Young Stan didn't waste any time. He just skidded to a stop, turned on his heel, and ran for the boat.
Ford stood there, staring after that young Stan, after he'd gotten over his initial shock.
Because that young Stan didn't look guilty. He didn't even look scared. He'd just looked angry and… and worried. Horribly, and horrifically worried.
And then it occurred to Ford: he may not know his brother all that well anymore, but…
...Stan hadn't actually been that good of a liar at that age, had he? Really, the only proof Ford had of that, of Stan being that good at it back then, was because of what had happened with the...
...with the…
...with…
Ford stared after that young Stanley Pines, as the boy jogged up to the boat off in the distance, and made the short climb, and made his way across the deck, to disappear inside it. He did it all without the least bit of hesitation to his movements, whatsoever.
Ford felt Bill's eyes on him.
And he heard Bill turn away from him, after a few long moments.
"I wove in a bit of a trick to this one portal connection, this time," Bill said in his usual somewhat-conversational sing-song tones (for Bill), as if nothing at all was wrong. "Just-- just wait a few moments, I'll get it back open!" Bill said next, not-quite enthusiastically (...as if Ford hadn't just told him that he wasn't going to leave without…) "And you can go right on--"
Ford stopped listening to him. He just started walking towards the boat.
-------
Bill didn't realize Ford had moved off at first, as he froze in place and stared off to his side, eyes wide as the Door that had been 'following' him around slammed open--
--and Miz tumbled out.
(Bill unconsciously relaxed immediately upon seeing her.)
"What the FUCK has been happening here?!" she shrieked. "Nevermind, I can make a guess!" she snarled, eyes Flickering and expression turning LIVID. The sand swirled about and she crafted a new vessel, fuming.
Bill stared at her for a few moments.
Then Bill said, almost tentatively, "...That wasn't five minutes?"
Bill had been expecting her to stick to the five-minute mark. He'd planned on reopening the next portal to get them through at the three-minutes-later mark; if she'd stuck to the five-minutes, they would have all been through -- seemingly, to them -- right away. But she hadn't, and that had thrown off Bill's timetable. He… hadn't really LIKED the idea of being out-of-sync with her for so long (and he still felt nervous shivery for some reason at the thought of that), but he could've checked. Every so often. It… would have been fine? --He'd need to get USED TO the idea of his suicidal little sister not being around and with-him-nearby where he couldn't help her sooner or later, because she'd be leaving him eventually and WHO KNEW when she'd be coming back again after that, if she didn't get herself killed first… right?
Bill ALSO wasn't used to interacting with an angry sibling. (That was a big part of the reason why he was going to fix EVERYTHING first, before bringing Liam back. To avoid any sort of problem like that.) So Bill wasn't entirely certain what to say or do? (He'd never been angry at Liam before not while he'd been alive, and he'd only really been angry with Liam about him not fighting back and ending up murdered and Liam had never been angry with him ...not HIS Liam.)
Miz turned a smoldering glare onto him before stomping off through the sand towards the boat. "Stupid-- of all the-- AAAauUuGgh!!" She raved.
Bill followed after her, feeling a bit relieved that she was there with him, even if he also felt oddly uncomfortable with the anger that he was a little worried that he might be about to be on the receiving end of.
"I… got you through the lock just fine?" Bill tried next, unsure.
"...That you did. Good job. But the twins were getting impatient-- did you know that they ACTUALLY tried to come WITH me?! Like-- what EVEN the FUCK!?!" Miz stomped through the sand, the particles swirling around her in sharp waves.
Bill blinked. Oh. So she wasn't all that angry with him personally, just his Zodiac. Bill relaxed a bit.
"Pine Tree spent twelve hours in the Mindscape, he probably thinks he could handle it for however-long," Bill told her. "Shooting Star has no idea; not really. They both jump into things with almost zero sense, because adventure," Bill told her. "Why do you think I 'tattle' on them whenever I hear they're going to go out into the woods on their own or with that Stanford, and won't put together a space-capable 'shuttle' taxi for Shooting Star? --She'd use it," he told his younger sibling, as they both approached the boat.
That got him an almost amused snort. "STILL don't know how they survived this long…" Miz grumbled.
Bill suddenly looked VERY interested in the starry sky above them. Very, very interested. Very, carefully not-talkative interested. Miz turned back to glare at him. "You know what? I'm not even gonna touch on that right now, I have a certain Stanford to TURN INSIDE OUT for being a FUCKING douche-nozzle!"
Bill stopped in place and all expression dropped off his face at the 'INSIDE OUT'.
He flung up a hand and a wall of sand shot up in front of Miz, ten feet tall and just as wide, blocking her most direct route forward towards the boat.
Miz paused, visibly trying to calm herself. "Not literally," she managed to grind out between clenched teeth.
"No," Bill said almost quietly. "That's a mental attack. On purpose." He pulled in a breath. "You aren't part of the agreement. I…" Bill swallowed. He didn't even like thinking of trying to stop her. The wall he'd felt it necessary to put up right now was almost… "Stanford isn't either, but Shooting Star and Pine Tree… and Stanley..."
Bill struggled to explain. "Even if they aren't watching when it happens, it matters if it happens. It matters to them, still." Bill clenched his teeth. "And they're MY Zodiac," he told her, at the last, though he KNEW she wouldn't understand that part of it… But the other things? She'd been human once. He half-expected her to understand THAT, at least. "Nobody attacks my Zodiac without my say-so, my allowance, and my forbearance," Bill told her quietly. He'd made that decision himself, a long time ago, and he wasn't going to be changing his mind on it anytime soon. There were rules, for a game involving that Stanford, but… those were mostly out the window and on-hold while the agreement was on.
Miz took a few, deep careful breaths. "Right." Her fists were tightly clenched until her nails broke the skin and she trembled. "Right." She repeated. "I won't… tear him a new one, but he hurt Stanley. So… will he at LEAST get a penalty for that?" She was shaking, trying SO hard not to lose her temper.
Bill smiled slightly, coldly. His eyes were sharp.
(He made a short gesture and a soft 'tch'ing sound.)
"I'm going to be bringing 'Ford back, first thing, once Stanley is satisfied with how he's fixed things here, and we're all back in his home dimension again," Bill told his sister quietly, taking a step towards her. He all but HAD to, in order to fix the agreement. To undo his having 'messed with' Stan's family. The agreement was predicated on all of Stan's family being alive and well -- their being 'un-messed with'. It was a LIE, an agreement predicated and founded on a LIE -- even though Bill hadn't realized it at the time, because Bill hadn't known that 'brother' was a part of Stan's 'family' at the time, sitting outside of his head and TALKING with him through all the ways and means of things -- and it would be a LIE until Bill FIXED it and made it all TRUE, INSTEAD.
(All Bill needed to do was be careful enough about things -- what he said and how he said it, what Miz said while helping her stop herself before saying too much -- that he could get away with the lie until it wasn't a lie anymore. Because he'd fixed it and made it true instead. For courtesy.)
"It will hurt him, that Stanford," Bill told her took another step. "He will give Stanley up himself; he can't not! Not after he knows." Because Bill knew how that Stanford defined 'brother', too; he'd known THAT for a VERY long time… in human timescales.
And that Stanford's definition of 'brother' was VERY different from Stanley's.
(And he would SUFFER for it. Bill would see to it. He would see to that.)
(Because he DESERVED it. For thinking that a 'brother' was ONLY a--)
Bill took another step, right up to stand right beside her, and he had a gleam to his eyes. "I will trick him into giving me permission to go downstairs with him, and I will bring Stanley's twin brother back from the dead, and that Stanford…" Bill breathed out, then breathed in.
"No matter what happens, he will HURT," Bill told her quietly, slowly, in a voice that did not carry -- inside a bubble of sound that he had thrown up, even though he KNEW from the surveillance readings he was getting from his suit that none of the four Pines in that boat currently could do anything to hear -- that NO-ONE else could hear.
They would never see it coming. (As long as Stanley didn't figure it out first. As long as Stanley didn't notice the little discrepancies here, with…)
Miz paused before nodding stiffly. "Alright. Alright then." she shuddered, slowly winding down, breathing with her eyes squeezed tight.
"I'm sorry you have to put up with being around my Stanford," Bill repeated his apology, saying out loud this time what he'd been thinking when he'd apologized to her before, that second night.
Miz sighed, relaxing her muscles. "Not your fault you got stuck with a walking asshole in human form for a Zodiac," she assured him. Miz breathed a few more times. "Ok. I think I'm sufficiently calm enough now." She turned to Bill, looking much better -- not great, but better. "So can we help Stan fix this now?"
Bill nodded slightly, waving a hand to collapse the sand wall back into the surface of the beach-proper again. "He is annoying!" Bill agreed of his Stanford, relaxing much more completely as he saw Miz relaxing and seemingly no longer (outwardly) angry herself. "I've had thirty-three years to get used to it," Bill admitted. "I forgot that you don't even have much experience in this lifetime of yours with humans, yet!" And he didn't usually forget things, not for ANY length of time. (That was odd; shouldn't he have thought of that…?)
"No one that I've personally known in the long term. Just some summoners here and there for Deals back in my Earth." Miz sighed, slumping a little as her rage finally, for the most part, subsided. She just couldn't stay angry very long, keep her away from the target of her ire for a few minutes and she would just calm down, too worn out to continue.
Bill decided it was safe enough to pat Miz on the head now, and so he patted her on the head a few times. After all, control of rage was something to give praise for, yes?
They walked until they were almost to the side of the boat.
"You may want to Look at anything you might want to See now, instead of waiting until we're inside," Bill told his little sister. He was… very sure that Stanley would not want to change things in the past; not after this, not after going this route in staying and interacting with the younger set here, and now. "If you start shrieking things out inside? And rolling around on the ground?" Like she had the last few times she'd done that? "That will be a PROBLEM," Bill warned her. (He needed her to not give away any of the things that would have Stanley realizing-- and have him realizing that the agreement was BROKEN before Bill FIXED it.)
Miz nodded, Flickering. The details came into focus. She paused.
"Hey brother?" she asked calmly, the type of calm before a storm. "Do you think anyone would mind if I tore out Filbrick's eyes and fed them to him through his nose?"
Bill blinked at her (not picking up on her anger at all).
"WELL." Bill thought about this. "Filbrick might?" Bill put out there, not bothering to go any further than that. (...Because, technically, Filbrick himself was an 'anyone'? And most humans tended to not enjoy that sort of thing, Filbrick being one of them? That seemed like enough of a reason, by what she'd asked for; no need to say anything more.)
Miz nodded. "Ah. That he would." She didn't sound like that would stop her though. And that didn't bother Bill in the least…
...in no small part because (not being human and not having human thought processes) Bill didn't really make the implied connection between Miz's tone and the previous, somewhat-general question that had been posed to him by her.
Miz was also thinking about horrible things to do to a certain someone else as well. But that could come later. Yes. She was going to take her time with that one...
Miz might not be mad anymore, but she was a vindictive little shit.
The two demons came to a stop in the sand and stared up at the boat.
Bill decided to use the sand to get them both up there this time, and with a gesture he raised it up in a pillar for them both, underneath their feet. They stepped off onto the deck, and he let it fall down again. Miz was frowning. "Should probably ask the Stans first if they might mind if I mess with Filbrick." Bill glanced over before shrugging. He didn't consider 'parents' to be 'family' as Stanley defined it, so he didn't see any potential problem with Filbrick being 'messed with' by her.
Bill walked over to the hatch and opened it up, and he and Miz slowly descended the ladder, down and down and down below-decks...
...and down in the bottom of the hold, was where they found them all.
The Stans were all there, down in the dark gloomy barely-(lighter-)lit hold. Stan was crouched down on the floor, by the sloping side of the boat, speaking with young Ford and young Stanley in soft tones. Stan had his arms around them both, in what was halfway between a hug and just holding them. He didn't look happy, even less so with Ford, who he sent a long glance back at from time to time. (Ford was standing off to the side, arms crossed, leaning against one of the bracing beams in the middle of the ship.)
Miz wasn't all that happy with the older Stanford either right now.
"YOU!" she snarled, stomping over to Stanford.
...or started to. She made it forward the first two feet, but then Bill reached out and simply grabbed her by the back of her shirt collar, stopping her forward momentum, while saying quite mildly, "No. Bad Miz."
Ford startled slightly upon hearing Miz, and turned halfway towards them at hearing both her and Bill. He looked pale, even in the low light levels, and was…
Miz blinked, because Ford looked quiet, almost withdrawn, and more than a little sick, his expression strained, almost haunted, as he gripped at one arm across his chest with his other hand.
Miz opened her mouth, paused and closed it. She huffed angrily and turned away from Ford. "Not supposed to attack him. Both mentally AND physically…" she muttered to herself. She straightened, outright ignoring Ford now, and addressed the humans here that she WASN'T mad at. "So, hypothetically speaking~ if a certain mean, awful father were to suddenly lose his eyes…"
"--No," Stan said immediately, heavily, and with more than a little anger to his voice, while the two younger set looked downright confused at what they'd thought was just an angry rhetorical question in poor taste.
Miz sighed. "But what about a certain saboteur, who isn't any of the people here in this room?" That made the younger Stanford straighten and stare past Stan's shoulder at her, eyes wide.
Bill made a 'tsk'ing sound at her, annoyed. "Dlb'e sopq kqot wq hapb'vh glhesg ekaw fxf jsm, dls." (<Don't even know if they've gotten that far yet, sis.>) to which Miz responded with a grumpy sound.
Stan turned on him, glaring. "--You could've said something earlier." He'd started down that train of thought a minute or so before, but… that the kid had actually known and not said anything--!!
Stan closed his eyes for a moment and forced himself to breathe.
(--Hell. Of course the kid had known. He had that stupid Seeing-Eye thing going. And he'd practically 'seen' his whole life at some point, Stan was pretty sure, so why would he have left out seeing that? Fuck.)
--Because this whole damn life-ruining I-want-to-see-how-you-fix-it 'not a game' thing was, as far as the kid was concerned, all about Stan 'learning' what it could be like when the kid didn't tell him things. Because Stan had rushed into things after the niblings and not asked the kid anything first, and hardly let him say anything at all. Practically ignored him when the kid had tried, even if the kid hadn't tried all that hard to tell him anything before they'd 'jumped' their way here.
(...Yeah, Stan knew damn well that he hadn't been in a listening 'mood'. He couldn't blame the kid all that much for that. --Could blame him some, definitely felt like he had a right to be angry as hell with him, sure, but… If he'd thought the kid was stalling going after the kids to get 'em back, Stan knew he straight-up might've actually verbally bitten the kid's head off for it, or worse. ...For keeping him from the kids for even a second longer than--)
Miz huffed. "Can't I just tell them? Please?" She glanced over at Stan. "Hypothetically, if I took their eyes…"
"...There was more than one saboteur?" the young Ford asked shakily, wiping at his eyes under his glasses, and pushing away from Stan slightly, to turn his head a little to look at her.
"Naw, just one, I'm just playing the pronoun game so you don't know who it is, since brother says I'm not supposed to spoil it… but I really want to..." Miz whined.
"No physically attacking or damaging or hurting anybody unless and until they physically attack you first," Stan stressed to the demon outright. "And you stop immediately if and when they stop. No killing, period. Not unless I say different."
Bill eyed Stan, but Miz just sighed. "Fine. I'm just… really mad at them. That person. Because they did this on purpose. To try and hurt him." Miz pointed at young Ford. (Bill rolled his eyes at her and finally let go of the back of her collar, to cross his arms at her, instead.)
"If you're going to be giving out 'hints', oh little sister mine," Bill told her, 'At least try and make sure that you aren't giving any of them the WRONG IDEA." Because, technically, the person who had sabotaged the experiment? Hadn't only wanted to hurt Ford, out of the two of the twins. They just felt that they'd gotten their revenge on Stan already! (And even Bill, bad as he truly was at actually understanding how the Pines thought, knew that the way Miz had put it would send all the Pines in attendance down entirely the wrong set of paths.)
"Fine. They wanted to hurt the BOTH of you." Miz crossed her arms and sat down on one of the nearby benches. "They already hurt Stan, hurting Ford is just them being EXTRA." She frowned. "And petty." Now all the Stans, past and future, were staring at her.
Bill sighed heavily, and picked his way across the hold, to sit down behind to Stan and then slump down against him, putting his back to Stanley's back. He felt Stanley's back shift behind him, a little like Stan was about ready to buck a bit and shove him off, and Bill muttered an "I'M TIRED," at Stanley. That got Bill a huff that sounded and felt a little angry, from the tension of the back muscles he was leaning up against. --Bill didn't care too much about THAT, though; that was well within his expectations of Stanley's behavior, at present.
"Portals take energy," Bill muttered, slumping down a little further and closing his eyes, figuring that ought to be enough to prevent a 'bucking'.
"Thought you wanted to 'see' me 'fix' things," was what Stanley dryly told him next, and Bill didn't even bother opening his eyes, as he worked at calmed his own breathing down, for good measure.
"I can hear you just fine," Bill muttered. He didn't feel like explaining in detail how the surveillance and recording functions of his bodysuit functioned, currently, so he didn't even bother to try.
Miz folded her hands in her lap. "Can I spoil things? Or do you want me to just sit and observe for now?" and Bill hummed out, "Observe."
Stan felt Bill resituate himself a bit at his back -- felt mostly like the kid's legs -- and his breathing slowed down even further, from what Stan could tell. Stan saw Miz nod at the kid, out of the corner of his eye. Stan sighed and turned back to the boys.
"Alright, so apparently someone messed with your project," Stan said with a frown. He didn't think either of them were lying, except with the way the kid kept getting at not wanting them to get the 'wrong idea' about things… Stan shook it off; he still felt angry and hurt at what Ford had said earlier, and he knew he was off his game. He had to be careful here.
"--These two say there's a saboteur, who isn't anyone here." Stan said, and he could see Ford twitch at his choice of words out of the corner of his other eye. Yeah, well... he couldn't help but grimace himself.
Because the whole thing really didn't make one lick of sense to Stan, still.
He'd gotten down here before Ford had. He'd seen his younger twin's… well, uh, kind of a twin's duffel bag. Same one as he'd had thrown at him back when Pa threw him out all those years ago. He'd never thought of it before. How Pa had seemed to have it ready and waiting. Not really. --He'd sort of guessed that maybe the old man had been wanting to toss him out on his ear for awhile there, and he'd been really damn angry about it when he'd first thought of it, way back when. But. When he'd vented it to his ma that once on the phone? She'd read him the riot act; said Pa would never do that. ...He'd stopped calling home so much after that, and he'd never brought it up again, but it'd always kind of sunk a weight on him ever since. Never sat well with him. Ma had always been so sure, and… It had always felt like she'd taken his side, and Stan had never known what to think. It had left him feelin' all mixed up inside, so he'd tried not to ever think about it…
But the duffel bag was here. Once he'd come down after this… younger Ford, and… the kid had been an absolute wreck, barely been able to string a sentence together after what Ford had told him. He hadn't managed to piece together what wasn't making any sense at all, until the younger-him had practically jumped down the hatch into the hold, to rush up and over and practically shove him out of the way to hug his brother…
It hadn't made sense until the younger-him had started babbling out shit about the fight and getting kicked out, and… Stan had had to ask his younger self straight-out what had happened. And that younger Stan had told him, teary-eyed and raging and just… angry at everything--
Stan had felt like the blood had drained right out of him into the floor of the hold. He hadn't been able to believe it.
Ford had gotten kicked out. Not Stan.
Ford had gotten kicked out, because the science fair project hadn't worked.
...And not just because it hadn't worked. Oh, no. He'd gotten kicked out, because he hadn't been able to sell it to those fancy school guys anyway.
Because when had Pa ever not been able to sell something that was plain and flat-out junk to somebody?
...With no preparation whatsoever. Because they'd skipped school, and their parents hadn't told them what was coming up the next day, because if they thought they could just skip and be fine, then they could damn well show him that.
Except Ford wasn't the one who could talk anybody into just about anything. Not without at least some idea of what the hell was going on, beyond a 'don't worry, you'll do just fine, honey' from their ma, and a threatening 'how they'd get their hides tanned if they skipped school tomorrow' from their pa. Which made it sound like something was going to be happening in school the next day, but this younger Ford had walked into it cold, and...
...he was a Pines, and Filbrick had expected him to sell himself as some genius to these fancy school jerks, that he should at least know how to sell that kinda shit that he was always doing, that the principal had talked up to him and ma so much in the principal's office the day before. --And hey, if he couldn't sell his science to somebody, then what good was he? If he couldn't make money off his science, then what did it even matter if he was smart or had the best grades in school? If he couldn't make money -- make millions -- with it, then he was just useless.
Stan was in shock at hearing what had happened -- what Filbrick had said, as he'd thrown Ford out, what he'd threatened as this younger Stan had tried to stop him -- and it had left him staring and feeling cold.
And then, finally, it had occurred to him. Why Ford had had the duffel bag with him, sitting on the floor of the hold next to him. Why it hadn't been with his younger self. And what it might mean that…
Stan had felt a shock of dread as he'd reached forward and pulled it to him, ripped open the duffel bag, gone through the clothing inside -- the same, the exact same as his had had in it -- pulling pieces out and shoving them back in, more and more frantically. It had been the only clothing he'd had for weeks, months -- he'd known each piece like the back of his hand, stitched every last one of them up over the years until they just hadn't fit anymore, been falling apart on him-- and he'd wondered why this young Ford had had it on him…
He'd thought his pa had been stupid about it, mixing up his clothing with Ford's. It had been maybe, what, half-and-half almost? --Not that Filbrick had ever really paid attention to half the shit either of them had worn, since they'd just swapped clothing for awhile there, but… there had been almost no t-shirts in there, a couple wife-beaters sure, but mostly collared shirts and pants instead of jeans and...
...it had really been more of what Ford wore than what Stan did, now that Stan really thought about it. He never really had before. He'd just been annoyed that this was his, and this was Ford's, and his old man still hadn't been able to keep their shit straight, and Ford wasn't talking to him...
It didn't make sense that the bag had already been packed and waiting for him. Not until then.
Because it hadn't been already packed and waiting for him.
It had been packed and waiting for Ford.
...The bag had always been meant for Ford.
But… if the duffle had always been meant for Ford, if Pa had prepared it beforehand to kick Ford out the second he saw him -- the very second he came home…
...except Ford had run into him first. Playing paddleball. On the couch.
Ford had come home late from school, and when Ford had come home, he'd kicked up a fuss, accusing Stan of breaking his project first thing. And Ford had come in the back way. Pa hadn't grabbed him first; Ford had run into Stan first.
Pa had probably heard from the school what had happened that afternoon, because of course the principal would've called him and ma, to let them know the bad news, first-thing -- hey, better luck next time, except there was gonna be no next time, that had been Ford's one big shot at anything. And of course Pa would've had the time to decide what he was gonna do about it.
Pa hadn't known about Stan breaking the project, until he'd heard Ford yelling, stormed into the room, heard what Ford was yelling at him…
And then Pa had had a different target. Not Ford, the six-fingered freak; but Stan, the screw-up son. Because how could Ford have succeeded with Stan sabotaging him outright?
So Pa had gotten angry at him instead. Pa had told him that he'd cost them millions. Pa had thrown him out instead of Ford. Because it was his fault for breaking Ford's project and ruining Ford's chance to sell it. Because Stan could screw up just about anything so badly that there was just no way of it being okay, no matter how good anybody was at selling it; Pa hadn't sold him short on that.
...The worst part was, the kid had been right. The goddamn demon had been right. --If it was a choice between him getting kicked outta the house and his brother? Stan would've taken the fall for it, hands-down. He couldn't regret what had happened anymore.
Not if what he was seeing here was the result. Staring at the two younger twins in front of him, sitting next to each other, hugging each other -- one desperately crying his eyes out, one fiercely protective and glaring, spitting figurative fire out at the world.
If he'd known...
...hell, he'd have been proud of it.
And, in thinking all of these things, Stan had reached out to the two young twins both and pulled them over to him in a hug.
And when Ford had descended the ladder… Stann hadn't even had it in him to say anything. He'd just felt… tired.
Because what was he gonna say? 'I didn't ruin your life, I saved it?' Like Ford coulda survived out on the streets on his own, back then. ...Freaking forty years gone, and they were still fighting over this?
Stan had been absolutely and completely done with this shit.
He'd been even more done with the two demons making their way back in. (...Hell, the other one was back now, too?)
But the whole thing still really didn't make one lick of sense to him.
Because hell, there being some kinda saboteur this time around? --Seriously, the hell? It had been him who'd broken it, not anybody else. Right?
And that was the thing that didn't make sense. This younger version of himself hadn't broken Ford's science fair project -- he couldn't have. He hadn't known about the whole fancy school guys thing; he hadn't even gone near the school the night before, hadn't even left the house. So… what did that mean? --Had somebody else really broken it? Actually and outright sabotaged it? Just like Miz said?
Who would have sabotaged it for these two, but not when it had been them? If somebody was gonna sabotage it, then wouldn't it have happened both times?
He was the one who'd broken Ford's science fair project, punching that table way-back-when, and broken it…
...because that little panel had come off, and then...
...all that smoke had come out, and then...
...all that smoke had stopped, and then...
...the thing had just kept on spinning...
...and he'd put that little panel back on, it had just been a little loose in the screws...
...
...
Wait…
...had he broken Ford's science fair project?
It had been moving when he'd left it that night.
And… that panel had been loose.
Ford knew how to tap screwholes in things. ...Sure, half the time he did it backwards, from the wrong side, because apparently righty-tighty-lefty-loosey was too easy for a brainiac to get right half the time, but--
Oh. Oh shit.
Stan's head came up.
If Ford had tapped the screwholes wrong, and somebody had come by with a screwdriver to fuck with his project… they would've stripped every last one of those screws getting that panel open. Those screws would've been barely sitting in those stripped-out holes. Of course that panel would've come off.
And if some other person had done that… then what Ford had yelled at him about sabotage before suddenly made sense. And why he'd come home only so many hours later, so late it had almost been dark out, when the fancy school guy showing-off thing had happened almost right after school. He would've checked out his project before coming home, to try and figure out exactly what had gone wrong. Right? Except...
…Ford had said it was him because of the candy bag found 'at the scene of the crime'. And Ford should've known that he'd never do anything like that to him on purpose. Not sabotage him outright. Not like that.
Stan frowned furiously, mad at his brother all over again.
This… this whole damn thing had been… it had just been...
Stan shook his head. Still didn't really make sense. If that thing had been sabotaged first, before Stan had got there that night, then shouldn't it have already not been working when he'd gotten there?
--Did it really matter? If Stan had been given a choice between Ford getting kicked outta the house, and having to break the damn project and get kicked out himself, he'd still have broken the damn project and gotten kicked out himself. On purpose. To hell with it.
Stan glanced over at his brother, who was leaning against the wall, not looking at him.
Ford had gotten an earful from the younger-Stan when he'd gotten in, after what that younger Ford had stuttered out at him hoping for comfort ('...that you, you shouldn't have tried to stand up to Pa for me...') and what that younger-him had said in reply ('--the hell? Why the hell wouldn't I try to tell Pa not to throw you out? That guy's an idiot, I don't care if he's supposed to be you -- and I'm not goin' anywhere, why d'you think I'm here now!? --I'm not lettin' him tell me what to do! Or Pa! And if he tries to say I shouldn't--!!'), so Ford knew at least the broad strokes of what was up -- that the younger Ford was the one who had gotten kicked out this time -- but…
Stan hadn't said anything about the duffel bag to Ford yet.
…and he wasn't going to. (Fuck it. Fuck him. The damn stupid, unimpressible, greedy old man.) Filbrick was a complete and utter--
Stan pulled in a hard breath.
...that didn't mean that these kids would have to deal with any of that, though. Not if he had anything to say about it, Stan figured. And he did.
And he would make the kid help him with it.
Miz spoke up, momentarily interrupting Stan's (angry) chain of thought as she said, "Can I at least answer 'yes', 'no', or 'no spoilers' to any questions?"
Bill let out a chittery chuckle at her and said, "NO," then added, with even more weight, "You OBSERVE."
Stan clenched his jaw, about to tell the kid off, because how was this helping--
"You don't need it. She'll just confuse things, because she is confused," the demon kid at his back murmured to Stan under his breath, in actual cautionary tones…
...and Stan stopped still for a moment, then closed his eyes and forced himself to breath in deeply. Right. Okay. The name of the 'game' here was listen to the kid. Not his sister; listen to the kid. Kid hadn't been talking before, but he was... talking now. It was past 8pm that night; Stan could demand that the kid explain himself now, if it came down to it.
(Did that even mean that there really was a 'saboteur'? Or was the kid's kid-sister 'confused' on that, too? ...What did 'sabotage' even mean to the kid?)
Stan opened his eyes and let out that breath. Hell with it. He could do this. He was doing this.
(...because the kid wanted to see what happened. Stan knew he could ask the kid all sorts of junk now, sure -- except the kid didn't know how to fix this, and the kid wanted to see how he'd fix it himself. The kid might know what happened, but the kid was a demon, didn't think like they did. And without the human context and understanding…? The kid would probably screw it up, the same way or worse than he thought his kid sister might.)
(...And Stan wasn't stupid. This was a test -- part of the audition; not just 'a show'. If he depended on the kid or the dragon-lady right now for answers, when the kid had said he was watching to see what Stan did, waiting to see what he'd do, and looking forward to it… when the kid had said before that he thought Stan could figure this out by himself at the very least for what was happening right here and now… If he depended on the kid too much now, that would send the entirely wrong message to the kid -- the absolute opposite of the message Stan wanted to send, in fact.)
(Part of the reason that Stan had set up the agreement the way that he had was that it set him up as independent; it didn't just put him in charge as a final authority. And if Stan had to start depending on the kid for a bunch of stuff he didn't need to, then that triangle demon wouldn't think he was just taking shortcuts. No. Instead, the kid would probably just think that he couldn't do it himself, and then...)
Stan could figure this out himself. He didn't need the kid for this.
Time to fix things, and show the kid just who he was messing with.
(The kid was gonna get a penalty-and-a-half for all this mess, once they were all home again. Kid shouldn't've kept any of this to himself, right from the start. Putting these younger kids through this shit for no damn reason…)
"Alright," Stan said. "You two are a mess right now. We are gonna talk about what happened with your project tomorrow, after you get some sleep--"
"--I can't sleep!" the young Ford protested. "I-- I-- Where am I even going to--" and Stan sighed deeply, because this young Ford was frantic and… Stan reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Okay, fine," Stan said, shaking his shoulder slightly. "You tell me what happened with the fancy college guys now, get it outta your system, and then we pull out the sleeping blankets and junk and you settle in for the night, here.
"...Here?" the young Ford said almost plaintively, blinking at him. The younger Stan was frowning at him.
"Your boat, remember? We're just pirating it," Stan told him.
"--It's Stan's boat," the young Ford said almost immediately, which got him a punch in the shoulder from his twin just as quickly. "--Our boat," the younger twin said emphatically. "Was gonna get us a hotel for the night, but…" he glanced between Stan and Ford. "...This is, uh…"
"Better," Stan said. "Me and Ford here'll get the thing fixed up better-still. Livable; don't you worry about that. Gonna have to share it with us in the meantime, though." The younger Stan frowned at him, almost suspiciously.
"It's too cold down here to sleep," the younger Stan said, and Stan poked the kid behind him.
"Bill, get this thing some heat or whatever without settin' anything on fire, wouldja? Climate control. --You got those planks still on you? From the roof?" The twins looked at him with confusion, but the demon-kid at his back muttered something at him and slowly started messing with something behind his back, so Stan left him to it. (...And tried to ignore the heavy 'thwacks' as the kid apparently thought tossing those chicken-scratch 'runed'-up planks to opposite sides of the ship was 'good enough' for the night here. Hell.)
"Planks?" the young Ford said, confused as he wiped at his face again, and Stan just shrugged.
"Gotta a couple of demons, here," Stan said, tossing a thumb at the one at his back and then over at Miz. "Mostly friendly. Kinda. Sometimes. --Don't ask 'em for favors," Stan said, as he saw the look the young Ford got on his face. "Barely got a handle on this one as it is," he said, glancing behind his back at the kid. "You done?" he asked, and got a low chitter back that was pretty much the equivalent of a grunt, if he understood the kid right from context. (Wasn't the first time he'd heard it from him.) Stan turned back to the twins. "Give it a minute to work."
"But--" the young Ford began.
"Fancy college guys who are jerks, science fair project, c'mon," Stan said, making a 'gimmie' motion with his hand at this younger-twin. It startled out a laugh from him, that just left him startled at having laughed after that.
Stan waited.
"...You look older than Pa," the younger Ford complained, shifting in place. He looked and sounded like what Stan was pulling on him -- the gruff old man routine -- just wasn't fair. ...Well, yeah it wasn't. Was kinda the point. Heh.
"Don't you go 'old man'ning me," Stan said in warning tones. "'Old man' nothin'. --Bet I can flatten his ass with one good punch," Stan told the young Ford, startling another laugh out of him again. Then Stan tried levelling with him. "Look, ain't nothing you can say that's gonna make me want to kick you off this boat," Stan told him. "So go on. Do your worst," he challenged him with a grin (which had Ford looking over at him slowly…).
The young Ford wiped at his eyes again (while his brother kept rubbing his back). He took in a deep breath, and said, finally, "I… I went to the principal's office when they called me. On the intercom," he began. "Just me." He glanced over at Stan. "Stan came, 'cause they never call us solo. He stayed at the office; they asked me why I wasn't at the gymnasium already, getting ready? I, uh…" the kid looked nervous. "I didn't have a lot of time to prepare…" He trailed off, working his hands in his lap nervously.
"Yeah," Stan said. "Go on."
"They said a bunch of fancy college guys wanted to see his project," the young Stan said next, picking up the thread almost belligerently. "Wanted him there with it, 'case they had questions? Told me to go back to class; I'd just screw it up." He glanced at his twin. "--If I'd known he was supposed t' sell something, I coulda swapped with him!" he said angrily, and Stan tried to ignore how Ford startled slightly out of the corner of his eye, straightening in place.
"When did ya know they were there thinking about having you go to some big fancy school?" Stan prompted them both.
"--When they told me I didn't make the cut!" the young Ford said, sounding almost aggrieved. "I thought they were interested in the science, but they just--!" he shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said bitterly, clenching his fists in his lap. "I got there, and I started presenting it, and it just--" and the poor kid just cringed inward and shook where he sat.
"Tell me," Stan said quietly, and this younger Ford just blurted out all-at-once, finally, "--It was like a nightmare! I-- I just-- I was talking, explaining it all, and--" He gestured around frantically. "It blew up with smoke!" he said shrilly. "It just-- It made this HORRIBLE sound and--" His eyes were wide and he clutched at the sides of his head, pulling at his hair as he said, "I turned around and the whole spindle just-- there weren't any electronics in there!" the young Ford cried out, cringing. "It doesn't make any sense!! It just-- there was smoke and-- it couldn't have been the lubricant, could it?!" he said next looking up at them both, Stan and then his twin. "I-- I can't-- there shouldn't have been that much friction--!!"
"You can check the equations later," Stan said as gently as he could (which had Ford staring at him for some reason). "What happened next."
"--The whole thing ground to a halt," the young Ford said with a shudder. "Everything just-- and I couldn't explain--" He was starting to cry again, and the younger Stan swept him up in a hug.
Stan watched them both, and he let out a deep sigh.
"Okay," Stan said heavily, then winced at himself. "That ain't okay, but we'll figure it out." (It was different from what had happened with the one with Ford's, all right, but… yeah, that smoke thing sounded off.)
"It's too late," the young Ford said, ensconced firmly in his twin's arms, yet still looking and sounding miserable. "It was my one shot, and I blew it. Pa'll never--" Miz twitched, wanting to comfort him too. Distressed child! Must hug! Must destroy source of distress-- But she was forced to hold herself back.
"--Forget Pa," Stan said heavily. "And forget one shot. This guy," Stan said, tossing a thumb Ford's way, "Got into a fancy school that, hell, maybe it wasn't so fancy as that one," he told them, "But--"
"--I can't pay for it," the young Ford said. "I can't-- even if Pa hadn't kicked me out, we don't have the money--"
"He got a full ride," Stan told him. "It ain't the end of the world, believe me. He went to college, got a bunch of fancy degrees; the whole nine. They paid him for it. You can do it, too." ...And that finally got his attention. It also seemed to make Miz settle down from the uncomfortable wiggling she'd been doing on her bench.
"...It ...it was okay?" the young Ford said, looking up at him like… hell. Last time Ford had looked at him like that had been...
Stan sighed. He nodded at the younger Ford. Because yeah, it would be all right.
"But…" the young Ford said, looking unsure as he glanced over at Ford. "He didn't like…"
"We didn't have a bunch of old fogeys showin' up on our doorstep, grabbin' up two demons and two kids that day," Stan told him. "Things went down a little differently with us," Stan said, without elaboration.
The kids looked between him and Ford a bit doubtfully. And then Ford finally spoke up.
"...What happened with you is not what happened with me," Ford said slowly. "I… had some misconceptions about your current situation." He looked uncomfortable as he said, "If you continue attending school, and keep your grades up, then there is an excellent chance that you could--"
"--But I'm going to need to get a job," young Ford said. "I can't go to school; I need money to--" And then the kid turned a little grey as the thought of what he'd just voiced finally hit him.
Miz scoffed. "You have your brother with you. That's already…" she slapped a hand over her mouth. "Right, no talk, just observe…" she mumbled.
"I can sneak food from the house," the young Stanley said. "You can sleep on the boat; I've done it before, nights. Pa and ma ain't gonna be able to tell if I... do your laundry?" he said, wrinkling his nose, then he seemed to shrug it off. "Guess I'll have to learn how to use the stupid washing machine, ugh," he said, to the younger Ford's slight giggle.
"No, Stan," the younger Ford said quietly, almost pensively, leaning into him. "If Pa catches you…"
"Don't care," the younger Stan said, hugging his brother a little tighter. "So he kicks me out too; hell with him."
"Don't," the young Ford said urgently, pushing away from him slightly and adjusting his glasses. "Stan, that's not--"
"--You're both goin' to school, neither of you are gettin' jobs, and you're both sleepin' here," Stan said authoritatively. "Nobody's splittin' you two up." Miz made enthusiastic arm waves and a triumphant fist bump with the air behind Stan's back (which Stan didn't see, but which did get her a long suspicious glare from Ford).
"But--"
"--But me no buts," Stan said authoritatively, poking the young Ford in the head. "I'll have a talk with the old man about it. But me and this jerk," he pointed at Ford again, who looked thoroughly unimpressed at his new designation (yeah, deal with it), "Don't got anything we've gotta do; we're retired," he told the two of them. "And this whole getting kicked out thing is bullshit," he told them next. "I'm gonna get this boat fixed up -- yeah, you can help," he said to the younger-him, "But most of the rest of this junk is gonna take at least two people; why it isn't done yet. Yeah?" he said, giving the younger-him a long look, which got him a grimace. "By the time I'm done with it, this thing's gonna be livable--" Stan told them both, "--and you two'll have enough money to tide you over until whenever."
The twins were both staring at him in disbelief, then exchanged a look. "You can't fix up the Stan o' War and make money--" the young Ford began.
"Hell I can't," Stan said gruffly. "Had two jobs for thirty years, fixing a big pile a'junk without a damn manual at night, and runnin' a pretty damn good money-makin' business by day," he told them. "I don't have ta go to school. I got all day to make money, and I've got a second set of hands to help me with repairing all this later." He glanced over at Ford again, who looked vaguely uncomfortable for some reason, but then nodded. "Don't go tellin' me what I can't do," he told the younger twins, grinning at the two of them almost evilly.
"...Because you're an old man?" the younger Stan said skeptically.
"Because I'm an old con man," Stan corrected him, giving him a Mr. Mystery grin. "And I've sailed around the world and back. Twice."
...Yeah, Stan thought that might shut the two of them up. Heh.
Eyes wide, the twins exchanged a glance, and the next question Stan was asked was…
"Is that how you found the two demons?!" young Ford asked him excitedly.
...Stan ran a hand over his face.
"Look…" Stan said, starting to try and explain.
And as Stan continued to talk with the younger set, Ford (who was closer to Miz, as well as glancing at her suspiciously) was the only one who heard Miz's quiet squeals of "--best fix-it fic ever!" And "Will they be able to sail after school? Nah, Chibi-Ford had college..."
Young Stan still picked up on the word, "...Sailing?" from Miz, and Stan looked over, giving her a frown, before turning back to the younger twins.
"Maybe this summer," Stan said. "Need to get her seaworthy first. --Not before then," he added, as young Stan lit up. "School, you. Remember?"
"Stan…" Ford said quietly. "You can't just…"
"Don't you go startin' with me now on this too, Ford," Stan said warningly, tossing a look over at the side at him.
"But… you really can't do this," the young Ford said. "I can't go to the same school in the same district if I don't have a permanent address, that's…"
"I'll talk with the old man tomorrow morning," Stan said. "He don't have to take you back, but I'll get a damn P.O. Box and sucker the school if I have to. Or get the boat listed as a house, first-thing. Not a problem. --I can damn well handle this."
Miz quietly squeaked, "I can forge documents!"
"So can I," said Stan, sending her an amused look. "Save it for your brother, yeah?" He let out a snort. Miz nodded, bouncing in place, in a much better mood than before.
"...Have you even taken care of," the younger Ford glanced at him, then glanced away. "Those kids you were looking after… do they..."
"We're from the future, kinda," Stan said. "'Nother place entirely, though. They're fine there, and we can get back a couple seconds after the kids did. They'll be fine while we're gone; we won't even be gone on 'em, really," Stan explained. "It's fine. And I took care of 'em last summer, too," Stan said. "They're younger than you." The younger Ford started to protest again, this time about payin' him back, and Stan knew he was gonna keep protesting until he made it clear that--
"It ain't no big deal," Stan told them both. He looked the younger Ford in the eye. "Food, clothing, shelter, and schooling," he said simply. (He heard Ford's sharp intake of air. Yes, Ford. The same things he offered Bill.) "That's it. That's what I'm givin' you. --That ain't such a big thing, right? You're kids; you don't owe me anythin' for that." (Because that's what you give kids. The things that Stan hadn't gotten from anyone else after being kicked out of the house.) "So relax."
"But…" The younger Ford looked lost.
"But me no buts," Stan repeated, coming across maybe a little more like ma this time, because he finally got some recognition from the two of 'em for it. "Yeah?" He got a tentative pair of nods. "Yeah." Then Stan reached forward and, with a grin, messed up both of their hairdos. "C'mon, let's get you two set up for bed, yeah? Feel warm enough down here, now?" They looked around, then looked surprised, and Stan gave them a bit of a smirk as he made glad-hands at him and said, "Magic."
He glanced over at Ford, who was being all stone-faced and not-so-helpful. ...Yeah, Ford. Dealing with the kid's living situation came first. Boat and food and school and everything else.
Finding out who broke the project could come later. Stan didn't think it was all that important; not anymore, and not with everything else that was goin' on. He knew his brother thought differently. He could see the gears turning. Ford wanted to figure that one out, badly. Nothing was adding up for him here, either. ...Well, Stan would let him take a crack at it with the younger Ford later. Maybe tomorrow. But an interrogation tonight...
He sent Ford a bit of a long glare, hoping his brother got the message.
While this was all going on, Miz had started Flickering. Because she had Seen what happened HERE and then remembered that, THAT Stanford was actually… so she should probably go and check on that too. Miz frowned, eyes Flickering. Things looked similar, really similar… but something was wrong. Something was off. And she wasn't talking about the mild personality difference between the twins in that world and this...
Miz Looked closer at the saboteur… it was the same person in both but… Miz paused. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, staring. Did… she just See...
Miz sat up straighter, unhappy expression on her face. She trembled with suppressed rage. Okay, she shouldn't have been surprised. There hadn't been been any interference in this or Stan's world, but that Stanford's world? Miz buried her face in her hands and groaned. Dammit. Great. Now she couldn't be all mean to Ford. Even if Stan was innocent, and Ford had blamed him for a crime he technically (could have, there was a 50/50 chance that Stan could have actually broken the machine himself) didn't commit, even if there had been someone who broke the project in many of those other worlds… there had also been someone who had in those many cases inspired them to do so.
Miz sighed. "Hey brother?" she asked innocently, "Can I talk to you outside?" Bill rolled his head around, tired.
"...Now?" Bill asked, blinking up at her.
Miz smiled, looking perfectly calm. "It'll just be for a minute."
Bill tilted his head at her, then turned his head and over his shoulder asked, "...Stanley?"
"I'll call ya if I need your help with something, kid," Stan told him evenly. "Pretty sure we can set up the hold here without ya. Just dump everything out before you go." Bill let out a humming sound of discontent, but got up and took the two seconds (hell) to dump all the beanbag chairs and blankets and pillows and junk out of his hat (literally), before Bill made his way over to the ladder and started climbing his way up to the deck.
Stan watched all this (while he tried to ignore the exclamations from the twins at the 'magic demon hat') and he (unlike the kid) noticed that Miz was incredibly angry right then, even if she had managed to fake a 'not angry' tone. Normally, seeing her attempt a lie would be a problem, except that she'd been mad at the kid this time. Stan had no idea what was going on, but he had a feeling that if it was that bad, the dragon-lady would've yelled at the kid right then and there, and not given a damn about whoever overheard her doing it, or what about. Dragon-lady just didn't have enough self-control to do otherwise; he'd noticed that over the last few days, too.
...And if Bill hadn't been playing 'not a game' games with him here, Stan might've almost felt bad for the kid, or maybe even warned him, because Stan was pretty sure that the kid had no idea what was coming.
But hey, if the kid wanted him to know what withholding information felt like...
----
Miz waited until the hatch closed and tossed on a sound bubble just in case. She breathed deeply and turned to Bill with a frown. "What the FUCK?! You gave her the idea to break the stupid project?!" she hissed.
Bill blinked at her.
"Which 'her' and which 'project'?" Bill asked, confused as to why his sister was so mad, and at who. (Wasn't like he hadn't broken a lot of 'projects' over the years, HA!)
Miz growled. "Carla, with Stanford's project in THAT Ford's dimension." She was so angry right now. She knew Bill was an asshole, hell, SHE was also an asshole, but THIS?!
Bill tilted his head at her, tired and confused. "...Which Stanford?" he asked next. He'd messed with plenty of Stanfords in plenty of dimensions, and plenty of those messings had involved a Carla, and even sometimes a project! (He'd also observed plenty WITHOUT interfering as well, of course.)
"Any Ford that would end up blaming an INNOCENT Stanley." Miz hated it when siblings fought. For Bill to have (in a roundabout way) nudged those two brothers apart was just… awful.
"That doesn't narrow it down very much," Bill said, quite honestly. "Also: define 'innocent'?" he asked. (He felt a little tense at Miz's anger, but she hadn't been mad at him before, so…)
At Bill's words, Miz just paced around on the deck and screamed: "Well we can address THOSE later, right now I mean that Stanford downstairs who isn't the same Stanford who is that Stanley's twin!"
Bill lit up. "OH! --Yes," Bill said matter-of-factly. "I did do that." He tilted his head at her. "Why are you angry?"
Miz glared. "Because he ended up blaming and hating Stan for it! And that's--" she waved her hands around. "--that's really awful!"
"Well, don't yell at that Stanford for it," Bill told her, he thought quite reasonably. He was just happy that she'd managed to hold it in until she was able to rant to him on deck about it (thinking she was mad at that Stanford for doing the blaming and hating). "We aren't back yet, for me to fix things with Stanley's twin yet. Stanley will figure out that I messed with his 'family' before I un-mess things, if you yell at that Stanford, and that would mean he'd know that the agreement I have with him is broken-not-fixed-yet currently."
Miz huffed because Bill didn't GET IT. "But it was YOUR fault!" She buried her face in her hands and screamed. "The murder and chaos is one thing-- if they're dead then they couldn't care less, but… but they were both super sad and angry and upset for YEARS!"
Well, yes. That was one of the reasons why he tended to go for murder instead of torture; 'being dead' meant that 'they' couldn't care less -- including Bill! (The other was that whoever-it-was who was being 'tortured' couldn't escape and try and kill him again immediately if they were already dead.) Bill only made special exceptions for that sort of thing, generally. And chaos was fun!
But at the rest, Bill let out a bit of a surprised chirrup.
"'Fault'?" He looked at her oddly, then smiled. "I gave that Stanford's Carla an idea from the Carla from Stanley's dimension, and she ran with it; I didn't break it," he told her. (Was she mad at those two Carlas then?) "...But yes, fault. I would have MADE SURE that that science fair project broke in both their dimensions, yes," Bill told her, with a nod. "So you could call that 'my fault' if you want!" he said brightly, fully pleased with himself. "And yes, they felt those things for years, and other things too," Bill said. "What's your point?"
Miz hissed, spitting flames. "That's SUPER mean!" She stomped again.
Bill blinked at her. "What's mean?" (He'd thought it rather clever of him, getting that Stanford to meet Glasses that early and the both of them getting along so well. ...At least, Bill had thought that, right up until he'd realized what a problem that Glasses could be…)
"Making them hate each other over that stupid science project!" She couldn't help but think about what would have happened if a misunderstanding had made her siblings hate her for 40 years. That would… have been the WORST.
Bill blinked at her. "Yes?" Bill agreed. "That wasn't what either Carla was trying to do, though," he said slowly. She'd just been trying to get back at them individually, for the things that she had done. Making them fight each other? Hadn't even been on the menu. (Bill had a feeling that she hadn't even realized it was a possibility.)
Bill frowned, and shifted in place restively where he stood. "Why are you so mad?" Bill asked her again, still not realizing that she was mad at him (...though he was starting to feel a bit uneasy, and maybe a little concerned, at her ongoing anger).
Miz groaned. "You knew that if the project broke, and Ford blamed Stan, that they would hate each other, right?" She tried to rein in her temper.
Bill tilted his head at her. "If they were brothers, they would talk," he told her reasonably. "If that Stanford knew what being an older brother ACTUALLY meant, then he would NOT have kicked his twin to the curb. And they would have talked. Stan wanted to talk; Stanley wanted to talk," he told her. "'Ford and that Stanford did not want to talk. They wanted to hate and blame, instead."
Miz sighed. She understood where Bill was coming from. That Ford was just an awful brother who never bothered to realize that he WASN'T the goddamn center of the universe with his stupid 'oh woe is me, everything sucks and it's all someone else's fault' thing going on, but… "But you kick-started that. You made sure it would happen," and she slumped tiredly against the side of a railing, her anger burning out. "You know what? I don't care anymore. You're ALL a bunch of idiots," she muttered. Both sets of Stans and Fords and all the others that existed who never put aside their damn prides and broken egos to actually talk to each other like human beings--
Bill frowned slightly. "Of course I made it happen. I'm not an idiot. I needed that Stanford here-- ...well, there with Stanley and the rest of my Zodiac, so that I could get out," he told her, walking over to sit next to her on the railing himself. "Why would you not care about that?" It left Bill feeling a little odd.
"I know you needed him there. I know you had your reasons for breaking the project. I know. I'm just… I'm mad that it had to happen." Miz rubbed her eyes. "But I don't want to stay angry at you. So I decided I wouldn't care anymore. I don't like being mad at you."
Bill blinked at her, then shivered in place. His little sister had been mad… AT HIM? "I don't like you being mad at me," Bill said, and she'd said she wasn't wanting to stay mad at him... "But… what are you not caring about anymore?" He was very confused and worried at this point. Because, if it was something important enough for Miz to be mad at him, then… "I didn't BREAK you, did I?" He felt a little uncomfortable at the thought. Bill didn't want her to stop caring about him. That would make her not his sister anymore. Bill shifted uneasily from side to side.
"I'm not caring about you putting the idea to break the project into Carla's head. It happened, it's done. We're past that." Miz sighed.
"...I put lots of ideas in people's heads about breaking lots of things," Bill said slowly, the idea slowly occurring to him that… what if there were OTHER things she would be mad at him about if she knew about them like Liam would be?? "I like breaking Rules," Bill told her, and Miz nodded.
"I know. And it kinda annoys me but…" She nuzzled into his side. "I'm not going to stop liking you just because of that," she assured him.
Well, not stopping liking him was good, in Bill's opinion! But Bill still didn't understand why she'd gotten mad at him in the first place. "It is that one idea into that one head that you didn't like? Or more of them?" Bill said, trying to narrow this down. He was very tired, but he still wanted to know! Right then! Making his little sister mad without understanding why (or explaining why) didn't seem like a very good big brotherly sort of thing to do, to him...
"Oh there are plenty of things. Mainly anything that ends up making people hate people that they shouldn't hate. But these are case by case things." Miz sighed, feeling tired as her anger subsided.
"But I didn't make that Stanford hate that Stanley," Bill said. "That Stanford decided that, all on his own." Bill frowned. "I don't understand," Bill said, confused. "I thought you liked free will?"
"But he DIDN'T decide that all on his own," Miz said tiredly. "Didn't you know they would hate each other?" she sounded a little confused.
Bill blinked at her. "I saw that Stanford hate his twin as it happened, because he thought of himself as just his family, not actually a brother," he told Miz. "That Stanford didn't hate his twin for too long after his twin was kicked out, though?" Bill offered. "And… I don't think that Stanley ever hated his twin; he just got mad… and hurt?" Bill wasn't entirely certain on that one; he'd been in Stanley's mind twice, but he hadn't gotten a good look around at EVERYTHING he might've wanted to look at the first time, and the second...?
Miz sighed. "If you didn't know, then I can't blame you for it. But that Stanford and Stan would definitely do so," she groaned. Ford would be really mad. Blame Bill even though technically, it HAD been Ford who had 'decided' to hate Stan.
Bill, still frowning, looked away from Miz. He was thinking hard. And then his eyes rapidly flicked from side-to-side just a hair, and he said, suddenly, "You thought I wanted them to hate each other." He slowly turned his head towards her. His eyes jittered from side to side again. "...But you think it's okay, because you think it had to happen?" That wasn't… funny. It was… maybe barely hilarious. Or very. Very hilarious. (Bill rubbed his right hand against his right temple. So tired.)
Miz sighed. "I thought you knew they would hate each other and had been counting on that. But now I know you didn't know. And now I feel bad for suspecting that you would. I'm sorry." She slumped against his side. "And you NEEDED your Sixer to go where you needed him to go. So I can understand why you did your thing."
"I needed both dimensions as close to each other as possible in the events that occurred," Bill explained, relaxing slightly in place, because being understood was good. "It would have been too complicated to handle things otherwise. Too much divergence." And after that Stanford had told him he was going to stop him… having that Stanford end up in the dimension with the rest of his Zodiac had been a must, yes, but having that Stanford not realize that he was in a different dimension than his home had been essential, too. Because if that Stanford had realized that Bill had needed him there in order to get out… he wouldn't have torn down the portal; that Stanford would have tried to repair it and gone right back through it instead! And Bill DIDN'T KNOW what would have happened if that Stanford had tried to…
Bill shook his head, and let out a tired huff of breath. "--I was trying to understand what needed to happen as things happened, in order for me to get out," Bill told her. "Those two dimensions were SO different from the rest." It had been confusing. Not least of which because the rest of the five-fingered Stanfords just… hadn't been the same as those two six-fingered Stanfords AT ALL! "There was something about those two dimensions that was DIFFERENT, that needed to stay the SAME for me to be able to GET OUT. More of my Zodiac were in the one, so I tried to make that Stanford's dimension match it as close as I could! I tried some things out there first," Bill said. "Because it wasn't as close, and it wasn't as important; it only had one of my Zodiac members in it. But… I couldn't keep everything synchronized PERFECTLY." They just… hadn't been quite the same to begin with. So that hadn't been possible.
Miz nodded. "Having multiple dimensions is confusing." She still got them all mixed up.
"Try trying to control multiple dimensions without being able to impact any of them DIRECTLY," Bill said with no small annoyance, kicking a foot at the deck of the boat. "Or don't, and avoid having to ENTIRELY. If you can," he told her warningly.
Miz nodded, the initial anger had faded. Bill hadn't known. He hadn't realized Stanford would end up holding a grudge on Stan over this for years. And he'd been trapped and desperate. She sighed. "Okay… I think I'm okay now." She pressed against Bill's side. "Why does life have to be so complicated?"
"Because the stupid lizard is stupid and made it that way," Bill complained promptly. "--Why do you think I want to break all the Rules and FIX things?" He still felt a bit off somehow. "...Why did you think I would want them to hate each other?" he asked of her next. "I needed them alive and apart and that Stanford in the right dimension after, not dead-together..." Humans who hated each other either killed each other, or made each other wish they were dead until they killed each other. So why had his little sister thought he'd wanted that? (She DID understand what hate was, didn't she?) Maneuvering his Zodiac into killing each other… it made no sense. Any of his Zodiac dying before he got out would have left him trapped FOREVER. --It really made no sense to him.
Miz sighed. "One of the other Bills I saw was like that. The one who had loved his own Ford so much he wanted to have him all for himself. He had manipulated that Ford into pushing all others away… so that Ford would have no one to rely on emotionally but him... I know you're not him, but I get confused sometimes. And that's why I'm sorry."
Bill frowned, then made a face. Who could she have POSSIBLY gotten him confused with?! --HE didn't 'love' that Stanford! That was a sick raw biological urge that was just-- just-- BLEH!
Bill shook his head, still-grimacing. "I need my Zodiac to work together," Bill said. "With me. --That won't happen if they hate each other, or are dead," he informed Miz calmly. Because clearly she did not understand how his Zodiac worked… and he supposed those other-Bills who were not him must have very differently-functioning Zodiac, if what he'd read from the idiot-trio on that other transdimensional blog had been any indication… burning down somebody's home... Bill shuddered slightly at the memory of what he'd read. (...Maybe they had been lying in their writing? It hadn't felt that way...)
Miz nodded. "Yeah, I get that now." She closed her eyes. "Well, what happens now? Do you still need your Zodiac together and stuff?"
Bill pulled a face. "Stanley is enough," he said. "I could… maybe do it without the rest of them," Bill said, "But it would take so much longer and…" Bill let out a long slow breath in a sigh. "It's better if they're all alive and on my side," Bill told her, then paused. "...Or all alive and on Stanley's side, which is also… a side I am on. ...The same side?" Bill said, almost hesitantly.
"Yeah. You're on Stanley's side." Miz nodded. "I'm glad. You have Stanley. You're not alone."
"Yes, I--" Bill blinked. "...Alone?" Miz nodded.
"You have Stanley. And you have me." She relaxed against his side. "I didn't have anyone but Ax for a very long time. But I have you now."
"Yes, you have me," Bill said, raising a hand to lay it atop her head. "And I have you now! And…" Bill trailed off. Then Bill pulled in a breath and looked resolute. "And I will have Stanley PROPERLY once I fix things and un-mess-with his twin. ...And then everything will be just fine," Bill ended quietly.
Miz was quiet as she thought. "Stanley might not understand, at first. He might get mad and need time to think about it." Because he wouldn't be happy to learn that his twin had been dead all this time. That his own Ford had been vaporized by the portal as he fell into it. "He might even blame himself…" because Stan already blamed himself for pushing his twin into the portal. Finding out that he hadn't just been sent away into the multiverse, but had been killed? Poor Stanley would probably feel awful.
"You underestimate Stanley," Bill told her. "He will recognize his twin. --And he will be happy to have him back!" Bill said. "And with the way I will need to do the rollback," Bill told her, "He won't even remember dying! It will be fine."
Miz nodded but she still mentioned "And what if Stan blames himself for pushing his twin into the portal and killing him?"
Bill blinked at her.
"Stanley didn't kill him," Bill said, "The portal did. And I had to choose," he told her. "Sixer, or 'Ford. They both hit their event horizons of their portals at the same frozen moment of time," at least from HIS side of the connection. "I could only save one." Neither portal had been stable enough for either of them to pass through safely -- not without Bill's intervention -- and Bill had only one Eye to See what he needed to See to handle the forces properly and react in time. Bill had only been able to focus on and stabilize and hold one portal at a time from his destabilized end; he couldn't have managed both at the SAME time -- and if he'd tried to do that, he'd have ended up with neither. And if he'd saved 'Ford instead of Sixer, Bill NEVER would have gotten out. Ever.
To Bill, it had been a very simple and straightforward choice.
(But now that he was out and on the other side of it…)
Miz let out a bitter smile. "The portal killed him. But Stan pushed him in. Stan would blame himself. Because he still blames himself for pushing his brother in, even after all this."
"Ah, but his twin will be alive!" Bill pointed out brightly. "And Stanley will not know that he was ever dead until AFTER he is alive again! So he won't be able to be sad and hurt, like Shooting Star talked about with Pine Tree," Bill said, feeling very proud of himself for figuring that connection out! "Also, Stanley is smarter than that. He won't feel hurt at his brother being dead, when his brother is alive! And pushing his brother in was an accident; Stanley didn't mean to do that," Bill pointed out. "Stanley understands accidents. --No penalty needed! I will be fixing it for him COMPLETELY, so it will be fixed, so no penalty for him!"
Miz knew Bill wouldn't understand; emotions were irrational. Feeling bad would happen whether or not one could understand what the physical, objective truth was. Truth was relative anyway. But maybe Bill was right, maybe Stanley would be okay. She was finding that she just couldn't understand the motives behind these people. Humans were so much more complicated than the aliens she'd grown used to over the years. So she nodded. "Alright. As long as it's fixed. And Stanley can be with his twin again." She considered it. "Maybe I'm just projecting again," because that might have been it again. Because she hadn't MEANT to eat Will, but she still blamed herself for it. That and more.
"Projecting what?" Bill asked her, then blinked. "Projecting a thing you think and feel… onto Stanley? To do with… 'Ford?" It had had to do with that Stanford last time. "What thing are you projecting?
"That fact that I still blame myself for Will's death, even though it was an accident. They hadn't MEANT to shoot him, but he still died. And I keep on thinking about how I had built the weapon that killed him. And blame myself for it."
Bill blinked. (And swayed a little in place.) And blinked.
"...But 'Ford built the portal that killed him?" Bill said slowly. That didn't seem like the same thing. And then Bill frowned. "I told-- wrote to you," Bill told her. "That WASN'T your FAULT." Bill looked frustrated. "That-- that makes no sense," he complained. "That would be like-- like--" He searched his own memories for a comparison. "--Like me blaming MYSELF for my dimension burning down!" he told her, splaying a hand across his chest. "That wasn't my fault!" he protested.
Miz nodded. "My logical part knows that, but my emotional part is still sad…" she trailed off. So Bill didn't blame himself? Well, maybe it was better for him not to, guilt was a painful heavy feeling that she wouldn't want anyone else to suffer with, not like she did. She'd been holding onto this guilt for eons.
"That doesn't--" Bill made a frustrated noise. "Why be SAD when you can be ANGRY INSTEAD?" he asked her, eyes blinking open, then closed again. "Just-- get mad at THEM!" he told her, sitting up straight abruptly, eyes snapping open, then slowly lowering, then opening again. "THEY killed him! Not YOU!"
Miz shrugged. She felt exhausted, emotionally. "I can't stay angry for that long. It makes me tired and then I get sad again anyway." She had a quick temper, fast to cone and quick to go. It'd always been like that. "Besides, they're all dead. I have no one left to blame but myself."
"Being DEAD doesn't mean you can't blame them," Bill told her, swaying in place. His hands clenched then loosened around the railing. Miz sighed. "I can blame them. And then I get mad. But I can't stay mad. It's not something I'm good at doing." She could hold a grudge, but that wasn't the same as anger.
"But staying mad is simple," Bill told her. "You just get angry, and get angrier, and get so so angry, and then you scream forever," he told her, his eyelids dipping low. "You just scream and scream and scream and… and you… you scream… and..." Bill trailed off, his chin lowering slightly.
"... and then you get tired. And then you'd get sad." Miz whispered. "That's what happened with me. I got sick of being angry and sad and tired. I just… wanted to be happy. It's not wrong to want to be happy, right?"
Bill's body slumped in place, eyes closed.
And then he slowly fell backwards off of the railing.
Miz's eyes widened. "Bill?!" She looked over, already casting 'Feather Fall' before she lost sight of him. And yes, it was nerdy to set up Curses that had the effects of spells from D&D but it was easy!
The spell caught and held, and slowed Bill enough that the tumble into and down the small sand dune that he hit below wouldn't have left him the worse for wear, even without his protective bodysuit on. Miz sighed in relief before floating up and over and down to kneel by his side. "Brother?"
He had come to a stop face-down in the sand of the beach below. He wasn't moving. Miz slowly turned him onto his back. "Brother?" she asked again, scanning his body for what was wrong.
Bill twitched slightly when she laid hands on him, but otherwise didn't respond. His breathing was a bit off, but his body was overall loose-limbed, and his eyes were closed, and...
Miz sighed. He was asleep. Well, she was still worried but heck, he did say he was tired down in the hold. Miz smiled wryly. Well, might as well get him back inside, she was curious what Stan was saying to the kids. Miz levitated him into the air, Bill didn't like being touched or feeling gravity so maybe he would be more comfortable this way?
Bill let out a soft unconscious sigh, and his body relaxed completely at the removal of local-relative gravity surrounding him. (Just like he'd floated in his 'Nightmare Realm' for hundreds of billions of years.)
Miz smiled. She wanted to give him a small kiss on the cheek, the way she tucked in her children to bed, but he might not like that. Miz floated the two of them back up and opened the hatch to the hold telekinetically. She shifted the sound dampening barrier she'd tossed up earlier to wrap around just him, so his sleep wouldn't be interrupted, and she climbed back down. She put it around just his ears, so his suit would still be able to record stuff for later. Also set it to stop as soon as Bill woke up.
------
Stan looked up as Miz came back down into the hold, and nearly did a double-take.
"...Did you knock the kid out?" Stan asked slowly, carefully, and quietly. (Quietly, because he'd just gotten the kids settled down for the night; they'd been out like a light almost, curled up together.) He didn't like to think of what it might mean if they'd gotten into a fight up there and the kid had lost… (Ford was staring, assessing, and had a hand on one of his sci-fi guns.)
Miz sighed. "We talked and then he fell asleep." She paused. "Not sure what would happen if we fought." She thought about it. "I don't want to fight him. I don't like fighting."
"Yeah, uh," Stan didn't know about that, but sure. He didn't think the dragon-lady was lying to him, at least. "I don't want to know what would happen if you did that, either." And he didn't really want to find out. "And I'm pretty sure the kid doesn't want to fight you, too," Stan told her, then looked around. "Maybe set the kid down over there?" Stan pointed out a far corner of the hold that was a little more flat than the rest. (They'd laid a couple blankets down over there for the demons. His and Ford's own were in the middle of the hold, near the stairs, between the 'demon' area and the pair of seventeen-year-old twins. Just in case.)
Miz nodded and floated Bill over to hover above the ground. He seemed so peaceful that she didn't want to put him down. "So what's been happening down here? Have you all hugged out your feelings?"
Stan and Ford exchanged a glance at the 'hugged it out'. It felt really weird, hearing it from somebody other than Mabel. "Yeah, uh… not so much on the hugging everything out between us," Stan told her, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. They'd both been a little preoccupied with the twins.
"--Set Bill down," said Ford, to her, looking agitated. Miz looked at him and slowly shook her head. "He's more comfortable like this."
Ford clenched his jaw, then tried to relax it a bit. It took effort. "Human bodies are not meant to sleep or live in microgravity environments," he informed her.
"Astronauts do it. And the ones who return to Earth say they have trouble adjusting to gravity again. Bill spent billions of years in a zero-gravity environment. Floating is more comfortable for him." Miz pointed out matter of factly.
Ford looked more than a little frustrated with her. He clenched his jaw. Then he turned to his brother. "--Stanley," he said, "Have you ever seen Bill floating in his sleep, even once?"
Stan frowned between them. "No, but… the kid's more comfortable floating?" Stan asked Miz, feeling a little confused. Because sure, the kid had talked about hating gravity, but--
Miz nodded. "He relaxed the instant I levitated him." Stan was frowning. "Okay. --Not seeing the big deal here, Ford." Ford let out a huff of breath. "--That isn't the point, Stanley!" he hissed out under his breath.
"Then what is the point?" Miz pouted. Because what she was thinking right now was that Ford just wanted Bill to sleep uncomfortably. And that seemed too petty even for him.
Ford sent a glare her way. "The point," Ford said, "Is that Bill has not been floating in his sleep," Ford informed him. "And you have walked in on him at least once upstairs in the attic, correct?" Ford asked of Stan, who nodded, then blinked as it occurred to him what his brother was getting at. "He could have cast a 'floating' spell on himself when he was upstairs easily -- but he didn't," Ford told the human demon. "Bill has consistently not done that. --Set him down. Now."
Miz slowly lowered Bill gently to the ground. "Oh, I just thought he hadn't thought of it. I often don't think of things that are obvious."
"There is no time that Bill would not think of floating as a viable option, whether it actually is one or not," Ford muttered out at her. And Ford watched her the entire time that she lowered him, and he pulled in a breath slowly and let it out just as slowly after she'd finally done it. (He relaxed infinitesimally once she'd finished doing it and let go of Bill.)
Miz watched Bill to see if he was alright, she'd made sure none of his limbs were overlapping, like he usually slept upstairs in the attic and had slept out on the roof, that she'd seen those last few nights.
Bill let out a huff and a soft grumble in his sleep, resituating himself slightly, then stopped moving again, except for the rise and fall of his chest. Miz wasn't sure if that looked comfortable but to each their own. She turned back to the men. "Ok. Now what?" she gestured to the younger twins. "Have you figured out what happened?"
Stan sighed. "Ford got kicked out. Which you already know." Miz nodded.
"Do you need Bill or me to rewind time so you can stop the project from breaking?" Miz asked, and Stan frowned at her.
"No," Stan told her. "We ain't rewindin' or undoin' anything. We're gonna work with what we have now and fix things." Trying to mess with time had gotten the niblings bounced and in trouble in the first place, and Stan hadn't liked the sound of those 'nonlinear time loop' things any of the times the kid had ever brought them up.
To Stan's surprise, Miz looked relieved. "I'm willing to help out in any way I can."
Stan narrowed his eyes at her. "You don't like the idea of undoing this?"
Miz blushed. "Rolling back time would be annoying. There are fixed points and stuff." She paused before adding, "Ask Pine Tree how many times he hit Wendy in the face with a ball until he won her a stuffed…" Miz trailed off, a weird look of realization on her face. "Quackers?"
Stan blinked at the dragon-lady when Miz seemed to go off and get lost in her own thoughts. ...Well, it didn't seem important. The other thing she mentioned might be. Fixed points? The hell did that mean? And who had 'fixed' them?
Stan shook his head. "Well, 'case you weren't listenin' before, me and Ford are gonna be takin' care of both of 'em -- and your brother," Stan added for good measure. "And you, while you're here. Unless you wanna go back to the other dimension to be with the kids?" Stan asked, and Ford sent him a glare.
Miz shook her head. "I'd rather stay here with brother, wherever he is," she explained. Then Miz seemed to realize what Stan had said about taking care of them and she smiled. "I guess you're adopting more kids?" she grinned, making a reference to Stan's cover story of adopting Bill.
Stan blinked. "Uh, no. But I'm gonna be their guardian," he shrugged. "Get 'em on their feet before we go. Make sure they've got someplace to live and enough money to fall back on that they won't have any problems later." Not like they'd have any family to rely on if they needed it, Stan thought dourly. And who the hell knew what was gonna happen with Shermie now...
Miz smile was positively blinding. When Stan stared at her in confusion, she simply said. "You're a good man." She tilted her head. "And you're fixing it." Miz relaxed. "Good." She seemed much calmer than she'd been when she first entered the boat. Then she yawned. "Well. Does that mean these two--" she pointed at the twins, sleeping mostly peacefully now, "--are gonna be staying here with us tonight?"
Stan looked over. "Yeah. And every night they need to until they want to sleep someplace else, if I've got anythin' to say about it."
The younger twins had still been a little upset by all the ups and downs of the day, but they'd fallen asleep quickly enough once Stan had finally gotten them to lie down on the closest thing to an actual bed that they could set up there. The two of 'em had both been exhausted.
...They were gonna be okay, though. They were together. That was what mattered the most. The Kings of New Jersey, lookin' out for each other. Nothin' could stop 'em if they stuck together and...
...then Miz ruined the happy mood by asking, "How about just one eye?" (Stan groaned. Damn dragon lady.)
"What," Ford said flatly, too tired to connect the reference to what she'd said earlier, though correctly pegging it as a threat, at least.
"One sec…" Stan said to Ford, then he turned and stared Miz down, thinking of how he wanted to handle this, before gesturing over to another (empty) corner of the hold. "Miz. Corner, now. And put up one of those perception thingies so nobody else hears us." The dragon blinked and followed him as he made his way over...
----
Stan was not happy with Miz just then, and it looked like Miz could tell. She sighed. "Fine." She said before Stan could even open his mouth. "Messing with their dad would technically be messing with your family, I get it." She didn't sound any happier than Stan felt. "I'm just mad, at what he did and at this whole situation in general." She folded her arms with a huff. "I'm not all that happy with brother either."
Well, that, Stan sort of knew. After all, she'd taken the kid up with her on deck for whatever discussion they might have had. Still, Stan glared at her. "And do you know why you can't take out his eyes, aside from the fact that it'd be messin' with my family?" Stan quizzed her. He kinda hoped she did know; otherwise, they'd have a problem on their hands.
Miz frowned. "Because it's not nice to do something like that to anyone, even if you're mad at them…"
"Especially if you're mad at someone," Stan stressed. "It ain't right; you know that, don't you?" (Even the mob didn't pull shit like that for a reason.) And from the guilty look Miz got, it told Stan that she did. --Hell. That frustrated Stan even more. At least the kid didn't actually know right from wrong half the time -- or at least, the kid's sense of what was right and wrong was pretty messed up. Kid tried to do what he thought was 'right', even if the kid didn't usually call it that. But if Miz knew it was wrong, and was still wanting to do that...
"I'm just mad at him. And it's not like I'll actually act on it… not here, not while I'm a guest…" Miz mumbled, and that had Stan glaring at her -- wasn't like he didn't catch the two 'exceptions' there. He was about to call her on it when she said, "Even Gray waited until I was able to support myself before he disowned me…" ...Hell. He was too tired for this.
Stan frowned and ran a hand across his face. "Who's Gray?" Stan asked, not really wanting to know, and he saw Miz scowl.
"My triangle father."
Oh. Oh, goddamnit. Stan sighed deeply. Not this shit again. "...So, you're just projectin' again?" Miz nodded, looking like she'd swallowed something sour. Stan rubbed a hand across his face. "Right…" So her triangle dad had disowned her, too, on top of everything else. Great. (...Probably something to do with the 'not being perfect' thing that she'd mentioned before. And that meant that seeing Filbrick do it to his own son had hit a nerve with her.)
"Fine, that sucks. But Flibrick ain't your Grey, and I'm supportin' them, so support ain't a problem. So you ain't gonna go taking junk out on everybody else that you want to actually take out on your Grey, instead. Right?" Stan said leadingly but harshly.
Miz looked only vaguely guilty as she nodded. "I'm angry right now, but I can't stay angry for long on my own. Never been good at that. I'll probably be over this by tomorrow." She groaned and rubbed her face. Stan let out another sigh.
"Well, you're stayin' here tonight, and not pullin' anything either," he said quellingly. "And you let me know how you're feelin' about this junk in the mornin'." Hell, it was probably a good thing that Miz apparently couldn't stay angry for very long (however the hell 'long' was for her, which Stan was also gonna have to ask after. In the mornin'). Because with the dragon-lady's lack of self-control, if she'd been more like her brother, who was apparently 'always screaming' and angry...
Stan stared at Miz, unimpressed. "Don't talk about it right out in front of the kids, though. Get me, get my permission to go around castin' stuff wherever we are, and put up a sound barrier like this one again, first," he grunted out. She nodded. Stan sighed as he talked her into dropping the sound barrier again and going off to sleep with her brother, while he walked his way over to lie down and sleep next to his. They were gonna have to talk about this more tomorrow, sure. But for now, it was late, and he needed some sleep to be able to make sure that the boys didn't try and pull a fast one on him, to try and skip school the next day.
If they were gonna graduate, and that young Ford was gonna make it into a halfway-decent college, they couldn't afford to miss anymore days.
---