------
"There are four types of people in this world." Miz spoke up randomly, out of nowhere as she and Soos prepared breakfast together the next day, having gotten back to a more comfortable baseline for behavioral output around everyone. "When their legs itch under their jeans, some will just cry and accept that there's nothing they can do, some will desperately scratch at it over the denim, some will slip their hands under their pants to scratch it… and the last type are those who will throw their jeans off to scratch it directly."
"Five types," Bill put out there. "Some just say 'to hell with it!' and amputate their legs!" He'd even Seen that one, too! Multiple times! (Even some humans, who couldn't regrow their legs!)
Miz looked over and nodded solemnly. "Big mood. Itches are no small matter."
Mabel snorted. "I'm the 'scratch at it over the pants' type." Miz grinned. "Me too!" The two high-fived. Dipper groaned and buried his face in his hands. Mabel mock-whispered, "Dipper's the type to stick his hands into his pants." Miz giggled.
"Mabel!" Dipper cried, flushing and pulling his hat down over his eyes.
"Ah dudes, I'd take my pants off." Soos nodded. "Leg itches under jeans are serious business." He looked down at his own pants. "That's why I wear khakis. They're easier to scratch through when I'm working, and even easier to take off."
Now Bill was staring at them all, unaware that this was apparently such an important subject for humans.
Melody walked into the room. "What're you all talking about?"
Soos looked over. "If your leg itches while you're wearing jeans, what would you do?"
Melody blinked before she snorted. "Reach a hand under my jeans to scratch it." She grinned.
Dipper looked up. "You too?" He seemed relieved to know he wasn't the only one.
Bill stared. Was… this really that important?
"Ooh! We should ask Grunkle Stan and Ford!" Mabel jumped up in her chair. She paused and turned to Bill. "Bill? What type of scratcher are you?" Bill continued staring at them all, unable to really understand any of this.
"....None of the above," Bill told her. "...I would make it stop itching, just ignore it, or get a new body," Bill added almost absently as he turned away from her, wondering why the kettle was taking so long to heat his hot water for tea -- it should be DONE already! (When he'd been puppeting around Pine Tree's body, he'd mostly just ignored it… until said body had been on the verge of collapse, and gotten way too hard to control. Then he'd felt an overwhelming urge to scratch those mosquito bites. It had been annoying...)
Miz hummed cheerfully as she folded some more origami animals. "That only works for people who would be able to do that. But it's an efficient solution nonetheless." Melody had taken over the cooking for breakfast when she came in, so Miz had some free time now, Bill's veggies just needed to sit in the heat for a little while longer. Miz had been telling Melody about what sorts of things Bill liked to eat, and the woman was very attentive to his dietary needs.
It also likely helped that Bill had already eaten the salad she'd made before, and seemed okay with it. So that was one potential roadblock already sidestepped, if not shoved out of the way entirely
Bill was watching the hot water kettle like a hawk unblinkingly, now. He bunched up his shoulders a bit, more and more, as the seconds ticked on, and on, and on, and...
--the whistle went off, and Bill leapt to his feet, reached forward, and deftly snagged the kettle right off of the burner in a flash, turning away from the stove (and Melody, who was standing nearby it) and flicking the burner knob to the 'off' position with his free hand as he went.
He settled in at the table with his 'prize', pouring himself a cup of the still-boiling liquid into his waiting cup, teabag already in-cup.
Dipper rolled his eyes at Bill's impatience. He did this every time, literally watching water boil.
"Why do you do that?" Dipper finally asked him in exasperation, and to this, Bill replied, "Because it's better this way." He lowered the teakettle to the table, onto the potholder sitting ready for it off to the side. "You're supposed to make tea with still-boiling water."
"No, I mean, why do you watch the kettle boil? Isn't it frustrating to wait like that?" Dipper could see the way Bill stared and waited. The second-hand annoyance was pretty intense.
"Everything about waiting is frustrating, yes," Bill said, then turned his head to look over and down at Dipper. "What's your point?"
Dipper stared up at him for a moment.
"...Never mind," Dipper muttered out, pulling down on his cap with one hand as he looked away from Bill, back to his own journal and binders. (...Not that he was working on his next DDNMD campaign right now; that wasn't something he was going to be doing right there in front of Bill Cipher, c'mon.)
Meanwhile, from where she was sitting at her own seat at the kitchen table, Miz started singing to herself with a dazed expression, eyes semi-glazed, while a small light seemed to flicker across her iris. She was clearly staring at something that none of them could see.
Mabel raised an eyebrow at this. "Uh…" She waved her hand in front of Miz's face. Miz blinked slowly, coming back into the here and now.
"Oh, sorry, I was watching something." Miz said sheepishly.
Dipper raised his eyebrows. "Watching… like with your All-Seeing Eye?" He thought she couldn't do that while inside the barrier. Miz laughed awkwardly. "Eh… I was reviewing my memories of a video I watched a long time ago." Dipper looked even more confused. "What?" Miz shrugged. "Music videos for songs I like. Here, hang on…" She was getting better at using her powers through the cuffs. This shouldn't be too hard, she had her own version of the technology suit that Bill had, modified somewhat to work in conjunction with her other powers, specifically, projecting her thoughts and memories through them. She pointed at the wall and a projection screen popped up. Music began to play.
Everyone stared. Mabel grinned. "That's pretty cool." She turned to Miz. "Do you have more?"
The dragon-demon wiggled in place. "I've got thousands upon thousands," she admitted. "I love music."
Mabel looked at the screen, which was now white since the song had ended. "What was that song about?" the teenager asked, having been too distracted by the pretty dancing to read the subtitles.
Miz blinked and tilted her head. "Would it upset you?" she asked simply, and Mabel looked taken aback. "Is it actually horrible?" Mabel asked her.
"...depends? I'm not sure what your baseline for horrible stuff is," Miz shrugged. She was even less sure now, after that talk with Stan two days before.
It was Melody who responded with, "From what I could understand, that song was essentially, 'what if Cinderella was an assassin aiming for the prince's life'."
Miz blinked and grinned. "Yes. That." She personally thought that was a cool idea for a song, but wasn't sure how the twins would feel about it, since, you know, assassins and stuff. Miz's grin turned into a frown. "Should I find a happier song? Sorry, I just really liked that song, melody wise and all that." She pouted. "It's still a better message than some of the songs people listen to nowadays. Most of them seem to be cheesy, boring love songs. Or telling people to eat their own pants?" Miz said wryly.
Soos shrugged. "Hey, to each their own, dog. My pants didn't taste all that bad, to be honest." (Melody giggled at this, and Soos smiled.)
"Or the objectification of female bodies by male humans for some reason, or paying for sex and drugs with violence, or hamsters in too-hard-to-steal sportscars," Bill noted absently, as he raised and lowered his teabag in his cup.
"Which you shouldn't do." Miz told the kids. "If you're gonna date someone, don't go for the type of person who equates violence with affection," she warned them.
Dipper rolled his eyes. "I know that. That's just common sense. --And so does Mabel," he added for his sister -- especially after what had happened with Gideon, ew.
Mabel shrugged. "Um, it's still nice of you to warn us?" She twitched at the implied mention of Gideon. "Ugh, right. Gideon…"
"Did you ever really like him?" Miz asked her, curious.
Mabel shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, in my defense, I didn't realize he was going after me in that way to begin with? And no," she added. "No, I did not like him. He's a jerk!"
"He is!" Bill enthused out, as he removed the teabag from his cup of tea, and lifted said cup to his mouth to drink said beverage, post-haste.
"Could we maybe get back to talking about cool music, please?" Mabel asked them all and sundry. Any Gideon mention tended to bring down the mood, and she really didn't want to hear what Bill thought of him right now.
"Fine," Dipper agreed, though rather tiredly. "But what makes this one so great?" Dipper muttered.
Miz scoffed. "It's a love song about an assassin falling in love with her mark and having doubts about whether or not she should go through with it! Both of them make a connection with each other, recognizing each other's inner pain, and wonder if this is what 'love' is!" She gushed. "Isn't that more interesting than just 'oh that guy's hot so I think I like him'?" Nevermind how the final lines imply that she DID in fact, stab the prince and the two gazed into each other's eyes as he bled out and died ("I cannot move anymore.") It was twisted but it was a tragic romance! Miz lived for that kind of thing!
Mabel frowned. "That sounds super-sad. She fell in love with him and everything, but…"
Miz shrugged. "That's the entire point of a tragic romance."
Melody nodded, seeing her point. "Well, maybe choose a song with a happier ending?" the woman suggested. Stan Pines had 'warned' them about Miz's taste in music first off when they'd both come over to help babysit this morning -- the twins this time, not Ford and Bill -- and also of Ford's overall reactions lately when lyrics were involved, when it came to her songs.
Miz shrugged and projected a few more songs.
Taking Melody's advice, she chose the more… kid-friendly songs.
They spent a while discussing the benefits of storytelling through song, as Melody finished cooking up breakfast for them all (both grunkles in absentia for the meal). Miz launched into a lecture about how all human history was formed through stories and their very lives were essentially stories in and of themselves. Miz simply liked the interesting stories more.
And by the end of the meal, Dipper and Mabel noted that so long as Great-Uncle Ford wasn't around, Miz seemed to be able to act perfectly sweet, if a little odd.
Dipper sighed. If only she could be like this all the time, then… well, then they'd only have Bill to contend with. The dumb triangular jerk.
---
Miz held out her hand and concentrated. A door simmered into existence before her. It wasn't a real, physical door. It was in the Mindscape, separate from the world around it. And it wasn't like she was creating it; she'd already created it before. She was just pulling it back into focus. ...Hm. It looked like Bill had warded it, already. 'Probably a good idea.' She didn't approach it though, watching it carefully. She waited. Listened.
The door rattled.
Miz sighed. Nope. It was still out there. 'That's fine. It'll leave eventually. Probably.' She had the strangest feeling that told her it wouldn't be able to stay forever. It would get bored and leave. It would HAVE to leave.
She dismissed the door, and it faded out of existence. ...Well, so she had an excuse to stay longer. She hoped this wasn't selfish of her, to keep mooching off Stan like this. She knew that money was a thing. Stan probably had rent to pay and groceries and…
...and Stan said she didn't have to. But she WANTED to. She didn't like to feel like a leech. (She did enough of that as a human.) Maybe she could help do the dishes or laundry? Or force Pinetree to take a bath?
Ugh. How could he stand not bathing?
But she'd have to ask Stan if that was allowed. If she says that Dipper's filthiness offended her (which it did), maybe then he would allow that? Or maybe she could challenge Pinetree to a water fight? Or just clean his clothes while he wasn't looking?
Miz twitched. She wanted to clean something.
...Like that weird lamp with the deer legs she found in the back of the storage room and brought up to Bill's room because she thought it was cool (and possibly cursed?). She liked cleaning that. She just had to find more stuff to clean.
So she got to work. Cleaning.
The fishes above the fireplace...
The antler ceiling lamp...
...What else could she clean?
-----
Stan walked into the kitchen for a soda a little before lunchtime. (Breakfast had been granola bars with Ford in his bedroom, mostly because Ford was protesting 'having' to take meals with the demons in the kitchen at the same time, the goober.) But Stan found himself stopping to stare incredulously at the sight of his (semi-unwanted) guest using a toothpick to scrape off the grime from around the seams and hinges of the sink. …And her brother was nowhere in sight while she was doing this. That was a new one.
So Stan turned to Mabel instead, who was sitting at the table working on one of her scrapbooks.
"Do I wanna know?" Stan grunted out to her. Mabel shrugged. "She said it was bothering her. And that she had to clean something before she went crazy… crazier? She wiped the dust off the Singing Salmon earlier." Well, Stan wasn't sure how to feel about that.
He watched Miz clean the parts that no one in their right mind really cared about for awhile. (Well, that's the point isn't it?) And after awhile, Stan sighed and trudged over to the fridge to get his soda, deciding to just not worry about it all that much. Not like she was hurting anyone doing it. There was one thing about the whole thing that he really didn't get, though.
Stan closed the fridge, popped the tab on the can, and took a sip, all before he turned back to the scene still going on behind his back at the sink and finally asked, "And the maid outfit?" It was the first thing he'd seen walking into the room, but he hadn't been sure if his eyes had been deceiving him or something.
Miz answered, "Because maids are cute!"
... Stan literally had nothing to say to that. He thought she didn't like wearing clothing? Hadn't she said that before?
Miz responded absently, "Costumes and dressing up to look nice is not the same as when I'm trying to be comfortable."
Stan's eyebrows went up. She hadn't even turned around to address him, and he knew she wasn't looking at him in the window reflection -- that was what he was using to get half a look at her face, and her eyes weren't on him.
Stan glanced over at Mabel, wondering what was going on; Mabel made a confused sound herself, and Miz laughed suddenly for no reason that Stan could see. "I dressed up while I was a triangle too."
Mabel frowned at this. "How are you doing that?" Mabel asked Miz, closing her scrapbook and looking over at her carefully. She didn't see any mirrors, and it wasn't like she'd been mouthing any words… so how had Miz…?
"Doing what?" Miz asked, and Mabel looked frustrated.
"Responding to questions we haven't asked yet!" (Stan blinked at this. Dipper was usually the one to get all touchy about asking and then not getting his questions answered, not Mabel. But then...)
That got Miz to turn around and stare at them, looking at their mouths with an 'Oh shit!' expression. (Stan narrowed his eyes at this.) Miz winced. "I didn't realize you hadn't asked them yet."
Before Stan could say anything, it was Mabel who put it together first. "You can hear our thoughts?" Mabel asked, and Miz winced.
"I'm not trying to. And I don't hear ALL of them. Just the particularly loud ones."
Stan stifled a sigh and ran a hand over his face. "...This like your whole 'feeling emotions' thing?" Miz nodded hesitantly then shook her head before just shrugging, making a 'kinda?' movement with her hand. Right. And with her back turned she couldn't tell which stuff was said aloud and which was her just hearing things in her head. Great. (Ford was gonna lose his shit over this one, once he found out; the whole point of that metal plate was supposed to be keeping Bill outta his head -- Bill out, and his own thoughts in.)
"...Define 'loud'," Stan asked her next. He had to figure out how bad this one was, too.
Miz thought about how to explain this. "Emotionally charged thoughts tend to be loud. Or things that you were going to say aloud anyway. And most of the time it'll just be disjointed, with a word here and there, and quiet murmurs where the rest of the thought was supposed to be. You guys aren't actively projecting, even if you're capable of passively receiving." …Okay. Stan sighed. Ford wasn't going to like this at all, was he. (Neither was the kid, Stan would bet.) Actually, he might as well ask... "Can you hear Ford's thoughts too?"
Miz's expression told him 'yes'. And from the looks of it, she didn't think his thoughts were all that nice. (...was this why Miz had been so upset by Ford not liking her, maybe? ...Huh. What sorts of things had she overheard Ford thinking about her?)
"I usually ignore them," Miz protested. "Like background noise." ...Right, and since he was askin' questions and she couldn't see his mouth move, she was tuned in to him and thought he was still askin' her questions out loud.
Yeah, no. Hell, no. They weren't doing this again.
"--Outside, now," Stan commanded her, pointing a finger to the nearest door with the hand holding the soda can. Better get this done and handled before Ford made an appearance. Then he turned away and grumbled out, "Where's the kid, attic or outside? --BILL," Stan called out loudly, walking away and over to the nearest window, to look outside. He peered out. (Nope. Bill wasn't out by the picnic tables; kid must still be in his room, instead of taking the roof route down and outside the barrier.)
Stan glanced over at Mabel as he turned back towards the rest of them. "Pumpkin, where are Bill and your brother?" he asked Mabel.
"Dipper's in the Mystery Shack gift shop with Melody. I haven't seen Bill around for a bit, maybe he's upstairs?" Mabel said truthfully.
Stan sighed. "Both of you, outside, with me." Mabel was supposed to be being 'babysat' (read: watched) by either him, Soos, or Melody right now, whenever they weren't in their room. They weren't even halfway through the first week of their house-arrest penalty, yet. "Stay in sight for a minute." He turned away from them, frowning.
Miz sighed. "Why is every part of me problematic?" she muttered, rinsing off the grime on the sink before wiping her hands dry on a towel. She and Stan passed each other as he headed for the base of the staircase to the attic, and she marched outside, head hung as Mabel followed her.
"Well, it's not your fault right?" Mabel asked, and winced as Grunkle Stan hollered up the stairs for Bill pretty loudly behind them.
Miz sighed. "Not like it matters." Mabel raised an eyebrow.
"Why didn't you seal off this hearing-minds thing along with your emotion-al thing-ie, too?" Mabel asked.
Miz shrugged. "Didn't really think about it. Like, do you ever think to yourself 'oh hey, I should just stop blinking or breathing' or something? These are just… natural functions I have. And most thoughts are set to private anyway. It's not like I can hear your every thought or something." Miz huffed.
Mabel winced. "Does it really feel like that to you? Like breathing?" She saw Miz step past the edge of the barrier and click off her (new) magic-cancelling bracelets. The things that sealed up Miz's powers. Mabel frowned. ...Was that how Miz really felt about them? The headband that cut off her senses and made her 'deaf' to emotions, the bracelets to hold in her powers like one long breath held underwater…
...Was that like forcing Miz to hold in and seal away and hide everything that made her weird and different, just to 'fit in'? Did it make her feel dizzy or kind of off and gaspy, if she kept them on too long? Was that why they usually spent so much time outside? Or upstairs, up in the attic, where Bill could do magic again, because he'd made a bubble inside the barrier that let him do that? And if it was...
...then did Bill feel the same way about it, too, every time that he walked inside? Even though he still did it, to stay with them, like Grunkle Stan wanted him to? ...Just like Miz was because she wanted to stay with Bill?
(And what did that mean about Bill's anchor, and Grunkle Stan? Was all of Bill's 'weirdness' really only horribleness that Bill could just have locked away like that, for him to go without as something completely separate from him? Or was all that weirdness actually a real part of him, too? --Were there maybe some things that the weirdness was supposed to do for him that weren't just horrible, that felt the same way to him with the anchor working on him as Miz was talking about feeling about this?)
(Woah, woah. Wait. --Did that mean that Grunkle Ford was right? That they really didn't know what Bill was like when he was all being himself, because the anchor was keeping the dream demon from doing all sort of things that were like breathing to him? ...She needed to talk to Dip-Dop about this later.)
"Imagine having something that is just perfectly normal to you, a part of who you are, as natural as being able to see Color or breathing without having to think about it -- but it's something that people don't like. So then imagine that you have to hide it, or suppress it, just to be allowed to be around other people," Miz grumbled as she formed a leaf chair to sit down in. "I can understand sealing off my Empathy; it can hurt me. And I guess my hearing the thoughts you're thinking if they're loud is an invasion of privacy. But it's not like I hear everything. Especially since even with random thoughts I STILL can't understand ANY of you!" She sighed. "Besides, being able to tell when someone's about to try and kill me or know how someone's feeling is useful for when I'm making Deals back home. But..."
"Nobody's trying to kill you here…" Mabel said slowly. And she wasn't just saying that; they really weren't. Old Man McGucket wasn't even talking about it, and even Grunkle Ford--
Miz closed her eyes tightly. "It's just… annoying!" Miz growled. "I already have to wear these--" she held up the bracelets "--just to be allowed near the house and…" Miz made a frustrated sound. "I'm nothing but a goddamn burden. Nothing but trouble. Nothing but a problem for everyone around me--!" she buried her face in her hands and breathed heavily after her short rant.
Mabel winced (and not just at her language). "That's not…" She really didn't think any of that was right. If anything, it sounded just as wrong as some of the stuff that Bill said sometimes! But she didn't really know how to explain...
"--And Stan won't let me do anything to earn my keep around here!" Miz said next. "I'm just living here, mooching off you guys and I feel so… useless!" Miz flopped back on the giant leaf.
"Who's callin' somebody useless?" was the grumpy call across the yard from Stan, as he made his way across the grass towards her. (Stan had called upstairs to the kid, and Bill was on his way down. Stan had only really heard the last part of all that Miz had said. He'd been able to see them from the house, but not hear them; his hearing aid wasn't that good.)
Miz whined. "No one is. But I feel useless." she huffed out. "I feel bad that I keep mooching off you. I'm staying here longer than I originally planned to. And I want to do something to earn my keep." She rolled over on the leaf. "I wanna clean something. It's calming… and productive..."
Stan let out a long sigh, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was kind of getting tired of trying to have this conversation with the demon kid. "Kid, you're fishing for your own food half the time, so I don't have to go cleanin' out the grocery store every day," Stan pointed out. "And you're Bill's family. --I told you, he's stayin' here, and you stayin' here with him's fine." Stan gave her a long look. "You know, I ain't exactly 'earning my own keep' here. I'm just livin' in the Shack these days, not running the tours or doin' much of anything else. Does that make me useless or somethin'?"
"... no…" Miz admitted.
"Well then, don't you go off feelin' all useless on any of us, either," Stan told her. "Heck, you're a kid anyway. Shouldn't be working unless you really want to, for you. Unless it's a helping the family business thing," Stan amended, rather obviously, "But Bill ain't doin' any business here. So it's just down to the stuff you want to do, for you. Get it?"
Miz wiggled in place. "I want to clean," she admitted.
Stan blinked at her. "Seriously?" Stan asked her, turning completely towards her to get a really good look at her. "You… really want to clean stuff, just 'cause?"
Miz nodded. "It makes me feel like I'm contributing to the household in some way. And I like it when things are clean. Except dusting. I don't like dusting because it makes me sneeze."
Stan snorted, rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth to help keep in the laugh. Right. Big bad demon-dragon lady, afraid of a little dust.
Stan shook his head and sobered up quickly, though. "Alright. We'll figure out cleaning stuff later, after the kid is down and he's got this… 'mind-talk thing' all settled out… if cleaning stuff is really something you really want to do for you," he told her, then got a little more serious, back on the main topic of problematic stuff going on right now. "So how bad is this 'you hearing our thoughts' thing, anyway? This thing as bad as the emotions thing, where you can't block any of us out when we're thinkin' stuff at you, either?"
Miz groaned. "But this one doesn't harm me and I don't hear ALL thoughts."
Stan gave her a long look. "But me no buts," he told her. "Can you block people out on your own, or not?" She sure wasn't doin' it earlier, though...
"I will have to alter my seal-headband again," Miz huffed. She was doing so now, wiggling her fingers along said headband.
"So, you can't block people out on your own, without doin' a headband-thing to help you out," Stan said, getting a little suspicious of how she was avoiding saying it straight out to either of them, here and now. (He knew better than to let her get away with not answering this thing, here and now. Either she told him straight-up, or she'd have to lie to his face about it. But he wasn't putting up with her going this sideways at him about something, just like he didn't with the kid. --That was what had gotten Ford into trouble with him, in the first place. Stan wasn't stupid.)
Miz whined a little bit. "I… I don't really know how it works. It was just a 'thing' I could do as a triangle, but even when I'm just in my energy form, I can still hear thoughts. So while part of it must be biological, not all of it, since it still worked even without a body."
Great... "Y'know, privacy's still a thing," he told her. "Don't think you'd like it if we heard every last one of your thoughts," he tried telling her. Then Stan frowned. Because if this was another one of those things that she didn't know how it worked… "Y'know, if you don't know how this works... you didn't think the emotion thing was a problem, either, and it was," Stan pointed out. Not until she'd talked it out with the kid, anyway, apparently. "I don't want me thinking somethin' around you hurting you, any more than I think any of the rest of us do. Same thing with us feelin' stuff, too. Yeah?"
Miz sighed. "Fine." She slumped place on the bench she was sitting on, up against the picnic table behind her. "This is related to my general hearing so it shouldn't be hard to block it out too, would have to be careful not to make myself deaf again though… and I can just ignore it the same way you can tune out other people's conversations when you're in a crowd or sitting next to someone on a bus." (Stan eyed her. Tuning out other conversations wasn't always a thing that happened inside people's heads -- earmuffs and headphones and earplugs were a thing -- and she still hadn't given him a range for how far out she could hear thoughts from other people. ...Well, he'd let her concentrate on the stuff she was doing for now, and sic the kid on her about it all later.)
She closed her eyes, frowning. It wasn't too difficult to isolate this particular aspect of her Being. It just felt weird to seal it off. Just like shutting off any of her senses. She wasn't lying when said it was like breathing or seeing or whatever. It was such a natural part of her. She felt everything go quiet. The world seemed to get… unnaturally quiet. Eardrums only picked up things that carried over on air waves after all, nothing like being able to hear (to know) everything around her.
"You done?" Stan asked, after Miz opened her eyes back up again. She nodded. Huh. That was quick. "How much of what I've been thinking have you been picking up?" Stan asked her. "Do ya know?" It wasn't like she'd seemed to be able to tell the difference in the kitchen...
Miz shrugged. "I wouldn't really know unless I'm actually listening for it." Stan sighed heavily. That didn't tell him anything; she hadn't even been able to tell the difference before -- how would she be able to know when she was 'actually listening for it'? Or was this a passive versus active thing like the emotions thing, too?
Stan gave her a grumpy sort of look, but he let that one go. If she didn't know, then she didn't know. ...Not like he'd been thinking much that he wouldn't bring up with the kid if Bill had asked, anyway, but the little sis here seemed a lot more touchy on a few things. He was kind of surprised it hadn't gotten him into 'trouble' with her before, though, now that he thought about it. "How much distance you got on that 'hearing thoughts' thing, when you're tryin' to do it?" Stan asked her next.
"If they're in the same room as me, I can't hear through walls." Miz shrugged. Not unless she was Hearing in conjunction with her Sight. All-Seeing Eye and all that.
'Alright,' Stan thought. So, if walls got in the way… it was line of sight basically, then? Did that mean she could hear anybody outdoors, as long as there weren't any trees in the way? ...Eh, Stan would let the kid figure that one out for him. Not his callout.
In the meantime, Stan stared out at the forest a while, trying to remember a few things he had thought about before that might be a problem, before he finally brought up, "Hey, is that why you changed the color on that thing?" while waving at her headband. "Because I knew Ford didn't like the color, and I thought it at you before?" Because her headband had been yellow, that first day that Stan had saw it. But it was a dark blue now. Stan distinctly remembered thinking that Ford wouldn't like the yellow, when he'd first seen it on her, then. If Miz had heard that, then she had probably changed it because she'd heard him think that. She wouldn't have had any reason not to, otherwise; not really.
Miz nodded, and Stan sighed. "Kid, you had your headband on back then, and you hadn't finished fixing it up to only handle the emotions-stuff back then, right? Why didn't that block out this 'hearing thoughts' thing along with it?" That seemed a little off to him. She'd barely been able to balance properly going up the stairs...
"My headband at the time just blocked out my senses. I had Hearing enabled. And this, counted as hearing." (So, what, emotions counted as feeling? Like touch?) She continued unprompted to explain it some more, "It's from when I was a triangle. I didn't have ears or vocal chords as a triangle so all my Hearing and Speaking was telepathic, all communication was through the 'public' thoughts that the shapes around me projected out. This vessel was created with ears and an auditory system that translates vibrations of air into sound but my natural hearing from my triangle form is more 'natural' to me. Hearing thoughts for me is as natural as hearing sound wave vibrations are for you guys. Even as just energy, I didn't have ears so thought communication was all I really did."
...Okay, so hearing sound waves was actually more unnatural for her than hearing thoughts. She had to actively make herself hear soundwaves. "So you need a set of thought-plugs for your thought-ears, I gotcha." Stan paused for a moment. "How are you doin' it different now?" Stan asked, scratching at his cheek.
Miz sighed. "I'm setting my hearing to only sound wave vibrations." She didn't look happy about it. Stan asked, "So why don't your sight count as your All-Seeing Eye thing?"
"Because my All-Seeing Eye was a sense I got AFTER I became a demon and it's tied into a different aspects of my powers. My hearing thoughts thing was a natural part of my triangle biology back when I was still mortal." Miz explained.
Stan raised his eyebrows. "Huh. You got that thing after?" Miz nodded. (He wondered if the kid had, too.) "So your eye thing feels different, because you didn't have it when you were a human or a triangle. But the other things don't, because you were doin' them when you had a body way back when." he thought for a moment. "But you were a triangle after a human, and a triangle demon after a triangle, and neither of those got ears, so the human stuff don't feel so natural anymore?" It was only one out of the three, and the oldest one.
Miz nodded again. "That's why my Hearing sense still maps more naturally to telepathy than sound waves. I mean, I didn't fully understand how the soundwave thing worked back when I was human, so I had to manually learn how to craft a vessel that was capable of it, as opposed to hearing thoughts which I could do more easily since I just set my vessels to be like how my triangle body was like."
Stan nodded before a different realization came to him. "Hey, is the reason you keep getting upset at Ford," even after she'd gone and blocked out being able to feel all his emotions from herself, "Because he keeps thinkin' not really nice things about you, that you were thinkin' he was sayin' out loud?" Stan said leadingly, pretty sure he already knew the answer to that one, and Miz groaned.
"I actively try to tune him out." (Yeah, but she'd also just made it pretty clear that she couldn't do it without changing the headband to do that for her, now. Which meant…) "It's all 'evil monster this and 'kill the Demon now before she betrays us all' that. It's super annoying to listen to someone wishing you were dead just because of your Race every few minutes. So I try to ignore it." Stan sighed heavily at the last of this. He wasn't so sure he wanted to explain this one to her, given how she might end up reacting to it if he did, but...
"Look, kid," Stan told her, pinching the bridge of his nose again. "How far down can you hear him? Like, layers and junk." She'd said that… "You said that you mostly just hear the stuff that people would say out loud, right?"
"I don't hear all his innermost thoughts, if that's what you're asking. Just the stuff that he's thinking out loud to himself." Miz pouted.
"Yeah, exactly," Stan said, dropping his hand and looking up at her. "So if that's what you're hearing from him, then he's gotta have a constant mantra thing going on inside his head, telling himself not to trust you, right?" In other words, Ford was damn near one step away from muttering it under his breath at himself every time he found himself in the same room with her, having to remind himself that…
Stan let out a sigh. "--You think somebody does that if they're really all that sure about what they're doing?" Stan told her, and hoping that he didn't have to go any further than that. (Because, damnit Ford, not helping. Because if his brother were actually that convinced of things, then Ford would not be spending that much time trying to remind himself that the demon kids were monsters. --That Ford was doing that? Meant that his brother was worried about something, sure, but it also meant that that 'something' wasn't so much the demon kids hauling off and eating somebody out of nowhere with a bunch of really sharp teeth…)
Miz furrowed her brows in thought. "I guess not? It's just irritating. Especially when I'm actually trying to be civil."
And to that, Mabel said brightly, "Well then, it's a good thing you're not going to listen to what he's thinking anymore!"
Miz blinked slowly as she processed that. Finally she nodded. "Yeah. Yeah! That's…" She tilted her head. "... good?" (Mabel smiled at her for it.)
"Yeah, that's good," Stan reaffirmed. "Ford's trying' to keep it inside his head instead of just yellin' it out at you. Means he's trying to not start a fight with you, at least." ...Trying something, hell. "So just, y'know, let him keep his guns in his holsters and his thoughts inside his head, right where everything belongs, just like he's been trying to do most of the time. ...And let your brother tell you what a bad idea it was to go around listening to people's thoughts like that now, yeah?" Stan added, as Bill finally walked out of the house. Stan frowned, wondering what had been taking the kid so long upstairs, especially since the kid had to know that it was him that had been all 'alone' with her for awhile there, which he knew the kid still didn't like…
Stan pushed himself to his feet and started heading towards the house; he stopped and met Bill halfway across the yard and tossed a thumb back in Miz's direction, filling Bill in quickly. The kid (who was already frowning as he came out) got an even-worse scowl, and marched past Stan almost immediately after he was done talking. Stan had almost a smirk going, as he turned away and made his own way up onto the porch, to watch them all from there. (The kid wasn't 'cleared' to be babysitting the twins on his own for Stan as part of this whole new penalty thing yet, so Stan wasn't going to go completely all the way back inside. Didn't mean Stan couldn't pull out his crossword puzzle and not listen much, as the two demon-kids went at it with each other, talking.)
Bill stopped right in front of Miz and looked down at her, putting his hands on his hips. He did not look happy with her. (Partly because she'd 'snuck out' and downstairs without him having realized it, for her to have been around Stanley alone -- he did NOT trust Stanley with her that far! no! not one bit! -- but mainly he was upset with her because…)
"THERE ARE BETTER WAYS," he intoned at her, fully aware of how hearing thoughts could be used to one's advantage. --He also knew how very badly things could go if that was something one over-depended upon for one's safety.
Miz flinched back in mild guilt.
"Did you already fix it?" Bill asked her. "With your headband, or something else? Or are you working on it and still need some help with that?"
"I have it sealed off, like my Empathy now, too," Miz confirmed.
"Amplitude, range, and depth," Bill demanded of her next. "General characteristics also. And describe your control over that sense, too," 'or LACK thereof' was implied by Bill's continuing and deepening glower.
"Around 80 to 180 Hz, around 30 meters unless there's some sort of obstacle in the way, just surface/public thoughts that they're thinking out loud." Miz listed off. "And it's pretty much like listening with ears, I hear it if it's nearby but I can't dig in to hear more if they aren't publicly broadcasting it without having to use my powers to actively do so."
Bill gritted his teeth. "Give a relative metric-example for 80Hz to 180Hz, in 1 Hz changes of amplitude, of 'thought noise'," Bill said. "Define: 'obstacle'. Define: 'surface' and 'public' for humans and other species that are not considered telepathic," Bill said, and he sounded like he was gaining steam at that point, "and do you have ANY IDEA what would have happened to you if I didn't COMPLETELY WALL OFF my OWN thoughts from external perception?" Bill damn near shrieked out at her at the last, fists clenched at his sides. He was actually shaking in place.
Mabel was looking back and forth between the two as they talked. She didn't really get what they were saying but Dipper would probably want to know later.
Miz opened her mouth and let out a quick scale of melody from quiet to loud, just above a whisper and just below a shout. Then she responded, "Walls, doors, anything blocking me away from them. Though, I can hear through them if I'm standing really close and they're standing really close. Surface thoughts are quick things like 'I wonder what I should have for lunch' and public would be stuff that they might want to say out loud but haven't bothered to." Miz quieted. "And I've heard mental screaming before. I CAN block it out, like covering my ears or ignoring them." She winced, shuffled her feet against the ground. Except that she would have to keep covering her mental equivalent of ears to do that and she had to put her 'hands' down eventually. The headband was like having ear plugs she could wear on and around her head, instead.
Bill was trying to damp and tamp down his anger, but it wasn't going well. He closed his eyes and pulled in a harsh breath. (He didn't like that he'd been in the middle of meditating, and hadn't been able to stop what he'd been doing so easily. He hadn't actually finished everything he'd needed to do completely yet, he'd had to rush it to get himself downstairs for this, and he was still feeling a bit like a jangled sort of mess.)
(He also didn't like that he hadn't noticed Miz go downstairs, or that she'd spent so much time on her own with Stanley. She just didn't seem to understand how much of a threat Stanley really was and could be, to either of them. And he didn't understand why--)
In a rush he cut off rather abruptly at the end by literally clacking his teeth together, Bill said: "Physical blocks only? As in, in the Mindscape there is nothing getting in the way?"
Miz nodded. "I can hear whoever I can see while I'm in the Mindscape." Because it was so quiet there that thoughts were incredibly loud.
Bill still had his eyes closed. He still had his fists clenched and he was still shaking. "Are those characteristics for when you are passively or actively listening." (The more he heard, the less he liked…)
"Passive. Active listening requires my powers to come into effect." Miz clarified. "Which I don't really bother with unless I'm trying to find out information."
Bill opened his eyes and stared right at her.
"How many telepathic and telempathic individuals have you been within range of hearing in this lifetime," Bill demanded of her next. "Total in terms of species, and total number of individuals that you know you were hearing, of that subset." Bill wasn't really wanting to know or bothering to ask about the timeframe as to how long she'd spent around them. To him, that was almost a trivial question, given the risk she'd (most likely not) been dealing with (properly) at large.
Miz tilted her head in thought. "27394 different species… around? There are lots of species that don't have mouths or ears so they project their thoughts around. And total number of people I've met or 'listened' to who could 'listen' back is… 5482724?"
"Not listened back. Able to project," Bill corrected her tersely.
"4223721." Miz responded. Mabel was starting to get a headache from all the huge numbers.
"Does that include those other Bills that you have met?" Bill asked her, and the almost sweet change in tone was very jarring, especially when his eyes looked as full of anger as they remained.
"... yes?" Miz said slowly. She could tell Bill was mad, but wasn't quite sure why. Bill pulled in a breath. He let it out. He rocked back on his heels again, then settled on them.
"Do you know," Bill told her in almost conversational tones, "I do believe you have given me a reason to CAGE YOU HERE FOREVER and never let you go." He stared at her without blinking. "Would you like to know WHY that is, Miz?" She nodded slowly. Mabel backed up a little.
Bill glared at her. "Because you are apparently--" Bill twisted in place slightly, and he clamped down on what he was about to say, closing his eyes and letting out only a mere hiss of breath instead. He was clearly having difficulty not unloading his anger on her at-present.
He stood there and breathed heavily for awhile, and it took him awhile before he seemed able to try again (He couldn't stop right now and put this off, this was dangerous and this was important for her to know and understand RIGHT NOW. He had to--) "You are Mind. A being of pure energy and thought. You KNOW this! Yes?" Bill said quietly, opening his eyes again. Miz nodded meekly.
"Good. SO glad we're on the same page!" Bill gritted out, his teeth more bared than they were grinning. "Do you know what it takes to override one thought with another?" Bill asked her next. Miz blinked, understanding what he meant.
"They can't override my thoughts." She wiggled. "I'm stubborn. And stronger than that. I keep my own thoughts."
That didn't really make Bill feel any better. "Stubbornness isn't going to CUT IT." He did NOT trust whatever her definition of 'stubbornness' was, not one bit.
"I'm fine." Miz protested. "I've been fine all this time. I haven't had any issues with other people directly changing my mind about stuff by literally changing my thoughts." She whined. "I DO actually know how to take care of myself!"
Bill scowled at her over this. "No, you DON'T know that! CLEARLY you DON'T!" Because she was CLEARLY missing the POINT!
Mabel sighed. "Um, guys?" The two demons paused and turned to her. "Bill, you're worried about her, sure, but she's met a lot of other people who do mind stuff and she's still okay, right?" Miz nodded. Bill glowered. (That WASN'T what he'd--) Mabel continued, "And have any of these other people ever tried to change your thoughts?"
Miz scoffed. "They can project all they want. I can hear them but it doesn't affect me. Hearing thoughts isn't the same as with my Empathy. It's just hearing. It's not absorbing. And it's not overwriting. It's hearing the same way a human hears with sound waves but without the sound. So the only way people's thoughts can change my thoughts is if they manage to convince me through actual debate and I choose to change my own mind."
"That's not--!!!" Bill let out an angry chittering sound, stomping around in place in a small circle. "--They're different modalities!" he spat out finally, managing to keep it in English. "Emotion is like-- like eating for you, and affects the equivalent of your 'body', that substructure," Bill told her. He was still pacing. "Thought is like… it's Mind," Bill said, "On the same level as interacting with your-- YOU," he tried to explain, except he was trying to equate human existence to Mindscape existence and he knew he wasn't going to be able to get things across completely this way. "Emotion is subversive-below, because it has lower effects, but you are Mind, and you are not tied to your 'body' in the same way as having a physical body and no means to pull yourself into the Mindscape does." Bill was getting frustrated at how inaccurate he was having to be in explaining things this way, but there wasn't a better way to put it in the immediate moment. "But it's not the same. Hearing thoughts is… you said it is like hearing with sound waves but without the sound. But you are Mind. With your 'body', it is like hearing with sound waves but YOU are ALSO made of sound waves! It is all the same thing! You MAY have a translation process in-between, maybe," not that Bill knew what that translation process was right now, if she actually had one.
"But you are NOT good at boundaries!" Bill told her, looking both angry and anxious. "And you don't KNOW that the thoughts you are Hearing are not impacting you in some way. Sounds impact humans, even if they try to ignore them! And Stanley told me that you can't even tell the difference between whether something is spoken-aloud or thought sometimes! --How do you KNOW that the thoughts you are hearing are not impacting you in some way? How do you KNOW that the thoughts inside your Mind are all your own?! --'Being stubborn' is not enough! How do you KNOW that that stupid lizard of yours is not more stubborn than YOU?" Bill asked her, irritated and angry, because to his thinking, the stupid lizard might have FORCED thoughts upon her with little to no effort in this way. "You didn't know the full impact of emotion on you, or the problems it was causing -- you didn't even think about it until we talked about it. How are you so certain that you know the impact of thought? Have you ever even THOUGHT about it before?" Bill demanded of her.
Miz sighed, rubbing her head. "Well, I've been around you and the Pines and even hundreds of teenagers at that school," (-- that wasn't making Bill feel any better; rather, very much the opposite! --) "and even when people like that Thomas person had thoughts about wanting to take me to the cool kids place and do 'cool kid stuff' with me, I had no desire to do so. His thoughts and the other people, didn't affect me. I just hear them. But I know they're not me, I know they're not MY thoughts," Miz protested. "Brother, please, I know my whole… empathy thing was a huge issue, and I KNOW I fucked up on that front, but this, this is not like that! I'm…" She took a deep breath, to try and calm down. "I'm fine, big brother. I'm not gonna go around getting messed up from hearing thoughts. I can handle this. I have been handling it for over 600 billion years." She frowned and rubbed her head again. "I'm fine. Can't you trust me on this? I'm not afraid to admit when I've fucked up. The empathy thing, yeah, I fucked up. But other people's thoughts changing who I AM? I'm not going to let something like that happen. It DOESN'T happen with me!"
She huffed. "And I can't hear Ax or Time Baby's thoughts so I'm not picking anything up from them anyway." Miz wasn't sure what the real issue here was. She wasn't changed by other people's thoughts, though sometimes she would go along with them just to make things go more smoothly.
"You don't KNOW that," Bill said, sounding stressed. "All you know is that when you're around them, you only hear thoughts that you THINK are your thoughts!" he told her, half-hysterically. "If you can't hear anything around them that you think is not-you, and they're thinking when you're around them, then they're either shielding so well that nothing leaks out, or they're blocking what you're doing somehow! And doing either of those means that they are BETTER at handling thought than you! Which means that they COULD be making you think that their thoughts are yours, by making them 'sound' like YOU to you!" Bill stressed to her. "And that's not even getting into the impact of other-people's-thoughts on you, when you KNOW they're not yours!"
Miz sighed. "I have protections!" she protested.
"You split yourself," Bill told her. "And you communicate between yourselves. --You have a pathway from the outside-in from which you accept signals-and-thoughts that you think that are yours. How do you KNOW that someone has not been WATCHING YOU and has HACKED that!?" Bill was almost jittering in place by this point. "I wouldn't even know that!" Bill told her. "Not for certain! --Which is why I NEVER do that!!"
Miz frowned at this, but she didn't really have anything to say to defend herself.
"--It's dangerous to do that!" Bill told her. "Even if you 'split' yourself 'properly', you can't tell whether what's coming in from outside-you is really something that is from YOU or not. And that's the very most-basic of checks! --Did this originate from inside my own boundary or not?" he told her, looking half-desperate as he tried to explain. It was why he didn't do that himself; not as anything more than a vision-based optical illusion, anyway. And as far as Bill was concerned, that was NOTHING LIKE the same thing! "It's hard enough as it is to be always-noticing when your boundaries are being impinged, and you are TERRIBLE at boundaries right now!" he told her, truly concerned -- because she barely had any practice at even-that!
Miz thought about it. "I can tell the difference between others and myself. I'm not incorporating their thoughts into my Being in such a way…" She wouldn't allow that.
"You don't know that!" Bill repeated, then decided to add another concept to the mix besides the very-real problem of 'mimicry' that she'd been leaving herself open to. Because when it came to the incorporation of other-thoughts… "There are also direct-effects like a punch -- except not a-punch -- that can affect things immediately," Bill told her in all seriousness. "And then there are indirect-effects that don't seem to affect you, that set up growing resonances for you LATER -- like being spun in place and then falling dizzy to the ground when you try to take a step moving 'forward'. Short-term; long-term."
"But I've got protections. I'm fine." Miz insisted.
"Protections that stop internal resonances from happening?" Bill questioned her, leaning in. "Do you?"
Miz crossed her arms. "Yes, I'm sure. But if you really want to check, we could test it…"
"--I don't have to 'check', and risk changing you unnecessarily," Bill told her, "I ALREADY KNOW. --You can't stop all internal resonances all on your own," he informed her, crossing his own arms, "Because you STILL have that PTSD!"
"That was from experiencing trauma…" Miz sighed. She didn't think that counted as the same thing.
Bill gave her a long flat look.
And then he opened his mouth and said, "And if you were in a fight with someone, and they thought at you exactly how they were about to chain you down and do that to you right then, how would you react?"
Miz stiffened. "I wouldn't let them. I would blast them as far away from me as possible." She rubbed her arm.
Bill leaned in a little more. "And if that were the DISTRACTION?" he questioned her next. "Because if that happens, and you are 'handling' things that way, you are attacking the person thinking that at you could-or-couldn't do it, almost thoughtlessly. --And while you were freezing and distracted and blasting them, the other person," Bill grated out next, "A person who you can't hear, is actually finishing up what they are needing to do, to do that to you, themselves. --What then?" he asked her. "--That's changing your thoughts. And then your changed-thoughts change your actions to reactions. And that," Bill told her, "Is how you get yourself caught, all over again." And Bill did not look particularly pleased with her just then.
Miz pouted. "But they could say it out loud via air vibrations and I'd still react the same way."
"YES!" Bill said. "Thoughts can be transmitted in many ways! --But you're missing the point," he stressed to her. "Someone can, right now, have you reacting reflexively in the way they want you to react, just by a little bit of pre-planning, in two ways -- by thought or by hearing -- when ONE way is already one way too many! That's dangerous to you!" he told his little sister. "I DON'T want you getting hurt!!"
Miz wilted. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"--Outthink them first," Bill told her promptly. "Blast everywhere AT THE SAME TIME as you run! --Always have an exit strategy. Always think of every scenario first! Look ahead, and behind, and plan for needing contingencies. --Thinking in short timescales is the wrong way to go about it. Reaction, tactics, strategy. You need all three." (Because, as far as Bill was concerned, his and everyone else's life was a constant warzone with enemy combatants everywhere, whether they realized it or not.)
Miz slowly nodded. She was starting to get an idea of just how difficult her brother's life had been. Enemies on all sides, always having to fight and defend himself. Being unable to trust anyone. No wonder he was paranoid.
"Plan for the worst that you can handle, and think about how to handle the worse-even-than-that until you have thought-and-planned-and-practiced-and-learned how to handle that, too," Bill told her. "Be suspicious of the best; don't just take it at face-value on-Sight. Plan to take advantage of the everything-in between -- not just 'the best', but also 'the middling' and 'the mediocre' and 'the worst' -- but never count on being able to keep any of it," Bill told her, imparting all-in-one go what he considered to be a good chunk of the sum of his hard-learned life's wisdom. "THAT just gets you into trouble, sooner-before-later."
Miz thought about it. It sounded like a very stressful way to live. "Am I too trusting…" she asked quietly.
"Yes," Bill told her promptly. "But so am I. --It's a common failing in all beings, trusting when you really really shouldn't!" he shrugged off. "I have to remind myself not to do that, sometimes!"
(Mabel was listening to all this with wide eyes. She kind of wished that Grunkle Ford was outside with them, hearing this. Did he know that Bill thought like this? Did Grunkle Stan? They'd all been listening in on what Bill had told Grunkle Stan a couple of weeks ago, repeating something out loud to her grunkle that he'd written to somebody else in another dimension about not trusting other people, not ever, but… Bill had talked like he'd never trusted anyone before, when he'd done that. But the dream demon thought he trusted too much?)
Miz fiddled with the end of her hair. "But always assuming the worst of people is a lonely way to live…" She liked to stay positive, she HAD to stay positive.
Bill blinked at her. "Yes?" he said. "Counterpoint: it keeps you alive to be able to be lonely, until you don't have to be lonely anymore."
"Being lonely was what made me not want to be alive…" Miz admitted. (Mabel's eyes widened, and she glanced over at Grunkle Stan quickly, really wishing that he was over here, and not so far away that he really couldn't hear them, what they all were saying, because...)
(Grunkle Stan looked up at them all with a slight frown, and Mabel bit her lip, not sure if she should wave at him to come over or not…)
Bill blinked at his sister. "Well." He blinked again. "Well." He looked a little uncomfortable. "Well… You weren't thinking that you were getting your brother back, or anyone else, before." Bill wasn't sure what he would have done, if he hadn't had that thought to keep him angry and screaming, to keep driving him. "You know that you don't have to be lonely anymore, yes? It is not an always-and-forever state of being," Bill said slowly. "You know that now."
Miz sighed. "I know that NOW. But I didn't know that THEN." And it just wasn't like she was going to be able to just be suspicious of everything all the time. It wasn't something she was used to doing for herself, by herself. She generally relied on her Empathy and Thought sense to see if people were a threat.
Bill smiled and relaxed a bit. "But you know that now!" he said a bit more brightly. "Being lonely-forever-after-again isn't a worst-thing that you need to plan for, because it will never happen!" he told her.
Miz smiled a little. "Well, that IS good to know."
"Yes!" said Bill, grinning. "That means that all you REALLY need to do is plan for what to do if you start thinking that you might be lonely-forever-again-maybe." Bill paused. "And do you know what to do if you start to do that?" he asked her leadingly. (Mabel glanced between them, unsure as to what the dream demon might say to her next.)
Miz bit her lip. "Not sure…" She felt like maybe there was something wrong with her if she couldn't even think of something like that.
"Well, I am sure!" Bill told her. "--You come to see ME!" he told her, tossing his arms out to his sides, and grinning even more widely. "And then we can do the hugging-thing, which you like. And then you can feel better." He nodded. (Bill had learned that one from his brother, and bedtime stories, and not wanting to be alone -- and then not having to be, because you had a sibling right there and nearby! HAHA! ...Well, not the hugging-thing which Miz liked, since they hadn't had arms not like that other dimension that he'd Seen, with the triangle that was him but wasn't-him, with a Liam that was Liam, but wasn't-Liam, but the rest of it was something he'd learned well from his big-brother Liam doing it for him.)
Miz blinked. Oh. She smiled. "The hugging thing would be good." She stepped a bit closer to him. "I'm glad I found you." She raised her hands and let Bill decide if he wanted to hug her.
"I'm glad you found me, too!" Bill told her. "I did not know I wanted a little sister until I had one," Bill told her in all honesty, then looked around inquisitively at her hands and arms and their placement. She was holding them a little differently than the day before, so it took him a moment to figure out the hands-thing she was doing here this time, what that was communicating-and-implied (yes, the same thing?), and then he stepped forward inside her reach.
Miz didn't hold him tightly, just pressing herself into his chest and sighing at the feeling of it. She missed snuggles.
It took Bill another long moment to figure out what (he wanted) to do, since she'd moved in so quickly to him first, and then he raised one arm to wrap it lightly around her shoulders. His other hand, he raised up to half-pet and half-stroke her on top of her head a few times.
"You are very good at the hugging," Bill informed Miz. "Good job!" (Miz giggled at this. "You're good at this too." "Yes, I AM! HA!")
Mabel watched their very awkward sibling hug (even more awkward than the previous day) and couldn't help but wonder if, maybe, Bill having a sister was the nicest thing that'd ever happened to him…?
Well, if Bill believed he'd had a brother and lost him... and then went through a bazillion years or something all alone while believing that he couldn't trust anyone at all…? Yeah. Mabel thought having a sister was good for him. --Good for both of them, if what she was picking up from them being with each other was right.
"Also-also," Bill said next (while still hugging his little sister), with a bit of an evil tenor sliding into his tone. "I have now almost-changed you, with my thoughts! Which I have said out loud. Because I am THE WORST! --I win! And I am very good at being all sneaky with the thought-testing!" he told Miz with a grin. "--Which was a working thought that you should still listen to, though," he told Miz a tad more seriously, looking down at her. "I picked a good one to introduce very-carefully, this you-coming-to-me-again one," he confirmed to her rather explicitly.
Miz giggled. "Not all thought changes are bad." she pointed out. "And I will come to see you whenever I feel lonely."
"Yes. Good," Bill agreed. "Still have to be careful, though. Don't want to incorporate anything harmful to you, that is not consistent with you." He petted her gently on top of her head again a few more times.
"I don't think I can be suspicious of everyone all the time though." Miz admitted, a little embarrassed that she wasn't… able to do so.
And at this, Mabel carefully spoke up: "I think it's good to not be suspicious of everyone."
"HA!" Bill scoffed at Shooting Star, while patting Miz's head. "If YOU were, then you NEVER would have gone on that date with the living ventriloquist dummy in the first place!" he told Shooting Star as he continued his patting. "Think on that one for awhile, maybe!" His sister was purring softly as she relaxed into his arms. (Mabel frowned at him a little bit for that one.)
"HM. ...You could try being a LITTLE suspicious of everyone most of the time, first?" Bill told his little sister next. She didn't have to be excellent at it right away, after all. She could work her way up to it. "Every little bit of extra-thinking helps makes you more-safe!"