Illusion is Reality

Chapter 131

-Bill was here-

Ford woke the next morning feeling relaxed and warm. The slowly breathing dragon wrapped around him might have something to do with it.

He looked up and saw Blue standing up, over by the couch, looking over at him as he straightened in place. That may have had something to do with his waking up. "Good morning." Ford greeted quietly, so as not to wake Miz. (Blue said nothing.) "Um… would you like to come over to hug Miz so I can get up? She gets rather distressed if someone leaves her side."

"She isn't here," Blue told him lowly, turning his head to look away from him. He crossed his arms below his chest. Miz had waited for Blue to wake before she'd asked to go back to her own 'set, just for a while. Because she still needed to go back sometimes. (Blue hadn't seen a problem with that; what he hadn't wanted was her deciding to go to his set before coming back here if she left again before he did himself.)

(While Blue had watched her leaving, he'd also propped his head up on his palm and triple-checked the settings on 'outgoing' - frowned at the 'anytime' entry Lee had put in for his sister's new-'Hand, but modified it to 'anytime forward' in time and confirmed it - and undid part of the more elaborate 'lockdown' that Lee had placed on the tent. Once that was accomplished, he'd then added his little sister to the 'anytime forward' guest entry-exit for easy reentry as well, just in case she came through the Door outside of the tent here and needed-or-wanted to get back inside directly. That was all he felt he needed to do, though. This was because the inside of the tent itself didn't block Doors from being formed, as something of an 'emergency exit' escape-hatch sort of arrangement of Blue's own. It did record those entries and exits and sent an alert at them all, though. Depending.)

"Oh." Ford looked at the sleeping dragon. "I still can't tell one way or another if she's asleep or back home." Ford slowly, carefully extracted himself. Once he was out of the nest, he gave Blue a look over.

"Could be anywhere. Just not my 'set right now." Blue still had somewhat dark bags under his eyes, but not entire bruise-like circles around them and ringing them.

"She did promise you." (Yes, she had. And if she oh-so-inconveniently 'forgot' and went there anyway, he should be able to tell at this point. As far as Blue was concerned, what he'd said had been a statement of fact.) Ford smiled softly. "...no offense, but you look terrible," Ford observed.

"I feel terrible." (And not the good kind of terrible at the moment, either.)

"Miz made you some food," Ford pointed out, in case Blue hadn't noticed them yet.

"I saw," said Blue. "Not really looking for something that will take extra effort to clean right now." (Blue was exhausted. Blowing past several of his own internal rules like that had taken a lot out of him.)

"Well, I think that bittermelon should be fine. No meat, no added salt or sugar. Just melon and chili pepper oil," Ford pointed out.

"She added a significant amount of dead emotion to it. Don't feel like handling that at all right now." (Whether she'd meant to or not.) Blue was looking downward at her a bit, then turned his gaze back over to the couch. (Blue had just gotten done getting Lee laid out across it properly, a blanket over him. The silly needy idiot hadn't curled himself around him like usual. That was unusual, these days.)

"Ah." Ford sighed. "I think she was worried about you." He glanced over. "Would you be alright with me making breakfast for you? I can understand if you don't trust me to do so." Ford walked over to the kitchen area, already used to flipping open the storage-pantry to see what ingredients he had to work with.

"Don't bother," Blue told him, kicking himself into the air, up and over the couch, to float down to the kitchen bar counter. (A stool pulled out to meet him almost. Blue touched down briefly to push off, then make a short hop to settle down on top of it.) An almost theatrical (if not for the casualness of it) gesture, and a teapot, teacup and saucer, and small covered bowl-like container floated up out of a slot that opened in the countertop, to settle down on the surface in front of the demon. A twist of a wrist, and a fork materialized in his hand, as if from nowhere. (Really, from a piece of pocket storage he kept at his wrist, along with a touch of sleight-of-hand.) "But don't let me stop you from feeding yourself." After all... "We're well-past 'standing on ceremony' at this point."

"Yes, thank you." Ford pulled out some eggs and bread, to make himself some eggs in a basket. He cracked a few eggs in a bowl with some milk to also make a batter to soak the bread in, making it some french toast hybrid (yes, mixing sweet and savory was a little odd, but Ford had eaten much worse out in space). The cinnamon and sugar weren't hard to find; he'd seen them in the 'other' cabinet that the fresh cabinet rotated around to, when he'd been getting out condiments for the ice cream just a few nights ago. He got out the pan to heat up, and pinched out the centers of the bread before dipping them into the sweetened egg mix. Some butter was smeared along the bottom of the heated pan to slick it up. He focused on cooking so he wouldn't feel awkward being alone with Blue.

Blue, for his part, flicked the lid off of his container of self-prepared salad, and got down to eating it all, with intermittent sips of tea in-between bites.

Ford let the bread cook for a while until it was slightly crispy before flipping it over and cracking an egg into the 'hole' in the middle of the slice of bread. He did this two more times to the other two slices, making three eggs in a basket altogether. Once he salted and peppered the egg in the middle, he placed a cover on the pan and turned the heat a tiny bit lower.

Blue had finished his bowl of fruit salad by this time, then got up to walk over to the display case.

He perused it, then pulled out two salad plates, and walked back to the kitchen bar counter to sit down again.

Ford looked down at the pan, trying to stay distracted so he wouldn't feel the need to fill the silence. He didn't really want to talk to Blue, not because he didn't like Blue, he rather felt bad for how terrible the demon seemed. Ford just didn't want to make him feel worse.

Blue did not seem discomfited by Ford's silence in the least. He ate the next salad plate in near-silence himself, not even looking up at his sister's "new" old/stolen-'Hand as he did it.

Since Blue didn't seem like he was going to speak to him, Ford relaxed a little, resolving to just stay quiet himself. He checked on the egg, seeing it was nearly done, and turned off the heat to let it cook in the residual for a few more moments. There was a smell of sweet cinnamon and toasted bread coming out, which had Ford salivating. He probably should have brushed his teeth before breakfast, but he was hungry, only had a potato salad the night before. He paused. He considered making some food for Lee, for when the boy woke up, but considering Lee probably had plenty of food in the stasis all around them, he decided to let it go for now. He would just ask Lee when he woke up. Ford got out a plate for himself and took the lid off, scooping his eggs in a french basket out and searching for the coffee. He blinked. "Where's the coffee located? Or would you prefer if I had tea, so as not to stink the place up with coffee smell?" he asked Blue, finally addressing him.

Blue made a gesture, and a 'wall' of sorts flickered into being for a moment between them, before seemingly fading away completely. (...To block any potential smells from reaching him if this Ford somehow managed to start making said coffee, or similar.)

"Lee keeps coffee in the underside of the hidden pocket of space in the third drawer to the right of the sink, there," Blue informed him dryly, without looking up at him. "Try and steal it from him, if you dare."

"Thank you." Ford went to go search where Blue indicated. He could have questioned him, but Ford was too half asleep for this. He needed his coffee. Frankly he was amazed he managed to cook without getting coffee in him first. Then he blinked as the rest of Blue's words finally registered. "Oh." Ford blinked. "I am too tired for this." He sighed. Well, looks like he wasn't getting any coffee until Lee woke so he could ask him. "...is there any wake-up tea here?" Ford asked Blue weakly.

"Why do you want it." Blue sipped at his own masterful blend.

"I'm not fully aware right now." Ford blinked. "Can't even talk right." He sighed. Maybe he should just wait for his body to wake up on its own?

Blue gave him a steady gaze.

"Is that why you wanted the coffee," Blue asked him over his cup.

"...yes?" Ford yawned. He did cut off a bit of his eggs in a french basket to nibble on. Food should help.

"Hm." Blue's gaze dropped to the middle-level in front of him, and he finished reviewing the security footage of the guest-room-receiving-area here, as well as the 'airlock' sections that weren't technically one of Lee's rooms.

"You'd have better luck getting some fresh from one of the coffee bean trees in Lee's garden," Blue offered up rather neutrally, looking down at his tea in his cup yet again. "If he gave you that sort of permission in there."

"I don't trust myself to get there and back without getting distracted and lost." Ford admitted. ("Sounds like a personal problem to me.") "It's fine. I can just eat my food and wait to wake up on my own."

"Oh, how 'terrible' for you," Blue said rather sarcastically, as he started in on his second salad.

"It's not that terrible." ("I do believe that that is what the sarcasm is meant to convey-and-indicate, yes.") Ford shrugged, chewing on his breakfast. "The years out behind the portal were worse. No coffee out there. Had to get used to finding substitutes, nearly poisoned myself chewing on unknown leaves."

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to pay attention, laugh, and call you an idiot?" Blue said without really any bite to it. Blue also didn't repeat it as a laughing rephrase, which Ford had rather expected as a sort of 'Yes, I think it is the part where I laugh at your stupidity and call you an idiot! HA!' Except it just stopped right there, instead.

"Stanley already did that." Ford shrugged. "He still won't let me live that down. If the subject comes up. But he also did plenty of stupid things out in space, that I will also be mercilessly teasing him for if the subject comes up, so fair's fair."

"Why would the subject come up for either of those things."

"You'd be surprised." Ford rolled his eyes. "Teasing each other mercilessly is just a way we show our love. Even if we sometimes get into fights over it. It's not meant to be serious."

Blue eyed his tea cup, as the teapot floated up, to pour, and filled it back up for him where he sat.

"Do you know," Blue said, as the pot finished and he pulled back his teacup, "I was actually almost enjoying eating in silence nearby you before. Because I wasn't having to handle and respond to all of your inane chatter." Blue lifted his cup to his lips. "What, exactly, are you trying to communicate to me here, that I don't yet know from observing you and your family here already."

"Sorry. I will just be quiet now." Ford looked back down at his food. Okay. No small talk with Blue. Got it.

"HM." (Blue would believe THAT when he saw it. Which Blue expected he wouldn't see. Probably.) Blue watched Ford for a few long moments, then got back to his viewing (of the accumulation of not-yet-viewed backlogged information from his 'suit, on his own personal 'visual' interface) and salad plate eating. (The food, not the actual paper plate.)

Ford quickly finished his food. He glanced around for a place where he could deposit his plate and utensils. He wasn't entirely certain how Lee opened up the slot(s?) in the countertops for cleaning things, but after fiddling with the holographic menus at the kitchen countertop for a few moments, he found it. He also put the bowls and pan he'd used for preparing food in there as well, for cleaning.

(With a thought that his 'cybersuit' interface picked up for him, Blue put in the commands to redirect several of the items to the proper cleaning machines once they were in - not just the single 'all-purpose' one - and the food remnants to the 'biological waste' area for the various 'right' types of composting for Lee. The holographic display that Ford was using - one-to-one connected to this - quickly flashed through the changes as he went, before going dormant for one long moment and then closing.)

Ford didn't say anything but he did give Blue a nod of acknowledgment. He also observed which items went where and kept that in mind for the future. Then, he looked over at the still sleeping Miz and Lee, pulled out his journal to tear out one of its pages and wrote a quick note for them, for when they woke. [I'm heading back to my lab to work -Ford] And he put that down on the kitchen counter, so they would see it once they woke, and went for the tent flap. Well, he wasn't supposed to talk to Blue, so he was just going to have to hope he could actually leave.

Ford ducked out through the flap and out of the tent. He sighed in relief once he realized he was standing in the hallway, the flap closed behind him. Well, time to go back to his lab and relax. At least he would, if it weren't for the fact that he needed to talk to Fiddleford about what they, the Institute and Center for Oddology, were going to do, moving forward. He was getting tired of ignoring the issues happening outside their walls, around the world.

When lunchtime rolled around, Ford was heading back to the tent, feeling rather… unsure about what Fiddleford was planning to do. He was quite sure that Blue no-changing-minds Cipher, wouldn't be happy about what Fiddleford had started building. An Emotion Gun, similar to the Memory Gun (which Fiddleford had apparently been working out the schematics for, for quite a while). But it would instead suppress emotions. Didn't erase them, just… lessened them, specifically set for a topic that could be typed in. Ford had talked with Fiddleford about how the main issue right now in America was the racism, and people lashing out to hurt others due to it. Fiddleford had come up with the idea to simply zap people and make them less afraid and angry at people of other ethnicities, to see if maybe that would help. Of course, they were going to have to do all sorts of tests, with willing subjects, and Ford was kind of… worried about this all. (The memory gun was as awful as it was useful after all.)

Ford hesitated slightly, before trying to walk into the tent. He didn't actually know what would happen if he tried to go in without an invitation that he was certain Blue could have revoked, but… (He still knocked before he went in, just to give them a heads up.)

Then Ford blinked as he took in the scene: peaceful dragon sleeping in a nest of pillows, Lee still(?) fast asleep on the couch - though maybe only lightly dozing now, given how he stirred for a moment at Ford's entry, before he grumbled and shifted before falling still again. (Lee was still wearing his glasses, and the entry alert had come up on them.)

What Ford didn't see was Blue or the food cart, display case extended or retracted. After being floored with the thought that Blue was taking over the running of said food cart (and working very hard not to wheeze hysterically at that image), Ford went over to the kitchen area to make himself lunch. He wondered if he should wake those two up? Lee must have been starving by now.

Fiddleford stormed down to the lobby, rather angry and trying not to show it too badly. (He'd just gotten done finishing up making his Emotion Gun prototype, and what happened then? He set it down for two seconds and the damn thing vaporized itself in an explosion!)

(-And all his notes and schematics for it. Every last paper copy, electronic copy, scrap piece of work on it. All of it. ...And what symbol had been burned into the countertops and file cabinet folders, and displayed on all of those screens after that vaporization of his gun, when he had checked on all of it?)

(An equilateral triangle.)

Fiddleford didn't want to assume, but he was quite sure that Blue was behind this. (He supposed he was grateful that the demon hadn't gone blastin' through his mind while he was at it. Fiddlefore could still rebuild the gun, but that would be pointless if the demon would simply destroy it again-)

So yes, Fiddleford was more than a little upset at this - not least of which because the demon had done this through the barrier and torn through their computer systems like the security wasn't even there, to boot. And as far as Fiddleford was concerned, Lee could take the damn reins up on this one to get that demon under control-

-except when Fiddleford stomped into the lunchroom around twelve-thirty-five to confront Lee on it all, it wasn't Lee manning the counter that day; it was the demon.

And Fiddleford stopped in his tracks, seeing Blue lounging there. Without a care in the world. Fiddleford hesitated, not wanting to confront the demon himself.

The demon was lounging there behind the cart, sitting up on a stool, with his elbow on the counter, chin propped up on a palm. And he looked about as bored(-ish) as Fiddleford had even seen Wendy look at her job, working the counter at the Shack. (In actuality, Blue was staring off at a bevy of his-eyes-only 'mental' projection screens surrounding him, which he'd used to surveil this local Glasses while waiting for the perfect moment… because it wasn't like Bill Cipher didn't understand the importance of timing.)

And then the demon flicked his gaze over towards him. Damn.

And Fiddleford wanted to sort of blow up on him, about the destruction of his work and such. But Fiddleford took a few deep breaths. He wasn't that stupid. He continued breathing and doing the equations for calculating Pi in his head until he was calm. Ok. Ok. Think about this logically. What were the reasons the demon would go off destroyin' his work? ...Well, considering his Memory Gun had been used to kill the local version of him, Fiddleford could sort of understand if the demon was afraid 'a the new gun Fiddleford had made. But it couldn't just be that. Fiddleford rubbed his temples. Blue was brilliant, Fiddleford knew that. And from hearin' Ford complain about how easily the demon pointed out all the flaws in their security and Ford's own experiments… and had put constraints on when and how Stanford could and could not do portal gun and portal suppression field testing to keep the entire building from blowing up… it was a possibility that Blue had found somethin' wrong with his work too and didn't want Fiddleford testin' out that prototype at all, until those flaws were fixed. That… was merely a guess, a hypothesis. The only reason Fiddleford wasn't more angry was because Blue had already done a lot for them, without really askin' for anything in return. The way the demon had done all those things had been maddening, but in the end they'd all been more helpful than hurtful. Even the explosion of the gun just now had been a full disintegration, not a bunch of shrapnel flying everywhere to hurt him or destroy anything else in his lab; it had practically been surgical. And Fiddleford was quite sure, his instincts had always been good about this sorta thing, that Blue wasn't 100% evil like their own Bill. So, he was going to give Blue the benefit of the doubt, and ask about it first, before getting explosively mad at him for it.

Once he was sufficiently calm and settled, Fiddleford made his way over to Blue.

Blue watched him, the entire way over. He only looked away for a moment, at one Center employee who wanted a cup of lemonade, which he poured for him without using his hands, with a… was that a set of cybernetic tentacles comin' down and out of the back of his shirt?

Fiddleford waited a moment, for the other employee to head off, before he stepped up himself. "What do you find so awful about my Emotion Gun that you felt the need to destroy it?" Fiddleford asked calmly. "And how do I fix it so that you wouldn't?"

Blue fixed him with his gaze. "What. Are you wanting a demonstration?" Blue drawled out at him next, head still propped up in the palm of his hand. (He hadn't shifted posture since Fiddleford had walked into the lobby; the 'tentacles' with claw-hands on the ends had been doing all of the work for him.) "Or is just an explanation enough for you, local-Glasses."

"An explanation is a start." Fiddleford nodded. "I don't want any demonstrations until everything is well checked for the safety of everyone involved."

Blue continued staring snake-eyes at him.

And then the demon lifted his other, free hand in the air, and drew two lines - horizontal, and vertical.

Fiddleford didn't even blink as the lines hovered in the air there, his finger having left glowing trails behind it. ...And then those linea slowly filled in with tick marks, and a slew of symbols at the bottom that he didn't recognize. ...A set of axes, for a graph?

"Simplistic, and not-at-all-right, but you have to start somewhere," Blue said, and then the y-axis filled up with numbers. And a 'wave' washed up from the bottom x-axis of the graph, to odd peaks and valleys - a filled-in and shaded area of blue, with a glowing waveform of a line sitting atop it.

"Let's say, for a moment, that this is how you 'feel' right now," said Blue, looking at his through and over the graph of those glowing blue lines, curves, tick marks, and symbol-glyphs. "Inaccurate, but close enough for the start of an explanation. -Are you with me so far?" Blue said almost sing-song at the end. Fiddleford nodded, not trusting himself not to respond with a snarky remark.

Blue eyed him for a moment.

"Oh no," said Blue. "Let's pretend that it's a 'good' idea to suppress some of that pesky anger right there, just because you don't like it at all for some reason."

And Blue took two fingers, and shoved down on it hard.

Except instead of actually going down, the line rocketed right up past them, beyond a level that had it turning red, black, and shading up into yellow for some reason. And the rest of the curving wavey line slithered and spiked and dipped oddly around and across the entire graph as all of that happened.

"Too difficult for you to comprehend? Let's show the replay," Blue said next, and the demon 'rewound' (and undid) what he'd done. And then straightened up a bit in place, putting his other hand forward to use his two hands to 'zoom' out the area at the bottom x-axis that encompassed 'anger' there. And when it expanded out, there were words in English below it.

Blue then pointed out one particular thing that looked to be the highest - cryptids and demons - and did the same shoving-down motion above it. And while that piece did seem to go down this time, the entire rest of the line of anger shown there surged, like displacing water from a single area would then force the levels everywhere else to then rise. But it didn't just surge by the area that had been displaced there; the shift looked almost exponential in nature.

"I think I get where you're comin' from." Fiddleford deadpanned. "So suppression would simply cause a build up into other areas, pressure, built up, possibly until it exploded."

"Yes," said Blue. "And an explosion is an uncontrolled release that otherwise would not have happened." Blue pulled his hands back from the holographic display and crossed his arms in front of himself on the cart's countertop. "Tell me; do you know what you did when you first walked over here?"

"I calmed myself down, since I was rather angry at first."

"Yes," said Blue, flicking up another (green-colored) graph for comparison with one hand, behind the blue fronted one, with spikes that were far higher than the one he'd shown Fiddleford first. "Now: how did you calm yourself down."

"Did what my therapist taught me, took a step back, breathed, thought it through, did some math to distract myself until the initial spike lessened," Fiddleford listed off.

Blue brought his hands up and laced them in front of him casually.

"You recognized your own levels and state of being," Blue restated, "Evaluated and analyzed what you wanted to manage, performed a controlled release of anger out through your breath, and gave yourself a set timer to hold onto until you'd counted yourself down to the levels you'd identified you wanted to be operating at, as part of your earlier analysis and evaluation. -THAT," Blue told him, "Is NOT SUPPRESSION. It is management, evaluation-capture and release." Blue eyed him, "Not a very effective release, there," Blue told him next. Then Blue smiled, "But I'm certainly NOT going to tell you how to do THAT any 'better'. Let alone WORSE." (Blue considered making anger useful to be rather key to his being: either you used it to make yourself more effective, or it used you and you lost out to it. And lost out to other things too, as you went.)

"Alright." Fiddleford nodded. "And what should I do now, if I remade my entire project, should I change it to 'management' as opposed to 'suppression'?"

"Management is a conscious choice," Blue told him. "Feedback, and practice then-next. Are you planning on doing this to emotion-driven humans, who then don't get to have any choice in what they are 'allowed' to feel, and then think in the ways that those altered-feelings have driven them to doing there, next." Blue was eyeing him with that snake-eyes gaze again, over his hands.

Fiddleford sighed. "I just want people ta stop hatin' and fearin' each other and then usin' that hate ta kill each other."

"That requires education, not failed and unacceptable attempts at lobotomization-internally."

"I've tried talking ta people, explain' things ta them."

"Talk is cheap. Action is everything. Find the source of their anger, and cut it off at the root by giving them what they really want-and-need. Idiot." (...Right. Of course the deal-making demon would say something like that to him there.)

"Alright, I don't have the skills to be able to find root causes." ("And I don't particularly feel like telling you how, because local-Glasses.") Fiddleford sighed. "And what if what they really want is the death of another person?"

"Then they already would have killed them," Blue told him, with a snake-eyes unblinking gaze. "There is nothing physically stopping most humans from doing any sort of attempted murder that they actually want to get done."

"...you're correct." Fiddleford sighed. "And with what's happenin' out there, not even the laws are stoppin' people," he grumbled.

"Laws don't stop people; people stop people." In Blue's experience, people either stopped themselves before they ever really got started, they were stopped by other people after they'd started, or they just weren't stopped at all, ever. It was one of the fundamental rules currently of how Blue knew things to work, in a way that was so broken it needed fixing post-haste.

"And how would I make people stop?" Fiddleford might as well see what the crazy demon thought would be a solution. "Without any killin' happening," he added quickly. Because, crazy demon.

"'Make' is the incorrect thought process for this, and I just told you that I wasn't going to tell you. Because local-Glasses," said Blue, sounding peevish.

"What about an information gun to educate people? Since they're feelin' the way they are due to needing education."

"Do you enjoy being injected with drugs through many needles?" the demon told him sweetly next. "While tied down and told 'this is for your own good'?"

"Nope. I see what you mean. We could explain to them what the process is about, so they can agree to it," Fiddleford put out there. "An educational experience, as such."

"Or you can address the root problem," the demon said (Blue feeling uncomfortably egged on here, barely keeping himself from gritting his teeth at this local-Glasses), "Since education only gets humans moving in the right direction, to solve their own problems, for less effort on your own part there-and-after. And since you don't know what that is, you're hardly going to be the one to 'educate' anyone properly, now, are you," Blue sneered out at him next.

Fiddleford narrowed his eyes. "How would I go about findin' root causes to begin helpin' to address and educate about it?"

"What part of 'I don't like you Glasses' don't you understand."

"Fine. I'll go consult with some neurologists instead." Fiddleford threw his hands in the air, rather tired of this back and forth.

"Better," said the demon, all but glaring at him over his own crossed hands at this point himself. Fiddleford didn't even give him the satisfaction of a response. He was just going to call up and talk to a bunch of people to see if they had any idea for how to do this. -Look, he was frustrated at the state of the world, and he wanted a short-cut to fix it all. Was that so bad? Apparently it was. And Fiddleford was self-aware enough to know that forcibly changing people's minds was awful. The Society of the Blind Eye was proof enough how that sort of power could go to one's head and mess them up inside.

It was about that point that Lee dragged his way into the lobby area. (...Shit. Lee was still barely awake, even after downing that 'ready meal' drink mix from one of his backup emergency flasks that he always carried on him. But he didn't have to be that awake to remember exactly how Blue felt about Fiddleford McGuckets. He powerwalked his way over to that side of the lobby, making his way around towards the back side of the display counter, though he was making sure not to walk his way over in too much of a rush. Didn't want to potentially scare or worry any of the locals, here. That might cause an even worse problem.)

Fiddleford was almost out of the lobby now, grumbling under his breath and going to the cafeteria to get something to eat. He passed Lee on his way (who slowed down to meet him, once he'd realized that Blue wasn't looking like he was going to toss anything nasty or otherwise at Fiddlenerd's back) and gave the young man a nod of acknowledgment. "I can't trust myself to talk to Blue right now. Or be near him," Fiddleford explained as he slipped through the double doors to get back into the main building.

"Yeah, okay," Lee called back to him lowly. He didn't know what had happened, but… "I'll talk with Blue."

Before he left, Fiddleford paused at the doors to look through the windows in them, back at the demon. He saw Lee get to Blue, talk to him, looking confused as he responded to whatever Blue had told him, and…

...apparently the demon's glaring response to someone thinking of 'emotion suppression' wasn't just on him. Fiddleford saw Blue go from starting to relax to looking angry all over again. (Fiddleford remembered the conversation he'd had with Lee. Guess the demon and Lee weren't on the same page for that one.) Well, no matter, Fiddleford was going to call in some experts to help him figure this out. And he turned and walked away from the doors down the hallway.

Miz eventually woke up, and was rather annoyed to find that Fordsie had escaped her nest. But at least he was there, in the kitchen and… ooh! She sat up. He was making food! Ok, that's fine. All was forgiven!

She slithered out of her temporary nest and snuggled against Ford's side. "Morning Fordsie~" Ford gave her head a pat. "Afternoon, actually." He stirred the noodles in the pan. "Did something happen? You're usually back much sooner?"

"Got distracted," Miz waved off. Gathering energy in preparation to terraform Venus by making a stop at the Island for a bit, was what she didn't say. Might as well get something like that set up in preparation for the worst-case scenarios.

Ford shrugged and went back to cooking. "...you know, I still have more things I need to know, about your boundaries," he commented. Miz stiffened. "It's fine," she told him, looking away. "No, it's not fine," Ford sighed. "Are you embarrassed by them?"

Miz's silence was more than enough to answer that. Ford turned off the heat, scooping the noodles out into a large bowl for Miz. "This is still important. I want to be a good friend." ("You're doing fine, I don't need to ask for more.") "I won't press you on this for now, but… you're going to have to tell me eventually."

Miz huffed. "Whatever," she said, unenthusiastically.

"Come on, none of that. Now eat, I'm sure you're hungry." Ford patted her head. Miz sniffed the food. ("Oooh! Stir fried ramen?") Ford chuckled as she dug into her bowl with gusto. Well, even if Ford didn't know all the things Miz needed right now, he knew enough to be able to cheer her up. At least temporarily.

(They heard a groan after a while, but they were a bit distracted with each other at the time. So they didn't quite turn around in time to call out to Lee before he got up, scrubbed a hand through his hair, then cursed under his breath - as he saw the readouts and messages Blue had left for him on his glasses' his-eyes-only display - and shoved his way up and out of the tent after the devil-demon, post-haste.)

It was several hours later when Blue tromped his way back inside the tent carrying his one stool by one of his 'prosthetic' many-drone robotic arms, with Lee following while pulling the 'put away' food cart behind him.

"-part of 'Healer of the Heart', NOT 'Emperor of Emotion', are you NOT parsing correctly, here?" Blue complained back at his business partner, as he turned towards him, and Lee walked the cart past him.

Lee just rolled his eyes. "Just highlight the tree branches with whatever the hell you've been not talkin' on, just pissed about, in front of everybody else and their dog out there, yeah?" Devil-demon could've at least shoved a couple things to his glasses' display, as an actual explanation, but he hadn't.

Blue let out a huff, as he caught up again without a word and kept walking at Lee's side, and Lee heard the odd 'ping' in his ear that he always heard when his phone and Program were updated with something.

"Thanks," Lee told the demon dryly, as he maneuvered the food cart back into position, and tilted it around and back upright.

"Hi brother. Are you feeling better?" Miz asked, back in humanoid form and sitting with Ford as she helped him out with some calculations.

"I'd 'feel better' if this idiot thought it was acceptable for me to be having emotions," Blue ground out in Lee's direction next. ("Yeah, yea- The hell?" went Lee, going from waving Blue off as overreacting, to turning back towards him to stare at him instead.) "You aren't riding hard enough on the scientists here, little sis. -Do you know how long that local-Glasses here was working on some sort of emotion suppressing gun, for actual use?"

Miz shrugged, looking a little guilty. "A few weeks, I… erm… kinda just… let them do what they want…" She shrugged. "I don't really stop them…" She frowned. "I guess I should have told him earlier it was a flawed idea, that needed more tweaking to work the way he wants it to work without messin' people up…"

Blue let out a huff of annoyance, before saying (while clearly holding back something), "I will assume that you already made-and-put countermeasures in place in case that lunatic Glasses tried to use it on YOU," Blue began, "But you do realize what would happen if he pointed it at this 'Hand of yours here, and set it to 'suppress happiness', don't you?"

Miz wiggled uncomfortably. "He wouldn't! That would go all against his 'morals' and stuff." She hugged Ford's arm. "And if he even thought about doing so, with the intent to follow through, I'd tear him apart." (Ford winced. "You don't have to, he wouldn't do that.")

"You aren't always here-always," Blue noted, as Lee pulled open the display case and unlocked the whole cart. "And he is a Glasses. -I don't put ANYTHING past THOSE idiots these days," Blue gritted out angrily. "N͈̦̫̗̬̅̋͌̉ͧͨ̃ͮ͘O̶̴̜̣̭̯̲͛̀̈́̉́ͣT̸̟̼̥̲̟̥ͧͨ͂̆͛͒̒ ̶̲͕͖͕̜͇̹̪̣ͮ̅̈̅͌̇͞A̶̡̪͇̳͕̪̖͍̐N͕̆ͫͯ͒̚͜͞Y̵̺̥̼̮̬ͧ̾ͥͣͤ̅̅͐͐͘M͍͕͕͇͈̗̘̜ͤ̍̆̉̀͢Ŏ̠̞͚͓̺̓̏ͤͨR̖̪͕̳̩̻ͥͧ͆͊E̷̡̯̯̅̉̍͊ͬ̀."

"Fiddleford wouldn't do that." Ford said firmly. "He knows better than anyone how dangerous such a thing would be." He defended his friend.

Blue rounded on him, "THIS one doesn't have a Tater WATCHING him currently, to MAKE SURE he DOESN'T-do anything STUPID that will have me MURDERING him for things-forward here-and-now on into the future here-following," Blue grumbled out next. (Blue was less-than-happy that he himself had only just caught this from inspecting the feeds in real-time this morning. And he'd only caught it while watching this local-'Hand of his sister's. He should have been keeping a better eye on that local Glasses; he hadn't been; he'd been busy...)

"...would you feel better if we got Tate or anyone else to watch over him?" Ford sighed.

Blue eyed him. And that got Ford a grumpy, "...Maybe." Blue looked away from him. "If it's Tater. Need to check the-him-that-is-here first, for that." Then Blue said, a little more loudly (and back at a normal - for him - volume, again...), "Would need to tell him not to let that local Glasses hand it off to anyone else instead, either. Because stupid cults." And Blue was off and glaring again.

Lee let out a long sigh at hearing this.

"Freaking eat something more than a couple salads and junk," Lee complained at Blue next. "You need the carbs." Especially if the devil-demon was starting to get that paranoid over a whole bunch of half-random stuff. (Lee didn't really know about the whole Society of the Blind Eye thing yet at this point.) Lee rounded the display case and shoved a plate of cookies into Blue's chest. (The demon took them, two-handed.) "Seriously." Lee tussled Blue's hair, which had the demon wincing an eye closed in place and half-complaining, before moving off and around the rest of the side of it, off into the kitchen.

"-Don't worry about it," Lee told Ford. "If it was that big a deal," Lee directed over his shoulder with a slightly raised voice, back at the demon, "Then he woulda just murdered Fiddlenerd, and he didn't. Long as he's talkin', you're good." Lee clapped his hand to Ford's shoulder, then moved past him and over to the stasis-freezer next.

Ford sighed, feeling relieved despite himself. He also put a hand on Miz's head. "And you won't have to kill Fiddleford because he would never do that to me. Or anyone else." Miz nodded slowly.

("Oh, I can think of SEVERAL-") "-Blue, just breathe for a minute, okay? He ain't the other two of 'em," (that Lee knew that Blue wanted to strangle). And after Lee cut in with that, the demon quieted. Blue still looked a bit angry, and somewhat stressed, though. "You maybe want ta tell me what you're so angry about, in the other private rooms or somethin'?" Lee nodded over at the left tent flap. ("No.") "Then maybe try and get rid of that bug up your butt. -I want to be havin' a talk with you about this 'Liam' guy," Lee said next, and Blue's shoulders came up.

Miz bit her lip, holding Ford closer. "...do you want us to leave for this talk?"

"He can send me any stuff he really doesn't want to say out loud right to my glasses," Lee told them, tapping the sides, as he finished pulling out a few more containers of cooked 'vegetable meat'. (Not the 'artificially vat-grown' junk, the actual other-dimensional plant stuff that still didn't have soul-bits in 'em or nothin', either.) "No reason that you've gotta leave. Not like it's wireless to pick up or whatever; he can just reach out and change stuff on the inside of it whenever he wants to," when he wanted to, anyway. "Should still be plenty of security, if he needs it," Lee then noted. Lee pulled out some pre-cooked rice, flipped the lids off of all three containers, and dumped half the rice into each container of veggie meat.

Blue made a sort of 'burrrr'ing noise in place, but it petered off.

And then Blue carried his (no added salt, sugar, eggs, butter, or yeast) cookies over (still half-clutching them to his chest), to sit down at the kitchen bar counter, on a stool in front of where Lee was just then.

Lee smiled, pushed the one container over to Blue, then commanded up a pot of tea and a few teacups next. And, once Blue was settled down and in, Lee grabbed a fork of his own and raised his own container, then rounded the kitchen bar counter, to hook a stool out with his foot and sit down right next to Blue on it, next. And Lee did it like he had every right to be sitting right there next to him without any worries at all. (Blue didn't contest it.)

Miz tugged on Ford and the two went to go and sit down on the couch, to almost give Lee and Blue the illusion of some privacy for their talk. Of course, Miz was totally going to listen in!

Ford blinked when Miz shifted into Xin and laid over him. Ford blushed lightly. Miz was one thing, she was cute and Ford didn't mind when she was being affectionate, but Xin… made him feel warm all over in ways he wasn't sure how to feel about. But Ford didn't dislike the feeling. (On Xin's end, he was still attempting to seduce Ford, but it didn't seem like it was working?)

"...There a reason why they're sittin' all the way over there," Lee asked as an under his breath aside to the demon next to him.

Blue didn't quite shrug. "More pillows," Blue said, before taking another bite of his food. Lee raised a hand, to sort of bury it in the demon's hair, tussle it a bit without really doing anything to it. He just sort of kept his hand there. (Blue didn't say anything to this; he was rather used to this somewhat, at this point, coming from Lee.)

They didn't talk, they just ate. (Xin was almost disappointed that he didn't get to hear anything. Whatever, he was getting headpats from Ford, which was just as good. Ford was scratching his fingers lightly along Xin's antlers, making the other man purr and arch his neck back against him. It felt really niiiiice~ Was it… bad that he was enjoying this so much?)

"Oh, could you find Trembly?" Ford asked Xin quietly, hoping that Xin being in a better mood would make him want to search for the 8 ½ president.

Xin purred steadily. "Naw, too fuzzy…" Xin said lazily, eyes closed and relaxed. "Can't see around in here, and seeing out is all blurry too." Ford blinked. Alright, there was one theory cleared up.

"Standard protocol for receiving guests who can scan the shit outta everything," Lee noted between bites of his own (more substantial) meal. He was trying to get it all down before his stomach started to complain worse by actually growling at him.

Xin hummed, too relaxed to put in the effort to try and get around Blue's protective measures… for now at least. He was kind of curious about trying to get through them after this nice head scratch was done. He had a few ideas to check out. Then Ford seemed to get tired of playing with his antlers and was rubbing around his ears and Xin was thoroughly distracted.

"Ehehehee…" Xin giggled, wiggling in Ford's lap at the almost ticklish feeling. "Ok stop, that's enough for now." Xin batted lightly at Ford's hands.

(Blue rolled his eyes at this. Lee rubbed his hand through Blue's hair a little bit, and Blue slowly settled down a bit again. And Ford wondered, did all demons have something about getting 'pet' like this?)

"...not that I don't love you being here, pampering me…" Xin twisted a little to look up at Ford. "But don't you have work?" Ford blinked. "Like, say, working with Fiddles so he doesn't build somethin' that'll just out and out suppress emotions?" Xin added with a stern look. Ford gulped and stood up, Xin rolling off his lap.

"You're right, I should make sure he's not going to actually make anything like that memory gun of his. At least give him a second, third and more opinions…" And Ford bustled out the door. (...Not that Blue said, or was going to say, anything to try and stop him.) Xin laid, draped across the couch and decided to use Ford as the focus of something he wanted to See that was outside the tent.

Time to go test if he could get around Blue's blurriness effects...

Xin formed a pair of glasses and made a thin layer of 'glass' that would unblurrify the fuzziness around here. It didn't look any better. Xin frowned and tried again, shifting out the glass again and again and again as he worked. It all looked random, but he was working on getting around to reverse-engineering that Blur effect, by looking around the room in the tent itself to focus on objects, and then changing out the calculations to take into account what he could and couldn't see. These tests and changes were done within a few seconds, in rapid succession. Xin knew he wasn't very smart, but he could just keep trying and working on it bullheadedly until he made something that worked. It was… not very efficient, but it worked.

Brute force calculations and trial-and-error ahoy!

Oh. The room didn't look blurry anymore cool! Xin squinted around. Well, that was only step one. Knowing his brother, there wasn't just a blur effect. Xin reached his gaze outside now. Whoa… Xin blinked. What he saw, happening outside the tent, was something that wouldn't look out of place in a horror movie. Ghosts and demons rampaging out and about in a completely black void. A void like that of a universe gone cold, when the stars have all died and all of the world was bleeding out into nothingness…

But looking at this existentially horrifying sight, all Xin could say was, "Huh, neat." So there was another layer here, to prevent him from actually Seeing things properly. As he suspected. Well. Xin got himself settled more comfortably and formed a new layer of glass, right over the currently working un-blur effect one. Time to start seeing about getting past this one.

A couple minutes later, and Xin was up to five layers of modified glass, frowning at the latest hurdle. Okay… things… almost looked right… almost.

And suddenly, the blurriness was back worse than ever, and a wave of something wet hit him from above, absolutely drenching him. And Xin sputtered, wiping at his face and whining loudly.

Lee let out a bit of a 'pfft!' over by the bar counter, looking over his shoulder at Xin.

"Ah," said Blue. "Four layers, and almost-maybe five and-then six. -Good job, little sis. And very-smart little Lee," Blue added next, "For thinking to swap out the usual capture-trap with something a little less… binding... before deciding to turn it all on, on the interior side here."

"Hey, I ain't stupid," Lee noted. "Pretty sure trying to hack someone else's shit while they're sitting right there is some kinda something there though." Lee sent Xin a long look over his tea. (The word Lee was looking for there was 'ballsy'.)

Xin huffed. "Just wanted to see if I could figure this out." He paused. "It's good practice." And almost fun, in a weird way.

"Practice is good," Blue noted. "Most things in here should not harm you." Blue took a sip of his own tea. "Some things here," Blue continued, "I added at only finding-and-figuring out how to do them all recently." Blue downed a bit more of his tea.

"Honestly," Lee said to Xin, "I just didn't want you copying all our shit without havin' to work for it like I did." Boy had he ever.

"I am working at it though." Xin pouted.

"Not like I'm stoppin' ya," said Lee. "I ain't needin' to help actively fight your intrusion, so I ain't," Lee said rather piously, before grinning at him.

"...so you won't be mad if I kept trying?" Xin asked, tilting his head back to look at Lee.

"Eh," Lee glanced over at Blue. "Pretty sure if you get to me or Blue needing to go head-to-head with ya to stop ya from breaking through, you get bonus points?" Lee shrugged at Xin next. That was the way Blue usually did it with him, anyway.

"Learning is important," Blue noted. "Especially operational security!"

Xin cackled, stretching himself back until his spine made a few cracking sounds. "Alright then, if I make it to ten layers, I'm gonna treat myself to some duck liver!" He clapped his hands together and started over with a new set of calculations, since everything seemed to have changed out on him.

"Ain't sure we've got that on hand," Lee noted. "But I could probably portal someplace and get some." He checked his and Blue's stores using his glasses' display. ...Yeah, he was right; he'd known they didn't have any. "Ya can't just go with somethin' like a chocolate cake?"

"Chocolaaaaaate~?" Xin purred. His pupils went wide and his tail was wagging back and forth, not like a dog's happy wag, more like a cat preparing to pounce.

"Uh," went Lee, at that particular sort of response. "Wait. You ain't supposed to be-" Uh. Oops. And when Lee then saw the look Blue was giving him now… Lee put up his hands, palms-outwards - how was he supposed to know that Xin had the chocolate problem too, when Blue didn't?! "Uhhhhh, I can make- the chocolate-substitute one?" Lee tried next. "Tastes the same, but no caffeine in it?" Lee added like he was calling for help.

"...alright~" Xin purred, narrowing his eyes. "But you better have a cake ready when I inevitably get this…"

Lee snorted. "Hey, I don't doubt that one, dragon lady." He took his time getting up off of his stool to head off into the kitchen again, though.

Xin eagerly set to work, running several thousands of equations all at once, he could multitask, set multiple glass panes in front of him to do something different with each of them. Nothing motivated him like a delicious food treat. And he hadn't had any chocolate cake since he was human! It only took him three seconds to get through the first layer this time. He tripled that glass with the correct calculations and layers more glass over them to run the next set, and kept the 'wrong' ones as well to continue working when/if the equations changed out on him again...

He got through the 2nd layer after another twenty seconds.

Then the 3rd after thirty more.

The floating layers of glass hovered before him as Xin frowned in concentration; they had increased in number almost twice fold, each layer he got through creating more and more as he added the ones that worked and those that didn't together, moving some around to test and check them on each other as he went. The 4th layer was down now.

Xin raised a hand to block the next spray of liquid at him - nope, he wasn't going to let that break his concentration! The images blurred and shuffled about, and he caught what he hadn't the last time and merely rearranged the glass panes, quickly catching back up to where he had been before, 5th layer down. Nothing was greater motivation than food. He wanted his chocolate cake!

Xin sat happily at the kitchen counter, chewing on the cake with a satisfied look.

Lee just rolled his eyes from where he was sitting across from him. (Lee swore that leaving the entire cake just sitting there, out on the counter, all frosted, had just had Xin speeding up even more. Now he was kinda regrettin' tryin' to tease him with it. He'd even added the cherries on top for good measure!)

"Drink your tea," Blue told him, and Lee did. (Okay, so maybe he was a little sore that Xin managed to get that far in less than one afternoon. Demons.)

Xin put another forkful of cake in his mouth and moaned in a way that would be frowned upon in polite company, his tail curling tight around the stool. "This ish sho good!" he said through a mouthful.

"Yeah, well," went Lee, "Recipes ain't so hard, when you know how to use the machines for 'em all right." He'd used the multi-function appliance, the one with the 'time-forward' setting on it that let him (and Blue) make things faster with no fuss.

"I haven't had a chocolate cake since I was human." Xin said wistfully, taking a sip of milk. Can't have cake without milk!

Lee blinked at this. "Hell, dragon lady, how long you been on this planet?"

"Well, I'm not allowed chocolate without parental supervision," Xin said sadly.

Lee sent a glance Blue's way. "...Yeah, okay. We're definitely gettin' you a supply of this not-chocolate chocolate stuff once we go out on our next dimensional supply run, then," Lee noted. The stuff didn't really 'replicate' well, which was why they always kept a supply in stasis on-hand. (Little did Lee know that Xin was capable of Scanning and reproducing actual foodstuffs, no matter how finicky they were. Lee hadn't quite understood that from what little Miz had said about her own grocery trips. And she'd made more stuff out of technology for them than actual additional foods out of thin air themselves. There had been the ice cream cones, but that had been a transformation of sand; Lee wasn't even thinking of that one right now.)

"Yes please~" Xin sent him a grateful look. Only it was like the type of gratitude usually given to someone saving your life or something. "Does this stuff come with seeds or anything? So I can grow my own supply? I spent several million years breeding plants back home to try and recreate cocoa, but the closest I came was a seed pod-producing tree that tastes more like a sweeter coffee." Because even if Xin could recreate it on an atomic level, having one of his farms produce it FOR him was so much better!

"It's kind of processed further than what we even got, to get it to being usable for baking and other stuff," Lee told her. "But it don't take much to get it to that," he nodded at the cake. "Even I can do that." And he had, just a little bit before that. "Mostly just an improving the taste thing, just a little bit. Not that hard to do. But the starting stuff to get it that far, to what we bought in the first place? That takes a lot of work. I've got the seeds here for a couple of the starting things? -But the place we got the stuff from takes, uh, pretty much the entire planet to go gettin' it into the raw not-chocolate stuff that we usually buy. Too much trouble to do it 'right', s'why we usually just go off and buy it," Lee shrugged.

"I can give you the full growing, processing, mixing, and more-processing-after-creation procedure, if you like," Blue noted next to Xin. "But having enough of the raw goods to Scan should keep you to start with, while you're setting that up, if you want to." (Lee raised an eyebrow or two at the 'scan' comment there.)

"Thank you so much!" Xin coo'ed. "Yeah, I'm also planning to build a new farm. This would be a great thing to start planting out there." He paused and turned to Lee, "Do you want anything in return?"

"Yeah, uh..." Lee looked back and forth between them. "...I'm pretty sure it's a good two thousand different things to get the flavor exactly right." ("Two thousand seven hundred and forty two." "...yeah. What he said.") "And another several hundred years of processing. Guess you could speed that up with the right machines, though," Lee noted. The folks who made it were sticklers for the 'time-honored tradition of no spacetime speed-ups', or whatever. And since most people didn't know how to do it themselves to begin with, to be able to do it any faster…

"I can do that." Xin blinked, "That's easy. It's getting the starters that's hard."

Lee stared at him, then shrugged it off. "Yeah, okay. We can get you those. Like I said, we've got some of 'em with us right now." Lee pulled up his holographic his-eyes-only screen from his bracer, double-checking things. "But… yeah. We're missing a bunch. Dunno if you'd even be able to tell much from the taste; never tried makin' this stuff ourselves." Not from scratch. The recipe was in the database already, because Blue, but some of the quantities were in the 0.0000001% range by volume.

Xin nodded, peering at the cake in front of him, as if it held all the secrets of the universe. "So… what would you like in return?" Xin asked again.

"Pretty sure Blue's just gonna give it to you for free if I try holdin' out for more," Lee noted. "So I ain't gonna do somethin' that stupid. -I'll go for 'good will', instead," for whatever the hell that was ever worth. (Generally, not much at all.)

"Ah, ok?" Xin blinked. "If you're sure?" He looked a little worried over not being able to pay for this somehow, someway.

"I would give it to you for free," Blue noted. ("Yeah, kinda figured.") "It would be better for you than eating chocolate. -Additional safety for yourself in return, using this instead of the other less-safe-for-you thing otherwise, is not free?"

"If you put it that way, yeah, ok." Xin smiled wryly. "Thank you very much brother."

"Mm." ("Yeah, yeah," Lee waved off himself. He knew when to give a 'freebie' to a demon, and when not to. Usually.)

Ford chose that time to come back in, stopping in place with wide eyes at the scene in front of him. "...is that chocolate?" Ford said those damning words slowly, ready to grab Lee and run, if the worst happened.

"Nope," Lee told him, turning half around on his stool "Just somethin' that really tastes like it. "Would've been nice to have that one as a heads-up, though," Lee told him. "I've had actual double-chocolate chocolate cake as a backup dessert in my display for a couple days now." Lee said this to both Blue and Ford. (Which was why he'd gone with a three-layer triple-'not chocolate' circular cake for Xin, with cherries on top - to entice the dragon lady away from going for the actual chocolate stuff that was sitting not six feet away from them, over there.)

Blue gave Ford an even look in return, and Ford coughed. "Xin knows he's not allowed chocolate without parental supervision." ("Which is fair!" Xin called out before shoving another piece into his mouth.)

"So, yeah," Lee said next. "Now that the 'gang's all here again…" Lee looked around at them all. "Somebody mind fillin' me in on all this Liam business?"

Xin shoved the entire rest of the cake in his mouth, so he couldn't say anything, in case he said something wrong. He also took that time to distract himself by looking over the food he'd made for Blue earlier (left in the 'pause'-able region on the stove top range). It didn't take long after seeing it, for Xin to realize Blue wasn't and hadn't eaten any of it yet, and correctly deduced it was from the 'love' he'd put into it. (Oh right, Blue didn't like that 'dead emotions' stuff.) Xin poked at the tupperware, draining the emotions out, making a note to not do that next time, no matter how excited he'd been about it. (Xin also winced a little bit at the threads of fear he was having to yank out of it, too. Brother wouldn't reject him; that shouldn't even be in there! Right? He'd thought he'd been more careful-)

Blue made another sort of 'burrrrr'ing sound, leaning a little farther away from Lee at the return to the topic of Liam, and Lee gave him a look at this. (He hadn't put his hand in Blue's hair again when he sat on back down; maybe he should've.)

A little frustrated, Lee looked at Blue for a while, then between Ford and then Xin. Lee settled on Ford after a while, almost glaring.

"Liam is Blue's older brother, who was… killed long ago," Ford said slowly. "I don't know all the details aside from his death being a result of how he was born irregular, and their society deeming such people unworthy of… um, being alive."

Lee straightened up in place immediately at the 'irregular' comment, because- Fuck. It got worse.

Lee immediately turned his head to look back over at Blue again.

"Is he irregular?" Lee asked him directly.

"...Yes," came the mutter from Blue.

"Irregular on the outside." "Yes." "And he's alive again." "...Yes." (The answer wasn't quite as dragged out of Blue as it had been last night, but-) Lee pulled in a breath again. "How did he get alive again?" Lee asked Blue slowly.

And Blue shut up and looked away from him, even as Lee kept boring figurative holes into him with his gaze.

Xin continued chewing slowly on his mouthful of cake.

"Why did you bring him back again?" Lee asked him next. Blue's shoulders came up a bit, and the devil-demon clenched his jaw, still not looking at him. …Fine. He was gonna have to play hardball. "Did he need to die-"

"-NO!"

Lee let out his breath slowly, and pulled in another one. And he looked up at Blue, who was on his feet now, hands in fists at his sides, standing with his feet apart - in a fighting stance - and shoulders broad, standing rigidly...

And Lee sat where he was, looked up at his business partner, and told the devil-demon, quite clearly, "I ain't asking because he's irregular."

Dead silence.

Lee glared up at him. "You know I don't care about that shit." Still nothing from the devil-demon but heavy, hard breathing. He could see Blue's chest moving. "Do I really gotta spell out why I'm askin'?" Lee asked him next. "Why I've gotta ask?" He didn't move his gaze away from Blue's own, not one iota.

Ford almost wanted to duck back out of the tent, with how tense it was in here. Blue looked absolutely furious, and Lee was just sitting there, not moving an inch.

Lee considered him. "Is it just that you don't know?" And- shit, Blue's face just screwed up into something terrible there, and Blue looked away from him. (Fists still at his sides. Still ready to fight.)

"Blue," Lee said. "Bill. C'mon." Lee let out a breath, and held his hand out to him, palm-upwards. "You've gotta give me somethin' to work with, here. I can't just-"

"-I will never change my mind," Blue said to Lee. Still not looking at him. "I know I'm right."

Fuck. Lee realized his hand had dropped down to his knee, then he steeled himself, let out a breath, and stood up.

Blue startled, of course, but Lee just reached out and got him by the head and hair again. Both hands this time. Mussed Blue's hair up, just a little.

"Yeah, okay," Lee said under his breath, dropping his hands down to Blue's shoulders. And with the way Blue was looking up at him now, all uncertain… Yeah. This was bad. "We'll figure shit out." Lee let out a breath as Blue finally started to relax again, fists unclenching a little to hang slightly more loosely at his sides. "-You wanna tell me what part of whatever it was that you thought you messed up?" It wasn't like he didn't remember Blue starting out with that when he'd first started talking about Liam, yesterday.

Blue pulled another face again, looking down. Xin had finished his cake, but was grimacing, looking away.

"I brought him back before I fixed everything. Before everything was fixed," Blue told Lee next. And yeah, that was pretty bad all right. Lee knew a little bit about what Blue wanted to do - mostly from the two old men in apostrophe-backslash. He'd gotten it in a few bits and pieces, here and there. Seen a couple things, out on their various trips here-and-there outbound, tok. He was pretty sure Blue had been trying to show him a few things indirectly, but directly being told was… yeah. Blue had already kind of… not exactly sidelined him from telling him any of that stuff directly, but Blue had told him it was more of a confirmed-Zodiac thing to be telling him anything about it directly. And since he and Blur hadn't exactly chosen (or refuted, or refused) each other yet...

Between what Lee had known before, and with what this Ford and Blue had both told him here, Lee had an idea of what might be goin' on here now, and it wasn't looking good. Older Ford had always said that Blue 'fixing everything for everyone ever' just didn't square with… something else that Blue had wanted. But older Ford had never told him what that something else was - just brushed right over and past it, and kept right on talking instead - and Lee had assumed that 'had wanted' had meant that it was in the past, and not actually a thing for Blue anymore.

Really, Lee should've known better. Had wanted had meant that Blue 'had' gotten it, not that he'd ever stopped wanting it or gotten over it, for this one. Damnit.

(And no, it did not occur to Lee that Blue possibly could not or would not ever have stopped wanting something on his own. He'd seen Blue change his mind on stupid, small things all the time, by this point. Lee had seen him change, as a person, bit by bit. The idea of Blue 'never changing' and 'never changing his Mind' was something he'd heard plenty of times by this point - mostly from the two old men - but Lee had always assumed that Blue had just changed his wants on them all and just hadn't been fessing up to that. Lee hadn't yet thought that the older Ford just might not know this, what he knew about Blue; it was dead simple obvious to Lee from where he was standing that Blue definitely was changing, and could do that very thing.)

(That also meant that, unlike Ford, Lee was actually a little worried that Blue might get talked into whatever the hell it was that this 'smarter' 'older brother' Liam of his, who was oh-so-logical, might be wanting Blue to do. And if he was right about what that thing probably was...)

(Yeah, he could understand why Blue might think that he might want to see the guy dead again.)

And Lee kind of wondered what the old-man-him thought of all this.

And Xin was looking away, looking strained, and worried and unsure. He knew what it meant to love a sibling more than anything in the world. He was more worried about whether Liam realized how much Blue loved him. Whether Liam knew how to love Blue back… what with the 'logical' thing that Blue mentioned. And with Blue being… the way he was, Xin wouldn't put it past her big brother to not notice if someone was actually exasperated by him or something...

"So, what," Lee asked Blue. "We gotta worry about him runnin' around doin' shit right now?"

Blue shook his head at this. "I gave him plenty to parse. He isn't coming out anytime soon. He locked down his space, and he's staying there," Blue told Lee next, not quite looking up at him, still.

"You know he's inside?" A nod. "You know what he's doin' inside?" A slight shift of shoulders. "Define: soon," Lee asked him next, and Blue grimaced, and told him, "Could be several Earth years. Or a hundred." "Absolute minimum?" "...I've been checking him daily." "So, you ain't completely sure." "...Mm."

Lee let out a sigh, tilted his head back for a minute, then brought his chin back down and scrubbed his hands back and forth across both Blue's shoulders. (Figured. No wonder older Ford and the devil-demon had been running so hot and cold with each other lately. Older Ford had probably been doin' somethin' stupid to do with this Liam triangle-brother-guy, and Blue had been 'letting him', and…)

"Okay," Lee said again. Then he looked directly into Blue's eyes and told him, "You let me know if there's anything I can do to help you out. Okay? -Business partners," Lee reminded him (yeah, like Blue really needed reminding; it was more of a reminder that he remembered, to Blue). "We keep on watchin' out for each other, yeah?" Blue gave him a small nod at this, but it was a nod, and it was there.

"...and if you need any help, I'm here too." Xin said softly. "...if I can even do anything to help…"

"-Do NOT," Blue said almost immediately as the thought registered, twisting towards his little sister (while going completely tense under Lee's hands). Then Blue snapped his jaw shut almost immediately, on whatever he'd been about to say next.

"...sorry." Xin wilted. Right, of course Blue wouldn't want his help, he didn't know anything, now did he? Ford grimaced, patting Xin's shoulder.

Blue looked both troubled, and... upset. His hands clenched into loose fists again, as his gaze moved away from Xin again. "That isn't-" Blue stopped again. ('-a good idea', was what Lee read off of the devil-demon's posture, and the way he was tensing. That, or '-something that's safe for you to do' - which made sense, because...)

"...This Liam guy could chew Xin up and spit 'im out like yesterday's news, couldn't he," Lee said with a ponderous slowness, almost like a death sentence handed down from a judge. And given what Blue's face tried to morph into just then, as Blue tried tugging away from the hold he had on his shoulders, just a little bit… Damnit. Sometimes, Lee really, really hated being right.

"My little sister can't get upstairs into my redone attic-room anyway," Blue not quite bit out brittlely, still not looking at any of them. "It's a moot point."

Sure. And Blue was bettin' on Xin not being able to crash his protections up there if he tried hard enough, was he? Askin' Xin not to go over there in the first place without him? -Right. (Lee kept a lid on that, though.)

(What Lee did say though was…) "...Y'know, I'm kinda pissed that you didn't tell me you had an older brother who's smarter than you." Lee paused. "Coulda commisserated on the down sides of havin' smart brothers."

"-There ARE no 'down' sides, height is stupid, my brother is perfect!" was what Blue shot out at Lee next. "-On the inside." Blue was looking away from him again, twisting away from him a bit (though Lee didn't quite hold him in place, and Blue didn't quite push him off). "His inner-sides are perfect, and his outer-sides are irregular; so what. -He is perfectly-imperfect," Blue declared out to Ler, "And he is mine." Blue was staring straight up into his eyes, like it was some kind of direct challenge to have gone off and said that to him. Like he was expecting Lee to do anything other than say to that:

"Okay." And Lee shrugged.

And there was a pause there for a moment, sure. But this time, at what Lee had just said, Blue started up his usual complaints on how 'okay didn't mean anything', and Lee went with the usual, 'yeah, yeah, okay,' which got him another short tirade on the subject from Blue.

And they'd done that song and dance many many times before, so it felt almost like old hat, like they were following their old routine again, as Blue wound down again slowly, with Lee being 'fine with a fine instead', and Blue grumbling something about 'fining him for it all, because-'

-except it wasn't quite the same as always, because this time their usual 'argument' ended with Blue's forehead down on Lee's shoulder, Blue himself staring down at the floor, and Lee with a hand on the back of his head, while Blue just let his own arms dangle, fingers slowly twitching. It was anything but 'normal' (read: not the usual) for the crazy devil-demon triangle, sure, but what else was new? Besides the guy apparently having a 'secret' big brother that he had never told Lee about until yesterday.

Lee let out a sigh at this. And he debated what to do next. (...Demons.)

Xin was still rather down on himself. He wasn't even good enough to meet Liam. Ford petted his head. "Don't think too hard about it. I don't think Blue meant it the way that sounded?" Xin huffed. Nah, Xin just wasn't good enough.

"Uh." Lee looked over at them. "Which part are you talkin' about here?" Because Blue hadn't said much here at all.

"...refusing Xin's help…" Ford looked away.

Lee blinked at this, because… What? -Fuck's sake. (Please, please tell him he did not understand Blue better than another- Okay, yeah, no. Never mind that one there. Hell. -Okay.)

"Xin, that what you think Blue just said to you?" Lee asked him directly, taking the cue from this Ford.

"...I just know I'm not good enough yet to help with anything." Xin looked down at his hands.

Lee stared at this. The fuck?

And then it occurred to him.

"Fucking hell," Lee said, as Blue started lifting his head up in confusion to look over at Xin. "You haven't read the book yet, either?"

Xin wilted. Then he looked uncomfortable. "...I skimmed?" Truthfully, he'd gotten too uncomfortable to really read it all the way through. (Ford sighed. "I think I need to actually read the book…")

"...'not good enough'?" Blue echoed Xin, looking just as confused as he'd started out looking, at hearing this first.

"Don't tell me I gotta explain this to you, dragon lady," Lee said next (while glancing over at this Ford for a moment). "Devil-demon gets pissed off about that book." (Did this Ford really not know that one? Was he trying to piss the devil-demon off, or something?)

And now Blue was beginning to frown. "'Not good enough' for what," Blue said to Xin next, in slightly descending tones. (Who had DARED to tell his sister he wasn't 'good' enough for something!?)

"...to be able to help, or… meet him… or…" Xin sank further and further down in his seat, looking uncomfortable. "Nevermind, I'll… just… go…" He tried to get up and leave, making Ford stumble back.

Blue blinked at this, now distracted from his earlier wrath. "'Help' with what?" Blue repeated, before making a (partial) connection to... "-You are not meeting him," Blue said severely next.

"I won't." Xin sighed. "I promised you. I'm just… gonna go…" His face was burning with shame over being so stupid.

"You are not going to him, either," Blue told him just as quellingly. Blue pulled in a breath and looked away, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I will convince him eventually. Then you can meet." Blue sounded both pissed off and up in arms about something. (And Lee just felt like his current working theory got confirmed just that little bit stronger by all this…)

"Not gonna. I'm going back to Seb's place." Xin looked away. "And you don't have to, it's fine. I don't want to trouble you more."

"I do have to convince him, I'm doing that anyway, Q.E.D. That is no additional 'trouble' from you to me." Blue was frowning at Xin now. "You… cannot help with that, convincing him," Blue said, making what he thought was at least a partial connection there. "Don't try. -Do not-try."

"...yeah, I realize that. I won't." Xin was gonna leave, but Ford had taken his hand.

"Xin…" Ford frowned. Something didn't seem right here.

Lee frowned at Xin. "Dragon-lady, if you actually realize why you can't, then you'd better say it out loud. 'Cause I ain't so sure Blue won't zap me for sayin' it, but I'm pretty damn sure you can get away with sayin' it, though."

"...Liam is his brother. Not mine. He doesn't even know me, so he wouldn't be able to decide one way or another. I can't talk to him, wouldn't be able to. Not smart enough to anyway."

"Yes. Yes. Yes; there is no deciding yet. Yes; yes. Unknown," Blue told Xin, without any further explanation for what he thought was rather obvious. (For Blue, 'being smart enough' had never been an issue - he'd made himself smarter several times by this point himself. So, to him, if Miz thought she wasn't smart enough for something yet, he rather assumed that she would be able to do that herself too, if she wanted. How 'smart' she was had never been an issue for him; he'd never compared his own mental 'smarts' against hers, and since he didn't know how to convince his own big brother at-present to try seeing this his way, instead… whether Xin was 'smart' enough, or something enough, to do that themself was UNKNOWN. But he wasn't about to risk his little sister's malleable Mind right now to Liam's potential Mind-changing-)

"-Gimmie a minute here," Lee told Blue.l, because- Fuck. That wasn't it at all. (Was she messing around on him? Nah. Which meant- shit.) How the hell could he explain- Lee pulled in a breath. Okay. Okay. Maybe- "Xin," Lee tried next. "What would you look like, right now, to a two-dimensional shape or line?"

And Xin blinked. Then he looked down at himself. "I still register as a triangle…" he said slowly.

"Do ya?" Lee said. "A really-real, really two-dimensional triangle?"

"...not a true two-dimensional one, though I could…" Xin hadn't tried that out much, it felt weird to flatten down that far.

"With no flaily little stickin' out bits at all. A triangle. That's what you are telling me. A geometric triangle." C'mon, just get it already, he already didn't like how the devil-demon was starting to eye him over here...

"...I'd probably look a little… weird…" Xin curled around himself. "I wasn't perfect, even as a triangle. Even if I almost looked like I was…"

"-You are perfectly-imperfect, and that is wonderful," Blue told his little sister firmly, glaring up at Lee now.

"I'm unnatural!" Xin cried out, "It's why my Birthers made Will! To replace me!"

Ford winced. He wrapped his arms around the shorter man. He didn't know what to say here, but it seemed he didn't have to, since Blue reiterated-

"You are perfectly-imperfect, and you are irreplaceable," Blue told him next, moving out of Lee's hold. "You are NOT to be replaced. EVER. You cannot, and will not, ever be replaced. I have told you this before." Blue looked like he wanted to hit someone now. (Probably Xin's Birthers, for trying.)

Xin clutched at his arms, holding himself. "...yeah…" he said quietly. "I still… feel like it, sometimes. I know I shouldn't. I need to work harder to stop…" He knew it was a circular sort of logic. He knew that the way he was thinking was wrong, and that made him feel bad, but knowing he was wrong made him feel even more bad. And knowing that he should be working to get past this, and not being able to, made him feel worse- why was this so difficult?

"You are MY little sister," Blue told Xin, moving over to him, reaching for him, and just barely stopping short of him, hands hovering there. (Blue was trying not to grab. He knew better than that. What would happen if he let himself go that far and-) "Anyone who tries to replace you, I will MURDER for you immediately," Blue promised him next. (Lee followed him over, grimacing at this.)

"...please don't murder Will." Xin said, also jokingly, as he reminded Blue of this.

But Blue blinked at him quite seriously and said, "But your Will was trying to be a little brother to you. You are not your little brother. You are you. And he is him. He was not trying to replace you."

"Yes, he was my little brother. My Birthers wanted him to… well, Will never listened to them." ("Yes. Because he is-was not stupid, yes?") Xin managed a weak chuckle. "I'm sorry, I'm just being stupid right now…" Xin wiped at his eyes. Stupid, he should know better.

"You are forgetting the important things again," Blue told him seriously. "Put it in your bracer. Now. -You are not stupid. You are not replaceable. You are my little sister. You are mine. You cannot and will not ever be replaced. We decided this. You will never not-be mine; I will never not-be yours. You are mine, and I am yours. We decided this; no take-backs." And Blue stared at his little sister until Xin started doing it (after Blue pointed another finger at Xin's bracer firmly).

And Xin did, feeling kind of lame to do so. Having a little pop-up saying encouraging things to him every other minute was going to be annoying. Wow, he thought bad things about himself way too often, didn't he? The notification kept popping up in his vision. [You're amazing!]

Meanwhile, Lee was frowning at this, because… Dammit. That wasn't enough of the right set of shit; that would just make it more likely for Xin to just show up outta nowhere to come see Blue in their own set, and then-

Lee frowned at Blue next. "Blue, you'd better straight-out tell him why you don't want the two of 'em meeting. Or talking. He's gonna need a straight-up reason, or the 'curious' is going to get him. You know this." He shouldn't have to be fucking saying this. This was demonic basics 101. Blue had taught him this shit! -Give a demon a reason why not, to make that thing less desirable, and give them a different 'better' thing to go after instead, one that was easier and quicker for them to do, and make sure they knew it by the time you were done. And maybe set up some more things to keep rerouting them into, in case they got curious again, until you managed to get them to change their minds on the whole thing, over to something else entirely. Or they'd just come back to it again later...

And Blue was flipping glaring at him, then looking away from him yet again. Damn demon. Lee glared at the demon right back. (Wasn't like he wouldn't be able to see it with the sensors there on his suit.)

"Don't know for sure-and-certain," Blue muttered out, pulling his hands back away from Xin slowly. ("You know enough to be tellin' Xin not to immediately.") "Maybe I could convince him tomorrow." But that last one just sounded like a- "Or in a few million years." ...Yeah, there it was.

"...I don't mind. Really." Xin rubbed his arm. "What's a few million years anyway?"

"Blue don't actually think he's gonna be able to convince him," said Lee, arms crossed across his chest, and with the way Blue whirled on him immediately, lips pulled back from his teeth and practically hissing at him, looking enraged...

"...that's fine too." Xin sighed. "I can share, I know how." (So did Blue, now - more properly, anyway. Now that he understood the full concept. But that wasn't quite the problem...)

"I will fix everything," Blue spat out next, while glaring up at Lee. "I will MAKE it fine."

"You'll make it so people dying won't stay dead," said Lee, thinking 'fuck it' at this point, and just going with it. (Wasn't like Blue hadn't told him to 'speak his Mind' and 'get to the pointed-point' so many times before this point that it was practically a mantra on repeat. This would be pushing it, though.) "And it ain't just because of the demons out there killin' people left and right that you're wantin' to do that, now, is it. It never was. Was it." The fucking lunatic. Blue had a fucking two-dimensional 'triangular' space-Hitler up in his attic, who wanted to murder everybody who wasn't 'perfect', who was 'irregular' just like him, who didn't meet his defintion of fucking perfection any more than he himself did, and Blue had this fucking nightmare of a person as his 'perfect on the inner-sides' once-older brother. Except Blue didn't actually agree with this Liam guy on any of it. Blue wasn't actually on board for the whole fucking 'murder everyone' permanently dead thing.

Blue was practically bristling like a cat now, eyes wide and pupils thin vertical slits. But Lee damn well wasn't going to take it all back.

"It was because of him. Li-" Lee began, and Blue lunged forward and slapped both his hands over Lee's mouth, one on top of the other. Up well within his personal space. Eyes still wide and staring. Pupils still slits.

And Xin blinked. And he realized what Lee meant. And he sighed. "Liam still believes that perfect or else thing? I taught Will to get over that…" then Xin grimaced. "Wait, no, Liam's your older brother, I guess he didn't…" Xin wanted to punch the entirety of Blue's Flatland. Or maybe just the Circles, for making those stupid Rules.

Blue's head whipped around at this, and he was practically vibrating with tension at this point.

"I don't know that- YOU don't know that, you haven't even MET-" Blue swiveled his head back up towards Lee. "You don't know that," Blue said to Lee far more viciously than he had Xin. "You DON'T know that, because I don't know that, because-"

"-you haven't actually asked him straight out," Lee told him, after yanking Blue's hands down and away from his mouth. "Have you." (Ya king Blue's hands down had been easy; Blue was always bad at keeping 'height' things going.)

"Why haven't you asked him?" Xin worried. "Would that… hurt him?"

Blue clammed up again, tilting his chin down to stare down at Lee's chest, both his hands captured in one of Lee's own.

"You don't want to know for sure, do you." Lee watched Blue carefully. "Because you think he's smarter than you-"

"-He IS smarter than me." Blue was looking up at him again. "He is STILL smarter than me-"

"-And older brothers who are smarter than you can be wrong," Lee told him next, flat out.

"He isn't YOUR brother, he's MINE," Blue spat out at Lee next, ripping his hands out of Lee's hold on them and yanking them down to his sides, starting to fist them again. "You don't know ANYTHING ABOUT-"

And Xin, looking a little afraid to say this, but still having to say it anyway, stepped away from the door, closer to Blue and said, "He allowed himself to die, because he thought he was imperfect, but that was wrong. You know that was wrong. So he was wrong about that. Wasn't he?" And Xin was bracing himself for what Blue might do or say, to have someone badmouth his Liam in such a way.

And Blue whirled on him. "That isn't-" Blue began, and his breathing was as harsh and uneven as his eyes were wide. "He didn't let- He wouldn't have just let them-" Blue eyes jittered back and forth and around in his head, and his head almost rolled around as he began to flail his arms wildly about in pure Bill Cipher fashion as he talked (except Lee caught them and held them both, held Blue by the forearms to stop him from doing that, and Blue didn't even seem to notice that he'd done so). "-but there wasn't any sign of a struggle- but he wouldn't just give up and let them TAKE him- but they could have cleaned it all up- no they couldn't, there was no time- but maybe they could- but I CHECKED that- but they could have done it if they'd GONE IN HIS ROOM-" Blue's voice went up, as he went up and over a part that he'd never really been able to think about completely properly before, that he hadn't been able to think about before until Seb had helped him manage to work it all out, work himself through it: he'd never seen anybody else go into Liam's room, seen anyone else there at the same time that he was there with Liam, they had all always SEEMED to have remained completely separate from Liam-and-him. Liam could leave his room, but Bill had never seen anyone else ever go in, before or during or since. "-and ssheeeeeee locked it after from the outside of- that-was-HIS-space, I couldn't get in again-after to CHECK so carefully, not after the first he-wasn't-there-and-I-SAW-that! -BUT I still would have NOTICED it even-after! After-after-after-after the so-VERY-long again-after! HAHA! I checked every last-" and Blue tilted his head back and let out a strain of almost insectile chittering that just streamed out of him then, his mouth spread out in a grin so wide it nearly cracked his face in half, before his head rolled its way suddenly back down again and "-TO FIND IT! SO I WOULD HAVE FOUND IT IF THEY HAD KILLED HIM THERE! I WOULD HAVE FOUND-" And he was shaking in place. And his eyes were wide and full of (so many emotions trying to crawl their way out of them like creeping small sprinting) spiders-

And Stanford Pines, in that moment, realized exactly why this Bill Cipher was completely insane.

(A problem, that he had never been able to solve. A brother, who had been murdered, for no sane reason why. Who had gone to his death, for no sane reason why. But Blue had tried to understand anyway, a completely senseless thing, mad with grief, in an already insane world that had had nothing to offer him anymore, after having ripped his brother away from him before murdering him. And then...)

Lee pulled Blue in towards him in a jerk, towards his chest, looking grim. Cutting Blue off, in his ranting, for a moment. (Because lungs and breathing were currently a thing.)

Xin spoke softly. "He could have run away or hid? He's the smartest, if he didn't want to die, he could have made any sorts of plans to save himself. But he didn't." And Xin could almost feel his heart breaking. "He went with them. He… let himself be taken away…" Xin grimaced. "Even I put up a fight. When the council separated me from Will. Because I knew they were wrong. So I refused to just lie down and accept it." (Ford reached for him, "Xin…" He had never got the full story from him, about what exactly had all gone down with him.)

"He didn't run and hide, there was no-place to go that they wouldn't find him," Blue said, and his shaking got worse. "There was nothing THERE, nothing THERE, nothing there. -There was NOTHING there that was BROKEN or NEW." Blue nearly drove his forehead into Lee's chest, butting it into him, up against him. He did it twice, chitter-giggling. (Lee let him do it. He didn't let go of Blue's forearms.) His voice was loopy, like he was switching tracks, in-between things, as he then continued on with: "-He said he would WAIT for them. To be measured by them. That there was no avoiding it. I told him- I told him that he would meet their measure- that he would 'measure up' - that they would see what I SAW in him, they had to be able to see his inner-sides, the outer-sides, they don't matter. You- you have to measure things right-" Blue said to them next, lifting his head back up again slightly, and his voice started to get almost sing-song. "The right-wrong way of measuring! It works BETTER! He- he- They probably measured him elsewhere- they HAD to," Blue told them all next. "They had to - they HAD to - there was nothing THERE - if they'd measured him THERE they would have-" Blue let out a chittering giggle, and said (rather horrifyingly, in Ford's opinion), "They would have painted the 'walls' of the 'room' in their own shattered pieces and blood-" Blue let out another chittering-giggle again, "Do we even HAVE blood…? -We don't, we don't, do we...?" (And it sounded like an actual question. Ford stared, because this Bill Cipher didn't actually seem to know or not, something so seemingly basic in knowledge or understanding, about whether or not his own species had...)

"The council is stupid," Xin hissed. "They would never see that the measurements don't matter! They only ever did things wrong! Because they're stupid! They wouldn't let-" And Ford had to hold Xin back now, sort of mirroring Lee with the way he was holding Blue up against his own chest.

"-I hate them," said Blue. He said it almost calmly, mostly levelly, while mostly upright. Like discussing a stone in his shoe. "I hate them, I hate them. I HATE them. Iiiiiii-" There were tears dripping out of Blue's eyes and down his cheeks, and the triangle demon didn't seem to notice he was doing that at all. And what started out as mild irritation quickly morphed over into sheer RAGE and FURY, as Blue thought and then said, "-HATE THAT STUPID LIZARD FOR MAKING Ĕ̶̲͈̼̫̤̟̗ͥ̽̿ͧ͌V̸͈͓̻̈́͑̎̆̀ͯ͝E̷̒̌ͅR̤͍̞͇͇̩͇̞̽̉̐̒ͅY̲̥͙͍͇̭̰̭̾͂̓͝T͇͓̠ͥ̎͒̾ͩH̖̯̰̻̠̲̹͌͆̉ͫ̎̿ͭĮ̖̻̝ͤ͒͌͆Ñ̜̮̣̹̠̓ͩ̓ͮ̋́̍͢G͎̬̹̅ͣ̕͢͟ THIS WAY!" Blue shrieked out at them all next. (And Blue would have been yanking at the hair at the sides of his head, if not for Lee keeping a hold of both his arms still.) "IT'S THAT STUPID LIZARD'S FAULT! I SAW IT! IT MADE ALL OF US! AND IT WAS WATCHING! IT WAS WATCHING, AND IT LOOKED, AND IT DID NOTHING AT ALL ABOUT Ḁ̶̝̇̃͑ͪ͞Ń̵̓͌͑͆ͪ̉̈́͏̖̳̺̪̻̭̱Y̛̠̖͇̗͚̥͑ͫͧ̎ OF IT!"

And Xin's lips wobbled. "But… why…?" He asked. "Why would your AXOLOTL do that?" ...there was no way that her own dad could have done something like that, there was no way...

"I HATE IT. I HATE IT I HATE IT I'M NOT JUST SOME FUCKING EXPERIMENT," Blue spat out, tears still slowly streaming down his own cheeks. (And Ford felt himself stiffen at that, remembering how Blue had responded to him that past summer, about experiment numbers and giving him one, to write down his observations about him and-) "I'M MORE THAN THAT, TOO. I'M A D̵̢̛̘̠̥͔̤̝̪̗̭͕̩̗̠̩̙̣̠͌̀̐ͭ̔̄̈́ͥ͆̏ͥ̎ͅA̵̫̣̘͉͉̺̭͓̭̦̹̥͙̥͔̘ͦͩ̓̃͗͛͟ͅE̴̷̢͖̺͉͖̞̫̬̫̘̥̟͙ͨ̐ͤͥ̐ͪ͟ͅM̷͍̮̖͓̝͎͈̝̮̳̲̗͗̏ͬͭ͋͢͜͜O̴̱̺͇̱̖͎̫̳̗̣̓̈́̎ͦ͆͑̆̊̆̎̽͌̃N̶̶̠͖͉̖̝̼̻͎̹̖̅ͫ̌̉ͪͨ͛ͦ͘͟͡. I GET TO CHOOSE TOO," Blue ground out next, with more spite and bile and fire than Ford had ever heard out of anyone he'd ever known before. "FREE WILL IS A JOKE, AND FREE WILL IS REAL, AND I'M N̴̰̠͈͍̣̼̤ͫ̍ͧͯO̴͇ͤT̤̺̤̍ GOING TO DO WHAT IT WANTS EVER, AND I'M OUT PAST THE END OF MY PROPHECY NOW, I AM FREE. AND NOW I AM GOING TO FUCKING MURDER IT. I AM GOING TO FUCKING MURDER IT NOW. I AM GOING TO FUCKING MURDER IT AND FIX Ẹ̰̣̈́́ͭͣ̍̈V̴̖̝ͣ͑̽ͨ͆ͯ͠E͍̤̩̹̤̗̖͛̀̄͋͑͐ͩ̚͟R̓ͧ͊҉͓̝͍͈͔ͅŶ͆ͫ́͌̂̈̈́̚͏̛̫̦̥T̗̗̰͙͖̲͓̻̓̈́̐Ḫ̢̗̬̪͇̓ͥ̎ͮ̾ͩ͡I̞̖͉̺̝̺̭̥̪ͪ͗̐̊ͮͫN̄ͬ̌͂̉ͤ͞͏͍͉̪͇̯͍G̪͇̤͇̯͌̿̂̐̚ AND PROVE EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM W̸̴̢R̴̢̢͠O̵͢͏̢͟N̡̛͜G̵̷̡̛̕, Q.E.D." Blue was still shaking in place. (Blue had terrible black rings around and under his eyes now, almost like bruises.)

Ford winced. This was… well, he sort of held Xin in front of him like some kind of shield. (Despite the fact that Blue was facing Lee entirely, ever since he'd really started screaming things out.)

Lee, meanwhile, waited until the devil-demon was finished ranting this time. (Eh, he'd seen worse by this point...)

And when he was pretty sure Blue was done for this time of it, Lee sort of reeled him in (getting both his arms in one hand), and got his other hand behind Blue's head, up into his hair. Held Blue up against him, his head mostly up against his left shoulder.

And Lee said, "Yup. Gonna kill all your enemies, I gotcha." He said it perfectly calmly and was so matter-of-fact about it, it left Ford blinking. And Lee brushed his hand through Blue's hair as he told him next, "Sounds like they all deserve it too, you bet. Gonna get on that one real quick tomorrow. Pretty sure you need a lot more sleep for that, first." (That one got him a bit of a "Nnm," from Blue, to which Lee responded with...) "Nope. Not now. Tomorrow. Definitely gonna get you some sleep here, now, first. -You know the drill. C'moooooon," Lee said, walking the demon over to the couch again, and getting him down, even though Blue let out another long 'burrrrrr'ing complaint at this. And Lee sat down right next to him on said couch, down right by his head. "Sleep. Right now. -You stay still for five minutes right now without fallin' asleep, and I'll get you up and help ya with all of that killin' right then, right next here, okay?" (And with that said, Blue finally settled in on the couch cushions where he lay, chitter-grumbling. ...Yep. Old-man-him had gotten in on him on that one really well.) "Right. We're goin' with five minutes first." Lee started stroking his hair a little bit, and let out a huff of a sigh.

And then Lee looked up at Ford Pines and mouthed at him, 'Demons, amiright?' with an eye roll. While still petting Blue's head. With Blue laid down flat-out, down on the couch right next to him, looking tired, and huffy, and just angry and miserable and moody, and in no sort of state that looked open to being petted… except he was, in fact, letting Lee do just that to him, then.

Ford sighed. 'Quite,' he mouthed back, holding Xin and petting his hair soothingly. "I… ah…" He looked down at Xin, who still looked quite upset. "Xin?" The dragon huffed. "Right. Well…" Ford walked Xin over to another couch, sitting down with Xin pulled into his lap. "Alright, Just… are you ok?" Ford asked.

"...'m fine…" Xin mumbled. Because none of this was fair at all. But he didn't know if he could even do anything about it. Perhaps help his brother kill his AXOLOTL, but frankly, Xin was worried about how to do that without crashing the entire system that Blue's Set existed on… the AXOLOTL there seemed to be entwined within and through and to almost everything (he'd Seen that, while he was Up there). Maintaining the integrity of the whole system. Even brother had a connection to it still, despite how he'd downplayed it to Xin at the time. Xin… wasn't connected to it, but he wasn't sure what would happen to him if he crashed that system by helping Blue take out its central security maintenance processing protocol… plus there was too much that Xin still didn't know, like who had created the Game to begin with? Because even if they managed to pull all that off, wouldn't those Outsiders then intervene? Toss a 'patch' at it all from the Outside, without even having to go in? And what would that even look like?

(Unless Xin could somehow disconnect the whole thing and create some new 'server' for them, some entirely new set of dimensions which couldn't be hacked into or found by the Outside. But brother had said that he didn't want that, didn't want to kick out all of the Outsiders. Blue was trying to do that without actually cutting off any of those current connections. Which meant...)

(Blue, for his part, was not worried or fretting about any of the same things that Xin was worrying about just then. Blue himself was already asleep and starting to hum-purr at Lee's side. -Because Lee damn well knew what he was doing, and the demon had never been able to hold out for very long when he was already tired and lying flat on something someplace, and Lee started petting his hair in that way. ...Which was why Lee didn't use it all that much; he didn't want to risk overusing it. ...Hell, wasn't like Lee didn't know real well how to pet the demon like he was a pet cat, and when.)

"Nah," said Lee. "You're not fine. On that couch? No way." Lee ticked his head towards the- "Not when you've got a nest of pillows right over there for you, that a'way," Lee said good-naturedly next. "Just starin' you right in the face there. Waiting." Not like he wasn't above helping a kind of huggy Ford out with a demon-dragon when he had to, now and again.

Xin huffed, "I'm… ok, I'm not entirely fine," Xin admitted, looking away. Liam was probably still stuck in his programming (or something?), and Blue was stressed out from not knowing how to 'free' him from it.

"Be closer to fine with pillows," Lee half-teased. "Or maybe the rest of that cake." Lee was pretty sure by this point now that food really was a big motivator with this particular dragon-demon, after what he'd seen in his own dimension, and this one.

"...I kinda… shoved the whole cake in my mouth in one go at the end there." Xin glanced over guiltily at the empty plate. (Ford let out a laugh. "I don't know how you didn't choke.")

"Yeahhh," said Lee. "I noticed that with the one of 'em, out on the kitchen bar countertop there, sure." He paused for a moment. "'Cept I made two of 'em. -Second one's still in the appliance. Left it in there, waiting, just in case." Mostly because he hadn't known whether a normal multi-layered round birthday cake type of thing was what Xin had been thinking of, or one of those huge one-layer flat cakes instead. (Two of those three layer round cakes was pretty close to one of those flat-layer cakes, in terms of cake volume. And Lee hadn't been about to potentially get himself in trouble for that one, over there, on his end of the 'bargain'. Not after that demand that the dragon lady had given. He could tell when demons weren't joking.)

"More cake?" Xin seemed to brighten up. (Ford was continuing to laugh. "Cake, then sleep? I'm here for cuddles?" Ford told Xin.) The dragon looked over at Blue and then Ford. "Would I be able to nest with my brother too?" He wasn't sure about leaving Blue's side at the moment.

"Of course." Ford smiled. "At least, I think it would be okay?"

"Blue's out," Lee told them. "Bad idea to move him like this." Especially when he was this fatigued; Lee knew what those dark bruise-like circles under and around both his eyes really meant. "Think you could probably get away with moving your nest right up in front of the couch here, if you want to." Lee stretched out his legs a bit, settling in to get a bit more comfortable.

Xin nodded, getting up off Ford's lap to begin moving pillows.

"Could go and get the cake for him while he's doin' that," Lee noted to Ford. "And anything else you might need. -Not like these two are goin' anywhere," Lee told him, looking down at Blue again. ("And the milk!" Xin added demandingly, wagging his tail.)

Ford sighed. "I keep learning more things than I ever expect here." He shook his head as he went to get the cake and some milk. "Though, it has cleared up so many questions I've had." He could see how someone would go insane trying to understand something so… unreasonable. (Then again, with how fucked up the world was nowadays, did he have any right to judge? Frankly, Ford was wondering if the world had all already gone insane...)

Ford woke the next morning to the rather improbable sight of Lee lying down on the couch behind Blue Cipher there, his arms wrapped around him, while both of them were fast asleep. (...Well, as improbable as it was, given that he himself had fallen asleep wrapped around Xin himself. Or vice-versa, depending on how one looked at it. Though Ford could have sworn that, when he'd fallen asleep, Lee had been sitting upright at the end of the couch there, instead.)

And Ford wondered when his life had become some kind of snugglefest. Ugh, he could never let Stan or Shermie know about this or they would just laugh at him forever. (Ford was still surprised that Lee hadn't made fun of him for being so huggy and needy yet. Unless it had something to do with Lee's own professed 'touchy-feely' tendencies?)

Lee was sleeping rather soundly, though, and it was rather early, comparatively. It might not be the best idea to try and wake him just yet.

Ford wondered if he could get away with extracting himself from Xin's grasp again. He wiggled a little, and the dragon mumbled, wrapping his arms around Ford even tighter. Nope. Looks like Ford was stuck today. Great. He managed to free his arms and even wiggle enough to free his journal. Might as well get some work done. Though he was a little hungry too. And Ford laid back against Xin, sighing to himself about his situation. He wondered if other demons were this cuddly? Dangerous, but cuddly.

He glanced over at Lee. Lee seemed to be the one on the inside of their little… couch sleeping arrangement, between Blue and the back of the couch. While Blue looked to have turned over in his sleep at some point and was curled right up against Lee, Blue wasn't holding onto him at all; it looked to be more the other way around.

Ford worked away in his journal rather diligently for about another hour, before there was a bit of movement on the couch, and he saw Lee begin to stir. Thank Tesla, maybe he could escape this pile and get him some food!

And then Lee slowly blinked his eyes open, and after a few moments of bleariness, Lee's eyes were staring straight into his.

And the first words out of Lee's mouth were, in fact, a single quiet word: "Fuck."

"Good morning to you too." Ford deadpanned.

Lee's gaze moved down towards the couch cushions, and Ford watched as the twenty-something-year-old practically cringed in place.

Ford watched as he saw Lee slowly extract himself from around Blue on the couch there, to sit up. ("Um, if you could, get me breakfast- please? I'm rather stuck-")

And he saw Lee frown down at himself, shoulders up just a bit, with a look that Ford couldn't quite interpret, and there was a long moment before he said lowly, "...Sure."

And Lee shoved himself up and over the back of the couch and walked off to the kitchen without looking back. (He'd been about to try and make a bunch of defensive excuses about falling asleep holding the devil-demon like that, until Ford had spoken up. Now, Lee wasn't sure if it was better or worse, that now he was gonna have to wait until he'd handed this Ford food first. Like a servant. Because this was probably gonna involve blackmail, because of some kind of fucking 'teasing' he did with the rest of these triplets-people family of his. He'd tried to put off doing it until this Ford had fallen asleep for a reason. Lee hadn't thought that the guy was actually going to wake up sooner than he would here, though.)

Lee brought back a plate of sausage, scrambled eggs, and hash browned potatoes from the stasis-freezer. Ford was sideways.

"Hey, do you know how to… help me get out from here?" Ford asked, gesturing to the way Xin's hands were looped around his waist, the way the demon was purring softly against his back. "I would very much appreciate it." His bladder would appreciate it too.

"Try scritching the top of his head," Lee noted, setting the plate down to hover in the air at his side. "He'll probably just relax all over, you do that." (Lee remembered Xin liking head scritches and stuff as a big dragon; he'd just relaxed out into nothing like that, all loosey-goosey.) Ford reached around to try and do that, but he bumped his hand against one of Xin's antlers and tried to stroke that instead, curling his hand around the appendage and caressing it up and down along the bone. And Xin… arched over, moaning softly, and- yes he was letting go! Ford stroked faster, getting some breathless pants out of Xin as the dragon writhed under him...

-up until Lee, who was watching this, batted Ford's hand away and did the actual cat-like scritching thing at the top and back of Xin's head for him instead. (The fuck did this Ford think he was doin' with those antlers there, anyway?!)

And Xin relaxed with a purr, arms going limp as Ford managed to extract himself. "Oh, that works much better." Ford wiggled his way up.

Lee kept the cat-like head scritches up until Ford was fully free, then pulled away and stood up himself.

"Yeah," said Lee. "That's why I told you to go for the scritches, not the antlers," what the fuck.

"Interesting reaction. He doesn't quite do that while awake…" Ford was writing this down. "I wonder if he's more sensitive in his sleep?" Ford mused, entirely not seeing the issue.

"Just don't go tryin' to insert shit into him anyplace inside any holes. Or between his scales. Or try pullin' anything off of him that's attached. I ain't helpin' you out of that shit," Lee warned him, heading back to the kitchen for his own breakfast.

"What? I wouldn't...I'm not going to pull or stick anything into him. He would be… very upset if I did so." Ford frowned.

"No kidding," Lee muttered out, as he went back for the stasis-freezer for his own (somewhat different) breakfast (for that day).

"Right, I… ah, need to use the restroom…" Ford looked around, remembering where he'd gone to brush his teeth before. He went off to get his daily routine done and came back to eat breakfast. Xin was rather restless in his nest, hugging one of the pillows and rubbing his face against it, purring away like a motor. "Hmmmm~" Xin breathed softly, rolling around in his nest. Ford chuckled. "I wonder what he's dreaming about."

(MizBill's POV)

Uwu…. I was dreaming, wasn't I? I could tell, after all, I'm pretty sure that Shiki from Kara no Kyoukai wasn't secretly a dragon the whole time. I've read the lore and that makes no fucking sense. Even if it would have been cool! Ahhh! That's not the point.

I was just having a good time, watching my dream play out, new movie for the series- new plot lines and badass fight scenes- I loved how a lot of my dreams were just Anime, it was really great. I was simply a bodiless observer in this dream, watching it all play out. And then I started feeling… really good.

I couldn't even really focus on the fight happening right now, Shiki vs some blonde man in a fancy suit, on top of a skyscraper- it was a really cool fight! But I was just… distracted.

My dream shifted, before I could help it, and I was lying on a giant undulating tentacle, and there were tentacles caressing me all over. Oh! Oh! I… wasn't expecting my dreams to go in this direction! It felt really nice… but I still wanted to know how that fight ended! And that radio broadcast that was happening from the hidden room on the roof! I still want to see how that plot thread ended-

The next sensation sent me reeling, ooooh fuuuuuck that was nice...

Sadly, those lovely sensations seem to have stopped, but there was another feeling, which was still nice, I relaxed, even as the wriggling tentacle in my grip slipped away. Goodbye mister tentacle. I relaxed against the soft... cave(?) I was in. I felt all relaxed and… I blinked. Oh, it wasn't a cave I was in! They were marshmallows. With happy little faces. Hiiii marshmallows~!

I wrapped myself around one of them, content just to keep holding on this dream. Eh, maybe I'll get a continuation of the other one at some point, finally get to see the ending. I tried to relax, but I was still feeling kind of… antsy?

Ah… I almost wanted those tentacles back. I wiggled against the marshmallow pressed between my legs. No fair tentacle! If you were gonna make me feel good, at least finish what you started! Ah, well, no matter. I rubbed myself against the marshmallow, I wonder if I could shift this dream back to cool anime fight scenes-

Ahh! This is not a fight scene!

I flushed and tried to look away, but closing my eyes did nothing when this was a dream and I was perfectly aware of everything happening here. Goddamn this was not what I meant by fight scene! Thi-this wasn't even a f-fight-!

There was no point in closing my eyes(eye? How many did I have right now?) so I just turned back to watch what was happening in front of me. Oh… oh myyyyyy~ I shouldn't be watching this… but it was MY dream! So it's not like anyone can stop me! AHAHAHAHAAAHA!

(Back to the waking world)

"Mmmm… heh… mmm…." Xin giggled in his sleep, burying his face in his pillow as he continued rhythmically moving his hips. He let out a few low, drawn out purrs now and then. Ford had put the blanket back on Xin, as it had slid down overnight, and was just writing in his journal nearby. "Whatever he's dreaming about, it seems pretty enjoyable," Ford noted obliviously. "I'm glad he's not having nightmares, after what happened last night."

Lee was looking away, rather uncomfortable. Did this Ford really not realize?! From the innocent look on his face, it seemed Ford really didn't.

"Fuck's sake, Ford. Haven't you ever watched any of those animal shows? All those nature ones?"

Ford blinked. Then he looked back at Xin and did a double take. "But he isn't supposed to go into heat except during the summer?"

"He's a demon, and that's a vessel," Lee said next, turning away from this and setting his UT to filter that junk out. (Was gonna have to have the tent deep clean that junk next. ...Maybe just burn it.) "He can freakin' shapeshift into whatever he wants, whenever he wants. -Do I really gotta spell this one out for you, here?"

Ford blushed. "Ah…." He shifted a little away from where the dragon was rutting in the pillows. "Well, physical vessel forms-"

"-Nope," Lee cut in quickly. "Nope nope nope. I am not some nerd over biology, you are not having this conversation with me. Nonspecific excuse!" Lee actually turned around and pointed a spatula at Ford from the stove. "I mean it. We're not doin' this thing!"

Ford blinked. Then he coughed. Well, he had wanted to discuss the intricacies of different species and reproductive urges, it was interesting, ok? Even if Ford had no desire to do it himself, it didn't mean he wasn't interested in the subject… (when it had to do with cryptids and such…)

"Nerds," Lee complained, setting down the spatula and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked down at the stove, then started the process of putting it on pause. "Screw this, I need a shower and a change of clothes anyway." He couldn't cook junk when he had a demon at his back here with all THAT sexytimes stuff goin' on. So he set the stove to pause, locked out the console for now, and stomped off to the left-side tent flap and vanished into that inner private space. (To wash all the 'ew' off. While wishing that mind soap was an actual thing. Because demons.)

Ford flushed, even as he opened his journal to write down his observations. ("...perhaps his antlers are an erogenous zone? If so, I must apologize to him once he wakes… and ask him why he didn't tell me." Ford frowned. "And be careful to not touch them without permission, I mean, he does seem to enjoy it when I scratch them during our cuddling… but I guess scratching isn't the same as stroking… will need to run more tests on sensitivity…" And Ford's blush got darker as he wrote; he was a little excited at the prospect of learning more about William's various biologies in his different forms. Because they were clearly all unique and different from each other…)

There was a low moaning sound coming from the pile of pillows and blankets. Ford blushed. W-well… erm… as much as Ford liked the idea of studying it, perhaps… not right this second...

He put a couple more pillows on top of the pile to cover the dragon more fully.

Xin woke up feeling refreshed. Ahh… that… was a nice dream… He blinked blearily, confused for a moment about where he was. Then he went pale when he realized he wasn't at home. And Fordsie was sitting right there- and Xin slowly buried himself back inside the pillows, flicking his fingers to clean everything. And possibly never look Fordsie in the eyes ever again. Ahhhhh why had he done this here of all places?!

"Oh, good morning," Fordsie said, which only made Xin hide even more under the pillows.

"Yes," he heard next. "Good morning, little sis~~" It came from a couch-ern-ly direction and-

AHHHHHHH! His brother was awake and stuff too?! Xin nearly combusted when he realized what he'd done while right-there-and-

"...Xin?" Fordsie was coming over, Xin could feel the blankets shifting.

And then he could see Ford's face, looking confused and a bit worried. And Blue's face, where he was sitting propped up against the couch arm, with a visible-to-others holographic display up from his own suit's left arm bracer up… which he was not looking at, because Blue was looking over at him instead, rather amused.

"I thought you said you weren't so… voyeuristic, little sis!" Blue… teased him? He could hear a far wider grin in Blue's voice than Blue had on his face.

"...I forgot I was here, and… um… well, it was a dream? I mean… I've seen it sometimes in real life, but only sometimes-" Xin sputtered. "Sometimes I get in the mood for it?" He clutched at the pillow, half hiding his face inside it.

"Stupid bodies are stupid!" Blue noted. "I remember us having this conversation before. Yes? Things to-be-done, in places that are safe and no-one who you want to see you, can see you?" Blue verbally needled (...prodded?) him, just a bit.

"Yeah, I remember…" But Blue had left the room and promised not to watch him that time! "I mean, I kinda like the sensation, now and then. Just… wasn't expecting to be doing it while other people were here…"

"Lee certainly wasn't," Blue noted. He looked at his holographic display, and tapped at something easily. "Went off to wash off the ick from yesterday. He'll probably be burning all that you were touching there to ash in the incinerator, cleaned down past the molecules or not, just-because. Can't scrub or burn out his brain, though!" Blue said to her brightly.

Xin sank further into the pillow. "...gonna need to apologise to him later…"

Ford reached over to pat Xin's head (head, not antlers, this time), "It's ok, it's a perfectly natural-" (Ford said this with a questioning tilt at the end) "-activity?" He finished, looking a little embarrassed himself.

"It is," Blue said. "And it isn't. And it is my little sister's prerogative to keep wanting to like doing all of the very stupid body things. Yes? Not like I haven't Seen it all before, ad nauseum," Blue shrugged off.

"...sorry I did it right here, though. I should have waited until I was alone," Xin apologised to the room at large.

Ford chuckled. "It's fine. I've also had the occasional wet dream when I was younger." (Damn puberty and all that.)

Xin looked a little more reassured, slowly sliding out from under his pillow shield. "Do I need to get Lee more pillows? Since he's burning these?"

"We have many; it is not required," Blue waved off. "Unless you find some on our shopping expedition that you-and-he might both like?"

Xin smiled at that, "I'd like that." He blinked. "We're going shopping? Like that time at the big store with Stanley?"

"We are currently planning an expedition trip in my 'set for the supplies, Lee and I, for the non-chocolate chocolate and all seeds for 'starters' for you, and specialized nanofabric material for the 'science clothes' Seb wants to create also originally, as a start," Blue told Xin. "We will go to forty-six-apostrophe-backslash first as a 'staging'-outbound area and to check-in-at-first, and then also-to several other dimensions there for the main supply run. It is too…" Blue made a face, and a gesture, "...in other dimensions here. That broken-demon idiot that was here did you no favors," Blue stated both simply and darkly. "And Stanley does not want me killing if I can avoid it, or going places with Lee that are more-dangerous and more-risky than a particular level of riskiness that I know I can handle without murder-or-worse. So. That means my 'set, rather than this one, for such an outbound supply run."

Xin brightened. "I'm allowed to go now?" then he caught the rest of the sentence. "Yeah, things are kinda shit here."

"Yes. And yes, because stupid local broken-demon. -BUT," Blue told him next, fixing Xin with a will-brook-no-divergence-from-this gaze. "You WILL NOT-go ANYWHERE that is not where I am, without me being right there with you. -Understand?" Blue said to her next, kicking his legs over the front of the couch, to sit on it front-facing towards him. "NO running off to other dimensions, or up to my attic-room in Stanley's house, or to anyplace-else UNLESS I tell you EXPLICITLY that the time-and-space you are requesting and querying that you may-go to is an acceptable space-time location point-and-area-range for you to go. -Do you promise to abide by these restrictions-for-now, for this trip? Yes? No."

"That's fair. Ok." Xin shrugged, feeling much like a child being told to 'stick close to mom' so he wouldn't get lost in a store. Which, has admittedly happened on multiple occasions when he was a kid- and just recently at the supply store. Xin held back a shudder at the memory. Yup, no going off and away from his brother. Got it.

"This is for your own safety," Blue told Xin, "As well as mine. -I am trying to keep the agreement going with Stanley-still, and I must keep you away from 'Ford and Liam-also for now. There is too much uncertainty; I cannot guarantee the continued safety and integrity of your own Mind otherwise," let alone the integrity of his agreement with Stanley in conjunction with that. "You are too open," Blue told Xin, "And trusting. Operational security. -As your big brother, I will be securing this for you, through your adherence to these guidelines for now."

Xin nodded. "Alright." It being for Blue's safety as well was much more motivating than it being about his own. (Which Blue knew, which was why he had said it. In any other circumstance, he would never reveal such a potential open area of attack in front of anyone else - the potential pressure points of the agreement he had with his Stanley. In any other circumstance, he would especially not do so with a Stanford of sorts listening in, especially not one who might have no inclination whatsoever to keep that information to themself. Blue felt he was taking a very different sort of risk there, with this Ford here. If this Ford came. But it was an important evaluatory measure of him, this new-'Hand of his little sister's, and so Blue would do this, take this sort of risk on wholly-himself in this way.)

(-Though with Miz following his guidelines as he made and adapted them, Lee being well-versed in operational security to at least some degree, and this Ford having no access to interdimensional portal tech himself, Blue felt reasonably confident that he could control the situation as a whole to the degrees he wanted and the measures that he usually did - a 'sandbox' to play within, of sorts. So long as he was able to continue keeping his Glasses and Stanley's 'Ford stuck in ways that had them each staying well OUT of it - and he could and WOULD do that very thing, he had no reason to NOT-do-it - then...)

"There is a shower in the guest bathroom there," Blue noted to Xin next. "If you want to use it? It has a water version you can use. Humans like that, yes?"

"Yes please." Xin blushed. "Um…" He glanced around, tiny circlets of glass materializing in front of his eyes for split microseconds to let him sort of Look around. It wasn't perfect, and the things he Saw were still kind of 'off', but it was good enough to see (and find) the 'hidden' flap to the guest bathroom without having to ask his brother directly. "I'll be back in a few." Xin waved as he made his way there.

Ford was staring. "What was that?" he wondered aloud at the 'glasses' as Xin left.

"My little sister spent some time working on one aspect of operational security yesterday," Blue said. "He did not get through it all, that which restricts sight into and out of and within this tented area, but he did find several ways to decode and decrypt several things in the more passive and early-first security layers." Blue then got back to his (somewhat-visible to others) holographic screen.

"That's amazing." Ford blinked. "Now the next step, I'm guessing, is to get him to actually think to use such measures in protecting himself." The scientist sighed.

"At some point, yes," Blue noted, as he tapped his way through a few screens he was reading (the material on some areas of which Ford could not see as anything but 'X'ed out boxes declaring a not-high-enough security level for viewing; meanwhile, the actual data was being shown on Blue's own his-eyes-only cybersuit's personal head's up display). "But learning things piecemeal could give a false sense of security, and be worse than no security at all. An airtight house with no roof, that holds the rain in until you drown."

"...your metaphors are as unique as usual." Ford smiled wryly. Then he sobered, thinking of everything that had happened the night before. "Is Liam…" Ford wasn't sure how to talk about this without triggering Blue into something, and frankly, he knew he should be waiting for Xin to come back from his shower first, but Ford was an idiot at times. "Is Liam dangerous?" Ford asked Blue hesitantly. Then Ford quickly added, "Not that I would do anything even if he was, that's not the point of this question!" as Blue's eyes flicked back over towards him. Ford held his hands up disarmingly. "Just that, well, Seb says his Liam was kind, and I don't know if it maps any similarly or differently from yours-"

"'Dangerous' in what way, and to whom. Be specific." Blue was watching him. No, not just watching him-

Ford had Blue's full attention just then.

"..." Ford breathed. "Lee thinks that Liam might… try to destroy anyone he deems… ah, irregular?" From the worried, horrified look of realization that Lee had gotten when he'd put together Blue's want, to make it so all people who are killed could come back, with Liam and- "It was because of him-", Lee had said. And with how Xin had talked about his… 'unnatural'ness when Lee had asked Xin if he was a 'perfect' triangle- Ford frowned. "I don't want Xin getting hurt. Would Liam try to…" Ford didn't want to think of it. That 'perfect or else' thing, and what that might mean.

"He hasn't yet," Blue said next, after pulling his gaze away from him. Blue was looking down more at his own hands now - not his screen, not at Ford. Ford saw him flick his gaze towards the guest bathroom, and away again. "It wouldn't take much to hurt Xin right now, anyway," Blue told him. "He calls himself 'unnatural' as if this is a 'bad' terrible thing. Reinforcing that in any way could-" Blue looked away again. "It doesn't matter; Xin can't understand him right now anyway. Probably. And the attic-room wards and protections have been changed; he should not be able to enter it currently, to even see Liam to try."

And then Blue looked back over at him and said, "Why do you care."

"Because Xin would want to meet Liam someday, you know he would." Ford grimaced. "And I don't want him to get hurt or killed."

"Which 'him'."

"Xin." Ford said honestly. "I don't know your Liam, I wouldn't want him to get hurt or killed either, on principle, but right now, my worry is for Xin."

"Mm." Blue looked back at his screen. "If you attempt to kill my big brother, I will make you suffer. My little sister may not want you dead," Blue told him, "But I can do far worse to you than you could ever have imagined out of that broken-demon of ex-yours. It's not like I don't know how," Blue ended almost breezily, as he flipped over to a new holographic screen.

"I won't try to kill your brother." Ford paused. "Between Liam and your sister, who do you prioritize?"

"There is no 'between'; they are both important and to be prioritized," was the demon's response to Ford, as he worked at his screens.

Ford nodded, looking relieved. That was one worry alleviated.

"I will not let things progress to a state where I will have to ever choose 'between' them," Blue added next as he worked. "That will not happen; I refuse."

Ford was rather quiet for a while. Then he spoke softly, "She would rather you chose Liam. I know she would."

"I don't have to choose 'between' them; that is NOT how brothers and sisters work," Blue said very firmly to him next, still not looking at him, but having paused in his reading while glaring rather heatedly at the screen. "And if my little sister thinks otherwise, well, then he will just have to be VERY disappointed with me for a very LONG time then-and-now-and-on-into-the-future, forever-on-into-eternity whenever he is with me, now won't he. There is no choosing; there is only the decision. That is my choice."

And with that said, Blue kept on working away at his screens, reading and doing things that Ford couldn't see enough of, to be able to parse exactly what it was he was doing.

Ford sighed and sat back, rather worried about what was even happening over in that other Set.

"Have you decided yet," Blue said to him next. "Whether you are coming or aren't-you, for this in-my-'set supply run."

"Yes. I'm coming along, with Xin." Ford nodded.

"Mm," said Blue. "Then perhaps you had better go pack," Blue told him next, flicking his screen away into nothingness and standing up from the couch. "Because Lee and I plan on leaving today, for that trip and that supply run. It should not take long to teach my little sister the trick to handling things, for pulling mass-up-into-coherent-recoverable-energy, then over-and-back and down-again."

And with that said, Blue turned away from him and headed off for the left tent flap, in the back by the guest kitchen area, where Lee had vanished off into earlier. And then Blue went through it and was gone.

Ford sighed, bending over to push against his knees as he stood up from the couch. He left a note for Xin, for when he returned, so that he would know where Ford went. Then he headed out the tent flap for his house, to get dressed properly for an outer space romp. Time to get his old trench coat out. Ford couldn't help the little skip in his step as he found himself rather looking forward to it.

Xin emerged from the shower, drying his hair with a gesture and blinked at the holographic pop up. Oh. A message from brother. Oh, brother has everything figured out for travelling. Ford's coming along too. They were going to pack up the tent and everything. Ford's going packing, Brother was going to teach Xin how to energize things inside himself, so he could move the actual person/items through his Door… ah, but that he should just do a vessel for Ford anyway, and have him come over from the Mindscape, just in case. Xin chuckled. Blue was very thorough. He messed around with the holographic interface and sent back, [Okie dokie smokie (^0^)]

Ford came back, decked to the nines, looking like some dashing space explorer, striding dramatically down the halls of the Center with his coat fluttering behind him. (Well, it wasn't really fluttering, but Ford liked to believe he made for quite a striking image of pure awesomeness.) But when he got back to where the tent was, he was greeted with not Xin, but Yun, and no tent anywhere there in sight. Ford blinked. She was dressed in some comfortable looking clothes, looking more like a woman going out to the mall more than surviving in space. Well, when Ford looked closer, he noticed the slightly stiff way the fabric moved as she waved at him. Ah, it was reinforced. Ford smiled and waved back.

"Hey there handsome~" Yun grinned at him. Ford chuckled, "Well, I just figured I should get everything I needed for this."

Blue was standing upright, leaning against the hallway wall. Lee was nowhere in sight.

"I did tell you to pack," said Blue. "Preparations on what-is-worn are a part of that."

Ford nodded and looked around. "Are we waiting for Lee now?" Yun gave him a mischievous smile at that. She also sauntered over to hug his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder. Ford raised an eyebrow, but didn't have any issue with the demon's usual cuddliness. (A few of the other scientists walked by, gasping at the beautiful woman beside their boss - who was that?)

"Lee is talking with the local-Glasses," Blue noted. "I moved all the foods from the cart and case to my hat. If they are needed today, I will pull them out and leave them in the lobby on the way out there for him."

Ford didn't know what to say to that so he just nodded. "Alright." He looked down at Yun, "So… any particular reason you're in this form?" he asked. Yun pouted up at him and then pointed between herself and Blue. "Look! We're a palette swap of each other!"

Ford blinked and then looked over at Blue. Eh…? Well, he supposed, if one squinted and tilted their head a bit, the two 'women' almost looked similar? Almost? They had the same slim build, and two colored hair (though Blue's hair was 'blue' on top with black roots along the bottom, while Yun was blonde with black instead.) Not to mention the different ethnicities of their respective humanoid forms...

"Only when I'm not high-energy and annoyed enough to wreck-" Blue began, then stopped at the distinct sound of someone's striding footsteps coming down the hallway. (Blue pushed off the wall, at about the point that Lee came into view.)

Lee waved to them briefly, a moment after he came around the corner and recognized them all. Fiddleford was walking beside him, being careful not to look directly at Blue (despite the fact that Blue was looking directly at him).

Lee slowed down to a stop once he made it to the three of them and told Blue, "Fiddlenerd here bought us out for the day. Gonna dump all the food and drink out on the tables in the lobby as a self-serve. -And I'm gonna hold you to it on that payment here," Lee grinned at Fiddleford next, waving an I.O.U. slip at him.

Blue pushed off the wall, turned, and started walking - already heading for the lobby (to get things over with).

"Don't worry, you'll have yer payment." Fiddleford smiled. Lee grinned back, then (with almost a smirk), turned and slapped the handwritten I.O.U. into Ford's chest while walking past him (while Ford barely, and half-unconsciously caught it).

"Don't spend it all on cheese-making techniques in one day, or nothin'," Lee told Ford, before sauntering off after Blue with something like a spring in his step.

Ford glanced over at Fiddleford, who was staring at Yun. "What are you paying him with?" Yun poked at the IOU, "Turn it around, silly."

Ford turned it over to read the other side.

'Good for the time of five Center employees, three hours each, for any helpful purpose, to be approved in-advance by each employee and Fiddleford McGucket,' read the paper slip, with several lines on it for 'name' 'date' 'time' and two signature lines (for 'employee' and 'FHM').

"Hanging out? Helping… oh, so like some sort of activity?" Ford blinked. "But why did he say cheese making?" ("Because cheese is delicious!" was Yun's contribution, not knowing about Lee's and Ford's discussion with the cafeteria staff together a few days ago.)

Fiddleford was still staring at Yun. "...Eh, Ford?"

"Yes?" Ford glanced up at his friend, who was staring at the four arms and moving black markings. They didn't look like tattoos, more like the shade of her skin was shifting- like curling tendrils of smoke? But, thick, with defined outlines...

"Who's… ah… your friend here?" Fiddleford wanted to say 'alien' but 'demon' could also be a possibility.

Ford blinked. "Oh, ah, this is…"

"-Hello! I'm Yun! I'm an alien!" She giggled. Ford rolled his eyes. "Though, to be honest, I'm closer to being a goddess~" Yun purred. Ford reached out his free hand to muss her hair. ("Ack! Fordsie!")

"Yun, don't tease him like that." Ford sighed. "You know Xin? He's capable of shapeshifting, and has a different name for each different form. This one is Yun."

"Keep it a secret though!" Yun complained. "I wanna see how long it'll take for the rest of your staff to figure that out."

Ford rolled his eyes again. "Is this another one of your pranks?" ("Yes!" Yun pouted.) Ford sighed. Well, this seemed harmless enough. "Fine," he said, making Fiddleford wonder what purpose this served.

"Ah… shapeshifter…" Fiddleford looked at Yun suspiciously. She rolled her eyes. "Shifty is still locked in a cryostasis tube, last I checked. Also, if I couldn't shapeshift, how would I go from dragon to humanoid form?"

Fiddleford narrowed his eyes. "And what about Miz?"

Yun grinned, "I'm Miz too, sometimes. Don't worry, my family knows."

And then Fiddleford froze. And he turned toward Ford with a 'are you serious' expression. He opened his mouth and said plainly, "You know it's not normal fer someone to be havin' all these separate identities, right?" Didn't that worry Ford at all? And Miz was a child- what was Ford thinking- well, Fiddleford took a deep breath. No, that wasn't right, Ford wasn't like that, and Miz, Xin or whatever this dragon (Demon? Alien?) was calling themselves was still older than dirt.

For his part, Ford shrugged. "I don't see the issue with William having multiple identities, he's very upfront with me about who he is-" ("Aside from that first time you met Xin, though to be fair, I was sort of hoping you'd be able to recognize me.") "-and I find these other forms to be…" Ford blushed a little. "...quite fascinating."

"Awww~ don't worry Fordsie~ I'll keep on fascinating you~" Yun crooned, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek.

Fiddleford stared. "Oh, of course." Fiddleford threw his arms in the air. "Of course you're into this sort of thing!" Well, Ford had been this way about Shifty as well. Up until the damn thing took Fiddleford's form and tried to escape… Fiddleford took a few deep breaths. That and this were two separate issues. Don't go having a meltdown over this. "Well, as long as you're both happy," he congratulated them dryly. If that was what his friend was into, well, at least Xin/Miz/whoever was nice. Especially in comparison to Blue.

Ford nodded. "We've been working out some things together, I'm still not done learning all the things that she needs out of me," ("I told you it's fine!") "But I'm going to keep trying, so I can be the best friend I can be."

'Friend?' Fiddleford raised an eyebrow, but let it slide for now. "Well, if you're both actually happy together, then… best of luck to you." And he managed a small smile. To be fair, Ford did seem rather happy right here, with Yun hangin' off him. She really was a beautiful woman. Fiddleford blinked as he realized that since she was a shapeshifter, she could just look however she wanted, and heck, Fiddleford knew plenty of people who'd love to be able to do that very same thing. "Anyway, I'm heading back now, need to get the food par-"

Ford reached out a hand and shook it at him in alarm, "-Don't! Don't say the 'p' word!" Fiddleford blinked and mouthed out 'party?' to which Ford nodded. "That word… ah, it means something weird in demon terms, don't want to risk Blue hearing or something."

Fiddleford rolled his eyes. "Well, good luck with that." He paused. "By the way, why're you wearin' that?"

"Oh, I'm going on a space exploration-" Ford was cut off by Yun's delighted, "We're going SHOPPING!" ("...yes, that. But in SPACE!" Ford added on.)

"...You'll be back before thirteen years this time?" Fiddleford asked, worried now. (Ford nodded. "Yes. I'm going with Yun so she can make sure I get back properly.") Yun huffed, "I don't want to miss out on any more of my family's lives, they're human after all." Fiddleford supposed he was just going to have to trust her to that.

"Alright. Stay safe Ford." And Fiddleford gave him one last worried look before turning and heading off to the lobby.

By the time Ford and Yun reached the lobby, each and every table was literally covered in plates of food. Well, except for one single table off to the side, that had a veritable bevy of filled cups of drink, and a pile of plastic silverware on it, instead. Blue and Lee were nowhere to be seen.

Yun Looked around, not noticing all the stunned looks as the other workers stared at her. ("Who's that?!" "She's on the doc's arm?") Ford didn't notice either, looking around for the demon and the alternate version of his brother. Yun blinked, "Oh, they're outside already. Come on." She pulled Ford along out the front doors of the Center and waved. "Heeeey! Sorry we took so long~!"

"It's fine," said Blue, looking up as he stomped the final circle he needed for the 'obfuscation' spell down into the grass. "I needed to set up the preliminaries for this, anyway." He walked inside the perimeter of the large circle that Ford could see, and… vanished?

Lee shrugged and stepped over the curved line without reservation, vanishing in similar fashion.

Yun pulled Ford over; Ford was still trying to look at the circle, see if he could memorize all the different sigils… but the symbols shifted and twisted away from his vision, like he would look at it, and suddenly feel like he was only seeing it from the corner of his eyes instead. And it was blurry even then. He couldn't begin to try to memorize it- or even hold the image in his head. And then he and Yun were past the curve and-

Blue was making a few gestures here and there, and obviously doing something that Ford couldn't quite see, but Blue stopped doing whatever it was that he'd been doing shortly after Ford and Yun had entered the first outer circle by crossing that line.

"Little sis," Blue said next, waving her over to him, "Let's discuss the mechanics of all-this in… 'private'," Blue told her, gesturing down at yet another (smaller) circle surrounding him, off-center from the larger circle they were all within, just large enough that there was room for another person to stand in front of him inside it with him and nearby.

"Sure." Yun let go of Ford, gave him a pat on the arm, and then walked over.

Ford frowned as Yun crossed the line to Blue, Blue tapped his foot against the ground, and… it was as if a curtain had fallen across his vision, but only when he tried to look at the two of them (both indirectly and directly). The sound had cut out as well. The two of them were, at best, looking blurry.

"Kind of a head trip every time," he heard from Lee, who was… adjusting(?) the bracer on his left arm. "Give 'em a few. Blue's usually pretty quick with explanations."

(And Blue went over the mathematical procedures he used for what he did with Yun. He gave her the general ideas, and also some of the specifics of how he did it - physically demonstrating what he was doing using himself and what he was carrying, right in front of her - to make sure that she understood his way of doing the de-and-re-energization procedure for matter-to-energy-to-matter plus into-self folding, at least. And his sister learned quickly - as Blue expected - but Blue praised her for it, because it was a difficult thing to do and understand, and Blue also knew how Stanley thought that 'positive reinforcement' thing was supposed to be working for him 'as a human'. It might not have any real impact on him, but Miz had been human once long ago and was human-again-still, and it was therefore something that Blue had been learning about even more recently in 'human terms', because of that.)

(And when he asked if she had any questions, Yun remembered to ask about timing, and Blue walked her through his own (general) way of 'deciding' he was going to be back - and move back - to a certain time at a certain point, and then go off doing that immediately, All-Seeing Eye not wide and for the most part nearly shut closed for it as he did it all, and…)

And Yun tested it out a few times using some grass, then a small pen, and working her way up to a living ant, just to make sure she could put what she energized all back correctly, fully alive and well.

"Now," Blue said next, "As for your 'Hand, you can either strip him here and bring his belongings with you, or Scan them here and remake them with his newly-made-for-him vessel upon entry. I'd recommend the latter, despite the energy use, since his body will be remaining here for the interim." And then Blue walked her through a few techniques he knew and sometimes used for putting a body in a non-frozen stasis that did not require food or water or excretion, but would allow interior motion. He also showed her how to take down all the 'can't see this' circles they were currently standing within, without actually showing her what they all looked like just yet. "You will want to do so here, just in case. Because bodies," Blue told her next. "I'm going to take Lee back over first, now. The time of reentry we are and will be using is-" and he told her. "Wait one minute of time here, then bring him over, and perform a time shift once there if you need to." Blue didn't think that she would need the time shift, if he was beginning to understand how her Doors worked better, but he was trying to be on the safe side here.

"Alright brother. Would it be ok to leave the circle up, to keep Ford's body safe during the interim? I know we're coming back at the same time, I just worry."

"Yes, leave it up for now," Blue said. "Lee and I may not be coming back here with you. Showing you how to take them down yourself-after right now is for after-this, after your return to here, if I am not here to do it myself."

Yun nodded. "I'm gonna figure out how to build my own 'can't see' circle." She grinned at him. "Would be fun to experiment with."

"I can show you how it is done inside my 'set, if you want," Blue said. "I just don't want to do it here, for reasons." Not least of which because he wasn't entirely certain how much the deranged lizard could see of things with them right at that moment in time. It was why he'd left most of what he'd done in that therapist's room un-viewable as he'd been doing it. He'd let Yun-as-Miz see what she could from inside the 'unseeable' area, once he'd gotten the initial 'can't see' parts up that had expanded the unseeable region, but he still hadn't shown her that first-step part of it yet himself, that he'd done initially using that metal plate (and his 'tattoos' from his hands and arms, at the time).

"Sure. I can learn your way, and then make my own with a different method, for fun!" Because she liked making her own way to do stuff, sometimes, if she wasn't feeling lazy.

"That is the best way to do things, as long as my specifics will not influence you unduly! Which they don't, as far as I've seen it so far! HA!" Blue grinned at her, and turned away from her, making ready to step outside the smaller circle.

But before he could leave and get back to Lee and Ford, Yun spoke up. "Um… hey brother? I… kinda need to… talk about something else real quick." (Blue blinked and stopped in place for a moment.) She rubbed her arms. "I… well, I don't really know how to put this…" She glanced away. "I don't want to hurt your feelings." (Blue blinked at her at this. 'Hurt feelings' of his?)

But while Yun had been able to ignore what Pyronica and the others had said, for a while at least, she couldn't really… let this go on.

"I… love hanging out with you," Yun started. "And while my friends and human family don't mind that, they… don't have as much fun when you're around…" she twiddled her fingers together nervously. "N-not that I'm saying I want you to have to tone yourself down for their sake-" she was babbling now. "So, like… I was thinking it would be easier if they- erm… if, in the future, we just hang out together, just the two of us, and Lee if he's ok with being around me… I know the rest of your Zodiac don't really have fun around me either, so it's the same thing as my human family but in the opposite direction or something- erm… that is…" She was wilting more and more as she tried very hard to explain herself. (And Blue was staring at her unblinkingly as she did it.) And she was just a terrible sister wasn't she? For not being able to think of a way that everyone could get along, and just trying to keep the groups separate from each other instead. That wasn't a perfect solution but it was the best she could come up with, even after thinking for a while.

Because she didn't want Fordsie or the others being stressed out, even with Lee here as a buffer; she knew it was only a matter of time until Blue managed to be his usual awful self and make the humans upset again. And her own alien friends didn't really like him either. And she knew that the humans over on Blue's side didn't like her either, especially that Stanford. So… why couldn't they just hang out somewhere, just the two of them, away from other people?

"L-like… we could go off on our own, explore the other Doors or something. That'll be fun right?"

Blue was watching her. And then he looked away from her. He wasn't smiling.

"Not that 'set-and-Door," Blue said, in a (talking-about-bled sort of) tone that made it clear he was talking about that Reverse!Flatland place. He looked down and adjusted the ends of his sleeves at his wrists. "You can always come to my 'set if you need to," Blue said next. (And in that moment, he was thinking of suicidal-survival first foremost and only, before anything that might be potentially fun - the maintenance of her promise to him, and him being able to keep it from his own end - of his little sister still visiting him, in order to feel less lonely, and never again try to commit suicide. Survival came first, survival always came first; fun was for later once survival was going to be first-assured.) "I will make it work." But he still wasn't looking at her as he said it. And the way he was holding himself and his posture had gone from more open to… almost reserved. Like he was holding himself back, or holding back something. Yun couldn't tell what he was thinking, as usual. But he was being anything but his more exuberant self in that moment.

So it startled Yun a bit when Blue's eyelids fluttered closed for a blink, and then he straightened up and clapped his hands together abruptly, turning towards her, all-smiles again.

"WELL," said Blue. "My 'set first, then we can talk other-'sets-maybe this-trip-or-next. Yes? Yes." Blue said this to Yun with a smile. (One that didn't quite entirely reach his eyes, though. Because-)

And with that said, Blue didn't wait for a response from his little sister before he stepped outside the smaller circle internal to the larger one, and strode over to Lee.

And Blue held out a hand, palm-outwards, towards Lee.

"...Still feel a little weird doin' this thing," Lee muttered out next to Blue, glancing over at the local Ford, then away from him, while trying to stifle a bit of a blush.

"Weird is good!" Blue grinned out at Lee. "Weird is the best of the worst." (And this had Lee unconsciously relaxing, just a bit.)

And then, they danced.

...Honestly, it was the closest word Ford had for what they were doing. It looked a little like one of those old English dances, where you held up one arm, touched hands, circled one way around your linked hands and arms like they were the axis the dancers were spinning themselves around, then swapped upraised hands (dropping the others) and began circling the other way around again. Pacing around each other in circles each time, staring each other right in the eye.

They stopped swapping as much, spun faster and faster around that central axis made from their held upright fingers and arms, and Lee and Blue seemed to be saying something to each other, but it was so quiet that Ford couldn't quite overhear it.

And then, all-at-once, Blue's entire form seemed to brighten and shift into something shining almost like the sun, while Lee's body seemed to shift, darken and stretch almost, as he was pulled forward there and towards Blue.

Ford was blinking afterimages away for a few long moments (afterimages that somehow seemed to have been muted almost, in some odd way, because they... went away far more quickly than he would have expected). And Ford was still trying to mentally parse what had just happened, because… Blue had somehow wrapped whatever he himself had become around what Lee had become too? And then they'd… shot upwards? Moved upwards, almost? -Whatever had happened, they were both certainly gone now.

Ford pulled in a bit of a breath, before looking over at Yun.

"It's like a Fusion dance, but not quite," Yun said brightly, which only confused Ford more. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna be doing that with you right this instant, we're just gonna do the usual. You know, pull you into the Mindscape, put your body in stasis for safety reasons, that kinda thing."

Ford nodded, relieved. "I'm glad we're not doing that… fusion(?) thing."

Yun blinked and tilted her head at this. "Why not?"

Ford flushed, looking away. "I can't dance." But that just made Yun giggle. "I'll teach you later," she assured him, before helping him lie down so she could pull him out and through a Door.

The Void of Doors was as amazing as it always was. Ford smiled as he saw it. Yun waved at Blue, who was here. Lee… was absent.

Ford blinked at Blue. They were in the Mindscape, but he looked the same as he had in Ford's dimension - well... the newer, non-tattooed female human form of him that he'd taken there over the last week. He'd… actually expected to see Blue in a triangle form, or... what Ford suspected the dream demon should look like. Not… this?

(Then again, William could change his form within the Mindscape too, having shown up in whatever form he was currently in. Though Ford had assumed it was a shapeshifting thing- or rather, due to William's different 'personas' being technically different people, despite being the same entity… actually, when Ford thought too much about it, his head kind of hurt.)

Still, Ford had sort of assumed Blue would want to be a triangle in the Mindscape, wasn't that the point? He was proud of being a triangle after all.

"We're in Yun's Dreamscape, you dolt," Blue said, as he floated towards a doorway, and… there was a symbol on the front of it which changed as Blue waved a hand at it. "You don't have a plate in-between us here, and I'm busy. Save your bevy of smoldering questions for AFTER we're through. They could use the oxygen." The symbol was an odd-looking heart-shape now, with a small yellow triangle at the center of it, though the 'heart' was a bit abstract, and seemed to be bleeding out black to red at a sort of almost tentacle-edged design. ...No, it seemed to be depicting an 'aura' of red and black tentacles, that just happened to be caught in that shape.

"Wait, no plate-" Ford brought a hand up to his head, and then paused. "Wait, does pulling me into the Mindscape involve getting in my head?" He'd just realized that. (Yun patted his hand gently.) "I… never thought about it that way…" he frowned.

"You aren't in your body anymore. Welcome to Yun's 'true' Dreamscape, attached to the general Mindscape by an unstarry 'sky' full of Doors." (And with that said, without even having looked at him once, Blue touched the palm of his hand flat up against the Door in front of him… -and then quickly pulled his hand away from it, turning in place and grabbing the edge of the Door as it slammed open in front of him, to rotate and slip right on around the edge of it and in through the opening, to yank it closed behind him-)

(...and it all happened without the usual unfightable pull Ford was used to feeling this close to them when one of them had been opened. A nonstandard way of opening a Door for sure, if Ford and Miz had ever seen one. That was… weird.)

(...Had Blue been practicing or something when she wasn't Looking, around here?)

"Right, I…" Ford shook his head. He was fine. William never went in to mess around, Ford would have noticed… Ford shook his head again. No worrying about it. He would just stress himself out.

Yun leaned over to nuzzle him. "Come on, just hold onto me so we don't get separated."

It was a few moments before Ford realized that the colors on the symbol on Blue's Door had started to… change. The yellow bled out from the triangle in a flash, out into all of the 'heart' strands for a moment - as if trying to escape the confines of the drawn symbol almost - nearly all the way out to the tips, the virulent 'Bill Cipher' yellow seemingly shoving the red into nothingness and the black all the way out to the very edges of the design - before the colors (more slowly this time) bled their way back in again.

The very tips of the tentacle-design were now red, the 'aura' of the heart-like design was far more black than before across the whole of it, and half of the triangle in the center was black now instead of yellow - not from the edges in, but shaded up from the bottom, with a little yellow outline surrounding that part of it, still. It reminded him a little of Yun's hairstyle coloring now.

But it didn't stop there. The triangle shaded down completely into black, then the tentacles at the edges waved back and forth in place just a bit...

"Blue's very… dramatic." Ford noted. Yun giggled. "It's cool, right?" Ford wouldn't use that word for it, but… Blue was pretty cool. Yun pulled him forward and wrapped some of her arms around him. "Alright, here we go." And she pushed at the door… and it didn't open. Yun blinked. "Huh?"

...and the symbol on the Door continued to change.

Yun pulled at the doorknob this time, a little harder. Since when did any of her Doors in here ever get… stuck?

The symbol suddenly spiked outards all at once, pulsing out to full black, the tentacles shooting out in all directions like horrible ramrod-straight spikes - out towards the edges of the Door's frame, but almost seeming to reach out and try to spike the two of them in front of the Door there, for a moment(!).

Yun stared. "What is…" She squeaked and pulled away from the Door, pushing Ford behind her as it spiked. "Fuck!" Did that Door just try to attack them? Like, not really, but sort of?

Luckily, it only was an optical illusion; the spikes hadn't left the surface of the Door, but the symbol, which now looked more like a large spiky mess than anything, now took up almost the entire blasted Door. It looked… kinda cancerous, actually. Yun narrowed her eyes in concern.

And it stayed that way for one long moment, spiky and large and wholly-uninviting in general, and then…

...the black mess of spikes slowly pulled back in, and what remained in its place now was...

...the symbol of the anchor and the AXOLOTL. The one Stanley and Blue both had. Yun's eyes narrowed. Did… did Stanley do something? Or Blue? Or… the AXOLOTL? (But her brother always complained about his AXOLOTL not doing anything so this couldn't have been him… right?) She tried the knob again. Nothing. It was wholly and definitely stuck. They were supposed to fly open at a touch, but this one was-

She cursed, kicking the Door in frustration. "Brother! Brother!" she called out, getting more and more frantic as the Door remained closed.

Ford watched this all, worry furrowing his brow. "Are… they alright?" Yun was alternating between pulling and pushing on the Door.

"I… I think so? I just… something about this… I can't get in!" It was her own Door in her own Dreamscape, all these Doors were hers and she couldn't get in!

She slumped over, sliding down the Door. "...brother?" she said weakly. Was this… a punishment? Because she'd told brother that she didn't want him around her human family or her alien friends? Is this why...

But there was no response from the symbol now emblazoned in the darkest of blacks there, on the front of Blue's now stuck-shut Door. And Ford could see that Yun was getting more and more distressed.

"H-hey… let's… head back for now. Maybe it's just some kind of… security? You can try again later." Ford told her, tugging her gently away from the Door and back toward Seb's.

And Yun let him, even as her eyes never left her brother's Door. The two were sucked through back into the TripletAU, leaving the Void of Doors silent once more.