---
With their successful venture out into another dimensional set behind them (and Bill being absolutely insistent that they go back and get Miz something to eat someplace that Bill was absolutely certain was 'safe', as 'safe' as Bill knew he could make any place at all right now), the demons headed back to Bill's Door, 'set and dimension, and settled back into their body (Bill) and vessel (Miz), respectively.
The tired-out younger demon was quite satisfied to know for certain, as she watched her brother return to his physical form safely and then did similar right afterwards herself, that Bill COULD be moved into a different vessel without breaking his anchor. This meant she could make all sorts of cool vessels for her brother to play around in!
(Before Bill moved back into his body, though, he took one good Look Around at a few key things… deliberately letting nothing impact him Mentally yet, just gathering all that information up without actually processing it yet, or even letting it register yet really -- he was far more preoccupied and busy with Miz and her state of Mind at the moment, and he wanted to stay that way…)
Miz stretched and groaned, settling back into a body with bones and muscles. Mm… gravity. Joy~
She glanced over at her brother, shifting and stretching in place on the blanket on the ground next to her himself; he let out a soft humming-chitter that (weirdly enough) sounded almost like a cross between a yawn and a groan, as he finished his shifting and stretching, and she asked him, "Should we go tell Stan that we're back?"
Bill was slowly checking himself over, making sure his harmonics weren't too out of tune, that everything was in place where it should be, and that the anchor itself was still fine. "Hm." He thought for a moment, then nodded and slowly sat up. "Yes," Bill said. "Then eating. All of more of the eating." He gave her a long look until she blushed and nodded. "--Good."
He patted her on the head, then the demons slowly got up from the sheltered area and packed up their picnic. Miz noted, as she discreetly took down their protective barriers (and her brother checked his phone and... paused for a moment, starting to frown for some reason…) -- Ford was still spying on them from the porch. ...Well, wasn't like he'd have seen anything except the two of them taking a nap. She wasn't worried.
Miz finished what she was doing, Bill chittered something disparaging under his breath to himself as he finished doing whatever he was doing rather rapidly on his phone while Miz got her cuffs back on, and then he shoved his phone rather roughly back down into his pocket and helped her grab up the remnants of their picnic and basket-plus-blanket; and with that, they both headed back inside. Miz even waved at Ford (who looked rather sour-faced at them) as they passed him right on by.
Bill came to a halt abruptly in the middle of the living room, trying to decide between attic and kitchen, attic and kitchen, but he only stopped in place for a moment, as that Stanford came into the house behind him, before making an 'executive decision'.
---
Once Bill was sure that Miz was all set and safe inside his attic room (resting and eating and drinking more than a few of the stasis-stored 'leftovers' he'd retrieved earlier, from previous trips elsewhere, ones that he'd pulled out of his hat for her before) he left her comfortably recovering from all of their other-dimensional-set work upstairs, while he went downstairs to formally tell Stanley the first bit of their news: they were 'back' and 'done with their picnic'. And after that… well…
...EVERYTHING ELSE could wait. A certain trio of idiots was and had been getting themselves into trouble all over again, but Bill had gotten a good Look at things in the meantime -- and done a few things in the meantime once checking his phone, stupid desynchronized time issue mess, jumping ahead on him like that when he wasn't Mentally there -- and he wasn't about to bring any of this up with his sister right here in the now. FOR REASONS. Many, many reasons.
Not until he was done looking and Looking into things. He wanted to be absolutely CERTAIN before he--
--but that whole idiotic mess could come LATER. After. --In the shortest of short-terms, he was going to sit his little sister down to properly go through her list of issues so he could help her deal with them, right then. They'd kept putting it off and only doing brief summaries, but it couldn't be ignored any longer. Not with that 'broken Bill' not here anymore, and nothing keeping her here to staying in this set with him; he needed to make sure that he helped her with these things RIGHT NOW, before she decided to leave again, out on her own and potentially without him. Because it wasn't safe for him to put it off any longer. Not if she was still having trouble with her energy levels like this, enough to have her making herself that tired to look that terrible even within her own Dreamscape! Because the next time she left, if she left without him with her--
Bill didn't want to think about what would happen if she did that, but he also did want to think about it and DID think about it. --Because he needed the reasons to be able to give them to Miz, to prepare to tell her, on exactly why that would be SUCH a BAD IDEA -- he'd need to tell her these things, to keep her from making excuses now or later about why she could go out on her own before handling all of the rest of this -- because she needed to know about the consequences if she did that. And they would ALL be BAD consequences for her. --He didn't want her getting cornered because she'd thought she could do a little more, even though she was that low on energy, because then--
That was how beings that existed primarily in the Mindscape got themselves caught. That was how they got themselves bound by a binding circle. That was how they ended up captured and doing all sort of things that they didn't want to do, getting almost all their choices taken away from them.
That was how they ended up trying to use vital parts of their own energy, their own energy-Self, to power their escape, in a terrible sort of desperation that no being should ever have to face. That was how they ended up no longer themselves, the remnants that were left of them no longer remembering who or what they had been -- if any remnants remained, if they didn't just end up SCREAMING in never-ending PAIN forever and ever across the rest of existence, unable to stop, unable to do or feel anything else other than that, forever and ever again--
Because Bill had Seen that. Bill had Seen the results of that before, what had happened when-- And he was NEVER going to tell Miz about that. NEVER. He was NEVER going to tell her about that being something that sometimes happened to the very-few beings of pure energy that existed like them, in existence. Because he was afraid that she might consider trying to do that, that she might consider that possible loss of herself and her memories, destroying herself to become a so-much-lesser version of herself, to cease to exist as herself and to become something else that only barely approximated being a 'someone else'... Bill was afraid that his younger, still-suicidal sister, might possibly, potentially consider that somehow, to be a way out for her, and then--
(If Bill had known that his sister had already done that to herself once, during her desperate attempt to escape her first Binding, if he had known that she already almost lost herself, and that her summoner killing himself before she'd finished tearing herself apart was all that had stopped her... If Bill had known that his sister's damn lizard had actually helped to protect her, helped her piece herself back together, and the eons that it took to do so… he would have panicked. He already didn't trust her lizard from what he'd heard from her about it; the idea that it had put her back together -- potentially in exactly the way IT would have wanted, rather than as she was and had-been and should-be -- would have terrified him. Even if he could manage to be convinced somehow that it hadn't been out to do anything but recover her as she was… he still wouldn't have trusted the lizard, thinking it too stupid to manage the process properly. And he would have found himself very stuck with the issue of WHAT to do next: try to recover her original self, potentially against her current potentially not-herself wishes that might not be her own actual wishes? Try to follow her timeline back to 'split' her from her own timeline and recover her old Self from her current possibly-not-Self? To end up with a second Miz-Self that… might not be his sister? That would react to there being two of 'her', except not… how, exactly? --And he didn't know HOW to do that sort of thing for beings of pure energy yet, to recover something in that sort of 'time-rollback' when they didn't have a physical body and possibly never-had for the duration of their current life-and-existence -- let alone across several dimensions, let alone across MULTIPLE DIMENSIONAL SETS. ...And assuming he actually managed to navigate that whole mess without a rather bad meltdown -- and who-knew-what actions taken in the meantime -- well, he certainly would NOT have EVER allowed Miz to leave his side again after that!)
(...if he learned that such a thing had already happened to some extent as things currently stood.)
...While Bill was downstairs, after speaking with Stanley, Bill also took the time to grab even more food from the pantry and the meat coolers for Miz's general consumption, to help get his sister back up to full-energy -- hopefully without starting up some other new stupid up-and-down cycle for her. (They would absolutely have to start out by talking much more about that one first.) He didn't like the idea of her being weak and vulnerable tired and hungry, and he wanted to make absolutely certain that he had enough food for her to get her levels back up to normal without her having to leave the safe environs of his set-up protections in the attic upstairs. 'More' was MUCH better than 'less', especially a 'less' of her currently 'not enough, not by a long shot'!
Reserves were better, expenditures could be managed elsewise upstairs in the attic if need be. But you couldn't expend what you didn't have, not really not even when 'cheating' -- the energy-debt always caught up with you at some point, even if it was later than sooner. She was getting better at gauging things here in terms of energy expenditure, though, she'd told him in not quite those same words. She could always expend more of that 'more' energy later if she needed to, if she 'went over' a little too much.
(However, Bill's immediate plans for his sister were put to a temporary halt as, when he made his way back upstairs, he found his sister quietly snuggled up to a large stuffed animal, fast asleep in her usual very-comfortable-for-her fluffed-up pillow-nest. ...Well, that was fine. They could just talk about it all after she woke up again later, after she ate some more again if she needed to.)
---
"Just because I admire my brother, doesn't mean I want to be him."
Ford glanced up at Miz, then looked a bit startled as he realized that Miz had been addressing that particular peculiar statement to him -- not just announcing it to the table in general, completely out of nowhere in the middle of dinner. ...Frankly, he didn't know why she and Bill kept coming down for these. ...Alright, fine, he would admit that he knew why Bill was eating at their same shared mealtimes -- apparently Stan would go upstairs and 'annoy' Bill until he came downstairs to eat with the rest of them, and Bill didn't like that -- Bill would let Stan do that... But, apparently, Bill just didn't 'not-like' it enough to actually do something to Stan about it, other than to come downstairs at or before that point, grudgingly and complaining at him all the way.
What Ford didn't understand was why the man-eater was doing it; Bill, yes, somewhat -- but the man-eater? No. Because the man-eater obviously had to be going out of her way to make an effort to do so; she had to be eating at least twice at or around mealtimes as things currently stood. Ford knew how much she usually ate from that other dimension (and a few meals and 'snacks afterwards' here in this dimension besides), and she was not eating enough at any of these most-recent shared mealtimes to 'fill her up' at all. And it made no sense for her to be splitting up her mealtimes this way, in multiple sittings, in order to be eating at the same time as the rest of them.
Not without some ulterior motive in doing so…
So why Miz would decide to attend this meal with them, and say something like that to him, specifically… Ford glanced over at the rest of his family, trying to gauge whether this was truly out of nowhere or not, and... Mabel was giving him a hopeful look (Why??). But then the rest of his brain kicked in and--
"--Saying that like that doesn't mean you don't want to be him, either," Ford said smoothly, almost on reflex, as his very tired brain finally caught up with him. "Or that you don't aspire to be even worse than he is," he added after another bare second of thought. (And now Mabel was pouting at him for some reason.)
...and Miz turned her head to give Mabel a hopeless look. Mabel shrugged back.
Bill stopped chewing his food for a moment, before continuing. (Stan raised his own mental eyebrow at this. Because for Ford, that was practically a straight-up admission that he thought the kid could be worse… and wasn't. Which was… something, anyway. Stan had known his brother thought there were plenty of other worse people out there, beings and demons and junk -- not talking about a trillion year avalanche of actions here in quantity, more like the quality -- but he'd never expected Ford to admit it out loud...)
(Hell, the 'quality' part was kind of iffy as it was, too. Damn demon. But as much as he and Ford didn't like it or like putting up with any of it, the kid could be acting a hell of a lot worse right now than he was, and they both knew it...)
(...not that 'not currently torturing anyone mentally until they crack up, or physically until they die' was a really high bar to be setting, but at least the demon-kid was willing to keep goin' on clearing it, what with the agreement and all…)
Out loud, Stan just sighed at all this. Because... hell, Ford was definitely in a mood today, sayin' stuff like that out loud. ...A tired, really cranky mood. (Made him wonder what-all his brother been working on downstairs, after the whole thing with watching the demon-picnic and nothin'-after, that could have been leaving him that all outta sorts.)
(Then again, he was feelin' a lot more tired than usual himself, today. ...Why was that? Stan frowned a little at this; he hadn't done much of anything that day… But then Stan shook it off.)
"--Probably not the best time for this conversation, Miz," Stan told her, after taking a sip of his milk (because, hell, she looked like she was gearing up for something -- no surprise there). "Not if you're not understanding what Ford's gettin' at there, just now," he told her as he set his glass back down. Because to him, it looked like she maybe wasn't getting it. (And the kid side-eyed her the way he usually did these days: looking straight-forward, blinking his eyes closed, and when he opened his eyes again they were both directed right at her, where she was sitting at the kid's side.)
Miz rolled her eyes. "I only see him at mealtimes. And even then, only sometimes. So I thought I'd just get it out of the way." She speared her rolled-up omelette with a fork and placed it in her mouth. "I told him what Mabel said I should tell him, and that's all I'm saying. I'm not gonna talk to him anymore tonight 'cause it'd probably not end well if I tried," she told them all, as she went back to focusing on eating. She'd made spinach rice balls for Bill tonight, seasoned with copious amounts of pepper. (Melody and Soos had each taken a rice ball earlier -- before they'd left for Abuelita's house for their own dinner -- to Miz's delight! ...And to Grunkle Ford's own worry. Mabel had also thought Miz's cooking looked really cute; she'd sort-of really wanted to try one herself! But she'd held herself back at her Grunkle Ford's expression, feeling too guilty to try it. She and Dipper stuck to eating the pasta Grunkle Stan had made for them all for dinner, instead.) But Miz couldn't actually eat those rice balls herself because of the pepper, so she had instead made herself some rolled omelettes and salmon rice balls. She paused while chewing and added quietly, "I'm gonna try to understand." (To which Bill replied, just as quietly, but far more enthusiastically and encouragingly, while patting her on the head, "I will help you understand!") She then looked lost in thought.
Ford glanced over at Bill, and got the sinking feeling that, whatever the man-eater had been trying to say, it had apparently gone over even Bill Cipher's pointed triangular frame.
...Best to be sure about a few of the facts of the matter first, however. Ford let out a huff of breath and looked over at Mabel. "You told her to tell me this?" he asked of his favorite grand-niece.
"I told her only to say it if she meant it," Mabel said, looking down at her plate and poking at her pasta disconsolately. (She hadn't thought it would make Grunkle Ford feel all like that. And now she felt guilty all over again.)
Ford sighed again and ran a hand over his face. Leave it to a demon to try and bring the niblings into something, in an attempt to make it 'aggressively acceptable' in that way somehow. To try and make him look like 'the bad guy' for objecting to her ongoing efforts to continue attacking him verbally at mealtimes, when she did it. Most likely, in an attempt to turn them against each other. ...Had the man-eater thought that he would turn right around and yell at Mabel, excoriating her for telling the demon to do that? Well, he certainly wasn't going to do that! Of course he would not! --Why would he blame his own grand-niece for something the man-eater was trying to turn from something innocently good-natured into something horribly weaponized? Mabel had likely been trying to help the two of them 'make up' and 'get along'. It wasn't Mabel's fault that she didn't understand what all demons were like; that it was a completely hopeless cause she was attempting to do on that front. And it certainly wasn't Mabel's fault that the man-eater was terrible and chose to continue in her attempts to say horrible things to him, to provoke whatever sort of response that she wanted as an end result of these ongoing and persistent verbal interactions.
Ford tried to focus on eating his own dinner, to not let whatever the man-eater had been trying to say get to him. But after awhile, he couldn't help but glare up and over at Miz as he realized that she was, in fact, doing as she'd said she would for once, essentially ignoring him for the rest of the meal after having tossed that random, almost-cryptic comment at him. Because really? Now she was willing to not talk to him, despite just saying something to him and engaging him first?!
Stan, no slouch at reading his brother and anything but asleep at the wheel for this meal (even if he did feel pretty dead on his tush right now), realized perfectly well what was going on there with his brother, and he sighed again as he realized he'd better speak up before Ford said something caustic to the dragon-lady and the two of them set off another dinnertime yelling match between them, again.
"Ford, don't overthink it too much," Stan told him. "Miz really was just doin' what Mabel suggested she do yesterday. Coulda chosen a better time and place for it, though," or, y'know, asked him for his input on this whole thing first. He sent her a look. Because this dragon-lady… despite listening to his input sometimes when he gave it, and seeming to think it was actually something she agreed with most of the time -- hell, even using it sometimes afterwards (when she remembered it…) -- she still didn't really go around actually asking him for any actual help on anything first, before pulling this kind of stuff. And he still didn't know why that was, or how to try and convince her to start doing it.
Stan glanced up at the kid, but Bill didn't seem to be on anything like the same wavelength as he was that night. The kid was watching Miz, sure, but he didn't seem to be pickin' up on anything from Stan tonight; not even a little, and the kid had seemed to be a lot better about that kind of thing lately. Kid was barely even looking over at him tonight, though; Stan wasn't sure if that was because the kid was just that tired too, or what. (...And something tickled Stan's brain on that one, but he didn't quite catch it just then, tired as he was…)
Ford, meanwhile, was stuck on Stan's comment about 'not overthinking things'... and proceeding to do just that. Even though he really didn't want to. He wanted to just ignore what the man-eater had just said. But it likely wasn't safe to do so; she was a demon, everything she said was pointed in some way, and refusing to search for its proper meaning generally meant being caught off-guard at something horrible in the not-too-distant future. --Even Stan had admitted to him that the man-eater seemed to mean more than the surface of what she said and did when she said and did things.
...But Stan was also likely right about not overthinking things; the man-eater had gotten him before with something she had said, and Ford tried to tell himself that it just wasn't worth it. To just let Stan handle it. That no, he wasn't and didn't have to try and pick apart each and every part of what awful message must have been hidden in her statements. ...Not that his wants to simply ignore it meant anything, as his brain was and had been already picking it apart, to his internal and ever-eternal annoyance.
'Just because I admire my brother, doesn't mean I want to be him.'
(...and Ford, in his usual fashion, completely misunderstood her point as his mind picked apart her simple statement for whatever malicious hidden meaning it must have held, whatever jab she was trying to make at him.)
'Oh, I admire my brother all right. But that doesn't mean I want to leave you alone like he is right now. I'm going to mess you up so well, he's sure to be proud of me for doing it for him!'
'I don't want to be Bill. I want to beat him out at being the very absolute best of the worst! You'll see! Y̻̫̑̿ͣ̑̚͡Ö̟̲̼̹̭́̑U̘͌̃̓̀̓̄̓̕'̸̟̮̮̱̲̓ͧ̂͟L̩̝̻͈̹̗͙̑̕͝Ļ̖͙̣̙͎ͬ̾̾̊ͨ̈̚ͅ ͈̳͚̼̮̀̋̿ͤ̚̕͝S̷̸̝̣̿͛͛͗̈̎̓͜E̎̉̑ͭͦ͒̅̉҉̣̤̤̪̮̼͜E͖̩ͯ͂͛̐ͥ͌̎͟...'
'HA! Why would I want to be Bill? I'm plenty terrible enough already!'
...No, that was too simple for her. Stan had told him a few things that Ford had not quite realized from the cartoon watching. And… the man-eating demon wasn't obsessed with Bill, not entirely. Many demons such as herself were capable of focusing outwards as well. Which meant… a comparison. Which meant… referring to him and another brother. And, in the context of that, that sentence suddenly took on a very different meaning, with very pointed teeth.
'Just because I admire my brother, doesn't mean I want to be him.'
And, taking that in that new context and light, Ford's brilliant mind spat back at him: 'Isn't it hilarious how Stan pretended to be you for 30 years?'
Which was almost immediately coupled with: 'I admire my brother, but YOU'RE a different story. --Don't you wish you were more like your brother? Why would he ever WANT to be you?'
You really want to be him, don't you? HA! --You do, don't you! He's not a freak, he's not the utter wreck of a human being who can't even get a girl to talk to him, he's the one you should want to be more like, and everybody -- EVEN YOU -- knows it! Because you are just a stupid, know-nothing, hopeless fool of a man, who can't even--'
Ford stabbed down at his food with more force than he planned, rattling the plate. Damn man-eater. He didn't know why she was taunting him over this out of nowhere, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him react to it! And yes, he had already reacted to it but she didn't know that, and he wasn't about to tell her--
Ford closed his eyes, pulled in a shaky breath through the pure rage, and forced himself not to look up at her. No. No. He wasn't going to fall for it; notany of it. He wasn't going to look up and see-- Bill looking at him, and then looking at her, giving her such a look for getting around the agreement for him, oh-so-pleased--
Bill didn't want him. Bill had never wanted him. All that Bill wanted was for him to suffer, and--
So dinner was still a tense affair, but it carried on without any outright fighting. The four humans and two human-looking demons got through it all in a near-silence only broken occasionally by Dipper and Mabel (and sometimes Stan's and Bill's own chatter), as Miz (miraculously) kept her mouth shut (aside from eating) and Ford continued to fume and frown furiously to himself (keeping it all inside his own head, under his thick metal plate).
Stan sighed. But then, as he got up to clear the table (and the kids got up to help him), he had a bit of a lightbulb moment, and turned around, back towards the table.
"Ford, you wanna read the transcript later?" Stan asked him, "That whole Mabel-and-Miz conversation? Just to give ya some context for what the dragon-lady was really tryin' to say?" Because yeah, Stan knew that Ford had cameras of his own around the house, could probably pull it all up on his own down in the basement, but…
He could practically see the question marks dancing over Ford's head as his brother looked up at him (hell, wondering what in the heck he was doing, probably), but Stan was sure that this one was gonna end up being a good idea.
"Kid, transcript?" Stan said, holding his hand out to him and waiting.
But this time, the kid just looked up at him for a moment. ...And then looked a little suspicious.
"...Why," the kid said slowly, and that was how Stan knew for sure and certain that the kid knew about all Ford's spy cameras around the house.
"'Cause I asked you to nicely," Stan tried, also realizing that he might be running up against the edges of a few things with him finally, since they'd been back. (He also saw Ford straighten up slowly in place where he was sitting in his chair.) "Do I need another-- more reasons than that?"
The kid frowned at him slightly. He looked over at Ford. He looked back to him.
And then the kid looked over at his kid sister.
Huh. That was somethin' new. "You want to ask her this time if she's okay with it, first?" Stan said, testing.
"That's NOT--!!" the kid began with a frown that was almost a glare, seemingly offended by the very notion as the kid swivelled his head around to look over at him again, but then the kid stopped and seemed to really process what Stan had just asked of him.
And Bill paused.
And then the kid looked between Miz and Mabel this time. (...Huh.)
The kid stopped doing that after a bit, and looked up and over at Ford again, peering and squinting his eyes at him almost, like he wasn't sure about something.
"I got no problem with anything they said in it," Stan told the kid next, as a wild-ass guess at something that would have the kid--
--and the next thing Stan knew, the kid did something with his suit and he was having a transcript slapped into his hand by the kid... and the kid was more or less ignoring him now, making himself busy with patting Miz on the head over and over again, not even looking at him or Ford anymore. (Which kind of left Stan blinking. ...Damn. He was gonna have to ask the kid what the heck he'd all been thinking there after this, wasn't he. Damnit.)
Mabel and Miz glanced at each other. (Dipper was frowning a little, at both Bill and at Miz.) Miz shrugged. "Privacy's apparently a thing. But I don't mind if anyone knows what I've said. I willingly tell people all sorts of stuff already."
"Privacy is not the problem here. Stanley could tell him anyway, and that Stanford has cameras set up all over the house as it is," the kid put out there, and it left Stan stifling a sigh. He hadn't thought the kid was gonna say that openly, hell. And Ford didn't seem to be taking it all that well either, but...
"Here," Stan said, holding the transcript out to Ford, but Ford… wasn't taking it all from him. He wasn't even raising his hand up to try.
What Ford was doing was staring at Bill, up until he said, "Is that a transcript of the conversation that Stan was referring to?"
"Yes," the kid said without looking over at him.
"Is it accurate?" Ford asked next, with something of an edge to his tone. That had the kid looking over at him.
"Yes," the kid said simply, then added (a little to Stan's slowly-growing but well-hidden shock at this exchange), "It's as accurate as I can make it, to the very-best of my ability."
"Is the information in it, accurate?" Ford asked next.
"Of course!" Bill said, with something of a scoffing tone, practically waving it off as the kid sat back in his chair, and… Stan blinked as he realized how very differently the kid was talking to Ford, right about now.
"--But what you should really be asking me is if the information is accurate on it," Bill said next, leaning back in his chair with a growing grin. "Not like I burned it into the pages for you, or anything!" he grinned out, with an odd lilt to his tone.
Ford's eyes narrowed. "Was your 'sister' lying during any of that conversation?" Stan's brother demanded of the demon next. (Stan's eyes were ping-ponging back and forth between them. ...The kid wasn't just talking differently. As far as he could tell, Ford seemed to think that this was normal from the kid; Stan could tell. And… neither of them were at each other's throats. this was literally the first time Stan had seen anything like a civil conversation out of the two of them. ...If this could even be called a conversation. Because Ford was just grilling the demon-kid on and over--)
"Miz can't lie to anyone while her headband's like this," the kid shrugged off, moving his eyes over to his sister, who was rolling her own. "I'm working on it." Miz huffed out.
"...Not that anything like that would stop her from telling lies of omission," Ford said to them both next, eyes sharpening further.
And apparently that was the breaking point (which, hell, didn't actually surprise Stan any) that had the demon rounding on Ford (because Stan had heard the demon rant at him enough times about how--) "--I'm ONE TRILLION YEARS OLD, you--"
"--Kid, close your eyes, breathe, dial it down a little, and try again," Stan cut in, cutting off the kid's thunder, and the kid barely managed it, snapping his eyes shut and... (Hell, the kid was…) "If you're that tired, go upstairs for the night, and we'll finish this all off tomorrow," Stan told him next. He didn't know what was going on with the kid right now, but he wasn't going to push the kid that hard now (he knew better); especially not when the kid had been doing so… well? (He was gonna have to check with Ford on that one, though.)
Bill's eyes were closed, and he was breathing heavily. Miz was holding Bill's hand gently, nuzzled into his side, trying to help him to cool down a little more.
"I'm one trillion years old," the kid gritted out again, just as caustically, but with his eyes closed, his chin tucked down a bit towards his chest... and a hell of a lot less volume this time, at least. "Anything I say to you is going to be omitting one trillion years worth of things you don't know about ME."
And with that, the kid snapped open his eyes, glaring at Ford like he wanted to drop-kick him out the side door, or somethin'.
But Ford didn't say anything else, and the kid didn't say anything else, and the dragon-lady even managed to keep her own mouth shut on whatever-else, too. And after a good ten seconds of nothin' but glaring and staring, the two demons got up from their chairs and left the kitchen, heading back upstairs for the attic together.
Both Mabel and Dipper let out a twin set of breaths that they'd been holding, and then looked a little embarrassed as they excused themselves upstairs (really, made excuses to go upstairs after giving a pair of hugs to Ford), headed for their own beds in their bedroom, even though it was still a bit early that night.
Ford, for his part, slumped in his chair a little, as Stan set the transcript down on the table in front of him, and got back to clearing the dishes off of the table like he'd been doing, at the start of all this.
"Well, that coulda gone worse," Stan muttered out, and he couldn't do much more than look on as Ford buried his head in his arms on the table and let out a single soft laugh.
Stan waited a moment, then just got back to busying himself about the kitchen, cleaning up after the meal. He worked on washing the dishes, as he let Ford give himself a break for awhile; his brother probably needed it, after torturing himself with who-knew-what thoughts he'd had tryin' to figure out what the dragon-lady had been trying to say at him, all throughout dinner. Whatever Ford had been thinking she'd said, it had been nothing good; Stan had been able to tell that one himself, pretty clearly, tired or not.
"...How old is the man-eater, have either of them said?" Ford asked him wearily while rubbing a hand across his face, after finally raising his head up again from his arms a few minutes later.
Stan frowned to himself a little as he finished up with the last of the dishes, and he turned the water off. "...Hell, I don't know. Younger than the kid?" Stan was pretty sure of that, at least. "I remember one of 'em mentionin' something about her bein' over 500 billion years old at some point. Not sure how much over that she is, though," he noted. He almost wanted to ask 'does it matter?' because, y'know, once somebody got so old you couldn't even comprehend some kinda mountain or something lasting that long, let alone a person going off and living it...
"...Half his age. Right. Perhaps a little more than that, possibly," Ford murmured to himself. He looked down at the transcript on the table and frowned, still not touching it.
"Ford, it ain't a snake that's gonna bite ya," Stan told him in consternation, as he dried his hands off with the dish towel.
Ford rolled his eyes at him, while telling him, "It's the principle of the matter." ...as he reached out and picked up the brown-twine-string-bound pile of papers that made up the transcript by the string. "Why did you think that it was a good idea to ask Bill for this?" he asked him as he played a bit with the string, fingering it almost absently at first while he stared down at it.
"Wanted to see if he'd give me somethin' that he knew was gonna be for you," Stan told him. Ford looked up at him. "He gave me a copy this mornin', remember? And he didn't seem to have a problem with the Northwest girl reading over it at the diner--"
"--Bill went to the diner again?" Ford said. "Why did you take him?!"
Stan let out a sigh. "Ford, you'd've seen us come back if you'd been out on the other porch, y'know."
Ford looked like he wanted to say something disparaging to this, but instead he simply grimaced and waved it off with a frown.
"So," Stan said, "You gonna read it, or…?" But Ford was already pulling the pile in a bit closer to him. ...Right.
---
Stan leaned back against the counter as he watched Ford undo the string around the pile of papers. "Never heard the kid talk quite like that before," Stan said next. "You think he's--" getting any better? Stan was about to ask him (because as far as Stan figured, what he thought about the kid didn't matter for beans, what mattered a hell of a lot here was what Ford thought of how the kid was acting differently around him now), but Ford cut him off with a completely absent-minded:
"--That's how he usually talks."
Stan blinked, and then stared at his brother for a long moment. ...Well, shit.
"That's how he usually talks to you, y' mean," Stan said not quite slowly to his brother.
"No, that's how he usually talks to everyone," Ford told him, as he got the papers free from the binding string, and started paging his way through them. "When he's in a good mood, anyway," Ford muttered out next, almost under his breath. "He dropped the act for a bit, actually started acting like himself again."
"Ford, I need you to look at me for a minute," Stan told him, and his brother stopped and looked up at him, blinking up at Stan owlishly from where he was seated. "You know how people sometimes talk different to other people, depending on who they are, and what they're thinkin' and talkin' about?" …Zero comprehension outta his brother on that one. Great. "Okay… you know how… sometimes people talk differently to kids? Like, uh," crud, that was probably a bad one. Maybe… "Or, uh, small animals."
Ford looked up at him skeptically. Stan wracked his brain for a moment, and then… he finally got it.
"You and Old Man McGucket," Stan said, "You two get to talking about science-stuff, you use all those technical terms, goin' a mile a minute, right?"
"...Yes?" Ford said, then he blinked at him. "Most people can't follow it, though. ...That's what you're trying to get at?" he asked, frowning slightly as he adjusted his glasses. "Stan, do you… did you not understand what Bill and I were saying--?"
"--Not that," Stan said almost hurriedly. "Okay, well, kinda. --You know those grant-type people you had ta get money from?" Stan asked him next. "Kinda-maybe smart, but--"
"Not all that intelligent," Ford said with a sigh, rolling his eyes slightly and looking away from him.
...Yeah, okay, fine. Worked for him. "Yeah, Ford. Maybe a little less intelligent," Stan said with enough bite to his words that it had Ford looking back over at him. Good. "Definitely not somebody who either of you crazy nerds could get goin' on that type of conversation with, though. Yeah?"
"Yes," Ford said. "But I don't see where you're going with this."
"You still have to explain stuff to them enough to get the actual funds outta them, though," Stan told him next. "You can't use the exact terms and stuff maybe, or talk the way you want to -- like you would if you're actually tryin' to get some stuff done. You've gotta talk to them differently," Stan said to him, "But you've still gotta find a way to explain it all to 'em somehow, if they go off askin' about something." And Stan waited, hoping that his brother would get it now.
Ford frowned at him a little. "...So, you think that Bill is talking to me like a scientific colleague, while he's talking to you like you're a grant administrator," Ford said to him. Then he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose that makes sense," Ford said next, kind of tiredly. "Given the situation with the--"
"--No, Ford, you've got it backwards," Stan told him, cutting him off. "What I'm tellin' you is that I'm the 'colleague', and you're the patsy he thinks he's gotta swindle somethin' out of."
And for a moment, Stan couldn't understand why his brother was looking so… so taken aback at him and junk.
"I didn't swindle those--" Ford sputtered out at him, and then he started to look truly angry, as he drew himself up where he sat. "I earned that grant money, fairly!" Ford spat out at him next, looking downright furious, "And--"
--Shit. Shit-shit-- "I didn't mean it like that, Ford! Hell," Stan said, putting up both his hands and verbally backing off quickly. "I mean, like-- con men," he tried next, his tired mind racing a mile a minute as he tried to explain that that was not what he'd meant, it was just that-- "The demon's not like you, he's more like--"
"--You," Ford said, at the same Stan said, "--me," and… Stan felt a little shocked not more than a second later at what he'd just said. (At what he'd almost implied about Ford. About what he'd just--)
But while Stan was feeling a little shocked and cold at all this, the whole thing, Ford was just looking at him intently, and his brother looked almost… disappointed with him, somehow.
"Stan," Ford said slowly, setting down the transcript on the table. "I told you."
Stan looked over at him, blinking. "Told me what?" That… what, that Ford thought that he was like the demon--??
--all those times on the boat, when Ford had practically tackled him and demanded to see his eyes, restrained him and held him down--
...after all that, when Ford had checked him and calmed himself down, he'd always told him that-- did that mean that Ford had been lying to him every single time when he'd said that--
Stan's eyes widened slightly. (And Ford wondered what his brother was thinking just then, with a bit of a sinking feeling that he thoroughly attempted to ignore.)
Ford sighed as he looked at his brother. "That he'll make you think that he understands you. ...What did you think that I meant?" Ford asked him quietly, and quite calmly, and…
...somehow, that all, the way he was sayin' it, all understanding and sorry-like, had Stan feeling that much worse.
"Kid's a con artist, not a scientist-geek," Stan said, not even sure what he was saying anymore, almost. It… it wasn't like he was tryin' to be defensive about it, or nothin', it was just… hell, it wasn't even right, not really; the demon-kid was a geek, he knew that, but… the whole scientist thing, he wasn't sure about… and Ford….
(It wasn't until later -- after a decent amount of sleep, and a lot of really uncomfortable thinking -- that Stan would finally figure out what he'd been feeling, to actually be able to put it into words all right when he wasn't feeling so goddamn tired. --He hadn't liked the idea that the demon-kid was more like Ford than like him, because of what that would say about his brother. He was the screw up in the family who couldn't do anything right, not Ford; it was okay for the triangle demon to be a hell of a lot more like him, on this. Meant they had a chance at taking him down for good if they needed to, for a start, if the demon-kid was just a dumb old a screw-up like him. And he didn't like the idea that Ford might think that the demon was more like himself than like him, either. Ford was so much better than that; he wasn't like the triangle at all. It was… just that mirroring thing, going on there. It wasn't what Ford thought; Stan knew it. He didn't want Ford thinking that...)
"Kid's a con artist," Stan repeated, too tired to really be able to get into it any more than that, then.
"He wants to know things, not lie about them," Ford told him, propping his head up on a fist. "He doesn't like lying, he likes rubbing the truth in everyone's faces and making it hurt," Ford told him next, looking down at the table for a moment. "It's why he's going to break the agreement, sooner rather than later. He won't be able to stand holding to and keeping up the lie. He'll get too impatient for it."
"I know he doesn't like lying," Stan told him doggedly, he gotten that much outta the kid on his own; it was probably half the reason the kid had so many damn tells and wasn't trying to get any better at hiding any of them. (The other half being, he had an entire face and body to have to handle here and now, and the whole 'staying low down in his body' thing made it harder for him to control all his responses out of it, to keep 'em all from showing.) "But he's still some kinda con-man or somethin'." And that was… almost right, wasn't it? (Except it was still off in a really stupid way somehow, and it made Stan feel frustrated all over again.)
"He's worse at conning people than you, Stanley," Ford said to him next, and he had an odd smile in his eyes, and his tone, and his… (...The heck? What did that even mean? He was good at conning all sorts of people -- great at it, even! The Mystery Shack--) But there was a bitterness that crept into Ford's tone next as he said, "Just because I am a fool and a half to have trusted him…"
Stan pushed himself off of the kitchen counter and walked over quickly, reached out and stopped him, putting a hand down on his shoulder and shaking his head at him, frowning. That wasn't Ford's fault. It wasn't. And...
"That ain't…" But his brother looked absolutely convinced that trusting the damn demon in the first place had been all his fault, somehow, and… Stan had to stop and sit down. Ford wasn't gonna let him convince him that it wasn't his fault right now; Ford hadn't done anything wrong; it had been all that damn demon's--
He had to let go of that one. He couldn't handle that tonight, too tired to practically think straight. That sounded like the kind of thing he was gonna need to get the kids in on, to help him with. Because Ford had said that like-- like Stan usually said that he was nobody's hero, when he felt like he was scamming the kids into loving him, and the kids were the ones who had always and ever made him feel like maybe, just maybe...
Stan reached out and snagged the closest kitchen chair at the table, dragged it over and sat down next to him, to his brother, as he tried to think through…
Stan pulled in a deep breath, then let it out. ...Okay. Okay. He was tired as hell, but he could still do this, at least a little bit, right?
"Okay, so he ain't exactly the best con-artist," Stan admitted, and that was true. And the kid would stay that way, if he had any say about-- "But he ain't a scientist, neither. Not really." Stan knew that much. The demon-kid wasn't like Ford; not like that, not really. Ford would never hurt the kids--
"Stan, he helped me design that damn portal," Ford told him, almost fondly, like… like he was trying to let him down easy? "Just because he doesn't talk that way with you…" he trailed off.
But Stan just couldn't let it go. Not at that. Something about this whole thing was backwards. It had to be. Because...
Stan felt like he was searching for something, and… for a second, he felt like he almost got it, when he said:
"He wants to understand things, not just know 'em," Stan tried out slowly, frowning a little as he tried to work his way through it. "It's not just knowin' a whole bunch of crazy, random no-good crap. It's…" The demon-kid wanted to know stuff, but the kid wasn't like Ford, who wanted to know everything, who read every damn book he could get his hands on like some kinda book-demon himself. The demon-kid actually had priorities; but Ford had always, when they were kids-- Stan had asked him once what all that stuff was actually good for, and Ford had just blinked up at him like he hadn't understood the question, and he--
--No-good, no-good, not useful, it was-- Right. Right. That. That right there was the difference. (Damnit, he was tired. He knew this already. It was--)
"--It has to be useful," he said to Ford next, "The stuff's gotta be useful for…" and it was weird, because he already knew this, he knew he already knew this -- and Ford knew this too, he had to already know this -- but…
...for some reason, Stan also felt like he was inching up on something… something new here, almost; he could feel it. This wasn't just about the demon being a punk kid and a jerk, or a scientist-nerd or a not really great at it con-man; there was something else there, and… he needed a little help getting there. He just needed Ford to help him a little, to get the rest of the way to--
Stan shook his head roughly from side to side for a second, for a second feeling a little like everything was almost a little bit underwater on him, here. And he really didn't like it--
"Bubbles of pure insanity are not useful," Ford told him calmly. "Ducks with tarantulas inside of them are not useful. Screaming tornadoes are not useful. Walking water towers are not useful." (Admittedly, Ford knew he should probably be more worried about this for his brother, but… Stan wasn't unintelligent, and he was nobody's fool. And maybe Ford was foolish for thinking so, but… he believed in his brother, and Stan was talking to him about it, about all of this, now. Stan wasn't trying to do this alone. Stan wasn't alone, and Stan knew he wasn't alone in this; not at all. Ford would never let that happen. Stan had come to him and was talking to him about this, and Ford had faith in his brother that, with a little help from him and some clarity, he would be able to find his own way out of what Bill was...)
"The kid thinks that insane is actually sane," Stan said next, like it was a fact, a bulletpoint on a very long list, and Ford blinked at him. "He likes ducks with tarantulas in 'em, 'cause he thinks that makes 'em double-fuzzy." And Ford blinked again, and started to get a sinking feeling, as he began to realize that… "I ain't so sure about the screaming tornadoes..." and that feeling only got worse as Stan said next, with a slight thinking frown, "But I'm pretty sure that 'walking water tower' was actin' as some kinda perimeter guard, or guard dog, or somethin'."
"...Stan," Ford said slowly, and now he was actually starting to feel the beginnings of a spike of worry and fear for his brother.
And the feeling didn't exactly go away or improve when Stan said next, "Kid talks to me about stuff. Kid talks; I listen. And sometimes I even talk back, askin' questions sometimes. --Kid thinks tarantulas are fuzzy, and ducks are fuzzy. I asked him if he likes fuzzy, he said yeah. I asked him what was even fuzzier, and he told me about the double-fuzzy." And Ford couldn't help but frown at him at this because...
"Have you actually been… trying to navigate Bill's madness?" he asked his brother, rather incredulously. Because that was just--
"Not like he isn't happy to give me about twelve maps and a compass when I ask, when I do it," Stan told him almost absently, as he frowned and he thought. "And walking instructions and a shovel after that for anything that looks like it might be buried treasure, that he don't mind me gettin' a peek at." Stan looked up at him for a moment. "Heck, I might try it on his sister too, at some point. --The demons got a method to their madness, Ford," Stan told him, scratching absently at his left cheek. "They're, what's the word." He frowned a little, then frowned a little less. "Yeah. Internally consistent. Mostly."
Ford carefully smoothed his strained expression away. Because to say that he did not like it when Bill called him 'inconsistent' was rather an understatement at this point. And Stan could not have meant it like that. He--
"Even if they don't think at all like we do," Stan added next, though he didn't seem to be focusing externally on anything as he did so.
"...Stan," Ford tried again, slowly, trying to bring his brother's attention… dear Axolotl, trying to bring his brother out of his own head and back out to a somewhat-sane external reality where he was sitting, right next to him, in the kitchen. "What are you trying to say here."
"I'm just…" Stan looked a little frustrated (quite understandably, in Ford's opinion, if he'd actually been trying to understand the insane dream demon all this time--!). "He ain't a scientist, because he's not all about weights and measures and junk." (Well, that wasn't quite right. Not in the least. Ford opened his mouth to correct his brother in this--) "He's not a conman," (Ford closed his mouth again, with the beginnings of relief) "-unless he has to be," (...and there went that feeling rather quickly; Ford began to frown) "-'cause he hates lying, so he's pretty terrible at it most of the time, too, unless he has to not be terrible at it for awhile." (And Ford frowned at this even further, because… it almost sounded like…) "The kid's a punk kid, and a demon, and he messed with you for years, because--" and Ford winced as Stan stopped abruptly and closed his eyes for a moment, clenching his fists and his jaw and breathing heavily.
Ford waited. (He appreciated the sentiment his brother was feeling just then on his behalf, though.)
"...He messed with you for years, because he thought he had to," was what Stan said next, and Ford nearly corrected him, before Stan corrected himself, saying, "He messed with you, because he thought he needed you, to do somethin' for him, and the kid didn't like that at all one bit." And Ford's jaw went slack and his eyes widened at this, slightly, because-- "It pissed him off, havin' to rely on you-- no, shit-- that's not…" Stan mumbled out, rubbing a hand over his face. Stan seemed to need to take a moment, before he was able to gather his thoughts up again -- oh. Stan looked… rather tired. About as tired as he felt, really.
--then Stan said abruptly -- more strongly -- suddenly sounding truly angry all-at-once as he said, "Because he thought he didn't have a choice," and Ford stared at him, thoroughly taken aback.
Stan winced, then shook himself at what he'd just said. "Look, that's not-- I ain't explaining this all that well right now." He'd thought he'd been too tired to think straight that other night? Hell, he felt half-asleep on his tush right now by comparison.
"Stan, take your time," Ford said slowly, and Stan pulled in another breath and let it out in a huff, feeling frustrated.
"Okay. Okay. Look…" Stan struggled with what he was thinking, then tried to back off a bit and… it was all about choices with the kid, right? Nobody had helped the kid out before, why did it have to be him? And--
...then Stan connected that thought to another side thought, and… and that was--
"Miz never comes to me for help when she wants something," Stan told Ford, letting him know that she never did it on her own, "Not without prompting." She hadn't asked him about talking to Ford first that night at dinner on the whole thing Mabel had talked to her about, or looked at him, asking him that she wanted him to help translate stuff between them both. Heck, she'd barely looked at Mabel, and that had been more of a 'hey, I tried' and nothing at all of a 'can you help me please?'
"And she only goes to the kid for help after I notice something, 'cause I started talking with her first, and then practically tell her I think she should do it, too." Because when she'd wanted to know about Carla, she hadn't tried asking him again, and she hadn't even tried asking her own brother about junk -- she'd just gone off on her own and done a bunch of junk all on her own, alone, by herself, not talking to anybody else or their dog about it. And she'd done that, even knowing that her own brother could probably explain things to her, since he'd done just that damn thing for her more than once already, when Stan had pushed her a little bit to do it, givin' her advice just like he went around giving the kid advice, trying to keep everything from running completely off the rails, because--
"--The kid don't really ever come to me for any help, either," Stan continued. "Not really." Not for actual help. The kid sometimes just… walked into a room that Stan was in like the kid was dropping into it, but almost never like he really came to talk because he wanted to talk. Or Stan would walk into a room that the kid was there in and the kid just started talking, acting like it wasn't really any big thing, but… the way the kid always, always started things off, it always felt more like the kid was just talking to himself around somebody, than actually expecting anything really out of Stan being there. And Stan had almost been kind of offended at first, with the way the kid had acted surprised when Stan spoke up sometimes about something, when he offered advice, when he sometimes handed the kid something useful, even, but… even though the kid still acted at least a little surprised still lately when Stan handed him over something useful, something he could use... the kid still...
It was never like the kid was surprised at the idea exactly. ...Well, okay, maybe the kid was surprised at the ideas that Stan gave him sometimes -- but that came later, when the kid thought over the thing, whatever the thing was that Stan had just handed him, that thought, and it was something that the kid just hadn't thought of, and wouldn't have thought of all on his own. But that was a different thing that came later. It wasn't like the kid was surprised that Stan had good ideas sometimes. It was more like… the kid wasn't expecting Stan to ever share them with him. Like he was never expecting Stan to speak up, to ever talk back to him in the first place.
Stan frowned. Because all this still meant that the kid still didn't even try to rely on him, not even a little. If anything, the kid almost did the opposite sometimes, trying to be careful not to get in too deep. And Stan sort of got why that was; oh, did he ever if he'd been in the kid's shoes…. But even after this whole 'wanting him' business, which the kid had seemed really damn serious about, the kid was still...
...it didn't make a whole lot of sense to him. Stan knew it wasn't like the demon-kid had never relied on anybody before now, ever -- the kid had relied on his own dead brother, way back when, right? He'd kind of almost had to have done that, with the way that Stan saw him treating Miz now. He wouldn't know how to help his sister out otherwise, acting 'like a big brother should'; he wouldn't even know how or he wouldn't even do it, just make fun of her and call her names for bein' stupid or somethin' instead…. But neither of them still really relied on each other, and...
...Hell, okay. Stan was getting onto something here, now, something else completely... but it also felt like it might be kinda connected to the first thing, maybe. "Neither of them like askin' for help. ...Hell, askin' someone else for help ain't even the first thing that crosses their minds when either of them have an issue. Ain't even the second, or third, or fourth thing going on there, either, for either of them. Not for anything important." Stan thought back to the early days of Miz's stay here -- the first day in fact, when she'd climbed the shelves herself to reach something from up high. And then she'd gone and done the same thing at that bookstore just as thoughtlessly, not even going after a ladder. "They don't ask for help unless its a last resort." Or unless someone told them that they thought the demons should. And could. And actually offered it to them themselves, that help. ...And were tryin' to do that without trying to stab either of 'em in the back while they were doing it.
"Of course they're not going to ask for help, Stan," Ford told him slowly. "They're demons. Why would anyone help them?"
...Goddamnit, not this whole thing again. "Ford, they weren't always demons, remember?" Stan reminded his brother. "They were a triangle and a human first, right? ...The way they act, it ain't like some 'oh I'm a demon so no one's gonna help me anymore, boo hoo' kinda thing," he frowned at him. "It's more like they don't even think about askin' for help because--"
"Because they know they're not going to get any," Ford said simply, and Stan felt frustrated all over again, because…
"--I know that," he told his brother grumpily, rubbing a hand through his hair vigorously, trying to feel a little more awake, because-- he'd known that for awhile already, okay, and he'd been pissed as hell about it for just as long as knowin' that, almost. Because why hadn't anyone else helped them out sooner? Why hadn't somebody else yanked that triangle demon outta that Nightmare Realm place before things got any worse? Why did it have to be him that was-- doing anything at all about any of this junk?
...Because they weren't going to get any help from anyone else, not even a little. Not after things had gotten to some point or another, and after at that point… They never got any help ever, even when they did try and ask, and Stan damn well knew what that exact sort of rock-bottom felt like, and it wasn't pretty. This wasn't something that had only happened to them after they'd become demons, though, or they'd be pissed off at 'being demons now' and that all being oh so unfair -- neither of the pair of them were all that dumb about things. No. This was something that had been happening a lot longer, before that. This was something older. This was something--
"They never got any help, even back before they were demons," Stan told Ford. "Not after…" the kid's brother had died, Stan bet. And he'd sort of realized that before, yeah, with the way the kid had acted and talked all about it -- what little the kid had talked all about it -- but… he hadn't realized it like this. Not like this. Not really. Because-- "The kid… the way he talked about his parents. Ford, do you even know--" No. No, Ford didn't, with the way he was looking at him like that. "This isn't just something where the kid was getting gaslighted by everybody for--" Stan shook his head, cutting himself off at the whole 'dead brother thing'. Because sayin' that out loud right now was-- he'd better not. Not right now. Not when he wasn't barely thinkin' straight, here, to maybe try and keep Ford from sayin' or doin' something stupid that the kid might overhear later, and then-- "This wasn't just one thing, Ford. This was--" everything. It was everything. ...Everything that mattered to the kid, he was pretty sure of, at least.
Nobody had helped out with-- after the kid's brother--
"Stanley, what does this have to do with anything now," Ford asked of him, even and slow.
"It's…" Stan grimaced. "The kid thinks of himself as some kinda independent triangle here somehow, right?" Ford frowned at him slightly, but also nodded once, almost cautiously. Right. "And… he doesn't have anybody he can rely on…" Stan trailed off, grimacing, because Ford was just gonna tell him...
"Except you," Ford said, and… what?
...Hell. Stan blinked. He'd thought Ford was gonna smack him for thinking of him and the triangle being kinda the same and all that again: not being able to rely on anybody else.
"Uh…" Stan said, not really sure how to handle that one from his brother. "I guess? Kinda?" And he really didn't get why Ford was lookin' at him like that all over again now, kinda exasperated-like.
"Stan, you're giving him food, clothing, shelter, and 'schooling'," Ford said, and Ford almost didn't roll his eyes at the last one, this time. "What part of relying on you for those things does what Bill has been doing not entail?"
"...Thought you said he didn't need me for any of that stuff," Stan said to his brother slowly, which for some reason had Ford looking even more exasperated at him, instead.
"He doesn't, but he is, and has been, relying on you for it and taking it from you," Ford told him, like it was some kinda reminder of something.
"Ford, that ain't relying on me," Stan told him, downright confused. "That's just--" the heck? That was just the bare minimum there -- next to nothin', almost. Hadn't they had this discussion? (That shit had been the beginning of things -- the in, not the end of what Stan was tryin' to do with him. The getting the kid to actually rely on him part was--)
And now Ford looked just as confused and frustrated as he felt. "Then what, exactly, do you consider relying on someone to be, Stan?"
"Havin' their back in a fight," Stan told him promptly. "Lyin' for 'em if they need it. An alibi?" Stan told him next. Because seriously, was his brother really asking him this one? Really? Those were two things they did for each other all the time, and... "Coming to me when they don't know somethin', letting' me help them figure it out," like he did with Ford and the niblings... and had tried to do for some of those 'partners' of his that he'd been saddled with, back during those ten years when… (Well, he'd handled shit then, and it had been a hell of a lot easier after that, with the people he'd had the choice of working with or not for a lot smaller and kinda more safe-ish little-bit-less-than-legal slew of little tiny no-problem not-so-time-consuming odd-jobs, later. When he'd been working with people who hadn't always known what they were doin', but who were actually willing to listen to a guy who did know what they were doin', and do stuff maybe a little differently than they were doin' it right then, in order to not go gettin' themselves caught or make a little more money on the side for them all. By, y'know, like…) "Askin' me for advice, information, my opinion on what I think they should do, and trustin' that I'm not just gonna lie and screw 'em over for no damn reason, let alone any reason for it!"
(Stan had his hands thrown into the air by this point in exasperation. Because getting the kid to actually trust him enough to rely on him for that sort of thing would actually give him some real leverage with the triangle. And he mostly had the triangle-demon-kid convinced at this point -- that it was even possible at all. That Stan could pull it off, even with everythin' else goin' on with the rest of everyone else. And the kid did want that all that from him, at least a little; at least some of it, maybe, sometimes. And the kid liked keeping all of as many of his options open as he could at all times; the kid didn't want to dump a real chance that he had if it might be useful to him later, and the kid sure wouldn't go out of his way to do it, whether the kid thought whoever it was was a sucker or not -- and Stan was nobody's fool. Which meant that the kid had to 'play along' and kinda 'play nice' to keep on not losing that from him, that chance of more help and ideas from him later on in, in the future, by continuing to not cross his line--)
"You're talking about treating him like the rest of us," Ford said, sounding shocked, and Stan pulled a face, scratched the back of his neck, and said, "Well, I…?" Huh? "I mean…" What was his brother tryin' to…?
Then Stan felt a jolt of shock go straight through him.
"--Oh hell Ford, not like that," Stan said next in tones of horror, as he realized what Ford was actually getting at there -- 'cause hell, the kid wasn't… wasn't his family, for the love of Paul Bunyan! (Hell, the idea made him feel sick to his stomach.) But that didn't mean-- "Ford, there's a hell of a lot of ground to cover, between treatin' the kid like a rube or stabbin' him in the back, and treatin' him the same way I treat you and the kids and… y'know. Some other people sometimes," he told Ford, glancing away as he went off thinking of Wendy and Soos and Melody next, and trying not to show it.
"With you, it seems rather one way or the other, Stan," Ford said in odd tones, and Stan couldn't help but frown at that.
"I got some in-betweens there," Stan protested a bit, looking back over at his brother. "Don't even know where I was goin' with this," Stan muttered out next, because now he really didn't.
"Stan, you aren't like him, and he isn't like you," Ford told him next, firmly. "You can't possibly believe that!" and Stan couldn't help but grimace and glower all over again, because...
"I know he's not. But he kinda is," Stan told him, and damnit, just because he couldn't explain it to his brother right now, didn't mean that--
"Stan," Ford said in tones of forced patience he'd rarely heard out of his brother. "Bill is nothing like you. You care about your family to your core. While Bill--"
Holy shit. It hit Stan like a goddamn bolt out of the blue.
"--cares nothing about his family at all," Ford continued on, then-- stopped, because he didn't know why Stan had gone so absolutely pale on him just then.
"Shit," said Stan. "Shit-shit-shit." He looked more than a little shocky, running both hands up through his hair. Because--
--nothing looked right when you were looking at it from the outside, sometimes. When people didn't know what you were doing--
--if anybody had ever known to ask, and wondered what runnin' the Shack had had to do with getting that portal all working again to begin with…
--it had had everything to do with it, though, because he'd needed the cash and the cover. Maybe it didn't make sense from the outside, not knowing anything about the portal, or why that goddamn portal had been so important to get running again, but…
The cash, he'd needed to pay for things -- not just food and the water bill and junk, but the mortgage to keep the actual house in the first place because if he'd ever lost the Shack to somebody for good -- and he'd needed money for all that electricity for the portal and all that stuff below the Shack, too -- like replacement parts for all the electronics -- and none of that stuff ever came cheap.
He'd even had to keep up with some of the con-man work and contacts with the local 'criminal underbelly', even though that made it more risky that somebody from those ten years would eventually hear about him at some point -- because some of those things that he'd needed, he'd needed contacts to get for him, even if it was information on, say, how and when to break into a secure facility to go off stealing a shit-ton of radioactive waste barrels to portal a portal on later. Eventually.
But crime didn't pay like it should unless you were doin' something that risky, so he'd needed another legal job on top of all that, to be able to stay in one place without pushing things to the point of having to bail and run again -- because this time, he couldn't just go off bailing and running anymore when things got too hot for him to handle again. So there couldn't be any running, and there couldn't be no 'too hot to handle'. That meant legal to get that much cash, at the amounts that he needed to work with. Night work paid better, but working on the portal during the day when everybody was awake would've had people talking about the 'scientist at work in his lab' and wanting to know what the hell was all going on, not staying away from the spooky forest at night, which just happened to have a cabin smack-dab in the middle of the spookiest part of it -- oh, how mysterious -- the perfect place to have that mysterious Mystery Shack.
So that meant working on the portal at night, which meant a day job for money instead. ...And with having a day job where he was his own boss, he worked his own hours, and nobody wondered what he was up to, to come looking. The rest of the town and everybody just thought that everything of it all was right there on the surface, no need to even go looking for a basement down there… because basement? What basement? Why would they even have a reason to go looking? All the Mystery Shack junk was right there, being all distracting and in your face, and for just twenty buck a person--
"...Stan?" Ford said to him slowly, and Stan seemed to shake himself out of his head again, his color coming back to him just a bit.
"Not here," Stan told him tersely. (He couldn't not say this to Ford anymore. Tired or not, it had to be now. Ford wouldn't get it otherwise, if he didn't...) "Your room, or the basement. Pick one."
...They ended up in Ford's bedroom, and Ford barely got the door closed after letting Stan into it, before Stan said, "Kid wants his brother back, Ford."
Ford's hand froze in place on the doorknob. He felt all his breath leave him in a flash.
It felt like all the oxygen had left the room, all of a sudden, along with it.
Ford closed his eyes. He'd worried about this ever since he'd first heard of it. Because...
"It's a lie," he told his brother evenly, as he stood in place facing the door, with his back to his brother, not yet ready to face him in the face of... "It is a lie that Bill ever had a brother. You have to believe that, Stan. Bill is playing you." He'd worried that, sooner or later, his brother would make the connection between that tall tale, and what had happened with them, and then...
"I can tell when the kid is lying," Stan told him.
...and then this would occur, shortly thereafter.
"Bill has never confirmed it himself," Ford told him, ever so slowly letting go of the doorknob, still not yet ready to face him.
"Miz can't lie to me, either," he heard Stan say. "I can tell when she--"
"--You don't know that for certain," Ford said, cutting him off, and Stan went quiet. Stan only went quiet. Stan wasn't agreeing with him, that-- "You don't--"
"Ford, look at me," he heard his brother say, and Ford couldn't quite cover the wince. He did manage to steel himself a little, though, as he finally turned around to face him.
...The hardest part was that he didn't look like a Bill convert. He still looked like his younger brother, even and still in his old-age. Even after this, even with this, he still...
Ford felt the unshed tears burning in his eyes, and he couldn't--
"Ford," Stan said slowly, looking like he was about to reach for him, and Ford shook his head once, abruptly, no. No. (He barely managed to keep himself from taking a step back. Backwards. Away from his brother, who--)
"Ford, would you believe it if you heard the kid say it?" he was asked, and Ford felt himself go stiff for just a moment. "--Scratch that," he heard his brother say next. "Ford, I don't need to hear the kid say it, I already know it," he was told roughly.
"You don't--" Ford said, just as roughly, and-- and he would beat the answer out of Bill if he had to! He would make Bill answer him, in Stan's presence, in something that was not a lie--
"--Ford, the only reason I was able to get the kid to do that reconnection thing with you was because I got you to say that you wouldn't kill his brother right away, if the kid brought him back." And Ford stared at him, because what?? What alternate dimension had he just fallen into without realizing it, for his brother to claim that he had done such a thing?! He'd never-- "Kid calmed down when you said you wouldn't hold somethin' against somebody for something somebody else did. Not even the kid," Stan said, like that meant something, as he stared directly into his eyes. As he said, "Not even a somebody of the kid."
"That's not what I--" said, Ford started to protest, to tell him, because-- How had Stan gotten what he'd been saying back then so very wrong as this? Stan-- Stan had to know better than that. And Stan had to have understood him at the time! --Stan had been asking him back then if he would blame Bill for something that Bill had not done, and… frankly, there was enough that Bill had done that… but, it would be the height of stupidity to so simply blame the dream demon for absolutely everything that was wrong with the universe, in any universe; there were limits.
"But you wouldn't kill somebody, just because the kid cared about them," Stan said.
"No, of course not," Ford said, shaking his head, feeling far beyond and past dead tired on his feet at this point. "But that's hardly a point of any consequence, because--"
"--Ford, just think about it for one goddamn minute," Stan told him roughly, and it made Ford stop and freeze in place for a moment again, because Stan sounded almost angry with him this time. "The kid calmed down when you told him and me that. What you said to me when I asked you, back then. He stopped bein' so about-two-seconds-away-from-killin'-you angry with you anymore; he let me talk him into stoppin' his pushing you away so much. Why would the kid care about that," Stan asked him intently. "Think about it, Ford. --Kid thinks he can take care of himself," he was told by his brother, "He wouldn't care about taking anybody else's shit on. --So why would the kid care at all about any of that," his brother told him next, "If the kid didn't have anybody at all that all that could apply to, the other way around?" Stan asked him.
And it left Ford utterly speechless.
"You remember how that demon-kid was lookin' at you when you said that to him, right?" Stan asked him, intensely, looking so very sure… "You remember that. I know that you do. You were payin' attention. You saw it." And Ford just… had no words for this. Utterly none. There was nothing that he could say to any of this, not at all.
His mind was almost blank from the strain.
"I figure it's really a brother," he faintly heard Stan tell him next, as he slowly made his way over to his bed and he sat himself down before his legs could no longer support him, for feeling like water. "Kid doesn't really know how to do the 'sister' thing right with Miz here, not really," he heard Stan say next, and… "If he'd been worried about Miz and not somebody else, he would've snapped at me when I brought her up right then. But he didn't do that, Ford."
Ford sat there, quietly, on the edge of his bed, and closed his eyes. And he breathed.
After awhile, he heard footsteps, and he felt the bed mattress dip down a little next to him.
"...Ford?" he heard Stan say. "You okay?"
No. No, he wasn't okay. Nothing about this was okay.
Nothing about this was okay, and...
"...I think I'd like to finish reading the rest of this transcript right now," Ford said slowly, reopening his eyes only slightly, looking down at the papers still curled up in the grasp of his closed left hand in his lap. Because he didn't want to think about right now. He didn't want to think about any of this right now.
His brother thought he was like Bill Cipher and Bill Cipher was like him, because Bill had a brother he cared about. That was Stan's thesis: that Bill Cipher was like him, because he'd had a brother he cared about.
That Stan thought that Bill Cipher was more like him than like Ford, because they both had brothers they care or had cared about, at one point or another.
And Ford could not deal with that. Ford could not process, or deal with, the thought that Stan might think that Ford did not care about him, right now. He could not deal with the thought that Stan thought that the difference between them was that Stan cared about him, but that he, Ford, did not care about his own brother -- him -- in return, and...
Ford could not deal with the thought that Stan believed that he did not care about him, that his own brother believed that Ford did not love him back--
Ford closed his eyes, and barely held back the tears.
(--If Stan didn't believe that he loved him, that he cared about him, even after last summer, even after Weirdmageddon, even after regaining his memories, even after the boat and sailing together--)
Ford didn't know what to do about this. About any of this. He didn't know how to fix this, any of this, and--
There was a pause. (A far, far, far too long sort of a pause.)
(And then...)
"Okay," he heard his brother say to him. Even though it wasn't okay.
(It wasn't okay.)
And Stan didn't say anything else to him for awhile.
...Until he said, "Hell, Ford, I know he's not the same as me, okay?" after Ford had finally reopened his eyes, once he'd not been in any immediate danger of crying openly about-- reacting badly to anything else that he might say.
And it took Ford a moment to blink, and bring his head out of what he'd been reading to escape the thought of Stan thinking-- a bit, to quietly listen to his brother again for a little bit, just a little bit again, at least. Because he could do that, at least. He could at least do that for his brother. Even if he couldn't really help him, when he didn't know how. Because he didn't know how. Even if he still couldn't look up at Stan again, yet, he could at least still listen to him and let him know he'd been heard.
He could do that much for him, at least.
(Maybe if he just listened and let Stan talk about it all long enough, Stan would talk himself out of it…)
(He had to believe that he would. Because if he didn't…)
"It's just… this crazy mirroring thing going on with him, okay?" Stan told him next. "I… I wasn't thinking that there might be more than one angle to all of it, really, that's all," his brother told him. "I know it's the same thing, but sometimes it sorta just kicks me in the brain, when I come at it all from a different angle. I don't know how to explain it," his brother told him, "But it looks different sometimes, when I--"
"Cut glass," Ford interjected quietly, staring down at the pages in front of him, because… "You're thinking of cut glass, Stanley. Or diamonds." Because they might seem clear and very straightforward, but... "They refract the light differently; depending on the angle, it looks different, what you see. Even though it's really all the same thing, it's all still just an illusion." Just pretty colors and shadows thrown up against the wall… And his brother went quiet again.
"...But you can still kinda tell where the cuts are from the reflections you're seein' there, right," Stan said next, and Ford closed his eyes for a moment, sighed briefly, and said, "Yes." (He admitted it, really.)
Stan was quiet for another few moments, before he said slowly, "...Kid's got some pretty deep cuts in him, doesn't he."
And at that, Ford almost let out a tired laugh. Because... what was he supposed to say to that? That Bill was a being of pure energy, and that pure energy didn't take cuts like physical matter did? And as for what Bill was like mentally...
No. There was no point to telling Stan such, any of it. It was late, he was deathly tired, and he didn't want to get into any further argument with his own brother on...
So Ford told him tiredly, "Yes, Stan. He does." Not that it made any difference at this point, to believe so one way or the other. 'Deep cuts' of any sort or not, Bill was still dangerous, still an unrepentant murderer, still and always for their own safety and that of the rest of the multiverse absolutely needed to die and, this time, stay that way...
(And the unspoken truth, that Ford was rather relieved that Stan didn't know enough about what had happened to him over the years with Bill enough to voice, was, "So do you.")
---