Chapter 101: -Ask me anything-(Part 2)

(This is chapter 100!!)

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"He thinks the metal plate in his head is supposed to keep me out," the kid offered up to him slowly, and Ford shuddered and looked even more pale.

Stan stared, looking between them. "...My brother didn't like the alligators," Stan said slowly. "Or the moat." (Ford was staring over at him now.)

"No, he did not," Bill huffed out. "He kept getting himself into worse and worse--! …trouble," Bill ended on, looking frustrated. "She owed me a favor. It was fine. He's fine--!" Bill started to waved off, but the kid trailed off on the "...now." Because the kid saw, just as Stan did, how absolutely dead white Ford looked now.

"Jessie's capable of lying…" Miz frowned, picking up on what had happened here and what Ford was finally realizing. Even if Bill's Oracle and her own were ENTIRELY different types of people. But the one here had lied to that Stanford, telling him that plate would keep him safe, and Ford had thought she'd meant 'safe from Bill' and not actually what it was really for, and--

Stan felt another chill go down his spine, because Ford looked about to break apart if anybody breathed on him wrong. Shit.

"Ford, worst problem with this thing that you're worried about. Right now," Stan demanded out of him, in a voice that had always worked on the twins, at least.

"Bill can get inside my head when I'm awake," Ford breathed out, with a tinge of hysteria to his tone. And with the way Ford was staring at the kid, his brother looked cornered, like... 'cornered by a hungry mountain lion without a fancy sci-fi gun on him' cornered. "The plate in my head doesn't keep him out..." Ford said, sounding halfway to hysterical.

"Kid, counterpoint. Now," Stan demanded out of the kid, not looking away from his brother.

"The plate in his head keeps me out while he's awake if he wants me kept out when he's awake, when I'm in the Mindscape; I can't get into his Mindscape if he doesn't want me there," the kid said, and he didn't sound all that happy about that.

"Counter-counterpoint, kid," Stan said next, because he knew his brother, and what would happen if he just left it there. (And it wasn't like he didn't have a system for putting the kid through his paces already -- it was what he was doing with the kid right now, just with Ford listening in this time.)

"Doesn't do anything to keep me out of his personal 'Dreamscape' still," the kid said. "Keeps everyone else out of everything; still 'leaks' thought waves on the right frequencies for communication with other intelligent and semi-intelligent lifeforms so he doesn't get treated as furniture; I can still See him in the Mindscape in general. --It's functional!" the kid put out there at the last, sounding frustrated with him. "I do good work!"

Miz sighed. "If he'd actually thought about it, he'd have realized it sooner…" she muttered out, and Dipper paled. (Well, that explained how Great-Uncle Ford could hear Miz speak telepathically, but… oh, this wasn't good.)

And Ford…

Ford slowly put his head down on his knees. And let out a shaky laugh.

(Oh, Axolotl. He had a metal helmet wrapped around his head that operated on will, that worked on Will. That Will-- Bill-- William, will-helm, had wanted him to have, to wrap around his head, while their Deal had been on, while Bill had thought they were friends, and… Ford wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to laugh or to cry.)

"She owed you a favor," Ford said quietly. "She owed you."

"You almost DIED," Bill said huffily, sounding aggravated and almost aggrieved, and Ford dropped his head down further and wrapped his arms around and over it.

("Grunkle Ford…" Mabel said quietly. She got up and made her way hurriedly across the roof, to sit down right next to him, curled up against his side. Dipper was a little slower making his way over, and a lot more tentative sitting down next to him from his other side, but he did the same.)

"The Oracle's a demon." Miz pointed out helpfully(?). "Which is actually another difference between our dimensions, MY Jessie's not a demon." She seemed oddly proud of this fact.

"Bill," said Ford, not picking his forehead up off of his knees. "Is Jhselbraum a demon?" He sounded a bit strained. Miz rolled her eyes, right, don't listen to her at all. Just Bill. Always Bill.

And the kid… remained quiet.

Stan glanced over at the kid, and the kid was looking between him and Ford.

...And Stan saw the kid do that odd head-tilt twist-twitch thing he'd seen the kid do before with the niblings once or twice, when the kid wasn't sure if answering was gonna be considered a mental attack, and the kid actually caught it early. ...And answering whatever the thing was anyway had usually ended up really upsetting the kids.

Stan pulled in a breath, and let it out slowly when the kid just… settled. The kid didn't say anything.

"Ford, don't go askin' the kid stuff like that," Stan said, trying to find the middle ground there, as he put a hand on his brother's shoulder. (He knew what his brother was doing: Ford didn't trust that any of them could always tell when Miz was lying, but Ford trusted that he himself could tell when the kid did and didn't do it. But if Ford got an answer out of the kid on this right now… it'd just drive him nuts, because...) "There's nothin' you can do about any of that right now. C'mon…"

"..." Miz looked frustrated.

Dipper saw that, even from where he was sitting at his great-uncle's side, and he didn't even have to think about it before telling her clearly, "Stop." And Miz backed down, pouting.

Well, the Jhselbraum in this dimension was a Demon, and Miz thought that maybe Ford would have liked to know the truth of his situation. But apparently, knowing the truth would upset him? The dragon-demon huffed. "So you don't want me to lie, but the truth is no good either?"

"Not if it'll hurt people," Dipper said firmly.

Miz groaned and said sarcastically, "So, lie to make people happy, and then have people get mad at me for lying? Sounds fun~"

Dipper glared at her. "Or, just don't say anything."

"Tell the truth, or don't go jumping in," Stan elaborated on. Maybe she'd listen, or maybe she wouldn't. (She'd better.)

Miz sighed and flopped down on her blanket nest. "Because ignorance is bliss?" she asked. It didn't sound like she liked the idea of that. "I mean, for some things, I can see how it'd be better. But he keeps bad mouthing demons as ALL being evil and then praising the Oracle, even though she's one too…" Miz muttered to herself, looking like she wasn't actually meaning for them to hear and was just speaking to herself. (Stan grimaced, sending a look over at Bill, who just blinked at him. Hell, no 'help' there. Kid wasn't getting it.) Then Miz brightened and sat up. Well, if Ford was just scared about being possessed by Bill, then...

"Well, Brother's NOT in the Mindscape right now. So…" Miz grinned, hoping that maybe this knowledge would make Ford feel better about his mental security.

"Not helping, Miz," Stan said, still looking at Ford as he rubbed his hand over his brother's shoulder. "And ignorance ain't bliss," Stan added, because letting that one go right now wouldn't do anything but get them in even more trouble really damn soon, if the demon kid started acting on that. "But," Stan grimaced, then got to addressing the main problem with what she'd just done: "You sure don't have to go runnin' right this second. You're just breakin' a whole bunch of other things, 'fixing' somebody's ignorance in a way that won't help them by hearin' whatever it is right then, just hurt 'em instead." Because seriously? She couldn't keep whatever to herself for another two minutes here? At least? "It'll keep."

"... How close is she to the three-strikes rule, Bill," was what Ford quietly said next, and the kid… went still.

"...Who are we talking about, here," said the kid, very slowly, and Stan watched as Ford slowly raised his head up. (The kids exchanged a glance across Ford's chest.)

"Your 'Miz'," said Ford. "Jhelsebraum. Anyone who might be a concern."

The kid remained silent.

"Three-strikes rule," Stan repeated slowly, looking between the kid and his brother again. Because what the hell was this?

"Go on, Bill," Ford said quietly, but his voice aure carried, and there was just a bit of steel under it. "Define what a demon is for Stanley. I insist." (Stan was looking between them again. He wasn't gonna stop them when they were actually talking almost, but...)

"Yeah. Tell me," Stan said to the kid after a moment. If this would help him understand what the hell was going on with Ford and the whole demon thing…

"Stanley…" the kid said warningly, not looking away from Ford, and he didn't look very happy with any of them at the moment. Stan glanced between them. Neither of them were looking like they were gonna stop their staring contest with each other anytime soon.

And Stan hesitated, for just a moment. "Kid, unless this causes some huge problem for you and me, or would break the agreement, tell me," Stan reiterated.

...That had the kid flicking his gaze over to him for a minute, and looking even less happy with him. And then Bill looked away from him.

They all waited.

"......Demons come from the outside," Bill said finally, not looking back at any of them. Miz blinked slowly. Wait, but… Brother… Miz Flickered to try and find out more. Well… yeah, the Jhelsebraum in this world was a demon. Definitely. Died, came back the same again anyway, over and over again. That was the gist of it. But Bill wasn't quite a demon-demon. Not like this Jessie. He was...

...He was a triangle demon?

Miz didn't fully understand either way from what she'd been able to See so far, about what 'outside' part Bill was talking about exactly, but she DID know that she didn't like the look Ford had on his face right now. So she spoke up with, "This dimensional set has very different definitions for Demon than mine. In my set, Demon is a descriptor given to entities that exhibit certain chaotic or harmful qualities, and even then, the specifics are different from dimension to dimension." She spoke cheerfully, distractingly. Listen to this, this was a much more interesting topic! "So like, in one dimension a Demon was any entity that was capable of wide scale destruction, while in another, being a Demon was a 9 to 5 punchcard job where you torture the Souls of sinners." Miz's tail was out and wagging. "The guys there actually fanboyed over me, you know? I actually didn't realize the Demonic community hailed me as some kinda celebrity."

(The kids were sending her long tense looks.)

Miz frowned. "But I didn't like hanging around them because all they praised was my kills. They told me they admired how destructive I was." She winced. "It felt nice to be appreciated but I realized it probably wasn't a good thing. So I didn't become Friends with those people." She glanced around to see if anyone was going to take the bait...

"You done with your still really not helpin' here, Miz?" Stan asked Miz, not looking away from Bill and Ford. "Gonna keep diggin' that hole?"

Miz hung her head. "Distraction failed…" She mumbled sadly. (That got her a hard look from both the younger twins.)

"Uh huh," said Stan. Then to Ford, for the kid's benefit, "You're really not gonna let this go right now, are ya, Ford."

"No," Ford said tersely. "Ask him to explain the outside to you." Stan watched the kid twitch in place.

--Hell with it. "Kid, same thing as before, but define 'outside', instead," was what Stan ultimately responded to Bill with, with a sigh.

Miz twitched. The thoughts being practically screamed out right now from that Stanford were… confusing, but he seemed triumphant? Miz also noted that brother never defined what the 'three strikes' thing was all about. Strikes? Whatever it was, it shouldn't affect her, she wasn't FROM this dimensional set.

"Stanley," the kid said evenly, and the kid turned his gaze back towards him. "What Stanford is trying to get you to do, is to get me to try and talk about something that demons can't talk about without disappearing," was what Stan got out of the kid next. (That got Miz shaking in place. Brother could… disappear?)

Stan stared at the kid incredulously.

"He doesn't know how it works," the kid told Stan next, picking up his staring contest with Ford again. "He doesn't even know what 'it' is."

To this, Ford got something of a thin smile.

(Dipper and Mabel glanced up at their great uncle, and Mabel hugged his side a little more closely. They both looked concerned, but didn't say anything, yet.)

"I knew you were doing something to keep them from trying a fourth time," Ford said quietly. "I just didn't know what, exactly."

(A fourth--?! --Son-of-a..., a three-strikes rule?! For demons trying to do… what to his brother?)

To this, the kid seemed to push himself back into his chair, and he rotated his shoulders as he rolled his eyes at Ford. The kids exchanged a long glance, communicating something.

"I'm NOT stupid," the kid repeated. "Unlike MOST idiots out there, I don't talk up 'penalties' I can't back up!" The kid eyed Ford with a look that said, 'You know that…'

(A three-strikes rule. A three-strikes rule that had something to do with making other demons stop doing something to his brother, that the kid had been… --no, was still enforcing somehow. Because Ford seemed to think... What the hell?)

Stan glanced between Ford and the kid. What he finally decided to say out loud was... "Ford, I thought you said demons keep coming back when you kill 'em, no matter what…"

Ford looked almost smug. (Almost.) He also looked incredibly pissed off with the kid. "Oh, they come back again when they die or get killed. But whatever this 'disappearing' thing is that Bill does isn't simply getting killed." Ford never moved his eyes away from Bill.

Stan glanced over at the kid. "...You jailin' them somewhere or somethin', kid?" If he was, then Stan would know how serious it was; he knew damn well how the kid felt about jails and prisons.

"No. Yes," said Bill. "If I was doing that, they could just drop dead to get out of it." The kid frowned as he looked over at Stan. "If you asked any one demon for specifics, and they could answer you, it would sound like they were being sent back to jail, though." The kid frowned. "Demons just won't TELL you that."

"Better or worse than your old dimension," Stan said.

"--Worse," Bill said with zero reservation. "Hands down." The kid tilted his head at Ford. "Demons come here to have fun. Spoilsport."

Ford let out an odd sort of chuckle that put up the hairs on the back of Stan's neck (and had the kids staring up at him again, confused). It was the kind of thing he'd remembered hearing out of some of pa's old drinking buddies, some of the few who'd come back from the war in 'Nam like pa had. And they'd all had one thing in common, besides being "just" survivors…

"Too bad for them," Ford said quietly, with an edge to his tone that made Stan take a second look at his brother. A really good look. (...And it made Stan's heart sink, even as he carefully kept what he was feeling well off of his face.)

Stan pressed down on his brother's shoulder slightly, where he was holding on. Just a little.

Bill got the slightest of smiles.

"'Too bad for them'?" the kid repeated, then leaned forward slightly. "What makes you think you weren't doing exactly what I wanted you to do, pawn?" was what Bill Cipher said just as quietly back.

Stan saw Ford's expression shift, and he caught the look before Ford suppressed it: it was pure rage.

He felt his brother tense under his hand, but Ford didn't jump to his feet this time, though. Didn't stalk over, didn't try anything. ...Didn't even reach for his guns.

"--Too far, kid," Stan said next. "Ford ain't anybody's pawn. Apologize. Now."

(Stan didn't get what was going on here at all. Just that his brother and the kid were in some kind of stupid pissing contest with each other.)

The kid just eyed him. "He's not my pawn anymore," the kid said. (…which was probably the best Stan was gonna get out of the kid right now on that one, hell.) "I don't need him."

"--You talk like you aren't part of the group," Ford threw out at the kid, like it was a crackling shot across the bow. "Third person. 'They', not 'we'." It left the kid looking as unimpressed as Stan had ever seen him.

"'They', not 'it'," the kid said dryly. "'It' implies incorrect gender and sapience-level connotations for non-objects in your stupid native language."

"You're being exclusitory," Ford repeated. "You exclude yourself from the description."

The niblings blinked at that, and were looking between them, and the kid practically bristled and verbally rounded on Ford for that. "Triangle. Demon." the kid said.

"You sleep," Ford said next.

"Dream demon!"

"You aren't actually a demon, are you," Ford said, bunching up his shoulders slightly, like he was gearing up for something. "It's just something of a self-chosen titular 'descriptor' for you, as Miz puts it. Isn't it."

"I'm a demon when I want to be," the kid said in dangerous tones, eyes narrowing. "And I will ALWAYS COME BACK."

"Ford," damnit, "How many times I gotta tell ya that we're not killing the kid with the circle or anything?" Stan said, wanting to smack the both of them upside their heads at this point. "Does any of this junk even matter?" Stan asked him in exasperation, shaking Ford's shoulder a little bit. "Don't you got a house to watch?"

"Stan--" Ford turned his head to actually look at him (finally) and ground out at him with no small irritation, "This is--"

"--What?" said Stan. "What is it, huh? How is any of this more important than that to you?" Stan said, letting go of Ford's shoulder to point over at the house. "--You're gettin' all worked up about the kid's name, when kid's first language ain't even English so he's gotta be approximating it," Stan complained at him, because how had that even been a thing?

"Stan--" Ford started, straightening in place, but Stan wasn't having any of that.

"--And you're worried about metal plates that don't keep the kid outta your brain when he's outside his body when, what, the kid's only sitting five feet away from you? And can just talk you in knots if you keep on talkin' to him, so he don't need to just climb right on in or whatever instead, to do whatever it is you're so worried about?" His brother was staring at him, and Stan rubbed a hand over his face. "Which he ain't gonna do, Ford, hell, we'll tell him to stop if he tries..."

"I--"

"And who cares whether some fancy 'oracle' you met one time way back whenever was some kinda demon or not, anyway?" Stan said, because he was sick and tired of this stupid demon stuff, and Ford leaving stuff out like the kid being able to make demons gone! For him! "This lady, she didn't mess with you then, right? And it ain't like you're ever gonna see her again." Ford got quiet at that. "And who cares if the kid's a demon or not, when it doesn't really matter, 'cause you can't kill him dead for good either way, and we ain't doing that!" Stan groused out at his brother next. "--Ford, what the heck does any of this junk have to do with anything that matters at all right now?" Stan asked him, because he really wanted to know!

(Okay, so, maybe he didn't, but that was only because he didn't think his knucklehead of a brother could explain, because there wasn't one…)

Ford blinked at him again. And for some reason -- Stan didn't know what -- Ford was staring at him almost like he'd never seen him before.

"Well?" Stan asked him. He didn't take no answer from the kid on junk like this, and now? He was starting to think that maybe he shouldn't let his brother keep getting away with it, either.

So Stan grumpily stared him down.

"...I suppose you're right," Ford said after a long moment's pause.

"I-- well… uh," said Stan, deflating a little. "Yeah, I'm right," Stan blustered, but he couldn't help but frown. "You're getting all worked up over nothin'," Stan told him, not really sure if he was right about that now.

"Perhaps I am," Ford said without giving much away, and Stan eyed him for it with a deeper frown. (That wasn't giving up. ...Not that he was askin' his brother to do that, but… he couldn't just tell him what was goin' on?)

Stan glanced down at Dipper and Mabel, but they sort of looked between each other and then glanced up at him almost apologetically. (Well okay, Mabel looked apologetic, not knowing what was what. Dipper was frowning at him slightly; not mad at him, but not real happy with him, either.)

Stan let out a breath and rubbed a hand across his mouth. He looked over at the kid and his demon-lady sister.

He almost asked the kid how important he thought that Ford thought all this junk was. But he didn't. He knew that one already. Kid wouldn't have turned this junk all around on Ford if it wasn't. And what Stan really wanted to know was the why. But he wasn't gonna ask the kid that; he'd ask his brother and get it out of him, or nobody at all. Ford had his reasons, even if Stan really wasn't so sure they were good ones...

After that whole debacle, everyone settled back down to watch the Pawnshop. There was still a tension in the air as the children glanced back and forth between their grunkles and Bill.

Dipper really wished he had something to write this all down in. Minutes passed with most of their group sitting vigil, while Miz tried to bring down the tension with a lighthearted game of pretend with the dolls. It didn't fully work but it did ease some of the stress in the air -- not for Ford, but at least it did a little for the rest of them.

Dipper was still trying to stay on target like Great-Uncle Ford, watching the pawnshop, and so was Mabel, but they were both getting bored.

When it hit close to thirty minutes of mostly silence, other than Miz's quiet play-chatter as Bill looked on and asked her the occasional doll-related question... Mabel gave Great-Uncle Ford a big hug, and sent Dipper a look before she started to get up.

Great-Uncle Ford caught her gently by the arm.

"What are you doing?" Great-Uncle Ford asked her, and Dipper shifted in place uneasily.

But Mabel just smiled at him and said, "I'm going to help keep Miz not bored." Great-Uncle Ford looked alarmed at this, but then Mabel said, "Grunkle Ford, we can help. Let us help? Please?" And their Great-Uncle looked torn.

"She'll be fine, Ford," Grunkle Stan said next. "Hell, they've played together out on deck for hours before, with only the kid watching out for them."

Great-Uncle Ford shot Grunkle Stan a look at that. "That is not reassuring, Stan--" he began.

"Ford, I've talked with the dragon-lady a lot," Stan said. "I'm pretty sure she'd chop off her own arms before hurting the kids. --And we're both sitting right here watchin' 'em," Grunkle Stan said next, cutting off Ford's next protest. "You trust me to handle the kid, Ford. You don't trust me and the kid to be able to keep her coloring inside the lines if we've gotta?"

"I don't trust Bill," was what Great-Uncle Ford said next. But Dipper saw him let go of Mabel's arm.

Mabel smiled at their Great-Uncle and gave him another hug. "It's okay!" she told them all, before she turned and bounded off towards Miz and her pillow and blanket pile.

Great-Uncle Ford looked uneasy still. Dipper looked up at him. "Demons seem to like her?" Dipper said, then winced at how bad that actually sounded out loud.

But Great-Uncle Ford just sighed and said, "That isn't a good thing, Dipper."

Dipper hunched his shoulders.

"Eh, could be worse," Grunkle Stan said with almost a chuckle, as he watched Mabel settle down with Miz and pick up a stuffed animal. Great-Uncle Ford actually turned away from the house to look over at him, as Dipper did, and gave Grunkle Stan a skeptical look.

Grunkle Stan turned to look over at them both He looked relaxed and kind of gave them a half-joking grin as he said, "They could really really like her."

Great-Uncle Ford made a face at him.

They both turned to keep watching the house again, while Grunkle Stan kept watching Mabel and the two triangle demons. (Dipper kept sneaking glances back at them, though. Bill had quieted after Mabel had joined the 'play' again, Dipper had noticed. Bill was just watching them again now. Had he been… trying to distract Miz before, too? That was... weird...)

It wasn't a couple minutes after that that Dipper really couldn't take it anymore. Maybe Mabel had the right idea: watching Miz and distracting her a bunch, to keep the demon-girl from getting bored and saying even more crazy stuff out loud that might hurt Great-Uncle Ford.

(And how bad was it, Dipper wondered, that he was a lot more worried about what Miz would say right now, than he was about Bill?

Dipper looked up at Great-Uncle Ford first, though. "Um… Great-Uncle Ford…?" His great uncle looked over at him, and Dipper let out a sigh of relief as he looked away again and gave him a half-shrug half-wave: Great-Uncle Ford didn't look happy, but he wasn't going to stop him. He did look kind of tense, and tired.

Dipper hesitated and looked to Grunkle Stan. But Grunkle Stan just looked at him and nodded his head at his sister.

...Okay, so Grunkle Stan would stay with him and keep watching for anything messed up. That left Dipper feeling a little relieved, but also a little itchy and weird and wrong.

But Dipper didn't know how to fix things with Great Uncle Ford, or make it any better by sitting there with him. He was pretty sure he could help with Miz, though. (And if they could get more information out of her, then maybe…)

So Dipper got up and moved in a little closer to Miz's nest, settling down at the edge of it as Mabel asked Miz, "How come you only have two human-shaped dolls?" while holding up a small ball-jointed doll. Miz held up the other one. "Well, these are Dolfies that I made myself. So I know they're safe. But… ah… I saw this scary movie about a serial killer who sent his soul inside a human-shaped doll and didn't really like them much ever since."

"Chickie?" Dipper asked, looking over. Miz nodded. Dipper paused. "You watch scary movies?" He stopped. "Of course you watch scary movies," he deadpanned. Then Dipper realized something else. "Wait, so you're afraid of human-shaped dolls?"

"... and mannequins. They're just kinda creepy." Miz shrugged, and Dipper stared.

"How are you afraid of things like that and yet you're not afraid of--" He glanced over at Bill. Miz looked confused. Dipper wasn't sure how to put this in a way that wouldn't offend her. "But you…" Dipper glanced at Ford before muttering: "...do have your own version of the Nightmare Realm, right?"

"Well… yeah? I don't see your point?" Miz tilted her head to the side. "The Nightmares in there are soulless, mindless monsters. They're easy to deal with. But people? Specifically people that like to hurt other people? Who can pretend to be toys for children? That's scary." She paused. "And mannequins are just creepy as frick get out. No souls and not alive but they look like people and they might move when you're not looking even though they shouldn't be able to...", because Ax might fuck up and Soul a few of them just like he does with Chairs...

The twins glanced at each other. Mabel shrugged. Dipper nodded. He got up and carefully made his way across the various pillows and blankets to them (not wanting to trip and accidentally faceplant into any of it, since he wasn't so sure it was that much of a cushion between him and the hard rooftop). He managed it without too much of an issue, and settled down right next to his sister, wishing once more that he had brought his journal with him. Miz looked over at him with interest, tail out and swishing side-to-side. Dipper figured that was as good an opening as he was gonna get.

"What are you afraid of?" Dipper asked Miz bluntly. That caught Bill's attention, because he immediately sat up and said:

"--Don't answer that."

Miz closed her mouth and nodded. Dipper groaned. "I'm just curious. It's not like I was--"

"--Fishing for weaknesses to exploit?" Bill drawled out, with an edge to his tone. Dipper looked down. Well, only a little.

"If we know, then we won't accidentally scare her?" Dipper put out there.

Bill, who was downright glaring at this point (clearly not trusting Dipper an inch on this one, that he was only interested in preventing 'accidents'), started to respond--

--but he was cut off by Miz, who nodded and said, "Then you should know this, for your own safety." (Bill started to chitter out a curse or two at the 'Then you should know this', but stopped and grimaced at the 'for your own safety'. And because of the agreement, he vacillated a bit too long on how to best handle...) "I'm terrified of binding circles," Miz told them. "I go into a panic and my powers start attacking everything around me. My last panic attack killed a few people--" She choked a little. "--including my adopted daughter…"

Everyone on the roof was staring at her now.

"What?!" Dipper gasped. ('Adopted daughter? What??') Bill didn't look surprised, though. Stan noted that. So he had already known about this.

Bill looked Miz over for a moment, then got up from where he'd been sitting to make his way across the blanket-pillow pile. He walked right over to kneel down next to her.

"Do you need a hug?" Bill asked her (kind of knowing what she wanted a little better now, from their last few talks up in the attic).

Miz nodded and pressed herself against his side, not actually hugging him, but gripping a handful of his shirt. (Bill grimaced slightly at the clothing grip, but was able to somewhat-relax again after a moment or two, once he realized that that was all the grabbing she was going to do.)

Miz wilted in place, leaning into Bill and tearing up. "God, I still feel awful about that." She wiped at the tears already forming at the memory of it. "You're all lucky as hell that Ford didn't put me in a binding circle the last time I was here. Bad enough he put Seb in something like one, but if it had been me, and I'd woken up in one…"

Ford went very still next to Stan.

Bill looked a little grim. "I wouldn't have let that Stanford walk off with either of you last time, if I'd thought he might actually even have a chance of being able to hurt or bind either of you," Bill told Miz, placing a hand on top of her head. (He'd known from that first visit that they were hims-that-were-also-him. He wouldn't have risked that sort of thing happening to them -- hadn't Miz known that?)

Bill brought his head down a little closer to her own. "That Stanford knows how to create mystical barriers," Bill told her, "But all destroying your body would do inside one of those is pop you right outside of the edge of it, like slippery soap!" Bill looked over at Ford. "He doesn't know how to create any sort of working binding," he told Miz, looking back down at her. "I MADE SURE OF THAT," Bill intoned.

('What?' thought Ford, taken aback. Because what had Bill meant by that? How could he have possibly made sure of-- Ford glared. It wasn't as if he didn't know about--!)

"No-one in this..." Bill grimaced slightly, "...in the-dimension-we-just-came-from knows how. I made sure of that, too," he told her, trying to be reassuring. And Bill didn't like the idea that she might've thought otherwise. (He doubted that anyone in THIS dimension could possibly know how to do it either, but he was ABSOLUTELY going to check and make sure of that. And watch out for her carefully in the meantime…)

Miz nodded. "You're so smart… I never even considered just… not letting people learn to do that… I like seeing people learn stuff…" (Dipper and Mabel blinked. Oh right, Miz had wanted to be a teacher.)

"Most methods are easy to avoid and dodge, once you know how," Bill told her very seriously. "I'll teach you before you go. The methods that are harder to handle… take a specialized sort of knowledge to put together. It's hard to kill an idea," he told her, "But it's easy to kill a person before that idea spreads, and burn everything they've ever thought of making to ash along with them," Bill said like he was talking about cleaning house, not killing people for the 'high crime' of knowing too much. (Ford glared at him.)

"And when the idea is hard enough to discover in the first place..." Bill got a small not quite evil smile. "Misinformation may be difficult," (Ford's glare deepened) and Bill didn't really like doing that anyway, it usually muddied the waters further and eventually splashed back on him, "But masking information with more information is MUCH easier! --Most don't go looking for that sort of specialized information specifically, so if you make it easy for them to find something else that solves whatever their little problem is better…" Bill said almost leadingly.

Miz pouted. "That feels like a waste. I like seeing how far they could go… just as long as their research doesn't hurt anyone."

Bill blinked down at her almost lazily. "A binding circle hurt you," he told her. Miz grumbled at that, because it was true and she felt kinda dumb.

"Hold up," Stan said, more worried about the other thing Miz had said. "What the heck are binding circles, anyway?" Stan frowned. "Kid," he said to Bill. "Is this the same kind of thing as that anchor-thing on your back?" Ford had thought that before, but the kid had been adamant that...

Bill looked over at Stan. "No. An anchor is an anchor. A binding is different," Bill said neutrally.

"Right." Kid still didn't really want to go there. Fine. "Miz, what do you mean, 'your powers started attacking everything'?" Stan asked next. He needed to know what the hell had happened, and how bad it had been, to tell how dangerous it was for the kids to be around her right now. How the hell was he supposed to stop something like that from happening (again? shit) if he didn't even know what the hell it was that he was supposed to be watching out for here, in the first place?

--How safe or unsafe was it really for the kids to be around her? If she didn't want to hurt the kids, that was one thing, but if she just had random panic attacks sometimes that she couldn't stop or control, then what she wanted or didn't want didn't mean squat. --What the hell was he gonna need to do, to make sure the kids stayed safe around her? He glanced over at Bill, who was lightly stroking the top of his 'little sister's' head, now. ...Shit. If the kid was trying to be comforting, this had to be bad… (Damnit, if the kid knew about this shit before, why the hell hadn't he said anything sooner--!)

"Ugh, it was so stupid. I was going to magic school with my daughter because I thought it would be fun," Miz told them. "Some kids were picking on me, don't know why, I think they were just assholes… and they thought it would hilarious to draw a binding circle in the hallway outside my dorm room…" Miz hugged herself. "I was stupid, wasn't paying attention, walked right into it. I don't remember much past that, just a lot of fear and screaming. One girl got turned inside out. My daughter jumped right in to smear the circle, break it, and I…" Her voice shook "...I killed her… I didn't mean to… and it just sucks because I keep trying so hard not to hurt people by accident but…"

"Shhhhh," Bill said, sounding a bit more like a waterfall more than a shushing. He made another, longer stroking motion with his hand over top of Miz's head. (Looking at his memories of people he's Seen, humans did this sort of thing to help calm other humans; didn't they?) "Shhhhh."

Stan didn't know what the hell to say to any of that. --Other than: "Dipper, Mabel, cover your ears." (The way Miz was talking sounded like those war stories he'd overhead his Pa tell with some of his old 'war buddies' once, sneaking down the stairs to listen in on them in the kitchen. She had the same half-dead tone of voice going, almost.) The kids, already looking horrified, looked back at him in confusion and a total lack of understanding, but they raised their hands to their ears and didn't argue when Stan said with quiet authority, "Now."

(Stan didn't miss Bill's questioning glance, and a slight gesture at his ear, and Stan nodded. He knew that Bill could-- and Bill made a slight flick of his hand at the kids. Some kinda silence spell, just in case. --Good. Ford wouldn't say 'yes' to that, and the kid knew that and hadn't even tried. But he knew Stan could and would decide for the kids, and he damn well didn't want the kids hearing any more of this junk, if it was gonna be anything like anything he'd heard in the attic about...)

Miz took a deep breath and continued talking, explaining, the words spilling out because ranting had always been her best method for venting her feelings. "My friends told me that it wasn't my fault. But my stupid PTSD is stupid and I hate losing control of myself like that." Miz mumbled into Bill's shirt. "So, please don't put me in a binding circle or try to bind me in any other way. I don't want to hurt any of you."

...Not 'risk hurting', just 'hurt'. Stan got that one right away. --Okay, so this just sounded like only one thing they had to avoid, though, not a bunch of junk he had to look out for, maybe. Not great, but better than it could be? (Hell, maybe Ford was right about 'such lowered expectations as' he had.) But Stan had to work with what he had, and… "PTSD?" Stan barely managed to keep his voice level. "What's that?"

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Ford said evenly. "Generally, it means someone went through something rather awful that makes them relive that awful moment again once a certain 'trigger' is flipped." (Ford had learned that one from the niblings. They'd brought it up after… well, after he'd been an absolute wreck after what Bill had told him on the porch. After the handcuffs. After…)

Ford pulled in a breath. "From what she's describing here, I'd postulate that she would tell us that she had a bad experience with a Binding Circle before that event." Ford didn't want to call the demon a liar outright. It was very realistic, the way she was acting -- and Ford was certain that it had to be just an act -- but…

...even if she was lying, it would be in horrible taste to act that way towards anyone claiming such an issue. (Not without absolute and undeniable proof that they were lying, and... that was hard to come by. It was best not to.) She might be a demon, but even if she was supposedly a 'Bill Cipher', there were things that were simply wrong to do, even to a demon.

(That said, Ford still remained highly skeptical of what she was saying. Causing PTSD in a demon shouldn't be possible, as far as Ford was aware, and she was a demon ...of some sort?. And a binding circle -- a working circle, done correctly -- from what he understood, should not have been a problem.)

"Kid," Stan said roughly to Miz. "You don't have to tell us what happened."

Miz trembled slightly but continued speaking anyway, shaking her head. "I need t-to explain why this is important! S-so you'll be careful and I won't lose it around you." Because she 'didn't want to hurt them', yeah. Stan grimaced, as Bill made that waterfall sound at her again.

(The kids were looking at each other, confused. They'd begun to realize that they couldn't hear anything that was being said. ...Probably a good thing that neither of 'em could read lips.)

"One of my summoners back when I was younger had a binding circle specifically tailored for energy-type beings like me. The binding runes were staked right into my energy form. I couldn't move, I couldn't escape, and he said that he wanted my body… stupid idiot thought my vessel contained my powers, thought that taking my vessel would give him my powers..."

Stan froze at this. So did Ford. And Stan didn't like where this was going at all.

(...And it was at that point that Ford realized that he'd never heard of a binding that worked on a demon who lived in the Mindscape, specifically. Anything he'd ever read about it had all referred to the use of some set of physical restrictions, in one form or another, at some stage in the process, and this was...)

Unaware of the older twins' reactions, since her face was still buried in Bill's shirt, Miz continued, voice shaking. "...so I h-had to pull each rune-stake out one b-by one and it hurt so bad and there were thousands of them but I wanted to escape, I needed to, and it hurt so much I blacked out a few times and my consciousness kept scattering when I pulled the runes out because it hurt but I wasn't thinking clearly by that point and…"

"Stop," Bill said quietly, surprising both Stan and Ford. Miz closed her mouth and just trembled.

"I was so stupid," she whispered.

Bill sighed at her and continued to stroke the top of her head. "No. You were trapped. You wanted to get out. You tried to get out. That's what happens when you're trapped. You try to get out."

Stan swallowed hard at hearing that one. He really didn't like the implications of what Bill had just said. He caught Ford's eyes, and... even his brother looked horrified at hearing what Miz had gone through. ...Yeah, he'd damn well better be. Stan remembered how Ford had laughed when he'd found out about the anchor on Bill's back and thought Bill had been bound to him. If this was what Bill had meant about Ford not knowing what the hell he'd been talking about, then...

"Kid," Stan asked Miz. "How can I help?" Because he didn't really have a damn clue. ...Because finding her a therapist like she'd been talking about trying? Like hell that'd be enough for something like this…

"I'll teach her how to get out," Bill said, continuing to stroke his little sister's hair. "I'll teach her how not to get caught."

Miz took a shuddering breath. "It's fine. It was a long time ago. And I'm more careful when I answer summonings now." She pressed in closer to Bill. "And my friends have been helping me get comfortable with hugging and physical affection… which helps."

Bill blinked down at her at that. "Hugs… help you? Get comfortable?" Bill asked her, confused. It didn't really make sense to Bill; he wanted to make sure he was understanding her correctly.

"Having a touch, from someone I know and trust that they wouldn't hurt me, helps to ground me. So that I don't start feeling like everything is pain. So I know that sensations can be nice. That being held down can also be a comfortable feeling and NOT a scary one." Miz explained.

(Stan blinked. So... she was trying to do some kinda exposure therapy thing? Like Mabel had tossed at him with that water tower? Did Miz need a blindfold to talk herself into that? Or, uh, was the headband that cut out her emotion senses and junk enough? ...Eh, she hadn't been doing that before with her family-friends, though; the headband was new.)

Bill thought about what Miz had said for nearly half a minute.

And the Bill slowly raised his arms and a bit stiffly, but carefully, curled them around her, until he had a not-quite snug hold around her midsection. Miz sighed and relaxed into his side, which left him blinking multiple times in rapid succession.

(Stan watched the two of the demon-kids doing this together. ...Whatever worked, Stan figured. Probably good for the kid, too. Get him a little more used to touch at all...)

Dipper and Mabel stared at this.

"I'll still teach you how to get out," Bill told her. Miz nodded.

There was a bit of a pause, as Dipper and Mabel glanced at each other, and at Ford, and then crawled their way out of the nest of pillows and blankets and junk. (They hadn't been able to hear anything, but they could see them all and read the mood. ...Well, okay, Mabel had been the one to tug at Dipper's sleeve, but they were doing what they needed to do.) ...Yeah, Stan figured that that was a good idea. He'd been about to wave them over. Let the kid handle this for now. Because Stan still needed to ask...

"...Is the summoner dead?" Bill asked her next, far far too casually for 'casual' to be an actual thing, and it left Stan almost wincing. (He did not want to know what vindictive looked like on the kid. That was a thing he could go without knowing.)

"Yeah. He's long dead." Miz's voice was slightly muffled into Bill's shirt.

"GOOD." Bill's eyelids drooped low, and Stan's next worry was… the kid wasn't going to do something stupidly overkill, was he? ...But then the kid let out a slow breath and seemed to start looking a bit more normal for… well, him again. (Stan realized he was gonna have to talk with the kid about this later. Kid had talked about it being stupid, not letting things things go after a death, but Stan figured it'd probably be a good idea to get an 'official no' out of the kid on this one. Looked like having a little sister get hurt might be one of those 'exceptions' to the kid's usual 'rule' on that stuff...)

"You shouldn't talk about this junk if it hurts you all over again, Miz," Stan told her.

Miz shook her head. "No, I need to." She insisted.

"--The hell you do," Stan ground out at her. "The hell kind of sense does that make, anyway? You either trust us enough to not do it when you tell us it's a problem, or you don't. How's talkin' about it make it any better?" Stan damn well didn't talk about his shit with the mob with anyone else. He'd feel like shit if he did. (Probably have the kids look at him like he was three kinds of idiot for fallin' for any of it in the first place. ...Or have them looking sad at him, which would be even worse.)

Miz took another shaking inhale. "Because if I let it out and talk about it instead of keeping it bottled up, I'll eventually feel better. Like a catharsis." And part of her was sure that Stanford might be dumb enough to actually test her on this for some stupid reason unless she made it very clear why he shouldn't try that on her.

Stan rubbed a hand across his face. He wasn't so sure about that one himself. Catharsis, nothing.

Miz relaxed a little more. "And I have gotten better. I'm not a screaming mess anymore. That's improvement, right?" Miz shook her head. "It's fine. I just need a minute…"

And after about a minute, she did slowly pull away from Bill (who pulled his arms away from her immediately, as soon as she began trying to move away) and she wiped at her eyes.

"Can we change the subject?" Miz asked. (Stan winced a little, because he still needed to ask…)

"...How did your summoner die?" Ford asked quietly but firmly. "The one who bound you?" Stan turned in place to glare at Ford, but his brother was staring holes in Miz like he'd just ask her again and again and again if she didn't answer him now. (Bill was giving Ford a long, flat look.)

Miz whimpered. "He actually killed himself to free me from the circle once he realized what I was doing. He kept telling me to stop tearing myself apart trying to escape." She shuddered. "I don't understand why he did it. He went through all that effort to catch me… and then he just… offs himself to stop me from hurting myself? I still don't really understand…"

Ford sat back on his heels. That clearly hadn't been what he'd been expecting to hear. ...Hell, he'd probably thought she had killed her summoner once she got free. Stan rubbed a hand over his face again. (And Ford seemed suspicious as hell at what he'd just heard Miz say. Right. ...Hell, maybe Stan should be counting his blessings that at least his brother had enough common sense not to call her a liar to her face on any of this.)

The fact that Miz didn't know or understand why her summoner killed himself didn't make Stan suspicious. She'd said she'd been in and out of consciousness, and the rest of the junk sounded horrible. Made more sense that she didn't have all the answers and didn't fully understand what had happened to her; Stan would've been more suspicious if she had.

"Yeah, we're not talking about this any more ever, got it?" Stan grunted. Miz nodded.

"Can I watch an anime?" she asked quietly.

It didn't get past Stan that this was the second time she'd wanted to do that here. And she'd been watching that stuff at least twice in the attic with Bill, right? And had a whole conversation thing with Soos about it that one night at dinner. ...Guess she really liked that stuff, huh. Stan wondered if she had used it as a distraction, to keep from thinkin' about horrible stuff like this, all the years she'd been living as a triangle demon or whatever.

(...And hey, didn't she say that the reason she'd decided she wouldn't harm any humans was because she hoped they would create more entertainment for her? Stan let out a sigh. He guessed tossing TV shows at her head to try and keep her happy was a hell of a lot better than her tryin' to wreck the place with a Weirdwhatchamacallit, and laughing at their 'entertaining' flailing and screams.)

(...Eh, as long as she wasn't causin' trouble for his family and trying to hurt them, that went a long way in Stan's book. ...Even if some of the stuff she tried to pull made him want to punch her in the face sometimes. --If watchin' this stuff kept her distracted from shit like that PTSD stuff too, that was just fine. Keep her busy with stuff that wasn't messing with his brother; she seemed to do pretty okay with the kids.)

Stan (and Ford) also noticed how Miz seemed to be consistently turning to Stan for permission before she did things. Stan was a little surprised; he'd thought that she would look to Bill for that more than him, but even when she asked Bill first, she usually looked to him for a final 'yes' or 'no'. Ford looked incredulous at seeing this yet again. (Why did the demons seem to listen to Stanley? What possible purpose could it serve them to continue to play along with him like this?)

"Kid, if you wanna watch something, that's fine," Stan grunted out at her, "But I gotta ask you something else, first. --None of this catharsis-details junk though, yeah? I just need to know what other stuff might make you panic, same as the binding circles." He should've asked her about this kinda stuff sooner, but he honestly hadn't thought of it. The kid was all about control; Stan had just thought that the dragon-lady was only younger and maybe just a little more impulsive than the kid was, not actually that much worse at control and even less careful about things. (...Maybe he should've thought of it, though, after the whole thing with the headband and the emotions thing. Hell.)

Bill gave him a long, hard glare at this.

"Kid, I gotta know," Stan said to him. "If there's stuff that sets her off, and she can't control herself--" Stan gritted his teeth as Bill let out an ugly angry chittering sound at him, then picked up what he'd been saying before the interruption. "--I gotta know, and you gotta know, too. She don't want to hurt the kids, and we both need to know for the agreement. To keep the kids from getting hurt or killed," Stan ground out at the kid, who looked downright furious at him. "And to keep her from getting hurt, too."

The kid still looked angry as hell with him, but… the kid just sat there breathing and looking angry. He didn't tell Stan off any further for it. ...And that in itself was telling to Stan.

But Stan knew well enough by now that silence from the kid wasn't assent. It was just a waiting game, waiting to see what he'd do next. --Waiting to see if he needed to attack him in response to a threat, and only probably 'just' with words, since the kid's little sister was in the mix this time, being the one threatened...

"Kid, if you think I'm gonna try to hurt her, just because she's your sister, you might as well say you don't trust me and kill me right now," Stan told the kid bluntly. He heard a soft choked noise from Ford next to him, and saw the startled and worried looks from the niblings at his sides. (They couldn't hear any of what they were saying, but they had seen how their great-uncle had just reacted to whatever Grunkle Stan had said, sitting bolt upright and going pale and looking scared--)

...and he got a long slow blink from the kid as the ancient alien space wizard digested this information.

"Even Ford isn't gonna pull this kind of shit with her," Stan said. "He ain't that stupid." (Ford sent a glare his way. ...Well, tough. He was speaking to the kid right now, trying to get him to understand him; this was insane-triangle-talk, not normal-people-speech. Ford should know that; Stan had told him about this kind of thing before…)

Miz herself looked skeptical at Stan's words, which made Ford frown at her. Did she really think he was that stupid?!

Bill glared at him, then Ford, then him again, and he didn't look all that happy with him, or the state of life and things in general. But the kid looked away from Stan first.

Yeah, no. Stan wasn't playing this game with the kid. "You trust me to try and keep anybody from doing something stupid to your kid sister and maybe panicking her? Or no." Stan kept up his own stare.

Bill grimaced. He shifted from side-to-side where he was sitting. His breathing increased.

"...Kid," Stan said, pushing him. He knew if he didn't, the kid would just try and draw it out forever. "You trust me on this? Or not." (Kid had trusted him out on the porch, for no damn good reason. Trusting him with a sister might be a stretch for the kid beyond that, but it wasn't like she was completely helpless herself. This wasn't all just on the kid. Miz was being strangely quiet about all this, though, watching Stan and Bill interact with a curious gaze. She seemed good with leaving things to her big brother, at least for now, while Stan was trying to work things out.)

The kid looked more and more agitated, leaning in closer to his little sister, almost like he thought the proximity might keep his dragon-lady used-to-be-human triangle-demon sister more safe from them. (...Or maybe the kid just felt that way without realizing it. Stan wasn't too sure where the boundaries were on the kid and some of his physical reactions at this point. Stan had managed to convince him to go pretty low down into that body of his, finally. Kid might actually be giving away things he didn't even realize he felt at this point.)

"Help me help you help her, kid," Stan tried next. "I can't do that if I don't know what I'm needin' to be looking out for, before someone--"

"--Fine," the kid spat out finally, looking over then away from him again. He looked pissed. Arms crossed, shoulders hunched a little bit, glower in place -- the whole nine.

Stan just nodded once, as he let out a slow breath through his nose. "Okay. Good," Stan told the kid. "--You're on my side, kid," he reminded the kid. "I got your back. Family's part of the package. You know that, right?" he told the kid.

Bill twitched in place, almost strongly enough to be a flinch, and looked about to object about something there, but after a long moment of self-struggle, he managed to tamp down on whatever it was he was having a problem with there, and pull it back in. ...Yeah, Stan knew he was gonna have to have another conversation with the kid there at some point soon, when nobody else and his brother were listening in on the two of them.

Stan pulled in another slow breath and turned back to Miz. "Kid?" he asked her. "You wanna tell me what else I've gotta look out for you, here?"

Miz glanced from her big brother to Stan, and blinked slowly before responding. "I don't like cars. It's not… as bad as a binding, it just makes me uncomfortable and upset. I don't think I'd panic over it, just cry a bit. But I haven't tested that and don't plan to do so." She shuffled in place, looking almost… embarrassed.

Stan raised an eyebrow. That was… kind of random. "Why cars?" Stan couldn't help but ask.

"Because that was how I died." Miz said pulling at the blankets around her.

It took Stan a few seconds to put that together. "Okay," Stan said. He didn't need all the details. Didn't want a repeat of her reliving her way through some bullshit like before with the binding circle stake thing. (Like he'd said, that didn't help nobody. Cathartic nothin'.) "...We talkin' being around them? In them? The idea of them? --You seemed fine on the sidewalks earlier," Stan put out there, trying to get a feel for this without her having to be too specific about all the whys of stuff.

Miz nodded again. "I'm fine with cars existing, I just don't want to be near or inside them."

"Okay," Stan said. "Good to know that you don't like riding in cars," Stan said easily enough. "I won't ask ya to go to the grocery store with me then, or offer to drive you to town, once we get back. And we won't use taxis or buses or nothin' while we're here," Stan added.

Miz blinked up at him before smiling. "Thank you," she said gratefully.

"Don't thank me for tryin' to keep you from having a panic attack, kid, hell. Ain't that hard to work around." Didn't seem like a big deal to him. (Well, not having her accidentally kill somebody was, sure, but the whole not driving her around places thing?) "Not like I'm gonna try and buy or, uh, 'borrow' a car when we're only gonna be here another day." Because it wasn't like that made a hell of a lot of sense. They didn't need one, for starters. Stan thought for a moment. "We can stick to mostly the boardwalk while we're here, or the rooftops, if even just bein' on the sidewalks with the cars going by is that bad for ya, too. ...Is it?" Stan asked her.

Miz thought about it. "Well, the cars back in this time period aren't as bad. I should be okay with them being nearby, they're not as fast or loud. And as long as I don't have to be in them, I'm good."

Okay. That one didn't make a hell of a lot of sense to him, but whatever. He was pretty sure that the cars back then (...now?) were a lot louder, not quieter, and he wasn't too sure that her idea of 'aren't as bad' and his were the same thing, either. He couldn't do anything about the noise, but... "Define 'nearby'?" Stan asked her next. "Just so I know?"

"The sidewalk is fine. That's a good amount of distance."

"Okay. You walk on the building side when we have to do it, though, yeah?" Stan said to her, because they probably would have to at some point. Miz nodded. "Okay." Good. That made things a little easier. They could still use the rooftops and back alleys a bit more than usual. Not a problem.

Stan looked at her, to make sure she wasn't just trying to act like stuff was gonna be fine when it wasn't (and it looked to him like she wasn't), and then Stan asked, "Anything else that might make you panic or feel, uh, 'uncomfortable and upset'?" opening it up a little more, using her own words for stuff. He didn't want to miss something that could be a major problem later, just because of some dumb communication issue.

Miz seemed to think about it a little before responding, "Getting held down by my wrists. It's similar to being bound… sort of." She looked even more embarrassed by this.

Stan damn near froze in place for a moment. He looked over at Bill for a second, who looked confused and worried (hell, the kid hadn't known that one? Shit. Shit shit shit--), then Stan said to Miz, "We're probably gonna need to tell the kids that one. Mabel likes grabbing people by the hand and dragging them off--"

"--Holding hands is fine!" Miz said in a rush. "Just… I don't like people pulling me down and holding me there, where I can't move."

Stan pulled in a long slow breath. (He… really didn't want to know how that one had become a problem for her.)

"...Were the bracelets uncomfortable?" the kid said slowly next, then his eyes jittered sideways slightly and he went a little pale. "--I can make them anklets. Or armlets." (Bill had just realized that the metal could be easily fused together at a distance, and then pulled down by a magnet or similar by the magnets incorporated inside them, which would mean that Miz could be pulled and held down by the wrists by them, down to a metallic floor--)

Miz rubbed at her wrists. "They were a little uncomfortable… but i-it wasn't too bad. I was putting them on, so I knew they were going to be on me, and I could take them off--" She didn't want to trouble them any more than she already was.

The kid grimaced. "They aren't safe," the kid said without elaborating. "Not if--" the kid cut himself off. "I'll… make something of thick plastic instead. Edges of the clothing-sleeves. Not--" the kid looked frustrated.

"It's fine, kid," Stan told him. "You've got time. No weirdness barriers here that she needs to be able to get under to be staying with you. Yeah? You can talk it out with her and me, figure out something safe that won't make her feel even a little bit 'uncomfortable'." ... Aaaand the kid wasn't even looking at him, too busy thinking about who the hell knew what. (Probably how he was gonna try and fix the bracelets.) "Kid." Still nothing. "Bill."

Bill finally lifted his gaze up to him, and Stan caught it and held Bill's gaze with his eyes.

"This is the kinda thing I needed to know," Stan told him, flat out -- because as far as Stan was concerned, it needed to be said. He needed to make it clear that... "This is an agreement thing, kid. She's your sister; family gets covered," Stan repeated. "If you want your sister to be able to be around the rest of us safely, without anybody getting hurt or breaking the agreement…" Stan sighed. "Look, if Miz fell asleep someplace with Mabel in town, running off exploring with each other together, and I came to pick 'em up and carried her into some taxicab to get 'em both back to the beach here myself…" Stan trailed off, letting that sink in for awhile.

The kid seemed to understand him -- kid wasn't happy, but he got it.

"I can't help you two figure out something better than those bracelets, or anything else, without knowing where the problems are, and what they are," Stan elaborated. "And I can't ride Ford to keep him from doing something stupid, or warn the kids to keep 'em out of trouble, if there's something like that that I don't know about, either."

The kid let out an unhappy huff of breath at that, as Stan turned back to Miz. "Anything else I need to know?" Stan asked her. "I don't care if you think it's embarrassing. I can't help if I don't know," Stan told her staunchly.

Bill was giving him a long look that Stan didn't really get, and didn't have the time to get right now. (So was Ford.) He needed to focus on Miz right now. (He'd handle whatever else was up with the kid and Ford later.)

Miz was deep in thought, frowning. "...I guess, just don't try to surprise me with sudden loud sounds, getting startled is a thing, not too bad, but I guess you'd want to know anyway?"

"Kid's here, and I'm here. You trust us to look out for you enough to maybe do something to that headband of yours, to keep yourself from startling at loud stuff so bad that you might do something stupid?" Stan asked her. "Make the 'sudden' too-'loud' stuff quieter maybe?" Mabel could startle the hell out of him sometimes, without even meaning to. He didn't want to think of what might happen if...

Miz glanced between the two of them before nodding. "Okay."

Stan nodded at her. "Anything else?" he asked. "Anything."

"Nothing comes to mind. I think by this point it's just the normal stuff like, don't drug me with aphrodisiacs or things like that." Miz shrugged.

Stan winced. "Yeah, okay. Pretty sure none of us is that stupid. Or that horrible." He glanced over at Ford, who grimaced (and held down a shudder at the very thought). "Thanks for telling me. And my brother," Stan added, because that was a thing. (Bill sent a long look Ford's way, at that.)

Now that that was settled, Stan leaned back a bit and tried to relax again. (Kinda hard after hearing all that shit, but...) He glanced over at Bill, "Undo the silence thing, yeah?" and the kid tilted his head and made a twitching motion with his hand. "Thanks, kid." Stan knew the second it stopped working, because Dipper and Mabel blinked suddenly and looked between them all. (They'd dropped their hands away from their ears awhile ago, once they'd realized it made no difference.)

Ford grimaced. He didn't like that Stan had effectively asked Bill to cast magic on the niblings earlier. Stan could have had no way of knowing what exactly had been cast, or if it was really only what he'd wanted. ...Or if Bill would have understood correctly what Stan had wanted the demon to do. (...And wasn't that a scary thought. Why had Bill done that for Stan? Bill had been acting--)

And then Ford frowned, because Bill had been… earlier, when they'd first gotten here...

Ford slowly turned his head towards his brother, and sent a long look Stan's way.

"...Is it safe to listen now?" Dipper asked carefully, just to be sure. He glanced back at Bill. (Had that thing Bill had just done been kind of like what he'd done to Grunkle Stan's bed? He'd heard stuff like the wind, and the cars and things, but no voices at all. He hadn't really liked getting stuff cast on him without his permission, but he and Mabel had both seen how their grunkle and great-uncle had reacted to what Miz had said when they couldn't hear her, and...)

"Yeah. We're finished talking about this." Stan said heavily, looking tired. He glanced over at Miz. "Y'know, if you still want to do that 'anime' cartoon stuff, then..." Stan shrugged at her.

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance. Their Great-Uncle Ford was still staring at Miz with a strained, uneasy and slightly-distressed look. Bill looked a little stressed, but less than he had before they'd stopped being able to hear things. Grunkle Stan just looked tired and grumpy. And Miz herself had already flopped back on her back, and was waving her hands around to create another Screen to project the show onto above her.

"Do you guys want to continue watching Fruits Basket?" Miz asked Mabel.

"Okay," the other girl nodded, and so did Dipper (a little more tentatively). "Can I borrow one of your dolls?" Mabel asked carefully, as she shuffled over to lie upside-down on top of a bean bag chair at the edge of Miz's pillow-blanket play area. (Dipper pulled over another one for himself, to set it up next to his sister's.) But neither of them got any closer than that.

(They were both a little worried about getting too close right away without knowing what was going on, after the whole 'panic attack' thing Miz had been talking to their Grunkles about. Bill had been looking agitated, Miz had said something about hugs helping with something -- if there was one thing Mabel could lip-read, it was the word 'hug'! But even Bill had seemed to be being careful about touching her when actually giving her that hug, so...)

"Yeah. That's fine," Miz told her, as she laid down in her own 'nest' of pillows, picking up and clutching at a very worn and faded orange teddy bear. The fabric was a little dirty and there were loose threads coming off it. It looked old and somewhat squished. Thinking about what Miz said about how some of these dolls were based on her memories of stuff she had had as a human, Stan figured this one was probably from her human life.

Bill picked up a stuffed animal nearby, seemingly at random, and tossed it to the edge of the pillow nest, for Mabel to lean over and pick up herself. (That got him a glance from both twins.) Miz rolled her eyes and huffed though. "I'm not THAT delicate." She had that embarrassed look on her face again.

Miz put on the continuation of the episode they left off at, and Stan blinked at the colorful pictures and soft music. ...Well, time to see what sorts of shows that Miz liked to watch. (Hey, maybe if it was sci-fi enough, he could try and distract the nerd owl with it.) And yeah, maybe he ran the risk of Soos trying to drag him into those weird conversations at the dinner table if he watched this with her, but he also wanted to make sure that this 'anime' was okay for the niblings to be watching, too. --Besides, if he was lucky, maybe it might be another Ducktective? Stan groaned a little as he pushed himself up out of the beanbag chair, then grabbed it and moved it over a little closer in so that he could see the screen.

Bill stayed right where he was sitting, in the middle of Miz's pillow-nest, right next to her. He did slowly lay himself down flat after awhile, and let out a breath as Miz pushed herself up against his side. (This was fine. He'd figure out the hugging that she wanted better, later.)

Ford glanced over at them all, but he didn't comment. (The niblings were out of arm's reach, at least, and Stan was right there with them, ready and able to pull them away to the side if he needed to. Unfortunately, there wasn't much else that could be done at that point, really. Not when things were as they were... and Ford couldn't do a damn thing about it. Because Ford didn't doubt that Bill could likely cast more than a few spells at a distance, possibly even out of line's sight, if the demon(??) thought of it and wanted to make them suffer…)

(If Bill really was going to continue to play whatever game this was with Stanley, then perhaps he shouldn't interfere too much. If he let Stan try to handle things himself, within this game of Bill's, however long Stan might be able to make it 'interesting' and 'fun' enough for Bill to not get bored enough with it to end it, to make it last for at least a little while longer… If all he himself could do was watch, and wait… No, there had to be something he could do. He just had to remain vigilant, to stop and think, to wait for a chance to...)

(...to what? What could he possibly do here, to--)

One thing was for certain, though, which Mabel had been quite right about -- Ford wasn't about to hand either Bill or this 'Miz' a ready-made excuse to lash out at any of them and kill them all, in the form of an 'oh, I was suffering from a panic attack'! He wasn't an idiot. And it wasn't as though most of it would be hard to avoid; some of what the demon had said was nearly esoteric. ...If Stan didn't tell the niblings what to 'avoid' come morning -- pushing Miz into cars, grabbing her by the wrists (and apparently forcing her to the ground on top of that), and binding circles that none of them (apparently) knew how to (properly) set up anyway -- Ford would tell Dipper and Mabel himself.

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Grammarly said I made 138 mistakes here, but I won't change them, you're stuck with them hahaha.