Illusion is Reality
Chapter 128
-Ask me-
"...nd then we went home on the bus and… ah… the rest is just…" Dipper shrugged. The others around the table stared. And then Phillip turned to Dillon and said, "How come we don't have wild adventures like that?" Dillon groaned. "I'm so annoyed I missed out that summer. I mean, I'm kinda terrified of adventures, especially since the first time I tried going on one, I almost got sacrificed or something." (Max winced, "Sorry?")
"Don't be," was Blue's(?!) contribution there, as he refilled his teacup with more tea. "I saw a lot of stabbing going on there. A LOT. -It wasn't pretty!" he said with a fake-brightness reaching 'Bill Cipher' levels for a moment.
Lee dropped his right hand down on Blue's head there and just let it lay there, just… stroking his thumb back and forth across his left temple, just a bit. (Blue quieted and settled almost immediately, his shoulders dropping and settling out a bit, as he slowly let his teacup lower with his arms, then seemed to shake it off a bit, bringing his cup back up to his lips. Lee stopped the stroke motion after awhile, just leaving his hand there.)
"Well, so… to summarize. Demons are real." ("Yes!" Blue interjected.) "Aliens are real." ("Also, yes!") "Magic is real. I got that part." Phillip nodded. ("What. You need me to hit any more boxes for you, over here?") "But also, the world's gonna end in like a thousand years when a giant baby melts out from the ice due to global warming and then takes over the Earth. In a dystopian future where people can just challenge others to gladiatorial matches."
"HA! Yes! -Just learn how to dodge and survive, and get really good at laser tag, if you're really THAT worried about it," Blue told him next, eyes gleaming as he lifted his cup.
And Phillip turned to Dillon and took his hand. "I don't want to live on this planet anymore," he deadpanned.
"Oh, look! Colonists one and two!" Blue said, with a grin in his voice. "Just the kind of people you don't want to leave behind - ones who can actually use their brains and make decent decisions for themselves, when presented with facts and information," Blue drawled out at the local-'Hand next, side-eyeing him. (Then made a burring-chrrrrup of complaint when Lee mussed up his hair a little bit for that one, before ducking his head and shoving it off, giving Lee a bit of a look.)
"...I will need to find a place first, and I'm still not sure about making a full interdimensional portal," Ford corrected. "I think terraforming the nearby planets in this solar system would be better, if such a thing was possible." Which, considering that had been Miz's plan, he knew it was very much possible.
"Time Baby's capable of time travel," Blue noted. "You leave anyone in-system, instead of hopping dimensions, they'll get grabbed very easily." Blue swirled the tea in his cup again. "He'll just grab the spacecraft he can see in the first place, from farther back, once the locals get their communications up. They'll never have left in the first place, or just all get pulled forward immediately. Misery loves company. Only reason that stupid Baby didn't pull them from any farther back in forty-six-apostrophe-backslash than where he was right then, was because he kicked up such a timestorm as part of his own temper tantrum that the whole object impermanence thing really kicks in, and the stupid 'Time Police' squads don't want to go through all the hassle themselves."
"Then we'll just have to leave something here to distract him, until he forgets about us."
"Pretty sure the dissolution already took care of THAT one, HA! Otherwise, the stupid Baby would remember dying by the local broken-demon, and not go back with such a puny squad of projections in the same way, in the first place!" Blue noted 'happily' enough.
Ford was rubbing his temples. "I don't want to make an interdimensional portal. Can't we just make a barrier that keeps Time Baby away?" He glanced up at the ceiling. "Shouldn't you be doing something about that?"
"Have to lock out time travel in-dimension for that," Blue said. "Otherwise, the idiots will just use their watches to have a small two-man squad show up when and where they want before you're finished, and disintegrate the thing you're using for that before you ever get to turn it on, before hopping right back out again." Blue looked at him over his cup. "Time wars get really tricky, real fast, local-'Hand," Blue said from experience next.
"Well, keeping people from time travelling all over the place would probably be a good idea. I'm still amazed you and Mabel didn't mess up the timeline or anything," Ford told Dipper.
"Oh look," said Blue, "We're back to what I talked about before: time-locking the dimension here. So no 'new' time travel can happen here that hasn't already happened that coincides with your own personal timelines and prior-pasts already!" Blue 'burred' again as Lee mussed up his hair slightly again.
"You know…" Pacifica sipped her limeade. "Mass exodus of the planet and the nature of time and fate and all that, wasn't what I thought this dinner party was going to be about."
Blue perked up immediately, sitting up straight. "Part-"
"-nope! Nope-nope-nope," Lee said, grabbing the devil-demon over, to wrap one arm around him, and really start messing up his hair that time. (To which Blue complained mightily, and started using both hands to try and 'fight' him off', grabbing at the one arm and hand he was using for all of his mussing. ...Which Lee was not really worried about, because Blue hadn't used his suit to augment his own strength and throw him off yet. And he doubted that was 'cause Blue hadn't ever thought of it.)
"No using the 'p' word around demons," Ford told everyone around them. "Might be ok to use with Miz, so long as she knows it's the human type and not the demon type."
"...right." Pacifica nodded, while staring at Blue and the other younger Stanley at the opposite end of the table from her. "I will keep that in mind for the future, when I meet more demons or whatever." She grimaced and leaned against Dipper. Ugh. This was all so weird.
Mabel, who was rather bummed out at all this conversation about threats to the planet and all that, tried to change the subject, "Hey, speaking of pa- the 'p' word." She quickly corrected herself. "Miz's birthday is next month. You all have gifts ideas right? 'Cause I'm gonna be making her a sweater!"
That got Blue's attention right away, his head swivelling over towards her, fighting off of hair mussings half forgotten. (Lee stopped with the hair thing, but still kept his other arm wrapped around Blue's waist. He dropped his left hand down to Blue's shoulder.)
"I," Blue declared, "Have A List." He sounded quite serious about this. Everyone gave Blue a long look. Mabel grinned. "Let's go around the table and say what we're getting her, so we don't have repeats." (Dipper groaned. "It's not until the end of next month. We have time. Besides, I don't really know what to give her. I mean, she can make pretty much anything she wants?")
"I'm not sharing my list with you," Blue said next. "I did all the reading of her blog for knowing these things. It's my list of her list of liked things as-listed, not all of yours," he said primly.
"...she's got a blog!?" Mabel gasped. "Why hasn't she told me?! I plug my social media ALL the time!"
Blue blinked at her. "It's written to an internet server location in another dimension. ...That is partially-technically within my own 'set. ...And has ciphered things on it; I write things to her there." Blue narrowed his eyes at this Mabel. "You don't get to look at it or see."
Mabel gasped, hand on her chest. "Miz is my cousin! I should be allowed to know her blog stuff! I sent her my blog stuffs!"
"No," said Blue. "I REFUSE. And I will tell her so." He eyed her. "If she wanted YOU to know, she would have reposted all-of-the-things over-there to over-here-also."
Mabel glared. "Well I'm going to ask her anyway. And then I'm going to add and follow her. And we would be blog buddies!" ("Mabel! Don't-" Dipper hissed at her.)
Blue, without taking his eyes away from Mabel, brought up his left arm in a threatening manner.
And, without taking his eyes away from her, flicked his right finger above his left forearm, made a few hand gestures, made another flicking motion, and then dropped his arm - both of them, left arm and right hand. All while not breaking gaze with her at all.
"I-" said Blue, still giving her a thousand-yard stare, "Have now told her first."
And then the demon GRINNED.
Mabel gasped. "Well, she doesn't have to agree!" she said snidely.
"'Big brother' beats 'random human who just randomly happens to be a blood-relation to some-other siblings of hers'," Blue informed her primly. (Lee stifled a groan.)
(Miles away, Miz blinked as she laid on her side in her nest, Zach nestled in her arms. She just got a message from her brother and received it. It was a notice about 'operational security' of her blog - that she should not be sharing it, or interdimensional Com tech, with other humans here that would allow them to connect out to it, and a note about reposting non-ciphered non-problematic non-them things to media here for Mabel to read was potentially going to be requested, and that he would be fine with that limited information crossover-transfer. And Miz blinked again before sending back, [Sure. I'll just start a new blog here where I just post stuff from this dimension or whatever.])
"Well, I'm gonna text Miz tomorrow to ask for her blog." Mabel huffed. (Dipper was burying his face on the table, giving up on trying to stop her.)
Blue flicked his eyes to the left, then brought up his arm again and typed another response - not doing the dead-eye stare at her this time.
(Miz received a request for the blog site location first, whenever she made it. 'Because siblings should know first!' and Miz was wondering why this was suddenly coming up, but still responded with an affirmative, and got a triangle-eye 'kawaii' text-face back. She was also a little miffed with Blue for contacting her now, out of nowhere, after effectively ignoring her for the past two days. But, getting any message at all from him was still enough to get a small smile out of her.)
"You can do that thing, yes," Blue noted, operational security thing complete. (He hadn't thought such would have been an issue, but with this Mabel so sure about it, it had tipped the scales over into wanting to be absolutely certain that his little sister wasn't going to do that thing by contacting her quickly about it.)
"You just messaged Miz twice now, didn't you," Lee deadpanned. ("Yes.") Lee rubbed a hand over his face, under his glasses. (Great. Guess solidarity, in not talking to the dragon-demon until he had first, just went out the window there on this one. Thanks, Blue.)
Mabel huffed. "Whatever then. We're still gonna be blog buddies." She folded her arms.
"Not on that one," Blue said, not really caring about all of the rest. His point had never been about Mabel not accessing any blog of Miz's at all, just not THAT one. He clapped his hands together suddenly. "-ALSO!" Blue said. "It does not need to be a party to have all of the desserts!" the demon noted next, turning in place and shoving himself off of the barstool. (Lee let go of him and watched him go.)
"So yeah," Lee said, turning to Max. "Any desserts that you know you can eat? 'Cause I'm thinkin' meat desserts without plants is kinda not a thing you want Blue to pull off for you, unless you're okay with eatin' other-dimensional foodstuffs tonight."
Max blinked. "Desserts?" And Mabel gasped - a terrible deficiency in her teachings! - and quickly turned towards him to explain, "Sweet foods! Like remember when I got ice creams and popsicles and stuff? Those types of food are called desserts. Just sweet food treats that you eat after your other meals."
"Unless ya don't like sweets," Lee noted, picking up where Mabel left off. "Desserts are usually a bunch of favorite flavors that are kinda… light and fluffy to eat. Not filling, like the big meals you eat them after."
Max brightened. "Like honey? Or coconut milk?" his eyes sparkled. "Or sea urchin!"
Mabel hugged his arm and leaned against his chest. She failed him… She needed to get him to try more desserts someday! "Paz, you're invited when I'm cooking desserts for Max! No glitter." (She winked and Pacifica laughed. "Sure.") Mabel looked at Max. "Would you like to get all~ the sweet things aside from me~?" She put a finger on her cheek.
Max didn't understand the meaning behind her words but held her hand and nodded. "Can… Can I take some to my siblings?" He'd say he got them with the 'human money'. The priestesses only cared about the meat he brought, not the pieces of paper with 'numbers'.
"Yeah," Lee said. "So you good with eating those without gettin' sick?"
Max nodded. "Honey is a treat, and if you manage to find any, you're supposed to give it over to the Queen. I've only ever tasted it once, when Mabel gave me some."
"Okay," Lee said, pushing off of his barstool chair. "Pretty sure Blue's got a recipe for makin' some kinda warm ice cream out of coconut milk. Can probably use the honey for the sugar in there, then drizzle some more on top of that. Or crystallize some of it into small chunks, and mix it in. Lemme ask him." He walked off back over to the counter, where Blue was starting to pull out the way more complicated shit over there - all the fully-automatic, time-forward machinery stuff. Woo boy...
"Uh, I've got regular ice cream in the freezer," Lee told them over his shoulder, then decided to just walk over and pull it out himself. "Just the usual vanilla-chocolate-strawberry stuff. And peanut butter ice cream I made up." He glanced over at Ford. "Think I've got the toppings to add to make the chocolate rocky road. Dry stuff like that is in the other fresh cabinet," Lee told him, as he put the big five-gallon bucket of the stuff down on the main counter top (next to the 'paused' stove top with the plate of what remained of the finished cooked fish sitting on it still there, waiting for Ford to decide what to do with it, beyond what he'd already eaten in a two cheesy-melt omelettes for his dinner that night).
"Chocolate please." Dillon smiled. The others gave their preferences as well. "Max is deathly allergic to chocolate so non-chocolate for him please." (Blue knew this already, but noted this was said as he worked.)
("What other fresh cabinet?" Ford asked him.) "Uh," went Lee, then he let out a laugh, and shook his head at himself. "Hold on." He walked over to the 'fresh' stasis-cabinet, put both hands on either side of it, and then pulled and shoved it like he was turning it.
It spun in place (despite seeming to be flush - if not slightly built into - the wall) and then there was another door there, with a slightly different-looking handle.
"This one," Lee said, opening it up and letting Ford see, "Feel free to pull out and use whatever's inside. Just, gimmie a minute on gettin' all the ice cream served out," he told Ford, heading back over to the counter where he'd put down the big five-gallon thing of ice-cream.
Lee pulled out an ice cream scoop and double-checked what he was getting into bowls for each (human) person each time. The Pines and their significant others gave their affirmatives as he (and Ford) went, on the flavors (and additions that Ford was pulling down from the cabinet, in another one of those baskets - made of a silver metal, this time).
Mabel was realizing her phone didn't work in here and huffed. (Yes, Blue was being demonically bad here on this front.) She really would have to text Miz tomorrow morning instead.
Blue was humming snatches of something over by the other counter (which Lee found only half-worrying, since he could see what Blue was doing) as he worked - presumably on something involving sea urchins, honey, and coconut milk, since that was what Blue had gone and pulled out of his part of the fridge and one of the 'hidden' cabinets inside one of the pull-out drawers that normally stored silverware.
"So, Lee, are you just going around dimensions and stuff?" Dillon asked. Just to have something else to talk about, and he was curious about Lee's circumstances.
"Mostly," Lee said. "Kind of don't feel ready to be going back to my own home dimension again yet," he told him. "Think I'm gonna grow up outside it a little bit first."
"Did something happen?" Dipper asked, worried about what might have made Lee not want to go home.
Lee blinked and looked over his shoulder at him.
"Nah, not really," Lee said to him casually. "I'm fine." He pulled out a tray from the front of one of the lower cabinet doors, shoved all the ice cream bowls onto it, and carried them all back over to the kitchen bar counter. He put down bowls in front of people (all but Maxini), and started picking up paper plates and 'real' plates and all the utensils and errata, to carry back over. Lee then dumped the whole thing (including the tray) down into a slightly larger 'sorting' slot that he opened up in the counter top). Then he picked up the large five-gallon thing of ice cream (significantly less full now) and opened up the fridge to shove it back insidd (putting it back in the 'normal' 'just cold' freezer inside of it).
"It's just…" Dipper glanced over at Blue (who had his back to them, but was probably still listening in as he worked). "With what happened to our own Stan and Ford, and Blue being your Bill Cipher…" He shrank a little in his seat. "I mean, I probably shouldn't be assuming…"
"Hey, you can just ask," Lee told him, closing the fridge and coming back to sit down himself with his own retrieved container of peanut butter ice cream and several more spoons, to toss into the basket as Ford passed around said basket of 'extra toppings' and stuff. "Blue ain't gonna bite, and I know I sure won't."
"So Blue isn't just pulling you around into other dimensions and not letting you go home?" Dillon asked him carefully.
Lee coughed. "Uh… nah. Might've maybe not known what I was getting into that one time at the start…" He grinned self-deprecatingly, thinking of his first time out. "Shit, but I got lectured half to death by the old-us'es after that time." He looked over at Ford, almost abashed.
"As long as you're not trapped or lost…" Dillon slumped in relief. It didn't seem like this other Stanley was leaving a pregnant girlfriend behind or anything, which was good.
"Nah," Lee said. "Had to check in and check out with the old-me every damn time, until I got my own 'gun made up okay enough to use on my own, without Blue here double-checking it every time first." (Lee was leaving a good bit out on that one there, but…) "Old guy practically had me writin' reports, hell." Lee let out a sigh. "Damn near had older-you grilling me over everything, too," Lee directed at Ford. "Didn't actually do it, but I know he wanted to, a couple times. Buncha worry-warts." Lee grabbed up a spoonful of ice cream and shoved it in his mouth.
"Well, I would be quite worried if anyone was off in another dimension and didn't have their own way of getting back.l," Ford started. "And yes, I know that's somewhat hypocritical since we let Miz take us over to her place, but I can trust Miz to bring us home when we ask it."
Lee nodded, shrugged, and swallowed his mouthful. "Hell, Blue don't even like the idea of me goin' out places he hasn't gone with me first. Scopes stuff out every month or two for me, sends me updates." Lee tapped his left forearm. "-I ain't one of his symbols; it's a real different thing we've got going. And yeah," Lee admitted, "I wasn't so sure about it at first. But it's all been working out okay. Don't see any reason not to keep doin' it." He took another bite of his ice cream.
It was about this point that Blue made an 'aha!' sound, the machine he was working at 'ding!'ed, and Blue messed with it for a bit, before pulling something out of it, and carrying back over two things: one plate with several cut-open sea urchins on it, and one rather special-looking cut-glass bowl that held a glistening white whipped confection inside it, with glimmers of what looked like golden honey threads all through it.
"There," said Blue, with no small satisfaction, holding out to Max a long-handled spoon. "Try that," he told the non-human cold-blooded lizard-like being with a smile. (Haha! -He was the BEST of the worst at DESSERTS ALSO!)
Max took the bowl, and the spoon, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was slightly cool at first, but then melted into a wonderful warmth in his mouth when he licked it carefully. "Oh, I thought these were meant to be made with ice?" He stuck out his long tongue and licked at it some more, getting more of it this time. "It's sweet! And warm!" He grinned. "Thank you very much." He told Blue once again, bowing his head toward the female. ("Mm," said Blue again, looking very pleased with himself, before turning away to go get his own 'dessert' concoction out of one of the settings he'd preprogrammed into the machine he'd made next.) Max also noticed the opened sea urchin on the side of the tray and put it in his mouth to suck out the insides, quite happy about the wonderful treat.
Pacifica looked back and forth between Lee and Blue. "Well," she glanced around the cosy looking kitchen, dining room and such, "How long have you two been together?"
Lee was kind of glad he hadn't had any ice cream in his mouth just then, or he woulda choked. "Uh, we're not dating. Or anything like that." (Blue eyed this Pacifica over that one, as he brought his own bowl of… Lee still didn't know what that was - just that it was green, and didn't smell like anything, and Blue liked eating it - over to the kitchen bar counter with the rest of them, retaking his seat.)
"Oh. Alright then." Pacifica accepted that easily enough. "I just thought there was some kind of theme going on here with who you invited over."
"Only once Mabel got in on it," Lee admitted. "Probably wouldn't have happened that way if Max here hadn't been with her right then. So, y'know, kinda his fault that you're here?" Lee said it a bit cheekily, with a grin, as he ate another spoonful of his ice cream.
The blonde nodded. "Well, I'm having fun. I like getting the chance to hang out with everyone." She gave Dipper a grin. He blushed and grinned back. Pacifica gave Blue another look. "I still haven't gotten the full story behind Blue yet."
"Was that a request to 'share' with a please," Blue drawled out, before taking another bite of his green stuff.
Pacifica shrugged. "Only if you feel like it. I don't really mind either way."
"I answer questions with information, not statements or demands. Ask, or don't-ask at-all," Blue said next, without missing a beat. He took another bite of his own dessert.
Pacifica raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "Ok. Please tell me why you're here with Dr. Pines?" She noticed something in the way Ford was talking, made it seem like Blue was hanging around him.
"It's my tent," Blue said. "And Lee's. This Stanford is here with me, not the other way around." Blue made a gesture with his clean spoon, before grabbing himself up another bite of his dessert.
"And where's this tent pitched? Please." Pacifica asked next.
"In a hallway of this Stanford Pines' 'Center' facility," Blue told her. "Just outside the door to his current lab space there. Accessible via that tent flap," and Blue pointed to the entrance that Ford had come in before. ("You can check outside if you want to. We'll let ya back in," was Lee's contribution to Blue's answer there.)
Pacifica nodded. "About what I figured." She turned to Ford. "Hey doc, are you ok with them here?" (Lee looked up at this.)
Ford blinked. "I'm fine, really. You don't have to worry about me." Mabel and Dipper were giving him worried looks though. Ford sighed. "It's been much easier since Lee came," he admitted.
Lee winced, 'cause he knew that one. "...That ain't a yes," Lee said slowly, sticking his spoon in his ice cream and looking over at him.
Ford looked over. "I like having you here." He told Lee. "I'm still unsure how to feel about Blue."
"Terrible," said Blue. "Try feeling terrible." (Lee shot him a look.)
"I'm rather hoping to not feel terrible." Ford told Blue. ("Yeah," said Lee, "That one doesn't super-translate real well at all," Lee said, still sending Bill a look.) "And I'm trying to figure out why it is that you want me to feel terrible about you. Or want me to dislike you. I know you mentioned that thing about not 'stealing me' away from your sister, but that's not going to happen?"
Except Lee looked up at him when he said that and… hesitated for a moment.
Then Lee looked back at Blue.
"Seriously," Lee said to Blue, and the tone was laden with several things that Ford himself didn't quite catch. Blue made an odd hand gesture, and Lee pulled a face at seeing it.
Ford sighed. "Even if I somehow, became friends with you, that doesn't mean that Miz would mean any less to me," he told Blue. "She's my friend."
"That's not-" Lee stopped. "Just… did you get to that part of the dictionary?" Lee asked Ford. "That has to be in there. The whole 'friends' thing."
"...not yet? There's a lot to go through, and they're not in alphabetical order…"
"Fifth one has the newest short-copy of the definitions pamphlet that my Stanley compiled-and-made for Llama, that he has been performing upkeep on occasionally," Blue noted. "It's in the back. Right after the last filled-in page. As an addendum. For completeness," Blue added, "Since it is auxiliary." Blue side-eyed Ford there.
"Was kinda expectin' you to just scan 'em in, if you didn't read 'em all in one night," Lee said. "Or take pictures of them, maybe." Lee knew they had some kind of handwriting recognition software for computers now, in old-man-him's dimension. He was pretty sure Dipper could do it on his laptop.
"I've been copying them down into my own journal. I learn things better from writing them down." Ford admitted. Lee let out a sigh at this, and scratched the back of his neck.
"Yeah, okay," Lee said. "-Just, trust me on this. You don't want to be friends with him. It really don't mean the same thing."
"Not the 'demon' definition of friends, no." Ford nodded, "Based on what I've deduced from interactions with Blue thus far. And my own Bill. I mean the human definition, where we'd be able to hang out and actually enjoy each other's company."
Blue let out a slight laugh at this next.
Blue looked over at this Stanford, twirling his spoon almost absently between his fingers and said, "Oh, you…" (Lee shot him a look, but Blue was already closing his mouth on what he'd been about to say there, both amused and laced with ridicule.) "HMMMMM. How can I put this… most effectively..." Blue set his spoon down with a sort of deliberacy, put his elbows on the kitchen bar counter, and laced his fingers together, then looked over at this Stanford again. (Everyone else sort of looked back and forth between the two, kinda awkwardly wondering what was coming next.)
Blue worked his tongue in his mouth, and his jaw for a moment, while looking at Ford.
And then Blue said, "I don't see you measuring up to be, as you so interestingly put it, 'worthy' of my little sister." Blue tilted his head at him slightly. "What makes you think you'd ever be 'worthy' of me?"
And Ford blinked. "I am not trying to ask you out!" He blurted out, looking almost offended.
And Blue started to laugh, just blurted out a laugh - not a 'HA", an actual human-sounding laugh - before descending down into a series of chittering-giggles.
Lee winced, almost cringed at this. "Shit, Blue-"
"-oh, oh," Blue said next, almost breathlessly, "I'm not even sure whether that's hilarious or just-funny instead," Blue noted next, looking over at this Stanford with absolute incredulity. "You practically asked Lee here to bring you on an interdimensional trip, knowing I'd be there. -How more OUT can you get?" Blue grinned at him. "So, WHAT, are you worried about the chaperone?" he said next, half-gesturing at Lee who was rubbing a hand across his face at that moment).
And then Blue descended into chittering giggles once again.
And Ford blinked slowly before turning to Lee. "I don't get what he's on about." (Lee let out a long sigh, and tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling. He wasn't sure he wanted to try and tackle this one.) Then Ford paused. "Wait, nevermind, I think I get it. And I think he doesn't quite know what I meant by 'asking out'." ("Uh," said Lee. "Yeah." That was the understatement of the century.)
And Mabel slammed her hands on the table, up and in Ford's face. "So you DO like Miz! I knew it!" and Ford flushed. (Lee winced at this, and stood up to reach forward and gently push her back down again. "No pushin' him. Period.")
"Even… if I did…" Ford said slowly. "She wouldn't…" Ford winced. "I don't know the first thing about… that kind of thing." He waved his hand vaguely. "I mean, Cathy broke up with me within just a few weeks. I clearly am not cut out for this sort of thing."
"HA. -You can't 'break up with' her," Blue said, after calming down a bit, and reaching out for his teacup. "You're her 'Hand, now. Remember? Only way to 'break up with' her, is to break her - which is NOT happening - or break YOURSELF. Which, she also would not like. So don't do that one, or I'll kill you. Either one." Blue looked over at him then. "Either one of those; you try either one, or both of those, and I'll be killing you."
Everyone looked over at Blue, and then turned back to Ford, essentially just letting Blue keep his misunderstanding for now, since a few of them were quite sure that if Blue knew what Ford was really talking about, Blue's amusement would turn into over protective anger instead.
(...Little did they know that Blue knew full well what a 'dating game' was, and that he was far-and-beyond more concerned about Ford being her 'Hand than just being some effervescent 'die-and-leave-you-in-less-than-a-century' toy fling of hers, instead. -Largely because Blue did not realize that the implications of Miz being human - in her first life, before everything else that had happened to her, that she'd had to live through - meant that she considered romantic relationships to be a stronger bond than the one she had, and would be having, with all of her own Zodiac members.)
(And yes, once Blue finally realized what his little sister's priorities actually were there, later, he became even more protective and angry than he already was.)
"The problem with this Cathy lady is that she didn't like you for you!" Mabel insisted. "But Miz clearly does. I mean," Mabel waved a hand in Blue's direction, "Apparently she's chosen you for something? In some 'non-break' way?" Dipper patted his twin's shoulder. "I don't think you're understanding the demon-speech here."
"It's fine Mabel. I don't need to-" Ford sighed. "I don't even know if what I'm feeling is really something like that. I don't know how any of this works." He was ace, he knew this. Which was why he was so unsure about how he was feeling. He didn't want any of that… sex thing. Not at all. Not even after that time with Xin in heat over the summer. Ford flushed hard at the memory. But he had thought Xin was quite beautiful. And the time he spent together with Xin, or Yun or whatever and whoever she was being, always made him... happy. But, was that 'love' or 'friendship'? Ford just didn't know. And he wasn't about to go and ruin his friendship with Miz over his own unsure potentially-romantic feelings. Better to just keep quiet and never even ask.
"Of course you don't," Blue said casually to Ford, tipping his chin into his right palm, in a bit of a relaxed, leaning posture. "You weren't paying attention in any of those other dimensions," Blue noted, as he turned his head down and back forward, and reached out with his left hand to grab up his spoon again. "And you certainly aren't using any of your limited lifespan to do any research on the topic here, now. And you call yourself a 'researcher'." Blue watched what he was doing with the spoon, as he spooned another spoonful of the green stuff up into his human-ish mouth.
"Okay," Lee said down to Blue, as he (Lee) stood up. "Pretty sure you're done for the night." (Blue hummed at him a bit, around the spoon he'd just stuck in his mouth.) "Maybe no more questions for the devil-demon right now, okay?" Lee added, dropping a hand down on top of Blue's head.
Everyone nodded. Max was staring at Dr. Pines. He… he had feelings for the Great Dragon? Max gave Ford a sympathetic look. The poor guy, no wonder he felt unworthy. Heck, Max still felt unworthy half the time when being with Mabel. She was just so wonderful and strong and beautiful. Max still didn't know why she'd chosen an ugly dull male like him. Max pulled the heated blanket a little closer around his shoulders. He knew he wasn't very pretty. His father and brother had vibrantly colorful scales and feathers, but Max had always been a dull green, with nearly black feathers. His family always told him he would never be able to find a mate, with how ugly he was. But Mabel always smiled at him and told him that she found him, in her words 'sexy as fuck'. Which Max wasn't quite sure if the translator was working right with, but he knew that she meant she found him attractive. Max glanced over at Mabel and smiled, grateful for being so lucky as to meet her.
"So!" Dillon clapped his hands, "Ah, videogames! You play?" he asked Lee, as a way to shift the topic away from all of this.
Phillip was frowning at Dr. Pines, "...isn't Miz… like… a little girl most of the time?" which had Ford coughing as he choked.
"I'm not attracted to her physically!" Ford sputtered. "A-and with Miz-" He quickly defended himself, "I feel protective! I just… she's…" Ford ran a hand through his hair multiple times, "It's not like that!"
"-That Ford is asexual," Blue drawled out (even with Lee's hand on his head), rolling his eyes and letting out a sigh. "And Lee hasn't spent enough time in 2013 to do more than see Pine Tree's laptop - which has no games on it - and walk by the arcade in town once or twice." He took another scoop of his dessert to 'nom' down on.
"-Hey," Lee protested, "We went to that Blips and Chitz once," in that one dimension. "That counts!"
Ford shuddered. "Too many flashing lights…"
"Uh." Lee looked down at him. "You, uh, didn't think it was cool?"
"It was cool at first, but there were too many people." Ford shook his head. "Too loud. Stan had fun though."
"...Y'know they've got sunglasses and hearing-reducers up at the front counter for sensitives, right?" Lee asked him next, frowning slightly.
And Ford looked rather guilty. "We… ah… didn't come in through the front…" ("Actually," Blue spoke up, "They don't have them. -Not in the ones here, anyway." That got him a stare from Lee.)
Dillon stared at him, "Did you and dad break into the place?"
Ford coughed into his hand. "We were being chased by some bounty hunters, fell off a ship, and broke through the ceiling. Well, Stan said it was a good place to hide, what with the crowd and noise." Ford looked away. "Also, he was winning a lot of games."
"I mean." Lee felt a bit nonplussed. "They are in ours, too. But that's because of the security there. Nobody's allowed to start any fights. Like, literally not allowed." He had a theory that Blue was either working with them to supply half their security, or otherwise owned all the joints. He just hadn't figured out which, yet. And the last time he'd asked, Blue had just smiled at him and asked him what his security level was again - like Blue didn't know.
Ford blinked. "That wasn't how it worked here. The only reason a gun fight didn't break out was because some rich kids were in the place and their bodyguards took out some of the bounty hunters for shooting into the crowd," which had Ford wanting to leave and make a scene of it, worried about anyone getting hurt on their account, and Stan had almost done it, before the bounty hunters were taken out, but more were seen outside the establishment, waiting for them to leave. So they'd ended up hiding out there for a while. "There was nothing stopping fights from breaking out."
"I did say that I didn't like what the local broken-demon both did and didn't-do with the place to you, didn't I?" Blue said, his words floating up to Lee next, as he finished his last bite of his dessert. "Mm. I think I did, yes. I distinctly remember doing that thing." Lee stared down at the demon whose head was currently under his hand. ...Well, shit.
"That's seriously messed up," Lee said slowly (both to Ford and to the devil-demon).
"Some one did mess up here, yes, I do agree on that here," the demon said next, then slowly stood up. "I've downloaded everything I found so far to your," Blue pointed at Lee's left forearm. "You might want to spend some time looking through more than just the 'executive summary'." (Lee stared at the demon, then nodded firmly. Damn right he would. He hadn't done it yet, but it wasn't like he hadn't been planning on reading the details before going anywhere out there, before now.)
"There is no… safety? Out there? Some places had security, but for the most part, anyone could just walk into a crowd and start shooting and that's just how it is." Ford sighed.
Phillip narrowed his eyes, "Yeah, that happens here on Earth too. It's not just a 'space' thing."
"Yeah…" Lee said slowly, pulling his hand back as the demon picked up his own dishes and walked off, headed for the counter to 'slot' them away for their cleaning. "That can happen a lot of places I know of, too. Just not everywhere." His eyes were tracking Blue as the demon moved around the room, and he only stopped watching the devil-demon once Blue gave him a specific hand gesture that looked like a hand wave, and shoved his way through one of the tent flaps, into the 'private' non-guest portion of the tent. Damn.
Lee turned back around to look at the humans (and one non-human) around the table. Then he looked down at his melting peanut butter ice cream, and slowly sat back down again, with a bit of a tired sigh, scratching the side of his head with a bit of a grimace.
"Are you ok? Should we… head back now? It is getting kinda late?" Dipper asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Lee said, looking up. "Dunno about-" he glanced over at Ford. "But it's-" Lee glanced over slightly and read off the local time from his glasses' display. "Could refill everybody's drinks and stuff, go sit in the pillow circle thing and talk about maybe, nicer stuff?" Lee shrugged. "Or I can get ya all back. Whatever." He glanced over at Dillon. "I got extras, if you've really only got cereal over wherever, and want somethin' else, too, ta take back with ya," Lee told him, tossing a thumb back over his shoulder at the (currently 'unlocked') display counter attached to the food cart.
"Um…" Dillon looked around. "I have class tomorrow so I should probably be heading back anyway." Phillip nodded. "Me too. Have another exam coming up." The others gave their affirmatives too.
"Okay," Lee said. He pulled out his phone with Program on it, stood up, and started checking locations. "Grab it if ya want it," he told them. "Mabel, you and Max want to go first?"
It didn't take very long for everybody to settle themselves out. Some took food with them, and some didn't. Lee found a better location to 'pop' Dipper out of that didn't involve a below-the-feet portal drop. Max was given an entire bucket full of sea urchins for him to be able to give to his siblings as a 'guest parting gift' (Blue's hand gesture and a quick message sent to Lee's glasses being just that, him unlocking and giving up more of his personal seafood supply for Lee to hand over). Max didn't leave until he bravely decided to check if Dr. Pines was really teaching him about human culture, though. Ford was more than glad to reassure him that he would.
Within five minutes, Lee and Ford were cleaning up the kitchen, dumping stuff from the kitchen bar counter into a slot in the main kitchen countertop (after which, Lee finally set the cleaning machine off to run, instead of waiting, since it was just a little bit noisy sometimes).
Lee turned the cabinet back around, got Ford's fish out of the 'paused' stove top area and into a container in the stasis-freezer for now, before turning to Ford and saying, "You good to talk about things tonight? Or do you want to wait 'til tomorrow."
"I can stick around," Ford told him. The man was leaning back on his barstool seat again. Despite everything, he was feeling pretty calm right now, mellow, even.
"Okay," said Lee. "Let's maybe get somethin' to drink and sit down." ("Sure.")
Lee got himself a lemonade; Ford got himself a large mug of hot chocolate. They both walked over to the comfortable circle of pillows and sat down.
"Ain't no good way to put this," Lee told him, leaning forward, elbows on his knees as he nursed his lemonade. "So I'm just gonna say it. -Miz has been prankin' you bad, here," Lee told him. "Demon's got everybody at the Center thinkin' you're doin' some kinda kinky sex stuff with her as Xin, and she's got everybody thinking you're boyfriends and all-" Lee thinned his lips and waved a hand, like he wished that it would all just go away.
Ford blinked. "What? What kind of kinky stuff?!" The other part of him was asking 'Wait, Xin's pretending we're boyfriends?!'
"Dunno," Lee said. "Didn't get that far into it from the interns. Some 'BDSM' stuff. Probably can look it up. But whatever she had people thinkin' was goin' on," Lee told him, "It was loud, and goin' on while you were in the same room together. Figure she was doin' some kind of illusion-warping noise junk to make it sound like some weird stuff was goin' on, or something," Lee told him consolingly, taking a sip of his lemonade.
Ford blinked and then pulled out his phone to look it up. And then he blushed. "Oh." He covered his face. "That's… probably from the time I tied Xin up with some ropes in the breakroom…"
Lee choked on his lemonade, then coughed a few times, nearly spilling his drink.
"...what?" Lee rapsed out after a bit.
"Ah, well." Ford looked away, his cheeks bright red. "So, Miz is… terrified of being bound or pulled down and such." ("Yeah, I know. You do that and she'll vaporize shit.") "But she doesn't want to be scared of it." (Lee stared at him at this.) "And she had an idea for some sort of exposure therapy to get her more used to the feelings, in a safe environment, with someone she can trust wouldn't hold her there forever." Ford shrugged. "I… erm, accidentally pinned Xin down once, I thought he was a burglar. And he told me later that he was terrified, but hadn't vaporized me on the spot," Ford ran a hand through his hair. "Which was as much a surprise to him as it was for me, learning about it."
Lee stared at him.
Then he shifted his glass to his other hand and pulled out his phone (which Ford couldn't see). Checked the status symbol on it. Put the phone away again.
"...Guess I'm sleepin' with Blue tonight," Lee said reflectively, before downing the rest of his lemonade like a really long whiskey shot. (Because if Blue hadn't been asleep already when Ford had said that, the guy probably would have been strung up by now. Or worse. He'd have to make sure that Blue didn't get away from him in the morning before he could talk the demon down. He knew how the demon felt about getting trapped places; he doubted he'd be any more chill about the idea of it when it came to Blue's little sister demon.)
Ford blinked. "Erm, anyway, so I agreed to have some sessions where I would hold him down or tie him up, to get him more… comfortable and less afraid of the feeling? So that even if someone else did that to him, he wouldn't explode them out of panic? And would be able to think coherently enough to free himself without simply killing everyone around him." Ford grimaced. (And Lee decided to just sit there and hear this one out.) "Exposure therapy is a thing." Then he paused. "I didn't realize that it looked like… that to other people." Ford covered his face again. "Xin does get rather loud when we're wrestling…" His face was burning. (He rather enjoyed those sounds Xin made, Ford had a proud satisfied feeling whenever Xin writhed under him. And Ford wasn't sure how to feel about that.)
"She shoulda just filtered out the sound. Unless she didn't want to. Which meant she knew what she was doin'," Lee noted. "Gettin' run in on because somebody heard somethin' off wouldn't be real safe." Probably get the door kicked down, instead. Lee was kinda surprised Fiddleford hadn't been all over this one. -Which probably meant that Miz had been managing that one part of it, too.
"Sounds like something she'd find funny." Ford shook that off. "But why would Xin want people to think we were dating?" He felt a small spark of hope, but if this was a prank, then Xin might have just thought it was funny? He didn't let himself get his hopes up. "Probably some anime thing, if I know them well enough by now." Ford sighed. He wasn't even upset. Because they'd been doing this for months and no one at work had treated him any different, that he knew of.
"Ford," Lee said, watching him. "You got any idea how dangerous 'dating' a demon would be? What all you'd be in for, there?"
"I-I'm not asking her out!" Ford shook his hands. "I mean, you said she was pranking me, so she's not actually wanting to…"
"...except if she starts dating you to mess with you," Lee said, "You can better believe it's gonna be my problem real quick. -Forget what Blue might say about it, I don't want her jerking you around," Lee told him, with a lot more protective anger than he wanted to admit. (This guy reminded him way too much of older Ford, except he seemed to have a hell of a lot less self-confidence, survival instinct, and paranoia than older Ford did. And missing two of those three was a really bad thing.)
Ford blinked. "I…" would Miz actually agree to date him, just to mess with him? "I don't think she would… hurt me, like that? She does care about me. I know that much."
"Yeah," Lee said, "Except when you got bullied into wearing that dress you didn't like, and didn't think you could take it off after she left either, she tried tellin' you it was your fault you couldn't read minds and that she wouldn't get after you on it. And you ain't even dating each other. -You have any idea how screwed up that junk is? I ain't even sure where to begin on that one!" Lee ran both hands through his hair.
Ford nodded. "I need to tell her that… I don't like it."
"It ain't just that," Lee said, letting out a breath. "If you don't like it, and she said 'wear it anyway', would you even keep on sayin' no?" Or would this Ford cave, because he was too used to bullies and having someone else needing to stand up to things for him? Because Lee was starting to get an idea of maybe what this other Stan might've been doing for him, out there in other dimensions, as much as he could. Except that guy was livin' on the other side of the country now, off in New York. Not looking out for this Ford anymore. And...
Ford thought about it. "I think the problem is that I don't say 'no' with her very often. I'm…" Ford rubbed his face. "I need to be more assertive."
"Yeah, you do," Lee told him. "And stick with it. -You can't say no to a demon and make it stick, stick to it? They'll push you and push you until you break. Period. That's just what happens," Lee told him grimly. "Hell, they'll try and find a way in and around it even if you do. Most times, anyway."
Ford closed his eyes. "Miz is my friend, in the human definition of the word. I care about her. And I know she cares about me. But I will be having a talk with her about how I want our relationship to be. In case she doesn't understand what it is that I'm comfortable with or not."
Lee frowned at this.
"Really don't think you know how dangerous this is," Lee muttered, passing a hand over his face. "-Okay, look," Lee leveled with Ford, looked over at him again. "Anytime you're gonna go into a conversation with her, where you're gonna tell her 'no' to somethin'? You write it down first," Lee told him. "Make yourself a copy. Make sure you write down the reasons why. And you give a copy of that to somebody else. -Have 'em print it out, read it first, hell, I don't know," Lee told him. "But when you're done with whatever talkin' you did with her, you'd better go back to those reasons, and make sure you didn't get pushed around on any of 'em. Talk to whoever else; make sure they don't think you got your head turned around on ya."
"...demons really need that much prep-work?" Ford marvelled.
"If I thought I could give you anything workable that Miz and Blue couldn't get around if they wanted to," Lee told him firmly, "I'd be weighing you down with every 'mental influence' blocker I know about." Lee let out a sigh. "Only reason I ain't tellin' you to refuse eatin' or drinkin' anything from 'em is because Blue wouldn't do that and he wouldn't put up with that shit from his sister, pullin' that, either. Or somethin' that's too mind-bendy there," Lee noted next. "She probably won't try to push directly; Blue ain't like that, and he's pretty picky about that one with other people, too." Lee frowned down at his left forearm. "Didn't see her tryin' anything like that on me, ever since I told her 'no' this time, anyway." His bracer (now that he had one) would've told him otherwise; getting alerts and picking up on that sorta shit was different than being able to block it or not.
Lee looked up at him again. "But Blue's pretty good at talkin' people's heads around; I've seen him do it, and I've seen Miz around him. Pretty sure she can do it, too. -With us, in my dimension? It wasn't talkin' though; it was mostly just her doin' stuff and pushing, and that was it, for the stuff she wanted to do. 'My way or the highway', just without maybe killin' you over it." Except for Blue getting dragged into things, all up in arms for her, for her sake. "-And it ain't like you're gonna be tryin' to stop her from doin' it, really," Lee said to him next, leaning backwards, then falling back into the cushions behind him with a huff. "You're talkin' about tryin' to walk in and have a conversation or a discussion with her, not a negotiation." Lee could see it, the way he was looking at him all open now. Not the least bit suspicious about anything to do with Miz at all. Lee grimaced, running a hand over his face underneath his eyeglasses again. "No idea how that's gonna work," he half-groaned out.
Ford sighed. "Why does it have to be so complicated…" ("Uh, because she's a 700 billion something year old demon, and you're a human being? Ain't portal science, Ford. This shit is way harder.") He pulled out his journal. "Guess I'll have to write down what I want out of our friendship together…"
"And why. And what you don't want, and why not. And what you're gonna do too, not just what you're hoping she'll do or not do, and all the rest of it." Lee let out a sigh. (Lee had learned this stuff from old-man-him, and Blue.) "...Maybe ask Seb for some help on this one." Lee wondered if that would be enough. He wasn't cut out for this shit. He and Blue were just business partners, here. And this? This sounded like it was heading off to be even more of a mess than whatever the hell had ended up happening between Blue and older Ford, that he wasn't so sure he wanted to know about anytime soon...
Ford scribbled away in his journal. "...I just want a friend I can spend time with, do science with, and… hug… amongst other things."
"Ain't no 'just' about it," Lee muttered. "Don't forget what you don't want her to be doing to you, either. And for somebody's sake, make sure you define 'friend' with her first. Yours, and hers." Because, somebody help this poor nerd, if he and that dragon-demon weren't on the exact same page on this one...
"Right." Ford nodded. "Someone who will be on my side, won't betray me, or hurt the people I care about…"
"Hurt's too broad. That mean you stop being friends immediately if that happens, or what? -That's half an out, right there, with most demons," Lee told him next. "Betray could be not tellin' you somethin', not just stabbing you in the back directly - or the front." Lee thought for a minute. "On your side could be taken too literal. -Or go too far, if you're wrong about somethin' too, and don't know it. Hell."
"Won't kill or multilate, or torture…" Ford wrote and crossed out things, "I know there are going to be things she doesn't tell me. She's 700 billion years old. This is going to take a while…"
"Yeah, well," Lee slowly sat up. "Probably first thing you should ask for from her is time to work all this shit out with her. Like, not havin' to decide right away, not havin' to do it all in one sitting. Whether you gotta work it all out immediately, before you start tryin' to do some stuff. Penalties and things. How to fix stuff later, if it can be fixed. What you just won't put up with at all. Timelines for things. -Honestly," Lee told him, "Old-man-me knew what he was doin', when he started negotiating all that shit out with Blue. Or Blue did. Maybe both. Not really sure who was doin' more of the talkin' who into what, over most of that stuff." That agreement they had going was crazy.
Ford huffed. "I haven't even called Miz in a while… she's usually the one who initiates contact."
"Do you want to have a way to get ahold of her whenever? And have her givin' you time and attention?" Lee asked him, thinking Ford meant he was thinking about adding that one to the list for a moment there.
"...I have her number, I just… don't call or text…" Then Ford paused. "I would be a terrible boyfriend," he realized. Yet more reason why he should give up on any idea of romance. If he asked Miz, and by some miracle, she said yes, he'd be required to do more- things that he didn't think about as well as he should.
"Yeah…" Lee sighed, scratching his head. "Some stuff's easier and harder, when you l've got instant comms goin' here." Lee thought about that one for the barest of moments. "-Y'know, some folks have got signals for this stuff. Like 'I just want to chat' or 'this is a freaking emergency, pick up NOW' and stuff. Timeframes for gettin' back to each other on stuff, or they're bein' rude. Stuff like that." He'd dealt with it more in a business context, but he'd overheard Dipper and Mabel complain about it on occasion enough times now, to have started to get a handle on the 'new' versions of all that stuff, too. Wasn't just a landline that you maybe had to share anymore, or showin' up on their doorstep with your car to take 'em out places without callin' them first, just 'cause it was expected you would, whenever you had the time and got the time off so that you could. "It can take some gettin' used to." It had taken him awhile, even with- nope. Not gonna think about that.
And Ford had his face buried in his hands again. "I only call her when I want something from her! She probably thinks I'm just using her!" he gasped in realization.
"Well," said Lee. "What does she call you for right now? Not like you're actually dating; that's how most stuff goes," Lee said. "Y'know, if you're callin' because you want to talk to her, that's still wantin' something - her, payin' attention and spendin' her time listenin' to you." Though Lee was more used to thinking that was what the girl wanted, more than the guy. (And for Lee, at this point, he was used to the idea of 'giving something to get something', and he'd come to find similar ways to tie it all back to other things, too - business relationships, to more personal ones. The coin of the realm just looked pretty different there, to him.)
(Because, of the relationships that had had an impact on him the most, they were really not the greatest of examples of healthy relationships: his own twin Ford, Carla, and Blue. Followed by his ma and pa at a second tier of close impact. Mary barely made the list at third tier, along with Blue's Zodiac Stanley and Stanford right behind her, but she did.)
(...And Lee didn't realize it, but he was starting to fall into the same trap as Blue's Stanley had himself: the thought that no-one might want to be around him, just because he was him and existed and was there and alive to be him. In Lee's mind, it all tied back to something he could do, somehow. Something he could give, or promise and follow through on, or perform. Not him just… being him, and being himself, and liking or loving them all back. The thought didn't occur to him that other people might not need a reason to like him or love him and want to be around him, just as he was, even if he didn't do anything for them.)
"R-right…" Ford coughed. "Well, when she wants to talk to me, she just comes on over. We usually hang out on the weekends so she can help me with my work. And then we have a session, or cuddle? We have a deal where I give her headpats in exchange for her giving us help and favors. She usually asks for headpats in exchange for services."
Lee blinked at this.
"Okay…" Lee frowned a little. "Kinda nonstandard there, but okay." He wasn't gonna judge; hell, he'd be the last one to judge that one at all, given how touchy-feely he was. "-Shit, wait. Seb's kinda her dad actin' there, right?" Lee said as it occurred to him, and then winced. "I ain't so sure he can act as bein' on your side on this one, if he is. That ain't good, there."
"Yes? Apparently the adoption granted more 'free' favors she can give us, without needing payment?"
"Yeah, you gotta talk to the other me instead," Lee told him. "If Seb's gettin' favors, then that's a hook to begin with. -Your me's probably better at legal stuff anyway, if he's doin' business stuff, right? Best way to think about this stuff. Like the two of you are writin' a contract together, almost. Safest thing to do here, anyway."
"...should I go and meet that older Stan?" Ford wondered. "I've met the older Ford, but that's not quite the same thing."
Lee let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
"Shit, man," Lee told Ford. "Maybe let me break the news to him that his brother has been freakin' lying to him for who knows how long about getting shanghaied into a completely different dimensional set first. -Because there is no way in hell old-man-me knew about that one, believe me," Lee told him.
"...don't have to tell him about that." Ford coughed. "I can even pretend I don't know that older Ford?"
"Pretty sure that'll just make it worse," Lee said. "You see him before I do, maybe just give older Ford a chance to fess up to it, first. Old-man-me's pretty damn good at tellin' when people are lying to him, and that includes leavin' shit out. Haven't even seen Blue try it, and he'll push at anything." Lee shook his head. "Ughhh. -I am not the best person to be tellin' you all this shit," Lee told him, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Ain't never tried to teach anybody else this demonic shit before." Lee pulled his hands back to scrub them through his own hair. "Hell, I'm still learning a bunch of this stuff from Blue. And he's goin' easy on me when I get it all wrong." And Lee couldn't shake the feeling that he was probably leaving out something real important here, and just didn't know enough to tell this Ford what he needed to know.
"Ah, sorry." Ford chuckled sheepishly. "Well, as much as I'm grateful for all this…. Demonology 101, I still… don't know if all of it maps to Miz. She's not… really a normal demon… I don't think?"
"Yeah," said Lee, with a sigh. "Better just ask her, then. Girls like that stuff." And this Ford was going for some, half-relationship, half-contracted out deal sort of thing. "-I'd still do the writing that shit down first thing, though," Lee told him. "Blue taught me that one when I was…" Lee let out a breath (and even thinking about this with Blue was hard). "...trying to figure some shit out. -It ain't just for demons," Lee told Ford. "It's outta a human book on some kinda 'toxic relationships'. -Still on my reading list, I haven't read it yet. Kinda not sure that I want to," Lee grumbled out.
"...I will have to look that up too." Ford nodded. "Maybe bring that with me to show Miz, in case she doesn't realize that there's anything between us that she or I hadn't realized was… toxic." Ford had heard that term before.
"It's one of the newer ones," Lee told him, pulling out his phone. "2012, early 2013 maybe. Not any of that 1970's bullshit. Hell..." Lee worked his way through the menus, then read off the title and author to him. Then opened up the ebook and checked the index, then skipped to what looked like the right section, to make sure the technique was in there - and it was.
"Definitely not anything from back then." Ford frowned. "Very sexist, from what I know."
"Sexist from what you- what?" Lee looked up at him, thrown by the way he'd just put it. Why had he said it like he maybe wouldn't know? His twin had always read literally everything he could get his two little six-fingered hands on, and-
Then Lee stopped, and realized Blue had only set the time, month-day hours-minute-seconds for him in his glasses (and on his phone). It wasn't showing the actual year - not that it usually did back in the human dimensions, since that one was usually obvious - and... (Lee's hand drifted over to his left forearm and his bracer there…)
"Ah, a lot of how my father treated Ma. It wasn't right." Ford frowned, misunderstanding Lee's confusion.
"I. Am going to kill that demon. Figuratively." Lee said it quite calmly, after he'd used his bracer to re-set the interface to the usual other dimensions setting he used, with what all it showed him.
Ford blinked. "What?" Now he was the one confused.
"It's freaking 2018 here," Lee said, then, "-wait. What do you mean how-" Lee shook his head and cut himself off, as he thought about this Ford's age again, in relation to the year that wqs now showing up on his display, and- "Never mind. Damn demon," Lee grumbled out next, dropping his hands. Then Lee changed his mind and pinched the bridge of his nose. He swore he was gonna get a headache if-
"-I need more lemonade," Lee complained, grabbing his glass and getting up. "You want a refill?"
Ford stared. And then he kind of got the idea of what Lee was on about. "Right, this dimension is… different? Apparently, from what Miz and Seb have said on the matter, we're missing a whole generation, and moved forward in time as compared to the usual in other dimensions?"
"Don't know about the other generation stuff," Lee told him. "But I graduated high school in 1971, so…" Lee took his mug from him and headed back to the kitchen, still grumbling under his breath at Blue.
Ford shrugged. "I graduated in the 90s?" He was also pulling up a list of signs for toxic relationships. All take and no give. Well, that didn't apply, they always did things for each other. Feeling drained instead of feeling happy. Nope, Ford always felt comfortable and happy with Miz. The only exceptions were whenever she got it into her head that something would be 'funny'. Hm… a half point? What's next, lack of trust? Ford paused. "...right now, I'm the one who isn't trusting her..." Hostile atmosphere, no, Miz never made him feel scared or unsafe, quite the opposite. Blue on the other hand, yes. Ashton even confirmed that Blue was toxic. Constant judgment… Ford wasn't sure about this one. Persistent unreliability. Oh, Ford was the unreliable one, wasn't he? Narcissism? Did that count? Miz did like to look pretty...
Then Ford paused at the next one. Loaded with negative energy. Well, Weirdness wasn't a negative charge. Nor a positive charge. It was a neutral type of wave form that could shift into any other quite chaotically-
Lack of communication. Ford winced and scrolled on. Disrespect. Ah… was making him wear dresses a sign of disrespect? Avoidance, er… Ford wasn't sure. Insufficient support. Ah, Ford knew he wasn't able to protect her. He sighed. Yet more points to tell him that he wouldn't be good boyfriend material. Control issues, he wasn't sure… Miz was rather insistent on making him eat and sleep. Was that a bad thing? Self-betrayal of oneself to please others… ah… yes. Ford sighed. He had wanted to get along with Blue for her sake, and he shouldn't be doing that.
"You're frownin' like your cat almost died," Lee noted, as he came back over and passed him his mug. "What's goin' on." Lee sat down closer and almost next to him this time.
"I've found some points in the toxic relationship list. And most of these seem to be on my side." Constant challenges? Yes. Feelings of unworthiness? Yes. Packed with uncertainty? ….yes.
"Lemme see?" Lee asked. Ford handed his phone over.
Lee stared at it for a minute, scrolling.
Then he handed it back and said, "Fill it out for Seb and Wanda, and Stan and whoever. Tell me how those couples rate with each other on hhere, too."
Ford blinked. Then went over the list again. "...they also hit a few points here and there."
"Same ones or different ones?" Lee asked him, as he took a sip of his refilled lemonade.
"Different. Some of them are the same, but mostly different ones."
"Any more than you do?"
"Not that I can see, based on what I know of their marriages."
Lee nodded. "Any of your points seem worse on you, or uh, Miz I guess, than theirs do?" Lee was used to rating pros and cons on business deals and relationships by now. He believed that the same kind of thing transferred over somewhat as well. (...Largely because Blue had been the one to try and help him out with the aftermath of Lee's brother basically dumping him like trash at the side of the road over the course of the summer, after graduation. And Lee still felt stupid for not seeing it as it happened, let alone seeing it coming.)
"She's controlling with making me eat and sleep. And pulling me along for adventures."
"...Pretty sure the old-us'es do that for each other, and I don't think they're toxic, or whatever," Lee noted, after some thought. "Pretty sure anybody who meets ya is gonna want you eating and sleeping right. Don't think you're gettin' outta that one." Lee took a gulp of his lemonade (while trying not to think about whether or not his own twin was eating and sleeping right himself).
"I can't support her. And I don't communicate with her enough. I feel like I can't do anything right, but that's only started happening since Blue got here and started criticizing me. Miz generally praises me and reassures me whenever I'm feeling down on myself..." Ford looked away. "Which, could be a lie, if demons really just say things like that to try and manipulate people, which my Bill used to do. But…" Ford tightened his hold on his phone. "I know Miz isn't like that. She actually believes in me. And likes me." (Lee looked at him, not really sure what Ford wanted him to say here.) Ford looked down at his hands. "...there's a part here about lack of trust. If I go off assuming the worst of her, on someone else's words, that's just another point against me." And Ford took a deep breath. Miz was kind. He knew that. He… wasn't going to keep second guessing himself.
"Now that one, I can tell ya about," Lee said to him. "Blue does a lot better when somebody's giving him trust, too. Not so sure he 'deserves' it," Lee told him, "But I do trust him on a lot of stuff. And a lot of times? I'm pretty sure he actually doesn't want me to. Because he just ain't used to it. -He ain't like other demons that way," Lee told him. "And I don't know about Miz, but that pout thing she does…" Lee shook his head. "Old-man-me didn't give in, but he seemed to call her out on stuff a lot, and he didn't call her a liar on that one."
Ford chuckled. "Trust is… a difficult thing. But… I do trust Miz. Even if Blue keeps telling me that I'm going to betray her. Blue doesn't know me. He doesn't get to decide what I do."
Lee let out a snort. "Damn right he doesn't. -Fill that one out for Blue and you, next."
"Over half the list." Ford deadpanned. Then he thought about it and said, "Gonna check for Blue and Miz…" which… brought a worried frown to his face. "...they tick a lot of boxes too."
"Not surprised at all." Lee took another sip of his drink. "Wanna know how many of those he hits with me?"
"...a lot?" Ford guessed.
Lee let out a chuckle.
And then Lee told him, "None." At the stare he got from Ford ("Really?!"), Lee waved it off with a half-smile and said, "Well, almost none. Some of those, it's up and down. -Which ones do you think that we're hitting?" Lee asked him, taking another sip of his lemonade.
"...I couldn't begin to figure that out, I don't know you all that well." Ford sighed.
Lee nodded, then gestured for the phone again. Ford handed it over. "Lies by omission, maybe?" Ford asked.
"Not when he can help it," Lee said, as he took the phone from him. "Older-Ford burned him real bad on that one. Real bad." Lee frowned. "Unless you're talkin' the whole 'oh no, he didn't dump a trillion years of junk in my brain and melt it' thing he always falls back on when he guesses shit wrong on what to tell ya first, instead of thirty-seventh," Lee told Ford with a huff of laughter.
Lee looked it over for awhile, then said, "Feeling drained instead of feeling happy is kinda iffy. Depends on what we're doing. Sometimes I just want to kick him over a fence." Lee sighed. "But that's usually 'cause we're tryin' to do something, one of us, and don't have the time or patience to be handling shit with the other one of us right that hot minute there, out in front of other people." Lee frowned. "If it's just us… I guess it goes more towards happy over time, longer we're away from all the other bastards who are out there, tryin' to mess with everybody, including us." Lee shrugged. "Lack of trust is- yeah, well, we're workin' on that. More like he wants to be able to trust me, but I don't know half the shit I need to know to keep stuff secret for him. All that 'operational security' stuff." Not yet. "Same thing with him on my priorities."
Lee continued looking over the list. "Uncertainty's kinda the same way there; Blue thinks tossing information at people's heads fixes that, so he's been doin' that with me. Usually works, sorta. He asks stuff, I answer it too. Control issues... -Not on me, just on other things. I ain't one of his symbols, there; it's different for me." Lee shifted in place. "Hell, he shoves me the opposite way on self-betrayal…" Lee muttered next, then finished up and handed him back his phone with, "Constant challenges is more external, because I kinda want to keep tryin' to take things on. -Not like I couldn't retire on a heap of gold and alien tech junk right now if I wanted to," Lee shrugged off.
"Perfect relationships don't exist, huh?" Ford actually chuckled. "I know Miz isn't perfect. And neither am I." He actually felt better now. "I suppose I should be glad that there's no way Miz would ever like me back in that way. I don't know if I could be perfect."
"Blue talks about perfect like it's the plague," Lee noted. "Says perfectly-imperfect a lot, you catch him in the right mood. -Hope you're not askin' for a pep talk here," Lee told him, raising his glass, "'Cause I'm not about to tell you to try jumpin' off that tall cliff. With a dragon-demon." Lee took a large gulp of his drink.
"Oh no, falling off that cliff didn't work at all for learning to fly. And Miz hasn't tried that ever since."
Lee nearly choked on his drink again. When he was done making sure he hadn't just tried to learn how to breathe lemonade, he told this Ford, "Okay, I am pretty sure that is not how you're supposed to do trust falls." (And yeah, he had overhead that thing with Soos there that one day on that Shack employee 'retreat' lesson thing he was doing there down at the lake that one time. So sue him.)
"...if it helps any, I was in a vessel of a dragon at the time, my real body was safe in a hotel room, and Miz thought that the fall would make me use my wings."
Lee looked at him level on. ("It didn't even hurt." Ford added quickly.)
Then Lee pointed to his face and said, "This? Is me not sayin' to jump off of more cliffs with demons again." He let out a sigh. "I am putting up all the warning signs and tape on the edge of that cliff there, okay? That's all." Lee reached for his lemonade again.
"Yes. I told Miz I wasn't going to do any cliff jumping ever again. And we haven't."
Okay. This was a thing. "I meant literally and metaphorically, ya big nerd," Lee rolled his eyes at this.
"Oh. Yes." Ford coughed. "Well, at the very least, I can trust that Miz wouldn't allow me to get killed from any of our stunts together." He looked down at his phone again. "I'll show her this list, see how things go, I'm sure she'll understand if it's spelled out like this."
"Hey, you do you," Lee said, "And good luck with that." Might've sounded sarcastic from anybody else, as he clapped a hand to Ford's shoulder, but he actually meant it. (Not like he wanted this Ford to go off getting himself murdered by an angry dragon-demon.) He glanced over at the clock readout on his glasses' display again. "Hell, we're gonna have to talk other dimensions tomorrow. It's gettin' late." Lee grimaced. "Probably need to read through it more anyway, way Blue was talkin' at me earlier there."
"Right. I should take my leave." Ford smiled. "It was very nice spending time with you, Lee."
"Heh, you too, ya big lug," Lee said. "Your family seems pretty nice, too. -Now come get the rest of yer groceries and chili and junk outta my stasis-freezer before you go. I don't need you forgetting all your stuff here again," Lee teased him with a smile, as he stood up.
Ford went to get his stuff (which Lee helped him package up in a few bags for easier carrying) and gave Lee a softer smile. "Really though, it's very nice to spend time with you."
"Yeah, well," Lee shrugged, not too sure what to do with that, and feeling slightly uncomfortable about it because of that. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm probably here all week?" Lee tried next, shifting in place. "Uh... don't let anything eat you on the way home, okay?" Lee gave him a light sideways punch to his shoulder and told him, as Lee walked him out.
Ford chuckled and waved as he left. "Good night, Lee."
"Night, Ford," Lee said, and he was glad the guy wasn't looking at his face as he walked out, because a couple seconds later he realized what he'd just done.
"...shit." Lee ran a hand over his face. Damnit, he hated himself for all this.
...Except he also didn't. Damnit, crazy devil-demon, bringing him here. Havin' him stickin' around all these nicer Fords. -He was tryin' not to be suffocating here, okay?
'Can I adopt you?'
Damnit. -Damnit. He knew better. He wasn't doin' this again.
Lee stomped off across the guest area and ducked under the tent flap into their private spaces. And Lee told himself it was fine, as long as he didn't get too attached or nothin'. Didn't try and show him up on anything. -The stuff in the kitchen was different; Ford had no idea how much of it he'd done himself. He could keep it that way.
He stormed into his bedroom and- Blue was already curled up, asleep on the bed. Not the floor, over in that area that he sometimes took. (Except not so much anymore, because-)
Lee tried not to hate himself so much for being so touchy-feely, as he climbed into his bed with Blue there, and Lee wrapped himself around him. Did the thumb at Blue's temple a few times, to make sure he didn't wake up.
Hell, Blue had even gone 'male' on him here before fallin' asleep. Damn demon, knowin' he was gonna have a rough night. ...'Cause he'd been the one mostly pushin' things with that Ford there, out in the other room.
Lee let out a breath, waved a hand, and dimmed the light a bit further in the room. Crazy devil-demon. Blue always knew he stopped questioning it so much, a lot more quickly, when he did this in male instead of female form on him, here.
Couldn't even let him hate himself for it right, let alone the demon.
Lee closed his eyes, shifted in place a little bit, felt the demon relax in his arms a bit, too - at being just that little bit warmer with Lee lying there next to him, some kinda space heater he was. And Lee was out like a light, not a half-minute after.
Mabel had called Miz the next morning. And Miz had said she would start a new blog soon, and give Mabel the link once she did. And then Ford had called about wanting to talk to her. Miz sighed. "...is Lee still mad at me?" she asked quietly. Ford blinked. "Ah…" He was pulling on his shoes for heading out. "I… can ask?" He was about to hang up, but then paused and asked, "How've you been?"
Miz blinked in surprise. Ford didn't usually ask her that. "I'm… fine. Kinda… feeling down. I have a session with Linda later today."
Ford furrowed his brows. "Are you alright?" Miz's response was a noncommittal sound. "Well, I hope you feel better soon?"
"...yeah…" (Ford wasn't sure what that tone Miz used meant.)
"Well… I'm… going to ask Lee if… if he's still mad. I guess…" Ford said lamely before telling Miz, "See you later, maybe?"
"...sure…" and then the call was cut and Ford sighed. Well, time to go ask Lee if he was still mad? Ford headed out to the kitchen, where Soos was making breakfast.
"Morning Dr. Dude!" Soos grinned, flipping up a pancake. "Here's some Sooscakes!" The man chuckled. Ford smiled, Soos was such a positive person.
"Thank you." Ford ate quickly before wiping his mouth, thanking Soos again, and placed the plates in the sink. He headed out to the Center, noting some construction happening around the lobby and hallways.
"Morning Dr. Pines," one of the people working on some kind of scanner-type thing waved at him. Ford recognized him as one of the mechanics from Fiddleford's section.
"Ah, good morning," Ford nodded, heading back on in. He was going to check on his readings first and then see if Lee was awake.
Lee was blearily sitting down with some fried eggs, sausage, hot meatloaf and brown gravy, and a large glass of orange juice at the kitchen bar counter - not hooking a barstool over with his heel, he used the verbal interface instead, he was not feeling that coordinated yet this morning - when the 'guest waiting' screen popped up in his vision from his glasses' feed, showing him the local Ford standing out by the entrance.
Lee let out a huff of breath that did double-duty as a sigh, and gave the authorization for him to get the greeting and be able to come on in.
Ford came in and paused. "Are you alright? Am I too early?"
"Yeah," Lee grunted, still in the clothes from the night before (he hadn't bothered to change out of them before bed, and he hadn't showered yet this morning). "Nah." He shook his head, trying to wake himself up. "You want somethin' to eat, for breakfast?" Lee took a big gulp of his orange juice first, deciding to wait for his response first before thinking about getting back up.
"I had breakfast already." Ford stood a little awkwardly in the entranceway.
"Yeah, okay." Lee scratched at one cheek, as he set the glass down and picked up a fork. "You mind if I eat in front of ya? ...And why are you standin' way over there?" Lee asked next, blinking.
"Don't mind at all. I… could come back later? If you're not awake enough for a guest?" Ford wondered aloud. "We were up pretty late last night."
"It's fine," Lee told him, waving him over. "Gonna take a nap again before I do the food cart thing. Just waitin' on my tea here." He didn't really think about it, just gestured it over from the far kitchen counter to set itself down next to him with a light thump. (He downed the rest of his orange juice, then poured himself a little tea in the same glass, swirled it around and downed that, too - with a grimace - then actually poured himself a full glass of the stuff to take a good mouthful of it down.)
"Motion activated, nice." Ford sat down on another stool. "I saw some bars that were set up like that in the multiverse."
"Huh? -Oh, yeah." It took Lee a moment, as he put down his glass again. "More of the whole gesture thing plus thought thing combined. Too easy for it to misread, if you don't do it that way." Lee started in on more of his breakfast.
Ford ended up chatting about some of the bars he and his Stan had been to. It was a mostly one-sided conversation - Lee listening and nodding along as Ford went - but Lee felt like it was kinda nice, and after awhile he relaxed a bit from the chatter. "-nd then I punched the chair." Ford said sheepishly.
"Ow," said Lee, as he took his last bite of his meal.
"Yeah, but he had plenty of padding. And I was drunk, it was bound to happen." Ford shook his head with a chuckle. "Stan was so proud of me."
"Think I should start hidin' the beer from you, maybe," Lee noted, with a raised eyebrow, as he drank a bit more of his tea.
"I'm not very into alcohol, to be honest. Bit of a light weight." Ford scratched the side of his head. Unlike Stan and Shermie who could chug it down like sailors.
"Can kinda see why, from that story. Makes sense," Lee noted, sitting back with his glass of tea easily on the barstool. "So…" Lee looked down at his tea. "What do ya need?"
And Ford blinked, then chuckled. "Right, I almost forgot." He'd been having too much fun. "I called Miz today, and um… she wanted to know if you were still mad at her?" He said sheepishly.
And Lee stopped, closed his eyes for a minute, and breathed in, and breathed out.
And when Lee reopened his eyes, he said, without looking at Ford, "Well, that didn't take long. -She ask, or you offered to ask?" Lee asked him next, before taking another sip of his tea.
"Well, she asked me if you were mad, and I said I didn't know. I… don't even know what went down between you two." Ford sighed. "I think she's afraid to ask you herself."
Lee set down his glass. "You can tell her that I'm more mad that she sent somebody else as her… message carrier," Lee settled on (rather than use the term 'puppet', in deference to who he was talking to here), "Than her coming to ask me herself. And if she tries this indirect shit with me again, she won't be liking what I do next," Lee said rather firmly.
"...I will do so." Ford sighed.
"Freaking demons." Lee took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, barely held back the frustrated sigh. It was way too early for this shit. "Don't even get me started on Blue this morning. -He's in self-timeout," Lee told him, "'Cause he ain't actually sure he can be around either of you two right now without blowin' shit up or yellin' like a… y'know." Lee waved off. (And it had been more exhausting watching Blue decide that, storming around and yelling and shit, than if he'd had to actually do any real defending of Ford, like he'd been psyching himself up to do for a good half-hour already that morning before Blue had finally woken up himself.)
"Well." Ford blinked. "Ah… that's… a thing." He looked down at his hands. "I'm sorry for what I might have done to set Blue off, yet again."
"The whole, tying his sister up thing, and her asking you to do it," Lee told him. "Basically, practice at 'capturing' her better, for maybe not-so-nice stuff after that."
"...oh." Ford winced. "That isn't what we do it for… and Miz made it very clear that no magic or binding circles were allowed anywhere near her."
"Yeah," Lee said. "That ain't how Blue looks at things. Ain't so much about intent, as what could be, with him." Especially on this kinda stuff.
"...I can see where he's coming from." Ford sighed, rubbing at his eyes under his glasses. "Sorry you had to go through that." He'd thought Blue already knew about it, from when he'd told him right before they'd done that training session together, and, ah...
"Better me than you," Lee told him, tapping the tabletop and letting everything on it sink down into it - except his teapot and his glass of tea, which he reached out and caught. "Not like I had to do much of anything but watch this time." Which was weird; Blue usually completely exploded at shit when he was male. (He was female again, and hopefully sleeping it off - or about to make a good attempt at trying to sleep it off, pretty soon.)
"Well, Miz is going to see her therapist again today. I should tell her what you said, so she could ask about it, if she doesn't understand." Ford typed in a text message, making a note to send it once he was out of the tent.
"S'fine with me." Lee shrugged off. "Need anything else?" he asked Ford, as he took another sip of his tea.
"Not really, aside from just spending time with you, if you don't mind me being here?"
Lee blinked at him. "Uh. Wasn't really planning on sleeping out here," Lee let him know. "I won't exactly be good company. Pretty sure I might even snore." Or not. Blue never complained, but Carla had.
"Oh, right. So I should come back later?" Ford blinked. "Though, I brought the demon dictionaries with me today. So I wouldn't mind just being nearby as you napped? Unless that's super weird and creepy, and if so I'm sorry for suggesting it…" Ford stuttered.
"Nah, it's fine," Lee told him. "I just... usually don't nap out here is all." Mostly because the guest area was usually left open for guests to come in, invited or otherwise, and most of the visitors that he and Blue expected to get when they were outbound (and selling stuff, or travelling in general) tended to be the kind of folks that they… well. Didn't exactly trust enough to be asleep around. This place was kind of different, though. And Lee doubted anybody else here (besides him and Blue) could break into the guest area on them, if they tried.
It only took Lee a moment, after getting up and walking his way over with his tea, to command his teapot and glass to hover in place where he set them both down to the side in the air. And another couple moments, to bring up his personal interface and use his bracer to do a structured lockdown on the entrance (not that it was necessary to keep more people out, but good habits were good habits). Another few moments to then reconfigure the pillow area a bit, into a larger sunken-in area with a couple couches and armchairs instead, and small tables nearby, and then...
Lee plucked his teapot and glass out of the air and walked his way (only three steps) down to one of the couches. He finished the glass, put it and the teapot down nearby (along with his glasses, after he'd set an alarm on them and 'tapped' them 'offline, locked-access' first). Lee then grabbed up a pillow from the couch to toss onto the table (at the end where he was planning on lying his feet) before running the self-cleaning command on his boots (again) and lying down on the couch with his head down on the pillow that was on the other side. -He shoved his hand down at the back of the couch cushions, and pulled a hidden blanket up and out, to grumble a bit and yawn as he curled up under it. (Lee was out like a light within moments.)
Ford was pulling out the dictionary - specifically, the one that apparently went over 'friendship' in demon terms. He sat down nearby, reading quietly. Hm… that, is a pretty fucked up definition of friends. Yes, Ford was quite sure he and Miz were going with the human definition, but he was going to have to ask Miz for sure.
Miz sat down with Linda. She'd gotten Ford's reply text and had felt miserable all over again for messing up yet again. Why was she so stupid? Linda could see the mood as she came in, after knocking on the door, as was polite. Even if there was a running joke of demons coming into Linda's office without knocking, Miz supposed it was rather rude to do so.
So Linda had asked her what was wrong and everything came spilling out. And in between telling Linda about how bad she felt for making Lee mad twice over, Miz let slip that she didn't like her brother being around her human family, because he made them upset.
"-ut I can't tell him to leave! What kind of sister tells her brother to go away because he makes everyone else uncomfortable?!" Miz wailed, feeling like a despicable person. "He's my brother!" She huddled on her couch.
Linda had to hide a sympathetic wince. "Well. Have you explained how you feel to him?" Miz shook her head.
Linda sat a little closer, having moved to sit beside the girl. Linda had realized Miz needed physical comfort. But it had taken Miz a little while to trust Linda enough for that. Miz wasn't going to accept hugs from her, but she did curl a hand around Linda's sleeve.
"Why haven't you told him how you feel?" Linda asked gently, not accusatory at all. She'd been reading up on it. Children needed people to not sound angry. She'd also been reading up on some other things, because of certain things she had noticed and was still seeing in Miz.
"I don't want brother to think I don't want him around," Miz said quietly. "And he's being harsh on my family because I'm too stupid to think about security and safety on my own…"
Linda twitched. "You're not stupid."
But Miz just shook her head. "I always do dumb things, because I can't think for myself! I just let things go, and then other people get hurt and its my fault." She trembled. "And I just keep making people mad at me. And hate me. Like Lee."
"I'm sure they don't hate you." Linda didn't know the boy in question, but in demon terms, hate meant 'try to kill'. Then Linda paused. No, she shouldn't be trying to use too many demon terms in here. "Well, you said this Lee boy is mad because you used someone else to ask your question, which means you just have to go in person."
Miz winced. "What if he tries to shoot me? Then brother would have to beat him up."
Linda twitched again. "I don't think that'll happen."
It took her a while of quiet back and forth to really understand everything. And at some point they'd slipped into another topic. "Would brother be better off if he hadn't met me?"
Linda held back a flinch. "What makes you say that?" she asked, instead of outright telling Miz that she shouldn't ever think that. She wasn't here to tell Miz what or how to think. But that… quiet, broken edge to Miz's voice when she asked that, was worrying.
"...all I do is cause problems for him." Miz admitted. "I was so happy to have a brother again, I never thought about how terrible of a sister I am."
"You're not." Linda sighed. "Don't you have Zach and Zoe as well? Do they think you're a terrible sister?"
"They're five." Miz deadpanned. "I give them ice cream and I'm a goddamn saint."
Linda sighed again. "Well, Blue accepted you as a sister."
"He didn't know how stupid I am." ("You're not stupid. Please don't say that. It's a self reinforcing negative remark, and it's unhealthy.")
"...when he gets Liam back, he wouldn't need me anymore." Miz stated plainly. She didn't sound upset by this at all. The relief in her tone made Linda shudder.
"That's not-" Linda was very worried now.
Linda sighed. Then she brought out a few stacks of paper. "Hey, Miz? Can we take a break and you can fill out a few questions? And then, I have some paper. I heard you do origami? Do you want to teach me?"
Miz looked a little confused, but she slowly nodded. She took the papers from Linda and kneeled beside the coffee table in Linda's office to begin reading them over. The therapist took this time to go check on her cabinet for the plain printer paper. Miz was frowning at some of the questions. But she dutifully circled her answers anyway.
[I find myself comfortable doing things the same way, rather than seek alternatives.] Miz winced. Yeah, a lot of her problems stemmed from that. She got used to something and didn't even think to change it, even when she probably should.
[I am uncomfortable in large social gatherings.] Well, yeah. Miz didn't mind performing in front of a large crowd. But having to be social with them? No way.
[I obsess over small details.] That was another toss up. She went full extreme in both directions. Depended on the situation really. She could go all into the nitty gritty or just ignore something completely.
[I am instinct driven and often react spontaneously.] Miz groaned. She was working on that, ok?! She worked her way through the papers, wondering what sort of personality quiz this was. She wondered if she would get Penguin, like that animal quiz she took on her blog.
Heh, penguins were cute. Miz ended up doodling some penguins along the page, then added more animals and even some people. She got pretty into it, making a little comic down the sides of the paper. She'd finished answering the questions anyway, so it was fine to doodle. She didn't notice her tail popping out to wag lazily behind her, distracted as she was.
Even her earlier melancholy was forgotten for a while as she drew. Beside her, Linda watched and waited, not wanting to interrupt her. And when Miz finally remembered that Linda was there, and probably waiting on her, Miz quickly handed the stack of paper over. "Sorry."
"It's no problem at all." Linda smiled. "Your drawings are lovely." (Miz shrugged noncommittally at that.) "How are you feeling?" Linda prompted.
Miz shrugged again. "A little better. I guess. I got distracted."
"Distractions are sometimes a good way to cope, as long as you're not doing it all the time," Linda told her. "Everyone needs to let off steam or put aside stuff that can't deal with, right that second," she added. "Just as long as you don't deny those feelings and handle them once you're more prepared."
"...what if I'm never prepared?"
"Well, sometimes we'll still need to confront the things anyway. But you don't have to push yourself."
Miz just sighed. "I don't know if I can confront my brother."
"Are you afraid of him?"
"No!" Miz shook her head. "That's not it… but… I'm not… I know I don't measure up to his standards. I'm not smart enough. I'm…" Miz hugged herself. "...lazy. And complacent. And I keep relying on my powers for everything, instead of actually finding another solution for stuff." Miz lowered her head. "And he's so patient with me. I can't go off telling him to go away! That's like slapping him in the face after everything he's done for me."
"...And what has he done for you?"
"Loved me, despite how inferior I am." because brother was so cool and smart and knew what he wanted, and then got it. He was so confident, and assertive, and he didn't fall to pieces over other people's opinions of him. He was the best of the worst and he reveled in it. And Miz… just wanted people to like her. Which was stupid. What did it matter what other people thought? It shouldn't matter. But she still wanted… people to like her.
...and she'd been dumb enough to allow people to use her for that. So, how was she not stupid? The dumbest Knowledge Pillar ever! Because she wasn't the Bill Cipher that was supposed to be here. She was a mistake. Miz started tearing up.
Linda winced. "Miz, tell me what you're thinking right now."
So Miz did. And Linda sighed. "I'm not qualified for demon matters. I have no idea what pillars are. But..." Linda very slowly placed her hand on Miz"s head. When the girl didn't flinch or push her off, Linda let her hand rest there. "You're not a mistake."
"I am." Miz corrected. "I shouldn't exist."
Linda flinched. "Don't say that. Who told you something so awful?"
"Plenty of people. And it's true." ("It's not.") "But all I ever do is fuck things up." ("That's not true. You make mistakes. Everyone does.") "I'm 700 billion years old! I should know this shit by now!"
"It's not about age, it's about your life experiences." Linda explained. "What have you been doing for those 700 billion years?"
Miz was quiet for a long time. "Getting my powers under control. Learning how stuff worked. Watching people." She hugged herself tighter. "And somehow still being unable to understand them."
"I'm a therapist, and I can't understand people half the time," Linda deadpanned. Miz finally glanced up at her.
"But isn't that your job?" Like how Miz was meant to be Master of the Mind, but still didn't really understand anything at all. Sometimes she got it, could know someone well enough to manipulate them by pulling their strings and get them dancing to her tune. But that required a full scan of the person. And… Miz hadn't done that sort of thing here. Hadn't done that sort of thing to anyone here.
She could, it'd be easy. If she wanted to get in, not even that metal plate would stop her for long. There were so many ways to get around it. Miz had practiced it, not liking the way certain things made her Sight blurry. So she'd practiced, for years and years, until she could slip in, until she could interpret those blurs and translate them into proper information. A simple metal plate wouldn't keep her out. And she'd even managed to figure out how to use her abilities while sealed with anti-magic and under an anti-weirdness barrier. She could even do what her brother did and craft the technology needed to do the same with pure science. And it had taken her many more years of tinkering to teach herself how to do that. And she could have just learned it off the many scientists in the multiverse, and she had. But she hadn't liked the way their machines looked and worked, so she'd built them herself, modifying the entire blueprint to be something she thought was nicer. And she just stupidly never used it.
But what did any of that matter?
Miz still couldn't do anything as basic as talk to a person without pissing them off. She jumped when she was jolted out of her thoughts by Linda calling her name.
"-iz!" Linda called again, wanting to wave a hand in front of Miz's face. She'd been telling Miz all about her own misadventures and miscommunications only to realize the girl was lost in thought. It appeared to be a common occurrence, if Miz got to thinking. Linda wasn't sure yet if this was a problem or not.
She saw the girl blink back to the present and sighed. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"You couldn't afford it." Miz answered absently. Then, more coherent, "Sorry, I didn't mean to ignore you."
"It's alright, I'm not angry." Linda smiled at her. "Are you alright, Miz?"
"...I'm fine."
"Considering what this session is about, I am not going to push you into telling me." Linda gave Miz a smile and she returned it faintly. "Is there anything else you want to talk about?" Linda asked, Miz seemed pretty quiet, less energetic than usual. "Are you tired?" Linda ended up asking.
Miz shrugged yet again. "Kinda tired?" She curled her tail around herself. "Kinda itchy?" She admitted. "But not the internal itchy? I don't feel like tearing myself open," (Linda gave a worried look at that.) "I just feel kinda tired and uncomfortable…"
Linda frowned at that. "I heard from your parents that you don't have an appetite either. Are you coming down with something?"
"...shouldn't be possible for me to get sick." Miz mumbled. "But I have left this vessel around for over half a year without dispersing it…" She scratched at her arm. "Not used to having a vessel long term like this. So… I don't know if I'm sick or not?"
"That… is very worrying." Linda said honestly. "Would dispersing your vessel help?"
Miz shrugged. "I don't really want to? I finally got it fixed up and all comfortable." She paused. "Well, internally comfortable. Currently I feel kinda meh."
"Well, I definitely don't have any experience with dealing with this sort of thing. So all I can ask is for you to take care of yourself. Get some rest?" Linda said. "Would that… help?"
Miz shrugged. "I kinda want to take a shower." Miz admitted. "I like showers. They feel nice."
Linda smiled weakly. "Ah, well, there you go." She paused. "Perhaps a shower and some rest. Don't push yourself or do anything too strenuous? I don't know how a demon dragon works, I probably shouldn't be trying…" Miz actually let out a short laugh at that.
"It's fine, Miss Linda." Miz scratched at her arm again. "Um… are we done for today?"
"...yes, it's about time. I guess we don't have time for origami today." Linda gave Miz a gentle look. "See you next week? Or earlier if something comes up."
Miz nodded. "Thank you, Miss Linda."
"Look, Miz," Linda spoke up before Miz could teleport away. "You're not a mistake. There are a lot of people who love you. If you still feel like this, let them know, because they care about you. And they'll be there for you."
"...Kay…" Miz said quietly.
"Miz, I need you to say, 'I am awesome'." The demon gave her an incredulous look. "I'm not joking. Come on, repeat after me, I am awesome."
"...I'm awesome?" Miz sort of questioned.
Linda chuckled. "Very good! Say it again with me: I am awesome."
"...I am awesome." Miz said, still rather weirded out by this.
Linda smiled brightly. "Very good. Can I get another one?"
"I am awesome." Miz wiggled in place.
Linda nodded. "That's a very good start. Now, just keep saying that, as many times as you'll need. Until you start believing it. And chase away those negative thoughts."
Miz looked uncomfortable. "Even if it's lying?"
Linda gave Miz a stern look, "It might feel like lying at first, but it's not a lie. You are awesome. You're creative and talented. You know Sebastian sends me photos of your art. They're very beautiful." (Miz blushed at that, looking away and wiggling.) "Come on now, I am awesome."
Miz sighed. "I am awesome."
"Very good, you're doing very well. This sort of thing is hard. And I'm proud of you for being able to say it. One more time, I am awesome."
Miz wiggled some more. "I am awesome." ("Very good.") "I am awesome." Linda smiled at how Miz didn't need prompting that time. She praised the girl again. And so they kept at it, up until the last seconds of their scheduled time. Eventually, Miz was a little more comfortable with saying it, even if she didn't really get it. But she was smiling faintly, so Linda considered that a good sign, and a very good start.
"Whenever you start feeling down on yourself, no matter how small. I want you to try to stop for a moment, and remember to repeat that to yourself. Ok? It's ok not to get it at first, this can be really hard to do. I can ask your parents to help. So they can help you practice at home."
Miz nodded, looking away. "I'll try?"
Linda petted her lightly on the head. "Even just trying is very good." And then Miz was gone, and Linda let herself slump onto her couch.
"I'm so worried," Linda said to her empty office.
Seb and Wanda were rather worried by the text Linda sent them, since Miz had said she was fine with Linda telling her 'parents' all about their talks if she felt a need to. (Wanda was at work and Seb was at home.)
Sebastian just winced. "...figures she's like me." He still had to deal with negative thoughts sometimes. But he'd gotten better. And now he would help Miz get better too.
"...I'm home," Miz called out quietly as she stood in the doorway, slipping her shoes off. She didn't really use the door, just teleported right in. But she did make an effort to stand there for a moment before 'entering'. Seb gave her a smile.
"Welcome home." Seb opened his arms. "Do you want a hug?"
Miz snorted, but went up to wrap her arms around Seb anyway. "You are the best at hugs." Seb told her.
Miz looked up with a bit of a suspicious look. "Are you going to be complimenting me for all sorts of little things to try and build my self confidence?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes!" Seb declared. Miz rolled her eyes. "You don't need to," she said, a little uncomfortable with the idea. That was so embarrassing. "Oh yes I do." Seb grinned, ruffling her hair. "Come on, say it with me, I'm the best at hugs!"
Miz rolled her eyes. "I'm the best at hugs." Sebastian patted her head.
"Look, I know this'll feel kinda weird at first. But I did something similar. Though mine was 'write something good' on my wrist. I say yours is more fun since I get to interact with you." He booped Miz's nose. The dragon giggled a little.
Miz gave Sebastian another hug and then pulled away. "Well, I'm gonna go take a shower." Before heading upstairs.
"And you're the best at clean!" Sebastian called up after her. "Come on, I am the best at clean!"
"That doesn't even make sense!" Miz laughed. Well, Sebastian considered that a victory for him.
Lee jerked in place, and woke up a bit fuzzily when his alarm from his glasses went off (sent to his dimensional translator before he'd taken the connection 'offline', which has its own built-in time and location tracking; it was a simple enough program that Lee'd added into it for that, and the DT had directed the 'incoming translated' sound to his-ears-only, just like it did everything else). Lee pulled in a breath, winced a bit as he slowly sat up and scrubbed a hand through his hair and… yeah. Right. He'd taken his glasses off. 'Course everything looked all fuzzy and blurry.
Lee blinked and grabbed his glasses first, shoving them on and holding the side with his fingers, so the biometrics could more easily read him as him and unlock the rest of the functionality and displays, and bring the connection to some of his other stuff back 'online'. Only then did Lee reach for the teapot.
Ford looked over. "Sleep well?" he asked, closing his journal to give Lee his attention. He had a better idea of what Blue's demon definition of friendship was now. And Ford knew with certainty that Miz didn't use that same definition. She wasn't thinking anything like backstabbing or only being friends to complete a similar goal and then just dropping them afterwards.
"Better than some days, worse than a couple others," Lee noted. "I keep forgettin' to fix up the firmness on these things for a sleep mode," he said of the couch he was now sitting up on.
"Could make them automatic. Detect when someone's asleep on them, and they adjust on their own?" Ford suggested before he blinked. That sounded like a useful thing to work on.
"Yeah," Lee said, "But I gotta figure out the right setting for the whole firmness thing first. Don't really trust Blue to do it; half the time, he thinks hard stone is too soft," Lee complained, as he poured himself another cup (into his glass) from the (always warm) teapot, and downed it easily enough. "Ugh. One a' these days," Lee told him, as he set down the glass again and rubbed at the side of his head vigorously with his knuckles (trying to wake up a bit more), "I'm gonna find a tea that tastes like coffee with a tea smell instead, and then Blue ain't gonna try to complain my ears off at me when I make it and smell up the whole joint. 'Because noses'." Lee rolled his eyes at this.
Ford laughed. "He doesn't like the smell of coffee?" He knew Miz didn't mind the smell, though she didn't like the taste. Ford was able to drink it both black and sugared. He only sugared when he had time.
"Blue complains about smells, period. Which is just dumb, 'cause he could filter them out from his air supply, he just don't." It was a common (comfortable) 'beef' between them at this point: Blue would complain about noses and smelling, Lee would tell him to just filter the air, Blue would give some dumbass reason or another why he wasn't going to do that completely for everything all the time (or just not that particular time), and they'd go back and forth on it for a little bit. Was almost kind of a routine. "Also says he doesn't like the taste. Which is nuts," Lee noted, "'Cause he likes bitter things." And Blue wouldn't even try adding anything sour to it, for some reason.
"Well, Miz complains about the bitterness. She likes sweet and salty things." Which… was quite the opposite of Blue, really.
"Oh hey," Lee said, kind of sarcastically (except not really), "She's more sane than Blue. Who knew?" (Yeah, he was full of snark today. Ford had come in and said he wanted to stick around before his shower and his full pot of tea though, so… fair game that he had to listen to all of it, really?)
"Might be part of how her taste buds are set up." Ford rubbed his chin. "Apparently her triangle form tasted things differently from her dragon form and etc. So perhaps…" he wondered if Miz would want to help Dr. Wexler with her flavor experiments?
"Eh," Lee said, slowly pushing himself to his feet. "Blue's done that hat trick with sweet stuff before. Swapped 'sweet' for 'sour' with how he tastes things, just to get the stuff down. He don't like doin' that, though." Blue almost treated it like a little white lie to himself; only reason he did it at all was because he knew how to do it all one-to-one, so he could tell what it was supposed to be, after (and during).
"Well, I suppose changing out the senses could be some operational security thing, as he might confuse himself about what his input senses are."
"Got it in one," Lee told him, tossing a finger gun his way, while staring down at the teapot and glass on the table. "I need a shower," Lee told him next.
"Don't let me stop you." Ford chuckled. He knew that he and his brothers needed bathing often.
"Heh, yeah." Lee smiled, then picked up his teapot and glass. "You can stick around here if you want," Lee told him next. "Display counter's still unlocked, if you want anything, and the fridge and stuff in here are always open," at least to his side of stuff.
"I can make you lunch? Test out my growing cooking skills."
"Uh, if you want?" Lee blinked. "I was just gonna grab a meatloaf sandwich again, but if you want a second opinion…?"
"I'm thinking potato latkes." Ford smiled. "Like the ones Ma makes." He looked around, "Do you have a cloth I could use for squeezing the liquid out? And a grater?"
"Gimmie a minute." Lee walked his stuff over to slot it into the kitchen counter for cleaning, then used the counter menu to 'flip' two machines up, one of which Ford recognized as the all-purpose 'cutter' from before.
Lee took a moment to flip the displays to English, put it on 'test/trainer' mode, and brought up the right set of settings on each.
"You can use this one to grate stuff, like last time," Lee tossed a thumb at the machine Ford recognized. "And this one can do juicing, or squeezing, or whatever pressurized filtration separation junk you want."
"Thank you." Ford went to wash his hands.
"Sure," Lee shrugged off, before sniffing himself (woof, yeah he needed that shower), and walking off for the tent flap back into the private areas for his shower. With actual hot water. Because he could. "Have fun."
"Smell better soon~" Ford teased.
"Heh," Lee grinned, his mood already a bit better as he ducked under and into the other side of the tent.
Ford hummed to himself quite cheerfully as he peeled the potatoes.
Miz sighed as she stepped into the shower. Something about the warm water always felt so soothing. She scrubbed at herself with some of that nice soap. The smell didn't really penetrate her skin, and she didn't bother to use too much, would be a waste. It was as she brushed her hair back that she noticed her antlers were out. Oh, and her tail too. Miz lifted it up to scrub too. She grimaced a little because the itchy feeling got worse. She scratched at her tail, but that didn't seem to help. She scrubbed at her head, seeing if maybe that was the issue. She was itchy all over, and wasn't quite sure what it was caused by.
It took Miz more time that she'd have liked, to realize she was in her dragon form, rubbing her head against the wall of the shower stall. The water felt nice, making her feel more slippery? Miz groaned and twisted around in the shower, scraping herself against the walls and ceiling, the ceiling seemed to actually help. It was rougher than the tiled walls. So Miz rubbed herself against the ceiling, grinding her face and snout against it.
Ah~ sweet relief~ Miz purred, scratching her itchy head against the ceiling. There was a pulling sensation. She blinked and rubbed her head against the ceiling again. There it was, a pulling sensation. Like as if something was tugging at her skin?
She was confused by the feeling, but it felt… right? She rubbed herself more insistently against the ceiling and the pulling sensation escalated into a tearing feeling. "Shit!" Miz looked up at the ceiling. Did she break the ceiling? No, it looked fine. Though some of the rugged texture appeared to have been ground down. Miz raised a black hand to scratch at her head some more and felt… something? Some kind of semi-hard, thin material along her face?
Miz prodded at it. It was stuck to her face. Well, it also felt uncomfortable, so she pulled at it, trying to get it off. Some of it peeled off, but then it started to hurt a little. "Ouch…" Miz ducked her head back under the shower spray. What the heck was stuck on her?! She leaned her head out from behind the curtains and looked at the fogged up mirror. She wiped the condensation off and got a good look at herself.
Downstairs, Seb jumped as he heard Miz scream. He nearly tripped over his feet as he rushed upstairs. "Miz?! Miz! Are you okay?!" Seb knocked on the door. There was a thumping sound, clearly audible over the running water. "Miz? Do… do you need me to come in?" Seb asked. There was a distressed whine. "Ok, I'm coming in." Seb turned the doorknob, realized it wasn't locked, huh, should probably tell Miz to actually lock the door in the future- wait, no, not right now. Seb shook that off and opened the door.
He could hear the shower still running, and there was steam everywhere. He waved it away and saw a large shadow behind the curtain. "Miz?" he walked up. "I'm going to open the curtain now?" There was no protest, so Seb steeled himself, and pulled it aside.
...um...
Miz was in her dragon form, curled up under the spray of water. But then Seb noticed the peeling flaps of...
"Are you SHEDDING?!" Seb gasped. Miz whimpered again. "I'm hideous!" she wailed. Seb's mouth twitched. He had to work very hard not to laugh. He puffed his cheeks to contain his laughter and calmly took a deep breath. If he laughed, he'd make Miz upset. So instead, he kneeled down to pat Miz's large head. "Do you need help getting it off?"
"...yes…" Miz whined.
So Sebastian carefully helped her pull at the torn edges around her head and peel it back. The warm water seemed to help, making it come off more smoothly.
"It's so weird and gross, I love it...Why are you shedding?" Seb grinned.
"...I'm a professional…" Miz grumbled, twitching as her skin got caught along her antlers and Seb had to hold onto them to give a more careful tug. "This vessel is a real-ass dragon." Even if it was heavily modified to suit her Weird needs.
Seb actually laughed this time. "So dragons shed. That's pretty cool. Wait, shit, is this gold?!" Seb stared down at the pieces he managed to take off. It had torn in a few places, so it wasn't a smooth all in one piece sheet. The antlers really got in the way. But once Seb got past them, Miz was able to just slither out while he held the edges of her old skin, turning it inside-out as she went. It… kinda made Seb think of a snake. But that wasn't the issue here. Sebastian held the large old skin in his hands. The shiny golden color… the faint lines of where her bricks had been… "Seriously, is this gold?"
"It's not 24k if that's what you're asking." Miz grumbled, twisting her long neck around to groom herself, feeling much better to finally get that thing off. "There's carbon mixed in."
Seb's eye widened. He felt the old skin, pulled on it a little to test the thickness and strength of it holding together. "You mean… this is carbon fiber gold?!" All the ones he'd seen had a lot more carbon mixed in, so it had darker textures of carbon. But this was a lovely shiny golden color… and the feeling of it was like a thin leather? Wait, no, like snakeskin, but thicker and...
"...can I keep this?" Seb asked. Miz shrugged. "Sure? I'm just glad it's off. I feel so much better."
Seb was grinning at the skin. He could use it as material for a super fancy suit! Obviously, for himself. No one deserved to wear gold more than him~
Miz was turning off the water now, shaking herself (spraying water at her other brother, making him shriek like a baby), before slithering out of the tub. "I'm hungry." Miz not-quite demanded. Seb laughed. "I'm glad you're feeling better." Miz huffed. "I want fish." Seb petted her large head. "Alright. Gimme a few." He folded up the skin and left the bathroom, followed by Miz as she floated lazily through the air. Seb looked over. "...are you gonna go back to human form?"
"Naw. Don't feel like it." Miz slithered through the air, didn't feel like going back to gravity at the moment. Seb laughed. "Alright, so does that mean I don't have to cook the fish?" he teased. Miz huffed. "Fiiiiish~!" Seb rolled his eye, though he was glad Miz had her appetite back. Wasn't much, but he was hoping she was feeling better.
After eating several entire grilled fishes, Sebastian was going to have to go grocery shopping later, Miz was going to pop over to Ford's lab. (She'd had a several hour long session with Linda, and after her shower, and Seb grilling fish for her, it was now close to 4pm. So that was late enough in the day to be okay to see Fordsie now, right?) She was looking forward to seeing his face when she popped in on him, and when she teleported over there-
-That wasn't what she was expecting! She squeaked, and then she nearly bounced, a little. It didn't hurt, like hitting against the side of a bouncy castle, and a sort of fizz against her skin as-
-instead of being 'bounced away' a little, she was 'slowed down' but then went through - she felt enveloped by something almost like water for a second, as she 'splashed' into and was then 'submerged' by the field, as she 'landed'. Oh right, brother put more anti-portal-ish things around, now that he wasn't sleeping in here anymore. She wiggled, slipping into Ford's lab with a squeak. The anti-magic bracer around her one antler tingled a little. Well, Miz huffed as she landed on the ground in a heap, at least her ways of getting around the barrier without 'magic' or 'weirdness' still worked. It was all about shifting her own energy form around until it 'looked' just like the barrier itself. The spell would assume she was part of it. But it still felt super uncomfortable, so once she was inside, she relied on the anti-magic bracer and just let her energy shift back to normal. And right now-
Miz blinked as she looked around. Wait… the unicorn barrier was… not in the lab? What was… oh. She Saw the streams around the room were being diverted around and outward again, not just around the lab but also where the tent was? Well, that explained why she'd bounced, almost. Miz shook her head, her tendrils wiggling up before settling down. And brother's own barrier had almost pushed her out since she'd 'felt' like the unicorn one. But her surprise had made her energy slip back to 'normal' enough to be recognized by her brother's barrier and let through. Cool.
Miz walked around Ford's lab. Where was he? Her little claws made clicking sounds as she went. "Fordsie?" she called out, twisting her long neck around to look behind the machines. Oh wait… he was… in the tent? Miz could 'See' him going in, hours before. But she couldn't 'See' inside it. Boo~
Miz slipped out of Ford's lab, looking back and forth down the hall. (Huh. Looks like everyone else was busy in their own labs. Well, works for her.) Miz trotted over to the tent, though her steps slowed and became more hesitant, the closer she got to it. Miz sat herself down in front of the tent, wiggling her tail back and forth. She raised her hand, then lowered it. Then looked away with a huff. (Come on Miz, you can do this. Wait, should she bring a gift? But she didn't know what Lee would like? Urgh…) Miz shook her head and raised her hand again, giving the tent pole a very light, hesitant knock.
Inside the tent, Lee saw the guest alert in his glasses' display and frowned a bit. Then he sighed, finished wiping the front of the display counter for the cart down, and told Ford - who was sitting in the now couch-filled 'center circle' area again, once Lee had been back from his shower to let him in again - "Miz is here. Think she's looking for you."
Ford perked up. "Oh!" He closed his journal. "Right, I did tell her I wanted to talk today about…" Ford paused. "Stuff." He looked a little down. "I… hope she doesn't get offended."
"Oh no, not stuff," Lee deadpanned. "How will the dragon-demon ever survive your terrible nerdy lists and things." He tossed the towel over his shoulder and walked over to Ford.
"She's surprisingly delicate. But I'm sure, if I try hard enough, I won't bore her with my nerdy lists." Ford managed a chuckle.
"Or," Lee said. "You could just bore her with your nerdy lists and not worry so much about trying," Lee clapped a hand down on his shoulder, "'Cause either a girl likes ya, or she don't. -Don't go lyin' to demons, Ford," Lee said, gently pushing him by the back towards the entrance. "They don't like it. Yeah? Same goes for girls, too."
"R-right." Ford nodded.
"Besides," Lee told him, as he turned away and started walking back towards the kitchen, "She gets an offended problem, I'm right here to maybe make her see things a little differently." He raised his left arm and changed the settings on the guest-permissions list. "If you need to duck and run," Lee told him, "Just back right up and come back in here real quick. I've got you on auto-entry now, but she ain't."
"...Is there a way to ask 'you haven't been messing with my mind or lying to me about how you care about me because you're a demon, not a human and I might be misreading all the affection you show me' in a way that isn't offensive?" Ford asked hesitantly.
"Uh, yeah?" said Lee. (Ford gave him a hopeful look.) "Pretty sure how you just said it should work just fine," Lee waved off, on his way back to the kitchen area. ("Alright then.")
Ford walked over to the tent flap and opened it. He blinked as he had to look up instead of down like usual. "Oh. Dragon form today?" Her Miz dragon form was much smaller than Xin. She was still quite long, though, perfectly capable of wrapping herself around Ford completely if she so chose.
(And back in the tent, Lee walked up to the side of the kitchen bar and shoved his hand into the hidden space in the side of it, to pull out what looked like a large net gun. And while Ford was saying his 'oh' hello to Miz, Lee checked the settings on the gun, then shouldered it and grabbed one of the stools, to drag it back over and set himself up on it not a few feet off to the side of the tent entrance flap, while commanding the video and audio feeds to come up for him to watch what was going on. He was at his impromptu 'command post' before Miz responded with...)
Miz ducked her head. "Um, yeah. Ah… is… is Lee here? I kinda… need to apologize to him first… if… he's willing to talk to me…"
Ford blinked. "Well, he's here. I… don't think I'm supposed to pass on messages for you, sorry."
Miz nodded, "Yeah, I got that from your text." She was sitting down, curled around herself somewhat. "How do I ask someone if they want to talk, if I can't talk to them?" she wondered aloud.
Ford blinked. "I suppose you could leave a note?"
"Tried that, he didn't like it. So I stopped."
(Lee let out a long sigh, and opened up the - heavily filtered - comm line.)
"You wantin' to talk to me, or to Ford here?" they both heard Lee's voice say, as if he was standing just inside the tent.
"...both? Is that bad? Should I come back another time for separate talkings?" Miz's tendrils raised up along the side of her head.
"You sure you want Ford here for this?" said Lee's voice again. "Could look pretty bad on you."
"...well, I'm supposed to be telling Ford how awful I am a-and why he ha-has every right to not want to be my friend anymore…" Miz's voice wavered a little. "T-that's what this is about, isn't it?" Ford spending all this time in the tent with Lee. And Lee being mad at her.
"What? No, that's not what this is about!" Ford tried to reassure her.
(Lee clenched his jaw a bit - was she seriously playin' Ford off'a him? Right from the start? Really - pulled out his phone and double-checked something against Program, and then, after typing a few things into his bracer...)
"Get in here," they both heard Lee say curtly. "Don't feel like havin' to do this out in the hallway." (For multiple reasons.)
Miz ducked down and slid into the tent, Ford closed it behind her.
The first thing she saw was a sunken-in central area that had pillows, that looked like it almost wanted to be a shared nest. There was a semicircle of couches and armchairs surrounding it (facing a kitchen area that was farther back against a far wall), with seating that ended up largely on the same level as the large pillow almost-nest.
The second thing she saw was that she couldn't See anything inside the tent very easily, it all looked… fuzzy to her somehow. And it wasn't static; it shifted like TV static instead - randomly, as far as she could tell at first glance. It would be much harder to get around, since she couldn't just shift herself to match it, with it changing so randomly like this.
The third thing she saw, after turning her head, looking around, was Lee, sitting on a barstool to her left, in her blindspot, with a big gun sitting across his knees with a net attached to it. (It was pointed mostly off to the side, and partially down towards the ground.)
Miz sighed. Oh. Here we go. She was going to get shot at some point. Probably. At least it was a net, which shouldn't kill her, though the idea of being netted down was actually scarier.
Except Lee didn't do that. He just waited until he was sure she knew that he knew that she'd seen him, then Lee half-slid, half stepped off of the barstool, letting the gun shift (in a left-handed one-handed hold) to being pointed loosely directly down towards the ground. Then Lee grabbed up the stool by its seat (with his other hand), picking it up, and then walked forward and past her, leaving his back to her as he walked the stool back over to a sort of bar area with stools under it, where there was an open area that looked like a missing barstool should fit.
"Go ahead and grab a pillow or twelve over there," Lee told her over his shoulder, as he finished sliding the barstool back under the bar counter there.
Miz sat, tail curled around herself. "Um…" then she picked up a few pillows and held them out to Lee. Did he want some pillows to put on the counter? Ford came up beside her, worried about why she thought he didn't want to be friends anymore.
Lee glanced at the view his glasses were giving him (of what was going on behind him), and sighed. He turned around slightly. "To sit on. Just, sit down if you want to. Or whatever." (Lee wasn't exactly pleased with the 'I'm a non-human' signalling she was putting off here; not like he didn't already know that, but he wasn't so sure how this Ford was gonna handle the difference in the dragon-demon's self-presentation here, yet.)
Miz blinked, pulled her hand back, with the pillows. Then she clicked over to the couch and curled up on top of the pillows. She kept glancing over at Lee and then down at her feet, then back at Lee again. Ford could see the way her tail curled nervously. "Um… are you ok?" she asked Lee quietly.
"I'm fine," Lee said, as he shoved the large gun… into the side of the kitchen bar? (Where it shouldn't fit? Because that I-beam arrangement was not that wide? Ford stared at this. He'd been sitting at that end next to Lee and Blue the night before. What...) "Just got one question for ya, here."
"Um… ok?" Miz braced herself.
And Lee turned around and leaned against the kitchen bar counter and asked her, "Are you gonna tell me what you want? Or are you just wantin' to keep on tryin' to play games here, wastin' everyone's time."
"...I wanted to be friends… the human kind… I… thought we were friends… I guess I was wrong…" Miz said quietly. (Lee gave her a level look over this one.) "...I was excited to see you again. I was worried. Wanted to go over and see you more, but brother said I wasn't supposed to go into his Set until that 'Ford was off and away. 'Cause he didn't want me anywhere near that 'Ford…" She was babbling now, not sure what Lee wanted her to say and just trying to get her thoughts out. "But all I ever do is mess up and upset people and I still don't know what I'm doing wrong half the time and-" Ford reached over to pat at her snout.
"Miz, calm down, you're… ah, going to tear the pillows." Ford pointed out. Miz looked down and winced. "Sorry." She let go of them.
Lee listened to all this.
And then Lee said, "So, just so I'm understandin' you correctly here…" He gave her a long, even look, as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "When I was talkin' about not wantin' to talk about stuff with Carla at Seb's place, you speakin' up and talkin' about it, is something you think friends do?"
Miz flinched. "...I thought I should clear up a misunderstanding…"
"Yeah? And why did you want to do that?"
"I don't like non-funny misunderstandings…"
"Uh huh." (That was a non-answer; she wasn't getting into her actual 'why's here.) Lee considered her. (Nah. Never good to hammer a demon on something like that. He'd just go with his usual, starting direct track for now.) "So, what you're tellin' me is that you want to 'clear up misunderstandings' for things that you think are bein' misunderstood, more than you want to be friends with me. Am I gettin' that right?"
Miz winced. "When you put it like that, I think I understand why I made you upset…" She pawed at the pillow in front of her. "I didn't… think about it that way before…"
Lee watched her for awhile. (That wasn't an actual apology, human or demon. The hell was she trying to do here, anyway?)
"What were you thinkin' was the misunderstanding, anyway," Lee asked her next, arms still crossed.
"...that…" Miz looked hesitant. "...you thought the Carla here was like yours…"
"I've been to different dimensions, I know how different people can be," Lee told her. "Hell, I had the old-us'es there, right when you were. -You couldn't just ask me if you could talk with me, alone, and figure this one out, just between you and me? Askin' it like that instead? And maybe give me a chance to tell you yes, or no, or give you a different time and place for all that, instead? Give me a choice on what I want to talk or not talk about, in front of who, where and when?"
"...sorry…" Miz ducked her head down, her tendrils drooping.
"I don't care about you bein' sorry or not," Lee told her. (He could collect insincere 'sorry's until he was stone-cold dead in the ground. 'Sorry' wasn't an actual apology when it came to humans or demons, far as he was concerned. And...) "I know you're some kinda half-demon, at least. -What I want, is you not pullin' this junk on me again," Lee made clear.
And Lee continued. "I don't want you not takin' what I want into account, and just ignoring me when I tell you I don't like the shit that you're doing, to do it at me all over again. I had enough of that back in high school, when you kept castin' spells on me after gym class every day, even when I told you I didn't want you doin' it." It was one of the reasons why he was decked out with a good twelve different types of anti-magic protection gear now, wherever he went. Hell, he'd built it into several things that he always had on him, that couldn't be removed from his person very easily. (-When Blue had told him how prevalent that sort of 'messing with you' 'cast or tweak whatever they want on you' shit was out there with other demons, and then opened up that particular branch of Program's learning-tree for him, Lee had jumped on that like it had been trying to get away from him and never looked back.)
Miz wiggled her tendrils a little. "...so… no using spells on you… or talking about things without asking first? Doing stuff without thinking about what you'd want..."
"I can do my own spells," Lee told her (while fully remembering the 'but what if they're dying' junk she'd brought up to people back then - which was a good solid half of the reason why Lee then said), "And I've got Blue to 'resurrect' me if things really go that bad. I trust him to do that for me. So yeah, no spells from you. And talking about things without asking first is just a trap and a half, if you're talking 'demon' instead of 'human' there - don't think I don't know how wriggling outta contracts works for stuff with you all," Lee told her next.
"..." Miz looked a little confused.
Lee let out a breath, dropping the crossed-arms pose, to pinch the bridge of his nose. (...Seriously.)
"Wriggling outta Deals you don't like that you've made with rubes and potential puppets," Lee put a bit differently, as he dropped his hand to look over at her (unconsciously putting his hands on his hips in a pose that he wasn't meaning to be copying from Blue there). "I know how all that stuff works."
"Ok… so… I'll… be more careful. And not talk about stuff if you say 'no'..." Miz looked down at her arm, where a bracer appeared and she typed another reminder down.
Ugh, the 'no' stuff. No way he'd always be able to catch it all that quickly. But… "Guess that's a start," Lee allowed. He let out a breath. "Don't even know why you think you want to be 'friends' with me, anyway," Lee said next, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
Miz blinked at him. "Because I like you," she said, like that was obvious.
Lee rolled his eyes. "Sure," Lee said, letting that one go, as he pushed off the kitchen bar counter and moved around behind it, into the larger kitchen area. "But what're you even thinkin' you're gonna get out of it? What's 'a friend' mean to you?" Lee asked her next (absolutely deliberately), as he opened the fridge up, to pull out the lemonade jug he'd refilled only a little earlier that afternoon, after he'd gotten back with the food cart that day.
"...your company? A friend is someone I can spend time with, and we support each other. And have fun?" Miz said slowly.
"Gonna need more specifics on the 'support each other' and 'fun' there, dragon lady," Lee called out to her. He walked the jug over to the closest kitchen counter, pulled a 'hidden' tray out of one of the lower cabinet doors, and reached into one of the upper cabinets for glasses and mugs...
"...like when I'm feeling sad, I could come and talk to you, or be around you so I don't have to be sad all alone. I mean, not every time, I have other friends too… but I like having friends…"
Ford blinked. "Like how you came here to be with Seb, because your children died and you couldn't stand being at home without them?" (Miz winced, "You don't have to put it like that.") Ford blinked, then realized what he said. "Oh, sorry."
Lee glanced over his shoulder at her, "So, what, emotional support only? No runnin' around trying to help you kill your enemies?" That one was new. Usually demons were all over trying to trick - or outright ask or demand - you into that. small(Most demons were used to beings being… well, loyal to them to the death, one way or another, once they got 'em to agree on it even once.) He pulled over the hot water pot, then snagged some hot chocolate mix and teabags out of one of the pull-out drawers, shoved them on the tray, then picked the whole thing up and started walking it over.
Miz turned back to Lee. "I don't need you to kill people for me. I don't like having to kill people to begin with…"
"That ain't actually a 'yes' or a 'no'," Lee noted, as he brought the tray over and sat it down in the air in front of the couch. "-Take whatever you want to drink there. I'm havin' tea," Lee said, as he poured himself some (hot water into a mug with a tea bag). Then he sat down into the pillows on the near side of the circle to the couches with his mug, facing the semi-circle of couches himself. (At least they were past the point now where he was pretty sure he would've just had to kick her right back out again, to try and tear at the outside of the tent for awhile and get pissed that she couldn't get at him inside of it, really.)
"I can do almost anything by myself. But I need other people for emotional support. That's… all I really want," Miz confirmed. "My first friends were made because I found them, and they were fun, and I liked them. And when I offered, they agreed to be my Friends. And they're why I'm not alone anymore…" Miz reached to get a cup of tea.
"So physical support is not on the table, and the having fun part's negotiable," Lee said, "As long as you're gettin' the emotional support?"
"Pretty much?" Miz looked away. "I know asking for emotional support is a bit much. If you don't want to be friends, I'd understand…"
But at this, Lee just let out a chuckle.
"Dragon lady, forget 'a bit much', I'm pretty sure I'm crap at that stuff," Lee told her straight-out. "You're askin' me for something I ain't sure I've got in stock to be givin' you, if you know what I mean." Lee took a sip of his tea. He was smiling.
"All I'd need is to come by to just… be nearby." Miz blinked at him. "I enjoyed our time together back in high school," ("What?" Ford blinked.) "That's why I thought we could be friends to begin with."
"Uh huh," Lee said. "Well, I didn't enjoy it." He looked down at his cup. "Some of it was okay, but a lot of it wasn't. Last day or two there, I honestly thought Sixer was gonna say or do the wrong thing and die, 'cause you weren't all that happy with him."
Miz seemed to wilt. "Oh." she huffed. "I wouldn't have killed him, even if he was annoying."
"Yeah, well, I didn't know that for sure, and that honestly wasn't what I was most worried about anyway."
"...sorry?"
Lee looked up at her again. "Your brother. Blue. I was pretty sure that you'd pout one more time over some stupid thing that my brother did, and then the devil-demon was gonna lose his stack over it and murder him, because of that."
"Ah, Blue's… intense. I… don't quite know how to tell him to cool down his protectiveness." Miz looked away again.
"Don't have to anymore; he's a lot better at non-lethal now," Lee told her. Him and the old-man-him had made sure of that. "But the two of you together at once just, really don't work out well for anybody else, when you start gettin' all upset over stuff. Not sure if you noticed that one."
Miz winced. "I can't… not be upset when someone just… betrays my trust like that." Her tail curled around her again.
"Yeah, I know. And I get that. But you also could've just sat in the opposite corner of the classroom instead of tryin' to keep draping yourself all over him and me, and talkin' at him until he was so pissed off he practically burst. You could've just used the 'no', and been done with it. I could've handled stuff from there. So could Blue. Hell, so could the old-us'es." And that was only if she would have insisted that she had to keep on coming into class, instead of sending in a note to say she was sick or something, and 'stay home' at the boat instead, for the whole day…
Miz lowered her head. "I didn't know anyone else except Mary, who I'd want to sit with…" ("Could've sat with Blue.") She winced again, then sighed, "Though you're right. I should've… handled that a little better…"
"You sure could've," Lee said. "Thing is, I ain't so sure you actually would, if you ran into somethin' like that again. Blue's slow on some stuff, but he backs off and gets cautious when he realizes he ain't gettin' something right; I ain't so sure about you either way." (He'd been around Blue for several years of accumulated time now, and they'd gone and worked most of their shit out with each other over all those high-school days long-since - but Miz?) Lee downed the last of his tea, then reached forward and put the cup back on the tray. (And Lee ended up pouring out a cup for her after that, since she wasn't doing it herself - mug, teabag, and hot water there.)
"I'm… learning…" Miz looked down at her hands. "Back when I was in human school before, I… used to just crouch against the wall at lunch because I was too afraid to ask anyone if I could sit with them. And then someone finally invited me. And I just sat with them, even though I didn't know them. I didn't know how to talk with other people back in middle school…" ("...what?!" Ford was very confused by all this, Miz? Afraid to talk to people? Were they even talking about the same demon here?) "Didn't really make friends until I joined Anime club. And I got slightly better at that kinda thing in high school, but I still have trouble, unless I really push myself…" Miz looked embarrassed to admit it.
Ford sat down beside her. "You never told me about this?"
"It's never really come up? But… ah, yeah? I was human once, went to human school and everything." She turned back to Lee. "I… might be over-compensating on socializing with the few people who are kinda forced to be around me…"
(Forced. Right.) Lee let out a breath as he sat back in the pillows where he was. He looked away from her and rubbed at the back of his head.
"I ain't sayin' 'no' or 'yes' on the whole friends-with-emotional-support-benefits thing yet," Lee told her. "No kinda 'demon friends' thing goes through in just a day and goes well, and I think that you're gonna want this to go well, if we go any further on this one. -Yeah, I know, you used to be human, whatever," Lee said while looking back at her. "All I'm hearin' there is that's just gonna make things even harder to figure out with you, instead." Because she wasn't really human, and wasn't really a demon either. Which would mean starting from just about scratch with her; no assumptions.
"I'm working on it." Miz grumbled. "I want to get better…"
"Never said you weren't," Lee said. "I've just got a real low tolerance for bullshit these days," Lee informed her, "And the way you and Wanda were tag-teamin' me… for a second there, I thought she was settin' me up, or you were usin' her to do it, or somethin'," Lee told her, frowning at her next.
Miz blinked. "Ah, mom's just a lawyer, and she likes knowing stuff."
"And when she looked like she was backing off, you doubled-down," Lee told her. "Don't tell me that don't look really bad." (Lee didn't bother asking after if that had really been the case or not; at this point, he didn't really care about the 'mechanics' of it all there. Miz was the one saying she wanted to 'be friends' here, and Miz had pushed him when she should've not done it.)
"I realize that now. Didn't… notice that at the time. Sorry." Miz stuck her tongue out to lap at the tea.
Lee let out a sigh. He rubbed a hand over his face.
"You know that I can't just say 'yes' because I know you'll probably just show up outta nowhere in the middle of one of my worse trade deals, and a bunch of people might end up getting shot, right?" Lee told her next. "That ain't a prank."
"...ok. I get it…" Miz sighed.
"Nah," said Lee, "I really don't think you do. 'Cause if Blue was sittin' there, he'd be askin' about alternatives instead. Stayin' informed. When and why and how…" Lee shrugged. "You know the only reason he ain't out here right now seein' you is cause he don't want to be yellin' at you about bad security, letting people hear you doin' stuff with ropes and things with him." Lee nodded over to Ford.
Miz groaned, slumping over onto the pillows. "I'm always messing up the security stuff… sometimes I dunno why Blue still bothers with me…"
"Heh," went Lee (beginning to relax, now that the main worst stuff they'd needed to talk about was mostly out of the way and handled, for him). "Not like Blue always gets it right, either." He reached forward and poured a bit more hot water into his cup with a bit of a quirky smile (using the same old tea bag, just to see if that would get Blue storming out there in outrage over it, just because). "And he 'bothers' with you 'cause you're family, and you want him to be that." Lee shrugged, as he retrieved his teacup after that.
Then Lee glanced over Ford and said, "I've got the packets of hot cocoa mix right there, you know. Really don't gotta stand on ceremony here, unless you want me to make it up for you instead." Ford nodded and grabbed one of the packets, then poured himself a mugful of hot water.
"I do want him to be my brother. I just… don't know why he wants me," Miz mumbled. "I'm nowhere near as awesome as he is."
"He wants you because you actually give a damn about him," Lee told her, straight-up. Wasn't like that one hadn't been pretty obvious, right from the start. "Dunno about awesomeness with demons. Doubt he really cares about that anyway, until you clear that first bar. He talks about gates, sometimes. -You clear the gates, pretty sure you're golden, and you have. He talks about you a little sometimes," Lee noted.
"..." Miz sighed, lying down on the pillows. "Really?" She was a little unsure if she wanted to know.
"Not stuff specifically," Lee told her. "'Cause he's gotta be all secretive and 'operational security' and stuff. So usually it's more of an, 'oh she posted a thing! I am responding to the thing!' sort of deal-y. Gets all-smiles a lot after that." Lee had to stifle the snort.
Miz managed a smile at that. "Ah… that's… really cute of him." (Ford made a weird face at the thought of it. Blue being cute?)
"Kinda is," Lee said. "Kinda funny how not-murdery he gets, when he don't have to be around a whole lotta people who he's pretty sure all want him dead or worse, and then isn't." Lee took another sip of his tea.
Miz giggled. "Yeah, not having to smack people who are trying to shoot me while I'm grocery shopping is nice." Ford gave her a 'look', "Smack?" ("I used to do worse, but I've been a lot better at not accidentally blasting people when I get mad.")
"Yeah, kinda hard to run off when you haven't gotten your one ton pallet of dried whatsits into your folded space just yet, so you can book it," Lee noted. "Though I'm kinda wondering why somebody hasn't butted into things like they usually do by now already this ti-" Lee called out over his shoulder in a very loud voice, directed back at one of the tent flaps into the private room spaces, then winced hard and closed his left eye quickly, right eye squinting a bit.
"Heh. Shit." Lee yanked off his glasses pretty quickly, and rubbed at his eye with the base of his palm. He was grinning though.
"Is he still in self-time out, 'cause he's mad? Or is this one of those things where I need to ask him myself?" Miz asked.
"He's in self time-out until he calms down," Lee told Miz. "Has waaay more to do with him than with you. -Part of it might've been he went all male-body last night for awhile," Lee told her. "That gets him all spiky and stuff, until he goes female for long enough and settles himself all out again." Lee messed with his bracer a bit, resetting his glasses to download and store (thus, clear out) the huge information dump of crappy complaining that Blue had just dumped into it, scrolling by so quickly that it had just ended up one fairly bright blue shining unreadable blur, because of course the devil-demon had messed with those settings, too. (Not like he hadn't been expecting it. Devil-demon had done it before. He and Blue tended to trash talk each other a bit sometimes, when nothing was going to get either of them killed if they ended up even a little bit distracted.)
"Oh." Miz blinked. "...is this because of my sessions with Fordsie?"
Ford flushed and buried his head in his hands. "Yes, Miz, about that…"
"Yeah," said Lee, glancing over at Ford for a second. "Funny thing is, I thought he was gonna be a hell of a lot more pissed off about it, hearin' about it all then. So you're gonna have to wait for him to go off explaining this one." (Which, honestly, fit for both Blue and Ford at this point, hence the intentional choice of kind of fuzzy pronoun.)
"But I'm doing this so I would be able to handle myself if anyone else tried to do that kinda thing on me."
Lee shrugged at this. "Only really coherent part I got out of what Blue was all ranting about was him bein' pissed that other people could hear it. -Which is the same part I'm also kinda pissed about it on, on Ford's behalf." Lee pointed over at said Ford with his pointer finger, before getting his glasses back on, and taking another sip from his cup. "Since apparently this Ford was okay with doin' whatever, just not everybody in the whole damn place hearing about it, and knowing it was all going on."
Miz blinked. Then she glanced over at Ford's blushing face. "Aw… you want our sessions to be private?" She purred, rubbing herself over him. ("Hey.") Then she paused. "...so, does that mean you weren't gonna be telling me that you didn't want to be friends anymore?"
Ford jumped, "Of course not! What made you think I didn't want to be your friend anymore?!" Miz wiggled, "I… just kinda thought… I mean, you haven't called me except to say that we 'needed to talk'. What was I supposed to think?"
("Yeah. Think I'm gonna just let you two sort this one out. Yup." Lee got up, said, "Don't wreck the place," and strode off for the private rooms, to push his way through the tent flap, into the space over there instead. Where he knew he wouldn't be followed by either of these two.)
Ford reached up his hands to place on Miz's shoulder-ish area. "Look, I was… doing some thinking and I don't know how demon-like or human-like you are about stuff. I mean, you tend to go off and do things that I don't always agree with. It's… I mean, sometimes it's fun. But I'd prefer to get a head's up and a choice in whether I want to go along with it or not?"
Miz nodded. "Yeah, I… need to be better about that."
Ford patted her snout. "I'll remind you when you forget." ("Awwww Fordsie…" The dragon curled around Ford, making the man laugh.) "It does make me feel better, knowing what your idea of Friendship is." Ford laid his head down on Miz's neck, stroking the smooth scales. "I would love to be your emotional support."
"Oh Fordsie…" Miz purred, wrapping around him even more. She nuzzled her snout against him. "What would you like from me in return?" she asked.
Ford chuckled. "It's not all about wanting that much from you. I… also like… having you as emotional support." He did pull out his list. "Ah, there's just some things we need to go over..."
Miz blinked and looked over the list. "Toxic?"
"Y-yeah, I'm… if we're gonna be friends, I… want both of us to work to be better for each other." And they started down the list. They both wanted to be better, so that they wouldn't hurt each other. Ford had a hand along her flank, petting her softly. And Miz almost felt like… maybe she was (will be?) kinda awesome…
Maybe.
Hopefully.
...and maybe then, Ford might… like her back...
