Illusion is Reality
Chapter 112
-Everything you know-
"Let me see if I am understanding you correctly…" Ford was rubbing at his temples as he walked, well past the point at which he would continue trying to make much sense of any of this in the context of his own dimension's happenings. "In this dimension, Sebastian was thrown out of the house, but Stanley was not," which he'd gotten from Seb before… "And because Stanley was interested in football instead of boxing and wrestling in high school, he was able to get a sports scholarship from a four-year university, took advantage of that and got himself into a good college, actually took the schoolwork for his college degree there as seriously as he did his athletics…" (Which, quite frankly, was the real kicker for him there.) "And after a highly-successful and lucrative sporting career for several years, he largely retired from playing professional sports to both get into coaching as well as start his own company." (Because of course a Stan in any variation would be capable of running at least two things at once; Stan had managed both the portal and that Mystery Shack business back in the dimension that he and Bill had just come from.) "And he is now the rich CEO of a company called StanCo, a large advertising enterprise that helps other businesses sell many different products, none of which he designs or makes himself…" Which was also significantly different than how his own- than how the Stan who he'd been living with for the past several months, almost a year, had been doing things. (At least, it was if he understood how most things with the Shack had gone in the time that he'd been… that no Stanford Pines had been there, had instead been 'away' from that town of Gravity Falls, in one respect or another.) "Am I describing this all back to you in any way accurately?"
"Yes, but actually no. Stan was still playing when he opened StanCo. But because of the portal incident, he couldn't continue with his sports career the same when he came back. He got to play for a few years, and he took every chance he could to get back his recognition, and NOW he's a coach," Sixer corrected. "Worked really hard to reestablish himself back into the life he left behind. But you pretty much got everything right. More or less."
"I see…" Ford said slowly. He couldn't help but frown. "That's… rather different than how things happened in…" his own dimension, as far as he knew them? From what seemed similar in Stan's own, and what he knew of what had happened there since, that Stan himself had told him about? "...The dimensional set where I'm from," Ford ended instead. Because the events that he knew of (up until he'd fallen through the portal) that had taken place there, had been...
"I'm aware." Sixer nodded. "I think yours is more similar to Seb's old dimension from back when he was Bill, with Stan and I only being twins and… Stan having it way harder."
"That's… rather disconcerting," Ford admitted to, feeling that way for a multitude of reasons.
...So the Stanley here was wildly rich with both money and physical property and belongings, almost beyond belief for what Ford ever would have expected out of his brother. (The odd thing was… Ford wasn't entirely certain if Stan would actually be all that jealous or not, to hear of this. He could see him laughing about it, maybe making a playful joke or two about 'hitting it rich someplace at least', but jealous? It left Ford feeling of two minds about the whole thing.)
"...and he's really not a sort of con-man or huckster at all?" Ford said. He couldn't imagine growing up with a Stanley Pines who was in some way civically minded and actually liked the idea of getting himself a formal education. ...Alien worlds, indeed.
"Don't get us wrong, he first studied because it would allow him to play and become famous. And it worked for him. He's quite the businessman though, so when he saw the chance to open up StanCo, he took it… and he'd still rob you of 20 bucks if he could. In fact. He has. To me. A lot of times. And he keeps bribing gold out of Miz, which we've told him to stop doing," Sixer explained.
Ford rolled his eyes upon hearing that a bit, with a short laugh that was almost rueful, because... ah, at least this was some familiar territory here. ...Somewhat. (And then Ford frowned a bit as he realized that Stan had, in point of fact, been doing the exact opposite with their 'very own' Bill Cipher, instead. Stan had been giving Bill things, instead of trying to take anything away from him, let alone gold or anything else.)
(Ford glanced forwards at Bill upon hearing this, but Bill just continued leading the way without saying anything about this at all.)
They made it to the end of the next hallway, where Sebastian was waiting for them (having finished handling things with the kids for the moment, and wondering where his brother had disappeared to), and Seb heard that last part and laughed. "Yeah, Stan's still very greedy, but he got very successful. Remember I told you he's a coach now? He got to college with a sports scholarship. Before he even finished, he became a football star almost immediately at 19! And then, with a college partner, they both opened StanCo. While they were gone behind the portal, his business partner managed everything, so the money kept coming. Then these two-" He hugged Sixer. "-Came back and took advantage of the fame that came with essentially coming back from the dead!"
"Yes, your triplet here was just telling me the same," Ford noted himself, marvelling a bit at how both this local Ford and Seb both seemed very inordinately proud of their brother for his accomplishments. (Seb had seemed proud of this local Ford's work, as well. At this center or institute that sounded similar to...)
"Daaaaadddd! I'm bored!" Zoe came back out of wherever she'd been, and tried kicking him. "Play with me! Don't make me burn you!" she threatened.
"Bad Zoe, no burning people." Seb scolded reflexively. "Only burn in self defence to protect yourself."
"-What he said," Bill backed him up. "Don't set fire to anything or anyone you can't put out later, immediately, no matter how big it gets or how quickly you have to go about doing it." (Ford eyed Bill at this.)
Ford didn't want to really think of the implications of any of those demon-given statements. Younger him must have seen him frowning though, because he said, "The twins inherited Seb's powers. I made a genome sequence and found the gene responsible. It glows." Younger Ford chuckled. "Though the samples don't last long, the gene dissolves after being outside the body after only a few minutes at most. MY equipment is meant for tracking Weirdness, which is how I was able to pick it up."
Ford frowned a bit at this. He didn't particularly like the idea of children running around with all of Bill's powers. How would they even be able to control them without hurting anyone? Who would teach them properly not to? And the fact that Sebastian could and had passed his 'powers' on to his children… The fact that Seb's Ford here, who Seb did not seem to trust completely with his own children, had still done this sequencing of their genomes (and Seb was not complaining about such now), even when Seb himself had implied earlier (by Seb's spoken potential mistrust of him) that he (Seb) did not necessarily trust this man with his children, was…
"That's quite interesting," Ford said to 'Fordsie' rather neutrally, keeping the majority of his thoughts on the whole subject of this to himself.
They all picked up walking again - their little troupe now having increased from three to six now - and finally reached what seemed to be the main floor, leaving what was probably considered the 'recreation' area before this, and entering into the 'living space' instead. ...This place really was rather big. Ford couldn't help but have mixed feelings of an oddly misplaced pride (or perhaps 'calm satisfaction' or 'contentment' would be a better word for it) along with a bit of wrong-footedness (uncertainty? reluctant discomfort?) at the thought of what this Stanley, at least, had accomplished with his life thus far, largely all on his own.
...but it left him with a very open question on his mind. Here, Sebastian had been the one (apparently abused? and then) kicked out of the house at a somewhat-young age. And while Seb himself seemed very proud of his own same-aged siblings here, for what they had done...
"Sebastian. What do you do for a living?" Ford couldn't help but ask of him next. Because if the events he'd went through had been similar to what the Stan he knew went through… (perhaps both of them?...) Had Seb been the one managing the Mystery Shack, while also trying to repair the portal to get his brothers back, before Miz had apparently helped him out with it? Or had he done something else to make a living? Except… Ford frowned as he realized: the younger Ford's research center was in Gravity Falls right now, wasn't it? So what (if anything) had happened to the house in-between? (Seb couldn't be living out on the streets with those two children of his. No… they seemed very well cared-for.)
Seb blushed madly and averted his eye. "No-Nothing special." Zach raised a hand. "Daddy makes pretty clothes like dresses and suits!"
Ford blinked before looking at Seb, not quite sure what to make of this. Dresses and… suits…? That was… almost the very last thing he would have expected to hear of a (now human?) Bill Cipher. He hadn't tried his hand at being a con-man, or trickster? Nothing related to making deals with people? Even anything to do with leveraging knowledge of the mind - or just knowledge of how the world functioned in general - would have been more likely to him! "So… you're a... tailor?" He wasn't entirely certain he was understanding this all quite right.
Seb nodded but Sixer put a hand on his brother's face. "He's actually a designer. A big named fashion designer in fact. Had a show featuring his line and everything. Don't let him downplay himself. He does it too often already." He glared at Seb, "And don't try to deny that you're doing very well for yourself. You worked very hard for that." Sixer looked back at Ford. "He didn't get to graduate, and didn't actually get his degree until just a few years ago. He's doing well now, but that's only because of how hard he worked for it." Then Sixer thought about it. "If you meant what Sebastian did before me and Stan were brought back from the portal, he was running the Mystery Shack, with tailoring on the side for extra income."
"Snappy dresser," was Bill's contribution to the conversation over his shoulder, almost a laconic remider, really.
And then it hit him. Ford looked back over at Bill, and he stared a bit.
"Clothing, rather than accessories?" Ford asked of Seb next, while staring at Bill. He remembered the conversation Bill had had with Stan about 'idea-hats' and such now. Being a 'shopkeeper', not just a 'salesman' of sorts… (Old habits and skills to fall back on, somehow? Ford wasn't entirely certain of this, but-)
Seb's face was red. "Well I like making clothing, but I can make accessories too. I'm pretty good at it."
Ford looked over at Seb, then back at Bill's retreating back (that would have been retreating from him, if they hadn't all been walking quickly enough to be following along after him, too), and...
"...I see." Ford glanced back at Seb. "And you ran the Mystery Shack, as well? Who came up with the idea?" he asked next, then frowned slightly. "Did you base it off of- ah, any of it off of something you saw in your previous life?" Ford asked of him next, thinking of the Mystery Shack itself, rather than trying to actually ask after his previous life (one that might or might not have come before becoming a demon; Bill hadn't been entirely coherent about that, during that one conversation back then).
"Ah… well, I don't know, really." Seb rubbed the back of his head. "The house just turned out pretty similar. I realized it after lots of deja-vu moments. I was planning to just work on tailoring in town, but I met Soos and he started coming up with ideas for the Shack and to be honest, the town was full of idiots who bought it so… I just worked."
Ford's eyebrows rose slightly. "I… see…" (He didn't really; he'd thought Stan had been the one to come up with the idea of the 'Murder Hut' and then the rebranded 'Mystery Shack' himself, and that Soos had had no part in that, but… thing were rather different here overall, though.)
And then they all finally made it to the dining room... where Jan had a box of tissues, wiping the tears from his eyes as he tried to finish the plate of rice and curry. Kari was patting his back. "If it really hurts so much, you shouldn't force yourself to eat it," she sighed. Jan shook his head. "Can't… *pant*... waste food…" He had several opened and emptied yogurt cups around him and was opening another as he spoke.
"Oh, give it to me if you don't want to eat it," Bill said to him next, as he started walking over to his sister almost immediately. "Or at least let me change the flavor profile of it for you, if you can't do it yourself."
"I will not back down! I refuse to lose to food I made!" Jan declared stubbornly, with his mouth full of yogurt.
"It's not losing," Bill told him, "It's just changing the rules of the game you are playing," he explained to him firmly as he walked out of the room. (...to the kitchen? Ford heard the tell-tale sound of a fridge opening, and the usual sort of rummaging though it noises for a search for something or another, Ford suspected.) Bill came back in short order with several… what looked like several working 'taste neutralizers' that he could (dump into it and) use.
"I can do this! I can!" Jan whined.
"Too late!" Bill said, as he dumped in good four cups of already-cooked rice, a cup full of lentils, "I'm already fixing it for you!" and nearly an entire container of sour cream; all of these things all got dumped into and onto Jan's plate in short order, before the younger demon could stop him.
"Stubborn," Bill said, as he plucked Jan's spoon from his hand and then stirred it. "Wouldn't be in this mess in the first place, if you hadn't been trying to mess with my Zodiac by way of using too many of the spices in this in the first place," he informed Jan, before plopping the 'revised' (fixed) plate down in front of him again. "Try that now, instead," Bill huffed out at him next.
"...it wasn't even a lot of spices! I was making curry for everyone…" Jan admitted. "Zoe ate it just fine." Said girl cackled. "It was tingly!" Diego and Zach shrugged. "It burned but it tasted good."
"If Zoe wants to breathe biological fire when she grows up, and is working herself up to it now as a practice for that, then that's fine," Blue said to him. "But I am VERY sure-and-certain that you do NOT want to do that yourself." Blue put his hands on his hips and looked down at Jan, giving him a very long look.
(Ford looked on at all this and stifled a tired sigh as he entered the room a bit more fully, making his way in closer to the table as Sixer and Seb did. Not this again. Bill had almost been acting something like normal for him, for a while there, but now...)
Stan was on his phone sitting at the table with Carla and the twins. Dillon was dead to the world since yesterday (so he wasn't up yet) and there was no trace of Shermie and Abi in sight. Too bad. There wasn't breakfast for them.
"Hey guys~" Seb called out to his family. "We have a guest! Be nice!"
And now that Ford had seen past the two demons in the room, he was staring a bit. Because there was Stan, it seemed. And… yes, that really was an older Carla McCorkle sitting over there next to him.
"Why are you all inviting people to my house?" Stan grumbled, back facing them currently. "You'll like this guest though~" Seb assured before he stepped aside for the two Fords to walk forward, as Stan turned around.
"HOLY MOSES!" Stan jumped in place, and damn near did a double-take. "When did we clone Ford and make him older?!" Carla burst out laughing. "Really Stanny, if you keep saying stuff like that, I might actually start to think you're an idiot~" Stan grinned. "Right, wouldn't want that now would we?" He turned toward the Fords. "Are you from another dimension, or the future? Or Ford fucked something up? I can't be sure which."
The local Sixer bristled as Ford looked over every family member. The blonde woman from before (Seb's wife?) wasn't here, but his Seb's mother was. There were two teens who were gaping at him and… oh! It suddenly clicked for him - they were Mason and Mabel, he was definitely sure about that! But they were far older now and… ah...
"Greetings," Ford said to them all, raising an open hand up to them in potential friendship palm-forwards, while keeping his smile to the norm around most other creatures - no teeth showing of course (as bared teeth was usually considered to have an intent attached to it of a very easily misread and mistaken sort)... "I'm not from the future, or a clone of any sort," he paused, "But I suspect that might be something a clone might say…?" he trailed off, looking over at the local Ford, who just shrugged.
"He's from Blue's dimension." the local Sixer explained with a shrug. """Ohhh.""" everyone else accepted, as if such a thing was perfectly normal. Frankly, they were too tired this early in the morning to raise more of a fuss. Dipper pulled out his journal. "Hi. Can I ask you a few hundred questions about your dimension? And yourself- if you're comfortable with sharing? I mean, I asked Blue and he kinda… blew up on us…" Dipper wilted at that, giving Blue some wary looks.
Ford looked over at Bill. "He what?" He narrowed his eyes at said demon.
Bill went a little stiff. "They're planning on laughing at me eventually," Bill said next, "If they haven't already. Just haven't checked yet." There was an edge to his tone there that set Ford on his guard significantly.
"We… we weren't laughing at you. Why would we do that?" Dipper actually looked hurt by Blue's suspicion.
"...Dare I ask about what, exactly-?" Ford began to say to him next.
"-If you want me NOT talking about dimensions that you don't want me talking about, then NO," Bill snapped out abruptly, before falling silent again. (Ford's posture stiffened significantly, and then his eyes narrowed at this, as he took a slightly broader stance in place, his shoulders squaring off slightly, and...)
Mabel finally reacted and blinked. "Well~ Uncle Ford, 'least now we know you'll still be handsome when you're old!" Mabel leaned back with a "Wow…" (Ford turned and blinked at this, as did the local Sixer.)
Jan grinned, wiping the curry off his lips. "Yup~ Handsome now, handsomer then. Aged like fine wine~" He purred. The effect was ruined by the way his eyes were still tearing up. He pulled out another tissue to wipe them.
The older Ford looked rather taken aback (if not outright alarmed) at this (especially at the 'fine wine' language, which he'd heard out of several different vampiric and mammal-eating species, before they'd tried to-). Meanwhile, the younger Ford coughed awkwardly and adjusted his glasses in a very similar movement to the one Ford had done several times earlier when talking to Sebastian before. Stan burst out laughing at seeing this, hitting the table with a fist. "HAHAHA! Do it agaaaiinnn!" (The older Ford sent him a rather unamused look, while Bill sat down at the table next to his sister.)
"Well, we brought older Ford here so he and Blue could make Ford something to eat. How about we let him do just that; Stan and I need to go change our kids back into real clothes before they get hypothermia or something, and then we can all ask him stuff?" Seb suggested.
"...Within reason, please," Ford said, barely stifling the wince. He didn't particularly enjoy interrogations, but if that was the price for a bit of food, his 'sleeping quarters' from before, and the information and relative camaraderie that he had been given by all of them so far… Well, he'd been charged worse by far less friendly and more hostile beings in the past. This was hardly an imposition, given what he had already received (and was still getting) in return.
"It's fine with me," Carla smiled. "Get yourself whatever you want, we've all already eaten."
"Thank you," Ford said to her with a nod, before stiffly moving past her at the table, leaving what was ostensibly the dinig room area and entering into the actual kitchen area now. He was rather tense; he couldn't believe he was seeing Carla McCorkle again. And with a ring on her finger. Because she was married to Stan. And had had two sons with him. He wondered what Stan would think about this…
"Why do I have to change him?" Stanley complained as he picked up Diego like a tiny sack of potatoes and followed Seb out. "Because that's your spawn, you ugly face!" The clearly rather-brotherly interaction Ford saw out on full display right in front of him was giving Ford some rather mixed feelings. Not least of which because...
Ford pulled in a breath, and mentally sloughed it off. -Food first. He needed something to eat.
"Bill?" Ford called out, as he opened the fridge, and the demon poked his head up for a moment, from where he'd pillowed it on the table in his arms. "Mm?" he heard from the kitchen (as the demon then strolled in behind him, to sit down at the kitchen table behind him). "I'll need you to look at-" Ford paused, as he pulled out a container of milk, and saw a dim 'Cipher eye' of light blink into place in and out, a few different directions and locations about it.
Ford looked back over his shoulder and saw Bill at the kitchen table now, with his head down again, pillowed mostly in his arms, and with his physical eyes barely slitted open... and the same flickering sort of outline of a 'Cipher eye' hovering right in front of his forehead.
"...Right," Ford said quietly. That wasn't Bill's All-Seeing Eye, he was rather certain, but…
"...What is the status of this milk?" he first asked Bill, and Bill gave the (somewhat-expected) response of "Klr'neep." (A shortened descriptor, one which translated roughly to Unclaimed; unspoiled; unaltered beyond known common preparation methods; within average parameters and common standard deviation in basic nutritional content for this type of foodstuff; safe to consume for your known and understood basic biological needs in Galactic Standard.) Ford saw, and lifted, then asked for the status of multiple foodstuffs around the kitchen, before waiting for that flickering of 'eyes' and a (truthful) confirmation from Bill that each known ingredient was safe to consume, before he even considered trying to open the packaging on any of them.
Once this was done, and the small pile of foodstuffs was sitting on one of the rather expansive counters next to him, Ford poured himself a rather large glass of milk and prepared for himself three lunch meat sandwiches, including a few added condiments besides. -And then he tucked into it quickly. (Ahhhh… rather delicious, if he did say so himself!)
He ate at the kitchen counter; no one bothered him, but he could hear the family (who had largely all stayed out in the dining room, barring Bill himself; even Jan had not followed Bill into the kitchen with him) out there in the dining room, whispering. When he finished, he took his time cleaning up the kitchen area again first, stalling a bit for time. But when he was done, he steeled himself a bit, and strode out into the dining room, to meet them all there. After all, it would only be polite to go to where they all were afterwards, to thank them and talk to them after they'd offered him their food where they were, instead of calling out to them all or 'inviting' them back in. (Bill got up and quietly followed him out shortly thereafter.)
...It turned out that they hadn't been whispering; they'd moved to an adjacent attached room that looked to be a rather comfortable living room area, instead. Ford made his way over there, towards the sound of voices, and then...
The first thing that Ford saw was that the man-eater had changed forms again; he was now an asian looking man with very long hair, sitting on the armchair next to the local young Ford. Ford watched as they laughed at something that the man-eater said before the two stood up and then walked off, hand in hand.
Ford pulled his gaze away from the two of them with an effort, before walking over to sit down nearby them all in his own armchair (vaguely surrounded at the front of it by all of the rest), and... the Pines from this dimension all grinned at him - all eleven of them. He had no idea what to tell them, or what they all wanted to hear. But when he opened his mouth, two male figures and a woman appeared, sleepy and groaning - and Ford took the short reprieve for what it was, turning around in place to get a good look at them. The freckled teen was a little like a male copy of Carla. Ah, so that must be Dillon. The man with green eyes… by his seeming age and by logic must be the local Shermie and his wife. This Shermie looked very different from his own, though.
Dillon and Shermie froze in their tracks and stared at (the older) Ford, sitting alone on a chair almost surrounded by the rest of their family. Then they looked back at their family. With Xin and Sixer being gone, they only saw what seemed to be Ford, super old. ""How long did I sleep?!"" they both cried out.
Stanley, who'd come back into the room at this point, heard their exclamation and looked around the room to see that they were staring at a very confused (thought he was slowly starting to look slightly bemused instead) Ford. So of course Stan placed a hand on his chest and sighed. "Oh, it was AWFUL! You should have seen it! Sixer had a new device he was sciencing around with, and accidentally aged himself! Oh it was horrible~!"
"Oh, yes," Ford said rather promptly, picking up the line this Stan had just tossed him quite easily. (He'd gotten rather used to this sort of thing during his overseas travels with Stan, at this point.) "Terrible miscalculation there. Really, I should've known better than to test it out first on myself. That's what the interns and small gnomes are for," he deadpanned quite seriously next. (The former was a bit of a guess on his part, admittedly. He didn't know about his counterpart's research labs here, but the International Institute of Oddology in Dimension 46 had had interns working in it, at least.)
And although Ford tried remaining serious (truly he did), the very small smile on his face thoroughly betrayed him. ...Not that the reaction of the rest of them really helped in that regard (most of them covering their mouths to try and keep in a series of sniggers, snorts, and giggles - except for the one boy crouched on the floor who put his hands on his forehead wondering if they were kidding or not) while this Sherman started panicking almost immediately.
Bill, for his part, finished his leisurely walk in, to walk right up to and sit down on the right-armrest of the chair Ford was sitting in, draping his left arm across the back of it casually, as he reclined in place rather regally, like he owned the damn thing. (Ford glanced back up at him and gave him a look.)
"You-You're kidding, right? Ford, what the heck?!" Shermie stared at the older Ford.
"Yes, he's kidding," Bill, of all people, was the one to say next. "Really? Self-testing? -How stupid is this local Stanford, anyway?" Bill asked of them all next, frowning at them all a little bit. (He was liking the idea of his sister spending any time at all around him less and less.)
"You'd be surprised," Seb mumbled.
"-Surprised, nothing," Bill said next. "That WASN'T a rhetorical question. Not when my sister's spending that much time around him!" he stated next, and that left Ford staring up at him with a slight frown.
Jan returned with young Ford and Shermie sent Stan a murdering glare. "I'll fucking kill you!" Stan quickly stood up and ran away from his younger brother. They raced around the room, with Stan laughing uproariously. They raced out of the room, still screaming.
"Ah…" said Ford, "Are they…?" he asked almost tentatively, watching them go. ("Not literally, Sixer," Bill muttered down at him next, inspecting the fingernails of his right hand.)
"Do you think I'm fucking stupid!" "Come on, kid it was a joke!" were the yells that bounced off the walls, making it back into the room. Then a loud THUMP (when Shermie tackled his brother into the floor). "I can't believe you!" Shermie cried, slapping Stan as the older brother laughed.
Sixer sighed. "This is a normal thing here." he told Ford. Xin giggled. "It's great isn't it?!"
Ford didn't think this was great at all. It reminded a little too much of the last two times he and Stan had fought - once in the basement lab, in front of the portal (with his own twin brother), and once during Weirdmageddon in the midst of trying to perform the circle with Stan...
Shermie came back, dusting his hands. "I'll lose MY SHIT if any of you fucking pull another prank on me!" (Ford winced slightly at this, while) Shermie glared daggers at his older brothers. "Bad enough when Seb told me that you guys were DEAD for 13 years!"
"Aren't you losing your shit already?" Seb teased.
Stan came back, groaning and rubbing his head. "Is your Shermie this fucking savage?!" The question brought Ford up rather short, because...
"...I don't know," Ford said honestly but quietly, looking away from all of them, feeling a bit disturbed, because... Had he been? In his own dimension, he hadn't been there to watch Shermie grow up, and in Stan's dimension… Shermie had died before he'd- before Stan had gotten a portal open to the Nightmare Realm for his brother and... Ford had come through it instead...
"That's 3-0 in Shermie's favor." Abigail grinned at Carla. The other woman shrugged. "That's only because my Stanny holds back." Stan snorted. "Well, if I beat Shermie, Ma would say I was bullying him."
"You ARE bullying me!" Shermie snapped. "Ugh! The three of you have always been messing with me! I'm still waiting to see what stupid prank Ford's gonna try on me." He turned to glower at Sixer, who just shrugged. "I… don't think I'm going to put you through that," Sixer said slowly. Xin elbowed him. "You're the one who agreed to leave the room with me before Shermie came in." At that, Sixer flushed.
"You're all assholes!" Shermie stomped off, headed for the kitchen. "Ma! Tell them off for me, I'm gonna get some food!" (Ford winced again at this.)
"Of course dear." Kari shrugged. "Boys, don't tease your brother. Shermie's gullible."
"NOT WHAT I MEANT MA!"
"Yes, ma'am," was Ford's quiet (rather knee-jerk) contribution to the """Fine, Ma~""" from the other triplets in attendance there. Kari huffed. "You're not going to. I can tell." She leaned back in her chair. "Well, next time one of you three tries this again, you'll have to sit in the time out corner for three minutes."
Ford blinked at this, while Stan gasped dramatically. "In my own house?!" Kari gave him an even stare. "Or~ I could pull out the baby photo album and show all your kids and niblings-"
"-I'll be good!" Stan nodded quickly.
Ford was very… out of his element here. This was not how he was used to seeing things done, and… right. He pulled in a slow breath. This dimension was more like an alien one than the one… either of the ones he was used to. This local 'Stan Pines's behavior had thrown him off for a bit, being far too familiar to Stan's own...
(Ford felt a bit of a pang in his chest.)
"...I don't suppose I could negotiate a time limit to this questioning period?" Ford tried to say somewhat formally next, folding his hands in his lap. He really should have negotiated such sooner, but… they had all seemed fairly friendly. It would have been a bit rude to not treat them similarly in return. (Of course, usually he had his guns and various 'fancy sci-fi' equipment to fall back upon, should negotiations ever turn so terribly sour that it became necessary to forcibly extract himself from the situation he was in, before-)
"Ah, sure? We don't wanna bother you too much if you're not up for it." The local Mason shrugged. "I mostly just wanted to know how things were in your dimension. I've read a lot about alternate dimensions and all that, and uncle Seb is really different from Mi- ah… Xin." He glanced over at the man-eater. "Also, can't you just pick one name and stick to it? This is really annoying," he grumbled. (Ford frowned a little at this, about to inform Mason that, in most dimensions-)
Xin cackled. "But the look on your face whenever I switch is funny!" (...Never mind. Ford had forgotten for a moment who they were speaking of, here.)
Ford opened his mouth to begin to address Dipper's original question, on how things were in his own dimension. But before he could, Bill cut in first with a: "-Which one?" at the same time that the blonde woman (whom Ford was very sure at this point was Sebastian's wife) reached over to ruffle the man-eater's hair and say, "Xin, honey, I know you want to express yourself, but for us humans, it's difficult to change up names and identities like you do."
"...I guess…" Xin said. Ford's eyes narrowed slightly, and suspiciously, when the man-eater actually looked to be considering it. "But my different forms are different, with different names and stuff…" The blonde woman sighed. "Ok, but don't be too harsh on people if they call you by the wrong name sometimes. I mean," The woman laughed lightly. "I still think of you as Miz in my head. No offence, but you're my little girl, ya know?"
"I know, mommy." Xin sighed, shrinking back down as he said so and hugging Wanda's waist. "...I'm cuter as Miz anyway," she admitted. (Ford got a slightly dark look at that, thinking, 'The better to eat other people with by tricking them into getting too close to you.')
As if seeing Ford's expression, Sixer explained, "Sebastian and Wanda chose to adopt Miz as their daughter a few months ago so she could be home for long periods of time before their very rude neighbors who never mind their own business start asking things. Wanda's trying to teach Miz how to behave more like a human."
"And I'm going to be teaching her how to be a proper demon," Bill added in next casually.
"...That sounds like a losing proposition on all fronts," Ford muttered out to this, directing a sharp look up at Bill, where he was sitting right next to his right shoulder and arm. Sixer shrugged. "Wanda's a lawyer," he said, as if that gave the woman an advantage, somehow.
"Unless she's of the fighting variety, she'll likely have a difficult time staying uneaten, or worse," Ford noted with a frown. Though he did admit somewhat, internally, that a lawyer's background (even for one not of the fighting variety) would potentially help somewhat with any deals being made that were purely unforced. (Not that most of those were…)
"We've told Miz on multiple occasions that she is not allowed to eat humans. No matter the reason." Wanda deadpanned, one of her hands petting Miz's head as the girl purred.
Ford stared at the woman for a long moment.
And then he raised a hand to his face and pinched at the bridge of his nose.
"...Bill," he tried again, just one more time, "Why did you bring me here?"
And this time, Bill actually answered him a bit more thoroughly with: "Why do you think? -There are fourteen Pines here, Sixer," Bill complained at him, as Ford slowly dropped his hand and twisted his head upwards, to look up at him where he sat. "Fourteen. Not counting my sister, of course. -You're my backup," Bill said, as if he was having to explain something obvious to a very stupid person.
Ford stared up at him rather blankly. "...What?"
"Fourteen Pines," Bill said, tossing his hands forward out at all of them. "You!" he said next, bapping him on the top of the head with the side of his hand - though not quite hard enough to set his skull ringing, or even much hurt. "My Zodiac, backing me up! -Not a difficult concept here, Sixer," Bill said to him next, crossing his arms and leaning back a bit, against the side of the back of the chair from where he was sitting.
And then Bill apparently had the sheer audacity to turn to the rest of the locals in attendance and say, "By the way, in case you were wondering, I win. -Waaaaay more firepower right here," he pointed a finger down at the top of Ford's skull, "Than the rest of you all combined. -Except you little sis, that one would be more of a toss-up, and we're not doing that, anyway." Bill then turned back to the rest of them and said, "So don't even think about trying a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g stupid here, anymore." (And long before the end of this little speech, Ford was already equal parts frustrated, angry, and absolutely mortified.)
("BILL!" Ford hissed out at him angrily, not quite clutching at the sides of the chair he was currently sitting in.)
"So… the older Ford gets more points…" Mabel nodded solemnly. "What's the method of scoring anyway?" at the same time that Miz whined out, "I still don't know why you think we're making fun of you? We're not!"
Stan, meanwhile, folded his arms. "Well, regardless of how we're bein' scored, I bet Dipper's bringing down our average." ("HEY!")
"Only if he's not-" Bill began. "HM. Well, he's not MY Pine Tree, so I suppose I can't comment on matters concerning THIS one right here," Bill said, just about preening in place.
(Ford closed his eyes for a moment and held onto his temper with both hands just about as hard as he could. -Yelling at Bill would not work. Trying to drag him off would not work. He had to be smart about this. He had to be a bit more like Stanley-)
Ford winced at a much sharper rap on the top of his head this time, that set his head (and his metal plate) ringing slightly.
"-Bill!" he began, shooting to his feet to glare down at him. But Bill just looked up at him with a sharp look in his eyes and said, "Don't even think about it. You, are YOU."
That brought Ford up short, almost to a complete stop.
"Why are we here," Ford said next, and Bill sighed, while Miz complained, "You asked him before…"
"And it's a different question this time," Bill said next, which left Ford tensing in place, even more so after Bill said, without looking away from him, "The word-sounds are the same, but it's a different thought process, and a different concept he's trying to query-communicate this-time here."
Miz huffed and then gave Bill a worried look. "I dunno what I did to make you mad, but I'm sorry…" She pulled at her shirt.
Ford swallowed. "Did you honestly bring me here because you wanted me to fight with these people?" he asked of Bill next.
"No," Bill said, looking away from him, annoyed. He crossed his arms where he sat.
"You…" Ford was feeling frustrated in the extreme at this point, and exasperated, and- "You can't just give me a list?" he tried next (leaning forwards a bit and splaying his hands out, palms up, down in front of him by his thighs), not even really sure of what he was saying as he said it, grasping at straws here. Because Stan had always talked about Bill having multiple reasons for doing things, and-
-for some reason, something about what he'd just said seemed to get him Bill's complete and undivided attention… which had never been all that comfortable to begin with, any time that he'd managed to capture it before: wide eyes, slitted-pupils gaze, absolutely zero expression on his face, WAITING...
Ford clenched his jaw, stood where he was, and tried to wait him out.
Everyone else could sense the tension and kept quiet. Though Mabel did leaned over and whisper to Miz, "Relationship troubles?" to which Miz nodded.
Ford drew himself up a bit, and clenched his hands into fists at his sides. "I've never known what you want," he began. "You've never, ever told me what you want. What do you want from me," he said in shaking tones and a deep and pulsating (painful) anger.
And Bill had the audacity to look him straight in the eye and say, "Everything."
(Ford unconsciously leaned away from him immediately.)
"-What do YOU want me to say, Sixer? Tell you ALLLLLLL my secrets? Ha," Bill damn near blew off next. "WHAT. So you know EXACTLY what to try and STOP me from DOING? So I can't GET it? -This old song-and-dance is getting tiring, Sixer," Bill told him next. "So why don't you just sit down and take a damn break. I'm not the ONLY one who needs a vacation," Bill told him next, looking away from him. "I'm just the one of the two of us smart enough to want one for myself, too."
And Ford couldn't help but feel the fight slowly drain right out of him, then and there, as Bill talked. He was tired of fighting. Bill was tired of fighting. And...
"...You want a truce," Ford said numbly.
"NO," Bill said. "I told you. I want my damn VACATION! -But things keep happening, so I have to do things about it! About those things, and everything that caused them, and-" Bill made a frustrated noise. "Do you have ANY idea what a MESS everything is right now? -That's a rhetorical question, I know that you don't." Bill answered next, just as quickly. "LOOK. I'll level with you here, Sixer. -I don't want to be around that 'Ford back in our own 'set right now, because I'll probably end up doing something stupid that crosses Stanley's line and breaks our agreement, if I'm there. I WANT to spend time with my little sister WITHOUT that 'Ford getting all up in our business; he'd be a BAD INFLUENCE on her, or WORSE," Bill told him next. "And YOU don't want to be around him either. So we'll stay here for a bit, and then we'll go back, when I'm not going to be two seconds and half-a-smirk away from murdering him dead-and-gone right on the spot, and maybe even in front of both you and Stanley there. I won't leave here without you before then. 'Okay?'" Bill said to him almost huffily, like he was making some grand concession here.
And Ford… thought about this.
And after awhile, he opened his mouth to say one thing, but what came out almost instinctively instead was, "You didn't want to be here alone without backup."
...The shocked look on Bill's face at this was damn near priceless. Ford had the odd and unwelcome urge to laugh. (Had Bill really thought he'd not been listening?)
Bill got it all back under control quickly though, looking away from him and saying, "Well, some things will be easier with you here than not. ...Maybe."
Ford stared at Bill for a while, and then he ran a hand over his face.
"...And you also get to spread the madness of the idea of a Bill Cipher who became a triplet around," Ford said to him next, a bit muffled by his own hand.
"Yes."
Ford dropped his hand. He looked at Bill almost wearily.
And then he told Bill, "You should get your own chair to sit in," and sat himself back down again in his own.
"Don't want to; this is fine," Bill said to him next, as he sat back down on the armrest, and Ford had to fight the urge to force him away, to not to reach out and shove him off it completely (because it really, truly wouldn't help the situation here with Bill, and he knew this). (Oddly, it was less difficult this time to fight it back than he'd otherwise thought that it would be.)
"...Apologies," Ford said to them all next, realizing that he'd just had what was (in his opinion) a rather loud hashing out of something that should have been a private conversation out in front of all of them, when they could have all been talking with each other in the meantime instead. They didn't seem to mind, just shrugging it off, since the lot of them didn't want to get between Blue and his relationship troubles with his own Ford.
And then Miz asked again (in slightly different words than before), "What did I do to make you mad at me? I haven't seen someone this passive aggressive since I was human and made my own little sister mad."
"What?" Ford said, turning his head and blinking at her, feeling a bit sideswiped. Because what in that conversation he'd just had with Bill could the demon have possibly thought had been in any way said about her?
Miz wasn't looking at him though, and wasn't even addressing the whole 'not-really-a-fight' that Blue just had out at that Stanford. (She was wondering why he'd been so… weird, since the last time he was here. And his insistence that they were all making fun of him.)
"I'm not mad at you," Bill said next, matter-of-factly. "I'm just going to have to murder them all after they all finally-"
He was cut off by Stanford jumping to his feet and hoisting him over a shoulder in one fluid motion, and then racing off out of the room like a shot. (He moved so fast, he left some of the Pines in residence wondering if he'd left behind some sort of after-image.)
Everyone blinked at that. Sixer looked down at Miz. "What was that about?" He wondered. Miz groaned, "That's what I'm trying to figure out! You're all NOT making fun of Blue. Why does he think you are?!"
It was some time later that Ford strode back into the living room, alone.
"I apologize for that," Ford said awkwardly to those who were remaining, "But it was rather necessary, I think." He'd left Bill out by the pool, lying flat-out on the 'warded' pool chair, sulking somewhat. (At least, he was fairly sure that 'sulking' was the word that Stan would have used to describe it, what Bill was doing. It was the first time he himself had been seeing it in person, rather than by description via Stan.)
"Have you cleared up whatever misunderstanding Blue has about us?" Kari asked simply.
Ford grimaced a little bit, not quite looking at her. "...Somewhat," he said, with more than a little reserve. He pulled in a breath. "The problem is that it wasn't a bit of a misunderstanding at all."
Kari raised an eyebrow at him. "Then, what have we done to offend him so?"
Ford tried not to wince at this.
"It's not you," he told her. "It's…" Ford sighed, rubbing at the back of his skull. "...nearly every other being in existence that Bill has ever met and dealt with before," he ended in almost a mutter.
"But what exactly is it that upset that poor dear so?" Kari asked, looking worried. (Ford stared and unconsciously pulled a face at this.) Miz was lying in Wanda's lap on the couch, looking sad for somehow making her brother upset. Sixer was on the ground with Sebastian's twins crawling on him like a living jungle gym as their sire looked on proudly. "I don't think you can call Blue a 'poor dear', Ma." Sixer rolled his eyes.
"...I'd certainly feel much better if you didn't call him that," was Ford's contribution to that discussion. "He…" Ford grimaced, and just shook his head.
"Regardless, what was it?" Kari asked. "I don't want to continue upsetting him, even unintentionally."
Ford winced as he tried to think how best to put this.
"...I don't know what it is like here," he began, "Or where you originally came from," he added, with a slight nod to Seb, "But in the dimensional set where we came from, there are only a few common interdimensional slurs about other beings. 'Two-dimensional' and 'flat' are two of them," Ford said dourly. "And I'd rather thought myself, up until recently, that that was because of the influence of one being in particular, who seemed to look down on that sort of thing entirely."
"But… we don't have an issue with 2-dimensional beings." Sixer blinked. "And even out in behind the portal here, there wasn't any issue with them. I mean, most other beings just kinda… ignored them?"
"...As unimportant, not worth their time, and largely too stupid to live?" Ford continued quietly next. "Not to be taken in any way seriously at all, even if they did seem to be trying to communicate with anyone else, not that they could, really?"
"...not quite in so many words, more like… they just… didn't bother with them, either trying to talk to them or harming them or anything, really," Sixer said.
Ford nodded once. "Well, in my dimension, there are also Outsiders. They are a type of demon. They actively prey on other beings," Ford noted. "And they rather live to find the weak points in other people." Ford paused. "The first problem, so to speak, is that Bill was, and perhaps still is, literally two-dimensional. He had difficulty ignoring or denouncing things that are strongly based in pure fact; I've never heard him attempt to dispute a basic fact that was rooted in the concept of reality itself at all." Bill only talked about breaking or changing it in some way, not actually contest the current reality of its actual existence. "The second problem is that Bill needed to depend on other beings to get out of the Nightmare Realm, and not listening to him is something he finds in many ways worse than actively trying to attack him head-on. -He can't make deals with someone who doesn't take him seriously, or outright ignores him."
"So… he thinks we're being racist towards him, because he's from a flat dimension?" Sixer blinked. "But we have no issue with Sebastian or Miz-"
"-He's pure math," Ford said, grimacing. "He considers it to be a very different thing. You had three-dimensional bodies, with two-dimensional thought. He was literally, physically two-dimensional," Ford said quietly, looking away. (And yes, he was still struggling to understand exactly what that meant himself, from what little information he'd been able to glean from what he'd just been told by Bill, now and before, and what he'd overheard from Bill in-between. Because Jheselbraum had not-)
"But we still don't have a problem with that, in fact, Dipper thinks Blue is 'cool'." Seb blinked.
"And he doesn't believe that, because he has one trillion years of experience dictating to him that you actually think otherwise, and as a result must be lying and playing with him both," Ford informed them, as patiently as he could, while shoving down on pure panic. And the only reason he was able to do so, after hearing Bill's unequivocal declaration of intent to murder them all, had been because- "I think I may have made some in-roads on this front with him today, because I managed to anger him enough that he admitted to me what he told you that was making him so angry, in the hopes that I would laugh at him" - as a direct mental attack on his person - "and give him an excuse to destroy me as well. And then I didn't do that to him." (...which had led to Bill trying to grab and grasp at Ford's skull, trying to read his inner thoughts from the outside of it by wrapping his entire body around him, quite literally. Which had been a rather uncomfortable few minutes of a flurry of physical activity for Ford, and a lot of back-and-forth verbal fighting.)
"...is there no way to assure him that we don't mean harm?" Wanda looked worried.
"Not exactly." Ford sighed. "I'm 'his Zodiac', so that makes me a bit of a… special case to him," Ford said, not really liking that fact in the least. "But he's met other Stanfords that haven't taken him seriously, and… the fact that I didn't react in the way he expected me to should help you all a little, at least. He's… sulking and thinking in the pool room. I'd suggest you not disturb him for a while. Stan warned me about this sort of thing," Ford noted. "It's apparently 'one of those, just let him think it all out things', as Stan put it to me before. ...Because apparently 'he also doesn't like to be rushed'." Ford pinched his nose between his fingers again, looking like he was getting something of a headache from all of this.
Ford pulled in a breath. "The stronger you push him right now, the less he will be inclined to believe you," Ford told them all next. "He'll just think that you want something from him, instead. -Just stop trying to convince him one way or the other of anything on this front, and act as you normally would." If Stan was right about at least some of the way things were going with Bill (and his latest strange game with them all) currently, if they stopped pushing, then Bill would stop pushing back. And that would be the best possible outcome they all could hope for, under the current set of circumstances.
Miz still looked downcast. "...didn't mean to hurt him…" she whispered. Wanda stroked her hair. "It's alright, you didn't know he would react this badly, did you?"
If anyone had asked Ford if there was any way to mentally attack Bill Cipher and potentially succeed at actually causing any sort of psychic damage to him more than a year ago, Ford would have told that person, 'unfortunately, no'. If anyone had asked him more than a few months ago, he would have said, 'yes, but the price is too great'. ...But now?
Ford closed his eyes, shook his head twice, and then looked away from all of them.
"I'm gonna need to do something to apologize…" Miz mumbled. "Dunno what though. What would he like that he'd be willing to take from me?"
"Leave him be," Ford told her roughly. "I don't need you endangering the lives of everyone else who is living here, just to feed you own pretended play at concern!" he thundered out at her quite angrily (while feeling more than a little afraid at what she might do next, if not outright attacked; it wasn't as though he expected her to listen-).
But instead of rising against him, the man-eater… seemingly backed down, burying her head in her arms and letting out a morose sigh. "...I guess you're right…"
Ford twitched, feeling quite angry with her for her continued performance - which in his opinion, wasn't helping matters any. "Don't act as if you're innocent in all this," Ford told the thrice-damned demonic man-eater next. -In his mind, he was not about to let her try and play him for a fool, 'cutesy' body-image she currently had out on display to try and fool the rest of them or otherwise. Especially not when: "You were the one who brought up this 'Liam' to Stan in the first place! You set them all up for this! -Don't think that I don't see it. You've been pushing at this with him, trying to make it happen with someone, for weeks!" He'd known the man-eater had been up to no good with this thing, how she'd just latched herself onto Bill Cipher, and yet Stan hadn't done a blasted thing about it! -Hell, he'd practically encouraged it!
At that, Miz looked up at him. "Blue needs help, but he won't… I don't understand what he needs. I just… wanted him to know that there were people who wouldn't… wouldn't hate him just for being him… didn't think… it was this bad…"
Ford just stared down at her. He didn't bother asking the man-eater how bad she'd actually thought it was going to be. In all likelihood, by his thoughts, he could flip a coin to decide whether she'd thought it was going to be 'better' or 'worse'.
(If Blue's Stan had been there, though, he would have asked her why she hadn't come to him first for his opinion and advice, before trying to pull all of this crap over on her big brother. Or why she hadn't just asked the kid about it all directly instead, what he thought he wanted and needed.)
"Brother's really cool and smart and amazing-" Miz sounded miserable. "Why won't he believe that other people could like him for that, like I do?"
Seb raised his hands and stood up, pushing Zoe off him and waited for a fight to happen. "Hey~ How about we all calm down for a second~" He looked at Ford who was scowling. "We can just HAPPILY hang out, huh? HUH?!" He really didn't want Ford's discussion with Miz escalating into something they wouldn't be able to control.
Ford glanced over at him, then looked away. He tried to pull in a deep breath and relax, but...
...inevitably, Ford's gaze moved back over to the other 'inside' demon in the room. (Frankly, he just didn't feel safe with her here.)
...But, as per Stan's arrangement with Bill, the man-eater seemed to have, perhaps, some sort of similar game going on with Seb's wife at-present - one she seemed loathe to give up without a longer-term reason. Which could mean...
Ford forcibly moved his gaze back to Seb again. "What did you have in mind?" Ford asked of him grimly.
"Um…" Seb rubbed his head when everyone stared at him. "Well, we can easily share information about our dimensions. The kid's need for info will be satisfied-" nodding at Dipper. "-and you won't be left in the dark about this place. Would that make you feel more at ease while you stay here with us?"
"I'd feel more comfortable if I was armed, and had some sort of assurances that the man-eater wasn't going to attack or otherwise try and eat me, or murder anyone else here or anywhere else," Ford told him succinctly. "But I don't expect that to happen," and he wouldn't particularly trust anything she said to try and convince him of such, "And I myself can't guarantee the same of Bill in return, so… we're largely at an impasse on both those fronts, I think."
"Stan keeps his guns in a safe in his closet." Miz mumbled into Wanda's lap. Wanda sighed. "Not really helping Miz." "...sorry…"
"Haha, the man-eater. Sorry. I'm so sorry." Seb waved his hands. "I won't give you weapons. Fords and weapons aren't a very good combination, I mean, the last time my brother had a weapon close by, he nearly killed Zach-" (The boy blinked. "What?" while Ford himself looked a bit ill.) Seb continued, "But, I'm sure I CAN give you the promise that Miz will in no way hurt you, physically or mentally. She doesn't get into Minds without permission, and if you get uncomfortable with some question, we'd stop. And, if it makes you feel better...I can limit my powers as well?" He looked at Miz. "You won't, right?" he asked his sister.
"I don't need guns from you, and I doubt you could stop her if you tried," Ford told Seb next. "The fact that you think that you can just means that you aren't taking the threat that she poses very seriously. -I'll answer your questions, if I can, but I won't do it in the same room as her." He was tired of her yelling things at him, and getting into fights with her that even Bill didn't seem able to effectively stop without attacking her to quiet her down.
"If I attacked or ate you, I'd be being rude to a guest, and then granny Kari would be mad at me." Miz groaned. "And I don't want that."
"Miz is a very weird demon, you know?" Seb raised an eyebrow. "But, I trust her with my children, it's quite obvious that, to my family, she's not a threat."
"Believe what you like," Ford told him. "All I can do is warn you of what I know." He pulled in a breath. "She was able to force me into suffering a mental breakdown, a complete psychotic break from reality, no less than a month ago, one that lasted for close to a week. She did it to me with a handful of sentences. I…. still don't feel properly steady yet, when it comes to certain topics and events," Ford told him next, pushing down on the pain. "Bill has had to step in on several occasions, to try and mitigate the effects." Ford still could barely believe that one himself.
"Not on purpose!" Miz protested. "I don't want to break you- you're brother's! I don't want to break his stuff-" Miz was cut off by Wanda covering her mouth. "You're not really helping, just let us handle this," Wanda told her gently.
"So can a very skilled speaker." Stan mumbled. "Or a prosecutor," Wanda shrugged. "I've seen many people break down a witness on the stand. Not really nice, but it happens."
"So can any manipulative simple human." Seb added. "Like con artists or blackmailers. Hell, cult leaders too!"
"Be that as it may," Ford said, holding onto his patience, "I still don't want to speak to her for extended periods of time," Ford told them all. "I don't particularly feel like giving her the chance to put me through something like that again, if I can in any way avoid it."
Wanda sighed. "Miz, honey, do you mind taking the twins and Diego and going to play somewhere else?" Miz looked a little betrayed, and hurt. But she nodded and got up from her spot. "Come on ya little monsters, I can teach you how to make cream rolls…" She sighed. Seb winced. Oh no, Miz was going to stress bake. She must have been really upset by this.
But once Miz had left the room, Sixer immediately turned to Ford. "Why don't you consider it an option that Bill Cipher's are all different?" Sixer asked his older self. "I clearly don't have the amount of experience you have, but I've met three different Bills already… four if you count Seb, and all of them are entirely different."
"So have I," Ford informed him dryly, "I've met four individuals who profess themselves to be Bill Cipher as well," thinking of Miz, Seb, and the 'anti-Bill' square, in addition to Bill Cipher himself. "Bill is the only 'Bill Cipher' of the lot of them. The rest aren't him, they're just awful demons of one sort or another. -No offense," he said to Seb next, with a slight wince, only realizing what he'd just implied about the man only after he'd said it. "You seem to care for your children and family now, but you yourself seem to think of your prior life as…" Ford let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. (He was already starting to relax now, with Miz absent and thus unable to talk at him further.)
"Horrible? Yeah, but I was not like Blue, or Miz or the Bill we killed… the bastard." He mumbled the last part.
"Bill agrees with you on that front," Ford told him quietly, remembering some of the things that Bill had told him, answered for him, out in the pool room before, when he'd needed a few minutes away from Seb to both process and think. "He considers that one to be 'broken', as he put it. He had told me that if he ever comes across him again, he plans on killing him himself."
"What is broken supposed to mean for Blue?" Sixer asked.
Ford looked away from him.
"...I don't know," Ford had to admit. "But what I do know," he said, as he turned back towards him, "Is that Bill likes to… play his games in certain, specific ways. And…" he glanced over at Seb before continuing, "Apparently the local Bill here… violated several of these self-imposed rules that Bill generally does not ever violate himself." Ford grimaced. "For the most part. ...That I know of." Ford ran a hand across his face. "...Or that Bill himself will break down and admit to." It had been clear that Bill had violated them himself before, but whatever 'reasoning' was used by this other local Bill apparently hadn't been something the insane triangle demon happened to agree with, for whatever reason, given his own insane logic. (Ford still didn't understand what Stan hoped to gain from trying to untangle it all. There wasn't any real method or logic to Bill's madness, let alone reason. Bill was insane.)
"Hey~" Dipper sat up and awkwardly smiled. "I was wondering, Mr. Uncle Ford from another dimension, if the research you put in the Journals was still the same as my Uncle. You know, everything awesome about town."
Ford blinked at this, then brightened up a bit as he straightened in place. "Ah, well. I've no idea if it's still the same? I don't know what your own uncle wrote in his own journals here," Ford elaborated upon, glancing over at said uncle. "I assume you mean the local Gravity Falls here when you are referring to the 'town'?"
"Uh huh!" Dipper nodded vigorously. "What did you find in your local Gravity Falls? I already read everything from Uncle Ford and copied a few important pages in my Journal before we threw the journals away. Did you also throw your Journals away?"
"You what?" Sixer frowned. Was the dangerous information still reachable?!
Ford glanced between them.
"I did toss my Journals into the bottomless pit myself, after the events of our own Weirdmageddon," Ford noted. "I believe Stan still has his photocopied version of my, ah, well, a third journal, in the Shack… somewhere or another, I suppose." It was likely down in the basement there, still. "But…" Ford frowned slightly. "I'm happy to compare notes on at least some of the basic contents to do with the town -if you don't mind if I do so," he said, addressing the local Ford more at the end of things there than the local Dipper. It was his work that they were talking about here, after all.
"Yeah~ about that~ Fordsie, I may or may have not photocopied the journals too and I don't know where those copies are?" Seb grinned sheepishly.
"WHAT?!" Sixer was AGHAST at this- this- utter betrayal of his trust! "You photocopied my stuff?! Without asking me?!" Seb groaned. "That was like five years ago! Yeesh!" Like it even mattered now?
"What if someone uses the stuff in there?" "I'm pretty sure I left them in the Shack, or maybe it got destroyed. No biggie."
(Ford stifled a sigh. He hoped he hadn't just instigated a fight.)
"Alright, I'll need to look for those copies though." Sixer frowned but then looked at Ford with a small smile. "It'd be very interesting to compare if we have the same notes."
Ford couldn't help but wince slightly at this, because… "In all honesty, I don't have my own journals memorized." They were the equivalent of his own field notes, in many cases. "I can talk to what I know about the town and the woods there itself, but…" Ford sighed, as he hated admitting this. "It would likely be simpler to have Bill reproduce the appropriate sections for me, for you to then compare. I didn't always write everything down," he noted next. "But if you want to know what I did…" Bill had a perfect memory, and he'd seen every last page in his journals, as much as the thought still sickened him somewhat. "He could likely hand you all a copy of what they originally looked like, even," before Bill had begun defacing them by adding on his own little taunting notes to them later. (And also before his own more frantically scribbled out thoughts later, when he'd been suffering from what he couldn't quite term 'full-blown paranoia' since Bill really HAD been out to get him. His concerns had been completely correct, and fully-justified at the time in which he'd had them.)
"Can you, like ask Blue then?" Stan was very curious to see if all Fords had the same nerd notes in all dimensions. "-Pleeaseee!" Mabel added with a pout.
"I will ask him later," Ford told them all, blinking a bit owlishy at the interest on this from all fronts. (Seb and Stan held back laughter at the apparent inherent owl nature of all Fords.) "Once he comes back here to this room himself, on his own. I don't want to disturb him in the interim myself, while he's still thinking," Ford noted to them all carefully.
The family hummed and thought about what else to ask. "You're the… great uncle of your Mabel and Dipper right?" Mabel had a distant memory of hearing Seb explaining that in his old world, their dad was supposed to be their grandpa.
"Yes," Ford nodded, as he quickly glanced over at Shermie. "Somewhat." He winced as he added the last of it for completeness.
"What about Dillon?" Mabel asked next but Stan waved a hand to shush her. "Wait, whatcha mean 'somewhat'?"
"I…" Ford glanced between them both, unsure of "...Which question would you like me to address first?" (Neither of them were questions that he particularly wanted to address any more than the other, since neither of them involved what he considered to be particularly pleasant topics.)
"Me." Dillon blinked. "What am I like, over in your world?"
"Ah, well… you aren't like anything, really," Ford told him. "You don't exist in the dimension Bill and I just came from," Ford told them. "Stan never got married. As far as any of us know, he never had any kids." (He supposed he could build a genetic tracker to scan the planet and be able to be absolutely certain about it, but… the thought had never really crossed his mind before.)
Dillon looked shocked at that. "How? Dad and mom love each other- mom waited for him to return for 13 years!"
"Perhaps they do here, but they broke up with each other in their senior year of high school there," Ford told him, "I'm not entirely sure why, but..." He didn't really want to talk about how Carla had broken up on Stan, or how messy it all had really been. Ford was pretty sure that she'd been cheating on Stan with that other teen even before the point of their actual breakup and her very public dumping of him. Or, at least that had been what e-he had been sure of, in terms of what had happened in his own dimension, with his own twin. And what he'd done to that hippie's van next...
Dillon looked down shocked, as Carla looked at Stan and shook her head. Did he hear that?! Seb reached out to ruffle his nephew's hair. "Hey, it just means we're both completely unique in the multiverse and your boyfriend should really appreciate having such a unique specimen." Dillon beamed. "Hah! I'm a once in a lifetime experience!"
"And what do you mean by 'somewhat?'" Mabel asked to clarify the other thing this Ford said.
Ford openly winced at that, feeling a bit guilty almost, because... "I can only say 'somewhat'," Ford told her, "Because the dimension that Bill and I are visiting from is… well, it isn't actually my own," he admitted, "Not the one I'm originally from." He looked away from them all. "I only found this out recently," he added a bit darkly next. Very recently. It hadn't even been a week-
"Really?" Seb blinked, then paused. "Oh, is that why you're so…" He paused and thought of a better way to put it, "...um… unhappy?" He finally said, rather lame as he was unable to find a better word.
"I…" Ford didn't really know what Seb was trying to say, or how to even put this. "I'm not… unhappy to know them, or… to be with them, I just…" He looked strained.
"You want 'ta go home, right?" Stan grunted. "I can understan' that."
But at this, Ford suddenly looked incredibly stricken. Because- he hadn't even thought of that. He'd only thought of learning which dimension he might be from. Whether to ask Bill and risk getting into a fight with him over all of it - since Bill seemed to be of the impression that he was now 'where he was supposed to be'... Or if he could even make something to scan himself with that would allow him to figure that out, determine whatever his home-dimension signature had been before Bill had apparently changed it on him; messed with it, with him, when he'd first fallen into the Nightmare Realm...
This Stan seemed to notice his expression. "...you haven't even thought of it, have you?" Then he sat up straighter, "Wait, do you even know- does the Stan- your Stan- is he still searchin' for you?" He paused. "Pretty sure it'd be a Stan who's lookin' for you, since you don't have a Seb over there."
The look on Ford's face got even worse. (Ford hadn't thought of that, either.)
"I…" Ford didn't know what to say. "...don't ...know?"
The triplets all winced in sympathy. "Well… does that mean the Stanley you're with is… I mean, he didn't kick you out, did he?" Sixer furrowed his brows. Stan smacked him. "Hell no! There's no fucking way in HELL that any version of me would turn my brother away- whether or not he was my ACTUAL brother-!"
"Stan didn't-" Ford stopped as Bill stomped in, looking irate for some reason.
"-Sixer, what the HELL are you doing? -Who in here is trying to give you SCREAMING NIGHTMARES while you're completely awake?!" Bill demanded out of him almost spitefully in Galactic Standard. (Ford looked over at him, shocked.) "-Don't look at me like that," Bill spat out at Ford next, stomping right up to his side, as Ford stood himself, trying to get both his balance back and his feet, "I could have felt that clear across the Milky Way, if I'd been that far off," Bill told him next, coming to a stop right in front of him, staring up at him, glaring.
When Ford didn't answer him right away, Bill rounded on the rest of them and said, WHAT did you DO?!"
The triplets stared. Stan raised his hand. "I mean, I guess that would technically be me?" He said, with way less self preservation than Sixer would have ever thought possible, and left him feeling terrified for his triplet's life. Seb lowered his arm with his powers, muttering 'idiot'. "We were talkin' and I kinda… pointed out that he's got his own twin out there…"
Bill's head had swiveled towards the local Stan as he started to speak, and long before the time this Stan had finished, Bill's expression had dropped down into something quite disgusted and disgruntled. Something that vaguely resembled an, 'oh, not THIS again.'
-And that set off Ford almost immediately.
"Where is my BROTHER, Bill!" Ford demanded out of the dream demon, next.
"Back in Dimension 46-apostrophe-backslash, where we left him; why?" Bill responded, as if that should be already blindingly obvious to him.
Ford pulled in a breath, and damn near reached for the triangle to strangle him. (His arms actually came up higher than his waist, before he managed to force them back down again.)
And Ford was frustrated as hell, trying to think of the right words to say to-
But then it suddenly hit Ford in a flash. The terminology Bill used. The same things that Stan used, and said as well. the exact same things that-
"Bill," Ford said next, feeling both shaky and faint, "Where is my twin brother right now?"
Bill blinked up at him. And then Bill frowned, just a little bit, as he said...
"Right now?" Bill repeated. "Somewhere in our dimensional set. -I haven't been tracking him lately," Bill added next, crossing his arms across his chest. "Stanley doesn't want me using my Eye all that much, looking at other places, remember?"
Ford stared down at him, eyes widening, feeling more than a little numb.
"Tracking him," Ford repeated, feeling more than a little bit faint.
"Yes," Bill said. "I haven't been tracking him lately. -What about it," Bill said next, almost peevishly.
"Well, at least that means he's out there." Stan scratched his nose. "Hey Blue, would you be able to get to where this Ford's twin brother is, if you had some time to search and find out where he was?"
"Of course," Bill said, "But why would I want to do that? It's more efficient to just-"
Bill stopped when Ford grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him in close.
"Where is he," Ford said, in tones of deep anger, "And what did you do to him."
But at this, Bill just stared up at him laconically.
"...You really DON'T want to do this, you know," Bill told him, in casual tones with just the slightest of undertones to it. (Dual-tone. Barely.) "You really WANT to let all of these things just go according to plan."
Before Ford could say anything, Sixer spoke up, "What plan?" He was frowning at Blue.
"No," Ford said, not letting go of Bill. "The last time I went along with your latest 'plan'-" Ford said in shaking tones.
And he stopped. He stopped almost dead.
And he stared down at Bill Cipher, who he was holding onto, who was holding onto his wrist right back too, and...
Ford's mouth went quite dry.
"...the last time I went along with what you wanted to do," Ford was barely able to get out under his breath, in tones of sheer horror, "Stan got his brother back."
"-His twin," Bill hissed out at him next, "He's NOT-" Bill stopped when Ford tightened his grip on his shirt (and Bill tightened his grip on his wrists) and...
"Bill… what happens if I let you just…" Ford couldn't get out the 'if I try to help you again this time' out. His throat closed up on him first.
Bill's smile grew dark and cagey. "That 'Ford takes a short walk off a looooong dimensional roller-coaster ride, and you get Stanley back. All to yourself!" Bill told him, as starbursts of pain went off in the back of Ford's brain at this. "Without the idiot killing himself in the process."
"What about my twin," Ford managed to strengle out of his own throat next.
And Bill looked at him and said, "What about him."
Ford managed to pull in a breath and say, "Do I get my twin brother back at the end of this, too?"
"He's NOT-" Bill seemed to clamp down on whatever he'd been about to say (right before Ford was about to tighten his fists again), and instead the demon ended with, "Do you really want to get your twin back?"
Ford felt sick.
"You'll see him, at least. Almost definitely." Bill looked up at him. "Do you really want all the 'spoilers' this time again, too?"
Ford realized he was shaking slightly, and having trouble breathing.
He let go of Bill all at once, like his arms were on puppet strings that had all just been cut.
...except he stared down numbly after doing this, as he realized that Bill still hadn't let go of his hands. Bill was still holding his hands at the wrists.
"Jumping ahead," Bill said next in tones that were a near-cousin to disgust. "Skipping over all sorts of everything. -What, you think you're some kind of knight?" Bill said, with almost a laugh.
"Tell me," Ford said quietly.
"Hm," said Bill. "You sure about that? Stan might hate you, if you know it, and I follow through with it, and you didn't stop it. Better to just wait-"
Bill stopped talking when Ford jerked his hands up, and he stared down at the double-handed, fingers-interwoven handhold that Ford had just grabbed up both his hands in.
"'Hands'," Ford said, almost quietly, but with no less intensity, as he all but glared into Bill's face. "Do I look like I'm joking around with you right now, Bill?"
Bill stood there, staring. -Not up at Ford, but rather, down at their own interlocked hands. And he actually attempted to pull his hands away from Ford's hold, almost. -In small jerks. He didn't actually try; it was more like he was (lightly) testing the strength of his Zodiac's hold on him just then.
"...'Free will' is a joke," Blue said slowly after awhile, as he moved his hands from side-to-side and up-and-down ever so slightly, each of his hands held in one of Ford's own. (Ford let him.) Blue looked almost hypnotised by them, from the way he was staring.
Ford pulled in a slow breath.
"...We are going to talk about this before we go back," Ford said very firmly to the dream demon next. (Because that, that had been the problem in that other dimension, hadn't it? They hadn't talked first, hadn't noticed the differences, hadn't had any warning at all that Bill was going to-)
"Mm," said Bill, still seemingly mesmerized a bit by the hold of Ford's hands on his own, as he moved them around a little more. (Ford still let him.) "That's fine…"
...Ford hadn't realized he hadn't really been breathing properly before, until he started doing it again.
Sixer looked between the two of them and then sighed. "Should we stop with the questions then?" This other him seemed quite… upset at all this.
Ford closed his eyes for a moment, and breathed.
And then he slowly lifted his fingers away from Bill's own, and pulled away his own hands from Bill's.
(He didn't see the very quick flash of a disappointed look across Bill's face, that disappeared quickly as the half-mesmerized look vanished, and Bill stepped back himself.)
Ford said, "No," (to the local version of himself) and opened his eyes. Bill seemed almost calm when he stood in front of him. The demon. His old, once-upon-a-time-muse.
Sometimes I'm going to do the opposite of what I usually do, then.
"Did you finish your thinking?" Ford asked him.
"No," Bill said. "Did you finish your waking nightmares?"
"Not yet." (Bill let out a huff at this.) Then apropos of nothing, at the oddest of feelings that prompted him to say it, right then and there, Ford told him: "Stan thinks that you should eat more at mealtimes. I think you should start eating between mealtimes, instead."
Bill blinked up at him.
"Eh, I'll consider it," Bill waved off, as he turned away from him. ...and immediately headed in the direction of the kitchen.
Ford watched him go.
And then he let out a long breath and just about collapsed back down into his chair, leaning over a bit and shoving a hand up into his hair at his forehead.
(Ford felt a little like he was remembering how to breathe again.)
"I'm fine," Ford said without prompting, not looking up at any of them. "I'm fine. It's fine."
(It wasn't fine. It was the first time that Ford could ever think of that Bill had actually seemed to LISTEN to him, for once in his life, without Stan jumping in to save him from himself, and… it wasn't fine.)
(Ford had no idea what he was doing, and it wasn't fine.)
(...And it wasn't like these people had any reason to care about him at all, either; Ford knew that. So he tried to pull in a deep breath, and just... he just needed to- answer a few more of their questions and then he could-)
"Miz? Are you okay?" Zach asked, worried at how forcefully his big sister was whisking the egg whites. "I'm fine." Miz ground out, whisking harder. The bowl was shuddering and the only reason none of the eggs were spilling out was definitely because she was 'magic'ing it somehow, Zach just knew it. "You need to whisk fast to meringue the egg whites." Miz said, somehow making the word 'meringue' sound like a curse word.
Zach looked over at his other sister and saw that Zoe was busy eating the chocolate pieces. Diego was reading the labels on the measuring cups and calculating how to double the recipe Miz had found so they could make more cakes, enough for everyone in their huge family. So neither of them were going to do anything about this. Zach let out a long suffering sigh. Looks like it was his job now. To make Miz feel better.
He scooted his chair closer to his big sister and let out another sigh. "Why're you mad?" He said bluntly. Hey, he was five, he didn't know how to go about things in a more roundabout manner yet. At least he noticed more things than his twin.
Miz huffed, the whisk scraping against the sides of the bowl as she stirred. "I'm not mad." Zach gave her a bland look. "Your tail is hitting the table." he pointed out. And yes, Miz's tail was out and slapping around in her pent up frustration, hitting the table over and over again. Miz's whisking slowed, the eggs had already turned white, fluffing up from all the air being incorporated.
Zach leaned over to rest his head against her shoulder. "Are you mad at mommy?"
"...a little…" Miz finally said. Zach nodded. "Sometimes I get mad at mommy too." that had Miz stopping and turning to him. "Really?!"
Zach kicked his little legs back and forth. "Yeah, 'cause mommy gets mad at us when we break things or-or set things on fire. And… and most of the time, it was Zoe's idea. But I get in trouble too." He huffed. "And I don't think that's fair." Miz giggled softly. "Well, you didn't stop her."
"Can you stop her?" Zach deadpanned. Miz laughed outright. "No way! Zoe's a force of nature! She's gonna take over the world when she grows up!" And if Zoe really DID want to do something like that once she was older, well, Miz was ALL FOR supporting her little sister's dreams and ambitions!
Zach nodded. He heard a teacher say something like 'not even God could stop her…' "Well, even when I'm mad at mommy, I know she's just- just being all grown up and stuff." Zach nodded. "And, and mommy has to be the grown up because daddy's really bad at it."
Miz sighed, her shoulders slumped. "Yeah. I know." She looked down at the bowl, the fluffy soft peaks of the sugared egg whites and placed the bowl down, pushing it to the center of the countertop. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, Miz let out an angry whine and kicked her legs. "I can't believe mommy took his side!" She complained. Stupid Stanford with his stupid racist anti-demon bigotry! She slumped over onto the tabletop.
Zach reached over and pet her back. "There, there," he said in his best consoling tone, trying to sound like a grown up. It was adorable, and Miz did find herself feeling better. She sat up and pulled Zach into her lap for a hug. "You're so cute~!" She giggled, hugging the little boy.
"Ah! I'm dying!" Zach laughed. He was glad Miz was feeling better, he didn't like when his family members got sad. It made his chest hurt.
"So… are you not mad at mommy anymore?" Zach tilted his head back to look at her. Miz sighed. "I can't stay mad. I know she was just trying to make sure a fight doesn't happen." She muttered, "But I just don't like how that Stanford always assumes the worst of me, regardless of how I act or don't act."
"Well, he's old. So he's dumb." Zach said, with all the self assurance of someone who'd seen old people do stupid things that didn't make any sense at all. Like one of their teachers at the preschool, who always insisted that they had to follow all the rules written on the board. That was stupid because they didn't know how to read them, so why did they still have to follow those rules?!
"Not all old people are dumb." Miz corrected him. "But lots of old people are set in their ways, and that means they have trouble accepting that they're wrong about things." She paused. "Am I an old person set in my ways?" She wondered. Zach giggled. "You're not old!"
"Kid, I predate your planet." Miz deadpanned. Zach giggled again, "I dunno what that means!"
"It means I need your help holding the sifter when I pour the flour in." Miz informed him, grinning as she put him back in his own chair and waved a hand to levitate said flour down from the shelf. "Also, what flavor do you guys want this cake to be? We can do different flavors for each cake."
"Chocolate!" Zoe screamed. "Caramel!" Diego bounced in his seat. Miz nodded at those. "All good choices. We can make… like, four cakes, how about that?" She looked at Zach. "What flavor do you want?"
"Um…" Zach thought about it. "Strawberry?"
"Easily done." Miz nodded. "I guess I can make mine… blueberry." She looked around and waved her hand to get the flavor extracts. "Now how this while I measure out the flour, hey Diego, you got your calculations?"
The little boy nodded. "So… we'll need 5 and a half cups of flour."
"And Zoe, can you get three more large bowls? We'll pour the batter into them so we can flavor each one separately." The little girl nodded and ran off to rifle through the cabinets.
As Zach held the sifter over the bowl like a helpful boy, Miz bumped him with her head lightly. "Thanks for making me feel better."
"Of course!" Zach laughed. He liked being able to help Miz for once. She was always the one helping him. He also realized that even his awesome big sister got upset sometimes, about things that weren't super important, but still felt important.
The kids worked carefully, not wanting to mess up the yummy cakes, and soon, Miz was sliding the pans (all four of them) into the ovens. Yes. Ovens. Stanley Pines was a man who owned four ovens! (Because it made him feel powerful to do so.) "And now, we can make the frosting." Miz declared, to their collective cheering.
(It was during this critical juncture at which Blue walked straight into the kitchen, made a beeline for the table, sat down at the far end without fanfare, and quietly pillowed his head in his arms with a soft huff. His eyes were already closed even before his head actually hit his arms.)
"Hi Blue. We're making yummy desserts." Zoe informed him, trying to see his face.
"Mm," said Blue, not lifting his head up from his arms, or even so much as slitting open his eyes. (He looked rather relaxed where he was sitting, half sprawled out across his place where he was seated at the table, actually.)
"How'd the talk go?" Miz asked, she hadn't been Looking in. She was pretty sure she'd have gotten angrier at everything if she did. Heck, she had calmed down now, but she was still rather peeved at that Stanford.
"...which one?" Blue said in a lazy, almost hazy dual-toned voice back to his little sis.
"...I guess… both?" Miz pulled out the food coloring and handed them to the kids to go wild.
"mmMMmmmMMMMMMMmmmmmMMMMMmmmmMMMMmmmmmm…" was Blue's very chill response to this, almost more of a breathing out than a humming out of anything in particular.
Zoe was going to pat his leg because He wasn't answering!, but Diego, like the intelligent boy he was, grabbed her hand and pulled her away, distracting her with leftover chocolate. Blue was scary, the still 4-year-old didn't think that was a good idea.
"That bad?" Miz rolled her eyes, separating the frosting into different bowls for the kids to color as they saw fit. Though, she was going to have to tell them that mixing all the colors together wasn't a good idea.
Blue didn't even respond this time, halfway to three-quarters of the way asleep. Miz noticed and told the kids to be more quiet. "Blue's sleepy. So we need to bake quietly now," she explained. "Why's he always sleepy?" Zoe asked. Miz sighed. "I think he's using up too much energy. I thought getting some nutritious spicy food would help… but I guess not?" She sighed.
"Would cake make him feel better?" Diego asked. Miz shook her head. "Blue hates sweet stuff. So… unless I can make a spicy, bitter cake…" She paused. "Peppercorn." She decided. "I'm gonna make some vegan peppercorn cookies…" She pulled out her Com to begin looking stuff up. "There's gotta be a recipe for that… or I'd have to experiment…"
Then she lit up. "Heeeeey kids~" She purred. "Do ya wanna be part of a Cooking Show~?"
"""Ooooh!"""
Miz gathered her power and flicked her fingers.
Cooking- With- MIZ!
The audience cheered and applauded as sprinkles rained from the ceiling.
Miz waved at the unseen crowd. "Hello everyone! Welcome back to Cooking with Miz, a show that changes its name as necessary for all different audiences!" She waited for the cheers to die down. "Now today is gonna be a different sort of episode, that being the case…" she paused, "Because we don't have a recipe today! We're gonna make it up by guessing and checking!"
The audience gasped. "How's that gonna work?!"
"I'm glad you asked, non-existent person created for the sole purpose of being a sound board!" Miz cackled and waved her hands, making three shadows rise from the ground beside her. The shadows 'popped' to reveal the children, blinking in confusion. "Well I'm going to have these brilliant little helpers with me here today!"
The audience cheered again. Zoe grinned, not really knowing what's going on but loving the attention. Zach and Diego were squinting out past the counter. "But… There's no one there." Diego pointed out. "Is this a magic thing?" Was Zach's observation.
"Well today we're going to be making cookies for someone very special." Miz nodded solemnly. "And they're a person with very specific dietary needs." She waved her hands and a bunch of things appeared on the table. Flour, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, cocoa powder, matcha powder, peppercorn, mint, rosemary, all sorts of herbs and tea leaves, mustard, unsalted peanut butter, olive oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil and other plant based oils… pretty much everything except milk products, sugar, eggs or salt.
Miz hummed at the assortment. "I guess this is what we have to work with." Since they couldn't use real butter, they were going to have to make their own butter! She turned to the kids. "Ok, start mixing flour and other stuff together in combinations that you think would taste decent, while I make some butter."
"""Okay!""" the kids chorused, pulling at the large mixing bowls Miz had provided for them. Diego knew to have flour as a base. All cookies had some flour in it, right?
"Isn't this a waste of food?" Zach asked in worry. Miz reassured him with a, "These are simulations. So no actual food is hurt in the making of these episodes." There was a rasping moan from off screen and Miz threw a kitchen knife at it. "Get back you abomination! I may not be able to kill you but I WILL contain you!" The rasping voice offscreen hissed but remained silent after that.
Zach and Zoe blinked and shrugged it off before continuing to sprinkle spices randomly into their bowls. Diego turned to Miz with a perfect deadpanned expression. "What is th-"
"Nothing to worry about! Definitely nothing at all!" Miz patted his head. "Well I'm gonna make some vegan butter. And probably vegan eggs." The question was… how?
Well, the butter should be easier to make, first of all. Miz putted the various plant oils she gathered together. Coconut… sunflower… almond oil for a nice nutty flavor... ah, she could use the coconut milk too. Hm… and flavoring? Ground mustard of course! For that spicy kick that her brother loved so much. A bit of black pepper as well… toss in some tumeric for coloring...
She took out a pot, filled it water and put it over the stove to heat. Then she put the oils into a large bowl and put that over the pot of heated water. She stirred them all together as it heated and liquified together into a very fragrant blend. Then she stirred in the mustard, pepper and turmeric, combining them all together. From what she knew of butter making (from observing the humans inventing butter) butter made from cow milk is from churning the cream until it separates the fats from liquid. But with plant oils, they are liquid at room temperature and wouldn't need to have their fats separated, due to being entirely fat to begin with. So after she heated them in order to melt and combine the spices, she would have to do something different to turn this (admittedly really nice smelling) bowl of plant oils into solid butter.
So… the answer of course, is to cool it down!
Miz looked over at the kids, feeling kinda bad that she wasn't really running the show today since she was busy figuring stuff out. "Hey kids, do you guys wanna tell our captive audience all about what you're doing and your thought process behind your various cookie dough mixtures?"
Diego nodded, turning to the 'camera' with a serious look on his face. "I know that cookies need flour-" He pulled up the bag of all purpose flour. "And… we can't use sugar, because Blue doesn't like sweet things. So…" He put the bag of flour down and pulled up a bag of cinnamon. "I mean, cinnamon smells nice. And it's not sugar." Then he looked down. "But it might be too sweet. So…" He held up a small container. "There's ground ginger instead! It's spicy! And powdery! So… maybe it'll work as the other flavor." He carefully stuck the measuring scoop into the ginger and even levelled the scoop so it was the exact amount.
Meanwhile, on Zoe's side of the table. She was picking things up, sticking her fingers in and then licking it to taste before deciding if they should go into her bowl or not. "I dunno what this is, but it's powdery and yellow. And yellow's a cool color!" She told the camera as she poured it out into her hand and brought it up to her mouth. She coughed at the dry powderyness and the 'yellow' substance poofed out in front of her, coating her hair and most of the countertop. "COUGH COUGH! ACK!" Zoe gagged. "This tastes YUCKY!" she declared and tossed the bottle away.
Zach hadn't started yet. He was squinting at all the ingredients laid out before him. And arranged them by color. He picked up the first one on the far left, the red one (paprika) and inspected it. "This smells spicy. I think he'll like it." He sprinkled a little bit into his bowl. Then he picked up the next one (cumin) and sniffed that too. "I dunno, I think this one is spicy too." And he sprinkled a little of that into the bowl as well. He worked his way through all the bottles in this manner, picking them up to inspect and sniff. Zach really liked the lime zest powder. It was really nice to smell.
Meanwhile, Miz was diligently stirring the oils while the bowl was placed on top of some ice water. "It's actually firming up." Miz noted. "I'm gonna have three different batches actually, one that's still liquid, one that's firmed up into being a paste, and the last one as an actual solid chunk of butter." She turned to the camera. "That way, we can test out how different these butters can react to the other ingredients during the baking process."
Miz glanced over at the kids as she set the butter aside for now so she could begin making an egg-substitute. "How're you three doing?"
Diego looked up from his mixture. "I gots a yummy mix." He said proudly. Miz went over to check. "Flour… ginger, a dash of cinnamon… nutmeg… saffron? Oh my. What made you choose this?" She asked the little boy. Diego wiggled in his chair. "Um… I heard that saffron is super expensive, that must mean it's really good, right?"
"...well, I suppose that's a good reason as any? I'm actually rather interested in what this'll taste like." Miz nodded, ruffling Diego's hair. "Good job kid." He even had all his spices measured out in proportion to each other and the flour. Diego preened at the praise.
Miz moved over to check on Zoe. Then she paused. "...this is almost entirely cocoa powder." She pointed out. Zoe nodded, her face, hands and hair covered in different colored dry ingredients. Miz peered closer at the… mix. "Is that peanut butter?" she asked. Zoe nodded. "Cookie dough is sticky! So I made it sticky!"
"Well. I am very curious to see how this all turns out." Miz gave Zoe a hug. "Good job Zoe."
Then Miz went to check on Zach. He was sprinkling some ground black peppercorns, having worked his way through the whole rainbow of spices. "So… this is… an interesting mix. Care to tell our audience about it?" Miz asked. All the spices were done in small sprinklings, so she had no idea how they would turn out with each other.
"I gots the stuff that smelled nice." Zach grinned. "Which was most of them, I see." Miz was very curious about this. "Well, I think it all smells nice too." And yes, despite all the different spices, they all seemed to compliment each other. How that would translate into taste was an entirely different matter.
"Well, I still need to make the non-egg-eggs! Who wants to help me with that?" Miz asked. The three children jumped in their seats. """Mee! Meee!""" Miz laughed, "Alright, you can all help me make egg substitutes."
She swept her hand across the countertop and cleared it of the mess, the three kids' bowls of dry ingredients floated away to a shelf to be stored for now, with their names on them too. "Ok so… I'm looking up how eggs… be eggs." She shrugged. "And it's all about omega-3 fatty acids and fibrous stuff to make it sticky." She hummed. "Need to look up what things contain things like that…"
"PEANUT BUTTER!" Zoe screamed. "It's sticky!" Miz patted her head. "I mean… you already put peanut butter in your dough, so I think you can skip the fake eggs part."
"Oh. Ok." Zoe blinked. "Then do we give Zach and Diego some peanut butter?"
"No, that would be too much of a flavor difference." Miz sighed. "I mean, the plant oil butter is already going to affect it, so I don't want to use something too flavorful." She looked away, her eyes Flickering as she looked it up. "Well… some nuts and seeds work… never used flaxseed before… and soy? Apparently applesauce and bananas work as egg substitutes… and avocado, since it's pretty high in fat…" She thought about what sorts of things the boys put into their mixtures. "Well, if we're making cookies, then ground flaxseeds would work best, since it'll be denser."
She waved her hand and some mortar and pestles appeared. "Here's some flaxseeds, can you guys grind them up for me?" Diego was diligently picking up the heavy stone mortar. "How? What're these?"
"Oh, these stone bowls are called Mortars. Humans have used them since ancient times to grind up grains and nuts and other stuff." Miz told him. "And they're the staple of any practicing witch. After all, how else would you grind up dried bones and other ingredients for your potions?"
"I WANNA BE A WITCH!" Zoe declared. Miz cackled. "Of course! I'll teach you all SORTS of potion recipes! Like the ones that make people grow hair all over their bodies! Actually very popular with the magical furry community." Miz noted. "Anyway, we're not doing that right now." She took her own grinder and poured in some flaxseeds. "So you take the pestle here," she held up the matching stone stick, "And you just… press down, crush the seeds and grind them around into a powder."
The kids had fun doing this. Zach liked the sound it made, the whirling, grinding sound was soothing. He briefly wondered if this was what music sounded like to Zoe and daddy, he still didn't get it, but this rumbling, clicking sound of the stone was nice. He closed his eyes and rocked back and forth as he twirled the stone and listened to it.
"Ok, so now we mix in a bit of water with the ground powders." Miz helped them all pour their ground seeds into a larger bowl and spooned some water in. She stirred them until they were fully mixed and then set it aside. "I think we need to let it sit now."
"So what do we do while we wait?" Diego asked. Miz laughed. "Well this seems like the perfect time to get a word from our sponsors!"
The screen went black as music began to play...
Ford was not entirely surprised to see Bill asleep at the kitchen table, when they all finally adjourned to the kitchen as the morning hours ticked over into lunchtime. (Not when he was used to seeing the dream demon doing so on the security camera footage, falling asleep outside flat on his back on one of the picnic tables while tours of random strangers were going on at the Mystery Shack at the same time.)
Frankly, Ford felt a little exhausted himself. Between Bill himself, and the questioning...
Ford settled down into a seat that was close enough to be within easy arm's reach of Bill, but apparently the sound (or vibrations through the floor) made by the chair as he pulled it out to do so was enough to have the demon let out a sleepy sort of breathy half-growl, and twitch (if not jerk) in place visibly.
...and then Bill blinked open his eyes shortly thereafter, raising his head only slightly, to let it fall back down in his arms while letting out a bit of a tired huff. Because of course he would wake back up at the slightest of things, but not to the rest of...
Ford glanced around. There was quite a lot of… mess in the kitchen, but no-one else seemed to be there?
"Bill, did you make this?" Ford asked the demon uneasily.
"No," said the demon. "But…" (Ford didn't like the look the triangle demon was giving the local Ford, as the younger man walked around the table and over to the countertop to inspect the four cakes that were sitting there.) "...this time, I'm going to destroy him."
Ford clenched his jaw.
"Bill, we talked about this in the pool room…" Ford said slowly, in tense and angry tones.
But to this, the demon just turned towards him and blinked at him. "What?" said Bill, before frowning at him. "No-we-didn't!" And before Ford could stop him, Bill spread out his arms, pushed himself directly to his feet, and proclaimed out, "We are having that math-off challenge this time! I brought the PERFECTly-imperfect REFEREE for it, who knows ALL THE RULES for it, even! HA!"
It took Ford a moment of dizzying confusion to understand exactly what Bill was both saying and implying there.
An understanding of what Bill had just said hit him first, leaving him both shocked and staring up at the two of them in pure horror.
Then the second thing hit - what Bill had just implied - and Ford shot to his feet.
"-Do not accept Bill's challenge!" Ford (the referee) told Seb's Ford immediately, "He will-"
"HA! -TOO LATE, Sixer!" Bill crowed out at him, with a triumphant gleam in his eye, and a growing grin on his face. "HE already AGREED to it! -No backing out now!"
Ford went a little pale without realizing it.
He turned back to the local Ford and quickly asked him, with a terrible sinking feeling in his chest. "What did you bet with him on, for it?" Because if it was something he could actually stand to lose-
"Oh, only his pride and dignity, of all things," Bill drawled out at him next at his shoulder. "Wasting your time, Sixer," he was told next. "Because really, what sort of Stanford would ever give up any of that." Ford turned and looked down at Bill at the last.
...Oh. Oh no.
Ford swallowed hard, even as he shook with anger (and fear for that other Ford's continued mental stability). There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a way-
"-Stan doesn't want you inspiring or enlightening anyone anymore still," Ford said, with a great deal of rage in his tone, as he stood over Bill, trying to save the man in front of him from a fate worse than death.
But Bill just waved this off as if it was of no consequence to him and said, "Yeesh, Sixer. I know that. That's why I'm just going to destroy him, instead. I said that before. -What, weren't you listening?"
"I don't want you destroying him, Bill," Ford tried as a very last resort, not expecting anything more than to be laughed at in the face for it (but at least that would grant the man a few more seconds of life, even then?)-
-but instead Bill tilted his head at him and said, "What. You want me to WIN at this thing without destroying him, there?" Bill made it sound like he thought it was far more effort than it was going to be worth for him to do.
"Yes," Ford told him next, and he pulled in a hard and shaky breath, about to attempt the impossible and actually try (Axolotl help him) negotiating such an impossible thing out of Bill next-
...but Ford froze in place first, at the way Bill just lit up at his 'yes' (...his… ...agreement… with him...?) and grinned at him, looking happy at something or another - what, exactly, Ford didn't know-
"-WELL. I'll just do THAT, then." Bill grinned at him, and then started walking away, yelling out behind him, "I'M GOING TO FIND A GOOD WALL!"
Ford stood stock still in place for a long moment.
...Ford felt as if he must have just, somehow, fallen for some type of elaborate and complete trap.
Ford rubbed a hand across his face, already feeling exhausted.
"...Is something wrong?" the younger Ford asked him, and Ford looked up to him blinking at him, looking rather concerned - not for himself, but seemingly for Ford's own sake.
"You…" are doomed, but Ford didn't quite want to put it that way. 'Are about to be destroyed' wouldn't be quite accurate anymore (hopefully), and 'are going to be crushed beyond despair' wouldn't exactly help matters, either.
"...are not going to win this. You do realize this, don't you?" Ford said rather weakly, trying very hard not to think about any other time he'd heard of a 'math-off' occurring in the multiverse, and what had happened thereafter. (Especially the ones where, for one reason or another, Bill Cipher had ended up being one of the few contestants participating in any sort of similarly-structured or -constructed challenge.)
But the younger Ford just shrugged. "I doubt I would. But it would be a fun way to spend the time." Which only made Ford want to pull out his hair (or strangle the young idiot standing right in front of him - and it must have been his youth that had led him blindly forward into such foolishness and futility), because- did this man truly not understand the gravity of the situation here?!
-And that's the word from our proud sponsors, Cipher Math Challenges! -When you want to destroy an opponent who wouldn't hand over your damn brussel sprouts, pick Cipher Math Challenges, for all your food-related revenge needs! And Cipher Door Travel Agencies! -Need a referee for your Math Challenge? Cipher Door Travel has got you covered! (Disclaimer: your own Stanford-as-referee not included. Cipher Door Travel is not responsible for existential crises following loss of body due to said Door travel methods. Use only as directed.)
Miz blinked at that. Well, Blue HAD been sleeping when she'd started up this space, so it looked like he was her sponsor for the day. ...Well, at least that took up enough time for the 'eggs' to firm up.
"Alright kids, let's start mixing the butter and eggs with your dry ingredients to make the cookie dough!" She clapped her hands as the kids blinked away the spots in their vision from the commercial break. "Wait, is uncle Ford gonna be alright?" Zach asked, a little worried. Miz waved him off. "He'll be fine. Fordsie's actually stronger than he thinks. Or acts." She shrugged. "Now who wants to mix in the slimy stuff into their cookie dough?"
"MEEE!" Zoe cackled like a true maniac as she shoved her hands right into her cookie dough and squished it between her fingers. Zach twitched. "I don't have to eat hers, do I?"
"You don't have to. They're for Blue after all." Miz nodded. "Besides, I've made sure to clean you all before this started."
"...but didn't she put her hands in her mouth?" Zach pointed out.
"...shit. Ok- Zoe stop-!"
"Okay, so after cleaning everything off again, we can split the cookie dough into different pans for each of you… and different pans from those as well, so we can bake them at different temperatures for different periods of time, to see which ones work best." Miz set the ovens. Zoe's dough was… gloopy, is the best way to put it. A strange choco-peanut butter type of thing that poured out of the bowl. Diego's were very dry, like a shortbread. Zach's were more soft so they spread out a little and had to be scooped out with a spoon. "So… into the oven they go!"
"""YAY!""" the kids cheered. This was fun! Making up their own recipe was fun!
Miz clicked on the timer and flopped over the countertop with a sigh. Well, once they see which ones worked or didn't work, as well as their flavor, texture and such, she'd be able to materialize the cookies into the physical world based on the recipe model created from this simulation. She wondered what they were doing out there...
Somehow, through sheer dumb luck (maybe), Ford managed to talk Bill out of the math battle - or rather, postpone the whole thing slightly. He managed to get Bill to put it off in favor of actually showing him the source of what exactly had caused Bill to believe that there was no way that the local Pines family (or anyone else in this dimension, apparently) could possibly ever 'respect or fear' the triangle demon now. And that had led to Bill ranting (briefly) about... some book? Which had then led to Ford asking to see that book. (And Bill threatening that this would ruin him 'completely' if he read it, and Ford that laughing at him after this was going to lead to Bill killing his vessel here, yanking him back home, and then killing him there - before resurrecting him in his body again - just for good measure.)
Ford had insisted upon seeing it, however, and Bill had retrieved a local copy of it for him.
So here they were now. Ford was sitting in the living room area, next to the dining room, with his back against the wall.
Bill was sitting up against his right side - his back leaning up against his arm - and while this wasn't very comfortable for Ford, it wasn't wholly uncomfortable either. (Not any more or less uncomfortable than the last two times Bill Cipher had done something like this, leaning up against him.) Ford also wasn't about to try and shove the demon off of him or move him right now, even if Bill did have his eyes closed at the moment, with some very steady breathing.
(The crossed arms were something of a dead giveaway that Bill was not actually asleep on him this time.)
Ford frowned a little as he reopened his place (still rather close to the beginning) of his book. ...Ah, the book he was holding, really. (One that Bill had 'liberated' from Dillon's bedroom via a sideways portal, then declared doing such fair game because he hadn't actually entered the room and they hadn't shielded it against such interference - thus, by Bill's mind, that made them, their belongings, and all the things therein apparently 'fair game'...)
(Once that argument with Bill was over - with the demon leaving the responsibility for 'fixing' that by putting in place some sort of 'proper' local security against theft and kidnappings and such squarely at the feet of one local Kari Pines, who Bill himself classified as the local reigning warlord, not retired…)
...Ford resettled in place a bit and grimaced as Bill did the same, tilting his head back onto Ford's right shoulder a bit further. He tried to return his attention to the contents of said book.
It was, in a word, horrifying. It was a horrifying read.
Ford didn't know what other people might think of these contents, but in reading it himself, and knowing what little he knew of Bill's own dimension from The Oracle and Bill Cipher himself...
The idea of a dimension that truly worked like this was horrifying. The fact that Bill had apparently come from one similar to this, truly similar in many ways to Exwhylia and the dimension that was talked of in this slim-volumed book, was just...
Some things were starting to make a horrifying amount of sense now, and Ford was cursing himself for a fool for not realizing some of them sooner.
But there was one question that, right now, Ford really needed an answer to. Especially since the rest of the people present here could, all to a one of them, be classified as...
"...Bill," Ford said slowly. "What do you think of Irregulars?"
...to describe the smell coming out of the ovens… was… difficult...
"Hmm…" Miz frowned at them. "Well, I guess we should… take them out and check." The good news was that, since there were no actual eggs in these recipes, there was no danger from the cookies being a little underdone.
Well… Zoe's cookies spread out a little but... It didn't… exactly… look bad… Miz poked at it. Her finger sunk in. Oops. Wow they were super soft, too soft, they didn't hold together at all. "Well." She moved the pans around onto the tabletop. "Let's wait for these to cool a bit first before we try eating them."
The thing was… despite what Miz's misgivings were… Zoe's cookies actually looked the best out of the bunch...
Diego's cookies were incredibly dry and crumbly. Zach's cookies were… well, not very appealing to look at.
Miz was going to have to see how the taste tests ended up once they all cooled.
The kids peered at the pans. Zach looked rather downcast. "They're not good, are they?" He asked. Miz was quick to try and comfort him, "W-well they're not gonna be sweet and yummy like cookies are supposed to taste like- because Blue doesn't like sweet and yummy!" But she wondered internally if dry and crumbly was any better. But she didn't want to upset the kids after they worked so hard on them! So… if they did turn out awful, she was prepared to eat them herself. Even if they were spicy as shit.
Well… moment of truth… Miz picked up Diego's 'cookie' carefully (very carefully, as it threatened to crumble away under her fingers) and took a bite of the pale 'food'. Dry, was her first thought. Really should use a LOT more of the butter mix. She coughed. The flavor was… well, Miz belatedly realized that with how dry the cookie was, you couldn't actually taste the ginger. There was a faint hint of the cinnamon coming through… but frankly… all Miz could really taste was dry. There was some spiciness from the butter-oil mix, and that mustard seed kicked in to make her eyes water. But she couldn't call this... a cookie. Diego looked up at her hopefully and Miz swallowed her mouthful. "It's…" She couldn't lie to him. Not if that might make him repeat this atrocity- which she had allowed- "...very dry. You can't really taste it very well." Diego's face fell. Miz was quick to assure him, "But since it's so dry, maybe it'll go well with tea?" A very strong tea, to block out the awful flavor.
She turned to Zach's cookies next. They had turned out green, she was sure this was due to the matcha powder he'd put in. A very strong color, to affect the rest of the ingredients and still turn out as the dominant. Zach had tried putting a dash of cinnamon on top right before they went in the oven and Miz could see the line where it fell and burned as it cooked. Well, let's do this… urk! Miz somehow, through sheer force of will, kept a straight face as she chewed. It was… hard to describe. All the different flavors seemed to have cancelled each other out and she was left with some sort of anti-flavor in her mouth. Miz coughed and materialized a cup of tea to down it. Bleh. It was… kinda crunchy… around the edges… and that little dash of cinnamon on top was the only thing really standing out. Aside from the aftertaste of spice from all the pepper. Kinda… bitter. Miz turned to Zach and shrugged. "They're… well… I think making cookies taste yummy in a way that we'd enjoy them is very hard without sugar." She said finally. Zach nodded solemnly.
Finally, Zoe's cookies.
Miz picked it up, only to have the part she was holding break off immediately. So, no solidity at all. She put it in her mouth and chewed. Ah. Well. Looks like the cocoa powder and peanut butter wasn't bad together. It actually tasted pretty good. Well, it was like eating a spoonful of peanut butter in a solid form- but it wasn't… bad. In fact, compared to the bland cookies of the other two, this one at least had flavor (even if that flavor was just peanut butter.) Then Miz choked as the peanut butter glued her throat shut. She chugged some more tea and gasped for air.
'I think I'm dying…' Miz belatedly realized. Zoe slapped her back. "Well?! What's it taste like?"
"...peanut butter… with a faint hint of chocolate…" Miz took another chug of tea. Okay… it wasn't… that bad… right? Well, Zach and Diego's cookies were… dry and bland and kinda awful, but they wouldn't… kill someone… right? Ugh, even the coconut oil didn't help much. She really needed a lot more oils in the next batch. But she wasn't sure she wanted to continue pursuing this path, this… non-sugar cookies. Miz had a realization there, that cookies with no sugar… couldn't possibly be cookies. They were Anti-Cookies. The opposite of cookies. The sort of thing that even Cookie Monster couldn't possibly eat-
Miz shook her head and then thought about it. Well… she could let her brother try them, at least, to see if they really were a lost cause.
"Alright then, let's go take these cookies and see if Blue likes them." Miz sighed. The kids cheered, though Zach and Diego seemed more worried than eager. Miz was quick to remind them that they had the cakes they made, and that those were definitely going to be yummy. That made them smile again.
And then Miz turned to the camera and told the audience, "Well, that's it for today's episode of Cooking With Miz!" She waved as they all clapped and cheered.
The image faded out as the narrator's voice came back on. Cooking with Miz is brought to you by Butter. And Sugar. And Eggs. The things you really do need to make cookies.
Miz and the children rematerialized into the kitchen, where Miz checked on the cakes. They were fine. Fluffy and colorful.
She showed the children and they cheered at the wonderful real yummy thing they made. Then Miz looked down at the plate of 'cookies' and winced. "Well… moment of truth…" She sighed. Then she went off to find her brother.
"Blue? Ah… the kids tried making cookies without any butter or eggs or sugar and stuff…" Miz walked into the room with the plate. The kids were crowded around her, worried about how he would react to their work. They had little slices of their cake to nibble on as this was happening. Miz didn't really have high hopes for her brother's feelings on these cookies, but… she had to give him the chance to try. Miz blinked at the scene she walked in on.
Blue lifted his head a bit and looked over from where he was sitting on the floor at that Stanford's right side, leaning back against him (not quite using him as a brace).
Blue and that Stanford were… snuggling? Miz felt a grin threaten to appear on her face, but managed to hold back on it. Knowing her brother, he'd get all 'demon'-embarrassed or something and stop doing it (if he saw her grinning).
"Cookies?" Blue said, and even that Stanford looked up from his book for the moment.
"Yeah, the kids got to put stuff in, without a recipe. But there's no sugar, or salt or eggs or butter and stuff." Miz held them out. "I don't really like them, because I prefer sweet cookies. Also, I brought tea. Since the cookies are kinda dry."
"Hmmmm," said Blue. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and a 'Cipher Eye' seemingly made of light (his 'looking-spell') flickered into being in front of his forehead, while several other (additional) 'Cipher Eyes' appeared and disappeared around the plates of cookies in rapid sequence and succession, from several nearby locations and angles, coming only a few inches close to and surrounding each plate.
"Edible," Blue noted easily. He turned his gaze upwards at her, as the 'looking-spell' faded away again. "You don't really like them because they're not sweet, and you brought tea. -What's your point?" Blue blinked at her. (Did his little sis want him to make them sweet for her? Or to give her a different recipe or three to try? -Best to just ask and have-answered, yes?)
Miz grimaced. "I like sweeter cookies. But you don't like sweet. And the kids worked really hard on them, to make them for you. So I guess it's fine if I don't like them. Because they were made for you. And I brought tea because you like tea, and since the cookies are dry I was worried that they might be hard for you to eat."
"Ha!" Blue said. "Edible cookies for ME! And tea for me, too. -Why didn't you say so in the first place?" He lifted his left arm and made 'grabby hands' at them.
Zoe stepped forward. "Do you like them?" she asked.
"We put peppers and stuff in them!" Zach smiled. "B-because you like spicy stuff." Miz handed Blue the plate of assorted cookies and then placed the teapot and cup down near it. (Ford eyed this arrangement somewhat warily over his book.)
"HM. Don't know if I like them yet, have to try EATING them first," Blue noted, as he selected his first cookie. The children sat down around him, waiting.
"Bill…" Ford began, but only got a "Mine. Shush," from the demon for his trouble. "I am judging now!" (Ford sighed, still rather wary of all this. A group of toddlers making cookies… without a recipe… with a demon cheering them on... and with pepper of all things? It sounded awful, especially since the man-eater had noted that they contained no sugar, egg, or milk products in them, whatsoever. Given the probable lack of acceptable substitutes in this dimension, this was likely going to be a fiasco.)
"...Tehs'ketaa?" Ford asked him, eyeing the contents of the plate a bit suspiciously. He got back a "Clean processing conditions, no 'unsanitary helper' additions, well within nutritional and non-poisoning factors for my current physiology" from Bill, but Ford still grimaced at the way the demon had to handle it to even pick the first one up without it falling to crumbs entirely. (Miz had made sure to start over with the one batch Zoe had shoved her not-clean hands into. She'd had the little firebrand grab her spices again and add them to a new batch of cookie dough after she'd rewashed her hands - and kept them clean, that time. It had been pretty much been just cocoa powder and peanut butter, not too hard for her to redo.)
"I will make more vegan butter next time." Miz told them. "So that they'll hold together better next time. Maybe. Still trying to figure out how to give them better stability."
"Could give you a different base recipe to start from, if you'd like," Blue said, as he lifted the first cookie (one of Zoe's) to his mouth. He popped it in and chewed.
The children leaned forward in anticipation.
Blue didn't swallow right away. He took a good sip of tea and seemed to not quite swish it around his mouth first.
"Terrible," Blue proclaimed. "Just terrible." Zoe gasped.
He picked up the next cookie - Zach's - and popped it in next.
He chewed for awhile, swallowed that one before the next sip of tea, and declared that one, "Terrible also," quite casually. Zach's lip wobbled.
"...Bill…" Ford said slowly, with a slight wince as he watched the expressions of the small children drop. "You should explain…"
Diego's cookie, Blue tilted his head back and practically crumbled it all in, open-mouthed.
Blue masticated that a bit, then swallowed, and said, "Terrible, too," before taking another sip of tea. "Knew it was a good-bad idea to sponsor that cooking show of yours," he said to his little sister next, as he finished off his current cup of tea. "Terrible tea, too." Miz pouted. The kids sighed, disappointed that they didn't do very well. Zach sniffled.
"...Are you going to explain?" Ford said next to the demon, not quite patiently.
Bill looked up at him with not really any expression on his face, an 'innocent demon' look. "What?" the triangle demon said, as he popped another cookie into his mouth and chewed.
Ford sighed in frustration. And as Bill continued selecting cookies from the plate and eating them, one by one at a leisurely pace (with sips of a newly-poured cup of tea in-between), Ford turned to the children (and demon) and informed them (of something the man-eater should already know by now) that: "Bill likes terrible things."
"Yes," Bill said, before popping another cookie in his mouth from the somewhat-rapidly dwindling pile on the plate that was sitting before him. "Edible, and terrible."
"...He also doesn't find most things 'edible', so he'd likely eat them anyway even if he didn't like the taste of them," Ford noted rather dryly next, as he looked back down to his book and turned a page.
"...so you kinda do like them?" Zoe narrowed her eyes at him.
"Yes? I said that." Blue blinked at her. "They are terrible, yes," he confirmed. He popped another cookie in his mouth and chewed.
Zoe grinned, showing off her sharp teeth. "YES!" She cheered and jumped around the room, punching the air. Zach giggled. "Then you should have said so." He was so relieved.
"I am a demon. Demons like terrible things. -This is news?" Blue said, looking slightly off-put, before finishing off the next cookie, and then sipping at more of his tea.
"Miz likes yummy things." Diego said matter-of-factly. "But she's also a dragon. So maybe that's different."
"Miz used to be human; she 'kept' her human tastes and maps all of the things to her own old-and-prior human tastebuds," Blue noted, as he finished off another cup of tea, and set the teacup back down on its tray again, to pour yet more of it again into his cup. "I am a triangle. That is different. I am also a being of pure energy, and have a human-ish body now, and I am sitting inside a body-like vessel currently. That is also different."
"""Ohhhhh!""" The children chorused. Then Zoe sat down again and rocked forward, "Which one of them is the most terrible?!" Her smile was entirely maniac.
"The peanut butter and cocoa one, when it comes after the cinnamon and pepper one's aftertaste mix," Blue noted with the culinary skill of one trillion years of existence behind him.
"YES!" Zoe cheered again. "I win!" She crowed with her hands in the air (and on fire). Miz reached over and wrapped her hands around them, snuffing them out before they burned anyone (or anything). Zach pouted. "But you need mine first to make yours terrible-er!"
"Ah!" Blue noted of Zoe with a grin. "YOU have been working on your willpower and self-visualization, for making the fire-hands properly!" She wouldn't have been able to set her hands on fire like that with the bracelet on and working, otherwise. (Ford glanced over at him again at this, uncertain what Bill was referring to.)
Zoe blinked at him. Then she cheered again. "YAY! I have shelf-wisher-ation!"
"Self viz-u-ahl-ie-zay-shun," Blue repeated.
Zoe paused before she let out, "Self vish-er-ation?"
"HM," said Bill. He sat up a bit and tried again with, "Visual. Viz you ahl."
"Vish… Viz…" Zoe's tongue was getting tied.
"Viz, like 'Miz'," Blue said patiently. "Viz."
"Viz! Viz-er-vation!"
"Viz, like Miz. You, because you. And 'all' of us, too. Viz. You. All." Blue said, making gestures at Miz, then Zoe, then a circle as if he were including all of them next. "Visual. -To see Miz, and you, and all the rest of us, too!" (Ford was not quite staring at Bill out of the corners of his eyes at all of this.)
It took several tries, wherein Zach and Diego chimed in as well, but the three toddlers were able to say 'Visualization' after a while and had lots of fun with this new word, not that they really knew what it meant. And in that time, Blue finished off the rest of the cookies.
Ford… wasn't sure how to feel about all this. Seeing Bill interact with small children like this. Being… himself, absolutely, but also… less… impatient? Terrible? Grating? As discouraging and downright disparaging as he usually was? He was being almost gentle with them as he talked them through it all, never losing his temper at them for having trouble or struggling. Never laughing at them or making fun of them for making the same mistakes, over and over again.
It slowly tightened something down further and further inside him, something that was twisting up inside into a terrible ache in his chest - and Ford, himself? Ford did not like terrible things in the least. (He liked them even worse when they were inside him, his head or his chest.)
And then Bill moved on to what self-visualization actually meant and breathing techniques, and Ford slammed his book shut in one hand. (He wanted to slap Bill in the face with the small volume, even if it might not do the kind of damage he'd otherwise be hoping for out of it.)
"Problem, Sixer?" Bill said, not looking away from the children as his 'Cipher Eye' flickered in and faded out again at his forehead, while the children attempted 'visualizing' a large ball trapped between their hands that was made out of 'them'.
(The kids were sitting cross legged on the ground, eyes closed and trying their best to concentrate on what Blue was teaching them. Miz was gathering the empty plate and teapot so she could take them back to the kitchen to wash them.)
"What the hell do you think that you're doing?" Ford hissed out at the triangle demon under his breath.
"Teaching some small humans something that they're open to learning," Bill told him almost absently, as he continued watching them, all three.
It felt like a slap in the face.
(Miz was out of the room now, trusting her big brother to look after the kids for a few minutes as she handled the leftover dishes. Also, she had not spoken to Ford in all that time, still rather grumpy about the lack of trust and just ignoring him now.)
"What makes you think I'm not open to learning this too," Ford said quietly, slowly going ramrod straight where he was sitting next to the demon.
"Because I have eyes that work." But before Ford could get out a protest, "-You clearly aren't open to learning this yourself," Bill continued on next, in the same easy fluid tone of voice he'd been using with the children thus far, "Because you aren't even trying to learn it. It's not like you didn't hear everything I was telling them, too. I didn't 'perception filter' you away from any of it. You just aren't trying to learn."
Ford felt like he'd just taken a drop down an elevator shaft in a car that had suddenly lost power, with no safety features in place to slow any of it down below him. Just… it all dropped out, right under his feet. Whatever firm ground he'd thought he had below him, that apparently wasn't held firmly in any place anywhere, at all, and never had been really.
"You're not going to stop me?" Ford said, only realizing with a great deal of embarrassment exactly how inane and stupid he sounded after he'd said it.
But Bill didn't laugh at him. He just kept on watching the children as he told Ford, "When have I ever stopped you from trying anything at all?"
Ford stared at him for a very long time, book in his hand forgotten.
"You can try anything you want," he heard out of Bill next, and it left Ford feeling both dizzy and heartsick.
"That isn't…" Ford began to say slowly, before sitting back - then slumping back - against the wall, and trailing off.
Ford stared forward almost sightlessly at the children for awhile, as one or two of them asked more questions rather innocently of Bill, and Bill answered them in like kind, and then Ford finally looked away from all of them, feeling sick and just used, abused and even almost heartbroken about this.
(He felt like a discarded puppet, played with and used then tossed aside, laid to waste. And he was having trouble working up the energy to even feel angry about it, it all hurt so much…)
Zach was holding a ball of fire between his hands, a soft blue in color. He breathed slowly and opened his eyes to stare down at it. The blue fire… it… reminded him of something. But Zach couldn't really remember, there were a lot of things he couldn't remember, like things he'd seen in his dreams, but once he woke up, they were gone. Miz had told him that was normal, that people often forget their dreams when they woke. But Zach still felt like there were things he should remember...
Diego was frowning. He didn't have powers like the others, but Blue had promised him that if he made a ball like Zoe or Zach were trying to do too, that Blue would fill it up with little sparks on the inside of it for him to play with, and 'stir up' with his fingers. He really hoped that was true. He always wanted to make fire like his cousins, it was so cool! But he didn't know how, and so he kept asking Blue questions, even more than the twins did. Because… maybe he could learn magic too, if he just kept trying...
"Hm. Hm-hm-hm," Diego heard Blue say, and when he peeked open his eyes...
...he had a glittering sea of sparks held between his hands, like one of his uncle Seb's novelty snow globes shaken up just like crazy right in front of him.
-But then it all winked out abruptly on him in an instant, like it had never been there to begin with. "Awwww…"
"You let yourself become too surprised by what you saw; you let go of the image," Blue told him. "If you expect it to happen, and know it will-and-is happening, then is it really all that surprising?" Blue said next, in a sort of teacher's instructional 'I'm giving you a hint here, and not just because I like you but shouldn't show it' lilting tone.
Diego nodded, concentrating again. He did it. He really did! He did magic! And he was going to do it again! He couldn't wait to show Dillon his cool magic snow globe!
"You're going to have to teach him that firefly lights spell of yours that you just used next," Ford noted under his breath to the demon almost hollowly.
"Of course," he heard from Bill next, and Ford had to get up and leave at this point. It just hurt too damn much. He headed to the kitchen, he needed to get away from the sight and sound of Bill being- a cup of coffee.
That was about when Miz came back in, blinked at the energies in the air and Flickered to catch the conversation she'd missed, just as Ford passed her on the way to the dining room and then the kitchen past it. Then she grinned and waved her hand, a small stack of post it notes appearing in it. Also a pencil. "Runic magic? Right? I think that would be wonderful for Diego to learn." She sat down beside the boy and placed the post-it notes down.
Blue nodded as Miz made her way over. "He can write it out, hold it in his hands and visualize the bubble, and then activate it," the demonic teacher noted. "If it gets to be too much, he can let go of the bubble and collapse the spell instantly. Much safer, having a walking safety-ward around to suppress things automatically, before too-big-an accident can occur." Blue didn't quite smile at his, and his sister's own, combined ingenuity. -Largely because it wasn't him or Miz that would be casting these spells.
-But the pack of post-it notes was small enough to hide in a pocket or out of sight, and could take and hold several types of ink, wax, or graphite quite cleanly and easily without the possibility of smearing at all! So Blue was still very proud of his little sister's choice in magickal mediums for the local Stan Pines' second and slightly-younger child.
Diego managed another small 'snow globe' for a few seconds before it collapsed again. But he looked quite curious when Miz scooted right up to his side next and showed him the post-it notes, along with a pen. "There are a few simple spells that can be activated by drawing a circle and a few well-placed squiggles," she explained to him, pulling the first one off the top of the stack and drawing a little design on the paper, then drawing a circle around it. She didn't activate it yet, though. Diego poked it, and Miz patted his head. "Yes, like that, now hold it in your hands," she said, placing it in his cupped hands, "And imagine that same feeling from when you made your orb, then tap the paper with your fingers." And Diego squinted at the post-it note and concentrated… and then curled his fingers around it, just a little bit... the small little post-it note began to glow as it folded itself into a ball of light and floated up into the air (then went out abruptly when Diego lost hold of the 'orb' feeling again, and the interior space inside the field he'd made by doing so collapsed on him yet again). Diego gasped. He did it! REAL MAGIC!
"That one's a single ball of light," Blue noted. "This one" - at the flick of Blue's finger, a slightly more complicated pattern burned itself into the next post-it note, the top-most on the remaining stack of them - "Will make the 'firefly glitter' lights for you instead."
Diego was reaching for the next post-it note with a bright smile on his face. Zoe looked over, holding a ball of green fire. "Hey- can we do that too?" she asked.
"Maybe," Blue said. "But you'll have to learn to make a ball of void-potential to hold in your hands first, instead of one with fire in it. -You've been thinking of the fire as an extension of you, not the space that you push the fire into next." Which was fine as a first step, but what Diego had been doing was actually harder for most primarily-visual beings to do, Blue knew from experience.
Zoe frowned at this.
"...You can think of it like blowing up your squishy mostly-human lungs, except the lungs are held in your palms, and expand out to your fingertips and thumb, when you blow into it up-and-outwards?" Blue tried next. "But that is one smaller dome in each hand, not one-wholly-connected. -You should think of your own self-visualization to use," Blue noted, "One that makes sense to you, that is yours," then paused, tilted his head, and recommended, "...Or ask Diego to also share with you the idea-image he uses, instead? It may be easier for you to think of his visualization idea-image, to draw it in the air, than to try and use mine."
As the children conversed with each other, easily and happily, comparing notes on what they were doing and how, their parents came in, because they had (finally) heard their voices and had been wondering where the kids had gone missing to for the last few hours. "Diego! There you are!" Stan sighed as he walked in. Sure, he'd been a little worried when they couldn't find the kids anywhere, but with Miz gone as well, he'd figured she was playing with them somewhere and just resolved to wait for them to get back. "Where've you all been?" He stopped short when he saw the multitude of tiny orbs of light floating up from his youngest son's hands.
"Cooking show," Blue said. "I 'paid' for half the sponsorship, and got to judge-eat the final products!"
Stan blinked. "What the what now?" while Sebastian giggled, "Ah, lemme guess, Miz's cooking show? Man, that was fun…" He still fondly remembered it; sure, he'd been confused for most of it, but… it'd been fun.
"Dad, look!" Diego said, lifting up his hands to show off what he could do-
...and then all the lights went out again (because he got too excited). "Aww…" He'd really had it that time. For a whole minute, really!
"Are you… learnin' magic?!" Stan stared. Seb whined. "I wanna learn too!" and Seb sat down crisscrossed as well, scooting into the semi-circle the children had formed. "I only know how to do my fire and telekinesis stuff. And Deals, but they're not as fun for showy stuff."
Blue gave him a quick rundown of the self-visualization explanation he'd given the kids - the exact same one - and then pointed to Miz and said, "Little sis is going over the runework for after you try both the fireball-you-orb and the voidball-emptyYOUspace-orb out, next."
"I aced that class at magic school." Miz said proudly. "Well, up until I had to drop out. But I still got to watch the classes."
"That's so awesome~" Seb whispered as his youngest nephew pulled at him. "I did magic! Like Zoe and Zach!" he squealed. "Yeah you did you little wizard!" Seb cooed and tickled his sides.
"You did very well," Blue told Diego as well with a smile, as the triangle demon sat back a bit on the floor and just stretched, before answering another serious question of Zoe's - who wasn't gonna give up on this other weird voidball thing yet!
Zach was quietly playing with his flames, dampening the fire until it cleared and it was just… energy in his hands. Not quite a void, but closer. ("Better," Blue told him. "Closer. Almost there. Very good so far; you're doing well for a very-first try.")
Stan was smiling worriedly. Was this ok? Should he stop this? Seb was letting his kids do it… but the twins were FIREPROOF, for starters! Diego wasn't-
(Blue's) Ford walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room (by way of the connecting dining room) with a cup of coffee in his hand that, at the moment, felt about as black as both his heart and his soul. He'd finished the book in the kitchen; he hadn't been feeling wholly well to begin with. (And Bill hadn't really answered his question about 'irregulars' earlier either - just given him a nasty look over his shoulder and snapped back at him, 'What do YOU think?!')
Ford stared as he glanced around at the ever-increasing number of lights floating around the room. (Seb had managed the 'voidball' pretty quickly, and progressed to entire cylinders all the way to the outside of his own bracelet's warding sphere, a pathway that he could easily shove the lights out of next. Blue had burned the single-light-orb pattern into every page in Seb's own paper stack for him, and Seb was going at it like a little light cannon now - post-it note, pathway, and PUSH! - cackling a bit as he went.)
"Ok, and now you try drawing the rune. You have to make sure you remember which one is which, okay?" Miz told the younger kids as they bent down over the post-it notes (of which she'd made several more stacks of) as they drew lopsided circles with their still clumsy little hands. "Making a perfect circle is hard, so you need to really practice for a long time." She smiled when Zach's lines smoothed out as he drew slower, more carefully. Zoe's lines were a mess. Diego was sticking his tongue out as he worked.
"Bill," Ford said quietly, but the way he projected his voice cut through the room. Bill turned his head towards him. Ford held up the book. "I need to talk to you about this."
The triangle demon lost all expression on his face. He was just slit-pupil cat-eyes and staring.
Bill got up to his feet, and followed that Stanford back out of the room behind him.
Miz glanced up, bit her lip, and looked back down. She recognized that book in that Stanford's hands. Her brother could take care of himself… and… if they were going to be talking about what she thought they would be talking about, then she wasn't going to interfere. "Now who wants to see a basic wind rune?"
Miz had to stop the impromptu magic lesson because she was hungry and the kids were hungry. So it was lunch time for everyone! Sebastian was cooking this time, getting Carla and Kari to help out.
Ford and Blue were sitting in the corner of the kitchen, looking to be somewhat in the same position as before in the living room. Ford wasn't reading anything this time, though; he was just leaning his head back against the wall with his own eyes closed. (Neither of them were talking. Neither of them were asleep, either.)
"Hey Blue, any requests for what you want for lunch?" Seb called out as they prepared things. Everyone else was getting sandwiches, with toasted bread and many layers of filling. All different sandwiches too. Carla was making banana and jam. Kari was working on the savory meat fillings with turkey and lettuce.
"Something edible," Blue called out lowly, and Ford held back a sigh (one that was more of a frustrated outbreath than anything).
"...so… like… super burnt toast with lettuce and tomatoes? And some hummus with no salt or vinegar?" Seb called back.
"That is something edible," Blue confirmed, without opening his eyes or otherwise moving in any way.
"Cool, Miz, can you get that hummus? I can't manipulate matter to remove all the salts and stuff… YET!" There was a pause and then Miz's voice calling out, "Sure."
Stan was seated at the dining table already, watching Blue and Ford. "So… how long are you two staying here? Do you need a guest room?" He scratched his head. "Cause I dunno if sleeping in the pool room all the time is good for you? I mean, I could turn up the temperature so it's warmer?"
Ford's heart jumped in his chest so hard at the first question that he almost didn't hear the next three.
And then Ford had to open his eyes to confirm whether or not this Stan was being… ah. No. No. This was simply the usual guest protocol, wasn't it?
...And he'd rather overstayed his welcome already. He'd answered all their questions this afternoon; they'd said they had no more to ask of him.
"That won't be necessary," Ford said, straightening up in place a bit. "If you'd just show me the nearest way out…" he added, as he pushed at Bill a bit (who straightened up a bit, yawning - and then attacking the hair on his own head right afterwards, like the demon usually did after every yawn). With Bill not leaning on him anymore, Ford smoothly jumped himself into a squatting posture, and rose to his feet.
"Oh, 'cause I don't mind. You don't have to be so worried or nothin'." This younger Stan told him. "You're technically family, and all that." He grinned. (...'Technically' family. Ah, yes. Ford understood completely.) "Besides, I think Blue there would rather stay with his sister."
"Of this, I have no doubt," Ford noted in agreement (to the man's ending pronouncement). "It would be nice to see a bit of the city, however. I haven't yet traveled within any iteration of a New York City before," he said lightly, while moving his hands backwards, to hold them together casually behind his back. "How do I exit this apartment?" (He felt, more than heard, Bill rise to his feet at his side.)
That made Stan grin. "Oh! Yeah we were planning to go sightseeing, I wanted to show everyone around!" Stan enthused out at Ford next, while Sixer frowned. "But we already-" Sixer was nudged hard in the ribs. "-talked about this, yeah, sure," Stan continued on smoothly next. "And we thought maybe we should hold off doin' that with you, 'cause we thought Blue wasn't up for it. We weren't really sure if he was ok with going out and… interacting with large crowds of humans," Stan said, and then Seb's voice called out from the kitchen, "Also, Miz is a little afraid of large crowds of humans. But she does want to go sightseeing as well."
Ford visibly hesitated at this, but then (Blue)Bill said, "Vessel." He casually drawled out, "If I have THAT big a problem with all of the idiocy surrounding me, I'll just disintegrate my vessel as I kick myself back up into the Mindscape before I have to murder anyone as I see fit." (Ford stiffened a little bit at Bill's side.)
"Alright." This Stan agreed to that just as casually. "Not murdering is good."
"So I've been told. Repeatedly." Though it was a bit clear by Blue's tone (and Ford's sharp look Bill's way) that the demon didn't exactly agree with this sentiment, even if he seemed to be going along with it for the moment.
"Great! So~ wanna go out to tour the city after lunch?" Stan grinned.
And Ford took it as the trade-off and offering that he thought it was and said, "Yes. That sounds… rather pleasant." (It would get him and Bill out of the man's apartment, and life largely back to normal with them in short order, while allowing him to seem - and be - a bit generous at the same time.)
(Ford didn't feel fooled, though. He knew how Stan would feel about a demonic interloper and unasked-for guest landing in the middle of his Shack and his business, and he'd already heard from his triplets how miserly this Stan was. Someone who took twenties from his own family wouldn't pay out to a stranger for love of money without getting something in return. And his first response that morning in the dining room to the idea of having had someone invited into his house had been… something Ford certainly hadn't forgotten in the few hours since.)
Ford nodded to Seb's Stan once. He believed he understood him completely.
"-hy does this ALWAYS HAPPEN when we take you people out in public?!" Carla groaned. "Less talk- more running!" Stan's grin was so wide you could see all his teeth.
Ford let out a sigh as he ran, Blue slung over one shoulder as he kept pace with the rest of the 'pack', as it were, leading up the tail end of it. Apparently, this local Stan had been thinking that Ford's job here was to not only keep Blue corralled and not murdering anyone for the duration, but also to help run interference for himself and the rest of his family as well. (He was certainly earning that lunch this afternoon.)
"You're the one who tempted the damn paparazzi about your 'long lost uncle'!" Carla complained, over Stan's shoulder now, as he'd picked her up and slung her over himself. "The tabloids need the occasional stir to keep 'em interested!" Stan cackled. Seb whined as he tried to keep pace. "I still- don't see- why you like baiting them so much!"
"Well! If I was famous, I'd love everyone following me too!" Mabel cried with laughter as she ran. "Of COURSE you do!" Shermie shrieked.
Ford grimaced slightly and muttered at Bill's voice in his ear; Ford glanced ahead and then called out authoritatively, "Take that corner alley up ahead."
The family ran along, Stan claimed that running from paparazzi was the best cardio exercise! The thrill of the chase, with none of the actual danger from being pursued by some hungry predator! And Sixer had AGREED with his crazy brother!
They made it out of the alleyway, and made it pell-mell across the street in New York traffic-
-and Stan realized that it had gotten a lot quieter all of a sudden. Sort of. For a certain value of 'everything else was loud as fuck, but at least the camera noises went away!'.
He turned his head, then slowed down to a jog, taking a head count as he realized...
"...We lost 'em?" That easy? Huh… Stan blinked. "Wait, did any of you put on a perception filter thingie?"
"Not it!" Miz huffed, "But I think… we need a break. Mom's tired." And granny Kari had been left behind a while back, though she hadn't minded, she'd simply seen Stan take off running and rolled her eyes before ducking away into a nearby storefront, slipping away from the camera happy crowd quite easily.
"Then it was Blue-" Stan blinked. "Where'd he go?"
Stan did a quick headcount. They were down two people.
"...Sonofabitch," Stan muttered.
Ford was crouched behind a large… environmental control unit of some sort, possibly one for the moving and cleaning air? Bill was sitting next to him.
"What next, smartguy?" the demon asked him, and Ford rubbed a hand across his face.
"Admittedly, I didn't quite expect you to go along with my plan, so… I have no idea," Ford noted. When Bill had complained of the run, and Ford had muttered back 'then put a perception filter up so we can lead them away and I will have us free and away within three minutes' in a language that took far less words to get the concept out to him in the standard modern American English… "I really hadn't thought that far ahead."
"I noticed," Bill drawled out next, and Ford looked over at him almost warily.
"Bill," Ford said.
"Yeah?" the demon responded.
"Bill Cipher."
"That's my name, you want something else out of me, here?" Bill said, turning his head to look at him next.
Ford stared.
"...I know that you're you," Ford said next, rather slowly to him, but to this the demon just blinked at him.
"Yeah, Sixer. You sure didn't manage to get hit on the head in the last ten minutes," Bill said next, then turned away from him a bit. "Try telling me something I don't know for once; oh, wait- you can't."
Ford both relaxed significantly at Bill's nasty bit of banter there, and also felt more than a little lost and confused, as he sagged in place where he sat, staring at Bill.
(Because that wasn't what Bill did. He'd finally recognized the behavior that Bill had been exhibiting here - or, well, what it had most closely resembled that he remembered of him, during his years on the wrong side of the portal - and…)
(Ford had 'unmasked' him this time. Again. ...So to speak. But the laughter wasn't forthcoming, and neither was the long monologue about how everything he'd just got done doing was both futile and stupid, and how it was all going to come crashing down now- and then did, because Bill-.)
Ford stared. He stared at the demon, sitting beside him.
He stared at the perfectly contradictory, disgruntled, horrible, destructive, hateful and hurtful and wonderful and terrible and absolutely terrifying one trillion year old demon who was sitting there beside him on that roof, who Ford had just carried along up there with him. Because Bill Cipher had let him do it.
And Ford opened his mouth and said-
"...so… should we… go find them?" Sixer asked. Miz blinked up at them all. "If you want me to?" Wanda sighed. "Well, what if they want some time alone? Does that other Ford always look so… tense?"
"We'll give 'em an hour before we go lookin'," Stan shrugged. "Now I'm hungry from all that running again. Let's go get a snack." Miz was distracted by the prospect of food and the Pines all headed off to get some snacks.
