----
Miz groaned when the noise woke her up. She rolled over and reached for a pillow but realized there was none. Just Bill's back. She blinked blearily and looked around. She spotted her Kirby doll a few feet away. Must have rolled away. The Xanthar doll had also been knocked away and was up against the side of the railings. Miz yawned and got up to get her dolls back. She blinked and looked around. Ah…
A quick Flicker and she sighed. Right, school just let out and there were kids and teenagers playing all around the beach. She crawled over to peer down at them. Huh… were young Ford and Stan going to come back? The dragon looked around and then up at the fish where they were hanging on the hooks. Good thing she'd put a Preservation effect on them. (It even kept the smell to a minimum!) She picked one off a hook and swallowed it. She didn't NEED to cook it, what with the way her stomach worked, but she was a little sad about the taste. Probably should have cooked it first, but she was feeling lazy!
Bill didn't so much as twitch as the noise picked up around them. He'd fallen asleep to far more and worse near the Shack when the museum had been open and there had been tours going on, and here he'd fallen asleep well up away from the commotion, much farther up and away than just a measly three feet and a dozen yards or so.
Luckily, the barrier did its job, and the locals stayed away as they usually did, thinking the boat empty. Miz took this time to people-watch. She really hadn't been paying enough attention to the Stan and Ford of Bill's world, or the other humans in it. She needed to get better about that…
It was only when the crowds started to thin, and transition from teenagers having escaped from school, to adults who were wanting to get in some time on the boardwalk before dinner, that Miz heard a stirring of sound from below deck echo up through the hatch. She looked over. Were the others waking up? She watched as the hatch opened and Stan climbed out. Miz waved. "Good mor-evening?"
Stan grunted, glancing over her and Bill, to make sure they'd both made it through the night okay. Then he headed over to the railing to stare out across the beach, looking around at the people, to get a feel for things. While he was doing this, Miz decided to ask bluntly, "How come you don't want things to help your pain go away?"
Stan looked over at her, to frown at her in minor confusion before he finally caught on to what she meant. "Eh…" Stan shrugged, not really responding or wanting to put it into words. Most people… he was just uncomfortable with the idea of just some random person touching him who he didn't know, who didn't care at all about him. (Why would he pay some random person to do something like give a massage to him, when they could do a lousy job of it and really screw him up instead? No, thank you! And even if it was somebody he did know, who wanted to help him out, would they even be able to do it right? It was easier to just not worry about it all that much. He was old; he was used to it. Besides, he had his orthopedic back pillow for the really bad days. That was really all he needed.)
"If it's like… you don't want to be touched while you're vulnerable… I can kinda understand that." Miz mumbled when it seemed like Stan wasn't going to give her a real answer. "I haven't been able to get a proper massage in eons. I used to really like going to the spa for that…" She stretched, groaning at the way her spine popped. Sleeping on the ground probably wasn't good for her physical body.
Stan gave her an odd look. "Used to?" (She get thrown out or something? How many spas did you have to get thrown out of before the entire multiverse banned you?)
Miz nodded, not looking his way, staring out past the railing. "I stopped being able to let people touch me like that after one guy drugged me with an aphrodisiac while giving me a back rub." She missed the horrified look on Stan's face. "It was while I was in my triangle form… so it's not… like he w-would have been able t-to do anything… but…" She trembled lightly. "And I'm still trying to get over it because I miss getting a back rub and sometimes my bricks feel a little out of place. Dropping my vessel helps a bit, but it's just not the same, you know?" She reached a hand back to rub her shoulders. "One of my friends offered to give me a massage once. And… it was… ok? I let him push a brick back into place but not much more than--"
"--Kid." Stan interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You really need to see someone about your issues."
Miz groaned. "I know. But where would I find a human therapist who would be willing to work with me?" She leaned back to lie on the deck. "I guess, when we get back to your dimension I could try finding and entering the dream of one? Maybe ask them in there if they would help?"
Stan kind of winced, then rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, uh," he began, looking a little uncomfortable. "Turns out, uh, apparently most people… don't control their dreams? Like, uh, some kind of you-lucid-clid-ean-something?" He wasn't so sure he'd gotten that right. (Ford got incomprehensible sometimes when he started talking dreams and math when he was half asleep, the big nerd-owl. That had sure been a couple of long, rambling, half-asleep conversations on the boat.) "Eh, anyway. Most people don't take dreams seriously." Not like his brother did. "Better talk to somebody when they're awake." Especially since she'd probably have to start all over again every time she did it, if she did. Even Stan didn't always remember his dreams. Stan paused, staring out over the railing, thinking. "...Could talk to the multibear, maybe. And hey, he knows a good Shiatsu. So, y'know, one or the other?"
Stan glanced back over his shoulder at Bill, who was still sleeping. "Just, uh, be careful what you ask for from the kid," Stan added. "Make sure you both really know what you want and don't want, if you go askin' him to help you find some human-help." Not like the demon could help with human stuff like that himself, Stan figured. Kid would probably try, but he'd probably get it all wrong if he did. And Stan wasn't so sure the kid might know of somebody else who could help, either. If there was someone the kid could've talked to, who he could've trusted enough to help him, the kid probably wouldn't be such a mess. So Stan wasn't so sure there was anybody the kid didn't trust himself, that he'd be willing to trust with his kid sister instead; Stan kinda had a feeling it would be the opposite. (--Definitely. Definitely the opposite.)
Miz nodded. "I could look it up… maybe do that while I'm here, in a dimensional set that actually has therapists?" She kicked her legs over the side of the boat. "I used to go to one back when I was human, when I was a child. I didn't realize until I was older that the nice lady who talked to me was some kind of therapist. I'm not sure what I was in for though? My parents never told me."
And that was further confirmation for Stan that this kid wasn't all there even as a human. He seriously doubted being turned into a triangle had helped with whatever problem she'd had, either. Probably made it worse, to be honest. ...Well, at least she sort of came across as human most of the time, without even trying. She was better than the kid at it, even when the kid was trying. (...At least, she did fine with it, up until she got riled up or anything and started talking about--)
"Hey mister Stan?"
"Yeah?" Stan grunted as he began setting up breakfast, squatting down to root through one of the crates.
"When I'm old enough to get my own Ford, I'm gonna try not to break him." (That had Stan pausing in what he was doing again, to look over at her and to listen to her more carefully.) "So I wanna learn what is or isn't ok for me to do. Because a broken Ford just seems too sad." Miz leaned onto the bottom rung of the railings, and Stan let out a slow breath. (Looked like she was past wanting to hurt his brother on purpose, at least. Good.) "I just wanna be friends with my zodiac… well, maybe not Gideon. If my Gideon ends up being ANYTHING like yours I'm not sure I would like him…" she muttered.
Stan snorted in both amusement and horror at the last. Yeah, no. He didn't want Gideon ANYWHERE near this kid. Especially not when she was so willing to do stuff for people without thinking. So as long as he kept her away from… aw hell, hadn't the niblings told him that Gideon had actually summoned Bill for a Deal, once?
"Don't make any Deals with your Gideon if he's anything like ours." Stan told her, hoping he could cut that one off at the pass. She nodded but didn't really look like she was gonna listen. Stan sighed, and tried again. "I'm serious. He's…" Ugh. There was a lot Stan could say, but he just settled on: "A little pint-sized jerk."
"... I'll be careful. My Deals don't work like brother's." Miz looked back at Stan. "If he summons me, I'll at least listen to what he wants. Whether I do what he wants or not is a different story."
Yeah, that wasn't gonna fly. Not when Stan had seen the little brat sweet-talk people a lot less gullible than her (read: the kids, at first) into doing stuff for him. ...And Bill himself had made Deals with him before, too. And not liked the aftermath either time. Hm. Stan glanced over at Bill, who was still fast asleep. Probably should let the kid weigh in on that one, then, once the kid woke back up again. Maybe he'd get through to his little sister better.
"Why do you even want your zodiac?" Stan asked Miz, finally. From what he could tell, she wasn't trapped in her Nightmare Realm like Bill was. (Stan was half-convinced that the only reason the kid had ever made any deals with the little glad-handing brat had been because he'd felt he had to, as a backup or somethin'.) She didn't need to escape from there, so why…?
"I just want to meet them. I've seen them in other Bill's dimensions. And I started getting curious. I want to meet my own. They're mine after all," she said simply, as if claiming people as her own was perfectly natural. Which it was! Ax promised her a zodiac! So she'll get a zodiac! Though, when she asked Ax about it, he got all… deflective about who her Zodiac actually WAS.
"...There really ain't more to it than that?" Stan asked her. Because the way Bill talked about it… and y'know, carefully talked around it as much as he could without sayin' much of anything… kid didn't sound like that was all of it for him, not by even half. Because 'not having a choice' about any of them? That had thrown up a red flag when the kid had muttered that one out. Because the kid was all about getting what he wanted, which… had kind of led to triangle demon doing what he wanted most of the time, Stan figured, except that the kid did seem to recognize that there was a difference between those two things sometimes, right when you were doing them. (...Oh hell, who was he kidding, of course the kid knew that. Stan was starting to realize that that had probably been the whole deal, and problem, with the triangle demon and Ford. It was pretty clear to Stan that the kid had felt forced to go along with that deal with Ford, because the kid had thought going along with it had been his only way out. And now that the deal was off… the kid still wasn't being real honest with how pissed off he was about it. --Not that Stan was looking forward to that one, when that happened, but maybe if the kid would just freaking admit it, then...)
Stan shook his head. "This one of those things that's real different between you two? Or the same?" he asked of Miz, as he rummaged through the crate and pulled out a pan and a small propane tank and camping stove stand.
Miz hummed. "Our dimensions work very different. Because the rules our Ax's set are very different." She frowned. "I'm not sure what that means though. My zodiac is just… my way out in a different way." She paused. "Is this something I should tell you? It's one of those upsetting to other people things."
Feeling a little like he didn't want to know, Stan still responded, "Eh, if you think you want to tell me." Miz drew her lines differently than he did. He didn't really have an idea what she was getting at... unless she was talking about something from the list Bill had walked her through earlier on 'upsetting' things. (If it was something she'd remembered to 'ask' the memory of her sister about, then it could be just about anything, Stan figured.)
Miz was quiet for a bit before glancing over at Bill, making sure he was still asleep. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "My zodiac circle thing might actually kill me. In a way I can't come back from. So, they're my way out."
Stan pulled in a slow breath, feeling like he'd been dunked in ice water. --Hell, now he knew why she had glanced over at Bill first. The kid would have a damn fit at what she was implying, with what she had mentioned about trying to kill herself dead before… "Then why would you want to meet 'em?" Stan managed to ask her, trying to keep calm. Maybe this wasn't really some suicidal thing that'd get the kid all riled up (and messed up) over later if she went through with it. Was she… worried that if she didn't, they'd circle her anyway, even without knowing her? She'd said earlier to Bill that she wouldn't 'leave him alone' when the kid had asked her, but…
Miz was still looking away. "Well, if I'm not an entirely bad person, then nothing bad would happen, they would have no reason to do it. And if I DO grow up to become a bad person…" She seemed to deflate, looking so weary and tired. "... then I would prefer that I was stopped." Stan stared at her. "Because I don't want to hurt people. But if I do, if I get worse…" than she already was. Than she already thought she was.
Stan tried to hold down a groan. Why him? "It's too early to deal with this right now," he grumbled. He also found himself angry at her lizard dad for 'letting' her have this 'way out'. With how the kid talked about the lizard here, and from what he'd been piecing together from what Miz had said about her current situation over there, Stan figured that this circle-thing for her was a setup. Stan figured that if Miz hadn't come here and talked to the two of them… maybe it could've taken another 400 billion years for her to finally wise up on her own? And once that jerk baby wasn't able to make her kill people for him anymore, with that lizard wanting her to 'get along' with him? Having a circle like that would be an easy way to off her, once she started causing more trouble than just evacuating some people some places; eventually, she'd probably give up on trying to 'fix' things inside the system, toss shit to the wind and take the fight straight to those Federation jerks. --And then that lizard and jerk-baby would want her gone for trying to kick the status quo in the head, whether she was suicidal anymore-- liked it or not. (Stan had seen this kind of shit before in the mob families. Never ended well.)
...Not that any of that was gonna register with Miz, or was anything Stan really wanted to push the point on now. There was a way to get across what he wanted to without having to try and tackle any of that, though. (So Stan came at it sideways, just like he did it with Bill.)
"Kid," Stan said to Miz, rubbing a hand over his face. "You're already hurting people. And if 'your Ford' is anything like my brother…" Stan let out a breath. "If yours has got some kinda 'morals', he's already gonna have a problem with you working for that jerk-baby as his hitman, from what ya told me before," Stan told her, straight-up. "Especially if you were doin' it to get off a bunch of sometimes-mass-murderers who you call friends. Besides," Stan looked over at her, "Thinking you're not gonna have something bad happen to ya because 'you're not a bad person' ain't a thing. People do a whole bunch of horrible shit to each other everyday, for no good reason. Good or bad. --You should just stay away from 'em, your 'circle'," Stan told her.
"Oh…" Miz looked a little saddened by that. "But I just wanted to make friends…" She kind of understood what Stan meant, but it was still sad. She really wanted to make friends with her own Mabel. And tease her own Dipper. And hang out with her own Wendy...
Stan almost said, 'define friends', but he kind of knew that one with her already; probably treated them more like family, from what she'd told him before. So instead Stan went with: "Yeah, great, but if you end up with a Ford in your dimension that's anything like my brother, he won't want to be friends with you, once he knows about however many people you've killed. And yeah, maybe you try to explain," Stan let out a sigh. "But he either ain't gonna listen, or ain't gonna care. He'll think it's just some kinda excuse you're tryin' to throw at him," whether she meant it that way or not, "And get more mad at you, instead."
Miz wilted. "Even if it was for a reason I thought was good?"
"Your 'good' and my brother's 'good' don't match," Stan told her. "I might be fine with it, 'cause I don't really care what happens in other places a billion years ago, or whatever," Stan waved off. Kid had told him a couple things already that Stan knew his brother would have a problem with if he knew about 'em (and hey, maybe Ford did). "And maybe that other me might feel the same way I do about junk, if he ends up havin' to deal with the same people I did? But…" Stan shook his head, looking grim.
"What would he consider good?" Miz asked of Stan. "The Federation send down soldiers to gun down helpless citizens and that's considered fine, but when I get ordered to do it by the head of the Federation's council, it's apparently not fine?"
"Hey, some Federation ain't gonna be tryin' to make friends with him," Stan pointed out, sitting back on his heels. "That's you." And Ford would probably have a problem with these Federation mooks, too, if that's the kinda shit they were really pulling over there where Miz was from.
Miz folded her fingers together. "That doesn't feel fair… I know the world isn't fair but… why can't it be?"
"Heh," said Stan, looking back down at the crate. "You sound like the kid," Stan told her, as he rummaged through said crate for the box of pancake mix and powdered milk he knew should be in there, if this boat really was anything like the one he'd had back home, way back when.
"Is it wrong to want the world to be fair?" Miz asked quietly.
Oh sure, toss him an easy one, why dont'cha? Stan sighed and sidestepped that big old landmine partially, by tossing a 'hammer thought' at her head instead. Not like he was gonna get stuck down in that kind of quagmire like an idiot.
"Easiest way to make things 'fair' is to make everything dead," Stan told her, "Hardest way is probably whatever the kid's going for." Stan shrugged. "I figure I'm okay with the second one, whatever it is," as long as he got a say in it -- but hey, guess what? He did get a say in it, because… "The kid actually listens to me mostly."
"Brother wants to kill the AXOLOTL and take over as god. Then he gets to set the rules and he said he would make it so everyone would be happy." Miz told him. "I don't really want him to kill dad, but he said that he would leave my version of dad alive once he becomes the new god."
Stan considered this for a moment as he stared at the can of powdered milk in his hand. "...Sounds like somethin' the kid would do." Stan set it down on the deck. "And screw up, because he don't get 'happy' right," Stan said with a sigh, and rubbed his hand over his face. "And everything in-between." He dropped his hand and looked up at her. "He really say that he'd leave your lizard alive, though?" That was new. He was pretty sure the kid straight-up hated the thing. If the kid was even considering doing that for her... that said a hell of a lot about what the kid thought of his little sister.
Miz sighed. "Yeah, because I love my dad. Even if he isn't the best dad. He still made it so I wasn't all alone until I met my friends." She paused and added, "I don't think it's possible to create a world where everyone is happy. Not without destroying free will. And I don't want a world with no free will."
Free will, huh? Did the kid's little sister really think that having no choice about anything at all ever would make people happy, somehow? (Even if she didn't want to do it, because she'd made it pretty clear the last time 'free will' had come up that she thought it was 'super important', as Mabel would put it…) That didn't sound right to Stan.
"Well, making everybody happy forever without destroying stuff sounds insane, and the kid is insane," Stan told her with a shrug. "Could maybe take somebody insane to figure that one out, I guess. Depends on what the kid's thinking of doing. Never asked him to define 'happy' to me; not yet." He was definitely going to do that pretty damn soon, if this was actually a thing -- and it sounded like it was one, that Miz wasn't lying to him about this stuff. (He didn't want to think about what might happen if Miz convinced Bill that the only way to get what he wanted was to turn everybody into puppets. The kid had seemed kind of invested in the whole free will thing, too when Miz had brought it up, but… definitely not as much as her.) Stan frowned a bit. "You tell the kid how you feel about what he's tryin' to do?" Stan asked her next, figuring it was better to hear how bad this might be already.
Miz checked to see if Bill was still asleep. "I won't stop him from trying." She rubbed her face "Bill's mad at the AXOLOTL because he COULD have stepped in to right any wrongs, to stop injustices… he's god after all. But dad DOESN'T step in to help. He doesn't interfere. And Bill hates that. The fact that he COULD help, but chooses not to."
Stan let out a long breath. Okay. Probably the kid wasn't planning on doing anything drastic right away. 'Not stopping him from trying' meant the kid must not know what he was doing yet, still. 'Trying' was way too uncertain for a direct action from the kid. That said…
"Kid's got a funny way of showing it," Stan muttered, about the kid hating somebody who 'could help but chooses not to'. Wasn't like the kid had a leg to stand on there, for most things. And hell, 'righting wrongs' and 'stopping injustices'? Didn't sound like the triangle to Stan, either. This all was the kinda junk that was up Ford's alley, though; Stan was pretty sure that Ford wouldn't have any kind of problem with the triangle if the kid was actually doing that. But the kid wasn't.
Miz leaned back against the floorboards. "But I realized that my dad can't step in because he wants us to do it ourselves. Make our own decisions. Retain our free will. If dad interfered in a conflict, he would need to pick a side. And he can't do that because he's supposed to be a neutral party, you know?" She closed her eyes and groaned.
Stan frowned at her at that. "Y'know, you can stop fights without taking sides," Stan put out there. "I do it with the kid all the time." Stan looked at her oddly. "That don't got nothin' to do with 'free will', or whatever." ...did it? That didn't sound right to Stan, either.
"Dad, at least the one in my world, is in charge of regulating life and souls. He creates them and sends them out to be born and grow and die and return to him so he can recycle back into the system." Miz rolled onto her side. (Yeah, this was all pretty far out of Stan's experience again already.) "And he watches what every soul does in their life. He can control their souls easily, because he created them. So if he thinks about wanting two people to stop fighting, he doesn't provide a solution, his will would simply alter their souls so that they were no longer in conflict. It's just how his powers work in my world." Miz sighed.
Stan snorted at that last bit. "What, like how you feed off emotions, unless you've got that headband on? It 'just happens'?"
"Yeah." Miz looked over.
"So? Make him a headband, then have your dad talk to whoever like everybody else and their dog, instead," Stan told her, folding his arms. "Not really seein' the problem here."
Miz blinked. "Would closing his connection to souls cause the cycle of life-death-rebirth to halt?"
"You're askin' me?" Stan asked her, sounding almost amused. Because how was he supposed to know that one? Not like he'd ever met her crazy soul-lizard-dad.
"Well, I've never thought about this before." She looked up at the sky. "I can ask him when I get home. See if maybe he'd go for it."
"...If he actually wants to do it," Stan said, crossing his arms and thinking hard. Lizard was supposed to be a mob-ish kinda guy, right? (So if he didn't want to go for it…) "He ever had problems with altering souls or whatever, without meaning to, like you did with feelin' people's emotions?"
Miz frowned. "He refuses to talk about it. But I think he has done something like that before. I can't feel anything off him so it's hard to tell but he seems really sad sometimes. And spends most of his time moping in his own section of Reality." She snorted. "I go and bother him just so he doesn't sleep forever."
"So then, your dad ain't all that impartial then," Stan told her. "He's thought about it at least once, to know about that thing being a thing, to tell you about it. Right?"
Miz nodded slowly. "He seems to think it was bad for him to have done that."
"Okay." Well, that was… probably a good thing, right? The same way that Miz didn't really want to kill people if she didn't think she had to. Free will was a thing, right? "Hey, does your dad have a pillar thing going on, too? That halting thing sounds kinda like that jerk-baby time thing."
"Yes. He's the pillar for Reality. If he dies, all of existence goes with him. Space collapsing in on itself, an infinite dimensions wiped from existence in an instant."
Stan blinked. "Uhhh…" He stared at her. "That sounds like a thing that is definitely not good."
Miz frowned. "It's a scary thought." She shivered. "So if anyone takes him out, they'd have to be really quick on propping that pillar up.
...Or the whole place would come down? Stan stared at her. What if that was what they wanted? To bring down… Ugh. Stan rubbed a hand across his face under his glasses. ...How was this his life?
"...You maybe think it'd be a good idea to come up with one of those curse-things for, uh, automating that pillar thing he does, too?" Stan asked her tiredly.
Miz looked confused. "But he stays in his own Space between Spaces all the time."
Stan looked up at her. "And you can get in there with him."
"...yeah?" Miz wasn't quite getting it.
"Aren't you havin' a problem with a broken-Bill Cipher chasing you around?" Stan asked her, because the human-demon here hadn't forgotten about that, had she? "What happens if it gets into your dimension? You don't think it couldn't get at that lizard like you can, too?"
Miz paled. "Oh. I… I didn't even think about that… huh, is THAT why dad keeps telling me not to mess with my Doors?"
Stan shrugged at her, as he pulled out a bottle of water and upended it into the pan, then added some of the powdered milk and pancake mix. "Hey, if you can get places, opening doors and stuff, other Bills probably can, too." The kid certainly talked like he thought he could figure it out, the way she did her Doors thing. "If the kid thinks he can kill the lizard here, and is only talking about leaving yours alone for you..." Stan shrugged again. "Maybe there's another Bill out there who wouldn't get along, but could kill it like the kid, and get around like you, too." What with that whole 'infinite places' thing that was sort-of(?) a thing.
Miz frowned. "Well I'm definitely having a long talk with dad when I get home." She tapped her headband again. "And see about the headband thing for him too."
Stan nodded. "Might want to think about what you'll do if he says no," he warned her. Miz nodded, eyes far off.
...Aaaaand she still wasn't listening him, not really. Stan stirred the mixture in the pan, thinking about how he might get through to her. After awhile, he added, "Does your dad control your soul, too?"
Miz rolled back into a sitting position. "I… don't know? When he first found me, he told me that I wasn't what he was expecting. Brother says it's because I'm more powerful than a Bill Cipher was supposed to be. 'Cause I have created my own dimension, by accident, and I keep 'breaking molds' as he puts it. So I don't know if dad can control my soul or not."
"Heh, pretty sure that's a compliment from the kid," Stan told her, as he finished mixing the 'pancake mix' up, and set the pan to the side to set up the propane stove. "Might want to figure that one out before pushing things too far. Or find a way to block it," Stan told her. "Because if you tell it about something it doesn't want to do, and it decides that it wants the opposite… what happens when it decides what it thinks about that thing? Yeah?" Hell, maybe she could just surprise it with the headband thing, toss it on its head first, then say something later.
Miz nodded. "The Ax in this world is very different from mine. I wonder how he does things. All I really know is that THIS Ax can block my Sight. And he's even more elusive than mine. But from what I can See, he doesn't have the same problem mine does… which is why I think brother hates him so much for literally not helping him even when he probably could… unless he's got something going for all this."
"If the lizard that's here is just sitting back and letting 'injustices' happen 'cause it doesn't care," which is what Stan was getting from this, "Then the kid's probably got a good reason for being so mad at it, maybe," Stan grunted, thinking of how the kid's entire dimension apparently burned down way back when, before completely destabilizing and becoming one big prison-like trap for the triangle demon. "Pretty sure that the kid wanted it to help him, from some of the junk I've heard him say." The only two things Bill had raged out about the lizard on were the thing not talking to him, and not doing anything -- refusing to help him, or anyone else.
Then again… "What are you talkin' about when you say 'injustice', though?" Because that was the one thing Stan really didn't get out of all this, and it had come up twice, now. Bill had never used that word with him. And Stan had no idea whether Miz had the same demon idea for it as the kid did or not -- probably not if she was right about Bill here, because that had never been what the kid had said he was mad about any of the times the kid had yelled about the lizard to him -- but even the normal-people definition of 'injustice' was kind of… vague. "You wanna define that for me?"
Instead of answering, Miz kicked her legs over the side of the railings for a bit before asking, "If… if your brother was killed for having six fingers, if there was a LAW that said that he HAD to be killed for not being 'normal', how would you feel?" she asked suddenly, making Stan do a double-take at the sudden change of subject. And Stan got a sinking, sick kind of feeling as he realized that she wasn't just talking about hypotheticals here, and... it wasn't some kind of threat against his brother or anything, he was pretty sure, yeah, but... he still really didn't like what she was saying, there.
That only left Stan with one question, really. But before Stan could ask it, Miz continued. "And, if the government came to take your brother away so that he could be killed for being BORN looking like he did, and your parents had LET them take him. If they didn't even try to fight or stop them, because they thought obeying the LAW was more important than FAMILY… how would you feel?"
"Kid…" Stan said slowly, feeling a chill go down his spine, but Miz continued on, voice wavering and cracking. "W-wouldn't you get angry? Wouldn't you just want to burn that whole, aw-ful world i-into the ground because they took the person you cared about away from you because of a STUPID law that was unfair and…" Stan reached out and placed a hand on top of her head. Miz jumped a little before quieting. She was crying though, tears streaming from her eyes as her shoulders shook at the glimpses she'd seen of Bill's past, at the past of multiple other Bills who'd had it so much worse than her and--
Stan let out a long sigh. He was well and truly pissed off. He really wanted to punch someone. (Maybe whoever the hell had made that stupid law Miz was talking about. Though, if Stan was reading between the lines correctly, one of these two demons had already taken care of that. And then some. By a lot.)
"Kid," Stan said heavily. "We talking about you? Or the kid, instead?" he asked her. Because this wasn't the kind of thing Stan was gonna leave to a guess at the implications, here. He'd guessed that the kid had a brother, sure, with how the kid knew what brothers were supposed to be like, in how the kid defined them. But this was...
"...Bill," Miz confirmed, wiping at her eyes. ('Aw, hell', thought Stan.) "My dimension had the same stupid hierarchy but they didn't outright kill the Irregulars, just gave them the worst, most underpaid jobs that could get them killed working it. Unless they were high enough on the social ladder. And if they were lucky enough to have normal-shaped mating parts they might even be allowed to marry and produce children."
Stan pulled in a slow breath. He wasn't liking anything about this at all.
"So, you're tellin' me that Bill had a brother that… was different, kind of like my brother is different… and he got murdered by… the government?" Stan said. "And that their parents were okay with it. And Bill wasn't." Stan stared at her. "This was a thing that actually happened. To Bill."
Miz looked miserable. She rubbed her eyes. "Liam wasn't an equilateral triangle. And triangles were ALREADY the lowest caste in the system. No-one was ok with it, but it was 'normal' for irregulars to be gotten rid of. That's just how it is. That's just a fact of life. Circles are the ruling caste and triangles were the lowest of the low. Because that's how the world worked. Irregulars had to be destroyed. That's just how the world worked. The government and its laws have to be obeyed. That's just how the world worked." Miz trembled. "But Bill refused to accept that. So he destroyed it all… but it didn't make him happy. It didn't fix anything."
She breathed carefully. "So Bill wants to make a world where things like that won't happen. Where everyone is immortal, no-one dies and everyone is free to do whatever they want without any rules or laws, if they don't want any. And I don't know if such a thing is even possible." She frowned. "Bill has the power to bring Liam back. If he rolls things back far enough, he'd be able to pluck him from the past and bring him HERE."
She clenched her fists. "But according to Bill, Liam would be really upset if he found out Bill destroyed their dimension. So Bill can't, won't, bring Liam back until he fixes it. Even if Bill doesn't want to. Even if Bill wants the circles to stay dead, he said that if Liam would want them to be brought back to life too, then he would."
Stan had that walking on a knife's edge feeling again. When that purple square had shown up, calling Bill 'sad' and 'angry-sad', and had started to ask the kid if he'd been thinking about 'Lee--' and Bill had started screaming '--AAAAAAAAAAH' to drown the square out as he'd grabbed it, and then yelled a bunch of other random junk and raced away upstairs with the square? It hadn't been 'Lee' it had been saying, was it. The square had been about to say 'Li-am'. ...And Bill had not wanted a one of them to know a damn thing about him.
Stan looked over at Miz, who was checking to make sure Bill was still asleep.
...Yeah, probably a good idea. Stan was pretty sure that this was the thing that Bill had behind all those drawbridges and lines. Endgame.
And Stan could've stopped and waited, tried asking the kid about it all, direct and upfront, once the kid had woken up again. Kid wouldn't be all that happy with him for 'cheating' like this, making an end run around him with his little sister's help, Stan was pretty sure. If he stopped right now…
But Stan didn't wait this time; he asked his next question out of Miz, anyway, knowing exactly what he was doing. "Miz. Kid. Was this Liam, the kid's brother… Bill's twin?" Because with a name like that… and the way that Ford talked about the kid and threes… it'd make sense if the kid was supposed to have another set of twins as part of this whole Zodiac-circle-thing, somehow.
Miz laid her head down on the railings. "Liam wasn't a twin, just a brother and he was really nice." She frowned. "A Bill from another timeline brought back his Liam… and he was so upset at what that Bill had done, they had a fight and that Bill lost control of his powers and accidentally…" She went quiet. "That's why brother wants to fix everything first. But he doesn't have the power to do that yet. Not until he can usurp Ax and take his place. So he needs to keep the Nightmare Realm from collapsing… so he can try and fix it." (Okay. So that explained a little better why the kid had pitched such a fit about that before, with the place maybe collapsing sooner…)
Miz paused again before she clarified. "Bill was really young when they took Liam from him. And no-one ever tried to help him grieve. They all just ignored it, like they were trying to forget about what happened."
Yeahhhh… that wasn't good. Stan stifled a wince. "This Liam. He older or younger than Bill when that happened?" Stan asked next, though he would lay bets on 'older'. (It'd explain a hell of a lot. ...Hell, it'd explain everything he'd been seeing with the kid. Why the kid hated rules and laws with a vengeance. Why the kid sorta knew what an older brother was supposed to do, but not actually how do to it, and got kind of confused about the whens and hows for offering praise of his own for things. Why the kid hated parents. Why the kid was so big on control and not doing things by accident. Why the kid responded so damn well to somebody actually looking out for him, positive reinforcement, all of it. Maybe even why the kid got so chatty with him so easily when it was just the two of them together, alone. All of it. ...Shit.)
"Liam was the older brother." Miz sniffled. "He took care of Bill. Taught him stuff, read to him…"
Stan ran a hand over his face and blew out a breath. (Shit. --He'd tripped over that one completely by accident, hadn't he? Taking care of the kid kinda, and teaching the kid stuff with the whole 'learning' thing… He'd known it was a thing, but this? Damn. Almost made him feel guilty about it. …Almost. Not like he was gonna stop. Just meant he knew why it was working so well for sure, now.)
Stan dropped the hand and asked next, "How different was it for you? --I know, your brother wasn't irregular or whatever, they got treated different in your place. But was there other stuff just as bad? A different kind of bad?" Stan needed to know if she was going to need help with any of it. If the kid couldn't handle it… then Stan would have to step in, though Stan didn't really know what either of them could do about it. He was pretty sure the kid would half-kill himself trying if she let him, or if Stan didn't step in and try to stop him by giving the something else to try, instead. (And who knew what that would look like, how bad that could get. Stan didn't want to know what the kid running off the rails looked like; hell, it already looked pretty bad even when the kid was actively trying to stay on the rails, with the agreement that was in place.)
"I was the older brother… who wasn't born… normal." Miz said quietly. "It was different in my world where you could be Irregular on the outside or Unnatural on the inside. I was unnatural. The Council took me away from my family and little brother, Will, forbid me from ever seeing them again. See, in my world, producing children was different from Bill's world. Your inside shape determined the shape of your kids and normally that meant your insides and outsides matched. But my insides were round and… that meant I could birth circles…"
"Okay, hold up," Stan said. Girl to boy, fine -- he got that. But… "Without getting into, uh, triangle sex and junk. What's the bottom line we're talkin' here." She'd lost him there.
Miz took a deep breath and let it out. "The council wanted to use me as Breeding stock once I was old enough. Lucky for me, I was still too small for them to do so before everything went to shit and I accidentally burned the whole place down… hah, that's what they get for starving me when I was a baby! I didn't grow up big enough! Hah!" Despite her words, she was shivering, glad that she hadn't been forced to mate.
Stan was staring at her, trying to wrap his head around all this, starving her and... "...What? Breeding… stock, like… dogs?" Only time he'd ever heard anything like that kind of talking was with the pug breeders, and...
"They would have Paired me with some other circle and made me produce children for the rest of my life if they could." Miz scowled. Thank Ax for her stunted growth.
"--Okay, no, stop, I hear ya!" Stan said quickly, very much feeling what Mabel would've called 'squick' already, even before the feeling of alarm really hit him. ...And then the thing about them starving her as a baby really registered, and then how happily vindictive she sounded about 'burning the whole place down'. "You, uh, you were the only one they did this to?" he asked, really not wanting to. "Or were gonna do it to?"
"I think? I haven't Looked into the other other worlds that were like mine. Generally the council wouldn't be so drastic since most Unnaturals were only one rank up on the hierarchy, but I was a TRIANGLE that could birth CIRCLES. It was a really big deal." She sighed, rubbing her face. "Burning the place down was an accident. But aside from feeling bad that all the innocent people were killed… I've just… gotten kinda resigned to it all. It happened because I fucked up and I don't know if I can fix it. Bill seems to think I can… but I'm not so sure."
Right. Because all that happening to her was her fucking up? ...Maybe she just meant the 'burning down the place' part. (Hopefully.) Stan let out a long breath. At least she already knew about that little issue of 'maybe innocent' people dying when she'd done that? (Stan hadn't really been looking forward to bringing up the possibility to her, if she hadn't thought of that herself.)
"Sounds like that ain't gonna be an easy place to fix," Stan told her, in what was probably the understatement of the century. "You're actually thinkin' about tryin'?" It hadn't exactly sounded like she was, the way she'd talked about it up until that point.
"Bill has a better chance at fixing it than I do. His dimension became the Nightmare Realm… my dimension became the 3rd Dimension… so trying to fix mine would end up reversing the creation of Earth and all that stuff. I don't feel right doing that. Especially now that humans have evolved and… I don't want to wipe them from existence just to bring back that old world I hated so much." Miz was quite frustrated about this. Maybe she COULD simply recreate the entire 2nd Dimension from scratch, but that would require more power than she currently had.
"Yeah. Pretty sure stuff in a place like here? Ain't as bad as all... that." Some stuff here was bad, but it wasn't like everyplace was… well. "Fixin's usually supposed to mean not breakin' a lot of other shit, right?" Stan said, shifting gears and trying to reach for something maybe slightly less insane than… reversing entire universes? Shit. How was this his life?
"If I got Time Baby and Dad to work together with me, I might be able to recreate the 2nd Dimension, but Time Baby doesn't like changing the past. 'A fuck up is a fuck up and we need to accept it and move on.' That's essentially how he feels about it." Miz kicked her legs again. "And it's just all sorts of unfair."
"Heh." Stan felt a little weird saying what he was gonna say next. Probably get him in trouble, too. But… he was trying to be honest with the kid, and he was pretty sure that lying would just get him into trouble later with one demon or the other, for not really being able to back his own shit up…
So Stan rubbed the back of his neck, and said: "Y'know, I didn't give up on getting my brother back. Didn't accept that, or move on. ...Maybe you don't have to bring the whole place back or nothin', but maybe you should think about what you really want and if you want it bad enough to go for it? I mean… when I was tryin' to get Ford back, I had a choice to keep on pretendin' to be him, or to try and, well, stay me?" he told her, sitting back, and checking to make sure she was following what he was saying.
...Well, she was still listening to him, so Stan kept on going. "I chose bein' my brother, instead. Trashed my old life so I couldn't change my mind or get distracted by any of the rest of it. I had to be all-in," Stan told her. "Couldn't really do what I needed to do if I didn't. Cut every last tie I had with every alias and name I ever took." It hadn't been easy. Not all of it had been bad -- a lot of it, yeah, but not all of it.
And settling down? Trying to stay in place after so long on the run? It had been hard. No more running. No running away from anything.
...Not even his own reflection in the mirror, the closest thing he'd had to his brother, staring back at him.
Miz glanced over at him. "... and that's pretty much how Bill feels about Liam too. He doesn't want to give up on trying to get him back. Even if he had to keep collapsing dimensions into the Nightmare Realm to keep it alive long enough for him to get the power he needed to make it happen…" She looked down. "I know that what he did was horrible and he hurt a lot of people, but he thinks that once he's the new god he'll be able to fix everything. Bring back all the people he's killed, fix all the dimensions he broke… and then get Liam back." She wiped her eyes again. "For him, it all would have been worth it, to get his brother back…"
Stan's eyebrows went up. He stared over at her for a bit.
"That's really what the kid's planning on doing?" Stan asked her. That was... a surprise. Because sure, sometimes the kid talked about 'fixing everything', but... Stan hadn't thought that the kid might have meant, y'know, everything. Like, everything-everything, the whole Belgian waffle stack, everything the kid had ever done wrong. (...Did Ford know anything about this? Was Miz right about this?)
Miz nodded. "I want to support him, even if I don't quite agree with his methods. He's just doing what he can with what he has. He told me he would fix everything and I'm sure he really means it. But he's broken and I don't think he fully knows how to fix things."
Damn. He'd still have to talk with the kid himself, make sure that the human-demon hadn't misunderstood Bill, or was misexplaning the kid now, but…
Stan thought about this. And...
...Stan's surprise slowly morphed into a frown, because something really wasn't adding up here.
"...Why's Ford got such a problem with the triangle, then?" Stan asked, almost suspiciously. If that was really what the kid was trying to do, then... that was the kind of thing Ford would be totally on board for, one-hundred percent. Ford lived for that stuff, fixin' stuff and saving people, didn't he? Acting all 'heroic'...
Stan shook his head. None of this made sense. Not at the kind of scale Miz was talking about. Not if all the kid wanted was his brother, and his dimension, back. Besides: "Why was the first thing the triangle demon did once he got out… --the first thing the kid did was try and wreck the place," Stan pointed out. Bill hadn't tried to fix his own dimension; the triangle demon had only gone off and tried to wreck theirs. "That don't jibe." And Stan had still never really gotten a straight answer outta the kid on that one, yet, either. (Not one that didn't fall flat when the kid said it.)
"You'd have to ask him for that. I think some of it might have been how messed up he is, both from the eons spent in a collapsing dimension and whatever mind-altering Deal he made with Ford. And there's that prophecy your Ax gave him that I still don't fully understand. Ax is blocking my Eye about that." Miz groaned. "But I don't know the details of how brother thinks. We're both insane but in different ways. And I don't always understand what anyone's thinking, even if I can feel them," ...like how she apparently couldn't fully understand what the heck Ford was about. He acted like a jerk to Stan but he did like him? But he also didn't trust him? She didn't understand.
Stan sighed. "Yeah, okay." He'd just have to work with the kid to get him to the point that the kid would talk about it all with him. Because becoming a god of… everything? Seemed a hell of a lot larger than… just fixing one dimension? Stan knew he was still missing one hell of a lot; had to be.
"... probably shouldn't talk about Liam with him though. He's really sensitive about that. Loses his temper over it at even a mention," Miz warned him. "He freaked out at Stitched Heart's parents over being 'parents' too."
"Yeah, I think I got a preview of that one," Stan said. "There was this purple square--" Stan stopped. "Wait, the kid freaked out at who?" Stan asked her with a frown. "--Define 'freaked out'," Stan ground out. Because, shit, had the kid gone off on somebody in town? Ford was gonna kill him...
"Robbie." (Okay yeah, right, the Valentino kid, not just some random person. That was probably--) "His parents were being super-pleasant and Bill just told them that he hated them, kinda yelled at them before storming away so he wouldn't hurt them. And then I gave him a doll to bite and scream into until he calmed down." Miz blinked. "I think Bill did really good in leaving before things got bad."
"...When did this happen?" Stan asked, glancing over at the hatch as he heard a slight creaking noise, and then he nearly did a double-take at spotting Ford's partially-hidden form peeking through the gap in the hatch. (...Shit. How long had his brother been listening in on them there?) "This thing with, uh…"
"A few hours before Ford stormed up to the attic to try and assault Bill. We snuck out to go to the cemetery so Bill could play their piano."
Stan blew out a breath. "Right. ...Well at least the kid's still listenin' to me on the avoiding-fights stuff." He glanced back over at Miz. "He has a real hard time walking away from fights, still," Stan explained to her, mindful of how Ford was listening in just then. "Thinks it makes him look weak, and that he's just settin' himself up to get attacked worse later. Really has a hard time turning his back on people, too; same reason. ...The kid really did that for a couple of somebodies who weren't part of his Zodiac?" Stan had thought Melody might be the exception, because Soos liked her, sure, but the kid seemed to (kind of?) like her too? Stan hadn't been holding his breath to think that maybe giving a pass to non-Zodiac that the rest of them cared about might be more of a rule, instead. (...Maybe he should've? Kid kept surprising him.)
Miz nodded. "He stood up and stormed out of the room." He'd been so upset he'd even forgotten he was leaving her behind. But that was fine. She hadn't been in any danger.
"Huh," said Stan. "Heh. Remind me to pat him on the head for that one later," he told Miz, with a ghost of a smile.
Miz paused, then added, "Robbie tried to come after us to tell brother off but it was resolved peacefully."
Stan's eyebrows went up. "Make that three head pats," Stan said, sounding bemused. The Valentino kid could be a little shit sometimes.
Miz looked a little down. "I'm surprised. He… controlled his temper a lot better than I do…" She hung her head. "I feel like a failure on that end."
"Kid doesn't always," Stan told her. "But yeah, he can. ...Kid's also a hell of a lot older than you, right? Probably has a hell of a lot more practice under his hat to go along with that," Stan told her. After a moment of thought, and remembering a couple of things Miz had said about 'her own humans', Stan added, "With other humans, even."
"Yeah. I'm not even a trillion years old yet. But you'd think I'd be better at it since I used to be human. Even if I haven't really interacted with other humans again until recently."
"Well, you've been doin' a lot better with the headband on, yeah?" Stan said, making a gesture with his thumb at his own forehead. "And hey, you even stopped when Ford tried to bait you earlier. Maybe I had to ask ya to, but you were able to back down. I've met a lot of guys who wouldn't be able to do that; you did a good job there." Stan gently mussed her hair as a sort of reward. She seemed to enjoy it. "You ain't doin half-bad, kid. Just try keeping that up. Yeah?" Stan told her, leaving his hand on her head. Miz nodded. "I'm going to try harder."
Well, with the whole 'her feeling other people's emotions' thing fixed now… probably should be easier for her to keep her temper, Stan figured. She'd even said things had felt more distant, right? Maybe she wouldn't get as mad, even when she did. "Well, you've got that--" Stan gestured to her headband, "--to help out with it, now. Just keep it on when you're around other people."
Miz nodded. "It should help. I just still get angry about stuff." That was probably a problem with being a being of pure energy, she felt emotions with her whole being, which got hard to handle sometimes...
Stan snorted. "Everybody gets angry about stuff." Stan shrugged. "You just gotta find ways to deal that don't mean punching somebody in the face right away." And Stan spoke from experience on that one. (The number of times that had gotten him into trouble…) "It ain't wrong to feel mad. Sometimes, you should! Just, y'know, don't go doin' stuff without thinking first and bein' sure about what you're gonna do, if you ain't right in the middle of that fight and got no choice but to go all-out swinging, yeah?"
Speaking of which... "Heck, you can probably get out of fights a hell of a lot easier than the kid can right now, get yourself some breathing room to do that thinking. Right?" Stan was all for more thinking, less 'destroying', here. Especially because... getting the kid distracted and removed from things? Getting him past the initial rage and actually thinking? Usually made it possible for him to actually handle stuff with the kid. (And nine times outta ten, once Stan got the kid to that point, he didn't even have to explain to the kid why he shouldn't jump right back in and pick up that fight himself again, himself; the kid already knew enough to figure it out himself, thinking through the agreement and everything else. He just needed the reminder sometimes.) "Think about what your sister would say about things, gettin' back in that fight, before you do somethin'." That oughta cover the 'second human opinion' part for her there, in case none of them were around the next time that happened somewhere.
(Hey, just 'cause Stan didn't care about other dimensions didn't mean he was against things maybe going not so bad over there in other places, or anything. Besides, it would give the dragon-lady more practice at getting along with other people better, anyway, so she could do better when she was here and visiting the kid again.)
"Ok…" Miz mumbled. She perked up when a distinctive jingling tune reached them though, echoing across the beach. Stan looked up to see an ice cream truck trundling down one of the roadways. Miz was up and alert, staring at the vehicle as it finished its journey to the end of the road, and pulled up right beside the beach. "Ooh! Oooh!" She seemed to bounce in place. Stan snorted. Easily distracted, this kid. Just like the other demon, only more cheerful.
"You want some ice cream?" Stan asked kind of rhetorically, already reaching for his wallet. Probably break the bank on her, with how she ate, but after everything she'd just told him, it'd be more than worth it to keep her on his good side. (Or, uh, whatever. Ford didn't think "Stan's side" or whatever was good enough for triangle demons to want to be on, apparently; so what.)
Miz nodded, staring at the truck with an eager expression. Stan was about to pull out some cash when she spoke up. "Your money's from another time and dimension. I can just scan and copy the ice cream I want."
Stan looked down and grimaced. She was right; he only had those new funny-money looking bills on him. Damn. (So much for that idea. Made Stan feel a little useless.)
Miz glanced at him. "Should I get some for the kids too?"
"Naw, that's fine." Stan sighed, putting his wallet away. (He'd have to figure out something for money for the next, what, two days? Shouldn't be too hard, though. The beach was easy.) He saw Miz slip down and slide over the edge of the boat to run towards the truck. He waited a bit.
And as soon as Stan was sure she was out of earshot, Stan turned towards the hatch. "Ford," he called out lowly, and he watched his brother emerge from belowdecks. "...How much did ya hear?" Stan asked.
"'Jerk-baby's hitman'?" Ford stated, not actually a question, and Stan visibly winced. Shit.
"...You don't know the half of it," Stan told him warningly, as Ford approached. Because Ford hadn't been in on any of those conversations he'd had with the demon-kids up in the attic. Not in any way, shape, or form; Ford couldn't spy on the triangles up there. The kid had set it up that way, right from the start. "Seriously, you don't."
"Do I need to?" Ford asked him, and Stan grimaced.
"There's a lot of junk you don't know--" Stan tried again, not quite a reference to his own issues with the mob. But Ford just frowned at him.
"That doesn't change the fact that she killed people."
...And it was shit like that, that made Stan wonder (in a really not-great way) what his brother would think of him if he'd ever actually pulled the trigger on somebody (...or, y'know, somebody that wasn't a demon like Bill) and killed them. Damn it.
"She didn't want to," Stan ground out. "The jerk baby told her that killin' was all she was good for." Did his brother really not get what the mob could do to kids, when they got them that young?
Ford gave him a flat look. "But she still did it. She had a choice. She killed other people, just to get some other monsters out of prison or some other kind of 'made up' trouble?" Ford not quite scoffed. "And you think that somehow gets her off the hook as some kind of actual excuse? She has no morals." Stan clenched his jaw. (Guess that answered his question…)
"Look," Stan told him, "What do you want from me? I only met her a couple a' days ago, and I've been giving her advice on how to not have to do that anymore, from day two." Just like the triangle. "She said her friends stopped causing trouble after they found out what she had ta do to keep 'em out of the slammer, so whatever the hell was going on there that we don't know about, they're actually watchin' each other's backs. She cares about them, and they care about her. Like family."
"You're being far too naive if you actually believe that she's been telling you the truth about any of that, or would even listen to you." Ford gave Stan a tight, angry smile. Stan huffed out a breath.
"And you're being obtuse -- and yeah, I know what that word means, Ford -- if you think these demon kids can lie to me. The kid listens to me and I'm pretty sure that this one does too." Stan leveled a look at him. "And if that oh-so-great lizard of yours wasn't tryin' to stop her from killin' people for this baby-jerk, when it's supposed to be her dad, what's it say about her? Or maybe the lizard?"
"'Supposed to be'," Ford echoed with nearly a sneer. He made his way closer to Bill. "It's time to end this farce," Ford told him, sounding angry as hell. "If you're really too blind to see it," Ford stomped his boot into the deck only about a foot from the kid's head. "Then I'll just have to show it to you," Ford added coldly, as the kid gave a full-body flinch at the jarring vibration so close to him and stirred, his eyes half-opening into blinking slits.
(Ford was convinced he knew what Bill's game was now, and was completely offended that his brother was actually falling for what was, apparently, some sort of 'multiple-man con'; Bill, Miz, and that 'anti-Bill', three.)
(That said, Ford wasn't entirely certain what role that 'Seb' had had to play in all this, but Ford was certain that he must have been involved in the con as well, somehow. ...Possibly to simply lend credence and backstory to Miz's supposed far-reaching travels. ...and to make Ford himself look quite insane and like some sort of paranoidly misguided fool, with that eye-trick they'd managed to pull off somehow.)
Bill, blinking, stared out across the deck for a bit. Then he slowly sat up. (That was usual for the kid after a longer sleep, Stan knew. Kid was trying to get his bearings, get his body back in whatever 'state' he liked having it in that didn't have him too 'low' in it, or whatever.) He watched as the kid winced and rubbed at the right side of his head like he did sometimes.
"...Stan-ley?" the kid said slowly. It took the kid another second or two, before the kid straightened in place and started looking around. "--Where's Miz?" Bill asked, turning to Stan, eyes narrowing.
"Why don't you simply review the recordings your suit was taking for you, and see for yourself?" Ford said coldly, crossing his arms and taking a wide-legged stance a bit to the left and back from Bill. That had Bill twisting in place to glare up at Ford, as he continued with, "It does have that rather basic functionality, doesn't it?" and...
Oh shit. Stan hadn't thought the kid had set up anything here. Stan interjected quickly, "--She went to get some ice cream. She's fine," Stan told Bill, directly offering up the info the kid had asked for (which was part of the learning promise he'd made to the kid), while glaring at his idiotic brother for being so stupid. Because if Bill saw (or heard or whatever) some stupid recording of the conversation he'd just had with Miz--
The fingers of Bill's left hand twitched on the deck, and Bill was still glaring up at Stan's brother for a couple of seconds… before Stan saw Bill's eyes go a bit distant and all expression just fall off of the kid's face.
Stan let out a deep and angry sigh. Damn it, Ford. Stan ran a hand across his face, and watched as Bill slowly dropped his chin, and just as slowly swiveled his head on his neck around to face him.
The kid was staring at him expressionlessly. Stan looked right back at him unapologetically.
"What do you want for breakfast, kid?" Stan asked the kid, turning away. Because hey, if the kid wasn't gonna toss a fit? Stan wasn't gonna go looking for one -- that's for damn sure.
Out of the corner of his eye, Stan saw Bill slowly pull in a breath, and open his mouth--
--and before the kid got a word out, Ford overrode the kid with, "Did you really think my brother would fall for your lies, William?"
Stan watched the kid go still, and Stan had a sinking feeling as Ford continued with, "Really. You may be learning how to lie from my brother, but you still have a long way to go." Ford gave them a humorless chuckle. "Hardly creative of you, William," Ford said next. "'Bill' and 'Liam'."
Stan looked up at his brother slowly. The kid wasn't moving. He was barely breathing.
"Ford," Stan said carefully. "Dunno where you're going with this, but…" he'd better stop. His brother had to know better, right?
...except Ford had talked about doing things he wouldn't normally do to throw the triangle off, after Stan had finally gotten through to him after they'd listened in on Bill and the kids, before they'd scaled the ladder onto the boat. (--Which, y'know, Stan had been okay with 'in principle', but this had not been what he'd meant!)
"Stanley, this whole--" Ford made an irritated gesture "--story of his has been one, long, unmitigated lie!" Ford told him. "He's 'repackaging' your own life to you, and presenting it as fact and truth!" And Stan slowly began to realize, Ford didn't just look desperately angry, he looked desperate. "Bill doesn't have a brother he's trying to save; he never did!"
Stan felt a chill go down his spine, as the kid stopped breathing next to him. ...Oh shit. That… shit. Shit.
And for one dizzying moment, Stan was worried that his brother might be right. That he'd fallen for some con of the kid's, hook line and sinker. Because it did sound way too close to everything that had… it was just too messed up. Way, way too close and too messed up. And there were so many holes in it that just didn't fit.
But…
...that was what shit was like. That's what life was like. If it had all been too neat and pat, everything tied up in a bow, then yeah, maybe he'd have a real damn good reason to be suspicious as hell about it. But life was messy and the kid couldn't lie worth a damn, Stan would bet his life on it (hell, he kind of was, and had to), and…
...when Stan looked over at the triangle, he didn't need all the logic in the world to tell him whether the kid was lying or not. He could straight-up see the dead pale look on the kid's face as the kid dropped his chin slightly and actually seemed to second-guess himself and his own memories and… Stan knew that look after his own recovery after the memory gun, and…
No. Oh no. Oh. Oh, this was gonna be bad.
"--Ford, take it back," Stan said quickly, in a rush, as he remembered something Miz had said, and with how the kid was reacting -- Stan suddenly realized what his brother had just said, and done. "Take it back right now--!" But it was already too late.
Stan saw the very second, the moment, the instant when the thought flashed across the kid's face -- as Bill finished remembering, knowing, and then told himself: 'No, I remember my brother, I'm not that kind of crazy…'
And Stan saw it, in the very next instant, when the kid completely wrote off his brother forever, too.
Stan remembered the echo of Miz's throwaway line "They all just ignored it, like they were trying to forget about what happened," and realized what it actually meant, how bad it really was, and had been, for the kid.
Stan realized it all as the kid straightened slightly in place, as the kid's shoulders and hands unclenched, as Bill Cipher mentally relegated Stan's brother to the trash heap of 'parents, government, and everybody else' who had told the kid 'no'. Who had told Bill that his brother was nothing, less than nothing; that his brother didn't deserve to live; that it wasn't even worth it to think of him later; that Bill shouldn't do anything more than forget about his brother and pretend that Liam had never even existed just like the rest of them...
The kid was never going to listen to Stan's brother again.
And that scared Stan to death. He'd been walking a tightrope balance of trying to keep his brother and the kid from going that far, from pulling that trigger, from completely taking the gloves off with each other. What had happened out on the porch had been bad enough, but at least something good had come out of it -- all of the deals they'd ever had with the kid were now off. But his brother had just... here and now… Ford had...
Stan hadn't wanted to know what that would look like on either of them, really taking the gloves off, but especially not by the demon; and now, Stan had no plan moving forward. He'd been trying to keep things from ever getting to that point -- telling his brother to stay away, work on other things, not even think about the triangle. (He'd thought the kid was going to be the problem there, obsessing over Ford forever and never really letting go, but he'd known he could handle the kid on that. He'd thought he could trust his brother to just… but Ford hadn't. Ford had pulled the trigger on him, in the very worst way.)
And now, Stan had no idea what the kid was going to do next.
"Don't kill him," Stan breathed out, as Ford said, "Why in the world would I take it back?!" all outrage and irritated confusion, oh hell. "--I want you not to kill my brother, Bill," Stan repeated. "You hear me? Don't kill Ford."
And the kid closed his eyes for a moment more and blew out a long breath.
And then the kid opened up his eyes again, breathing in, and looked up at Stan with a smile. (Not a grin, just a smile.)
And then Bill told Stan, to his face, lightly and pleasantly, "Why would I even think about killing him? It's just a waste of my time." Bill's smile got just a little bit wider, or maybe deeper. "I have better things to do," the kid told Stan, as the demon looked down, brushed off his knees, and slowly stood up.
Stan couldn't entirely suppress the shudder.
"'Efficiency', right," Stan croaked out, thinking of a snap of the fingers, and several unmoving and suddenly-dead fish.
Bill looked down at him. He surveyed him for a moment.
"Really, Stanley," Bill said, putting his hands on his hips. "You weren't expecting this? ...I probably should've," Ford's old muse mused to himself, tapping his chin with a finger. "But then… I wasn't thinking clearly for quite awhile there, now, was I?" Bill gestured with a hand, then frowned slightly. "Certainly not along straight lines; so consistently-inconsistent of me." Bill looked back to Stan and leaned down slightly.
"Isn't it better that I don't have that problem now?" Bill asked of Stan.
"Stop threatening my brother," Ford growled out nearby.
"I--" Stan didn't know what to think. Stan stared up at him almost blankly, because... He had thought the kid was going to lose it. …Why wasn't the kid completely losing it?
"Really, Stanley," Bill continued, all-smiles towards him, as the kids slowly made their way up onto the deck. "It's fine."
...And why did that simple phrase cause such a foreboding inside of Stan's poor, old-man heart?
---
Miz was sad. She made herself sad by thinking of things she probably shouldn't have been thinking of. She didn't like being sad. So when an excuse came up to distract herself with something NOT sad, she allowed her thoughts to drift away and focus on the NOT sad thing instead.
...For now, at least.
She knew it would come back once she wasn't distracted anymore, but that was why she loved distractions. A nice song. A new game. A tv show. A day out with her friends. Focusing on cooking. Focusing on building things. Focusing on learning something new. Anything to drive away the awful feeling that would consume her if she wasn't distracted.
Miz stood up on her toes so she could see into the ice cream truck. Creamsicles… ice cream sandwiches… cones and cups and fudge-covered pops…
She wanted chocolate. It was a better alternative to alcohol. She didn't have anything to celebrate with alcohol anyway. She stared at the ice cream other people bought as they walked away. Each template was saved inside her Mind to be able to be called up again later.
She was scanning a wafer cone with cookies and cream ice cream when she heard heard a voice ask, "So… you like ice cream?"
Miz looked over to see teenage Stan grinning at her charmingly. Teenage Ford was standing just behind him, looking giddy and holding a notebook. Miz grinned widely.
She's found a BETTER distraction!
"Hello again~" she waved. Her Perception Filter was still on, as noted by how no-one paid her any mind aside from the twins before her. She wasn't invisible, she was just uninteresting to pay any attention to. From the look on young Ford's face though, he found her VERY interesting. Miz couldn't help but feel rather flattered.
"So… uh… are you guys space pirates or something?" Stan asked her first, managing to get a question in before even Ford did.
Miz giggled. "We're travelers from a future in an alternate dimension of your timeline." She expanded the parameters of her Perception Filter to include the twins as well. "Though me and Blue aren't human," she said simply.
Time Baby was dead and fuck the path of fate. They've already fucked stuff up just by BEING here.
"Oh. Are you just… allowed to just tell us that?" Ford asked nervously, looking around. He wondered (rather belatedly) if they were breaking some sort of future-law somehow, just by talking with her and hearing about cool things like other dimensions!
Miz shrugged. "As long as you two can keep this a secret."
Stan narrowed his eyes at her, because even as a teenager, he could pick up on things. A very perceptive child. Unlike Ford, who was so gullible and naive that Miz really, really wanted to bullshit something to him just to see his FACE. But no, Stan asked, "Why're you trustin' us with your secret? Why'd you guys take our boat?"
"Because the boat is technically ours. Or rather, Stan's." Stan looked confused by her response but Ford put it together first. Travelers from the future. Those two old men. The way one had yelled out Ford's name but hadn't actually been talking to him--
"Oh my Einstein! Those were us!" Ford gasped. Stan looked over.
"Sixer?" Ford was squealing. Stan smacked his arm.
Ford coughed and tried to be professional. "Lee! Those old guys are us from the future!" he gasped out.
"Alternate future," Miz clarified. "That fact that we're here already changes what future you two are gonna have." The distinction was apparently lost on them, though. She looked back at the ice cream truck as Ford and Stan practically went into spasms over the information.
"D-did you see the super cool fighting moves the future ME pulled on those cops?!" young Ford squeaked. "I'm such a Badass!"
Young Stanley was laughing and slapping his knee. "Even as old men we still get chased by the cops!" he exclaimed with no small glee.
Miz glanced over at them. "Hey, wanna see a cool trick?"
"What?" the twins asked eagerly, looking right back over to her.
Miz pointed. "What ice cream do you guys want?" The two blinked. What was she gonna do?
"--Peanut brittle cone! Two scoops!" Stan said immediately.
Ford hesitated a little before he responded with, "Vanilla cone with jelly beans?"
Miz nodded and wiggled her fingers, lifting up the sand into the air as it swirled and the atomic particles rearranged until she was holding their requested treats. As she thought, the looks on their faces were AMAZING. Then she winced. (Yeah, Ford really WAS hitting decibels only dogs could hear… wait, did that mean she was part-dog right now?!)
"Here, a freebie just 'cause I wanted to show off," Miz said smugly as she handed the ice cream to them. The two were staring at it.
Stan took one experimental lick to make sure it wasn't actually sand (it wasn't! Cool!), but was already digging in and halfway through it by the time Ford was almost finished inspecting his own.
"This… was sand?" Ford stared at his own ice cream cone warily. If this was some kind of joke to make them eat sand... Ford had had enough of bullies making fun of him and his brother for one lifetime already, thank you.
"I took the sand, moved its atomic particles around and changed it's molecular make up to be ice cream instead," Miz told him, grinning. She then proceeded to form her own blackberry cone with fudge and bite into it, partially to show young Ford it was okay, but… yummm~. She was good!
"Is this… some kinda super cool future technology? Did I invent it?" Ford asked, finally taking a few licks.
Miz shrugged. "Naw, this is my own thing. But your future self did make some--" She was cut off by the SURGE of energy in the air. She paled. Oh no. Oh shit. Even through her headband she felt that. (Which made her realize the spell on it was probably wearing off and she would need to reapply it NOW before she felt any more than this and--)
She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, slapping her hand to her forehead. Re-apply spell first. Check to make sure Bill didn't kill anyone after. Shit. Shit. Shit. She ran off, dropping her ice cream as she went. "SorrysomethingjustcameupIhavetogobye--!!"
Stan and Ford looked at each other.
"...Follow her?" Stan asked of his twin.
Ford was already running across the beach after her, barely keeping his ice cream in hand. His notebook was clutched tightly in his other.
"Hey! Wait for me!" Stan called after him, before shoving the last of his cone in his mouth and then booking it for the rocks on the beach himself. (Good thing he'd kept the binoculars on him!)
---
Miz ran up to the boat, gasping and wavering on her feet at the intense feelings roiling inside her like a tropical storm. Augh… filter… filter...
She wobbled in the air as she jumped up onto the boat, almost losing it, trying to do too many new things at once. But then she felt a strong wind suddenly gust up underneath her, stabilizing her.
Miz let go of her own flight and focused on her filtering. When she reopened her eyes, she realized she was hovering right next to the railing, against which Bill was leaning casually, one hand casually outstretched towards her. She hadn't realized that it had been him standing there, she'd been too overwhelmed by--
"T-t-that… I… you…" She gasped, trembling. "Are you… alright? I just… felt… spellwork… faded… and…" She shook her head. God what the hell did she just feel?!
"You felt spellwork fading?" Bill tilted his head at her. "What spellwork?" he asked. Then he frowned. "Are you all right?" She'd looked a bit wobbly.
"M-my headband…"
"--Fix it," Bill said immediately, straightening.
"...needed a recharge…" she whimpered, pressing a hand to the side of her head. "Didn't think… it would run out so soon…" Her eyes were tearing up as she held back a sob. What had happened up here? She leaves for FIVE minutes to get some ice cream and THIS--
Bill blew out a breath, then frowned a bit and leaned forward, activated a different (v-e-r-y experimental) feature of his suit, and looked the headband over. (He couldn't do anything about anything she'd felt from anyone before now, but he could help solve the problem again.)
"You didn't tell me it would need recharging," Bill frowned, as he analyzed her spellwork on multiple levels, letting himself focus on that, instead of... He was still frowning as he leaned back again. "You had that… one with the piece of metal on it a few days ago," he said. "Add that, and put the spell on that instead?" Bill suggested. "Should be easier to add layers to it, and etchings are more stable. It should last longer."
Miz nodded. "I… think having to keep my power suppressed was wearing down at the spell…" She groaned softly as she finally managed to filter out the worst of it. Suppressing the powers of a demon god? Yeah, definitely wore down the spell.
"I can teach you some of the 'ambient energy feed-in' runes I've been using for my own spellwork, if you didn't get a good look at them before," Bill added. "Should keep the energy levels up, and there are ways to continually refresh the durability of the metal and the etchings as part of it."
"T-thanks…" Miz said, as she took control of her own flight and finally floated down to lie on the deck. (Bill canceled his own spell, as she took over.) Miz glanced over at him, eyes wet with tears. "But are you alright? I just felt…" Even with the pounding headache, she was more worried about Bill, what he'd just felt was...
Bill stiffened for a moment, then let out a sigh, looking frustrated. "--Don't thank me," he said, sounding annoyed, as he crossed his arms in front of him. "I should have thought that, that might have been a problem and said something when you first made that." It didn't take a genius to realize that Bill had entirely sidestepped her question. "Are you feeling all right?" Bill asked after a long beat.
"I'm… going to be ok." She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I… was this my fault?"
Bill looked back at her and blinked. Then he turned towards Stanley.
"Stanley," Bill called out. "Is saying 'sorry' for things incessantly when you had nothing to do with them a human thing? I think that's a human thing," Bill said.
That got him a grunt from Stanley and a: "For some people, yeah. Why?"
"How do you get them to stop?" Bill called out next, and Miz huffed before poking at his arm.
"I can't help it," Miz pouted. "I feel bad and some illogical part of me thinks apologizing would make me feel better."
"Could try saying 'stop', but that won't work," Stan called back, from where he was sitting down and making pancakes using a propane tank and the small camp stove he'd gotten from the crate. "Gotta help 'em stop feeling guilty for everything they see."
"Ah," said Bill. "A challenge." He turned his head back to Miz. "Challenge accepted?" he asked.
She managed a small snort. Then she frowned again. "Ugh… what… why would…" She Flickered to try and see what the FUCK had happened here and… oh. "I can't believe Ford said that to you! Of all the insensitive…"
Bill simply shrugged at this, though he did look over at where that Stanford, Pine Tree and Shooting Star were sitting together next to each other, on nearly the opposite side of the deck from where he was.
"He thinks old Seven-Eyes was telling him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing-but the truth," Bill told her under his breath. "I don't particularly feel like wasting my time trying to correct the notion," he told her far more smoothly than he felt about the matter.
"Jessie's just as capable of lying as anyone else. And it's not like she'd always know the full story either." Miz muttered, rubbing her eyes. Her own Jessie lied about being friends with her all the time, so long as she was Miz and not Bill, they could be friends.
"You don't know the half of it," Bill said quietly, watching Stanford with a flat stare. Then he realized what he was doing and turned away, opting to look at Stanley instead. Miz glanced over at Stan.
"I'm done wasting any more of my time on him," Bill said succinctly. "That Stanford does not deserve my help, or my brilliance." He got a flash of an almost evil (really, nastily smug) expression, as he said, "Or anything else from me."
Miz moved her glance over to Ford and blinked. Oh. OH. So that was what that surge of power that wasn't just emotion was. This was… Miz blinked. "Did you just… to Ford…" She slowly sat up, staring at Ford. "I didn't realize you could DO that."
"He's part of my Zodiac," Bill confirmed. "I can't do anything about that." He was himself, and he was never going to change; he certainly wasn't going to risk what would happen if he tried to rip himself loose of that Stanford entirely. (And if he hadn't hated the stupid lizard for what it hadn't done for him BEFORE that stupid prophecy, WELL…) "But that doesn't mean that I have no choices left available to me, as to how I want to handle things with him moving forward," Bill told Miz.
Stan narrowed his eyes and glanced back at them over his shoulder. "What did you do to Ford?"
"It's more like what I won't do for that Stanford, anymore," Bill clarified under his breath, only loud enough that it still carried to Stan over the sounds of the cooking stove and the frying dough. "He thinks I'm a liar? He doesn't want my help? He wants to tell me that my own mind is lying to me and my brother doesn't exist and never did? --Fine. NO help for that Stanford from me. NONE," Bill intoned.
Miz scowled across the deck at Ford. "The angry part of myself wants to give him what he wants to dish out. See how he likes it, to have someone talk to him that way…"
"You already did," Stan informed the pair of demons dryly. "Out in the forest, two days ago. So back the hell off."
Miz closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, actively working to filter out of herself any remaining flavors of the tumultuous emotions she'd felt off Bill earlier. That left her a little calmer, thankfully. "Ok. I'll back off, but… shit. Do you even have any idea what I just felt earlier? Damn."
Bill looked very on edge, probably not liking the idea that his own emotions might've hurt his own sister on this one. Stan glanced between them, then got back to his cooking.
"No, I don't," Stan said, because he didn't. (He could guess what the kid had been feeling, maybe, some of it. But Stan wasn't gonna split hairs here, and he sure as hell didn't want to talk about it right now, and get the kid any more riled up about it just then!)
"--Kid, maybe you should take her below deck and help her out with whatever 'version two-point-oh' you need to do for that headband of hers," Stan told the two demons both, as he took his spatula and removed the cooked pancake from the pan, to lay it on inside a large upside-down pot lid sitting next to him, before starting to add more of the ingredients to the pan to get mixed together and then cooked again -- water first, this time. "Don't think you want to risk her feeling like you just did, again," Stan added, not reading between the lines so much as reading the lines themselves.
The two demons got up and headed for the hatch. Miz was still sending Ford sad looks. How could he be so insensitive? If she'd been going for a sob story she'd have chosen something less complicated to craft a lie about.
Ford was sending her nasty glares right back. He was convinced she was helping Bill try to con his brother in a very bad way.
Miz sighed before saying softly to him, "You're a bully," before she climbed down the hatch.
Dipper and Mabel looked back and forth between them. What had happened? "What did you say? What happened up here?" Dipper asked. They'd noticed the tension earlier when they'd come out on deck, and how Bill seemed to be acting a little… different than usual (more standoffish?), but...
"Bill finally showed his hand," Ford told the two niblings. "The sob story lie he's trying to sell my brother…" Ford gritted his teeth. "That to all appearances Stan is falling for." Ford pulled in a breath. "...And she is helping Bill do it."
Dipper frowned while Mabel bit her lip. They exchanged glances. Mabel wasn't so sure that was true -- Grunkle Stan could spot a liar from a mile away! And Miz had been very open and truthful to any questions they had asked her. (Hadn't she? She'd sure seemed to be!) The only outright lie they'd ever heard from her was pretending to be a dragon (or maybe not, since she really WAS a dragon) and just a little prank with her glasses. Right?
"Are you sure?" Mabel asked Grunkle Ford. To this, her other favorite grunkle responded by blowing out a breath and… oh no, Grunkle Ford suddenly looked really tired.
Ford ran a hand over his face, shoulders slumping slightly, and said, "Stan isn't perfect. He has his blind spots."
"What did Bill say? What sob story?" Dipper asked him. He was a little skeptical still, but he knew Grunkle Stan wasn't perfect. They'd gotten away with the decaf coffee swap with him, just the other day. If it was something Grunkle Stan wasn't looking for...
"It's hardly worth repeating that dreck," Ford told them, leaning back against the railing. "I'd rather you not even think about falling for it, either."
Dipper and Mabel glanced at each other again. ...Well, even if it was a lie, they still needed to hear it, so they'd know what the lie was so they could not accidentally fall for it. Dipper had learned this lesson last year about keeping secrets. Lying to Mabel about the Rift had only come back to bite them all in the butt.
"What did Bill say?" Dipper asked again.
"For me, it was acting as a muse and a friend for three years," Ford told them quietly. "For Stan… it is an impossible task to help a brother who does not exist."
The younger twins both flinched. They thought back to when Miz had revealed she had siblings out on the deck, just before bed, and when they'd asked Bill about it… he'd dodged the question. He'd refused to answer it, the way he ALWAYS did when something was true but he didn't want to risk them figuring out that it was true (...like how he'd made that mistake out in the forest with Grunkle Ford, how he hadn't been planning on doing that). Bill was really bad at lying. Bill was really only good at leaving things out -- which was still pretty bad! But... when Bill was answering some things but refusing to answer others (which he'd been doing with them ever since Dipper had broken his deal with him out on the porch a couple weeks ago)… it got kind of obvious what Bill didn't want to talk about pretty quick.
The two glanced over at Grunkle Stan this time, then looked back to Ford.
"...Um, not that we don't believe you Great-Uncle Ford, but," Dipper began, then hurriedly said, "--How do you know that Bill's lying?" They knew he was good at telling when Bill lied, but if Miz had been helping Bill…? She was better at lying than him. So who had said what? (And how had they convinced Grunkle Stan of… that? How would something like that even come up?)
Ford closed his eyes and sighed heavily, leaning back against the railing further -- trusting it with his whole weight now, not to collapse. (He'd not even heard a creak out of it earlier. Stan really had built it up quite solidly.) "--Dipper, do you remember when I told you about Jheselbraum the Unswerving? The Oracle?" Ford asked of his grand-nephew, as Mabel snuggled up against his side a little more closely. Dipper nodded, and Ford continued. "She told me about Bill's past, about what happened to his family. He never had a brother."
"...Oh," said Mabel, as Dipper bit his lip and frowned for awhile. She'd gotten to read the a little more of the Journals, too, before they'd tossed them into the Bottomless Pit. She knew a little about Grunkle Ford's oracle-friend, enough to know that she was really smart, knew a lot of stuff, and that Grunkle Ford trusted her a lot.
"Yes," Ford said simply.
"Well, okay," Mabel said, exchanging glances with her bro-bro. "We'll be careful, Grunkle Ford!" she told him.
"Thank you," Ford said, relaxing a bit as he lay a han d on Mabel's shoulder. She looked up at him and smiled, then curled up against him a little more.
"So, um," Mabel said next, realizing her brother needed some time to think, and that her grunkle maybe needed some time to not-think about some other stuff? "You know, Dipper and I have gone on a lot of trips to the beach before, only in California! Right?"
"Yes?" Ford said, with a bit of a furrowed brow still, but also the starts of a smile. "Do tell?"
"Well--" Mabel said leadingly, and she launched into the first of what Ford knew could easily be a sequence of many varied retellings just from her tone, in Ford's (quite happy) experience.
After a long tale of sandcastles and waves from two summers ago, during which Mabel was engaging as she could possibly be, and in a longer lull after several interested questions from their Great-Uncle on the details of another trip three summers ago to a farther-away beach, Dipper finally spoke up again and said, "...Great-Uncle Ford?"
Ford blinked and looked down at him, and Mabel stopped getting ready for the lead-up to the next story. "Yes, my boy?"
Dipper felt really uncomfortable about this, but maybe it needed to be said. "...What if you're both right."
Ford blinked down at him, and adjusted his glasses. "...Pardon? Both right?" He hadn't thought he'd contradicted Mabel in some way--
"You, and… Bill," Dipper said next, and Ford frowned, reorienting himself to their previous discussion. Ah. Oh, dear.
Ford sighed. He'd thought he'd been clear about this. "Dipper, the unadulterated truth is--"
"--I know," Dipper said hurriedly. "I know Bill lies, and you can tell. I just... " Dipper let out a breath. "Bill gets stuff wrong sometimes though, right? Like, really, really wrong," Dipper noted. "Like, opposite of the way things actually work, wrong? The way things actually are?" His great-uncle was staring down at him.
"...Yes?" Ford said. "But I don't see what that has to do with Bill lying about--"
"--What if he wasn't lying," Dipper said in a rush, and Great-Uncle Ford stopped. "I mean, he's insane, right? What if… he thinks he had… --I mean, maybe he really didn't have a brother, but… what if Bill thinks that… he..." Dipper trailed off, feeling incredibly nervous as Great-Uncle Ford stared down at him, and the silence grew.
Mabel spoke up softly. "Dip-Dop, if Bill really thought he had a brother that he cared about a lot, that he'd want to help… then why did he treat us so bad?" she asked him. Dipper looked over at her. She didn't look very happy right then; she actually looked a little mad. "I mean, Bill must think his brother died, right? Since… his dimension was destroyed or something? And he's got that eye that's supposed to be able to see things anywhere? So if he doesn't have a brother, and couldn't find him anywhere after looking everywhere, then he'd have to think that…" Mabel trailed off, then shook her head. "But Bill said he was going to kill you! And he hurt Grunkle Ford a lot! He… he was going to kill me..." She took in a breath. "If he knows what that really feels like, to lose somebody he really cared about, then why would he do it to anybody else?" she asked of her brother.
"I don't know. He's insane." Dipper muttered.
"Because he doesn't care," Grunkle Ford told them quietly but firmly. "He's a demon. They don't care about anything or anyone but themselves and the little games they like to play, that destroy everyone else."
Mabel and Dipper paused again. "He cares about Miz," Dipper said, and Mabel bit her lip. She hadn't thought about that. And Bill really did seem to care about Miz, too, at least a little? Maybe even a lot more than that. Did… Bill really not care about anyone else? Was that really what it meant to be a demon? To not care about things that happened to other people, even if you knew they'd hurt if they happened to you?
"It's an act," Ford told them. "I've seen similar before. --Give them an excuse to turn on each other, and watch them do it like clockwork."
Mabel bit her lip again. "Well… even if Bill's acting, Miz isn't? She really does seem to like Bill." But Mabel didn't think Bill was acting either… he was too awkward about it! (And… only sort of seemed to know what he was doing? Mabel had never really seen them hug each other… Bill should at least like hugs from his sibling, right?)
"She tricked you both with a pair of glasses and a lie not three days ago," Ford reminded her. Dipper and Mabel both blushed.
"But that was a prank," Dipper muttered while rubbing his eyes, trying to not remember the horror of what he'd seen when he'd looked through those things. Ew. Just… ew. (He felt bad for Great-Uncle Ford.)
"But she also knows how to act," Ford noted, "And she fooled you with that act. --You have to be careful around her," Ford warned them. "I'd rather you didn't speak with her at all, and simply not give her the chance."
Dipper made a frustrated noise. "But we could learn so much from her! She really answers every question I ask her--"
"--And that might actually be helpful, under the assumption that she is not lying to your face with every breath that she takes," Ford told him grimly.
"She let me inspect her dragon form," Dipper brought up, not really wanting to let this go. (He hardly ever got anybody who knew that much and would tell him anything he wanted, without getting short with him eventually. Miz hadn't stopped wanting to talk with him yet, and Dipper wanted to make the most of it while he still could!) "I got to check her teeth and claws and everything."
"--Which is dangerous," Ford ground out. "And will likely have her enjoying the look on your face when she offers to do something like that again for you, you walk right into it... and she turns around and bites you for doing it, instead!" Ford worked his jaw. "That's exactly the sort of thing that demons like them enjoy doing. --They like that look of surprise, and betrayal, and despair that people get, when they turn on them!"