Illusion is Reality
Chapter 127
-Chubby little human fingers-
Miz hummed quietly, the sound was more melancholy than usual. In fact she'd been rather sad all day. Wanda sighed. She knew that Miz had upset Lee somehow last night, but Miz hadn't explained it to her. Because Miz didn't really get it herself apparently. All she'd told Wanda was that Lee and his Carla broke up. And he still wasn't over it. Miz had thought that would mean Lee still liked her and would want to get back together, and Wanda had to explain that romance was much more complicated than that. After that, Miz had gone quiet. Distressed about what she'd done and not knowing how to cope. So Wanda had gently suggested she apologize, to which Miz had only looked more strained, "He won't accept it." Because Miz had apparently tried to apologize already, and that had only made things worse? Wanda didn't really get it herself. So she sat Miz down in her crafts corner and had her quietly work on making things.
The twins were confused about why their big sister was being so sad. But aside from some hugging, Miz hadn't left her corner. There was a pile of origami penguins on the desk now, carefully hand painted, as Miz worked to distract herself. Wanda was sure this wasn't the best option, but it was better than letting Miz go and confront Lee and make things worse between them.
Still, it was disquieting to see Miz so down on herself. Knowing her dragon daughter by now, Wanda was sure she was turning over the conversation in her head and blaming herself more and more for how things happened. Whatever that had been. Wanda sighed.
Sebastian hadn't wanted to touch the issue with a ten foot pole. "I barely even know why our relationship works!" he'd said, which made Wanda frown a bit. "And Stan's been wild about Carla since forever! I don't know what happened to break Lee up with her, though… I think that happened in my past life too, but I wasn't paying attention to WHY it happened!"
So they couldn't do much more than leave Miz alone with a few assurances that if she gave it some time, Lee might cool down enough to be willing to talk to her.
And she could ask for forgiveness then.
(Final thing before Ford leaves the tent for the night)
"Okay, probably shouldn't have had that last cheddar cheese meatloaf sandwich at the end there, woof," went Lee, as he slapped his belly, and let out a soft (but happy laugh). -His own 'test list' hadn't been nearly as long as this Ford's. Mostly because Lee liked parmesan cheese on his italian, and cheddar cheese for anything else; he wasn't really into other cheeses for things. This Ford had had the right idea, though: having a hot slice of meatloaf between two slices of cheese and buttered bread, and toasting that whole thing up on a skillet? He didn't want to say that it was better than straight ketchup and a toast sandwich of the stuff, but… well, let's just say that using the brown gravy as a dip for the toasted one without adding more ketchup worked really well as a close second for him.
Lee leaned back on the counter and let out a happy sigh. Then blinked. "Oh, yeah," he remembered. "You want me to show you all the faster prep stuff tonight? You can take some of the extras home with you, if you want." Lee knew he had plenty. And hey, anything Ford didn't take...
Ford smiled, finishing up his notes and closing his journal. "I have most of what we did today written down. But practical practice would be wonderful."
"Heh," said Lee, "Not exactly 'practice' I was talkin' about here." He tapped the countertop, which brought up the interface in blocky Standard Galactic Common again, flicked a few things and made a few gestures at the hot plate equipment, while pulling down a few containers and lids from the cabinets above… and within seconds the remaining remnants of their food was in containers, shoved off to the side, the hotplate was clear and then folded back under the countertop… and all of the dirty knives and cutting boards had been shoved down into a slot that had opened up in the countertop. Another screen - for the dishwasher apparently - and Ford heard it starting up what was likely a clean cycle over there.
"Gimmie another second," Lee said, using two hands for the gesture this time - one at the screen, one at the countertop at the same time, and… something shimmered and moved sideways across the surface and… the whole thing was clean again on the side they'd been working on.
"That's so convenient." Ford grinned.
"Yep," Lee said, popping the p. "Kinda the point. Blue likes efficiency; I kinda like it too, sometimes." As long as it wasn't cutting or freezing out people that he liked, anyway. Lee flicked the screen over to a different menu, and asked Ford, "Hey, you wanna grab a couple baskets of stuff from the 'fresh closet' over there?" He'd handled the stuff in his basket earlier after Ford had left; the other counter, he'd cleared earlier, too. He made a 'shoving to the side' motion across the way, and the screen shot across the front of the counter over to the countertop on the other side of the sinks, closer to said 'fresh closet', to come to a stop over there, waiting for him.
"Which ones?" Ford went over. "Huh, I know Miz avoids showing me more advanced technology because I told her I wanted to make them myself, but this really would be useful."
"Whatever you want." Lee casually followed the menu screen over to the other countertop. "And yeah," he said, "I feel ya. There's lots of stuff Blue just tells me to go to Program for, to learn it all myself first. Or even just learn a little, before he even really lets me touch practically anything myself, instead of just watching him do it."
"I suppose it's because of my own pride, I want to make the things myself, instead of just having her give them to me." Ford sighed. "Though she makes enough stuff that I just end up trying to reverse engineer them."
"Hey, I got the training programs and blueprints for most of this stuff, if you want it," Lee offered, as he started laying out rectangles and squares of light, and 'flipping over' said areas from the 'underside' of the counter to the top surface instead, for access and use. "Gotta be a way to hand you at least a branch or two of the training tree. Blue's usually pretty gung-ho about people learnin' stuff. Bet if I ask him, he'll give you a chunk of it if you want."
"I thought Blue gets angry if I just go about using what he gives me." Ford was annoyed about that.
Lee glanced over at him. "He ain't givin' you shit. I'd be asking him to put the blueprints at the end of the training program tree. You'd be earnin' it," Lee told him, looking back to the counter, "Because by the time you learned all that stuff you'd have to go through to get at it, you could probably just do it yourself." Lee frowned. "Or at least not kill yourself usin' or makin' it. Depends on what he's okay with there. Whole thing's huge for me, connects out to all sorts of places," Lee told him, as Ford brought over a good two baskets of stuff. "Still got a lot of areas greyed out, and sometimes I gotta ask him to change it up or add stuff, 'cause it's just gettin' boring or makes no damn sense to me, but…" Lee shrugged.
"As long as I don't have him screaming at me or anything again." Ford sighed. "I would like to learn, if I can."
"Only times I've had Blue ever screamin' at me was when I did a stupid thing that was probably gonna get me killed, didn't even realize it," Lee told him seriously. "You go through learnin' what he thinks you need to learn to do stuff right, and actually ask him for that stuff? You're golden. Just, y'know, don't try to hack what he gives you. Pretty sure it'd either delete itself, or fuck up all your shit first, just in case." That one was more of a guess, but Lee had seen Blue do similar things under different circumstances.
"I just never know what the right things to say to him are." Ford rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, guess that's a different kind of hat trick with him," Lee told him. "Ain't about saying with him. It's all about asking. You ask him the right questions, things go pretty smoothly. Can't tell you the number of times I've kinda wanted to kick him in the face, but asked him what he thought I should be askin' him right then, and got shit back on track in, like, a minute or so. He don't actually like statements so much," Lee snorted, as he pulled out the first few veggies - tomatoes - from one of the baskets that Ford had brought over, pulled over a cutting board, and pulled out a knife from the nearest knife block. "Sort of an 'I already know the facts' if you're tryin' to tell him somethin', usually, and an 'are you trying to order me around?!' instead," Lee rolled his eyes, "If you ain't askin' him stuff the way he wants you to ask."
"He did seem to like it when I asked him to tell me what he wanted me to say." Ford blinked. "Is this like that talking to girls thing? I never quite got the hang of that." he half-way joked.
Lee let out a laugh at this.
"Hell, no," Lee told him, giving him a kind of amused look. "Most girls, you ask them somethin' like that? They get pissed 'cause you had to ask, and you didn't ask earlier. -And half the time, they get all pissed off, and still don't tell you everything." Blue never played 'girl games' with him. -Hell, neither had Mary. It was just some broads, like Carla, who had. "Blue only lies or holds shit back when he thinks he needs to, 'cause of 'operational security'," Lee told him. "The more I've got in with him," Lee explained, "The more he tells me stuff," and explained. "And there's a time and place for shit, too. Like, don't ask some stuff out in front of other people, because then he might have to lie to you, same time as he's lyin' to them. 'Cause he don't want them to maybe pick up on him lyin' or leavin' all the important shit out." That had happened more than a few times with some of the merchant trips that they'd made. Lee tilted his head at him. "Pretty sure that's a normal thing though; you know that ain't just for demons." Lee frowned a bit. "...Uh, you know you don't gotta talk to him when I'm around, right? I can negotiate stuff with him for you. I know how to talk to him fine." Just like he'd done for him last night.
"Yes, that would be a load off my mind, taking to Blue is like… crawling through glass, always having to be careful about what I'm doing, and getting stressed from it all."
Lee winced hard at this, as he pulled a few containers and a large bowl out of the cabinets above.
"Yeahhhhh, I'll have a talk with him," Lee told him next. "You don't gotta talk with him if you don't want to." He looked away. "Dunno how some other-dimensional trip would work out then. Maybe have him do some kinda silence bubble filter, so he can't hear you, and you can't hear him," Lee noted, then shook himself. "-Right, anyway," he began, then gestured down at the tomatoes with a knife. "Here's how I usually do it," Lee said next, "Because I swear it takes, I don't know, almost a minute longer to set up the cutter over there to handle this stuff right than it does to do this."
And Lee took the knife and quickly cut out the top 'stem' connecting part of each of the five tomatoes.
"Next thing," Lee said, pulling forward a small cutting board - only about five inches by five inches wide. He picked up an odd cylindrical device, a little over four inches in diameter, and turned it upwards, tossing the tomato in. It floated centrally inside it.
And Ford relaxed, watching it all, even taking his own tomato to try out.
And then Lee flipped the device downwards onto the chopping block - aligned in a circular depression that fit the device quite perfectly, a little offset from one side. The side of the board lit up with a floating screen, with a preset already selected, and… Lee seemed to squeeze a set of buttons on either side of the device he was holding, and- the tomato suddenly sectioned into rough-chopped squares that were floating within it.
Lee pulled the device up, bringing the tomato with it, moved it over the bowl at the side, and depressed a different button (flush with the device, at the top of his hold on it) with his pointer finger. Gravity reasserted itself and the tomato chunks fell down into the bowl below.
Lee moved a tomato to the cutting board within the depressed circle section, shoved the device down on top of it, hit the buttons, and- Lee did this moving-cutting-moving-dropping procedure four more times in rapid succession for the other four tomatoes, and had them all cut within not more than five seconds.
Lee set the (empty) device back down on the cutting board and tapped a button on the display, and the device and board seemed to quickly self-clean.
"So, yeah," Lee said, setting the cutting container back down in its circular depression on the board. "Thing doesn't go off unless you get a seal on the board with it." (At which point, Ford finally noticed a little circular light on the cutting board itself, under the floating settings menu there, change over from blue to yellow then back over to blue again, as Lee pointed it out, then picked up the cutter, before placing it back down into its depression on the board again.) "So, kinda a 'safety feature thing' there," Lee said. "Can pick a couple different cuts there, like, really fine or minced or straight-up practically pasted," Lee said, like this was just a completely normal thing he was talking about here. "But that's all it can do." Lee shoved the cutting board to the side (by putting his finger down on the dim outline surrounding the cutting board, and shoving it over, to then let go, leaving it mostly in front of Ford, if he wanted to play with it a bit with a couple more of the tomatoes).
"Now," said Lee, "The 'industrial-type' one is this, one." And he pulled a larger one that had been sitting farther back forward. It looked more like a machine, and had a clear case on top of it that seemed to hinge back. "This is a slicer, but it can do just about any cut and shred you can think of. Won't go off if the cover ain't down; that's the safety on this one right here."
Then Lee grabbed up one of the heads of lettuce Ford had brought over.
"Wanna see how the thing shreds lettuce like a pro for ya, easy?" Lee asked with a not-quite showman's showing-off-a-new-product grin. Then Lee held out the head of lettuce over to Ford.
The delighted, eager smile was answer enough.
(Lee and Fiddleford)
Lee had gotten up that morning pretty early (after an evening of cooking more stuff after Ford had left the tent, before getting his own self to bed - and yeah, he'd had a quick talk with Blue about a couple things then). (And yeah, Lee had felt pretty good about Ford leaving there with a good amount of cut-up stuff taken with him to stick in his own fridge in his house and tide him and maybe some of those other folks over with salads and sandwich stuff for awhile.)
So by the time seven-thirty a.m. hit, Lee had already made up a few signs and stuff, and pretty much finished off hauling out and dusting off the old food cart thing he'd kept in one of his 'junk' rooms in here as extra storage.
He was pretty sure that Fiddlenerd was probably the kind of guy who rose early, since the one in his dimension had been some kinda pig farmer's son. Farm folks were usually early risers everywhere there weren't a lot of nightly predators out to eat 'em, right? So...
Lee put on... not his best suit, but his best selling outfit, and then shoved his way out past the test flap and started strolling down the hallways of the place.
See, he'd figured that the best way to find this Fiddleford guy was to look for places he wasn't supposed to be, hang out there in front of one of them looking almost suspicious enough to maybe be doing something wrong, and wait until somebody who was supposed to be doing security for the joint finally showed up. And then he could ask to see the guy then. Solid plan, right?
...yeah, not so much. It was harder than he thought. The staff did come up to ask him if he needed a visitor's pass, but apparently thought that was also a good excuse to try and abduct him off for a lab tour of their stuff or something? (He barely got out of that one. Several times.) Also, he saw Terrence and Estania again with a slightly older girl who introduced herself as Viola.
And once they'd gotten done chewing the fat for a bit, Lee finally broke down and just asked, "So… does this Fiddlenerd guy that Ford knows have an office someplace in this joint? I'm kinda lookin' for him, but..." and in a fit of pure brilliance, he said to them… "I got lost."
"Oh, yeah he's looking over the security protocols and losing his mind over how lax it is." Estania giggled.
"Yeah," said Lee, with a perfectly straight face, "I feel for him." He actually kinda did. "Kinda why we got signed on to watch Ford's lab for him over nights." Literally; he'd had Ford sign that 'sign' for him for a reason. (Blue was still a little pissed about not getting paid, yeah, but Blue also wasn't the one doing most of the security there for it all, right now. Not anymore. -Lee had mostly just decided to push out the extended security field for their backup tent into that area behind them, and Blue had 'gotten even' with Ford (preemptively, for attempting stupid things) by adding a few of those electricity-related 'exclusionary conditions' to the whole mess.) "Blue's a walking security hazard even on his days off." Boy was he ever. "Even when he's on vacation. And trying to go off relaxing." Lee rolled his eyes a little bit at this. (Well, that was the devil-demon for ya, though.)
"Yeah, isn't he cool?" Estania grinned.
"Only when he ain't settin' things on fire," Lee told her deadpan. "Then he's exothermic instead."
"I mean, yes." Viola rolled her eyes. (What, no science joke love here? ...Eh, that one had been pretty bad, though, even for him. He'd give her that one.) "Though I think he's bad for Dr. Pines' mental health. I feel really bad for the doc. I think he's trying to get along with Blue despite all that, since he's got that thing for Blue's sister." Viola and Estania sighed. Terrence groaned with his head tilted back. "Ain't no reason for him to have to go through that."
"Yeahhhh…" Lee said, rubbing the back of his neck, and leaning in almost a little conspiratorially, lowering his voice to ask... "...You think you could maybe give me the rundown here, while you're takin' me to Fiddleford? Pretty sure Ford was tryin' to be all polite with me, and didn't really give me the whole story."
The girls were happy to gossip, telling him in whispers about how fondly the doc looked at his journal, which was apparently a gift from Blue's sister. How they'd seen the doc and Xin or Yun ("She's apparently a shapeshifter?") cuddling together, or… more intense activities, though they didn't really have proof. And Terrence was there to interject through the girls' haze of romantic tension to explain that the doc had a lot of hurdles to overcome if he ever wanted to get anywhere, and they still didn't have any confirmation that the doc really did like Blue's sister in such a way...
Lee listened to this all, filing it away carefully.
And then he said, "Y'know, I hate to burst your bubble, ladies, but Ford ain't exactly known for bein' up for a bunch of sexytimes stuff." He looked at them sidelong as he said this, gauging their reactions very carefully.
"But there are rumors among the staff about kinky S&M stuff." (Lee's eyebrows went up.) Estania looked around to make sure no one was listening. "Of course no one's asked the boss to his face, but…" She and Viola glanced at each other. "We're not sure about that kinda thing, the doc is so innocent, but Miz, or Xin or whatever she's calling herself, is very… affectionate."
Lee wanted to laugh, he really did. But he also just wanted to groan a lot and smack his head against the wall here.
Instead, he let out a sigh and leveled with the two girls. "Okay. look. You ever seen the big nerd get embarrassed and just, y'know, blush?"
"Yes. Plenty of times." The two nodded.
"Like his face is just about to freakin' combust, am I right?" Lee asked. The two girls nodded. ("It's super cute.") "You really think he'd make it two seconds into being told to tie somebody up and spank 'em like a naughty demon without his whole head just straight-up blowing off?"
And they thought about this. And then hung their heads. "Yeah, he'd probably faint." "That big old sweetie wouldn't survive."
"Pretty sure this is just one of Miz's old 'pranks'," Lee said, cursing the dragon-demon out a little inside his head, while keeping a 'yeah, what can ya do?' smile on his face, and his hands firmly inside his jacket pockets. "Y'know she can mess with sound and stuff, right? Make it so people can't hear certain stuff?"
"Well, Blue can do those awesome illusion things. We haven't gotten to see Miz use her powers yet." Terrence rubbed his chin, thinking of the best DDNMD game they've ever played.
"Yeah, exactly," Lee said. "And Blue's her brother. He's taught her lotsa stuff. I know he taught her the 'no sound gets through one'. I'm pretty sure she can do the opposite of that same thing, too. Makin' sounds. Same way Blue can make illusions and junk whenever he wants. -They're probably just talkin' about science over tea in there wherever." Lee shrugged at them next, making sure to look perfectly at ease. (As well as he could anyway, which was pretty well by then, given some of the shit he'd had to go through in some other dimensions and survive. -Never let 'em see you sweat. Never let 'em see you want to strangle a not funny at all dragon-demon. The hell had she been thinking?!)
The girls nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense." Terrence sighed in relief. Hopefully that would settle their need for squealing. He loved his girlfriend, but Estania's voice could hit decibels that shatter glass, with the way she went at it. "So Miz is into pranks?" Terrence wondered. "I suppose, she does like to embarrass the doc. I think she finds his blushing expression cute or something."
"Ford says she is," said Lee. "She was doin' stuff a bit less… pranky around me, last time I saw her and Blue together, hangin' out."
"I should tell her to tone it down, the poor doc's heart might not be able to handle it." Viola nodded solemnly. "He's like what, nearing his 50s?"
Lee shrugged at the age thing. "Pretty sure it's a little late for toning stuff down," Lee said. "Probably oughta just tell him what she's been doin', let him handle it. -You want me to do it?" Lee asked them. "Not like I care much. This is just a gig job I'm doin' with Blue for less than peanuts. It's mostly just a chance to hang out with Ford here for awhile."
"...yes please. I don't know if I can tell him that myself." Estania sighed. "Though, I'm pretty sure the doc's feelings for Miz aren't a prank. He was doing all of the fond yearning even when she wasn't around."
"Yeah, I hear ya," Lee told her. "Plannin' on talkin' with him about that one there, too. Not so sure he's gonna be as happy with her after findin' this one out, though," Lee let out a breath in almost a sigh, then perked up a bit as they rounded another corner and then… "-That Fidds' office over there?" The name plaque was sticking out perpendicular to the wall above the door. Looked like the door was open, too.
"Yup. Just knock before going in." Viola looked around, "I think we should be getting to Dr. Wexler's lab, we're on rotation to be helping her out today."
"Sure," Lee said. "Uh, should I let him know you helped me out? Or would that be gettin' ya in trouble for not bein' in the lab yet or whatever," Lee asked them next, good-naturedly.
"Nah, they're pretty chill about stuff. It's nice, feels comfortable." Viola waved him off. "Well good luck with the docs an' stuff."
"Thanks! Guess I picked the right kinda place to be payin' me less than peanuts for stuff, then," he told her with a grin and a wink, pretty darn tongue in cheek. "Have fun with the science-y nerdy stuff," he called out, walking backwards to wave to them, as they rounded the corner.
Then he let out a bit of a sigh, and his grin faded a little bit, as he turned and walked over to the open doorway.
He knocked on the door frame, while poking his head around the edge a bit. "Hey. Fiddleford, right?"
The man looked up from his desk, various papers strewn around and security tapes piles on his desk. "Y-yes?" He blinked. "Oh, you're… ah…" he blinked. "You're… yes, Stanford said you're apparently an alternative dimension version of his brother?" Fiddleford didn't know how to feel about all these other dimensioners just dropping in with no issue.
"Yeah, kinda," Lee told him, moving a bit forward and leaning up against the doorway with his shoulder. "Except I'm a twin, not a triplet. No Seb anyplace where I'm from," Lee explained rather concisely. "You got a minute to talk?"
"Yes. I'm assuming you're here to tell me about the issues in our security too?" Fiddleford rolled his chair around before standing up to walk over. "I confess, we were more strict when we first began, and everyone relaxed over the years, I hadn't thought much of it, but clearly I should have been paying more attention."
Lee's eyebrows went up at this.
"You want the sarcastic response, the straight one, or the sales pitch instead?" Lee asked him, not straightening away from the doorframe just yet.
"I feel bad for having you and Blue do this without anything in return, so I suppose a sales pitch would be appropriate." Fiddleford found himself thinking 'Oh, definitely a Stanley.'
"Heh," said Lee, grinning for a second just a bit. "Yeah, okay. -Straight and sales it is," he gave him a bit of a sideways half-smile.
And then Lee told him, "I didn't come here to talk security; I ain't rated for that. I can't do shit about that anyway, because Blue is Blue. Best I can do for you all here is what I've been doing," Lee said to him, "Which is keep on keepin' him from feeling like he's gotta intervene." Lee let out a sigh, looked away from him and scratched the back of his head. "I actually came here today to talk you into letting me set up a food cart in your front lobby there, since I kinda noticed that, y'know, half your people take forever getting lunch. That one line is slow there," Lee told him, looking back at him. "You need at least three, or some other option."
"Yes, they've come to me about making more lunch lines. I've asked them to draw up a cafeteria layout they want for that, so we can get the construction done for rearranging the room." Fiddleford nodded.
"Good," Lee said, "But you need somethin' else for the interim. Cranky, unfed scientists don't do good work; they blow shit up in the wrong places accidentally instead. -You can pay me to set up my cart and hand it out for free, pay for the supplies and get a kick back on sales, or I pay you for the space and I keep all the profits. If I set it up inside, you look good, but if you say no I'm just gonna set it up out on the property line instead and let the word-of-mouth do the talkin' for me," Lee told him rather firmly. "First one's probably the cheapest to you overall, if you're thinking about overall cost spread around between this place and your employees out of pocket. Supplies is next cheapest overall, but you might get some of your money back for it, if you don't mind the employees payin' out some for it, too; that one's how you're probably doin' it with the cafeteria, probably the easiest, and we can talk pricing. You get the idea."
"I don't mind paying you fer your trouble, but I don't know how good our currency is for you. Seein' as you're from another dimension an' all," Fiddleford pointed out. "But if you need supplies or anything like that, for more than just the food stall, I'm more than happy to trade for those for your services instead."
"If I'm here for more than a few days, getting restocked would mean me havin' to take a trip to a jeweler to trade in some gold for cash," Lee told him. "Not sure what supplies you have lyin' around here, but services are what I'm thinking you might be better off trading to me instead. I've got plenty of supplies, can make anything I want really right now, if I have to, to tell ya the truth."
"Oh? What sorts of services?" Fiddleford raised an eyebrow.
"Not tryin' to murder Blue on me, or scan him or anything else, for a start," Lee told him seriously. "He's gonna come outta that tent again sometime, and it's a headache and a half for me if any of you decide to switch things around on me and mess with him. -I don't like countin' up all the bodies afterwards, believe me," Lee told him, looking him straight in the eyes and holding his gaze for a moment.
"Well none of us are plannin' on murderin' nobody." Fiddleford said quite plainly.
"That's good," said Lee, "But Blue thinks capture is worse. That's what usually has him cratering places, and not calling it 'overkill'. Just so you know."
"No capturin' either." Fiddleford nodded. "I know we got that shapeshifter in a cryotube, but that's because it was tryin' ta kill people. Blue isn't plannin' on that, so we shouldn't have an issue."
"Anybody tries something with him first, he just might," Lee told him. "Pretty sure they'll deserve it if he goes that far, though. He's been a lot more chill lately, and better at holding back on all the 'unnecessarily' murdering." Lee held his gaze, looking over him carefully, and…
"I've told everyone to leave Blue alone. Don't poke the demon."
(Lee caught that look. Yeah.) Lee nodded and looked away from him then. (That was all that Lee had needed. This guy meant what he'd said. They really weren't trying to 'poke the demon'. ...Heh. He'd have to remember that one.)
Lee let out a breath next, and got a bit of a smile. "-Other thing on services that I could use is science-y things, from maybe your interns or somebody else around here, person and amount of time we can discuss." Lee winced a bit as he realized how that probably sounded, and rubbed at the back of his neck again, saying, "-I mean, might be multiple people, for an hour or two each, mostly talking and sketchin' things out," Lee added, looking back over to him. "Nothin' major. Figure you can say who really needs to stay on-task or not, and I'd be talkin' with them to make sure they want to do it too, first. You can be in on that one, if you want. Make sure I'm stayin' all above-board, keep you in the loop, and all that," Lee waved off, then looked up and to the left a bit, trying to remember what else... "-Oh, yeah. And some 'event' picnic table and chairs set up in the front lobby for folks to be able to sit at there, that you know haven't gotten a bunch of chemicals ever used up all on or across them. -I've got the signs all ready to go," Lee let him know. "I just need to add on all the pricing, and we gotta talk banjo music for the background there, on some speakers for folks to listen to. -Bunch of songs, don't want to be listenin' to just one in there on a loop."
Fiddleford brightened at the words 'banjo music'. "Oh, I do believe we can work out something we'll both be happy with." He grinned.
Yep. Worked every time: save the sweet stuff in the pot for the last. Lee stifled a grin, but he let it peek out there as a smile instead.
"Sounds good to me," said Lee. "Lemme show you what I've got together already," he told the scientist next, pulling several pieces of paper out of his right jacket pocket. "You wanna talk while we walk, and I can show you what I'm thinking about out in the open? Or go with the whole 'everything on paper' thing, instead?" Lee asked him next, straightening up further and going a bit more into 'business' mode. "Figure I've got more than enough time to get it all set up by 11am, if we don't end up takin' the whole morning."
"Walking's good. I need to check the halls anyway." Fiddleford agreed.
Lee nodded, stepped away from the doorway, and let Fiddleford pull it closed to lock it behind him.
Lee handed over the papers first, with his quickly drawn up 'business' plan and his layouts, figures, and numbers, as they both started walking off together, down the hallway.
Fiddleford glanced through Lee's paperwork quickly. It seemed pretty sound, far as he could see it. He decided to go with just 'renting' the space to him for the day; getting additional food supplies to use on short notice would be a big hassle, and wouldn't be used to the next day anyway, since Lee let him know that he had apparently done all the cooking the night beforehand already. He was going to take a bit longer with the paperwork, before making a decision on the next day.
Fiddleford had also decided that new security terms were going to be put in place for this. Anyone could enter the lobby, granted they didn't set off the metal detector that was now installed over the doors. Lee had protested at first - he'd planned on a captive audience, not more locals coming in, and potentially making the security situation here any worse. But Fiddleford explained that the interns had somehow invited several dozen friends over to spend an overnight DDNMD session in the cafeteria, and while they had all been other scientists and interns this time, he didn't know if it would stay that way in the future. -In other words, Fidds was worried about so many people who had no clearance being allowed in accidentally, or coming in thinking it was supposed to be something that was open to the public when it wasn't, and wanted something a little more beefy in place, to already account for that maybe happening.
"All our ID cards'll have a chip that gets 'em through the metal detectors on the doors, since I know plenty of us have supplies on us at all times," Fiddleford explained. "The doors to the rest of the building will need a card scan and iris scan. The visitor's pass will only get them in to certain areas, and expire after a few hours…" Fiddleford listed off.
"Uh…" said Lee. "Okay." He wondered when they were going to start talking about the actual security stuff. And why Fiddlenerd was talking about any of this with him at all. He'd said he wasn't rated for this stuff, right?
"Sorry, just talkin' to myself, almost."
"Yeah, well," Lee said, kinda of wincing a bit, "Pretty sure that tellin' one of the guy's who's already walkin' around in here real easily what you're plannin' on doin' next within earshot, ain't really all that secure. Yeah?"
"Sorry, I just feel at ease around you for some reason." Fiddleford's eyes narrowed. "Dunno if that's a security risk."
"Well, yeah," Lee said, "Pretty sure that's called 'social engineering' in English. And yeah, I'd kinda hope you feel at ease around me. Be hard for me to sell stuff if I wasn't tryin' to do that." Lee gave him a sideways look there.
"Well you're very good at it." Fiddleford looked a little rueful at how easily he'd been sucked in.
"Thanks. Took a lot of practicing," Lee told him almost absently. "Heh. Should've seen how easily I got that 'permission slip' from Ford for the sign right there. And nobody's given me shit about it or even stopped to ask me about whether or not I'm actually legit, yet. Got a couple double-takes from people seeing the tent and reading the sign, but suspicious? Not anybody at all," Lee noted, as they turned the next corner. "Nobody questions it, or me, bein' there and doin' what I said I was doin' at all, and... -Hey, gimmie a minute so I can grab the cart out and you can look at it, yeah?" Lee said, as they came up on the tent, and he didn't wait even a second before slapping Fidds gently on the side of his arm, before making a beeline for the entrance to the tent and ducking under the half-open flap.
The lack of suspicion was a problem, wasn't it? Fiddleford made a note of that. "Sure, I'll contact the staff in the lobby to clear a space for ya." He didn't have wait more than a few moments before Lee was back out again, pulling a cart that looked like it had a dolly cart attached to the side of it. (Lee was tilting it just a bit sideways, up onto a set of wheels; the other end was just a pair of hard stilts, no wheels.) Fiddleford looked at the tent. "Amazing piece of work, but I'll keep my distance. Blue don't seem ta like me much."
"Yeah, well, Blue's got reasons not to trust Fiddlefords," Lee told him. "If I didn't think you were on the up-and-up, I'd be tellin' him to pack up and go right now." Lee pulled the wheeled cart around, so that he could pull it along behind him as they walked (the better to see what was in front of him).
"...I'm rather worried about what my alternatives might have done…" He winced. "Then again, I did make a gun for erasin' memories. And as a being of pure energy and thought or whatever he is, I can see why he might have an issue with that."
"That is one of the really big ones," Lee confirmed. "You go changin' somebody's thoughts like that, erasing parts of themselves? They just ain't the same person anymore. Blue sees that as killing people," Lee told him, "And he's pretty big on free will. The two Fiddleford's, in forty-six and forty-six-apostrophe-backslash? They were zappin' people without gettin' permission." Lee had a frown going. "Dunno if you ever zapped the Ford here," he gave Fidds a long look over that one, "But I'm pretty sure that Blue went and sabotaged both those guns so that people could get their memories back, before it ever got used on anybody. That it didn't actually work," Lee told him, "When maybe it really did do that thing, before that. Well, sorta. Can't go pulling a rug out from under a bunch of furniture without movin' shit, let alone start ripping up floorboards under somebody's house. Don't even talk to me about foundations," Lee said to him darkly next, staring straight ahead as he was pulling the cart down the hallways forward.
Fiddleford furrowed his brows. "I… well… I know this is kinda a bad check against me, but I don't really remember if I did or not…" He shook his head. "But I did make it so that the memories could come back, if the person wanted it badly enough and…" He rubbed his head. "I got pretty much all 'o myself back. Aside from some things here an' there that haven't been jotted outta me yet."
"That wasn't how the Fiddlenerds in those two dimensions were tryin' to do it, I can tell you that," Lee told him. "They were tryin' for a full wipe-out of pieces. And that woulda caused problems."
"Full wipe outs are too dangerous. Even at my worse, I wouldn't have risked such a thing." Fiddleford shuddered. "I mean, you'd pretty much lobotomize yerself."
"Yeah, well, they weren't smart enough to figure that one out on their own, apparently. Or just try and just get rid of the fear there, instead of the memories," Lee said next. "So, yeah. That happened."
"Getting rid of the fear ain't a good idea neither. If I wasn't scared of that gremloblin feller than I'd probably prance right up ta him all over again."
"I ain't talkin' about getting rid of all fear," Lee said, "I ain't an idiot. But you don't need to know exactly how scary it feels like to, y'know, go off runnin' into a burning house, to figure out you really don't want to do that. Ya don't need to know what that feels like, that badly, to know that ain't a good idea, unless you really have to. Like to grab a person outta there, if you can."
"Fear is how people know caution. And it's real complicated how that works in a human brain. Too difficult to isolate out, when I wasn't able ta even stop shaking every night."
"Yeah," Lee said. "I kinda figured. And I feel ya. But so is gettin' rid of just one memory, 'pretty complicated' and 'difficult to isolate' and all that. -Pretty sure you could go off remembering that you felt really afraid, without actually feelin' like you're still fallin' off of that cliff. I know Blue can do it. And hell, there's even medications for that. Get you calm enough to think straight in the first place."
"I'm sure he could, something about being a master of the mind and all that." Fiddleford rolled his eyes. "And yes. There's medication for that now. And it's less frowned upon for people to do so. Which is a god send."
"Don't have to tell me that one," Lee told him (a la far more than 'just' a 1970-something mindset on the whole subject anymore). "Blue gave me a damn education on what a bunch of head shrinks can do for folks these days, on Earth and in some other places." Some of it had been kind of scary in a completely different way, what all demons and other people could do to you, both good and bad, but yeah. "Hear some of that stuff works real well for folks, now that you got all those brain scans and things."
"Yes. We've even got our own MRI machine here. Though Ford's not allowed anywhere near that room."
"What. How many times he try and take that one apart," Lee grinned at him.
"Well, yes, he did try that." Fiddleford laughed. "But also, I'm just worried about the metal plate in his head. It's not ferromagnetic metal, but it's still… something I worry about."
"Uh… wait," said Lee, "That's the magnetic imaging one, right?" Lee thought about that for a bit. "...You're worried he's gonna get his head stuck to that thing, because of all the big magnets inside?" Lee looked over at him. "Don't he got one of those magnet guns, too?"
"...right, I know his head won't stick, I'm just… worried." Fiddleford sighed. "It's irrational."
"Eh," Lee shrugged. "Guess it's a good excuse to keep him from takin' it apart on you and using it for parts that 'he swears he's gonna put back in an hour, a day, no really Fiddlenerd, do you really need a working MRI machine thingy, look at this cool thing I just made'?" Lee said, with nothing like a straight face.
Fiddleford laughed. "Yeah that sounds like him. He took apart the harvester I was working on a while back, because he wanted to know how I got it to only suck up carrots and none of the soil."
"This is why you can't have nice things," Lee told Fidds next with a grin, as he shouldered his way through the double-doors to the lobby. (And Fiddleford pushed forward to help him with the doors then, which was… nice.)
"Yes. Well, he apparently used the balance unit I built for the harvester to make drones for his niece and nephew. That way they wouldn't fly out of control, even with some 5 year olds at the controls." Fiddleford rolled his eyes.
"What," said Lee, glancing over at him. "He couldn't just ask you to help out by makin' him another one or two? Or just taken some spares? Can't tell me you made a whole thing, and you didn't have spares," said Lee. This guy seemed more like a mechanic to him than a science-y type.
"He was in a rush, since he'd forgotten about their party coming up." Fiddleford shrugged. "And I do have spares, he just got it into his head that gettin' mine, since it was already calibrated, would be easier. He does that sometimes, gets some idea and runs with it."
"Have to recalibrate it anyway, for some really different thing." Lee rolled his eyes. "Typical Ford." He wheeled out the cart a bit farther into the room, then off to the side a bit, and set down the cart for a moment, upright and back on its 'stilts'. (Didn't lock the wheels yet, in case maybe he needed to move it out a bit further.)
"Yes. Stanford's a bit of a spazz sometimes." Fiddleford sighed fondly.
"Yeah," Lee sighed. "Yours is such a goofball, I tell ya."
"Are the other Stanfords not like that?" Fiddleford mumbled to himself.
"Nah," Lee told him, as he looked around the room. "Some of 'em are just kinda nasty. -So… this look like a good place for all of it, here?" he asked Fiddleford next. The mechanic nodded. He was somewhat frowning over the thought of a nasty Stanford.
"Good," said Lee. And then he reached down, seemed to do something at the wheels down the side below the 'dolly cart' set of handles, and... Fiddleford blinked as this Stanford Pines grabbed the handles again, and started pulling back without tilting the cart at all...
...and a display counter slowly appeared out of nowhere, as Lee braced his feet and pulled, pushing against the ground at every step.
Fiddleford watched and listened, as Lee struggled at the end of it for a moment, after an entire counter seemed to have come into view. Lee shimmied it a bit, slightly, then there was a sort of 'kerCHUNK' noise, and Lee let out a huff of breath and let go of the handles again. Fiddleford let out a whistle. He really wanted to check this thing out.
"Think I need to lubricate the da-rn thing," said Lee. "S'been a while." He had a bit of a consternated look on his face. Then he went around back, did something at the 'cart' portion, and pulled out several bowls for… change? He set them all along the top of the display counter, which had hinged openings at the front (to the customer) for every type of item therein, and also what looked like a sliding panel in the back (for Lee as the worker, it looked like). "Gimmie a minute to get the prices up, yeah?" Lee said next. "For rent, how about we do 10% of the net profit," Lee said to him next. "Got no idea how much I'll be sellin' today."
"Is this with or without tips? I'm all for you keepin' any tips you get."
"Don't got a tips bowl," Lee told him. "Wages are wages; decent ones. None of that foofy 'live off your tips' stupid junk. -Net profit per item there, against my best guesses for the total amount sold per hour, should be in there on table 4, I think," Lee said, nodding his head at the papers Fiddleford was still holding. "That stuff includes time and wages. Should be listed what I'm puttin' down for myself here for that."
Fiddleford shrugged, "People are gonna wanna tip. If they really like it."
"If they really like it, they should buy more to snack on for dinner, or come back tomorrow," Lee told him rather seriously, as he started pulling out little notecards and stands, and writing all the prices up. "They tip in the cafeteria?" Lee said as he worked. "I didn't see any tip jars in there yesterday."
"There's a difference between a food stall and a hired worker with a full time salary." Fiddleford corrected. "Also, sometimes they 'tip' or rather, they 'bribe' for what meals get made next week." He laughed. "I've see Dr. Harmi flirting with the ladies to try and convince them to make more of Mrs. Wing's sponge cakes."
Lee stopped for a moment and thought about this.
"I'll put out a suggestion box," was what Lee said next, before he continued writing up the prices on all the cards - one for a slot in each hinged opening, one to sit at the top around the corresponding bowl that was presumably meant to hold the money to buy one or more of the items that were in each 'column' below them.
"So…" Fiddleford grinned. "Wheres about can I have my banjoing?"
"Wherever you want," Lee told him next, as he finished up with the price cards, then went back over to the 'stilts' end of the cart, to pull off and over the freestanding placards with the instructions. "You're the bossman, right? -And maybe even my first customer of the day," Lee said next, sending him a look and a quick smile there for a second, as he set down the poles with the placards attached to them carefully on their circular bases. Lee turned away from him again for a moment, and started writing down the prices, down the side of the first one quickly, as he said, "Lemme know which setup you want for the tables and chairs and stuff, and we can figure out a prime location for the best acoustics in here. Yeah?" Lee finished up the first, handled the second within another half-minute, then capped the pen to stick it back in the cart area (leaning over the counter to do so).
So Fiddleford did, pulling out a small playing card sized metal sheet from his pocket and flicking his wrist to unfold it out into a chair. He did the same with another 'card' to make some sort of curved backing that he attached to his chair. "I bring my own acoustics." He grinned. Then he pointed out where to place the seating area for diners and flagged down a passing member of the cleaning staff to tell them about the plan here, and to pass it on.
"That works," Lee said without bias, glancing over at him for a moment. "Long as you don't do any repeats." He went behind the cart and pulled out the suggestion box (a pole with a box on it, and some blank 'suggestions sheets' pinned to the front of the box, with a pen on a string there attached) from underneath, then walked that out to set that down at the far end of the display counter.
"Oh I can free style for hours." Fiddleford laughed. "Used to drive Ford NUTS!"
"Guess I know who won't be comin' by for more food today," Lee chuckled. He looked at the chair briefly. "That nanotech, space-folding, or 'just' simple mechanics you did there?" Lee asked of him about the two-piece chair. (And yeah, he could use Program and his glasses to scan it if he had to, but a lot of times, it was better to just ask. More polite, and usually got you a hell of a lot more information from asking than you would otherwise.)
"Nanotech. Been working on makin' big things small, great for transport. They're also much lighter."
"Long as you don't go off 'grey goop'ing anybody." Lee took a moment to look around at his setup, then said, "Mind tellin' me where all the tables and chairs are, that I should be grabbin' for this?" He still had a little over two hours 'til eleven o'clock hit. Should be more than enough time.
"The storage room is…" and Fiddleford flagged down some more workers (just coming in for the day), who were quite thrilled with the idea of a food stall in the lobby and eagerly went off to get the tables. One of them called back over his shoulder, "Between this and the grass fight, I'm starting to think my job is really just a playground- ah! That's a good thing, sir!" He waved as he ran off.
Fiddleford chuckled. "I do like the idea of my staff feelin' comfortable here."
"Ain't nothin' wrong with that," was Lee's response to this. (Didn't have much to do, until they all brought the tables in there. Just pull out the cleaning clothes and soapy disinfectant spray stuff and wait.) "Nobody said your work had to be somethin' you hate."
"Yup. But professionalism and all," Fiddleford glanced over at Lee. "Do you need any help?"
"Nah," Lee said. "I'm good 'til the tables and stuff comes in." He ticked his head towards the cleaning supplies at his feet. "Dunno about professionalism, or whatever," Lee said next. Then, without any Jersey accent at all (more of a northeastern pronunciation) he said next, "Do I need to sound as though I am some scientist here, in order to be taken more seriously?"
Fiddleford blinked. And then he laughed. "Nah, I've got my southern drawl and ain't no one told me I can't."
Lee grinned at him. "Good. You'd be surprised how many people treat me all diff'rent when I talk like that right in front of 'em."
"Yes, it is rather uncanny how much you sound like Ford when you do that." Fiddleford pointed out.
"Ugh, nerd speak. -No offense," Lee said, as he bit his lip to hide a bit of a grin.
"None taken." Fiddleford shrugged. "Though, my own Stanford and his Stan can do that too. And when all three of 'em do it?" The man laughed. "Apparently they confused their kids back when they were babies."
"Oof. Harsh." Lee felt bad for the babies, then. "Hope they were smart enough to stop before they all started cryin'." He'd helped babysit Meteora and Mariposa enough to know the score, and that was with their ma's all not gettin' mixed up with the wrong person thrown in the mix.
"I don't know, I sure hope they did." Fiddleford thought about it. "Sure would make peek a boo a real hair-raiser." (Lee nodded at this.) Fiddleford turned to take his banjo as the cleaner came back with it. "Thank you kindly."
Lee then saw two of the other workers coming in with the first of the rolling carts of chairs. "Gimmie a bit. Gonna help handle the setup," he told Fidds next, grabbing up the cleaning cloths and cleaning solution and making his way over. The first cart with the tables on it came out shortly thereafter, by two 'new' workers who had (presumably) been co-opted by the first three after the fact.
"Alright, I'm gonna go and help 'em bring tables out." Fiddleford nodded, standing up from his chair and leaving his banjo sitting down on it for now.
Lee nodded back, and they both got on down to it.
Ford took one look at the set up in the lobby (Lee behind a cart next to a counter filled with different foods for consumption, tables and chairs in a rough several quarter circles rippled stadium arrangement across the floor), then over at Fiddleford banjoing away to a cheering crowd (at said tables, some of whom seemed to have the remnants of said consumable foods there in front of them, others with boxes lunches instead), and then marched right on through and off to his lab. It was too early in the morning for this. (Nevermind the fact that it was 11AM.)
Once Ford had had some quiet (non-banjo filled) time in his lab, and a large mug (or three) of coffee (with so much sugar there were still some undissolved bits at the bottom of the mug), Ford headed back out to the lobby. "I assume you had fun today?" he asked Fiddleford simply. The man was taking a break from banjoing to sit and watch as another scientist (who was apparently quite the flutist) took his spot on the musician chair. "Oh it's been a great morning." Fiddleford laughed.
Ford turned towards Lee. "How are you doing today? Sorry I didn't say good morning earlier."
"Eh, that's fine," Lee waved him off from where he was standing behind the cart, leaning forward on his elbows. "Not like I expected you to stick around for the banjoing." He had a bit of a half-smile there. "You want somethin'? On the food cart," Lee told him. "Got food over there, and drinks here. Just lemme know what you want?" He ticked his head towards the nearest placard with the whole listing of food on it, and also the instructions. "I can give you any tokens you need for anything."
Ford blinked, then stepped over to read it a bit more carefully, adjusting his glasses. Apparently… the bowls were for depositing cash within, and then dispensed tokens? Which were then to be put in the correct slot to allow the hinged latch to be unlocked and opened, over at the display counter area? ...And the listing had various salads, hot soups (such as chili), hot and cold sandwiches (many types, one of which was meatloaf, and others also like grilled cheese and grilled cheese and tomato), a few fried rice dishes (with and without meat and eggs), and fresh fruits (whole, and cut with peanut butter and cheese chunks as two sides) and vegetables (cut only, with the same set of sides). The drinks were milk, water, lemonade, limeade, orangeade, and a few different vegetable juices. It looked like extra paper plates were available at the cart, along with plastic utensils and cups for the drinks Lee was (apparently) dispensing via various jugs, as well as ice.
"So are these all the things you've cooked and stored in your pocket-space kitchen?" Ford asked. Lee nodded. ("Handled the rest of it all last night, after you left. Kept your chili off to the side, though; that stuff's a bunch of new batches I made with a faster setup, no worries.")
"I bet something like this would be great when you're travelling. A whole food truck experience without the truck."
"Easier when I can set up the cart right in front of the tent flap," Lee nodded. "Means me or Blue can go inside to do more cooking if we need to, or just have another twelve shelves of the stuff sitting just inside there, ready to go. -Makes restocking a lot easier, lemme tell ya." Lee glanced around the room. "Guess I'm just lucky that folks had some cash on them today. Not like I have one of those credit card reader things."
"We have an ATM at the shack, for the tourists." Ford explained. Melody had the idea to do that, and they simply contacted Mayor Cutebiker to get the rights for one, along with the bank's permission to have one set up.
"Heh. That explains it," Lee grinned. "Must'a snuck out the side door over there or somethin', instead of walking straight through here out the front," Lee said easily. "Saw a couple heads duck in, then hurry off back the way they came. Thought people were just goin' for their wallets for awhile, or tellin' folks about the food and the banjoin'."
"I don't doubt it's part of it." Ford glanced over. "Good thing we're not in full blown tourist season. I feel you'd be overwhelmed if such a thing happened."
"Nah," said Lee. "I got a couple standalone vending machines that put out the tokens, and extra signs and a couple of those movie theater banister things, to make lines for each set of foodstuffs up to the front. People only go up to what they want, lines end up spread out over a couple places, and it all works out pretty quickly. End up havin' to change over to the backup supplies a lot faster though; that can get a little hectic. Sometimes, I gotta switch up what's in the bins on the fly, if one or two lines look like they're gettin' backed up. Easier to update when I put out the tech signs, instead of just paper. And the tokens mean that nobody gets frustrated 'cause they can't get what they paid for; things run out, no more tokens 'til I get it filled up again."
Ford looked quite impressed by all of this. "And there's always a want for food carts, even out in space. So long as you adjust for the diet of the local clientele."
"Oh yeah," Lee said. "And all those allergies. -Why you think I've got the different bins?" he told Ford with a grin. "Usually float signs for those things above the lines, make it real clear. Special dietary stuff, they can come up to me directly. Easiest way to get people interested in buyin' new foodstuffs is by sellin' the end products on the pretty-cheap for them to taste. And then there's always the local oldie-but-goodies." Lee smiled, looking both casual and relaxed, but also almost professional as well, given his odd mode of dress and the cut of his clothing.
"So," Lee asked him next. "What do you want to eat?"
Wanda came home from a half-day at work and met Sebastian's worried expression. "...Miz is still stress origami-ing," Seb said, making Wanda's heart clench. Miz had made origami all of yesterday, only barely stopping to go eat when Sebastian prompted her. And she'd sort of picked at her food. Wanda was hoping Miz would get over this after a good night's sleep, and they had hustled her off to bed, piling her stuffed animals on top of her. But it seemed like Miz was still moping. Wanda sighed. Sebastian gave her a pleading look, "What do we do?"
"Miz needs to figure this out herself." Wanda told him. "We'll let her know we're here if she wants to talk about it. But we can't make her. As long as she's still eating and sleeping, we can let her get out of this herself. Just make sure she knows we're here. If she ever needs us." That was all they could really do. If Miz was still feeling bad about this, about upsetting Lee, well, that was something she had to deal with. Getting forgiveness wasn't as easy as simply saying sorry. And if Lee wanted to be left alone, then Miz should respect his wishes and leave him alone. Wanda had told her daughter that, and Miz had actually listened, not making any attempt to contact Lee and 'bother' him. It seemed she was still just as sad though.
"...should I call Ford?" Seb asked, the two adults hiding behind the doorway to look over at Miz carefully painting another penguin.
"...I don't know." Wanda admitted. "She's moping. But I don't know if she's being dramatic or not?" she stood back up, behind the doorway, "We'll give it another day. If she's still feeling this bad, I'm going to call Linda."
"Right. Good idea." Seb sighed in relief. "I always have good ideas." Wanda scoffed. Her husband laughed. The two went to go spend some time with their twins, so the younger kids didn't start getting sad themselves.
Once it hit 3:30pm or so, and pretty much everybody had dispersed, Lee managed to 'grease up' the display counter enough that it went in far more easily this time than it'd come out (according to Fiddleford). He talked with Fiddleford about whether it would be better to leave the chairs and tables out here like this for the next day or not, and Fiddleford settled on leaving them here. (They'd left clear avenues to the doors, to and from the other metal detectors and hallways farther into the Center; it should be fine. And this way, they could reuse this new seating area as another breakroom, with live music from any of the staff that felt up for performing for people - at least temporarily. The lobby was meant for receiving visitors to the Center, though they tended not to get too many of those here in Gravity Falls. There were the school tour groups, but those didn't tend to happen until closer to winter time here.)
Lee 'packed up' his signs and things for the day, too, and started wheeling the cart back towards the tent.
"Pretty sure we can't have you and Mary-Ann running sets from 11 to 3 every day," Lee noted. "Think maybe we could do 30 or 45 minute sets for you, each. Or switch it up with other folks, have some kinda sign-up, and a karaoke thing some afternoon. -Hey," Lee asked, "Do you all ever do talent show nights?"
"We should." Ford brightened up at the idea, already thinking of all the ways that could be another bonding experience with everyone.
Fiddleford was nodding as well. "I'm also thinkin' that, as long as we have them set up a time beforehand, we could have DDNMD games here with the staff."
That made Ford's steps gain a little bounce. Fiddleford and Lee shared a look behind Ford's back. 'This nerd.'
"I can set up a whiteboard in the lobby with events planned. Have a suggestion box for what people would like." Fiddleford smiled. It wasn't just for the fun of it though. Fiddleford knew about how making the Center feel more personal and comfortable would make the workers enjoy their time here more, gain their loyalty as they grew to view it not as a workplace, but as some sort of home away from home. That would help with the internal security, like malicious betrayal of secrets. And the headcount for who participated in which activities, and how they behaved during it, would help too.
"Eh, two suggestion boxes would get weird maybe," Lee noted. "Might end up with the wrong suggestions tossed in each. -You think anyone would care if I put out my usual light-tech one, let people choose which one they want to be putting in for? Anonymous or signed, and maybe tick-marks for stuff already there that they agree with? Or would that whole thing just be pure nerd bait," Lee asked them both next. He wasn't sure if they'd just get a bunch of nerds surrounding it and poking at it instead. Hadn't gotten too much of that for the bowls thing today, when it 'ate up' peoples' money and 'spat out' the tokens next - probably because it cost a decent chunk of change each time to do it - but the suggestion board would be free, and...
"That should be fine." Ford assured him, "Nerd Bait is essentially what all of us work with here." ("Yeah, okay." Lee shrugged it off. Gotta trust the King of Nerds to know what might and might not be a problem.)
"Speaking of nerd bait," Fiddleford chuckled. "A few of the staff have been asking about getting permission to study Xin. Dragon and all. But I told them that they'd have to ask Xin for permission in that. It's his body after all." He looked over at Ford. "But none of them know how to even contact him, so I suppose I'll have to ask you to pass on the request." (Lee listened as he walked, but said nothing to this.)
Ford looked a little uncomfortable. "Ah… I've barely gotten Xin's permission to run tests on him. And I don't think he'll trust anyone here to do anything to him…" Not to mention the fact that Ford felt kind of… protective at the idea of anyone else putting their hands on Xin.
"Welp," said Lee, as they got to the tent in the hallway. "This is my stop." He turned around and said, "Thanks, Fiddlenerd," with a grin. "Gimmie a second to put this thing inside, and I'll hand you the Center's take for the day. Yeah?"
"Yes, thank you very much Lee." Fiddleford nodded at him. (Lee nodded back and disappeared with the cart into the tent, under the flap.) Ford was still frowning as he tried to decipher his feelings. It wasn't like he thought anyone here would deliberately hurt Xin, but the idea of it still made him uncomfortable.
Lee emerged not two minutes later, to slap a stack of bills into Fidds' palm. "Don't go spendin' it all in one place, yeah?" Lee teased.
"It'll go into the Center's expenses for upkeep. I'm not usin' it on myself of course." Fiddleford assured him. These could go into the budget for renovations.
Lee snorted. "I know, ya crazy banjo-boy man. The Center's just one place, but it's got a bunch of those departments in separate places inside it all too, right? Seems like you're pretty stuck there." Lee grinned cheekily.
"That's mister crazy banjo-boy man to you." The blonde chuckled.
"Oh, yes sir," Lee said, with an eye roll (thought he was still grinning). "And don't I forget that. -Heh, it's fine, Ford, we're just messin'," Lee told Ford next, as Ford blinked at them both and looked between them, half-lost in thought during this banter.
"Ah, right." Ford shook himself out of his thoughts. "I am thinking too hard about things, as per usual, aren't I?" Fiddeford patted his shoulder. "It's fine."
Lee looked at him. "Eh, speakin' of. -Ford, you got a couple minutes after all your nerd work today?" Wasn't like Lee hadn't seen him come in later. He wasn't sure if that meant he'd have to stay late to make up the time, too. He was supposed to be one of the bosses of the place, and he hadn't seemed to need to follow a schedule yesterday, but...
"Ah, yes. I have time. Is this about the supply run?" He wondered.
"Could be. Haven't asked Blue yet if he's finished lookin' through everything. Was gonna do that today," Lee told him. "This one's more about somethin' with you and Miz."
"Yes? What is it?" Ford wasn't sure what this would be about. Fiddleford frowned.
"Not out here." Lee grimaced and made a gesture at the hallway. "Pretty sure we should talk in the tent for this one."
"Ah, operational security?" Ford realized.
"Kinda," said Lee. (Not really. He just didn't want Ford to have to worry about everybody hearin' him yelling if he got mad or wanted to throw stuff, breaking things.)
"Alright, I'll head back to my lab to check on something real quick and then I can come over." If it was just some talking stuff, it shouldn't take too long, right?
"You can take your time if ya want," Lee said. "Gives me a chance to check in with Blue. Don't need to rush. I ain't goin' anywhere for awhile. Don't need to be, anyway."
"Alright. I just hope I don't lose track of time again." Ford chuckled.
Lee let out a laugh. "That's fine. Not like you didn't get dinner and sleep in there, right?" Ford nodded, blushing slightly. "See? You're good," Lee told him easily.
"Alright then, I'm going off for now. See you later, Lee." Ford's smile was serene, just pleasantly looking forward to spending more time with Lee.
Lee gave him a grin back, gave a quick haphazard salute to Fidds, and then ducked himself back into the tent.
Ford went back to his lab, and Fiddleford went back to planning out the changes. Like… checking people for badges. He sighed. Lee was a guest, but he still didn't have a 'visitor' pass. He was going to have to talk to security about that; sure, Lee had been with him, so they probably didn't think anything of it, but still!
Clearly, there was much work to be done.
Ford finished up his work, feeling rather satisfied by what he'd accomplished today. He was a little upset when his newest prototype powered down the instant it got to a higher level of energy output, but he realized this was part of the protections Miz and Blue had put in place. Either way, he headed out to the tent and knocked on the pole again. He even took a break to get a snack from the cafeteria before going over.
"Come on in," he heard Lee tell him, and he ducked down and headed inside.
The cart was over next to the kitchen bar, fully 'open'. Lee was cooking in the kitchen, and seemed to have several things going with multiple sets of appliances all across the countertop.
"Got your chili in the stasis-freezer in the big container with the red lid with your name on it," Lee called out to him without turning around. "You staying for dinner tonight? Or maybe just want a snack or somethin'?" Lee paused. "Or both. Both is good, too," Lee told him, after another moment's thought.
"I would love to stay for dinner." Ford smiled, smelling the wonderful scent in the air.
He blinked at the assembly line Lee seemed to have going with a bunch of sandwiches on plates. It seemed the 'glowing rectangles' and such that held things could also be used above the countertop, and 'connected' in lines. Lee was busy pulling slice after slice of cheese out of the slicer to slap down on sandwich after sandwich, as he flicked each closer-to-completion sandwich into a rising tiered set of ceiling-high floating paper plates. It looked like he'd gone with still-steaming cooked ham as the main meat for these ones. There were several pots bubbling away on the stove as well, and at least one of them smelled like- yes, some type of fragrant tomato sauce.
"Gimmie a minute," Lee told him. "Just lemme finish up this bunch," he explained, as he finished with the cheese slices, "And I can get you somethin' to munch on to start with. Unless you just wanna grab somethin' out of the fridge or the 'freezer' there yourself?" Lee shrugged, as he picked up a squeeze bottle of some condiment, one assumed, and pulled a plate stacked high with bread slices towards him. He started adding condiment to each new bread slice, gesturing a plate down, completing the sandwich, and then using a slightly different gesture at the end as before that… apparently sent each one of them over to the back of the display case, to disappear into an open slot over there.
"Well, I've been brainstorming more interesting food ideas." Ford admitted. "Do you have any canned tuna? Or some other fish?" he paused. "Wait, I can try that some other time. I'll just give you a hand instead." He moved over to the sink to wash his hands.
"I've got canned tuna, yeah. And sure, we can do that, too," Lee told him. "I'm not even touching the kitchen bar over there right now. We've got space. Worst-case, I pull out another couple tables. -Tuna should be in the shelf carousel underneath," Lee told him, as he kept up with the sandwiches. "...Feel kinda like I'm jipping people outta somethin' here," Lee muttered out about the sandwiches, "Not givin' them fries or potato chips too, or nothin' to go with 'em. -Think I'm gonna try to make it to the store in town to get some of that stuff tomorrow," Lee told him next as he finished up that batch, took a step away from the counter, and… did something with the screen at the edge of it that seemed to make literally everything currently going on the stove and in the other appliances and such just… pause? As if it was just a video feed and he'd managed to hit a DVD remote button on the whole thing.
"Was thinkin' about tryin' to make that lasagna tonight, too. Could have it for dinner," Lee told him, washing his hands in the sink. "Or just get it done now and save it for tomorrow, go with somethin' else like whatever fish stuff you want to try out? -Anything you haven't had in awhile?"
"I'm fine with lasagna." Ford said, not wanting to trouble Lee when he was already cooking so much.
"Okay," Lee shrugged, not minding one way or the other. "You can take the fish home, or we can save it for tomorrow, if it's something big. ...Uh, I'm thinking we can talk about the heavier stuff after eating." (Better to be sure Ford wasn't going to be cranky already because of hunger when Lee told him about Miz's 'prank'.) Ford had no issue with that, moving over to see if he could help Lee with the cooking process.
"I started up some spaghetti sauce for a couple pasta dishes for tomorrow," Lee told him, as Ford came over to the kitchen area. "Thought I had some jars of it here, but I didn't. Isn't too hard to make from tomato sauce, a couple tomatoes, some onion, and some of the spices. Blue makes sure we never run out of spices or onions, stuff like that."
"Are you making meatballs as well?" Ford asked, looking over the various rectangles at the things cooking on them.
"Did that earlier. Already in the stasis-freezer," Lee told him.
"I've made a stasis field before, but it's pretty bulky, still needs work to make it portable. I was going to ask Miz about that, when I get my other work in order."
"These aren't really portable either, y'know," Lee told him. "We made them so they'd cut out if anybody moves or breaks into the things we've put them on. Kind of a theft deterrent. Pretty easy to set up, once you know how and you've got the right stuff on hand. Also makes it easy to tell if somebody's messed with our stuff."
"Mine just sits in the back of my lab, I put my coffee there to keep it warm." Ford laughed.
"Heh. Nerd," said Lee. "You know they've got mug-sized hot plates for that."
"Yes, but my way is more fun." Ford did not tell Lee that he'd created the stasis field because he wanted to keep his coffee warm and hadn't wanted to get a hot plate because he kept tripping over the wires. (Ford hadn't thought about how wireless hotplates existed. The Center had some that Fiddleford had designed for a few of the other scientists; they used them for heating their beakers.)
"If you say so," said Lee. "I mean, I could see it if you had little kids around and didn't want to worry about them maybe burnin' themselves on it, but…" Lee shrugged. He walked the manual can opener over to the kitchen bar, where Ford had already found and pulled out several tuna fish cans from the 'looping' shelf, and set it down next to him. "What were you thinkin' about testing out for new food ideas? I'm thinkin' not just your plain old tuna salad sandwich," Lee noted. "You thinkin' about some kind of cheesy tuna melt?" he asked next, remembering Ford's idea from the previous night.
"Oh, yes. A cheesy tuna melt…" Ford paused, as if to make it seem more impressive when he revealed his idea, "...Omelette!" He made jazz hands.
Lee tilted his head at him.
"So… kinda like a cheesy ham omelette, but with fish?" Lee asked.
"Yes! Isn't that brilliant!" Ford grinned. "The sear from the pan would make the cheese melt into the fish as we cooked!"
Lee thought about this. "Probably want to go with actual fish chunks, instead of the canned tuna fish then. The ham omelettes are better when it's bigger chunks of meat, not just bacon bits or torn up pieces of sliced lunch meat," Lee noted. "Kinda makes the tastes stand out. Otherwise, might as well toss it all in a blender."
"Oh definitely, chunks of fatty tuna, the aroma would be amazing…" Ford gushed about his idea.
Lee scratched his chin. He wasn't really into fish, so… "I don't have any of that stuff in my part of the freezer," he told Ford. "We could go to the store to get some, though. Or maybe a fish market someplace? I've got my universal translator; Blue's updated it already, just in case. When's the grocery store close in town?" It was close to 7pm.
"They don't close until 11. We'll have plenty of time." Ford knew that from Soos's late night snack runs.
Lee raised his eyebrows. "You want to go now? This stuff's on pause; not like I need to jump back into it all right away."
"Sure, do you want to come too?"
"Gives me an excuse to get some potato chips and fries tonight instead of waiting," Lee shrugged, but he was already starting to grin. "Lemme just grab my jacket and the cash from today real quick," Lee told him, jogging off for one of the side flaps to the other interior room spaces.
Ford nodded and moved over to the tent flap to wait for Lee. He wondered if he should take this chance to do some grocery shopping for his house? Melody had mentioned running out of eggs that morning...
Lee came back (jacket on) within about a minute or so, with a small-looking black wire cart with a cloth bag attached to it. It seemed a little like the grown-up version of a red wagon for carrying stuff around in, Ford supposed.
"Gimmie a sec," Lee told him, undoing some straps holding the bag open, flipping the wheels sideways and compressing the handle down like one would on a suitcase. This time it looked mechanical, not space folding.
Lee hauled it up over a shoulder, held by a hand at the handle, to let it dangle down his back; it didn't look very heavy. "I'm good to go now," Lee told him. Ford nodded and the two headed out of the tent, and the Center, heading down the road for the short walk into the town.
"Miz?" Wanda nudged the plate toward her. Miz blinked at it, then, after a little more urging, she picked up the fork to eat her pasta. Wanda and Seb heaved a sigh of relief. "Miz, are you alright?" Wanda asked quietly. Gently. Miz shrugged. Zoe huffed, annoyed that Miz had been all mopey and no fun recently. Zach pushed his chair closer to his big sister to lean against her side. "Why're you so sad?" Zach stared up at her with his large eyes. Miz sighed, stabbing listlessly at her pasta.
"...I don't think Lee wants to be friends anymore…" Miz sighed. And… the other thing that had been niggling at her for the past two days was the thought that maybe he'd never been. Figured. Who'd want to be friends with her? She was awful...
Seb groaned. "Miz, that face, I know that face. I've seen it in the mirror." He reached over to ruffle his friend's hair. "Look, you can't be friends with everyone. Besides, you don't know yet if he really doesn't want to be friends. I mean, people can fight over all sorts of things." He tried to assure her. "Look, it's not like he hates you, 'cause he'd have punched you if he did." Wanda poked Seb. "That's not really helpful."
"...it's fine… I'm fine…" Miz mumbled. "At least I got a lot of work done…" because at least she was being productive, which was better than just moping around and doing nothing. Wanda sighed. "I'm going to call Linda, alright?" She told her daughter. Zach snuggled up against Miz's side, wishing he knew how to help. "If you want to talk to us, or talk to Linda?" Miz nodded, not really looking at anyone. The parents sighed. That was the best they would get. Zach managed to get Miz to eat her dinner via lots of puppy eyes and urging. And when the children were bustled off to bed, Zach crawled into Miz's nest to curl up at her side. Seb and Wanda actually weren't sure if Miz's mood was really just from Lee or not. This seemed more serious. Miz didn't have an appetite. That was worrying.
When Ford arrived back with Lee (and his apparently bottomless wire shopping bag cart) to the tent, he stopped in place at the sight of Blue's back in the kitchen area.
"-Seriously, man?" Lee said, after a sigh as he walked in after Ford. "The heck are you doin'." It wasn't annoyance in his tone exactly, more a bit of tiredness as he made it into a question.
Blue glanced back over his shoulder at him. "You put these on the 'both' list," Blue told him.
Lee pulled his cart up to the side of the kitchen area and let out a breath. "Yeah," he told Blue, "But I thought you'd just work on some of it in... the other kitchen, if you wanted to." He left the cart at the 'fresh' stasis-cabinet.
"Most things were already started in here and on-pause," Blue told him. "Continuing to work on this here is more efficient."
"And?" Lee said, as he came up to his side. "You could've put it on pause again and left the room; don't act like you didn't see us coming."
Blue looked up at Lee and said, simply, "If he's wanting to go on an interdimensional trip with us in a few days or a week, seeing me for the first time again on the day of the trip right before we leave is a very bad idea."
Lee rolled his eyes at this, but he also let out a sigh and dropped his hand down on top of Blue's head, tussling his short blue-and-black hair just a bit.
"Yeah, yeah," said Lee, before looking back over his shoulder in the direction of the tent entrance doorway.
Ford looked over and sighed. "I'm alright, having a few days without him has given me time to settle myself." That, and working on science that he was actually having fun with.
"You let me know if he's gettin' to be too much, okay? Right away," Lee told him seriously. (He kind of hated it a little bit that Blue was right about this. And the devil-demon would probably not want to do the trip with Ford in-tow until he'd managed at least a couple days spending some time in each others' presence first.)
"I will. Don't worry." Ford smiled reassuringly at Lee.
Lee looked at him, then nodded.
"Okay, good," said Lee. "Let me grab the fresh fishy stuff back out for you. You can use the sinks for stuff in the meantime," Lee said. "I can set up a couple burners on the kitchen bar for you, instead of swapping over and out the ones at the stove. These ones can get kind of finicky on maintaining the same heat, when they're not 'out' on the stove the way they are now." (The stove had multiple burners in the way that the 'looping' shelving unit under the kitchen bar had shelves. Lee hadn't quite shown Ford that yet, though - not specifically. He hadn't had to.)
"I'm just going to drop these off at my house." Ford held up his bag of groceries.
"Okay," said Lee, "I'll get stuff set up for you here."
"And I kind of want to ask Blue a question." Ford added next, as he lowered the bag.
"Uh…" Lee glanced between them, as Blue kept right on cooking. "Right now?"
"Just a quick thing."
Blue let out a huff of breath, paused the oven rather openly (in other words, so that both of them could see this - to the demon's mind, so that this local-'Hand would know he had his full attention and would not be distracted by other ongoing matters in the meantime), and then turned in place to face Ford.
Ford took in a breath, "If I tried using my portal watch while inside a space like this tent, would that result in any terrible backlash from the device?"
"'Like' this tent, or this tent specifically?" Blue said in return. "'Like' implies a range of potential values and issues."
"A sub-spatial area."
"Short answer: it depends," said Blue.
Ford nodded. "Alright. I will refrain from testing such a thing until I understand it better," he told Blue, before he lifted up his groceries again. "Alright, Lee? I just need to separate these between the stuff I want to use now and the stuff I want to drop off at home."
"Okay," said Lee. "I'll do the same with the stuff in mine. ...Uh, and Ford?" Lee added, as he took his time walking back to his wire cart. ("Yes?") "I scanned your watch earlier. We've got a portal denial field up, and it isn't set up to let yours work. If you tried using your watch in here, it wouldn't do anything. Okay? -Wasn't just Blue tellin' me, I checked the math myself," Lee said. "You're safe here, can't accidentally blow anything up from in here," Lee added, trying to reassure him on that. (And not thinking just then about what Ford might get out of the implications of that - because hey, nobody's perfect.)
"..." And then Ford's face broke into a smile. "Am I allowed to adopt you?" Because… being around Lee… learning and cooking and talking with him… it almost felt like what Ford thought… having an apprentice or something would be like. An intelligent young man who knew his way around this sort of thing...
Lee blinked at this. "Uh…" He looked over his shoulder at Ford. "Pretty sure that's a Sherm type of situation there, Ford. And I'm kinda… a couple years older than I look. Outta high school for awhile, and everything," he said, with a kind of quirky 'not really sure what to do with you, nerd' smile.
Ford blushed. "Sorry. I just… I dunno, I've really enjoyed our time together. You remind me somewhat like a mix of Dipper and my brother. It's… odd."
"Heh. I've been havin' kind of a blast, too," Lee said, as he got down to pulling the wire cart over and starting to pull out Ford's part of the stuff that had needed lugging. (All the cold stuff had gone in his bag, because it had both 'room temperature' and 'cool' sections inside it.) "Wouldn't have thought so; this place is full of nerds. But they're kind of fun nerds, like you," Lee said rather thoughtlessly, mentally thinking of older Ford just then, instead of his brother. (The thoughtless part was that Lee hadn't even thought about his own twin brother there at all, in the first place. He'd just thought of older Ford, and no-one else.)
And that just made Ford beam.
"Dunno if I'm like Dipper, though," Lee continued on, not getting a glimpse of Ford's expression just yet, "Haven't really spent a lot of time around him, back in old-man-me's dimension. Or, well, I guess that one's a 'not yet'?" Lee scooped up the piles of items, and pulled them up, to lay them all out on the kitchen bar countertop at once.
"He's a wonderfully bright boy. I sort of offered him an apprenticeship with me, but he ultimately decided no. He preferred staying with his sister. He's in college now, doing well. I'm still open to the apprenticeship, if he ever wants to."
Lee blinked at this.
"Apprenticeship nothin'," Lee said, frowning a little confused at this Ford (not realizing when said offer had been made). "If he wants to stay with his sister, can't you just go wherever he is on the weekends, to do whatever? -They in California here, too?" ("Yes," said Blue.) "Bet it'd be better than those video chat things," Lee told him. "Mabel seems like a good hugger, too." He looked down. "Figure they could use a break from college sometimes, probably. I mean," Lee pulled out another few things from his bag, "What's the point of havin' a portal gun if you don't use it?"
"Yeah, I wasn't thinking back then." Ford chuckled. "I think Dipper's too busy with school at the moment. And I only built my portal device recently."
Back then? ...Eh, whatever. "Well," said Lee, "Now seems like a good time to start takin' advantage of all the best junk you can use it for, then!" Lee grinned at him. "You want to call 'em up and ask, or do I gotta poke Blue for the number?" Lee said next. ("No poking," said Blue, as he worked away at the stove.) "See? You gotta tell me now. I'll get in trouble with Blue if you don't," Lee said piously.
Ford chuckled. "I'll text him." He pulled out his phone to do so.
"Hell yeah," said Lee. "-Oh, hey, ask him if he and Mabel want to come up for dinner? Or if they just want it delivered or somethin' if they're busy." Lee was pretty sure college was actually supposed to be hard.
Ford typed in a group text to his niblings. There was a long pause (during which Blue changed the 'denial' settings on the tent to let the communication go through, and allow receipt later), and then Dipper texted back, [Portal teleport to have dinner?] for clarification. Mabel texted back that she was busy with...
"Dipper's alright with coming over. Mabel's with her boyfriend at the moment," Ford told them.
"He want to come over too?" Lee said. "The boyfriend? Pretty sure it'll be fine. Uh, unless they're doin'... somethin'." Lee coughed.
"Doing what?" Ford blinked.
"Uh," Lee said. "Might be sexytimes stuff?" he tried to put it so the nerd would understand him.
Ford choked and nearly dropped his phone.
"Could just be that she don't wanna impose," Lee said, "Or might worry about the whole 'people knowin' about portals thing. Could just blindfold him for that, though. Let him think that we were right down the street."
"Well he's not human, and already used Miz's pendants for teleporting over to where Mabel is, matching necklaces, for couples. Miz thought it would be romantic."
"Even better," said Lee. "-Just tell her you asked, and it's okay if she wants to bring her boyfriend too. Or not; either's fine. No pressure. We can cook whatever dietary stuff he needs, or leave out stuff that he can't be around, long as she tells us about it first."
Ford sent that text out. Mabel's response was an excited [YEEEEEEESSSSS] that had Ford laughing. ("There ya go," said Lee, after looking over his shoulder, and clapping him on the back.) "Oh, I told them that you were here. And Blue, so they might be a little careful."
"That's fine," Lee said. "Better to tell 'em first so they know goin' into it, than spring it on 'em later. -Things go weird, me and Blue will just step out into the, uh, non-guest rooms for awhile. Yeah?" ("Mm," went Blue at the stove, as he finished up with the various different types of pasta, and several pots of both spaghetti and marinara sauce.)
"Alright, since my portal watch isn't going to work here, are you bringing them over?"
"I can do mine from in here," Lee said, "It's tuned. You got coordinates for both?" ("Sadly, no.") "I can convert over from latitude-longitude, if you've got it down to decimal-degrees from… uh, GPS, right?" Lee asked Blue, and got a nod back from him without the demon turning around. "Can use some stuff to check I got the right location first, too. ...Or, uh, Blue could do his viewing-spell thing. Probably a lot easier that way. -You've got GPS here for tracking and stuff, right? They've got smartphones?" ("Yes. Most people do nowadays." Ford told him, "Would you need my phone to track theirs?") "Uh, can ya just ask 'em to check that from their own phones? Should be an, uhm, app for that?"
There was some texting back and forth, and then Lee got the twins' coordinates.
"Okay, gimmie a minute," Lee said, as he started typing things into the 'invisible' bracer around his left forearm. Close to the end, he said, "Blue, check the location for me?" and sent the coordinates to Blue's suit, before he pulled out his 'old' phone with Program in it, and queried it for a search of that particular region of space, displayed as a 3D projection above the phone, yadda-yadda...
...and then Lee winced and went, "Ugh. Okay. Think this one's gonna have me in the wrong room here. Blue, this supposed to be-" Lee rattled off the numbers over his shoulder at him, "Or-" and he rattled off the other set. ("Second one," he got back.) "Right." Lee redid his calculations. "Gonna just do this one now, so I don't have to check for other people around," Lee noted, raising his hand and 'punching' open a portal a couple feet away from Ford, on not quite the other side of the kitchen bar. "Two minute duration, but I can close it faster," he told Ford. "You want to poke your head through? This one's Mabel."
"Oh! I want to test what happens if I go through with my eyes open!" Ford practically bounced over.
"Heh," Lee went. "Sure." Nerd. Lee shook his head good-naturedly, then he put his head down and started checking over the coordinates that Dipper had given them, using Program. (Blue kept an eye out on the surroundings near this local Mabel, for now. No-one else looked to be close enough nearby to try to be entering her room at that moment, for at least a short while. But that could change...)
Ford stepped through trying hard not to blink. It felt a little weird, but he made it through with no issues. He found his niece and her boyfriend, in his human illusion disguise, seated in front of her laptop. "Hiii uncle Ford!" Mabel squealed as she jumped up to hug him. "You're lucky my roommates aren't here right now!" ("Well, I doubt we would have opened a portal if they were here.") Mabel got up, pulling at the tall dark skinned boy beside her. Ford smiled, "Hello again Maxini. Have you been well?"
Max blinked and nodded quickly. "Oh, it's been wonderful! Being the ambassador means I can go off into the human world whenever I wish." He smiled at Ford, "Is the great dragon with you?"
"Ah, no, Miz is with her parents at the moment. I… was just thinking it would be nice to invite you all over for dinner." He paused. "Actually, that was Lee's idea, but it's a good idea." ("A very good idea!" Mabel cheered.) The group went back through the portal back into the tent. Mabel looked around and noticed Blue, which made her smile dampen a little, but she bounced back, trying to stay positive.
"Ah… where's Dipper?" Mabel asked.
"Yeahhh..." said Lee, "You or Ford maybe want to text him for me here? He's kinda in a closet; guess he was worried about the portal bein' seen? But I ain't gonna be able to get him from there unless I put it under his feet. Don't want to risk any clearance issues. Don't want to startle him, either. -Figure I can drop him down into the pillows over there?" Lee gestured at the guest area.
Mabel looked over at the voice and her eyes widened at the sight of a young Stanley Pines, who looked around her age, a little older, with cute glasses. "Ahh! You're Lee right?! You're sooo cuuuuuute!" she squealed. It reminded Lee a lot of the other younger Mabel he'd first met years ago.
"Uh," said Lee. "...Thanks?" He blinked at this, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. (He was blushing slightly, he couldn't help it.) "Yeah, I'm Lee. And you're Mabel, right? You're pretty, uh, Mabel-ish there." (Blue rolled his eyes, the gesture went unseen however, because his back was still largely to them. Instead, he started moving a few pots over to the countertops, and straining the pasta out in the sinks, starting to working on actually making up the served-out pasta plates for the food cart tomorrow.)
"Yup! I'm Mabel! Oh! And this is my boyfriend Maxini!" Mabel moved aside to wave her hands dramatically at the young man beside her. He wiggled, "Um, hello?" He blinked at Lee. "I thought Mabel only had two male cousins?"
"Hey," said Lee. "Lee Pines. Nice to meet ya. And yeah, I ain't from around here. Technically, we ain't related."
Max looked confused.
"Dunno how much Ford wants to say about it to other people," Lee shrugged, then as Ford came through. "Hey, two questions for ya, unless Mabel's already texting Dipper. Maxini's confused about how we know each other. Figure I'd leave that one to you. And-"
Mabel spoke up excitedly, saying, "Dipper says he's ready."
"-and that was the second thing I needed to know, never mind." Lee double-checked the location one more time, and got the digital double-check 'okay' on the coordinates from Blue, then 'punched' the portal about six feet up from the pillows, horizontal with the ground, and-
"-aahhhhhhh!" Dipper flapped his arms as he landed on the pillows. He laid there for a while, staring up at the ceiling, unblinking. Mabel went over to peer down at him. "Bro-bro?"
"You okay over there?" Lee called out, as the portal closed. He rounded the kitchen bar, striding over towards the guest circle area.
"Yes. I… I'm okay." Dipper slowly sat up. "That… was…" He shivered. "Like going down a rollercoaster, without being strapped in…"
"Sorry, man," Lee said, making it over to squat down next to him. "I would've gone for maybe only three or four feet up instead, but that's way too close if you ain't used to landing that quickly. People usually kinda tend to flail; kinda tends to go a lot less well." Lee let out a breath. "I'll find you a better location on the way back, okay?"
"'s fine man." Dipper shook himself off. "Frankly, being magnetically stuck to the side of a space pod trying to fly into space was much worse."
Lee blinked at this. "Hope that was with a spacesuit on," Lee said pragmatically. "-Hey, first time down a 'below ya' portal's usually the worst, at least." Lee clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"No spacesuit. I was trying to bring the pod down since it was going to send uncle Ford into space."
"Yeah, okay," said Lee, standing up, then offering him a hand to help him up. "You're definitely gonna have to tell me that one. Sounds like a hell of a story."
"Oh, man. It was wild." Dipper chuckled, his heart rate finally slowing as he let Lee help him up. "Oh, hi uncle Ford." ("What?! You don't greet me first!" Mabel complained.) "And hi to you too Mabel. And you, Max."
Lee glanced over at Ford, and tilted his head. Nerd was bein' kinda quiet. (He hadn't said anything to Maxini about him yet, and… Lee ticked his head slightly towards Dipper, hoping he got the message.)
(Yep, that didn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Looked like the nerd was kinda on overload. So... in the meantime…) "Hey, Mabel," Lee asked. "You give Ford too many hugs yet?" he said pretty leadingly, with the start of a 'yeah? yeah?' grin.
Mabel's only response was a flying tackle glomp. (And a yell of "THERE ARE NEVER TOO MANY HUGS!) Dipper stared. He didn't know hugs could actually make a glomp sound.
"So, yeah," Lee said. "Maxini. -Mind if I call ya Max?" ("I do not mind.") "Anything you shouldn't be eating, so we can avoid it for ya here? Don't want you gettin' sick, or somethin'."
Max nodded, "I am best with meats and fish. Most vegetables make my stomach hurt. But I can handle them in small amounts." Mabel hugged Max's arm and added, "He really likes chicken!" "We don't have chickens in my village! It's delicious!" the boy exclaimed way louder than it should be. ("Yeah, okay. We can do chicken. -Cooked, right?" Lee asked, as he walked his way back over to the kitchen side of the kitchen bar counter. And Lee grinned as he heard the enthusiastic, "Yes!")
Ford perked up. "I have been meaning to study your diet and stomach acids!" His journal was already out and open.
Mabel hissed at her uncle and pulled her boyfriend closer to her. "Don't do your science questioning on my boy!"
"But have you never wondered?" Ford whined. Dipper buried his face in his hands. "Geez, uncle Ford."
Max, on the other hand, was hiding behind Mabel. "He… isn't going to do that thing that humans do right? Where he cuts me open?" ("Hey, wow, no," Lee said, turning around. "This Ford ain't like that-") "Whaaaa? Uncle Ford wouldn't do that!" Mabel gave Ford a long look and he backed down.
"Of course I wouldn't! Max is an intelligent person with rights."
Dipper rolled his eyes. Oh gosh, why was his uncle so intelligent yet such an idiot? "Uncle Ford, is Dillon coming too? Or?"
"I could ask- wait." Ford blinked. "If we keep inviting people, aren't we going to end up with the whole family here?"
"YAY!" Mabel cheered and squeezed Max in a hug. "And we could finish your human training 101 with everyone! I was teaching him about human art!"
'Uh…' Lee thought, glancing over at Blue as he listened. He was pretty good at context clues, but not that good. Who was Dillon? Somebody who was, to Ford, like old-man-him's version of Soos? -And then Lee blinked at the pink alert triangle blinking in the side of his vision. Shit, okay. He made an unobtrusive gesture, touching (really, tapping) the left corner of his glasses frames. He did it while pretending to adjust them, then lowered his arms to roll up his sleeves, turning away from the rest of them for the moment to move back towards the countertop at the sink. He read what Blue had sent to his display as he stood there and washed his hands, and Lee frowned a little. Because apparently Dillon was one of the local Stanley's sons; the older one, while the younger one was called Diego, and... (He still didn't know how to feel about that, all that much. It was a lot different than-)
"Human art?" Ford raised an eyebrow. "Were you two at a museum earlier?"
"I was watching Moana!" Max cheered, wagging his butt slightly. "I learnt-I learnt that it was made by a human named Disney that-that owns almost everything humans make!" Of course the concept of animation studios or huge monopolies or transnationals was too complex for him at the moment.
Dipper deadpanned, and he deadpanned HARD. "Mabel Pines! Are you seriously-?"
"It's ART!" "It-It's also a kid's movie!" Dipper groaned. Max was so not going to learn anything… He looked at Max, all smiley with his green eyes sparkling happily. Then Dipper rubbed his eyebags. Urgh. You know what? Max deserved to be happy while it lasted… Dipper would have to ask Mabel what she was actually planning with Max… He didn't have a diploma did he? Was he going to study? Max didn't have any human identification papers, did he? Did any of them think things further into the future? Knowing his sister, she hadn't thought about the real life problems that would come up. She was just being happy. And… there wasn't anything wrong with that, but Dipper worried for her.
"Well, your cousin answered. He's with his boyfriend, though," Ford told his niece, who squealed loudly at this news. "MAX NEEDS TO HANG OUT WITH PHILLIP THEN!"
Ford sighed. At this rate, he would end up inviting everyone… "Are you ok with this?" He glanced back at Lee. The young-seeming man exchanged a glance with Blue (who he was standing beside, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with right now, Blue at the stove and him drying his hands off at the sink).
"Eh…" Lee glanced around at them all, then said, "Think we can maybe do two more people here, maybe three, depending," Lee shrugged (with a casualness that was hiding how he still wasn't sure how to feel). "Not like the place is that large over here. Don't think Blue'd be happy about too many more." (And yeah, that was half a cop-out there, but Lee also knew Blue would back him up on this if he needed it.) Lee paused, glancing over at Blue. "Who all were you maybe thinkin' about wanting over here, anyway?" Lee asked next, glancing around at all of them. (He was thinking 'maybe three', if this little Diego kid was maybe gettin' babysat over there, or wanted to tag along. Not like he was gonna hold anything against some little kid.)
"Dillon and Phillip," Dipper told him. "Dillon's our older cousin, Phillip is his boyfriend." And then Dipper blinked at he realized exactly how weird that was going to be, because Lee-
"I don't think it's fair Dipper doesn't get to bring Paz over…" Mabel pouted. Ford and Lee sighed and exchanged a look. ("-Mabel!" Dipper exclaimed, distracted by his twin sister and losing track of what he'd just been thinking about for a minute there.)
Lee slowly pulled in a breath, and-
"That many, and no more," was Blue's authoritative contribution to the discussion, effectively closing the issue.
(...which the demon had spoken up and said at the slight - and unseen by anyone else - hand gesture that Lee had given Blue, that the sensors on the suit he was wearing picked up.)
So the list of guests was closed after Paz. She got there first, before the two boys - who had had their portal to them both opened first, but were cowering like chickens while deciding whether or not they really wanted to go through a portal, once they were actually looking at the damn thing. Eventually (after they saw Mabel duck her head through it and ask what was wrong), they did and they just laid on the ground (dizzy from stress in Dillon's case and wanting to throw up - he still had nightmares sometimes at the idea of portals and losing his dad). Mabel punched Philip's arm playfully. "Hey you, I still think my boyfriend's cuter than yours~"
Lee glanced across the kitchen bar (he'd stayed in the kitchen, and let people walk out and down into the pillowed guest circle area instead). And he got a good look down at the brunet (who was clearly this Dillon guy) as the red-haired guy (clearly not Dillon) sat up (with Dillon's head in his lap there, uh, mostly) and met with Max (confirming that he wasn't Dillon, just this Phillip guy instead). Lee turned back around towards the counter and exhaled through his nose at the… similarities he could see in Dillon's appearance, lots of similarities. Then he closed his eyes and told himself that, yeah, this would be fine, he had a plan, screw this stupid shit, he was fine-
(Lee pulled in a breath and reopened his eyes. Yeah. He could do this. Just like any other guests he'd ever had over to entertain. Yup.)
(He still felt himself relax a little without meaning to, when Blue - deliberately walking some of his stuff over to the piece of counter next to him, to use one of the fryer cooking appliances on the counter instead of the stove - touched his right shoulder up against Lee's left, and applied just a bit of pressure there.)
(Lee let out a breath and… didn't reach up to tousle Blue's hair, he was in the middle of doin' stuff and didn't want to have to wash his hands again right away, before and after… Lee just let him do it.)
"Hi Uncle Ford! Thanks for inviting us over! We were about to go grab like, cereal!" Dillon laughed. Ford patted his shoulder in a welcoming gesture and couldn't help but frown when he saw Mabel was letting Phillip tease Max but wasn't letting HIM ask QUESTIONS.
Dillon finally sat up a bit (thanks to the healing power of Phillip's lap, and embarrassment) and his eyes landed on the young man over in some kitchen area on the other side of the room, handling some food. His eyes widened (and he stood up without really consciously meaning to do so, to get a better look). That back looked kind of familiar, and that hair, and when he turned to walk over and grab something from the bar counter loosely separating the two areas- Holy shit. Dillon had seen dad's photos way too many times to not recognize that face. This man seemed to be around the same age as the photo of the Game of '98? It was a nice photo, Dad carrying mom in one arm, kissing and the trophy in his other hand. His team all making faces. "Is… Is that?" He prodded his uncle Ford, confused and kinda weirded out.
"Ah, this is Lee. The Stanley Pines of another dimension." Ford introduced them.
"Yo." The guy gave him a short single wave, then picked up some packages of fish and turned to uncle Ford, saying, "Hey, I'm stealin' your stuff to cook it all up for ya, okay?" before turning back around and heading for… some kind of stove on the countertop, even though there was a perfectly good-looking stove-top range right over there.
"Oh, let me help." ("Eh, fine. Lemme finish movin' the sauces and stuff off the stove.") Ford smiled. Then he glanced back at his niblings. "Are you all going to talk and catch up or…?" ("We can all talk! I wanna get to know Lee!" Mabel cheered. Dipper sighed, "Sorry we ended up being such a big group.")
"...ah… hi… Lee?" Dillon said, kinda feeling weird about this. Lee could see it all over his freckled face. "Um. I'm Dillon? I don't know if you…" he made a half shrug, half wave motion with his arm.
"Yeah, I know," Lee told him. "I asked Blue about it. Got confused there for a hot minute a couple days ago," he told (read: lied his pants off) to Dillon. "Got the Carla's all confused. Different last names and everything. Kinda a trip, amiright?" Lee grinned to him easily.
Dillon relaxed a little. "Ah, ok… cool. Um… wow this is weird." He rubbed the side of his head and chuckled. "You look exactly like an old photo of dad, you know, before he was sucked into an interdimensional portal...aside from the glasses."
"Yeah, well," Lee shrugged. "Bein' able to see stuff's kinda useful, y'know?" He reached up into the cabinets and pulled out a few paper plates (about ready to start putting together the pasta and sauce dishes for the cart.
Dillon laughed. "Dad hates wearing his glasses in public, he has to wear them at home though, mom always scolds him 'bout that. He gets all dramatic and 'Don't look at me! I'm a monster!' Kind of dramatic. Granny Kari just can't deal when he does that."
"Heh. That's just dumb," said Lee. "Pretty sure monsters don't wear glasses. Maybe nerds do, sometimes. -Hey," he asked, glancing over at him, "You want some of this stuff? Got three kinds of pasta here to start with." Lee gestured at the macaroni, spaghetti, linguini, and bowties. "Spaghetti sauce, mushroom sauce, marinara. Couple different types of meat already made up, meatballs and some sausage. Gonna work on some chicken in a hot-minute next."
"Marinara!" Dillon grinned. (And Lee nodded to him with a smile and asked him next, "Which noodles and meat?" Lee asked, as Blue finished bringing said large meat containers back over from the stasis-freezer to plop them down on the countertop. Dillon pointed them out "Linguini please!", and Lee got it together on a heaping plate for him and handed over - plus plastic utensils - within another seven seconds, used to moving fast on food orders from the cart.)
Now that Phillip and the others had finished their greetings and catching up, they were trying to figure out what to do. "Should we help out in cooking too or-" Mabel was cut off by Dipper placing a hand on her shoulder and telling her solemnly, "We don't want anyone to be coughing up glitter."
"What's glitter?" Max asked, confused, to which Dipper let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness she hasn't fed you yet…"
Lee let out a laugh at the face he saw Blue made at his side. "Maybe keep the glitter confined to the kitchen bar over there, if you've really gotta," Lee told her next. "Don't have any of that stuff on-hand here though, edible or otherwise. -You guys want any of this, too? Or you can wait for some of the fish and the chicken. Ford was thinking about some kinda cheesy fish omelette over here."
Mabel scoffed and pulled a bag of it out of her sweater (that sweater didn't have pockets, where exactly was the bag?!). She was always ready. Dipper then wrestled her to get it from her and protect everyone. Ford blinked. "Glitter isn't edible," he told Mabel. "You shouldn't be eating it all the time."
"I don't eat it all the time!" Mabel protested before coughing and spraying out a stream of glitter at the ground.
Lee winced at this, and almost tapped the countertop, before going for his left forearm instead. (He kind of liked a sanitary kitchen.) ...And a little mouse-sized robot ran out, opened its 'mouth', and darted all around to 'eat' (zap) it all away underneath it (with its tiny low-power built-in disintegrator ray gun), before scurrying back off under the countertops out of sight in a flash.
"Might want to stick to the salt or sugar flakes, Mabel," was Blue's spoken up, very carefully neutral tone of voice, which he said without looking at her. He got started in on the plates for the cart, checking the 'list' Lee had made earlier on amounts he'd been going for, in terms of food plate orders on-hand. (Lee, meanwhile, went over to the freezer to grab and haul out a huge bag of frozen chicken breasts, mindful of what Max had said earlier.)
Max's eyes were huge. The thingie ate the glitter and then vanished! He turned around lots of times to try to spot it. Pacifica thought he looked like a surprised puppy, a big puppy snuggled into his very soft looking sweater. "So… Lee? Right? Not that I'm not happy about the group dinner date," she glanced over at Blue (whom she hadn't been introduced to yet, and incorrectly assumed that 'she' was Lee's girlfriend. It was an easy mistake to make, considering their group of couples.) "But what's the occasion? Showing off portals?"
"Nah," said Lee, "More like gettin' Ford here used to realizin' he can just text family up and handle stuff, whenever he wants to see 'em. And, y'know, not just how to do it. That he can," Lee told her good-naturedly. "Almost got stuck when Mabel didn't say yes right away before it." Lee glanced over at Mabel. "He's new to the whole socializin' thing, yeah? Might want to just tell him that you didn't want to leave Max here behind, if you could only come yourself. He didn't get it before. I wasn't even sure; he didn't think to ask. Almost didn't end up gettin' to hug him in-person here, just now," Lee shrugged at her next, with a sort of half-smile, trying not to make too big a deal out of it all.
"Awwww! Uncle Ford!" Mabel wrapped herself against his side, luckily he wasn't too close to the 'stove'. "You know you can always call us if you get lonely."
Ford flushed. "Ah, yes, I mean…" he wasn't used to being the initiator for social contact. "I'm simply not used to doing so…" He gave Mabel a pat on the back. "I will try harder in the future."
"You okay with them askin' ya more, instead of you bein' the only one askin'?" Lee said. "Or would that seem like kinda too much pressure, havin' them ask all the time? ...Think they've got those shared calendar things on the internet you can do, check schedules without even havin' to talk first, if that's easier," Lee said rather reflectively next, as he flipped over one of the large 'heating' appliances onto the top countertop (leaving the normal stove top range for Ford' fish omelette making use). "Less pressure, maybe."
"I… well, my work schedule's somewhat different now. Won't be able to do practical tests unless Miz is here, so I should be free in the evenings now during the weekday." Ford told his niblings.
Mabel cheered. "You can help me teach Max about humans!" (Ford blinked. "Ah, yes. That would be my honor.") Dipper snorted. "And make sure he doesn't only learn about children's movies."
"Sounds like a plan," Lee said, glancing over at Ford as he said this, and… yeah, looked like the nerd was good with this, too. Not just feeling like he was being shoved into things.
The cousins were now drawing out a schedule for who got Ford and when. Ford continued blushing, "I… didn't realize you all wanted to hang out with me…"
"Whaaa? Of course we do uncle Ford!" Mabel grinned. "Even if you're a nerd." ("There's nothing wrong with nerds Mabel!" Dipper rolled his eyes.) Dillon shrugged. "You wouldn't mind if I brought Diego? He's really into the math and science stuff. He keeps asking about seeing your 'cool' stuff." (Lee smiled at hearing all this, because... 'yeah, nerd. People do like you, ya big lug. You just gotta let 'em do it.')
"He does have some pretty cool nerdy stuff here," Lee said, then shrugged at Ford's surprised look. (What? He'd had to see the scans of his lab to tell Blue that he was way off base on the electricity suppression there. Not like he hadn't seen every nerdy thing he'd had in there, when he'd done that a couple nights ago, after setting up the whole tent.)
Blue glanced over at Max again and (upon realizing that none of these idiots was going to say anything) sent a quick message to Lee's glasses, added a few spoonfuls of tea leaves to his (always-on) hot water kettle (which he flipped up to the countertop surface casually as he moved off, then turned away from them all and headed off for the 'private' non-guest rooms in the tent. (Lee frowned a little and tapped at the left corner of his glasses again - pretending to 'adjust' them - then had to stifle the sigh.)
For his part, Max was sitting quietly on one of the barstools under the kitchen bar countertop and listening to the conversation, trying his very best to understand what was going on. He held onto Mabel's hand, to get some of her warmth.
Blue was back again with a blanket in his arms before the humans were done with their schedule-making. He took only a moment to shift the blanket to one arm, pull a tray away from the front of one of the lower cabinet doors ('hidden' away), slap it up on the countertop, and then add teacups, the 'hot water' kettle now filled with tea, and waited a moment for Lee to slap two dishes of steaming cooked chicken and some real utensils (not plastic) on top of it. Blue then picked the laden-down tray up and carried it over to the kitchen bar, right across from where Max was sitting.
Blue set it down on top of the bar counter, then continued around the side and stood next to Max, holding the blanket out to the non-human, two handed.
"I'm offering you guest-right," Blue said to Maxini. "Tea, food, and comfort." (Lee didn't stop him. He knew Blue wasn't gonna demand the return-right here, of guest to host during his stay there; not with that phrasing. Not that they'd need it here; the tent was secure. Not like they'd need to fight anyone off, or worry about any of their 'guests' being able to murder them in their sleep, as long as they kept doing that in the private backroom areas like they had been...)
Max blinked at the offered blanket. "Am I… allowed to…?" He was a guest, he'd been trying his best to be a good guest and not bother Mabel with his complaints of how cold everything was getting. ("Yes," Blue said. "You are more than allowed, you can request what you need here and now for it.") Mabel glanced over. Then she gasped. "Max? Are you cold?" She went over to hug him. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I didn't notice!" Cold blood! Duh, Mabel! How dumb! she scolded herself.
Dipper and Stanford blinked before slapping their foreheads at the same time. ""He doesn't shiver!"" Now both felt dumb for ignoring the obvious detail.
"You can set the temperature here," Blue showed him, pointing to a little button, then pressing it twice. A little holographic screen of light popped up above the button. "Do you want me to shift this from 'modern' human English, or is this legible to you?"
"I-I don't know how...to read in human language…" His english was also terrible, if it wasn't for the Great Dragon allowing him to be understood...
Blue nodded, then flicked his fingers, and the language shifted to Heeyatl Pak. All Eix Leel used the same language, but the Heeyatl Pak tribe had slightly different writing from the other tribes due to their close proximity to the portal to the human world.
"Is this legible to you?" Blue asked next, looking back up to him.
Max nodded, "Yes. It is very good. Thank you very much." He bowed his head, showing the proper respect to a female. Max could tell, this female wasn't human. He wasn't sure the species, but he could tell.
"Mm. Good," said Blue. "You can increase the warmth to saturate your jacket and have it stay constant. Or, you can remove your jacket and set this to automatically maintain your body temperature to a certain measurement; it needs to be closer to your skin to sense and maintain this properly, if you want to use the automatic option. You can change 'relative units of measure' as well. Tap three times to close the menu, twice to open it again." He handed it over to Max without ceremony, then picked up his own teacup from the tray to drink from it next.
Max nodded. "Thank you very much for this gift." He bowed again, as was the custom to show respect to a female who was kind enough to offer a gift, and shifted over to Mabel to whisper for her to help him. He didn't like touching the 'technology'. He might break it.
"Mm," said Blue. "You may keep it, if you wish." He took another sip of his tea, then picked up a fork and speared one of the chicken breasts from his own plate with it, to take a few small bites in sequence out of one of the sides.
Max thanked Blue again (and got another "Mm," for his trouble, which Lee tried to hold down a grin at before being successful at completely hiding it), and Mabel helped him with the dial, gently asking for how he felt as she adjusted it to something warm but not too hot, as overheating was bad for his kind as well. Max eventually got it to the temperature he normally liked to get to from basking in the sunlight for a while.
"I need to remember this… And make thicker sweaters." Mabel sighed. She could also make heated sweaters! Wasn't like she never hooked electronics up into her sweaters before.
"He does not heat himself much internally; thicker sweaters with a warming element threaded into them would be preferable. Otherwise, you are simply 'holding in the cold'," Blue noted next, before taking another few bites of chicken breast from his own fork again, casually leaning up against the kitchen bar now - teacup in one hand, fork in the other. ("I'm gonna look up how electric heated blankets work and use them as a model!")
"How do you even survive a winter?" Dillon questioned, totally confused as to how his world even worked. Ford slowly pulled out his journal.
"Houses are locked in winter, going out would be very cold, especially with snow all around. There's a space for fire. We sleep there. It's nicer when you're laying an egg, you'd be extra warmer with dads being warm." Max rubbed his head, hoping he'd explained it correctly. Dillon and Phillip both blinked, utterly confused.
Lee continued cooking up chicken in the heating appliance, swapping between that and making up more plates of the pasta, sliding the completed ones down the counter as he went. (They made it, with the ease of practice, right up to and into the physical automatic 'intake ramp' he'd set up and connected to the back of the food cart's display counter. He had put it on it before, trying not to do the 'floating plates' thing with so many people here who hadn't seen stuff like this before, he was pretty sure.) Some of the pasta plates, Lee added some of the chicken breasts to instead of the meatballs or sausage - he did it to the ones with the marinara sauce. He tried to keep half an eye on Ford's fish (cooking on the stove) as he worked, once he saw Ford get distracted and pull out his book and a writing implement for it; he was ready to 'pause' the stove again (for Ford) if he needed to.
Ford had gotten distracted away from his cooking, moving out of the kitchen area to flip his journal open to jot this down. Dillon, the responsible one, went over to make sure Ford's cooking was okay. He glanced at Lee. "Hey, ah, you don't mind if I take over for Ford here?" He washed his hands in the sink.
"Hey, go ahead," Lee told him, "But don't feel like you've gotta. I can pause the whole thing, so it won't keep cooking or go cold here, see?" He tapped up the countertop display, took a moment to swap it over to 'modern American English', and turned the stove top range 'pause' on and off. "Up to you."
"Naw I don't mind. Cooking, I mean." Dillon was still a little weird about Lee; he'd grown up only seeing photos. So… when he'd finally met his real dad, it was weird, since Stan hadn't looked like the photos of that young man with his mom. And Lee looked just like them. And Dillon was very confused about his feelings right now. "Sorry, I'm…" Dillon looked away. "No offense, this is kinda weird. I mean- I'm not blaming you or- that is…" Dillon wasn't sure what he was babbling about.
"Hey, not your dad here, all right?" Lee said, reaching out to slap a hand on his shoulder. "And yeah, it is pretty weird. Not even the same Carla, yeah?" Lee remembered to say (rather, lie convincingly) at the end there.
"I know that." Dillon sighed. "I never knew dad growing up." He admitted. "Since he was all… off in space for- wait, not the same Carla?" He blinked.
"Yeah," said Lee. "Thought I said that before. Yours is some McCorkle gal, right?"
"Ah, yes?" Dillon was confused. "Wait, so… dad just has a thing for people named Carla- I mean, your Carla was different? Looked different? Or like, a different person?"
Lee shrugged at this. "Figure she'd be different since they're different people, yeah?" Hell, that one wasn't even a lie. Shit between different dimensions was weirdly different. "Don't really wanna talk about it, though. Last thing I feel like doing is comparing high school yearbooks." He rolled his eyes and made a face. (Yep. Easy. Not even a lie there on that one.)
"Oh. Ok." Dillon shrugged it off easily enough. "But, like, I always wondered what it would have been like to have my dad growing up. I'm way too old for most of that kinda thing now. It's just weird, 'cause you look like the photos I grew up seeing."
"Yeah? Thought I had the nerd glasses here like Ford though," Lee said with a grin, adjusting them on purpose there. (Not like he had a problem with that. Not like wearing glasses automatically made somebody a nerd.)
Dillon laughed. "Mom has a few photos of younger dad with glasses, he told her not to show anyone, but well," Dillon shrugged, "Those photos were all she had to teach me about him."
"Aha," Lee said. "Blackmail material. -I get ya. Crafty lady. Get you all knowin' about the 'hidden geek' before ya even knew him, so he'd have no chance at comin' across as bein' some kinda 'cool dad'." Lee barely stifled the chuckle.
"Mom's crafty." Dillon grinned. "Though, I think she's learned a lot from having granny around to help raise me." Dillon lowered his voice, "Granny's real good at the trickery stuff."
"Yeah?" said Lee, lowering his voice too (figuring that'd help this Dillon feel listened to), "Which one?"
"Dad's mom. She moved in to help with raising me since mom was alone and unmarried. On account of her fiance, my dad, going missing." Dillon couldn't help but send an annoyed glance over at Ford, briefly.
Lee blinked at this. Huh. "...Think Blue and me kinda, uh, dropped by her place first-thing before sayin' hi to Ford here," Lee noted, tucking that one in the back of his brain for maybe-later. "Kinda surprised she ain't been blowin' up people's phones, unless she don't got anybody's numbers." Heck, he would've wanted to know what the heck was going on. Especially because, y'know, Blue.
"Huh. Well she did come over to visit dad a few days back and told him he used to be so much cuter." Dillon chuckled. "Was wondering what that was about." He'd thought the confused and somewhat insulted look on dad's face was funny.
Lee let out a sigh and his shoulders sagged. "Why's everybody keep callin' me cute?" he said, as something of a half-complaint. ("Because you ARE!" was Mabel's contribution.)
"...moms do that?" Dillon tried. "And Mabel's… she thinks pretty much everything is cute. Got a freaking lizard boy as a boyfriend that way." ("TRY AND DENY THAT HE'S CUTE, YOU BIATCH!" Was her response) Ok. Fine. He WAS very cute.
"...Guess that explains it, then," Lee said next, with a shrug. "Anyway," Lee said. "What's up with you and this Phillip guy anyway? This Mabel said boyfriend, but the Mabel I met before? Pretty sure she'd say that about anybody." And he didn't think this one was too far off either.
"He's my bae. Like, my actual boyfriend. We gay." Dillon puffed his chest proudly.
"Yeah, oka- uh, spatula," Lee said next, before yanking one off of the wall and shoving it at him, handle first into his chest. Then, while Dillon was fubling that, Lee blinked and did a mental facepalm, before he turned and tossed the counter screen up to slap the pause button real quick. (-He still wasn't completely used to the pause button thing there, okay? It's called reflexes!) Lee let out a sigh, and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
"We've been together for 3 years now! And we are gonna get married and have 3 kids and 2 puppies!" Phillip added to the conversation from his spot. ("Uhhhh, what now?" went Lee, glancing past Dillon to Phillip.)
Dillon grimaced. Oh no… he flushed. "Phillip!" he sputtered. "A-anyway- I mean…" Dillon flipped the food he was cooking. (Lee unpaused the stove again for him.) "So we're planning on gettin' married… haven't made it official and told dad outright yet."
"We all know it's gonna happen." Dipper deadpanned. Paz rolled her eyes. She was quite sure Dipper was planning to propose to her himself. And knowing him, he had several yards worth of lists he kept writing and crossing out for how to do so. She was planning to just sit him down to talk about it eventually.
"If your dad ain't more comfortable with guys than chicks, then maybe somethin's a lot more different here than where I grew up," Lee shrugged and put out there, as he went back to putting together a few more pasta plates. Then, at the looks he got at that, he went, "...What?"
"You mean… Stanley with a guy?" Ford frowned, narrowing his eyes a lot as he tried to process that.
"I mean… not, y'know, the whole sexytimes thing," Lee waved a hand around, trying not to blush. His blush faded a little bit as he said, "Uh, I think older Ford's twin might have some chick he's maybe thinkin' about dating though?" Then he winced. "Uh, he's single right now. I think. Probably. -Hell if I know what's goin' on over there." Damn, good goin' there idiot, Lee told himself, wincing.
"...so…" Dillon blinked. "You're fine with me being gay?" he asked slowly. "Is that what I'm getting here? I mean, it's just 'cause my dad was… I mean, I know he loves me, but he took a while to get around to the idea that I wasn't… you know… straight." He looked down at his cooking. "Sorry I made things all awkward here."
"Uh, yeah," Lee said, "I mean… oh. Huh." Lee turned and looked at him. "Guess he wasn't payin' too much attention to portal stuff other places, was he?" He'd gotten from Ford before that this version of him had gone through the portal with him, too. (Still tryin' to wrap his mind around Seb bein' all… Seb and also kinda old-man-him in the middle of the woods here, doin' portal stuff.) "People are weird.. I don't got a problem with junk, long as you're not tryin' to stab me, yeah?" He gave Dillon a smile, and a clap on the shoulder, then got back to his pasta plating. "Not sure how the whole baby-makin' thing's supposed to work out for ya, if this Ford here doesn't get some external womb-tech stuff from other dimensions for ya here. That stuff's finicky as heck." (And he should know; spent three weeks retuning some for some folks after he realized he hadn't read all the fine print. Never again! ...Well, almost never. Blue had laughed himself sick over that one, when he'd looked over his books for him later. ...And then told Lee how to set stuff up in the contracts differently to get out of it all next time, if he needed to later. 'Cause Blue was cool like that.)
And that made Dillon and Phillip blush. "We were going to adopt, actually." (Lee blinked. "Oh. Yeah. -Guess that works, too.") Phillip rubbed his head. "There's way too many orphans in the world to begin with."
Lee winced a little at this. "Hey, maybe we can talk about somethin' else for awhile, less downer-y? -You want to bring your little brother over here to see all Ford's cool stuff, right? Maybe you wanna talk to him about a list here of all that stuff, first?" Lee tried, tossing a thumb over his shoulder at this Ford.
"Right! So, like, Diego's always watching those science channel shows and he's even getting worksheets for a higher grade level at school." Dillon was so proud of his little brother. "And, if Ford's got that portal thing working…" here, Dillon grimaced a little. "...though I'm still worried about how safe it is. No offense uncle Ford, but you and portals are kinda a sore point." (Lee snorted.)
Ford winced. "No offence taken. I will be working to make sure it's absolutely safe." (Blue forcibly swallowed his tongue on that one, and kept what he was going to say down to just a grimace and a level look.)
"Oh, yeah," Lee said. "Almost forgot. Blue did bring up a couple places he found that do have some stuff, but they're kind of complete- Uh." Lee stalled out as he realized that probably wasn't a happy topic. "Okay, yeah. Maybe just leave that one for later. -Ford, you ever given 'em a tour of your lab? Ain't like it isn't right next door out there."
"Yes, I have." Ford nodded. "That was a few years ago. It's changed quite a bit since then. More rooms, a whole new wing of the facility…"
Lee nodded. "You maybe want to show off for a bit? Can't decide on younger-brother stuff without seein' it all. Give folks enough time to figure out what they want to eat, too?" Lee shrugged a bit at this. He was fine either way, but a walk might actually make 'em realize how hungry they were or not, here. They had plenty of stuff he could give 'em to eat, but the only ones who had eaten anything yet at all were Dillon (who hadn't had much of his pasta yet, being half eating and half cooking), Max (who was munching away happily on his cooked chicken), and Blue (who was almost finished with his own chicken plate and his tea over there, next to Max).
Mabel blinked. "Oh right, food." She pointed at the pasta, "Do we self serve?" she was pretty hungry.
"Can if you want," Lee said practically, tossing open the cupboards above so people could get their own cups and plates if they wanted them. "Got more stuff in the cart's display over there, too. Should be unlocked; you can just grab what you want right now, if you want somethin'. Drinks in the fridge. -No alcohol unless you can get away with bein' drunk once you're back," he cautioned them all.
Everyone got up to get food. And the conversation was shifted into how everyone had been doing. Mabel also extended an invitation to Lee if he wanted to sit in on movie nights with her and everyone else. "I mean, depends on how long you're gonna be here, I guess?"
"Sure," Lee said. "Dunno how long I'm gonna stay. Not like dimension-hopping here is all that much different than back in our own neck of the woods," Lee told her, as he finished up with the pasta dishes for the next day, then brought his own plate of the stuff - spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, sausage, and meatballs - over, along with a teacup for tea. "-Except for havin' to ask Blue to check everything for me first again - yeah, Blue, I know." Lee didn't quite roll his eyes as he pushed his teacup towards the devil-demon, and got served some of his beverage of choice.
("Mm," went Blue, as he pushed the now-full teacup back to Lee, then finished off his own cup of tea and his 'chicken dinner'. He got up and headed over to the refrigerator, to pull out a big bowl of salad from his own separate section of that space-folded and ownership-secured appliance, next.)
"Well it'll be cool to have a movie night with everyone!" Mabel cheered. (Dipper rolled his eyes at his sister. "You're covered in pasta sauce," he deadpanned. Mabel wiped her face.) "If you're up for it?" she looked around.
Phillip shrugged. "I'm pretty busy with medical school, but I should have some time on the weekends."
"Oh." Ford blinked. "I'll be spending my weekends doing all the practical work and tests with Miz." At seeing Mabel's sad expression however, Ford sighed. "I'm sure Miz would be up for a movie or two if we ask her." (Lee noted this, and decided he was going to have to be busy on movie nights then, but said nothing. Blue came back with his large bowl of salad, and sat right back down next to Max.)
Mabel nodded, and it was around then that Pacifica brought up, "Why isn't Miz here? Since this is some kinda couples night or something?" She'd heard something from Dipper about that maybe being the case between his uncle and the alien dragon thing that was his adopted cousin.
"Ford ain't dating Miz," Lee put out there for the big nerd (making Ford blink. Well, yeah… he wasn't…), before taking another bite of his pasta. He held back on the whole 'pulling pranks' thing for now, same as the 'I'm gonna maybe take this Ford out dimension-hopping for a quick trip again, and Blue's comin' with, no worries!' thing he'd realized pretty quickly was maybe something he shouldn't be tossing on all these folks here tonight. (Just Ford. Heh. ...Yeah. That wasn't gonna go well.)
And Mabel turned to her uncle with a pout. "You're not? But…" she waved her hands at him. "You two were totally into each other over the summer!"
"Are you really gonna try to make the big nerd feel guilty about not datin' people, here?" Lee said, eyeing her over his food. "Really? -'Cause, gotta tell ya," he pointed to himself over his head, "Better prime target over here for that one." (Yeah, he was still used to deflecting shit for Fords on straight-up reflex. So sue him.)
"Wha?" Mabel blinked. Then she turned to Ford. "Am I making you feel guilty?" And Ford sighed.
"I don't think I feel guilty, if that's what you mean?" Ford rubbed his arm. "But Miz and I are just friends. She likes me, but there's no way she'd…" he trailed off. "And I'm nowhere near good enough for her. So it's… fine. I'm just happy being with her." (Lee grimaced slightly at the downtalking, but didn't say anything to him just yet.)
"Wha?!" Mabel leaned over the table into Ford's face. "Don't you go talking down on yourself like that! You're AWESOME!" she told him. "And Miz adores you! Anyone with eyes can see that!"
"...Is this the part where I speak up about how insane that concept really is to this Mabel, that she is trying to convey to this local-'Hand here," Blue deadpanned from where he was sitting next to Max at the kitchen bar table, not two bar stools away from where Mabel was sitting currently. "Because I-"
Lee cleared his throat, and Blue stopped talking for a moment. The human and demon exchanged a long look. ….And then Blue rolled his eyes and (seemingly) backed down, picking up his (new) cup of tea and taking a deep draught from it there where he was still-sitting.
"Uncle Ford, whether or not Miz is into you, doesn't change the fact that you're amazing and anyone would be lucky to have you want to be with them!" Mabel told her uncle seriously. "So don't ever go saying that you're not good enough for anything!" (Blue started to open his mouth, and Lee made a hand gesture in his lap under the table that he knew Blue would be able to pick up on his sensors - and did, because it had the demon all but glaring at him right after he did it.)
Ford looked away. "It's fine Mabel, it's not that big of a deal…"
"...Maybe let's talk about something else here for a bit." This Ford did not look really receptive to gettin' told a whole bunch of good stuff there right now, and... "Keep the lovable nerd here from feelin' too uncomfortable about stuff he don't want to talk about over dinner, yeah?" Lee tapped the kitchen bar counter, and made a flicking gesture upwards, and about a foot off and above the flat surface with all their assorted plates on it - after another two entries into the holographic light panel that Lee then pulled up to control things from the countertop - a grainy old green-colored sci-fi looking projection of the Center appeared, showing the building to the all how it looked like from the outside. "-Could give them a quick starting tour of the place from here a bit, Ford. Just gotta let me know what I should or shouldn't be showing." Why he was starting from the outside look of the place, instead of some wireframe or no-walls no-ceilings exploded overview.
Ford jumped on this distraction. "Oh, yes." He paused to eat some of his pasta before reaching his hand out to begin pointing around, assuming this was like those other holographic displays he'd seen, the kind you could move by touch. And it was. He navigated it pretty easily after that, picking up on how to zoom and go into rooms and such. He took the kids on a virtual tour of the place, in between bites of food, and realized absently. "Oh, so people can still hack in to see the layout of the place…" because as cool as this was, the fact that it was here and he could see everything in it, was a liability, operational security as it were. Ford sighed. That word has come up way too often lately.
"Uh, nah. ...Well, maybe." Not like he'd checked that himself, to whatever standard that this Ford was using. "This one's not a hack," Lee told him. "Security scans from the tent. Blue don't like it when people try sneakin' up on us with advanced weaponry." Lee took a bite, chewed, swallowed, then told him, "Managed to talk him out of goin' out more than a couple hundred miles out for this one. 'Cause it's supposed to be set up on the ground, not out in space someplace." ("It scans several kilometers up-and-out for meteor strikes and missile-and-flying-craft runs still!" Blue objected, to which Lee went, "Yeah, yeah.") Lee picked up his teacup. "This one's sort of averaged over the last twenty-four hours or so, for showing the position of stuff. Heavy on the 'overnight' timeframe for stuff. Didn't want to leave in any people, or show any random stuff there just 'floating' in space where someone was holding it." Lee took a sip of his tea.
"I see…" Ford noted. He was starting to realize the sheer depth of Blue's worry over safety. Blue was more paranoid than him at his worst. "I don't suppose there's anything I can do about that?" And Ford was also realizing that part of the reason talking to Blue for too long made him upset was because of the worry and paranoia that Blue ended up stirring up by bringing up all the dangers around him.
Lee nearly choked on his tea, and had to pound his chest a few times coughing, before looking up at Ford with a sort of apologetic grin.
"Uh, yeah," Lee said to this Ford. "You know Blue is, like, a walking security hazard just, y'know, standing someplace and breathing, right? Y'know, the whole 'knowing things' thing?" (Lee tossed Blue a look, but Blue was just sitting in place and sipping tea from his teacup now in a two-handed cupped hold, looking both pretty damn smug, and also kind of zen.)
"...right." Ford sighed. And so was Miz, actually. Considering she could easily get into the barrier around the Center made to keep creatures out… but Ford didn't mind that part. Wait, Miz was still making things happen around her inside the Center, even with the anti-magic seal on… and with the anti-weirdness barrier… how?
"...Somethin' wrong?" Lee asked, as he saw the look on Ford's face shift to something a lot more worried there.
"Just realizing that a true, fully secure security system would be nearly impossible to make." Ford leaned a hand against his face as he finished his plate of tuna omelette. It was good. He wondered if Miz would like it...
"Security is only ever 'truly secure' if you don't want anyone to ever get anything out of it, ever. Including yourself. Or anyone smarter than you," Blue noted dryly. "Usually takes most people longer than their lifetimes to fully-learn that one there, local-'Hand. Might want to take note of that." He took another sip from his cup (while Lee rolled his eyes at Blue's antics). The conversation at their end of the table - Blue next to Lee next to Ford - didn't disrupt much. The rest of the young adults in the room were chatting quietly amongst themselves once Ford had finished up his quick tour, since they didn't know how to interject on account of not knowing how security around the Center should be handled.
"Well yes, having it secured to that point would make it very difficult to get any work done within it." Ford sighed. "It's some sort of paradox, no, that's not the right word." He frowned. "It's like… there's the external security, against physical break-ins, or scans that could get an idea of our systems and layout. Then there's the internal security of our records and data lying around, and whether anything could leak." He shook his head. "There's also the human element to take in, perhaps someone here leaks something, accident or otherwise, but going through every little possibility would end up making so much red tape to get through that no one would have any time to get real work done."
"Unless you make it a fully-closed system, and separate it out from anything else. And then destroy it, and what is inside it, fully," Blue noted. "And hope that several someone-elses don't end up going down that same road again."
"...destroying it all would sort of… defeat the purpose of what we're doing…" ("Maybe for you," Blue said, "When it's something that you want to keep, and also share-elsewhere.") Ford sighed. "We started the Center to make technological advancements to better humanity. Whether that's making things to make life more convenient for people, or improving the state of living, to fixing the planet so there's still a place for us all to live and pass on to the next generation." Ford glanced over at his niblings.
"We know uncle Ford. You're trying to fix things, in your own way." Dipper smiled.
"Alternately," said Blue, "Go find a dimension with an Earth that is livable, but never developed humans, and all go and live there for awhile, while you're working on fixing up this one again." Blue swirled his tea in his cup, then took another sip.
"A lot of people would refuse to go, since no development means none of the convenience of modern life that they're used to," Dillon pointed out.
"Never said you had to do it all in a week, as soon as you found that other Earth from that portal," Blue noted. "Or tossing some edible seeds over there everywhere and reopening it to about a hundred years later?" Blue huffed out a breath. "Or at least wait just another growing season, while amassing all those convenient supplies? Besides, wouldn't lessening the load work better anyway."
Dipper looked contemplative. "Is this like the Island all over again? The whole, move people away to live somewhere else…" Dipper frowned. "I mean, that'd be cool, but…"
"But what?" Blue said. "Time-honored tradition there, humans moving out to settle other places. Been doing it for more than two million years." (Lee sent Blue a glance. When humans started being humans was kind of… slide-y for Blue. He apparently thought the whole 'homo sapiens' thing didn't count as far back enough; he went by when he'd started being able to jump into Dreamscapes and junk without feelin' like he was taking a dive into the equivalent of a gnome.)
"...you have a point." Dipper nodded. "Who would go though? Probably have to get volunteers."
"Who wouldn't go? Grab some tents and camping supplies, be able to go out there anywhere and there's just food to eat." Blue poured himself another cup of tea.
Lee piped up a bit. "Think what Blue's tryin' to say there is, some people wouldn't mind goin on a camping trip for a month or two, just for a vacation. And this would be all… I dunno, maybe patriotic or something. Could talk about it like you're paying people to go on vacation, get paid once they're back. Maybe give 'em the option to keep some land over there for a summer home if they wanted. -Bet lots'a people would go in for that stuff. Like, some kinda land rush grab thing. All pioneering," he said, as a nod to U.S. history and Blue. "...Or maybe state or private parks or beaches or somethin'," Lee moved on to more practically, business mindset kicking in. "Wouldn't have to put up much, for people to want to go campin' there for awhile, if there's water and food and the weather's all nice." Lee knew he was reaching a bit, but he also knew that there were people who liked doin' that stuff. Some people liked the beach; some people liked camping. Sometimes, some people liked both, but… yeah.
"Paying people to leave the Earth and live there… for a month?" Ford frowned. "Don't know if I'll have the funds for that."
"Hey, there's always the gold dimension," Lee said then paused. "Uh, there is one'a those here, isn't there?" he asked Blue. (Blue nodded.)
"That would upset the economy." Ford deadpanned, "It's why we won't let Miz go around making gold all the time for us."
"So would the Earth melting and setting itself on fire at the same time," Blue drawled out next. Lee tossed him a look, and Blue rolled his eyes and added, "Handing the gold to the people who came back would spread things out a little better. They were gone 'working', now they brought something-else of worth back, not just themselves and their own potential-for-more-work."
"...you have a point." Ford ran a hand across his face. "Though, from what we've been getting from our readings, it's more likely that the Earth would flood drastically in some parts of the world and the rising temperatures would cause mass extinctions of flora and fauna…"
"Yeahhhh," said Lee, "Think that was why Blue was talkin' about havin' a place with food everywhere and a lotta not-flooded above water ground space."
"...so… are we gonna leave the Earth?" Mabel asked Ford, kinda worried. What would happen to all the supernatural species living here? Well, if the humans all left, maybe they could actually fix the place?
"You're going to want to do it before that stupid Time Baby melts free and wakes up," Blue warned(?) them all. "So some people are stupid and don't want to leave. -Guess they end up being the society that stupid Baby ends up reigning over when he finishes his tantrum, and closes that whole loop you've got going on here!"
"Wait," Dipper sat up. "The world will end in 3012?! That was a real thing?"
"Unless you want to go full non-linear time loop here, and risk what happens to your own timelines without that stupid Time Baby in the mix that one Weirdmageddon summer, in the 'Falls-here," Blue noted casually. "What, did I not make that clear to you all before? Or were you just not paying attention," the demon added next, looking around at all of them who he'd met during that one summer just passed.
"...I have no idea what you're all talking about. You've explained that weird ass summer but you've never given me the full story." Dillon (and Phillip and Max) stated (the latter two did it in slightly different ways). Though in Max's case, he was confused about everything happening here.
Mabel sighed. Dipper pulled at his hat.
"Well. It's a long story. But it kinda begins back in 2012, when Mabel and I went to go stay with our uncle Sebstian for the summer in a place called Gravity Falls…"
