-You’ll owe me a favor down the road-(Part 1)

----

Stan knew there was an easy way to get his brother out of the kitchen for dinnertime. He also knew he didn't want to do that. Letting Ford back into his lab wasn't something Stan wanted to do right then. He didn't want Ford potentially getting his hands on any more guns, and he wasn't sure what Ford might try to whip up down there if he thought he was in another dimension again. Or in the Nightmare Realm still. Or some brain-computer-jail-trap thing. Or anything else his brother had gotten paranoid about before, yesterday afternoon, before Ford had fallen asleep (again) and been (marginally) better yesterday evening.

Melody had really been earning her keep around here today, Stan figured. She'd been pulling double-duty in babysitting Ford and helping with the cooking while Stan tried to figure shit out, between the demons and Ford's own brain.

Stan sighed as Ford's head nodded at his side. Right now, they were both sitting on the floor of the TV room, watching Ducktective reruns. (Between his brother and the demon-kids, his back was going to murder him tonight in bed. He wasn't even thinking about the next morning; that was gonna be a given.) The only good thing about this was that Ford had spent a lot more time with the niblings today, not worrying about Bill, and had actually seemed overall a hell of a lot happier than he'd been the last couple of weeks (even if he'd still been stressed the hell out). And the kids had run Ford ragged for him today, almost, keeping Ford too busy to think of much more than what was happening in the moment with them. It had kept Ford's mind off of things when it had been happening, and now his brother was too tired now to cause anybody much trouble for the rest of the night, let alone himself, even if he did grab a few zzz's in a short nap. And, y'know, maybe he should nap for a bit. It looked to Stan like he certainly wasn't gonna stay awake for much longer...

And hey, if Ford fell asleep for awhile, maybe he would feel even better. Sleeping yesterday afternoon had helped some. He'd been a lot better this morning, too. (A full night's sleep had seemed to do even more for his brother than the nap he'd had yesterday afternoon.) And yeah, Ford was putting on a good face for the rest of them today, trying to keep the kids from worrying about him, but it was pretty clear that Ford was still worried himself underneath it all, and confused, and… probably ready to panic again if things came to a head, but Stan figured that the kids could help him talk Ford down, if it really came to that and he couldn't handle it himself.

...It made Stan wonder if he'd acted kind of this way when he'd been having memory problems, sort of. (His memories of the time in-between for that week, when he'd been getting his memories back, were really the fuzziest memories he had anymore.) Not that Ford was having the same problem, exactly? (--It was more like Ford was remembering too much, not too little...) But the lying and trying to act like everything was normal, trying to please everybody around you so that they stopped feeling so bad? Stopped worrying? Feeling the strain of that, and knowing you were failing at everything somehow, but just not knowing how to fix things, because you couldn't really speed it up, the things-getting-better part? It would just take time? Stan let out a long sigh.

...and then Stan scowled as he remembered how Bill had said that Ford would just fix himself. Part of him was annoyed that it was starting to look like the demon had been… --Stan didn't want to think that, that the triangle demon might be right about any part of this. (Because it worried him that if the demon was right about this, then… --No. That was stupid. Ford wouldn't do this to himself. That made no sense at all.) Hell, the kid was maybe half-right at most, just like he usually was with anything to do with Ford.

Ford made a sleepy sound and practically nudged his head up against Stan's shoulder, and Stan had to hold down a laugh. Hell, his brother never changed, did he? Not really. Same old goofy glasses-wearing nerd. (Just a little more shooty sometimes than maybe he'd used to be. Maybe. Heh, not that Stan would know, really. He'd never seen Ford with a gun before he'd brought him back -- just that crossbow that one time, when he'd… well, that was a long time ago.)

Stan let out an amused huff of breath, then wrapped an arm around his brother's shoulders and reached up to stroke his hand through Ford's hair lightly. He watched as his brother murmured something out in alien-whatever and relaxed even more, slumping up against him.

Stan kept it up until Ford looked well and truly fast asleep, then frowned slightly as he kept his hand in Ford's hair, just holding it there. He frowned because he'd seen stuff like this from his brother out on the boat, except…

Well, it really didn't help that some of the stuff that Stan had learned to do with the kid? Was stuff that seemed to work better with his brother than stuff that he'd tried to do for his brother before the kid had come back.

It made him want to kick the entire rest of every other universe out there to the curb, that the stuff that he was figuring out worked best to handle the kid, worked even better to calm down his brother when stuff got bad. Stan didn't want, or have, to know what kinda junk they'd both had to deal with, out there, just...

Stan clenched his jaw. ...Because Stan really hoped it was just a living out there someplace else for thirty years thing, and not, y'know, something that was more…

Stan felt Ford shift uncomfortably in his sleep, and Stan forced himself to relax. He let out a slow breath once Ford had settled again. --Ford first. Maybe kicking the kid upside the head later. --He didn't know if it was a Bill-thing yet. For all he knew, his brother and the kid only sort of seemed to react to some things the same way sometimes, and he knew his brother didn't think like the kid, so...

(Besides, that dragon-kid might get upset if he hit her brother, even if it was just a 'kick to the mind' or whatever. Last thing he needed was two pissed-off demon-kids on his hands, hell.)

Stan glanced over at the clock on the wall. ...Eh, demon-kids could take care of themselves for awhile, Stan figured. At least until after he got Ford and the kids some dinner, and it wasn't really time for that, yet. Stan glanced down at his brother, then over to the TV. They were only halfway through the episode that was playing; was one of the better ones, too.

Stan didn't really have any reason to move and try to wake his brother up -- and a lot of good reasons not to. So Stan just sat there and watched the rest of that episode, and two others, as his brother slept easily on his shoulder.

And then Stan blinked and realized that he wasn't exactly sure how long a blink that he'd just blinked for. He pulled in a breath slowly, and rubbed his free hand across his face. Maybe he could just make it through this next episode, and...

Stan yawned.

...Yeah, no. If he kept sitting here, he was gonna fall asleep on the floor. And he needed to get up and get dinner started. His brother had probably slept enough for now; about an hour and a half was a pretty solid nap, right? He ruffled his brother's hair a little, trying to rouse him a bit. "Hey, nerd-owl. No fallin' asleep out in the TV room like last time." Kind of a lie, except not really, because napping and sleeping were two totally different things. ...Damn nerd really DID look like an owl, though, especially with the way he blinked his eyes at him as he woke up.

"Uh… wh't? Ss-tan… ley?" Ford yawned. He blinked his eyes open tiredly, and looked around, confused. "The… kids?" Ford asked almost meekly.

"Yeah, they're fine," Stan told him. He barely resisted the urge to say, 'here with us for the summer', because that would give it away, that he knew that his brother wasn't all that sure about the time and date and place and all that junk. (Which would probably have his brother acting all paranoid again.) What Stan did say was that they: "Went out to visit with Mabel's friends for awhile. Said they might stay for a sleepover at the Chiu's place. I'm gonna call 'em back for dinner. Rather have 'em sleeping here under the barrier," he told Ford.

"Bill," Ford said quietly, straightening up and rubbing his eyes under his glasses. It left Stan blinking, surprised. He hadn't expected his brother to bring the demon up. "Uh, no?" Stan said slowly. "Bill can't… possess 'em, even without the barrier," he told his brother, frowning slightly. "I was thinkin' more… uh, ghosts getting in and stuff? Other things?" Well, here it was, trying to figure out what Ford did and didn't think was going on right now.

His brother was quiet for a long few moments. "...Right," Ford said quietly, finally. Stan watched him closely. His brother didn't look as unsure or confused as he had before, and this was a big step up from going paranoid and nearly attacking them the last time Bill's name had come up, but...

"You wanna tell me what you're thinkin' right now, Ford?" Stan asked him outright. He really didn't feel like guessing. He felt his brother go almost rigid next to him, and then look over at him. "What?" Stan asked. "You--" Ford began, then stopped for a moment. And swallowed. And his brother opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped, and slowly closed it again. ...And he still looked pretty tense.

"Ford…" Stan began. He wasn't exactly looking like he was going to shoot him, but he was getting kinda shooty-vibes from his brother right now. (He wondered for a moment if this was what the kid had meant earlier.)

He watched his brother forcibly straighten up a bit, thin his lips, and stare him straight in the eye. "Stanley, what day is it?" his brother asked him.

Well, shit. "Uh…" He hadn't though Ford would ask him outright. He watched Ford clench his jaw. Damn, something must've given it away. And now he was gonna get all paranoid about whatever the heck he thought was going on now. "Look--" Stan began.

Ford stood up.

"Where are the children," was his brother's next demand, and Stan grimaced and slowly pushed himself to his feet, using the sofa as a ladder, almost. Damn his back.

"I told ya," Stan began, then felt a little irritated himself when his brother demanded, "--So if I go to Candy's house, and the kids aren't there?!"

Stan blinked his eyes hard and wondered if maybe he was the one who needed more sleep. He scratched the back of his head. "You can't just use the phone?" Stan asked him. At the look his brother gave him, he sighed and said, "Look Poindexter, I can call Mabel right now."

"Do so," Ford just about outright commanded him, and Stan found himself having to do one of those count-to-five things to keep from (trying to get away with) punching his brother in the face. "Fine," Stan grumbled out and shrugged. He walked his way over to the phone in the kitchen. Ford followed him over, arms folded across his chest. Stan let out a huff and rolled his eyes as he picked up the receiver and dialed the number. Because, really Ford?

It rang. And rang. He waited for it to pick up.

"Hello?" came the voice of Mrs. Chiu. Stan sighed and scratched his cheek. "Yeah, hi. It's Stan Pines," he told her. "Need to talk to Mabel. Can you maybe get her to stop giggling for five seconds with her girl pals and--"

"Mabel isn't here," was what he heard next, and Stan felt his expression drop. "Uh, what?" Stan said, shifting the receiver to his other ear. He… hadn't misremembered that. Had he? "Uh. Are they… at Grenda's place?" he tried next, feeling a little off, like he always did when his memory wasn't exactly… but that hadn't happened in...

Ford was staring at him. Stan tried to act like nothing was wrong. Maybe he'd simply forgotten or misheard or... whatever it was that old age did to people.

"My daughter is sleeping over at Grenda's house, yes," was what he heard next. "Too messy here," and relief flooded him. "Right, yeah," Stan said. "I'll call over there, then." He let out a breath and hung up, then dialed the other number. (Hey, at least he remembered the phone numbers, right? Weird that Mabel hadn't called to tell them, though. ...Maybe Melody had picked up instead? He could've nodded off with Ford for a little longer than he'd thought he had, maybe. Wouldn't put it past himself.) Ford was still boring holes into Stan's back with his stare.

Stan waited impatiently for the pickup. "Yeah, hello?" he said, when the phone finally stopped ringing. "Yes?" he heard from the other end, an unnaturally deep voice of either Mrs. or Mr. Grendinator, he could never tell. "Yeah, Stan Pines. Need to talk to Mabel. Can you--" He stopped when he heard a scuffle on the other end, trying to hold back a smile.

He lost the urge to smile when he heard another deep loud voice on the end say "HELLO?" instead of Mabel's happy, excited voice.

"Uh, hey Grenda," Stan said, frowning slightly as he transferred the phone back to his other ear. "You, uh, doing okay over there?"

"YES!" said Grenda. "WE ARE HAVING FUN AT MY SLEEPOVER!" Stan was forced to hold the phone a few inches away from his ear. Hell. Even without his hearing aid, he'd think she was loud.

"Oh yes, very much fun!" he heard next when he brought it back to his ear, as apparently Candy took over the receiver for a minute, and something really wasn't right here. He tried to push down on a rising panic.

"Uh huh," said Stan, starting to frown. "You two maybe wanna put Mabel on? Need to talk to her." At the long delay, he started to get a bad feeling. He straightened in place and his eyes narrowed slightly. "Or, y'know, maybe Dipper could come to the phone instead. Let you girls get on right back to it."

"Oh! Uh, haha, he can't!" he heard Candy say far far too nervously. "I mean, they can't! They are in the middle of a party game! For sleepovers!" she chattered at him, and Stan was quickly losing his patience with them both, his hand starting to tighten around the receiver.

"Where are they," Stan demanded, because there was really only one reason that these two would be covering for the kids, and that was if they were doing something… something...

Oh, shit.

"AAAAH WE KNOW NOTHING!" "--Hang up the phone! Quickly!" he heard from the other end, and then a click. Stan stood there, listening to the dial tone for a while in shock before he closed his eyes and growled before slamming the phone back down onto the receiver. "Stupid… always going out and…" He muttered, passing a hand over his face. Because of course the twins had gone off to do something without telling him! They couldn't go a day without having some sorta crazy weird misadventure.

"...Stanley?" Ford said slowly.

The worst part was, Stan even had the edges of some idea of what it might be: Bill. Bill had hurt Ford, and the kids had probably wanted to do something about it. It probably hadn't looked like Stan had been doing anything to them, so they'd just gone off and decided to do whatever they were doing right now, same way that they'd gone behind his back with the decaf coffee a couple of weeks ago. Damnit. Damnit!

"Okay." Stan said. "Okay." He pulled in a breath. "It's fine. Just gotta find them." Find them before they did something completely stupid and broke the damn agreement. When Stan got his hands on those two, he was gonna have them scrubbing the visitor bathrooms of the Mystery Shack for a week. They weren't stupid; the two of them should know better. --What the hell were they thinking!

"You don't know where they are," Stan heard Ford say slowly, and with almost no expression to his tone. Stan dropped his hand to look over at his brother, who had a dawning look of horror going on. Shit. "They said they were gonna be with their friends," Stan told him. "Figures they wanted to sneak off. --Kids, am I right?" Stan tried to wave off, trying to downplay it, even though he didn't feel that way about it himself. Ford didn't say anything, but Stan saw something ticking through his brother's head. "...Ford?"

He didn't have a chance to stop his brother before Ford whirled in place and started running up the stairs. Stan bolted after him, but he wasn't fast enough, not by a longshot. It was all he could do to keep up with him enough to watch as Ford barreled down the upstairs hallway and straight past the niblings bedroom. --Shit, shit, shit!!

"FORD!!" he yelled out -- but it was too late, and he was literally drowned out by Ford screaming at the top of his lungs as he barreled his way up the final flight of staircase, "--BILL!!!"

--And came to an abrupt and clanging halt as he slammed head-first straight into the barrier up there and tumbled right back down, halfway down that last set of stairs again before he managed to drag himself to a halt, shaking and panting. There was about a three second pause, as Ford dizzily tried to get his bearings again after damn near concussing himself on the flat barrier-ward thing Bill had put across the top of that opening (Stan had to admit, the kid knew his stuff), and Stan, panting, finally physically caught up to his idiot brother. (At which point, Stan put a hand on his genius brother's shoulder and tried to get a good look at his head, to make sure he really hadn't just given himself a concussion.)

A small head poked past the edge of the stairs and looked down at them. "Uh…" Miz blinked. "Does this mean we can come down now?" Ford stared up at her in something of a different kind of horror, and before Stan could tell her 'No!' there was a soft yelp and Miz was pulled back through the opening.

Bill stomped his way down the stairs instead.

...Or at least, he tried to. The minute his feet passed the black made-of-deep-shadows looking barrier, Ford's expression turned to one of rage, and he shrugged off Stan's grip, reached out himself--

--and grabbed Bill by the ankle, to drag him down the stairs the rest of the way pretty damn unceremoniously, to let go of him only to re-grab him by the arms and shove himself to his feet. He yanked Bill up along with him, to slam the demon up against the side wall of the staircase instead.

"Where are Dipper and Mabel!!" Ford screamed out at the kid, right into his face, and… the kid just blinked up at him, looking confused.

And then the kid looked to Stan.

"Don't look at him to lie for you again!" Ford yelled out at him, pulling Bill forward and slamming him back up against the side wall again, which left Bill gritting his teeth, but not doing much else. "WHERE ARE THEY?!" Ford was shaking by this point, and looked two seconds away from completely losing it. "What did you DO to them?!?!"

"Um…" Miz poked her head back out, "I thought they went to their friends' for a sleepover?"

"Pretty sure that they could've just called on the phone if they wanted to check that," Bill gritted out, looking none too happy with Ford right now, who was gripping him by the upper arms rather tightly. "You try her cellphone?" Bill drawled out slowly as if he were calling them idiots without actually saying it.

Stan winced.

"Fine," Bill said, trying to reach back for his back shorts-pocket.

Stan stared as Ford actually let go of the one arm to let Bill do it.

Then Stan wondered if Ford was going to just rip it away from him and toss it down the hallway once he had it out, but he didn't. They all just watched as Bill huffed out a breath, hit a few buttons on the phone screen, and held up the phone to his ear.

They all froze in place when they heard a musical ringtone sound from down the hallway.

Stan turned to look at the closed door of the nibling's bedroom. Ford, looking grim, and still plenty freaked out, still gestured with his head towards the door. (He didn't move from his spot, or let go of his hold on Bill.)

Bill was frowning. Stan didn't blame him. Stan already had a bad feeling, as he walked down the hallway and knocked on the kids' door.

"Kids?" Stan tried. No answer. He knocked on the door. "I'm coming in." And he opened the door.

And they weren't there. But the phone was.

Stan walked over at looked down at it. It was just sitting there on the dresser. Wasn't even plugged in; Stan picked it up and checked the screen. Mabel hadn't just left it because the power was low, which meant she'd left it behind deliberately.

He looked around. No note, and no adventuring backpacks, so they must have...

Stan made his way around the room, searching for clues, checking over the desktops, under the beds, Dipper's string diagram thing up on the wall in case he'd left something obvious, the closet…

...and he froze in place after opening the closet to look for missing boots and coats. The backpacks were there, along with their walkie-talkies.

Stan felt a chill go down his spine.

He walked out of the room, cell phone in hand, and turned to face the three of them.

"...Do you want me to Look for them?" Miz called down the hallway, assuming that the kids weren't there.

"Find them," Stan told the kid, his sister, he didn't care which. "I don't care what you have to do, just find them." The kid's eyes went wide.

"Stan, no," Ford said, in tones approaching horror, as Stan stomped his way back over to them.

"I. Don't. Care." Stan told his brother. "The kids come first. Let him go."

Ford shivered in place under Stan's glare, but he didn't let go.

"--He doesn't have to." Stan stopped, and he turned to look down at the kid, because had he really just said-- "Let go. He can hold on. I can walk like this." Bill said with a level tone, too flat and calm to be comforting.

...Shit. How bad did it have to be that the kid was trying to offer suggestions, here?

"Fine," said Stan. "You--"

"--No, Stan, that's what he w--" Ford cut himself off as Stan swung his gaze back over to him. Ford looked pale. "--I can scan for them using the equipment in my lab," Ford blurted out almost frantically. "You don't have to--!"

"We don't got time for this--" Stan said hotly.

"Time isn't a problem--" Bill began.

The argument was interrupted by the sounds of clattering and a heavy THUMP along the side of the Shack. As if… someone had just thrown themselves out the window? There was a frozen instant of time in which the two men and one demon all turned their heads as one and stared back up the stairs.

And then Bill snarled and shoved himself out of Ford's hold -- surprising the hell out of Ford, who hadn't expected that level of strength outta the kid, because he didn't know about the thing Bill was wearing yet -- and the kid ran back up the stairs like the place was on fire, disappearing into the gloom as he crossed the threshold of the attic barrier before Ford could grab him again.

...Not that Ford tried, since apparently his brother was too busy staring at the bodysuit that the kid had apparently decided to show off all-at-once now for a couple seconds there, just as soon as he'd gotten Ford off of him.

---

Miz crawled towards the edge of the barrier. Ow. She was pretty sure the legs of her vessel were broken. It hurt. A lot. But she'd had worse. She pulled herself across and flicked the cuffs off, Scanning immediately for any sign of the kids.

Bill caught up to her quickly and half-lifted her up. "DON'T DO THAT!!" he just about shrieked out at her, as he practically forcibly shoved a self-recovery spell at and around her like a blanket. He almost forced it in, but stopped just short of that, giving her a chance to throw it off if she really didn't want it -- not that he wouldn't yell at her for it if she DID decide to make that really IDIOTIC choice instead.

Miz twitched. She accepted the spell and winced as her legs made snapping sounds and twisted back into place. "I lightened my weight before I jumped…" she groaned, her eyes Flickering rapidly. She couldn't just remove her weight or she'd have floated away.

"LIGHTENING isn't REMOVING," Bill told her, dropping down to the ground with her once her bones were finished straightening out, and not-quite hugging her close. He held her in his lap. "GRAVITY is still A THING here." He started stroking her hair. (She had damaged herself, what was she thinking, she was supposed to be able to filter out emotions now, she shouldn't have had to jump out of the window to get away from them--)

"Ah… I thought it would be good enough… I thought it would be the quickest way out of the barrier. Didn't want to have to go around and past Ford." Miz continued Flickering through every Eye she could find around the town and then some.

"Run the calculations first!" Bill all but snarled out at her, then decided that stroking her hair probably wasn't getting the point across -- probably the WRONG message. So he started penalizingly mussing-up her hair again, drastically. She whined for awhile, until Bill figured that she'd probably gotten his point and stopped the mussing for holding a hand on top of her head instead, breathing heavily still as he held her close. (She wasn't going anywhere, as far as he was concerned.)

Stan and Ford came out the side door of the house shortly after that. Stan almost crossed the barrier, but got yanked back right before he did by Ford's iron grip around his arm. (Stan tossed his brother an annoyed look; to Ford, it was clear that he hadn't seen and wasn't checking for the magic-suppressing bracelets -- which Ford had spotted immediately, that were lying on the grass instead of around the demon's wrists.)

Miz slumped over, groaning. "They went to Spec's place… I can't See anything inside that… stupid barrier…" She blinked and then let out a frustrated groan and changed her Search functions to be Feeling instead of Seeing. Specifically, Feeling the flow of Reality around the mansion. She didn't See how they did it, but she did notice their Soul-signatures slip out and away and… "They're in ANOTHER DIMENSION?!" she cried.

Stan saw both Bill's and Ford's expressions drop. "What?!" said Ford, looking panicked. (Stan opened his mouth, about to tell his brother to let the demon kid finish--)

Bill went the angry route instead, letting go of Miz (touch was too distracting) and opening his own Eye. (Stanley had given him blanket permission for ANYTHING earlier, and that meant anything weird. And Stanley hadn't rescinded it yet.)

"TIME TAPE?! What the hell were they THINKING?!" Miz rolled around on the ground (she would freak out about touching the dirty grass and dirt later, but she was too annoyed right now). "Broken Time Tape as well?!" She finally spotted the twins in the other dimension, no mystic barriers to keep her gaze away there!

Bill gritted his teeth as a gash on his forehead opened up and started bleeding. Ford stared openly as he saw dark red, angry-looking lines start to emerge on Bill's forehead as well, ones that were nearly the color of Dipper's own birthmark-lines. And the shape of the combination of them was… it almost looked like...

Ford stopped breathing and just stared, eyes wide.

Bill shuddered and closed his own Eye. Bill didn't exactly appreciate the, "You're getting worse, kid," he got out of Stanley for his efforts either, as Bill bent over where he was seated slightly.

"I'm fine," Bill spat out at them, but Ford could see very well with his own two eyes that that was a lie. That, no, Bill wasn't fine. He saw it, even as Bill seemed to grit his teeth and cast a spell on himself to handwave away the worst of the blood from his face. Ford rejected the lie, as he watched the spell bring down the almost angry-look of the swelling across Bill's forehead, of what (had) looked (...while it was there...) horrifyingly-similar to the symbol of the Society of the Blind Eye.

An open eye, with one gash from upper right to lower-left… and only the one gash, not a second one, not two. Had Stanley recognized it? (Had Fiddleford seen it before? 'When gravity falls and earth becomes sky…')

Blood from the gash had been dripping directly into Bill's right eye, staining it red and then dripping down further like bloody tears, as he'd been… as Bill had been trying to... Ford reached up a hand to his own right eye. (--That wasn't justice.)

(...What would happen if Stanley punched Bill again?)

This wasn't right. None of this was right. (Ford shook his head in disbelief and let go of his hold on Stanley. Stanley moved forward and crouched down on the ground next to Bill. Stan reached out with a hand to touch and lift Bill's chin, firmly but gently, to get a good look at… something that was no longer there. ...And Bill didn't resist the motion.)

Miz didn't see Bill's bleeding when it happened, since she had been too focused on watching the twins' every move within the other dimension. "They… they're trying to stop the science fair project from being broken…" she murmured as she stared.

"Idiots," Bill spat out. "They think I'm STUPID!" He pulled his chin away from Stanley's touch to glare up at Ford. "This is YOUR fault. They think I'M stupid, because YOU think I'm stupid!" Bill raged out at him, as the triangle demon (his own personal nightmare) stood up to face him. Ford shook his head, not understanding ('why would Bill say that? I don't think Bill is…') -- and Stan got in-between them. Stan physically stood up between them, with his back to Ford, and it left Ford flinching and almost taking a step back.

"Bill," Stan said, holding up his hands, palms outward. "Kid. Break it down for me here. What happened, are the kids okay, and what the hell did they do."

Bill fumed where he stood in place, looking incensed.

"Those idiots thought they could go back in time and stop the stupid broken science fair project!" Miz answered instead, still staring off into the distance. "Thought it would stop Ford from ever going to Gravity Falls." As if something that HUGE wouldn't have caused all SORTS of catastrophic effects if they had actually done it!

"But it didn't work," Stan said slowly. "They ain't actually here." He looked at Bill. "You said they're in--"

"--another dimension, yes," Bill confirmed. He'd Seen it, too. "Because they think I'm stupid and didn't lock down the timestream once I got here!" Bill spat out. "As if I'd make such a STUPID mistake when there's even a TIME BABY here to try and get in my way!!!"

"They can't undo anything," Ford murmured, feeling faint as he realized... "We can't undo anything." It had been a longshot idea of the kids, one of many, but...

"--Though at least that stupid lizard actually did its job right for once," Bill said. "When they bounced, it spun up a whole new dimension for them to land in, almost the same as THIS one." The kid looked even more angry about this for some reason.

"Do I even wanna know?" Stan prompted him, figuring it was better to let the kid get it all out now, instead of later when...

"I WASN'T THERE!" Bill blasted out angrily. "It just made that dimension! --It put a bunch of stupid things in place so things would turn out the same way even though I didn't do them, and--" the kid was shaking with rage and… something else. Shit. Stan actually got that one. --Kid had been replaced. That had to be an ego bruising for the demon, thinking that he wasn't 'needed' for anything. (Heh.) "--And the only way that anything WEIRD would have happened there was if it connected the stupid thing to MY 'Nightmare Realm'!" Bill complained about next, starting to flail and pace. "Do you have ANY IDEA how much more QUICKLY the place is going to COLLAPSE after this? NOW? After how much weirdness doing that ALL-AT-ONCE must have DRAINED out of it?!" he demanded out of Stanley, stopping right in front of his face, chest heaving from the exertion of being so damn pissed off about everything and life in general right now.

"Nope," Stan said, crossing his arms. "Why don't you tell me." (Hell, it was taking all he had to try and look three kinds of stoic, and not start laughing so flipping hard right now…)

"It's going to COLLAPSE in TEN MILLION YEARS!" Bill screamed out, flailing his arms up and down at his sides (a bunch of times, kid was gonna wear himself out, he kept this up, heh). "I SHOULD HAVE HAD AT LEAST ANOTHER SEVEN BILLION MORE YEARS THAN THAT!!!"

Ford was staring. Stan could feel it. (So damn hard not to laugh.) Miz was trying very hard to look sympathetic. It WAS a very short amount of time, for immortals like them, but it was a long time from the human's point of view.

"Uh huh," Stan said. "That sounds like a problem for later."

"YES, IT'S--" Bill stopped cold and stared at him. "...What?"

"That sounds like a problem for later," Stan stressed, looking down at the kid. "Pretty sure that the kids coming first means a LOT sooner than ten million years," he told the kid. "Right?"

The kid's arms fell to his sides, hands dangling.

"Right," Stan said, lifting a hand to drop it on top of the kid's head. "Good talk."

The kid lifted a hand to his face and practically slapped it across his eyes, making a 'tsssssst' sort of cicada-like sound. (It sounded like he was very, very annoyed with him just then. Heh.)

"...Stanley?" Ford said softly behind him, and Stan had to drop the hand he had on the kid and turn towards him. "Kid's made a portal before, Ford," Stan reminded him. "He can do it again. We'll get 'em back. It's fine."

"Ooh! Can I make this one?" Miz raised her hand. Stan turned back around and blinked at her. "Uh," Stan said. "You make 'em the same way?" Stan asked her. "Kid's pretty picky about energy stuff." Had the kid even talked about portal-making stuff with her before? Stan glanced over at Bill; the kid looked kind of like a wreck in progress, and Stan made a split-second decision: "Probably would be better if you did it, though. Don't want him havin' to use that Eye of his more than he really needs to, 'til it's all healed up."

Miz stared as she finally noticed. "哥哥! What happened to your--"

"--I'm-fine," Bill said quickly, looking vaguely embarrassed (and maybe a little ashamed, with the way the kid raised his hand up a bit further to cover his forehead slightly). Kid's cheeks definitely turned ever so very slightly pink as the kid refused to meet her eyes.

"I punched him," Stan told her. "Straight in the eye, for messin' with my family." He was completely unrepentant; the kid had deserved it (and by this point, Stan had made sure that the kid damn well knew it).

Miz blinked slowly, rubbing her own forehead. "...oh…" She shook her head and turned to raise her hands into the air, pulling Space open into the desired shape, setting her entry point.

"--Stop," Stan said quickly. Miz stopped. "You didn't answer my question, Miz," he told her. "Can you make 'em the same way as the kid does it? Yes or no?"

Miz looked over to Bill and Flickered, looking up how Blue had done it when he met that purple version of Bill… how he'd opened a portal with the intent to throw that square in and away from him and this dimension. Huh, that seemed like a funny story for her to spend more time looking up later. She tilted her head. "Yes." she said simply.

"Okay," said Stan. "Bill." He turned to the kid. "Do you trust her to do it the same way as you?" Stan asked next.

"...Yes," Bill said.

"Okay, I hear ya," Stan told him. He pulled in a breath, and looked over at Ford. "Anything we need for jumping dimensions that I don't know about?" They'd used Ford's infinite belt rope thing last time, but they'd both just gone in with what they'd had on them.

Ford looked between them all. "You aren't going anywhere without me," Ford said quietly, looking suspicious as all get-out to Stan, if not halfway to paranoid.

...Well, shit, Stan hadn't been trying to get rid of him, so they could all jump out when he wasn't looking or nothing. Not that he'd ever be able to convince his brother of that, at the rate he was going with him. "...Fine," Stan grunted out. "No supplies, it is. --Miz, go ahead, yeah?"

Miz scoffed. "Alright, Ford's gonna need to come closer though."

Ford didn't look very happy at this pronouncement. "Why," Ford said -- not asking, demanding.

"Because I don't want you getting left behind or lost on the way through," Miz told him, rolling her eyes, DUH. Ford didn't look any happier about any of this, but he did step forward.

Miz formed the portal, frowning in concentration as she did so, link up the entry and exit, make it clear and stable so they didn't end up in the wrong dimension. She turned to look back at Ford (who had his face set in a determined expression that was...actually really hot, god damn) and Stan (who looked like he just wanted to smack both the kids upside their heads). "Ok, I think we should hold hands so we don't get separated," she pointed out. Would suck if she had to keep track of MORE wayward idiots.

Ford looked offended by Miz's request, but grit his teeth and held out his hand. Stan held onto his brother with one hand and the kid's with another. The kid didn't quite twitch as he took Stan's hand, but the kid almost immediately took and held his sister's hand, glaring at the both of them like he thought the other two men might try and touch her. Ford looked like he'd rather kiss a moose, and Stan himself nearly rolled his eyes. ...Right, kid. Sure.

"Should've just formed it under all of our feet," Bill muttered as he looked at the portal, with something of an evil glint in his eye, before looking over to his sister.

"I'll keep that in mind for the return trip." She grinned with a smile that... looked like it was making Ford uneasy, as Stan glanced between them, unamused at the banter. (The kids had better be alright…)

"Really?" Bill said, all demonic-innocence, as they all started to walk (in their 'chain'-line) towards the opening. "You mean you don't know how to drag around space-time to do that right now?"

Ford suddenly looked alarmed, for reasons Stan did not understand. "Bill," Ford began, "Don't you dare--"

"Meh, I can add a slide to it and everything," Miz said, looking down, and suddenly the ground seemed to dip, except the ground hadn't moved or changed. …Space did? (What the--)

Stan's eyes went wide behind his glasses, and Ford angrily screamed out an alien curse as his feet were no longer on solid ground -- and they all PLUMMETED. Miz was squealing with laughter like this was a roller coaster -- then again, she'd once played chicken with a black hole so...

Stan barely had a chance to breathe before they all shot out onto some sand in a messy tumble, losing hold of each other completely. He finally rolled to a stop, staring up at the bright blue sky, and just… what the hell...

"This is why I hate sideways portals!" Stan heard Ford snap out, except he'd sounded pretty muffled or something for the first bit of that. Stan slowly levered himself up on an elbow, to see his brother just… sitting in the sand next to him, looking seven kinds of disturbed and messy, with his hair all out of whack and sand just plastered all across his face. (No kick-ass sci-fi owl here.)

Stan's mouth dropped open slightly, and couldn't help but let out a chuckle. He managed to stop after Ford shot him a frustrated look. ...for maybe a couple of seconds, before he started chuckling at his brother again. (Ford really couldn't take going through a portal messily? Really?) Miz was half buried under some sand, kicking her legs in the air and laughing with pure delight. If Stan didn't know she was a billions year old demon he might have even found it cute.

Stan finally caught sight of Bill. The kid wasn't laughing; he hadn't the whole trip (and wasn't that weird?). The kid was just lying on the sand, belly-first, with his arms pillowed under his chin, smiling and watching them all.

"Fun?" the kid asked, looking much too smug.

"--NOT FUN!!!" Ford bellowed out at him furiously, startling Stan a bit. The kid looked like he'd expected that response though, because the kid just sighed a bit and his chin slid down a bit lower on his arms, as Ford huffily got to his feet and started wiping himself off with almost-offended-looking jolts of motion.

Stan slowly got up too with a sigh, brushing himself off a lot more casually. So the kid had wanted to take his brother down a peg with a prank, after thinking Ford had been calling him stupid behind his back to the niblings or somethin', for them trying to pull this time-travel shit. Okay. Not like anybody got hurt. (Hell, Stan had half a mind to toss a handful of sand into Ford's hair himself.)

"So… we should probably go find the twins before they do something even stupider than they've already done." Miz finally got up and flick-cleaned herself of all the sand and dirt. She even cleaned off the blood that had soaked through her dress from her broken legs.

Stan glanced down at her as she cleaned up. He hadn't asked before because she'd seemed fine by the time he'd gotten outside, and the kid hadn't been yelling anymore. Stan was about to ask now, though, because--

...except the breeze picked up a bit for a moment, Stan finally got a good whiff of the air, and it really hit him.

Stan looked around and stared. This was… Glass Shard Beach. In 1971. Shit.

He tensed in place and looked over at Ford. His brother seemed to have no problem with it, until he looked over at him, and then he froze in place for a moment, too.

"Uh," Stan said. "Yeah." And Stan saw a lot of emotions run across his brother's face in that moment, but what it finally settled on was… resignment. And determination.

"Let's go get the kids," his brother told Stan, turning away from him and starting to walk off, then stopping short.

Stan glanced around, wondering what was wrong now... and noticed the same problem that Ford had:

"Where are the demons?"

----

Bill, not quite growling to himself, was floating forward at full-speed-ahead -- just magic, no physical aides -- with Miz in-tow, invisibility surrounding them. They didn't have time for this. (He wished she'd gotten them there a bit earlier, and a bit closer than she had, but details. She was young. --This was fine. They just had to rush there a little bit, in order to AVOID...)

"Should we really be leaving them behind?" Miz asked quietly. She hoped these idiots didn't do something stupid.

"I am not putting up with any more of their idiotic complaining, or their lack of speed," Bill told her tersely and succinctly. Walking would take FOREVER (read: FAR too long), that Stanford would not want any spells cast on him or Stanley, there would be all sorts of fighting if he just cast things without asking (or even brought up the possibility)...

Miz nodded, understanding his point. "Well, the kids are…" She Flickered. "Trying to find their way around." They'd gotten pretty far from the entry point she'd observed for them earlier.

"They'll be headed for the pawn shop," Bill told her. "So will the two idiots we just left behind. Eventually."

They floated up higher, over the buildings, and even though they made a beeline for it, they only caught sight of Dipper and Mabel just as the twins made a rush for the front door of Pines Pawns, and--

----

Ford sighed as he pulled the door closed behind them, and stepped down onto the sidewalk, following his twin. ...And then he nearly ran into the back of him, because Stanley had stopped walking forward for some reason.

"Lee?" he asked, backing up a step and adjusting his glasses. He peered around the side of his brother, to look down at the two… wide-eyed children in front of them?

"Ohmygosh, it's really you!" enthused the younger girl. "You're both so CUTE!"

Ford blinked at this, and colored slightly. He wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed… or embarrassed. Because… somebody thought he was cute? Who wasn't his mother?

The boy -- who was standing next to the girl -- was breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath, and Ford frowned as he took a step to the side and forward, to come up in line with his brother's shoulder. There was something odd about the boy's clothing… the cut of it was a bit…?

And then he and his brother both startled in place as a pair of older female teenagers appeared out of literally nowhere RIGHT in front of them ('and just behind the other two children', Ford noted to himself, for completeness in his scientific observations).

"GOTCHA!" yelled the older one (who looked maybe around their age), grabbing each of the children in front of them by a shoulder, and startling an "AAAH!" out of the both of them. "You two! Are in SO much trouble!" the younger one (who seemed either 13 or 14 in age from her height) huffed out at them. "Your grunkles were WORRIED sick!"

Ford glanced over at his brother, who looked just as confused as he was.

"Oh no," the younger boy breathed out. "No no -- you can't stop us!" he yelled out as he tried to jerk away from the… blue-haired girl? Ford stared, and then he stared some more, eyes widening, because her eyes were--

"HA!" yelled the cat-eyed girl. "STOP you! HAHAHAHAHA!" she laughed out, then went from laughing hysterically to looking downright mean and narrowed-eyed in less than a second, getting down in the younger boy's face. "You moron," she told him. "You don't even know where you are."

"Hey…" Stan said next to him, starting to gear up for a fight against… a bully? Ford shifted in place. He was used to letting his brother read the mood for these things, but even he could tell that this was pretty darn off.

"This isn't even the right DIMENSION!" the asian-looking girl scolded. And that made Ford's eyebrows rise. 'Dimension?' he wondered. (He felt Stan straighten next to him, almost a question, and realized that he'd done the same thing before his brother had. Ford tried to settle back on his heels again, but--)

"--What?!" both of the younger children exclaimed, looking a little shocked. "KIDS!!" they heard someone yell out from farther down the street, and the four newcomers all turned to look that way.

"哥哥's not STUPID," the black haired girl muttered. "He locked down your timeline. No changes. So you two got shunted off to a parallel dimension instead." Ford was glancing between the teenagers and kids in front of him, and the two old men jogging down the street towards all of them, trying to keep track of everything that was going on in this strange and crazy, wonderful--

"...Aw hell," his brother muttered, and then Ford saw what he did -- three of the local cops chasing after the old men. All of them paused to stare at the scene of the old men trying to outrun the cops.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he heard the boy in front of him mutter, grabbing at his hat. "--DON'T YOU HAVE ANY SMOKE BOMBS?!" was the yelled-out cupped-hand contribution of the blue-haired girl to the old men, before she turned back to the two kids and told them, "YOU. Are going to be penalized. SO badly. Once we get back." The threat of which was apparently enough to make both of them wince and glare.

"We're not going anywhere with y--" the boy in front of them began to say, but his speech of rebellion was cut-off when the blue-haired girl let go and took a step back--

--and the grey-haired old man (finally reaching their group) literally plucked him up off of his feet and under an arm as he ran by without stopping and threw something down at the ground behind him (in front of Ford and his twin) as he went.

And then there was smoke everywhere.

And coughing.

...And some cursing by his brother, as they both tried to wave the stuff away, but Stan's annoyed cursing at a smoky mess was just about the only normal thing about this whole situation!

When the smoke mostly cleared a couple of seconds later, there was his brother, three policemen, and... the less-grey of the two old men standing in front of him, coughing.

"Ford, you idiot! It works better when you keep running!!" Ford heard the older man yell out (from a great deal farther away than he'd expected to see), as the older man kept booking it down the street (a small child slung under each arm), and he saw the two older teens following in-- it was either hot pursuit, or camaraderie and kinship, and... why had that man thought he was supposed to run along with him? He hadn't been running in the first place?

"Ah," said the old man in front of him. "Yes. Right," he said, looking a bit off-put as he gave a final cough (from the smoke?) and looked behind him at the three cops. "Well." The remaining old man straightened slightly in place and cleared his throat carefully, then said, "I don't suppose--"

The cops sprung.

...Not a single one of them touched him.

Ford was staring right at the man, and he wasn't entirely sure how he did it, sort of a bunch of leaping, tumbling off of people and pushing and shoving and just-- just--

"Meet you at the--" Ford heard the other guy call out as skidded to a stop right in front of an approaching police car and headed for a side street, instead. The teenagers were cackling wildly as they followed, clearly finding this whole situation HILARIOUS.

"--Yes, yes," the other old man called back unhurriedly and without concern, as he finally bodychecked a fourth cop who'd shown up out of nowhere and took off into the distance, jumping moving cars, running away on his own route, with several more cops now in pursuit.

"...Holy shit," Ford heard his brother breathe out, from where his back was plastered back against the door of the shop behind them -- just as Ford had done himself, in trying to stay out of the way. "Holy shit."

Ford blinked at his twin. "...Was that good boxing technique?" was all Ford could think to ask of his brother, as Stanley, wide-eyed, turned towards him.

"Are you seriously kidding me right now, Sixer?" was what he got in response.

Ford adjusted his glasses. "Is that a yes, or a no?" he asked his twin curiously, really not knowing, and in response to this Stan groaned, running a hand across his face.

--and then they both fell backwards as the door behind them opened up.

They both yelled as they went down, and then both found themselves staring up at their mother from the floor. She, herself was staring down at them with no small bit of consternation in return.

"What was all that commotion out here?" she asked them. "You two do something wrong?" she narrowed her eyes at the two of them, both. She loved her boys but they were such… free spirits. (And troublemakers, to boot.)

They both looked at each other. They both looked up at her.

"No ma'am," they chorused at her, Stan looking a bit shifty regardless, and Ford was clutching his book bag to his chest (which he still hadn't quite gotten a chance to shoulder yet, with all the commotion that had happened before he'd even properly stepped out onto the sidewalk).

...They were both out on the sidewalk again in short order.

---

"So, uh, school?" Ford's twin asked of him not that much later, thumbing his way in the direction of where they needed to go, and both looking and sounding a little weirded out that his twin brother was standing in the middle of the sidewalk only about three feet from the school entrance and not taking a single step forward.

Ford bit his lip as he stared sightlessly at the building face that rose up in front of him, his mind completely and entirely elsewhere.

"Y'know, school?" Stan told him. "That thing that you like to do? 'Cause you never want to skip?" ...Oh, how his brother was good at reading his moods. And looking very weirded out, now -- likely because he was the one to always skip, and he'd never gotten Ford to agree to go with him yet, and Ford...

"Stanley," Ford breathed out. "That girl had eyes like a cat."

"Uh huh," Stan said slowly.

"And they were talking about other dimensions."

"...Uh huh." Stan was starting to get a bad feeling.

"And locked down timelines."

"...Uh huh." Make that a VERY bad feeling.

Ford looked at his brother with great expectation, for him to make the connection.

"So… school?" was what Stan said next, and Ford's face fell.

"--Stanley!!" Ford objected.

"What?" Stan objected right back, turning around to face him. "Those guys had the cops after 'em. --And not in the 'hey, I'm gonna run you outta this theater for sneaking in again' way!" They'd been actually trying to HIT the guys, from the looks of things. (And Stan was pretty sure he'd seen one of them go for their gun before he'd gotten flipped straight into the pavement…)

Ford gave him a look.

"I am not passing this up, Stanley," he told his brother firmly, and his twin took one look at him and gave a deep sigh.

"Ma is gonna blame me for this," Stan said dourly, as he turned right back around and walked back out onto the sidewalk to stand next to his brother, outside the concrete courtyard of the school. "--What?" Stan said at the look he got. "You don't know what you're doing, and we are so gonna get caught."

"Stanley," Ford told him, as he gave his brother something of an olive branch… and also said the absolutely most subversive thing that he knew he could utter to him in that moment, which was to say: "Adventure."

Stan's eyes lit up and he pulled in a sharp breath. He couldn't help it. ...Then Stan shook his head and then glared at his brother, knowing exactly what he was doing -- but it didn't matter, Ford grinned right back at him because his twin knew he already had him.

Ford pushed again anyway with: "And babes."

That got a snort out of Stan. "Yeah, yeah. There was ONE babe. The other two are kinda young." That blue haired girl was kinda cute, he'd admit that much. Freaky cat-eyes and all.

"Okay," said Stan, as they began to walk off. "So, where do we start lookin' for 'em?" Because hey, if he was in, then he was all-in.

Ford grinned.

...and then they both weren't grinning for a bit, because they were more focused on running, instead -- one of the teachers had spotted them at the edge of the courtyard and had run out after them.

Ford knew his brother's next words to him were going to be a 'told you' once they lost the teacher in the back-alleys and they both got their breath back, but it was still going to be so worth it. --He had so many questions for those people!

---

(Miz POV)

Ok, so... I knew that this was a different dimension and all, but I probably should have thought about that more. Specifically about the whole, 'revealing that we're from another dimension' just casually in front of the native Stan and Ford. --In my defense, I had wanted to scold the kids and let them know how STUPID they had been.

In my condemnation, it was hilarious and I wanted to see their reactions.

Oops?

So while we all ran away from the cops (how the fuck did Stan get the popo after him in the...10 minutes we've been apart anyway?!) I was giggling to myself at the looks on their faces. Ah, I'm going to save the memory of that somewhere special.

Not gonna lie, I was having fun. And since we had the kids with us, there was no stress about them being in danger somewhere where we wouldn't be able to protect them. So I laughed as we ran, angry shouts from the policemen behind us as Stan led us through multiple alleyways with the ease of old familiarity. I briefly wondered how often he'd run away from people here in his childhood town?

Bill seemed to be having fun too, if the maniacal grin on his face was any indication.

Even with the stress and worry that Stan and Ford (and me as well) had felt earlier because of the kids doing something so STUPID… I sort of wanted to thank them for allowing this nice, family adventure. When Stan inevitably punishes them with washing out the toilets or something, I'm gonna give them some Cursed scrub brushes that would get the job done faster.

Aren't I just the nicest?

Also, those younger versions of the Stan-twins were soooo cute! Ahhhhh! Oh my gwad! So fluffy! So smol and innocent!

... would it be wrong if I wanted to keep them? Like, shrink them down and make them live in my pocket?

Probably.

But they were so adorable!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

I'm so glad everyone's too busy scolding Mabel and Dipper to see me brainstorming about sneaking away to go and pet the two younger Stans like they were puppies!

--More than that, they were still the best of friends and brothers above all! I know we came here to stop the kids from changing the 'past' and all that, but… could we perhaps change a few things here and there? Just so these two sweet babies don't have a falling out and end up estranged and separated for 40+ years? That was too sad of a prospect.

... damn, now I'm thinking about my own siblings. We were all close, me and Zeon were always together up until middle/high school when she was going through her 'edgy' phase and didn't want to hang out anymore with her nerdy, weird older sister. And once she got the chance to leave the house for college she was out and never wanted to move back in. The empty third bed in our room a constant reminder that she wasn't here anymore. She just couldn't live with our parents. She couldn't be the son that Dad wanted her to be. I'd missed her when she left but I understood her reasons. As for me, I'd stayed home, stayed with our parents both because I couldn't afford an apartment failure. What did you even go to college for if you won't even find a good job to support yourself?!, and I hadn't wanted to leave Kei alone. I'd loved my parents but they hadn't been the easiest people to be around. For a variety of reasons.

Mommy screaming at daddy after she found out how much money he lost betting on horse racing. Having to sell the house after we finally HAD a house for the first time in our lives. It was back to renting apartments for us. Back to a small space with not enough room for all our stuff. Loud arguments late at night while we all huddled under our covers and pretended to be asleep. Thrown items. Talks of divorce. Knowing full well that mommy didn't make as much money as daddy did. Knowing full well that daddy had no idea how to take care of children. Being asked who we would go with if the worst happened. Knowing full well that we would be forced to choose and we wouldn't be able to stay together. Because mommy couldn't take all of us.

I hadn't been able to stand the thought of leaving Kei alone with them as she grew up. Kei had been a teenager (going through her own angsty period) and I'd wanted to stay and make sure she would be alright. Didn't want her to listen to the yelling all alone, with no one else there to talk to, to distract from the voices barely muffled by the walls in the room across the hall. Fat lot of good that did considering I got myself killed in that stupid accident.

... I hope Kei is alright. I hope she wasn't too broken over it. I miss her so much. Ugh...

--Anyway! Regardless, I don't want these versions of the Stans to stop being together. They were brothers. They were family. They shouldn't be broken apart by things outside their control! Even if the broken science fair thing was 'canon' and most probably a fixed point, maybe we could find a way to keep the two of them together?

If there were fanfics I've read where the two remained together even with that stupid science project thing happening, then there MUST be a way to stop their friendship from being destroyed along with the perpetual motion machine. There had to be!

---

(Third person POV)

Stan panted heavily, wheezing for air. He was getting too damn old for this! They'd finally lost the cops when Miz had slapped herself on the forehead (like she'd just remembered something she'd forgotten) and then made a weird motion with her hand. --Chances were, the demon kid had done some kinda 'notice-me-not' sort of deal, Stan figured, since the cops had started looking confused almost immediately and went off in a different direction from them.

Well, the cops were gone now, so Stan slumped over, leaning heavily against the brick wall of the alleyway they were in. Catching his breath back, sure. (Not, y'know, worried about giving himself a heart attack or nothin'...)

Miz was breathing heavily as well, having to run twice as fast to keep up with the others. Damn them and their long legs! She groaned. "I keep… forgetting... about gravity…" she panted.

Bill grimaced. "Once I'm in charge... that won't be... an issue anymore." He wasn't quite as winded as the others, having let his invisible bodysuit (and its exoskeleton-like enhancements) take up most of the effort for him.

Stan was still holding the kids. "You two… are both ground-ed," Stan wheezed out at the niblings. They both looked down and winced. Miz leaned over to stare at them. She opened her mouth and then closed it. Her eyes went up to Stan's face.

"Am I allowed to tell them what dumb things they did?" she asked.

"No. That's my job." Stan grumbled out, straightening and groaning at his poor, protesting back. He wasn't even fully dressed right now since they'd left on such short notice; he only had on a stained wife beater with his pants and shoes, not really a shirt. He finally placed the kids back on their feet, keeping a grip on them in case they tried to do something stupid. "As soon as we find Ford, we're going home and you two are gonna--"

Bill made an odd chittering-coughing sound, and Stan stopped in the middle of his grumpy tirade and looked over. He stopped, because he recognized that sound. --The kid was trying not to laugh. Stan narrowed his eyes.

"Kid, what did you do?" Stan asked, because the kid also had an 'I know something you don't know' sort of grin going on, now. Dipper and Mabel picked up on this too and the pair of them were staring at Bill with wide-eyed, wary looks.

Miz blinked before tilting her head and Flickering briefly. She snorted. "Oh. Interesting." She grinned. "You really put up defenses to keep anyone else out. Funny how my Doors got around that." It was something cool to learn.

"WhAt?" Dipper was staring at Miz (voice cracking, to his embarrassment), faltering slightly when he finally got a good look at her headband (which he hadn't seen before, with him and his sister spending most of the day with their great uncle after what had happened to him in the woods). But when he saw Bill's grin widen, he asked her frantically, "--What did Bill do?!"

"He sealed off your dimension so no-one can portal into it except him." Miz grinned. "Which is good since it means no one else can get in." Bill looked smug, and very pleased with himself for having done this, to the rest of them. Miz thought it was very nice of Bill to protect his dimension and them from outsiders!

Mabel frowned. "But then, how did you--"

"I didn't use a portal. I used a Door." Miz said simply. The three Pines stared at her, then at Bill.

It was Dipper who put it together first. "So we need Bill's help to get back home, to our own dimension." Dipper had a look of dawning horror once he realized they were all essentially trapped here. "Well--" he was trying not to panic "--use a Door to get us home!" he not-quite demanded of her. (He and Mabel didn't know she was a Bill Cipher yet, to be more wary of asking her for things. They still only knew of her as the dragon from her last visit, who also happened to be the 'human-demon' who Bill had been talking with online.)

Miz rolled her eyes. "My Doors only lead to Bill Cipher. It's why I keep landing around the Shack." She shrugged. "Opening a Door here would just put me right beside him again."