-Who’d give up everything for their dumb sibling-(Part 1)

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The two old men were outright shouting at each other now.

Bill looked over at Miz. Miz placed a hand on Mabel's shoulder. "Do you and Dipper want to…" she grimaced. Miz didn't like the sound of people arguing. And there was no convenient window for her to fling herself out of this time.

"--Miz, don't ask; just WALK," said Bill, walking over to Pine Tree to grab his shoulder and steer him away from the yelling match himself, making a gesture as he went with a soft 'click' under his breath (tossing up a spell that would mute their own voices).

"No!" Mabel cried out, pushing back at her. "We should try and--"

"We are not stopping them," Bill said, all but dragging Pine Tree along by the shoulder, as he tried to resist the motion. "We are walking away and not interfering." To Bill, he was stating a fact that he was making (clear was already) true (for courtesy). (They would stop fighting faster WITHOUT the interference muddying the waters and potentially changing the supposed direction of the fight yet again. Maybe.)

"GRUNKLE STAN!!!" Mabel called out, then looked shocked as she realized that he hadn't even heard her.

(Bill made a 'tsk'ing sound under his breath. --What was Shooting Star thinking? Every time she'd seen them fighting before, she and her sibling hadn't been able to stop them -- the aftermath of that Stanford's arrival through the portal, the Zodiac circle in the Fearamid… and just now. They hadn't actually stopped that Stanford from heading for the school; he'd been dragging them along. And this time… --Neither of them had been listening to either Pine Tree or Shooting Star at that point, really. What did she think would happen? That they'd simply stop fighting and make up, just for her? Because she asked them to?)

"Let us go!!" Dipper demanded, and he felt Bill twitch for a moment, almost stop in place, before shaking his stupid blue-haired head and forcing him along again further.

"You haven't seen them actually fight before," Bill informed him dryly. "You do NOT want to see this. THEY will not WANT you to see this." He paused for a moment. "STANLEY will not."

"Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford love each other!" Mabel began. "They aren't going to--"

Miz shook her head. "They're… this is gonna get messy…"

"--Don't sugarcoat it, Miz," Bill said flatly, as he forced them to keep moving. "You want to know how Stanley got that 'tattoo' of his?" he told Pine Tree as he forced him along, as Miz pushed and herded Shooting Star along a little more gently than he was. "Or should I say burn mark? --Surprise-surprise: his own sibling pushed him against the side of a control panel, into a burning hot sigil! And when he screamed? He shoved him up against it even harder." Bill frowned. "And then he finally let go. ...After awhile."

The twins both went pale. "Th-that--" Dipper stuttered, while Mabel said shakily, "--You're lying!"

"HA!" said Bill mirthlessly. "That was what happened." And he'd been about as specific as he could be while describing both events as generally and accurately as possible in their own native language.

Miz frowned. Wait, didn't Ford apologize after? And… that Stanford had only pushed harder by accident, while trying to shove himself away across the floor, while Stanley's real brother had… But more than that, she interjected: "Would this knowledge be a mental attack?" She looked at Mabel with worry.

Bill looked over at Miz.

"Safety of those in the priority-order-list trumps accidental and non-fatal attacks," Bill told her. "It is 'not an excuse to do a thing', Stanley said. But if their lives are in danger, hurting them a little to keep them from maybe-DYING is something Stanley agrees is 'a thing'. ...Though I may still get a learning-lesson on how to do it 'better' instead, later." Bill rolled his eyes and let out a sigh.

Miz nodded to show she understood. "If they start fighting, these two might get hurt. And that would hurt the two of them more than any burn, bruise, or punch to the face."

"Yes," Bill agreed. "--Especially if you try to run between them when they're throwing punches and kicks," Bill said to his younger Zodiac directly. "That Stanford does NOT hold back enough. He will aim and try to hit with the force he wants," Bill said, "And if you get in the way… he would not EXPECT that. He is not Stanley." Stanley made a point of being ready to pull back, just in case; he generally didn't want to kill anyone he might be fighting with, and he fought with that always in mind. Bill knew; he'd Seen it in the way Stanley fought many times over. "--That Stanford would NOT be ready to pull back in time. Stanley can take a punch that would KILL either of you," Bill told them. "Several. --You ARE NOT getting in-between them right now!" Bill insisted.

Mabel seemed very distressed but aside from clutching the edge of her sweater, she gave no further complaints. But she hated this. She hated all of this! She hated when her favorite grunkles fought.

"We could at least try!" Mabel said, looking up at Bill in frustration.

"You just did," Bill said succinctly, looking down at her. "How well did THAT work out for you," he said next, as if pointing out the obvious, gesturing demonstratively with his free hand back at the now-arguing (still arguing) pair.

Dipper shivered a little at Bill's words, but then he glanced back (following Bill's gesticulating hand) and suddenly realized how far away from his family the demons were actually taking them. --Their great-uncles were over by the mouth of the alleyway where they'd left them, well-past the transition from beach to city suburbs, while they were... almost back to the boardwalk!

Dipper yanked against Bill's hold and let his legs collapse under him, almost kneeling in place, forcing his full-weight down against Bill's hold. --He might not be able to beat Bill in a straight-up punching match, even if he wanted to risk what breaking the agreement right now might do. But if Bill wanted to drag him someplace away from his family, he'd have to literally drag him away to do it. (--He was not going to let Bill drag him and his sister off to who knew where without a fight!)

Bill stopped walking and looked down at him, clearly annoyed and a little on-edge. (Miz came to a stop as well, looking back at them.) Dipper glared right back up at him.

"We are sitting down right here," Dipper said, about as firmly as he could, even though his voice was shaking a little. (Because it had just occurred to him that with Grunkle Stan unable to hear them right now and not watching, and Bill able to make 'perception filter' spells that kept anyone from seeing anything either, once Bill started something...)

"Are we," Bill said, giving Dipper a long expressionless look. (Dipper swallowed hard, but held his ground, thinking of Gideon, of those gnomes, of the security drones in the spaceship...)

"You aren't scaring our great-uncles again, by dragging us out of their sight!" Dipper protested to Bill next. (He was trying to fight the panic that was creeping up on him that if Bill wanted to, he could 'disappear' with him and his sister and NOBODY would be able to see them, to interfere, he didn't know what to do if Bill… could they even fight back? Even if they were able to beat Bill before, to beat him again might be almost impossible, because Miz--)

Dipper glanced over at Miz, and Miz nodded to Dipper, forming a little chair for Mabel out of sand. She was fine with stopping if they wanted. And she didn't want to see the sheer panic that would engulf the old men if the children disappeared on them again. (What had happened at the Shack right before they'd left had been bad enough…)

"No?" Bill crouched down in front of him, and gave Dipper a long look, level with Dipper's own eyes. "Not even if it stops them fighting and has them working TOGETHER again to find you?" Bill said, eyes and voice flat. Mabel looked over at him and shivered, looking shocked.

"No," said Dipper, glaring at him. "We are not doing that to them. That's horrible. You're horrible."

Bill smiled. (Weirdly, it was more of a grimace than his usual smile, though.)

"Fine," Bill said, straightening a bit, not letting go of his arm as he dropped down right where he was crouching, to sit down cross-legged on the ground right next to him. "We sit and wait HERE." The dream demon made another gesture, and the sound of the fight dropped significantly, to the point that -- loud as it still had been at this distance -- it was barely even audible anymore.

"Miz? Come over here and sit by me, if you please?" Bill said next, as he looked around and over to his sister, then blinked as he saw the full tea party table and chairs she had just set up for them all while he hadn't been looking.

"Ah," said Bill, confused for a moment as he tilted his head around, trying to take it all in. Miz had all but shoved Mabel down into a chair of her own at the table, but his demonic sister was now dragging her own chair over closer to where Bill was sitting on the ground. A set of tea cups were sitting happily on a tray on the table, looking ready to be passed around.

Mabel, feeling uneasy as she sat in her chair at the table, looked around at everything, all cutesy and nice. But she was too distressed to really appreciate any of it, not even the chicken-shaped teapot. She got the feeling that Miz was probably trying to either cheer her up or distract her with cute things? But it just felt so artificial and jarring! Her grunkles were yelling and fighting like they wanted to start punching each other, and Miz wanted to have a tea party? Like nothing was wrong? Like-- like--

Mabel shook her head, feeling sick as she wrapped her arms around her middle, because it was-- it was like Miz didn't care, like she was just, just lying and going through the motions, like she really thought tossing a bunch of cute things at her would make her happy and make her not want to get up and leave! Like turning away from everything and not hearing or seeing anything and not caring could make it all okay. Trying to make everything that was so horrible seem like it was good and fine instead, just like-- like Bill and…

...his bubble. The prison bubble.

And Mabel shivered in place where she sat.

Miz seemed pick up on Mabel's displeasure and winced. "Too much?"

Mabel felt like screaming as she made the connection to Bill's bubble, and she looked around at the table again.

--And then Mabel abruptly shoved herself out of her chair and then kicked the chair over angrily. She wasn't going to do this! (Not again!) This wasn't okay! "Dipper!" She felt like crying. She stomped away from all the tea table stuff quickly and over to her twin brother--

But then Mabel came to a halt almost mid-step as she realized that Dipper was sitting right next to--

Miz waved the tea party back into sand, reabsorbing the bonds between the molecules until it crumpled into sand again. "Sorry…"

Mabel shuddered and leaned away from where the tea set had been -- there and then gone again just as easily as Bill's bubble had been popped. She shivered again at she looked between Bill and her brother.

"...Dipper?" Mabel pleaded.

Dipper didn't hesitate; he pulled away from Bill immediately to get up to walk over to his sister. He glanced back over his shoulder as he did so, to see Bill watching him, but the demon didn't try to grab at him again or otherwise try to stop him.

Dipper reached his sister quickly, and as he hugged his sister, and his sister hugged him back hard. --He didn't blame her. This was getting scary.

Dipper tried to take a deep breath, to calm down and think. He couldn't think when he was panicking, and he really needed to figure out something that would work, stat!

Because Dipper hadn't been alone anyplace with Bill since Bill had been back. Not really. Mabel had always been with him, and somebody had always been watching them, or really close by. (Mabel had gone to the spaceship lab with the dumb dorito chip a couple of times alone now, sure. But Grunkle Stan had talked about 'guidelines' and 'guardrails' for Bill, and Bill not 'playing to an audience of one' the same way as he would if they were both together, and a whole bunch of other junk that… hadn't really made Dipper feel better, even if Mabel had always come back safely so far.)

Bill was still super-dangerous. And none of them knew why Bill seemed to like the idea of effectively torturing him -- and Great-Uncle Ford -- for fun, or why the stupid dorito seemed perfectly okay with treating Grunkle Stan and Mabel 'on the level' instead -- just that Bill did. So Grunkle Stan had said not to push it, that him being alone with Bill was a bad idea, that Bill was mostly trying to get a rise out of him when he could even when his sister was around -- maybe especially then… --And Grunkle Stan had said that he was working on something that would make Bill want to do that less, but that he just wasn't there yet. (Grunkle Stan had wanted him to try and trust him on that enough to wait -- and that Mabel would be okay alone with him in the meantime -- but… it had been hard. And Mabel disappearing places with the dumb dorito hadn't helped!)

Yes, they'd been out on deck with the two demons before, yesterday, without Grunkle Stan or Great-Uncle Ford out on deck with them, but… they'd only been below deck and their great-uncles would've heard them and come running if they'd yelled. And Bill hadn't really been doing anything then, everything had been mostly about Miz; Bill had been all 'low energy' and fallen asleep on them, even. --But Bill was completely off the rails now; he was even casting spells without talking to Grunkle Stan first! And Bill had blocked them from trying to get Grunkle Stan's help or interfering 'no's now, with some kind of silence-sound spell -- their grunkle hadn't looked over at Mabel at all when she'd yelled, and neither had Great-Uncle Ford -- and Bill was obviously in charge here right now, and...

...sitting on the ground watching them both. Wait. Why hadn't Bill done anything yet?

Dipper glanced back over at Bill. He'd been near-terrified once Bill had started dragging them both off that if he wasn't careful, then the dumb dorito might think it was more fun to just torture him in front of his sister instead of-- ...But Bill wasn't trying to… really do anything right now. Was he?

Why not?

--Not that Dipper was complaining(!), but… since when did Bill stop--

...Except Bill did stop sometimes, now. This had started out feeling like that fight with Bill after the water hose out on the yard, before he and Mabel had even known about the agreement, really. (Not any of the others; they still got into fights with Bill sometimes, even if Bill didn't call them that -- and Grunkle Stan didn't either, so that the agreement was still on.) --Bill hadn't really been holding back much then, and it had been scary as heck fighting him, but… Bill had stopped before Wendy had done anything; before she'd had to do anything. (Heck, Dipper wasn't even sure if Bill had realized that she'd come out onto the porch; Bill had stopped, so she hadn't yelled out, but…)

If Bill was stopping on his own, and not even that angry with them, then… was the crazy dream demon actually following the agreement still? Or trying to?

Dipper pulled in a breath.

"Bill, you-- you're still listening to 'no's and 'stop's, right?" Dipper said with a slightly-cracking voice, staring at the triangle demon. Because if Bill was doing things now, but not actually trying to break the agreement, just getting everything really wrong like the stupid dorito always did--

"Yes," Bill said slowly, looking between him and his sister. "I am still listening to 'stop' and 'no'."

"Good," Dipper said shakily, letting out a rush of breath (so did Mabel) as he and his sister sat down on the hard ground below them. "--You'd better," Dipper added, not quite clutching his sister to him in their hug, "Or Grunkle Stan will get mad." (Dipper tried to reinforce that idea, just in case -- that consequences were a thing, because Grunkle Stan had told them that… --And Grunkle Stan would get mad at Bill if the triangle demon did something horrible to them. ...Once he realized what Bill had done.)

"Yes," Bill said slowly, looking between the twins again. "I know."

"Right," Dipper said shakily next, feeling the shiver of adrenaline slowly wearing off. (Bill wasn't actually about to start killing people all of a sudden. He was just being stupid about their grunkle and great-uncle fighting. They were gonna be okay...)

(...right?)

Bill frowned slightly, thinking and visually-assessing. Shooting Star was still shivering a bit. Pine Tree didn't look much better. And the way that they were clutching at each other...

"You're acting like… you've been mentally attacked," Bill said slowly.

"Yeah, you think?" Dipper said, his voice rising.

Bill slowly crouched down next to them -- nearly, but not quite within arm's reach of being able to grab them. He looked between them again, a little more slowly.

"...This isn't about the 'tattoo' burn mark," Bill said slowly after awhile, his gaze eventually settling on Shooting Star. "Is it."

"No," Shooting Star mumbled out, burying her face in Pine Tree's shoulder as she held onto him.

"You are… afraid of me, now?" Bill asked her, perking up a bit, both confused and intrigued. He was a bit happy and proud that she was FINALLY taking him SERIOUSLY -- she thought he was dangerous and frightening! HAHA! -- but he also found it a little annoying, too. It made for an oddly… uncomfortable mix (though he wasn't quite sure why that was…).

"No," Shooting Star mumbled out again, as Pine Tree glared at him.

"You didn't have problems walking up to me before," Bill pointed out, smiling. "That means you fear me now!" That was... new. --What had he done that had worked to do THAT for him? --He wanted to KNOW! Because fear and respect were the cornerstones of--

"Bill, stop," Dipper said, as Mabel hugged him a little tighter.

Bill looked over at him, then at Shooting Star again, then let out a sigh and propped his chin up on a fist, watching them still.

He looked up at Miz, who was still sitting in her chair.

"...Being abducted by an ancient alien space wizard and his sister is TERRIFYING," Bill informed Miz quite seriously, giving her an intentionally wide-eyed look.

And that almost got a giggle out of Shooting Star.

...Or it might have before. But it didn't. Not at all, not even a little. Not right now. Because it wasn't funny.

Because Mabel could look up from where she was sitting with her brother, and look over at her two most favorite grunkles in the whole wide world… and she could see how angry and upset they were, yelling at each other, even if she couldn't really hear what they were saying anymore because of Bill. And she wanted to run over there and yell at them to stop…! But even if she and Dipper got away from Bill and Miz somehow right now, she didn't know how to stop or fix that. Because Grunkle Ford hadn't been listening to her or Dipper, even before Grunkle Stan had caught up to them, and then they'd both gotten scary and stupid, and...

She felt absolutely horrible as she watched them fighting with each other, her two favorite grunkles in the whole wide world from anywhere ever, because it occurred to Mabel truly, for the very first time, that maybe there really were some things that you really couldn't just fix by hugging it all out, right there, on the spot.

Her grunkles were getting stupid, and as Mabel wiped away a few tears, she felt angry, because nothing about this was okay, and… and Bill wasn't even helping! And neither were they!

...So how were she and Dipper being any better than the demons right now, just sitting here and abandoning their grunkles like this?

--She had to do something!!

But was Bill going to stop her again if she tried?

Bill had stopped when Dipper had asked him to, so he was just doing what he'd said he was doing. Getting them away from their grunkles so they couldn't get hit, and casting spells so they couldn't hear them yelling. But… that just wasn't enough!

So Mabel thought hard. --Bill was supposed to help stop fights if anybody attacked any of them, right? Grunkle Stan had said that Bill didn't have to help with fights he got into, but… Bill knew that she and Dipper didn't want Grunkle Ford being physically or mentally attacked and hurt. And Grunkle Stan couldn't want to fight with Grunkle Ford; not really. He'd even said that he just wanted Grunkle Ford to come back to the booth with them and talk! Right? So why wasn't Bill--

Did Bill really mean it? Did he really think they could get hurt if they got in the middle of things? Grunkle Stan had said that she and Dip-Dop were the most important ones on the list of family that Bill wasn't supposed to mess with! And Grunkle Ford was the last on the list. --But Grunkle Ford had ended up added to the list because of her and Dipper, right? Because him getting hurt meant they'd be hurt, too? --Feeling really bad? And Bill was supposed to stop things like that? She was pretty sure that was how it had worked, anyway.

So if Bill really had been telling the truth when he'd said the thing about keeping them from physically getting hurt being more important than how they felt, then--

"--Bill, make them stop!" Mabel demanded out of the demon, and she didn't care how Dip-Dop sucked in a breath at her for giving Bill an order (just like Grunkle Stan had warned them not to ever do). She was practically at her wits end; Bill was stopping her from going over there and trying to get in-between them, and maybe she couldn't do anything, because Bill might feel like he'd have to stop her to keep her 'safe'? (Or maybe her grunkles would still keep on not listening to her when she tried to tell them to hug it out?) But maybe he could do something instead? Because if she made how absolutely HORRIBLE she really felt about her two favorite grunkles fighting really really clear, then maybe Bill would feel like he'd have to try and stop that, too? --She wasn't sure. Maybe it would work? She didn't understand Bill half of the time. But she didn't know what else to do--!

"--Mabel, no!!" Dipper breathed out at her. But it was already too late. She'd already done it, asked him to do something, and--

At her desperate order, Bill… let out a laugh. And it sounded different than Bill's laughs usually did.

"How?" Bill said to her, turning his head towards her. "How do you want me to STOP them, Shooting Star? To MAKE THEM stop." (Mabel stared at him.) "Drop them both with a sleep spell? --They'd just pick up RIGHT where THEY LEFT OFF that much later, once they both woke back up. --Kill them instead? I'm NOT doing that," Bill waved off, looking away. "Try and talk to them, to talk them into 'SEEING REASON'? --They both practically just told me to SHUT myself UP, earlier," and now Mabel wasn't the only one staring at him; Dipper was staring at Bill, too, because he sounded so bitter--

"Get in a physical fight with them?" Bill continued on, sounding twice as bitter. "--That's just Stanley's 'escalation'; that won't work. They'd just start punching EACH OTHER next, before too long. --What else?" Bill said, finally turning back towards her. "Love potion? Fire ants? Three turtles and a handkerchief?" ("...What?" said Dipper, at the last.) "--They won't listen to me, Shooting Star," Bill told her angrily, with bared teeth, looking irate. "--Do YOU have any BRIGHT IDEAS for how to do that? To make them STOP without KILLING THEM?!" Bill all but demanded out of her, and the twins stared at him, stunned (and feeling a little scared all over again).

Miz's contribution was, "Create a bigger threat that they have to work together to handle… that might not be a good idea though."

"--I said that already," Bill complained, tossing his hands up at the sky, "I DID that already! And RIGHT NOW that would be us 'stealing' Pine Tree and Shooting Star," as he flopped backwards to lie on his back on the ground, to which Dipper said (to them both), "--No, we're not doing that!"

"--See?" Bill said, waving a hand at the siblings, neither of which looked very happy with him at the moment.

Miz shook her head. "I meant like, a sea monster attacking the beach or something." She shrugged. "It wouldn't stress them out about the kids being gone, but it's something that the two can vent their angry, violent stress into by beating it up…" After all, Stan's default response to stress seemed to be punching things. This way they'd punch the monster and not each other.

""--No!"" Mabel and Dipper both protested immediately, because "That'll just make things even worse!" Mabel protested.

"And then they'd get angry at me and punch ME for 'being the one behind it all' and doing it, and then start punching each other some-time after-or-during that too, after they got done punching me for it, because Stanley wasn't 'properly watching' me," Bill sneered out, glaring over at that Stanford. "--That's Stanley's 'escalation', sis, and I already TRIED that with them," Bill said to her crossly, "It DOESN'T WORK," because she wasn't LISTENING to him! "I TRIED tying them up during Weirdmageddon, hung the rest of my Zodiac up out of the way, and then threatened to kill these two right in front of them if they didn't fall in line and GIVE ME WHAT I WANTED!" Then Bill waved a hand at the younger of his Zodiac again, saying, "Then I chased after them. --Same thing."

Bill raised his hands and scrubbed them over his face, as he stared up at the sky. "It DIDN'T work," Bill repeated. "I died, and THEY-learned... the wrong thing…" Bill trailed off, "The wrong LESSON," he added in uglier tones, as he kicked his feet into the ground and let out an nasty chittering-hiss of sound that sounded almost like a curse of some sort. "So now they think that what happens when they fight is that they beat me and I die and everything gets FIXED and goes back to 'the way it was' before! --Of course they do," Bill ended on an almost sour, rather frustrated note, dropping his arms out to his sides and glaring up at the sky.

Dipper stared at Bill in confusion. Bill was being a huge jerk, and his thinking was completely off as usual, but… that wasn't what had thrown him off. What was throwing him off was how Bill was acting right now: like he didn't like Grunkle Stan and Great-Uncle Ford fighting. It didn't make sense. Why would Bill want that, all of a sudden? And Dipper didn't get it at all…

...until he did.

Dipper stared at Bill in something like horror.

"...You want them to get along," Dipper said slowly, still staring -- because he may not know why Bill might want that, but whatever it was that the crazy demon wanted that for must be really, really bad.

--Because Dipper realized that this wasn't just some crazy new thing. Bill had actually said the same kind of thing before, once, that one time in the Fearamid way back when: you guys wanna see what happens to your friends when you can't get along?

...And the dumb dorito had said it while they'd been trying to use the circle on him. Practically right in the middle of it. He'd taunted them all for not holding hands, tied their great-uncles up, pulled them away from each other, and then he'd said...

Dipper let out a breath in shock.

Mabel was staring at Bill, as she clutched Dipper closer. She realized what Dipper was getting at there.

"...You don't know how to make them stop fighting, either," Mabel said, eyes wide and voice shaky. Because Bill had just admitted that the only way he thought would stop them from fighting would be to kill them! And-- "You--"

"--Sixer's the problem!" Bill spat out at them. The kids were all staring at him, even Miz had raised her eyebrows. "--HE'S ALWAYS THE PROBLEM!" And now Bill was rubbing his hand against the side of his head in abrupt see-saws of motion. He looked downright agitated now. "Stanley doesn't want to fight me -- not if he thinks he doesn't HAVE to -- but that idiot Stanford wants to fight me ALL THE TIME!" Bill… complained? Then Bill sat up abruptly, slapping his hands down against the ground. He looked pissed and agitated, and… "He never just wants to STOP! Not even a LITTLE!! --Not for a LITTLE BIT, not for a WHILE--!" Bill said next, looking angry and frustrated and wild as he made his tirade, his tone shifting higher and higher, and...

...for one single solitary second, Dipper got it. Bill was angry because...

"...Great-Uncle Ford won't do what you want him to do," Dipper said slowly, with a shivering intake of breath. It made him feel an odd kind of glee and pride in his great-uncle, because... he'd really never given in to Bill! Except... "You want him to stop fighting Grunkle Stan," and that part still didn't really make any sense at all, because Bill hadn't cared about any of that during Weirdmageddon (when apparently he'd pulled this the first time?!). Bill hadn't cared about what Grunkle Stan thought about him or anything that he was doing before; they'd had no agreement back then. It didn't make sense, and that couldn't be right -- but Dipper knew that if he could figure out what Bill's game really was here, right now, to get him to talk about it, even a little, then maybe--

"I want him to stop fighting ME," Bill said. "I'm on Stanley's side now, but I know -- and that Stanford knows -- that IT'S THE SAME SIDE, even if maybe it isn't," Bill said, seemingly contradicting himself in the very next breath. "Even if Stanley refuses to think so." He let out a huff of breath. "And Stanley wants me, and it's the same side we're standing on, so fighting Stanley IS fighting me, right now." Bill was looking away from them all, rubbing his hand against the side of his head again.

"...Right now," Dipper echoed, to which Bill let out another nasty chitter-whistle and then said, "YES, right now. But not for long." And Bill looked angry about that.

Dipper didn't like the sound of that 'not for long'. What did Bill mean by that? ...That he was going to stop following the agreement soon? Then why did Bill sound so angry about it? ...Because he thought Grunkle Stan might finally do the circle with them, maybe? --But that didn't make sense, because they weren't back in their own dimension yet. Without everyone else here to complete the Zodiac circle, there was no way that…

Dipper glanced at Mabel, who looked just as concerned. Neither of them wanted another Weirdmageddon, especially not one that they might not be able to stop. Because with the two demon 'Bills' working together here--

(--Was this part of why Great-Uncle Ford was so angry, freaked out, and upset? Had he been thinking about all this, right from the start? Right from when they'd all first gotten here? That, now that they were separated, an in a whole separate dimension from everybody else--)

Miz took a little time to process this. "So I'm guessing a calming spell is ALSO a hard NO in this situation."

"Free will is a 'thing'," Bill said to his sister rather tersely, looking away from her. "They decide what they want to think; they feel what they decide to feel." (That had both Dipper and Mabel staring over at Bill, wide-eyed.)

"Got it." Miz hummed in thought. "Have you considered, that maybe they just aren't going to get along? Because they have hurt feelings all around and neither are willing to just… talk about it directly?"

"Yes, I have," said Bill, just as tersely and angrily as before. "That Stanford refuses to say anything but no. It's why it's not going to work. This agreement. Stanley keeps pushing it off, pushing it out farther and farther in bits and pieces, putting it off and putting it off, but sooner or later…" Bill let out a breath, looking even more agitated. "I don't know how to make it work -- and neither does Stanley! He keeps SAYING he's going to, but I haven't seen him DO anything to fix it that will actually work to fix it yet. He's just building a wall and a box and carving down-and-out a slightly deeper shallow-end pool--" Bill stopped his seeming rambling thoughts, shook his head twice and then looked away.

"He wants to keep trying, so I let him," Bill continued. "But I'm running out of time now, AND SO IS HE." Bill grimaced and looked up at the sky, glaring. "Stupid lizard." If it hadn't emptied out a good solid half of the weirdness from his old decaying dimension--! Now he was going to have to collapse another dimension into it a hell of a lot sooner, before it collapsed and emptied out completely, to KEEP it from collapsing completely. (And with the way that that Stanford had first-and-always reacted to the news that Bill had done that to other dimensions before…)

No, Stanley couldn't have both him and that Stanford. That Stanford was going to force Stanley to CHOOSE, to choose BETWEEN them, with Pine Tree and Shooting Star's future-safety on the line, and when he did THAT...

Bill glared across the distance at that Stanford, still fighting with Stanley. It wasn't like he didn't know how this was all going to work out; how it was all going to end… He'd even told Stanley about it, to taunt him with what a bad idea it was-- warn him exactly what was going to happen, sooner before later--! But Stanley kept insisting that…

Miz glanced over at the two men. "Would it be considered a mental attack if we forced them to actually talk about their issues with each other, about each other?" Because Stan had felt abandoned by Ford when Ford had believed Stan had purposely sabotaged the project, while Ford had felt abandoned by Stan when he never came home. At least, that's what Miz thought the problem might have been.

"Physically forcing bodies around in ways the people inside-or-owning-them don't want to move is a physical attack, unless they can get out of it," Bill reminded her, glowering. "Mentally forcing minds around in ways the beings that-they-are don't want to think is a mental attack, unless there is a 'real choice'," Bill told her, echoing almost verbatim what he and Stanley had talked about last on the subject. (Not that Bill understood the 'real choice' part, yet. ...which he knew he still didn't know.)

"No casting spells on our grunkles!" Mabel said firmly to them both, just in case (because Bill's response hadn't sounded like a 'no' to her). Miz nodded. (Bill let out a huff and approximated something of an eyeroll.)

"Okay," said Miz. "But the whole, making them actually tell each other what's bothering them so they can finally apologize to each other and get past it?" Miz asked the twins: "How would you do it without a spell?"

Mabel and Dipper both frowned and looked at each other, because the problem was, that was what their grunkles were actually trying to do -- their grunkles were just both being really stupid about it. And they did want their grunkles to resolve whatever might be the problem between them, that was the whole point! They just weren't sure how to do it. And letting the demons try would probably just make things even worse, since part of what they were arguing about so much was the triangle demon himself.

Mabel glanced at her brother. "I want them to talk it out and then hug it out… but I don't know how to make them do it…" she said quietly. Dipper tugged at his hat, agitated and frustrated that their great-uncles were both being so… so… --How were they still over there fighting about stuff?! He could see them still yelling and gesturing around at each other, and it had been... almost an hour!

And in watching the twins' worry and frustration, Miz wanted to help, she really did. "Well, I don't know for sure, but I suspect the base of this whole issue is because they both believe that the other abandoned them. If that helps at all with you two figuring out what to do?"

Dipper pulled down on his hat harder. "That… doesn't help. Not really." Even if he and Mabel knew for sure what was bothering their grunkles, didn't mean they would know how to make the two of them make up and stop fighting. It was really starting to feel like this was the sort of thing that they just couldn't fix. (Their great-uncle and grunkle hadn't even noticed that they were gone!) And Dipper hated how that made him feel.

"What if I cast Zone of Truth? It's not a spell on them, but on the whole area, so that no one here can lie? So they'll say what they're really feeling?" Miz suggested instead. Seemed to make sense to her.

"They ARE saying what they're feeling," said Bill, sending her a look.

The kids shook their heads again. "No spells on our grunkles or on any of us." ('Too late!' thought Bill, with a very thin smile.)

That made Miz pause. "So, is placing a spell on someone when they didn't agree to it ALWAYS bad?" she asked carefully. Dipper nodded, and Miz frowned. "But what if it's a healing spell? Or if I'm trying to save their lives? Am I still supposed to ask first? And if they say no, I have to let them die?"

Mabel and Dipper were confused and put off-balance by the sudden subject change. --Then again, that seemed to be something Miz did a lot. Then Dipper blinked.

"--Are you just trying to distract us so we forget to worry about our grunkles fighting?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

Miz sighed. "Yes and no. I'm actually curious about this topic and if it DID manage to distract you both and make you less unhappy with our current situation, that would have been a bonus."

"I put up a block-noise modifier a little while before," Bill put out there, with a widening smile. "And I did it on the roof. Stanley wants me doing that to Pine Tree and Shooting Star, so they don't hear things that are mental attacks."

Dipper scowled. "We can handle it!"

Miz rubbed her face. "Well, clearly you can't. Or, Stan thinks you can't. --But seriously though, your thoughts on asking someone if I can save their life and whether I should let them die if they say 'no'. Legitimate question here." When Dipper just looked unimpressed, Miz continued with, "Look, I'm just asking because when I met Seb's brothers, I modified their bodies so they wouldn't suffocate to death in the void of space or choke to death from breathing in the air in my Nightmare Realm. And I didn't ask for permission before doing so because time was of the essence and their lungs would have collapsed."

"You don't have to ask to keep someone from dying," Bill told her. (He'd done a similar thing to his own-- that Stanford when…) "Humans call that the 'good samaritan rule' these days! --You keep them alive, they can always decide if they want to kill themselves later, if they don't like it," he told her with a shrug, looking away from her. He looked tense as he said the last part of it, though.

Miz sighed. "But, if I did ask them, they would have said 'no'. They wouldn't have trusted me to help them. And if they had said 'no' when I asked, am I supposed to respect their 'no' and let them die?"

"Not if they're your Zodiac," Bill told her in odd tones that had the twins exchanging a glance.

Miz frowned. "They were Seb's brothers, not my Zodiac." And now Dipper KNEW that Miz was on this topic to distract him and Mabel from what was going on with their great-uncles just then, but… argh, it was a good distraction! And he knew he should tell them to stop, too -- because it was more talk about different dimensions -- but he still really wanted to probe them for more answers and clarification, instead.

Dipper forced himself to focus on Bill instead. --Get the answer to why Bill wanted them to stop fighting, why Bill thought that was important enough to get angry about, why Bill thought…

"What do you mean 'if they're your Zodiac'?" Dipper asked Bill, staring at the demon.

"You're my Zodiac," Bill said, watching Stanley and Stanford off and farther away, and not looking at any of them as he said it.

"But what does that mean? What's so important about us?" (What exactly would happen if they did the circle right, and why would it work for them?) "What do you need us for?" Dipper pressed.

"I don't need you; I have Stanley now," Bill told him, looking over at him. "It means you're mine; isn't that enough?" Dipper ground his teeth, because no. That wasn't enough.

"But why are we important?" Dipper asked again. Because Bill was actually almost talking for once, and if he could just figure this out for Great-Uncle Ford...

"You're important because I say so," Bill said simply, turning away from him again, and Dipper wanted to kick something in frustration. Why wouldn't Bill just give him a proper answer?! (--Because it was actually something important!?)

"...Why do you say so?" was what Mabel asked next, taking over for her brother.

Bill thinned his lips.

"I don't have to say so anymore," was Bill's half-cagey reply, which had the twins glancing at each other.

"What changed?" Dipper asked next.

"I'm out," was what Bill said next, which had Dipper frowning at him.

"So?" said Dipper. And he was about to ask, 'what does that have to do with anything?' when Bill rounded on him, looking absolutely FURIOUS

And for a moment, Dipper panicked, thinking that Bill was going to hit him. Or kill him. Or worse.

But Bill didn't. He closed his eyes, and clenched his hands in his lap, and shook in place… and breathed. A lot.

(Miz sat back in her chair, listening and thinking. She'd watched Dipper attempt his probing questions until Bill nearly blew up at him. But he calmed himself. Miz really respected how her big brother could do that. She was always trying to do that but she just couldn't sometimes.)

"You're trying my patience, Pine Tree," Bill gritted out in warning tones, eyes still closed, fists still clenched in his lap. Miz scooted over to press lightly against his side.

"He's just curious," Miz pointed out. She personally didn't see a problem with that.

"I DON'T need it TOSSED in my front-face that he wishes I was still STUCK in the Nightmare Realm!" Bill spat out at her, whipping his head around at her and snapping open his eyes. ...Then Bill grimaced and twisted his head away from her, raising a hand to rub at the side of his head again. (It wasn't his sister he was angry at.) He shifted in place, feeling uncomfortable (but not saying 'sorry' to her, because he didn't think he'd actually said anything wrong to her there that he needed to say 'sorry' for).

Miz sighed. "Pine Tree, was that your intention when you asked brother that question?" She asked lightly. Dipper opened and closed his mouth soundlessly. How the heck was he supposed to answer that without making Bill angrier? Well, he really hadn't… really been intending to have his question come off like that… He took a deep breath and winced.

"I… wasn't meaning to come off that way…" Dipper said finally. Mabel squeezed his hand.

"But you DO think and feel that way about me," Bill said, flicking his eyes over to him without turning his head.

Dipper shivered in place.

And then he got mad.

"Yes," Dipper said, glaring up at Bill from where he sat, as he squeezed Mabel's hand for support, shoulders squared. He'd told Pacifica she was 'the worst' to her face when he'd meant it, just like he'd say it to anyone he thought was the worst. He said what he felt, he'd never backed down from Bill before, and he had no reason to now! Bill was crazy-dangerous, and his great-uncles weren't paying any attention at all, but he wasn't going to lie and pretend everything was okay just because Bill might attack him! And if Bill did, he would fight back! And so would Mabel, and then they'd--!!

Miz held Bill's hand when the older demon trembled in anger. Not quite holding him back but Mabel caught the gesture and was a little floored by the idea that Miz didn't want her brother to attack Dipper either.

And then Bill let out a laugh.

Tilted his head back and let out a very long laugh.

And when he dropped his chin again, he was grinning. Angry, but grinning.

"WELL," said Bill, and he was watching Dipper with a glint in his eyes. "At least you're not a LIAR like my SIX-FINGERED HAND is." He smiled in a way that made Dipper feel very uncomfortable. "I can WORK with that," Bill said next, slowly relaxing a bit in place.

Dipper clenched his teeth, and he felt Mabel squeeze his hand back reassuringly.

Miz gently leaned her head against Bill's arm, wishing that everyone would just stop fighting. Speaking of fights, she glanced back over to Stan and Ford. She wanted to stop the fight but she was sure anything she tried would make things worse...

Bill looked back over to Stanley and that Stanford, and then he looked incensed. He shifted in place, almost a twisting motion, like he was fighting being uncomfortably bound up in some way.

"Stupid priority order," Bill muttered, as he slowly settled back in place again. "Stupid agreement. Stupid strings." The fingers of Bill's hands twitched two times in a series of almost grasping motions in Bill's lap, before he fisted them again.

"...You really don't like it, do you," Mabel said slowly. "You really want them to stop fighting, too."

"YES," Bill said in exasperation, doing that uncomfortable-looking shifting-tilting in-place motion again, though a little differently this time. "I said that!"

Mabel looked at her twin, and then she looked back at Bill. ...And she realized that the insane triangle almost looked the same kind of uncomfortable-agitated now, as he had when she'd gotten him to help out Melody, and Melody had first started talking about all that FLCORP stuff with him. --Not the boxed-in-thinking stuff he'd been doing at first where he'd started to go almost glassy-eyed, but the frowny-can't-sit-still-ness and the way he was moving? That was pretty close… And when that had happened and Melody had realized something was wrong, Melody had said…

And then Bill had...

Mabel thought about all of this carefully. And then Mabel said slowly, "...Bill, what would you do to make them stop fighting if the agreement wasn't… If you didn't have the agreement with Grunkle Stan? Or the priority order thing?"

"--DROP something on THAT STANFORD'S HEAD!" what what Bill snapped out next.

Mabel blinked at him, and said, "...Like water?" almost skeptically, because Bill didn't like water, sure (...would that even work?), and it was a--

"Physical attack; can't do that, it's off-limits," Bill said angrily, glaring over at Stanford as he muttered, "Still want to make him COOL OFF his STUPID hot head--"

"--Snow," was what Dipper said suddenly, and it had all of them turning to look at him. "Drop snow on their heads!" He felt almost breathless as he looked around at all of them. "Snow isn't on the list, right?"

"It's… water," Bill said, but he was frowning. "Cold water. --Very cold water," Bill said. "Cold is on the list; water is on the list," was what Bill said next, but it didn't exactly escape Dipper's attention that the dumb dorito hadn't actually said 'no'.

"But snow isn't actually on the list," Dipper said. And wouldn't dropping a bunch of snow on them startle them so much that they couldn't keep fighting? Without hurting them or making anything any worse?

"It's too close!" Bill complained. "I don't want another learning-lecture from Stanley because--!!"

But then Bill paused and looked down.

And looked over at the two arguing adults.

And then looked back at Dipper.

"...You are very sure that snow will make them stop fighting," Bill said slowly, looking at him very carefully and intensely.

"Yes," said Dipper. And then he opened his mouth to try and defend to Bill why he thought that, because maybe if he could convince the stupid dorito that this was really important, then--!

--But Bill had already raised a hand towards his great-uncles, glaring at them as he finished muttering something under his breath… and a good dump-truck load's worth of snow suddenly appeared out of nowhere about six feet above the men's heads.

Gravity took hold of it almost immediately, accelerating it all downwards, down towards them both, in one huge pile that looked like it was going to bury them under it just as deep.

(Even through the muted-noise barrier, they all heard both adults yell, as Grunkle Stan and Great-Uncle Ford looked up at the odd sudden shadow, right before the snow hit them both.)

Dipper stared, shocked that Bill had acted so quickly--

"...Worth the lecture," Bill muttered as he lowered his hand, and crossed his arms across his chest. He looked both a bit self-satisfied and grim, almost.

Miz tilted her head up at Bill, looking up from her Com (which she had been fiddling with during most of the conversation). "Wouldn't it have been easier if I did it?" Since she wasn't part of the Agreement, and wasn't going to drop the snow for the purpose of attacking them, she was trying to help...

"--No," said Bill firmly, as he continued watching the two older Pines as they cursed and worked to start digging themselves out of the mess. "Stanley KNOWS I wouldn't try to attack them; not with the agreement going. --They don't know that about YOU. You could 'just be playing around', or 'messing with them', or 'attacking them both', or even 'just bored'. They'd just get back to arguing about THAT right away," he told her, "Which would be counterproductive. And ineffective." And Miz could see what he was getting at, annoying as that was.

The two old men were now sputtering as they managed to finally crawl the rest of the way up, out, and over the huge messy pile of snow, out to the mouth of the alleyway. They were both shaking the stuff off, then brushing the last of the snow off of themselves, when they realized that they were alone where they were. They both began looking around for the niblings and demons almost frantically (and then refocused on the group of them, once they were spotted).

Ford began glaring over at them for having run off so far away (what were the niblings doing with the demons over there? didn't they know better than to go running off with--!). But Ford seemed taken aback almost immediately when he saw that Mabel was frowning right back at him, a scolding frown on her face directed at him and Stan.

Bill waved away the muted-noise sound barrier spell (really, both of them) and slowly stood up.

Then the demon cupped his hands and yelled out, "HEY, IDIOTS! YOU DONE?!?"

That got him a pair of glares from the adults, as the triangle demon lowered his hands to his hips and followed it up with a small smile. "OR YOU WANNA GO AT IT FOR ANOTHER HOUR AND A HALF?" Bill called out next at full volume, as he rocked back on his heels. (That got a pair of startled looks out of the two supposed adults of the bunch, next.)

Miz rolled her eyes and called out, "You two upset the kids!" And that got the older twins to switch to glaring at her (while they unconsciously winced at her words in unison).

Stan got a good look at Mabel and saw how tightly she was gripping the edge of her sweater even at that distance, and how her other hand was holding Dipper. When Stan glanced over at Dipper and realized that he wasn't doing any better... Stan started jogging (not walking) over, almost immediately (with Ford following closely behind). When he got within a few yards of them all, Stan said, "Mabel, sweetie…"

"--You're BOTH being stupid heads!" Mabel interrupted, making Stan freeze and look shocked as he stared down at her.

Dipper sighed. "I told Bill he could drop snow on you to make you stop fighting," he informed his great-uncle Ford, just to try and curb any argument from starting between Ford and Bill instead. (That had been kind of what had started the worst of the last argument in the first place, the way Dipper saw it -- Bill getting up in Great-Uncle Ford's face and arguing with the dumb dorito, and then Grunkle Stan getting between them and defending Bill.)

Ford looked incredibly angry for a moment as he stared down at Dipper -- then closed his eyes and rocked back on his heels and seemed to pull in a breath to force himself to try and calm down.

Dipper was on tenterhooks for what felt like ages, as he looked up at his great-uncle who he so admired, worried at what he would say.

Once Ford let out that breath and looked back up at Dipper, though... he didn't look angry anymore; he just looked incredibly tired, and a little defeated too, as he rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

"Dipper, what you just did was incredibly dangerous, and--" Ford grimaced, stopped himself. He paused for a moment, before he said, "And was also exactly what I was just arguing with Stanley about," he ended with, sending Stan a dark look. (He got a long I-ain't-taking-any-of-your-shit look from Stan in return.) Ford looked away from Stan before continuing. "Dipper, when you tell Bill you want something, you aren't using him; he's the one using you."

"Ford," Stan tried to cut in, but Great-Uncle Ford wasn't done.

"--Don't give Bill an excuse to act out and do things to other people, and then blame you for it," Ford told Dipper firmly. "Don't give him the opportunity or the satisfaction, and don't believe him if he tries to say it's your fault for 'giving him the idea for it' or 'putting the idea in his head'. He only ever does what he wants to do, and he isn't going to be doing it because he's really 'wanting to help you out', to get you what you want or anything else! --Don't fall for it!"

Ford stopped for a moment, taking in a breath (to try and calm down again; his voice had started to rise in tone and volume at the end there.)

"You, none of you, truly have any idea what Bill is actually capable of, let alone what he wants or doesn't want," Ford informed them all (as Bill rolled his eyes at him). "--He isn't safe, and he cannot be trusted," Ford said finally. "--Do you understand?" he asked Dipper, looking him straight in the eye, quite seriously. (He also looked more than a little nervous, though Dipper didn't completely understand why...)

Dipper shifted from foot to foot, then nodded, having trouble meeting his great-uncle's eyes. "I know that." He frowned, hunching his shoulders a little. Of course he knew that. He didn't like having Bill doing stuff to his grunkles, but this had been an emergency! ...And, weird as it was to think about, Bill legitimately hadn't liked seeing them fighting any more than he and Mabel had.

Miz looked between the two adults. "You two have issues you need to work out." That made Ford bristle, but Mabel was still looking at him like she was… disappointed in him. And sad. (The latter of which somehow made everything that much worse.)

"Grunkle Ford, Grunkle Stan, why were you…" Mabel bit her lip, because they'd been fighting so long... "Do you not like each other anymore?"

"What?!" said Ford, while Stan just grimaced and said, "Pumpkin, we don't--!"

But Stan was interrupted by a a scowling Miz: "Don't lie!"

"Kid," Stan said in warning tones that sounded more than a little angry, as he glared down at Miz, and Bill immediately put a hand on top of her head.

"--Headband," Bill said quickly. "She CAN'T feel what you're feeling right now. --You were fighting badly. Mental attacks."

"I didn't mentally attack my own--!!" Stan began hotly.

"You just threatened to let Bill Cipher loose on me if I didn't do what you wanted!" Ford rounded on him, protesting, and he sounded angry, scared, and almost half-hysterical, like he couldn't believe what Stan had just said he didn't do JUST that.

Stan turned towards him, looking shocked. "What? I didn't--!" And then Stan stopped, then stared at his brother, wide-eyed.

"--Sides," Bill said, as Stan stared at Ford. "Paralysis is a start, not an end. No moving means zero defenses until lifted." And as he said that, Stan turned towards Bill, then back to his brother, then looked down then away (thinking quickly), and he got a slight look of horror as he realized--

Stan glowered and his shoulders slumped a little as he rubbed a hand across his face. (...Great.) He hadn't meant to--

"...Ford," Stan said, his hand muffling his words. "I am not kicking you off'a the list, siccing the kid on you, and calling it a day. Not now; not ever." He dropped his hand and looked up at his brother. "I just don't want you running off and attacking somebody while we're here, okay?! --I don't care why; don't go running after people attacking them, no matter who they are, or what you thought they did or didn't do!"

"Stan--" Ford began, looking angry all over again.

"It's not your callout," Stan told him. "Nothing here is. --You are here helping me to get the kids and get home, and that's. it. That's all of it. That is all that I want you to do while we're here. --You hear me?" And Stan almost added, You didn't have to come along, but he managed to keep that one to himself.

Ford glared at him, fuming.

"This is a mistake," Ford said to him. "You're falling for--"

"--I'm falling for nothing," Stan said like it was final. "You're coming with us back to the booth and looking after the kids for the next couple 'a hours. I'll keep an eye on the demons. We're leaving at nightfall when I know the kid's gonna be healed up and rested enough not to screw up gettin' us all back home again. Period."

"Stan, that is not--!" Ford began hotly.

"--End. Of. Discussion. I ain't arguing with you about this anymore. This is what we're doin'. You hear me?" Stan said.

"You aren't listening to me! Bill is--!!"

"--Unless you want to spend the next couple of hours yellin' at me some more," Stan steamrolled right over him, "Leaving two demons alone with the kids with no supervision at all again while you do it! --Because I just bet I can argue with you until you're blue in the face from getting another three batches of snow dropped on your head, and it's dark out again -- if that's the way you want to do this. Your choice."

Ford clenched his jaw, and his fists, glaring at him.

Miz wondered if she should just brainstorm with the kids on how to make these two idiots get over themselves. At the angry look on Ford's face, she groaned. She had a feeling that it was going to be a very uncomfortable next several hours...

(Miz, once again, thanked her headband.)

----

"Stan…" Ford said darkly, again, looking none-too-happy with his brother from his vantage point, of where he was sitting in the back corner of the booth.

"Save it," Stan grumbled out, as he reshuffled the tarot deck again, despite the fact that sunset was nearly over, and there was damn near nobody out and about at all anymore to want a reading from him, let alone around to see that the booth was still technically 'open' for business. "You can stow your 'I told you so's' and whatever-else for later, after this is all over, and we're all home again," Stan repeated again, almost doggedly, but three times as stubborn, and Stan didn't much care how many times the kids and the demons had overhead this 'argument' by this point, he just wanted Ford to shut the hell up and stop needling him on it.

He'd practically had to drag Ford back to the booth. After he'd pretty much threatened to have the kid straight-up drop Ford with a paralysis spell so that he could literally drag him back, if he didn't come willingly -- which had started another whole argument, leaving him and Ford both furious at each other, and the kids practically unsupervised with the demons for nearly an hour and a half, until the kid had apparently gotten the bright idea from Dipper to drop a boatload of snow on them both (the hell) to... cool them off? -- the two had agreed to stop arguing (for the moment at least) for the kids. It hadn't exactly left either of them any happier with each other, but neither of them wanted to leave the kids with the demons again. It had been a serious mistake for them to do that in the first place, and Stan had had to pull Bill aside and explain exactly why casting spells (like those 'no sound' spells, and that stupid 'snow' one) without his explicit say-so and go-ahead was a terrible idea.

(Stan had thought that the kid had known that was a mental attack before -- casting spells on people without their okay. But apparently with the while 'helping' thing going on, and after what had happened on the roof -- with Stan nodding at the kid over the 'deaf' spell for the kids… the point had needed some serious clarification. --Turned out that the kid had set up a noise-cancelling spell right when he'd first started dragging the niblings off, and...)

At this point, Stan was just glad nothing terrible had happened. to the kids (That demon-kid was gonna be getting a straight-up 'educational' learning-lesson on it all, though, to lean him better on that one, once they were all home again. Stan was gonna make sure of that…)

The sun finally finished setting, and Stan got up and headed for the beach. He didn't even look behind him to see if the kid picked up or left the stuff he'd pulled out of his hat.

It didn't take him long to realize that the kid wasn't 'dilly dallying'; he was damn near at his left shoulder and following along, with Miz at his left side (still playing with her 'phone', in fact, she'd been using it to distract herself so she wouldn't have to pay attention to the tension in the air).

Stan pulled in a breath, and let it out slowly.

He didn't round on the kid, and he didn't slow down.

He did hear Ford let out a few choice alien curses behind him, though, as his brother and the kids finally caught up. (Yeah, he'd thought that Ford would slow down enough to make sure the kids weren't feeling or being left behind in the dust.) He didn't need his hearing aid to hear Ford's anger as he came up to stand at Stan's right side; if his brother was any angrier, he could use him as a lantern to light up the whole damn beach.

"You're playing his game Stanley," Ford damn near hissed out at him. "Do you have any idea--!?"

Stan finally rounded on him, sick and tired of this shit, of all of this shit. "No, Ford, I don't!!" he yelled out at his brother, not even bothering to keep it down this time, like he'd tried to earlier in the day when he'd caught up to his twin at the end of the boardwalk, planning and plotting on his own to do who-the-hell-knew-what to that other younger version of him -- god knew what had been running through Ford's mind, then; Stan hadn't wanted to know, or cared. "And y'know what?? NEITHER DO YOU!!" he bellowed out at his twin, startling him back at least a few steps. "I get it, Ford," Stan ground out at him. "You never played the kid's game when you knew what the hell was going on; you never took a single solitary bet or gamble. Congratulations," Stan spat out at him. "Well, guess what? --I'm doin' something different with him!!" Stan snapped out at him. "So back the hell off!"

Stan watched as his brother stared at him, looking pale in what little moonlight there was and completely taken aback, and what the hell did his brother expect after sniping at him for damn near six hours?!? A freaking medal?! --He was getting more support out of the goddamn triangle demon right now than he was his own brother!!

Miz winced and slowed down to walk a little farther back with the kids instead. "...hate when people argue…" she muttered, glancing down at her Com and twitching at something she read ("No, playing Hellfire would be the WORST idea oh my god…"). Mabel sighed, looking worried.

"They're mad because it's important, and they don't want youngkle Stan and Ford to go through what they did…" Mabel said, trying to explain.

Stan turned away from his brother and looked over at the demon-kid. Bill was doing some kinda deep breathing shit about three yards back from the water's edge, and whatever the kid did, it didn't take long before he had that goddamn portal open again. Finally.

"We don't know where that goes, Stan," was what Ford said next, taking the few steps he needed to, to get in front of him, between him and the portal. Ford was shaking his head. He looked scared, and worried. ...and angry, but what the hell else was new.

"Kid," Stan ground out, while staring his brother down, and the kid seemed to do some odd lowering movement with his hands and said, "Pine Tree and Shooting Star go through first. Then Miz. Then Stanford. Then you, then me."

"--Absolutely not!" Ford snapped out immediately. Stan nearly snapped back at that, but he managed to hold it together long enough to stop and ask himself, why that order?

"And burlap sacks cost you nothing--'s for free," the kid added, and when Stan remembered the reference, he pulled in a sharp breath as it all came together for him: the question had an answer, and the answer was...

...because the kids were a loose cannon. They needed to go first so they wouldn't run off again and try to mess around with things even more here. (...Or call off the 'not a game' that the kid had going on with him right now. The kids had probably forgotten all about that part of it, with everything else that had been going on that day, but the kid wouldn't go off forgetting a thing like that.)

If Ford went through before both demons did, he could set up to try and shoot Miz and Bill whenever they came through next. Miz could keep Ford in line if she was already there and waiting, so Bill wanted Miz through first; kids wouldn't shoot at her, Bill knew they liked her.

If Ford demanded to go through earlier, Bill could switch up the order of who went through when and Ford wouldn't know who to expect, to be able to react quickly enough in time to shoot the right wrong person coming through after him.

But Bill wanted him and Stan through last. They had to stick together, and stay on this side long enough for… (what, exactly, that the kid didn't want to tell him, because the insane triangle thought it would ruin 'everything' somehow?)

It was that fox-chicken-seed-farmer problem thing all over again, and the kid was telling him that the 'advice' wasn't 'free', that the kid thought that tying up whoever and covering their eyes with a 'burlap sack' was the way to go but would cost them all something in forcing the issue, if Stan said 'the hell with it' and gave the kid the go-ahead to toss them all through. ...Kid wasn't stupid, he was using patterns that he knew Stan knew, that Ford just didn't know -- and couldn't know, because Ford hadn't been in on any of those in-the-bedroom hashing-things-out conversations, not even a little. Stan had never told him any of the specifics of any of those that he'd had with the kid, because Ford hadn't even been interested; Ford hadn't even wanted to know -- not even to debate any of it, what the kid had told him.

Ford didn't want to talk, and the kid wanted to talk forever. And Stan had let each of them do whatever the hell they'd wanted. And it was seriously biting him in the ass now, and he was tired of all of it.

(And he still had something else to fix on top of everything else that was gonna be staring him in the face soon, if the kid wasn't lying to him or just plain wrong.)

"--Ford, either you go through first, or the kids do," Stan ground out at him, "But don't tell me there's any way in hell that the kid went through all of this junk with us, here, just to drop us in the middle of a volcano, or outer space, or a mountainful of fries, or some kinda mess that's whatever the hell you're thinking of that might be on the other side of that thing that you won't talk about with any of us!!" and Stan was on his very last straw.

"We don't know where it goes," Ford stressed, looking ready for an actual physical fight out of him for it, and Stan had had it. He was done. He let loose his temper, let go, and snapped back at his brother, three times as hard.

"Yeah? And whose fault is that, Mr. Doctor 'I-refuse-to-take-three-whole-damn-minutes-to-go-inside-and-grab-ANY-of-my-futuristic-sci-fi-dimensional-stuff, like my stupid dimensional portal scanner whatever-the-hell-the-thing-is thing' before jumping through a portal with a couple of demons!!" Stan shot back at him, and he saw his brother's jaw go slack.

"--You want to know what's on the other side of that thing, Ford?" Stan demanded out of him. "You think you know the kid so well? So ask him!" Stan commanded him, pointing at the kid. "You go ahead and actually ask the kid to tell you where it goes," Stan gritted out, "Since you know the kid so well, that you know whenever the kid's lying to you or not!"

Miz sighed. "I can go first, keep an eye on the kids when they come through? Make sure they don't run off?"

"No!" said Bill, "I--" And he looked tense, all of a sudden.

Stan looked over at him. So did Ford.

"...Where does that portal lead," Ford said quietly, and for a moment, Stan almost thought he hadn't heard his brother right. He'd gotten so used to Ford acting so stubborn, and just flat-out not listening to him--

Bill looked away from them all.

"It goes back to your home dimension, Stanley," the kid said to Stan instead. "It comes out right by the house, just outside of the barrier. Set arrival time of only six minutes after you and Miz and that Stanford and I all left for this dimension, this time period, together," Bill added next, locking down any last little bit of uncertainty in what he had done, in the same way the kid had ever talked about and specified other-dimensional travel to Stan.

Ford was staring at the kid. Stan saw Ford's face go a little slack with disbelief at what Bill had said, and then Ford looked frustrated and… almost a little scared.

Stan watched as his brother, his twin, turned towards the portal slowly, inexorably, almost like he was being forcibly drawn to it, like it was a magnet... and then he seemed to just as slowly force himself to fight against the pull.

"That's…" Ford said, shakily… because he was shaking in place. Stan watched as Ford's breathing picked up and went a little shallow.

And it occurred to Stan, finally, that maybe half the problem he'd been having, here with his brother, had been that Ford hadn't really believed that any of them were ever going to make it back home again.

"Kids, go through," Stan said quietly. The kid hadn't been lying. Something was off, but it wasn't wherever that portal went or when.

The kids looked at each other. Then they both looked up at him. "...Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, uncertainly, for her brother.

"It's home," Stan told them, staring at the blue of the portal's surface. "Right time and place. You'll be fine. Just go." He had a feeling things were going to get ugly here pretty soon, and not in a way that he wanted the kids to hear any more of.

The kids went through.

Stan let out a slow breath. He pulled it in again.

"Ford…" Stan began.

"--I'm not going through without you," Ford breathed out, but he was damn near as transfixed by the look of the portal as Stan was just then, solid blue and ripply and nothing like the one that the kid had made to that 'anti-Bill's dimension, the stable one that had stayed open, that had looked like a cutout in space, just like stepping through a doorway…

...and when Stan realized this was a thing, he blinked and shook his head slightly to shake himself out of it.

Stan glanced over at the kid.

The kid was staring, too. He seemed to realize when he was being watched, though. (...Was this some kind of hypnotic thing the kid had done to the thing on purpose, maybe? And then got caught in himself, 'cause the kid just didn't get that he was a human kid now, just like the rest of them were human, too?)

The kid slowly turned to look over and up at him, as well.

...the kid was shaking slightly, too. Something was really off.

"So, do I go through?" Miz asked quietly. She wondered about the group of men. They were all being weird. What were they staring at?

"I--" The demon-kid was looking a lot less demon-y right now, and a lot more 'kid', and that set off a hell of a lot more than a couple warning bells inside Stan's head. Because the kid looked… not exactly squirrely right now. But...

"Kid," Stan said. "You tell me what's going on in that head of yours. Right now."

The kid let out a sort of 'nnn' kind of sound, shifting his weight over his feet. he didn't look happy.

"Kid," Stan tried again, in the same tones as before.

"--I should go through with her," was what the kid blurted out next. "But I can't!"

Stan stared. "...Why not."

Bill pulled in a breath. "I have to hold it. Just to make sure. She can get through," the kid said, but he looked frustrated as he said it, and his breathing was off.

Stan figured it was time to pull the trigger on this one. "You could go through, leave her here--"

"--NO!" Bill shrieked out immediately, rounding on him, eyes wide.

"--and then she can use one of those Doors to end up-- where... you are," Stan said, almost trailing off at the end there as the kid seemed to freeze in place at what Stan had just told him.

(And then it occurred to Stan -- the reason the kid hadn't brought it up before? Hadn't been the kid blowing smoke up their asses, to have them hanging around for another whole day. The kid literally hadn't been able to think of it in the first place, of leaving his 'little sister' behind for even a moment. --Son of a...)

Miz nodded. "My door leads to you, brother. Don't worry. I'll always find my way back to you."

"I-- I--" The kid looked like he was stuck, somehow. "No, I--" Stan watched as the kid gritted his teeth, and shoved his hands up into his hair, and forced his eyes shut, and… forced himself through it, right while they all stood there watching him. (And the kid didn't like getting rushed.)

"--Miz goes through first," the kid said finally, forcibly dropping his hands, bobbing his torso from left-to-right in place in an agitated manner. "It's safer there."

Miz looked worried. Frankly, Stan thought he probably had the same face on, even as much as he still wanted to punch the kid in his face. (...Hell. They weren't the only ones in over their heads, here. The kid was, too. Just in a different way than the rest of them. ...It just figured. The lunatic punk kid. Panicking on them when somebody finally had the guts to pull the trigger.)

Stan ran a hand across his face. "Miz, go through. We aren't through after you in five minutes?" Stan said next, dropping his hand, "You do that Door thing right back to us. Clear?" Stan looked over at both Miz and the kid. Miz nodded solemnly. The kid looked… not exactly better, but not like he was about to mentally shoot himself in the head in the next five seconds over it, either.

The kid shook his head, looking irritated, then worried, then irritated again. He shook his head again.

"Yes, fine, yes," the kid said, turning towards the portal. He didn't look happy, though. What he did do was raise his arms a bit again, seeming to concentrate, as he did something with his hands, before setting his feet a little differently -- almost like the kid was bracing himself. Stan watched as the Bill took in a deep breath, and...

"Now," Bill muttered, after a moment. "Go through now."

Miz nodded and strode forward, brushing her hand against Bill briefly, "See you soon," she told, assured him. Bill let out a short laugh at that.

Miz stepped through and felt the rush of the shift. She squeaked when her foot met empty air and flailed her arms around as she fell the intervening distance of--

--about twelve feet down onto the bouncy castle below her.

Miz sat up after bouncing a few times. Cool, that certainly got her heart pumping...

Dipper and Mabel were at the edges of the castle, having moved off of it. They both looked grim.

"What's taking them so long?" Dipper demanded out of her, as Mabel pulled out her grappling hook and aimed--

Miz frowned. "How long has it been? They were arguing."

"Three minutes," Dipper said grimly, as Mabel fired the grappling hook through the portal opening.

And then the portal closed.

The string was cut, and fell down onto the bouncy castle.

The three of them stared.

"What," Dipper breathed out, as he stared up at the place where the portal had been, in pure disbelief.

"Ok. Fuck it. Screw the five minutes, I'm opening my Door," Miz growled as she reached and pulled. It shimmered into existence. Cool. So she still had that other door here in this dimensional set and the other side of this one would be the one following her brother around. Good. It would suck to have to go through the void, take too long. (And heck, she'll leave this door here so she could come back through if the worst happened.)

She reached for the door but Mabel clung to her. "Wait! Take us too!"

"What?! No way, Stan would kill me-- well, not literally, or he might, but I'm sure he wouldn't be happy if I brought you two with me." Miz cried. "Didn't I tell you? My Doors take people through via the Mindscape and Dreamscape! You'd be leaving your bodies behind!"

The twins both grimaced. "But…" Miz scowled.

"Nope. If I drag you two into the Mindscape to come with me, your grunkle's gonna be pissed." The two looked frustrated. Miz sighed. "Stay here. Stay safe. I'll make sure those idiots ALL come back."

Miz slipped out of her vessel, allowing it to collapse like a sack of potatoes as she flew out and slammed through the door.

-----

Stan was watching the kid, and he knew the moment Miz was through and back in their dimension without even having to ask, "She's okay?" ...because the kid let out a whoosh of breath and relaxed so completely and so quickly that he swayed in place and almost looked like he was going to collapse.

"Fine it's fINe eVeRyThINg is FINE she's FINE!!" the kid said, as his hands dropped to his sides and he swayed and shivered in place for a moment, eyes wide. "She's THROUGH, she didn't bounce -- she's fine!!" the kid repeated almost hysterically, a laugh underlying his tone…

...and it was about that point that Stan realized what a 'non-zero probability' actually meant to the kid: that a 0.000000-however-many-zeros-and-then-a-one probability of failure meant 'I am almost definitely going to fail' (...not an 'I will almost definitely succeed!' like it should...) on anything that the kid thought was actually important.

--Hell, forget 'unlikely'. Kid didn't just like certainty; the kid needed it, for certain things. Stan had kind of started to get a feel for that, yeah, thinking that maybe that might be the case for, y'know, a couple things with the kid? But he hadn't realized how certain the kid might need that 'certainty' to be, to--

"Just a minute!" the kid muttered, and then Stan realized that the kid wasn't actually relaxed, yet. "Stanford next. --Five-four-three minutes at most!" And Bill's voice and smile were both strange and strained. (And the kid was still shivering a little bit, on and off again.)

(Stan stared at the kid at this. Then Stan realized that Ford was staring at the kid, too, but who knew what his brother was thinking just then...)

"WAIT!" Stan heard, and for a moment, he wondered when his brother had gotten so good at throwing his voice, to sound so far away from him; when the hell had Ford learned to do that? And as Stan turned towards him, something else caught his eye.

And then Stan realized that it wasn't his older brother calling out to him... or half-tripping over his feet as he tried to run towards them from across the beach. Not exactly. ...Not quite.

"Wait-wait--" Stan heard, and he stared as that other young Ford approached them. "wwW--" Young Ford nearly bent over double in front of them, letting out a cough and then wheezing as he staggered to a stop in front of them and braced his hands on his knees, trying to gulp down great breaths.

Stan stared. "Kid, breathe," he told Ford's younger self, taking a step towards him. And yeah, he'd been expecting something before he went through -- 'cause how would he be able to 'fix things' from their own dimension, huh? it'd have to happen here -- but Young Ford looked kind of...

...and then Young Ford lifted up his head again, and Stan realized that something was really, really wrong.

"Did you know?" that younger Ford demanded out of him, them, shakily -- he turned and looked over at Ford, also. "Did you know it would break?" He looked and sounded more stressed than Stan had ever seen him in his entire life.

Ford winced. "I… I tried to stop Stanley from--" His younger self looked so confused and lost, that Ford couldn't keep on going, and then something occurred to Ford, and--

Ford gritted his teeth, as any sympathy that Ford had had left, that he'd been trying to work himself up to feeling for that other Stanley? Just died, right then and there.

"It's better this way," Ford ground out at his younger self instead. Because the only way -- the only way -- that his science experiment could have been broken again, in this way, and for this younger Ford to not know about it? Would be if this younger Stanley had sabotaged it and gotten away with it this time.

It meant that Stanley had lied to him about it being an accident, again and still. Lied when he'd said that he hadn't meant to do it, again and still. That what little they'd said to each other about it, since, had been… really, the worst kind of lie. And Ford had been stewing over this for hours, after he'd seen the curtain, after he'd realized that it hadn't been an accident, it had never been an accident-- He'd had to stand there and listen to Stan talk about wanting to fix things, all while Stanley had continued to lie to him about--

As far as Ford was concerned? This younger version of him was better off without his twin. Some brother he'd turned out to be.

Young Ford gasped. "WHAT?! What about Stanley-- what?! Better???" he cried out. "How is this--?!" Young Ford looked almost sick with horrified disbelief. "You-- you tried to stop Lee from--??" He shook his head, nothing seeming to make sense to him… until something did make sense, and then that young Ford's eyes went wide and he started to shake, backing away from them slowly.

And then that young Ford turned and ran away.

"Ford, what the hell--?!" Stan lashed out at him, feeling enraged, hurt, betrayed, and a whole mess of other things he couldn't even put into words just then. Because what in the hell--?! His brother actually thought that it was better that he'd been kicked out--??? That it was good to have told his younger self that?? When that younger Ford had gone looking for him afterwards and-- Stan hadn't known Ford had gone LOOKING for him after--

But now his brother thought that he shouldn't have? That he thought that he had deserved--?!?!! --Why?!

"Ford!?!" Stan demanded, rounding on his brother, wanting (and needing) him to explain.

But all his brother did was stand where he was, not looking at him -- no, refusing to look at him, his head turned away from him, his jaw firm, his fists clenched.

"It's better this way," Ford repeated, like the echo of a gunshot that was far too close to him to miss, like the back trunk of his own damn car slamming shut on him, like the final pound of the last nail into a empty coffin that he was supposed to be inside, and that was enough, more than enough, just far far too much for him. Stan shook for a moment with rage, and then he turned and ran off after his younger twin's counterpart -- one who Stan actually still recognized his brother, his twin in.

And then it was Bill and Ford, left standing together by the portal.

And Bill said, just a little too casually in tone (as he stood there shaking slightly in place with tension)... "Aren't you going to go through?"

Ford felt himself bristle, and he rounded on Bill.

"If you think--" Ford began caustically, "That I am going to leave my brother alone with you--" because, even after everything, even after all this, there was no way in hell that Ford would leave anyone stranded in another dimension not their own -- let alone HIS OWN BROTHER -- with Bill Cipher of all demons, leaving Stanley to Bill Cipher's nonexistent mercies--

To HELL with Bill for even SUGGESTING it!! --And Ford was shaking in place (at the offense, at the very implication that he might--) and he could feel it, but that hardly mattered at this point to him, because if Bill thought that about him, so very little of him, "--Then you are out of your GOD-DAMNED--"

Something came at his head, and Ford barely dodged back a step in time to avoid it, to have it sail by his ear, as Bill cursed and made a twisting motion with his hands a split-second later.

The portal closed.

A line of rope dropped to the sand, along with a… grappling hook attached to the end of it?

Ford stared.

Bill slowly tilted his head. down at it. "Hm-mm-mm." He paused for a moment. "Shooting Star must've gotten antsy."

Ford stared down at the grappling hook. And then it occurred to him...

He slowly turned back towards Bill.

"...Why didn't they just walk back through?" Ford said slowly, with no small dread.

Bill turned towards him. (His eyes were far too wide.)

And he gave Ford a smile.

Ford was about to try to grab Bill and throttle him, to make Bill talk -- protective-armored and clearly strength-enhanced bodysuit be damned! -- when he heard a yell that was both familiar and not.

"WHERE IS HE!?" he heard, and he turned to see an angry-looking young Stanley jogging forward towards them across the sand.

It wasn't a guilty sort of anger either. It looked like more of a righteous one, and it left Ford feeling wrong-footed.

"--What?" Ford blurted out, while Bill said promptly, "--He ran back to the boat. My Stanley ran after him after this idiot here couldn't keep his mouth shut on things he knows nothing about," and it left Ford speechless, whipping his head back around towards him.