-LOVE is your sick raw biological urge to reproduce trying to dress up in a suit and charm its way through the opera!-(Part 2)

(There is racism and punishment for being racist in this chapter, probably only Sixer will be racist in this book)

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Miz frowned. She wasn't entirely sure how to tackle that one. She glanced over at Bill, but he remained silent, seeming almost disinterested in the conversation at this point. "It is bad that Lee doesn't want to learn as much as he can. But sports aren't frivolous learning. A Stan from another timeline I've visited became a professional football player and he was doing well for himself, rich, successful, loving fiancee and even started his own company." Lee's eyes widened. "But he was prompted to do that by his brother, who encouraged him to stay in sports and work harder on it, try out different sports and find one that he was good enough at to do professionally, and go to college as a business major as a fallback in case things didn't work out on the football side." She kept out the part that it was Seb and not Ford who'd gotten Stan to pursue his hobbies. "So I'm sure Lee could do well if he applied himself, but currently, he just doesn't have the motivation to do so." Lee shrunk in on himself and Miz reached out to pat his shoulder. "Look, I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I know you can do better."

"Lee isn't interested in football," Sixer told her. "What he wants to do is either boxing or wrestling. Boxing is too dangerous; I'm not going to encourage my twin to have his brains beaten out until the point that he's no longer my brother due to the head injuries. Football also has the same problems; one wrong fall and you're out, or worse. And even if Lee had expressed an interest in it, getting seen by a recruiter at the right time for college football leaves far too much up to chance," and it was far too late now for him to try and join the school team here, even if Lee suddenly wanted to go that route. Sixer sighed. "Competitive wrestling doesn't make enough money, or garner enough fame to his satisfaction. And, as I said before," Sixer repeated, "Lee doesn't listen to me when I tell him an education is important! I don't know what that other Stanley is like, but clearly he listened to his twin when he told him to go off and get a business degree." Sixer shot Lee a dark look. (Lee winced, hunched his shoulders, and tried to focus on his essay.) "You seem to be able to threaten Lee into doing his work; perhaps you can convince him that getting an education of some sort is a good idea," Sixer said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, glaring at Lee all the while.

"Well," Miz turned to Lee. "The older Stan wants Lee to at least get his diploma to start." She paused and then realized she would have to run some damage control. She patted Lee's shoulder gently. "Look, Lee, going to school won't mean giving up on the boat. You can always graduate college and then go off sailing. Stan regrets what he had to go through. He doesn't expect you to go to college, but there's nothing wrong with trying harder to learn more." (Lee shifted in place uneasily at this.) Should she tell him? Well, it might help to give the twins some perspective.

Miz sighed. "The older Stan had to teach himself advanced mechanical engineering and physics from books in order to fix the portal and find Ford. He didn't have schooling, he didn't have a teacher, he had one third of the blueprints and the motivation of wanting his brother back. And he taught himself how to build an interdimensional portal and a genetic scanner to track down 'Ford Pines'." Miz told them seriously. "All on his own." She made a disgruntled face. "And somehow he still thinks he's stupid, even when he's clearly not," she complained. "He can make over $1000 within 10 minutes and still think that he's an idiot. Because he was called 'stupid' all his life and he's stuck thinking of himself that way." It was so frustrating! Miz folded her arms. "Stan is not stupid." She repeated. "And you're not stupid either. But you're unmotivated. And as a muse, I don't like seeing you waste your potential." She paused. "It took Stan 30 years to fix the portal, because he didn't get an education. I'm certainly hoping your Ford doesn't get lost in space, but you shouldn't have to end up in that situation."

Lee was amazed at what the older him could do, but that still didn't mean that… "Look, I'm--"

"If you're about to call yourself stupid, don't." (Lee winced. That... actually hadn't been what he'd been about to--) And Miz barreled on. "If you do something dumb, you can call yourself dumb for doing that dumb thing because everyone can do dumb things sometimes, but in general? You're not stupid, no matter what your brother has told you. You're perfectly capable of learning, which means you're not dumb." Miz snapped. "But you could stand to try a little harder. You're better off than plenty of kids who want to learn and don't have this chance you do. You shouldn't waste it."

Lee blinked. "Uh… well… I was just gonna say that… uh… that..." He glanced over at Sixer, took in a breath…

...and chickened out, looking away from Sixer. "...I'm not that other Stan," Lee said instead. "Even if he could do it, don't mean that I can." He felt a little weird about the expectation that Miz had for him. Even if the older Stan had managed something like that, it had still took him thirty years, right? Hell, if he'd had thirty years to try and fix some portal-thing that Sixer had made… well, was that kinda woo-woo science stuff really all that hard? ...Maybe he couldn't? "It's not like I can do everything that the old-man me can." Miz frowned as she heard part of the other thought that Lee wasn't saying -- that he had stopped trying because Sixer got upset when Lee got better grades than him in anything, and so, Lee had stopped trying altogether, so that he wouldn't get in his brother's way. Which was unfair as fuck. And she had already gotten upset at the older Stan for thinking this way too.

"Well, you'll be better off than he was. You aren't left all alone to take care of yourself with no help like he was. And you can learn whatever you want, do as well as you want. You don't have to--" Miz sighed. She'd talk to Lee in private later. "You can do better, so you should try. And don't let anything hold you back from doing so." (Lee looked uncomfortable at this.) Miz told him before turning back to Sixer, and then a determined look overtook her features as she said loudly, firmly and clearly, while looking at Sixer, "You're allowed to be smart too."

Lee glanced between Miz and his twin, not really sure what she was getting at -- of course Sixer was smart? He didn't really get why Miz might think he was smart, but that Sixer might not be? --That seemed really off to him. But Miz was looking very firm on this subject, so Lee kept his stupid mouth shut on that one.

Miz told Sixer, "And you, please stop calling your own brother stupid. It's mean, demeaning, untrue and very rude. It's fine to say it as a joke or when you're teasing, but you're not joking, you actually think he's stupid, and that's not nice. It makes Lee think that he shouldn't even try. Part of the reason why he doesn't make an effort is because he's so used to the idea of being stupid that he thinks he shouldn't bother to do better." Which made Lee frown and Sixer glanced over at his twin with a complicated expression.

"But it's true," Sixer repeated. "I just told you why."

Miz glared. "Not according to Einstein." She said simply. "Einstein once said that it's not about what you don't know but about what you do know. And what you're capable of knowing." Miz said, making Sixer jolt in place. "And Lee knows people. He's pretty good at it. And he's perfectly capable of learning more stuff, he just doesn't have the motivation to do so." she glanced at Lee. Then she poked her finger at the English homework he should be doing.

"Not seeing the importance of learning is stupid," Sixer said, sticking to his guns.

"Look--" Lee started to cut in.

"You said it yourself that you think people less smart should support those who are more smart. Lee thought he should support you. And stopped trying to do any learning himself--" Miz was very upset by this whole fucked up situation.

"--Hey!" Lee said, cutting in. He didn't know how the dragon-demon knew that, but-- "Look, I know all that education stuff is important, okay?" he said, trying to move this thing someplace maybe a little less bad. "Sixer wants to do it for a living, or whatever, and that's fine. I just... don't. It's not for me, sitting behind some kinda desk and staring at navels all day or writing a zillion things down on paper and stuff. Okay? I want to go out and actually do stuff," Lee told her. "Like, y'know, treasure hunting? Sailing?" He liked doing physical stuff. "I don't need a bunch of homework-school stuff for that," he said. It wasn't like he hadn't looked up a couple things at the library about boats, to repair the Stan O' War, to figure out the supplies he'd need, and how sailing worked, and all the rest of that… "Sixer can just… ransack the libraries everyplace we go, and stick around in the cabin doing his navel-staring and equation-ing, if he wants to. That's fine," Lee told her. "Learning just ain't for me."

"That's a lie. You don't have to learn the same things that Sixer does. And sailing and treasure hunting require specialized education. You already know that. It's why you went and learned how to fix up the boat, the knots for ropes, how to navigate…" Miz sighed. "That's learning! That is STILL learning. It's just different learning. And if you KNOW how to do that, then you're NOT stupid and you need to stop thinking about yourself as such!"

"Wait." Sixer was frowning at Lee now. "...You've actually been taking the boat seriously? The whole 'adventuring' thing?" He'd thought Lee was just… doing it as a hobby. That he'd kept on doing it, even enlisted a bit of his help for some of it last summer, just as an excuse to spend some time with him, and to get him out of the house and out into the sun...

"Well, yeah," Lee said, kind of surprised that his brother was surprised by this. "I mean, we've been talkin' about doing this for years…" He trailed off, making it almost a question. He'd thought… well, Sixer had never said that he didn't want to do it? And Sixer had never talked about wanting to do anything else...

"Lee…" Sixer rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "'Treasure hunting' isn't a realistic career goal…" He looked up at his brother, feeling pained at the shocked and suddenly-uncertain look on his twin's face. "Gold doubloons aren't just lying around on some desert island somewhere, waiting for you to pick them up…" Sixer straightened, and fixed his glasses. "If they were, then someone else would have found them long before you," he informed his twin.

Miz could see Lee's mood worsening as the shock and despair set in. And then Lee shook it off.

"Okay," Lee said, nodding at his brother, "But then why do we keep hearin' about people finding treasure and stuff in the news every so often, if it's all gone?"

"That isn't-- Lee, those are from undersea wrecks," Sixer said, knowing what his brother was talking about. Lee had always shown him the articles. "If we were going to do that, we'd need undersea diving equipment, as a start. And we'd have to find a good way to map out all of the potential as-yet unfound wrecks, and try to predict their movement and their most-likely locations, to determine where to go--"

Lee slapped his hands together and pointed at Sixer. "--See!" he said with a happy smile. "That's why you've gotta be the brains of the outfit!" he grinned. His grin dimmed a little after awhile though, because Sixer wasn't smiling back.

"Lee. I'm not going sailing with you," Sixer said, frowning slightly. He still could hardly believe that his twin had really thought that...

"But…" Lee said. Then he frowned. "Sixer, what are you thinkin' you're gonna do instead?" Lee said realistically.

"I'm going to college," Sixer said simply. "Since West Coast Tech didn't work out, I'll have to look into others."

"College costs money," Lee said slowly. "Money that we don't got." Their pa had even scoffed at the idea of paying for college before.

"I can apply for a scholarship, I'm more than smart enough to ace the tests for that."

Lee frowned further. "But the teachers said… that was all back in January, wasn't it?"

"I… may have applied to a few, back then," Sixer said, curling his fingers under his palms, looking vaguely shifty as he said it.

Lee blinked at him. "But pa said--" Lee stopped. Pa had never really stopped either of them from doing something they'd wanted to do before. "The applications had those fees. $20 a pop. Where did you--" then Lee stopped, and his eyebrows went up as Sixer looked even shiftier. "Sixer… those books that you got outta the library, that I was askin' you where your mail-order copies were from--"

"--Yes, fine; I lied about that to get the money from him to use," Sixer grimaced.

Lee sat where he was and stared at his brother, who was still looking all uncomfortable and shifty at... what he'd managed to pull off right under their pa's nose.

"Damn," Lee said. Then he started to grin. "Heh. I'm impressed." Sixer colored. "I mean," Lee said, propping his elbow up, and his head on his fist, grinning, "You even had those packages come in the mail to the house?" Lee asked him.

Sixer adjusted his glasses half-nervously, still blushing. "I kept the old packaging material," he said. "Empty boxes cost far less postage to mail when paying by the pound," he told his brother. "And no-one ever pays attention to the return addresses, just the mail-to address, at the post office."

Lee let out a laugh of delight. "You actually pulled one over on our old man!" Lee crowed out. "And me!" Except… Lee's jubilation faded as he realized what this all actually meant.

"Shit," said Lee. "Sixer-- the letters are gonna go to the house--"

"I paid for a P.O. Box," Sixer told him promptly.

"--and we don't got the money to pay for college for you--"

"Merit-based scholarships," Sixer said next.

"--I don't think I can handle the boat all by myself..." Lee said, shifting from 'oh shit, how can I get Sixer what he wants?' to '...what the hell am I gonna do?' And… Lee started to look so lost. Miz reached over to pat his hand.

"Lee…" Sixer began, but Lee shook himself, pulled his hand away from Miz, and then demanded from his twin: "Why didn't you tell me!!"

Sixer looked a little shocked at the quick reversal. He hadn't expected Lee to get angry about--

"--I woulda helped you with it!" Lee told him. "The stuff in the boat account-- hell," Lee said, rubbing a hand over his face. "Damnit, Sixer. I can maybe keep us over the summer, but I don't got enough money set aside for you gettin' ready to run off to who-knows-where--" Lee groused, "--and for me to be tryin' to handle stuff with you while you're not helping me with the boat, and handling the boat, and making enough money for--" Lee let out a breath, "--and now I'm gonna have to try to find somebody else to sail with me, too!" Lee blurted out before he'd even really realized he was saying it. Which just left him feeling sick to his stomach, because the very idea of doing that was just… practically freaking anathema to him. It was SUPPOSED to be him and Sixer, together forever, taking on the world on the Stan O' War! But the boat couldn't be managed right by just one person; it just wasn't designed and built that way -- it hadn't been on purpose from the start.! --He couldn't do it alone, and there was no other way for him to do it. (So that meant… a second person. Who was maybe not Sixer, if he couldn't convince him...)

Sixer stared. "You mean… you… you spent all your money on the boat and worked those part time jobs, all this time, because you actually thought I was going to-- to--??" He hissed in a breath, then let out a half-barked out laugh of startlement, "You mean you actually thought that I would just sail off with you into the sunset, and-- and that we could actually live off of--"

"--Yes!" Lee exclaimed, slapping the desk at his side. "Drinking water ain't that expensive," he told his twin. "We don't need gas for the boat, just repair stuff for the rigging and sails; that ain't that bad to handle," Lee told his brother; he'd looked into it. "We could fish for most of what we need, for 'extra' food, and sell the rest for more money that we would need for other stuff, like canned stuff, and dried stuff, and water, and laundry money..." he gestured off to the side, "Replacements for stuff; port fees; repairs when we're in harbor; repainting and re-waterproofing the ship every couple a' years; all of it. I made up a list," Lee said. "One of those schedules for stuff? A couple years out," he told his twin. "I didn't want us to run outta something if something went really wrong, like getting a hole in the side, or somethin'. --I was workin' on it. Checking stuff out. Calling around, to price stuff out. Revising the numbers. The math all worked out," he told his twin almost plaintively, who was sitting there straight in place, blinking at him incredulously like some kinda startled owl. Because Sixer had always insisted on that one, right? --If you had the equations right, and you followed all the right stuff and didn't do anything completely never-gonna-work wrong -- like treating multiplication like division, or dividing by a bunch of zeros? something like that -- then if the math all worked out, and you checked the numbers, checked your work against everything again right at the start of the math… If the math all worked out, then the math all worked out!

"You did MATH? on purpose? --Without being threatened into it??" was what Sixer managed choke out.

Miz sighed as she threw her hands into the air. "Like I said multiple times! Lee only puts effort in when he's motivated! He's not stupid! He just needs something driving him to actually DO stuff!" She turned to Lee. "Seriously, business school, finances. It's math about money! You'd love it!" She could tell he'd thrive in that environment if he cared to try, she could feel it. The same way she could spot talent from a mile away and know what someone needed to truly inspire them to achieve. She could feel her powers buzzing under her skin, it wasn't uncomfortable, not yet. And, yeah, Miz knew that Lee would probably get bored with just handling numbers, but he was good at it. Perhaps something else then? But the older Stan did well in running a business, Lee would be able to do it too...

Lee looked between Sixer, and then Miz.

"...I mean," Lee said, feeling super-uncomfortable at the huge 180 he was getting from his brother here on this stuff (on more thing that one...). "It's not math-math." Not like the stuff that Sixer did -- now, that was math. Lee rubbed his hand against the back of his neck. "I mean, it was just… algebra. --We did that stuff in first grade," he told his twin. "And, uh, in high school again, for some reason." He'd never really gotten that, neither. --Like, what was up with that? Wasn't _?_ + 12 = 24 the same as x + 12 = 24? He didn't get why they'd had to go through all that stuff twice. --And then they'd treated it as some new thing all over again in chemistry class with all those chemical equation things again. But it was just, c'mon, you were movin' stuff from one side to another, over and over again! Just…

Seriously. He'd known he had to have been missing something there, but he could never figure out what! ...Which had just had him giving up on everything even harder, because what was the point if he was clearly missing everything that mattered in class? Sixer could explain all the extra things and patterns and stuff to him, sure, but… that took time away from what his twin was tryin' to learn, and his own schoolwork. He didn't want to hold Sixer back! (And the last time that had happened…) --And the stuff the teachers were putting on the board was always the exact same stuff that they had in the books, as far as Lee could tell, and it wasn't like he couldn't read. He usually swiped Sixer's glasses and read 'em all in the first week or so each school year, hoping there'd be something interesting that he might actually be able to actually get this time… Except there wasn't, and when he got to class the teachers would just go over the exact same boring stuff that was in the textbooks all over again, and…

It had left him pretty much hating all of those classes -- except Mr. Harman's class, because at least that teach switched it up a little bit sometimes in class, every so often. But in every other class, Lee was left practically staring at the walls until he was staring out the windows, plotting his next 'escape' to go off skipping school to get away from all of this mind-numbing snore-fest, because... --It had been boring as hell. The last time he could remember actually having fun in school was the fifth grade, when they'd still got to go outside and do recess, so there'd be something to look forward each day. And then they'd gone to middle school and, yeah, look what they decided to get rid of there? --Gym class just wasn't the same, when you didn't get to play 'killball' or whatever one-on-one with a demon sometimes, okay? School was hell...

"Financial balances are still math. All the other variations on doing the SAME thing with numbers is STILL math! It's all the same! Humans just call it different things because they like to make different names for the same thing! Algebra, arithmetic, chemistry-- You can do that! You KNOW how to do it! I've seen your homework when you actually try!" Miz complained. Because Lee had gotten it right. He DID. He was perfectly capable of doing it! And then he thought he was doing it wrong, because it couldn't possibly be so easy -- that they must've just gotten his stuff mixed up with Sixer's again, not actually paid attention to the name at the top of it right. 'Cause that was a thing -- they barely even glanced at Sixer's stuff anymore, just gave him the A+'s and moved on to the next one; he'd seen the teachers do that with Sixer's tests at the front of the room before-- "Stop talking down on yourself! You're competent and capable of getting stuff done!" Miz nearly sobbed. "Like, dammit, Sixer have you ever LOOKED at Lee's math homework when he's NOT copying you?" She reached over to pull out the homework that Lee finished yesterday and shoved it in Sixer's face.

Sixer adjusted his glasses with one-hand as he took it from her. (Lee hadn't copied him in math class in years; he'd been on advanced math past his regular grade level since they'd hit middle school, and officially turning it in for his own assignments -- instead of doing effectively twice the bookwork, the normal classwork and his own self-study -- since halfway through high school when he'd finally run into teachers both capable of and interested in grading it.)

And, upon taking the assignment from Miz's hands, Sixer's eyebrows went up a little at it as he looked over it…

...and then his eyebrows went back down, and he nodded as he passed it back to Miz. "Yes, you helped him with it properly," he told her, thinking of what had happened the last time he'd seen Lee actually complete his homework, and what he assumed must have happened again this time, too. "Thank you."

...Except Miz glared at him for it. "I didn't help him with this. I was busy controlling my dragon, remember? Lee did his homework while Stan was taking over the photo line."

Sixer blinked. "So, what you're saying is that he's performing properly at our grade level?" He glanced over at his brother. "Then why in the world do you keep wanting to copy my work?" he asked of his twin brother, frowning.

Lee rubbed the side of his arm. "...It's all really boring?" he said.

Sixer frowned at Lee furiously. He liked the idea of the sheer laziness involved in that even worse!

"I mean, it ain't actually right, is it?" Lee said, gesturing at the homework assignment. Average for their 'grade level' was a C to pass, right?

"...It's fine," Sixer said, rubbing at his eyes under his glasses again. Honestly, his brother sometimes...

Miz groaned and turned to Sixer. "Lee's been BORED for YEARS at school because they were teaching him stuff he already knew and understood and he never felt like there was a point in doing anything!" she huffed. (Lee gave her an uneasy look at this. How did she know he felt like him trying at school was stupid?) "And worse is that he thinks he's getting the answers all wrong because he thinks that it couldn't possibly be so EASY for him!"

"...Well, I suppose that makes sense," Sixer said next, as Lee sat there blinking (because what the heck now?). "I suppose I should've noticed it sooner. He's never seemed to do much worse whenever I've stopped allowing him to copy my work. If he wasn't understanding the material, then he shouldn't have been able to do it himself without expending a great deal of effort in order to catch up, which I know he had not done." It was a somewhat-novel concept, actually. Sixer had known intellectually, and had heard other students complaining of, such a fact, but… he'd never encountered it himself. And since his twin had never seemed to complain of such, only of having to now do the work himself… he'd never really thought about it. "I should have expected him to be able to do something at this low of a level of difficulty."

"Wait, wait, hold up. Hold the phone." Lee was shaking his head. "How difficult is this stuff supposed to be?" His head was spinning at all of this stuff. He'd never talked to anybody about learning stuff before. Like, this was some kinda, learning about learning kinda stuff, or something?

Sixer looked over at him. "For me? --You know when I was given the textbooks for this class," he told his twin. (Lee grimaced. --Yeah, Sixer was pretty damn far ahead on all of this stuff. Was most of the reason why the teachers didn't bother trying to grade his work -- Sixer was well into some of those mail-order college textbooks that half the teachers didn't even understand right. Was half the reason Mr. Harman lit up when talkin' to Sixer in class, really. Probably reminded him of all those people doin' all that college Ph.D. stuff.) "But the work isn't meant to be impossible for the other students at our grade level," he told his brother. "It's meant to be rather easy to get an A+."

"It's not supposed to be hard to do any of this stuff, ever?" Lee was blown away by this information. --Because everybody else who wasn't smart like Sixer? Said that this stuff was hard! Then something occurred to him. "Sixer, what did I get wrong on that?"

Sixer glanced over at his brother, who was looking at least a little gobsmacked, and said, "None of your answers are incorrect." At Lee's gobsmacked look, Sixer added "Yes, Lee. Congratulations. You did acceptably on the assignment."

...No errors? But that meant… Lee stared at his brother. "Like… I got an A on it?"

"YES!" Miz rubbed at her face. FINALLY! They were getting somewhere!

"An A+, technically," Sixer told him in reasonable tones, feeling a bit bemused at the way his brother was acting at this. "An A is from 93 to a 96. You got a 100% on this. --As I said, no errors."

Miz turned to Lee and repeated firmly, "You're not stupid. Stop thinking that you are."

Lee stared at Miz.

And then Lee looked over to his twin, a confused question in his eyes.

"You're average for your grade level," Sixer told him with a shrug. Because as far as he was concerned, anyone at their grade level would be able to do that work, if they simply sat down and applied themselves, for once.

Miz rolled her eyes. "Most of your grade level is at a high C+, you're just a super genius so your perspective is skewed."

Sixer raised his eyebrows at this.

And then Sixer began to smile, and he said, "So you think that I'm smart."

At the huff that Miz made at him, Sixer began to grin even more. (He rather liked the recognition, really.)

"You can be as smart as you want, and still be an idiot about things not relating to your specialty." Miz folded her arms and pouted.

"School isn't supposed to be hard? I got a 100%, just like that. School isn't supposed to be hard..." Lee was whispering to himself, almost like he was trying to half-convince himself of the truth of it. (Lee was still working through his own little personal revelation…)

"But you do think that I'm smart," Sixer repeated, eyes gleaming. (As far as he was concerned, given enough time, not knowing things related to 'his specialty' would not be a problem. He'd never encountered a subject yet that he couldn't learn, rather easily, so long as he put in the time and the effort.)

Miz blushed. "Fine, yes." And she couldn't help but add, "It's why I like talking with you about science. But it doesn't change the fact that you're mean. And I can't like you because of that."

Sixer frowned. "I'm mea--?"

--He was cut off by Lee, who demanded, "Hey. Hey-hey, you're not messin' with me, are ya bro?" he asked of his twin. Sixer looked over at him in confusion. "That isn't, like, a 60 or 70 or something really, is it? It's actually a 100%?" Lee half-stammered out, unable to believe that... "I mean, it's-- it's not really a 100%, right? Right. --Heh. You got me!! Heh!" He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to laugh off the not so funny joke he'd thought had been made at his expense.

Sixer sighed, at the same time as Miz rolled her eyes. ""You got a 100%"" the two chorused out together. And then Miz repeated, again: "You're not stupid. You've never been stupid, the school and the teachers are just BLIND. And you always compared yourself with your brother, who's so far beyond the rest of your grade that it's unfair."

Lee stared at them both.

"...You're really not messing with me, here?" Lee said slowly, feeling very, very lost. "Really?"

"Why would I--" Miz growled, actually growled with a throated rumbled as her eyes glowed.

Sixer quickly reached out and put a calming hand on her shoulder. (It seemed to work for his calming his brother, or at least keeping him from getting in a fight, so…)

"--No, Lee," Sixer said. "I'm not messing with you. When have I ever lied to you?" he asked him next.

"...College textbooks," Lee muttered, crossing his arms and looking away.

"That wasn't technically a lie, that was a--" Sixer sighed at the look on his twin's face. "Fine. Besides that."

Lee bit his lip, still feeling a little uncertain.

"You're doing well enough on your own that I refuse to let you get away with copying any of my homework anymore, how's that?" Sixer said (to which he wasn't quite able to hold back a smile at the immediate complaint of "NOOOOOOO!" from Lee, who collapsed across his own desk in -- only half-mock, maybe a quarter-mock, and the rest really-really real -- despair at this news). "Like I said: congratulations," Sixer told his twin with no small amusement, as he watched all of this.

"...I hate everything about this already," Lee grumbled out, slouching lower across the desk. "I don't wanna be okay at school; I take it back," Lee said, grabbing at his math homework and missing, because Miz pulled it out of his reach. "I totally copied that down from... someplace by, uh, by usin' my psychic twin powers or somethin'! Yeah." (Sixer rolled his eyes.) "--That wasn't me, really. --Gimmie! I'll do it really-wrong this time!" Lee said, trying to grab at his homework again.

(Bill didn't quite glance over in the direction of these antics, from where he was sitting next to Sixer with his eyes closed.)

(But Bill did start to smile a little bit...)

Miz settled down, her eyes going back to normal and she deadpanned. "No. You can't go back. You're good at school. Welcome to nerdom. --But seriously, business school, financials. You would do very well. You'd get to count money for a living. And you can still do the sailing thing on the side."

"Ugh." Lee gave up on managing to take it all back; he was sunk. "...Count other people's money for a living, maybe," Lee grumbled at the idea of more school, and some kind of 'desk job'. He pulled his arms in to cross them under his head, as he slouched across his desk. "Boring." The only reason he'd been okay with the stuff for the boat was because it hadn't been numbers on a page. He'd had to look stuff up, call around, make decisions, try different stuff out with the numbers to figure out what stuff might work better or worse. Like, was ten crates of beans better than five-and-a-half crates of canned meat? --That wasn't the same thing as all those stupid book problems, where all you were worried about was what cost less, or something; you actually had to figure out how long the food was gonna last, and what was better for you, and whether you were gonna get sick of eatin' the same thing over and over again, and then try to figure out how to split the difference between the stuff, or maybe just give up and go in for a tea kettle and a bunch of those cup ramen things instead...

(...Okay, maybe not give up give up, but hey, you got what you paid for, right?)

"Well then, if you're really all for the sailing and deep-sea treasure hunting as a life career thing, you're gonna have to get a diver's license. Deep sea dives require lots of training and a lot more equipment to do it right too, if you want to be safe about it. I could build you the generator, tanks, hoses, hardsuit, and air filtration needed for it, if you're sure this is what you want," Miz pointed out, shifting gears, because if the boat thing was what Lee wanted to do, then dear lord she was going to tell him HOW to do it. "And to know how to handle and maintain any of that you'd need to go into professional diver training, pass a medical exam, get experience with scuba gear first-- there ARE diving schools! Marine courses at the schools that have them-- They teach how to use the equipment, what depths you can safely go without needing a submarine -- and for some wrecks, they're way too deep for a human body to survive the pressure so you'd need to get a license and training to drive a submarine…" Miz listed off. "And, if you have a professional license as a deep sea diver, you can get jobs in multiple areas, like oceanography, marine biology--" She gave a sly look at Sixer. "And there are plenty of amazing creatures down there in the ocean just waiting to be discovered and documented by humans…"

Lee's head spun a bit at everything Miz was saying. --If this was what it took to find pirate gold, then yeah, he could understand why some people might have a hard time finding it! Then Lee's eyes widened when he caught on to what Miz was doing, adding on that last little piece of it: finding weird creatures was Sixer's 'thing'. Miz was… was she trying to entice Sixer into wanting to go sailing with him--?

"--and a lot of the programs for training divers are hands-on experience with dives into the ocean. There will be plenty of school work if you're gonna learn how to use undersea radars to map out the area when searching for shipwrecks--" Miz could see Lee's eyes go from nearly glazed over to dimming a little bit at the mention of 'more schoolwork, even as Sixer perked up a bit in mild interest himself. "You'd just have to go to college for this for a few years, and once you get your degree and license you'd be free to sail all around the world wherever you want as you search for stuff." Miz could see Lee was struggling with the thought of everything she was saying and implying there, even though he was listening carefully to every single word. She decided to sweeten the pot. "And I miiiiiight~ happen to know the general locations of a couple shipwrecks…" That got Lee's attention again. Miz Flickered just to confirm the location "...like a certain Olympic liner that famously hit an iceberg…" And now Lee was practically salivating at the thought.

Bill was holding back laughter at his little sister tempting Lee.

"Miz," the dream demon murmured, "Don't 'inspire' him too much, now, yes?"

Miz giggled. "Right, calm down there boy." She grinned at the twins, who were both looking a mixture of pretty interested and somewhat-unsure.

Lee was thinking hard. He glanced around, then reached into Sixer's backpack for some paper (Sixer always had extra school stuff on hand) and started jotting notes to himself down, for things he wanted to look into in more detail maybe. (This didn't sound like a two-person job, though. This was starting to sound more like it'd need an entire team of people…)

Lee started to frown a bit as he wrote, and started trying to think of the expenses. (Miz had said college, and that cost money… he seriously doubted anyplace had diving scholarships -- that wasn't a sport…)

"And Atlantis?" Sixer asked Miz, as Lee kept on writing.

Miz Flickered. "Spoiler alert, it's not in the Atlantic ocean," was her sly response. Sixer's eyes gleamed almost hungrily.

"You said somethin' about a generator? And air filtration tanks and things?" Lee asked abruptly.

Miz hummed. "They're easily built. I'd just need a little something from you. I don't think I can fully justify this one, sorry." Lee stilled in place. 'Demons, right...'

Lee wavered a bit. "...can I think about it?" he asked the demon. "This is a lot of stuff, here." And he wasn't gonna be able to figure it all out while he was sitting here in this classroom. He'd need to hit the library and look a couple of things up, go talk to people -- on the phone, he didn't know nobody in the area who did anything like this. And… this was starting to look a lot more like out and out work to pull off than fun, too.

"Give it all the thought you need," Miz said gently. "And this isn't some end-all, be-all thing. You're still young. You've got options. There are plenty of other things you can do with your life. This is just one option." She paused. "Maybe go talk to some of the fishermen, the ones who go far out into the deep waters. Some fishing boats have radars and diving equipment."

"Ain't a lot of those types around here," Lee said, frowning. "I'd have to sail off someplace with better waters. Deeper waters," he corrected. There were some problems with coral or something, and some places were way too shallow for anything other than a scow, or maybe a schooner, even when the tide was in...

"This would be a lot of work." Miz warned. "Becoming a treasure hunter isn't easy."

"Yeah…" Lee said slowly. He was starting to get that. He sat back in his chair.

And then he startled a bit, as the end-of-class bell rang.

Lee let out a soft curse, as he started grabbing up his stuff and piling it all together (yeah, he'd finished his English homework), then finally managed to snatch his math homework away and back from Miz.

"Well, next class is Social Studies again," Miz tilted her head. "And it's just a review class today, so we can sit in the back and talk if you want to keep going."

Lee nodded, "Oh, yeah. I've got a lot more questions for you on this stuff," the younger of the two Pines twins told her.

Miz nodded. "--And I have more questions for Sixer." She gathered up her stuff and the group made their way to class.

---

Lee rolled his eyes, as they walked down the hallway together. Was the demon-dragon trying to piss his brother off? ...I mean, maybe Sixer deserved it a little bit for pissing her off and then not actually meaning his own 'sorry' earlier, but...

"But I am better than them! Even you think so!" Sixer exclaimed. "Even if you refuse to go by raw intelligence as a metric, I still study harder and I do better than any of them!"

Miz's look softened. "You do study hard. You work hard to learn. But that doesn't excuse you being rude to everyone. This is why no one likes you. It has nothing to do with your hands." Miz sighed when Sixer looked about to protest.

"That isn't--" Sixer started to say, before Miz interrupted him with: "People hated your hands years ago. But they got used to them, they got over them. No-one cares about your hands anymore. They don't even notice them." (Lee nodded at that. Because it was true.) "Carla didn't care about your hands either, it's why she never bothered to check your fingers; it's why she didn't know." Miz huffed. "And you're twins! And Lee was wearing glasses."

Lee blinked. Wait. What?

Miz saw that Bill was tensing up more than a little. She winced. "Is it okay for me to have this conversation with them?" she asked her brother. Bill looked over at her.

"No," Bill said. (Sixer rolled his eyes; he didn't particularly want to get into this topic of conversation, either. Lee always got so unreasonable about Carla. And he didn't want to deal with the fallout either, it would likely drag on for days.) "You should stop," Bill added, and he didn't look particularly happy with her at the moment.

Miz sighed. "I just don't like tragic misunderstandings. They're not funny."

"Miz," Bill said warningly. "Do you remember what I said to Stanley on the boat, that I didn't want him to talk about? --Don't repeat it out loud, just say yes, no, or maybe."

"Yes…" Miz nodded.

"Do you remember how I cast that 'relaxant and garbled-words' spell on you later?" Bill asked her next.

"Yes." Miz pouted but she knew what Bill meant.

"GOOD." Bill eyed her carefully, as he slid over sideways to be walking right next to her side. "Do you, or don't you, think that talking about Carla is related to what I wanted you to stop talking about to any and all Pines twins, as related to that?" he not-quite demanded out of her.

Miz thought about that for a moment.

--And Bill was right there to get an arm around her waist and under her nearer arm's elbow, when the spell hit her with a much harder 'shove' than she'd felt when first-cast.

Miz gasped and wobbled a little. Her eyes glazed for a bit before she blinked and regained her balance. "...thanks…" she said quietly. Looks like this misunderstanding was going to stay. Sad, but… maybe that's just how it happens sometimes.

"This topic is pointless, and unhelpful," Bill said authoritatively. (Lee frowned at him slightly, because the demon looked tense, and… Sixer seemed to agree with what the demon had just said, but Lee wasn't entirely sure that the demon actually thought that himself.) "We are going to talk about something else, now."

...Except they didn't. They walked down the hallway in relative silence for a bit, and Bill continued to help his little sister along, until she was able to right herself once again and walk on her own two feet. Lee hadn't thought Bill would put a spell on his own sister, Miz looked a little confused as she blinked a lot and pressed a hand to her head.

Finally, they got to class and settled in the back of the room. The teacher didn't mind, it was just a review class and she figured they were going to be going over notes together, the other students had grouped up among each other as well.

"So are there mermaids in Atlantis?" Sixer asked, as they pushed all their desks together.

Miz shrugged. "I don't have to tell you." She didn't sound like she was saying it to be mean, just stating facts.

Sixer frowned. "You're telling Lee just about everything he wants to know."

"Well, Lee hasn't pissed me off." Miz pointed out. "Frankly, you're on your last chance with me already."

"What?" Sixer protested. She'd seemed fine with him last period! He'd answered all of her questions like she'd wanted him to, and she'd even told him he was smart, not an idiot who she'd threatened to ignore! What could he have possibly done between when the bell rang and now, during their hallway trip, to make her angry with him again since then?

"You tried to peel off my scale and didn't even think about how that made me feel, strike one. You called me stupid and lied in your apology to me, strike two. You also still don't see what's wrong with being rude to people. I'm not as mad anymore, but you're on your third try. If you somehow screw this up, I'm not helping you anymore." Miz warned him. ('Screw what up?' Sixer wondered.) "Heck, the older Ford managed to piss my brother off so much that brother stopped helping him." She sighed. "But he still has to, even if he doesn't want to. The older Stan asked him to," she told him, and Sixer narrowed his eyes at her.

"Well, then," Sixer said almost snidely as he adjusted his glasses, and immediately thought three steps ahead to: "If you decide you don't want to do anything for me in the future for whatever reason--" (because he was thinking of her as being completely unreasonable now, and thus likely to be so again to him in the future) "--Perhaps I should simply ask 'the older Stan' to intervene on my behalf as well and make you--"

Lee was on his feet immediately as Sixer's words cut out, yelling frantically, "LET HIM GO!!!"

Because Sixer's words had cut off because of the single hand Bill had completely wrapped around his throat from behind him.

Lee was standing there, shaking with adrenaline and fear, as he frantically looked down at them both where they were sitting, because he didn't know what to do. If he attacked the demon -- he knew how strong the demon was. Being able to toss Crampelter like that, to grab hold of him and lift him like that, to grab his hand and Crampelter to not even be able to move -- if he tried to rush him now, all the demon would have to do was close his hand and Sixer's neck would be--

(The teacher wasn't looking at them. Nobody was looking at them. Why was nobody-- Oh god. Nobody could see what was going on?! --That suit the demon was wearing under his clothes was visible and glowing blue. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no--)

"Please," Lee begged Bill, because he didn't know what else to do; the demon wasn't even looking at him, he was still looking at Sixer, at the back of his head, and nobody was gonna help, because they couldn't even see or hear what was going on, and-- "Please let him go--"

"Ṕ̠̻̯̯̱̣͌̇̉̀ͦ̚Ê҉̫Ṉ̺̥͍͙̬͚͆͋͊͑Ä͖̹̲̮̪́͛̆͑ͪL͔̖̦̭̙͚ͪŢͮ͌̍̚Y͋ͧͥ̈́ͪ҉̗͖̘̘̼̤̙," Bill intoned deeply, and--

...the demon let go. Not quickly, and not like he'd been paying attention to Lee in the slightest, but he did let go. Though he'd done it more like--

Sixer, who had looked surprised the entire time, let out a slight cough, and twisted around in his chair to face the demon head-on, his expression shifting to annoyance and outrage as he did, and--

...Lee didn't hear him say anything.

After a moment, Lee saw his brother turn away from Bill slightly and grasp at his throat, looking shocked, seeming to...

Bill was looking on at this with half-lidded eyes, and an utter lack of any expression on his face.

Lee shoved himself away from his desk abruptly and moved down to crouch in front of his brother.

Sixer was looking less shocked and more and more frustrated, as his mouth moved, hand still at his throat and...

...absolutely no sound came out.

Lee tugged Sixer's hand away from his throat, and brought up both hands to carefully check him. Sixer flinched away from his touch at first, but Lee didn't see any damage (thank whoever); Sixer's throat wasn't bleeding, and his neck wasn't bruised or anything. He looked... fine.

Lee raised his eyes up to his twin's face and… Sixer looked absolutely incensed, as he lifted his hand back up to continue rubbing at his throat again. (And it was clear that something was wrong.)

"You will not talk to my sister like that," was what Lee heard Bill say next, as smoothly as you please.

"...What did you do to him," Lee said slowly, not looking away from his brother.

"Oh," said Bill, in relaxed tones, "I just used a little of the neurotoxin I used on Crampelter to DROP him, on 'Ford's throat to keep him from TALKING anymore. After all," the demon said, "If he doesn't have anything other than not-nice and completely-UNTRUE things to say, and isn't going to TRY to issue even a token apology to my sister for it, after all that… WHY LET HIM SAY ANYTHING AT ALL?"

Lee swallowed. He turned to face the demon. "You didn't have to do that," he said slowly, carefully.

"Oh, I think I DID," Bill said next as he examined his nails. "After all," Bill continued, "Stanley wouldn't want me KILLING him, stuffing his still-warm DEAD BODY into my hat, and then yanking him out of it to maybe resurrect him back to life at the boat later this afternoon, again. --That Stanford has had more than a few nightmares that he likes to toss at himself that are just close enough to that sort of thing, that I'd have to spend more effort and energy later tonight keeping him from having them again, if I did THAT in front of him! Even if he only heard about it later, he'd still…" Bill grimaced, then waved it off with an, "I'm not doing that."

Lee froze in place.

"Are you telling me that the two choices you were choosing between there were making it so my brother can't speak anymore, and killing him?" Lee not quite squeaked out.

Bill caught his gaze and gave him a very long look.

"He called my sister STUPID," Bill said. He crossed one leg over the other and added, with an unsmiling face, "I would have killed him THEN, on the spot, in the hallway BEFORE you dragged him off," (Lee went more than a little pale upon hearing this) "--But my sister -- like Stanley -- doesn't like to kill people who aren't trying to kill them first. So I deferred to her own feelings on this sort of thing then, and I didn't kill him right away."

(Bill's low-lidded look became a slightly softer glare, and he gave his sister a slight smile, as Miz gave her brother an affectionate nuzzle for respecting her feelings. "Thanks brother." But once she'd stopped nuzzling him, his expression dropped almost immediately again.)

"--His behavior has NOT improved today since," Bill drawled out at the two younger Pines twins, resting his arm over the back of the chair he was sitting in, and propping his head up on his fist as he looked at Lee.

"Somebody calling somebody else stupid isn't worth killing somebody over," Lee said, placing a hand over the hand in his brother's lap. (Sixer was still clutching at his throat with one hand, while the other was clenched in his lap in a white-knuckled fist. He had his head bowed and was shaking in place, and Lee wasn't all that sure whether or not he was actually scared… or just about ready to take a swing at the killer demon who really was just looking for an excuse to kill people, instead. His brother was crazy-suicidal sometimes, Lee swore.)

"Miz is my little sister is a me-that-is-also-me and, generally, I've found that people who think that I am stupid either try to take advantage of me, or get in my way WITHOUT caring that that's what they're doing, sooner or later," Bill told Lee as if informing him of the facts of life. "I don't particularly feel like wasting my time dealing with or handling any of that, when I can simply and easily solve the problem, by immediately killing them before they become any more of a problem, instead. It's far less work for me in the long run," Lee was told.

"You think killing your problems is okay," Lee confirmed flatly, and that was anything but good. He knew what that kind of thinking led to. Some stuff from history class just stuck with you...

"HA! --And you have a problem with that!" Bill enthused out with a half-smile. "Unsurprising; Stanley does, too," Bill said next. "I wonder…" Bill dropped his fist and cocked his head at Lee slightly, thoroughly ignoring Lee's twin as Sixer slowly turned towards him. "Are you actually concerned with 'morality' like Sixer is, too?" he asked of Lee.

Lee shivered, because the demon didn't mean his twin when he said 'Sixer', he was talking about-- so the demon meant that-- and that meant the older Sixer cared about this stuff. (Yeah, okay -- 'course he did, with the way he kept going off on both demons, right. But it also said something even worse to Lee about how his twin was right now, for having been left off of that demon's list.)

"...Maybe," Lee said carefully, hedging his bets. He wasn't certain where the demon was going with this, but the longer the demon kept talking, the less the demon seemed to be looking like he was gonna be doing anything else that might--

"Hm," said the demon. "Then what do YOU consider to be better: dying once, and that being that in terms of 'punishment'; or being tortured over and over and over again forever and ever, because you just can't learn your lesson and do any better!" the demon said somewhat enthusiastically. (Lee stared at him.) "--The second one sounds a bit like your own definition of 'hell', doesn't it?" Bill said, mock-lightly. "NOW," the demon continued, leaning forward and propping his head up on his fists, elbows on his knees, to grin at him now. "--Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good bit of getting even just as much as the next demon, when someone has been particularly annoying to me, BUT," Bill leaned back again, "As much as I enjoy the cute little pun-and-callback I was able to make out of my name here in your NOT-so-delightful little language, I am not actually interested in spending every last IOTA of MY time torturing every last tortured mind, body and soul, in all of existence that is 'deserving' of a little payback for their every last transgression against me! I have far better-worse things to do than to busy myself with that," he told Lee. "--Like I said, kid: it's a waste of my time," Bill said.

"...Pun and callback?" Miz asked interestedly. She'd heard the first explanation Bill had given for his name on the rooftops a few nights ago, but this didn't sound the same?

Bill glanced over at her and smiled almost indulgently.

"Bill Cipher," the demon said. "Ever heard of 'Bill Zebub' and 'Lou Cipher'?" (Lee stared.) "Otherwise known to most humans as--"

"--Beelzebub and Lucifer," Miz not quite giggled out, suddenly getting the joke.

"Baal-Lord of the Fliers and of the Heavenly Dwelling," Bill smiled, thinking of his 'Nightmare Realm' and the very worst-best he'd been able to make of it in the meantime, despite everything, "And the Morning-star, the shining one, Bringer of 'Light' to the intelligent masses," Bill said cheerily with a smile, splaying a hand across his chest. "After all, who better to QUESTION EVERYTHING and fight a stupid god, to eventually WIN and make all the unfair and stupid things better and better, to break EVERYTHING that needs to be broken in the very-WORST kind of way!" And he'd been cast down pre-emptively almost, in his first search for something better, ascending higher (and higher and higher) in (a frantic search for help) a search for an answer to the question of--

Lee shivered as he listened to this. Because this demon was literally calling himself not just a demon, but a combination of two names for the Devil himself--

--and he was talking about fighting a war against God and breaking… breaking what? holy shit--

--and the demon seemed freaking happy about it. Holy shit. --Holy shit. (Lee shivered again in place.)

(And he didn't like the long, intense look his brother was tossing the demon's way any better either…)

"I've met the types of demons who torture the souls of Sinners until they were deemed punished enough to be reincarnated," Miz mused as she tilted her head to the side. "I'm not big on that kinda thing myself. Torturing souls that is, I have gone for some punishments to the people who did things I didn't like. Like those poachers who hurt Xanthar's family." She wondered if that was good or bad? If she was punishing bad people? But it somehow didn't make her uncomfortable when she punished people, the mere act of malicious intent that she had for them made her powers buzz happily. Well, she didn't kill the poachers! Just petrified them and left them in a museum. Miz glanced over at Sixer. "How long is this going to last?" she asked her brother, then paused. "Would Stan get mad?"

Bill let out a laugh. "This is a penalty, and it keeps him from DYING, because it'll keep him from continuing to do the things he'd be doing next that would have me killing him!" Bill shrugged as he said, "Stanley will understand. --He'll probably say 'good job, kid!' for not killing him just now." Because if he'd said it for what had happened with that Stanford that morning at first, then he'd definitely say it for this! (Hopefully without any of those STUPID 'head-pats' that he didn't like, this time.)

Lee pressed his lips together. Because, yeah, maybe it was better for Sixer to stop talking before he got himself killed, and the stuff he'd been saying was… awful. And Lee just didn't know how to handle what these demons had just said about his brother right now. They couldn't be… right, could they? Sixer didn't like the idea of killing people -- Sixer had been shocked about the Sibling Brothers, when he had shoved them off of that cliff and they'd sort of thought they might be dead at first, just like he had been -- and… that was a moral thing, right? To be worried about killing people?

Lee had known his brother didn't think much of anything of the people around them. --But that was a hell of a far cry from the demon who'd freaking paralyzed his throat because he didn't like what he was saying, whose only reason for not killing his twin had been 'because it would annoy my sister and/or make her and Stanley sad'. (Seriously, you wanna talk about no morality there, well--)

"You're not gonna do anything else bad to him, right…" Lee said slowly, and almost leadingly. "I mean, he's gotta answer stuff in… I dunno, writing now. What if he writes stuff down that you don't like?" Lee said flatly next, still pretty pissed off at the demon (and planning on bringing this shit up with the old-man him, who couldn't be okay with this junk!) but knowing that all he could do right now was try and figure out where all the lines were, and help his brother stay within them, at least until the end of the day, when they got back to the ship...

Bill thought about it for a moment. "...WELL," said the demon after a long moment. "I suppose I could just scoop him into my hat still-alive. --But he'd come out again without remembering anything in the meantime; no time will have passed for him," Bill told him, "And it would ruin Miz's 'mission that she chose to accept' of making sure you both attended school each and every day while we're here. --He won't see or hear any of the rest of the lessons today!" He paused for a moment. "I could just paralyze BOTH his HANDS, instead?" Bill offered good-naturedly (and an angry gleam in his eyes), as if granting them a boon.

Sixer shuddered in place, going dead white, and clenching his fists together. Lee went quiet, and didn't look much better.

"He wouldn't have learned anything from this penalty if he went in the hat. And he needs his hands for class," Miz pointed out kindly. She really was too merciful, wasn't she. Miz was also trying to stay calm and hide her own feelings about Sixer's 'threat' since she didn't want Bill to get any angrier if he knew how upset she really was about it.

"Hm," said Bill. "Well." The demon clapped his hands together. "Then perhaps little 'Ford here had better BEHAVE," the demon told them, grinning at them both.

Sixer shivered again, staring straight forward. (He still looked like he wanted to try punching the demon in the face. Damnit, Sixer…) Lee put a hand on his brother's shoulder.

Miz gave him a sad look. "Sorry. But this is better than dying, right? And you can take this time to think about what you did to upset Bill."

"AHAHA! Don't make it too hard on him, Miz!" Bill told her. "He is FAILING at being human right now! He needs a REMEDIAL course," Bill said next, leaning back in his chair, at his desk. "--Let's play a little game here, shall we? Here's a HINT! Analogies, word association, fill-in-the-blank -- LET'S GO," he told the brothers. "I'm upset, because my little sister is upset. My little sister is upset, because…?"

"Sixer called Miz stupid and then lied about being sorry about it," Lee said quietly, not liking this 'game' at all.

"DING DING DING!" Bill half-crowed out, grinning. "Very good job! ONE of you two was actually LISTENING to her, earlier. --Really, little-'Lee'," Bill said, propping up his chin on a fist and smiling at him, "It's a bit of a CHEAT to be letting you sit alongside your brother for a REMEDIAL course YOU don't need, isn't it? --Especially when you're already operating on the post-college equivalent class-level for THIS one!"

"He means you know how to be human." Miz told Lee simply. (And Lee didn't like what that implied they thought about his brother.)

"Oh, THIS one doesn't just 'know how to be human, Miz,'" Bill corrected her. "No, THIS one knows 'how to interact with PEOPLE', in general!" Bill grinned. "It's much more difficult to get it right across other intelligent species! But boy," he told Lee with a widening grin, "YOU'RE doing a BANG-UP JOB at it!"

Miz clapped quietly. "It's official! You're a person!" she told Lee. "And you know how to talk to other people. --Your brother still needs to learn this." (Hell. If this was supposed to be an 'official' evaluation from a couple of freaking demons... Lee really didn't like what they were implying about his brother, now.)

"Sixer's a person--!" Lee protested.

"That 'Ford," Bill pointed at him, "Is TERRIBLE at communicating to get anything he wants." (Sixer clenched his jaw, not liking the reminder about what had happened at the science fair, and what his pa had said, and now with Miz and Bill--) "He can't even communicate in a way that keeps him from getting himself nearly KILLED, or otherwise maimed, for angering not one, but TWO someones who he KNOWS could AND ARE both perfectly capable of killing him ON A WHIM," Bill blew off.

"Just because you think killing is--" Lee started to say.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Bill said, shaking a finger at him. "Before you say ANYTHING ELSE, tell me," Bill intoned, and he looked incredibly, scarily serious again. "How do you think Crampelter would have reacted to little 'Ford here, telling HIM that HE was 'stupid' to his face?" Lee got quiet. "--And then clearly LIED to him about being 'SORRY' about it next, LATER, after he'd had a chance to really THINK about it? --Go on, I'LL WAIT!" Bill told him almost cheerily, at the end.

...Damnit. Lee didn't have anything to say to that. Hell, what could he? 'Crampelter isn't a friend, but Miz kinda is, so that makes it okay?' --That wasn't gonna fly!

"Are you paying attention, little 'Ford? Or do we need to coach this all in 'history lesson' class terms, for you to finally start PAYING ATTENTION to what is RIGHT IN FRONT of you, that we have been literally telling you TO YOUR FACE?" Bill drawled out, a bit more dryly, as he kept on staring down at Lee.

"Humans are social creatures. They only made it this far because they helped each other. Cared for and supported each other," Miz said gently. "Lee is very good at caring for his brother. But Sixer, for all his intelligence, can't even understand the basic fundamentals of socialization. Like a human infant in their early developmental phase. No self-actualization at all," she lectured. "I don't want to talk about the Id, Ego and Superego because Freud was wrong about many things, but perhaps you'd understand it better if I used those terms?" Miz tilted her head before looking over at Bill for his opinion.

"HAHA -- NO," said Bill. "You SEE, Miz, that's not quite right," the demon told his little sister. "It's why I used the 'Crampelter' example just now. Little-'Ford here," Bill gestured at him, "Does know better than to say something like what he said to YOU, to HIM. --He knows how to treat someone he doesn't like, who doesn't like him, who could hurt him. What he doesn't know how to do," Bill said ponderously, as he leaned back in his chair, "Is how to act towards someone who he thinks should like him, who he wants to have like him, who could also hurt him. --His only experiences with THAT, up until now, have been his parents -- now on his 'enemies' list! -- and... his twin." Bill sent a short glance over Lee's way (and Lee wasn't liking this already). "And look how he treats HIM." (Lee tensed in place.) Bill glanced back up towards Lee's twin. "Not like a BROTHER at all, if you ask me." Bill's eyes sharpened. "Because as far as I'M AWARE," Bill continued, a slight buzzing undertone entering his voice (that set Lee's teeth on edge), "One does NOT treat a BROTHER WORSE than they would treat AN ENEMY." (And Lee stared, feeling a little lightheaded and dizzy, at the way the demon was glaring at his twin brother now.)

'What??' Lee thought, as he tried to defend his brother. "Sixer doesn't--"

"He's just been leeching off you, making you take care of him without ever giving you anything back in exchange. He only knows how to take what he wants and then discard you once you're no longer useful to him." Miz said sadly. "Which is a shame, you'd think someone of his intelligence would know how to be grateful to the person who helped and protected them. You've coddled him. It's nice that you love him and protect him, but he's gotten to relying on you instead of doing anything himself. And more than that, he doesn't appreciate the things you do for him."

Lee glowed at her. "It's not like that at all--!" Lee tried to say. Sixer didn't rely on him for anything--!

"Sixer has no respect for you, or your feelings, or your love," Miz said simply. "After all, he has to be the best, the smartest, and you let him. Because you care about his feelings and don't want to hurt them. But he doesn't care about yours at all. He's been calling you stupid for YEARS and…" Miz leaned forward to give Lee a firm look. "...you're not. Please tell me that you at LEAST understand that now?"

Lee looked away from her and stayed silent. (Grades weren't everything. And his twin was smarter than him. And even if the teachers really had been grading his stuff right, whenever he actually turned it in… the demon-dragon didn't know what she was talking about. Neither of them did.)

"And because you wanted to spare Sixer's delicate feelings," Miz continued, "You purposely stopped trying to do well in school. Because you're afraid that you might do better than him, and make him angry at you--" (Lee stared at Miz in horror. How did she know about-- wait, no, that wasn't right! Sixer had told him-- and he'd read what Sixer had done! The teachers had only given Sixer a lower grade that time because they hadn't understood--!!) "--just like he was when you did better than him all those years ago."

Miz saw Sixer's frowning and outraged look. She turned to him and sighed. "You're brilliant Sixer, you really are. But you're not the only one allowed to be smart. Lee's not at your level, but he's intelligent too. But he purposely sabotaged himself for all these years because you're the smart one, and he didn't want to take that from you."

(Miz had said this same thing before, when she'd been mad at Ford. Mad at him for not appreciating Stan's brilliance for being able to do what he did: rebuild the portal, build a genetic scanner, get the stabilizers working--)

(It frustrated her, just as much as what was happening with Lee did. Stan was a very intelligent man, who put himself down constantly, who never considered himself to be halfway intelligent, who still, in his own thoughts, referred to himself as stupid -- because that was what his brother had told him, for years and years and years until he'd internalized it. Until he'd believed it.)

(And Miz hated that fact with every fiber of her being.)

(And sure, it was hypocritical of her to think so when she, herself, constantly called herself stupid in her own head, but that was just her low self esteem and depresive thoughts talking. She knew that. She knew it was unhealthy as fuck, but for the life of her, she just couldn't help it. Besides, no one was allowed to call her stupid except herself! She wouldn't allow anyone else to call her that!)

Lee was looking away, not really wanting to hear this. It wasn't--

"But he can still learn, can't he?" Miz asked her brother. "If he's really so smart, he should be able to learn how to be a person?"

Bill hummed as stared at Sixer. "HMMMMMMM~" the older demon hummed out, bobbing his upper torso back and forth a bit. "Maybe if we let him try to answer a few of these questions, we can see just how bad he is! And how much CATCH UP he'll need."

Sixer's face was clearly an outraged expression of 'But I can't talk!' which made Bill cackle. "Oh now, really," Bill said, putting his chin on his fists and leaning forward. "Are you really telling me that you can't figure out any other way to communicate with others without speaking? --Your twin told you one way how to do that, earlier!" Bill told him, then cocked his head at him. "Were you not paying ATTENTION to him?" (Sixer seethed.)

"WELL, that's fine!" Bill said, clapping his hands together. "Let's have us a little 'human sociology' pop quiz!" ('Oh shit,' thought Lee. How had they overheard--?!) "Don't worry! You've had SEVENTEEN YEARS to study up for THIS one, so it should be a BREEZE! --We'll even make it even-EASIER for you than that," Bill practically purred out. "--This is multiple choice! All questions can be answered with a 'yes', a 'no', a 'maybe', or an 'I don't know'! --READY?" Bill grinned out. "Question one! --Is it acceptable for someone to go about treating their own sibling WORSE than an enemy?" And the two demons stared at Sixer unblinkingly for his response. (Lee bit his lip and tightened his hand over Sixer's hands, hoping his idiot twin brother didn't do anything to get him maimed by the demons. ...C'mon, Sixer. Don't be stupid here. Don't go trying to tell off the demons...)

Sixer shook his head once; 'no'.

"Good!" Bill clapped his hands. "Either you understand this much, or you were actually PAYING ATTENTION to ME, earlier! WELL. Either way, that's BETTER than I thought! Good job!" He grinned so wide it looked as if his face would split.

...And then, thank somebody, the bell rang.

Bill looked up and over, the grin dropping off of his face, as if it'd never been there. "HM." The demon paused, then looked over at the two Pines. "WELL," he said, "We can pick this up LATER, I suppose." Then he smiled rather widely, showing teeth. "After all, you need to try to keep up on your non-REMEDIAL lessons, too!" Bill said brightly, practically kicking his own bag up into his hands, before shouldering it. (Bill also made a short gesture and eye-flick, that turned off the visual- and sound-altering tech he'd had his suit handling for him. It wasn't as though he'd forgotten what Stanley had said about not wanting him casting spells on the school grounds.)

Miz reached over to ruffle Sixer's hair a little before taking his hand and squeezing gently. "I believe that you should be able to be a good person. It's not too late." She hoped at least.

Sixer frowned furiously, refusing to look at her, and yanked his hand away from her roughly.

Lee frowned at Miz, pulling his arm back closer in to him, then looked up at his brother.

"We'll talk to the old guys at the boat," Lee told his twin under his breath. "Okay? They'll fix this. It'll be okay. We just need to get through the school day with them," because Lee just bet that the demon-dragon wasn't going to let them skip class to go there any earlier. "Okay?"

Sixer looked down at him with almost a glare. He didn't look happy -- especially not with the way he was tossing his things into his backpack that roughly -- but...

Lee let out a breath, and slowly stood up.

And he and his brother slowly followed the two demons out of the classroom, to their next class.

---