He had worried that this whole underground cult wouldn't have anything substantial for him. Or that it would be centered around something so unrelated to anything about demonic creatures that coming here would be pointless. The few books that were here proved otherwise though!

The titles etched into the spines of the books already mentioned subjects like otherworldly beings and- oh! Was that a book on planes of existence? Interesting,although he suspected it wouldn't be of too much use. Then again, it could have something akin to the mindscape inside of it. The room had a warm glow from the candlelight, giving him enough light to read.

He tugged at the top of the spine to pull the book out of its place. It was more of a crude handmade journal than anything else, interspersed with fanatical speech. He frowned. It seemed to be more about other dimensions than actual planes of existence. Not that it wasn't interesting, but he could look at it later.

The next book promised 'Ethereal Beings ' which gave Ford a fair bit of hope. There were several mentions on ghost-like apparitions. The author was attributing them to being some form of lost souls from alternate dimensions, torn across space. That could be likely, though it wouldn't account for every single ghost. He could see it being a likelihood though for at least some spirits. It'd certainly explain a few stories. Nothing on actual demonic beings though, besides brief mentions about 'demonic' being used as an adjective. Really, you would think it wouldn't be hard to find something about demons in a room like this.

Ohh! Ford smiled to himself as he stopped upon one page. Oh, but was this an account of a doppelganger? An overdone story, but this had an interesting explanation tying back to the spirits. Not a fae changeling of sorts, but rather something from an alternate dimension-
"Hey, Ford. Buddy."
-that had gotten wrongly displaced into our world, sometimes phasing in and back out, potentially connecting the worlds like a needle and thread. There was quite a distinct lack of any sort of scientific explanation for it, unfortunately, but he tucked it under his one arm as he picked out another book.

"Ford ." Stan said again.

Ford hummed distractedly back to him. How odd, this one looked like pages from various textbooks glued into a makeshift binder. They went over a lot of theories, though a fair amount of reasoning behind some of these had already been disproven, he knew.

Was this a wiccan book? There certainly seemed to be quite a number of wards and spells inside of it. It seemed a bit of an odd fit, but he noticed some of the dogeared spells had to do with planes of sorts. It must have tied into the cult's ideas on other worlds.

"We are in the middle of, you know - a cult hangout here ."

"I know. Isn't it gr-" He turned to look at Stan, his words stopping a bit short as he noticed the less than enthusiastic expression on the other's face.

Stan had his hands pressed up together in front of his face, and he was watching him. He lowered his hands, pointing them to Ford, as he talked. "Cults aren't exactly the best group, here, okay. Or anywhere else for that matter. They're not really all that great ."

"Right, of course, of course." Ford said, looking back to the books. "No. It's just it's good to see something is actually here, I mean." Granted, it was rather limited, not even thirty books, but nearly everything here was actually something. He frowned a bit seeing a particular book, Doctrine of Life , and pushed it aside. He really didn't care too much for the religious aspects of the group. He had a couple books under his left arm by this point, but he didn't want to miss anything too important.

"Yeah. It's not a bust, I know." Stan said.

Oh - an entire astrophysics book? At the very least it looked more recent than that patchwork binder of textbook pages from before. He curiously flipped it open, a bit disappointed to see that no notes had been marked in the margins.
"This is still not great as a whole though. For us."
Well, there were some starred passages, but that was it. He wondered if they had another notebook to expound upon some of their theories with the information from the textbook. Really, it should be right beside this book for a reference. Speaking of, for so few books there really was no excuse for the poor organization system in place here.
"Our super 'sacrifice-able' selves here..."
Huh, so they did have at least one book on fae.
"Ten feet away from a ritual looking kind of knife... with dried blood on it..."
He was starting to think they wouldn't at all. There were actually some notes in here-

"Ford! "

He jumped. "Ah!" He cleared his throat, looking back to Stan. "What, yes?" Shoot, he'd been saying something, hadn't he? "What is it?"

"Underbelly of a cult. Bloody knife on a table. Intruding on their secret base ." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the door. "A.K.A., just grab some books and let's get out of here already."

Ford rolled his eyes, gesturing to the books he had under his one arm. "That's what I've been doing." He said, waving a hand and glancing back over the book's various titles. "Besides, a bloody knife isn't that uncommon. There are some spells that call for animal sacrifices."

Stan scoffed. "Not that comforting, okay."

"They're very anticlimactic actually, all things considered. A mess too."

There was a slap of skin, and Ford looked back to see that Stan had slammed a hand over his eyes. He deigned to not question it, and just turned back to the books to open up another one. His attention was drawn short though, and he turned to look back at Stan with a quiet sigh.

"Okay. So, you've done an animal sacrifice for whatever totally sane reason. What I meant though, was that we're in the middle of a city. So, I really don't think they're picking up goats from the local farm." Stan said, crossing his arms.

"First off," Ford started. "I had my reasons, and it turned out to be an utter waste of time so I wouldn't do it again. Especially for-" He gritted his teeth momentarily, spitefully pushing on, to look back through the last book he'd picked out. He just needed to scan for demonic entities or parallel planes. He nearly forgot to continue with his next point. "Secondly, even if they do utilize sacrifice humans, we're not staying around for that long. I'm almost done here."

Nothing in this book. He flipped through another, and as he put it back he began to hear an irritating tapping sound behind him. He elected to dutifully ignore it and focus.
This book was on supernatural beings, potentially useful.
Tap... tap... tap...
A time space centric book, skip... A book of rituals, that would explain
Tap. Tap. Tap.
That would explain the knife . It could have something-
TapTapTAP
-something useful.

"Can't just pick a few books..." Stan muttered.

Ford ground his teeth. "Maybe," he started, looking over his shoulder at Stan who was incessantly tapping his fingers on a table, "if I had just thirty seconds to look in peace, I'd be done already."

"You call that thirty seconds?"

He turned to look at him. "So, it was a couple minutes, that's still hardly any time."

"A couple minutes?" Stan raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, poindexter, try more like fifteen."

There was a click from the door handle then, an audible warning that barely gave Ford enough time to shove the thin books under his arm into his journal pocket before the door opened. When it did, there was an oddly plain man at the door.

Yes, he'd really only seen one cult, and they wore dramatic red robes, but even still. He just looked too inconspicuous to be in a cult. "What are you two doing in here?"

Oh, this was just his luck.

Stan turned, already putting on a sheepish smile, rather than a guilty look. That usually kept people from outright attacking on the spot.

Ford opened his mouth then. "We were just-"

"Trying to find someone to talk to about joining!" He quickly interrupted. "And in no way whatsoever breaking into your inner secret sanctum." He said with a wave of his hand.
"No front door to knock on around here, you know." He joked, not that they would have knocked anyways.

"Right... yes, exactly that." Ford agreed, a tad hesitantly.

Stan slowly let out a relieved breath as Ford went along with it. He was about to go on with a whole explanation to help keep the guy from trying to stab them, but he actually seemed to have already bought it.

He lightened up, relaxing, a smile starting up on his face. "Oh, well of course! I completely understand."

Wow, this was a lot easier than he thought it was going to be. Maybe this was just some half-baked cult. "Right," he smiled back at him. "But, you know," he shrugged, "I mean, we get if this isn't the best time." He pointed over the man's shoulder to the hallway, starting to take a couple steps. "We can just swing back later, no problem. Don't want to interrupt anything."

He shook his head, though. "Oh, no. No, no. Absolutely not. Don't be ridiculous." He said, moving towards them and effectively blocking the way to the door, the candlelight causing his shadow to flicker on the ground behind him. "Please, this is a great opportunity." He put his hand out to Stan. "I'm Father Do."

Great . A 'Father.' He was probably the cult leader. Couldn't have even gotten caught by some Brother Marshall or Sister Bonnie. "That's great. Yeah, thank you there, Father Do." He shook his hand. "I'm Sterlin, and this is my brother, Jessie."

Do smiled. "It's nice to meet you two." He put his hand out towards Ford next.

Ford, however, hesitated, as he drew hands back slightly. His brows furrowed, as he moved a half step backwards. The only sound in the room, came from the sole of his shoe sliding on the linoleum.

"Ha," Do's small smile stayed even at the obvious sign of suspicion. "Not a handshake guy, don't worry. Pretty smart of you, they do transfer a lot of germs after all, you know." He turned his hand over, holding it in a fist towards him now.

There was a silent beat, Do keeping his fist out, looking perfectly relaxed in the tense silence.

Ford curled up one of his hands then, and fist bumped the man. "It is one of the easiest ways to spread a disease, thank you... It's nice to meet you too."

Father Do smiled easily, but Stan swore there was still something odd in the air. "Ah, it's no trouble. You have to take care of your vehicle, after all." He happily began to urge them out of the room and down the hallway then. "Here. This way. This library doesn't give off the best first impression."

Stan nearly asked if every room had a bloody knife, but managed to keep the comment from slipping out. "So, uh, where are we going exactly?" Having a cult leader right behind them, pushing them somewhere wasn't really comforting.

They passed a corner and when Father Do stepped around to lead them, it was almost a relief. He half considered just grabbing Ford and booking it, but there was no telling how many rooms of cultists they'd have to pass by to get to the stairs now.

"Just down the hall a bit more." He said, calmly waving a hand. He glanced over his shoulder at them then. "So, what would you two like to know?"

"Oh, well whatever you're willing to tell us. We didn't get to hear much before. Just thought we could see what you guys were all about here!" Stan answered with a big smile. "We don't want to take up too much of your time though, Father Do. I'm guessing you're really busy with your whole c- your whole club here." Stan said, expertly avoiding calling it a cult right to the guy's face.

"There's always time for two souls like yourselves." Father Do insisted warmly.

He half suspected the guy was just buttering them up long enough to get to some kind of ritual room by this point. The further they walked, the more uncomfortable he got, honestly. If the guy just wanted to take them to a more welcoming room, he could have found one by now.

"Besides," Do continued, looking back ahead, "the least I can do is give you all enough to actually consider the possibility."

"The possibility of what, exactly?" Ford asked.

Father Do put a hand up to his chin, thoughtfully, before he started. "It's odd, don't you think? How there's so many ghost stories and myths, even today, when everyone says they're not true. Of course, I'm not saying they're all true," he said, "but why would we have so many for so long if they didn't come from something?"

"Oh, yeah. Definitely. No, we definitely know there's supernatural stuff out there." Stan agreed, glancing back down the hallway as they passed around another corner, keeping track of where they were.

"That's great!" Father Do said with a renewed happy note in his voice. "You two can listen to reason then. Mother Ti and I have found the seed of truth to those stories, to the odd things that nearly everyone just blatantly ignores." There was a creep of something in the air alongside Do's words.

"You all think it's linked to a parallel world." Ford said.

"So, you've heard about that. What did you think about it?"

He had no idea how a parallel world was suppose to tie into ghosts and everything. "Oh, uh, well it sure does explain a whole lot." Stan answered, figuring it was probably hogwash.

"It's more so a wormhole situation," Ford said

Stan gave him a pointed look. Was he really gonna correct Cult Leader McGee here?

At the look, Ford tacked on more. "I mean, that's just what it seems like, of course. It's not something one would know ." He said, purposefully glancing back at Stan for the last sentence.

Stan still kept the judgemental look on his face. He also knew Father Do was wrong, but he wasn't going around correcting the guy in the middle of Cult Central.

As Father Do turned his head, the pair looked back at him before he could spot the looks they were exchanging. "You're a bit of a scientific man, aren't you?" He said, a finger pointing towards Ford.

"'A bit' is an understatement, but yes."

Father Do laughed. "Well, here, you'll like this then." He said, before finally stopping at a door to open it. "Everything here is based off of realfindings, they're not fanciful ideas pulled from nothing."

The room had an odd mix of technology and... of all things there were cubes of dirt and other stuff placed around the room. They both peered into the room, taking in the equipment and sore lack of stuff someone would probably use for a human sacrifice. From what he could see, there wasn't anything all that suspicious this time.

"You all actually run tests...?" Ford asked, not quite tearing his eyes away from everything in the room.

"Of course, we do." Father's Do hand settled against the door frame near Ford, and Stan's attention was immediately drawn to it. He pulled his gaze back to the room again, to watch Do from the corner of his eye.

"It's not easy to test on," he continued, watching them. Scanning over their faces, Stan was sure. "However, there's another world running alongside this one."

Stan pretended to look inside the room still, even nodding a bit. Ford, on the other hand, was probably genuinely scanning the room.

"There's more to it than just these worlds running along each other, you know." Father Do said.

Here came the crackpot theory. Stan let himself finally look head on at the guy.

"What do you mean?" Ford asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at him.

Father Do paused again. "Well... Tell me something." Oh, like Hell they were...
His face scrunched up a bit, an empathetic look in his eye. "Have you two ever gotten this feeling... like you're not quite suppose to be here? Like even in your own hometown... you're some kind of stranger?"

Ford discreetly folded his hands behind his back, and Stan felt something spike up in him, going through his nerves.

He nearly wanted to just stop with the act entirely by this point, but he kept on for at least a few more seconds. "Uh, yeah. Yeah..." This guy...

Father Do nodded his head. "It feels like no matter where you go, you're always different somehow, from nearly everyone you talk to."

Do was a classic conman .

Stan would know. All the buddy-buddy smiles, and everything else. He was even throwing out those vague catch alls. Everyone felt like they didn't belong, or that they were the odd one out in town. It was a classic move. Vague enough it could mean anything, but phrased so it felt like it was hitting on something specific.

Course, it was just luck in that it fit them a bit more than the usual person. Everywhere Stan had gone, he was literally the stranger in town. He hadn't felt like he belonged anywhere in years, because he hadn't belonged anywhere in years really. Even here, something was still keeping him from feeling like he got in. Of course, he was pretty sure that had to do with the super criminals dressing up around here. As for Ford...

He glanced briefly at his brother who was tightly holding his hands behind his back, out of sight of Do.

"There's a reason for that." Father Do continued gently. "You're not the only ones. You're not alone." Stan clenched his jaw, as he watched the cult leader make his pitch.

"Mother Ti and I felt it too, and we thought - maybe there was a reason for it. The world running along parallel to ours? We're not supposed to be in this world." He explained. "Some of us accidentally slipped through from the Next Level."

"Oh, so what, we're aliens now?" Stan couldn't help quipping, crossing his arms.

Do frowned slightly, like he was just a little disappointed at him. "Not quite in the usual way. You see, these parallel dimensions have split into one another." The fingers of his hands intersected for show. "We just happened to come into existence at an intersection and landed here."

"And how exactly do we get back to what? This Next Level or Higher Plane or whatever? Mass suicide from a bunch of purple rat poison? " Welp, there went the act. He was tired of waiting for The Great Father Do to just get to whatever his crazy point was already.

Father Do only sighed at the aggression, and it just served to piss him off more because he knew what kind of game Father Do was playing now. It was a typical 'you belong here with us' plot for whatever. Probably to get a bunch of free labor all in exchange for feeling safe and welcome.

"No. We're going to split the dimensions apart and ride the strings back to our world." He said.

"Then why haven't you already done it?" He questioned him immediately, an open edge to the question.

"Because we want to find as many of us as we can before we do it." Father Do said easily, the no doubt frequently used excuse already prepared. "I couldn't bear to leave someone behind in this world so alone and isolated... That constant rejection, for just inherently existing." He finished a tad quietly, with a look over to Ford.

That's when Stan finally took his eyes off of Father Do.

Stanford glowered, his eyes fixed on some random spot of the wall while his hands slowly twisted behind his back.

Something ice cold split up through Stan's spine. He needed to get Ford away from this guy. Now.

He cleared his throat, putting a hand on Ford's shoulder, unintentionally already tugging him in a direction away from Father Do. "Well, that's great. Really . You're a super caring man, I can tell." He said, his tone not matching what he was saying in the slightest. He was done even just pretending to buy the guy's schtick now. "Our minds are just absolutely blown here. Gonna have to really go home and take it all in, you understand."

"Well, it can certainly be too much for some people." Do said with a kind smile to Stan. Where Stan had put all his aggression into his tone, Father Do here was obviously letting his words do the talking while he kept his voice as welcoming as ever.

"Think about it as much as you want," he said warmly looking to Ford, managing to grab his attention now. "If you have any questions you can always come back and ask. If you feel like it's not for you then-"

"It's not ." Stan interrupted him harshly. "No hard feelings, but go and try this on someone else, pal." The guy could call out for his cult goons to chase them down for all Stan cared now.

He tugged on Ford's shoulder, pulling him back a step away from Father Do, before turning around to leave, taking a couple steps. "Come on, let's get out of here."

"Good night." Ford said in an even tone to Father Do. Then Stan sensed some aborted movement behind him, the sound of Ford's shoes turning around on the ground stopped with the slightest rustle of clothes.

He turned around, not sure what it was, but way more than ready and willing to punch Do's lights out of the situation could technically be solved that way.

Father Do, had grabbed Ford's arm, to stop him, though the grip didn't look iron tight by any means. More importantly though, he was whispering something to him.

Stan had only managed to get one step back towards them, when Father Do let go of Ford though.

Ford turned away from the man, a scowl etched into his face as he strode away from him.

Stan glared daggers at Do before turning to walk with Ford, only shooting a look over his shoulder back at Do who hadn't moved from the spot yet, simply watching them.

"Talk about creepy..." Stan muttered dissentfully, not caring if he heard or not.

Ford though, didn't comment, or even so much as look at him. If anything he just looked frustrated.

Stan figured he'd wait until they were out of the building to say something, but his patience ran out by the time they reached the stairwell. "That guy was off his damn rocker, you know that." He blurted out.

"What?" Ford looked over to him.

"Father Do-Re-Mi-Actually-A-Friggin-Alien down there." Stan said, gesturing back down the stairs as they reached back into a hallway again. "Talking about coming from a parallel world."

"There are parallel worlds, Stanley."

Something cold twisted his stomach. "Ford. He's a literal cult leader. Do I need to remind you-"

"I'm just saying there are parallel worlds, Stanley." He said, gesturing out with a hand. "It's a simple fact."

"Stanford, he's just making up something that sounds good. Everything about that was ten kinds of crazy."

"It's not crazy." Ford stopped in the hall to turn towards him.

"That guy plays people like a fiddle, Ford!" Stan told him urgently. "That's how he gets people around here, he smiles and makes them think they belong with him in his 'big and happy' circle."

"Would you let me talk?!" Ford asked irately.

"Would you stop and listen to what I'm saying?!" Stan nearly shouted back at him, the air around them winding up tighter and tighter. He ground his teeth together. "That's what I'm talking about. You're getting suckered right into-!"

"I'M NOT JOINING THE DAMN CULT, STANLEY!" Ford snapped at him suddenly, shaking his hands in front of him for emphasis.

Stan finally paused, as the words cut through the rising tension of the air.

Ford rushed to talk before Stan could, his voice back at a normal volume. "It's a plausible theory that would have some merit iftheir scientific basis wasn't rooted in disproven theorems!" Ford huffed out, catching his breath, and slowly continued walking again. "It's not crazy." He explained, calmer now. " They're just very wrong ."

He breathed for a bit, his gut finally starting to stop trying to curl in on itself as he walked alongside his twin. "That's not a ' they're wrong but if Icame by to help them' sort of thing, right?" He checked, keeping a skeptical eye on Ford.

He shook his head. "No. Well-" he paused. "Technically speaking, I could, but I don't care to." He discreetly checked their surroundings before quietly adding with a look back to Stan. "I'm not exactly wanting to spread info about interdimensional physics around as of late, if you remember."

Stan nodded his head. "Yeah... okay, yeah, that's fair." He said, waving a hand. For all he'd known though, he could have been fine with it. Just not with making any sort of portal again. "That Father Do guy was just giving me the creeps, you know. Especially when he was trying to win you over with the whole 'no rejection' thing."

Ford scoffed, folding his arms behind his back. "So, you thought I'd just-" He stopped mid sentence though, but Stan knew what he was getting at.

He shrugged. "Look, okay. You were getting all excited over those books, then with how he was talking too... Aliens, dimension, all that stuff. So, yeah, sue me, but I thought he might have been reeling you in with it. You were always big on conspiracy theories."

He let out a short, bitter laugh. "No. Everything out of his mouth was..." Ford tensed up again, and ran a hand through his hair. "Very frustrating."

Stan grunted, pushing out of the final door to outside. "Yeah, no kidding."

It was probably a good thing Ford hadn't voiced any of his frustrations. He pretty much knew the guy wasn't going to try anything on them when he thought he could still get Ford, but if he thought otherwise they could have been facing a knife. Then again Stan was willing to bet he could have handled Father Do easy.

Ford sighed, as they got into Stan's car. "Let's just get out of here."

"Don't gotta ask me twice." Stan said, turning El Diablo on.

He felt pretty good once they'd gotten out of that abandoned neighborhood and back to the apartment fine.

Ford pulled out a few books, setting them onto the counter.

"Nice catch." Stan said, looking over the books. "Any of them actually worth anything?"

He shrugged, flipping one open. "They're legitimate at the very least. That's more than most of the books at the library."

Stan nodded his head, opening the fridge for something to drink. "Hey, what'd he say to you anyways?"

"What?" Ford glanced over at him.

"Father Do." He said. "...Right before we left."

Ford hesitated. "Hardly matters."

And Stan... he knew it was fine now. It really was, right? Ford had already said he wasn't joining, after all. Stan couldn't let it go though. "Okay, but what'd he say?"

"It doesn't matter, Stanley." He replied with just a slight edge to his words, and he belatedly bit down on his tongue.

"Okay, yeah ." Stan said. "Yeah, doesn't sound like it mattered at all there."

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose, looking down at the book again. "He was just saying more of the same sort of things."

"Which explains why you're not willing to tell me what it was." Stan countered.

Ford gave him a look. "Maybe I'd rather just leave it and move on from that whole repugnant encounter. Why do you even care about it? I'm far from willingly stepping near Father Do again."

"Maybe because I'm just a little tired of this whole fun trend where you don't tell me what's going on?" Stan replied, more honest than he had really meant. Ford just kept piling up secrets from him though.

Ford practically spun to look at him, instantly incensed like he'd just flicked a switch on something. " Really, Stanley? You want to talk about what's going on?" He asked him sharply.

He was surprised at the sudden reaction, but he didn't back down. "You know what? Yes . Yeah, I do, Sixer!" He pointed at him. "I get you like keeping the door shut, but this kind of stuff backfires."

"Since when?" Ford asked derisively.

"Uh, since you had a demon that could possess you and you didn't even friggin tell me." Stan answer readily. "How about that one, Stanford."

Ford pinched his lips into a thin line. "Nothing even happened ."

"Yeah, cause you were lucky!" He didn't even know how close it'd gotten down in that basement. Stan had let that go too close... but it wasn't his fault! He wouldn't have let Bill out of even the bedroom, if he'd know it was a demon bent on worldwide destruction and not Ford just going a bit loopy.

"You try to look me in the eyes and tell me there wasn't a hundred ways that could have gone wrong." Stan said.

"Well, what about you?! " Ford demanded, gesturing out at him.

"What about me?"

"How about the fact that you're in a gang and you didn't think to tell me, Stan!"

Stan stopped, his feet stuck to the ground.

Ford huffed out a breath letting his hand fall back to the countertop, continuing in a leveled voice. "What about that one, Stanley? Why don't we talk about that one? "

"I was gonna tell you about it when you stopped being in such a bad mood." Stan defended himself. "It's more complicated than just 'a gang' either, okay."

"Of course, you were. Were you gonna tell me about it before or after some cops tried to pin me for robbing a bank?" Ford asked him.

Stan gritted his teeth. "Well, obviously, that didn't happen. Besides, I would spring you out if that would have happened, anyways."

Ford scoffed, purposefully turning back to the book.

He let out a frustrated breath, tapping his fingers against his arms. He hadn't expected Ford to pull out a high ground like that out of nowhere. Actually - what was he thinking? Of course, Ford had. He should have been expecting something like that. If it wasn't the crime thing, he would have just come up with something else.

Stan looked away from Ford, pouring himself a glass of juice. "What was it anyways?"

"...Are you honestly asking what Do said again." Ford replied, flipping a page over.

"No. I meant- the crime thing." God, he was regretting even asking.

"Why don't you ask one of your boss' great friends?" He said evenly.

... Oh, no. "You're kidding." He looked over to him.

Ford only briefly glanced at him, before turning his eyes back onto the page. He wasn't. It's not like he would have joked about anything right now, anyway.

Stan ran over all of the people Oswald talked with, which was frankly - a ton of options. However, one immediately stuck out to him. Jonathan had acted odd before, then... Then hadn't Ford even asked about a scarecrow?

He ran a hand over his face. "You met Jonathan."

Ford didn't answer, but he really didn't need him to.

Damnit. He would have warned Ford ahead of time if he thought the other was going to run into someone this quick! Seriously, what kind of luck even was this?

He opened his mouth to ask what had happened. "What," but even with just one syllable out Ford was already hunching over the countertop so he stopped himself. "Mmm." He rubbed a hand over his face again, and just walked out of the small kitchen.

If he tried asking Ford anything now, it was just going to turn into a fight, and as it stood right now he didn't have a leg to stand on. He had plenty of points he could make, sure, but there was way too much that could have happened with Jonathan that Ford could easily hold above everything.

In all honesty too, he wasn't quite ready for the specifics.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

shoutout to Rain The Revenant for helping by beta-ing the chapter! For real.

also Sidekicks-anonymous. No, this cult actually isn't from the comics! I won't say much on it, but there are some Heaven's Gate inspirations behind it. There was a reference last chapter to the cat of the cult though. (Way back in the single digit chapters, I searched for cults in the batman franchise and didn't find a whole lot.)

And this is a real lowkey reference, but 'Jessie' is the name of Elvis Presley's stillborn twin brother.

And don't worry - Stan IS going to find out those specifics, just not today.