---
Okay, okay. Stan knew he wasn't asleep (and that Ford wasn't just gonna 'wake up' and change his mind on everything for no good reason), but that didn't mean that everything still wasn't completely freaking strange. All the hugging without getting punched in the face for tryin' it -- Ford actually wanting it instead; the dragon-lady saying they loved each other -- Ford actually sayin' it straight-out, out loud, himself, without getting into a fight with the dragon-lady over it...
Ford didn't say stuff like that out loud, and neither did he. And Ford… hadn't been lying. About any of it? But Stan didn't know how to square what Ford was saying and (almost unbelievably, actually) meaning now with what had happened thirty years ago, or any of the rest of it, really...
...unless at some point, Ford had changed his mind on him again, for some reason... because of something Stanley had done…? and…?
Stan had no idea what he had done that could have made Ford change his mind about him like that, though. Because if everything was supposed to be 'all better now' because of the whole memory gun thing… well, Stan had his memories back and Bill hadn't actually stayed dead, so...
...if that was the thing that was supposed to have changed Ford's mind on him, then...
...it really was only a matter of time before Ford really thought that one through again, 'woke up' to the reality of a bunch of things that he really didn't like, and decided to be disappointed and mad and angry at him all over again, wasn't it? Because Stan knew better than to think that circle-thing was going to work on the demon-kid if it came down to it bullshit about his not-a-tattoo burning him or not or otherwise, but Ford still thought that it would...
...and Stan didn't know how to explain that one to Ford, that it just flat-out wouldn't. Because he'd tried explaining it to Ford before now, and it just hadn't… clicked for him? Ford just didn't get it. Stan didn't know how to explain it to him. And Stan knew better than to think Ford always knew more and better than he did anymore, long since. Even if Ford still thought that he did... on anything he thought was important on anything, anyway. Which meant it really was only a matter of time, until...
...yeah, okay. Guess he'd better just enjoy it while it lasted, right? Wasn't really his callout that Ford wasn't thinking any of all of this stuff through completely...
(If Ford had known that was how Stan felt, he would have realized something was wrong even sooner…)
---
That evening, after Mabel got over 'awwing' all over the whole 'you told each other you love each other' thing (yeah, yeah…), Stan finished cooking for his own family, and turned the stove over to Miz. By the time he'd gotten all the plates out and sat down, Miz had finished cooking for her brother in the Shack kitchen (as per the usual these days), handing Bill his plate of expertly-seared vegetables with a nuzzle and a "With all my love~!" (which left Bill blinking, and made Dipper gag). Miz then informed them all, with a proud smile, that she wasn't hungry (which was anything but the usual, by contrast). Though she did put a spoonful of food (Stan's latest home cooking!) in her mouth and hold it there for taste, just because.
Stan gave her a long look, his good mood starting to evaporate already. "There any fish still left in the lake for fishing?" he asked her. Last thing he needed was Tate McGucket getting on his case, if the dragon-lady pulled something like that with the 'local wildlife', and...
"Yes," Bill replied to Stanley for her, as he used his fork on said (by his standards) actually-edible vegetables. "We got more meat from deer in the forest to replace the fish in the freezer. Non-enchanted. We went to the lake after. Miz ate there, but she didn't eat any fish."
Stan was about ready to let the whole 'non-enchanted' bit just slide right there, when Ford slammed his hands into the table as he shot to his feet, bristling in place as he shouted out in alarm--
"--Then what, or who, did the man eater eat?!?" (...Okay, guess Ford didn't care all that much about that one there, then. Yup. Stan was okay with this.) Ford's yell garnered wide-eyed looks from both Dipper and Mabel. (And something of a suppressed groan from Stan, who was pretty damn sure the two of them both knew better than that. Not to mention: not liking to eat celery-hair as an already-cited 'excuse' for not eating humans. Which Ford had heard from Miz himself.)
Bill rolled his eyes and let out something of a sigh. "Relax, Sixer," he half-drawled out, as he speared another bite of his meal from his plate. "She only ate a bunch of 'what's, no 'who's." Bill said as he took a bite and chewed for a bit (speaking with perfect clarity with a nearly-closed mouth as he talked around the food in his mouth -- which wasn't visible at all despite his not having swallowed it yet). "And none of the 'what's belonged to anyone either, Sixer, don't get your trenchcoat twisted into a knot about it," Bill added next, in descending annoyed tones and the start of a glare, directed at Ford. "It was just--"
"--Trash!" Miz said brightly next (having swallowed her mouthful at last), and everyone (except Bill) blinked at this. (Bill, for his part, grimaced at Miz's words instead.) Stan himself had to adjust his hearing aid before asking Miz…
"...Say that again?"
"Ugh," Bill complained. "--No," Bill told her, before raising a hand and mussing up Miz's hair, to her immediate whining noises of protest. "Not 'trash'. --You do not tell sapient species that you eat 'trash' things that they cannot and do not want to eat! They don't understand," Bill told her next, letting up on the hair-mussing finally, but still leaving his hand on top of her head (just in case he needed to start it up again at a moment's notice if she tried contradicting him on this, most very important point). "They just automatically think of you as stupid, barely-sentient, and lesser if you do that! ALWAYS." He sounded not very pleased with her at the moment.
Then Bill turned away from his sister to look up at the rest of them -- mainly Stan. "--She said she wanted to clean the lake earlier," Bill Cipher told Stan. "Easier way for her to do that is to disintegrate things by stuffing them far enough down into her mouth, that is what happens to them. It is not, by any stretch of Sixer's very limited imagination, anything like what any of you would call 'eating'. Let alone 'eating trash.'" Bill rolled his eyes again.
Miz herself mumbled, "...trash and dead bodies were what they used to make baby formula back in my Flatland… that was all I could afford to eat back then..." before getting another spoonful and quickly silencing herself with a large mouthful of food again.
"... Right," Stan said. Hell, he didn't want to touch that one at all. He glanced over at Ford, and his brother… was grimacing to himself a little and pinching the bridge of his nose, while the kid was… looking rather dead-no-expression-faced for the moment, just focusing on eating instead. Great.
"...Where did you get it?" Dipper said slowly, of the 'trash' that Miz had supposedly eaten. (Luckily, he hadn't heard what she had just muttered out at them under her breath. However...) He was feeling a little weirded (and grossed) out at the idea of Miz maybe upending trashcans to eat stuff. Even the goat ate better than that… and sometimes people threw really bad and nasty stuff away...
Miz, mouth full with that 'stolen' bite of food from the serving bowl Stan had put out (read: a 'bite' so big it had been almost the size of her fist), responded by talking with her mouth closed, essentially humming her words. "Mm mmmhh hhm hhhmmmuuumm hhuu mmh!" she explained cheerfully.
...Everyone stared at her except Bill, though there was more exasperation in Bill's look after Miz finished talking than before it, as he continued looking down at his plate and speared another bit of food on said plate with a light 'thunk'.
"Kid… translation?" Stan asked the demon-kid, who apparently had understood whatever his sister had been mumble-humming at them, if the kid's response to said mumble-hum meant anything at all. Stan almost didn't expect a response outta him for asking, except 'effective communication' was a big thing with the kid, and...
"'I was swimming and found some litter and trash at the bottom.'" Bill 'translated' for her (and given how he rattled that off with the near-exact same cadence as what they'd just heard… it was pretty clear that he was largely just repeating what she'd just... 'said'... to them all). He then frowned. "Except it wasn't--"
"--So she really ate trash?" Dipper looked a little green. The stuff down in the bottom of the lake was probably moldy. And rusted and falling apart! --And had stuff living in it! EW!
"--NO!" Bill said in pure annoyance. "I JUST SAID--"
--and Miz interrupted her brother with a shrug and a, "Hhhuueee mmmuu hhuunnn hhuu huuui he hhhh!"
"'I removed my sense of taste for the duration, cleaned off the dirt, algae, and sand, and my stomach took care of the rest,'" Bill responded for her again, in the same rattled off and rather disinterested cadence, even as he rolled his eyes up rather ceiling-ward as he did it. ("Hhhm!" Miz nodded.) "--It ISN'T TRASH," Bill said in a far different manner next, in response to this, mussing up Miz's hair again. "It's discarded and lost matter at the bottom of the lake. Most of which didn't have anything living in it when she grabbed it, and what was was removed before she did anything else to-or-with it," Bill clarified in annoyance, as he let up on the hair-mussing again.
"...Well, it's good that you cleaned the lake?" Mabel tried next. Dipper still looked a little grossed out at the idea of Miz eating what was effectively still trash. "Hh hoo uhh he huhh heee huaa nng huohuu." Miz shrugged.
"'It was mostly empty beer cans, bottles, broken fishing lines, hooks…'" Bill rattled off before taking another bite of food to eat.
"Stop please!" Dipper groaned, face buried in his hands. Miz made a sympathetic hum at him, looking like she wanted to… do something from across the table. (Pat his back.) Mabel hugged him at his side instead. And after awhile (and some deep breathing as he tried not to throw up at the thought of eating all that literal likely rusting and rotten old garbage), Dipper looked up at Miz again.
"I can't believe you ate that stuff," Dipper told her, frowning. "Forget not telling people about it -- you shouldn't eat tra--! ...things that might as well be trash!" Dipper ended only slightly differently, given the look that Bill had been starting to give him right then. But somebody had to say something about it, right? This was really messed up, and Dipper never thought he'd have to tell someone (who wasn't a member of Sev'ral Timez) something like this outright.
"Hhmm!" Miz pouted, as much as she could with a mouthful of food.
Bill didn't even side-eye her over that one -- or try to play translator for her again this time -- and it left Dipper sighing. "Just swallow or something, already; are you seriously going to keep not swallowing that mouthful for forever?" Dipper asked her.
"Hm." Miz shrugged. She didn't see what the problem was. (Mabel privately thought Miz looked like a chipmunk with her cheeks full like they were, but she just giggled quietly and kept that thought to herself.)
Ford grimaced and tried (unsuccessfully) to ignore the man-eater's annoying behavior.
Meanwhile, Stan largely let it all be. He had something of a suspicion that Miz might be doing that so she wouldn't be able to talk during dinner without some kind of translator. (It left Ford and the demon-kid talking to each other more, too, if only by proxy, and somehow not getting into fights over it -- which Stan didn't have to wonder about, maybe might have been part of the dragon-lady's whole 'plan' for doin' it in the first place. Not like Stan hadn't picked up on that one there, either.)
Still, that ended up being pretty much the 'excitement' at the dinner table that night. Everyone else finished eating from there, and aside from Dipper giving Miz some grimaces for the rest of the meal this time, it was an almost-peaceful dinner.
Before leaving to go back upstairs after dinner, Miz finally swallowed her mouthful and asked, "Can I clean the Shack? Like… wipe off the dust, dirt and grime?"
"...What, right now?" Stan asked (and it wasn't just him -- it even had Ford looking at her a little askance).
"Not right this second, like, just in general, maybe starting tomorrow? When I have free time?" Miz blinked at him.
"...Why do ya want to do it?" Stan asked (though it was in somewhat-descending tones, like he was almost trying not to make it a question). He was definitely in gruff old-man-mode at the moment, a bit.
Miz wiggled from side to side. "It's calming. I like cleaning. And tidying stuff," she told him. ...Right, Stan remembered, the dragon lady had mentioned something about that before, when she was wearing that maid outfit. "Y'know, you've cleaned stuff before, 'cause you were gettin' all restless. Didn't really try and stop you, then," though he still didn't get why she had such an itch for doin' it. Sure, she was a dragon-lady and all, but didn't most kids want to try and get out of doing housework? "Why're you asking for my permission now?"
"Well, before I was just cleaning the spots that no one really cared about even though they were in plain sight, but this is your territory so I have to ask for permission to do any more intensive and thorough cleaning in the other areas," Miz told him.
"Uh-huh…" Stan said neutrally. Territory, sure. And here he'd wondered about whether the kid had claimed the whole Shack for himself, like Ford kept worrying that he had. Take that one, Ford. Stan was damn well sure that the demon-kid hadn't done that, if Miz was talking to him about this, and the kid himself wasn't complaining about it right now; not like he wasn't in earshot, standin' right there next to her and all that.
"And what would this cleaning involve?" Stan asked of Miz next. Miz glanced away, over at the cabinets and then proceeded to give Stan a full-on list of every dirt, dust, and grime pile Miz had noticed around the shack. ("--there's some mold growing behind the tv, I can smell it.") And she even brought up that small termite colony that was trying to build inside the walls ("I can hear them moving!") From the look on her face, all of this had apparently been bothering her for a while now. "N-not that I'm saying the shack is dirty or anything! It's just a few places that don't get used often so stuff just collects there and--"
Stan held up a hand and Miz closed her mouth. "It's fine. I think I get it. So… you mostly just want to clean the dirt and dust off, right? Only the dirt and dust kinda stuff?" he clarified.
Miz nodded. "Mold too, since it can negatively affect your health. And moving the bugs outside, they can live just fine out there, without being in here." Stan grimaced at the last (he'd just gotten done negotiating with those stupid things about boundaries all over again; he didn't need her mucking it all up). Miz seemed to notice Stan's expression, and added, "...if you want to keep the bugs, you can keep the bugs," she relented.
"Don't want to keep 'em, exactly," Stan told her, scratching his cheek. "Just ain't worth the effort to mess with 'em like that. You should leave 'em alone," he told her. Not like they wouldn't just move right back in once she was gone -- or worse, something else would end up moving in instead. ...which was half the reason why he didn't try getting rid of them completely in the first place.
Miz thought about it. "Alright." she finally nodded. "I will leave the bugs alone. What about the mice?"
"Don't got any mice," Stan said to her. "Can't you just go askin' your brother to help with you not hearin' the termites and stuff? If it's bothering you all that much hearing them."
"I could do that," Bill said casually. "You want to work on selective hearing or a full-eclipse blockout instead?" (It didn't take a genius to see which option Bill thought was a bad one -- the second -- but he still offered her both.)
Miz looked over at Bill, mildly surprised. "Um… I guess selective? I have a way to muffle sounds that are too loud, but I hadn't really messed with the opposite."
"Selective isn't a block or a muffle, it's a shunt," Bill noted. "Might want to listen to it later. We can talk more upstairs." He didn't particularly want to get into layering techniques with her, right in front of that Stanford as he was standing there. Or Pine Tree. Or...
Miz nodded at that. "Maybe they'll tell me their secrets."
"The termites? Not likely," Bill told her. "They're not all that chatty with each other. --Operational security, you know." They'd learned after having to deal with Stanley for so long, Bill suspected.
"Yeah, all they really talk about is how much they want to kill anything that enters their territory… not really the nicest thing to listen to." Miz mumbled.
"Termites don't talk…" Dipper said slowly, looking back and forth between the two demons, with a lot less enthusiasm and a clear lack of 'you silly! boop!' which they would otherwise be getting from his sister, if Mabel hadn't already gone up the stairs.
"Not in a language you understand." Miz huffed. "I happen to be multilingual."
"That's not--" Dipper began, but he stopped at a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at his Great-Uncle Ford with a slight frown, but Great-Uncle Ford just shook his head at him slightly, standing tall.
"Yeah, so," Stan said, trying to get the discussion back on track again. "You wanna get rid of the rest of the dirt, dust, and mold around the place, in all those places you just listed there," he clarified once more, "That right?", to Miz's nod. "Fine," Stan said. "Take your time at it, though," he told her. "Not like any of it's goin' anywhere. Maybe get your brother in on it, if he wants to," he added, which was met with an indifferent shrug from said demon-kid brother with nary a glance coming Stan's way over it.
Ford was frowning at all this (not particularly liking the idea of Miz 'cleaning' everything -- or, rather, her and Bill Cipher getting into every nook and cranny of the Shack like that, in order to do Axolotl-knew-what in every hard-to-reach -- and thus hard-to-see to check -- place on the premises), but before he could say anything himself to this effect, he was interrupted by Dipper's aghast, "You're not gonna eat any of it, are you?" (He hadn't seen much of Miz's cleaning when it was done earlier, only heard a little bit about it from Mabel.)
"What?! Eeewww no!" Miz gagged. "Metal, plastic or glass is one thing, but the discarded skin flakes among other broken down biological matter is something entirely different!" She pouted. "Besides, I cleaned all the stuff at the lake before I ate them! I'm not a savage!"
"--How is it different? Trash is trash!" Dipper protested, to which Miz scoffed, folding her arms and looking almost offended.
"I'm not going to argue semantics with you," Miz told him. When Dipper looked about to complain some more, Miz rolled her eyes and remarked, "Don't you chew on pens?"
"I don't eat them!" Dipper squeaked as his voice cracked. "I just chew on them!"
The demon-kid rolled his eyes at all this in pure exasperation, and Stan snorted, not even hiding his amusement. When the demon-kid gave him a glare for his trouble next, Stan just outright started laughing -- he really couldn't help it, the whole thing was so stupid -- and he only began laughing even harder when Ford gave him a straight-up 'you are hopeless' exasperated look of his own as he did it.
"And plastic is nice to chew on. It's got such varying firmness!" Miz responded plainly, as if she was agreeing with him. "And glass is even better!"
"I'm not gonna chew on glass!" Dipper protested, which got him a sigh and a shake of the head from Miz.
And then Miz went on to say, as if educating him on this matter, "But glass is really crunchy. Even more so than plastic! And much less gross to chew on than sand!"
Stan was wheezing by this point. (And Dipper was just left staring and feeling embarrassed.)
"--Not that I chew on sand that often," Miz continued, "Because it's usually got all this extra stuff in it, because people forget and leave their food out on the beach, and I don't want anything to do with that. They should all just clean up after themselves," she informed them quite seriously. "Besides, I don't even need sand to chew on anymore! There are lots of people who will make all sorts of glass for me, now! And like, if you gave me someone's half eaten food or a rotten banana peel, I'm NOT eating that, just to be clear, sand or no sand on it," Miz continued. "But cleaned empty beer cans and stuff are different. All the biodegradable stuff is cleaned off to let nature take care of that on its own and then I eat the part that they can't break down." She was just getting rid of the man made stuff. What was the problem here?
Dipper buried his face in his hands. "So glad I'm done eating…" He was really wishing he hadn't asked her about any of this now. ...Though knowing that she cleaned the mold and stuff off first, made it a little better.
"I think that's enough talk about eating habits for now," Ford said rather quellingly (reaching rather firmly for a deep well of patience that he really had not realized he still had, when it came to any demons he might come to an encounter with), and -- oddly enough -- it seemed to work. Stan grunted out an agreement with him, and the demons finally left to go back upstairs -- Bill essentially herding his sister out of the room as a result of this… before she could start an argument with his grand-nephew over the differences in their individual eating habits?
Dipper let out a sigh of relief at this -- and the teenager turned to give his grunkle a deadpan look, because apparently he was still caught in the throes of hilarity. "It's not that funny, Grunkle Stan."
Stan just kept on laughing. It was all so freaking ridiculous. The looks they'd kept tossing around over this shit. Dipper's eating pens up against Miz's glass-eating, apparently. The fact that Dipper drew the line at Miz eating litter, despite all the other probably much worse things Miz had gone off and eaten...
...like people...
...yeah, okay. That helped kill it for him. (So did the idea of some of the literal trash that Stan had dumpster-dove and eaten out of the top of trashcans back in the day when he'd been damn near starving out on the streets, off-and-on again for a bit. He didn't want to think of what the kids would think of him for that one now, given what he'd heard from all this, especially Dipper's own reactions.) Stan let out a breath, pulled in another, and got it all under control. And then...
"Yeah, well, off to bed wi' you," Stan said, grumpily shooing the remaining of the two twins (read: Dipper) upstairs, as he got to finishing clearing the table. The demons had washed their own dishes earlier, and Stan shook his head in amusement as he got to cleaning his family's own 'human' dishes himself. ...So Miz wanted to clean, huh? Well, depending on what her definition of 'clean' was, maybe Stan could take advantage of the situation to get the kids to feel guilty enough to clear out some of the storage room or something for him. Shame the kids into doing some of their own little bit of cleaning. Hell, even cleaning up their own room for a start. That'd be useful.
---
That night, after a whole day of observing her brother for potential side effects and having found none, Miz finally brought up the idea to her brother of making other vessels for him to temporarily inhabit.
Bill wasn't quite sure how he felt about the odd smile Miz had going as she suggested this to him, but the idea seemed to make his sister happy, so he was willing to hear her out…
...and once he had, WELL! Then, Bill was ALL FOR IT!
...and this was how Stan came into the kitchen the next morning to find two cats in there that he was pretty sure they didn't own.
Stan blinked. "Uh…" he said. He almost asked Mabel who she'd stolen the two cats from, except the coloring on these two definitely wasn't normal, which meant that...
Mabel was petting a small black and yellow kitten that had to be Miz, while an adult cat (with black and blue fur) looked on from the countertop, watching lazily.
"So…" Stan said, deciding to take this one in stride, like he usually did with anything else strange that happened in this crazy freaking town. "Why are you two all cat-ified this morning before breakfast." Because he wasn't planning on fishing for a lot of tuna for these two; no way. They brought in deer meat yesterday for Miz to keep on eating? Then they could just eat deer meat, then.
The black and blue haired cat, which Stan would bet just about anything was probably the kid, turned its head and glanced over at Stan. The cat blinked slowly, before stretching, straightening, and then jumping onto the kitchen table, right across from him.
And then Stan heard, as the cat's eyes glowed slightly, in beat with what Stan was hearing, "Miz wanted headpats. She thought being a cat would get her all the free head pats." The cat paused, then sat down in place and added, "Also, Miz cleaned the attic area this morning while she was like this. She said it was easier to get into the small spots while she's this small."
"...Right." Stan stared at the demon-kid(-cat?), that hadn't moved its mouth at all during any of this. (And yeah, sure, Stan remembered the triangle yell-talk-glowing at him inside of his head -- and outside of it -- right before the whole memory gun thing, but this was--)
The kitten in Mabel's arms purred, as Mabel kept on petting it, and Mabel squealed out, "--Talking cats! Magic cats!"
"Yes!" the yellow and black cat yowled out agreeably, moving its mouth slightly as it did so. "Ooh! Ooh-ooh-ooh!" It rolled over and out of Mabel's arms, from on its back to onto its stomach on the kitchen table, and looked up all big-eyed at Stan. "--Do you think we could be an exhibit at the Shack?" Miz asked him next. "$5 to pet the magic cats!" Miz's voice squealed out next, eyes glowing faintly (while her mouth wasn't moving) as well.
Mabel scritched the kitten's ears. "I'd pay five bucks to pet a magic cat!" Mabel told her, giving her valuable input. "You're soooo soft!"
And KittenMiz looked so very proud of herself for this fact. (Being so soft and Mabel-approved pettable.)
At this, Stan glanced over at the demon-kid (demon-cat?) again, "Am I hearin' this right?" he asked. "You two are both actually doin' this 'cause you want to." Because if the dragon-lady was starting to talk the demon-kid into this kinda crazy shit when he didn't want to do it, Stan really needed to know this one, now.
But the CatBill just swished their tail calmly, no eye rolls or nothin'. "She thought it would be fun," Stan was told by said triangle-demon turned-black-and-blue-cat, before he could even ask him why he was doin' it directly.
"And if it helps earn money, that's just a bonus!" Miz said happily next.
"Uh huh," Stan said noncommittally, still looking over at the older cat here. And, okay, sure, the demon-cat wasn't complaining yet, but... "You sure you're up for this. The whole Shack exhibit thing," Stan said to him a little skeptically (and for good reason, considering what he knew the kid thought of all of that stuff).
But at this, the kid straight out cat-grinned at him, looking oh so very cat-like smug, as he eye-glowed out at him, "It would be fun to be worshipped again."
And at that, Stan probably should have hit the brakes on this madness right then and there. (For one thing, Ford was probably gonna throw a fit over anything the kid himself might ever consider or call 'worship'. He probably should at least talk to him about it, first… if he wanted a reason to stop.)
But instead of kiboshing it there, Stan started making breakfast instead, while casually remarking, "If you want to be an exhibit, we're gonna have to work out just how much 'magic' you magic cats are gonna have, here," because just straight-out talking cats would be too much. There was a fine balance between engaging fake exhibits and the real deal.
Stan wasn't stupid. And Dipper had told him what had happened when he and Mabel had tried to put a real monster on display… and it had not been anything like good for them, either. Stan knew Mabel knew that, and he wanted the reminder right out there in the open for this. Because if the demons really wanted to do this -- and from the purring that Miz was letting out, she really wanted to do it -- Stan would have to make sure to regulate what they were allowed to do.
...it wasn't like Stan was seeing dollar signs flashing before his eyes or anything.
(Meanwhile, Miz was very much hoping this distraction-slash-bribe would lessen Stan's eventual Penalty for her, for the whole messing-with-Ford-via-Mabel-two-days-ago thing… and she also really could more easily get into all the small places that she wanted to clean when she was this size, just like she had in the attic.)
----
"This is a terrible idea." Ford said wearily, knowing that his brother wasn't going to listen to him anyway. But Mabel was already worked up about it, and Dipper was going along with what his sister wanted for now, and Stan, as per the usual these days, just laughed at him and said, "It'll be fine. This might be good for the kid."
(Because it was more than just the potential of making bank by exploiting the demons' cuteness as magical cats that had made Stan want to agree with this. Having the two 'cats' as an exhibit would have the kid needing to be interacting with non-Zodiac people -- adult humans -- specifically, the tourists. Stan had wanted to get the kid doing that for a while now, but the demon had refused point blank to have anything to do with any of the idiots who came by the Shack. ...By which the demon-kid apparently meant any and every adult that had ever shown up, and most older teenagers. That said, Stan had recognized over time that the 'idiot-tourist' label didn't seem to extend to any Shack visitor who was younger than age thirteen, for whatever reason -- and when it came to the really young ones, around ages 3 to 5 or so, and up to almost around age 7, the kid was actually pretty--)
Because now the kid was going to have to be around all those people that he considered 'tourists'. Because his sister wanted to do this thing. And… Stan paused as he thought about it, because… Huh. ...Well, what do you know? Looked like Miz was doing what Stan had been trying for, getting the kid to socialize with humans more. ...Hell, now that Stan thought about it, Miz had also agreed to go to high school when he'd brought it up, when they'd both known that the kid would feel like he'd have to go with her. ...And Stan mentally pat himself on the back over this one, yet again. Because as much trouble as the younger demon caused with Ford, having Bill take her on as a younger sister was still the best plan Stan had ever had involving the two of 'em. (...Things could'a been a hell of a lot worse if she'd been runnin' around whatever places out on her own here instead, for a start.)
And Miz was… eh, somewhat easier to handle than the kid, sometimes. (As long as it didn't involve Ford. Then they were both pretty terrible.) The real problem with her wasn't that she was trying to sabotage him or nothin'; it was actually kind of the opposite of that. Hell, if that had been the problem, Stan practically could've just dialed it in and called it a day; the kid wouldn't put up with that kinda shit from anybody messing with 'his own Zodiac'. No, a big part of the problem was that Miz usually listened to him when he told her stuff, most of the time, but she also usually didn't remember what he'd told her when she was caught up in the heat of the moment -- and not only did that happen way too often with her, but that was also when Stan usually needed her to remember it the most. That made her dangerous and unpredictable...
...but not actively malicious. She wasn't actively malicious; not like the kid was. The kid really was that way about things sometimes. Miz not being that way with them was as much a problem as it was a relief though, because it made it that much harder for Stan to call her out for all of the shit she did later -- 'accidents' got treated differently than 'on purpose' with the way he'd set up the agreement with the kid from the start. (He'd set that all up with just them and the kid in mind, not Miz. So at the time he'd come up with it, Stan hadn't thought he'd needed to worry more about 'accidents' than about all the 'on purpose' malicious kinda stuff. The demon-kid did almost all of the worst of all his shit 'on purpose', and almost never 'by accident' on him. Dragon lady was the other way around completely there, though. Funhouse mirrors didn't begin to cover what it was like trying to relate all of the two demons' junk.)
What wasn't a problem with Miz, though -- and more of a help than anything -- was that Miz seemed to understand most (if not all) human concepts a hell of a lot better than the kid did. And heck, she was trying to get her brother to hang out around humans more. (Which was just about a freakin' godsend, right now!)
...And at this point, Stan figured she was actively trying to use herself as some kind of incentive (or blackmail) to lure Bill into social situations with other (non-demon) people, for whatever reason. It sure looked that way to him, and Stan definitely wouldn't put it past her. (Probably had something to do with how she seemed to want to be around a lot more people a lot more often than the kid did, usually. Regular amounts of people, anyway, not crowds or whatever. The way she'd gotten a little bit scared from the audience at her fire show had certainly been… something, right there.) She was craftier than she seemed, though; she went at things a lot more sideways than the demon-kid liked to do it… when the kid didn't think he had to be all 'crafty' and lying and junk...
...Figured that the two 'Bill Cipher's would both be real bad at manipulation, just in their own different ways of screwing it up. --Hell, Stan actually recognized it easier with her than he did with the demon-kid; Miz's way of doing it was a hell of a lot more 'human' than the kid usually went about doing things. (Just because the kid was 'straightforward' about it inside his own head, didn't mean it didn't look twisty as hell to anybody else without twelve compasses and a roadmap. If Stan hadn't been just about forced to work with a bunch of psychopaths over the years way back when, during those ten years of...)
"What's good for Bill Cipher is generally not good for anyone else," Stan's brother told him.
Stan shook his head.
"Look, Poindexter. We'll all be here watching." He seriously doubted that anyone would actually start seriously worshipping the demon-cat on the spot like the kid seemed to think was gonna happen, there. Not in a place like this, hell. "And I talked Miz through some protections she could put on herself to keep any of the tourists from grabbin' her in a way that could panic her." Stan had made certain Miz didn't forget about that. That new kitty collar she was wearing now for the display was both her 'Emotion filter headband' as well as 'protection' from others. And… "I even got the kid in on it, too." The demon-kid had even actively hands-on helped her rework the magic-cancelling cuffs she'd been wearing into the other new 'golden' accessories she was now decorated with, physically going over the pieces with her outside of the barrier, instead of just talking her through it (which apparently the kid had been doing usually). (The fact that the kid had been doing more and more of that helping 'hands-on' type of stuff with her lately, for some reason, was something Stan knew he was gonna have to ask after sooner rather than later, too).
(Stan later found out that apparently Miz was much better at hands-on learning as opposed to simply hearing about something without trying it out herself, right then, on the spot. Something about 'tactile'-something or another. Which apparently the kid got like nothing-going… and Stan tucked that pretty damn telling little piece of information away in the back of his brain to keep in mind for later, for another long talk on another rainy day, when the kid was in a really good mood.)
Ford had let out a long sigh and made some complaint or another under his breath, one that Stan hadn't actually heard real well as Ford turned away from him and strode away. Stan watched as Ford punched in the right buttons on the vending machine, to walk his way into the 'secret entrance' down to the basement and... disappear off downstairs 'for the duration' again, probably.
Stan left him to it, looking in one of the gift shop mirrors while adjusting his tie just a bit. He himself was tossing in a bit of his own 'buy-in' into the whole thing, too -- he was back in his Mr. Mystery outfit, leading all the tours today that were gonna be displaying the newest exhibit. (It let him keep an eye out on both of the demon-kids, and would give him a chance to keep anybody from even thinking grabbing either them from the start. Because it was...) A grand unveiling today!! Just $25 to go in to see it and…
...a part of him had really kinda missed doing this, a lot more than he wanted to admit.
"Step right up folks! Come see the artifacts unearthed from a real Egyptian tomb!" Stan enthused out Mr. Mystery-style, as he grinned widely and waved his hands at the display that Mabel, Miz, and Dipper had built together. The girls had had fun with the arts and crafts part (outside of the barrier, where Miz wasn't restricted to just and only her cat paws), while Dipper (nose in a book on ancient Egypt) had interjected with help on all that 'historical accuracy' stuff for the hieroglyphs and structures and things. Meanwhile, the kid had stood off to the side and taken way too much pleasure in correcting Dipper when apparently his 'Pine Tree' managed to somehow get anything wrong. (...Not that any of them had paid much attention to the demon-cat's asides on any of that junk, despite any and all of the demon-kid's cat-like complaining, heh. It had sounded like a lot of technical, nitpicky stuff that nobody in their right mind would ever care about, anyway. And hey, the way things turned out, the darn thing certainly looked authentic to the four of them. And with the lighting down dim, it certainly gave off an air of spookiness to the whole thing.)
As the tourists took their photos and all "Ooh"ed a bunch over the display, Stan grinned as he hammed it up. "Oh no! The flash photography has activated the CURSE! When light shines upon them, the spirits of the dead will be stirred once MORE…!" Stan cried out spookily (in true hammed-up Mr. Mystery fashion) and the crowd gasped out loudly at this display.
"--And the only way to appease the curse is to give them an offering of gold!" Stan told them next, as he gestured to a coin dispenser machine with the words 'gold dispenser' on it. "Just your luck! They're only five dollars each! ...Though the curse is pretty minor, so unless you mock them, you probably don't have to appease the spirits... to get out of it all aliiiiiiive." (It almost hurt him to say that one, but the dragon lady had insisted on that, that "They should still have a choice to refuse if they want," so he'd gone with it. Gettin' the kid to even be in the same room with the adult tourists was a big step up, and definitely worth the potential loss of revenue he could've otherwise scammed out of these suckers, even if he didn't want to admit it.)
Stan let none of these thoughts mar his Mr. Mystery grin, though, as he pointed to the spot on the machine that accepted bills. "But if you're worried -- and hey, if I were you, I would be -- you can deposit the gold into the altar to be freed from any" -- ugh -- "potentially" (-- there, he said it! --) "horrifying consequences."
A few guys scoffed at the idea of a 'curse'. "Yeah right," one guy laughed out. (...Heh. Showtime.)
Stan gasped out at this terrible, terribly stupid thing that this guy had just done right here. (Heh.) "Oh no! You've mocked the spirits!" Stan cried out next, and at that cue--
The regal 'black cat statue', adorned with glinting jewels and gold, sitting beside a tiny little sarcophagus with some wrapped-up bandaged thing inside it, almost creakingly rotated its head level on its neck s l o w l y towards the chuckling rube, to stare straight into the eyes of the man who had laughed, who was now standing there looking absolutely shocked as he slowly turned pale.
The crowd gasped. "Holy-- it's ALIVE!"
And at that gasping reaction, the bundle of bandages in the sarcophagus began to wiggle a bit next. And out of said bandages something torturously crawled itself free and slowly sat up, a tiny black kitten with gleaming golden eyes. The crowd screamed.
And the man who had laughed before was staring wide-eyed at this whole scene now, looking almost frozen in place. "H-heh. Neat trick. It's… it's just a cat…" he said nervously, swallowing hard. But the larger cat was still staring unblinkingly at him, making the man somewhat uncomfortable. And the man winced next as the moving kitten stopped moving all at once and stared at him too, then opened its mouth wide and began hissing at him softly.
(Heh, thought Stan. ...Man, and he'd thought the two demons had just used their natural demon-ny-ness to win themselves that prize booth. This was actually some next-level shit right here. Stan could unabashedly appreciate the stagecraft that was goin' on, here. Even if he sure as hell wasn't gonna show any of it at all on his face.)
That… wasn't normal right? You couldn't train a cat to do that, right? The man managed to get his feet unstuck from the floor, and started to move a little bit away from them, but the cats continued to follow his movements with their eyes. He was starting to break out in a cold sweat, because... Holy hell, were that kitten's eyes glowing?!
"--Quick! Give the machine five dollars!" Stan gasped out next. The man immediately shoved his hand into his pocket, digging around for his wallet, and he all but stumbled backwards as he fumblingly turned and all but ran over to the 'Gold dispenser' next.
With shaking hands -- oh god, he could still feel their eyes drilling into him, he needed to make it stop--!! -- he shoved his cash into the slot and hit the dispensing button hard, and the machine churned out a large golden coin for him. The man grabbed it up quickly, and then froze in place for a moment, as he realized that in order to get rid of this curse-thing he was going to have to…
The man turned back shakingly, and swallowed hard with al almost-audible gulping noise. He slowly forced himself to approach the altar, step by step, where the two cats continued to stare him down, to just keep on staring him down, and… and he just barely managed to reach out with a trembling hand, to deposit the coin down into the serving bowl altar there.
Immediately, the tension in the air seemed to dissipate as the cats finally broke eye contact with the man. The larger cat turned its head back to its previous stone-still position (just a hair faster than before), while the kitten suddenly relaxed and... meowed cheerfully, going up to rub her face against his hand, which he had left on the altar in his panic. The man stiffened when the kitten brushed against his hand, but relaxed when... she suddenly seemed... just like any other friendly kitten that the man had ever seen, purring loudly as she nudged his hand with her head, begging for attention… just like any other normal cat would do, totally normally.
The man relaxed immediately. "Awww, its so soft!" he said almost thoughtlessly. He pretty much forgot his earlier fear almost completely, as he began scratching the kitten gently on its head. The kitten let out some really adorable mewls at this treatment, and the tourists all "Awww"ed at the whole scene, as the tension fully and finally broke.
Stan grinned. "Five dollars to appease the curse and pet the kitten!" he crowed out next, pointing a finger up in the air before gesturing at the machine next. (Hey, he knew how to milk a crowd with any dragon-lady given 'choice'.)
...And the entire crowd was immediately clamoring to get in line at the machine.
Stan laughed internally at all the money rolling in, and Mr. Mystery grinned externally at them all. Miz was basking in all the attention, purring as she nuzzled the tourists, while the demon-cat-kid sat his vigil, his appearance every bit that of the sacred animal who was worshipped by the ancients. After awhile, one of the tour group rubes got bold enough to approach the 'scary status', to try their hand at petting the kid, too. But before Stan had barely even had the thought of intervening…
...the demon-cat-kid just straight-up avoided the incoming hand as deftly as any real cat would, twisting away gracefully on his own and then huffing before flicking his tail at them. The rube stopped in place for a moment, trying to figure out how to pursue, but the kid sure didn't; it wasn't long before the demon-cat was firmly ensconced up in the rafters (by way of two jumps via a high shelf in-between), to resume his regal seated posture on one of the exposed wooden beams, to stare down at them all from above (...effectively avoiding any and all grasping hands for the entirety of time of the rest of that tour session).
The tour group finally left, having spent plenty of money for a chance to pet the cursed kitten. As soon as the door shut and everyone was gone, Miz started to giggle, purring as she rolled around on the altar. The kids, who had been standing nearby -- ready to intervene and smooth things over if there had been any trouble (or cat-grabbing) -- relaxed a bit and came over to the table outright. Mabel declared Miz's purring 'adorable', while in the midst of petting her once again, and in the meantime Dipper was... having some sort of staring contest with the demon-cat-kid from the rafters (who looked like he didn't want to come back down to the table-altar display right away when either of the niblings would be that close to him nearby).
"Did we do good?" KittyMiz asked as Mabel continued to pet her on her fluffy round head. Stan let out a laugh as he pocketed the cash he'd scooped up from the altar.
"Yeah, you did good! Uh, we can discuss ways to change up the act for other groups too, though," Stan added as he thought it all a little bit through. "There's always somethin' you can get a little better at, and little variety never hurt nobody so no-one ever gets the same experience twice," because he was pretty damn sure he wasn't wrong about getting a bunch of repeat customers for this one. Not if the sound of all those 'awwwwww's when the tour had been declared over, and he'd shooed all those rubes over into the gift shop area to close the door behind them, said anything to him at all. He had so many ideas for other ways to milk this for all the money he could get, too. It wasn't like they could get a bunch of cat-related knick-knacks for the gift shop on such short notice, but he sure bet he could get Mabel and Melody to bake up some overpriced cat-shaped cookies to sell off at the door to the gift shop there, as a start. (--Hey, what did you want from him? Old habits died hard!)
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