Ford had looked over those IDs that the niblings had found earlier that summer, looked through that box. And Ford had gone on that boat trip with his brother one that he was beginning to regret that he had done… and… they'd run into an odd bit of trouble once or twice that had seemed… And there had been ports that Stan had outright refused to even consider letting them dock at. --One time, Stan had waited until he was asleep to go up to the navigation unit, and come next morning, his brother had stubbornly refused to admit that he'd put in the course change, let alone why…
Ford remembered at least some of what Stan had yelled at him, down in the basement lab, right before he'd been pushed in, sleep-deprived as he had been.
For everything Ford had suffered through, up to meeting Bill, Stan had gone through far worse.
...With no Bill Cipher in this world to lead this Ford down a path of ruin…
...With no Bill Cipher and no reason for this Ford to call his brother for help…
Stan would get what he deserved. No absolution. No second chances. Just justice, pure and simple. Just and only justice.
Ford felt his breath leave him in a rush, like a punch to the gut, as the thought hit him with the force of a compulsion, pressing in on him from all sides: step forward, break it. Do it. Do it now before-- it was too late to fix--
--no, don't--
--this is wrong--
--this is all wrong, all of this is wrong!--
--NO! STOP!--
Ford shook his head and forced himself to take another step backwards, brain buzzing with 'what if's and 'I don't know's and an ocean of guilt and fear with an undercurrent of paranoid--
--but what would happen if he broke it? What if he broke it? Would that set things right? Would it--
He didn't know what he was doing here. He didn't know--
Bill was CERTAIN that it would break. The demon had said--
(No. This wasn't right. No.)
Bill had said that Stan--
(No. That wasn't right. No.)
Bill had said that 'someone' would--
(No! Stop! NO!)
Stan had said that--
--he had barely slept at all last night. He'd--
Ford quickly raised a hand to his face and slapped himself, hard.
He jolted in place as he felt the shock of the slap run through him, and the effect that it had on him was akin to being hit by a bucket of cold water (thank the Axolotl). He shook that off, and… once he'd recentered himself, feeling almost awake again…
He glanced around in alarm, all around him, all around the room (finally mentally cataloguing all of the points of exit and entry) because-- what the hell was he doing here?
The science fair project was fine. Everything was fine. --And the judges were coming soon. He couldn't be seen in here--!
--He needed to get out RIGHT NOW--!!
Ford turned on his heel and quickly walked back outside.
(He was shivering as he went.)
----
(...Meanwhile…)
Outside, Miz glanced at Bill, easily conveying her desire to go inside as well. Bill sighed and sat down. "Lean on me. Take a nap," he told her. "That Stanford doesn't want you causing trouble."
As she settled her head on his shoulder, he turned his head towards her and murmured -- directly into her ear so that Stanley would not hear it -- "You can pretend to sleep, jump out into the Mindscape. Do what you want, so long as you don't mess with what happens inside that gymnasium or with any of the Pines -- native or Zodiac-mine -- and don't get caught while you're out. I'll watch your body here." Bill was planning on covering for her as he could, keeping her vessel close enough to be within his own magical defenses letting it 'sleep' on him, while she herself was actually away.
Miz nodded and leaned against her brother's side, closing her eyes and relaxing. She slipped out of her vessel and stretched, her mental image of herself still in Miz's form. Bill carefully made sure not to glance up at her as she did; he didn't give away anything as Dipper and Mabel chatted quietly with each other where they sat on another bench nearby. Miz heard Mabel ask if Miz had fallen asleep again, before she flew off to go inside the gym.
She wasn't even paying attention to Ford's project, she was curious about what everyone else had made. She checked on Stan's first, having always wondered about it from her time watching the show. She went up and actually read the little snippets little Stan had written. Aw~ it was so cute. He actually wrote out how the kicking robot would be used to score in football and revolutionize sports. It was sweet and wholesome, a delightful little fantasy that… was actually functional? It wouldn't 'kick' a football very far, but without the football duct taped to it, the lever would move the boot in the right way to hit something at least some short distance, and… She felt a soft pang of sadness at this little dream being discarded, like so many other dreams Stan used to have as a child. Miz glared a little at Ford (from the Mindscape where he couldn't see her) when he approached the table, but turned away.
Nope. Miz shook her head. She wasn't supposed to mess with anything here. Well, nothing that related to Stan and Ford at least. She wanted to look at other people's projects. She liked reading through this sort of thing. What did these children think was important enough to do their final project on? Did they care? Did they simply make something for the purpose of a grade? Did anyone else here love science?
Was anyone else as broken up about it, having all their hopes hanging on this one event as Ford had been?
Miz shrugged and ran off to look through more science projects. Speaking of Ford, she wasn't sure what to do. Ford still hated her and she wasn't sure if he would ever stop. This was pretty much normal for her at this point, to be hated, but she still didn't like it. She glanced over at young Ford's science fair project and the older Stanford who was trembling as he stood in front of it. It was going to suck...
She wondered if Stan would know how to fix it. Well, he would know better than that Stanford at least. She turned and floated away to look at some of the other projects. Huh. A few of these weren't half bad. Granted, she hadn't been expecting much. "How music can alter emotions…" she read out from the poster on one of the booths. "Hah!"
Hm~ the kid behind this project (she Flickered and Saw: Sarah Matthews, boring name, unnotable, shy girl, ignored by most of the school, retreated into songs and music for comfort...) wasn't really appreciated for the work she put in. Miz wanted to help her with that. Perhaps steering her towards a career in music direction for media would be good for her? Movies could have scenes that felt more powerful, with the right application of sound and music. The research Miz was reading here made her believe little Sarah would go far if only she had the CHANCE to do so.
Miz hummed in thought. It could be easily done, a few Deals here and there… and the wonderful creativity of this young woman would be given the chance to grow and thrive…
How she loved watching people develop and learn and evolve, expanding their skills and knowledge! A quick, longer Flicker made her frown. Sarah hadn't gotten much positive attention from her science teachers about this project. She'd been completely overlooked in favor of Ford, the teacher's pet golden boy of the school. Hell, the teachers had barely bothered to read over her project, because she hadn't invented or built anything; to them, her project was 'just' a comprehensive paper of her findings about music and sounds as relating to the triggering of emotional responses…
It wasn't flashy or exciting or impressive at a first glance. And so they had overlooked her. And Sarah, in turn, had taken that as proof that this was not a path she should pursue because it would offer her nothing. Miz growled to herself and decided that she would step in for this.
She wasn't going to be hurting this girl, oh no, she was going to help her to make it BIG. Miz didn't want to see Miss Sarah Matthews fail, to give up on her ambitions just because no one in this stupid school realized the worth of her research. The Arts never received the same praise as the more 'important' subjects and fields of study. And that was a damn shame.
So Miz flew off to talk to a few people. It wasn't like she was going to force Sarah into the path of using her passion for a career; she'd just… inspire her a little bit towards it. Let her know that this was an OPTION that she could choose. Heck, she'd even give the girl multiple other options. Any of them would be fine, so long as she didn't allow that wonderful creative spark of hers to just die off!
----
Sarah Matthews was a quiet girl. Not so quiet that she was sought out as a bullying target, no, she was the type who ended up forgotten in the background. No one messed with her, no one talked to her, and she was fine with that. Better to be ignored than to catch the bad sort of attention that other kids got from their peers.
That's why she was quite surprised when someone sat down across from her desk at the library. She had a study hall for her last period of the day and was quietly working on her homework in the library. No one bothered her here. She was content to just sit alone and get her work done. So when she saw movement in her peripherals and glanced up to see a… very attractive young man sit down at her table with a bunch of leaflets and books, she was quite startled.
"Hey, sorry, didn't mean to bother you." The boy grinned at her. Sarah looked around, realizing that he really had been talking to her. She eyed him suspiciously; there were plenty of free tables, why had he come to sit with her? She scooted her chair back a little, wary of this boy she didn't remember seeing around the school. But he wasn't looking at her; he was busy flipping through all his books and leaflets… which appeared to be for various colleges.
Sarah glanced over at them, wondering what he was looking at. She herself hadn't really decided on where she wanted to go yet, or even if she'd go. She didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. Her parents wanted her to go into nursing, because it was something women could do, it was a pretty stable career choice, and hospitals always needed help, but... she wasn't sure if that was what she wanted to do.
Sarah relaxed when the boy seemed to ignore her and continue reading through and discarding the many college leaflets. As he tossed one away, it slid towards her and Sarah glanced over at it; it was close enough now that she could read the front.
'York's school of music and sound design.'
...Huh? Sarah almost reached for it before pulling her hand back. She shouldn't touch other people's stuff. Without looking up at her, the boy spoke up. "Feel free to look through them if you want. There's plenty," he told her, as he discarded yet another one. Sarah flushed and almost got up to leave but... the boy's tone was friendly, kind. He hadn't been taunting her, and she was pretty sure that he wasn't just setting her up to make fun of her from the way he was acting. Sarah was pretty sure that he'd just meant what he'd said. So Sarah picked up the leaflet and looked through it.
… and then she reached over, picked up another one that the boy had discarded (another music school?), looked through it... and she found herself surprised. She hadn't realized there were so many schools like this. Was this boy planning to be a musician? She glanced over at him and his discard pile, then one of the leaflets in particular caught her eye. It was a pamphlet talking about sound design and direction. Like, being a director for music, what goes where for maximum effect to sway the listener's response sort of thing. --She knew this stuff. She'd done a project about it.
She hadn't known there was a career path for such a thing.
She was so enraptured with the thought that she didn't notice when the boy got up from his seat and left, leaving all the leaflets behind and vanishing as if he were never there. He had some people to talk to, to get her set on her path, whichever she chose, without trouble. Namely some music teachers in the school who might be willing to write her letters of recommendation…
---
Miz settled back into her vessel with a sigh. Well. She felt a lot better now, having done something that she felt was a nice use of her time. She found Bill and the younger set of twins just lounging around on their separate benches, waiting. Ugh~ this was gonna be so boring~
Miz looked up, to see Stan standing right above her, arms crossed and leaning sideways up against the edge of the bench, looking down at her. He'd been sitting down earlier, over on the opposite side of the bench, before she'd left.
"Kid," Stan said lowly, not looking away from her.
"...Nothing that will have any impact on anything or anyone that you might care about," Bill informed him, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. He looked a little sour at their having gotten caught out by Stanley. (The twins looked over at hearing this.)
"Not sure I trust your judgment there, kid," Stan said evenly, and Bill rolled his eyes with his eyes closed.
"She tossed around a couple music college leaflets in front of somebody who was interested in music," Bill informed him dryly. (He'd been tracking her progress in the process of testing out some of the newer and more experimental sensors he'd built into his suit. Because why not? Just sitting in place without thinking- or testing- or calculating-out things was BORING!) "Any major disruptions would take place at least seven or eight years down the timeline."
Stan eyed her for a long moment. "...Yeah, okay," Stan said finally, turning away from the two demons.
Miz blushed.
"She could have a bright future if she knew that following her passion was an option available to her," the dragon defended herself. "Ford wasn't the only one affected by the outcome of this science fair, you know. A lot of the other kids who didn't win or were passed over in favor of the school's top student got discouraged from pursuing their own ambitions…" She winced. "Not that I'm saying it was Ford's fault or anything but more people than just you two had a lot riding on this event… and…"
Dipper stared over at her. "You… really care about this sort of thing?"
Miz continued blushing. "Well, I don't like seeing people give up their creative spirit and passions."
"Muse," was Bill's one-word contribution to the conversation, patting his sister on the head.
Dipper looked between the two of them almost suspiciously, and then looked up at his Grunkle Stan with concern. This other Bill Cipher had just admitted to going inside and doing… things inside the school. And Grunkle Stan had just taken Bill's word for it that she hadn't done anything bad, hadn't messed with Great-Uncle Ford's science experiment… This wasn't right. Dipper looked over at his sister and tugged down on his hat. Mabel gave him a smile, but she looked a little uneasy as well.
"Look, if you're really that suspicious, there's a girl named Sarah Matthews in the school library, trying to decide between three nearby colleges--"
"--Miz," Stan interrupted her. "It ain't what you say you did, it's what they don't know that you also coulda done, too. It's that geeky problem, tryin' to prove a negative or somethin'?" Stan told her, looking out across the schoolyard. "You can't do it. Never works. Don't even try; tryin's a waste of time." It was a trap. You couldn't give somebody evidence that you didn't do something; you could only try and show that there wasn't any evidence of the thing… around. And then the next thing anybody with half a brain would say to that would be that you could've just gotten rid of the evidence -- and you couldn't prove you didn't do that, either, without running into the exact same problem. "Either you did, or you didn't."
Dipper frowned up at Stan, a little upset. At the very least, Grunkle Stan could've let her keep talking until they might've had something to go on!
Miz closed her mouth and nodded, a little annoyed by the lack of faith. "I glanced at Ford but I actually looked at little-Stan's project, was more interested in that. I have no interest in that--" Miz stopped when Bill dropped a hand on her head and mussed her hair, hard. Stan gave Bill a hard look, and Dipper looked at both demons suspiciously, as Miz whined, and Bill murmured something to her under his breath. ...Well, Stan was pretty sure Miz hadn't bothered to mess with the science project. The kid hadn't been lying, earlier. And Ford would've stormed right out of there yelling by now if she had messed with it, Stan figured.
"You should have stayed out here," Dipper told Miz. "--She should have stayed here," Dipper told Grunkle Stan.
"Yeah, sure," Stan said. "But you didn't even notice she was gone; I did." Dipper pulled a face.
Dipper and Mabel exchanged another glance, and Dipper was getting ready to settle in to wait for Great-Uncle Ford, when he finally came out. As he approached the two benches, they all stood up. Dipper nearly held his breath, waiting, because...
"Everything is fine," Ford told them, "The project is fine." And he looked as relieved as Dipper had ever seen him, but he also looked… worried? (Dipper couldn't really explain it; it was almost like Great-Uncle Ford was worried about two completely different things at once? Except not, at the same time?) Dipper glanced over at Mabel, who was giving Great-Uncle Ford a long considering look, and then he bit his lip, because Mabel looked a little confused, too.
"Was everything all right out here?" Ford asked them next, glancing around between them (and sending two glares the demons' way).
Dipper opened his mouth to say something… then looked up at Grunkle Stan and slowly closed it again.
"Yeah," said Stan. "Nothin' to worry about." Ford frowned at Stan slightly (and glanced back to Dipper, who shrunk slightly in his seat and shrugged at him oddly), as Stan stretched a little, and scratched at his cheek. "C'mon, let's leave him to it. Back to the boardwalk," Stan said, rounding them all up and shooing the kids out in front of him.
"More card tricks?" Bill said, eyeing Grunkle Stan and sounding vaguely annoyed.
"Nah," said Stan. "Not unless you want to. Just figured, we've got a booth, might as well stay in it. Boat was getting kinda cramped." He figured the niblings might like to see more of the boardwalk, too. Ford could show them around, while he kept an eye on the demons and camped out with them back at the booth.
Miz glanced up. "Could I try some magic tricks?"
Stan looked over at her, surprised. "Don't see why not. --Maybe show 'em to your brother, first, before you think about trying 'em for an audience. Yeah?" He figured that either Miz was good enough that it'd be fine, or she wasn't up to Bill's standards of control and timing and that'd keep the two of them more than busy enough for the rest of the afternoon, and well into the evening.
Miz nodded before playing with some flickers of fire between her fingers, each around the size of a candle flame and Stan noticed Dipper and Ford watching her warily as Miz formed more, changing their colors as she went. Before they could say anything, Miz spoke up. "They're all light and no heat. I'm absorbing the thermal energy as they create it. Also, I have a Perception Filter on." She held up a handful of fire, and Bill reached over to run his hand along her palm, ruffling the fire.
"It's colder instead. Might want to be careful with that," Bill pointed out. "Frostbite is a thing!" Miz nodded and wiggled her fingers, the temperature of the fire shifted to be semi-warm but not scorching. "Better?" she asked, holding a handful of rainbow colored flames out. It was similar to what she did at her concerts except the fire at her concerts were a little hotter, mainly because concentrating on the temperature while performing on stage with all the music, dancing and singing at the same time was difficult. As long as the fire was mild enough that no one got seriously hurt, that was all she needed.
However, with humans, she couldn't risk ANY injuries at all. Dipper was staring at the flames with a curious expression. "So… you're going to do fire tricks?"
Miz nodded. "I might need brother's help. I can make the fire but I don't know how to engage an audience the way he does. The only shows I'm used to putting on are my concerts and my cooking shows…" and she didn't really have to interact with her audience in those. There was a distance between them. But performing, right there, in front of people when they would be close enough to touch her… and the only other performance she did was when she was interacting with her summoners, playing up the persona of Bill Cipher as a cool showsman… because that was easier than the alternative. Of interacting with selfish, greedy people as herself.
Of course, this was an entirely different situation, this was about performing to delight people. She liked doing that. She liked seeing people smile. But she didn't have much faith in her own ability to do so. What if she messed up? What if she accidentally hurt someone?
Bill patted her on the head a few times.
Miz smiled up at him, then took in a deep breath, breathed carefully, and adjusted her flames again. Warm but not hot. All show, no danger. She wanted to prove she could do this! That she wasn't dangerous. Miz glanced over at Bill, as he tested the temperature of her flames again. "I had an idea for making a cool light show. Since the sun would be going down in a few hours, but I can still make it flashy enough to stand out in the daylight," she told Stan. She could do light shows. But… "I'm not sure how to spin it as a magic show though? I suppose I could play with more fire appearing over time? Match it with some music?"
"Music's good." Bill grinned. Miz laughed softly. "Add some razzle to the dazzle?" she made her flames fan out and shimmer in an array of rainbow colors. There were multiple Touhou boss fight arrays she could play around with here. The soundtrack and attack patterns from Imperishable Night or Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom would be cool too? Would that be too nerdy? Mabel seemed enraptured by the small display already. Miz kept changing her mind about what she wanted to do.
Miz started humming and making her flames dance in tune to the music. "I guess it's not much of a magic show so much as a fire show?" She turned to Stan. "Think people would pay to see it? I could start small and if they give enough money I can do a big show?"
Stan grunted. "As long as you're sure you can do it." He wasn't all that sure about her control, given what had happened with those 'sand waves' earlier that she hadn't even seemed to notice she'd been doing. But Bill wasn't frowning, and she hadn't done anything weird while she'd been all drunk on that chocolate ice cream that afternoon; she hadn't hurt anyone physically since staying with them as far as he knew, and she didn't seem to want to, either.
Ford stared. "Stanley, you can't possibly be thinking that she won't hurt anyone, using fire around crowds of humans--"
"Feel it yourself, I'm regulating the temperature so it wouldn't hurt anyone!" Miz held up her hand.
Ford glared at her. "Oh yes, and any accidents that will inevitably occur later will be completely unintentional on your part," Ford said to her, with a boatload and a half of sarcasm. (He hadn't missed Dipper's tentativeness earlier. He didn't doubt that the demons must have done something objectionable while he'd been off and away indoors.)
Miz seemed like she was going to retort, before she reached a hand up to rub her headband and took a deep breath. "Have you ever thought about, not being so angry all the time? It can't be healthy for you," she said, instead of whatever comeback she might have wanted to shoot at him instead. Stan let out a grumpy sigh, because he got the feeling that the dragon-lady hadn't actually been trying to piss his brother off more. (Hell, even the kid sent a sideways look at her himself, eyebrows raised slightly, knowing that wouldn't go over well.)
Ford straightened and sent a glare down his nose at her. "Have you ever considered not trying to be a--" but Bill interrupted him with: "--Miz, can you use Illusions instead of actual fire?" Stan actually stared at the kid for the redirect. (That was the sort of thing he usually pulled on the kid with the niblings, when things started to get out of hand. Kid was learning…)
"Sure. I could do that easily." Miz shrugged. Illusions would actually be easier. It was about changing the way the air particles reflected light, mix in some real light from her to encourage the light to shine as she wanted, and... Stan and the niblings raised their eyebrows.
Ford bristled and opened his mouth. "You--!!" but Stan said, "--Ford, stop," and Ford looked over at his brother, taken aback. "This ain't helping. The kid just handed you a solution, Miz says she'll do it instead of actual fire, the kid can tell the difference if she's just blowing smoke right now, lying; you got what you wanted. Quit while you're ahead," Stan intoned, giving Ford a long, weighty look... and Ford remembered the last time Stan had told him this. (What had happened out on the porch after--) Ford pulled in a full, deep breath and tried to calm down. It was difficult for him, though.
Ford didn't have to like what his brother was asking him to do, though, overtly and... otherwise. So Ford clenched his jaw and marched ahead, resolving to put on a show of ignoring the demons while still keeping an eye on them, since Stanley somehow was naive enough to believe them when they claimed they were going to do what he wanted, pretending to be 'reasonable', saying they weren't going to harm anyone--
Miz sighed. Bill ruffled her hair a bit. "Why do you keep trying to talk to him?" he asked her. She seemed to keep expecting a positive response out of Ford for some reason, and Bill simply could not fathom why that was. When his sister just pouted harder, Bill tilted his head at her and eyed her like he was trying to See inside her Mind.
(It didn't occur to Bill that, because she wasn't wearing the glasses he'd made for her, she might still be having what he called a 'squirmy feelings' problem.)
Miz shrugged. "Well... he's stressing himself out too much with his distrust and paranoia. That upsets Mabel."
Bill considered that. ...Well, she wasn't wrong. The strings of relationships and consequences weren't only a thing just for him because of the agreement; Miz was trying to follow them, too.
While Bill was thinking about that, they made it back to the boardwalk at around the time kids without any after-school activities had managed to 'escape' and were beginning to gather at the boardwalk to hang out. Stan wasn't too surprised to see their booth had remained unvandalized in their absence. (It was Jersey in the 1970's, after all.) Stan glanced at Miz. "You think you can do this?" he asked.
Miz nodded. "I can sync the illusion to some music." She Flickered before forming a portable radio. "Is this accurate to what people played music with at this time?"
Stan nodded at her, and looked mildly surprised when Mabel spoke up suddenly, saying: "Whoa, what's that thing?" with her usual excitement, as Dipper stared at the blocky object. Miz handed it to her. "A portable radio?" Miz told her. "I think I got this right, I was Looking for something I could play music with in this time period." Hm… might be more difficult to match fire shows with music in this time period, unless she found a station with some nice jazz. Or rock?
Miz flicked the radio on and Mabel watched in wonder as she twisted the dials back and forth to try and find a nice station. She was actually tempted to just make a music bubble and use the radio as a front. She could probably sneak in some Postmodern Jukebox covers of modern songs…
She continued to mentally cycle through the elements she would be pretending to burn in order to create realistic-looking flames in the colors she wanted. (Lithium, calcium, sodium, barium, copper… potassium…) Really, what she was doing with her illusions wasn't going to look all that different from what real stage magicians did, in burning metal salts to get their fire to be whatever color they wanted. "I can start small, just making a flame on my finger…"
She waved all the fake fire she was playing with away before making a normal orange-ish flame ignite on the tip of one index finger. "And then just add more and more?" She brought her hands together to tap her index against the one on her other hand, making the flame spread to the other one, then continued tapping her other fingers with them to light them as well. "And I guess I could work my way up from there? Adding colors? I just need to find a song to sync my performance to. Maybe sing my own song if I don't find one that I like?" because if there was music, she didn't need to talk to the audience.
Stan shrugged. "Sounds fine to me." Bill tilted his head at the faked-composition of her illusionary flames. She even had some fake smoke. "Looks INTERESTING to me!" Bill told her with a grin and a voice full of praise.
Miz cheered. She flipped through the radio to try and familiarize herself with the music from this time period, checking for songs she could synch her performance to (wow, alternative universe Queen?). She hummed cheerfully with the music. Bill himself joined in on purpose this time, humming along as well.
Miz could find a song she liked and simply make the radio play that song, as opposed to what it normally would. She could See and record the song she liked and project it out for the performance. That would make things easier to do, right? She was a little giddy with nerves about it.
She finally settled on a nice rock song to use for a big performance. It had a decent beat to bounce along to. She hummed it under her breath as she practiced. Only once their group was back at the booth and she was sure she knew what she wanted to do, did she drop part of the perception filter she had going.
She stood in front of the booth and opened her mouth to try and call for attention but it was pretty loud and rowdy with the large crowd and her soft voice was drowned out. Bill watched her visibly grow more discouraged and shy as time went on. Looked like his little sis needed a bit of help!
Bill pasted on a wide grin and stepped up. Time to show Miz how to draw in a crowd! A few people from that morning brightened up at the sight of his top hat. "Are you going to do another magic show?" One of them asked. Bill grinned and shook his head. "I'm not performing..." He waited for them to look disappointed... "--My dear little sister will be doing so!" he enthused out instead, then waved at Miz with a flourish, presenting her to them as if she was the result of a magic trick he'd done himself.
They glanced over at Miz. She waved, "Hello?" One of the guys in the crowd looked her up and down. She didn't have a hat or even a deck of cards, standing there with nothing but her clothes and a shy expression on her face. "What're you gonna do?" The guy asked.
"Uh, I'm gonna do a fire show." Miz grinned. Then she paused. "Hang on a second…" She leaned over the top of the booth, flicking her fingers and from where Stan was sitting, he saw a sheet of paper materialize before she pulled it out. She placed it in front of Stan on top of the booth. The old man raised an eyebrow. Huh, it was a... permission slip for fireworks? Yeah, wasn't exactly right, but hey, it was good enough for him. "I got permission an' stuff," Miz said brightly. Stan gave her a half-smile (covering a snort) and nodded as he took the paper from her… then Stan gestured at the crate-chair on the other side of the counter, to move it to the side as a soapbox stage for her to stand on -- which Bill then promptly picked up and set up for her out in front of the booth.
"Fire show?" a guy asked. Miz nodded as she took a step up, to stand on top of the crate, so what she was doing would be able to be seen by the entire, slowly-gathering crowd of people that, to a one of them, were all a good head taller than her. She flicked her fingers, a soft almost-snap sound later and there was a small flame on her index finger. "Two dollars for a small show, more for a large show. This is just a quick example." She waved her hand, putting the fire out.
Some of the crowd didn't seem all that impressed but one of the locals who had seen Bill's show earlier just shrugged, walked up to the booth, and slapped two dollars down on the table, before stepping back. Miz took a deep breath. "Ok. One small show." She hummed a melody to herself as she made her hands bounce to the song with her fingers closed in a fist.
"Work it--" a flame appeared on her index finger on her left hand as she flipped it up to point at the sky. "Make it--" the middle finger came up as well so she was now holding her hand in a peace sign with a flame over both fingers. "Do it--" a third finger was now ignited as well. "Makes us--" a fourth finger came up, orange flame flickering to life. She waved her hand around, making the fire flare much higher and brighter "Do do do do do do do do-"
Miz held up her burning left hand and gestured to her right "Harder--" the index finger on that hand popped up and ignited. "Better--" mirroring her other hand, her middle finger went up. "Faster--" third finger. "Stronger--" fourth. She waved both hands around, letting the fire trail through the air like a flickering ribbon. "Do do do do do do do do-"
Miz suddenly clapped her hands together, letting out a burst of flame which made people jump back. She was the one singing it, which means she could just skip right to the chorus. Besides, while a few people looked interested in the show so far, most of them were just thinking things like, 'Meh. It's just candle flames,' and that made Miz want to wow them.
She brought her clapped hands apart and all her fingers were now covered in fire. "Work it harder~ make it better~ do it faster~ makes us stronger~" she flicked her hands up with a quick motion and the fire jumped off her hands to impact against each other in midair to explode in a small firework display in tune to her singing.
"More than ever~ hour after~ our work is~ never over!" she clapped her hands to reignite her hands again and threw both hands into the air to make a large firework high in the sky above their heads. All the flames and sparks were yellow and orange-ish so far. As the sparks of the small illusory 'firework' fizzled out on its descent, Miz waved the fire off her hands and took a bow. People clapped.
"A short performance. Two dollars," she said as she straightened back up. Then she turned to Bill. "Was that okay?" she asked. Bill grinned and patted her on the head. "You did great!" he told her.
A few people tossed her some more money. "If we pay a bunch, will you do a big performance? Like the other girl?" they asked, glancing at Bill, who smiled a mysterious Cheshire-like sort of smile at them.
Miz nodded. "Sure. I'll make a performance last a full song."
A few more people tossed in some money, Stan watched as Bill gathered it up for her to bring back to the table for her. (It didn't escape Stan that Bill was taking on something of the role for Miz that Stan had done for Bill earlier.) Stan glanced over the money, as Bill handed it over to him. People weren't as excited for Miz's fire show as they had been for Bill's performance (probably 'cause they didn't know what a 'fire show' meant -- hell, even Stan didn't), but there was still enough contributed from the crowd to be worth a large show. Stan nodded at him, adding his own 'okay' to go ahead with things. (Ford seemed to take that as his signal to get up and stand like a watchdog at the pole at the opposite side of the booth, trying to watch Miz like a hawk, suspicious owl that he was. Stan sighed.)
Miz glanced back, saw that she'd been paid enough (from the nod that Stan gave her) and took a deep breath. She thought through a couple band choices, then ultimately decided on some Queen. --Why not? They existed here (under the name Matriarch), their songs were pretty much the same… and she just needed to decide which song she wanted to use that had already been invented by this point in time. Ugh, she kept changing her mind. She liked jazz too, but swing jazz was different here… you know what? Flick of the Wrist worked. She flicked on her radio and made that song begin playing out over the speakers. Why NOT some Queen? This song was from around this time period anyway...
The piano part started playing and she flickered fire around her fingers and arms, making them change colors all through the visible spectrum. The guitar started as she began to raise her left arm in the air, the fire on her body moving and raising up to gather there. The radio began to belt out the lyrics "Dislocate your spine if you don't sign he says~ I'll have you seeing double~" Miz waved her hand quickly to the side, bringing her other hand up and fanning the flames out sideways to make two equal looking sets of rainbow fire.
As the guitar swelled, she spun her hands around to make the fire cyclone around in the air above her hands, the edges of the flames shot off sparks in time to the drum beat. "Mesmerize you when he's tongue tied~ simply with those eyes~" She made the top of the cyclone explode into some fireworks far above their heads. "Synchronize your minds and see the beast within him rise~" She allowed the sparks to rain down gently around them.
The drums picked up as she waved her hands, reigniting them with red fire in wait for the next line. "Don't look back!" She threw her hands into the air, a large explosion of light going off that bathed them all in a red glow. "Don't look back! It's a rip off!"
Miz prepared the next shot, orange this time, flicking it up into the air, as if she was throwing whatever she was using to set off the fireworks "Flick of the wrist and you're dead baby~" She moved a hand to her mouth and inhaled before blowing out through her hands, shooting up green tinted fire. "Blow him a kiss and you're mad~ oooh wooo ooooh~"
She shook her hand away from her mouth and ignited it again, flicking her hands to send up more fireworks. This one exploded into the shape of a heart, blue flames. "Flick of the wrist~ he'll eat your heart out~" She trailed her hands up her body, from her sides along the hips, up past her torso, neck, cheeks and head before flicking her hands up to set off the next fireworks. "A dig in the ribs and then a kick in the head~ he's taken an arm and taken a leg~"
(Ford was frowning quite a bit by this point, really not liking the lyrics.)
Miz clapped her hands together, sending out another small burst of flame. All of the crowd were standing far back, giving her plenty of space to work, thinking the fire real and not wanting to get burned by it. "All this time honey~ baby you've been had~" She grinned, allowing the fire to creep up along the sides of her arms and begin changing color through the spectrum as she slowly danced. She waved and weaved and wiggled, threw down some colored flame along the ground around her in a circle; jumping down from her crate, the crowd had backed up enough that they could see her even on the ground. "Intoxicate your brain with what I'm saying~ if not you'll lie in knee deep trouble~"
The fire was around her in a circle along the ground now, still shifting in color as her eyes were narrowed in concentration. She wished she could use a Touhou song but those hadn't been invented yet. "Prostitute yourself he says, castrate your human pride~ ooh ooh~" Miz slowly danced around, the fire draping and trailing behind her like a scarf wrapped along her arms. "Sacrifice your leisure days~ let me squeeze you till you've dried~" She stomped her feet on the ground in tune to the drums, the flames jumping higher and higher along the ground.
The flames roared into the sky with a particularly hard stomp and exploded into multiple colors "Don't look back! Don't look back! It's a rip off!" She made the fire dance through the air, exploding with the guitar riffs. With a smug grin, she shaped one into a dragon made from yellow flames.
"Work my fingers to my bones I scream with pain~ I still make no impression~" She waved her arms, making the fire dragon fly around as it's edges bled off into sparks of color until it was the skeletal frame of what might have been a dragon, looking like some sort of wire kite that Miz was pulling through the air. "Seduce you with his money make machine~ cross collaterize~" She pulled and made the dragon light up in red flames before exploding. "Reduce you to a muzak-fake machine~ then the last goodbye~"
Miz threw more fireworks into the air, making them explode in all sorts of colors for the final chorus. "Flick of the wrist and you're dead baby~ blow him a kiss and you're mad~" The song went on as Miz focused on making a spectacle to end this. She danced, sweeping her leg out to scoop up the fire along the ground and throw the rest of that up into the air as well, jumping back onto her crate for a little extra height.
There was a beautiful explosion of colors that lit up the sky. The last notes of the song faded out. Miz huffed. Everyone was staring up at the sky. ...Well, she hoped they liked it?
The audience clapped and cheered. "How'd you do that?" "Did that burn?" "How'd you get that dragon?" "Where'd you learn to do that?" They began to crowd in, stepping closer, closing in on her. Miz went wide eyed and suddenly wanted to hide behind the counter. They were so close to her. Not even a proper stage and bouncers to keep them away. She backed off a little, unsure how to feel. Stan frowned at the mild distress Miz seemed to be feeling as people stepped closer to her. Was she not good with crowds? Miz backed up but couldn't go anywhere since she was on her crate. "U-um…"
Stan stared. Was she really afraid of the crowd? He saw Ford even beginning to look around warily, putting his hand on his gun--
--and Stan got up to intervene before they could manage to spook her (or anybody else…) enough to get some kinda fear response from her. Cornered, scared animals weren't good. Stan had a feeling that cornered, scared demons (with a twitchy sci-fi nerd-owl practically standing next to them) would be even worse--
--but Bill stepped in first, coming up from behind Miz to drop a proprietary hand on top of her head, then step up next to her side. "--Good job, sis!" the kid enthused brightly as he looked down at her with a big grin on his face, taking her attention for himself… and with a set to his shoulders that practically screamed 'back off or I will cut you' to anybody else who was paying the least bit of attention nearby…
...and the crowd unconsciously obeyed. Miz relaxed, pressing closer to Bill's side. "Thanks big brother."
Bill just grinned and patted her on the head twice, then turned away to look to the crowd and said, "Questions? Step right up! --One at a time." with a fixed smile of warning of an unspecified and unspeakable fate, were his words to be ignored...
The crowd thought better of it and just backed off, unconsciously feeling the pressure in the air.
"No?" Bill asked, swiveling his head to look around. ''That's fine!!" Bill said next. "A magician should NEVER be asked to reveal one too many secrets!" he told them all, then paused for a full second and said, "There will be a ten minute break!" And with that, Bill turned in place and reached down to flip the boombox to a different station and turn up the volume with a flourish.
And then he turned back to Miz still on top of her box, and offered her a 'gentlemanly' arm. She took it and stepped down from the crate. She walked with Bill back to the booth and got inside it and behind the table, relaxing once there was an almost-barrier between her and the other people.
Miz dropped down into her beanbag chair and slumped a little as the crowd dispersed. "Sorry. I froze up." She looked down, frustrated at herself. Mabel went up to pat her shoulder. "It's fine! Crowds can be intimidating!" Miz still seemed upset at herself. "I shouldn't be afraid. I shouldn't!"
Mabel pressed her lips together. "Hey, it's ok. Everyone can get a little stage fright?" She asked awkwardly. When Miz didn't see to feel any better, Mabel sighed. "It's ok to be scared. I'm afraid of old special effects animation." That got a small laugh out of the dragon.
"And I'm afraid of cars," Miz admitted.
Mabel blinked (while Stan, Ford and Dipper straightened as they stared at Miz). (Bill slowly closed his eyes and looked like he was getting a headache.) "Really? Cars like the vroom vroom, human cars?" Mabel asked of the human-demon in surprise. Miz nodded.
"Why cars?" Dipper asked the dragon-demon, chiming in because he was confused. He was pretty sure that in a 'battle' against a car, a dragon-Miz would win. She was huge!
"It was how I died… back when I was human." Miz said sadly, shivering a little, and Dipper and Mabel both stared at her.
The kid looked like he was struggling with himself over something (...probably worried that the kids might either take advantage, or not take it seriously, if Stan had to guess, maybe; one of the two). And for a couple seconds there, it looked to Stan like Bill was either going to snap at the kids, practically biting their heads off verbally, or grab Miz and… do what, exactly?
"--Kid, breathe," Stan reminded him evenly.
And Stan waited.
...And after a few moments, the kid slowly dropped his 'gentlemanly arm' down and away from her hold, to fall back at his side. He also began breathing a little more evenly and looking a little less like he was going to vibrate his way out of his skin on them. They all took that as a signal that this rather major problem Bill had been having, whatever it was, had now passed.
Once the danger of Bill losing his shit (in the immediate moment) had passed, Mabel went up to Miz to hug her gently. "So you died in a car crash as a human? That must have been scary." she said sympathetically. Miz nodded. "I'm fine with spaceships and hovercrafts but I can't stand cars."
"Ooh!" Mabel said, dropping the hug to clap her hands together excitedly. "Bill could fix up one of the security drones for you when we get back! You could use it as a taxi," Mabel told her, grinning up a storm. Miz smiled back, a little less enthusiastically about it, but glad that Mabel wanted to help. Also, security drones… probably not a good idea.
"No," Bill said, almost a groan. "I told you, Shooting Star, I am NOT doing that." He was NOT making Shooting Star her own personal autonomous taxi-car-thing for her to hover everywhere in. He did NOT want to THINK about where she and her brother could go in one of those, and what trouble they could get into in town or in the forest, let alone ANYWHERE ELSE they would potentially be able to go in one of those. (...like three states over, in the span of minutes. Or low-earth-orbit in even less time than that...)
Mabel whined. "But… flying!"
Miz looked contemplative. "You could ride on my back?" her dragon form was big enough.
"--No flying until you have your shuttle license!" Bill insisted, nearly snapping the words out. "Even on friendly intelligent-biologicals. --And no shuttle license until AFTER you have gotten your human car driver's license LEGALLY, Shooting Star," he added next, crossing his arms and glaring down at her. "I am NOT getting blamed for you flying off and getting you and your sibling KILLED on MY watch using MY TECH," Bill told her, adamant.
Mabel groaned. "No fun~" Miz also pouted. She would have liked to go flying with Mabel.
"...Shuttle license?" Dipper asked, looking between them all. "Like, the Space Shuttle?" he asked, almost positive that was wrong.
Bill rolled his eyes. "No." Bill dropped his arms. He had far higher standards than that! "There's a programmable simulator in the spaceship," Bill said, and left it at that. (Ford was giving the kid a long, unreadable look now that Stan wasn't so sure he liked. Just how much trouble was one of these 'security drone' taxi things?)
Mabel and Miz were glancing at each other, a silent conversation happening as they each twitched their eyebrows and wiggled their hands in gestures that made no sense to anyone else. Mabel was slowly beginning to grin. Miz nodded, grinning herself.
"Nuh uh," Stan said, picking up on what the two girls were kibitzing on. "Nope. Don't even think about it, you two." Stan knew what trouble looked like, and those two were planning it. "And you two are already in enough trouble for ending up in another dimension as it is," Stan said next, glaring down at Mabel and Dipper next, quellingly. "You ain't getting out of that, once we get back, the both of ya." The twins groaned, having hoped Stan had forgotten all about that. (As if.)
"But we just wanted to help," Dipper protested, about the use of the time tape. Stan rubbed his face.
"Yeah, sure," Stan said. "Help yourself right out of existing," he reminded them heavily, which got a wince out of Dipper. "The science fair thing is fine here, now, sure. So what. You think either of us care about that?" he asked them both. "Really care about that? We came here for you two! --And you two are only fine because you got sent to another dimension instead of back in time, or whatever the hell else could've happened if the kid hadn't set things up to bounce you instead of vaporize you instead, or whatever the hell he could've come up with that could've been a hell of a lot worse." Stan glared down at them both, frustrated beyond belief.
Mabel looked properly chastised. Dipper huffed. "Well at least this world's version of you guys are going to be alright--"
"Yeah?" Stan said challengingly. "Well, great for them." He firmed his jaw. "--What d'you think would've happened to you if I'd asked the kid to look for you and get you two back, and he had said 'no'?" Stan demanded out of them both, pointing a finger at them both. "Couple of thirteen years olds from 2013 stuck in Jersey in 1971 with no money on ya and no family around to help take care of you?" he ground out.
Miz made a distressed sound. She was holding Mabel's sleeve. "I would have gone to find them…" She shuffled her feet.
Stan looked over at her. "You're only helping out because of your big brother here," Stan told her. "If you two weren't all," Stan made a gesture between them, "Would you even have been in Gravity Falls still, the last couple of days?" he asked of Miz, already knowing the answer was gonna be... "Or would you have gone someplace else to wait this broken not-there demon thing out."
Miz paused. "I guess not? Might have gone to explore Earth." She frowned. "But at least things turned out… not awful?" She shuffled her feet again.
"Yeah," Stan said. "So far," he said, looking over at Bill. "But not because of them. They screwed up." Stan turned his gaze back down on the both of them. Dipper and Mabel didn't look cowed -- of course they didn't, they were Pines -- but they did look pretty damn uncomfortable finally, the both of them.
"You're giving Bill an idea of how much leverage he has over you…" Stan heard his brother say under his breath at his shoulder. Stan glanced back over his shoulder at Ford.
"Pretty sure that ship already sailed back when I told the kid to do anything he needed to to find 'em, Ford," he told him brother in normal tones. "Kid already knows the two of 'em are my line. Ain't some big secret, here."
"Admittedly, keeping your family from messing with themselves is beginning to look like a losing proposition, Stanley!" Bill drawled out with a false brightness to his tone that had Stan sending an annoyed glare his way. Miz was glancing off into the distance. A worried frown on her face. "Um… brother? The thing just happened."
"What?" Ford said, with the beginnings of a vague alarm to his tone. "What thing?" But Bill let out a snickering laugh.
"Oh," said Bill. "That's not the thing," he told her, then added darkly, "WAIT FOR IT."
Stan clenched his jaw. The kid actually sounded amused for some reason.
"Kid…" Stan began, but he was beaten to it by a frantic and angry sounding Ford wheeling on him and demanding, stomping right up to him and getting in his face, "What did you DO?!"
Bill simply smiled. "I didn't," he told Ford, with a gleam in his eyes. "And I did. --Do you want to know what I did?" he asked, almost teasingly.
Ford looked fit to strangle the triangle demon with his bare hands outright.
Bill's smile widened ever so slightly. He leaned forward just a bit and said, "I… came here," he told Ford. "And I found Pine Tree and Shooting Star for you. And I descended upon them like a demon with a mission!" Bill grinned. "And I retrieved them both for you both! --And then I stayed with you and Stanley," he gestured at said Stanley, "Allllll this time," Bill paused. "And while everything else that is going to happen has been going on?" Bill added, inching that little bit closer to Ford's face. "I DIDN'T EVEN WATCH." Bill breathed out at him, eyelids dipping low. (Bill looked amused as hell; damn near ecstatic. It made Stan want to punch him, even as he watched Bill slowly lean back to upright again, away from his brother.)
Miz was covering her mouth so she wouldn't let anything slip. Brother had asked her not to. Dipper stared at her before he put it together. "Did something happen at the science fair?" Miz's expression gave it away without her even having to say anything.
"And someone is going to get kicked out of the house," Bill said breezily, waving a hand casually in the air. But he still had an amused look on his face as he took a solid step back away from Ford and raised his hands into the air at his sides, palms up, and said, "...Oops?" And the kid was grinning now.
And then the kid had the audacity to turn to Miz and say, "No spoilers!"
Stan gritted his teeth, shoulders rising, fists clenching, and it took everything he had not to step forward and give the kid a good solid punch to the face.
...and the kid seemed to realize this as he looked over at Stan and he… paused for a moment.
And then Bill slowly lowered his arms just a bit (his grin and expression lowering a lot more than just a bit...) and the kid said to him a hell of a lot more soberly than he'd just been talking to Ford... "I told you, you can fix it. And I'll help. When you want me to." (And it was clear to Stan, from the look of the kid, that the kid had some insane idea of his own what that 'when' should or was going to be.)
"Brother didn't cause it!" Miz stared at Stan's angry look and defended Bill.
Bill let out a gusty sigh, dropping his hands to his hips and rocking back on his heels. He looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. "Yes, oh little sister mine. I think Stanley knows that." Miz's gaze darted over to Ford. She made another distressed sound. The type of things going through Ford's head right now were--
"You let me take point on this, Ford," Stan ground out, not even looking over at his brother. "You understand me? You let me handle this."
Stan heard his brother let out an inarticulate snarl, turn, and stomp off. ...Yeah, that would work.
"Kids, go with him," Stan said next, and the niblings exchanged glances and hurried off.
That left Stan alone with the two demons in the booth.
"Sit. down." he told them both, glaring.
Miz sat down, looking distressed and worried. She REALLY wanted to tell him. But she would try to keep her mouth shut until brother gave the okay.
Bill sat down almost casually. He looked happy with the state of things and the world in general.
Stan looked over the two of them. He didn't sit down himself.
"You want to tell me what I'm walking into here?" Stan ground out at them both, but mainly the kid. (He wasn't going after the kid's little sister, putting the screws to her and dragging the kid's 'family' into this; the kid had made it clear earlier that he didn't want Miz saying anything, anyway. Stan had no reason to go that route today, and every reason to stick it to the kid instead.)
The kid looked up at him, unconcerned, and told him: "No." Stan felt himself tense, and had to force himself to unclench his fists. "I told you. You're a con-man, not an actor," the demon said next.
"...What are you expecting me to do here," Stan said to the kid next. Because he'd be damned if he'd give the kid the satisfaction of running around like some idiot when he--
"I expect you to spend the rest of the day doing... " Bill made a gesture that encompassed the booth in general. "Because that Stanford will hardly want to change things any further, I think."
Stan glared at him.
"You think," Stan said, and the kid nodded at him.
"Yes," the demon kid told him, and that just clinched it for Stan -- the kid really didn't know his brother at all.
"And then, after night falls," Bill continued, "and the beach is empty, I expect that we will go out to the water's edge, and we will set up a portal, and then…" Bill smiled. Stan didn't give him the satisfaction of a response. He waited the kid out. ...Kid didn't even look put out as he continued as if he'd never stopped to begin with, saying: "I expect you to stop and listen and fix things," the kid stressed, and the kid wasn't exactly smiling anymore. He looked downright serious, and his eyes looked deep and full of-- spiders-- ...And Stan couldn't help but lean away from the demon slightly, at the look in the kid's eyes as he watched the kid put his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, and leaned forward, to say, "I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT."
Stan didn't quite stifle a shiver. "...How are you expectin' me to fix things," Stan said almost flatly next. And he felt another chill go through him as the kid just lit up, and the next thing he got out of the kid was a delighted chittery giggle.
"I DON'T KNOW!!" the kid told him, eyes wide and bright, and grinning like a maniac. "But I want to SEE!" the kid told him next, looking excited, almost bouncing in place. "I want to SEE you FIX THINGS!"
And that… just drained the fight right out of him. Stan stared down at the kid in pure, dumb disbelief.
"Can we bring Stan to see what happened at the science fair?" Miz suggested. "Just so he can see what the damage is?" in more ways than one.
"Later, maybe," Bill said absently. "Better if it's a surprise! Don't want that idiot Stanford getting involved and messing things up," Bill said darkly. "Making things even worse. --No," Bill said, "Better to wait until tonight. Let the dust settle. --Just in case!" Bill all but chirped out, and it left Stan half-drowning in a stewing sea of mixed emotions all over again.
"You want me to wait," Stan ground out at the kid, and the triangle demon actually nodded at him.
"It could resolve itself on its own?" the kid told him, cocking his head to the side. "I wasn't completely sure when the project would break! 'If' was a longshot possibility," Bill told him, "But not an absolute zero! They could fix things," the kid told him, "All on their own. But…" the kid trailed off almost leadingly, ticking his head from side to side.
Stan had to fight down a grimace. "...You don't think so," Stan said in descending tones, sitting down heavily on one of the beanbag chairs. He watched as Bill nodded at him, looking downright overstimulated, higher than high-energy here, and Stan ran a hand over his face. ...Hell, Ford had warned him. He'd signed up for this. The kid's 'not a game' penalty-game gambling bet, here. For rushing him to get here, to get back the kids right away without… (stopping to think, or to listen to the kid first, before jumping out to other dimensions that the kid thought were his area of expertise. Stan had figured that part out of it, finally. Hadn't taken him more than a few hours after a decent amount of sleep and a bit of time to actually sit down and think, while his hands were busy with shuffling and shuffling and reshuffling cards, but… it sure as hell didn't make him any happier to have figured out that much of it.)
The only thing left for Stan to decide was… did he say 'the hell with it' and give up, refusing to play? Or did he see it through?
...Yeah. Like that one was a choice.
Stan dropped his hand and looked up at the triangle demon sitting right in front of him. "You are damn well helping me with this," Stan said quietly, because damn if he was going to let the kid off the hook. Not for this. Never for this.
Ruining people's lives… this hit far too close to home. (...Did Ford feel like this all the time, when the triangle pulled this shit on other people? ...Or when the triangle had pulled this on him directly? --Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit.)
To this, Bill nodded, bright-eyed and seemingly still perfectly 'happy' to help Stan out with fixing this gigantic mess. (Which he'd let happen. Because…)
Miz gave Stan a reassuring smile. "I'm sure you can figure out what to do." She frowned. "Can I give hints? Later?" she asked of the kid, and Stan wasn't sure if he was being pitied or not. (Either way, Miz seemed to want things to go well, too -- not just the kid, who was wanting him to 'fix it'.)
"Uh…" Stan began.
"--Later-later," Bill cut in. "Once I tell you. I'll tell you when it's most safe," Bill told his sister, and that had Stan pissed off all over again. Stan almost snapped out at him that he would decide when-- "Least chance of negative impact on my Zodiac, and the two younger local twin Pines," Bill continued, and Stan damn near bit his own tongue, with how hard he clacked his jaw back shut.
Stan forced himself to stop and take a breath, before he said to the kid: "I should get a say in this. It's my call, and my play. My fix. Yes?" Stan said heavily. Bill looked surprised. Damnit. "I'll ask you to weigh in first," Stan told him. "But it's my decision. --You're on my side. Got it?" The kid looked almost taken aback, and then squared his shoulders, looking combative, then-- ...stopped. And Bill frowned, looking down at the ground, looking almost contemplative.
There was a long silence.
And then the kid's posture shifted, just slightly.
And the kid looked up at him, eyes dark and deep again. Serious again. And the kid nodded, once.
Stan slowly let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. He hadn't been sure he'd be able to take the reins back that easy, if at all. Kid was kicking him for a loop, here, and with the 'little sis' in the mix, now… damn near everything was almost out the window, now. At least with how he'd been handling things before. Whole thing now was a wreck.
"Alright," Stan ground out. He needed a breather, needed to get his head screwed back on straight. (He needed the kids. And maybe a hug or two.) "I'm gonna go and catch up with Ford and the kids. Where are they."
"End of the boardwalk," the kid told him promptly. "Pine Tree and Shooting Star are trying to talk him out of going to 'talk' to that local Stanley."
Stan didn't even question how the kid knew this. He was up and out of that booth like a shot.
The look on Miz's face showed how much she was unwilling to let Ford do that, herself. "Of course he immediately blames Stanley for it!" she huffed out, as she and Bill slowly got to their feet. Bill shrugged at Miz's annoyance, and they left the booth together to follow after Stan at a more reasonable pace.
------
"Ford!" Stan caught up and took his brother's shoulder, turning him around. Ford tried to shake him off. The kids were already holding Ford's hands, tugging at him (and talking to, if not complaining worriedly, at him) to try and get him to stop moving forward as well.
And with the three of them now holding on to him, Ford finally stopped trying to move forward and simply commanded: "Let go, Stanley! I have to--!"
"--Have to what Ford?" Stanley gripped his brother's shoulder more tightly, debating on whether to grapple with Ford if he needed to. "Go run down and yell at a teenage boy who don't even know who you are, other than some kinda boat pirate? --What are you even going to do? Scold him? Scream at him?" (...Punch him in the face?)
Ford bristled and drew himself up, struggling again -- not quite hard enough to break free, though, because the kids were still holding onto him for all they were worth and he didn't want to hurt them. "He broke--!"
"Funny how he immediately blames Stan for it. Without even knowing what happened." Miz huffed as she and Bill caught up, as they walked over. Frankly, that was just biased of him.
"Hilarious, not funny," Bill amended, then shrugged. "He's working off of what very little he knows." The adults didn't seem to be listening to either of them -- too mad at each other -- but Dipper (and Mabel) heard them. The teenager looked over at the two demons and frowned.
"--What did you do?" Dipper demanded, narrowing his eyes at Bill, who let out a single laugh.
"I told you all, I didn't do ANYTHING," Bill told him. Then he paused for a moment and added (for completeness), "Miz didn't do anything either." The smaller demon nodded, snuggling Iseblonker. Dipper made an aggravated sound, not believing them in the least!
"--isn't important right now!" Stan yelled out at his brother, and that finally got Ford stopping in place for good, instead of running off, got him actually turning around and looking at him.
"How is this not important, Stan?!" Ford shouted out at him, and the kids let go (and moved away to stand little behind their grunkle). "Y-- the other Stan broke the project--!"
Stan clenched his teeth as he stared his brother down. "--Gettin' the kids home is more important right now," Stan told Ford firmly, gesturing down at the niblings at his sides. "I can fix whatever the heck happened here after we do that." And he was damn well going to MAKE Bill help him, if it came to that. (Serve the demon right if he didn't like what Stan came up with for him to do, and had to get punched in the face a couple of times before he finally said 'yes' to it.)
Ford blinked, taken aback, and looked down at the twins. "I…"
Stan wasn't sure what that expression on Ford's face was about but he pulled in a breath and nodded, feeling relieved and a little glad that his brother was finally calming down enough to think a little better. "Yeah. The kid's eye should be healed up enough sometime later this afternoon, so we can go home sometime in the next couple of hours. He'll be able to do the portal then."
Ford finally noticed the demons were there, standing off to the side, watching him and his brother with interest and boredom, respectively. He scowled. "And you are waiting until nightfall for Bill's 'help' why?" Ford demanded of his brother. He could hardly believe that Stan still thought that Bill was going to keep his word! --Because when nightfall came, and Stan expected Bill to open that portal… (Stan would finally get to experience a real bout of Bill's derisive and gleeful laughter for the very first time, Ford was sure of it. Not that that was something that he would wish on anyone, but his brother was willfully--)
"You want to have to deal with a bunch of the locals seein' one of the kid's portals come out of nowhere?" Stan told him. "They barely kept off him for the hat trick!"
"That's not--" Ford began.
"Ford, you let me handle this," Stan said again, and Ford fumed in place.
"You can't trust him," Ford said firmly.
"Who said anything about trusting me?" was Bill's straight-faced contribution to the discussion, which had both Stan and Ford looking over at him.
"Not helping, kid," Stanley said, sounding more than a little incensed. Bill saw Miz frown-pout up at him in clear disapproval too, and blinked.
Bill glanced between the two of them for a moment.
"...Apologies," Bill said after a long moment to Stanley, before falling silent again.
Ford glared at Bill, not trusting the demon in the slightest.
Stan finally let go of Ford when it seemed like his brother wasn't going to immediately run off.
"The kids come first, Ford," Stan repeated firmly. "We get them back home; worst-case, we can come back here later if we have to, to fix things later. I can have the kid pick the time."
Ford gave Stan a dead-eyed thousand-yard stare for that one.
Stan took a step forward, patted Ford's back, and took him by the arm to start steering him toward the beach. "Come on. Let's go." Stan didn't even glance at the demons as he did it. As far as he was concerned, he had a good plan of attack here: he'd get the niblings home first, poke his head through and make sure they were settled, and then he'd stay here for a little longer with the triangle demon and do whatever fixing that he needed to do, that the demon-kid was so sure that he could do, even if the kid had no idea what or how. (Maybe even get some help from Ford for that, if his brother was still speaking to him after all this. ...Because fixing things here couldn't take more than an hour or two, right?)
But damn if this whole thing didn't piss Stan off.
The kids started moving, but Stan startled and had to stop in place as he pulled at his brother's arm and… got nowhere at all. The hell? "--Ford, we're going back to the beach," Stan said, turning back towards him.
"No," said Ford, jerking his arm out of his hold.
Stan stared at him.
"What?" said Stan.
The children were hanging back, worried and really hoping there wasn't going to be another fight. Miz groaned. "Look, do you guys want to See what happened? Would that… help?" she suggested. Bill shushed her. Miz frowned. "Can I at least show them how it happened back in this Stan's past? So at least they know what they have to compare to?"
"What part of 'no spoilers' do you NOT understand?" Bill said to Miz, looking tense, at the same time as Ford yelled out at her, "--I wouldn't trust you to show me that the sky is blue!!"
Stan whipped his head around and glared at the demons, then back at Ford.
"Kid," Stan barely managed to get out in a flat tone with seething, "Get your sister under control." The absolute last thing any of them needed was for that demon to go off showing them all exactly whatever the hell had happened in the gymnasium with that science fair project, like a home movie from hell. It would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and then some -- to Ford, and to him.
Miz wilted. "I thought it would help? Would it not?"
"--No," said Bill.
"Oh, on the contrary--" Ford said in a tone dripping with venom (as he shook in place with rage), which had both Dipper and Mabel wincing.
"NO," said Bill, stomping forward to get up into Ford's face, shoulders squared, moving between him and Stanley. "You hear me, Stanford? NO--"
Stan shoved himself between them both.
"Get out of the way," Ford ground out at Stan, looking like the spectre of death come calling.
"We are not doing this," Stan said to Ford in flat tones. "Not here, and not now."
Ford looked fit to punch him in the jaw. "Why are you listening to him?!" he demanded from Dtan.
"Kid," Stan ground out, not breaking eye contact with his brother. "One reason why you think it's a bad idea for Ford to see what happened the way the dragon-lady is talking about it. --The best one you've got. Right. Now."
"--No timeloops to fix anything," Bill said immediately, sounding a little bit tense. "It'll set in place what we all see, since Miz will have Seen it, to be showing us that. I wouldn't even be able to use an illusion to cover the actual things up later, to distort her sight, to make a nonlinear time loop, to make it all work!" Bill told them. "If you want to fix THAT from happening," Bill said, "That will be out if she Looks and Sees it. --Which is WHY I keep told her to wait until I know when and whether it's safe to do!"
"That why you weren't watching, kid?" Stan said next, still looking at Ford.
"...It was one reason among many," Bill said tersely. He didn't exactly sound happy about something or another in there, though, and that had Stan's eyes sliding sideways a bit, even though he couldn't see Bill that way -- kid was literally at his back right now.
"Stan…" Ford said in warning tones.
"We ain't doing this, Ford," Stan told him staunchly, looking back to his brother. "You sure as hell ain't torturing yourself with seeing that, and I'm sure as hell not going to let you go off half-cocked on anybody when we don't know what the hell happened, if anything." Stan glowered at his brother. "Unless you're really trusting the dragon-lady on everything now, all of a sudden," since she had been the one to say that something had happened.
And Stan saw his brother fight the urge to punch him in the jaw just then.
He also saw his brother barely keep in some complaint or another, too. Probably somethin' to do with the kid more or less 'confirming' what had just happened with the project… except the kid hadn't really. ...Not to Ford. And not to him. The demon had been bouncing all around it.
Something was really off, and the kid wasn't talking. Yet. But--
"You let me handle this, Ford," Stan repeated.
"We leave now," Ford demanded. "If you really care about getting the kids home that much?" Ford said as if it was a challenge, tilting his chin up slightly while leveling a glare at him, "Then do it now. --Bill said he would be fine this afternoon, didn't he? But he wants to wait until this evening! --We leave now," Ford demanded.
Damn it. "--That's why we're not leaving until evening, Ford," Stan ground out at him. "Kid said he'd help me with anything after that. And we aren't gonna be able to handle a bunch of lunatics rushing us, if we do this thing out in broad daylight." (Forget those perception-thingies that the demons could do; that wouldn't help his argument, so Stan left that out.)
"That isn't a reason; that's an excuse. Bill won't help you with anything, evening or not, and Bill's blocked things from sight using magic before. He could even set it up in some of the caves nearby, if he's been trying to claim that he couldn't have both spells going at once for some reason," Ford said shortly.
"I don't want the kid risking breaking his eye over nothing, Ford." The way the kid had talked about (and around) the problem before, it had sounded like his eye might end up permanently damaged if he pushed things too much, too quickly. (And Stan knew damn well that that'd just about be a deal-breaker -- or agreement breaker-- for the kid. He wasn't risking it.)
"We can wait a couple more hours, just to be sure that he can't screw this thing up by us rushing him again," Stan told him. Because for all he knew the kid might need his eye working right to make the portal work right, and... "The dragon-lady can't make this one." Hell, it wasn't like the project at the 'fair could get any more broken now than it already (probably) was... "We went over this." Because Stan had. He'd finished filling Ford in on things last night on the roof, after both the kids and demon-kids had fallen asleep. (Ford hadn't been much more pleased with him then than he was with all this right now; just marginally a little less angry and less likely to punch him in the face in the next two seconds over it.)
Stan needed them to wait until dark. The kid wasn't talking yet. Maybe the kid would help a lot on his own or maybe Stan would have to be 'convincing'. Whatever. Stan could handle it. --The main thing here was that the kid had given him a clue. A 'hint'.
Stop. Listen. Fix things. On the beach, after dark. ...After the portal was open.
The kid was expecting something important to happen after nightfall on the beach. Something he thought Stan might shrug off and ignore, probably depending on what else was going on with his family. So if they left before then...
The kid had promised to help as much as Stan wanted until they got home again. Poking his head through the portal for a second or two was one thing, but if Stan left and then came back with him later… he wouldn't have the blank check the kid had written him anymore. He'd 'only' have the 'wanting him' thing to go off of (which did who-knew-what for him), and the agreement -- which didn't extend that far -- and since he had no idea how far this 'wanting him' thing might actually go or get him...
Stan might not know that, yet, and he wouldn't until they were all back home; he had no idea how useful that might be later. ...But he did have an idea of how far he could take things with the kid right now.
"I am not going back to the beach," Ford said emphatically. "I am going to that school, and I am going to--"
"--No, you're not," Stan told him firmly, pissed off that Ford was still acting like a big fat jerk, still treating this stupid thing like it was his own project that had gotten broken again -- Stan hadn't missed those little 'slip-up's of Ford's -- and still not listening to him! It had Stan getting angrier by the second, fists clenched, and barely squashing it down. "You are not going to that school, or anywhere else."
"Oh, yes I am," Ford said, with a mirthless chortle at him.
Stan gritted his teeth.
"No, you're not," Stan repeated again, clenching his fists that much tighter.
"Oh?" Ford said. He took a step forward and got right up into his face. (Miz tried very hard not to find Ford's expression aesthetically attractive, hell, Stan's expression was pretty hot too. GODDAMN sexy Pines men!)
"And how, exactly," Ford said, slowly and ponderously, "Do you propose to stop me?"
"What," Stan said, tilting his chin up at his brother. "Because you think you can just, kick my ass and run right over me?" When he was the one holding all the damn cards in every last deck? --Yeah, right!
Ford narrowed his eyes at him.
Stan smiled.
It wasn't a very nice smile, and he knew it.
"We," Stan told his brother. "Are going to talk." Because like hell he couldn't win a verbal fistfight without resorting to actual fists, screw him. "We are going back to the booth right now. And I will drag you back there by your stupid 'adventuring' boots if I have to, just watch me."
And Ford had the audacity to make a scoffing noise at him.
...right up until the moment Stan dryly informed him exactly how he was going to do it.
And then the REAL argument began.
(Miz was glad she had her headband on.)
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