Miz nodded with a small frown. "I'll try…" Odd how she was getting a stranger-danger lecture from her brother. She already knew stranger-danger, she'd just… kinda forgotten to do stuff about it since she was immortal and didn't have to worry about getting killed anymore… Though maybe she should actually care more about that now.
"Sometimes, the easiest way to kill someone is to convince them to kill themselves," Bill told her, rather purposefully. (He was, in fact, worried that that might be the case with that stupid 'dad' lizard from her own dimension, or her Time Baby 'brother' who wasn't really a brother to her at all! Because if they rejected her before she rejected them first...) "It is also one of the WORST ways to die. --DON'T fall for it," he warned her quite seriously, unconsciously pulling her just a little bit closer as he told her this. Miz winced. It seemed like brother was REALLY upset about her… suicidal tendencies...
"...I'll try…" Miz murmured into his shirt.
Mabel was pulling at her sweater, eyes wide. If what she could understand from this all was accurate, Miz had… had wanted to die, because she'd been sad, so sad and lonely that… and Bill didn't want Miz to die. Bill was… worried about her.
Mabel really wished that Grunkle Stan was over here. (And she was starting to wonder if maybe this was why he wanted her and Dipper with him or Soos or Melody pretty much all the time, because when the demons were around and talking… she just didn't know what to do when they were talking about stuff like this!)
Still, it looked like the demons were about done talking about this, and Mabel breathed a little sigh of relief as she wondered if she should tell Dipper that having Bill as a brother was actually probably a good thing for Miz? Because wanting to die, no matter who or what you were, wasn't a good thing. So if Bill could keep Miz from feeling like that, then it was really a good thing. Even if he was terrible most of the time to other people still, this was something that...
Mabel bit her lip and played with the ends of her sweater sleeves, feeling a little uncomfortable about herself as she realized… had she really just been thinking about trying to use Bill's connection with his sister to make him care more about other people? And was that okay for her or anyone else to do? Because that felt… kind of manipulative, or something. And… (She really needed to talk to Grunkle Stan about all of this, later.)
After a bit, Miz and Bill broke up their hug and Miz sighed. "Well, do you think I'm allowed back in the house yet?"
"HA! 'Allowed'..." Bill scoffed out at that particular word choice a bit. "You have your Thoughts-hearing sealed up now, like your Emotion-sensing, yes?" Bill asked, already knowing the answer, but confirming it for Shooting Star anyway. Miz nodded. "Then yes. Let's go back inside."
Miz put her cuffs back on, and Mabel followed them two of them both back to the porch, and then back inside (with Grunkle Stan taking a grunkly amount of time getting to his feet to follow her in after). The teenager was biting her lip. It… it didn't… really feel fair that Miz was being forced to… shut down parts of herself all the time? She wasn't… Miz wasn't even as bad as Bill, except with Grunkle Ford, and Miz had been doing a lot better at leaving him alone the last couple of days.
Stan caught up to them about the point that they all stopped and sat down at the table in the kitchen again, where Miz and Mabel had both been before they'd all left to take care of things outside, and then needed to come on back in again. He grunted out, "Is it handled?" to the kid, just to make sure of things. Bill nodded, not looking all that happy about everything on the whole, but also not TOO upset. (Okay, fine.) Miz looked pretty down. Enough so that Stan watched her for a bit longer, trying to figure out whatever the new problem was now, exactly.
Mabel was busy being contemplative herself, too.
"...Hey, Grunkle Stan? Can I talk to you? ...Um, alone? Just you and me?" Mabel asked him.
Stan raised an eyebrow. Had Mabel heard something while she out there with the demons? "Sure, pumpkin." He got up and followed Mabel out to the living room, out of earshot (and thought-shot?) of the demons. Actually, with Miz's apparent dragon-hearing, Stan moved a little farther, just in case.
"What's wrong?" Stan asked as soon as they were far enough, settling down to sit in his sofa chair in front of the TV to be more comfortable about it. Mabel was biting her lip.
"It makes me feel a little bad that Miz has to keep sealing off bits of herself just to 'fit in'," she said simply. "Isn't that… kind of bad?" It felt too much like… they were forcing her to conform and not be 'herself'. "She said that her thoughts-hearing thing is something she used to do all the time when she was a triangle, right? So isn't making her not do that, like… making someone have to go deaf just so that other deaf people would feel more comfortable being around them?" she asked.
Stan furrowed his brow at this, and then sighed. "Sweetie, it ain't like that," he told her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "This is more like…" He searched around for a better analogy than 'wrapping duct tape around her middle, to make sure her insides stay in and everything outside and nasty stays out'. "...Y'know how you like to tupperware things up in the fridge? It's like… she's gotta stick herself in one of those plastic containers, with maybe a colored lid so she can't go looking into other containers by accident, or nothin'. And so if stuff spills out in there in the fridge? She won't get any of that other stuff or any weird odors in there with her, that might have her feelin' not so great and even kinda sick maybe. Okay?"
Mabel still looked a little belligerent at this, though, so Stan sighed and told her next, "She'd be getting hurt by this other stuff if she didn't do this, pumpkin. She kept getting Ford's 'angry' feelings in her before, and it ain't right for her to be runnin' around reading other people's thoughts and getting all angry about them herself. Ford's got a right to keep what's in his head, inside his head, and to himself. It's like she's prying open other people's containers almost, without even trying," Stan told her.
"But she says that listening feels normal for her, though," Mabel objected, worried at the way Miz had been talking about things earlier within her hearing. Like she wasn't able to breathe right at all. Mabel knew that it would be bad if Miz kept hearing all their thoughts and stuff, but she also thought it might be really bad if Miz had to keep making herself 'deaf' to all of them, too. And she didn't know how to solve it or make it better, which was even worse!
"Look, pumpkin, even if it feels 'more normal' for her, that don't mean it is normal for her, or should be," Stan told her. "She was doing that stuff when she was around other triangles or shapes and stuff. Humans don't do that, and she didn't used to do that either back when she was human too, even if that was a really long time ago for her. Because a lot of her used-to-be-human stuff still carried over." Like the allergies thing in the bodies she kept making. "That ain't somethin' we like to have happenin', or can handle all that real well, and I'm pretty sure that she can't actually handle hearing other people's thoughts all that well, either. ...Heck, the kid's concerned that she's been hurting herself doing this, even." Stan sighed, and tried to explain the privacy thing another way, worried that that might be part of the issue. Because if Mabel wasn't getting that... "You wouldn't like it if Miz could just hear what you were thinking all the time, right? Every last little embarrassing thought? Even if you only felt mad or sad or scared for a little bit?" Stan explained patiently.
Mabel huffed. "So is eavesdropping on other people's conversations, but people do that all the time, too. Her thing is just… more intense eavesdropping." After all, she'd said that it was only supposed to be stuff that they were almost saying out loud, right? How much stuff could she possibly be hearing that wouldn't be okay, then? --And yeah, it had been weird and startling when she'd been doing it in the kitchen, but...
"What are you saying here, Sweetie?" Stan asked. "Because we're not gonna let her keep on listening in on us, even if you think it feels unfair. I just told you why." Hell, he really hoped he was misunderstanding her here. Ford would freak if he found out. "Why do you feel that way about it, anyway?"
Mabel shrugged. "I dunno." And she really didn't know. It wasn't like she wanted Miz to be spying on her, or Dipper, or Grunkle Ford, but... "I just... feel bad for her. And I guess, I just maybe want to do... something nice for her?" Mabel tried next. Because Miz wasn't like Gideon or Bill; she actually seemed to be trying to be a better person! And maybe Mabel couldn't fix this particular thing, but... "She's been trying really hard to be good. She didn't even get mad at Grunkle Ford this morning when he stepped on one of her origami animals by accident! --We're supposed to be doing positive reinforcement for Bill because he's a demon; shouldn't we be doing it for her, too?"
...Yeah, they should. And he'd been trying to. Stan grimaced as he remembered what had happened this morning: Miz and Mabel had made a bunch of animals and littered them around the Shack. Ford had been walking around with his nose in a book and crushed a fox under his big old 'adventuring' boots, without even realizing it at first.
At the time, Miz had let out a soft, distressed whine, but when Bill had reared up angrily at Ford for it, it was Miz who'd stopped her brother and told him that it was just an accident. And Bill had backed down easily, didn't even give Ford any caustic comments about being 'too self-absorbed to pay attention to where he puts his feet' (even if the kid glared daggers at him and made it clear from his expression that that was what he'd been thinking; it was still progress). Stan sighed.
"Yeah, I guess they have been on mostly-good behavior lately. --Doesn't mean you should be giving her the 'okay' to be reading your every last thought, though," Stan told her with a smile, ruffling her hair a little bit, which made her giggle. "Alright, well. We could do something else for 'em, though. You got any ideas on that besides a bunch of eavesdropping stuff?"
"I don't know." Mabel sighed. "But... Miz has been stuck in the house for a while, with the cuffs on and everything. ...Maybe we could take her out somewhere? She mentioned that she wanted to see the town." Frankly, Mabel was surprised the other girl hadn't gone stir crazy from being stuck in the house. She and Dipper had been going a little stir crazy from their grounding already! At least the week was almost over, so sweet, sweet freedom was just around the corner. (Well, assuming that Grunkle Stan didn't make them stay at the Shack for another week on top of that. Otherwise, she and Dip-Dop were gonna have to resort to desperate measures...)
Stan paused at that. Going out into the town? He'd been trying to get the kid to do that for awhile, but he'd always objected because…
Actually… yeah. If he maybe… then… and then the kid would...
Stan's smile slowly morphed into a grin. (Oh, this was gonna be good.)
"...You know what, pumpkin? I think that's actually a pretty good idea," Stan told her. After all, he did want the kid (and his kid sister) interacting with other normal humans more. (...Well, mostly-normal. Heh. --He'd take what he could get.) Would probably be good to have them socialized around more people, especially the ones down in town. Get the locals all used to them being up here at the Shack with them. And if Stan convinced Miz into wanting to go into town… well, the kid wouldn't leave her alone to go anyplace with just Stan, so… This wasn't a bad idea at all.
The only problem with this was… "You and your brother are still on 'house arrest', though," Stan said, eyeing her. "We'd need to be doing this today, if we were making this a 'reward' for mostly-good behavior. You wouldn't be coming along with us if we did this."
Mabel nodded. "Yeah, that's… that's fine. That's fine..." It wasn't fine, she really wanted to go with them, too. But it was more important that Grunkle Stan do the positive reinforcement thing with the two of them, right? "But be sure to take lots of pictures and send them to me, okay~?" Stan chuckled at her, at that.
"Alright, I guess me and Ford are going out to lunch in town with the demons," Stan told her, as he rose to his feet -- because, just as there was no way the kid would be staying here while his sister went into town without him with Stan, there was no way he was going into town with the demons without Ford demanding to be tagging along, too. Then Stan grinned. "Maybe head to the diner, say hi to Susan while we're there."
Mabel smiled. "Would they like that?" she asked, bouncing a little in place.
Stan shrugged. "Heh, I'm sure Miz would like to try out some of the food they've got there. She really likes eating new stuff."
"Tell Lazy-Eye Susan hi' for me!" Mabel told her favorite grunkle, as Stan waved the two demons to follow him out of the kitchen. And Mabel skipped along in hot pursuit as Stan left the room, and the demons trailed behind him, as he walked his way up to Ford's bedroom door and knocked on it.
---
It took awhile to explain things to the lot of them. Stan started off with asking Miz what she thought of going out to eat at the diner in town, and it was all pretty much downhill from there.
Ford had a hell of a lot of (not so great) things to say about this plan (as did the kid). But Ford was hampered in his ability to be too vocal about it (read: curse in front of them all with Mabel standing right there and listening in), and Stan stood his ground on it. While Stan was 'distracting' his brother, Mabel jumped in with talking up the diner to Miz, and once Miz seemed absolutely delighted at the idea of going there for lunch…
...Bill (very grumbling) went along with it, and Ford was pretty much blackmailed into going along with things once again. He was all-but-forced to follow along as they all walked into town, just as he had been when Stan had decided to make that trip to that out of town warehouse store with the demons, prior.
(And Ford was not very comforted by his brother's, "C'mon, Ford. They didn't blow up anything or kill anybody or their dog in the other dimension. They walked home from the high school just fine for a week. ...Heck, there's not even any mob-types here.")
Ford was watching the demons warily, shooting glances at the oblivious townspeople around them as two demons walked amongst them, unrecognized for what they were and completely unhindered...
(...though not unnoticed or unremarked-upon -- largely because, whenever they saw someone, Stan stopped and made it a point to introduce the demons to them for some reason.)
(And every. Single. Time. The person Stan was talking to said something along the lines of, "Oh, this is who you were talking about!" when it came to introducing Bill first. Laying groundwork, his...)
("Yup, this is the kid, alright. --Kid, say hi. And this is his little sister, Miz. Miz, say hi.")
Miz was looking around at everything and everyone as they walked down the side of the roadway. Since they couldn't take the car, they were hiking their way into town instead. (It wasn't that far and they all could use a little exercise and fresh air anyway.) Miz was running about as Mabel usually did, except Miz was touching literally everything as she went -- the trees, the flowers, any animal that came close enough for her to chase down. Even the people.
At one point they passed Manly Dan carrying some logs on the road, and Miz went up to pet his arm (after asking if she could), marveling at how hairy they were. The lumberjack seemed pretty bemused at the tiny little girl "Oooh"ing at him as she ran her hands over the coarse ginger arm hairs. "A rough texture not unlike steel wool but without the threat of tetanus…"
Ford covered his face in embarrassment, while Stan just snorted.
"HEH. CUTE KID!" Manly Dan laughed before he'd waved to them all and walked off, easily carrying the logs over his shoulder. Miz waved at him cheerfully before continuing on. Stan had been holding back laughter even as Ford looked absolutely flabbergasted at Miz's behavior.
"Forests look different when I'm in them as opposed to flying through them. Damn glad this vessel wasn't made to be allergic to the plants. Good job me for not doing that. Would have sucked. Also, that bug-away effect is working wonders! Then again, if any of these mosquitoes came near me they'd be killed mercilessly anyway…" Miz mumbled to herself as she continued skipping down along the path, and Ford twitched at her casual statement of insect murder (mainly because he knew that most demons considered humans little more than insects themselves…).
Then they made it into town, and had many of the townspeople greeting them jovially as they passed by.
Miz absolutely lit up when she saw Tad Strange wave at Stan, though. "Looking good, Stan," the perfectly pleasant man said cheerfully to him.
Miz, who was used to Stan introducing them to people now, and having had positive experiences with several of the townsfolk here and now before this, didn't hold back at all this time. She materialized a few sheets of paper behind her back, and then bounced and bounded right over to him.
"Hello! I'm Miz! You're Tad Strange, right?" She was blushing and wiggling in place as she said this.
...And Bill got a very odd look on his face as he watched his sister do this, and recognized that she was suffering from what were clearly some very-squirmy feelings all over again. Ugh. (...Well, at least they weren't for that Stanford this time.)
Tad smiled down at the little girl before him. "Hello there. I don't believe we've met." He wondered how this girl knew his name, but perhaps the Pines family had told her? Tad hadn't seen her around town before; perhaps the Pines were introducing her to all the townspeople?
"Nope! We haven't met! But we're meeting now! Hi! I'm Miz!" The dragon-demon clutched the papers to her chest. "Um… um… I know we just met, but… if you're not busy, can you read this aloud? Please?" She held out the papers to him with a shy expression.
Tad raised an eyebrow but didn't see anything wrong with the request, and so he reached out to take them...
"--Wait!" Ford called out as he strode over to them. "Wait just a moment there, please. Let me check that out first--" He didn't know what the man-eater was planning but he wasn't going to let her trick some poor person into reciting some awful cursed spell or--
Ford took the papers from her and glanced over them, pausing for a moment when it appeared to be... a script?
Welcome to Night Vale, episode one, pilot. A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.
Ford looked down at Miz (who was pouting at him for ruining her fun) and raised an eyebrow. "What is this?"
"It's the script for a podcast I really like. Mr. Strange's voice sounds just like the man who hosts the show." Miz rolled her eyes at Ford. "I just wanted to hear him read it." And a few other things. Miz kinda hoped Ford didn't read the rest of the papers, there were some… ahem, fanfiction she might have written concerning Cecil and his partner Carlos hidden in there too...
"It's not explicit or anything! I wasn't going to make poor Tad read out stuff like that! But it would have been nice to have some of the things on those papers audio saved in Cecil's voice so I can replay them in my memories for fun!" Miz mumbled.
Ford was staring at the younger demon with a stern expression, trying to figure out what nefarious plans she was trying to enact. For her part, Miz was trying to not get mad at Ford for getting in the way of her innocent fun.
By this time, Stan (and Bill) had caught up with them both. "What's the problem here?" Stan asked the both of them.
"She wants Mr. Strange to read these papers, for all we know they could be--" Ford didn't finish that sentence, glancing over at the confused Tad who was wondering what was going on. Stan looked over at Miz with a questioning look. She sighed.
"I like the sound of his voice and wanted to record him saying things that I could replay and listen to later," Miz told them all simply.
Stan raised an eyebrow. "You… like the sound of Tad's voice?" he deadpanned.
Miz blushed. She shuffled in place while playing with a lock of her hair. "He has a very attractive voice." she seemed somewhat embarrassed to admit it.
And at this, Bill made a rather frustrated sound. "You get squirmy from auditory as well as visual?" He not quite scowled down at her. Why did she keep leaving so many problematic things out of her explanations and things! --None of this had been on her list! None of it! "Do I need to make you some earmuffs too?"
For his part, Tad placed a hand over his chest and laughed. "Ah, you like my voice miss? I'm quite flattered. But I need to go to work, so I'm sorry but I have to go. It was very nice to meet you, though." He patted Miz on the head, before turning and walking away. Miz sighed dreamily after him, and Stan couldn't help but wonder if all young girls were like this; Mabel had certainly been a handful when she had been going through that boy-crazy phase all last summer.
Bill was thinking over how Miz had said she could get squirmy over people she hadn't even met, and reassessing that thought when combined with his new knowledge that voices were a thing she could also be attracted to. And Bill let out a sigh. "Come on, little sis." He strode over to steer her back on track, towards the diner.
Ford was following behind them, taking up the rear. He was still paging through the papers, trying to pick them apart for whatever hidden threat they might contain.
Rubber ducky baby batter. She sells seashells by the seashore. Ford flipped to the next page since this one all seemed to be tongue twisters. Sometimes Carlos and I just stare into each other's eyes. Sometimes Carlos and I hold each other as we pretend to sleep. Sometimes we actually sleep. I always wake up first so I could watch him wake up. Then I kiss him good morning. He appreciates that-- Ford stared down incredulously at the words on this paper. Was the man-eater attempting to make Mr. Strange read out... a romance novel???
While Ford was busy with his thoughts, their group arrived together in short order at Greasy's Diner. The little bell above the door jingled as they went inside. Ford frowned and rolled up the papers, to stuff them into a coat pocket to look over in more detail (read: pick apart) later.
Lazy-Eye Susan looked up at their group from behind the counter and smiled. "Hey~ handsome!" she greeted Stan, who coughed and tried not to feel awkward about this.
Bill, meanwhile, strode right up to the counter, slapped his palms down on it and leaned forward and right up into Susan's face.
"I demand attention!" Bill, well, demanded of her loudly.
And Bill stood there in that posture, seemingly expecting just that.
Ford's eyes widened in horror and his jaw dropped. (And if anyone had thought to ask him later, he would have been hard put to say whether he had been more shocked, horrified, or just downright embarrassed by his former muse's the demon's behavior.)
But Susan herself just let out a delighted laugh at Bill's antics here.
"Awww~ how sweet!" she cooed out at him, as she raised a manicured hand up to Bill's head, and started half-petting, half-scritching him, on the top of his blue-haired head. (Which left Ford feeling even more shocked and horrified, because--)
Bill didn't lash out at her, snapping at her verbally or otherwise. He didn't pull away from her, slapping at her hand and declaring offense, or an angry 'Don't touch me!!', or anything of the sort.
What Bill did was…
...let her pet him. Bill let her do it. --Yes, he seemed to blink and startled just a bit at the initial contact (just a very, very slight bit), but then…
He didn't pull away or flinch or even look uncomfortable at all with the treatment! Instead… after a few moments where he seemed to be 'just taking it' standing there and blinking-- (...Bill was actually spending this time determining what specifically she was doing -- and thought she was doing -- and then deciding whether or not he actually liked what she was doing or not…)
--Bill actually relaxed into this treatment and the waitress's touch, leaning into it slightly as his eyes slowly slitted closed, and his head and body sank lower… and lower… and lower...
...until his head was pillowed in his arms on the counter, and he looked so relaxed that he was about to slide off the edge of said counter as his legs relaxed even further almost out from under him…
--and it was at this point, that Ford not quite leapt forward and got an arm under Bill's middle, to lift him up under an arm, pulling him out and back and away from the counter (before the demon slid himself off of the blasted thing and into a loose heap hitting the floor -- which would surely cause exactly the sort of outburst that they would want to avoid--!).
And as Ford did so, performing that very necessary action -- that frankly, Ford thought should have been his brother's job, if he had even been trying at all -- Ford hurriedly told Susan, "I am so sorry about that." Frankly, he didn't know why either Manly Dan or Lazy-Eye Susan had put up with either of the demons' antics at all, let alone to such an extent. (And frankly, he didn't quite understand either of their, what had seemed to be, wholly natural responses to those demons and their terribly-weird actions, either.)
Stan was just staring (and frowning) a bit, because… had Bill been humming just then? (He was pretty sure the kid had been doing that always-getting-higher humming thing of his there, but why? --It had been damn well been there and audible, but the kid hadn't looked all out of sorts and needing to 'retune' himself or whatever right then. He'd seemed relaxed instead. And that humming had sounded kind of… out of place, almost? Except not?)
Miz pouted as Ford dragged (read: carried) a stirring (and starting to flail about and protest at Ford's manhandling of him) Bill Cipher away from the counter. And now Miz went up to the counter herself and told Susan, "I want headpats too!" She pouted adorably up at Susan and the woman coo'ed before petting Miz as well. "Such friendly ones you are," the woman praised.
"Stop that." Ford hissed out at Miz, as he just about dumped Bill in the booth (already having regretted letting Stan talk him into this long since, before they'd even entered the diner). He turned towards her and glared at her (why wasn't Stan handling this himself?!?) until she pouted and stepped away from Susan, stomping over to sit across from -- and then next to -- Bill. (This particular peculiar seating arrangement occurred -- two demons on the same bench, Miz closest to the window, and Bill still sitting next to the aisle -- by way of Bill somehow managing to get up and slide himself over into the other side of the booth, all without looking like he actually got up and walked over, somehow.)
Finally, once the two demons were stowed 'safely' away in the booth -- as safely as one could stow two demons away anyplace, that is -- Ford turned back to the waitress and apologized again (feeling rather responsible for the situation, as he hadn't managed to talk Stan out of it at the house). "Truly, I'm very sorry for their dreadful behavior--"
Susan waved him off with a cheery smile. "Oh, don't be! They're such a delight! So very cute. Very unique coloring on the larger one." Bill seemed to preen at this praise, while Ford blinked at this statement, now quite lost at this point.
"...Coloring?" Ford echoed.
"Well, yes!" Susan said with a smile.
"Coloring…" Ford repeated slowly. "You are praising, the coloring, of…"
"Of your cats!" Susan told him with a smile, and... Ford wondered if this was what going insane by way of full-blown auditory and visual hallucinations felt like. Perhaps by the speedy onset of lack-of-sleep induced… no, it couldn't be that, he'd been sleeping far more than usual demon-induced psychosis?
Stan cleared his throat. (Yeahhh, he wasn't touchin' that one. Especially since the demon-kids weren't protesting it.)
"We're gonna get lunch," Stan told Susan, and he grabbed a few menus from her before shuffling Ford off to the same booth themselves post-haste (before Ford could protest any of this anymore). Stan ended up sitting down at the outer edge, and Ford was stuck (read: trapped in place real intentionally) up against the window, both of them on the other side of the booth across and away from the demon-kids.
It was about this point that Ford was starting to wonder why none of the townsfolk were having any terribly-adverse reactions to the two demons as of yet, and he glanced over at Stan and opened his mouth to ask--
"--Kid," Stan asked the kid, (overriding his brother) as he opened his menu, and looking at the kid over it, "What's your filter thing making you look like to everybody else and their dog right now?" ...Did they really look like cats to folks right now? Had to be just inside the diner just now if they were, right?
"I don't have any illusions or masking holograms up right now," the kid told him. "...except for what I'm using to make my suit 'invisible'," the kid added after a pause, "But that's more of a light-bending and -reproducing camouflage then anything else. It's just what it looks like," he finished explaining, for completeness. Then the kid stretched in place a bit quite casually and laid his head down on the table, head pillowed in his arms again and looking pretty content. (Really content, for a kid who was outright refusing to go into town for the last couple of weeks for any reason at all whatsoever, all things considered...)
Stan blinked at this. "You've got nothin' up right now?" He looked over at the dragon-lady, too.
"I don't have anything on except hiding my body-suit either." Miz shrugged. Then, picking up on what Stan was really asking without asking, added "We do not look like cats to other people."
"So…" Stan said, then trailed off. "You're lookin' like you right now. --All female-human, I mean," Stan added, trying to avoid the whole, 'no, I'm a triangle' thing protest. "Two-color hair, cat eyes…" Stan trailed off at the 'cat eyes', leaving out the clothing, as he realized...
"Yes," Bill confirmed. He wasn't using any illusions to hide his natural coloration or current looks, neither his hair nor his eyes. "How we look to you right now, is how we look to everyone else also." Stan glanced between them, and Miz and Bill nodded in unison to confirm to Stan that they weren't doing anything strange to other people's perceptions.
Stan let out a sigh. This town, he swore. ...Guess he shouldn't be all that surprised that Lazy-Eye Susan was actin' all… hell, she was the kinda gal who'd have a really wide definition of 'cat', he figured, but that didn't explain...
As Stan was mulling over this (and Ford was freaking out internally slightly), Bill perked up and raised his head slightly, turning his face towards Susan as she walked past their booth, carrying some food for another table.
And as she passed their table, she did pause in place for a moment, to smile down at Bill and give him another head-scritching and then stroking-petting, before moving on. Miz was distracted reading the menu to see what she wanted, but then pouted as she realized she'd been passed by. She pouted at Bill, because Susan couldn't reach her as easily now, with her brother in the way, but she quickly lost the pout when Susan came back the other way and took a moment to pet her then (leaning into the touch, rumbling softly), before giving Bill another quick top-of-the-head-stroke (after a wordless protest from him) and moving off again. (To which Miz pouted again, because her brother was getting more attention than her, but she was undeniably cuter!)
Ford was staring at the demons suspiciously throughout all this. Finally, he couldn't hold it in anymore.
Ford snapped at Bill, "What are you doing?!" because Bill had to be doing something here, some… some kind of spell that was making people see them as normal, or…
--Why was Bill allowing Susan to touch him? He hated being touched! ...Didn't he? (Though he did seem to let Stan do it sometimes… at night… sitting in that chair with him… but, that was only when the demon was too tired to protest much, wasn't it? Stan only seemed to truly get away with it when Bill was tired or distracted… or upset…) But now Bill was okay with it? Letting someone lay hands on him like that? --And from Susan, of all people? Some… some random, normal person who had nothing at all to do with his Zodiac?! To Ford, the idea was beyond belief! And he'd seen it happen twice!
But Bill simply cracked open one slitted eye and stared neutrally up at Ford, from where he still had his head easily pillowed in his arms on the tabletop in front of him.
"What?" he told Ford. "You think I can't recognize worship when I see it?" the demon practically purred out at him. "Or feel it?" Bill added, closing his one eye with a even-lazier smile, and Ford looked on at him, absolutely aghast.
Miz herself shrugged absently at this, kicking her legs as they dangled over the booth seat.
"Cats," Miz stated (in a somewhat-distracted tone), confusing Ford even more. (Oddly, this seemed to solve something for Stan sitting next to him, because that had his brother stop his frowning and getting a more eyebrows-raised 'Oh…' sort of look instead. Which, frankly, irritated Ford even further, because--)
"Of course!" Bill smiled out at his sister, looking so incredibly pleased with himself and his situation that Stan had to hold back an eye-roll. "Old Lazy-Eye there knows how to treat a cat right," the kid sighed out contentedly next. "Mmm. Reminds me of some of the humans I used to encounter, when I was possessing cats for fun and leisure, back in the day. --Those Egyptians sure knew how to treat their 'deities' with respect," Bill murmured out next, to Ford's absolute shock. (Ford had known that Bill had had a great impact on the ancient Egyptians long-since, but he hadn't realized that Bill had possessed anything or anyone other than higher-order sapient intelligent species before! But if Bill could really do that, then that meant that--)
"The worship feels nice, cool that I can still get that. But I guess it's not the same as emotions. Feels really nice actually, should probably possess cats more often when I get home. But I like petting them too… oh wait, I can split myself, I can be a cat and pet the cat that I am at the same time..." Miz was swinging her legs as she turned the page of her menu. "It's so nice to go out to a restaurant where people aren't pointing guns at me," she commented absently as she traced a finger down the menu.
Stan sighed as he overheard this. (Luckily, Ford seemed to still be blown away about somethin' that the kid had said. Enough that what Miz had said hadn't really registered with him, looked like.)
"Hey, maybe don't go talkin' about that here. Not really good lunch conversation," Stan told her. "Besides," he said next, "I've been tryin' to talk your brother up here to the locals. You go talkin' about guns and stuff like that, they're gonna want ta know what and why…" Stan told her, "And you'll be havin' folks askin' if he was there with you when it happened, and why not." And piss off her brother about the whole people-tryin'-to-kill-her thing all over again, which they really didn't need happening around other people. "Small town."
"You've been doing what?!?" Ford hissed out at him next, and Stan glanced over at him. ("Hey, I told you I was…" Stan began under his breath to Ford, both explaining and reminding him that-- which of course got him an "I didn't think you meant that--" from Ford, and--)
Miz didn't look like she heard him, squinting at the menu as she tried to read past the coffee stain. "They have Eggs in a Basket, dang, haven't had that in a while. But it'd be kinda boring to get…"
Stan glanced over at the kid (after getting done handling Ford for the moment, kinda) and said, "Kid, get your sister's attention for me, will ya?" The kid grumbled (rumbled?) slightly, then pulled an arm out from under his pillowed head, to reach up and place that hand on top of his sister's head. Miz squeaked in startlement, and looked up.
"Miz. No talking about other dimensions or times when you were in bad situations an' stuff in public. Yeah?" Stan told her more firmly. Miz actually lowered her menu at that.
"Shoot, was I speaking out loud?" she told them, then frowned and poked at her headband with an annoyed look. Stan frowned at that himself.
"Does sealing off your…" he trailed off, not sure what to ask. "Does doin' that make it… uh... harder for you to tell what you're keepin' in your own head or not?" he asked, not so sure he was gettin' this right. (This, of course, got him another "What?!" from Ford…)
"Ah… well…" Miz admitted. "I generally have a non-stop babbling stream of consciousness narrating my life and everything I do and think, happening inside my head at all times." She poked at her headband again before frowning and seeming to tweak something, as she wiggled her fingers around at it. "I guess I need to calibrate this better. Everything just seems so quiet right now. It's a little hard to tell what's in or outside of myself."
"Quiet is good," Bill told her, without opening his eyes or lifting up his head. "Most times. ...Especially now."
Right. "...you do that," Stan told her, then rubbed a hand across his face. (Great. So sealing off her ability to hear thoughts made her own already terrible thought to mouth filter even worse. Wonderful.)
("What do you mean, sealing off her what!?" Ford demanded. "Did she stop keeping other people's emotions out?" Ford stopped for a moment, and went a little pale. "--Has she been projecting--?!" ...And this led to another rushed under-the-breath conversation with his brother, trying to reassure him about the emotional stuff being handled long-since, filling him in on what had happened earlier that afternoon, that everything with that was handled now too, and about how Miz was and had been used to hearing thoughts…)
(...which Ford looked more than a little freaked out about and was about to protest both rather loudly and angrily as 'not being fine, Stan! that's--' until Stan told him that, one, Miz had been hearing, not projecting, and two, Bill had been all for making Miz stop doing that too, just like the emotion-feeling stuff, once he had known about it...)
(...which really only led to Ford agreeing to table this one -- like the other topic of discussion -- but only until they were all safely home again, and he had Stan alone in his room or the basement someplace to talk to him about…)
Miz raised her menu again, and continued to read through it, then stopped. She pointed at the menu. "So what's this coffee pancake thing about? Is it bitter? Sweet?"
"Yick," was Bill's contribution to the discussion.
Stan shrugged. "Susan pours coffee into the batter. I haven't tried it myself." ...Yeah, sure, guessing the 'secret ingredient' made the plate free, but even he had never been that desperate for somethin' to eat. (Hell, he'd resort to, and risk getting caught at, pickpocketing again before subjecting himself to that. There were worse ways to go out… and the food in jail was both better than that, and free, Stan figured. So, y'know, win-win.)
Miz tilted her head. "Maybe I should go with the corned beef hash instead, I don't usually like coffee unless there's like a whole cup of sugar in it."
Stan let out a laugh at that, he couldn't help it. "You don't like bitter stuff?" he teased.
"I like dark chocolate! But coffee is so… bleh." Miz pouted. Stan let out another laugh.
"Just add sugar!" Stan teased her further (to a frowning look from his brother), as he took his time paging through his own menu (he already knew what he wanted, though, using it as a prop). "I'm sure you can ask Susan to add extra sugar to the pancakes-- and you can pour a whole BUNCH of syrup on it too!" (But Miz wasn't the only one he was teasing there, because…)
Ford practically gagged at the thought. "Stan, that's disgusting," he objected. "Don't tell her to eat that!" (By his own line of reasoning, giving the man-eater things to eat that she liked less than eating people would end in a rather obvious conclusion only that much sooner. --Really, what was his brother thinking?!)
"Maybe next time. I like corned beef better." Miz declared.
Bill smiled at her, eyes still closed. "If you don't know what you want, go with what you like," was his simple advice. "Or don't." (The latter got a stuck-out tongue and a giggle at him from his sister. Bill smiled, eyes still closed.)
Susan came back shortly thereafter, and she stroked Bill's hair as she took down everyone's orders. Bill got a simple fruit cup -- fresh fruit, freshly-made in-diner, no added sugar or syrup. Miz got the corned beef hash she wanted, along with a three cheese omelette with spinach and some toast with a side of homefries. Stan got a burger for himself, and Ford simply asked for a coffee.
Miz gasped aloud at this. "You can't just have coffee for lunch!" She seemed legitimately upset by this. "You're a large man, you need food! Sustenance! At least get a sandwich or something!" she protested. (Were the Pines really that badly off for funds?)
"I'm perfectly fine with just coffee," Ford informed her, narrowing his eyes at her.
Miz seemed about to argue with him about it, but then stopped herself with a visible effort, and backed down with an, "Alright, Stan makes sure you eat when you need to, so I guess you're fine." That, of course, made Ford look like he wanted to protest that he didn't need anyone babysitting him in order to--
--but his brother was snickering already at this, so Ford crossed his arms and pulled in a deep breath instead, practicing patience in the face of demonic 'prodding'.
"Don't worry, kid. Ford doesn't have to eat a full meal at every mealtime when everybody else is eating," he told her. Then he leaned in and said in a fake whisper, "He's watching his figure." (Ford, of course, quickly protested this with a sputtered-out, "--Stanley!")
Miz tilted her head and thought about it before turning to Ford and telling him seriously, "You're beautiful just the way you are." (Ford covered his face at this, because really?! Was this really happening to him right now?! ...And his brother wasn't helping either, letting out a snort before muffling his amusement behind a hand. Ford lifted his head and sent a glare his way.)
"Really, though," Stan said, leaning back, "Don't worry about it. He ate breakfast a little later than everybody else today, in his room," Stan told her, a little more seriously. "I'll make sure he eats somethin' substantial when we all get back home," he added, eyeing his brother, who proceeded to roll his eyes at him and let out a huff at this news.
Miz nodded at that before she thought about it and turned to Stan so she could tell him as well. "You're also beautiful the way you are."
Stan let out a laugh at this. "More like devilishly handsome!" he joked, taking the praise. "But thanks."
Miz turned to nuzzle against Bill's side. "And you're the prettiest, both triangle and human-ish."
Bill chittered at her a bit, with a very put-upon look. "I'm not pretty. I'm a snappy dresser. And handsome when I want to be," and Miz giggled at this.
"Okay, you're handsome," she teased him. Bill huffed out a breath at this, looking away from her, and-- Ford stared. Was Bill blushing?!
"...you're beautiful, too," Bill spoke up to say, though he told her this a bit quietly, both serious and small, looking down at the table a bit as he said it. This, and… "Perfectly-imperfect." he said next, in a slightly more normal tone of voice for him.
Miz made a happy sound and leaned over to nuzzle him again, almost leaning on him. "Thanks," she said sincerely, blushing a little herself. It meant a lot, to know her brother thought she was imperfect and perfect, that she was flawed and still beautiful and right just the way she was.
Bill continued to look down at the table. And he smiled. (Not grinned. Smiled. He smiled, like he meant--)
Before things could get any weirder for Ford, the food came and interrupted everything (and Susan's 'petting' of the demons interrupted things further). Ford was almost relieved to watch Miz begin stuffing her face, instead of talking and being rather weird with Bill. (This play-acting of hers could not possibly end well, for any of them.) ...At least she wasn't just shoving her entire plate down her throat now out in full view of the public, like she had swallowed entire fish whole at the boat.
Susan gave Bill and Miz a few more pats on the head after putting everyone's plates down. "A hungry little one, aren't ya?" she coo'ed at Miz before heading back to work. Miz preened under the attention. Stan muffled his laughter behind his cup.
Miz cut up her omelette and 'nom'ed it. "It always tastes different when someone else makes it, compared to when you cook it yourself," she mused. "Even when using the same recipe. Cooking is amazing," she practically sparkled with awe.
Stan let out a short laugh. "It's really that amazing to you?" He'd kind of gotten that feeling from her before, but...
"Cooking is the path to life. Without access to cooked or prepared food, no species would have evolved enough to become people." Miz said simply. "It's what separates humans from most other animals."
Bill snickered, and then said, "Most, but not all," which had Ford practically bristling in place, getting him all riled up for some reason.
Miz shrugged. "I introduced cooking to the creatures in my world. Though most of their methods involved super burning their food, various acids, mincing stuff into small pieces…" she paused. "Well, once they started experimenting, I got to try out a lot of very different types of cuisine. It was fun." Oh~ there was that one restaurant on planet Joo-Fan that she'd been meaning to go to...
Luckily for Ford's (relative) peace of mind, the demons left it at that and didn't say anything more as they ate their food. Miz seemed to be enjoying herself, looking around to watch the people around them.
But near the end of their meal, Miz glanced over, out the window before pausing and saying, "Is that Gideon?"
Bill stiffened immediately and raised his head abruptly to glare out the window. Hell, Stan turned in place, tossed an arm over the back of the booth seat, and did the same thing.
Ford glanced between both of them, slowly lowering his fork and wondering what was the cause of such alarm.
Miz squeaked when Bill placed a hand on her head and nudged her down and below the level of the table surface, hiding her from view. Stan would have found it funny, considering Bill had all but pushed Miz under the table, but this wasn't the time for that. He didn't want the kid around Gideon; having Miz around him would be even worse.
Stan thought hard and fast, turning away from the window and casually glancing around at all the exit paths out of the diner.
...and Ford still didn't know why the tension had suddenly gone up. He didn't really know much about young Gideon, only having met him a few times, but he remembered how Bill had stuck the boy in that cage, dancing for him. The demon wasn't afraid of him, surely. Shouldn't this youngest of their Zodiac members be the one looking out for Bill…?
They all remained quiet, watching the pale child approach the diner, surrounded as always by his various prison friends. It didn't seem like he'd noticed them, as he approached the steps up to the door of the diner. ...Hell, Stan hoped it stayed that way. He leaned in across the table, a little closer to Bill, who was still hissing out at a struggling Miz to 'stay still and out of sight!', and…
Stan told the two of them under his breath, "There's a back door to this joint. 'Kid, you know it, right? I'll gonna get up and distract him; you get your sister out of here and back to the Shack, yeah?"
Bill nodded once, looking grim and just the slightest bit worried. He really didn't want his little sister anywhere near Gideon. Miz finally stopped her struggles, still half on the booth chair and half under the table. "Wha? I'm not helpless! I can walk past him no problem!"
"Look, Miz--" Stan started to say before the kid cut him off with a--
"This isn't about being helpless! It's--"
--only for the kid to get cut off himself, as the dragon-lady huffed out, "He doesn't know me. If he doesn't see me with you guys he wouldn't give me the time of day." And that…
...had Stan going expressionless on her (because did she really not realize…? Had the kid really not explained that--), while Bill told her, "Stanley just got done introducing both of us to nearly everyone in town! The living ventriloquist dummy isn't Stanford. --He talks to people and listens to rumors! He will know who you are!!" Bill told her quite firmly.
"Fine, I can head out, wait for you guys outside," Miz told them. "I can even take the back door, so I wouldn't have to go near him."
Ford glanced back and forth between everyone. "Why is this such a problem?"
"--Yes, disassemble your vessel and go through the window-wall," Bill told Miz under his breath. "I'll meet you outside, out back, within three minutes."
"Bill," Ford said.
"--He's a bad influence," Bill hissed out at Ford finally, looking irate and glaring mental daggers at him. And Ford looked taken aback at this, though only for a moment. (Stan blinked as Ford almost immediately smoothed his face into a neutral expression and straightened in place, folding his hands in front of him on the table and giving Bill a long look, because… The heck?)
"He tried to kill Dipper with some shears when Dipper told him that Mabel didn't want to date him. And he refused to take 'no' for an answer when Mabel told him herself that she didn't want to date him," Miz whispered out as a further explanation, peeking over at the pale boy chatting with a huge muscular man as they got even closer, almost to the stairs up to the door...
When Stan stared at her over that one (because the twins hadn't told him about any shears junk) and glanced up at the kid (was she 'confused' again? Kid wasn't correcting her, but the kid was also pretty distracted right now, glaring daggers at the …), Miz shrugged and added, "He's a yandere." Yeah. Sure. As if that explained anything to him.
While Ford and Stan were still processing this, Miz's form seemed to shimmer and turn into vapor, flowing away out the window and then over and off to the side, vanishing out of sight.
Miz circled the building, and then came down near the back door, where she reformed herself out of sight of any passerby.
Bill relaxed almost immediately once she was outside and away from Gideon, who was walking up the steps of the diner, coming up the other side of the diner, to come in.
Stan blinked as Bill pushed himself to his feet and vanished as he left the booth -- one second there and then, just, not.
Stan glanced around, not sure how the kid thought he was gonna get out -- there were too many people in-between him and the door, and nobody was gonna move outta the kid's way now -- but it had looked like the kid had been heading for the other door -- away from Gideon -- not looking like he was giving a care in the world, but Stan had seen the tense set of Bill's shoulders.
Stan did a quick mental calculation of the price for their meal, plus tax and (reluctantly) a small tip, and slapped the money (in exact change) down on the table before getting up himself. They were pretty much finished eating anyway. He walked normally, with a bit of a slouch and waved at Susan as he passed.
He knew it would happen, but still had to hold back a cringe when he heard the other door go (...and saw it stay open a bit longer than usual even after one of Gideon's two goons had let go of it, finished with holding it open from where they came in from the other side…) and then heard Gideon's shrill voice call out, "Stan Pines! How delightful to see you. I haven't seen you in town for a while."
"Eh, been busy around the Shack." Stan grumbled, not stopping his walk as he continued on. He saw the way Gideon's eyes were tracking him, and scanning the restaurant for, presumably, the kid himself.
"Busy keeping watch on your guest?" Gideon drawled out, and Stan had to cover a snort. Kid looked like he was desperately trying not to sweat. (...Yeah, Stan was fine with that. Stay scared, and stay away from the Shack, ya little pint-sized jerk.)
Stan shrugged. "Eh," he grunted out, letting nothing but complete unconcern show on his face. "You know the kid. He's… around," he told the Gleeful kid, not looking up as he saw, in the corner of his peripheral vision as he moved, somebody a bit taller with blue hair peek around the damn corner of the building, instead of staying out back with his sister like he should've. He was almost to the door, and here Bill was already outside; probably managed to get out past Gideon's goon somehow when the door paused in closing for that second or two there. (Hell, he coulda held the door for him on the way out, if the kid had just given him any more of a heads-up on what he'd needed. Damn kid, pushing things like that…)
(Normally, the kid would wait for him for stuff, but Stan knew the kid must've been on pins and needles at the idea of leaving Miz outside on her own for too long, even if the kid would probably never admit it out loud. ...Maybe because the Gleeful kid might have more of those 'reformed' ex-cons of his around? Hell, the lot of them weren't that bad though, even for hardcore convicted killers. Though why they'd end up deciding to follow around that little shit...)
Gideon's eyes narrowed at Stan's half-inflammatory evasiveness and it looked like he was gonna start something, but Ford strode over and stared down at him, before saying, "It was nice seeing you, Gideon. But we have to go. Our guest is waiting outside," dammit, Ford, "And we need to get said guest back to the Shack, now," he said in a firm tone, not exactly hostile. Gideon looked a little taken aback, and Stan blinked as Ford continued on with, "Stanley simply insists on our guest socializing with people, while under supervision, to see if they can learn to behave." And then Ford made a slight movement of his right hand at his side, to…
...brush along the side of his jacket, underneath which one of his two guns was holstered.
It was a deliberately 'not deliberate' motion that nearly had the hair on the back of Stan's neck standing up -- not because Ford was being threatening, but because he wasn't trying to be. Because Ford had done it automatically, Stan could tell. Ford had learned to unconsciously check his favorite firearm placement, and at the same time effectively tell anyone who might be thinking about starting a fight with him that they might want to think twice about it, because he was armed and dangerous and ready to use it.
And because Gideon was Gideon, that 'deliberate' but unconscious motion drew Gideon's eyes towards it.
...And Gideon relaxed when he saw it. The Gleeful kid drew all the wrong conclusions from that damn scary-ass motion. Stan could see that, too.
Because seeing that firearm right there got a wicked grin out of the child for just a second there, before he smoothed it away again. ...Because the Gleeful kid thought the gun had been for Bill.
(Then Stan had to fight to keep his face straight, because it suddenly occurred to him that… Ford wanted Bill dead, and he'd already tried to shoot Bill dead more than once before now.)
(...What if he was the one reading the situation wrong, instead…?)
--Stan kept on walking. He didn't try to correct the little pint-sized ex-con jerk, right or wrong or not. Nope. He was gonna leave that whole mess to his brother this time, thanks...
"Behaving, eh?" Gideon chuckled out at the two of them, two rather large individuals (bodyguards?) at his side, who then all but jumped to laugh along with him. (Ford frowned a little at this.)
"We have things under control," Ford told him more calmly than he actually felt about the situation at-hand with Bill… (especially with his brother headed out the door to be left alone with said demons again. He needed to get out of here now.) "He's… learning to be better. Slowly." And Ford grimaced at his own half-lie (Bill would never really change, after all, not ever), but for some reason… the child seemed to trust him in this, at his word, and relaxed completely.
...said level of (unearned and undeserved) trust becoming even more apparent when the child let out another laugh and said, "Well, make sure you train 'im properly!" brightly next, with a grin.
Ford stared at this. And he tried not to think too hard about the fact that the one thing, the most worrisome thing, that he'd thought of, with Stan trying to 'twist the demon up inside his own head so badly that he will never tell him no…' was something that this child had so breezily and cheerily brought up just now as a completely desireable outcome--
The boy then turned towards the counter -- all but ignoring them-- him (...Stan was already out the door, damn him...) now, turning away from him to focus, rather, on complimenting the waitress, Susan, on her hair -- and pulled himself up to a seat at said counter, his bodyguards sitting down on either side of him, defensively eyeing him for some reason.
Ford watched the child take up and start looking through one of the diner's menus, and after Ford had finished eyeing and evaluating the situation strike and trying not to think too hard about the fact that--, he turned away from them and made his own way to the door, as well.
Stan was already outside, standing across the street with Bill and Miz.
(...in full view of the diner's large glass windows. Ford had no idea what Stan or either of the two demons were thinking-- though perhaps the simple answer was they weren't--)
Stan gave him a look; he'd finally caught on to what Ford had done. What he'd unintentionally (Stan hoped) and unconsciously implied. Stan wasn't all that happy about it, but if it kept Gideon from being suspicious, well, Stan would let it slide this time. (Kid wouldn't like it, but the kid could just deal with it, Stan figured.)
"Alright, looks like we're gonna have to cut the trip short here this time. Let's head back." Stan told them all. Miz was holding Bill's hand, sending worried glances back at the diner. Bill was already turning to walk off in the direction of the Shack, knowing all the shortcuts into and around and out-of the town that would allow them to run into (read: avoid encountering) the least amount of traffic or people.
As Stan and Ford followed them, Ford made a note to ask the twins about their interactions with Gideon, because… well, while he'd hardly trust the word of a demon as the whole truth of a situation… clearly they hadn't told him everything...
---