(The reason I put the chapters in parts is that webnovel limits each chapter to 17000 words per chapter, it says it limits it to 20000 but that's a lie)
And Miz repeated, "I don't think he's doing that on purpose…" as she slid down again to lay her head in Bill's lap, feeling tired.
"Oh, little sister of mine," Bill said, as he lowered his hands and patted her head gently, "You have NO IDEA how contrary and stubborn that Stanford is." And Bill sounded completely disgusted with him about that.
And that was just… the last little bit too much.
Ford started to laugh.
He curled up, and in on himself, and then he sort of collapsed over sideways, and he just laughed, and he laughed, and he laughed.
He laughed, and he laughed, until his head felt more light than anything, and his chest felt completely weak and almost paper-thin on him.
And by the time he'd finished with all of his laughing, he was flat on his back, staring up at the bright blue sky, and he hadn't even realized how bright it was outside, up here, that the sun was shining so brightly like this. He hadn't even realized it, when he'd first come up and out of the hold; not until just now, and...
...for some reason, it just wasn't so very hard for him to breathe anymore. His breath was weak, and his chest was empty, and his head was light as if filled with helium, or perhaps even pure hydrogen instead, and… Ford felt like… everything had just drained out of him somehow, at some point during all that laughter, with the laughter perhaps, and there was nothing at all left in him anymore. Not an emptiness; just a… blankness, almost. An almost-flat sort of null...
"...You done?" Ford heard Bill say to him in peevish tones.
"Oh, quite possibly not..." Ford breathed out, because with Bill apparently planning on living forever, when would he ever be done? And yet… for some reason, it didn't quite feel so immensely unmanageable for some reason anymore, for no reason that Ford could possibly think of.
Ford stared at the sky, and the lightheadedness he'd been feeling slowly fading into something almost manageable, as he breathed in and out, and time slowly progressed forward on without him.
"...I wouldn't put it past me," Ford added after awhile -- quite reasonably all-in-all, he thought. It was, at least, as truthful as he could be on the matter, at this moment, in this place and time, within this dimension, and...
Ford slowly closed his eyes, and he breathed in the proper air mix that members of his species had evolved to breathe as their standard environmental baseline standard.
And it felt good, to breathe it all in. 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and less than 1% trace elements, with variable amounts of water vapor skewing the mix; it probably close to 1% here, being as close as they were to the ocean...
And Miz calmed fully, seeing that Stanford wasn't a broken mess anymore. Or at the very least, that he was feeling better. She sighed, snuggling into Bill's lap.
"...I don't think I've laughed like that in months," Ford said next, slowly moving a hand to his forehead; and he was feeling a bit too tingly all over and throughout his extremities to really call what he was feeling just then, at the thought of that, 'stunned'. (Because the last time he'd laughed like that, had been when…)
Bill just stared at that Stanford, then rolled his eyes. Miz sighed. "Do you think I should go to the school early to apologize to miss… um… I forgot her name…" She really hoped she could fix whatever she'd done wrong with that woman. She had been nice.
Ford turned his head slightly, and opened his eyes to look over at the younger demon. "Apologize for what?" He was feeling rather (stuck in) an emotional neutral at the moment, as he not-quite demanded to know what the demon he didn't know quite so well was talking about.
Miz winced. "I messed up. Like I always do. And I accidentally hurt someone. And I just realized that I had done so. And it made me feel really upset at myself."
"She liked your drawing. You didn't hurt her," Bill told Miz, frowning. "She was very happy with it."
Miz shook her head. Brother didn't understand. "I know. But I still hurt her. Not physically, and not quite emotionally, but I hurt her. In a way that Mr. Harman was hurt."
"You didn't erase the sketch," Bill said, thinking she'd meant how Mr. Harman was going to be 'hurt' -- feeling attacked -- by seeing the erased chalkboards, if he hadn't woken up and seen them already!
Miz shook her head. "I can't explain how it works, only that I had done that to her…"
"...Oh, wonderful," Ford said rather tonelessly. "There's two of you." He turned his head towards the sky again, and raised an arm to drop it over his face, hiding his eyes (and eyeglasses) behind it.
"I didn't do it on purpose." Miz protested.
"Neither does Bill, generally," Ford tossed out to the endless black that his vision had become. That wasn't quite true, of course -- Bill was doing what he did on purpose, he never did anything without purpose -- but… Ford was rather too tired to argue the nuances of the problem of what Bill was and did, with either of them, just then.
(And, quite frankly, Ford didn't really care what Bill meant to do. He knew what most demons wanted. That was more than enough; he didn't need the terrifying specifics of… And what Bill did do was bad enough as it was...)
(Ford didn't want to know what Bill would be like, if breaking people became the point, the be-all and end-all of what Bill wanted--)
"And I'm gonna try to fix it." Miz winced. "But I don't know if maybe I'd just make things worse, because I always ma-make things worse…" and dammit if she wasn't making herself upset again. Miz breathed and tried to not go down that line of thought.
"I am the worst; I make things worse," Bill offered up to her. "You are doing the right thing?" (Ford let out a tired sigh at this. ...Now, he knew he had a headache going.)
"I don't want to make things worse, though." Miz said softly.
"...That's because you still look up to the stupid lizard," Bill said after a moment. "Yes?" (Ford frowned to himself. Demons didn't look up to the Axolotl. Not in anything other than the most literal sense. And yet Bill was acting as though the other demon thought...)
Miz pouted. "Dad isn't…" she paused. It wasn't just because Ax was someone she 'looked up to', she just wanted...
"It isn't… what?" Bill asked her.
Miz sighed. "What if I want to be good? For myself? Not for dad's sake?" (Ford suppressed a snort. The demon couldn't be serious, and Bill could not possibly be falling for this…)
"Well, little sis, THAT is your problem right there," Bill told her quite seriously (which had Ford mentally sitting up and taking notice -- and not just in order to be able to warn Stan about who-knew-what that the demons might be planning on doing later, that they were talking about right in front of him). "The stupid lizard is 'good' and 'makes things better'. But it is stupid and makes everything in existence in STUPID ways so that NOTHING WORKS RIGHT. --So we should be 'bad' and 'make things worse' instead," he told her simply, "And BREAK all the rules that THAT stupid thing got ALL WRONG." (...Ah. Yes. Classic Bill. Opposing the Axolotl -- the greatest force of good in existence -- with every erg of demonic energy at his disposal. Blindly fighting against that god-like being -- the writer of the rules that had made all of existence even possible to begin with -- by trying to destroy everything instead, to turn all of existence back into a sea of pure chaos and madness, just because he could.)
Miz sighed. "Doesn't have to be the opposite. It's not black and white. You don't like your Ax's 'good', but you don't have to be 'bad', you can just make your own type of 'good'." She paused. "I'm still trying to figure out my own type of good. It's not like dad's at all." (Ford was certain that this demon was going to worsen his burgeoning headache even further, before all was said and done. She was far too good at pretending to be human, sometimes…)
Bill blinked down at her.
"Miz," Bill said to her quite seriously. "What do you think I MEAN when I said 'bad'." He moved his forehead down, quite close to her own, and told her, with a smile, "I don't perform to anyone else's 'type'."
Ford blinked his eyes open.
Miz blinked up at her brother. "A bad of going around doing your own thing and hurting other people? Even unintentionally?" She paused. "I don't like hurting people. Not unless they've done something that I feel deserves it." She clarified. "Like how I hurt Miss...Talia by accident." Right, that was her name.
"I didn't hurt that teacher," Bill said to her, frowning as he caught the thread of what she was getting at, because she'd brought up Mr. Harman's 'being hurt' by him before.
"Yes, you did," Ford muttered out, pulling the arm over his face down to his chest and looking over tiredly at Bill. (He probably shouldn't be trying to 'play along' here, but certain things simply couldn't remain unchallenged, and…) "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Paradigm shifts are supposed to be revolutionary, Sixer," Bill said peevishly. "You don't know what YOU'RE talking about. --He would have been BETTER" Bill insisted. (...'Would have been'. Ford blinked. That was… interesting different.)
"And now?" Ford said quietly.
"'Now'." Bill looked away from him, and he looked annoyed. "Now I don't know what he's going to be. --Not with Stanley taking over and listening to you instead of me," Bill ended on, looking over at Ford with a long not-so-happy-with-him stare. Ford frowned at him back. (Did Bill really not understand…? --Yes, Ford knew what he'd said to Stan. But at some level, Ford would have thought that Bill...)
Miz sighed. Bill didn't get it. "Mr. Harman was not doing well. He was tired. And hungry. He was neglecting his health and might have gotten more hostile and frantic if he didn't stop to rest." And then she added, because Bill wouldn't understand why he was to blame for this, "--and he sort of did that to himself by wanting to reach his conclusion. But you started him on that train of thought…"
"So?" Bill said. "If he wanted to stop, then he should have stopped. Iwasn't making him continue, to keep going and going and going." ("...Wait," Ford said.)
Miz sighed. "I don't know how to explain it." She said again. "But he was hurt. And Miss Talia was hurt."
Ford was glancing between the two demons now, as he slowly pushed himself up, until he was sitting half-upright. "Bill. You weren't rushing him?" That didn't make any sense at all. Bill always--
Bill rolled his eyes. "No. Why would I? --I was just helping him!" He was frustrated that everyone -- including his sister -- was saying that 'teaching' that science teacher was a bad thing! He wasn't stupid! He'd done this sort of thing PLENTY of times in the past! --He knew what he was doing! Just because that Stanford didn't agree with him ever, didn't mean that--
Miz sighed. "I know you were just trying to help…" or at least, have fun.
Ford stared. "You… you weren't rushing him…" he repeated, in disbelief. (Had Bill… learned how to lie effectively at some point. ...But, no. No. He would swear that Bill wasn't lying to him just then.) "Then… how did… he get like that?"
Bill made an annoyed sound. "He was listening to me!" he told that Stanford. "You know, that thing that you used to almost-do?" he added peevishly. (Ford pulled in a short hard breath.) "He was fine! --So he was a little tired," Bill complained. "That's what happens to fleshy beings when they really work at something! He could have stopped for a breather! I wouldn't have stopped him! --He did it to himself!" Bill objected, yet again.
"You made him feel like he couldn't stop!" Ford told him, because Bill always, always did this--
"NO, I DIDN'T!" Bill objected yet again, even more hotly this time.
Ford gritted his teeth and glared at the dream demon -- who had, in fact, done that exactly that, that very thing, to him as well -- and...
"--How about you agree to disagree?" Miz groaned, not wanting to deal with this. But then she saw the way the two of them were glaring at each other and decided to give up a bit, to just let the two talk this out between themselves… She was just gonna try and feel better after her latest breakdown instead of getting involved this time. (Nobody ever listened to her, anyway.) So she closed her eyes and snuggled down into Bill's lap. Maybe she should Look around for Stan. Someone had to make breakfast for the kids and Ford wasn't gonna trust her to do it.
She blinked her eyes open and shivered as she caught Sight of him. He was on the beach, almost to the boat, and the look he had on his face was--
Angry. Very, very angry.
The younger twins were coming up the hatch now, blinking into the sunlight. Miz lifted her head. Ford didn't trust her to make his food, but she could still make breakfast for them. (And it would get her a bit away from the yelling.) "Morning~" she chirped out quickly, as she just as quickly rolled off Bill's lap and crawled over to the ingredients that Stan had been setting up earlier.
Stan had heard the kid's voice carrying across the beach, and his brother was up on deck with the triangle demon, and so help him--
Stan didn't even wait. He stomped right up to the boat, went straight up the rope ladder, and didn't stop until he had the kid dragged up off of his feet, practically dangling from his hands and oh, Stan wanted to shake him until he rattled as Stan yelled, right in the damn demon's face -- "WHAT DID I TELL YOU!!"
And the demon had the sheer audacity to look shocked at him.
Miz piped up, "I told you Stan didn't want you to talk until he got back."
"WHaT?" the demon said, twitching his head on his neck around and down to his sister, as he tried to grab onto Stan's wrists. "That's not--" The demon-kid looked up at Stan's face again. "That's not--" And the demon must've read something in his face, because he half-kicked out, half got his feet out and under him, gripping onto him more tightly, and-- now the idiot triangle was looking at him all angry?! "--That's NOT what you said!" the demon had the audacity to tell him, straight to his face.
"I told you not to talk to him!!" Stan yelled out at the demon, giving him half-a-shake roughly.
"No!" the demon objected back. "You said-- Stay here. I stayed here! --Don't do anything stupid -- and I didn't!" Stan gritted his teeth, and bunched his shoulders. "Don't say a goddamn word to Ford while you're away -- no AXOLOTL-damned words while you were 'away', not even one!"
"You know DAMN well what I meant, kid," Stan gritted out at the demon, pulling him in even closer. Because so help him, if he did something to his brother while he was away--
The demon shook his head at him slightly, not looking away from, him and then started looking angry all over again. "You said-- you--!" The demon pulled in a breath, and yelled out, "If you WANTED me to 'not talk to that Stanford', you should have SAID 'Don't talk to that Stanford'!!" And then the stupid demon had the audacity to say, "It doesn't matter anyway," Stan pulled in a breath in outrage, as the demon had the further audacity to follow up that statement with, "Because I would have had to talk to that Stanford to keep the agreement--"
"--LIKE HELL!!" Stan bellowed out at him.
Miz sighed, leaning on Lee, who was staring wide-eyed at what was happening right now. "So, what do you two want for breakfast? There's pancake mix here." The younger twins didn't look all that hungry, more of a distressed sort of worry as they glanced between the demon and the adult-Stanley. "I should get you two some orange juice. That'll be good for you…" Miz said, mostly to herself, as she looked around for some of the stuff she got while they'd been at the grocery store yesterday, it would have been rude to go in and look at everything without buying anything after all.
"--because he--!" Bill said next, then stopped abruptly as he felt arms encircle him from behind.
Stan stared.
Miz busied herself with getting the oranges out and looking for something to use for juicing them.
"...Ford," Stan said lowly. "What the hell are you doing." Because his brother was standing at the demon's back, with his arms wrapped around his shoulders and chest, and he didn't look all that great, but he <i<did look like he wasn't about to back down on something. (Oh, hell. Ford. What the hell had the demon done to him while he'd been away--)
"I need you to let go of him, Stanley," Ford said slowly, quietly. He looked a bit pale. (The demon was looking down and around with a 'what-what-what' look on his face. ...So the demon-kid hadn't been expecting this.)
Stan stared at his brother, because what the hell...
Stan had to take a moment. (Had the demon gotten to his brother? Was Ford 'addicted' to him or something again? What the hell--)
"Ford," Stan said, slowly and carefully, barely keeping his anger under control because if this was Bill's doing, then so help him as he asked his brother, "Are you telling me to let the demon off the hook, here?"
Ford stared at him.
"What?" said Ford. And Stan's brother stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language.
Stan opened his mouth slightly. And then closed it again as a lightbulb seemed to go off in his brother's head.
"--No!" Ford said abruptly (but his grip on the demon tightened as he said it, Stan saw it; shit). "No, I--" Ford looked… his brother seemed to fight with himself for a moment before he opened his mouth--
"--Sixer would've gotten worse," Bill interjected, and Stan saw his brother flinch again damn the demon. And the demon looked angry as he said, "--I listened to him. And I responded to him. He needs to know that I hear and listen to him." And then the kid practically bared his teeth at him as he all-but-hissed out, "I'm NOT like that stupid LIZARD that always WATCHES and never TALKS to anyone. I--"
Ford raised his left hand and covered Bill's mouth. (And, Stan didn't get it, but the demon looked startled -- not angry like he would've thought -- and actually stopped talking for a second.)
"I…" Ford swallowed. "Stan, I needed him to talk to me." Stan stared, as Ford glanced away from him. His brother was having trouble meeting his eyes. "I… wasn't feeling…. well," his brother told him. "Bill…" Ford paused, "Bill did…" and he closed his eyes slightly and looked like he was in almost physical pain as he said, "...the right thing. This one time."
...Ford looked almost ill. Stan felt lost, and more than a little worried at what the demon had done to his brother this time.
"Ford, what the hell did the triangle do to you while I was away," Stan said lowly. (He felt the kid squirm slightly as he lowered him down a bit, lowering his arms and loosening the grip he had on the demon's shirt; he felt the kid squirm again as he moved one hand from his wrist to Ford's wrist instead -- on the hand at his mouth. In his peripheral vision, he saw the kid tug at it, and Ford's hand not move an inch. ...Kid looked frustrated. But he also didn't try and make a sound.)
"Ford had a nightmare." Miz spoke up. "He came up and threw himself on top of Bill." Might as well try to explain what happened.
Ford looked away, looked guilty.
"Ford…" Stan said slowly. Because… (the hell...)
"I… wasn't entirely awake," Ford said quietly, almost under his breath. (His grip around the kid tightened a little more. Stan saw Bill's face twitch, up by his left eye.) "And…" Ford swallowed again. "I couldn't breathe."
"Ford," Stan said quietly. "If this is a thing like the science teacher--" then he needed to tell him now--
"No," his brother told him firmly, looking no less guilty for whatever reason. (Maybe for needing the kid for anything at all.) "No. That's not--"
Stan closed his eyes. Damn his brother sometimes.
--and his brother looked surprised as Stan reopened his eyes, opened his fists completely, and took one solid step back from the both of them. (Kid looked surprised, too.)
"Kid," Stan said (and oh, he was gonna enjoy this…) "You damn well should've known what I meant when I told you, and your sister knew and told you that too," he added, as the kid looked incensed. "Ford's sure you sayin' something was 'the right thing'?" Stan added, giving Ford a look that almost had his own brother flinching. (...almost. Except then Ford started looking stubborn instead. Well, fine. Go ahead and undermine him with the kid here when he was tryin' to look out for him, would he?) "Fine. --You still didn't get what I was tellin' you," Stan said to the demon-kid, "So you don't get a penalty," heh, so gonna enjoy this one, "You get a learnin'-lesson, instead," Stan told the kid almost evilly.
And Stan grinned at the both of them.
They were both staring at him, a bit wide-eyed. (Heh. Damn well should be, putting him through this--)
"You--" Stan pointed at Bill, "Want to go helpin' my brother out now with shit like this, huh? That's fine," Stan said, way way too casually (and he got an internal grin at the look the kid got for that one). "But hey, you'd better get a bit more practice in." Bill was looking at him like he had no clue what a living hell his life was about to be for the next half-hour or so.
Then Stan looked up at his brother.
"Ford," Stan said almost jovially. "You want to go helpin' the kid out when he gets in trouble?" he said almost leadingly (oh yeah, his brother could just deal with this one; wasn't like Stan wasn't gonna stay out on deck the whole time for this one). "Fine. You get to help out with his penalty, too!" And while the two of them, both demon and brother, were puzzling the hell out of that one, Stan just followed that right up ever-so-smoothly with, "Ford, you are gonna sit down right where you are standing along with the kid, and hug him until I've finished getting me and the twins some breakfast. --Kid, you are going to let him do it."
Ford and the kid stared at him for one long moment.
And then they both got looks of disbelief (Ford) and horror (for what passed for 'horror' for the kid). (...Probably because Ford grasped the kid more tightly in reflexive 'I need a shield between this and my twin' here, and got a little preview taste of what he'd be subjected to for the next half-hour, minimum, because Stan was gonna take his sweet time cooking up those pancakes and eating his own damn breakfast, no matter how fast the twins decided to get down to it.)
...And it didn't take Stan but a minute to get Ford sitting cross-legged (where he'd been standing) with the kid in his lap (squeezed pretty tightly actually), and Stan was practically whistling to himself as Ford looked like he wanted to literally be anywhere else, doing anything else but what he was doing. And Bill? Had his fists clenched in his lap and looked about as happy as a wet cat; the demon-kid kept making angry noises occasionally (from under the hand Ford still had over his mouth, Stan's 'concession' to Ford not grasping -- read: 'grabbing' -- Bill twice as hard with twice as many arms, just and 'only' the one) and glaring out at the world in angry offense. The kid was even twitching hard every couple of seconds in sheer irritation at all the pressure that he was being subjected to, sitting in Ford's lap, with his back against Ford's chest, and that arm across his midsection, up to one shoulder.
They both looked incredibly pissed off. (Yeah. That'd teach 'em.)
(Kid was lucky he was having him do it here. Stan was being 'nice' -- he could've had Mabel do it once they were all back. ...And oh, Stan was saving that little 'thought-gem' for later…)
Stan grinned to himself as he flipped the next pancake on the campstove in front of him, as the twins exchanged glances and waited (somewhat patiently) for him to finish the pancake stack for them all, and as he did so, he hummed a few bars under his breath of the 'Stan wrong' song. ...Only he mentally swapped out the lyrics as he went for something a little bit different...
Miz was making odd sounds and blushing as she looked at everywhere EXCEPT at her brother in Ford's lap. She did nearly explode the orange from how hard she was squeezing it though. When Stan raised an eyebrow and gave her a 'what's goin' on?' look, Miz mumbled something about… boats?
Eh, whatever. ...Stan figured, as he finished up the pancakes, and very obviously took. His. Own. Sweet. Time. at eating them, even shooing the twins down to get changed while he kept right one taking one single bite. after another. and then chewing...
Well. Stan figured that, y'know, if his brother wasn't 'over' and 'immune' to the demon before now? That Ford really wouldn't want to get anywhere near the demon again after this one. (Or, at least, he'd damn well remember that Stan could make him do something real damn uncomfortable like this, and that being around and that close to the kid was actually a thing that he did not like.)
And hey, if Ford actually 'needed' the kid for something like this again? (Trouble breathing? The hell? What did Ford mean--?!) Well, the kid wouldn't be able to claim that Ford grabbing him half-asleep was anything like as bad as what Stan had the two of them doing right now. --So the demon had better not object to doing something in the future that might actually (not that Stan completely believed it, but) help his brother out.
And, y'know, ask for clarification right then if there was something he maybe could've, y'know, misconstrued...
Especially when the kid's own sister warned the kid about it. Kid oughta be conservative about this shit. And listen to the used-to-be-human demon, when she actually gave him warnings about 'human things'. --And then do the most-careful thing, up until he got clarification from Stan. All of which he'd been over with, with the kid before.
Miz very deliberately did NOT say 'I told you so.' to her brother afterward. (Besides, she kinda already had.) She DID however, hand him one of her pillows if he needed to vent his frustration, while he stomped right past her into the sandcastle (to get away from that Stanford!! RRRARGH!!! STUPID ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!! STUPID STANLEY! NOT! SAYING! WHAT HE ACTUALLY!! WANTED!!!) and change into his own school clothes for the day. What a good sister she was.
-----
Lee was getting an odd feeling when he, Sixer, and the demons went to school the next day. Everyone was whispering and pointing at them, as they were walking down the hallway.
...And no, it wasn't because the older thems were with them.
Lee groaned. Great. GREAT. They were the talk of the school again. And in Lee's experience, that was a thing that never ended well, for either his or his brother's reputation.
--He really, REALLY hoped this wasn't going to be a thing where they got heckled by the other kids again, just like when they were younger. Lee had worked really hard to raise his social standing from 'brother of that six fingered weirdo' to 'oh hey, that funny joke-cracking guy on the boxing team' (... and his brother's reputation from 'that six fingered weirdo' to 'your pretty run-of-the-mill nerd with, oh yeah, the hands').
Miz, who had changed back into Xin for the day (but put up a perception filter to still look like her 'older Miz' form), didn't seem to notice the commotion around them as he chatted with Sixer about how to build life from scratch as they walked down the hallway together. "--nd it's really all about the proteins. Nothing happens without them. Like, DNA is pretty much just a recipe list for all the proteins needed to create something."
Lee glanced back at the older Stan who was glaring at Bill, because apparently Bill had done something to Mr. Harman yesterday in detention? Lee didn't really get it but they were going to go and talk to Mr. Harman before class while Xin went to homeroom with him and Sixer.
The older 'Sixer' tried to put up a (just verbal!) fight on letting Xin walk off with them alone -- because scary demon-dragon lady eats people sometimes? -- but the older him just glared him down and said that if Xin ate the two of them, that she would have failed in her mission to make sure they attended every class and would graduate high school eventually. Because they apparently couldn't, y'know, do that dead and eaten.
Seriously, Lee wasn't so sure about his older self today. All that yelling earlier had been kinda scary. Though that punishment-thing had definitely, definitely been effective. (...He just couldn't see how he'd managed to make his brother go along with it, though. Because the Sixer he knew would never put up with him telling him what to do like that--)
"Come on, kid," Stan grumbled out as he steered Bill off down another hallway. (They'd been intercepted by a student runner almost at the entrance of the school -- the teach had been looking for them. --Well, Bill, anyway. So they knew what room to go to: the room they'd found the teacher in yesterday afternoon. Stan already wasn't looking forward to this one, and Ford was already looking twelve different kinds of tense.)
Xin waved at his brother. "See you soon. We have Physics first period today anyway," the dragon said cheerfully. Bill made a disgruntled noise as he followed Stan away, Ford following.
Ford… did not feel like his usual self today. He was not striding down the hallways with his brother; he was trailing behind him somewhat. (And he hadn't particularly liked being pulled into that whole 'hugging' as a 'punishment'-lesson nonsense that Stan had done. --Not least of which because if Stan was trying to get Bill to actually like the sensation of being touched or otherwise able to withstand at least three layers of clothing's worth of pressure -- as he had communicated to him before -- then that was hardly the way to go about doing it!)
The older Stan, meanwhile, marched down the halls like he had a reason to be there (and, y'know, not just because he did, actually, have a reason to be there). (...Because apparently the kid couldn't even talk with nerd-teachers properly, either. Hell. --And Stan knew if he didn't figure this out, here and now, the kid was gonna be the worst kind of mess back home, at the town high school. So he'd better figure it out right now.)
"That science teacher still in that classroom we yanked him out of yesterday?" Stan asked of Bill. (Hey, the kid had seemed to know what was going on with people and things farther away than just a couple feet. Kid had been able to track his sister when she'd been doing her 'floating around, messing with other kids' lives' thing a couple days ago while they'd been waiting for Ford, outside the science fair; so Stan figured the kid could find other people at the school that were maybe even closer than that, too.)
"Yes," Bill said tersely, with a quick glare tossed Ford's way for some reason. (It didn't escape Stan's notice that the kid was also 'marching' down the hallways like he owned them, though it looked more like a leisurely 'ownership' sort of thing on the kid... even though the demon-kid was actually moving at a pretty fast clip to keep up with him. Stan hated it a bit, that he had to hand that one to the kid -- the whole 'beating up the bully' thing really had worked for him, from the looks and the wide berth the students were giving the kid -- and the lack of getting suspended for the shit the kid had pulled just meant that the kid did know how to assess the situation and balance things out a bit when he needed to.)
(...Which was, yet again, going to make it that much harder for Stan to convince him that picking a fight and handing out a serious shock-and-awe smackdown to somebody was not the best way to go around making a reputation for yourself.)
"No 'enlightening' or 'inspiring' anybody without my say-so," Stan said firmly, as they came up on the door to the classroom the teacher was supposed to be waiting on the other side of. "You talk it out with me first, out of earshot of anybody else but you and me. --If that means tossing one of those filters up so I can talk to you, you do it. Understand?" Stan said to the demon who was supposed to be giving him all the help that he could possibly want for this thing that was going on here. Because… "I don't want any of this shit falling back on the twins you're supposed to be helping me help out, here. --That includes their teachers not being able to teach 'em anymore," Stan made clear, sending the demon-kid a glare of his own.
...Bill blinked at him.
Stan got the feeling that the demon still didn't get it. At least his sister did, though s/he didn't seem to know how to explain it to her brother in insane-triangle-speak. S/he seemed kinda frustrated about that. Stan almost felt like he could relate; he hadn't been able to explain it to the kid yet, either.
Ford grimaced as they came to a stop right outside of the door to the advanced study room. ...And then it finally occurred to him why he was dragging his feet a bit on this. Why he felt so… off.
It all tied back to not wanting Stan to know what he'd been like, yes, but...
Ford also didn't like being reminded of the nightmarish nature of what he had seen, and run into, time after time after time, over and over again, in those dimensions where Bill Cipher reigned supreme. He didn't like being reminded of what happened every. Single. Time. that Bill had been paying attention to him, and decided that someone else that he knew… or that was around him… or that was even in the general vicinity of him… could use a little 'enlightenment', and then he'd--
...No. No, that was a bit facetious, and not at the root of it at all, really. Ford didn't want to see Mr. Harman again, because... he didn't like being reminded of what he himself had been like. Because Mr. Harman was someone he'd admired. Someone he'd wanted to be like, too. Because the teacher had been--
...and Mr. Harman had reacted far, far more similarly to him than anyone else Ford had seen Bill 'inspire' before, and… Ford had never seen it from the outside-in with another human before. And it was so much more… accurate. So much closer than...
...and what would it mean, if Stan couldn't help him, any more than Ford could?
Because if that teacher was back in the same classroom as the night before...
Ford pulled in a breath.
He watched as Stan raised his hand, turned the doorknob, and opened the door...
--and was practically rushed almost-immediately by the teacher, who literally grabbed Stan by the arms and--
--dragged him inside! Ford rushed in after them, to hear the teacher screaming at Stan--
"--Did you know?!?!?" Mr. Harman shrieked out, practically shaking Stan by the upper arms -- or trying to, but the teacher wasn't that strong, and Stan was far too solidly built for anyone to be able to manage that with him, easily, besides.
"--I erased it," Ford said quickly, to see the teacher's feverish gaze land on him, next.
"You--" Mr. Harman let go of Stan and--
--Ford didn't have a chance to move out of the way. He only saw the hands that were damn near grasping claws rake the air less than a centimeter away from his glasses, as Stan dragged him back.
The teacher was shrieking insults and curses at him, the boards were half-covered with equations again (were they the same ones as the night before? some of them looked to be written almost in Bill's own handwriting--), and Stan was having trouble keeping him from attacking--
--and Bill got right up in the teacher's face, grabbing him by the wrists and staring straight into his eyes.
The teacher quieted as he recognized Bill.
Ford's stomach plummeted.
And then Bill said, "Did you eat and sleep last night."
Ford stared.
"...No?"
He heard Stan let out a breath.
"That's a problem," Stan said next, from behind the teacher's back. (Stan had his arms wrapped up around his shoulders from below. Bill was still holding the teacher by the wrists.) "Why didn't you do that?"
"I-- I couldn't," Mr. Harman said, eyes flicking around, between the chalkboards, across and back and forth to barely alight on anything in the room for more than a second of time. "I-- I was going to," he said next.
"Why didn't you?" Stan repeated evenly, as Bill continued to… try and catch the teacher's gaze in his own? He was... moving his head around, like he was trying to intercept it--
"I-- I came back to copy everything down," the teacher said next, in the previous day's old rumpled and slept-in looking clothing. "I was going to go home with it, work on it there, and-- and--"
Ford felt ill. The man sounded about to cry at the last; his head was hanging low, facing the ground.
"You've got class in a couple minutes," Ford heard Stan say next, to his utter disbelief -- because there was no way that this man would be capable of teaching any kind of class in this state--!
"I-- it's--" The teacher shook his head from side to side, looking desperate. "I need to finish--"
"You've got class," Stan repeated. "Your students need you."
"It's-- I--" the teacher began.
...And then Ford saw it.
The tipping point.
Mr. Harman was a very good teacher. He cared about his students very much.
But there was a limit to that. And Mr. Harman loved science, too. He taught science because he loved it.
And in a battle like this, given a choice between science and his students...
Ford saw that tipping point. And he saw which way Mr. Harman began to tilt and overbalance.
"--The students can wait," Ford said in a rush, trying desperately to forestall the inevitable, because--. "The--" He stopped at the look Stan gave him. (What…)
"Did you go home at all last night," Stan said next, and Ford got a very bad feeling.
Mentally, Stan was grumbling 'The fuck, Ford?!' It wasn't like he wasn't paying attention to this shit. He'd seen the guy get stuck there, and start to go the wrong way.
Mr. Harman shook his head.
"Okay," said Stan. "Why not? You've got your wife and kid waiting for you there, yeah?"
The man shuddered, eyes going wide as he realized, right. How could he have forgotten--
--but the science. The meaning of it all. It was so important.
"I-I wanted--" He let out a sob. "I needed--"
--and he'd been home late before. And his science, it was so important. His wife understood when he needed to finish his work for the students -- surely, Suzie would understand this. She knew that he needed his space sometimes, to work on these sorts of things, too. And he'd--
Ford looked on in horror, as he saw the man twist in place, in Stan's hold.
"Your family needs you, too. Don't they?" was what Stan said next, and--
Ford saw it next. That horrible, horrifying thing...
The breaking point. Mr. Harman had reached it. Stan had pushed him to it, with only a few simple words.
Oh, it was telling. How his brother just didn't understand...
"Why can't you do both?" Stan said next, and Ford saw the teacher, the husband, the man, stop sliding and seem to wobble, to orbit that ledge, spinning dizzily in place.
"I can't," the man breathed out next, and tears were dripping from his eyes, and he was sobbing as he said, "I can't, but I can, but I can't-- I can't--"
"Why can't you?" Stan said next, and Ford had to stifle a shudder. Stan didn't understand.
"I can't do both--" the man said next, shuddering in Stan's arms. "I can't--"
"Why not," Stan insisted-- angrily.
"I--"
"Why not," Stan insisted again.
"--I don't have the time!!" Mr. Harman wailed out, then started fighting against Stan's grip.
--and Bill wrenched the man's arms straight-down by the wrists, got chest-to-chest and nose-to-nose with him, and said, "TIME ISN'T A PROBLEM."
Mr. Harman stopped moving entirely.
So did Stan. ...So did Ford.
Ford knew -- he just knew -- that his brother realized when they'd both heard Bill say that last.
And Ford shivered when he realized that Bill had been listening to him, back on the boat, when he'd complained, objected, insisted, that Bill had been rushing him, had to have been rushing the man--
-- and Bill had objected right back, insisting that he hadn't done that. ...Not on purpose --
"Time… isn't a... problem?" Mr. Harman said weakly, starting to slowly go limp in Stan's grasp.
"Time isn't a problem, yes," Bill repeated, looking the teacher directly in the eyes.
There was a pause, a moment in time during which the only thing Ford could hear in the room was their breathing.
"...I don't understand," the teacher said next, and he sounded so plaintive... and lost...
"I can make time not a problem," Bill said next, before looking up at Stan. "It's fine."
Stan stared.
"...He doesn't have to rush," Bill said next, and… Ford realized with a start that it was a question, directed at Stan, and...
"But… But how?" the teacher asked next, like a supplicant asking for-- and Ford felt his hackles rise because that was the next thing that went wrong...
Bill was still looking over at Stan. "I can control time," he said simply which just had Ford fighting down a shudder, because in the Fearamid--. Stan was staring back at Bill intensely, in a way that wasn't exactly leaving Ford feeling any better about--
Mr. Harman looked very confused, and also awed. "Y-you can--" He glanced back over his shoulder at Stan briefly, then at Ford, his brows scrunched in thought as his gaze finally LOOKED at the two men. ...And then he glanced down and spotted Ford's fingers, and his eyes went wide. "You're from--"
---
Ford couldn't believe he'd been forced to be a part of this. He also worried about how the younger him was doing, left alone with the other demon...
...twelve hours later in time.
He couldn't believe that Stan had talked Bill into a nonlinear time loop. (...Well, no, actually, that was perhaps the single most believable thing about what had happened along their own personal timelines over the last few hours -- Stan talking people who should really know better into doing incredibly stupid and dangerous things. --Par for the course, really; at least, Ford should have realized that it would be, for Stan, after Stan had also managed to have convinced every last one of them not to go after and kill--)
Ford forced himself to take a breath in, and let it out again.
He not quite glared at Bill's slumbering form, on the floor of the basement of Mr. Harman's house.
And then he glanced over at Stan, who was sitting on the couch next to him, arm around him, leaning up against him… and now fast asleep, if the measure and depth of his breathing was any indication.
Ford could barely manage to believe that they'd actually been able to just walk out of the school without being spotted. (Bill's 'perception filters' were far more dangerous than he'd realized; the students had simply moved around them all as if they were in their own little separate bubble in space, but even the other demon with an All-Seeing Eye hadn't seemed to notice--)
(-- or had she --)
And somehow, Stan had managed to keep them all on an even keel. And managed to convince Bill to-- (Ford shook his head. --How Stan could possibly think that teaching Bill to lie better would not be a very short garden path towards getting them all in the very worst sort of trouble, was completely beyond him.) And then Bill had gotten them to the teacher's house without any of them being spotted, and then moved them backwards through time without incident. (Because of course Bill could manage time travel without moving them between dimensions, or anything else, simply on a whim. Without any preparation. Of course he could. Because apparently 'time tape' was 'the stupid way to do it'.)
...Oh, and apparently emotional stress was a thing with Bill Cipher, now. This was his life.
Ford sent a tired glare over at the slumbering demon on the floor, curled up in the corner of the basement opposite them, and after wishing he was literally ANYWHERE but where and when he was then turned that tired glare upwards at the dimly-lit ceiling above him.
And, eventually, he fell asleep, too.
---
After the older twins left, Lee was more worried about their surroundings and was keeping an ear out on just what people were saying about them, as the three of them continued to travel down the hallway towards their homeroom class.
"So their father disowned them? Just because the freak's science project exploded?" "I was there, it just started smoking and screaming or something!" "Damn, I almost feel kinda bad for them. Can't believe they got disowned just for that." "Well, I heard that after they got thrown out, those new girls found them and get this, they're living with them!" "Really? That hot babe and her crazy psycho sister?" "I think the younger one likes them, ugh, what a slut, a twin on each arm?" "Pfth! Like YOU wouldn't trade places in an instant, a boy on each arm?" "Damn, you think they're ALL fucking?" "Lucky bastards." "So the Pines lucked out, getting found by those two and taken in, huh?"
Lee tried very hard not to gag or blush at the stuff he heard. --Aaaaaaaaaah! Their lives were ruined!
He glimpsed Carla at her locker. Lee tried to stifle a wince and was about to turn away from her, not wanting to see her in the arms of Thistle Downe, but then he blinked and realized that she wasn't with her new boyfriend. The guy was nowhere in sight. ...In fact, she was staring at him, with a kinda weird strained expression on her face. She looked almost… angry?
When she realized Lee was looking at her, though, she flicked her hair back over her shoulder, looking aloof, and let out a huff at him as she turned away and hurried off to class, books in hand.
Lee frowned. What was that about? (Sure, he'd driven the guy's van off a cliff that one time -- but hey, it hadn't even been that high up! --It had only flipped twice! Nobody had any proof that he'd been the one to do it, either! And it wasn't like the girlfriend-stealing jerk had been in it at the time…)
Lee felt someone take his hand. Lee glanced over to see Xin giving him a worried look.
"Don't think about it too hard." Xin said gently. "I think she's more mad at your brother than she is at you. Unless I'm misunderstanding something at least." Xin frowned, his eye brows coming together in thought.
Lee still thought it was a little weird that he saw a handsome young man while everyone apparently still saw that sexy bombshell form. It was even weirder because he could still see Miz's female teenage form sometimes too, when he glanced out of the corner of his eyes at them. ...Not, y'know, a terrible kind of weird or nothin', just… not something he was used to. (Kinda made his eyes itch a little, even without his glasses on. Not that he had any, after he'd broken his last pair. Woulda messed up the 'jock' image he had going. Not like anybody thought of him as anything other than the 'sweaty twin' otherwise...)
Still, he let the dragon pull him away to homeroom, where Lee held back a groan because the kids were whispering there, too. ...Aw, hell. Did EVERYONE know that Sixer and him were disowned by their Pa just because that damn science fair project broke?!
Meanwhile, Xin was grinning to himself. Operation: Spread The Word was a success! So everyone knew about the broken science project now. And everyone knew that because it broke, little Stanford was disowned (with the specifics of HOW he was thrown out ranging from tossed out on his ass, to Filbrick beating him with his belt first THEN throwing him out). He'd been hoping that news would have made Carla feel guilty, but it didn't seem to be happening. Still, next step was to spread the word that someone had sabotaged Ford's project (which was already a rumor, he just needed to confirm it). And then the teachers would get upset at that news. And then all he had to do was let slip just WHO had done it, and little Carla would be in SO much trouble!
...Xin thought it was a good plan. He saw Mary and waved. Speaking of the next part of his plan…
"Morning~" Xin said cheerfully. He turned to the twins. "Can I go sit with my new friend?" Sixer shrugged, not seeing the problem. Lee... just eyed the nearest openable window (hmm, he'd have to keep an Eye on him, make sure he didn't try and make a break for it… --Well, he had his telekinetic weirdness powers if he tried! He could just float him right back to his seat! HAHA! Weirdness powers, for the win!)
No objections raised, Xin made his merry way to the back where Mary was (HA!) and slid into a desk beside her. "So, I noticed that the whole school knows the story by now." Xin said cheerfully. Mary stiffened. "Sorry! I only told Katie because she's my best friend but--"
Xin silenced her by pressing a finger to her lips. "Shhh~ it's fine." He grinned. "But if you do tell people about what happened, you should at least get the full story first." He grinned internally as Mary's eyebrows went up and her friend said, "You mean that's not all of it?"
Xin looked around. Most of the kids were huddled in their own little groups, a few were glancing over at the Stans, some at him and some at his brother. Xin lowered his voice into a conspiratory whisper, "Little Stanford's project exploded right? Did you know, it was sabotaged the night before?" Mary's eyes were wide. "No. Way." she whispered back.
"Yes way!" Xin nodded seriously. "Someone snuck into the gymnasium the night before and messed with it." Mary gasped appropriately to the gossip. "How do you know?" she asked. Xin looked around again before leaning in. "The screws had been loosened. Someone had opened it up and didn't put them back in correctly."
Mary frowned. "So someone messed with it, and… their dad threw them out? That's horrible!" She hadn't realized that their dad was like that...
"I know right?" Xin nodded. "I have a few suspects for who did it… but I'm gonna need proof. That's the hard part. But I will say it is someone at this school." And then, just to clarify, "It's not any of us here in this room," Xin moved his arms to gesture around them. Didn't want the rumor mill thinking it could be little Stan who'd dunnit or something.
Mary nodded at her, then sat back abruptly as Mrs. Kimberly came in.
Their homeroom teacher looked around, then gave Miz a brief look before reading off the notices for the day. She also took attendance, glancing at the rest of the class to check if they were here. She frowned again as she realized that Bill was missing, but Miz raised her hand and told her that Bill was in a parent-teacher meeting with Mr. Harman because of the detention from last night.
Mrs. Kimberly nodded and relaxed a bit when the Pines twins confirmed Miz's words. Alright, then. (She let out a sigh. Apparently the girl had managed to get the detention she'd wanted after all. She'd really thought John was smarter than that, but…) She wasn't all that sure how to feel about the new girls. In just one day they had become the talk of the school. And with all the odd rumors circulating... Her frown grew slightly as she realized that she actually hadn't seen her friend yet this morning, which was odd for him. --John Harman was known even by the students for his punctuality and preparedness, yet she hadn't even seen his lunch in the fridge in the teacher's lounge that morning, when she'd added her own to the bunch; she'd thought he must be out sick that day. But he was apparently somewhere in the school for some parent-teacher meeting before class?
She wasn't sure what it all meant, but she just wanted a quiet day. ...At least the new girl didn't seem to be causing trouble during homeroom, without her sister here with her. The younger sister even looked like she was making a new friend.
Mrs. Kimberly glanced over at the two boys next. She HAD heard the specifics of several of the rumors that were making the rounds among the students -- particularly the one about the Pines twins being disowned by their father. ...Well, she and the rest of the teachers had gotten the paperwork for the two new students, and she'd finally had a chance to look it over. ...And it wasn't just for the two new students; there had been a paperwork change for the twins as well. --The twins HAD gotten their guardianship transferred over to another person, and had a change in address processed for each of them; it was the same person who was listed as the new girls' guardian, in fact. She wasn't sure what it all meant, but those poor boys really had been… well, Mrs. Kimberly didn't really know much about their homelife situation, but...
...if even a quarter of what she'd heard so far from the rumor mill was true? Those poor boys. And it was all over Stanford's broken science project? Why? --She had half a mind to make a trip to the Pines' household and have a talk with their father, but it seemed like they had someone else in the family looking after them for the time being; at least their relatives were taking over somewhat on this. ...And she should probably just leave it all alone and let them do it. Her husband had always told her she was a busy-body, wanting to interfere with her students' lives. They weren't children anymore; they were teenagers. But the idea of those boys being thrown out to the streets was just awful.
...She should probably ask for her own 'parent'-teacher conference with their current guardian, though. Just to be apprised of the situation from the horse's mouth, as it were, rather than a single page of official documentation and the students' rumor mill, which was notoriously counter-factual at times. ...Why, she could remember the last time the students had been riled up over something this badly, and half her students had been absolutely convinced that--
The bell rang and she shook herself out of her own internal musings, as the students began getting up from their seats. As the Pines twins walked past her, Mrs. Kimberly couldn't help but give them a gentle, "If you boys need any help, or wish to talk, my office is always open." (And she could sent a request direct to their guardian through the school's official mail. No need to worry either of the Pines twins over her wanting to speak with their relative so soon after the change in their living situation.)
Lee gave her a surprised blink but turned away and nodded, a little embarrassed.
Xin waved goodbye to Mary and walked back over to his group. "We have Physics first!" Xin said aloud, to remind himself of the schedule. "I wonder if Mr. Harman is doing better? I still need to find Miss Talia and see if she's okay."
As they walked to class, Xin was looking around, checking on spread of the latest addition of the rumors. It was going well. People were already gossiping about the supposed saboteur. Would this make Carla nervous? They saw her walking past them down the hall. She was glaring before turning away and continuing on.
Actually, now that he thought of it… Xin turned to Sixer as they walked to the Physics classroom and asked, "So what did you do to your brother's girlfriend to make her so mad at you?" Because there was some jealousy there, of Carla being overlooked academically by their teachers in favor of little Ford, which he'd Seen. But, there was something else that had happened that Xin wasn't sure he fully understood.
"Carla?" Sixer looked caught off-guard, confused at the sudden question. Lee narrowed his eyes and stared. "--What're you talkin' about?" he asked Xin, glancing over at his brother. "What's he talkin' about?" Lee said a good bit less suspiciously to his brother.
For his part, Sixer shrugged. "I'm not sure? I don't think I've really talked to Carla all that much." He adjusted his glasses, then looked over to Xin, almost as if he was waiting for a better question, one which he could answer.
...So he didn't know either? Or was Sixer unwilling to talk about it? Xin pouted but let it go for now. Fine. He would just need to investigate this himself. Because sure, Carla had been upset at Lee and Sixer, but even if the broken project was just an act of careful sabotage for revenge, the fact that she didn't seem all that upset that Sixer had been disowned was… worrying. Was she really THAT mad? Why? Lee had always been nice to her. Sixer… was very good at hurting people's feelings since he had the social awareness of a spoon and pretty much managed to offend people constantly… but what had he done that was so bad that Carla wouldn't care if he was thrown out to the streets?
They were approaching the Physics classroom. Xin Flickered to check his schedule, and suddenly realized that since they didn't have Art today, he wouldn't get to talk to Miss Talia -- but he really needed to. She was missing her first period class right now! He Saw it!
"Uh, hold my stuff, I'll be right back. --Tell Mr. Harman that I had to go to the bathroom or something," Xin told Lee hurriedly as he handed his backpack over and turned to run down the hallway.
Lee watched him go. ...Huh. What was that all about?
--Better question: could he get away with leaving the school to try and find a second job while she was away?
The backpack in his hand rumbled and the zipper opened and moved like a mouth, "Don't even think about it mister!" the backpack squeaked out at him.
Lee stared down at the backpack, that had just talked in the dragon-lady's girl-dragon voice to him. And kinda looked about ready to eat him if he tried anything on it-- him-- her(??)-- uh...
"Yes, ma'am," Lee said, and Lee twitched as he walked down the hallway with his brother (who was taking notes on "this latest weird occurrence…" in his notebook -- yeah, great help there, bro, thanks a lot...) towards their physics classroom. Okay, so Xin could bring his backpack to life too?!
Lee shuddered and held the backpack out at arm's length, as far away from himself as possible.
...And then handed it over to Sixer, who, on the other hand, was very much interested in this new development and was making excited grabby hands at the backpack, now that he'd finished writing his initial findings and observations down. ('Freedom!' thought Lee, with a boatload of relief.)
---
Xin found Miss Talia in her office, where she'd been all of yesterday night and this morning. He knocked on the door but she didn't respond so he let himself in (unlocking it via a flick of the wrist) -- hey, she didn't say he couldn't. Besides, this was an emergency. "Miss Talia?" he asked softly.
The woman was staring at the charcoal sketch. She had hung it on her wall and was seated right in front of it, blinking her eyes to watch the drawings move. Xin walked over and tapped her shoulder. "Miss Talia?" She didn't look away from the picture. Xin frowned. "You need to stop." He turned the teacher's chair around, away from the charcoal drawing--
--and the woman shook. "No, wait--!"
"Nope, you need to take a break." Xin told her firmly, rolling her chair even farther away and planting himself between her and the picture. "Ma'am, I appreciate that you enjoy my work, but you have a class you're supposed to be teaching."
"Self study. I-I left a note!" Miss Talia said, struggling to try and see around Xin.
The dragon sighed. "That's incredibly irresponsible." He took her face in his hands to move her away from the sketch once more. "Hey. Look at me, talk to me. What's going on with you right now?"
It took a bit, but Xin finally got Miss Talia to look away from the picture. "It's amazing. How…" The woman reached out to grip onto Xin's shirt. "The alien thing is true, right?! But… no matter how much I watch them, I can't figure out what you did! T-there's no technology on it o-or anything!"
Xin sighed. "Because I didn't use technology. I used Weirdness." At the blank look he got from the woman, the dragon tried to explain. "It's like… I sent my intentions and thoughts into the paper. I wanted to make cute little people who could walk around and live in this space, like, I was making a story in my head, a story for the drawing…"
Miss Talia was listening intently. Xin felt a bit strange at trying to talk about this with her; he'd never really tried to explain to anyone how his powers worked before, they just… did. Sure, he knew WHAT he was doing, pulling things together, clicking and stacking things for any physical changes and what-not. Heck, the animated drawing was simply the charcoal he'd placed down being moved around the paper according to the 'idea' he'd set down while drawing it. He'd had thoughts of 'Maybe I could draw it over here instead!' or 'What if I had drawn it like this?' and the paper he'd added the effect to simply took the thoughts of the people watching and rearranged the drawing accordingly. Of course, Xin had set the effect to be somewhat autonomous, so the little people had the barest measure of Will, so that they could move around according to what they felt like doing, too. ...And even leave the paper they were on, but that would result in a much bigger loss of the charcoal that gave them form and they would eventually fade away even more quickly.
"...so it's like I just…" Xin waved a hand, unsure how to say it.
Miss Talia spoke up, "You just brought your drawing to life, because you believed that it was alive." Xin paused. Well, that was simplifying it, but she wasn't quite wrong. Miss Talia continued, "As an artist, I've always sought to make things that seem alive, not because it looks realistic, but because it would be something that made people sit up and take notice."
The woman chuckled. Only a little hysterically. "You know that saying? About how an image seems to pop out from the canvas, how something is drawn with such passion that it comes to life?" The woman moved to see the drawing and this time Xin let her. Miss Talia was smiling softly as she lightly placed a finger on the skull. "It's not JUST that these drawings move. It's… it's everything else here as well."
The art teacher trailed her finger along the image, so lightly she didn't even smear the charcoal even the tiniest bit. "I've given my students a still life drawing assignment many times. They simply look at what there is to see and draw what they see. But you didn't just draw what was there." She smiled. "You looked at that deer skull and you saw a house. A place where the little people you drew could live in." She moved her finger to the bird cage. "And here is a little jungle gym they can play on." The woman closed her eyes and laughed lightly. "Watching the people move around is miraculous and amazing, but it's this underlying intent of your drawing that has so enraptured me."
The art teacher finally turned away from the picture to gaze at Xin. "You didn't just draw a still life and then add magical people to it, you looked at the objects and you made a story." Miss Talia's eyes gleamed. "It took me a while to understand this. I was so distracted by the people. But they're not the point of this drawing. They're not what's important." The woman seemed to sag in place. "The true beauty of this is how you took something straight forward like a simple drawing of random objects, and turned it into a narrative." She patted the corner of the paper. "Those tiny people? They're simply playing out the narrative you've drawn into the picture. And…" The woman smiled so brightly that Xin was sure she'd be gushing 'Happiness' if his headband was off.
"...and that's beautiful." The woman sighed. "I've never had someone do that with any of my still life assignments. They just do the assignment as stated; they simply draw what they see, but they never tried to make it something more." She shook her head, "No, I haven't even tried to get them to do this, never even thought about it myself." She smiled. "But that's something I'm going to do now. You've opened my eyes to a new way of looking at art. Of teaching art! How every drawing can be a story, no matter how simple or complex."
Miss Talia laughed. "I've been doing art for years and never thought about this!" She sounded a little hysterical. "What have I been doing all these years?" She was grinning even as she started sobbing.
Xin winced. "Um… are you alright?" She watched as Miss Talia wiped her eyes, smearing some charcoal dust across her cheeks. "I'm fine, I just… can't believe I never tried to teach this to children. I feel like a failure as a teacher."
Xin gently wiped the tears from the woman's face. "Well, it's not your fault?" he said awkwardly. "And now you know? So you can do that now?" He tried to cheer her up. The woman laughed again.
"Sure. Yes. Right. Anyway, oh… it… feels… nice to finally get this off my chest…" The woman scrubbed at her face with a sleeve. "Oh I'm a mess." She turned back to the drawing.
"I want to watch them forever." Miss Talia said simply. Xin's response was, "You shouldn't."
"Right. Right." Miss Talia closed her eyes and turned away from the picture. "I've been… acting kinda crazy haven't I?" she asked quietly, of the girl that she was seeing in front of her.
Xin shrugged. "Everyone's a little crazy, artists are more so, since our thing is about making real the things that only exist in our heads…" Xin shrugged. "But you just need to remember to pay attention to the stuff happening outside your head too." He continued gently cleaning the tears and dust smears away from the woman's face. "Like taking care of yourself, and doing the things you need to."
"...Like teach my class?" Miss Talia laughed. Xin nodded. "Yup. That." He figured this was the best he was gonna be able clean her up. He patted the woman's shoulder. "So, you can keep the drawing, just… don't live for it. There's plenty of stuff out here in the real world too, you know?"
...he felt somewhat hypocritical saying this, considering he would retreat into his own head whenever reality got too hard to handle. Whenever he just couldn't deal with it anymore and wanted to lose himself in his own fantasies or stories. But that wasn't right. Retreating to his happy place with anime and videogames were fun, but he couldn't do that forever.
Reality still existed. He still had his responsibilities.
...and maybe that was okay. Responsibilities weren't something he could run away from forever.
Miss Talia seemed more or less alright now, if a little tired. Xin waved goodbye to her as he headed back to Physics. He felt… better. Like a knot of guilt had been loosened. He'd hurt miss Talia, but she was going to get better. Still, Xin had told her not to feed the drawing anymore.
He made it back to the Physics classroom to see that Bill and Mr. Harman had 'rejoined the party' as it were. They weren't talking with each other, so he figured they must have finished their discussion if they'd had one; they probably had. Xin didn't feel like Looking for it at the moment and simply slid into an open seat near the twins.
Sixer glanced at him, as he played slightly with the zipper on Xin's bookbag. "What were you off doing?" he asked of him.
Xin shrugged. "Settling something that was bothering me."
Xin made a quick glance around. Well, everyone seemed alright. And Mr. Harman looked… okay? Well, better than he was before, at least. Xin took his backpack from Sixer and got his notebook out. "Did I miss anything?"
"No," said Sixer. "Class was just about to--"
Bill grabbed Lee by the shoulder and pulled him over. He sat down next to Xin roughly, and dragged Lee down into a seat next to him.
"Uhhhh," said Lee, as Bill let go of him. The teacher didn't look so hot, but the demon didn't look so hot, either.
Bill dropped his arms down onto the desk, dropped his chin down on top of that--
--and then turned his head sideways and looked away from them all, seemingly at nothing in particular.
Xin looked at his brother quizzically. "Sleepy?" the dragon asked.
"Tired," Bill corrected her, closing his eyes.
"Rest, I'll watch over you." Xin told him.
"Mm," said Bill. (He wasn't too worried. They both had their bodysuits on, with all their associated and included protections. He'd helped Xin-as-Miz with making his-her own, down in the hold a few days ago!)
(...What Bill didn't and hadn't thought of yet, really, was the possibility of needing to not just defend against but also temporarily hide from other 'Bill Cipher's, though. He just wasn't used to taking that into account, yet -- especially not with the barrier around the Shack as a set-and-forget-it thing that he had already become used to having as a catch-all to fall back on. And he certainly wasn't going to do it now, not when he was already tired…)
And then Mr. Harman (looking a bit more harried than usual, not having his usual less-than-hurried prep time before class) cleared his throat and started his normal sort of lecture for the day.
Xin made sure there were protections up (just the way that big brother had showed him!) and also made a mental note to make Bill an especially nutritious lunch today. Once he was sure Bill would be safe if he fell asleep here, Xin turned to the front of the class and tried to pay attention to the lesson. It was basic. Wasn't bad.
---
Xin 'attacked' the food in the cafeteria again that afternoon. Nobody complained.
---
Bill seemed to be operating at lower-than-low energy that day. He didn't even try for a detention slip in any of their classes. He didn't quite fall asleep in physics class, but... Xin sent him a slightly fretful glance as they made their way to their next class. How much energy had Bill been using? Wasn't he having more trouble getting more? Xin was glad that at least he was getting Bill to eat more; it really worried Xin, how tired Bill seemed.
They made it through the rest of the day largely without incident.
(Lee figured that their not having gym class that day helped. ...And, y'know, Crampelter being nowhere in sight, which he absolutely was not gonna think about that hard at all, nope, not even a little...)
---
Lee had never been so happy to have a school day end. Even worse, he hadn't been able to get away from the demons this day, either. --But hey! At least he was free now!
"So, homework!" he heard Xin say next, brightly.
Sixer perked up and adjusted his glasses.
Lee groaned.
---