"Not that I care about whether you two get yourselves KILLED or not," Bill began, because that really WASN'T his callout. "But I'd better take down the perception filter I tossed up before you two crash-landed into my dimension here, and go back inside before they miss me." He smiled a little at the thought of the reaction he was going to get from Stanford once he sees that Bill is female now.
Miz pouts but nods. "Oh right. You do you sir. We'll um...try to be discreet about our adventure." Speaking of which, she flicked her fingers and gave Seb an eyepatch for his unnatural eye.
Seb grumbled but didn't comment when the black eye patch pressed against the left side of his new face. Did she give him a yellow eye in this form too? Maybe she didn't and it just appeared… He'd never get rid of it...
Bill tilted his head at her in acknowledgment. "We can talk again later." He pulled a slight face, thinking of all the possible outcomes of Stanley trying to take care of Stanford, and Stanford being… Stanford , then said firmly: "Tomorrow." Then let out a huff of breath. "Unless you think of something and leave, or die horribly first. --I can meditate and look through my Mindscape for this 'exit' door of yours in the meantime," he shrugged. "And see if I can't think of anything else that might work instead."
Bill almost left it at that, but he only hesitated for a bare moment before adding, to the girl 'him', "If you try to work on your personal 'Dreamscape' while you're here, make a barrier to stay within. You'll be vulnerable otherwise! It takes practice to get used to defending your 'Dreamscape'," he leveled with her. "It's a direct backdoor entrance to your mind and the Mindscape -- not just for you, but for ANYONE who knows how to get in. Takes some getting used to; things work differently there than in the general Mindscape!" And the last thing he needed was to be left holding the bag handling a local ghost that had possessed a Bill Cipher-built body -- let alone one that allowed for weirdness power channeling. Bill just KNEW that Stanley would find out and get on his case about it, if that ever happened.
Miz gives him a respectful nod. "Alright. Thank you very much sir." For a clearly insane Bill Cipher, he was...nice? Sort of?
Bill just shrugged again. It had been awhile since he'd been anybody's muse, let alone gotten a proper amount of respect from someone who didn't feel inclined to kill him. It was nice! And as far as he was concerned, a 'thank you' wasn't necessary. He'd take actions and information over those two words any day, and these two 'him's actions were more than enough to satisfy him, even before getting into the information that they'd shared with him that day! In a word: to him, they were useful .
"Thanks kid." Seb smirked. He looked up at the girl on his shoulders. "You ready?"
Miz pats the side of Seb's head. "Giddi'yup dude!"
Seb started walking while his charge and him starting chanting. "Dino Hunt! Dino Hunt!" as they walked into the forest.
"You know, I once punched a pterodactyl in the face." Seb's proud statement was the last thing that was heard before they disappeared.
Bill, for his part watched them go, thinking.
Then he shrugged it off and turned to face the Shack.
He took a step forward…
...then came to a stop, halting in place for a moment. He thought about what the girl 'him' had looked like, compared to how he looked now. And he remembered her in-the-moment reactions to the look of him -- her initial excitement to thinking he was a girl, and her immediate and opposite reaction to him telling her that he was not.
He smiled.
And he took a moment to run the fingers of his hand through his hair, lengthening it with a word and a thought, to make it about the same length as she had been wearing it.
Bill's smile morphed into a grin as he made a gesture to collapse the perception filter into the barrier -- which safely and harmlessly deconstructed and redirected the energy of the magic spell for him through no real effort on his part -- and then walked forward across the grass, to step up onto the porch and back into the depths of the Shack.
----
Miz stumbles and leans against a tree while laughing hysterically. "That...was...AWESOME!"
Seb followed her close and fell to the floor laughing. Their clothes were a mess, torn by the creatures they had been fighting, but it had been awesome! Doing dangerous stuff was fun when he didn't have to worry about his niblings dying. And he didn't care what happened to him, so being so close to getting his arm torn off was fun!
"You saw it?! It was like ROAR, RAAHH!! But we were like BURN! and woah!" Seb said while catching his breath.
"And then...and then…" Miz gasped for air in between her laughter "T-that look on it's face when I TOOK A BITE out of its leg!"
Seb laughed madly, clutching his stomach that was hurting from laughing so much. "The blood was disgusting, though." he shuddered. He tried biting at one too but blergh, it was horrible!
"Pfth-it was delicious!" Miz wipes some of said blood off the side of her mouth. "Tastes nothing like chicken...which is weird since aren't chickens descended from them?"
They were walking back to the Mystery shack, lost in their happy and animated conversation. "You know what's delicious, kid? Gnome's blood." Seb nodded when her eyes widened.
"No…" Miz gasps dramatically.
"Yes!" He replied just as dramatically. "It tastes like blueberry gum or something like that! It is really sweet for some reason!"
Miz hummed. "So it's like eating a southern hingerpluff?"
"NO idea what you just said...I didn't eat him though. We were too busy fleeing away from their Gnome Monster. They wanted Mabel to become their queen or some shit. Stupid Jeff."
"Ah, episode 1. Of course." Miz says before quickly covering her mouth and hoping Seb didn't notice.
Seb did, but simply raised an eyebrow while smiling. "Um...Yeah? You could say so...It was the first adventure I had with Pinetree and Shooting Star."
"Yeah. Sounds cool. Hey, have you done the Gobblewonker yet? Wax people? Quentin Trembly?"
"H-How do you even know? You said you had dinosaurs in your Earth… And don't come to me with 'I know lot's of things shit' cuz that's MY line." He winked.
"We-well I can see a kaleidoscope of branching future timelines. And there are these… fixed points that ALWAYS happen. But the details of the events themselves are subjected to change."
"Like… Stan would be taking care of them, right?"
Miz nodded. "Yeah. Stan's supposed to be there… but even when he's not the twins will still have their adventures."
"Oh…" Seb nodded. Yeah, that made sense, it would be like when he was Bill… Turning to his back, he stared at the darkening sky. Time worked in this dimension apparently. It was so weird. There were so many universes, so many demon Bills and twins and Stans… but only one him… Growing up, many people have told him he shouldn't have been born, that he was an accident , that the Stans would be better without him: Stan would have more friends… Ford would 'pass'... It wasn't his fault the Axolotl brought him back like this… That he made(?) an alternate dimension so… different.
Miz sighed, waving a hand and grimaced at the torn up state of her clothes. She COULD fix it. Or she could go into the town center and make a story about a bear attack to get free food. And by food she meant 'Sympathy'. That was a yummy emotion to feed on.
"Miz?" Seb asked softly. "Will you try to actually sleep tonight?" He had really exploited this body in their Dino Hunt. He was tired, but he wouldn't leave his friend awake with her own thoughts. (That was scary, he knew it was.)
Miz nodded. "It's gonna take some work but I think I can do this. If there's one thing I've got, it's an imagination. It'd probably help me in the whole, crafting my own Dreamscape thing."
Seb ruffled her already disheveled black hair. "Alright. We should stay somewhere though. I may have told Mabel the threat of wolves was fake, but there really are wolves in these forests."
Miz makes a face at the forest. "Yeah, sleeping on the ground is NOT gonna happen." She shivers. "Ugh, bugs…"
Seb chuckled. "There's a small hotel in town, well, in my universe there is, we can go check up if it is working?"
Miz nodded. Any place would be better than out in the wilderness. She considered for a bit about contacting Bill but figured he was busy with his Pines family. "We can go meet up with Bill tomorrow. Maybe once I have a Dreamscape and he's done some thinking, we can make a solution together."
Seb yawned and nodded. "Alright then, follow me." As he walked with Miz by his side, he couldn't help but think of how they needed money for the hotel room to pay and eat and other boring human stuff… Miz could just create them but...He grinned. What was the fun in that?
"Ok, listen kid, this is what we will do. I've been the master of lies since I was old enough to talk so we are so gonna fuck up these people!"
"Yay! Deception checks all around!" She cheered.
With that, the temporary black haired man started explaining to her the plan and Miz nodded slowly, taking in everything.
"If we're getting a hotel, can we get one with room service?" she asks. "Or the ones with the little mini-fridge with drinks in it?"
"Sure! That sounds nice!" He had never gone to a nice hotel, the only places he had been had had dirty rooms and dirty beds with dirty floors.
Miz stares straight ahead and flickers rapidly through every triangle in town. "Found a place! The Gravity Falls Birchmount Hotel. Kinda separate from town, quiet, nice view of the forest…near the edges of it so it would make it easier to pretend we were attacked."
Seb lifted his eyepatch and focused, using the same triangles around town to see what Miz was seeing, but much slower. He grinned when he saw it though. "Uhh! And sauna!"
"Never really been to a sauna. Never saw the appeal of dehydrating myself by excreting my fluids through my pores." Not that she had any as a triangle.
"When you put it that way it sounds nasty as shit. Thanks, you ruined it." Seb grinned and gently nudged her as they resumed their walk. He pulled down the eyepatch to cover his eye once again.
Miz skipped merrily through the woods (she wasn't the oldest one here anymore so she can be as childish as she wants!) "Near a tree by a river there's a hole in the ground~where an old man of aran goes around and around~" she twirled as she went, "And his mind is a beacon in the veil of the night~for a strange kind of fashion there's a wrong and a right~"
Seb enjoyed her singing as they walked. It was a nice song...Nothing like Vera Lynn of course, duh, but it was nice! He looked up and in front of them, he saw the hotel a few meters away from them. It was made of wood and the windows that faced outside were turned on.
"Guess this is it...Ready?" He grinned and Miz slowly leaned against to him to act as if she couldn't walk properly. "Nope! Let's do it!" She grinned before quickly composing herself to look distressed instead.
The man snorted but easily mastered a worried expression. He pushed the door opened and the woman behind the counter smiled at them.
"Welcome, strangers!" She said.
"He-Hello…" Seb fake coughed. "Do-Do you have a room? My-My daughter and-and I need to lay down and sleep somewhere other than the streets for one night..."
Miz made a sound like a wounded kitten. "BaBa...my arms hurt…" she rubbed at a large abrasion along her arm. Not deep enough to bleed but the skin was reddish. She even limped slightly as she walked.
"Oh my!" The frightened woman exclaimed. "What happened?!"
"Oh...well, you-you see...It has been hard times for our little family…" Seb held back his laughter. "After my wife left...I-I stayed with my little girl...but we lost everything and-and getting a job has been so so hard after the accident at the factory...Soon I'll go blind in my other eye…" The man's eye welled up with tears and hugged Miz closer to him.
"BaBa said that I could spend my summer here while he tries to find a job...b-but while we were getting to the hotel…" Miz whimpered again. "A bear showed up!" She buried her face in Seb's chest. "BaBa tried to fight it off and then we ran and fell down a hill."
"Oh poor things…" The woman covered her mouth.
"We just need one night here, it's all I can pay-Oh no!" Seb cried. "My-My wallet! It must have fallen!" He sobbed. "Oh, I'm so sorry for wasting your time…" He crouched and looked at Miz. "Guess we'll just go find a bench to sleep on again alright?"
Miz's eyes were tearing up and her lips wobbled but she was trying to be brave and not cry. Her breath hitched a little as she nods. "O-okay BaBa...I'm sorry I couldn't run faster…"
Seb cast a quick glance at the woman, 'Just the final touch and she will break!' and picked Miz up to carry her. "It is not your fault, sweetie...I promise that if you hug BaBa really really tight we won't be cold." He looked at the shocked woman. "Thank you…"
He started to walk away, really really slowly, until he was stopped by the woman's cries, almost grinning and getting out of character. Miz had her face buried in his chest again, shoulders shaking with muffled laughter but to anyone else it would look like she was holding back sobs.
"You-You can stay! Don't worry about the money! I can't let a single father stay out there with his daughter all alone!" She quickly wiped her tears and looked for a key to a room. "The-The room service is available, you can order whatever you need! It's free of cost!" She handed a shocked Seb the key as she nodded.
"You are brave and a great father. Don't you ever forget that."
Seb nodded solemnly and bowed a bit before walking to the lift. "Thank you so much for your kindness!" Miz peeked up over her 'father's' shoulder to give the woman a small smile. "Thank you ma'am…" she said softly.
She waved at her as Seb carried Miz to the lift and pressed a button. It was getting harder to stay in character. He couldn't believe this worked again!!
When they got in and the door of the lift closed, both Seb and Miz burst into laughter, covering their mouths as well as they could to not ruin their cover.
Miz even put up a perception filter just in case. "Oh cheese, did you see the look on her face?" She laughed.
"Poor woman, we traumatized her!" Seb wheezed.
Miz shrugs. "Not sure about trauma but she was actually crying for us."
"Hey, we are great actors! High six!" Seb lifted his six-fingered hand and Miz jumped to high five him. The door of the lift opened and the two shared an evil look.
"Let's abuse their trust." Seb said, thinking of all the food they could order. Miz licked her lips just at the thought of food. The sympathy from that woman earlier barely counted as a snack.
They ran to their room and didn't even appreciate the decorations or style. They assaulted the mini-fridge bar and drank sodas (well, Seb drank the sodas, Miz actually couldn't because she thought the fizzy bubbles were painful), juice boxes and the snacks offered before ordering more food from the staff.
An alcoholic drink was also ordered in their rampage, but wouldn't even be noticed until the next day. The two of them sat on the floor cross legged (Seb) or kneeling elegantly (Miz) surrounded by food, and Seb stuffed his mouth with Doritos before looking at the girl.
"So! Ready to create your Dreamscape?!" He asked with his mouth full of chips.
Miz nodded as she ate a plate of corned beef hash with a mushroom omelette. Seb didn't order real food, just junk food, and it actually worried her. "I just need to figure out how…" Miz took another bite, chewed quickly and swallowed "What does your Dreamscape feel like? To you?"
"Um…" He took a sip of his soda. With all this sugar he would never sleep… "It is...It takes away all the pain." Because it was true. Nothing hurt there. "It is calm and it is a nice place to think, or just look at the space around it...I also look at my Memories there so it makes me happy. I can just forget about the world there and do whatever I want!"
Miz hummed in thought. Remembering the other Bill's advice, she created a psychic barrier around herself and the room they were in. Then she layered several other barriers over it (paranoia! It makes the world go round!) Her bubbles were essentially miniature worlds unto themselves. She could put anything inside them and even make them permanent if she wanted (that was how the penis planet was formed after all) and she's had plenty of experience being inside other people's dreams.
The trouble was forming a madness bubble filled with...pleasant things. It was rather difficult as her powers sought to twist her intents into something less harmless. Also it was filled with squids. Huh. She really had a fixation on squids today. In the end she had an ocean themed Dreamscape...which...seemed odd as she was a fire based creature but...when wasn't she odd?
Now she simply needed to tie it, bind it, seal it, to this constructed body. She COULD attach it to her Soul but she didn't want to risk Soul manipulation right here and now. She felt it click into place and sighed, opening her eyes. "Well...I think I've got it." She says at last, setting her empty plate aside. "All that's left is to test it."
Seb smiled excitedly and picked her up with his mind, making her float to the large bed as she complained. "Ok, now from here, sleep is just going to come eventually." The black-haired man told her. "It is weird, humans have to act like they are sleeping to actually fall asleep. You have NO idea how hard it was for me to fall asleep as a kid." Seb told her. With his over-protective instincts kicking in, he pulled back the covers and tucked the surprised girl in, all with his mind.
"So...close your eyes and think you are sleeping and before you know it, it will be tomorrow." Seb informed her.
Miz nodded and even made herself yawn, yawning makes you feel sleepy right? She snuggled into the blankets, enjoying their softness and closed her eyes. Breathe slowly. Calm her thoughts. Counting sheep was stupid. She allowed her healing on the vessel to slow, allowing the lactic acid to build up in her muscles, resulting in fatigue. She can't sleep if she wasn't tired and she can't be tired if she keeps healing it.
She relaxed and breathed. Just...calm...quiet...
Meanwhile, Seb yawned, apparently he was tired too. Sweets didn't work at this point and he picked up the bags and dirty dishes. He loved chaos, sure, but not living in it. Gross. The twins were always living glitter (Shooting Star) and mud prints (Dipper) and it drove him nuts. When he finished he turned to look at Miz who was...uneasily quiet. Her breathing was calmer and slower. Did-Did she managed to-
"Miz?" Seb whispered.
Miz didn't respond aside from soft breathing. Her expression was calm and peaceful.
Seb approached the bed tip toeing and looked down at the girl, smiling widely. She was asleep! She did it!!
'Sleeping is stupid, it is just you in a comatose state for hours!' Bill2 spat.
Seb sighed and went to lay down on the couch. He looked up at the ceiling in thought. Since getting in this body Bill2 had been quiet! And now that he was thinking nice things he came back being his usual douchey self-...That's it! Seb took off his eye patch at the sudden revelation. He had been acting cray cray all day with Miz, now he did something not crazy or evil and Bill2 appeared.
"It all makes sense now…" He whispered and closed his eyes.
---
Miz was a fish.
A fish who was also a bird.
It makes sense in context. Also she had laser beam eyes. She knew this because she shot a large Orca whale with them. Pew! Pew! She swam/flew/ice-skated through the water to the dying Orca so she could eat her prize. It tasted like gummy bears.
She liked gummy bears.
"Thank you for saving us from the mean Orca!" The seals and balloonfish told her. The balloon fish looked a lot like Kryptos but with bubbles streaming out of his mouth. Miz took one of the bubbles and it turned into a tree. She and the seals planted the tree so it would surround the area to keep out other orca whales.
"No problem! I'm here to help." Miz says happily, waving her fin hands (that also had fingers) around before swim/skydiving away from the cheering people. The seals were now walruses because they had always been walruses.
Miz swam/pogo-sticked through the water until she found a boat. It was going to hit an iceberg. She had to save them. She tried to turn the ship so it missed the iceberg but it was too heavy. She couldn't move it. Maybe she could break the iceberg?
Miz set fire to the iceberg but it didn't work. The ship crashed and now the ship was on fire as well. No. No. No. That wasn't what she meant to do. Miz could hear them screaming.
The people were all on fire. People running around, their bright colors fading into white as they burned and died. Miz tried to splash water onto them but it didn't work. The blue fire was spreading and consuming everything. They keep screaming.
"Wait! Please be quiet!" Miz cries. "I can't concentrate!" She tries to put out the fire but the screaming made it so hard to think. Godzilla (except he was pink) was coming out of the ocean now. Miz turns to him and pleads "Please Godzilla! Help me save the people!"
Godzilla opens his mouth and lots of eyeballs came out. The eyeballs were also jellyfish. They fell into the flames and sort of put it out but it wasn't enough. The people were burning and dying and it was all her fault . Miz screams at the fire.
"Godzilla! Please help me fix this!" She turns to the giant lizard who was now covered in clouds. "Please! I'll do anything!" she begs.
"Then perish."
Miz gasped and jolted up in the bed. What. What? What just?! She panted heavily as she clung tightly to the blankets. Blankets? A bed? Oh. Right. She was...she was sleeping. For the first time in forever. There'll be music~there'll be lights~for the first time in forever~
She shook her head to get the Disney song out. Not the time for this. She glanced around the dark hotel room. Right. She...she made a Dreamscape from scratch and bound it to this vessel so that she could sleep. She slept. That's right. She actually...fell asleep. It was…
She frowned. It was nice...she was dreaming...but then it became a nightmare. Should have figured that would happen. But...aside from the dark turn her dream took...it was...nice.
Seb turned a bit in his dream and made a distressed sound. "No...Kids…" The man's face turned into a grimace and whimpered. "NO!" He screamed and opened his eyes. "NO! KID-" He gasped and looked around. Where the hell-He looked at Miz staring at him from the bed and sighed. Oh, right…
"I'm sorry I woke you up." He mumbled tiredly and rubbed his eyes with his fists. It had been fine...just him and the kids playing but-but then the Gremloblin attacked them and-and he couldn't save them this time...
Miz quietly played with the blanket, fluffing it between her hands. "Naw, I was already awake." She says.
"Oh...Ok. Did you dream? I guess it is a bit overwhelming the first time, huh?"
Miz nodded. "Yeah…." She gives him a crooked grin. "It was super weird...but I can't really remember what it was about anymore. Isn't that funny?"
Seb chuckles a bit. "Happens all the time, don't worry. There are some you can remember but it is not that common."
Miz nods. She checks the time and sees that it's barely 5 in the morning. Well she wasn't gonna be getting back to sleep anyway. She crawled out of bed and made her way to the room service menu. Did they have food this early in the morning?
Seb watched her with tired eyes and yawned. "Kid, what are you doing?" He asked as he snuggled under his blankets. "Sleep." He mumbled. "It is too early for me and I'll be cranky if I don't sleep."
Miz shrugged. "You can sleep. I'm gonna go find some food." And then maybe meditate a bit. See if she could access her Mindscape now that she had established a stronger connection to it.
"No one will bring you food at this hour." Seb chuckled. "Breakfast starts at 7am."
"Then I'll go hunt for something. Not the first time I've done it." Miz grins.
Seb blinked uncoordinatedly and sighed. "Ok...Just, don't leave a blood trail on the floor because we'd have to explain that." With that, he went back to sleep.
Miz went over to the window and looked down. They were really high up and for a few seconds her vertigo made her stagger and quickly look away. Nope. Jumping out the window wasn't gonna be an option (stupid fear of heights, she could FLY for Ax's sake!) And instead she focused on general area teleportation. Where was a good place to...
She Blinked out of the hotel room and dropped to the ground near the lake. The water was still and the sky was dark but she could see just fine. She peered into the water, searching for movement. It's been too long since she's had some fish~
---
Seb jumped, startled by the sound of the door of their hotel room being kicked open...
Miz had a wide maniac grin, dripping wet and holding an armful of...live fish?!
"I GOT BREAKFAST!" she says much too loudly for 7 in the morning. To Seb's horror she snapped one of the fish's spine and once it stopped twitching she shoves the entire thing in her mouth and swallows it whole. How was it even possible for such a small mouth to fit an entire fish?!
Seb covered his mouth to hold back his puke. "Miz!!" He shouted. That was too much. Even for him. That was utterly disgusting! She ate it with scales and all, fuck this shit!
He groaned when the girl continued smiling and offered him one. "No. I don't want it" He spat. He didn't like being woke up abruptly. He looked at the water pooling on the floor and rolled his eyes. "At least it is not blood, good job!" He said with fake cheerfulness.
She nods happily. Seeing his disgust she rolls her eyes "I cleaned them with my powers of course! There are no germs or parasites." She closes the door behind her and puts the weakly flopping fish onto the table. "Besides, they taste best when fresh so it's good to keep them alive right up until you eat them."
Seb rolled his eyes and he stood up, stretching and yawning loudly. "Pass." He told her. "I prefer chicken, and pork. The twins' jewish asses don't eat it so all the bacon is for me." He smugly pointed at himself. "Mabel got angry when I suggested eating Waddles, but now we are sort of in a truce."
"Well...if you don't want them raw…" Miz says "I can cook them~"
That caught the man's attention. "That sounds...better." He nodded. He had seen movies where they cook the fish over fire, it sounded fun the first time he saw it. "But we should probably do it somewhere else? Don't want anyone seeing us using fire...from our hands."
"Hehehe...hahahahaa…." Miz began laughing. Seb looked a little worried as her laughter grew more unhinged. "Oh cooking fish isn't something as silly as that~" she flings her hands around and the space around her twists . "If I'm gonna be cooking these...I'm doing it properly…" her power enveloped the two of them before Seb could protest.
---
Cooking with Miz!
A short musical intro played and there was cheering coming from an unidentified source. Miz waved happily into the dark void that was her audience. "Hello everyone! For the first time in EVER I am bringing my cooking show to you! New crowd! New faces!" She flicks her hair "But all the same intense cooking action you don't know but will soon come to LOVE!"
She gestures beside her and a spotlight pops open to reveal a startled Sebastian squinting into the room. "Joining me today is my dear co-host Sebastian!"
The audience cheers and whistles. A voice is heard shouting "Take off your shirt hot stuff!!"
"What the fuck?" The poor man grimaced and fell his cheeks warming up. "Sexual harassment is not fun, ass!" He shouted but for the love of everything delicious he couldn't even see where the voices came from. "Miz, what are you doing?!"
"I'm glad you asked Sebastian my friend, you see dear viewers~ today we will be making…" Miz waves her hands and the fish appeared on the counter top with a bunch of sparkles and a twinkling sound effect. "...Roasted fish!" She says.
The audience goes nuts, screaming and hollering in approval. Miz raises her hands and they quiet down. "Now! The first step for any cooking is washing your hands and washing your ingredients!" She turns aside and the camera angle changes from a front shot of the counter to a close up to Miz's face (with Seb yelping in the background as he was flung along with the room shifting) as she whispers "I already cleaned the fish but I think my co-host needs to demonstrate it for you all out there."
She straightened up and the camera went back to its previous position. Seb was tossed across the room put the frame on the right and reappeared from the left. He wasn't hurt but he was quite disoriented.
"Miz, what the heck is going on?! Why are you doing this!" He whimpered. He just wanted to eat!
Miz patted his back comfortingly. "Because I have a cooking show to run. And you will get to eat. But we have to show all our viewers how to prepare a fish for grilling." she unintentionally heard his thoughts. It kinda happens sometimes.
"Did you just-"
She clapped her hands. "Now. Go on, wash your hands. We need to set a good example for all the children who are awake at 7:20 in the morning. Actually...I think I might have replaced the morning news…" she tilts her head in thought. "Maybe I shouldn't just hijack the local radio waves all the time…"
Seb pouted, still confused as hell, but eventually washed his hands slowly.
Miz was running the two large fish under water. They struggled in her grip but she held on. "Now first of all. You need to kill the fish. It's an unpleasant task but it would be much crueler to cook them while they're still alive."
She waves her hand and all sorts of...dangerous looking implements appeared on the counter as a "Wow~" sound effect rang out. There were large butcher knives, a cleaver, a golf club, a grenade and other various knives.
"Why are they still alive? Just...let them dry out or cut it's head!" Seb cried. Was she planning to use a grenade to kill a dumb fish?!
Miz held up a finger and waggled it. "If I let them dry it'll make the meat taste dry. If I cut off the head it'll be a waste of a perfectly good head." She reaches over to pick up a heavy looking cleaver.
"Ew."
"Now the best way to kill a fish is to hit it in the head with the back of the knife. Blunt trauma is the fastest way to kill it with the least amount of blood shed." She held the fish down with her right hand and raised the cleaver, turned around so the non-sharp end was in play and brought it down with a heavy THUMP. The fish spasmed before going still. She turns to hand the cleaver, handle first, to Seb. "Now you try with your fish."
"What? No!" Seb cried. "I don't wanna." He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn't going to be part of this craziness, not gonna give her the pleasure.
Miz rolls her eyes. "You act like you've never butchered your own meal before."
"Of course I haven't" The man rolled his eyes too. "Meat comes dead, but I cooked most of the times as a kid. I could but I just don't want to." He grinned annoyingly and looked at the waiting gasping fish in front of him. The invisible crowd booed and Seb frowned.
Miz rolled her eyes. "Fine then. Do you at least know how to de-scale and de-gut a fish?"
"Yes?...No?" He pouted. Any answer was going to end up in her forcing him to participate anyway, wouldn't it?
Miz quickly killed the 2nd fish and then grabbed a different knife. This one was lighter, thinner. "Well this is easy enough. Hold the fish under running water and scrape the back of this knife against the fish from tail to head. That will get the scales to just come off and be washed away."
Seb nodded in understanding and with an exaggerated pained sigh he did as he was told. This girl...they could be eating breakfast from the hotel by now but no! She decided to hunt and de gut her own food!
Mis watched him work and nodded approvingly, her own fish being quickly de-scaled. "Ok. Once the scales are gone you need to cut the guts out. After all, you don't want to eat whatever might be in the fish's stomach." She whispers at the camera "They eat bugsss~"
"That's gross, but awesome. Grossome." Seb commented as he finished de scaling his fish.
Miz giggled. With some careful knife work she slices off the top and bottom fins before placing the tip of the knife on the bottom of the fish, at the base of the neck, and slices open it's stomach. "Now this part is actually different depending on what kind of fish you happen to be cooking but generally the guts are in the same place."
She reached into the fish and slowly works it open. It folded open like a book, the belly and sides revealed. She pokes at the spine that could now be seen. "This next part is simple. Use your knife, and push it under the bones near the base of the next and side it down slowly. The spine and the bones connected to it should come out pretty nicely. If it doesn't, run the fish under some water and bend it softly back and forth."
Miz turns to Seb. "Think you can do this? It's your first time after all."
"Kid, please. Of course I can take out some bones off a fish, I ain't that dumb." He pouted and started working on taking it out as he grumbled. He cursed a few times because it wouldn't come out, but eventually did it and grinned like a little shit.
Miz smiles. "Well this little pouch looking thing down here is the fish guts. Just cut the ends and peel them off. Some people like to cook them too but that takes more work and I'm sure my co-host is hungry so we're just gonna throw 'em out." She pulls the slimy organs out and tosses them into the sink. There was surprisingly little blood, some seed stuff oozing onto the counter but her hands were pretty clean despite everything.
Seb grimaced as he imitated her. The worst part of food was cooking it. He hated this part. He grinned distractedly when he remembered Ford passed out when he showed him the guts Ma had taken out of the chicken she was cooking. That was a good day.
Miz checked to make sure there were no more bones before nodding to herself. "Alright, now you just put on some light seasoning-" she sprinkles some herbs and a small cut of spring onion onto the fish, folded it shut and laid some ginger slices on top. "-and put it on the grill." She opens the fire on the stovetop and put a large pan on top. A bit of oil sprayed onto the pan for some non-stick action and they were good to go.
She turns to Seb. "Wanna do the honors?" She handed him the fish.
"I'd be honored" He nodded and bowed exaggeratedly before grabbing the fish to put it on the pan carefully.
The fish hissed and sizzled as they cooked. There was a nice smell in The air. Miz was sprinkling in more herbs and garlic salt.
"Ah, sweet circles, it smells delicious!" Seb drooled.
Miz practically purred at the fish. "And they'll taste even better~" she pokes the fish with some chopsticks and flips them over to cook the other side. She suddenly slaps her head. "Oh no! I forgot something!"
"W-what is it?!" Seb cried worriedly.
Miz hands him some sunglasses. "Quick! Put these on!"
Seb obeyed, confused and worried of what she might do, and waited for another instruction.
Miz put on her own pair of sunglasses as she used her teeth to pull the pin on the grenade and threw it behind them. The explosion went off as a music chord played and a voice screams "YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Along with some electric guitar strums. The words -Real Chefs- appears on the bottom of the screen in big bold letters.
Seb stared behind him at the explosion and frowned, confused but then snorted. Ok, he got it. "So THAT was what the grenade's for…"
Miz takes off her sunglasses when the explosion dies down. "Yup." She pokes the fish again. "More importantly~the food's done~"
She flicks her fingers and the scene changed to the two of then sitting at a dinner table with the grilled fish on their plates along with some forks and knives. Miz had chopsticks instead. "And now~itadakimasu~" Miz says like a true weeaboo.
"Bless you." Seb said teasingly, he knew what she said, and grabbed the offered fork to eat the delicious fish.
As they ate with the ending music playing, the screen unfocused and a voice says "Cooking with Miz has been brought to you by...Scissors. You cut with them, you cook with them, they're an all purpose tool for whatever crisis you're facing. Scissors! Available now in most places around you. Even when you least expect it."
---
They appeared back in the hotel room, cleaned and dried from the activities of that morning.
Seb moaned in relief and threw himself to the bed, then said in a muffled voice. "That was weird… I liked it, but don't do it again."
Miz shrugged. Why does no one like being on her cooking show? Before stretching her arms and making a pleased sound when her bones cracked. "Ah man...that was nice. My shows are normally more weird than that but I didn't want to be too suspicious. I hope no one in Gravity Falls suspects anything…"
"Wait, normally?" Seb raised an eyebrow and sat up. "You mean you do it frequently?"
Miz grins proudly. "I'll have you know that Cooking with Bill is in the top 10 most viewed shows back in my dimension." She left out the part where she beamed the show directly into the dreams and televisions of everyone. But even ignoring her cooking show, Maze of Knowledge really WAS in the top 10.
Seb laughed and sighed. "Shooting Star would love to be part of your show, she likes cooking and being in front of cameras teaching people how to do stuff. Last week I found her recording a video of how to fly with cardboard wings!" Of course she failed, but luckily for everyone she cushioned her fall with pillows.
Man, his niblings were crazy...
Miz sighed. "I can't wait to get MY Pines twins…"
"Um…" Seb was about to ask something but looked at the clock and found it was almost...midday?! What the heck?
"We should probably meet with this dimension's Bill…" He told Miz.
She nodded. "Alright. She flicked her fingers and gave herself and Seb new, non-broken clothes (while in the cooking show they were dressed like chefs) and hopped off the bed. "Don't worry about the hotel staff by the way. They don't remember our faces," she told him, unintentionally showing off her powers.
Seb nodded and was about to follow Miz out of the room when he remembered something. He motioned her to wait for him and ran back inside and grabbed his eyepatch and the bottle of alcoholic beverage they ordered yesterday.
He happily returned to Miz. "Can't waste a good drink, can we?"
They got out of the room and Seb walked over to the counter, returned the key calmly and they left the hotel. Their destination: The Mystery Shack. The black-haired man glanced at Miz and couldn't help but ponder over her words. She was Bill Cipher in her universe, not just a crazy girl with powers he met. And she was going to meet Pinetree and Shooting Star...
"You wouldn't hurt them, right?" Seb suddenly asked. "My niblings, I mean."
Miz blinks in confusion. "Why would you ask that? I have no reason to hurt them. I just really want to meet them… even if it's gonna end with my destruction."
Seb hummed and rubbed his arm sheepishly. "As Bill I hurt my original twins… I almost killed them… As Sebastian it is still difficult to keep them away from getting themselves killed, they attract danger. I'm not saying you are bad, I'm just… thinking… you… you will do the same things I did as Bill."
Miz shrugged. She was quiet for a bit. "You know how I said there are fixed points?"
Seb nodded quietly.
"Well… that's a fixed point. Bill Cipher's destruction at the hands of the Pines family." She grimaced. "One way or another. It always happens. No matter how nice or mean their Bill is." She frowned. "The Pines family will always hurt us in some way. That's just how it is. And yet… we just can't stay away from them." She shrugs.
"So my dimension's real Bill will cause Weirdmaggedon…" Seb sighed but smiled a little bit. "Well, I guess I am a Pines, no? I'm glad I'll get to hurt him. Sucks you will though, I don't see why you'd get killed eventually."
Miz shrugs. "I've long since accepted it. I know Ax will bring me back somehow. The details have not been finalized but I just don't worry about it."
Seb snorted despite the situation. "Well, I hope you sort this out with him cuz look HOW WELL half deals went for me!" He gestured at himself and both him and Miz laughed.
"I dunno~you ended up pretty hot. Maybe Ax will bring me back as a sexy man too?" Miz laughs hysterically at the thought.
Seb grinned widely as he laughed. "Of course I am, I'm the most handsome among my triplets."
The two Bills from very different worlds and backgrounds joked and laughed with each other as they headed to the Mystery Shack. Time to meet up with this world's Bill and talk shop about what to do.
---
Ugh. Bill was not feeling well. That sleeping draught had done a number on him. He was pretty sure he'd face-planted into his toast at least twice at the kitchen table that morning, but he'd been too bleary and out-of-it to really care. (Were drugs and things supposed to feel like this to humans? Or was this just a problem with his human-ish body? His possessions had never felt like this!)
So Bill was laid out on his back on top of one of the picnic tables out in the middle of the yard, trying to concentrate well enough to clear the rest of the junk out of his system. ...And trying desperately to ignore Shooting Star, who was seated on the bench next to him, chattering away happily enough about SOMETHING he wasn't even sure what, she might have one of those scrapbooks open, he didn't really care…
"--GO inside and GO AWAY ," Bill told her blearily, raising an arm and dropping it across his face, to hide his eyes from the sunlight. Because he was pretty sure that his Stanley-assigned penalty for having left the bedroom last night to needle Stanford was NOT supposed to include anything more than the having to be drugged asleep (in a way that he'd suggested and wanted to do to Stanford two nights ago) and sleeping longer than he was used to or wanted to, losing time .
Shooting Star pouted at him. He could hear it in her voice as she complained at him about something or another.
Well, Bill had had enough of this. He raised his head up, and SLAMMED it into the wooden surface of the picnic table.
The shock woke him up enough and cleared the cobwebs for long enough that he was able to visualize one of the mandalas and mutter out the shortened phrase he needed to, in order to force everything somewhat better again.
...Took care of the hit he'd just given his head in the process, too.
He coughed a few times as he sat up, feeling his head clear. He rubbed at his face.
He turned in place to shove his feet over the side of the table, to drop them down and rest them on the bench next to Shooting Star, and all but got in her face.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT. "
Shooting Star looked up at him. "I want you to help me help Melody with her thing for Soos!"
"Fine. Later ," Bill ground out, scrubbing at his shortened (cut by way of Stanley) hair with a hand. "Just go back inside, or I WON'T."
Shooting Star gave him a look. "I liked it better when it was longer."
"I like it better this way," Bill told her in return, then grinned. "Especially since you don't go bothering me about messing with it when it's like this, HAHA!"
Shooting Star let out a huff and crossed her arms, but she got up and picked up her... scrapbook, that she'd had with her.
"You promise," she said, looking him in the eye. "I go inside now, and you'll help me help her out?"
"I said so, didn't I?" Bill told her, with a sigh and a grimace.
"Okay!" And with that, she finally turned and skipped away, back across the yard and up onto the porch. ...And finally, FINALLY, back into the house.
Bill muttered to himself about Pines twins being annoying and wanting things from him, and dropped a bit in place.
He glanced over at the driveway at the noise -- and then the sight -- of another few cars, as they pulled up and came to a stop in the parking lot for the Shack.
"Yeesh," Bill said. Did they really have to keep the Shack running? Couldn't Question Mark just go back to… what, driving buses like he'd done when the Shack had closed down the first time? Bill didn't particularly like the idea of half the house, on the opposite side of a single lousy wooden wall, basically being Grand Central Station for troop after troop of idiots who just...
Bill winced, then rubbed a hand over his face again. He was tired. That was what the problem was. He was tired, and in a lousy mood from getting caught by Stanley last night, and that drug had done a number on him. He'd only been awake for about a half-hour so far, and his stupid human-ish brain was making things difficult for him. He should be thinking of ways to make things weird for all those Shack-goers, and pissing off Pine Tree and Shooting Star with them. He should be thinking of ways to toss up a perception filter around the whole area, so that he wouldn't get caught when those two other 'him's inevitably showed up!
He should be doing a lot of things, up to and including causing a second Weirdmageddon. But he'd let Stanley talk him into this ... and talk him out of that … 'and-and-and'... it was annoying, and tiring, and all he REALLY wanted to do just then was SLEEP…
Bill twisted in place and laid back down flat on the picnic table, closing his eyes. He could think, and he could plan, and if he fell asleep while doing it? Then so be it. He had his sigil-stones on him, in his pockets, and he'd revamped those late yesterday afternoon…
---
Miz hummed to herself as she walked through the forest in the direction of the shack. Even as she was doing this, half of her attention was on mentally poking around her newly established Dreamscape to try and find some way to get into her Mindscape.
Meanwhile, Seb walked besides her, reading for the first time what the heck they "bought", because they didn't pay for anything, really. Did the woman who believe their sob story pay? Huh, what a fool.
"Hey, Miz. Do you remember ordering a chocolate liqueur?" Seb asked grinning. He didn't. "Cuz I don't."
Miz blinked slowly. "I like chocolate. I'll eat pretty much anything with chocolate in it."
Seb examined the bottle. It was a good brand, he remembered seeing it on the bar he worked on a long time ago... He sighed, shook his head to stop thinking of the inevitable, and looked up. "Look! It's the Shack! Finally!"
Miz grinned but slowed as they approached. There were groups of tourists everywhere. "Well they look busy today."
"The Shack is always busy." Seb shook his head. "Guess in every dimension there will be idiots who buy fake stuff."
Miz looked over and gasped as she saw a giant bald gopherian wearing the Mr. Mystery suit. "Is that SOOS?!" She asks.
The man next to her smirked. "Yup! Question Mark!" Aw, always loyal and hard-working to this tourist crap. "You know, I've known him since he was a little kid. Damn, that makes me sound so old…" Seb grimaced.
Miz stared. Wow. She didn't think a human could look so much like that severely endangered alien species. "And...he is...human?" She questions just to be sure.
"Of course he-!" Seb stopped and looked back at this dimension's version of his friend. Soos was too chill about him and his powers, about Gravity Falls weirdness and his teeth were kind of different too…
"I am not qualified to give you a proper answer." Seb says finally.
Miz went closer. "I wanna see him!" She said. What if Soos really was part alien? Nothing is known about his father after all.
Seb ran after her with a smile. They were like undercovered ninjas, and their flesh was their costume!
Miz paused in place as Seb walked past her into the Shack with the tour group. Oh. Well. Her eyes dart around and she spots the tell tale glimmer of unicorn hair glued into the walls of the Shack. Well fuck a duck sideways with a chainsaw.
Meanwhile, Seb entered to the Shack, still not realizing his companion wasn't with him. What the hell, this was exactly like his home! Maybe it looked a bit older, but this Shack has been running for decades! It must be one of those fixed points Miz told him about.
"Miz, look we-" He looked down and frowned. "Miz? Kid!" He looked around and eventually went outside where he found her standing out in the yard, staring at the front entrance with her arms crossed and glaring at him.
"Do you need an invitation to enter like vampires?" Seb asked with a teasing grin.
Miz rolled her eyes. "It seems your paranoid brother set up a barrier." She inspected the edges of where she knew it to be. Looks like it would flash if she touched it, which would alert everyone to her presence. Best not to test it. She takes a few steps back just in case.
"It's unicorn hair." Seb whispered and looked at the bright colorful hair.
'They used that to protect the Shack from us. In Weirdmageddon.' Bill2 supplied to him usefully.
"Nice to know I'm welcome." Miz pouts. She starts walking around the shack, around the barrier, to see where the parameters were.
Seb walked behind her snickering softly. Miz still had a hilarious pout on her face. He glanced at the picnic tables and noticed a figure laying down on top of it. "Hey, look, it's Bill!"
Miz waved, "Yo! What's cookin' good lookin'?"
It didn't take long for Bill to sit up and do a double-take at where they were, and where they were and weren't walking, to all but spring up from the picnic table, to make a beeline for the two of them.
"What are you DOING? " Bill hissed out at them. " Don't pace the perimeter! They all know what that barrier keeps out and what it doesn't, to look out for that!"
Miz took a few steps back and made it look more like she was slipping around randomly while examining the architecture of the shack.
Sebastian rolled his eye. "Because the rotting walls of the Shack are SO interesting…"
"--Too late," Bill muttered, grimacing as he looked over his shoulder and saw Red poking her head out the door of the gift shop. He turned towards her and yelled out, "IT'S FINE! I'M HANDLING THIS! JUST STAY INSIDE!" And he immediately got behind the two of them and put a hand at each of their backs, to push them both forward into the treeline. "Don't argue, just move," he said tersely, force-marching them into the woods.
Miz had the decency to look sheepish at her fuck up. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Bill told them, as they came to a stop a few yards past the tree line. "Couldn't put up a perception filter like yesterday, with the Shack open," he groused. "But she won't abandon her post. The twins are the ones you need to worry about," Bill told them, running a hand down his face. "Should've told you about the barrier. Didn't think…" he muttered, then looked up at them. "Why did you get so close in?" he said with a frown.
Miz nodded slowly. "I hope we haven't gotten you in trouble?"
"We wanted to see the Shack." Seb shrugged, answering Bill's question.
"Eh," Bill said. "I thought of a couple 'cover stories', but none of them really work if they don't trust me. Might be better to just go with something they won't like, and just say that you're both ghosts possessing a couple of comatose idiots and leave it at that. Pair of lovers on one last sightseeing tour together, to be able to pass on. Shooting Star will go for that, even if Pine Tree doesn't, and run right over him wanting to help you out.." He glanced at Sebastian. "You don't have a Shack?"
"I OWN a Shack." Seb grinned. "I just wanted to see how similar they were." He grinned at Bill's words and snorted. "Heard that, Miz? We are ghosts in our last date and possessing comatose bodies! Isn't that so romantic!?"
Hm. That... somewhat made sense to Bill, actually.
Miz pouts. "What? You don't think I could pull off an Eastern Spirit out on a vacation to the states? And Seb is my priest, here to carry my Shrine totem so I can move about like a human?" she puts her hands on her hips. "Have NEITHER of you watched The Cranky Girl who did Chores in Spirit Town?"
She rolls her eyes. "Also, Seb can go through the barrier so he's CLEARLY human."
Bill blinked, then shrugged. "It's your funeral? But anytime Shooting Star hears the word 'lovers', she turns her thinking brain off and drags Pine Tree into going along with what she wants, whether he's suspicious as hell of everything or not. If you go with the priest thing, Pine Tree might get interested, or might get suspicious, but you'd better believe that he'd try to bring Stanford into things. And that would leave Shooting Star a loose cannon. And Stanford breathing down all our necks." He glanced over at Sebastian. "And if you think Stanford wouldn't be able to figure out that you aren't a priest…"
Miz pouted. "But I'm not gonna pretend to be lovers with him-"
"Ouch." Seb put a half offended six-fingered hand over his chest.
She turned to Seb "-no offence." before looking back at Bill "And Seb clearly entered the barrier earlier so we can't say he's a ghost."
"Fine," said Bill. "Then we--"
He stopped as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching from behind them -- from the direction of the Shack -- and Bill pulled a face as he turned around, not looking forward to trying to navigate the mess that was about to--
But he stopped and went completely expressionless as he came face-to-face with, not Pine Tree, not Shooting Star, but Question Mark's 'fiance' -- Melody.
"Is everything all right?" Melody asked the three of them.
Bill was not expecting this. At all . He crossed his arms and remained silent as he tried to figure this one out. (He didn't actually know her all that well. He hadn't ever really looked into her much with his All-Seeing Eye, other than to see what happened when she had first intersected with his Zodiac, awhile back.)
Miz smiled as kindly as she could. "Hello miss! I'm sorry for the trouble. It's my fault you see? I'm not human and the rather well made barrier around your establishment kept me out." She gestured to Bill. "This young man has been explaining the situation to us."
Seb looked at her. "Seriously?"
Melody's eyebrows went up.
"...You're not a murderous video game character, are you?" she asked Miz with a slight frown, peering at her carefully. "Or one of those category-whatever ghosts? --Because we do have a strict policy against allowing either of those indoors," she informed Miz and Seb matter-of-factly, then went on to say: "Outside tours only, and no crushing on the other tourists or tour guides, or turning anyone to wood; sorry." Melody told the two of them firmly, before glancing over at Bill.
"No!" Bill interjected, then raised his hands up, palms outwards. "No no no. Just trying to help keep the agreement, here, that's me! They were looking at the unicorn hair, I thought I outta tell them 'look, no touch'! They're not thinking about attacking the Shack," Bill told her. "They're-- just visiting," Bill ended lamely, trying not to wince.
Miz nodded politely. "Oh no, nothing like that. It would be incredibly rude. Especially when I am a guest in this country." She gives a short bow. "I, like most of the supernatural world, have heard of the wondrous nature of this valley and I had been meaning to visit for a while."
She gives Melody a shy smile. "And everyone I asked has said that the Mystery Shack is THE go to place here."
Seb examined the kind blonde woman. Who was she?! He had never ever seen her before!
Melody smiled back at her kindly. "That's nice of you to say. I hope you've been enjoying your stay here in Gravity Falls so far. Though I am sorry that we can't let you inside. I hope you understand. I can take you to the line for the outdoor tours, though, if you'd like?" Melody told Miz, then looked over at Bill for a long moment, then back at Miz again.
"Bill," Melody said, "Why don't you go back inside?"
Bill's eyes widened and he dropped his hands.
"I am perfectly capable of--!" he began hotly.
"I'm older than you," Melody said. "That means I'm supposed to deal with things for you and help to keep you safe, just like Dipper and Mabel and Wendy, correct?"
Bill gritted his teeth. "--I'm not in any danger here. IT'S FINE."
Miz looked worried. "Oh...um...I haven't caused any trouble have I miss?"
"Not at all!" Melody said, smiling. "But, well… Mr. Pines told me that Bill here isn't exactly the most tactful when it comes to talking with other people right now." She glanced over at Bill again. "I'm kind of surprised that he decided to talk to you. He usually stays away from anybody who is here to see the Mystery Shack."
"Agreement," Bill said flatly. "I was just checking."
"And now you've checked, and now that you know that there's no problem, you can go back inside the house," Melody said. "I'd be happy to help them out, so that you don't have to." Melody looked at him. "I know you don't like helping people out for no reason."
Seb grinned. He didn't know who this woman was but she liked her! She was wearing a Mystery Shack t-shirt, too....that must mean this Stan hired another person…
Bill clenched his jaw. He felt more than a little checkmated, here.
"Unless there's a reason you want to help them out?" Melody said to Bill. Miz gave him a sympathetic look. With a small twist of power she telepathically asked 'Um...testing, can you hear me? Should we meet up later?'
Bill rocked side-to-side on his feet, caught between anger and… he-wasn't-sure-what.
"Yes," Bill said tersely.
"'Yes', you want to help them out?" Melody said, almost leadingly.
Bill hunched his shoulders slightly. "Yes." He was looking anywhere but at her as he said, like he was having teeth pulled and didn't think the pain was hilarious... "I want to help them out."
Melody nodded. "Okay. Is this something that I need to worry about? Or Mr. Pines?"
Bill looked back at her, blank-faced.
"...No," Bill said after a long handful of moments.
"Okay," Melody said, glancing at Miz and Seb. "Do you need any help with helping them?"
"No," Bill said, very off-put by her matter-of-fact attitude, and very off-balance as he wondered exactly what game she was playing here.
Melody nodded at him. "Alright," she said, before turning back to the two others. "Do you need anything from me? Or is Bill going to be able to help you with everything that you need?"
"It will be ok, miss." Seb said respectfully. "I am sure he can help us just fine." He smiled.
Miz continued to try contacting Bill telepathically. 'Hello? If you can hear me, blink twice.'
"Alright," Melody said to Seb, as Bill stared at Melody unblinkingly, like he was trying to see inside her head. "Bill, do you think Dipper and Mabel would be able to help with this, or would you like me to keep them busy and out of the way while you help these two out?" she said with a smile.
This felt like a trap to Bill. ...Which only made him want to spring it that much sooner, to get it out of the way! "--Keep them busy," he told her authoritatively.
Melody gave him a long look. "Okay," she said. "I'll tell Mr. Pines that you're out and about, once he's back from his errands in town. Where will you be, so that I can tell him where you are?"
Bill let out an almost nervous laugh through a strained grin, turning his head to look over at Miz and Seb wide-eyed.
Miz looked between them. "I'm sorry for causing an issue. I didn't mean to…"
"It's fine," Melody assured her. "Mr. Pines told me that he's been wanting Bill to get out and about and associating with other people for awhile now! He absolutely refuses to go into town, but..." She had something of a sparkle in her eyes as she looked at them. "Really, this is a good thing," she told them reassuringly. "...Though if you could stay near the Shack somewhat, that would be better. Bill isn't really all that comfortable going too deep into the woods right now," she confided to the two of them.
Bill's grin fell off of his face like it was never there, and a somewhat strangled sound emanated from the back of his throat.
Miz nods in understanding. "Of course miss. We can stay right here." She points past her, to an area out of the woods much closer to the Shack, where the picnic tables are. "So you don't have to worry about your employee's safety."
"-- Not an employee! " Bill objected immediately.
Melody laughed. "Yes, we know, Bill," she said good-naturedly, as he let out an aggrieved huff. "He's more of a guest, sort of. Mr. Pines is looking after him, and--"
"FINE YES LET'S TALK YOU TWO DONE NOW!" Bill yelled out, quickly marching his way through the underbrush and behind Miz and Seb again, to push them forward and hopefully away from the human who was being too confusing and normal and not-- any other things he wanted to think about just then.
Melody just smiled and followed the three of them along, trailing them back to the picnic tables most of the way. When they passed by the porch, she took a bit of a detour and walked up to the gift shop entrance instead, to enter the Shack again from there, leaving the three of them outside together and to their own devices.
Miz winced. "Well...that could have gone worse?"
Bill felt like his face was on fire. "PRETTY SURE WORSE ISN'T OFF THE MENU YET!!" he said abruptly, followed by a cut-off laugh that was almost his usual HAHAHAHAHA, except for the in-shock wide-eyed look he had going on while he did it, along with the tense body posture.
Sebastian sat on the picnic table and looked at Bill casually. "So, who's that girl?" He was actually curious after they FINALLY stopped talking. He was too impatient...
Miz sighs. "That's Melody. She's Question Mark's girlfriend...or at least, she's going to be, since I can guess that hasn't happened in your timeline yet."
"Question Mark's fiance ," Bill corrected her, rubbing the side of his right hand against his right temple over and over and over again as he talked. "Almost got killed by a digital girl once while on a date with Question Mark. Helped pull the plug on her, instead. Wasn't here for Weirdmageddon. Question Mark loves her," Bill rattled off as he began to pace back and forth in front of them. "I have no idea what she wants. " Which was a problem. In fact, it was THE problem, as far as Bill was concerned. --Because how was he supposed to DEAL with her if he DIDN'T know what she WANTED?!?!?!
What did she want? --And, just as importantly, what had Stanley told her about him?!?
Seb blinked once and then twice. "Question Mark… QUESTION MARK HAS A GIRLFRIEND??!! He has a FIANCE?!?" He squealed. "Are you kidding me?!" His old friend had a girlfriend?! He couldn't believe it!!
Miz grins. "I know right? Who'd have thought? That stud~" Really though, from what she remembers from Canon, Soos is a good guy and would have been the sweetest boyfriend to anyone who had the heart to look beyond his awkward exterior.
"He likes blondes, he obviously takes after moi," Seb put a hand over his chest proudly.
Miz frowns. "Blonde? She's obviously a brunette."
"Dude, you blind?" Seb made a face. "She is dirty blonde!"
Miz narrows her eyes. "No, that was clearly a very light brown. Who are you calling blind?! You're the Cyclops!"
"Reality is an illusion, and hair color is a choice," Bill said distractedly as he paced in front of them, almost completely caught and tied up in his own racing thoughts.
"My girlfriend had the same-" Seb shouted but when the words sank in he gasped and looked at the girl offended and betrayed.
'Uuhhhh did you hear?! She doesn't really like you! She's mocking you! You are stupid for trusting her,' Bill2 sneered in his mind.
"That...that...was a low blow…" Seb whispered, feeling tears welling up in his brown eye.
Miz looks a little guilty. "Sorry, that was mean."
The man turned around and crossed his arms over his chest angrily. "I'd let you know, demon , that I have perfect sight despite having just one functional eye! Sorry my Axolotl didn't like me like yours clearly likes you and didn't gave me a perfect vessel!" Then he went silent and closed his eye.
Miz pouted. "Seb? Seb?? I didn't mean it that way! I'm sorry!" she tugs at his shirt. "Seb??" she looks down guilty. "Look...I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings! I have nothing against Cyclops! Most of my friends are Cyclops! Some of them don't even have EYES!"
Seb just huffed and turned a bit a little more.
"EXTREME LUNCH MEATS ARE NOT THE FOOD OF THE FUTURE!" Bill yelled out abruptly, looking irate as he continued pacing. "AND HOW WOULD SHE KNOW MAGICIANS ARE NOT DATABLE! WHO TALKED?! "
Miz glanced at Bill, guessing he was scanning for information about Melody before deciding to leave him be.
Miz felt awful. She didn't mean to upset Sebastian. It made her feel like shit. The feeling built up inside her like a thick pressure pressing from the inside. It upset her to feel like this. She hated feeling like this. (She hated even more how nice it felt when she made someone despair) She twitched when Seb refused to look at her. "Seb? I'm sorry~" she whined.
" Everyone bothered me like that growing up, everyone called me that. They tried to take off my eye. I tried to rip off my eye with a fork and it didn't work...I just didn't think you'd call me that. It-It is a stupid hurtful memory." Seb eventually murmured. "I overreacted, I'm stupid.."
Miz whined. The unhappy feeling wouldn't go away. She scratched at her arm. "I'm sorry too. I didn't know you felt so strongly about that…" She squeezed her arm hard, enough to leave bruises as she felt this awful feeling build up.
Seb coughed, still upset, emotions were a pain in the ass, and turned to look at the teen still pacing. "So, did you think of something for us to go back?" He looked at the bottle of liqueur he left on the table. A drink didn't sound so bad right now...
Bill didn't hear him. He was staring at nothing they could see and muttering under his breath to himself at an almost-frenetic rate by this point, as he continued to pace back and forth, back and forth in front of them in the yard.
Miz groaned as she continued to feel awful. She needed to do something to relieve this sensation. She thumped her head onto the table and discreetly channeled her energy out into the ground, making the grass more vibrant and healthy as she tried to get rid of this pressure inside her. She REALLY doesn't want to explode right now. Curse negative emotions for giving her such a power boost.
She saw Seb reaching for the bottle. Huh...she could use some chocolate right now. Food always made her feel better…
(She disregarded the fact that food tends to give her more energy to burn, it's fine. There were plenty of plants around for her to discard her energy into.)
Seb opened the cap of the bottle, threw it away and chugged it down.
"Hey! I want some too!" Miz whined. She reached for it but Seb was too tall. "Gimme!" she helped get that chocolate, it belong to her too.
"NNNo!"
Bill abruptly stopped pacing and sat down where he stood on the grass. Cross-legged, he propped his elbows on his knees, and held his forehead in his hands. He was shaking slightly, but didn't seem to notice this. He wasn't muttering to himself anymore, he just look weary-eyed as he sat there where he was, breathing.
"No!" Seb shouted and drank a bit more. "Go ask for liqueur from your Cyclops friends."
"I SAID I was sorry! Pwease pretty pwease gimme some chocolate?" Miz jumped ineffectually for the bottle. Seb was taking full advantage of his new taller height. "Haha! Get it if you can!" Seb raised the bottle over his head.
Miz growls. Though secretly she was glad he wasn't mad anymore...even if he was just being kind of a brat. Miz turned to see Bill sitting on the ground. Not really thinking it though, she went over to grab him and drag him over. Maybe she could stand on him like a step stool? "Help me get the bottle!"
When chocolate was on the line (chocolate didn't exist out in space and she missed it so much), she wasn't one to think rationally. Not that she ever really thought rationally. She was upset and she wanted chocolate NOW.
When Sebastian still didn't let up, drinking the sweet liquid down and looking so goddam SMUG about it, and Bill's reaction to Miz grabbing him was to frown at her and jerk his arm out of her grasp, with an annoyed, " Don't touch me ," before going back to whatever he was thinking about, Miz decided she'd had enough. She dropped the argumentative Bill and flicked her fingers. Suddenly she had her very own bottle. A perfect copy of the one Seb was holding, except hers was still full. She looked right at Seb and took a smug swig from her bottle (coughing a little at the burn. This was pretty strong…) yeah, she can make her own!
Try to keep chocolate away from her? Not gonna fuckin' happen.
The man pouted. "It is not fair!" He whined. "You can create your own-your own stuff!" Seb glared and blinked uncoordinatedly. Maybe he should stop drinking...Nah…
"But MINE is bettuur because it is the original one! You made that one with dirty air molecules! Polluted air molecules!" He gulped down a bit more to prove his point.
Miz took another swig of her bottle. "Nah ah! Mine is better because...because I made it and I'm awesome!" She blinked quickly. Oh. This was way stronger than she thought. Maybe this was a bad idea...naw, she wanted things between her and Seb to be friendly again and playful banter always worked wonders for that sort of thing. She took another large mouthful of the bottle just to prove a point.
The black haired man whined, not used to playful banter. When someone annoyed him, it was for real, meaning to hurt him. "Nuuuhh uhhh!" The immature man stuck his tongue out. "You are mean! And a demon! And a shorrttyyyy!"
Miz swayed. "ExCuse you ssssir! I am a GOD and...and you're only tall because I MADE you tall!" she was sensitive about her size ok?! And she wasn't mean! She was 'bad' like...the opposite of 'good' but she wasn't MEAN. another mouthful of the burning creamy liquid was consumed.
"YOu are not the bosss of me! And I was an average height befour!!" Seb angrily turned to his bottle and drank it. He pouted when he realized the sweet and wonderful and burning liquid wasn't coming down anymore and turned it upside down, watching a single drop fall to the grass.
Miz turned to Bill and held out her bottle. "Hey! Try thish an' tell...tell THAT guy that mines ish better than hish sssupid bottle!" she gives Seb a smug look that was off to the right of where he was actually standing. "Becashee MY bottle doeshunt run o-out of alcohol!"
Bill frowned up at her, having kept more awareness of his surroundings since she'd grabbed him. (Not that he thought she was going to kill and eat him or anything -- not on purpose -- but… it had been a reminder that he'd not been paying as much attention to his surroundings as he should have been.) Because they were acting like… any other humans he'd watched getting drunk on some form of alcohol together. Weird. ...Was it all just an act?
Sebastian growled drunkily and his eye turned red. "I'm NOT StUpiD!!!" He shrieked loudly. A second pair of arms sprouted out of his sides, and his four hands caught in flames, but in his state, he was unable to hold them too long. Seb whimpered and hit his head against the table. "M' not sstupid…"
Miz laughed at him, wobbling around as she dropped her bottle near Bill. "You can't ev-even stand!" She almost fell over but caught herself on the side of the table. Oh~the world looked so bright and sharp right now.
...Given that Sebastian had just outed himself as 'not human' with that little display, Bill had a feeling that no, this wasn't just an act. Bill eyed the bottle of alcohol that the other 'him' had dropped.
Seb stayed with his head on the table and sobbed his drunk heart out, sensitive to everything and anything right now. "I-I…"
Miz felt a little bad that he was crying again. That wasn't what she wanted. "H-hey...are you...okay dude?" She crawled over and flopped onto his back, clinging on as she clumsily patted his shoulder. "I didn't know you...um...were so...feel bad about this? I wasn't trying to hurt your feelsings…"
"I-I never had anyone to drink with!" The man sobbed. "Drinking is-is bad! Bill2 will-will control again me! Control me again...He tattooed my zodiac on my baaacckkk!" He sobbed. "While-While the real one burnt me!"
Bill winced, thinking of the anchor down his own back. It wasn't exactly the same thing, but...
Miz hugged Sebastian. "Ish okay. I'm here n-now...and...an' I won't let him...gets anymore tattoos. 'specially not All Star." She nuzzled against his head. "An...and alshhho you're NOT sshupid." She pet his hair clumsily.
Bill huffed out a breath and propped up his chin on his fist as he watched them. Hadn't the girl called the bottle of alcohol stupid, not Sebastian?
"i aM stupid!" Seb mumbled but melting under the soft touches of the girl. "Ev-Everyone say so...An-And, my brothers...I-I pushed them…"
Miz was distantly thankful for the mild perception filter still over the two of them leftover from the day before, when they'd been laughing in the elevator. It wasn't much but it did block sensitive information from reaching the ears of others. Anyone looking at them would see two crying drunks talking about nonsensical things.
"Dat wasshunt you fault tho!" Miz assures him. "Ish a fixed point...an...an...it would happens any...anyway…"
"Weally?" Seb sniffed.
Miz nodded, slumped onto his back. "It's like...a thing that...that alwashhh happenss…" she was slowly sliding down his back "If YOU dinnen pushy them in then...something ELSE would have…"
"I want 'em back...Even if Fordsie hates me and call me stupid…"
Bill grimaced and almost objected. Almost . But he didn't know this other 'him' (or this other 'him's brother?(!?!!) ), to be absolutely sure that telling him that Stanford wasn't worth feeling that way about would be the best advice he could give. (Not least of which because, if this 'him's relationship to Stanford was somehow anything like his relationship with Liam had been… it'd be about as well-received as a heart attack, and for good reason!)
Miz was on the ground by this point, lolling her head against Seb's leg and trying to pat his back but at her angle she could only reach his butt. "Getting...them back ish alllsho a fixed pont." She says sleepily. The grass and plants around her were growing quickly, vines and leaves curling up as lovely flowers bloomed.
Bill's eyebrows went up as he saw the grass and things growing, but without magic he could sense -- only that underhum of weirdness that he could barely feel at the moment. He not-quite scrambled to his feet, starting to become unsure if watching the two of them for more information without intervening was worth it when… he was right there with them … in the meaty FLESH...
Seb lifted his head a bit and looked at the girl resting her head on his leg. "Are you touching my butt?" He grinned. He was...less shy drunk.
Miz blinked slowly. "Dis is your butt?" she tilted her head to try and see but just topples over onto the growing flower patch around them.
Seb laughed, his meltdown forgotten, and threw himself to the grass, falling backwards with a thud. "Hiii…"
Miz laid on her back, flowers blooming around her. "Oh...hiii~" she blinked. What were they doing again? Something about a door?
"Heeyyy! You! The kid!" Seb sat up to look at Bill. "Why are you there!? Driinkkkk~"
"I…" Bill actually considered it for a long moment. They were 'him's who were almost exactly like him, so they wouldn't hurt him, right? And it would be a good idea to find out whether his body reacted the same way to alcohol as theirs did, wouldn't it? It would be safer to drink with them present than anyone else he could think of. Better than doing it around his Zodiac, who would take advantage of his weakness if he did it around them . Right? They'd ask questions, or try and push him around, and…
...Bill had never tried out this type of alcohol before. He'd seen it, sure, but… it was a bit less clean-burning than the stuff he'd usually set on fire as a being of pure energy, and he had a body now.
He couldn't clean it out and control it the same way he did his energy form -- he literally was what he ate. And he was highly aware of this fact; he'd been careful what he'd fed on and how well and carefully he'd purified what he fed on before taking it in when he'd been in the Nightmare Realm for a reason: he'd wanted and needed to stay completely and wholly HIMSELF. (If he hadn't, he'd have risked losing track of EVERYTHING important.)
...But he was already eating things like toast that he'd burned within an inch of its life, with lime jelly and black pepper added to it to try and make it appropriately horrible-tasting and almost edible. That had at least as much extraneous junk in it as this stuff did.
Bill looked at the two other 'him's and frowned. They didn't really seem to be that different right now, though...
...Bill slowly bent over and picked up the bottle Miz had dropped.
He turned it over in his hands.
--And then he straightened abruptly and whirled in place at the sound of approaching footsteps, cursing loud and long within his mind. He instinctively not-quite-hid the bottle behind his back as he turned to face whoever it was that was approaching them this time.
Miz saw a worried Melody and younger Pines twins coming out of the house and towards them. Melody looked a little guilty over being unable to keep the twins away but the rapidly expanding area of lush greenery was… pretty worrying and she couldn't stop them from wanting to check it out. She'd needed to come out to check on what was going on herself, and knowing she hadn't been able to stop the twins before with what had happened with the animatronics… she'd known it was a losing battle.
Letting them come with her rather than sneaking out meant it would be more likely that she could keep them within the magic dead zone area-thing Mr. Pines had told her about, too. And she might need some help in distracting the two visitors to grab Bill and yank him inside it, if need be. Mr. Pines had been pretty clear how easily Bill tended to get in over his head sometimes -- and that was pretty easily.
Miz grinned drunkenly at the twins. Ahhh! So cute! She wobbled over and squealed "Oh my goooosshhh~you...two are...sho-ssshhhootin' sstar~and...and...Pine Tree right?" Bill winced as she giggled at them. "You're….jush as cute as I thought yooou would be~" She had seen Seb's twins but they were sleeping, THESE kids were awake and those funny looks on their face were sooo adorable!!!
Sebastian glanced at his companion with a confused expression but his drunk brown eye widened when he saw the kids. "PIINEETREEE!!" He smiled widely. "Shooting Star! Wha-Wha you doing heerrree?! You-You were in bEd!" Miz had enough awareness to reach blindly at the taller man while shushing him.
"HAHA," Bill said, wondering how the heck he was going to balance all this… well, at least they weren't going to hurt his Pine Tree and Shooting Star, right?
Then Bill went a bit still as the thought occurred to him that, technically, because they weren't part of these other 'him's Zodiacs that they had no real investment in keeping them alive in the least. And he knew he wouldn't be all that worried about not messing with a set of Pines who weren't his, when he didn't have to worry about the body he was in and there were no real consequences...
Bill turned to Melody with a slight look of panic, trying to think of what to say quickly, and...saw her put a hand on each of the kids' shoulders, stopping them just inside the barrier.
...which was very easy to see from the curve where the grass was growing like crazy, and not. Bill let out a long breath and relaxed, looking up at Melody a bit wide-eyed, because how had she known?
"W-what are these guys?" Mabel asked, fingering the grappling hook behind her back. Dipper was frowning as he flipped through a journal, not even bothering with the electric gun holstered at his side.
"Whaaa? M' not a What!" Seb pouted. "You should show a bit more respect to yurr elders! M' gonna tell yuur dad you are being MeAn to your u-"
Miz pulled on Seb's shirt. "Wrong twinsss...remember? These are...are...his twinsshh~" she points vaguely in Bill's direction. A few colorful flowers bloomed along the path of her gesture.
" Really , Pine Tree?" Bill enthused loudly, stepping forward and taking point as a distraction from… well. "You can't figure this one out on your own?" he not-quite teased, buying his other 'him's a handful of seconds to get their act together.
"Wut?" Seb studied the confused twins staring at them. Not his niblings…? But...they look like them! They must beeee. He should probably obey the girl Bill demon though. She knew more of this crazy stuff...
Dipper, listening to Bill for once, actually took the bait. "Rapid plant growth…" Dipper muttered as he scanned through the journal. "No glowing… or floating... so it's not a ghost…" Miz walked up and he winced when he caught a whiff of her breathe. "Is that… CHOCOLATE ALCOHOL?!" he gasps, after smelling it on her breath and glancing over at Bill, who had not hidden the bottle all that well behind him.
Miz nodded. "Chocolate is-ish great~you humans make the BESSH foods an ssshuff!" She wobbled dangerously and Dipper instinctively stepped forward and caught her when she tipped over. "Whoa!" he cried as he was barely able to hold her upright.
Upon seeing this, Bill immediately stepped forward and handed off the bottle to Melody almost thoughtlessly, as she crossed the barrier herself and made a gesture for it; Bill took Miz off Dipper's hands as quickly as he could, and lowered her carefully to the ground, while Melody drew Dipper back inside the barrier again -- to Dipper's immediate recognition and suspicion, as he craned a head up at her.
Dipper realized he was getting managed by the two sort-of adults. And something had to be off, if Bill was trying to be helpful to a couple of strangers. He needed his Mystery Twin to help tag-team the problem with him on this one. He turned to stare pleadingly at Mabel. "Mabel?"
"Don't worry bro-bro, I got this!" Mabel said confidently, walking over to kneel next to Miz. Dipper didn't miss that Bill didn't try to stop her, but he also noticed how very carefully Bill was watching the two of them -- the cryptid and his sister -- once Mabel crossed the barrier line.
"So. You got into some chocolate alcohol, huh?" Mabel grinned at Miz. She heard the story about chocolate and, well, most aliens and cryptids, too. "As someone who once ate a whole pack of smile dip I can tell you that you might be seeing wild colors and talking dogs right now. But they're not real and you'll wake up later feeling like you never want to eat again."
"Mabel, they're drunk, not high." Dipper groaned. It was pretty clear to him from their behavior that it was the second set of symptoms Great-Uncle Ford had told them about (enhancement of the effect of the base substance -- in this case alcohol), not the third set (hallucinations or a drug-like high) or the first set (no reaction at all).
"I know bro-bro." Mabel patted Miz's hand. "We should still get them somewhere dark and quiet so they can calm down?" She glanced over at Seb with a frown, remembering that blurry transformation he'd done for a few seconds, which they'd spotted from the windows, but hadn't been able to see too well for some reason. (It had left her twin pretty sure that Bill was up to something bad. She wasn't so sure about that yet, herself, but she'd had to admit that what Melody had told them had sounded pretty suspicious!) "Also, I think we need to get them away from the tourists."
Dipper nodded nervously. "Where are we gonna bring them? They can't enter the shack?" He turns back to his book. "I still can't figure out what they are. You said they're foreign right?" He looked up at Melody, to confirm.
Melody nodded. "Yeah. The little girl said she's a visitor to the country."
Dipper groans. "Great-Uncle Ford has almost no research on eastern supernaturals! I have no idea what they could be!"
Bill snorted. Just because Stanford hadn't written it down didn't mean he didn't know it. Bill had tried to tell him about that whole set of cryptids way back when, in his dreams, but he'd more or less been blown off at the time. The 'Falls had been too shiny and new. He'd kept trying to seed Stanford's dreams with the information, but he had no idea how much he'd retained.
...He'd be very surprised if the dumb idiot hadn't done a little more research before he'd gone on that boat trip of his, though. Any excuse to ignore Stanley…
Bill suddenly realized that if he said anything to Pine Tree about 'Great-Uncle Ford' probably having the information in one of his latest journals, that that would have the very unfortunate side-effect of summoning the man from below… or wherever the idiot was right now.
"Haha! Great Uncle! Ford is an old man." Seb started laughing loudly. Blue fire sprouted to life in his hands before disappearing again. Bill tried very hard not to tense or react at all, not realizing how hard he was clenching his teeth. What Bill didn't realize was that blue fire wasn't all that odd to them, and that the behavior of these other Bills wasn't coming across as Bill-like to the rest of them. The ghost Dipper faced in the Northwest's mansion had blue fire, and that explanation was what came to mind for them first, with them already thinking about ghosts.
"I wanna see 'im!" Seb whined but Miz shook her head.
"No Ssseb! Shush! You drunk...you dun get to talk…"
"You drunk tooo!!" Seb replied. "And-And No OnE can silence ME!"
Dipper had noticed the flames and did back up a step very quickly; he knew exactly how dangerous ghosts could be, and he hadn't seen Seb cross the barrier earlier to know his ghost theory was a bit off.
Mabel rolls her eyes at her brother's worried look. "Dipper. You're missing the obvious. Watch a professional deal with this." Bill couldn't help but wince at the language used, and he watched with more than a little uncertainty as Shooting Star pulled Miz into a sitting position and gave her a friendly smile. "Hi! I'm Mabel and I'm human! What's your name and species?"
Miz blinked and her head lolled over. "I'm Miz...and...um...have you-you ssseeen the movie Wolf Girl and Deer Boy Stop the Worm Pigs and Explosion Humans?"
Mabel nodded. "I love that Jibili movie!"
"I'm...like...kinda like...that freaky god deer thing...esss-essept I'm a DRAGON!" Miz giggled, keeping to the story she had made up, at least to herself. The vines from the growing plants curled around her.
"LiAr!" Seb cried behind her. "No I'm not!" Miz protested.
"You are not that! Don't lie!" Seb proclaimed, leaving Bill wanting to cover his eyes with his hands. "I am human though! And It is HorriBle!" Seb whined sadly.
"You aren't human though." Dipper mumbled under his breath and Seb grinned and crouched in front of him.
"Yes I am." Seb insisted.
"No you aren't." Dipper argued with the drunk magical creature who seemed to believe he was human.
"Don't argue with beings more powerful than you about what they are, Pine Tree, it's rude," Bill muttered under his breath at the kid. He stepped forward almost across the barrier and turned to stand at Pine Tree's side, as a silent warning and also a display of ownership. This was one of HIS Zodiac.
"Yeah, Pinetreee!" Seb grinned. "M' more powerful…"
" FOR NOW ," Bill said, shooting Seb a long glare right in the eye, setting a proprietary hand on Dipper's shoulder. He was thinking more about defending his choice of solidarity to the other 'hims' than what Dipper might get out of that piece of information, and he missed the slightly shocked look Dipper shot up at him at what he'd just said.
Miz whined. "I...I! I'm a dr-dragon! See?!" She shifted partially into Xin's form, antlers growing from her head and a long scaly tail tearing its way out from her dress. "I...I even have worsshiperssss...I make it rain and I help the...the crops grow…" her scales were golden in color and rectangular shaped, like tiny bricks.
"But you create your bodies." Seb mumbled innocently and Miz turned to glare at him.
"Sssshut up, Sebastian!!" she smacks him with her tail lightly. "I HAVE to...create bo-bodies becaushhhh...my true form ish invi-inve-in...whash the word? You....ca-cannot see me???"
"Ghost." Seb laughed and Dipper looked between them, raising an eyebrow.
"Invisible?" He suggested to the creature.
"Shpirit! Yesh! Invishible shpirit!" Miz claps her hands.
"We ALL have a-a true invishible form!" Seb argued, hugging Dipper by the shoulders. "We are spiris...using meatsacks to-to live in this dis-isgusting world…" He said in a drunk philosophical way. Bill's hand on Dipper got knocked aside at Seb's jostling.
Bill could just about feel the confusion and alarm steaming off of Pine Tree, just by the expression on his face. "Remember how I kicked you into the Mindscape that one time, Pine Tree?" Bill said with a calm he didn't quite feel. "It's exactly like that." He sent a long look Seb's way. Should he yank this other 'him' off of Pine Tree?
(That would make it clear to Pine Tree how much he didn't like other beings messing with what was his, though, and to Seb exactly how much he considered Pine Tree to be his, to not want to risk even that much. If someone did that with their Zodiac in front of him , he knew he'd definitely get interested enough to push things, just to see how far that other him would go.) "Only this one didn't go back to his original body," Bill continued his explanation to Pine Tree. "He went to one she made for him, instead."
"Yeah...what he said." Seb nodded giggling.
Miz giggled. "I like making bodiessss...I made hi-hisses form re...really hot~"
Miz shook her head to try and refocus her vision. She twitched when she felt hands on her tail. "Huh?" She glanced behind her to see Mabel petting her tail. "Oh...that feelsh kinda….naish…" She purred.
Dipper tried to shove the drunk man's arm off him. Melody decided it was time to step in. Strange drunk man hugging a child? Yeah, no. "Alright sir. Maybe you should go sit down at one of the tables until this passes." She gently took Seb's hands and led him over to the seat all while Seb laughed out loud.
He was drunk as hell and everything was spinning. Wee!
Bill steered -- not quite shoved -- Pine Tree back across the barrier. "Stay here," he said under his breath, before letting go of him and striding right over to where Miz and Mabel were.
Miz yawned sleepily. Having her own dreamscape now sure made it so she was capable of feeling tired...plus, she'd been awake since early this morning...and Mabel's gentle petting felt so nice. She would normally be tense at such a thing but she'd gotten used to having Pyronica's kids touching and hugging her...and Mabel was safe. She was Mabel! Like...the sweetest person ever! She wouldn't hurt her…
Miz purred sleepily and nuzzled her face onto Mabel's shoulder. Mabel "Aww~"s and reaches a hand up to scratch at the dragon's (baby dragon?!) head, marvelling at the smooth rounded antlers. They looked like gold. Were they real gold? Mabel's only seen a few movies with eastern dragons and they were all Good spirits. Like Haki the river god from The Grumpy Girl who does Chores in Spirit Town. He was a super cute dragon boy. Mabel secretly had pictures of him and fantasies about getting to ride her own dragon.
"Miizzz~" Seb looked at the twins of this dimension. Dipper was looking at him distrustful...Mabel was ignoring him...Mabel never ignored him! He wanted his own kids!
"I wanna goo back to myy hommeee!" Seb sobbed dramatically, hitting his head against the picnic table repeatedly.
"Oh?" Melody said in worry as she tried to stop the man from injuring himself. "I'm sure once you've sobered up you can do that."
"I don't neEeed to be soBEr!" Seb sniffed. "Miizzzz!!" He cried again. "Make a deaaall with Biiiilll sho we can gooo homeeee!" What if that worked?! In his drunk, sad mind it seemed plausible. Where was the bottle?! He wanted chocolate!
"No deals, but I will help you both get home," Bill said firmly, yet about as vague on the details as possible, given the audience they currently had.
Miz stirred sleepily "Dad sayssss I'm no-not allowed to make dealsh while I'm drunk…" she pawed at the grass as she leaned against Mabel's soft sweater. "But...I can grant wishes...kinda...they take lessh effort…"
Mabel's eyes lit up even as Bill's eyes went wide and Dipper began shaking his head. "No Mabel! Don't you dare!" He cried in panic.
"I wish for a BOUNCY CASTLE!" Mabel said loudly, before Bill could reach down and slap a hand across her mouth. Miz hummed cheerfully. "Okay…" she sighed happily "But pet me more first…" get something and give something, like a Deal without the handshake. An agreement of sorts, less dangerous for everyone involved.
"Mabel don't-!" Dipper shouted but Mabel was already scratching her fingers along Miz's head. Their pet cat back home loved being scratched behind his ears and Mabel was sure this baby dragon would like it too. Miz PURRED and arched her head back. Aw shit yeah that felt goood ~
"A bouncy castle right?" She mumbled sleepily before opening her eyes to glance around. What's a good place to put it...ah, there's room there…
Bill gritted his teeth and immediately grabbed Mabel up in his arms and hauled her bodily up and away from Miz, straight across the barrier line. He did not trust 'wishes' or this girl 'him's control at the moment -- especially tired and drunk!
The plants around Miz disintegrated and the dust was blown over to a large empty space a few feet from the edge of the forest. The humans all stared in awe as the plant dust swirled around and formed a large bouncy castle in various shades of pink. Mabel's eyes went wide as she squealed. "Ahhhhh!!!!" She said excitedly.
She turned to Dipper with a wide grin. "Dipper! Can we keep her?" He shook his head with a scowl "No Mabel! This is dangerous! That thing is not a pet!"
Seb snickered from his spot on the table. "I wanna a wish too, pet." He teased.
Miz whined. "No. Only Mabel gets wishes….cause...cause...she's awshome!" She was so nice! She even pet her! Then Miz whined a little again from the ground as she realized the soft petting had stopped.
"M' awshomee too!" Seb whined back. "Wish!"
Melody frowned. This was getting out of hand. "Mabel, you shouldn't take advantage of a drunk person." Should she call for Mr. Pines? These two didn't SEEM dangerous so far. The little girl looked quite innocent, purring like that.
Bill wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.
The sudden appearance of the Bouncy Castle definitely caught the attention of the tour groups. Soos was coming over with a group of them, trying very hard to come up with an excuse for the bright pink object. Some children wanted to play on it and Soos, well trained by his mentor, immediately said "$10 for 5 minutes in the bouncy castle, dudes!"
Money was thrown at him as screaming children began crawling onto the magically formed toy and began jumping. Mabel pouted as Bill held onto her, not letting go. She wanted to play on it too! It was HERS after all.
Seb watched everyone rush to the bouncy castle and grinned. Chaoosss!
' Let's make it more fun, don't you think, kid?!" Bill2 whispered in his ear and Seb grinned madly.
He raised a hand and the castle started floating, making the children shriek excitedly.
Dipper was pulling at his hair. "No! Nonononono! This is bad! This is so bad!"
Mabel could tell the man levitating the bounce castle wasn't being malicious, he was smiling and looked like he was trying to help make things more fun. Unfortunately she knew that other people wouldn't understand that so she waved her hands around, getting Seb's attention. "Um sir? Can you put them down please?"
Seb grinned. His niece was always so cute and adorable! "Sure, kid!" The yellow glow around his hand disappeared and the castle started falling.