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-Truth is a tattletale with no friends-(Part 1)

Found out just how sick I am, that's great

-----

"Can we buy ice cream?" Miz asked after Bill's magic show ended, the crowd dispersed, and she trotted back behind the table into the booth, to sit down on her bean bag chair. Stan finished counting out the money from his sales of her stuff, as Bill followed her into the back at an almost sedate pace. (Stan eyed him. Was the kid tired?)

"Sure, Miz. You've made plenty," Stan told Miz. What with the crowd from the show taking that long to disperse, all jazzed up by the end of it, he'd already been able to sell a decent amount of her jewelry so far; maybe about half? It was her money; he sure as hell wasn't going to try to (get away with trying to) steal it from her. (Definitely not with the kid watching him, and mirroring back at him a hell of a lot of what he saw him do. Plus, dragon-lady.) Stan handed Miz the stack of money and watched as she pulled out some bills to hand back to him. Huh. She wasn't treating it as a one-time thing, then.

"What's the rate for my commission anyway?" Stan asked, as he took the money from her. (Hey, he wasn't gonna turn down 'free' money. --Besides, he'd earned it. His selling skills weren't nothin' to sneeze at.)

"30%, more or less." Miz shrugged. (...Yeah, that sounded about right to Stan for this kinda thing.) He immediately folded the cash up and put it in a separate pocket to maybe hand to the kid later, with the previous 'commission payment' he'd gotten from her before.

(Stan explicitly did not count the bills out in front of her; either she'd lied or she hadn't, done the math right or screwed it up. Either way, counting it out right in front of her would be rude at best -- and a signal of expectation of bad faith and a lack of trust at worst -- when he'd just got done counting the stack he'd just handed her, to know how much 'about 30%' of it was. He could check it later, not right in front of her, to be sure he knew what he had to (worst-case) fall back on. --And not say anything about it, even if she had 'short-changed' him. Because the level of greed that would imply, with him not expectin' to get paid a commission in the first place, would just be a different kind of test. ...Though he would note that for later, if that was a thing. He didn't think so, though. He had a feeling that she'd probably short-changed herself, the other way around, the way she'd said what she had said.)

While Stan was handling the money, Miz glanced over at Mabel and Dipper. "Do you guys want ice cream?" Miz asked.

Mabel sat up with a huge grin and immediately said, "HECK yeah!" Dipper also looked up from his notebook, but shrugged noncommittally.

Miz glanced back at Stan before getting up. "Do you want ice cream?" she asked him, and Stan raised an eyebrow at that. "What? Me?"

"There's peanut brittle there," Miz told him. Stan blinked. Right. That 'all-seeing eye' thing. Of course she'd look him up, the way the kid had, to know that he liked that.

That said… Stan shrugged. "I can buy my own," he told her. He glanced over at Mabel. "Ford tell you what to avoid to keep from panicking Miz?" he asked her. He glanced back at Dipper, too.

They both looked at him, looked at each other, then back to him, shaking their heads.

...Yeah, Ford hadn't looked in good enough shape earlier to have said anything while he'd been handling the kid, and they hadn't really gotten a chance to tell the kids earlier (...or needed to, what with them both being right there to stop anything they needed to, on the spot).

"No weird magic-looking circles," Stan started off with. "Don't want her thinking we're trying to bind her if she only gets a glance at it. No pushing her into cars -- and don't go into buses, or ice cream trucks, or whatever yourself," Stan added, "Since she won't be comfortable followin' you in there, if something happens," Stan told Mabel, who looked slightly abashed. (So did Dipper. His sister wasn't the only one of them who got a bit excited sometimes. Stan didn't bother to hammer it in with Dipper just then, since it was Mabel who was planning on running off with her.)

"Try to stay on the sidewalks," Stan added with a sigh, "Y'know, all the usual kinda junk about stayin' outta the middle of the street, lookin' both ways if you gotta cross somewhere and all that." Stan grimaced. "No grabbing her by the wrists, or trying to wrestle her down to the ground or holding her down against nothin'. --Hand-holding's fine, but don't just go blindly grabbing at her, or shoving her around, or trying to lie down on top of her. Ask first, and no means no. Think of the kid, and how he'd react if you did any of that kind of roughhousing stuff you and your brother like to do, to him without asking," Stan added, and Mabel blushed. "She probably won't like most of that stuff either. And don't go tryin' to startle or scare her with big loud 'boo!'s or nothin', and that's about it. Got it?" he asked the two of them.

""Yes, Grunkle Stan,"" Dipper and Mabel said dutifully.

"Good," said Stan, then he gave Mabel a smile. "Well, go on, have fun," he grumbled out at her, making a shooing motion with his hand at her. (He didn't quite wipe away the smile quickly enough to look grumpy again before he finished talking, though.)

While Bill remained silent at all this, Miz nodded at his handling of the situation (though she did look vaguely embarrassed still). Mabel, on the other hand, whooped in happiness at having been 'released' to go get ice cream. Miz and Mabel ran off to the ice cream truck parked beside the beach shortly thereafter -- well within sight and not too far away, so Stan didn't worry too much about the 'lack of supervision' (thanks, Ford). Stan could see Mabel jumping around excitedly as she pointed at different things on the menu.

Stan let out an old man sigh (ugh, he was gettin' old), as he got up and poked his head out of the booth for a moment. He checked the time by the big clock farther down the boardwalk, then let out another sigh. It was past noon now. He glanced up as he made his way back in. The sun was warm overhead, even though it was just the beginning of spring, in early April, and Stan was glad their booth had a canvas 'roof', creating its own shade.

Stan looked over to check on the kid. Bill was sitting on the floor inside of the booth -- at the far end away from Ford, Stan noticed -- the kid was on his first real 'break' of the day, not just leaning himself up against that pole out there at the front, and the kid hadn't been doing much of anything for awhile now. The kid was sitting with his knees up, back against the side of the booth, eyes closed and arms crossed and very much in the lowest of his low-energy modes. The deck of cards was sitting on the tabletop just above and next to the kid (near the tarot deck, actually) and the demon seemed... peaceful, almost.

Stan sighed again, looking at this, and knew that they should all get lunch soon, not "just" ice cream to tide over a couple of them. He scanned the beach, knowing what he was looking for, and finally spotted the usual hot dog cart.

"Oi, Dipper, you hungry?" Stan asked, leaning back in his chair (now moved behind the jewelry display), tossing an elbow over the back of it, to address his great nephew.

Dipper looked up and nodded. Stan reached into his pocket for his tarot reading earnings and handed him some bills. "Go get everyone some hot dogs," he told Dipper, nodding over at the hot dog cart. "We've still got water in the cooler."

Once Dipper was on his way, Stan glanced over at Bill. "Do you wanna eat and drink anything, kid?" It wasn't a rhetorical question -- of course the kid didn't want to 'consume' anything. So Stan said it like the statement that it was, that the kid should eat something now, and get some more water in him, and by this point the kid damn well knew it. Stan briefly wondered if he should talk to Miz about getting Bill to eat more. She seemed to like eating stuff well enough.

Stan was pretty sure that the kid wouldn't go for the hot dogs; they'd had them at the Shack a few times, and Bill hadn't so much as given the food an interested glance, more of a flat look and a stifled grimace. They had another box of crackers in the crate Bill had in his hat, still. But it had never really sat right with Stan that the kid only ate crackers, charred toast -- and salad, now -- and water or tea, and barely enough of any of it to make up for whatever energy he'd just got done burning throughout the day. The kid just didn't eat enough; Stan was pretty damn sure that the kid was literally just one missed meal away from collapsing on a regular basis; he had a running tally of the number of times the kid collapsed from physical exhaustion going in his head, and he knew how much the kid did and didn't eat, and... hell, was the kid even getting enough of those nutrients or whatever? Stan considered bringing it up with Miz, because he figured if it was a stubborn problem, she'd probably be able to poke her brother into eating more.

Thing was, Stan wasn't so sure it was just a stubborn problem, yet.

"You got the crackers in your hat, or you empty out the other crate for the chair?" Stan asked. "And mind bringing out the cooler?"

Bill raised his head slightly and opened his eyes the barest of slits to look over at Stan. "I have the crackers in my hat; I emptied out the other crate, yes. And yes." Stan nodded at him, then sat back in his chair as he watched Bill pull his hat off of his own head almost in slow-motion, to pull out a box he knew had come from one of the crates on the boat, and set it down on the floor next to him, as well as the cooler. ...Well, at least that was something; kid wasn't gonna give him guff like he usually did this time. (Hadn't given him much guff on the boat, either, come to think of it. Hell. Maybe the thing with the forest and Ford had finally kicked the kid upside the head the way he'd needed it to. ...Unless the kid thought 'being helpful' included not arguing at him over eating and drinking stuff on a regular basis.)

Stan leaned back in his chair, watching as Bill put his hat back on his head and then pulled out a water bottle from the cooler for both Stan and himself. Stan cracked open his own water bottle, and watched as Bill got down to cracking open the cracker box, to get at the crackers inside.

And, at watching the kid, Stan decided he'd better start to crack down on trying to figure out this eating problem of the kid's all over again. Because right now, all Stan had to work with were toast, tea, crackers... and salad when the kid got hungry enough. Though the kid didn't seem to mind the salad much, either. ...Actually, he'd actually seemed to hate it less than the other stuff. At least the salad they'd had that one night. Stan didn't usually make fresh veggie stuff like that, because he wasn't used to it; he hadn't been able to leave the Shack himself enough on the regular to make that many grocery trips to have a lot of the stuff around, anyway. It went bad easy if it didn't get used and eaten real quick, and he didn't really like the stuff much himself.

Stan thought about a couple places nearby that had salads; he knew there were a few restaurants nearby he could get one from. But… they'd had salad stuff as part of some of the lunch and dinner meals before that plenty of times, and the kid hadn't had any of that -- hadn't even so much as glanced at any of it, barely. So what was all that different there?

Well, Dipper was away, Mabel wasn't there to hound either of them, and Ford was… still asleep. This was probably the best time he was gonna get to have this conversation with the kid (again, for what it was worth). And hey, maybe he'd manage to hit just the right set of words this time, kind of like the 'I want you' thing had gone?

"Hey, kid." Bill paused in what he was doing and looked over at him. "There any kinda food you'll eat besides burnt toast and crackers?" Stan brought up to start with, just to get the normal ask out of the way (already knowing that that wouldn't be enough). "You didn't mind that salad, right?" Bill looked away.

"That salad was barely edible," the kid told him, and it left Stan blinking, as the kid looked down and went back to working at 'carefully' tearing the plastic packaging open inside the cardboard box without ending up with crackers everywhere. (Kid had lost his temper a few times real early-on and learned better on that one real quick.)

Huh. Stan gave the kid a long look, because he'd never gotten an 'actually (barely) edible' out of the kid on anything, before. The other things he ate were 'almost' edible 'at best'. "So… you'll eat fruits and veggies on their own?" Stan asked him next.

"Define 'fruits and veggies'," was what he got out of the kid next, and... that wasn't a 'no'. Huh.

"Same stuff that was in that 'barely edible' salad," Stan said next, feeling almost curious now. "Lettuce, bananas, tomatoes, carrots, watermelons, strawberries, blueberries, honeydew, pineapples… honey; that stuff." Melody had gotten that stuff from the store for the new salad (keeping the melons separate from the new bowl they'd sent upstairs to the kid and Miz); Stan was pretty sure the same stuff had been in the old one, except maybe the honey.

Bill stopped what he was doing as Stan talked (focusing on what he was saying?), but didn't look up at him. And the kid made a slight face at the mention of 'honey', but none of the rest, Stan noticed. (...Well, the honey had been on the side as some sort of… 'self-serve' sort of thing, not mixed into the salad itself. Because if they had tried to mix it in, Mabel just would've drenched the whole thing to dripping with the stuff and made it inedible for the rest of them -- except maybe Ford with his sweet tooth. So that probably explained why the kid had ate pretty much the whole thing a couple nights ago, when the kid had just gotten done practically starving himself. No honey-dressing stuff on it, and the kid had been okay with the rest.)

"...Define 'on their own'," was what he got out of the kid next.

Stan shifted in his chair. Huh. Kid was asking after fruits and veggies together versus separate? Was there a difference? Stan frowned slightly, thinking about the best way to put this. And then he got an idea.

So he tried something a little different, that he hadn't actually tried when talking food with the kid, yet. ...Mostly because he'd been focusing on making sure the kid ate anything at all, not what the kid ate. Instead of continuing on with trying to ask after ingredients and foods the kid might eat, Stan asked instead:

"What would make that salad you ate as 'inedible' as all the other salads we've had before that, that you didn't eat, kid?"

The kid promptly replied, "Mushrooms; salad dressing; added sugar; added salt," and when it registered, it made Stan want to punch something.

Stan pulled in a slow breath, and let it out again. Mabel liked making stuff, and she was the one who usually pushed for the greens for mealtimes. But that also meant that she usually added a bunch of stuff like gummy bears and sugar-glitter and a lot of other junk into the mix when she helped out. Melody had made that salad herself the first time, and she'd tried to keep Mabel to the strict recipe that second time when Ford hadn't been feeling well, but she hadn't, and...

They'd made that salad for the kid and Miz both, with the burnt toast as a backup for the kid in case the salad had been a fluke. Had the kid eaten any of the salad? ...Or had he given it all to his kid sister, who'd still been ravenous later?

(Miz HAD in fact, tried to make Bill eat some of the plain fruits and veggies in the salad that time in the attic, worrying over how thin he was. Bill hadn't eaten it that time, though, because the honey-glaze had been added to it, courtesy of an overzealous and over-helpful Mabel. But he and Miz had had a conversation about it, and Miz now knew what Bill would and wouldn't eat, and why. Miz was keeping this in mind for when she was allowed to use the kitchen back home. Stan and Miz were both independently scheming ways to make Bill eat more. --And if Stan had known, he'd probably have given himself another pat on the back for encouraging this 'siblings' idea; it was doing great for the kid, and in turn making things a lot easier for him... most of the time.)

But even if Bill had eaten that particular salad again that time, that still didn't really explain… "We've had salad a couple times without any dressing or junk," Stan pointed out. Had the kid just not known?

But he just got the kid looking up at him finally, to say, "Vinegar."

...And Stan didn't get it. "Vinegar?" The kid looked a little tired, as he looked away from him and shoved a hand into the cracker box.

"It smelled like vinegar." The kid wrinkled his nose at this -- yeah, Stan knew the kid didn't like 'smelling'.

And Stan had to think about that one for a bit, until he remembered… yeah, they usually tossed the stuff with at least something to make it a little interesting, some kind of oil and vinegar 'vinaigrette' thing that Mabel had done… and probably added sugar to, too. (Hell.) Okay. So even really light stuff like that counted as salad dressing for the kid?

"What's wrong with vinegar?" Stan asked the kid, kind of confused still, and the kid let out something of a sigh.

"It's made using fungi," the kid told him, before popping a cracker in his mouth.

"Fungi," Stan repeated.

The kid nodded as he chewed, then finished swallowing and said, "Fungi. Commonly known as mushrooms. I'm not eating them."

Stan back in his chair. "But you'll eat fruits and vegetables." He got a nod out of the kid. Okay, next question: "You know about the ingredients that are used to make this stuff?" Stan asked, nodding a head towards the cracker box. He got a nod from the kid.

"What ingredients in that and the toast are making that stuff less than 'barely edible' for you?" Stan asked next, wondering if he'd actually get an answer out of the kid for that one, too. (Before this, he'd usually gotten long looks and silences, or some change of subject, or just an argument about needing to eat at all. Usually the last one, and that always derailed everything. But this time around, the kid had actually answered him on some stuff, on the whole 'what's making the salad inedible' thing. And the kid had answered him right away, even. Actually getting some damn answers out of the kid on this stuff for once was... new.)

"Vinegar, yeast, added sugar, added salt for the bread; added sugar and added salt for the crackers," were what Bill listed off as making toast inedible, as the kid tossed another cracker in his mouth.

Stan stared at the kid as he ate the cracker.

"What ingredients in pancakes make it less than 'barely edible' for you," Stan asked next, watching the kid carefully. His bullshit meter wasn't going off, but...

"Eggs, milk, butter, added sugar, added salt," was what the kid told him, and Stan felt frustrated as he said, "Kid, that's damn near everything but the flour." Worse, that got him back a nod and a "Yes," from the kid.

Stan pulled in a breath and let it out again. "Why didn't you eat any of the fish when we were on the boat?" Stan said next, and the kid replied, "Meat." Stan stared at him and damn near started laughing, because… the hell?! Kid was some kinda vegan or something? The 'big bad demon-triangle' wouldn't eat-- Seriously?

"Okay," said Stan with half a smile going, because sure, he'd play this game and see how it played out -- why not? Not like fruits and veggies were all that expensive. --Hey, they were less expensive than meat, even. Not like Stan couldn't handle this easily enough. Kid wasn't asking for champagne and caviar here -- and hey, probably wouldn't ever neither, because alcohol meant yeast and caviar was eggs from fish, hell. "Kid. Maybe you could, y'know, tell me what kinda ingredients you'd eat if we got them straight from the store?"

The kid didn't even eye him this time. He just said: "Plants; no fungi."

Stan let out a long breath. Hell, this was an actual thing for the kid? Hell. "Okay. So… fruits, veggies, and… nuts? Straight up unsalted or whatever nuts," he asked the kid, and he got a nod. "And maybe veggie oils?" not butter, for whatever weird demon reason, and he got another nod. "And junk like soy-stuff?" That got him another yes-nod from the kid as he kept listing things off. "Fruit juice?" Kid made a face and shook his head. "Why not fruit juice?" "--Added sugar," the kid began and Stan nodded and waved him off. Okay. 'From the store', right. So they'd need to make that themselves if they were gonna do fruit juice, then... or check the labels and have to go for something more expensive if they wanted the kid to actually drink it, geez.

"Kid, are you lactose intolerant or somethin'?" Stan asked next, wondering why milk and eggs and all that junk was out. "You allergic to some of this stuff?" Stan added, remembering how Melody had said that Miz had said she was. (Though the younger demon apparently liked the taste of it enough that she was fine with risking a stomach ache to continue eating the stuff... But ice cream was about half-and-half frozen milk and added sugar, two things that were on the kid's 'inedible-making' list.) If the kid was lactose intolerant, then maybe that explained why Miz hadn't offered to get Bill any ice cream, though, when she'd even asked Stan himself if he'd wanted some. ...That didn't explain the no-meat and no-eggs thing the kid had going on, though.

But the kid just shook his head at him. Stan frowned. The kid wasn't lactose intolerant like Miz? "Then why don't you--" want to eat it, Stan was about to ask the kid, but Stan stopped himself, when he glanced over and saw the girls headed back their way. He knew he didn't have time to get the wording right on what he really wanted to ask the kid, there; he knew it'd take a few tries. (The kid ate burned toast, but not bread. So if Stan had to guess, the kid probably could eat more than he was saying that he... wanted to?) But that could wait; the thing Stan needed to know right now was-- "Why didn't you just tell me all this before, kid?" he asked Bill.

And Bill looked him straight in the eye and said, "Because if I'd told you what I didn't want to eat, then you would have known what I didn't want to eat."

Stan felt a slight chill go down his spine.

And then Stan realized every last implication of that sentence and felt himself go hot, instead.

Stan almost told the kid off right then and there -- that he wasn't gonna force the kid to eat something if there was a reason that he wouldn't eat it; wasn't like the kid didn't do stuff for a reason, usually and pretty much always, even if it took the kid awhile to explain it to Stan in a way that made sense to him. And the kid wasn't a picky eater exactly, definitely wasn't some kinda food snob, so even if the kid didn't have a "good" reason for it…

...so what if the kid just ate what he ate? The kid obviously thought (for whatever reason) that most of what they all ate was literal garbage, sure. --Even if the kid didn't try to stop them from eating the stuff themselves, he still made it pretty clear exactly how he felt about it when asked about it. And so far on anything that Stan talked about the kid with, the kid has never got reactions that strong on anything when it wasn't something the kid considered important--

(And if it was that important to the kid, Stan wasn't going to just ignore--!!)

--But Stan had to push it all back down and stow it, shelve the entire conversation, as the girls came in close, almost back to the booth, with Dipper catching up to them with his arms full of stacked paper cartons of hotdogs. (And it was easier for him to do, once it occurred to Stan that maybe the kid hadn't meant just him with that 'you'. He was still fighting to get enough cred with the kid, to get the kid to believe that the kid could talk with him about stuff without him getting all 'arbitrary' and 'stupid'. The very last thing he needed right now was the kids overhearing any of this and telling Ford--)

And Stan's thoughts ground to a halt when he turned towards the girls and saw what they had each brought back with them. And then he stared, because… Yeah, okay. He was certain that Miz had to be using magic to hold those ice-cream cones together, because there were ten scoops of ice cream on each of 'em.

"--Mabel, you can't eat all that, you're going to make yourself sick," Stan deadpanned.

Mabel just waved him off with a bright smile, like she usually did when she was eating something ridiculously sugary in crazy quantities that would make most people sick (and sometimes even herself). "It's fine, Grunkle Stan! Some of this is for Dipper or you and Grunkle Ford if he wants any!" Stan gave her a surprised look; Mabel shared sometimes, but sharing with three other people was considerate, even for her.

"I'm not waking him up, now that he's finally sleeping," Stan put out there. Ford had a sweet tooth sure, but making sure Ford got a decent amount of sleep was a lot more important right now.

Mabel peered inside the booth, past him, to glance over at Ford and... nodded. "He can have some when he wakes up?" Mabel said hopefully. It was mostly a question.

"And how's he gonna eat it when it's melted first?" Stan asked her, feeling amused. Wasn't like it was all that cold out, and they didn't have a freezer, even if the kid might be able to whip one up for her if Stan asked.

Mabel grinned. "It won't melt unless somebody eats it!" Stan glanced over at Dipper, about to give an 'are you hearing this?' to her twin, to let him take it and run with it. But Dipper wasn't looking at his sister, and Stan followed his gaze to look at... Miz, who was just standing almost sedately at the front of the booth with Mabel, licking at her ice cream.

Bill stood up abruptly in the next moment, walking towards the table, and Stan watched as the kid lifted the flip-up counter to allow access to the back area of the booth. "Sit down," the kid told her.

Stan cocked his head and looked at this, as Miz walked into the 'back' and over to sit down on her beanbag chair, while Mabel trotted (and Dipper walked) into the booth behind her. Huh. Bill had sounded almost… scolding?

Stan watched Miz more closely, trying to figure out what was up. She just… kept on eating her ice cream, and Stan didn't see what the problem was, exactly. But the kid was still staring at her.

Stan shook his head, let out a sigh and a groan as he got up, and helped Dipper set down the stack of hotdogs in his arms down onto the booth's table.

"Should you be eating that?" he listened to the kid ask his little sister. He glanced over to see Miz shrug at the kid.

"I like chocolate. And I'm calm right now. I'd probably just… just fall asleep." And then Miz swayed slightly, settling back into her bean bag heavily all of a sudden. Stan blinked. What?

Then, Miz started hiccuping. Stan blinked and stared, expression growing more and more incredulous as Miz slumped over, after having devoured her unnaturally tall ice cream cone in record time. She was licking her lips and making mumbling sounds, seeming to be in a daze. Stan looked over at Bill who was watching his little sister with an almost exasperated expression.

"...Kid?" Stan asked slowly, because what the heck was going on? Bill's shoulders slumped and flattened out slightly; the kid looked irritated.

"Chocolate," the kid muttered out. Stan felt more confused but then Dipper groaned as well.

"Seriously?!" the teenager complained, glaring at the dragon-lady, who was hiccuping softly while giggling. When Dipper noticed Mabel and Stan's still-confused expressions, he sighed and explained: "Some species of paranormal creatures get drunk off of chocolate."

That got Stan standing up straight and paying a hell of a lot more attention to her, because a not-drunk Miz was hell on his twin to begin with… what would a drunk one with even less inhibitions be like?! ...But Miz appeared calmer and kind of docile, now. She was humming in between her hiccups, stretching lazily. (Stan let out a slow breath.) Okay. So she was a happy-drunk, not an angry-drunk. ...Probably. Stan wasn't gonna risk it; he'd wake up his brother and have him go back to the boat if he had to.

...Good thing the kid was on his side, and even looked like he might back him up on his own on this one. Stan turned to Bill.

"Is this safe?" he asked Bill grimly, point-blank. (Damnit, he couldn't keep tripping over junk like this! What, did he have to ask after every last thing that got the dragon lady panicky or drunk or unable to control herself somehow? Everything that might have her thinking impaired? Every last thing that might be a problem here? Really?? --Why hadn't the kid said anything about this earlier?)

"She's calm. Her headband is on. She's lying down," Bill listed off. Stan closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. Okay. Okay. So it was fine. He'd just gotten himself all worked up over-- "I'm here to put out any fires; I can handle anything she does if she loses control." ...Great. Stan rubbed a hand over his face.

"Did she know chocolate would do this to her?" Stan asked the kid next, frowning deeply.

"She just found out it did a few days ago," Bill confirmed. "She said altering the chemicals to stop the effect makes it taste 'not as good'."

Right. Stan had a pretty bad feeling about having the kids anywhere near a demon who didn't have full control of her powers when drunk. ...Then again, the kid had a pretty strict definition of 'full control' going. On the flip-side, if Miz was a happy-drunk, she'd probably think a hell of a lot more stuff was hilarious than usual -- that even more stuff that was definitely not a good idea was actually a good idea or might be really funny or fun to do instead. Like most drunk people usually got. How was he supposed to know what she'd do, and how dangerous she'd get (to try to keep her from drinking alcohol or eating any chocolate in the first place!), when figuring that out would--

...except he didn't need to risk the kids safety any more to figure it out. Because he did already know, at least a little, what Miz was likely to do, Stan realized -- because he'd actually seen this before. Stan frowned as he remembered what had happened the last time she'd showed up in their dimension before this -- when she'd had that friend of hers with her, and the two of them had gotten drunk off their asses on chocolate liquor.

From Ford's tapes, and what Melody and the kids had told him afterwards, Miz had done some stuff with some plants and those wishes, and then just passed out. The other one had been the one to go floating people all without their permission 'just for fun' and then cackling about it, then go up in flames before passing out, nearly starting a fire in the grass. ...So the dragon lady wasn't necessary dangerous on her own when she got that drunk; the dangerous part was that she got more suggestible to doing things other people told her they wanted her to do, instead. (...Great. Probably a good thing that Miz had nearly already passed out on them right away, then. Still meant he'd have to keep the kids away from her, though. Just for a different reason.)

So the kid was probably just being careful, or maybe more worried about her than the rest of them, with what he'd just said. ...and the way the kid had just pulled his knife and some of those stones of his out, to carve all sorts of squiggles and lines and things into. Because that was a thing.

...Well, at least the kid was taking care of it. Still seemed weird to Stan, though. First Miz making her bodies still-allergic to stuff from being human, and becoming a demon way back when had made her unable to handle chocolate now, on top of that?

Stan shook his head, and slowly sat back down in his chair, as Dipper pulled his beanbag chair over closer to the table, within arm's reach of the hotdog carton pile. (Well, at least one of the kids was eating actual food besides ice cream for lunch.)

Stan grabbed a hotdog of his own to munch on, but he kept half an eye on Bill to watch the demon-kid as he set up a few of those 'rune'-y carved stones around Miz's chair inside the booth as he did; the kid didn't seem worried, just vaguely annoyed, so there was that, at least. Miz still seemed pretty calm, just humming and rolling around to get more comfortable on her bean bag.

Mabel sat down beside her to start petting her hair. (Which got Miz freaking purring, of all things. Stan let out another tired sigh. These demon kids...) "So… she gets drunk if she eats chocolate? That's sad." Mabel looked legitimately upset that Miz was unable to enjoy chocolate normally. "Does that mean she can't have chocolate unless she's somewhere safe with people looking after her?" Mabel asked.

That had Stan hesitating for a second. Had Miz allowed herself to eat the stuff because she trusted Stan and Bill and the rest of them to protect her from harm? Stan glanced over at Bill. The kid would definitely protect her -- even from the rest of them, Stan was pretty sure, which was why he was working on not letting things ever go that far -- but she was allowing Mabel to pet her. And Bill was letting Mabel get that close to his little sister while she was impaired and maybe even unable to defend herself as well. That implied a level of trust Stan hadn't been expecting out of either of those two demon kids.

...And Stan didn't really understand why. Because yeah, Miz had said that he and Mabel were 'good people', but what the hell did that even mean? Was that all it took for her? ...Hell, Bill had left her up on deck with the niblings after that 'stop' thing he'd done -- and the kid had actually fallen asleep the 'night' before while the kids had been talking with each other when she'd been all small-dragon-y, he'd found out from Ford on the rooftop later after the kids (demon and human) had all fallen asleep.

Stan ran a hand over his face. These two demons were surprisingly way too trusting and easy to manage, once you knew how to handle 'em, where all their lines and pressure-points were. --Seriously, Ford had had no idea what he was doing. He could have had everything he could ever want. A demon who could alter reality itself, all for him.

...And all that Ford would have had to do was toss every last moral he'd ever had into the garbage can, apparently, and get in bed with a trillion-year-old killer who would be absolutely delighted to collapse another twelve dimensions for him, if only he asked. Stan sighed. Yeah, of course that wasn't gonna happen, and hadn't happened way back when. --And whatever had happened out there in the multiverse, Ford had only gotten an even stricter moral code over time. So, yeah. Ford had completely rejected Bill; no surprises there. Ford didn't want the kid; he couldn't handle it. No surprise there, either. ...Well, Stan could handle the kid, and he would; his brother didn't have to. That was fine. Bill wasn't Ford's problem anymore. and that was better than fine, as far as Stan was concerned. Stan had handed the kid a chance, practically forced it on the triangle demon almost, and the kid had taken it and held onto it as hard as he could; the kid wasn't running, and the kid was his responsibility to handle now. --And Stan wasn't going to screw this one up, no way. Not with the kids counting on him. (And not with his brother needing…)

Stan wasn't optimistic enough to think he could get (and keep) Miz towing the line all by himself -- she had no investment in him or the rest of his family -- but the fact that she seemed to trust him (for reasons Stan still didn't understand) and trust Bill (for reasons that Stan could sort of see, between the two of 'em), made her a lot easier to handle. And with the kid running interference with her for him, she got downright almost manageable... most of the time. At least when she was around the kids (and Ford wasn't around…), she seemed to be mostly not wanting to cause harm to other people.

Stan let out a sigh, as he looked at the sun and made plans for the rest of the day. Stan figured they would just go to the school once Ford woke up; that way, Ford could check out the science fair project himself. Stan wasn't planning on waking him up if he could help it in the meantime, though; he didn't want to have to deal with Ford pacing a hole in the back, or thinking of pulling another useless 'guard duty' stint -- only outside the high school this time. Because today was the day. The guys from that fancy school didn't come around until late afternoon, though -- technically after school let out, so they still had hours to go right now. Stan didn't want to be a distraction for their younger parallel-them selves, but they could still see the thing in action before then; he figured they could feed Ford some hot dogs on the way over, as they went, then just go inside and take a quick peek, to make sure it was still a-ok.

In the meantime, Stan figured he could help the demon-lady make enough money to let her feed herself a decent amount of normal people food once she woke up, for a change. So Stan settled into his chair, ate a hotdog or two, and just focused on helping Miz out by selling out her wares. He even spun up a 'poor her' tale about how 'she'd stayed up all night makin' 'em for folks,' and that that was why she was tuckered out in the back. And hey, she was tired; they all were, from the interdimensional time lag and from trying to stay up watching the house so late.

Stan looked over to see that, yeah, she was asleep again, finally. ...And it was a little weird to see her like that. She looked kinda cute almost, cuddling that new doll of hers as she slept -- at least, she would to anyone unaware she was actually a dangerous demon (and Mabel). ...Not that Stan was letting that little detail keep him from exploiting that 'cuteness' any more that he did when Mabel pulled her thing, and milking that little scene in the back for all it was worth, to get the most sales outta the customers.

He didn't have to do it for very long, either. It only took another two hours to sell out of the rest of her wares. And when he'd first completely taken over selling for her, Stan had sighed and felt annoyed that he was gonna have to send Dipper out with some money to go get some boxes or bags or something for the earrings. But luckily, Stan had looked around the booth real quick before giving up and sending Dipper on that errand, and found a bunch of small boxes under the booth that Miz must've made up earlier for them. Stan wasn't too surprised to find them there, though, because they'd talked about what she'd usually sold this stuff with before; that said, he was a little relieved Miz had thought to make enough of them for the rest of her wares before she'd conked out on him. It meant less expenditures, and more profit.

Stan counted out the money as he turned away from the counter, alternating bills with bites of one of the hotdogs he'd had Dipper get for them earlier. The kids were eating the rest. It was fine; he'd cleaned himself out on funds for this much of it, but he'd be able to make more in the meantime. He'd be able to buy more later, by the time the sleeping beauties woke up; they'd do just that, then head over to the science fair. It was open to the public, after all. Forget all that 'look from afar' out on the roof junk. They could just walk right in through the gymnasium's double-doors, and go see exactly what had or hadn't changed…

...and then Stan would run damage control and "fix" everything. Because the triangle demon seemed certain that something was going to go wrong, even if the younger versions of them hadn't left the house last night to go talk about the whole thing on the swingset like they had -- and hadn't fought with each other in the house, either. Yet. ...Because the way Stan saw it going down, he figured that this whole thing was gonna be one hell of a shock for that younger him later that night, when that younger Ford presented this whole thing as one of those 'I got a bunch of college people interested in giving me a full-ride to college for my science fair project and, guess what, I already won!' things to him after the fact.

Those parallel-thems hadn't gone to school yesterday; that meant they couldn't have been called to the office. So that other younger Stan wouldn't have overheard what the principal and his parents really thought of him like Stan had, about how he'd just end up staying in Jersey doing shit jobs forever. He wouldn't have overheard about the fancy college people that would be coming, that were interested in his brother. And because the two of them hadn't left the house last night or fought inside the house, that younger Stan obviously hadn't had that conversation with Ford about being left behind, either... which meant that their parents had probably just told that younger Ford about the whole college board thing, and left that younger Stan right out of it. ...Because, y'know, why would it matter to him what his brother might have going for him as a good thing out of the blue, or that his twin would be leaving him behind if he went for it? Not like he had a right to know what was goin' on with his own brother, or nothin'. Right?

...And by then, in just a few short hours from now, it'd be too late for that younger Stan to say or do anything about it one way or the other, too. That Ford would have his mind set on that fancy college by then -- no way that those fancy college people wouldn't want him, once they saw what he could do -- and then...

...well, at least that younger Stan wouldn't be kicked outta the house, though. That was something, right? (A really lousy runner's-up prize, sure, but hey, it did kinda beat the alternative of getting kicked out onto the streets and his brother never wanting to speak with him again, right? So it was still better than…)

(...except he knew himself. He'd get fed up with everything, sooner or later. He'd still end up leaving. And then when Shermie needed someone, needed him…)

Stan looked down, pulled in a deep breath, and let it out again.

He focused on what he was doing, finished counting Miz's money, then folded it up and stuffed it in a pocket.

And then he got up from his chair and cleared off the tabletop entirely, shoving the rest of the remaining display -- sand, seashells, and all that -- into the larger box that Miz had made earlier and used as part of the display before.

"Kid, you wanna do card tricks over here? Or keep on doin' them out there still?" Stan asked the kid, as he half-heartedly tossed the box under the counter, letting it drop to the floor. The kid turned his head towards him, and gave him a look that made it clear what he thought of that idea, as Stan got up and made his way out of the booth again. Stan shrugged at him. "Suit yourself." Stan went around the front of the table and shoved the 'fortune teller visitor's chair' (crate) over with his heel over a bit, to center it at the center of the counter instead. Then Stan walked himself back into the booth and did the same thing with his own chair. --No reason not to take up the entire space for fortune-telling, with nothing left of the earrings.

Stan did a few more tarot card readings, and Stan realized after awhile (and another magic show or two) that he wasn't making as much money as either of the two demons had, so far. And that left him feeling a little… odd. (Okay, yeah, maybe a part of him was feeling a little inadequate. He was the one who was supposed to be providing for his family, and taking care of the kid as part of the agreement.) But… Stan had asked the kid for his ideas, and the kid had handed him the tarot deck. 'For free.' Because the kid was 'helping him out'. It hadn't been Stan's idea to go with this; he probably could've come up with something better than tarot to sell.

--And hey, he was doing pretty good for making money from nothing, when the demon-kids could literally make stuff from nothing, just 'free sand' or pulled outta a hat full of everything! Still left him feeling a little odd, though. But that was a thing. It wasn't like Stan had some kinda crazy demon powers like either of the demon-kids, to be making product out of thin air or... doing a bunch of prop magic. Which he could do, if he'd had the props. But he didn't and the kid did. And the kid had had to get it all from somewhere; the kid hadn't really pulled that junk outta thin air -- that had been planning. Kid had really been prepared for everything. Huh. ...Huh.

--Wait. Had the kid prepared for something like this?

Thing was, Stan didn't know if the kid had handed him the tarot deck on purpose or not, thinking that Stan wouldn't be able to make as much money as him off of it. So, had the kid set him up for feeling this way, all off-balance and depending on the kid for this stuff? ...Then again, the kid had just been handing over all his earnings to him like he was some kind of... hell, not even a pimp, because the kid would've kept at least some small percentage of his earnings if that was the case. And, now that Stan was thinkin' about it, the kid had sort of brought up the distribution of work -- him doing tarot and the kid doing card tricks -- himself, but when he'd done it, he'd done it like a question. Kid had actually hesitated when he'd said it, like he'd thought Stan might have a problem with it.

Stan resituated himself on the chair was sitting on a bit, stifling a grimace, and he thought about what would have happened if he'd taken the other deck, instead. ...He could've done poker or something, maybe, or some sort of card game like the cups, but that would've required money to offset any player's buy-in, which he hadn't had to start with. Okay. So that would have been a wash, maybe. Could've worked, but maybe not. (And the kid didn't like uncertainty all that much; neither did he, when it came to a 'choice' of making money or starving.)

...He could've done straight-up card tricks like the kid, though, and maybe made at least as much money off of stuff as Bill. But… it'd be more of a Mr. Mystery act, and he would've had to leave the booth to do that and make bank. And with the kid doing the tarot, the kid would have been the one of the two of them sitting in the booth with Miz… and the kids... and Ford. (Yeah, sure. That would have gone over well with his sleep-deprived brother…)

Stan let out a sigh and rubbed a hand down his face. ...Hell, even if Ford had gone back to the boat while taking the kids with him, leaving him to do his thing with the demons, making money alone in the booth, could the kid have even pulled off the tarot readings as well as he did? The triangle demon didn't exactly seem to read people very well, and… Stan wasn't so sure that the demon would be as good at telling people what they wanted to hear as all that. (Heh, scratch that. Stan was pretty damn sure that the kid would've ended up with a lot of angry customers by telling the truth to them instead, and treating them like dirt.) That would've left Stan basically one-upping the kid by making more money with magic tricks than the kid at tarot, but… it would've caused other problems. And…

Stan glanced over at the kid again, who was still taking the magic act seriously, and then Stan stilled in place as it occurred to him. If the kid was really thinking of and treating what he was doing like 'help', then all of the kid's own earnings would 'count' as Stan's earnings… and Stan taking the tarot deck and the kid doing magic outside the booth was making them the most bank overall, combined. And it was also keeping the kid out of the booth, away from Ford.

Stan looked down at the tarot deck and reshuffled it, while watching the kid out of the corner of his eye. Thinking on it, they'd used up all Stan's earnings from this morning to buy food for everyone except Miz (who was using her own money for that -- not like Stan could cover that appetite so easy -- hell, he hadn't even done that at the Shack, and the kid hadn't even asked him to). But… Stan's earnings had covered it. And it wasn't like Stan had asked the kid for an idea that would make him bank; he'd just been talking about it as a way to cover them all in the meantime. And Stan hadn't even been pushing it; he hadn't been trying to do tarot readings during the kid's shows, and he'd spent a lot of time so far helping Miz sell all of her own stuff. He could've made a good bit more money here with this than he already had already, if he'd really tried. He hadn't actually spent all that much time doing the tarot readings yet today. He could've made more. --Maybe not as quickly or as much as the kid was racking up dollars for his shows, still, but…

Stan sighed, then slapped on a smile as the next set of possible-suckers started walking by the table. He called out to them, getting their attention and selling the readings almost on autopilot, as he thought about the last piece of things.

Stan didn't like having to rely on the demons for things, Miz or Bill. And it wasn't like the kid didn't know that. And Stan had talked about busking and running a proper con. But... if he'd told him that he just wanted money he could spend, and didn't care how they got it… could they have just made up a stack of forged paper money for him, if he'd asked the kid, or Miz, to do it? Just as easily as Miz had made up those earrings to sell, from the sand?

--The gaggle of older women in front of him was debating the tarot reading, and he tossed in a quick joke or two, to make them giggle, hamming it up.

Stan hadn't asked the kid for efficiency, and he hadn't asked for a big money-earner. What he had asked for was ideas while they were standing there in the booth. But what he'd wanted, and said that he'd wanted, was for Ford to get some sleep. He'd said he wanted to keep the kids with him for the day if he could. He'd said he wanted to 'busk' for enough money to be able to feed themselves, while feeling tired as anything over what-all was going on with his brother there.

...And what the kid had helped to set up and give to him was a booth for the day that they could relax in (even before Stan had really asked), and work that was about as stressful as playing cards (when asked). Kid was helping him by helping them rest, or trying to. ...Wasn't like the kid didn't know how Stan felt about Ford being sleep-deprived, either -- and the kid didn't like it when Ford did that any more than Stan did, he'd lay even bets on that.

The kid had tried to give him what he wanted. What he'd said he wanted.

...This was dangerous. The kid really was trying to help him out, here, as far as he could tell. (Except the kid usually got things wrong so often that…)

Stan finally got a hook, three ladies egging each other on. ...He smiled as they approached the table, because if he played this right, he'd get each of them in a row, all listening in on each other, in a 'do her next' 'do me next' scenario. Heh.

Stan was gonna have to talk to the kid about this later, definitely. He didn't want to risk getting this wrong. Stuff with the kid had shifted again, and it was starting to get hard to keep up. 'Help by him' on top of 'wanting him' by way of a gambling-bet 'not-a-game' all sitting on top of their mutual non-aggression agreement, with a new demonic 'little sister' now thrown into the mix? Right now, Stan wasn't even sure if the level of help he was getting from the kid right now was more from the 'wanting him', or the promised help for as long as the 'gambling-bet' was going on.

And Stan figured that that was gonna be pretty important to figure out one hell of a lot sooner than just 'later'.

------

Bill eventually laid down next to his sister in the back of the booth, dozing lightly, for his usual afternoon nap, and Stan let out a quiet breath of relief. (He'd been worried that he might have to get in an argument with the kid over getting him to lie down for (at least one of) his usual 'midday' nap(s) -- y'know, those naps that the kid never admitted that he took. That the kid had done it on his own without making a big fuss about it, or getting cranky first, or pushing things until he practically collapsed, was a good sign.) ...And then Stan was finally able to do some readings on a hell of a lot more people to properly earn his own money.

And Stan felt a little odd in a different way, now, because Stan felt plain next to the kid's earlier artsy-glittery draw, especially when he was used to being the one in the room putting on the big show. Stan could fully admit that, when comparing his tarot readings to Bill's magic act, he was nowhere near as impressive as Bill was in terms of showmanship -- and to be fair, while the kid could cheat with real magic, the kid had also been showing off a hell of a lot of flair there, too.

...But the thing was, a Mr. Mystery act, acting all larger-than-life? Wasn't what people were looking for in a tarot reading; not really. People weren't walking up to the booth looking for some big puffed-up personality; tarot was about making everything about the person being read, if you were doing it right -- a different and quieter kind of mystery. Yeah, you had to come across as the authority at the table, knowing what you were doing, sure. But this wasn't some psychic-crystal-ball shake-the-table here-come-the-ghosts mediumistic nonsense he was doin', here. (...And Stan had a pretty good, bad idea what his brother would have to say about all that, with some of the junk Ford had written about it in that third journal of his, way back when. --Anyway, point was:) You weren't trying to go over the top for this stuff, with the cards -- and if you were, then you were missing the point.

Honestly, it all felt like a throwback almost, putting on a new-old skin, because the last time Stan remembered helping his ma out with her tarot readings had been back in… hell, elementary school. (Was he remembering that right?) And he'd just been happy and excited to be able to be all helpful to the people on the other end of the phone, drawing cards and sometimes figuring out parts of the readings all on his own from the book, for his ma, and for them.

Stan had never done a full reading on his own back then; and neither he or his ma had actually done any of those things for people in-person, only over the phone hotline at a remove. No faces, and sometimes even no names; just a voice. So doing this stuff in the booth now? Was kind of the same? But also really, really different. ...And a hell of a lot calmer than the Mystery Shack tours, he had to give the kid that. He felt removed from all the stress of the boardwalk out there because he was: all the rush and bustle was literally on the other side of the table away from him, and the inside of the booth behind him was an oasis of calm and sleepy serenity.

...And Stan, being Stan, did what he always did: he took it all and ran with it. (Wasn't like he hadn't had to make up another new persona or two before on a moment's notice. Except, this time, it didn't really feel like a 'persona', which was the really odd part of it.) Wasn't like it was hard; he'd done stuff like this before, if not maybe this exact thing here specifically...

So Stan did his thing, with a real chance at doing stuff without having to compete with or offset the kid, and by the time Ford and Miz woke up, Stan had managed to rack up a damn respectable amount of cash for his efforts, if he did say so himself. Not long after Miz woke up, Bill was blinking and yawning as he slowly sat up on his own, too. Stan leaned back in his chair and glanced back over his shoulder at the lot of them, as Miz yawned and looked around before declaring that she was hungry and, well, that was Stan's cue.

"Hey kid, here's your profits," Stan told Miz, reaching into his pocket for just that. "Maybe think about filling up on some people food this time. There's some food stalls nearby." Stan handed her the stack of bills. She took them from him, then turned and stared at the cleared tabletop.

"They all sold? How?" Miz said, sounding a little shell-shocked.

Stan shrugged. "People came and bought 'em?" She seemed surprised at that. (...Well, yeah, she didn't push customers to buy. She probably wasn't used to being able to sell all of her stock.) Stan blinked when Miz stared at him in awe, though.

"Thank you," she said with a complicated expression, heartfelt but also a little melancholy. Stan frowned slightly, not sure how to feel about that. Wasn't like she hadn't been paying him commission to sell 'em for her. All he could think of to tell her was: "Uh. No problem, kid."

Ford, who was slowly dragging his brain awake again, after having fallen asleep on the floor under a light blanket, looked confused about where he was for a long moment, as he muttered out, "Wh'sss... --Lee!" Stan watched his brother jolt upright and shove the blanket off of himself roughly. "--The science fair!!" Ford made a more coordinated lurch to his feet than Stan would have ever expected out of his brother while still half-asleep… except that he'd seen Ford attempt that before on the boat multiple times on less sleep and actually succeed. (...most of the time. Unless he did it in the middle of a really bad rough sea day, full of choppy waves, and then… well...)

"Calm down Poindexter. We still have, uh…" Stan glanced to check the time. "...Two hours before the guys from that fancy school are gonna show up, yeah?" Ford started to calm down a little after checking his own watch, and Stan reached over to clap his shoulder. "Come on, let's get you some food."

Miz was flipping through her bills with an amazed look on her face. "I could buy so much food with this!" she gasped.

"Well, yeah?" Stan snorted. That had been kinda the point. (Because from what he could tell, Miz was constantly hungry. So she needed it. Though whatever reason that she ended up ravenous after doing stuff when the kid didn't, Stan wasn't sure. He knew the kid did some things differently -- more 'efficiently'? -- than her, but Stan didn't get what was really causing the differences, or why the dragon-lady just… didn't do all that flashy stuff, then, if it was gonna do that to her, making her that hungry that fast and that soon. He also didn't know why the kid hadn't walked through better ways of doing stuff with her yet. ...He'd have to ask later.)

Miz turned to Bill. "Do you want any of the stuff here?" The older demon looked around at the stands full of hotdogs, burgers and deep fried everything.

"No," said Bill.

Miz shrugged. "I can see about a fruit stand or something?" she asked him next. Bill hummed noncommittally. It was fine if his little sister wanted to eat the food around here, he just didn't want to bother. Obtaining, identifying, handling, cleaning, distilling, checking, cleaning-again, distilling-again, re-distilling a third time, and then checking again, long before any ingesting could happen for him safely and easily… it was too much trouble to do for any and every old thing he might think of putting in his mouth when he was stuck in this stupid human-ish body. Doing the bare minimum of burning things that were barely edible thoroughly before eating them? Well, that was annoying enough as it was. He wasn't going through ALL THAT for some stupid hotdog! No!

Stan didn't comment or bother to weigh in on things; he knew now what the kid would and would not eat, and he knew that the kid still had more of those crackers to fall back on for now. So Stan only bought a few more hotdogs to pass off to Ford, to pester him to eat as the kids hit the beach restrooms before they all left the boardwalk. (Stan figured it was a good thing that those restrooms were for the public and open twenty-four-seven. They'd sure been useful last night, on the way to the roof where Ford had decided to crouch for his impromptu stakeout. One of the things he hadn't gotten set up on the Stan o' War yet to-date had been the plumbing...)

Meanwhile, Miz ran around all the stalls, getting herself a little bit of everything. She bought hot dogs, burgers, chicken skewers and french fries for herself, along with a few lemonades, and Dipper and Mabel stared at her as she ate.

Dipper looked back and forth between Miz and Bill. "How come you don't eat so much?" he asked Bill.

Bill waved the question off. "I'm more careful about what I put inside myself. You humans ARE what you EAT, you know!" Miz just shrugged in reply, simply stating: "I apparently have no standards." She didn't seem all that ashamed by this fact.

Bill, on the other hand, was something over this (though certainly not ashamed… maybe a little annoyed?) -- Bill ruffled her hair and said, "You DO have standards! You just need BETTER ones. SO HAVE BETTER STANDARDS! --AT LEAST ONE MORE THAN YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW! IMPROVEMENT!!!" Miz made a muffled protest through her mouthful of french fries at the penalizing hair-ruffling.

Mabel and Dipper turned to each other, exchanging a look. ...Because it was really weird watching Bill and Miz interact. The demons almost seemed like real siblings sometimes. It made them feel really weird to see Bill Cipher actually acting kind of like an older brother was supposed to act.

The group made their way off the boardwalk. Miz finished eating almost all of her own food haul -- which was just about enough to feed a whole sports team (and had Stan really wondering just how much energy she'd actually been using to pull off the stuff she was doing, and comparing it to how much the kid usually used by comparison). Miz was just finishing up nibbling on her last box of chicken nuggets, when the school came into sight.

From the look of the sidewalk and school courtyard, there weren't a lot of people from the community raring at the bit to go inside and look at the science fair projects for the school's spring 'open house'. ...Well, Stan wasn't surprised about that. Their school wasn't all that impressive, and people weren't all that interested in this sort of thing in their town.

But as they all approached the double-doors of the gymnasium, right before they were about to pass the threshold to the inside, Ford stopped in the middle of the doorway and turned in place to glare at the demons, blocking the door.

"You--" said Ford. "I don't want either of you anywhere near it! No messing with it just to spite me," Ford just about spat out at the two demons. (Hell, Stan couldn't exactly blame his brother for it, either. He got why Ford was so worried about the whole thing.)

Miz scowled but didn't say anything. Bill placed a hand on her head. "Just wait," Bill said to her simply. She nodded, shoving two chicken nuggets in her mouth, chewing to stop herself from speaking.

Ford glanced between them with an annoyed expression (covering up no small worry). He was absolutely certain that the demons were messing with him, stressing him and Stan out on purpose just for their own sick amusement.

Stan sighed. "Alright, Ford. What do you want to do here?" he asked of his brother. He didn't like the idea of the demons staying out here alone with the kids, out of his sight. But Stan figured he needed to be in there to help Ford out, once they saw what might've happened, or didn't happen, or... whatever; he didn't know. And Stan was pretty sure that Ford wouldn't want the kids to be in there with him, just in case there was a problem. (Because then the kids would see him completely lose his shit and…)

But to this, Stan's brother gave him an odd look.

"I'm going inside," Ford told him, as if that was obvious. (And well sure; that was.) "You weren't actually planning on letting the demons roam around the floor of the science fair, inside the building here, were you?" Ford said next, in descending tones, and…

Stan blinked at him. "Well, uh… no?" Stan said, feeling a little confused. "But the kids--"

"I'd rather not have them inside, either," Ford said. At the shocked and surprised complaints from the niblings -- who apparently wanted to see the great and fabled perpetual motion machine for themselves -- Ford crouched down in front of them and said, "Once the danger has passed, we can come back and you can see it, then, if you'd like. But for now--"

...the danger? The heck was Ford… Stan shook his head and let it go, as he listened to Ford talk the niblings out of going inside -- or trying to sneak inside either -- until at least 5 o'clock that afternoon. Which would be a couple hours past when the college board jerks would show up. ...Which Ford had gone for probably, y'know, just in case something had happened to make 'em late or something, Stan figured.

"Okay, Ford," Stan sighed out next, crossing his arms as his brother stood back up to face him. "Then what are you wantin' me to do, here? Because--"

"--What do you mean?" Ford asked him next. "You're staying outside and watching the demons here, aren't you?"

Stan stared at Ford.

"I--" Stan began, feeling a little dizzy with shock. Because he hadn't expected--

Stan took in a deep breath, and forced himself to… calm down? He wasn't real sure what he was feelin' right then, though. Just that it didn't feel really good. (If anything, it felt wrong, because he'd thought that--)

"Ford," Stan said almost carefully. "Don't you want me comin' in there with you?"

And to this, his brother stared at him like he was out of his flipping mind.

"Why would I--" Ford stopped for a moment, staring at Stan like he'd never seen him before.

Then Ford frowned.

"Stanley," Ford said, almost as carefully as Stan had just talked, except he also sounded... "Why would I want you inside?"

Stan looked at his own brother in disbelief.

"Ford, I wasn't plannin' on breaking your science fair project," Stan told him, flat-out. "You know that, right?"

"Of course I do," Ford said, and Stan let out a breath about as quietly as he could. Because he couldn't believe that he ever suspected his own brother had been so paranoid as to think that-- "The best time for you to have tried that would have been last night, and you didn't try to sneak away. You laid yourself down and you slept all through the night," Ford told him next. "You've been thoroughly occupied with the demons, ever since."

Stan's stomach dropped to his knees, and he felt a cold chill go down his spine.

Miz was frowning. "So you don't trust him…" She muttered quietly.

Ford shot a glare at the demon, then turned back to his brother.

"Stan," he told him. "You have to understand--"

"Oh, no, really?" Stan said, looking irate. "Well, go on and explain it to me, then! Yeah? --C'mon! Out with it!"

Ford clenched his jaw, then shook his head and let out a breath roughly, forcing himself to try and relax. "Stan, you're already worked up over this," Ford said. He didn't mean to offend his brother, it was only that-- "I don't trust myself not to say something that might offend you--"

"Offend me?" Stan blurted out, looking even angrier, and Ford grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"--which is already happening as we stand here right now," Ford said next with no small exasperation with himself (and his brother), then slowly looked up to see his brother standing there, glowering at him.

"You don't trust me," Stan said. "That's what this is. You don't trust me not to--"

"--Stan," Ford tried again, feeling increasingly tired. "Of the last few times we have fought... Of the last three times we have gotten into serious physical altercations with each other, what has ostensibly made you upset to the point of forgoing words for actions, was me. There was a tipping point where you lost your temper because of something I had said. And two of those altercations escalated to such a degree so quickly, with the two of us so incensed with each other over pettiness and old grievances, that we literally became unaware of our surroundings and completely blind to and unconcerned with the larger problems at-hand, in our surrounding environment, at the time," Ford said. "And I think you know the two altercations of which I am speaking," his first journal and the portal, and the Zodiac circle during Weirdmageddon.

Silence from his brother.

Ford pulled in another breath. "I don't want to place blame, and I will take responsibility for my part in those fights. --And regardless of how you or I may feel about any of the specific details of those fights, what I think we both do not fail to recognize is the pattern here," Ford said. "And I need to go in there and see what the state of-- that science fair project is," Ford told him. "If we both go in at the same time, we risk having an altercation with each other that could very well end with that table being broken, and that project destroyed." Ford glanced over at Bill. "And I have no doubt in my mind that the demon currently standing at 'your side' would love to see that very thing happen," Ford gritted out as he looked back to Stan. "And if you go in there before the judges do, I have no doubt that Bill could have easily set things up somehow for you to be the one to break that project, accidentally or otherwise--" he saw Stan begin to protest, "--potentially even something as simple as being in the wrong place at the wrong time to be bumped into and pushed into the project table, whether you'd want that to happen or not," Ford told him. "And then we would both be left, wondering. And as for those younger versions of ourselves..." Ford trailed off.

Ford saw his brother clenching his jaw. Stan was all but glaring at him.

"Stan, please see reason here," Ford told his brother quietly, stepping forward to place his hands on his shoulders. "I don't even know the state of the project in there, at-present. I-- I can't have you in there with me when I see it," he told him next, looking down a bit, briefly closing his eyes.

"Ford…" Stan said slowly.

"We've never talked about this, Stan," Ford said to Stan under his breath, stopping his voice from traveling. "Not once; not really," he told him, feeling his own shoulders slump a little, even as his own back tensed. "I don't--" He pulled in a breath. "I don't know if I might lose my temper at you or not, not if something is wrong in there," Ford looked up at him. "And I don't want to risk doing that. Not to you, and not in front of the niblings." He swallowed. "Please," he asked of his brother, hoping beyond hope that Stan would just see sense, just this one time...

Stan stared at him for a long time.

"...Fine," Stan said, looking away from him.

Ford let out a breath and slowly lowered his hands from his brother's shoulders, feeling a little like he could breathe again.

(And yet, at the same time, he also felt a bit like something had sucked all the breathable air out of the atmosphere surrounding the planet, and replaced it with an entirely-unbreathable mix. It was a little like breathing underwater; his lungs were expanding correctly again, but it felt like there was no oxygen left for him to...)

"All right," Ford said, taking a step back. "Alright." He braced himself, then said, "Thank you, Stan."

To this, Ford got nothing more than a noncommittal grunt, and a brother who turned away from him, looking anything but happy with him. (He'd half-expected gloating from his brother. ...Or at least a bit of taunting from Bill, who had also remained oddly silent throughout. Because a 'thank you' under these circumstances was...)

Ford let out an unhappy sigh himself, then turned back towards the gymnasium doors.

He steeled himself, then marched right on into the building.

---

Bill and Miz looked to Stanley as he walked past them towards the courtyard wall (and some of the benches there), saying, "C'mon, you four. Benches ain't gonna walk themselves over here for us." They glanced at each other, before they both shrugged and followed him over. (Pine Tree and Shooting Star reacted in a similar manner, though they were talking quietly to each other as they went.)

Miz popped the rest of her snack in her mouth and walked over to throw out the container in a nearby garbage can. "Sure, I'm just gonna go sit down here, then," she grumbled before settling in at one of the benches.

Bill followed her to the bench, glancing over at Stan briefly. "When you want to fix things, just tell me."

Stan let out a heavy sigh. --The kid was still convinced something was going to go wrong. He frowned, then glanced over at the twins, who had decided to sit one bench down from the demon-kids. They were both not wanting to get too close, but they were just as clearly watching the two demons like a pair of hawks. (Dipper obviously didn't want Bill and Miz going off on their own, and wanted to keep an eye on them for Ford, yeah. But he also clearly wanted to go to the science fair, see Ford's project, and help out as much as he could. And so did Mabel.)

Stan just sighed, feeling bad about the whole thing.

He turned around and sat down on the far end of the bench, on the same bench as the demon-kids. It put him between the demon-kids and the kids... and left him staring at the doors of the gymnasium that Ford didn't want him to enter.

Stan blinked as he watched Ford march into the gymnasium and… slow down. And then he saw Ford turn his head to glance over his shoulder back at him, looking almost guiltily at him before he turned away and...

...vanished out of sight around a corner.

Stan frowned a little as he sat back on the bench out in the open courtyard, and crossed his arms. ...The heck had thatbeen about? What did his brother have to feel guilty about? He'd been the one to get himself kicked out of the house, the one who'd 'ruined his own life' -- and Ford's along with it, the way Ford had always talked about it, before and since...

---

Ford was still steeling himself as he turned a corner and-- saw the booth.

And his science fair project.

--The other, younger Ford's project. The perpetual motion machine.

It was out on full display, spinning and--

Ford sucked in a breath, then let it out again in a rush again mere moments later. Because he hadn't been seeing things; it was still spinning. --It was working. The science fair project was fine. Ford took a step forward, then two, then three, then another and another and another until he was himself standing right there in front of it.

He stared down at it, almost in wonder, feeling almost like he was caught up a fever-dream. It was... surreal. It was just sitting there, spinning and working not three steps away from him farther forward. If he simply reached out a hand… It was… it was just as wonderful as he remembered it. It was...

...out on full display, he realized, looking up, and that wasn't quite right -- except it also was exactly that. That was right, because…

Ford glanced to the side and noted that the curtain was still tied up at the corners of the booth between Stan's and his. His project was right next to Stan's project, the one about... about a kicking robot that Stan had built out of cardboard and an old toaster and...

...He remembered full well what had happened that day. The day that the West Coast Tech representatives had come to see his project. He'd pulled the curtain aside, and then...

And then.

...The curtain had been up. Not over to one side; it had been tied across the booth. Hiding his project from view. He remembered the chain and course of events well, and…

--At the time, as it had happened, and for days afterwards, he hadn't thought too much on the particulars beyond that -- the facts of the event that had occurred being nightmarish enough as they had stood. But...

...he really hadn't put the curtain up again the day before when he'd left, had he.

Ford felt his hands clench spasmodically into fists. He had to force himself to close his eyes and breathe.

An accident. Stan had always said it was an accident. But with the curtain tied closed, when it hadn't been prior… he'd agonized over that one for days, weeks afterwards. Whether he had or hadn't. Because had he? Or hadn't he? He'd practically obsessed over it for awhile, after the initial anger and shame and frustration and sickening loss had passed. After Stan hadn't shown up for school since he'd been thrown out of the house, and hadn't been home since, either -- not even so much as tried to darken the doorway of the house or the shop...

Ford been almost completely certain that he hadn't closed the curtain the preceding day, but with the stress of the situation -- and everything else -- he'd never been completely sure. Not really. Not completely...

But what Stan had said to him and done after had been more than damning enough not to matter, back then. Not in the long-run. Not really. --Because it would have changed nothing. 'Accident' or not, Stan had broken the project, not told him of it, and not been the least bit sorry or shown even one iota of remorse for his actions later, afterwards. Not to him; not to anyone. Ever.

But now… with the facts of the matter staring Ford right in the face?

--A closed curtain implied something that had needed to be hidden. It implied knowledge that something had been wrong. ...It didn't imply simple ignorance of a potential problem; it practically screamed of malice aforethought -- which Ford had tried to tell himself it hadn't been, couldn't have been what had happened, for days and days afterwards after the initial shock and anger had worn off. Days and days and days... until he simply couldn't take it anymore.

Because he'd been abandoned by his twin. Stan hadn't even tried to apologize to him. --Stan had been kicked out of the house, yes. But nothing had prevented Stan from showing up at school to see him! Stan could have-- he could have at least come to see him-- instead of running away like a coward. He could have at least come and told him that he was sorry, that he hadn't meant it confessed to the deed. He could at least have had the damn courage and common decency to come to him, to talk to him, to walk up to him and look him right in the eye and tell him exactly why he'd done it--

Stan, the suffocating, arrogant, self-centered ass, had dropped him first. Thrown him away. --At the very first sign that Ford had wanted something for himself, that he wasn't fully willing to go along with one of Stan's harebrained schemes, Stan had just--! Just… he'd just...

Ford, shaking with anger and hating everything to do with what had happened--

Ford opened his eyes and glared at the perfectly-engineered, brilliantly designed, horribly beautiful, gloriously stupid--

And then Ford snapped bolt upright in place and took a quick step backwards, feeling dizzy and quite literally physically ill. Because he suddenly realized that he'd been leaning towards the--

His fists were clenched--

He was shaking--

Ford closed his eyes again briefly, tilted his head back, and forced himself to take in a deep breath. Forced himself to unclench his fingers, loosen his fists. He couldn't do this. He couldn't--

He opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. What was he doing? Standing here and thinking about what Stan had--

He dropped his chin, looked back down at the machine, and felt the paranoia pressing in. Because…

--This wasn't how things were supposed to be. This wasn't what had happened. --Been meant to happen? Prophesied? Necessary? --A man with the face of the one who would kill…-- It hadn't happened this way, and--

Something terrible was going to happen. Something terrible was going to happen if he didn't--

--If he didn't break it, Stan wouldn't be kicked out of the house, would he? Ford himself had had his life ruined, but by comparison? Here? What was the worst that could happen? (Bill loved his worst-case scenarios, always getting what he wanted SOMEHOW--)

Bill had been far less than helpful on that front as of late. So Ford forced himself to stop and actually think.

...If he broke the project here, his young counterpart would still go to college, albeit a highly subpar one where he would have to work twice times as hard to get anywhere. He would eventually graduate and move to Gravity Falls. He would find his life's dream really.

...And he would never summon Bill Cipher, because Bill was stuck in a human'ish' form with them. This Ford would be just fine; a bit frustrated at his progress on the Universal Theory of Weirdness, certainly, but…

...He would never build a portal. Not this younger Ford here. Because the portal had been Bill's idea. Ford hadn't come up with that; Bill had suggested it, and then…

This Ford would never call this Stan for help. He wouldn't need him. And this Stan...

...would be punished for his crimes, many times over. Stan didn't talk about those ten years that he'd been missing absent from his life; he never had. Not really. But Ford was no fool.

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