Illusion is Reality
Chapter 122
-It's your personal lord and master-
Kari was not expecting the knock at her door.
But when she saw Blue standing there on the other side of the peephole, she rolled her eyes and unlocked the door to let him in. At least he knocked, as opposed to Stanford just waltzing in through his new portal, without even a head's up. "How are you dear?" Kari asked, getting around to making some tea.
"Terrible!" the demon said quite brightly, with a spring in his step. "How are you?"
"I'm making bread. I don't know if you would like any or not after I'm done with it." Kari said simply. "I was told you do not enjoy yeast."
"Yeast is bacteria," Blue said. "I can toast bread to charred-blackening to make it somewhat-marginally edible, if it would be more polite to eat it that way than not-at-all, if it is offered as part of a greeting-ceremony or guest-covenant, to me," Blue said to her next. "I don't really like the added-salt, though," the demon said next, making a face.
"I have some carrot sticks, if that would be more to your taste?" Kari offered instead.
"Yes, it would," said the demon, as he pulled a little black triangle - a hat, once he'd unfolded it - out of his pocket, and reached inside of it next.
In short order, Blue had pulled out a clear plastic see-through container of… flowers? There were several small herbal bundles inside it, about the size of a bonbon or small shortbread cookie each. And even as Blue refolded the hat into a small triangle to shove back into his pocket, he held out the container in his other hand to Kari next.
"Flowering tea," Blue said to her. "You can use one per pot, as my 'buy-in' and houseguest-gift to you here, for this unannounced-visit unto your hearth and home."
"Ah, thank you very much dear." Kari was rather delighted by the offer. Stanley never brought her tea. And Stanford never remembered to bring gifts at all. At least Sebastian would bring by some cookies. Shermie never even visited. He was much too far away.
Blue handed it over, then sat down at the kitchen table where Kari directed him to sit.
"So, not that I'm not thrilled to have company, but what's the occasion?" Kari asked, sipping her tea after a few minutes of silence as she bustled around the kitchen.
Blue picked up his own teacup and said, "Have you given your own son-Stanford his penalty yet?" before taking a sip of the brew.
"He is going to be coming by to have a talk with m every few weeks. And help me out in the kitchen so he can spend more time with me."
"Hm," said Blue, having watched her carefully over the rim of his cup as she'd talked. "He didn't lie to me on that when I asked him then. Interesting." He took another sip of his own tea and then picked up a carrot stick, to char it with fire first and then munch.
"Does my son often lie to you?" Kari observed. Well, knowing Ford, he probably did it just to spite Blue. He was a bit of a bitch like that. Probably got that from her, really. Kari was a liar. She was simply good at it. It was how she could be so completely courteous to Blue, even if she knew he was a 'problem' child.
"He lies to himself." ("That, he does.") "That means he lies to me when he talks to me- and you too, of course. Harder to tell where the lies are, when he doesn't know 'consciously' that he's lying. Takes more effort on my part, gets in the way of other things; it's annoying," Blue told her next, "Yes?" before taking another sip of his tea.
"He's always been very private about how he feels. And he had trouble communicating as a child, and didn't even speak for many years." Kari noted. "The doctors were almost afraid there was something wrong with him mentally."
"When did Seb and Stan say he started talking to them, when you asked them about this?" Blue said to her next. He took another sip of his tea.
"...around when they started school… I… the school contacted me, told me about Ford's intellect. They told me he was a gifted child." Kari corrected herself. "Ford didn't really speak much before then, he was always so quiet, didn't talk to people. The only ones he ever confided in were his brothers."
"Do you know why he was afraid to talk to people?" Blue asked her.
"I don't rightly know. He was such a shy child. I… I suspect he might have been afraid of people, in general. Didn't really interact with anyone outside his triplets. Filbrick's family never really liked them, and neither did Filbrick." And those were the types of people the triplets had known as children, before starting school.
Blue nodded. And then Blue asked, "Did you ever ask your-Stanford directly yourself?"
"I… I asked him, apparently he didn't feel he had anything important to say, which doesn't make much sense to me. But I never pursued the matter." Kari paused for a moment, feeling more taken aback (and uncomfortable) than she felt that she should. "I was more worried about Sebastian back then, he was always causing trouble… which wasn't his fault, I know that now."
"Well, you were a mother then," Blue seemed to shrug off. "You can ask him now." The slight lilt at the end made it something of a question.
"I supposed I should ask him for clarification. I don't know if he would remember though." Kari frowned.
"Oh, I'm sure that he does," Blue said lightly, as he grabbed up and 'fired' another carrot stick. "What penalty was it, that you were thinking of giving me? That might actually have me not-wanting to inflict pain on your Stanford, to your thought and Mind? I can't think of anything that might actually be 'end-result'ing in having me 'like' him," Blue noted. "Though 'liking him' wouldn't mean I don't want to see him in pain."
"Well, I don't know you well enough yet to know what would work as a penalty for you." Kari admitted. "What does your Stanley do?"
"'Learning-lessons', usually; they're the usual type of 'penalty'," Blue noted. He ate his carrot stick, chewed and swallowed it, before adding, "He seems to think my ways-and-means of thinking need correcting, somehow." And from the gleam of amusement in Blue's eye, Kari got the feeling that the demon-child might not have been taking those lessons the way this other Stanley might have intended.
"Because the way you act and speak to people, often leave them with a rather negative opinion of you." Kari noted.
"Yeeeeees," Blue drew out, with another slight lilt at the end, and (while his eyes lit up a bit) he left it at that.
Blue took another sip of his tea, watching Kari over the rim of the cup.
"Have you ever wanted to… not come off that way?" Kari asked. She bent over to check the progress of the bread in the oven.
"Would you believe me if I say I have a reputation to uphold?" and the demon-child was grinning now like he wanted to laugh.
"A matter of pride, or is it something else?" Kari straightened back up, groaning a little at her back.
"Mmm, well," Blue set down his cup. "Could put it that way, I suppose." He let go of the cup, and brought his hands up, to lace them under his chin.
"Are you trying to continue upholding that reputation right now, or with the people you're with? That other Stanley for example?" Kari sat back down.
"Six-fingered hand Stanfords don't seem to like it very much when I lie," Blue said to her. He was kicking one of his crossed feet absently behind him, under the table. "If I tried to 'play nice', well, that's an outright lie right there, isn't it? Better to just 'be my usual horrible self', since they wouldn't like me anyway, if they got to know me. Saves time that way. As long as I don't really need anything from them, it doesn't matter at all, now, does it?"
"There are ways to be yourself without having to go around making everyone around you unhappy." Kari sighed. "I wonder, where did you learn your social skills?"
"In a dimension where you-all would be considered so Irregular that you should all immediately die," Blue told her next, rather easily. "And I'm not 'going around' making everyone around me 'unhappy'. Their 'expectations' of me are all stupid and wrong."
"Have you considered telling them to change their expectations? Or explain yourself in a way they could understand?"
"With who?" Blue said to her next. "Your Stanford, who I have to repeat myself to at least seven times, before he even starts to think about considering what I'm saying to him at all? Seb, who doesn't seem to have that much of a problem with me, now that we're both past the initial misconceptions of what we both assumed about each other's main-wants before? My little sister, who I have no problems with whatsoever to speak of?"
"Well, perhaps your Stanley?" Kari pointed out, if that man was really the one more or less taking care of Blue...
"I talk with him," Blue said. "He has been explaining where all his lines are. He's been explaining his wants when it comes to my actions, that I take. -He doesn't much care what I think, so long as the actions end up being largely within the space of what he wants. And it's a very large space, more of a 'keep out of this place of mine' than a 'stay inside here'." Blue made a shoulder motion that was almost a shrug.
"Has he explained you to the people around you both?"
"He's explained what we've worked out so far between us on the mutual non-aggression agreement to Pine Tree and Shooting Star at least once before, yes," Blue said to her next. "Sixer doesn't want to hear any of it, for reasons; and I know why-not."
"Well, if he refuses to listen… I suppose that would be on him." Kari sighed. "Why doesn't he want to hear it, anyway?"
"Because he knows what demons are and are-like and will-do," Blue told her. "He thinks he knows it all - and he does know enough, though not all of it. And he knows I'm a demon, and he knows that I will never change." Blue reached out, and lifted up his cup again. "And he knows exactly what will happen if he starts not just not-ignoring me, but listening to me properly instead," Blue told her next, with something of a rather wicked, wide and wild grin. There was a light in his eyes now, both triumphant, and truly insane.
And Kari looked at this, and she took a calm sip of her tea. "Your Stanley is a very patient man." Was her observation.
"Not even a little," said Blue to her, as he reached for another carrot stick. "It's part of why I'm visiting this 'set again, here and now."
"Oh. Are things over there really that bad?" Kari frowned. "Is your Stanley not doing anything to protect you from his twin?"
At this, Blue just rolled his eyes.
"I don't need 'protection' from 'Ford," Blue drawled out at her next. "That clueless, witless, sheer and utter moron needs 'protection' from ME," Blue said, then waved that off with a grimace. "Needed to get out of there for a few days, so I don't 'forget' why I'm not exploding him again. Though it doesn't 'help' when Stanley and Sixer try swapping which 'hand they want to seem to be for me, again," the demon muttered out next, sitting back in his seat, charring the carrot stick while putting in into his mouth, this time, before chomping down on it rather roughly.
"Look, Blue honey." Kari said sympathetically. "If he's making you so uncomfortable, and not taking no for an answer, then he needs a stern talking to. It's not right for you to have to be around him, in such an environment."
Blue eyed her.
"You do realize the other humans are fine around him, don't you?" Blue said. He ran a hand through his hair (under his floating witch's hat) rather roughly.
"But he's making you uncomfortable, isn't he?" Kari stared. "Your feelings matter too."
"Lady, I'm used to murdering my problems just because I'm bored, any-time I don't feel like having to maybe put up with them coming back with an army to my gates at a later-date JUST BECAUSE," Blue drawled out. "DEMON, remember?" he said, tossing an arm over the back of his chair and waving his other hand at himself. "Did your sons not explain this to you, yet? Lord and Master for All Eternity of the many, many dimensions that I've conquered? Worshipped like a god on several million planets in other-dimensions, across wide swathes of territory, out there in the boondocks beyond-that?"
"Well," Kari said simply, "You're not allowed to murder him, now are you?" She sipped her tea. "And he is making you uncomfortable. And that isn't right."
"'Allowed'. HA. -I do what I want. Those puppet strings can't hold me down, if I don't let them." But then Blue stretched in place oddly, like something wastying and constraining him down, just a little bit. With the way he twisted sideways and stopped the motion here and there, it was almost like...
"And yet, you haven't killed him." Kari observed Blue over the top of her mug.
"I didn't kill Stanford or 'Ford for a good year and a half before I had my Deals in place with either of them, and they were annoying as hell even before this, right from the start," Blue noted, as he settled back into place. "It's fine. I'm handling it."
"Handling it, by running away to hide out here and allow yourself some time to calm down and be less likely to murder him out of sheer frustration." Kari clarified.
"I'm not 'running away' or 'hiding out' anywhere," Blue told her with another eye roll.
"Is your Stanford doing alright? I notice he isn't here?"
"He's variable; he's trying to swap-left-to-right hand positions with Stanley right now, I just told you." Blue gave her an odd look. "And of course he isn't here; he didn't want to be here the first-time." He looked away from her next.
"Well, I'm glad he's doing better." ("Define: better.") Kari sighed. "I'm almost tempted to ask if I could go to your dimension and see for myself what is happening."
"Well, THAT'S a terrible idea!" Blue said with a bit of a laugh. "Why would I want to do that? I'm not telling 'Ford about other 'sets; that's a terrible idea," Blue repeated.
"Ah, are you worried about your sister?" Kari realized. Because if 'Ford was being… so forward with his unwanted advances with Blue, then he might try the same with little Miz.
"-My sister is fine, I just saw her again this morning-and-afternoon at the Center," Blue said to her promptly. (So, that was a 'yes', then. Kari hid an amused smile behind her cup.)
"Well, I still don't quite know what to do about a penalty for you. But I suppose…" Kari considered it. "Since you're here for the foreseeable future, would you like to come and have tea with me in the evenings, to give me a 'status update' as it were?"
Blue blinked at her then. "How is that supposed to be a 'negative consequence' that is meant to 'change my mind'?"
"You'll have a location where you are going to be at, during a set time. Which could be exploited if anyone were to know of this." Kari shrugged.
"I'm not worried about that here," Blue told her with a frown. "You people are practically defenseless. I could destroy you-all with a thought, as a start."
"Yes, that is a problem, isn't it…" Kari sighed.
"Well, yes," Blue agreed, wondering why they were suddenly back on a topic so obvious. "You're all 'sitting ducks' here. Sitting Pines, all rooted in place. I have said that before to all of you Pines, I believe. It's only been a few months for you; you should remember this perfectly well again-and-still, yes?" Blue noted, with a slight frown.
"I do. I just…" Kari sighed. "I suppose I don't really understand the scope of the problem, having never had to deal with demons before meeting Miz and you."
"Well. Rule one, then: don't make 'deals' with demons," Blue told her first-off. "It's very rude. Shows that you don't trust them at all." He let out a sigh and rubbed the side of his hand back and forth against his left temple.
"...I thought I wasn't supposed to trust a demon?"
"You aren't," Blue said, then he stopped for a moment and grimaced. "Yeesh, stupid modern American English human laguage. -You can 'trust' certain demons to do and not-do certain things, depending on who the demon is and what-all they do and do-not want," Blue said to her next. "All demons play their games in different ways. As long as there is something they want from you, that they can't just take, then you have something you can bargain with. But a Deal is the one type of demonic contract that requires the inclusion of some form of absolute-forcing, with the type and timing and character of the forcing being variable depending on how you set it all up," Blue told her next. "-You ask for a Deal anyway and make one though, anyway? And that's saying that you not only don't trust the other-parties to hold up their end of the Deal without all that forcing, but that you know that they don't trust YOU either - and that means it's 'fair game' and 'fair play' to find any and every loophole out of that Deal that you ever-could and absolutely take it at the very worst time for then all, along with exploiting the hell out of what-all you just set up there between you, right up to the hilt. -It means that you are happily looking forward to screwing them over in all the very worst-ways possible that you can find to do so from there, in the future along your personal timeline, moving forward," Blue informed her quite bluntly.
"Noted." Kari said dryly. So demons didn't like Deals because it was a type of contract that they were forced to obey? Interesting. She wondered if Miz made Deals too? There was that one that was a 'protection' for her family. Did that mean Miz would have to keep them from harm? She made a note to ask next time.
"There are all sorts of different contracts that demons can make," said Blue. "Bargains and agreements are just two of them. Promises are a bit… iffy. But demons usually make them with other demons," Blue told her next, "Because reciprocity is a central tenet of maybe ending up actually following through. Deals are for chumps - and that means beings, not demons," Blue told her next. "You string 'em along, and you laugh at them all later, for being so stupid in the first place, through all of it - thinking they can pull one over on YOU, instead of how it really is: the other way around. Give 'em what they think they want, to get more than they thought they were ever going to give out of them, for a much bigger return from them than your investment ever was - will - or - would-be. Leave 'em holding the bag at the end of it all, when the sky comes down around their ears, and they're wondering what the hell went wrong with what-all they wanted to do and be and have and become. Most demons don't care about reputation though; not for very long. But I do. -I'll tell you every truth you've ever wanted to know - and maybe some you'd never even heard of, that you'd never would have even conceived of knowing enough to begin to ask - let you drive yourself insane with the glory of it, and pick up all your pieces at the end of it to use as my own. All the nightmares, the freaks, and the misfits are MINE," the demon told her. "All the ones on the outside of everything. -I give them what they want, and they all worship me for it," he grinned out at her next.
"...It's very kind of you to take them in to care for them?" Kari felt it was much more complicated than that.
"Oh, Kari Kari Kari," Blue said next. "Caryn Romanoff Pines. -Not to interrupt your own little fun-form of game-'play', here," the demon said to her, grinning, "But isn't the act wearing just a little bit thin on you, here?"
Kari sighed. Brushing her hair back. "I don't have the power to do anything to you, even if I don't like you." She said bluntly.
"Yes," said the demon. "But I really don't like all the lies." He regarded her with a flat gaze, no smile or grin in sight. "Even Stanley respects me enough not to pretend that he likes me at all."
"I suppose it's because I'm used to trying to make an effort to pretend to be civil." Kari sighed. "I'm very used to lying."
"Well. That is the 'standard' these days for most 'modern-day' humans." The demon let out a sigh. "Not going to stop you. Just rather not see you walk yourself off a cliff, because you went too far and not far enough. Not when you were getting a bit interesting."
"If we didn't pretend to be civil, there'd be fights breaking out constantly. Not that, that stops some people from being the worst rude assholes to others." Kari placed her cup down.
"HA! Define: 'rude'," the demon said, the sides of his mouth twisting up into something like a smile. "Isn't it rude to just lie outright to another person's face, just because you can? And to not-acknowledge they want to kill you, too?"
"Too many nuances to really explain in one sitting. And lying to people for the sake of keeping up appearances and relationships are what humans are essentially taught to do. No, not taught." Kari leveled Blue with a stare, "Trained."
Blue blinked at her.
"...Did you talk to your-Stanford about the idea of training today," Blue said to her next, his head having come up a bit, and he'd gone a bit still.
"No? Why do you ask?" Kari asked, "I haven't spoken with him since yesterday night."
"It came up," was what the demon said to her next. "During lunchtime." And that was all the demon said.
"...in what context?" Kari frowned.
"Pets."
"..." Kari was quite sure she was missing a lot of context here, but it didn't seem important. "Either way, human society imposes certain behaviors upon us, even if they're not universally followed. It's rather annoying."
"You're treating 'human society' like it's one single convoluted construct of a thing," Blue noted dryly.
"I know there are variations." ("Large variations.") "But I'm going by what I've experienced personally." Kari sighed. "Regardless, I don't quite like you, but you're somewhat, in a vague way, my grandchild, through adoption. And I don't know how to handle that."
"And I don't know what that means," Blue said rather bluntly.
"I want to like you." Kari explained. "And yet, I can't bring myself to. Not fully. I simply find you too dangerous around my sons."
Blue blinked at her.
"Why would you want to like me in the first place?"
"Because Miz loves you. And you are her brother, which makes you somewhat my grandson." Kari responded just as bluntly.
"No, it doesn't," said Blue.
"It is how I feel about it, accurate or not."
"Well, it isn't accurate," Blue told her. "You should look into getting that fixed." Blue frowned. "I have a relationship with Miz; she has one-also with me. We each have other 'relationships' with other people, beings and demons. None of any of that transfers over." Blue frowned at her a little. "...Why would you think that it does?" he asked of her almost ponderously.
"Forgive an old woman who just wants more grandchildren." Kari shrugged.
"Forgive you for what? What did you do?"
"For wanting more grandchildren." Kari sighed. "I will stop asking my sons for them. It's too selfish of me."
Blue was still frowning at her a bit. "...Why do you want 'grandchildren', anyway?" Blue asked of her next, propping his chin up on a fist once again. "What's in it for you?"
"I failed to take care of my children when they were young. I have the urge to put my care into their children now, to fill the pained void inside me." Kari's response was true, but blunt.
"You aren't that large; what void would even one-half of one of them not be too big to fill?" Blue said to her next.
"It's an emotional void. I want to help raise a child, properly, this time. I suppose, that might be why I'm still trying with you."
Blue frowned at her a bit.
"You can't just go out there and 'adopt'? Could buy a child or two, even," he said with that not-quite a shrug. "Or go live on the island, if you want to help babysit some of them a bit, for awhile." He leaned back a bit in his chair, and stretched a bit in place. "You aren't spending all your time with your-Stanley or your-Seb in their houses, with their kids, so it can't be that high a priority, to kill the pain from your 'emotional void'."
"They're already grown up. They don't need me anymore." Kari sounded somewhat sad.
"Their children aren't," Blue noted, "And you aren't there with them, to help them and care for them now. Even with your own portal device." He tilted his head. "Unless you already got your 'fix' for the day."
"Yes, I helped raise Dillon and I babysit for Diego a lot." Kari nodded. "I suppose you could say I got my 'fix' as you put it. I… it's very irrational, these feelings I have."
"Well, go off to the island for a while, if you need to. Plenty of children there," he told her, standing up, "And many of the adults are planning on leaving for unannounced unknown periods of time, starting tomorrow."
Kari blinked. What had happened there? "Well." She blinked again. "That's not how this works, but I suppose going over to help out now and then isn't something I'd adverse to." Though that wasn't quite what she was going for. It wasn't about children in general, so much as her own children and their children. It was selfish, yes. But that was how it was.
Blue nodded to her once. "Every day, trading tea for status updates in the evenings 'for the foreseeable future'. Well, why not," the demon said. "You do realize the loophole there and ready-made all built into that, don't you?"
"For the duration of your stay here, at the very least. Once you leave this dimension, I have no way to know of or enforce this penalty."
"And as soon as I leave, it is no longer 'the foreseeable future' again. I could jump out into the Void of Doors, then back in again. Learning-lesson for the evening's complete." He gave her a jaunty smile, and with a wave, did his green portal thing and was gone.
Kari sighed. "That boy." She shook her head. He was a real work in progress, wasn't he? The cheeky little thing.
Blue portaled directly into the local-'Hand's lab, took the three steps over to the couch, and laid himself down there to sleep.
(If Ford had been there at the time, he would have complained 'Why MY couch?!' before just ignoring the demon.)
(But he wasn't there that late at night then, just like he hadn't been there that late at night the night before that, and so Blue was not complained at immediately for his unwanted trespass either time.)
Xin woke up, still nestled in Ford's lap. He had kept his promise, not leaving him alone while he slept. Xin felt rather happy about this fact. Then, quietly, so as not to wake him, Xin slipped out from his embrace and checked the time. 5AM, ok, he had plenty of time. He also winced when he checked his phone and found some worried texts from Wanda. Ooops~?
Quickly texting back that he had spent the night at Ford's place, Xin slipped his phone away and made his way downstairs to set about making breakfast for everyone once they woke up. It was the least he could do.
Blue didn't wake up until around 9am or so. And by that time, Ford was already working in his lab again. (The man was in such a good mood from the delightful breakfast in bed and shoulder massage from Xin that he wasn't even upset!)
(The chitter-clicks Ford heard the demon produce upon waking sounded less confused, and more grumbly, this morning. He still didn't know how the demon was managing to communicate that; it wasn't Morse code, or any other language he'd heard of before.)
"Good morning sleepy head~" Ford sang, cheerful as anything, it was… actually kind of disturbing to look at. Some of the other workers chalked it up to their boss 'getting some' the night before, they all saw him carry his (boy)friend into his house.
"'gh'D? m-mm-m'Hh'?-what-what?" he heard the demon half-echo, then say blurrily, in perfectly-accented Galactic Common, as Blue blinked open his eyes, one at a time, then closed them again, almost wincing.
"Did you sleep well? Xin made a breakfast for you too. It's in the box over there. Xin wanted to stay but he had to go home and do some chores. But he asked me to tell you 'good morning' for him." Ford continued smiling, a bounce in his step as he hummed to himself, bustling around and grabbing some wires for his newest project.
There was a long pause.
"...why do you sound so cheerful," said the demon, cracking an eye open as he turned his head slightly Ford's way.
"Why? Because I'm happy today!" Ford giggled, full on giggled. Maybe he was a little cracked, but he had such a wonderful morning!
"...Little sis, if you're using his stupid human body for some little joke right now and got stuck in there, laugh twice for a 'get me out of here' please," the demon half-drawled, half-groaned out, as he raised a hand up to his forehead, and ran his palm up and right over it.
"I can assure you, I am not possessed at the moment. Though, I did have the most wonderful dream last night…" Ford paused. Wait. "Oh, that wasn't a dream was it? I did ask Xin to give me a tour around the Mindscape… wait, so that means I really did fly around the world and…" Ford blushed at what he did last night.
"And here I was, planning on maybe-locking you out of your body for a follow-up lesson, after you'd left it," the demon said with zero sarcasm, as he slowly sat up. "Yeesh. What is with this stupid vessel today."
"Did you have dinner last night? That could be it." Ford asked, "Or perhaps you're getting a cold?"
"I had carrots and tea," said Blue, as he pushed his feet over the edge of the couch, sitting on the side of it. "Can't get a cold; I have all the filtration up-and-running at nominal," (he said, after checking it anyway despite this).
"...here, have your breakfast, as Miz would say, 'you need more food'." Ford handed Blue the packed lunch.
Blue held it in his hands for several long moments, eyeing it. (Scanning and checking it with his sensors, really.)
"You are being disturbingly-something today," Blue said to the local Stanford, as he opened the brown paper bagged lunch. "I think I don't like it."
That only made Ford's smile widen. He practically skipped back to his lab bench.
"...Did she curse you with being nice to me before she left." Blue was peering at him somewhat suspiciously still, trying to look for something external that might be causing this crazy shit.
"Nope?" Ford hummed, reaching for another screw.
"You lying?"
"No."
"Any texts or phone calls or communication or visits from Kari?"
"No? I'm going to see her tonight, though."
"Mm." Blue raised up the plastic fork (included in the bag with the rest of it) and bit into his first bite of salad. He chewed.
Ford went back to his work, happy as can be.
"Disturbing," Blue muttered out, as he continued eating his salad.
Wanda gave Xin (Miz now) a stern talking to. "I know you can take care of yourself, but I still worry. At least tell me when you're going to stay out somewhere."
"Yes mommy…" Miz sighed. Luckily, she wasn't in trouble. Still, it didn't feel nice to be scolded. But that was what she signed up for when she agreed to the adoption. And it was nice to know someone worried about her. Still, Miz managed to get through this without getting in real trouble so she wasn't grounded, yaaaaay~
She didn't usually go over to Ford's place that often, but if her brother was there, she wanted to go hang out. But she had some chores to do today, so she set to work on that. She wondered what Ford and her brother were up to?
Blue was lying down on the couch, flat on his back, eyes closed, arms at his sides.
Ford was humming a bit as he worked, he finally slotted the final panel in place and held up the cylinder. "Ok, let's see if this works…" He looked over at Blue. "Would you mind helping me test this?"
Blue blinked open his eyes.
"This might be a new concept for you Stanford," Blue said to him slowly. "But there's a little thing I call 'thinking' that I do. You may have heard of it. -You know, that thing that you DON'T do? I do it, and I don't like getting interrupted RIGHT in the MIDDLE of it." He turned his head to the side and then glared at him.
"Ah, sorry then." Ford said easily. "I will go find some other supernatural being to help me test run this."
Blue let out a long hard huff of breath, closed his eyes, ran his hand through his hair roughly, and slowly forced himself to sit up.
"Get yourself eaten out there," the demon muttered (and then his little sister would be sad, because this idiot Stanford would be dead a lot sooner than she'd thought he would be, ugh). Blue eyed him with almost another glare. "What is it."
"A perception filter."
"...Right." Blue closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly, lifted a hand to tap at the side of his circlet twice with almost a wince.
The demon opened his eyes again and (seemingly) stared at both Ford and the device he was holding.
"State your planned test-or-several-tests that you're thinking about doing. Before you do it. With words," the demon said to him next. "What is this thing supposed to do in the first place. Be specific."
"Protecting the identity of supernaturals caught on camera. To make it so they won't be caught on cameras at all." Ford said simply.
"Hypothesis to be tested?" Blue said next. "Specifically?"
"If I take a photo of you with my phone, you wouldn't show up in the photo." Ford said simply. "My filter is set to sense magical or weird energies, and distort any attempts to hone in on or capture images of that energy, the current prototype emits this filter at around 10 feet, I will expand the range once I know this works."
"What wavelengths? And how much expected distortion," Blue said next.
"Between 400-700 nm, with distortion of blurring like a lens flare or over exposure." Ford responded.
Blue rolled his eyes, and he pushed himself to his feet. "The magical- and weirdness-energy wavelengths," the demon clarified. "Those sets, types, and ranges."
"Oh. Between 0wrd and 62442wrd on the vertical. And 25mgk and 100mgk on the lateral."
"Inclusive or exclusive of the outer bounds," Blue said next. (Blue was not about to try and educate or otherwise-enlighten this Stanford on anything finer tuned than he knew about already, if the 'sets' and 'types' terminology, as related to magic and Weirdness, was already going over the human's little head as nothing to write home about here, because he didn't listen enough, or think things through enough, either).
"Including, with a second filtering system on top to prevent confusion from the feedback on ghosts. They should be counted separately."
"So anything between 0 up to 25 magick gets cut out, no matter how weird," Blue said. "Some things are very weird, but not magical, you know. Also: congratulations," the demon said almost sarcastically. "Point that at anything inside this little barrier you've got going here - that's sitting at around 27.36 'mgk' on your scale for it, minimum - and you'll get some level of garbage distortion, that might-or-might not have enough variation in it to be undone by some simple algorithm somewhere later. No 'supernatural beings' for testing necessary." Blue sat back down again. "That what you were going for here? It won't let you take any visual imagery of anything being experimented on around here for later-analysis, you know, if you do manage to randomize the distortions enough and ramp up the field enough to cover the whole building. Probably have bleedover effects, depending on how you're intersecting the fields and making the distortions. -Functions by cross-transitive inductive-field conversion from the produced-magic expulsion-field to visible-light in that 400 to 700 nanometer spectrum directly, yes?"
"Well, I was planning to make some cameras for Center-only use, that have this-" He held up a microchip, "-which goes around the effect of this filter, thereby making it so everyone's personal phones and cameras won't work while in the Center, and the special cameras will still be here for our own records, which won't be taken out of the building."
Blue gave him a long stare.
"Two problems with that 'bright idea' of yours, there," said Blue. "One: anything emanating enough magical energy is going to get some of it distorted into light instead. It'll screw up your readings on every other piece of equipment you have around this place that you've already had to tune and calibrate off of that barrier of yours, unless it's a completely one-to-one consistent distortion. Two: if that 'consistency' is the case, and those little chips there actually work," Blue eyeballed him at this, "How good are your people at unsoldering and resoldering components on electronics boards," the demon deadpanned. 'Before carrying them off to hand off to other people,' was implied.
"...very." Ford sighed. "I will have to do more work on this…" He sighed again.
"Don't see why you can't just do what most other sentient-sapient beings do, and have all the phones and other-potential-bugged non-biological devices from the outside checked in a locker room at the front door," Blue told him. "Walk through a scanner to check the clothes and other-internals, and they can keep a set of work devices here that are better than anything they can get at out there. Filter all the outside air coming in; distort anything in-or-out through the doors-windows-and-walls; the works."
"We did that for a while, but people complained. And after they… for lack of a better word, gained a little more trust from sticking to the security… we let some have their phones again."
"Oh no, people complained," Blue faux lamented, as he lay down on the couch, tossing an arm up over his face. "How absolutely terrible for you." Blue let out a breath. "Here's another option: hack all the phones yourselves and put in an actual microphone-and-camera power-off-switch. And add tech that can detect and will slag the whole thing violently upon tampering. Go the opposite route; give them things from inside that you can control, that they can use outside-and-inside instead."
"...Fiddleford has been working on a new smartphone, he got a look at Miz's Com once, and has been making his own…" Ford rubbed his chin.
"Those things don't use the normal wavelengths," Blue told him, arm still over his eyes. "He adds that in, you won't be able to block any connections with a to-the-outside send. Probably."
"There are more kinds of problems I'll need to work out than I thought." Ford nodded, writing this down.
"And if you 'lose' one of those things, you'll be in trouble," Blue said to him next. "All you have to do is have someone get into that 'trusted' supply, mod the records, and steal even one of those phones to hand to someone on the outside. Instant-in to your whole network, because now they've got a working chunk of your alien-sourced technology. Reverse-engineer the Com tech to start unraveling the interdimensional channels for sending information? And the equations and physics for enabling that? And what they can get out of just listening in to all that chatter there? -Only a matter of time until they outpace you with more manpower, after that." Blue lowered his arm and looked over at him again. "Remind me, how much do you 'trust' the people in charge of your government? Who are also in-charge of all those military-run scientific think-tanks right now?"
"I don't trust them at all." Ford grumbled. "Self detonation if out of range…?"
"You do realize that the only reason you probably haven't been overrun or completely riddled with spies and sabotage already is because those morons are already in bed with the 'lizard people', right? Because anything that doesn't look like it's capable of outer-Earth-system space travel or is an interplanetary communications device is just small peanuts to them. They think you're a small fry, right now. Not worth the effort, the time or trained personnel to keep any real tabs on, for them."
"...except the shadow government is dead." Ford pointed out. "I'm relatively sure the reason we're not overrun is because our current government is absolutely incompetent."
"Shadow government didn't have their own military branch in this dimension here, did it?" Blue said. "Means they had to have some people in the military chain of command in-the-know to put their orders into play, coordinate with a 'lizard people' liazon or two, and all that. And with the shadow government dead now, command would have reverted to the military-direct. Under the control of your so-called 'commander in chief', though the ones in-the-know are probably smart enough to be freewheeling it all for the moment, keeping it all under wraps if they think the rest of them don't 'need to know'. Wouldn't have been picked for something that high-clearance-level otherwise; excellent liars all-around. Don't particularly feel like trying to look it all up for you right now," Blue noted, grimacing slightly as he pushed himself to his feet.
Ford sighed again, his bright mood dimming over the course of this conversation. (Blue didn't really notice this, nor would he have cared much if he had. What he did notice was...)
"Think I need some water," Blue said. "Something is definitely off-balance in this stupid thing. Might've slipped the balancing act a decimal point and a half on the circulating field strength of this stupid thing. Have to check-and-fix that," Blue muttered out next, tugging at two of his 'bracelets' for a moment or two, before making a half-grumbling noise of annoyance and walking right out of Ford's lab.
Ford watched him go and sat down at his bench. "Why's life so difficult?" But… well, Blue was actually being rather helpful today.
Blue was back in the lab with a large glass of water a few minutes later. He walked in, set it down on the floor next to the couch...
...and then removed every 'bracelet' from his arms and the 'circlet' from around his head, dumping them all into the water there. It all seemed to dissolve in the water glass; within seconds, the mixture had finished turning a consistent and a bit roiling murky green-grey.
Blue stretched a bit, letting out a slight hissing-chitter, then scrubbed both hands through his hair and shook his head back and forth twice.
And then Blue lay himself down on the couch again, closed his eyes, blew out a breath, and began to relax. (The demon seemed to already have significantly less of a headache going already.)
And Ford held back his urge to take the cup of water to begin testing it. It was Blue's water, he'd probably get very angry about it. But… "...can I study that water?" Ford asked, almost meekly.
"Only if you want to get your molecules disassembled when the security measures kick in and those 'ribbons' slash you to dissolution automatically, because I'm no longer wearing the control device to put in a 'stop' command to stop that from happening before you can take your next breath," Blue told him casually enough, without opening his eyes. "So no. You can't study it; you're incapable of surviving the attempt. Are you suicidal today?"
"Ah, well. Request retracted." Ford nodded. He turned back to his newest project and sighed, pushing it across the lab bench and laying his head down in his hands. He was going to have to rethink a lot of this.
"Mm." Blue went silent where he was laying on the couch again; just breathing, as far as Ford could tell.
Ford didn't speak, staying quiet as he thought about how to make the Center safe for Miz.
Chores. Done. Meals for the day. In the fridge to be heated up later. Miz nodded to herself. Ok, she was all set to go and spend some time with her brother now. So she made sure she was out of view of any windows, going into her sub-spaced wing of the house, and Blinked away.
She appeared in Ford's bedroom. She noted that there were some tour groups, even now in the fall, mainly school field trips coming into the area due to the Center attracting scientific intrigue (really, the Center had done a lot to boost Gravity Falls' economy) which led to year round tourists at the Shack. It slowed down when it wasn't summer, of course, but unlike before, when Seb would have to close the shack altogether in the off months, it was now seeing a tour through the year. Soos was doing well. Miz could hear the humans walking all around. She wondered if she should be Xin today, but she wanted to be pampered today. So she left Ford's room as Miz, and slipped out of the Shack through a storage hallway to get to the Center directly without having to go outside and go near the tour groups.
Miz was thrilled to see that Ford had cleaned the dust out of this area too.
She slipped on a Seal and shivered as she got past the barrier.
It didn't take long to find Ford's lab, and subsequently, her brother.
There was a glass of some green-grey junk on the floor next to the couch beside her brother, with several little folded pieces of paper sitting around each side of it, about a foot and a half away, reading: 'Do NOT touch!' on both sides of each one. (There was also a mess of confetti surrounding the glass on the floor, for some reason.) And there was also a bit of caution tape on the floor, another foot out away from that.
Ford was at his bench, diligently folding what looked like an array of several paper airplanes that he was amassing a small collection of on his desk. And as Miz watched, he drew his hand back and threw the airplane towards the couch. It flew over the cup and was immediately destroyed by a mass of silver ribbon-like tendrils that shot out of it hungrily like an angry eldritch beast, capturing and shredding the poor paper 'plane at a good four and a half feet of extension farther up. It didn't stand a chance.
Miz noted that none of the resulting confetti that fell to the floor was piling up any closer than a good four inches from the edge of the couch where Blue was either resting, thinking, or sleeping.
"Hm." Ford hummed as he wrote some more notes down. There had to be a pattern here… he'd already found the main larger boundaries. But sometimes the tendrils seemed to reach out, tangling into things like mess of floating seaweed, and sometimes they shot up straight like extending needles. The number of tendrils also changed from time to time.
So distracted in his focus, Ford didn't notice Miz draping herself on top of his lab bench and lie there as she kicked her legs absently, watching him fondly as he worked. That little frown on his face was so cute.
Ford reached for some more paper to fold and Miz squeaked when he ended up patting her face instead. "Bleh!" Miz slapped his hand. "Fordsie!" she complained. Ford jumped. "Miz!" He almost fell over. "When did you get here?"
"Just now." Miz scrubbed at her face, bleh. "So… what 'cha doooooing~?"
"Ah, Blue's protective bangles are apparently water soluble and capable of reacting to the motion of anything coming near them, to strike out protectively. I have been marking down each type of way they strike, trying to see how they work, and in what way."
"Cool." Miz noted. She looked over to see Blue still lying there and… sleeping. Awww. "Well, I'm here to hang out again," she told him. "And since Blue's asleep, you'll have to play with me," she demanded. Ford chuckled. "Alright." He ruffled her hair. Really, whenever William was Miz, they used it as some excuse to be needier than usual. It was cute, seeing her pout like that.
"Alright, what do you want to do today?" He asked. Miz hummed, rocking back and forth. "I wanna meet your interns."
"...didn't you already?" Ford asked. Miz scoffed. "Well yeah, but they haven't met me"
"...aren't you pretending to be your own little sister? We have to keep our made up cover story-"
"You haven't told Fiddles, have you?" Miz raised an eyebrow at him. Ford sighed. "The more people who know, the more complicated it'll get."
"He's your best friend." Miz deadpanned.
"Yes, but even if I told Fiddleford, that doesn't mean I can introduce you to my interns. They know that Miz is Blue's little sister, and they know that Xin is just Miz presenting as male. I'm… you're clearly very different when you're female."
"What's the problem here? They know I'm magic, just say I'm a shapeshifter, because I am." Miz said simply. Ford sighed. "But you're…" he waved a hand at her, blushing. "Do you have to look so… young?"
"..." Miz looked down and shifted this form to be 27 years old. Ford blinked. "...you barely changed." he deadpanned. Her face had widened a little, and she was a tiny bit taller, but… "You might be able to pass for 14," Ford complained.
"Uuuugh, picky, picky!" Miz scoffed, folding her arms. Well, older 'looking' would be… she shifted and Ford's eyes went wide.
"I mean, this form looks older, but it's kinda meant to be 17, so I dunno what you're expecting…" Miz trailed off. "Fordsie?" She waved a hand in front of his face, the movement making her generous bust bounce as she did. "Fordsie? Hello?"
Ford was, for lack of a better term, in a state that could only be described as the 'Blue Screen of Death'.
Miz huffed, folding her arms, coincidentally pushing her chest up more prominently as she did. "Well, if you're gonna be like that, I'm gonna go and get some lunch, 'kay?" She told him before sliding off the lab bench and sauntering toward the door.
That seemed to snap Ford out of his state. "W-wait! You can't go out there like this!" He almost wailed. Miz stopped at the door, turning to him with a frown. "I can't?"
"You-" Ford waved his hands up and down, making a strangled sound. "What is this?"
"This is my older-looking form. I've set my Miz vessel to slowly grow up into this over the next five to six years." Miz said brightly. Ford made another strangled sound. There was a bit of a blush around his cheeks. He wasn't really into people, but Ford understood what- what this- "Miz, you… you're going to cause a commotion," he said finally.
The girl seemed to be confused. "Fordsie, this is a center for higher learning and research, not a high school." She scolded. "I'm sure their hormonal levels are stable enough to prevent any issues."
'That's not the point here.' Ford thought helplessly. Then he realized that Miz was making 'this' her actual older form for once she was 'older' and found himself feeling sorry for Sebastian and Wanda. They were going to have some trouble on their hands in the upcoming years once their daughter 'went through puberty'.
"Can't you…" Ford waved his hand helplessly. "Shrink your proportions down?" He twitched. Miz pouted. "What? Do I not look nice?"
By some miracle, Ford recognized that landmine (probably from enough exposure to Stan during his formative years) and was able to step around it. "You look amazing. That's… the issue." He sighed. "Look, if… if you really want to look like that… um… at least make yourself older? I mean, Xin looks like an adult, can't you just… take Xin's form and just… make him female?"
Miz frowned as she considered this. Well, she had created Yun's form by making a female Jan. So it was possible. Ok, she could try that. Xin and Miz were different looking. So… it wasn't like a female Xin and an older Miz would look identical. So, they could still go with the siblings cover. But it was going to get weird.
...if Xin's female presenting name was Miz, wouldn't that just be super weird? Ehhhh Miz didn't care what other people thought. So she shifted into Xin and then… made him female? Boy, this was… super weird?
Ford blinked. "Oh. Um…" His blush got worse. Miz's busty form was very… amazing. But Xin's mature woman form was...
"How's this?" FemXin asked, her voice a deep, almost husky sounding thing. Ford shivered at the sound. Ford found himself unable to look away from the beautiful woman before him. "I-it's good." Ford squeaked. Xin wasn't as busty as Miz's teenaged form. But no less curvaceous. Most of the weight was settled down in Xin's lower half, and Ford coughed, looking away. "V-very good."
Xin- XinMiz(?) grinned and skipped forward to hug Ford's arm. "Great! And since you're not a vegetable anymore, let's go and get lunch!" She cheered. Ford sputtered as he was pulled out of his lab.
...as Ford thought, there was pandemonium.
Blue woke up a few hours later than he'd fallen asleep again on the couch, still feeling a bit… off. Not like before though.
He shoved himself upright on the couch, up against the armrest, and let out a breath. Let his head fall back and internally checked through what he could with his vessel and his energy-self.
...wasn't just the scientific junk he'd tossed together. Hm. Well. He had decided he wasn't going to be doing a jump-back to any closer than the amount of time he'd spent here, to help make his displeasure over there well-known. Some things seemed to truly be synchronized between there and here, then, in terms of progressive timing.
He still (blindly, without looking or needing to look) reached down for the glass of nanotech-laden water, dipped his fingers into it like a hook, and yanked it upwards, to slap it all over one wrist as one whole large bracer-piece. He disabled most of the functions and settings rather quickly and easily through the holographic-visual interface, then leaned back and forced his vessel to relax a bit.
... Probably should eat something, given the local-time his new 'bracer-gauntlet' had shown him. He reached down to pick up the glass and let out a heavy sigh at the spectacle strewn out across the ground in front of him. Sixers.
When he straightened up to a standing and fully-upright posture, he looked up to see an empty lab. He didn't think much of this, getting up and heading out for the cafeteria to get himself some food.
It was the noise that caught his attention first, alerting him to the fact that something might be a little bit… off.
What Blue walked in on was, to put it bluntly and in his own words, annoying to see. (Because how, exactly, was he supposed to be able to get any sort of edible food from any of them, with all of this going on?)
His little sister had altered her form, into something that was clearly meant to entice humans into worship. And she was lounging in the center of the cafeteria here, across the length of an entire table, being waited on by what were clearly some new devotees. Many of whom he recognized as being staff who were usually behind the counter of the lunch line, and supposed to be serving food to more people than just-and-only her.
"Little sis," Blue called out, putting the 'used' water glass down on the nearest empty table, holding onto patience with all six mental hands, "You are getting in the way of people being served nutritional food for their own needed mealtimes."
XinMiz looked over and blinked before brightening. "Don't worry! They have serving ladles on the walking side so you can still grab stuff!" Then she pouted, lush lips protruding out and making some of the men around her swoon. "But… I guess it's a little harder to get stuff…"
"It is also completely unsanitary to do it that way," was Blue's absolutely unfazed reply, "People will leave the ladles in the dishes, and move other-ladles between the meats and the vegetables and the desserts, because they are not properly trained in all the ways of the Kitchen, Home, and Hearth. And you KNOW this."
XinMiz sighed. She sat up, unfolding her legs and standing up. "Sorry boys, he's right. You have a very important job to do." She placed her hands on her wide hips. "I'll see you again the next time I come by, okay?"
They nodded, almost hypnotized. "Y-yes ma'am…" "Are you going to be female next time too?"
XinMiz hummed, twirling a lock of hair between slender fingers. "Dunno. It'll depend on my mood."
The staff sighed, but returned to their posts. XinMiz sat back down, "What nice boys," she commented. (Ford was trying to sink into the ground, it didn't work since he didn't know how to gain spontaneous intangibility powers by will alone. But he wished he could. Terrence was slapping him on the back with a, "Daaaamn Dr. Pines! You lucky son of a-")
Meanwhile, Blue was checking his display, and his face near the corner of his right eye started twitching. (All of the fruit and vegetable dishes that he would have chosen from were all already cross-contaminated with what he considered to be non-edible things by this point. All of it.)
Blue turned on his heel and started to walk right back out again.
No-one stopped him or called out to him, so Blue just kept on going. He mentally revised his destination for edible food to the town diner instead.
After XinMiz had had her fun, Ford was able to finally get her back to his lab. Ford closed the door, leaned against it, and then slumped to the ground. "Did you really have to do that?" He groaned. The dragon giggled. "But the looks on their faces are too funny to pass up!"
"Yes, that's the issue." Ford groaned. "You just really like to tease, don't you?"
"Well, if they weren't so easily seduced, it wouldn't be so funny, now would it?" XinMiz batted her eyelashes at him. Ford sighed. "You're going to be a terror on poor Wanda's sanity once 'Miz' is older."
Ford pushed himself back up and back over to his lab bench, where XinMiz was poking at the perception filter he'd built over the course of a night of theoretical blueprints and calculations, and a morning of construction. The dragon's eyes widened. It was a somewhat flawed product, with many needed bug fixes, but to get something from a written concept to a working prototype in less than a day was… amazing. She was quick to give Fordsie the appropriate praise for it, because she really was impressed by his work. She always was. He was such a brilliant little thing.
Ford's blush was deeper at her words than it would ever be from looking at her. And Ford found himself grinning like a goof as he sat back down at his lab bench and talking about all the little bits that he had gotten feedback from Blue about to fix up. And XinMiz patiently worked with him to make those fixes, going outside the unicorn barrier to get a better reading without the spell's interference (into the privacy of Ford's room at the Shack, to prevent any more incidents), using herself as his test subject as he tried taking multiple photos of her to check for how well the filter worked as he tweaked it. His excitement for the project was so great he didn't even bat an eye at the rather… risque positions XinMiz posed in, lounging across his bed or his desk.
And as Ford excitedly scribbled his new findings into his journal, he missed the pouting, almost frustrated look that XinMiz sent his way after he didn't react at all to the incredibly sexy poses she'd just made for him. She huffed. Of course she had to fall for the most oblivious idiot in all the multiverse. Then again, this was one of those things about him that she found so endearing. Curse her terrible taste in men!
When Ford opened a portal to his Ma's place for dinner that night (Xin couldn't stay, having to go home for dinner with his own family), he was a bit shocked to see Blue sitting there in the kitchen with her, head in his hand and with a half-full cup of tea in front of him on the table. (The demon looked a little tired, if not outright exhausted.)
Ford looked up at his mother and she gazed back calmly. Ford threw his head back in pure irritation and sighed, Kari shrugged. Ford made a motion with his mouth, waving a hand in Blue's direction. Kari shook her head.
"You do realize I can see you there, yes?" Blue said, without turning his head towards him. He reached for his cup of tea. "Should I go?" the demon asked of Kari, as he lifted it up to his lips.
"No, Ford is still being penalized." Kari sighed. Ford rolled his eyes. "Using Blue as part of my penalty seems cruel."
"This is actually part of his penalty as well." Kari said dryly. "Oh joy." Ford sighed, his good mood from spending the entire afternoon with Xin fading a little, but not entirely. Because he got so much done today, and that was always something to be happy about, for him. (Because Ford was a workaholic.)
"Tea is not dinner," Blue noted, after taking another sip of said tea.
"I suppose you're right. Do you wish to leave?" Kari asked, sounding like she didn't care either way.
"Depends on whether you think he'll want more useful information from me on something today, despite it likely ruining a few more things for him, if he doesn't know it yet. I might actually tell him if I stay," Blue noted next, almost serenely, as he wrapped his fingers more fully around his teacup.
"I can keep my dinner conversation away from you," Ford responded, trying to pull back some of those happy feelings from earlier to buffer him against Blue. He did it this morning, he could do it now. (The demon wasn't going to ruin his nice dinner with his mother.) The man strode over and sat down at the dinner table, as Kari pulled out the food. She'd made a roast chicken with plenty of vegetable side dishes. And rice. Ford realized he was pretty hungry, and he really did love his mother's cooking.
"So how have you been today dear?" Kari asked warmly. Ford chuckled. "Ah, Miz helped me with a project again." She had pointed out that he couldn't stick to only blocking the visual spectrum of light, since many cryptids actually exhibited ultraviolet and could still be uniquely caught out by cameras seeking those out. Along with infrared differences. (Which was, coincidentally, what Blue had just been referring to as potentially 'ruining' things for this Ford, in fact.) Basically, there was a lot more he needed to fix up, and that wasn't even counting the security issues inherent within the Center.
Blue was quiet, sipping his tea.
"Oh how sweet. Is she your little assistant?" Kari asked. (Blue twitched at this.) Ford was quick to correct her. "Not assistant. She's brilliant! She's more like my lifeline, really. I wouldn't be able to get anywhere without her checking over my work, or helping me with some of the building process. She's much better with the intricate welding and assembling."
Blue set his teacup down delicately (unfinished, still a good quarter-full), pushed his chair away from the table, and stood up. (He knew how this was going to end, with this Ford talking like that. And he didn't feel like hearing this right now.)
"Well, it's very sweet of you to spend time with her. I heard from Sebastian that she's not in school, I know human schools might be intimidating for her, but I do worry about what she does all day." Kari sighed.
"She's not intimidated, she's already graduated from one before," Blue said, as he turned away from the table and gestured open a portal to leave.
"And Miz has graduated again, aced all the tests to get her diploma. She doesn't need schooling, she's over 700 billion years old." Ford sighed. "And she isn't a real child."
(Blue walked through the portal and left. It closed behind him only a mere half-second after he'd crossed the threshold.)
Kari looked over. "Did I upset him?"
Ford rubbed his face, just glad Blue left, and he wished his Ma didn't have Blue over more often, he didn't like Blue being here with her. "Blue probably doesn't like that you talk about Miz as if she is a human child, she isn't." He explained. "Or maybe he's just angry at me for whatever I might have done to offend him again." he rolled his eyes.
"Sorry dear. I have tried to talk to him about this. He's very certain that you're going to try to kill Miz, and nothing seems to be able to convince him otherwise."
"Yes, I'm not sure if I should keep trying, might as well just go about my normal life without worrying about whether I'm offending him all the time."
"...that might be for the best."
Luckily for Ford, Kari changed the subject after that and dinner was a peaceful affair.
Blue was in the pool room in Stanley's penthouse suite, in the dark, pacing in circles.
He didn't like this. He didn't like this. He didn't like this.
He didn't want to be there right now (back in his own 'set), but he didn't want to be here (anymore), either. He'd finished what he'd originally come here to do (and the rest could probably wait, it was so much lower priority except-not), and now he was… stuck.
...He could go be with his sister. That's all he'd really wanted anyway, everything else that he'd been doing here was based off of that…
Except she was here to be with Seb, not with him, and he knew that. She was here to be with Seb.
And her 'mom' Wanda.
And her two younger siblings.
Not him.
And she was here to be with that other Stanford Pines, too. That other Stanford Filbrick Pines, who was going to love her, and adore her, and worship her, and hate her, and try to kill her, and then Blue was going to kill him for it only then, and make his sister cry.
So he stayed there, in the pool room, and he paced. Circle after circle. All alone. All by himself.
All alone, and all by himself, Blue stayed there and paced and paced in circles, counter-clockwise. (He was fine. This was fine.)
(Up high in the space between spaces, the Axolotl saw this. And he sighed. And he knew he didn't have to interfere, but… things had been changing recently. He was… probably being corrupted by that other AXOLOTL, the one who had more or less threatened him to keep his precious daughter safe. So the Axolotl sighed and reached out…)
Miz was going to head to bed early, but she Felt the poke. She twitched. "What?" She looked Up. "Is something wrong?" She frowned. And then her eyes went wide. She moved a hand up to her face and groaned. "Of course he would." and she went back downstairs to where Wanda was doing the dishes. "Mommy?" Miz tugged on her sleeve.
"Yes? What's up sweetie? I thought you were going to bed?"
"Blue's being dumb, so I need to go get him." Miz told her bluntly. Wanda blinked. "Um, alright then. Will you be spending the night elsewhere?"
"Dunno yet. Maybe. Well, I'll be with him regardless. So at least you'll know that I'm not gonna be off somewhere on my own."
Wanda nodded. "Ok, stay safe sweetie."
"Thanks mommy."
And Miz Blinked away.
"...you know." Blue stopped in place at his sister's voice. "For the smartest demon in all the multiverse, you're a bit of a dummy sometimes."
"Never said I'm the smartest," said Blue. "Just the best of the worst who can out-think anyone. I'm still working on making myself smarter and smarter." He turned towards her slowly. "Did you need something, little sis."
"Hmmm…" Miz hummed as she held her arms out, clear invitation for a hug.
Blue noticed this, recognized it, and crossed the distance to come over and hug her.
Miz purred against him. "You know that I don't mind you coming to me if you want to, right?"
"Yes," said Blue. "I know that." He patted-petted her on the head.
She rubbed her face against him. "Even if I'm here for Seb, doesn't mean I won't also be here for you, if you want to be with me."
"I will always want to be with you," Blue told her. "But this isn't my turn."
"Seb can share. He's got three brothers. He knows how to share." Miz mumbled into his chest. "And I don't like you being alone and not fine here by yourself."
"I'm fine," said Blue. "I'm not alone; you exist."
But his voice was two-toned and odd as he said it.
"Seb is already-sharing, yes," was what Blue said next (and there was a complete disconnect there).
(There was a complete disconnect there, because 'Blue' was just an inter-set username his sister had gifted him, and 'Bill Cipher' was the interdimensional username a two-dimensional triangle who'd had an older brother named Wil'Liam.)
(And while Liam had loved Billy quite a good bit, his little brother had always been a bit… unobservant at times, Liam would have said, if anyone had ever thought to ask him.)
(Bill wasn't actually unobservant, he just hadn't seen enough to draw the right conclusions on a good many things. And he'd always looked at things more than a little differently to begin with.)
(So when it came to things like Liam never being in the same room as anyone else ever, as far as Bill had ever known or seen it, things like that had simply been an absolute truth for Billy, and Bill had never even thought to question it: why no-one else was ever in the same 'room' as Liam except him, and why Liam was never in the same place as anyone-else except him.)
(Bill had never stopped using his own native Flatlander language to describe everything and everyone he'd ever encountered; not really. He'd added a great deal to it, certainly. But he still largely and natively, fluently thought in and described everything in - that language consisting of nothing more than pure math. Because it was exact; it was both as precise and accurate as he could ever need it to be, to describe every last person and thing in all of existence. No other language Bill had learned elsewhere had ever come close to doing that, none.)
(And in that mathematical set, that language that Bill Cipher used, to describe everything in all of existence - including himself, including his brother - including every last thing that he saw, like relationships that everyone else would think would always go completely unseen… there were axioms underlying everything.)
(And there were also more than a few hidden assumptions. Central facts, as it were. Facts that were not necessarily unquestionable, but had simply never been questioned before.)
(And one of those things that Bill Cipher had built upon was the fact that there was Bill and his big brother Liam, and there was Bill and everyone else. And to Bill, the Venn Diagram of those two groups of people never coincided or met - 'Liam' and 'everyone else' - not physically, not in-person. There was not only no assumption that 'Liam' and 'everyone else' would ever share the same space-in-time; there was no thought of the idea of the possibility that they could.)
(This was a massive gulf, a canyon in Bill's way of thinking, that he had been skirting around for one trillion years and more. Skirting around, and maneuvering around, and flitting and skirting around the edges of, for all this time now, not even subconsciously. And the lack of knowledge and understanding caused by this unchallenged fact, was just one of those things that had led to that void and that gulf, what was all missing there, all of those things that had never ever been in any way filled in or conceptualized, to be able to be understood.)
(He just didn't have the thought-concepts in his own Mind and own tied-to-the-thought-of-Liam language-concepts yet, to recognize it, let alone describe it.)
(But it wasn't as though he hadn't still been trying to fill that canyon in, over time. He had been. Every time that something came up that was even slightly close to it, Bill hovered at the edge of that hole, that yawning chasm, that gap, and he tried to handle it, to grasp it, to fill in that piece that touched upon the edge of all the things that he was missing there.)
(There was a vast, missing hole in the breadth and depth of Bill's knowledge, sourced from a dearth of experience, and Bill had never tried to fill it in. Because that would require looking back at everything that had and hadn't happened in his own dimension, and-)
(At first, he hadn't wanted to do that because he'd been confused, scared, alone and afraid. He'd thought that he would kill Liam again. ...And by the time that he knew that he wasn't 'him', it had long-since become a mantra to Bill that he would see Liam again in the future, instead of ever trying to look back.)
(It would have been too dangerous to him to look back. If he'd looked back, he probably wouldn't have been able to control himself - he would have brought Liam right back to him then. And Bill knew he shouldn't do that. He knew that much at least, even with the large chasm in the knowledge that he had incorporated into himself that was part of his Mind. Because he knew that if he brought Liam back too early, before he was done fixing everything-)
(The other reason Bill never thought to look back was that he'd had the thought once before and he'd discarded it. Why would he ever want to look back at all the things he didn't like, when he knew he would see things he liked even-less, that would make him even angrier. That wasn't helpful, and there was nothing from back then that he needed to know now.)
(He had thought that thought once; not even through a long series and string of nows. Just once. And he'd discarded it. And then he'd never thought the thought to re-think it again. Because efficiency; he'd already thought about it, and discarded the very thought of going through with it as utterly stupid and a complete waste of time. And so it never occurred to Bill that there might be things that he could learn from his own dimension, his own society, from looking back on them and trying to observe them just like everything else he'd observed in the past up until that point. It never occurred to Bill that there were things he could learn that would fill in any of those gaps of knowledge that would possibly be useful to him, to help him to know and, in the knowing of them, become 'better' and more knowledgeable and capable somehow. And so those gaps that he never realized the true depth of to begin with, were and continued to stay that deep, because of that.)
(The other, third reason that Bill never looked back was one that he knew for not just a fact, but as an absolute fully-known and fully-thought-through certainty, and it was a very practical reason: he would have gotten so angry at seeing and knowing the specifics of certain particular events - and potentially also types of events - that he would have reached out, raged out, and destroyed what little had currently remained of his own broken dimension in a sheer and unthinking RAGE. While he was still inside it.)
(Bill wasn't used to being out, and he certainly wasn't used to anything or anyone-not-his-own-big-brother being potentially supportive to him. He hadn't even been able to lean on things physically (let alone mentally) in his own, broken dimension, for the knowledge that doing so would tear what little remained of the tattered edges of the dimensional barrier apart. He had been the one holding it all together properly; the keystone sitting there in the middle of the whole damn thing. He, and his own unending will and intent, had been the only thing keeping it all from falling apart, including himself.)
(...so every time Bill had fallen asleep, slowly begun to relax his hold on all things there, because he'd no longer been conscious to continue doing so, enacting his own will driven by an unyielding intent…)
(...until he'd thought to shred his own Dreamscape to prevent that from happening ever-again…)
(-Bill wasn't used to the idea of being able to finally - and potentially fully - lean on things, yet. And he'd already had a bad experience with trying to sometimes lean just a little on people, from how unbalanced and wrong things had gone with his own Stanford Pines - hardly Ford's fault, though neither of them realized it; after all, he was only one single solitary little symbol-shape in a Zodiac of twenty meant for Bill Cipher, not ten…)
(Bill had reacted to the idea of Kari asking to meet Liam someday with about the same aplomb as he'd faced the idea of Miz being Liam's sister by being his little sister, for a reason. Bill had not had any issue with the idea and implementation of staying with Sixer instead of being with Miz the second time that he'd been here in this set, for a reason. And in the latter case, it had been because he'd only come to this 'set the first time while it had been 'his turn' with Miz, because it had been his turn with Miz. And he'd run into the issue of Seb being there head-on, and had meant to stay in the Mindscape-potentially, and not in the same room as another-himself who called himself Seb. The second time he'd come, it hadn't been to be with Miz; it had been Seb's turn. The third time, and the fourth time here now, when he'd shown up there in front of this Stanford, it had also still been 'Seb's turn' again.)
(Bill had a hidden implied and never fully-formulated corollary to the base-axiom in his Mind about big brothers and separation, back from when he'd been a little brother long ago, and long since. And it wasn't just from a lack of trying to see things from Liam's point of view; Bill had tried to do that on more than one occasion and failed miserably, while knowing full well at the time he was doing so that he was failing miserably at it.)
(There was a chasm inside Bill's Mind, both wide and deep, and there was a reason why separation from Miz as a big brother wasn't new to him as a concept. And there was a reason why bridging that gulf to be with Miz around others that Bill actively recognized to be on the same level as himself and Miz as people was one that he wasn't quite capable of doing properly consciously with any real honesty. Seb was a 'me-that-is-also-me' to Bill, which was one of the very few reasons that he'd had any flexibility in the idea of being with Miz here at the same time at all: Bill was Bill, and Seb was Bill too. Except now that he'd seen Miz with Seb, and Wanda, and Zach and Zoe, and this local Sixer, and seen what level she acted and reacted and interacted with them on, compared to how and at what level at which she acted and reacted and interacted with him, Bill, himself...)
When Miz talked about 'Seb sharing', to BlueBill, that translated to 'sharing by Miz being with Seb sometimes, and Miz being with me sometimes'. The thought of 'sharing Miz' in the same space that was Seb's was very hard for Blue to consciously even begin to start to potentially think of in that moment, in the first place, let alone think more carefully and deeply about.
There was a reason that Blue had never slept in the same place, next to Miz, in this dimensional set yet, except for the one time that she'd directly and openly asked him to do so - the first time that he'd come here with her, during what he'd thought of as 'his turn' with her - and it tied back, in a very convoluted (to any non-two-dimensional being) way, to a whole series of very-old issues. And these were some very old issues that even Bill himself could not have properly defined - let alone solved - in that moment, even if someone had been able to ask it of him, in a language that he could understand fully: his own.
Miz didn't know all of this, but what she did know, was that her brother wasn't human. Didn't think like a human. And sometimes, he'd get stuck on things. And she was still learning what those things were, so that she could help him figure out how to get over them himself. So, here and now, Miz held her brother and asked again, "Wanna come back to Seb's place with me? He can share. And the twins can share."
"They are sharing you with me, yes," was Blue's blinking reply. The question of whether Blue wanted to go there largely didn't register properly - not in a way that had him thinking he needed to respond to it. (The logic was simple enough to him: Blue always wanted to be with Miz, it was Seb's turn, sharing was important - Blue's wants to do with being with Miz would have to wait until it was Blue's turn again later.)
And Miz knew Blue well enough now to know that he usually addressed and acknowledged each and every point that he was verbally given. So the one that he hadn't stuck out like a very sore thumb to her.
"Seb and his brothers can spend time together-sharing. And separate-sharing. They've done that a lot. We had a whole summer of together-sharing. And he'll be okay with together-sharing with you too." Miz tried to explain. (Approaching things from another angle.) "Do you want to together-share with Seb too?"
"Define: 'together-sharing'," said Blue. (Because that didn't sound familiar to him at all.)
"I can be with you and my other family and siblings at the same time," Miz told him quite clearly. "It's okay to do so," she added, in case he was worried about permissions or something. (After Seeing brother's AXOLOTL, she'd learned many things. About his Set, about him- her brother was an AI, just like every other 'Person' in that dimension. Yes, her brother broke the rules he was supposed to follow a lot, but he was still an AI. And the Demons from the Outside were… Players. Their whole set was a Game. But, just because someone was an artificial intelligence, or even a robot, wouldn't stop them from being People, with souls and emotions and desires. There was a reason Aigis was her best-girl in Persona. She'd even had an almost-argument with Soos about it. Miz was still rather irked by that, Soos's rejection of Giffany on account of her not being 'real' was just hypocrisy in the highest order!)
"...I don't have a room in Seb's house," was what Blue's (convoluted to anyone else) logical process was able to spit out for him, that had him telling his sister that so practically (to his Mind and mentality) next. (Liam had had his own room that he didn't usually leave, that had been so nearby 'at the same-time' as his parents and him also for so long, and-)
Blue's eyes jittered side to side a bit rapidly for a moment, and he frowned and not-quite flinched as he made a nonlinear connection between that, and 'at the same time' from their prior visit here together (switching over briefly to using his own vessel's human-ish brain for a small bit of closer-to-human-like processing). Because he'd… been in the same physical space as Miz and Seb then, and it had been his turn - not Seb's - but Seb had been there with him-and-Miz too - but Seb was a him who-was-also-him - but Seb was also Miz's brother because Miz-and-Seb-and-Miz had decided that, too-
"I've got my own modified room-inside-a-room from the twin's room. Or the entire new wing of the house I built. And there's a regular guest room as well if you're uncomfortable with staying inside a subspace."
-and Seb was older than Miz and that made Seb a big brother to Miz-
Blue abruptly let go of his little sister and slapped both hands to the sides of his head, chittering in something almost like a wince of pain and beginning curling his fingers into hard hooks in his hair-
"Brother?" Miz frowned. It looked like something didn't compute?
Blue was breathing heavily, but it was hard.
(What was going on in his own 'set right now almost certainly wasn't helping.)
And after almost a minute or so, which had Blue shaking in place and looking like he was getting a worse and worse headache, Blue said, in rather shaky tones:
"...I haven't eaten yet." And he was trying to avoid logic errors. And getting in any fights with Seb.
"I'll make you dinner. Actually…" And Miz flicked her fingers, essentially doing much like what Blue had done for her that time with the making of the pancakes from floating ingredients, only she made a hearty mashed potatoes with spicy chili oils and water for moisture and ground assorted vegetables into a mush to incorporate into the mash of potato starches to give more nutrients. (Miz was a fast learner from Seeing and having hands on examinations of things.) And she got a large bowl of spicy mashed veggie-potatoes cooked and done and in front of Blue with a large spoon in less than 10 seconds. "Eat," she told him.
Blue took the spoon, stuck in in the mashed potatoes, and immediately 'nommed' down on it like it was a mouse trying to get away from him there, and he was hungry.
There was a soft knocking at the front door. Then a pause. Then an almost-exasperated ringing of the doorbell as if it was being pressed over-and-over again repeatedly, ri-ri-ri-ri-ri-.
Seb threw open the door in a huff, it wasn't that late at night, but it was still night!
-iiiiiiing, as Miz slowly pulled her hand off the doorbell, looking sheepish. She was holding Blue's hand.
Seb blinked down at her. "Can't you two teleport?" he asked. He was certain that Blue could 'portal' to wherever he wanted.
"This is your space," said Blue. "Boundaries. Asking for entry is for courtesy." He only paused briefly before saying, "You are also-Miz's-big-brother and have three other brothers; two of them triplets. -Define: together-sharing." He was still holding Miz's hand, who was holding his back.
Seb blinked slowly. Then he shrugged. "Like… sharing together? Like, if one of us has something, we can lend it out to the other if they want to borrow it? Or we could all use it at the same time? That kinda thing?" (Blue made a face at this. Because it wasn't like he didn't know that one. -That wasn't it!)
"He means about me spending time with both you and him at the same time, which is what I'm trying to explain to him is okay for us to do. With sharing me, amongst the two of you, together." Miz clarified. Seb made an understanding face. "Oh! Like how when Shermie was born and I didn't want to share Ma with him. Not at first." He chuckled at the memories. Geez, he even brought a knife into Shermie's room and up to the crib once. Damn, he was a fucked up kid. Seb opened the door more. "Well, come on in. I think this discussion will take a while. Go sit in the living room while I get some tea." And he stepped away from the door, leaving it open for them to come in as they pleased.
Blue walked in with Miz.
By the time Seb had come back with tea, though, Blue was curled up on his side in a little triangular ball on the couch, chest barely moving, and very asleep. (Not surprising to Miz; he'd already looked exhausted before, and he'd started getting dark almost bruise-like circles under his eyes when they'd first started talking about 'sharing' her; that had only stopped getting worse when Blue had started eating - and seemingly tabled the discussion for the moment until he'd gotten further clarification from Seb on what, exactly, Miz meant.)
"Yeesh, what happened to him?" Seb placed the tea down and poured a few cups.
"An issue with understanding definitions, also he didn't have anything filling to eat for dinner until, um, two minutes ago?" Miz sighed, petting a hand gently along Blue's hair and head.
Blue's energy cycle-hum started to get more audible slowly. By the time Seb had finished pouring and sat down a good minute later, Blue was doing an audible weak-to-strong-to-weak-again hum (getting progressively louder, and then dwindling out to completely quiet again, in his own always-rising Shepard tones) across a range that roughly corresponded from 25Hz to 150Hz, as Miz continued stroking Blue's hair and head.
In other words, Blue was more-or-less purring like a cat with some quiet lulls in-between each humming-'purr', as his vessel slowly began to relax in place, loosening slightly out of the harder more compressed balled-up posture that he'd originally taken.
"So… is he awake enough for this talk, or?" Seb asked, scratching his head while watching Blue with a bemused expression.
"Nope, he's kinda… passed out? Well, I wanted him to come over and sleep here anyway. He was being all sad and alone by himself, thinking that he shouldn't come to see me even when he wanted to, since I was with you, in a sharing-separately situation." Miz explained. Seb snorted. "Ah, that…" Made no freaking sense at all. But somehow… he sort of understood kind of how Blue had probably felt, too? In a weird twisted way? "Yeah, I can see why you want me to talk to him about that." He was older than Blue. And he had gone through all that stuff with Ma and Shermie. Not like Blue would understand that stuff, from only ever being a Bill Cipher. But he could probably use them as examples.
"So… are we postponing this talk for tomorrow then?" Seb asked wryly, looking down at the tea. "Probably have to. I'll still drink the tea though." Miz grinned, waving a hand to float the cup up to herself.
"Any bets how pissed Blue is gonna be at missing out on tea?" Seb said almost mischievously.
"As long as we have tea tomorrow as well, he'll be fine." Miz rolled her eyes and sent a little kick at Seb's leg. "Don't tease him so much. He's sensitive," she said, unable to stop her own lips from twitching.
But Miz continued to softly pet Blue for a while as she drank her tea and talked with Seb about other things, and Blue continued on not-so-quietly hum-'purring'. The other Bill Ciphers (one former) thought it was adorable. And Seb even went to bring Miz some more pillows for when she ultimately curled up with Blue on the couch for that night.
Blue felt terrible.
He woke up feeling terrible, not that he needed the reminder that one of the things he was, was 'terrible'.
He wanted to break things.
But by now, he was used to waking up in bodies (if not vessels as much), and gravity reminded him a bit farther down a few layers deeper into his mentality, of where he absolutely wasn't. (-Still stuck in the 'Nightmare Realm', also called Dimension 0.)
So Blue didn't just reach out with his will and intent and start breaking all the things he could grab within reach. (Despite not being under a barrier that would have pressed down on him enough to prevent him from doing that without a significant shift in mentality - thus, effort.)
Instead, he just raised his head up a little, and then let it fall back down onto the couch cushions with a bit of a chittering groan.
It took him awhile to wake up more fully, other sensations slowly being processed correctly into their closest-known (to be felt properly) analogues.
Which was slightly more than just vaguely helpful, as something soft and warm pressed up against him (his back) and shifted with a little high-pitched sigh.
He remembered he had a bracer around his left forearm and flicked up the personal-interface his-eyes-only display with a single-digit (tip of a finger) and a thought.
...Miz. Little sister, yes.
Blue lidded his eyes closed again and let himself settle (carefully) back into place. (Had to be careful, moving around other Shapes and Lines. '-don't want to damage them, now do you Billy? That would be rude, you need to sit-still for courtesy's sake-')
(Liam never had explained who Courtesy was, or why Bill should care about her for her sake, for her forsaken ways and means... '-just do as I say for now, Billy, it'll all make sense when you're older-')
(Except it never had. It never had. Nothing that Liam had ever told him to 'just listen to him' about and 'go with for now' had ever made any sense, the older and older he'd got. And so he'd tried getting smarter instead. And the smarter he'd made himself, the less sense it'd made - but at least he'd started to understand the boundaries and edges of what-all he didn't understand then, so he'd had to be on the right track with getting smarter like that then, hadn't he? It had to be, with his big brother always so much smarter than him. And eventually, one day, Blue knew he would catch up to the smartness that Liam was and had, and then, then-)
Blue let out his breath in a soft huff. (Later-things were for later. Now-things were for now. And now? Now there was, around and surrounding him...) Couch. Miz. ...Seb's house, Seb's living room?...
A movement at his back again. "Mmnn?" Blue heard his little sister's voice call out again. And Miz rolled over a little, placing a hand on Blue's side and burying her face deeper against him, rumbling softly.
"Mm," said Blue. This was fine.
...Seb sticking his face down in front of his own, grinning, was potentially slightly-less fine.
Blue blinked open his eyes more fully again.
"...I am potentially stealing your current-turn away from you. I am not-sorry about this. Don't like it? Fight me." said Blue. And while his eyes were half-lidded, his cat's eye pupils were down to mere slits.
"I'm fine with together-sharing." Seb chuckled. "So I don't mind. I used to mind, when I was younger. But I got over it." He straightened back up, lifting the teacup he was holding to his lips and sipping. "Anyway, you should thank me. The twins wanted to pile stuff on top of you both, but Wanda and I stopped them. They're at school now so the house'll be quiet until 2. Plenty of time to talk if you need to."
"Piling and poking are disturbing," Blue muttered. "So is your Ford being all 'chipper' in the morning-time around me." Blue didn't comment on the upcoming definition-discussion or a need for 'thanks' right away.
Seb blinked. "Ford? A morning person?! That is disturbing." He laughed. Quietly, so as not to wake Miz. She was usually up early, so this deep sleep meant she must have been Dreaming.
"Yesterday morning. Thought he might be possessed or cursed or something." Blue grumbled. "He was not possessed or cursed or something." Blue had checked. With something other than just his own two eyes. Eventually. Once he'd been a bit more awake.
"What, did he get some new kind of coffee or something?"
"He said good morning and handed me food while doing all of the happy-smiling," said Blue. "Coffee does not do THAT. Disturbing." Blue repeated at the end there, before rubbing his right temple back and forth oddly a few times against the couch cushion below him, almost a little like he was trying to sink down into the cushions without actually doing that
"Whoa, maybe he was high? If that's the case, I wanna know what he's having." Seb walked over to sit down on the other couch, facing Blue. The tea was already on the table beside the two of them.
"Ford-nip is probably not demon-nip," Blue noted in almost a mumble, eyelids slowly dripping closed again. "Humans are not demons. Usually."
Seb had to cover his mouth to muffle the cackle. "Ford-Nip! Hah! Nice." He sat back and sighed. "So… are you ok with this together-sharing Miz with me?"
Blue let out a long breath, grimaced slightly, and...
...somehow, though Seb wasn't entirely sure how, even watching him, Blue managed to extricate himself from Miz's snuggle without moving her or waking her up.
But at the end of this procedure, Blue was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, and Miz was holding onto several pillows. (One of which she pulled forward and towards her to curl around a bit more tightly around with a bit of another sleepy mutter-mumble and a slight frown.)
Blue pat-petted Miz on the head a few times until she settled out a bit again, then pulled away from her finally and slowly stood up.
"'Together-sharing' doesn't make sense to me," Blue admitted (and yes, he didn't let it show how hard that was to admit - this was different than just some simple translation problem). "It requires further definition." He paused. "Preferably over food, and away from this-our sleeping-Miz."
"What about it doesn't make sense?" Seb asked, then stood up. He'd rather settle in to sit down and talk this out, however long it took, but if Blue needed food from the kitchen… Well, they could just do it in there.
Seb was up for settling in somewhere and talking this out, though. No one had really bothered to sit down and explain things to him when he was a kid, only Matsuda and mom, and Seb had the feeling that Blue didn't have much of that type of care either. And Seb was a father now, he had plenty of stuff he had to explain to his kids. And he could do that here too.
This didn't feel like how Blue had been getting all pushy with him before, at Stan's place, over and over again. Heck, the way he'd talked when he'd woken up about the whole 'fight me' thing had been kind of defensive, not offensive, too. (Almost like Blue was… afraid of Seb actually fighting for his 'rights' to Miz's time, and that he might lose? Afraid without fear. Losing without trying first? Eh, Seb didn't know how to say this stuff in English. He recognized it, though.) So Seb didn't really mind sitting down with Blue for a while and talking with him about this.
Seb directed Blue to sit at the dining table in the kitchen while he got to work getting breakfast together for the demon. No meat, no animal products, no salt, no sugar… no vinegar… Seb shrugged and peeled some carrots and potatoes to cut up, sliced up some spicy peppers, got some water boiling to make rice, and sprinkled on more pepper. Just gonna make some stir-fried vegetables and rice. Extra spicy. Blue seemed to like that. "So," Seb called over his shoulder. "What about it, do you not make sense of?" he asked again.
"I don't… understand… the concept," Blue admitted, grumbling it out, unconsciously hunching his shoulders a little bit (defensively) and (consciously) looking away from him. (All while fully expecting to be laughed at and then called stupid for this.)
Seb played with a flame on his hand as he looked around, distracted, before focusing back on Blue. "But what? Sharing is… something like… you let others own something you own for as long as you want to… But… with people, you don't own people… but they're still yours, because they're part of your family. And you can hang out with both? Like, we're both 'sharing' Miz, it's cool she can be with both of us."
"What 'both'. I only have one… two… mmn," said Blue, before letting out a huff and dropping his head into his arms, pillowing it on top of the kitchen table where he was sitting. "You are me. It's…" He shifted his shoulders slightly, and looked agitated. "She is your sister, and my sister. She is both to us both." (Blue was trying to work his way up to it, but he was having to make up new math and ways of calculating things as he was going, before trying to down-translate it all back into an oh-so-lossy 'understandable' English from his own actually-intelligible and properly-descriptive native Flatlander.) "Yes?"
"Yes. Like, have you heard of half brothers or sisters? People that only share one dad or mom? That could be this!" He waved his arms around wildly. "Or… stepbrothers? Um…"
Blue frowned at this though. It took him awhile, and it was Kari's mention from the night before about connections that didn't transfer that had him thinking that maybe he needed to state the fact that... "We did not decide to be brothers. The connections we each have do not transfer the other-connections we each have to others."
"No, I mean," Seb wiggled. "We aren't siblings because we haven't decided it… but Miz is both our sibling." Seb realized explaining things were harder than he thought.
"Is 'together-sharing' not different than 'separate-sharing'," Blue said looking over to him. "She used different words. That implies different meanings. I understand the idea-concept of 'separate-sharing'. I think." Though Blue realized he hadn't actually confirmed the definition of that completely yet, either; the definition of that term had been more implied...
"I think Miz refers to together-sharing as, hanging out? The 3 of us? Like we share her… together… While separate sharing is… I'm with Miz first… and then you."
"And it is your turn this time," Blue finished what he thought was the thought Seb had been ending things out with there. Then... "Define: 'hanging out the three of us'?"
"...if Miz is here… doesn't mean you can't come? Like, I'm not… totally against that? Unless there's something major going on, like I have visits or customers here."
"Miz invited me when it was my turn, you said yes, the not-staying in the Mindscape by me the first-time-here was… a logical-error," Blue felt uneasy about this. "But it was my turn, and-" Blue pushed himself seated upright again and… shifted his shoulders and torso oddly, like he was trying to pull himself out of his vessel almost. (Blue didn't feel comfortable with the thought right now. He-)
Blue reached up and scrubbed both hands through the hair at the sides of his head roughly. -He HATED this. He hadn't had to do this in YEARS.
He pulled in a breath and sucked it up anyway.
He lifted his eyes up (torso and arms bobbing slightly, more like a demon in a stolen vessel or body than anything), and he focused on Seb.
Reverse output. Try to pull the outer information all the way back up and up-convert it to pure Flatlander math. Handle concepts inefficiently in the not-descriptive-enough language first until he could find a way to transform and convert it back over, like building something far out enough to connect it back to the rest of the big picture of already put-together puzzle pieces, a smaller chunk to then try and connect back to the much-larger puzzle that he was already completely sure about. Trying to fill in the gaps. He was missing a concept somewhere!
"You were here," Blue said. "It was my turn with Miz. I came to the Door to being-here with Miz, and you- granted… entry…" Blue slowed down over the parts that didn't fit, then sped up a little again. "I was with Miz. We were both in the Mindscape. She was… made a vessel. But she was with me, still. And she was physically here with you. But it wasn't your turn; I didn't give you my turn… I… I..." Blue looked frustrated. He hadn't given up his turn, but he hadn't had a problem with… with… with what? Something was off about that, but the two-dimensional triangle couldn't-
Seb winced, practically seeing the steam come off his head. What was up with this guy?
Blue was stuck at the edge of something, and felt like he was starting to lean over into empty space. (And he didn't like that feeling AT ALL.) What was he supposed to have a problem with? It wasn't- He couldn't- "-I can't do this, it isn't working, I need another angle, I'm missing something, the math isn't there, this doesn't feel-" Blue cut himself off and shook his head roughly, then looked up at Seb. "Another ang-" He stopped for a moment, closed and reopened his eyes, mentally backed off and then tried to reorient himself, before beginning again. "This is your turn. You-" Blue looked like he was grasping for words for a moment, then looked away from him, frustrated even further again. "SAY SOMETHING," Blue said next, looking back over at Seb again. "This is- This is supposed to be a discussion!" Blue said almost accusingly next, hands down and fisted there on the table. "You- you say you understand the concept, don't you? So-!"
Seb scratched his head and pursed his lips. He had NO idea what Blue didn't understand, or WHAT was so weird about this?
"Eh… I have two triplets. Sometimes, I wanted to just play with Fez, not Sixer. And Sixer also wanted to play with him. The problem there is that we both like Fez, he's both our brother. A separate sharing would mean Fez first played with me, then he played with Sixer. A together sharing would mean the three of us play together. It also means… That if Fez was just watching TV with me, Ford could come and speak to him, or I could do the same if he was busy with Ford. There really aren't turns. Because we're together-sharing. So we can come over whenever, even if one of us was with someone else first."
Blue tried to follow this, but… the first time he tried to match it, the closest match he got was to himself and his parents 'eating' at the 'dinner table' together. Or him and his Henchmaniacs all coming together. Or-
"Because your Ford and your Fez are not really your brothers?" Blue tried. Blue was frowning. "They don't act like brothers, so-" Blue looked away at the angry look Seb had gotten. "-They didn't you-know, not to you, not back then, not properly. I-" Blue turned away from him. "If you do-and-did think they were-and-are 'brothers', though, then that- It- I-" Blue grimaced. "Then it doesn't match properly; it doesn't fit," Blue tried again. "It's-" Blue stopped and shied away from the triplets example that clearly wasn't working. "It's different when it's Miz-is-my-sibling and you are a me-who-is-also-me; it would all be fine THEN," Blue tried again. "But things are different when you are her brother too, because-" Blue frowned at this. "Because-" Blue was clearly searching for words and for the right concepts, then let out a huff and seemed to give up. (He backed off again for a different angle of attack to come at this.) "-You shouldn't have said 'yes' to me coming in when it was my turn," Blue tried next, getting a little farther this time, but still largely stuck trying to build something up out over a mental chasm with no bracing at all. "Because- something. You made a mistake. It was an error. It was my turn."
"I don't mind together-sharing." Seb sighed. "And Miz likes to together-share a lot. It's why she keeps pushing us all to hang out together, even teleporting us across the country so we could spend time with each other." Then he paused, sort of getting part of what might be the issue here. "Liam was always alone, wasn't he? He only had you. And you never had to share him." If what Blue had for examples on how siblings worked was like that...
(And using Liam as an example wasn't… the best. Their family life wasn't really the best, not at all.)
"Liam was… he…" Blue frowned. "It's-" Blue stopped. "Yes. No. It's- Liam-" Blue's shoulders came up again. For a moment he looked like he wanted to start flailing. "I don't understand- 'hanging out together' is- it isn't- ...right?" Blue said, but that wasn't right either.
"Sure it is. To spend time in the company of others, for the sake of enjoying their company, and like, being together? I know Liam was- my Liam was… alone pretty much all the time. No one else wanted to together-share him with me. So I got him all to myself. But… I dunno, I think Liam might have wanted to together-share…" Seb reminisced. His big brother was always so… lonely. Seb chuckled weakly. If Liam ever got another chance… he'd probably love the idea of together-sharing.
Blue was staring at Seb. He seemed to be going over something several times within his own Mind.
"No-one else… wanted to… 'together-share' him… with you," Blue repeated slowly.
"If your parents had been anything like mine, they… didn't want Liam at all." Seb growled a little. "And screw them! 'Cause then, I got Liam for myself. But, I think Liam was… a little lonely too, knowing that our parents didn't want him…" Seb understood this sort of thing now, how it felt to be the irregular 'freak' that Filbrick didn't want.
Blue looked frustrated at this. "Yes, they didn't want him," Blue said "No, they wanted- that isn't the point," Blue said to him next. "-Don't rush me! It's-" Blue winced and scrubbed his hands through the hair on the sides of his head again. "Nooneelsewantedto'togethershare'himwithyou," Blue muttered out at high-speed, every syllable shived together and evenly spaced out. "Nooneelsewantedto_himwithyou. Nooneelsewanted-" There was a significant pause.
Seb stayed quiet this time, letting Blue work this out himself.
"Youshouldn'thavesaid'yes'tomecominginwhenitwasmyturn,itwasamistakebecause-" Blue stopped, restarted again. "Youshouldn'thavesaid_tomecominginwhenitwasmy turn,itwasamistakebecause-" Blue frowned and rewound, "Itwasamistakebecause- Itwasanerrorbecause- Itwasa- It was a-" Blue pulled in a breath. "-but I came in. There was an error. You made an error- because- You were here, and I was there, and Miz was here, and it was my turn, but you- and then I was here. I was-"
Seb wouldn't lie to himself, watching Blue… 'glitch' out like this was… creepy.
And then Blue's mentality jumped over to the other side of the chasm all-at-once.
"-You were here, and Miz was here, and I wasn't here, but I could be here, and I was here, too," Blue said. "There was no reason for me not to be here, it was my turn. It's fine that I was here with Miz," Blue said next, and his shoulders relaxed for a moment, then tensed up in a different way, and his eyes squinted down into slits.
"...I think Miz was auto-matically together-sharing herself with both of us, and forgot to tell us." Seb added, helpfully(?).
"No," Blue said, his eyes staying motionless as he stared down at the table, and a lot was going on internally there, farther in there and deep. "It was still my turn. -No-one else wanted Liam with me, yes, that one's easy, and I know this. But that is NOT- That- no-one else wanted to- to DO SOMETHING with-" Blue let out his breath in severe frustration. "-You shouldn't have said 'yes', but I was here after and of course I could come in, I-" Blue let out an ugly sort of chirrup-cheep next (Flatlander curse) and then said, "That's both sides of it, that's the boundary, there's the gap, I just need to find how they meet in the middle
." Blue squeezed his eyes shut.
Blue sat there and breathed for awhile, thinking intensely.
"You said 'yes'- no. You shouldn't have said 'yes'- no. You were- Why did you- It doesn't matter why, it's-" Blue stopped for a moment and opened his eyes. "It doesn't matter why, because- that's not important," Blue's shoulders dropped a little, and then Blue said with a growing intensity, "The reason doesn't matter, there is a WHY there-"
"Why shouldn't I have said 'yes'?" Seb asked quietly.
"You could choose," Blue looked up at him. "You could choose 'yes' or 'no', that's not what doesn't fit, it's- choosing. It's- fine that you were there during my turn with Miz and me, but it wasn't supposed to-" Blue whipped his head around to the side. "OF COURSE that can happen, it's FINE!" he spat out both to himself and absolutely no-one else at all. "Why wouldn't it be fine?! It just- doesn't- it's wrong but it's NOT WRONG, it's-" Blue pulled in a breath and scrubbed his hands through his hair abruptly. "-It doesn't happen but it did and that's fine!"
"But being with you makes Miz happy, I want Miz happy. And Miz wanted to be with you, and she also wanted to be with me. So I together-shared her with you." Seb said to him.
Blue shook his head roughly. "I'm angry, not happy. I'll be happy later-again finally AFTER I'm done, that's not- that's not a-" Blue let out a breath in half a 'HA' and got a pained, almost twisted sort of smile, as he closed his eyes slowly and said, "'It doesn't happen but it did.' It doesn't happen but it could. It doesn't happen but it didn't then-" Blue said, and a look of almost painful relief slowly worked his way across his face, as he slowly opened his eyes. "...but why not?" he ended almost tentatively.
"...um…." Seb's eye twitched. "I kinda… lost what you're trying to ask?"
Blue let out a short laugh - not even a 'ha', just an actual laugh - as he slowly dropped his head into his braced hands, elbows down on the table.
"I was… trying to ask myself..." Blue breathed out then trailed off. His hands were covering his eyes, and he had an odd pained smile going as he said, slowly, "I was trying to ask myself a question I'd never asked. I didn't know there was a question there."
"Ah, ok. I'll… let you work this out with yourself. Tell me when you have a question for me."
Blue hummed out an affirmative, leaning into his hands. He'd gotten most of it together at this point, like a rising wave effort built up, ready and waiting, and now he just needed to… let himself...
Blue pulled in a slow breath. And then he said:
"I never saw anyone else in the same 'room' with Liam when he was with me. There was me-and-Liam, and me-and-everyone-else. And I never thought to ask why." Blue paused (and Seb blinked at this. As isolated as Liam had been, he remembered his brother had dinner with the family at least).
And Blue shuddered as a whole mess of information, built up from eons of observations over one trillion years of time, cascaded down into that one small side of that chasm, to try and help flesh out the most-basic of frameworks that he realized were what was supposed to go in there.
(It didn't fill it all up by any means; it was more like a small set of pylons as braces to help span that small little part of the yawning chasm and the divide that had been in his own thoughts there, but…)
Blue let out another short laugh, and it was derisive this time.
"...I am an idiot," said Blue, as he let his head drop down onto the table, forehead-first, with a very-light thump. And he stayed seated there in that posture, for awhile.
(He looked a lot more relaxed there now, though.)
"...I don't think you're an idiot, people misunderstand things all the time." Seb reassured him.
"I treated an unused option like a fact," Blue muttered out into the table. "Idiot."
"I mean, if you've only seen that sort of thing, then it's understandable that you'd think it was just 'how things are' or something?" Seb shrugged.
"No, it isn't," Blue said, slowly shoving his arms under himself on the table to push himself up, "I've Seen PLENTY of things since then that-" were still making his Mind and mentality reel slightly, as more and more things settled into place better and more-fully, defined from a new-better-more-compact set of expressions that he hadn't had there before. (Because sure, you could define a googolplex in trinary-base-three, but it was a hell of a lot easier and more efficient to do it in base-ten while leveraging the concept of recursion and using the concept of exponential numbers, instead. One times ten raised to the power of ten raised to the power of one-hundred. Add exponential notation for conciseness on top of that clarity, and you got 1E+(1E+100). But he hadn't done the equivalent of that. Because he'd been an idiot.) "'The sun rises in the east' why? And it doesn't do that for a spinning-clockwise instead of counter-clockwise planet nearby a sun, looking 'down'! -Coordinate systems, defined frames of reference, all of it," Blue complained. "Not seeing the air that you breathe, when there's water nearby and you know what drowning is like. -I was missing the entire damn actual concept because I didn't think to ask 'WHY?'!" Blue looked irate (with himself?) at this.
Seb shrugged. "I mean, I had some stuff that I thought was one way, and never realized I was wrong since I never thought to ask- like when I found out I was ADHD! Hah! I used to think I was just stupid!"
"Nnnn," went Blue, shoving out his arms and largely splaying himself out across the table, chin hitting his arms instead of hitting the table. "Yes. I never thought to ask. Failure of imagination. I've been pushing your Stanford to do more of all of the thinking, and I made the SAME STUPID MISTAKE THAT HE DOES! -RRRRAAAAHRAAAH!" Blue pulled his hands back and started half-attacking his head at the hair again, frustrated as all get-out.
"Sometimes people just don't think to ask because they get exposed to it when they're young, and it becomes part of their foundations or something, for how they understand the world around them. That's what Linda told me once about childhood traumas and stuff."
"-That is EXACTLY the PROBLEM!" Blue groused out at him next, after he'd finally stopped attacking his hair and just... let his hands lay there on top of his head there, still twitching. "-Except NOT! Because I CHECK all my axioms! This wasn't even an axiom!" Blue complained. "It was-" He searched for a decent way to say it. "It was 'off in the asteroid fields' somewhere! Not connected! -Except yes!" Blue complained out again, turning his head sideways and collapsing down on the tabletop, covering his head up with his arms now in shame.
"Well, at least now you know. And that means you learned something today!" Seb said brightly.
Blue grumbled a bit at this, something about 'should have learned it sooner', but at least that got him slowly moving his arms down and away from his head.
"...If you tell that local brother-'Hand of yours about any of this, I will destroy you," Blue muttered out at him grumpily next.
"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." Seb couldn't help his mouth twitching through. Awww~ Blue was embarrassed that he didn't know something~
...Actually. Huh. That kinda made sense. Because Blue was still trying to act like he was 'all-knowing', right?
"It had better be," Blue muttered out next, then blinked at Seb as he pulled the pot off the stove and started dishing it out into a bowl for… Blue, who he pushed it towards.
"...Where is your food?" Blue asked only part-suspiciously (as he reflexively checked the safety and edibility of it all using his bracer's personal-interface, flicking his vision over the status information in the his-eyes-only heads-up display that he'd brought up using his mental-control interface).
"I already had breakfast. Though I should make something for Miz when she wakes up…" Seb noted, going to the fridge to get some salmon. He had learned pretty quick that Miz loved fish. And raw fish, on top of that. So Seb learned how to cure fish to make it safe for eating while raw. Get it fresh, put it in the freezer immediately and make sure it was kept cold for at least a day to kill off any parasites. Then cover it up in a mix of sugar and salt with lemon juice to cure it, kill off any bacteria. Then just rinse it off and cut up to use for whatever. Seb had some salmon that he just kept for Miz's sake. He was slicing it up now. There was some leftover rice. After learning how much Miz liked sushi (enough to defend it like some kinda animal), Seb started practicing making it himself.
Blue let out a huff of breath. He ate for awhile in silence, until, in-between bites, he asked, "...'Together-sharing Miz' is sharing time at the almost-same location with Miz. With both of us within the same 'physical' boundaries of a common-shared single defined area at-and-within that location, at the same time, no matter whose turn it is for being-with-Miz," Blue said slowly, in almost-muted tones (for the demon). "...Yes?" he then asked, to confirm.
"Pretty much." Seb called over his shoulder, molding the rice with his hands, he was still learning, so his nigiri didn't look very pretty, but Miz was happy as long as there was fish.
"Mm," said Blue. There was a pause. "I am 'fine with that', too. That is fine. Also. With me." And then he continued on eating.
...Seb felt the need to point out, "I'm fine with it. But… I don't know if Ford would be." Seb still thought his brother was dating Miz, and he had the feeling that Blue showing up in the middle of their 'sessions' would be… awkward.
"Your Ford is not her brother," Blue pointed out. "Why should I care what he thinks about what you-and-I decided we are fine with, for together-sharing our little sister with each other?"
Seb had to cover up a laugh. "Eh well. Miz to Ford isn't a sibling-relationship. They're… um…" He paused. Wait, with how protective Blue was, he probably shouldn't let Blue know his precious little sister was dating the man he disliked so much...
"Miz decided your Ford is hers," Blue noted (Seb choked). "She told me this two days ago. You don't have to lie about it to me?" Blue said all this very practically, but ended it as something of an actual question, almost.
"Oh! Oh." Seb laughed. "Well, that's… ok." He paused. "So… you don't mind? That… Miz and Ford are…"
"No, it isn't 'okay'," Blue grumbled. "'Okay' is a word that means nothing, and no, it is not fine," Blue added next. "Why she decided to pick that idiot as her six-fingered hand, I'll NEVER understand to know," Blue grumbled out next, before shoving another piece of potato into his mouth via fork.
"...I don't know what she sees in him either- wait, what?" Seb blinked, doing a double-take. What did Sixer have to do with-
"She picked him," Blue told him. "For her Zodiac. Because her stupid lizard-'dad' said 'she gets to pick her Zodiac', and she did. She did-and-decided that. -You didn't notice?" Blue asked of him next, with a slight frown of something between consternation and not-quite concern.
Seb blinked. "Oh." He frowned. "Wait, why would she pick Ford for… that?!" The Zodiac circle was meant to kill her wasn't it- wait. Actually, that was pretty smart, Ford wouldn't try to kill his own romantic partner, right?
"I DON'T KNOW," Blue repeated. "But she said she wanted your Ford especially. Not any other Ford." Blue pulled a face at this, before biting down on a piece of cooked carrot like it had offended him personally, then chewed on it like he meant to show it who's boss.
"...well… I mean… nothing we can really do about that… since she… chose him…" Seb said weakly.
"...Yes," Blue said dourly, as he munched down on another cooked carrot piece.
Seb sighed and shook his head. He really hoped his idiot of a brother never didn't anything as stupid as breaking Miz's heart, because he would be torn apart. And Seb wouldn't even be able to protect him.
"She's going to cry and maybe-hate me forever when I have to kill him, after he starts to hate her and try to kill her, which is going to happen," Blue grumbled out, thinking along the same lines before eyeing Seb. "You can't stop me, and he WILL deserve it."
"...it might not happen?" Seb winced. "But if he ever DOES try to hurt her… I might just rip his spine out, myself." Seb had almost done so when Ford had almost hurt Zach, and Miz was his daughter now. He had a responsibility to protect her.
Blue blinked at this.
"WELL," said Blue. Then he said, very solemnly and practically, "I will run interference with Kari for you while you do it. She is not allowed to destroy you for this. Yes?"
"If Ford hurts Miz, I bet Ma would also be quite angry with him." Seb said dryly. "Ma adores Miz." Probably because his mother loved having a granddaughter.
"She is a 'mom' now, and she talks of destroying anyone who tries to hurt her children, not her grandchildren," Blue pointed out. "Of her grandchildren, she says nothing but 'helping to raise them', that's all. If she didn't try to destroy someone who even tried to kill him, or didn't stop him-dying from happening, she would not be a 'mom', by definition."
"...well, Ma wouldn't want anyone to hurt Ford. She'd probably want to give him some punishment or penalty instead, and stop us from just straight up killing him." He sighed. "I hope Ford doesn't do anything stupid." He muttered.
"He will," Blue said. "He doesn't ask enough questions, and he is still lying to himself about what he hated about the local-broken demon you had here," Blue told him next.
"Self denial is something Ford is very good at…" Seb sighed.
Blue nodded. "And misunderstanding things. Willfully. -He's going to trip over some of the things that my little sister does not talk about here, with any of you, and then he will think something stupid, not change his mind, and decide to kill her then-next. Not like I haven't lived through that before, with my own Sixer, myself," Blue told him next.
"Ugh… stupid Sixer…" Seb rubbed his temples. "I really hope he doesn't. I'll have Stan talk to him. And I'll have to talk to him about it too…" Ford was shit at relationships. They were going to have to give him pointers.
"Your Stan tried to help him kill the dumb broken-demon," Blue noted. "Your Ford will probably convince him the other-way around, that she 'needs to die' when it happens. When my little sister absolutely does NOT need to die at-all again EVER. -She is living forever WITH ME." Blue looked like he was slowly working himself up to being absolutely incensed over this.
"Well, I certainly won't allow my brothers to kill or hurt her..." ("GOOD.") Seb huffed. "And Stan likes Miz. As long as Miz doesn't kill anyone in our family, or random people- I mean, she doesn't want to. For the most part. There was… an incident over the summer… Miz kinda…" Seb sighed. "She went after Filbrick. She really doesn't like him." At all. Murderously so. If Seb and his brothers hadn't gotten there in time...
He wouldn't be upset if that awful man died. But he'd be worried his children saw the bloodshed- were part of it. That was the issue that Seb had. He was still a little annoyed that Miz had tried to get Zach and Zoe to help her 'punish' Filbrick. If she'd gone off and killed Filbrick quietly without involving anyone else, Seb would probably have congratulated her! But frankly, he just didn't care. He wanted nothing to do with that man ever again.
Seb shook those thoughts off. Besides, he could hear some pattering footsteps, which meant Miz was finally awake. And knowing her, she was hungry. He put the finishing touches on his salmon nigiri, with some mildly spicy mayo on top, and brought it over to the table. Sushi for breakfast wasn't 'normal' but fuck normal. Miz could eat whatever.
"...You killed the local Filbrick?" was what Blue asked of Miz casually as she sat down at the kitchen table.
"No, we didn't." Miz blinked. "Seb told me not to. And Ford also asked me not to. And Stan-" Seb groaned. "Yes, I know, I was there."
Blue blinked at this. "Then who is 'we'?" If it wasn't Seb with his brothers… "Was it Kari with you?"
"I brought Zach and Zoe with me to beat him up." Miz explained. Seb sent a glare at her. Don't remind him. "Kari… already divorced him. She thought that was punishment enough. But I showed my brother and sister all about the things Filbrick-" She said his name like some sort of curse word, "-did to Sebastian. And they agreed with me that Filbrick should be punished." Seb placed a hand on Miz's head and messed up her hair, "No. Noooo. You're not allowed to bring Zach and Zoe with you to kill people! Don't… don't make them do that. They're just kids. Babies! They're not- don't do that ever again!"
Blue opened his mouth to ask-
-but then got a good look at the look on Seb's face and closed his mouth again. (It had been long enough since he'd started eating that he wasn't on the short end of many logic errors as he would have been if Miz had talked about this before the start of the meal.) He stabbed a piece of cooked peppers and put that in his mouth, instead.
"I get it." Miz complained, pushing at Seb's arm to get his hand away from her head. Seb huffed. "I'm almost tempted to take your sushi away and give you cereal for breakfast instead." Miz gasped. "Nooo! I'll be good!" She made grabby hands at the sushi. Fiiiish~!
"Cereal would be more filling," Blue noted, with a cool expression on his face but a bit of an odd light in his eyes. "Or are you going to try stealing food from others again, if you don't like that and want to try to take the other-things that others are eating instead, little sis?"
"B-but…" Miz's lips wobbled. "Sushi… I want it…" She leaned forward at the table, held back by Seb's arm keeping her away from the delicious looking fish. Seb looked rather smug about this. "Well, if you're a good girl, and you don't ever try to get Zach or Zoe to kill people, without their full knowledge of what they will be doing, and even then, you'll have to ask me first, explain to me what your motive for it is-" he listed off. "Then, you can have the sushi." Miz whined.
"And no more 'stealing' food from others," Blue added. "That is dangerous. -Ask-and-receive it instead. And check it all, after you take it, and before you eat it."
"...okay…" Miz pouted. "But Dipper's face is so funny when I take his fries."
"...You can take it, then watch his reaction, then put it back, then ask?" Blue said, after a bit of thought. "I am doing similar with my six-fingered hand now, sometimes. I can tell him all the things before doing them, and see his reaction, and then… not do them, and it is more-fine overall. A different sort of play," Blue noted, as he started in on his rice. "Same or very-similar reaction, without a permanent-effect that requires more energy and could break the agreement in some way."
Miz brightened up. "Oh!" She giggled. "That, I can do." Then she sighed and turned to Seb. "And I'll do the other thing too. I won't try to talk Zach and Zoe into killing people until they're able to understand, and I'll ask you first." Seb nodded at that. "Also add Wanda onto that list of people you need to ask." He tacked on. Miz agreed to that too, easily. That made Seb sigh in relief. He lifted his arm and Miz pulled the plate of fish towards herself, her tail popping out to wag as she ate.
"Seb," Blue said next (and Seb held back the preemptive groan at Blue's tone of voice), "Have you gone through the tutorial to unlock the 'portal gun' part of your bracer-device yet?" (Blue was trying to be human-polite and ask instead of just checking it directly.)
"Forgot about that…" Seb muttered. "Nah, I was working on a job. My client wants two dresses, for her and her sister. I've been kinda busy."
Blue nodded. "Has Miz helped you to set up a 'lead-up to suicidal thoughts' check using your bracer, or has your Ford created one from the 'journal app' notes that my 'Hand left for him in his phone? With the notifications to others, to their phones?"
"I'm ok now." Seb groaned. "I was in a bad spot, but I'm better now, mostly." He winced.
"These things can cycle," Blue noted. "The time to set this up is now, or very-soon, while you don't need it. Not-needing it is fine; not-needing it is good. That does not mean you should not have one as a defensive-net-to-fall-into for-supporting-you, just in case." Blue paused. "...You keep supplies on hand even when you do not have specific orders for the dresses when you don't know if you need them yet, yes? Or when? If ever? And you can use them for other things, too," Blue noted. "Setting up a way to do emergency notifications between all of you now could be useful for other-things, too. Even if you never need it for the 'suicidal thoughts' ever moving-forward." (After all, how was he supposed to 'sit back and take notes' if Seb maybe-killed himself first before getting far enough in to realize not-dying was the way to go, and completing his very own, supposedly-going-to-end-up-different, 'try'?)
"I'll help him with that. Ford's got a modified mind-reading type thing, but it's better at current thoughts than predicting future thoughts, or understanding what downwards depressive thoughts are." Miz said through a mouthful of fish and rice. "Apparently, it picks up too many depressed thoughts from him when he tested it on himself." She frowned. "Ford's got issues."
"Work with that local Ford on a 'pain-felt' device for him as well," Blue noted. "It will need to have objective measures, for an alert to himself and Kari, at minimum, when crossing a certain threshold. Kari will determine the threshold," Blue told her. "This is something I talked about with Kari and this local-'Hand a few nights ago. Kari has approved and requested this," Blue told her, "But they both also-agree that I would not be able to pick a 'proper' series of pain thresholds without potential damage to him in determining such. I would recommend letting the local-Hand set it, and let Kari modify it accordingly in a final check before use."
"Have multiple people look it over." Miz nodded. "I wonder if Linda would be able to check it too?" She frowned. "I think certain people with depression will just have painful thoughts every few days, I read that somewhere." Then she paused. Wait, she had tons of negative self-thoughts every now and then. Eh…?
"Might want to talk to that local-'Hand about adding that into Seb's 'suicidal check' device then, as well," Blue noted, unaware of Miz's thoughts (and partial realization) just then, then looked up at Seb again. "Miz informed me that your triplet-Ford was brainwashed by his therapist, 'not on purpose' and 'not exactly'. I have informed Kari of this already, last night over tea. I am informing you now, in case Miz did not think to tell you before. -Do you know this 'Ashton' therapist of his, and do you want me to look into this for you? Miz gets 'confused' sometimes; we also have different definitions for things," Blue told him quite practically.
Seb's head was swimming a bit from how quickly the last minute and a half of conversation had suddenly gone. "Wait, brainwash- what?!" He turned to Miz. The girl shrugged. "Ashton just wants to help Ford. Ford isn't normal though, but Ford is trying to be normal and that's… he's trying to be something he's not."
"If someone told you to ignore your ADHD, and just do 'normal' things, would that work very well for you?" was how Blue restated to Seb what he was hearing from Miz just now.
Seb's eye widened as he understood what Miz was getting at. "Wait, do you mean Ford is… neurodivergent too?"
"He's twisted." Miz said simply, which didn't really explain anything to Seb.
"I haven't fully characterized his ranges and responses, his metal plate gets somewhat in the way," Blue noted. "'Normal' doesn't exist. He is farther away from the 'general baseline' for a full average of humans as I am used to Seeing them, if we're looking across the entire planetary population in the dimension I just came from in my set, even when accounting for experiential differences and not. -Do you want me to?"
Seb blinked. "Um, dunno," he said to Blue. Then, more to Miz, he asked, "Shouldn't his therapist have noticed?"
"Ashton's busy treating Ford's PTSD, and found his trauma from his childhood, and several other things-" Miz shrugged. "I mean, Linda didn't realize you were ADHD until after you recovered a lot from your other issues enough for her to understand your baseline. She was more looking for what was wrong at the moment that needed healing."
"What you aren't looking for, you sometimes do not recognize to see, or see to recognize," Blue noted, having finished his rice and now starting in on his (still somewhat warm) tea. "If you are not looking at responses for certain shifts, and thinking to test them, and those testing-circumstances do not happen while you are looking, how would you know? -Also," Blue noted, "If a person is drowning in blood, and you are trying to handle the gaping wound in the almost-torn-off leg there; are you spending much time picking up the blood-soaked shirt and jacket to looking at the chest, to see the gaping wound near the heart there, as well?" Blue sipped at his tea, seemingly (and largely) unperturbed by the topic, talking and acting as if he was a 'normal human' merely discussing the lovely weather that day.
Neither Seb nor Miz minded the gory example, as they'd both seen much worse. Seb was nodding. That made sense. "So… I should tell Ford and his therapist that there's something else, some other way that Ford needs to get his treatment?"
"I brought up that he needs 'relationship checks' to at least three degrees as well. Credentials are important. Kari does not disagree with me, on this. Ford is the first check; Kari is the second; you can be the third?" Blue said to him next. "Unless you want me to be that third check instead. If I know who this person is, I can pay them a little visit today and see for myself. Do you want me to Look into this for you?" Blue asked Seb again.
"...sure? I'll ask Ford to put in a time for us to go meet Ashton." Seb pulled out his phone to text out. "I think he got Ashton on a recommendation from Fiddles…" ("Ugh, local Glasses," said Blue, on principle. Miz giggled at that.)
"...Ford says he can get a session with Ashton tonight. So we can go sit in with him to talk to him too?" Seb read the response. "Ah, do you want to meet with my therapist as well? Ah, former therapist. Linda's with Lucifer now. And she's met with Miz a couple times."
"Miss Linda is nice." Miz kicked her legs cheerfully.
Blue looked around at the two of them.
"YES," said Blue. "-To both. -I absolutely DO want to meet that one of yours... and ex-yours," Blue said, both to Seb, and then his little sister and Seb next. Especially if she was meeting with his little sister. ESPECIALLY.
"...she's free right now. We can just teleport over." Miz Flickered, blinking to come back to the present from where she'd just peeked into Linda's office.
"Yes-let's," said Blue, polishing off his tea and abruptly standing up. Miz was stuffing the last of the sushi in her mouth and chewing.
"...ok. Um, don't be too… harsh? On her? Linda's a good person." Seb told him.
"Define: 'good'," said Blue, as he gestured at Miz for the address so that he could make a portal to it.
"She's not mad at mister Lucifer for being the devil and all. And she has no issue with the other demons. Maze kills people, but Miss Linda is still friends with her." Miz chirped.
"Oh good, then she meets the most basic of baselines for 'civility', how wonderful," Blue said with a biting casualness that left even Sen wincing.
Miz gave Seb a look and a shrug, after giving Blue the address. And then the two demons were gone, out through a portal. And Seb winced. He hoped Linda was going to be ok.
