't just tormenting them out of nowhere for fun." Miz sighed in relief and snuggled against his chest.
Blue rolled his eyes, sighed heavily at this, and then sent his sister a look. (He wasn't ABOUT to tell Seb's Ford that he wasn't asking enough questions to know what 'something I don't like' entailed right now - not while his sister was within arm's reach of him. Otherwise, Blue would be following THAT one up with a sardonic, Oh, I SEE - as long as someone has 'a reason' to torment someone else, that's fine! -Did you like being tormented by Crampelter back when you were living at Glass Shard Beach?)
However, at zero response from his sister at his eye-roll, and his look, and his general feelings of annoyance with this local Stanford…
"...Well, this is getting boring real fast," Blue said. "And the woven stuff for the bracelets should be done both cooling and congealing on the table by now." He re'fold'ed the bag of crackers, stuffed the triangle back into his pocket in short order, then pushed himself up out of the chair he was in.
Miz sighed, draping herself over Ford's lap. "I've been watching them," she said. "I have been paying attention- I did!"
"I saw that you did," Blue said, as he walked back over to the table. "You handled it well, managed to remove them all in time, and didn't even come over here until all but the cooling process was complete - which I gave you no specific instructions on anyway. -Very good job, little sis!" he told her, giving her a slight smile.
Miz preened at the praise.
Blue lifted the first bracelet by one end and said, "Now, for the 'fun' part," quite sardonically, looking over at Seb's Ford. He held the little woven thing up, glistening with moonstone 'glitter' and looking a fluid almost yellowish-silver in color. The hair had been seemingly dyed in this mixture, retaining none of its original color. "Are you actually going to put this thing on?" he asked of Seb's Ford next.
Ford paused. "What would it do to me?" he finally asked slowly.
Blue actually seemed to brighten up a little bit at this, or at least look significantly less annoyed at his in general.
"Absolutely NOTHING as-is," Blue told him. "The thing's still not done yet." Blue tossed it back down onto the table, then took a seat at the table (he'd been eating at earlier) once again. "Still need to fix the ends, add the clasps - already-made, Miz - and then do the internal-engravings on the silver inner core."
"That's a lot of work, to make protections for us." Ford nodded.
"Not really," said Blue, as he made a twisting motions with his fingers at each end of the table-bound bracelet, and all the extra unicorn hair came off, except two longer little tufts at each end, and he scooped out a bit more of the too-long silver chain after that, leaving a bit of a 'dimple' inside the tufts at each end.
Next, Blue quickly grabbed up two of the clasps out of one of the bags on the table (said clasps had been pre-made from the same silver coins as the chains, for consistency), and shoved them inside of each tuft, welding each quickly into place on the 'buried' silver chain at each end with a little very carefully applied heat. "You watching, little sis?" he said (to which Miz nodded), before squaring his shoulders and running a curled hand down the braid slowly, one end to the other, doing all the engraving he needed to do into the silver-chain core of the piece, all in one go.
"Thank you anyway, for doing this for us." He hadn't gotten to thank Blue before, so he might as well do it now. He was also watching the process, enraptured by the idea of magic done in such a way. He knew how to make a unicorn barrier, but he didn't know it could be condensed down this small.
"Mm. It's next-to-nothing," he heard the demon say absently, as said demon did something to the ends of the tufts of hair next. "Needed to practice this form of magic more, anyway." Blue was quite obviously distracted, very much focused on what he was doing and peering at so intently.
Ford nodded, quieting to let Blue work. Miz glanced up at him. "You're having fun, aren't you? From watching magic?" Ford nodded again. "It's quite fascinating." Miz's expression turned mischievous. "Are you ? ンヤᆲ? ンヤᄚ?" which had Ford sputtering. "M-Miz!" She giggled.
Blue set down the one bracelet and picked up the next unfinished one, worked it to completion, set it down, and picked up the next. Lather, rinse, repeat. He did this for ten of them, and continued on to the next ten. He only stopped when he'd finished all thirty-seven, except...
...he didn't run his hand down the last eight, only did the ends and the clasps.
"Should I finish up those? To see if I can do them right?" Miz asked.
"These are for Seb and his spawn," Blue told her, "And one set for me, to show them how to use it." He stood up, straightened up and stretched there in place, threading his fingers together behind his back and reaching down and out towards the ground - while rocking forward, then back, on his heels - before releasing his hands again, to swing at hands and arms at his sides again freely. "One for each wrist. -Going to need to tune each pair of them specifically to each of them, as a whole 'safety measure'. -Operational security. Yes?"
"Yup. So no one else can use 'em." Miz nodded. She glanced away. "Should I call Seb and the twins over?"
"Yes," said Blue.
Miz tilted her head back and seemed to concentrate. After a few seconds, the air shimmered and Seb appeared, along with Zach and Zoe. The three groaned. "Teleporting always feels so weird…" Seb complained. Miz shrugged. "You did say to bring you here."
"Ask Miz to make you a portal gun," Blue suggested, as he grabbed up the first two 'untuned' ones for himself. "I incorporated one into my suit. She should have one in hers, and the instructions to make the proper math formulae for powering it. -It's fine, once it's been completed and encapsulated in an unbreakable container," Blue noted to her quickly.
""Portal gun! Portal gun!"" the twins chanted. Seb shook his head. "I'm too worried about the twins playing with it and getting lost somewhere in Italy or something." That just had the twins chanting ""Italy! Italy!"" instead. Seb poked the both of them. "No, we're gonna stick with human-type transportation."
"I was already planning on making-or-getting for you a 'reminder armbrace-visualizer' like Miz's, if you want it," Blue reminded him. "I could incorporate it into that. -That's the original format of it, anyway. You'd be the only one able to activate it, for any reason."
"Having a reminder for stuff would be cool." Seb noted.
"Miz? Clone yours for me, please?" Blue asked her, as he did something to the bracelets, and then fiddled with them a bit more.
Miz flexed her fingers and some grime along the side of the pool, as well as some impurities in the water, rose up and clicked together, forming another arm bracer.
Blue held out his hand to the side, palm-up, without even looking, and Miz floated it over to him.
"Thanks, little sis," Blue said, as he put down the bracelets for the moment, and rapidly typed a few things into the brace, made a few plucking motions at it… then narrowed his eyes, seeming to concentrate at it quite a bit… (and then flexed the energy in his other hand right at it - in another specialized direct data-burst stream).
"Here," Blue said next, pulling his other hand away from the brace and hefting it into the air. "Put this thing on, and tap this button over here." Blue pointed at said button instructively, before tossing the brace over to Seb. "'Help' icon should come up in the upper-right corner of your vision for you! Same icon. -Read the manual," he warned Seb to do next. "Features are locked until you do. I added a more detailed tutorial for you, to help you get started, that will unlock some things before having to go through the more-detailed manual. I also added in some information on some selected thought-process-ing methods for turning raw-Seen-data into understood-knowledge, too, as an optional-run since you never said whether you were interested in that. If the tutorial-set doesn't work out for you, let me know and I'll update the method of learning. There are only the twelve most-common defaults in there to choose between, currently."
"So cool! Thanks!" Then Seb turned at his brother. "Hah!" Seb grinned at Ford smugly when he noticed his brother's interested look. "I get a cool cyber brace and you don't~" Seb sing-songed. Ford pouted. "That's fine. I'll build my own." Seb raised an eyebrow at this, because "Aren't you doing environmental science?" Ford scoffed. "I am multi-disciplined! I can build other things!" He paused. "And I'm sure Fiddleford would love to help me."
"Well, look at you," Blue said almost absently and not quite sing-song (almost musically), as he picked up his own two just-engraved-and-ready-for-use bracelets. "Planning on talking to other people and working on things to be able to visit you family much sooner."
"...well, I'm sure a short ranged portal projection device that doesn't reach beyond our own dimension would be safe enough." Ford mumbled.
"Sure it will," Blue said. "Just as long as you don't set the endpoint in the middle of a star! Or screw up whatever portable high-energy power-containment-unit you and Glasses end up coming up with for it!"
"Yeah, not gonna do that…" Ford rolled his eyes. "Not gonna try reaching anywhere outside our planet to be on the safe side." And frankly, he was hoping Fiddleford didn't go nuts on him for even suggesting another portal. He would beat him up, probably. At least he wouldn't add any raccoon den this time.
"As long as you don't get the equations wrong or tune the tech-itself wrong, opening a portal directly down into the center of the Earth with all that fun molten lava there to stream out of it like a geyser in your face almost-immediately upon portal-creation, sure!" Blue chirped out at him entirely too good-naturedly for the content of what he was both saying and implying right then and there.
"I can help double check your math." Miz offered. Ford pet her head. "That would be helpful, thank you." Miz purred. "So… like usual, then? You build the thing, and I tell you if you did anything wrong?" Ford nodded. "It's nice to have you check over my work for issues that I don't catch."
"-Which would be all of the issues but the mental ones, apparently," Blue said of her 'catching' things, as he walked by Ford, to stand in front of Seb. "You can See the Mindscape better from outside your body, yes?" he asked both of Miz and of Seb.
"Yeah?" Miz blinked. "It's easier to Feel around while I'm in the Mindscape." Seb nodded as well. "I don't go back to the Mindscape very often, but I can still do it if I want to."
"You both might want to do that now, to get a better understanding of WHAT I'm ACTUALLY going to be DOING here next," Blue said to them next.
Miz's body slumped over in Ford's lap while Seb sighed and laid himself down on a pool chair before doing the same. The twins immediately began poking their father and playing with his hair. It's what he got for leaving himself vulnerable like this. Zoe was holding Seb's mouth and making his jaw open and close. "Ah blah blah blah~!"
Blue noted this (in his opinion, being a perfect Triangle that grew up around Lines and other pointy Shapes) rather disturbing poking behavior for future remembrance when it came to sleeping or seeming-to-sleep around these two spawn of Seb's, then turned towards Miz and Seb a bit, his 'looking-spell' eye flickering faintly.
"This one is missing the 'masking' and 'locking' components that I'm going to be adding to the others," Blue told them both next, as he closed the bracelets around his left and then right wrists, the first and then second, and then waited.
He swung his arms back and forth as he said, "These two bracelets both include two things: the protective-defense 'shielding', and the 'active-defense' components. -Miz, you should be familiar somewhat with this 'bubbling' concept, from what I made for you in my own 'set so that you could walk into the house with me, without problems."
Blue started to walk in a small circle, pinwheeling his arms every so often as he talked. "We are not in Gravity Falls right now, which means that there's less ambient magic and weirdness to get this all started. Once it's charged up enough, though," Blue told them, "It activates, and it pretty much always stays 'on', after that point. Once there's a little bit of running charge in it, most of the other factors kick in. It powers itself from most local forces, unless you actively push power to it yourself; the only ones you really need to worry about are the ones that can cause you some trouble if you're on the run and don't want to get caught. Those are ambient light, local EM field, local gravity, and ambient heat drawdown, which could show up visually on most types of advanced scanners. Hence, learning to power it yourself or shift it between ambient sources if... -Ah, there we go," Blue said with a bit of a smile to his voice, as he raised his wrists up, and the bracelets seemed to almost flicker into non-existence on him.
"This," Blue told them, as he kept his wrists up for the moment, letting them both take a bit of a closer look if they wanted to easily, "Is one of three main security measures for these things. This is the first," he lowered his arms, "Which basically makes them impossible for anyone else to grab onto or remove. The second is the masking feature - which ISN'T included in this one, because I want you to be able to see what I am doing to understand how I am doing it now - and that will be added into yours once I finish this demonstration. The third one is the energy-signature-lock, which means it won't respond to anyone else other than you, when you do this."
And Blue turned and shot an actual blue fireball the size of a basketball straight into the pool water with one fluid punch. It hit with a steaming hiss, and exploded the water outwards, splashing a wave of it outwards a good several feet from where it landed. The twins squealed in pure delight. Ford jumped, alarmed at the sudden magic. "Does that mean I can asplode stuff too?" Zoe grinned. Seb shook his head. "Zoe no! You can't explode everything!" He couldn't be heard (by anyone but Blue and Miz from the Mindscape right now), though.
"Not until you learn how to do it properly first," Blue told her. "If you don't learn that, then you won't even be able to light up pretty fires anymore." Blue held up his hands, and they went up in flames - significantly larger ones than he'd shown Zach in the kitchen - with a good diameter at the widest point of about two-and-a-half feet, and flowing upwards a good three feet at least, maybe closer to four. "Once you DO learn how to do this, these will make it much easier though!"
""Ooooh!"" The twins were very interested in this.
Blue pulled the flame down, then looked back to Seb.
"A demonstration," Blue said, and the flames abruptly went out.
But the barrier field itself that had seemed to part around those flames, didn't enclose itself again.
There was a region inside the perfectly spherical barrier field bubble that was surrounding Blue now, where the fields seemed to rupture inwards - no, outwards from the inside - to meet the open air at the edge of the bubble.
Because as they watched, Blue slowly brought that space back down and in, the bubble seeming to slowly bow inwards, re-enclosing itself at the edges. It left two 'inner bubbles' of non-field space inside the barrier-field, extending outwards from Blue's arms.
Blue fired off a few small light spells from his palms, as the non-field space slowly collapsed farther and farther, like a balloon that was slowly losing air. And every time a little ball of magical light hit the edge of that boundary, it immediately winked out.
Right before that non-field space was about to vanish, Blue twirled in place, spraying out a huge fountain of sparks from his hands-
-and that non-field space swelled outwards instantaneously, letting the mini-explosion of confetti-looking light twinkle out and downwards, all around him-
-except that it winked out as he kept twirling, and then disappeared all at once when the non-field space seemed to vanish all at once in an almost audible 'snap', hitting the internal part of the field.
"Pretty~!" Zoe breathed. Zach was clapping his hands.
Blue smiled.
He looked back up at Miz and Seb again.
"The 'trick' here is that, once you're inside one of them, these sorts of barrier-fields only really push in so far as what YOU consider YOUR OWN physical boundaries to be. Which can be variable." Then Blue's expression began to slowly morph into something a little more sly. "Here's a suggestion for one for you to visualize that I think both of you might have the least amount of trouble with seeing yourself as being."
And at this point Blue closed his eyes.
And four more 'arms' made up of non-field space, shaped in a human-like nature, seemed to uncurl out and away from his torso, as if for one long moment stretching.
And then? Blue began to dance.
Seb flinched back. Uncomfortably reminded of his much hated 'monster form'. Miz was enraptured, her big brother was so pretty! Ford sat up, his interest caught as well. He was reminded of Miz's Jan form, with the multiple arms.
Blue danced and spun in place slowly, 'arms' of 'void' within the field moving and twisting in intricate and different, unique but coordinated motions. He kept his eyes closed as he turned, and twisted, and gestured. Tilted his head back, and- he was smiling.
He began to hum a bit to himself as he took the next step, and it began to almost look a little ritualistic, this dance. And over time, his smile slipped slowly and (unbeknownst to him) ever-so-slightly into something a bit more euphoric.
And slowly, those 'arms' of 'non-field' space began to fill up with small blue motes of light.
-And then Blue gestured abruptly, and six ball-sized flaming spheres of light shot out from him in a circle, at waist-height. Each arm was contorted slightly, a palm facing and plucking at it, as he twisted and moved. Clockwise turn, but counterclockwise motion from his arms and the lights surrounding him. Counterclockwise, and the opposite doing the same.
"Huh. My Bill never danced." Ford noted absently.
Blue, caught up in his own thing, didn't really hear him. He tilted his head back, made two flicking and forcefully authoritative gestures with all six arms at once and the flaming spheres of light split from six into twelve, then twenty-four.
Seb squinted a little bit. He could see these weird little curvy strands of connection between each hand and several of those little flaming lights. ...No, actually, all of them. Shit. They were thin, tiny things, threading their way through that unicorn hair barrier field thing in nothing like any kind of straight lines. If anything, they looked more like super-thin spaghetti, if spaghetti was as thin as a piano wire… And Blue was… kind of directing them around a little like yo-yo's? He was still holding onto them anyway. Which must mean… he was thinking of all those little lines like they were also extensions of his own body?
Blue twisted, then spun in place, flicked all six hands, and all the flaming balls of light spun and grew into orbs. Blue spun in place again, and some orbs raised up, some lowered further, spinning and shifting into a more spherical-like shape surrounding him. He danced, and he tugged, and he wove, and he spun - kicking out, and turning inward, and flinging his hands out to toss the orbs out into all the walls and corners of the room finally-
-to have them explode into an all-encompassing BURST of multi-colored light and then disperse in the space of a mere moment. The twins and Miz cheered.
And Blue twirled in place, twirled and twisted, slower, and slower, until he came to a stop in place on one foot, and carefully lowered his other foot down to the ground, as he brought all six hands together in front of his chest, three pairs of hands together forming one overlapping triangle each, and...
...the extra four 'arms' pulled inward, and vanished without a trace.
Blue opened his eyes.
"I'd show off the cutting-spinning blades and ropes and such," Blue said up to the other two demons not-quite-breathlessly, as he calmed and regulated down his own breathing even further, "But there are smaller children and also a Ford present."
Blue looked down, and made an almost-snapping jerk of motion at the one wrist with his opposite hand, and the first bracelet came off. He did the same with the second, and then gathered then both up completely in one hand, to make a fist around them, and then-
-his fist went up in very-hot flames, and ash poured out of his loosening fist as he tilted it over.
He put the flames out.
"So," Blue said. "I think you can see why I went for two bracelets for this, instead of only one. For more advanced fighting techniques, and less need for concentration, I'd recommend four bracelets, adding one more to each ankle for kicking. But that can come later."
And with that said, Blue asked Seb, "Still want them?"
"Fuck yes! That's so COOL!" Seb practically vibrated in place. Miz giggled. The twins were making grabby hands. "I wanna learn to dance things on fire!" Zoe screamed.
Blue grinned.
