-There is a way out of here for me- Part 1

Sorry for the long break, the wifi went out a few days before the week I said I was gonna take a break for happened, however now that I have successfully compromised for the return of my wifi I will be uploading more chapters.

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After school that day, the teenagers all walked back to the boat. Lee still couldn't believe the demons were going to leave tonight; the old-man him had told them all that morning, practically sprung it on them out of the blue like it was a last-minute thing, no matter how the old man spun it, and... it didn't feel real, almost. Lee couldn't believe he'd only known them all for a little over a week. So much had happened since last Monday… --Heck, he could barely believe that they'd been going to school with the demons since last Wednesday and survived them this long, knowing what he knew about them now, that the old-man him had told him and his twin about yesterday. Causing armageddons and leading killer maniac-gangs and all the rest of it. He was gonna breathe a lot easier, once that devil-demon wasn't near his brother anymore, again.

(And hey, he'd even get his own damn name back finally. That would be something.)

Sixer was still asking Miz if he could have a Com as well. She'd told him 'No' the entire day, even as she swung their linked hands back and forth. Sixer was holding up a scrap of notebook paper with his demands questions on it. He was making silent huffs of frustration. [Why does she get one but I don't?]

"Because Mary's my friend." Miz said simply. Sixer actually pulled his hand away from her to write, and then stomped his foot like a petulant child for emphasis as he shoved his next demanding question almost directly into her face. [So why can't I have one?]

"Because you're not my friend. You're a child I'm caring for." Miz pointed out, as she gently pushed the piece of paper to the side. Sixer looked like he wanted to protest. "I don't dislike you, and I care enough about you that I want to make sure you're not starving out in the streets and sleeping on benches, but that's just my own kindness," Miz added simply. "I enjoy hanging out with you so long as you aren't being mean. But your personality is too difficult to deal with, and Lee's a saint for putting up with you." Miz told him straight out. "I would try to put it in a gentler way, but I'm starting to think you wouldn't understand unless I'm blunt about it. As I've said, your WIS is pretty low."

Sixer looked outraged. Miz patted his head. "Look, I'm hard on you because I think it might be possible for you to grow and become a better person. I think you have some sociopathic behavior, but mental disorder doesn't make you a bad person. Everyone can still learn to be good. You can still learn to act nice. I have to believe that's possible." Miz looked legitimately melancholy about it. "Because if you can't, then you'll probably end up dead. And that would be a waste of your potential." (Bill let out an odd low sort of chitter at this, rolling his eyes.)

Lee twitched. His brother wasn't some kind of murdering lunatic, and he hated that the demons were talking down to Sixer and saying this kind of stuff to him like it was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, when it wasn't! He wanted to defend Sixer, but throwing a punch wouldn't get him anywhere here and he knew it, and he didn't know how to tell the demons off either without getting into a yelling match with them that'd just make things that much worse for the both of them. So Lee clenched his fists and kept his big mouth shut. It was hard, though. This stuff was a hell of a lot worse than Crampelter just throwing rocks at them while calling them freakish and sweaty...

('Just one more day,' Lee told himself. 'Less than that, even. Just a couple more hours...' because the demons were supposed to be leaving with the older-thems tonight, not even waiting until the morning… and had the old-man him decided that because of what had happened with the demons and them yesterday?)

Sixer was breathing heavily, annoyed that Miz was saying all this about him while he couldn't even properly defend himself. He pulled his hand away from hers to scribble out another message. Then he crossed out his words. Then he started writing again, only to cross those words out too-- He shook in frustration, unable to find the words to express what he wanted to say.

Miz could hear his angry screaming thoughts. She sighed. "I'm not being mean," she said, sounding like she was reacting to his angry body language more than the fact that she could hear all the things he was mentally screaming. "I'm trying to get you to reevaluate your lifestyle and behavior." She paused. And then she looked to be in thought. "I wonder if you need therapy? Like, a behavioral therapist?"

Sixer whipped his head around to glare at her openly, not looking any happier at her assessment.

(((AN: Note that this part of the fic is taking place in the spring of 1971, and Sixer actually has a really good reason to be up in arms here -- if not outright alarmed -- about possibly getting labeled with any kind of mental illness at the time he was living in. In the 1970's and earlier, there was an even worse stigma in the U.S. over needing or receiving psychological help than there still is today in some places in the U.S. in the late 2010's. (Forty years is a really long time, when it comes to the social and psychological sciences; we didn't even have CAT scans and MRI machines back then to let us properly scan the brain!) Most people who got any kind of mental help back then were considered to have something truly wrong with them by anyone and everyone else -- which is, of course, utter B.S. --Worse, it was also generally rather unsafe for anyone to undergo psychiatric diagnosis at the time (since the evaluatory process wasn't by any means accurate, the threshold for getting forcibly committed to an asylum was rather low, and getting out once committed could be darn near impossible). Beyond that, being committed to an 'insane asylum' or 'loony bin' (psychiatric hospital) at the time was still in many cases far worse than being sent to prison. Psychology has progressed a lot since then, among other things -- this includes more fair and accurate evaluatory measures in the modern-day era, not least of which because our scientific understanding of the brain has greatly improved due to having brain imaging techniques that actually work. ...If you're interested in this stuff, we recommend reading up on the 1973 Rosenhan experiment to start with, and the 1887 Nellie Bly investigation before that.)))

"I know I had to go to one when I was a kid. And I definitely need one now too! There's nothing wrong with needing therapy. I need therapy! I just don't know how to find someone who can help me." Sixer twitched away from the demon for actually admitting to that, and Miz sighed. "You're brilliant Sixer, but you need help. And needing help doesn't make you insane or any lesser than anyone else, though I guess humanity hasn't realized how important mental health is in this time period." Miz scowled at that. Stupid people being all judgmental and making people think that they weren't allowed to seek help without being treated like some exigent threat to society-- "And even if you don't want a therapist, there are some books about human behavior that I'm sure you'd be able to read through to help yourself," she pointed out, which made Sixer look marginally less angry (though not by much), and definitely no less unhappy with her. "I don't want you getting yourself hurt by making everyone dislike you. The only person who's on your side right now is Lee, and it's not fair to make him spend his life looking after you." Miz also thought the older Ford and Stan needed serious therapy for their respective traumas, but they were old and stubborn and probably wouldn't agree to it.

Sixer rolled his eyes at the last of that. He wasn't the one being all clingy and suffocating -- It was Lee who kept clinging to him! It wasn't his fault that Lee refused to give him space. And that the demons seemed to think it was the other way around-- Sixer huffed out a breath and shook his head. Clearly, they didn't know him. (Perhaps they were mixing him up with his brother, as Carla McCorkle had, and Lee was the one who needed to be committed instead, Sixer thought darkly. Lee's suffocating clinginess certainly couldn't be healthy in any respect...)

And it still wasn't fair that Miz wouldn't give him a cool gadget, when-- Sixer was snapped out of his thoughts by Miz ruffling his hair. "Besides, if I gave you a Com you'd try to take it apart and end up frying yourself or something. And then you'd be dead."

Lee shuddered at that. He couldn't help it -- he remembered what had happened when his twin had messed with that anti-gravity thing that the older Sixer had shown them all during class. The look of concentration on Sixer's face as he'd gone at it with a screwdriver. He remembered the look on the devil-demon's face too, right before Bill had whipped around and tossed those crazy black shard things at it faster than he'd been able to see them move, breaking the thing on purpose.

Yeah, he'd seen Bill's face right before he'd done it; the demon had gone completely expressionless, almost white. He'd frozen in place for a split-second there, stopped right in the middle of everything that he'd been doing. The scary crazy-ass murderous demon had looked almost scared, as he'd whipped around and--

Lee remembered how everyone had started falling immediately too, after Bill had broken it. How Bill had caught Miz with a huge amount of those little shards, even as he'd hit the deck himself -- and how Miz had caught them all while Bill had used the rest of those shard-arm things to shove the desks out of the way so that no one could get all that hurt as they fell, as they all came back down. Yeah, Bill had broken it, but even the older Sixer had gone deathly pale when he'd realized what Sixer had been doing, messing with the thing that he'd been messing with. He hadn't told the demon he was wrong -- he'd just told him to let go of Sixer -- and that spoke horrifying volumes to Lee about that. Especially since the older Sixer had done anything but offer to explain how it all worked after the fact to his younger self...

--And what would have happened if the demons weren't there to help? Lee could just picture what kinda injuries could have occurred if the desks had fallen on people, or people had fallen on the chairs or desks, if somebody had hit their head or their neck just the right kinda worst-way wrong, or...

...yeah, maybe the older Sixer wouldn't have been in the classroom in the first place if the demons hadn't been there, but...

Lee let out a huff of breath, feeling sick and weird and wrong about the whole thing, not even sure what he should think, other than that Sixer really shouldn't have gone around messing with dangerous weird stuff without knowing what he was doing, again. So yeah. Lee was glad that Miz wasn't going to give Sixer anything like that, that he could mess with and maybe hurt himself with, with no-one around to help him or stop him from doing that.

...Though, it wasn't like Miz hadn't given them anything crazy-new and weird like that at all before this. Lee found it kinda odd that Sixer was so gung-ho about this 'limited' Com thing, when he hadn't even tried to take apart the washing machine and other gadgets Miz had built for them on the boat, yet. ...Probably because they were 'just' a washing machine, 'just' an air filtration unit for deep sea diving, and a bunch of other things that already kinda existed, even if the ones they had now probably worked really differently than the ones they could buy if they'd had the money to spare for them.

Lee frowned as he thought about this. It almost seemed like Sixer wasn't interested in them because they were 'mundane' things he'd thought that he'd seen before, despite that fact that Miz had clearly modified them with plenty of super-advanced tech and stuff. ...Well, if Sixer wasn't going to take them apart and break them on his own because he wasn't gonna think of it, Lee sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up to him and let his idiot brother know that maybe he could.

Finally, they'd all made it back to the boat, to a surprise -- the boat was at the end of the nearby pier, in the water.

Lee had panicked for a moment at the empty beach, stunned, but when he saw it on the water, he let out a breath in a rush. --He'd originally planned on trying to get it out to the water last Monday after school, pay a couple of the beach bums in dollars to help him haul it out by a couple of ropes attached to nets or something. Get it really floating out there with the high-tide. Make it a surprise for Sixer, showing it off later that night -- 'cause hey, they were really getting that show on the water now! But with the demons and those other-thems showing up, and all the rest of it…

They slowly made their way down the pier, staring up at it, and Lee couldn't help but blink at the new gangway plank and the down-anchor and… everything. It made him feel kinda… weird, that they'd finished off so much stuff without him, down to the pain job on the hull, even. --Without either of them.

The old-man Stan waved at them from above. "Hey-hey! Got yourselves a real house-boat now," he told them with a smile. "Paperwork's in and in your names. All set for sailing when the school year's out," he told them, as Sixer and Lee exchanged a look, and they each began single-filing their way up the gangway. "Paid up for the berth on this dock for ya for the next three months, and everything."

They climbed up to the deck, demons following behind them, and once Miz was up and onboard, she announced to all of them that she wanted to start on dinner. "I'll make something for brother. And there will be extras if anyone else wants to claim some," she told Stan, while Ford finished up doing something with some of the rope rigging off to the side.

The old man nodded. "Alright. I'll make dinner for everyone else," he said to her, as per the usual thing they had going these days, as he followed her into the cabin.

Stan raised an eyebrow when he saw Miz pouring out some flour and water, though. "Are you trying to bake something?" Stan asked her, as he set up his own stuff in the galley for cooking.

Miz shook her head. "I'm making an eggless pasta! So Bill can get some noodles!" she kneaded the stuff together in a bowl.

Stan nodded at her absently. "Yeah, okay. Well, good luck with that," he told her, then paused for a moment. "Hey, maybe write down the recipe for me later?" he asked. (He didn't really think the kid was gonna like the food equivalent of worms, but hey, who knew. Maybe he would?) Miz nodded.

After she finished kneading the dough, she washed, peeled, and cut up some eggplants to toss into a bowl. A bit of olive oil, plenty of white pepper powder, basil and some chopped nuts were put in for flavoring. She stirred it up to make sure everything was coated in the oil and seasoning, before scooping it out into a pan to begin cooking. The dough, which she had left to rest a little after kneading, was rolled out and (with just a bit of help from her tech suit) cut into long, thin noodles. Those were put into a pot of boiling water to cook, with some more olive oil and pepper sprinkled on to slightly flavor the noodles as they cooked.

Stan was making pasta too, though his was straight out of a box; he set a pot of his own down with water to boil, along with a pan simmering with a can of brown meat mixed in with some tomato sauce. Quick and easy.

Miz drained out the pasta and scooped out some onto a plate, along with some of the eggplant. "This is your plate!" she told Bill. He nodded as he checked it over with his sensors. Satisfied, he pronounced it "Mine," as he took it from her, and then softly petted Miz's hair with his free hand and a "Good job, sis."

As Bill sat down with his own meal, Miz proceeded to hand Stan a notebook with the words [MizBill's Magical Recipe List of Awesomeness] on it. Stan raised an eyebrow but flipped through it, and absently nodded at the entries as he glanced through them. He knew that Miz had been cooking lunch at school the past week, and here she had written down what all she'd been making that Bill had liked eating there, as well. Stan got a small rueful smile and placed a hand on Miz's head. "Thanks kid," he told her.

His own pasta was done pretty soon after that, and everyone settled down to eat. Miz claimed a plate of her own pasta as well as Stan's, easily eating both plates of food. She made a face at her own cooking's peppery taste but mixed it with Stan's meat sauce and hummed when that brought down the spiciness level. (Stan had to shake his head a little, half-stifling a chuckle at that. --Hey, he had to get his laughs when he got them, and that had been pretty amusing there, Miz and her pepper issues but trying it because of her big brother anyway.)

Ford stuck to Stan's cooking, as usual, while Lee and Sixer both ended up with Stan's pasta, too. (Sixer had taken one look at the eggplant and seemed to get more than a little turned off. Bill, on the other hand, made up for it by taking a second helping.)

After dinner, Miz declared that she wanted to play a game of DDNMD -- and Sixer just lit up at that -- but they both got shot down almost immediately as Ford ground out a "--No!" and...

...Bill having said "No," at the exact same time as Ford, too.

And while Bill and Ford were eyeing each other over that one, with very different looks on their faces (flat zeroed expression, and blinking then suspicious surprise, respectively), Stan spoke up himself.

"Yeah, no," Stan said, as he set down his fork, done with his meal. "We're not doing that." At the look of outraged protest Sixer got on his face, Stan continued with, "Look, Sixer. I ain't lettin you get the wrong idea about all this," he said, gesturing between Miz and Sixer with his fork. "Miz, you can play with the niblings once we get home, maybe the next day; Bill's played a game or two with 'em before, without Ford completely losing his shit over it. We'll figure out stuff then. You shouldn't have to wait too long," Stan told her. "I'm plannin' on us going back later tonight, now that this school-bet with the kid is over, remember? It'll be night there, too, so we'll do it the next day after breakfast, or maybe after lunch. Dipper's up for that stuff practically anytime. You think you can wait that long?"

Once he got a very-excited several nods out of Miz, Stan turned back to Sixer to address this whole thing with him, next.

"I want you to remember this one, Sixer," Stan told him firmly. "Miz used to be a human girl, and she's more than that. You insulted her before you really got to know her, and now she ain't really wanting to speak with you anymore, let alone play with you. --You see her protesting at not gettin' to play with you here?" Stan said, pointing it out straight-out for him. "She just wants to play that badly; she hardly cares who-with, as long as she thinks it'll be fun. Even if I said, 'yeah sure, go ahead and play Miz', it'd take her maybe two seconds for her to remember that you're no fun to play with, for her, and then where would you be?" Stan said, then let that sink in. "Yeah," Stan said, as he saw Sixer starting to look frustrated and disgruntled all over again. "And it ain't just me, saying you shouldn't be playing here, either. It's him too," Stan tossed a thumb at Ford, "And the kid," Stan added, pointing to Bill. "Can't even apologize and mean it, and you're thinking you want to play a game with her? Where maybe she might be the one DM'ing the whole thing? --You don't mess with the DM and think you're gonna get away with it, Sixer," Stan reminded him warningly, as Sixer started to look distinctly uncomfortable at this. --Yeah, there was a reason that he and Stan had stopped trying to play that thing while either of them had still been mad at each other over anything. (Not that Stan was all into playing that nerdbot game, really, but he sure as hell knew the rules of it -- not that he'd admit it to nobody if he could help it. And it had only really taken him twice before Sixer had learned not to...)

Stan eyed Sixer. "So maybe you should remember and think about this, next time you go off insulting a girl, or making her feel bad, and not thinking you've gotta apologize for it. Human girls ain't 'just' human girls, Sixer," Stan told his younger twin, taking a sip of his drink, "Sometimes they're demon girls, too. And sometimes they're demon guys, and sometimes they're even human guys, because why not," Stan continued on smoothly, "And sometimes they're 'just' somebody that you're really gonna want to play a DDNMD game with, except you just don't know that yet. --You go thinking people are stupid right off the bat until they prove to you they're otherwise?" Stan said, "You'll just be waitin' and waitin' around for a really long time, missin' out on a whole huge number of those nerdbot games you love playin' so much, that you could've been playin' and enjoying along with 'em otherwise, except you're just adamant about wantin' to keep on waitin' for somebody 'smart' to come along and prove themselves to you first before you'll even think about treatin' them like they might be a friend; and maybe nobody ever takes the effort to go off provin' that to you ever, 'cause they just don't want to, and then you'll be lonely forever." Stan set his glass down, and looked Sixer right in the eyes.

"This ain't grade school anymore, Sixer. You're all gettin' to be adults; somebody throws a rock at your head now, you can damn well get them arrested for it, you wanna go that route. Anything goes, except what you can't get away with, and everybody knows better by now than to try and get away with that shit. People mostly get along, because it works when you do -- even the mob knows that one, which is why they're the mob, and not a bunch of random people turning each other over to the cops on the daily. And the best cons make everybody walk away happy, and stay that way, too." Stan didn't think he had to really get into that one with any of them; they should all know that by now after the thing they'd pulled off with the 'dragon' Miz had made. "--You don't got nothin' to prove to nobody, and nobody's got anything they've got to prove to you, stupid or smart or family or nothin'. Understand?"

Sixer sat very still where he was for several long moments, staring at Stan right back.

But then, finally, he nodded once, slowly, not looking away from Stan as he did it.

"Good," Stan said, letting out a sigh and slumping his shoulders a little bit. "Not like you'd all be able to roll up those characters and get to anything at all before havin' to go to bed anyway, runnin' the normal set of those rules and whatnot," Stan pointed out with another shrug, which had Sixer looking even more sour. "Figure you don't need nobody to make something up for you to do for the rest of the night, so go down and do whatever in the hold. Yeah?" It wasn't a question. "We'll finish cleaning up, up here. Enjoy your last night without havin' to do all your dishes yourself yet, or whatever. I made extra pasta and junk too, so you can heat that up in the morning if you don't want to go with cereal or something instead," Stan shrugged off, as he slowly got himself to his feet, and picked up his own dishes.

Miz moved to help clean up dinner as well. Stan gave her a nod of acknowledgement as he stacked the plates.

Bill, for his part, moved off towards the bunks -- to clean them up and make them ready by stripping the beds of their current bedding to start with -- and opened the porthole windows to help air the boat's cabin out along the way, to get rid of the 'old man smell' that Stanley always kept 'joking' about. Bill had no idea if one or both of the other Pines would want to sleep in there that night, or stay below deck again, but with the slight swaying of the boat going on, he was thinking that they'd probably want to be sleeping in the breeze, just in case, that night. It was the easiest way to claim the vessel as their own again, after all!

---

Ford stood up from his seat and made his way down below deck. He wanted to have a private talk with the younger twins before they set off for home, as strange and worrying as that concept was feeling these days…

It didn't take him long to find them in the first belowdecks hold, where he found Sixer examining his broken project on a bench below several hung-up lantern lights, and Lee sitting rather farther away down the bench from him than beside him.

Ford winced. He had put off having this particular conversation with them for good reason, but he knew he couldn't leave before getting this at least partially settled. So he girded himself for something that he knew was going to feel painful, and he strode over to crouch beside the teenager. "So, what have you found out?"

[The inside's melted.] Sixer wrote out in an open notebook. [That shouldn't be possible!]

Lee kept looking over, then glancing way, not really getting involved for some reason. He looked decidedly uncomfortable, Ford realized with a frown.

Ford adjusted his glasses, and approached his younger (not-him?) self. "Especially not with the lack of friction," Ford noted, as he looked down at it. "Even with the friction of a more normal rotating unit, it wouldn't have been nearly enough to make it heat up that much, yes?" Ford said next.

Sixer nodded. [But there's-] Sixer put down the machine to huff as he wrote the rest of his statement. [-nothing I can find! It's all--] He grit his teeth in frustration.

Ford frowned as he carefully looked over it. He hadn't exactly taken a very good look at the insides of it when he'd retrieved it from the bottom of the dumpster, the previous Friday afternoon. "Mine was melted on the inside, as well. But mine… well, it certainly didn't explode," Ford told him, feeling a little disturbed at the very thought. "It was already broken when I showed it to the examiners."

...So something must have changed, with their arrival here. The only thing Ford could think of was that Lee might have done something still, broken the project the night before somehow, by accident? He had never really gotten to ask Stan about what had really gone down that night... or perhaps that afternoon right before it. And, even after Stan had gotten his memories back later, after the memory gun and after Bill-- Ford simply couldn't bring himself to do so. No, truth be told, he'd wanted to simply let things lie, to let some things in the past simply remain in the past, buried where he'd thought they should belong...

Sixer glanced over at him. [You mentioned that yours didn't explode. What happened with yours?]

"Well, when the college admissions board examiners arrived, I…" Ford sat down on the nearest bench opposite of 'Sixer', and let out a sigh. "The curtain was up in front of my presentation," he admitted. "I don't believe that I'd left it up like that the previous night." He left out that he'd gone to see this particular project himself; somehow, he had a bad feeling that placing himself at the scene of the crime not a few hours prior might incriminate himself in some way. Especially when he couldn't say that he hadn't felt the urge to break it as he'd been staring at it, when he had...

Ford shook his head. "In any event, when I pulled back the curtain, it wasn't moving. The spinning had completely stopped, and it was…" Ford paused for a moment to close his eyes and breathe deeply. He hated that he still felt this way about it, so many years later. That he could close his eyes and still feel as though he was standing there, back then, and... "I admittedly panicked a bit. I tried to check it over at the time, to determine what exactly had gone wrong, but the admission board evaluators were having none of it, and…" Ford shook his head. "I spent the rest of the afternoon checking over it, and the area surrounding it, later. The project's insides were melted. --I had thought that whatever had been done to cause it to malfunction had perhaps occurred the night before, leading it to slowly wind down over time, until it was dead in place by the following afternoon. But yours malfunctioned during the day -- by your account, at the most inconvenient moment in time possible, in fact."

And that was what made Ford think that there must have been a saboteur. It was almost theatrical for the project to suddenly and spontaneously break like that, with a great deal of almost pyrotechnic fanfare just as the younger-not-him had been showing it off to the examiners. Meaning… what, exactly? That, perhaps, his own project had been already broken because… Stan had done something, certainly -- he'd admitted as such without much reservation -- but perhaps Stan's presence had caused the saboteur to change their own plan, somewhat? Break the project much farther ahead of time, instead of whatever they'd done to have it seem to simply break on its own, that much later? --But the timing involved in that... Ford wasn't entirely certain that he could have caused such a cascading failure in his own project, knowing what he'd known at the time of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, and the rest of it -- not even had he meant to do so. And to, on top of all that, have timed its failure to occur at such a critical moment in time? Ford would hesitate to call that 'impossible', but...

...None of this made any sense to Ford. And worst of all, he knew that Bill knew what had happened. And the demon almost certainly wasn't going to talk. The insufferable--

--And the reason that Bill would stay quiet on all of this, instead of crowing out Ford's failures like he usually did with great gusto and such biting and sarcastic aplomb, was because there was something about this project that Bill didn't want him to know. To figure out. Something about his own damn project! And that just made Ford want to know it, whatever it was, all the more. Damn him, it was like the blasted portal all over again! Except this time, Bill hadn't helped him with this project -- not one damn bit. Which meant that his failure, in this regard, rested entirely and solely with--

Ford knew that if he could just somehow find out what Bill was hiding out of all of this, then he could-- he could--

...do what? Stop Bill from doing something that Ford didn't even know what it was that the (not??-a-)demon was trying to do? Something that Bill had possibly, almost certainly, already done and finished and been over with, given that he'd told Stan not to talk about the project up until they were originally about to leave via the portal? ...That would somehow impact things horribly, once they were all home once again? (Assuming that Bill even let them leave the dimension once more, to go home--)

Ford ran a hand over his face and let out a breath, feeling the looming blackness of despair.

--No, damn him, Ford wasn't about to give up here. Ford lowered his hand and sat up straight, more firmly. He wasn't going to give up, damn him -- not least of which because, before being able to determine all of that, he had to find out what had happened here, first, and he knew it. And he knew where he needed to start in order to manage anything that might follow, next.

Ford reached for the machine. "May I take a look?" he asked. Sixer nodded, shifting over to let his older self pick up a piece, and peer inside.

---

Miz went down after she finished cleaning and paused at the sight of the science project carefully taken apart, with the pieces spread out across the wooden boards of the lower deck, as both Fords carefully dug their way through it.

"...should I ask what's going on or...?" she asked slowly. She certainly hadn't expected to see this...

Ford didn't even spare the time to glare at her -- they were going to be leaving later on tonight, after all; he didn't have much time to figure this out. "No. Please go away," Ford told her simply and without any real venom; he was far too focused on looking through the pieces to use his usual antagonistic tone with her (or, for that matter, anyone else).

Upon being told this, Miz walked over to crouch down and tilt her head at the pieces. Ford bristled a little as she came up to his side -- yet again acting contrary to his direct wishes in yet another matter. But Miz didn't say anything, just watching them -- and so neither did he, refusing to let the demon distract him, which would waste what little time he had left to try and solve this mystery before--

Lee, for his part, was staying the hell out of the way, unhappy about everything that had been going on today. Not to mention the fact that this? This was all stupid. Everything about this was stupid, because...

Miz frowned as she looked over the pieces, Flickering absently as she Looked over them all. The history of each piece, the Past that she could divine by reading the events that had led them up to this point. She sighed. There was nothing they'd be able to use to trace this back to Carla, not without an actual hint. They were searching for evidence, but there was none. Anything that could have indicated that there was something amiss had long since melted away.

But she wasn't supposed to tell them. Well, it didn't matter anyway. Miz stood back up, brushing off her knees and walking over to Lee. She considered it a bit before she decided that how upset he was about everything was more than enough to pay off what he would have owed her. Lee was ignoring her, trying to pretend she wasn't there. Miz sighed. "You've paid off enough, emotionally speaking, to get the diving equipment. If you still want them."

Lee stirred, glancing up at her quickly before going back to curling around himself. "I don't know." he mumbled. Miz wanted to give him a hug, but she figured he might not appreciate it. "Well, you can always buy it yourself. But I'll still give you the general locations of a few wrecks. You've got around 10 years before someone else discovers the Gigantic. There're also a few pirate ships sunken here and there, along with some planes, underwater mines and such. The ocean currents move stuff around, so I can't give you the exact locations. You'll have to find them yourself." Miz told him before handing him a small notebook, enchanted to be indestructible, unstealable and unreadable by anyone except Lee.

The teenager looked up at her. "...What do you mean, I've paid it off enough?" he asked her carefully, because she'd said yesterday that they needed to give her something in exchange for stuff. Miz thought about how to explain it. Well, blunt and to the point might be easier in this case. "You're unhappy. I've caused you to be unhappy. That counts as payment, for me at least."

Ford glanced over at this. "Don't accept anything from her," he warned.

Lee sighed and slumped a little in place. "She already gave us the washing machine and everythin' else. If something bad was gonna happen from takin' stuff from her, it already would've." Hanging around her too much might have her talking nasty at Sixer too when that brother-demon of hers got mad, but… Lee looked down at the notebook Miz was holding out to him. Despite Ford's disapproving look, Lee reached up. He paused right before taking it, though, as he realized that maybe the one difference might be… that she had said 'enough' straight-out for the diving stuff, but when it came to these locations... "So me bein' unhappy is really enough to pay for this?" he asked her explicitly.

"It's because I feel bad that you feel bad and want to make you feel better. That counts. Plus, we're gonna be leaving so this is my last chance to give this to you." Miz sighed.

Lee frowned. "So you're bribing me to make yourself feel better?" at Miz's nod, Lee snorted and took the notebook. "Yeah, okay. I can accept that." It was like an apology without outright sayin' it. He couldn't really believe that she meant it -- the demon-dragon had no real reason to care about him -- but if this was the only way to trick her karma-whatever thing into letting her do this stuff for whatever reason she really wanted to do it, then yeah, sure, he could go along with that.

Miz nodded, bid them farewell for now, and headed back up.

As she got back up on deck, she paused for a moment and let out a sigh. They were finally leaving. She was… relieved, if still worried for Lee. There was a lot that she wanted to tell him, about pretty much everything. But maybe… she didn't need to. It wasn't her business, and she really needed to stop poking her angles up in everyone's affairs. She might be the All Seeing Eye, but that didn't mean she should try to mess with things. Even if she wanted to settle the misunderstanding between Carla and Lee, after talking with her brother about it, and getting the full story from him about everything to do with everything… even she had to admit that the two didn't really to want to reconcile with each other. Emotions running high with hurt feelings and bitterness… Miz had never dated anyone before, she didn't get why people in relationships would get so invested and hurt by break ups. In the romance shows she's watched, the couple would have some emotional confrontation where they finally get off their hurt feelings and talk things out, getting back together after they resolve things...

...but that's not how life was. That's not how things worked. No matter how much she wanted it to.

So Miz finally let it go.

It was difficult, like tearing off a patch stitch by stitch, a struggle the whole way through as part of her wanted to cling on and keep pushing until things turned out the way she wanted, but Miz let go and closed her eyes as she started slowly dancing around on the deck of the boat, the cool winds from the ocean blowing gently through her hair.

"You would not believe your eyes~ If ten million fireflies~ Lit up the world as I fell asleep~" she sang quietly. "Cause they'd fill the open air~ And leave teardrops everywhere~ You'd think me rude, but I would just stand and stare~" she felt herself relax, the agitation inside her settled as she let the music drift through the air. "I'd like to make myself believe~ That planet Earth turns slowly~ It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep~ 'Cause everything is never as it seems~"

It was fine. Even if there wasn't a happy ending the way she wanted. It didn't mean Lee or Carla couldn't find a different happy ending. And even if they didn't, it was still fine. Not every story needed a happy ending. Because sometimes that's just how things went. And… maybe… it was fine that way.

Miz felt Stan and Bill moving around her on the deck as she danced. They didn't interrupt her as they did their own things -- hanging up the bedsheets to air out on clothesline and the like -- staying quiet and watching her until she finished. And once she felt calmer and done with her dancing, long after the song, Stan even gave her a smile and a, "Well, this song's a lot nicer than some of your other ones."

"Pffth~" Miz snorted. "I have plenty of songs up in here." she tapped her head. "They're some of the few things I've been able to keep from my first life." her smile was a little bittersweet. "They were all that kept me going at times. When I got really upset, I'd just sing to myself." both in Flatland and now. "I sing when I'm happy, I sing when I'm sad, I sing when I'm lonely and I sing when I'm mad~" she twirled a little before looking up at Stan. "We're going back to your dimension, right?" she wanted to clarify.

Stan was a little quiet as he considered what Miz had said. Finally, he reached over to pat her head with a gruff, "Yeah kid. We're headin' back as soon as me and the kid are finished cleaning up everything."

Miz smiled up at him. "I can clean, you should go talk to the twins," she chirped before making her way over to examine on everything to double-check the machines and make sure everything was in proper working order.

Stan raised his eyebrows and watched her tidying up for a moment, before stopping and shaking his head a little bit -- none of what she was doing was something he could take for her instead, and the kid looked perfectly happy to leave her to it. So instead of trying to stop her or tell her that she didn't need to do what she was doing, he just threw the last of the bedsheets over the clothesline and slapped it a bit to straighten it out, before turning to the kid. "So, looks like you won the bet, kid," Stan started off with, to the kid's grin. "How'd you feel about going to school with Sixer and Lee and Ford?" he asked, having a heck of a time, keeping the old man expression on his face, and the amusement off of it.

Bill scoffed. "It was annoying." He folded his arms and looked away. Stan chuckled and then said next, "Yeah, kinda figured." He let the silence lay between them for about a beat or so, then spring the real question on him, next: "How'd you feel about going to school with everybody else?"

And at that, Bill stilled in place. Then he let out another scoffing sound, and turned away from Stan a bit, folding his arms.

"It was… annoying," Bill said, with a lot more reserve, almost petulantly.

...Yeah, Stan knew what the kid meant by that. Everything was just about a hundred different flavors of annoying, but by now Stan knew which was which.

So Stan let out a snort and ruffled Bill's hair, grinning wider at his protest.

And after he was done with showing the kid he'd gotten the message, loud and clear, Stan told the two demon-kids, "Welp, I'm gonna go and talk with the kids." he turned and made his way down the hatch.

Bill most certainly did not pout as he fixed up his hair and moved across the deck to go over and help out his sister with what she was working on.

"Hey brother, do you think putting an Anti-theft effect around the boat would be okay? It's still got the Perception Filter, should I take that down?"

Bill hummed at this thought. "Why DESTROY a good thing, when you can just MODIFY it instead!" He could think of several other things that might be useful to do with it instead, with just a little modification -- several of which he'd wanted to do before leaving -- and that 'anti-theft effect' sounded like it might be a fun and interesting thing, too! "HM. Let's see…"

---

Stan blinked at the mess he found when he got below deck, then let out a grumpy sigh. "You took it apart, huh?" Well, it wasn't surprising really. "You find anything out?"

Ford sighed in frustration. "No. With the way this melted, if there was any evidence it must have been destroyed along with it." He looked annoyed, angry, and disgusted. Stan easily kept his poker face. Damn, if who he was starting to think of as maybe having sabotaged it really had done it, then she'd been smart enough to figure out a way to get away with it, too. Not that he'd put it past her; she was one smart cookie. He just couldn't think of why she'd do it. Going after his brother because of him made no sense; Carla wasn't like that. If she was angry with you, she would let you know it. ...And that right there was why Stan was pretty damn sure that it couldn't have been her; keepin' quiet about somethin' like this didn't seem like her. (Yeah, Miz had said something about Carla gettin' even with both of them, but she'd also said all that junk before finally talking with her brother about shit, to stop bein' all 'confused' like the kid kept sayin' she was about everything.)

Stan let out a sigh. ...Didn't matter anyway. Whether Carla or anybody else had sabotaged the project or not, the project was still broken, there was no fixing what had happened -- not any way to take it back anyway, Stan wasn't gonna try and do one of those nonlinear time loop things the kid himself didn't like doing for reasons -- and...

Stan paused, and shook his head. Stan wasn't bringin' this stuff up, period. (And Miz had better not bring it up to Ford or the niblings or anybody else after this, either.) The whole thing was messed up, start to finish, and… it just… wasn't worth it. There was no reason to get into any of this right now.

"--Look, it don't matter." Stan told them. "It happened, it's done; just focus on moving forward."

Sixer looked up at him with a frustrated glare. [It DOES matter!] he practically waved his notebook in Stan's face.

"No, it don't." Stan sighed. "Knowing one way or the other won't change what already happened. You're here, you're set; you can still go to college, even if you ain't going to that one," he pointed out. "Ford did fine at that other school; got a boatload of Ph.D's and everything. So it don't matter anymore."

Ford gritted his teeth and shot to his feet. "--It does matter, Stanley! You just don't--" It hurt, watching Stan look over at him with surprise. It was the same damn thing all over again! "--I had to work twice as hard just to get anywhere! Half the teachers at that school didn't understand the topics I was trying to learn! I--"

"So what?" Stan said, frowning at him. "Like that's any different from what high school was like? You got books from other places to learn what you wanted either way."

"I had to work alone!" Ford gritted out at him. "That wasn't--!"

"--What makes you think you wouldn't have had to do the same thing at that fancy school of yours that you ended up not going to?" Stan told him, frowning. "You tellin' me that a bunch of people there could've--"

"Yes!" Ford cried out at him angrily, feeling frustrated in the extreme, because this was just-- just the same thing all over again! And Stan still wasn't sorry about any of it in the least! "I would have been able to hold actual conversations with people for once in my life--"

"--Like Fiddlenerd?" Stan said easily, and Ford glared at him.

"Yes, like Fiddleford!" Ford said, "Except it would have been the teachers, and at least some of the students," Ford said hotly, "Certtainly a great deal more of the people attending and on the school campus in general!"

"Sure," Stan said easily. "People like McGucket, yeah, maybe." Ford stared at him in confusion, because why was Stan agreeing-- "But not McGucket himself. You'd never have met him if you didn't go to that other school that you went to."

Ford paused. That was… and then Ford stiffened as his brain spun up all at once, feeling like it was running at several hundred miles per hour, as he suddenly started connecting things and lines and it was like a conspiracy board with all the corks and photos suddenly lining up and--

"Bill…" Ford seethed. Because it made perfect sense now. Fiddleford was part of Bill's Zodiac. Bill must have-- he'd stated multiple times now that he'd needed them ALL together-- and--

--Stan was looking at him oddly. "Ford," Stan said carefully, "Thought you said that McGucket was your dorm buddy roommate? Your first friend, never made fun of you or nothin'? ...You ain't actually sayin' that you're mad at the kid about… what, him bein' a Zodiac, too?"

"No! That's not-- Bill-- he--" Ford shook. "He wanted me to meet Fiddleford! He needed me to--" and it all made so much sense now. Bill must have had something to do with the project breaking. The reason why Bill didn't want them talking about the project so badly was because he'd--

"Yeah... okay?" Stan frowned at him, almost in concern. "Thought you still kinda liked that school of yours, though, with the way you two talk about it?" Stan told him. "'Cause you two got along there, and nobody was makin' fun of you 'cause the two of you were nerd-robot buddies or somethin'? --Hell, Ford. What would have happened if you'd gone off to that other school, and not had that crazy hamboning friend of yours for a roommate? ...Why would you be mad at the kid for that, if the demon did have somethin' to do with that, somehow?" Stan said slowly.

...And Ford felt every thought process he had flip over on its head again, inside his head, truly stunned at the thought. Because he'd never thought of that. Of what it might be like to have gone to West Coast Tech, and… not had Fiddleford there with him. He'd-- that was--

Fiddleford had been his first friend, besides his twin. The only person he'd been able to talk to and feel like they actually understood each other. That they got each other.

And when any of the other students had ever tried to bully him--

Ford shook his head. "The students at West Coast Tech would've been a caliber above," he said firmly. "I wouldn't have had to worry about having any 'bullying' problems, there…"

...except that felt like a weak excuse, even to his own ears. Smarts hadn't mattered there; he'd not been called names due to his higher level of intellect at Backupsmore, or bullied for his hands really. They'd simply… It had all felt so childish, the things they'd said there -- but they'd all been no less frustrating for it. And the first time it had happened at the cafeteria...

...well, Fiddleford had started a food fight over it, for Axolotl's sake. Ford couldn't help but blush in embarrassment over it, still. 'If they're gonna go off bein' childish, well, then I'm thinkin' they deserve a face fulla mashed potatoes and beans, wouldn't you say?' And the out-and-out grin that Fidds had gotten, just before he'd started it all off, when Ford hadn't truly thought that his friend and roommate could possibly have been being serious about any of it...

They'd both been covered with the stuff by the time they'd managed to half-sneak, half-run out of the dorm cafeteria -- along with far far too many of their classmates, who had found themselves in a similar state upon Fiddleford's gleeful offensive (and Ford's own only half-reluctant at first play at a similar outcome for all of the rest of them who had dared to try and hit his friend back for defeending him), and… all of them had been laughing as they'd run away from both the staff and administrators, all. And… he hadn't had so many problems with any of the others of them after that. It had all been so stupid that… Ford wasn't even sure why he'd felt so exhilarated over the whole thing, smiling as he'd run...

...it wasn't like he'd known that the next day, the 'razzing' he'd gotten from those same students was going to instead be about the trajectory of the flight of said food during the previous day's fight, or the leverage of the spoons and other utensils used, and declarations of how he'd been so terrible at it and then… well, the whole thing had devolved into less of a food fight than a yelling match where they'd all been scribbling over each others' equations on paper, as sheet after sheet was added to the pile across the table upon which they were supposed to have been putting down their plates and eating...

...up until Fiddleford had apparently decided to deliberately elbow somebody holding up a full plate of food for not eating their own hot-handlin' lunch like they should've, with a gleam in his eye, which had devolved things with a rather alarming alacrity into another 'round two'...

...which he and Fiddleford had promptly won, because their equations had been better than the rest of the others', and this time Ford had actually been trying...

(...and apparently, the second time, so had Fiddleford -- because he apparently hadn't been the first…)

All-in-all, it had been a wonderful time, 'Ford and the other Ford', together, discussing topics far more advanced than any of their professors understood, checking over each other's work, staying up late into the night playing DDNMD together...

Ford realized he was smiling slightly, and then he sagged in place.

"Ford, 'bullying' happens everywhere," Stan said. "People just decide they don't like you, and you're gonna be stuck if you don't got somebody on your side, helpin' you to push back." Stan's frown changed in character slightly. "Are you really tellin' me that you'd rather have gone to that West Coast Tech place, than have McGucket as a friend?"

"That's not--" a fair assessment, Ford began to say. "Stan, we work in related fields. I could've still met and become friends with him later--"

"--Ford, if you'd gone to that fancy school, would you have even given him the time of day?" Stan asked him. "You look down on that university of yours, and you went there, thinking that other place is so much better. If you could've worked with somebody from West Coast Tech, or worked with somebody you didn't know from your university, on that portal of yours, who would you have picked?"

And Ford pressed his lips together. Because Stan wasn't wrong, but-- "That's a false dichotomy. I would have worked with someone I knew, and I knew Fiddleford. But that doesn't mean--" Ford said stubbornly.

"If you went to that fancy school, you would've known the West Coast Tech guy, and not Fiddlenerd," Stan pointed out ruthlessly. "And you said it yourself; you couldn't have done half that stuff without him, and you didn't know anybody else who could." Ford remained silent. "So yeah, okay sure -- you would've worked with somebody you knew. So if you'd had a choice between a guy from that Backupsmore place who you didn't know, and some guy from West Coast Tech who you did -- 'cause you would've gone to school with 'em -- would you have gone with the West Coast Tech guy, even if you thought they couldn't do the work?" Stan pressed him, and Ford looked away with a wince -- because yes, he would have tried.

"You're provin' my point, Ford," Stan said. "If you went to that fancy school instead, you wouldn't have made friends with McGucket."

"--Which likely would have ruined Bill's plans!" Ford shouted out, tossing his hands out to his sides. "Because creating the portal required both of us--!"

Stan raised his eyebrows at Ford, and said, "Ford, you know the kid didn't do anything here, and the damn thing still broke."

Ford gritted his teeth in frustration. "That's--!!"

"You heard the kid, and you know he wasn't lying," Stan said staunchly. "He didn't do anything except grab the kids, and stay with us. And the whole place didn't exist before--"

"--Bill also said that there were stand-ins for him, that had replaced him, both people and events," Ford said with a glare.

Stan gave him a long look. "You see anybody at that school who you didn't recognize, who wasn't there when we were going to school?" Ford looked away from him, clenching his hands into fists. It had been so long ago, Ford wasn't entirely sure...

"It's important," Ford said. Because why else would Bill be so insistent that he even made that other demon not talk about it-- "The man eater must have broken it!" Ford said instead.

Stan shook his head. "Ford, the dragon-lady hated the kids being thrown out more than we do."

Damn him. "Bill has to want us not talking about the science fair project for a reason," Ford said roughly.

"Yeah? Well, so do I," Stan said. "Wouldn't have gone along with his not wantin' to talk about it for a couple days if I didn't."

Ford stiffened, feeling as though he'd had a wire brush run up his back. Hard.

"Well, maybe we should," Ford said, slow and angry. And Sixer began glaring at his side as well.

And Stan's frown started looking a lot more like a glare.

"You do not want me to do that, Sixer," Stan said, hard and slow himself.

And he said it to the both of them.

"...Could we maybe not," said Lee, curling in on himself a little bit, looking vastly uncomfortable.

Ford twisted his head to look over at him in shock, but Sixer's eyes narrowed.

And Sixer slapped his notepad down hard, his eyes flashing angrily.

"--He didn't do nothin' this time, Sixer, not even an accident," Stan said roughly, pulling Sixer's attention back to him. "Look, Ford--"

"--We are discussing this before we leave," Ford said flat and low.

And that seemed to light a fire of anger under Stan. "--You really don't want to talk about this." Stan warned him, taking almost a fighting stance, shifting his feet a bit like he was bracing himself.

Sixer slapped his notepad against the bench again, then gestured angrily between Lee and the strewn-out parts of the broken project.

"Dammit all," Stan said half-under his breath, as Lee pulled in on himself a little more, while also starting to look frustrated and angry himself. "This isn't--"

"What aren't you telling me, Stanley? What are you hiding from me?!" Ford demanded. "From us?! Did--" Ford started to go a little pale at the realization that-- "Did you actually--"

Stan gritted his teeth, and glanced down at his younger self. Damnit. Damnit!

"It doesn't matter!" Stan told him angrily.

"Yes it DOES--!" Ford practically screamed.

Stan looked like he was about to move forward and hit him. He had his fists clenched at his sides, shaking slightly.

But Ford watched him, and as he watched him, Stan didn't do that.

Instead, he turned to his younger self and said, "Say it now, or you're never gonna say it at all."

And Lee looked up at him in shock, at this grumpy old man who was supposed to be himself, up in front of him. "I--" He looked frustrated. "I don't think--"

"He'd never gonna let go of it," Stan said. "I thought maybe he could, but he ain't. We went without talking about it for months," Stan told him, then looked over at Ford, then at Sixer. "But your twin ain't gonna let this go in a good way now unless you tell him," Stan told his younger self. And he hated himself for having to say it. For being wrong, when he'd been hoping he wasn't. And for being right, when he'd been thinking that he just couldn't be.

"I can't," Lee said, looking angry himself, and maybe a little miserable.

He saw Sixer staring at him, shaking and so so very angry at him, and Lee just couldn't.

"Yes, you can," Stan told him. "And I know what you're thinkin', 'cause I thought it myself," Stan told him, voice rough with anger. "I didn't tell him then, and maybe I should've. But I didn't, 'cause I wasn't sure I was right, cause I thought, well, I just couldn't be -- but you're right. We're right," Stan told him, "And we know what we're talkin' about. So say it," Stan told him, "Or get used to him bein' angry at you forever, for no goddamn reason, but you'd better pick one of those two right damn now and be ready to live with it, because if you don't..." But Lee remained silent.

...up until Stan said, "You tell him, and I'll back you up. I know a hell of a lot more about all of the right names for this stuff now, and the 'lines of reasoning', to explain it to him all science-y," and then--

Lee turned and spat out at his brother, "--It doesn't work!" Sixer went wide-eyed with shock and then anger, up until Lee followed that up with, "It was never going to work!" and Lee twisted out from his curled position as he said, "That-- stupid machine of yours doesn't work! And it never DID!!!"

Ford went still, and Sixer shot to his feet in absolute outrage.

But Lee looked belligerent as hell where he was sitting himself, glaring up at his brother even as he shivered where he sat, in something a little like anger, but also...

"Tell him why," Stan said next. "Ask him the question. You know which one I'm talking about," Stan intoned, as Ford looked on in complete noncomprehension at this.

And Lee sucked in a breath and hissed out, "What happens if you turn that stupid thing sideways."

And Ford… felt lost.

But Sixer's face screwed up in something like a very different sort of outrage.

And he grabbed up his notepad and wrote something on it quickly, then slapped it into Ford's chest.

Ford stared down at it, then blinked as he looked over at Sixer, as his heaving chest, at the furious look in his eyes.

...He slowly looked down at the paper being held up against his chest.

And Ford slowly read off, "...It doesn't work that way."

"It should," Lee said next, angrily, and Ford felt distinctly removed from the conversation. He'd started feeling an odd sort of shock, as he'd watched his own fight with his brother transferred to their younger selves, writ large, but when Lee had spat out his challenge, his challenge, that the device simply wasn't designed to work... because you couldn't turn it sideways--

Ford felt another slap against his chest, and... he ended up reading off, "It's not supposed to work that way." He could feel the glare from his younger self as he read the words off with far, far less anger than Sixer had likely intended it to be relayed...

"Why not?! A perpetual motion machine-thing is supposed to keep moving, no matter what! No matter what is no matter what! That's the whole POINT of it!" Lee protested next.

[That's not] was what Ford saw Sixer starting to scribble down furiously, but Lee was full steam ahead now, and Ford was starting to wonder if this was shock he was feeling here, or if it was actually something else rather different instead.

"Whatever direction its facin' away from gravity shouldn't matter!" Lee screamed out at Sixer next. "Because the point of the thing is balancing forces -- ALL of them, no matter what!!" And Ford felt a little faint as Lee continued on, yelling out -- in frustration, of all things -- "It's supposed to handle everything OUTSIDE of things, ALL of the outside forces -- and that includes GRAVITY!"

And Ford faintly realized, as his own breathing went shallow and his head went light-headed and dizzy all at once, that he'd never suspected that his brother understood that much about physics. Not at this age. --And that was terrible of him. Because this wasn't 'portal science', as Stan always teased him about gruffly; this was merely a simple understanding of the basic fact that gravity was a force, and that meant--

Unbidden, Miz's angry words from that other day came back to him-- "-- you were the smart one and he didn't want to take that from you--"

--This hadn't even required a deeper understanding of the equations involved, just a view of the bigger picture in general; it was what Fiddleford had always simply referred to as a 'check your reality check', and...

...Sixer hadn't been idle while Lee had been yelling, and Ford was barely aware of what he was reading off for him, all of it simply excuses, because...

...even as Lee looked frustrated, starting to be unable to respond in like kind, and Stan took over, Ford already knew that he'd made a horrible mistake--

"Fine," said Stan. "Let's go off and pretend for a second that turnin' the thing sideways somehow ain't fair," Stan drawled out, and Ford couldn't help but wince and look away, "So let's bound our assumptions a little bit," and Ford had a terrible sinking feeling as he heard his brother take on his own tones, and this was the worst feeling in the world, having his brother sound like himself as he said--

"Thing needs to stay straight 'cause it's, what, just a demonstration?" Stan said, sounding like himself again for a moment. "Fine. All the forces involved are moving in the expected directions, and gravity is moving along the same field lines." Ford couldn't stifle a wince, as he closed his eyes. "What's the amplitude of gravity at this particular altitude?"

Sixer paused for only a moment, and Ford had to open his eyes and dully read off something that was to the effect of 'it doesn't matter, the device could handle it because the field is constant--'

"Except it isn't," Stan said gruffly next. "You ain't taking into account everything below it." Sixer frowned at furiously. "All that lava and stuff, moving around under our feet, that's mostly iron and magnetic metals. It's why we're got a stronger magnetic field here, instead of someplace like Mars," and Ford felt like dying at about this point, because the moment Lee had screamed out about gravity and he'd had a shocked second to try and understand what he could possibly mean, it had occurred to him that--

(Ford felt hot, and cold, at the same time. And he wanted, with a sick sort of longing, to drop off of the face of the earth and disappear into nothingness to die forever.)

Sixer wrote something he had to read to the effect of 'that's so small it doesn't matter!' And then Stan practically barked out at him -- and Lee sometimes put in his own frustrated question or two himself -- question after question about how much force would matter? How could it respond that quickly to any deviation? It would have to be instantaneous, how could the device calculate it in advance if it wasn't part of the equations? If it was supposed to 'just flow' around the physical shape of the device itself and balance itself out, how large would the force have to be for that to stop working? --Well, then if it could handle something as large as anything, then what about the shift of the earth beneath it that would change the orientation of the machine and the direction of the field lines acting on it and moving through it -- oh, okay, then how far of a deviation was too far, since they were getting into 'turning it sideways and making it not work' territory there--

And Sixer kept making excuse after excuse after excuse -- all of which were shot down, even though the teenager refused to admit it. Over and over again as he couldn't explain himself in a way that would make his project correct. And yet he kept making more and more of those excuses that didn't hold up, and Ford… started to realize that Sixer knew this...

And Ford just felt cold. Because… it really didn't matter. Whether the project had broken or not was a moot point. He never would have gotten into West Coast Tech with a device that didn't work, that didn't do what it was supposed to. None of it would have-- mattered-- because--

And then Stan dropped the bombshell.

"What about heat?" Stan said. "What's your operating temperature? --What's the range."

And Ford felt all the blood drain straight out of his face.

...And Sixer didn't seem to get it.

And then the questions moved from gravity to heat. To the electromagnetic spectrum. --To the impact of conductive, convective, and radiative heat on the spinning structure, the expansion or contraction of the metal, and...

Heat was a form of energy just as much as anything else. Force equals mass times acceleration -- really, the time derivative of momentum -- but energy was both a wave and a particle. And radiative heat did have a component of momentum -- thus, force -- to it, and when those wavelengths hit an object, that energy and momentum acted on the particles in the atoms and...

...Sixer's arguments now were completely indefensible. They weren't even real science. Complaints about how it shouldn't have mattered, without even backing himself up with any sort of evidence or anything more than just petulant whining through paper and Ford's own dull-toned voice-- because Sixer had completely forgotten to even consider them as part of his equations and--

--didn't want to admit he was wrong. Didn't want to even consider the fact that he'd been wrong.

They -- he himself, and this his younger self in this dimension here -- hadn't even considered the impact of the surrounding environment on the device when they'd been writing their equations and doing all their design work, not really. Humidity, perhaps a bit, but light and heat? No. Not in the way that Stan was talking about it now. Ford had been thinking of the basic laws of thermodynamics, being able to use its own minor generation of heat directly to keep on spinning, with no energy lost; he hadn't thought of it as one of those external forces that might need to be balanced and thrown off in some way, in order to allow for the mechanisms to continue to spin.

All he'd really thought of on that front was that a perpetual motion machine had to keep spinning. He'd worried about the frictional forces of the air and of the spindle, certainly, and either reducing of offsetting those forces -- friction and heat -- or otherwise feeding the energy back into the mechanism in some readily again-useful way through a complex set of processes, in rather sophisticated ways and by rather brilliant-making means, but… there was 'indefinite work with no energy source', and there was 'spinning forever', and...

...he had been trying to create something that 'worked' by the second definition of such a device, not simply the first -- because how could one show that such a device was running down due to external forces only, if it eventually stopped spinning on you at some point? But that, by definition, would require that every external force on the device be made to have no impact on its functioning, somehow, and...

(...oh, even humidity would have an impact eventually, wouldn't it -- a long-term impact on the metals that had been used in the creation of the device. Most of them would eventually rust; even the wind would eventually scour the surfaces down to the point at which the spinning components would be nothing more than flat nubs, the oh so very important structure and flow of the outer shell of it eventually ground down over time and lost…)

It wasn't as though the device would operate on the surface of the sun. The temperature did matter, even as ridiculous as the thought experiment became when taken to such extremes. Because in order to keep spinning, such a properly working device would have to somehow remain cool under even such extreme and pointlessly unexpected conditions, and Ford knew full well that there were very few materials that could hold up to such temperatures for even a few seconds, such a small period of time...

(Frankly, it would need an actual force-energy barrier of some sort, rather than a 'better material', to keep such forces away from the rest of the physical structure in the first place…)

Oh Axolotl, he'd been so hurt by the memory of the event, that he'd never gone back to it to actually think critically about it after college, was this why Fiddleford had always looked at him so oddly on the odd occasion when he brought it up drunk, even asked him once (drunk and with a terrible sarcasm himself, one that Ford had never understood until now) if Ford would ever consider trying to create another one of those again, just for fun…

...And when Lee, feeding off of what Stan had said about all these problems with heat, then brought up the idea of holding a lighter under one of the rotating balls or spires and following it around -- or simply holding it under one side -- where the expansion and contraction effects wouldn't be evenly distributed across the entire rotating unit... and then Stan yet again brought up the question of balancing forces and uneven magnitudes of forces along the same lines, dynamically varying over time, and the ranges of what was supposed to work and not--

--Sixer threw down his pencil in disgust after finally writing that, yes, of course there were safe operating ranges because it was only a prototype made for demonstration purposes only--

Stan waited a few beats, staring Sixer down. Stan had his arms crossed across his chest, watching Sixer as he stood there shaking with anger, in and out on every rough breath...

--Sixer turned to Ford and slapped him in the arm, looking furious, and Ford looked away and could say nothing else other than...

"It's indefensible," Ford said quietly. "You know it. We made a--" mistake, but Ford jerked back in surprise as Sixer shoved at him with both his hands, looking irate.

Ford stared down at Sixer in confusion, because why had he-- he seemed even angrier now than he had when--

"You couldn't explain it to me," they both heard Lee say quietly, but the sound carried, and... "You've never been able to not explain somethin' to me before when I asked, and… I shouldn't have let you get away with blowin' me off," Lee said quietly. And Lee… didn't look happy, just morose, as he said, "I thought that maybe it was me, 'cause everybody always said you couldn't make a perpetual motion machine that could work forever, but you kept sayin' that you were figurin' it out, figurin' out how to make it all actually work, and..."

Sixer started gesticulating wildly, looking angry as anything, and Ford had no idea what he was trying to say--

--but, somehow, Stan seemed to. Because Stan took one look at him and said in reply, "Yeah Sixer, it 'worked' all right, but it sure as hell ain't a 'perpetual motion' anything; nothin' lasts forever. Damn thing would rust if you poured water on it--" and Ford winced again as Stan echoed his own thoughts at the last on rust and corrosion -- because humidity was water -- and then Ford winced again at the larger thought really hit him: that physical forces of any sort should have been able to have been handled if it was really a perpetual motion machine, because continuing to spin despite all forces acting upon it meant--

It meant--

...It meant that on a truly working perpetual motion machine, of the type Ford had been trying to build, tossing a bucket of water on it should have no effect at all; it should just keep on spinning. It meant that taking a sledgehammer to it should have had no effect, if they were really talking about all forces having no effect on it whatsoever. Frankly...

(...Ford realized with a start that he'd actually have to sit down and figure out on paper at some point whether a real perpetual motion machine, once it was made and spun up and actively working, would actually even stay in the same relative location on the surface of the planet, as the Earth rotated on its axis through space, and the planet rotated around the sun, and the sun rotated its way around and across the Milky Way, and the Milky Way moved its way at such a high speed through the great cosmic sea surrounding it…)

...that meant that it really wouldn't have broken if it were a real, working one. It couldn't have broken. And the fact that this one had 'exploded' internally and broken… it didn't matter. It was by definition already broken, because it didn't do what it was supposed to do and never had, right from the start.

--Yes, it had been a prototype, and Ford had known that, but… he also hadn't, not deep down in his gut and his heart and his soul. Deep down, he hadn't known that -- not any of it. Deep down, he'd thought of his project as perfect, and thought that his math at the time had been perfect and all-encompassing and the all-inclusive sum of each and every effect that could ever have possibly mattered to and for the device's own operation, but that… that had been a lie.

And he hadn't even known it.

And… Stan hadn't wanted to tell him. Hadn't wanted to let Ford know that he'd been wrong.

--Stan had blown it off at the time, when they'd been in the twelfth grade, thinking he himself must've been wrong, rather than challenging him on it, but… Ford realized with the beginnings of a very new and unpleasant kind of shock exactly why Stan might've thought that Ford's idea of his science fair project getting him into a good college had been the pipe dream, between the two of them. Why Stan might have thought that the boat was their solid Plan A, and gone along with Ford's… with Ford's effervescent and unlikely 'dream' -- seemingly strange and out of the blue to him, apparently -- a dream of impressing a bunch of nerds with a project that didn't do what he'd said it did.

Back then, Stan hadn't wanted to say anything about it, for a very different set of reasons. But now... the reason why Stan didn't think it mattered now, forty-odd years later, if they found out who had broken the project or not, was really due to the exact same set of reasons. --Because to Stan, it changed nothing. Even if the project as Ford had made it had been just fine, from Stan's viewpoint Ford still would have been rejected by the college board on account of his machine being a lie -- one that they would have realized the reality of sooner or later, and once they had he would have been kicked out of that university rather unceremoniously, Ford had no doubt about those particular sorts of realities, when it came to academia -- and--

And Ford felt exhausted. Because this meant that all of this -- Stan being disowned, the younger Ford being disowned, all of it -- none of it had--

--Sixer snapped up his pencil again, and scribbled something down furiously before waving it at Stan, and Ford blinked as he read that which Sixer had written in huge letters across two pages of his notebook rather shakily: 'THEN WHAT IS IT?!'

"A gravity battery," Stan said simply, arms crossed, standing where he was. "If you let it sit there long enough, it'd start spinning faster."

Ford stared at Stan in absolute shock. And without meaning to, he made a strangled sort of sound.

And now, Stan finally finally turned his head to look at him, instead of looking Sixer -- who Stan had been focused on the entire time, as if Ford had been nothing more than his translator, his badly-translated voice -- and Stan said, "What. That was one a' the first things I had to figure out with that portal of yours, tryin' to fix it. That was the easy stuff, Ford," he was told, and Ford felt faint all over again.

...Stan didn't even look mad. He just looked tired, and-- and concerned and… maybe a little sorry...

--He looked sorry at having told the truth to him, to them, and Ford suddenly felt a terrible urge to start laughing hysterically and never, ever stop--

Ford wanted to cry.

"Ford, I ain't mad," Stan said with a sigh, working his way over, stepping over the benches gingerly as he went, "I--" and Ford-- couldn't help but flinch away from him, taking a single step back--

Stan stopped in place. He looked almost stricken. Sorry. And maybe a little lost.

(Now, now, after all these years, now Stan looked sorry, and Ford--)

...And now Ford felt like he was the one who'd been hit with that paralysis-chemical of Bill's in the throat.

"It really don't matter," Lee said, sounding more than a little uncomfortable again, where he sat. "You don't gotta know everything, y'know. --So you maybe left some stuff out this time," Lee said next, to his twin, as Sixer refused to look at any of them, hands fisted at his sides, gripping his notepad and pencil. "So what? You're supposed to get people to help you check your work, right? --Maybe those admissions people were jerks who wouldn't help ya out, but that's on them. Right? You know more stuff now, and you could make it better next time," Lee said, slowly standing up, to move over and crouch down next to it.

And Ford couldn't help but watch Lee, almost mesmerized, as Lee picked up a small piece of it -- part of the spinning component -- and looked it over, almost carefully, as he said, "A gravity battery sure sounds useful as-is, anyway. Bet a lot of people might be interested in buying something like that." Lee looked up at Sixer and got a small smile. "Heck, anything that's got better gears and stuff would be better. Some of that's friction-stuff, but a lot of that's heat, too, right? And you were workin' on solvin' that with this." Lee looked back down at the spread-out pieces in front of him. "The battery-stuff could be like those solar-powered things we got for the boat, only it can work even without sunlight. Just sit it someplace for long enough and go, yeah?" Lee frowned down at it all. "We need to get ya some new parts and stuff, but I bet if we got this all back up and working and remade again…"

Sixer stomped forward, out across all of it, and-- he stomped half of the pieces into the wooden boards of the lower deck.

He stomped through it like he was wanting to crush it all beneath his feet, and he took his notebook full of equations along with him.

He disappeared up the ladder.

...Ford couldn't help but note the half-worried, half-disappointed look on Lee's face as he watched this.

The worst part was, Lee hadn't looked surprised. (Ford had been surprised. The offer had been--)

Lee glanced over at Stan. "...He gonna stop bein' angry with me anytime soon?" Lee asked Stan with a sinking feeling, and Stan sighed, which gave Ford a sinking feeling.

Stan shrugged and seemed to be stifling a wince. "Dunno. We, uh, only just had this conversation… recently." He was rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

"When?" Lee asked.

"Uh… now," Stan said, sending an almost peeking look over at Ford. "Just now."

Lee looked over at Ford, and his jaw dropped. "You didn't tell him for-- like 50 years?!"

"Hey!" Stan objected. "It's only been forty-something years, and he's been all lost in space or somethin' for the last thirty! And--! ...I'm not makin' this any better, am I," Stan said, and Ford heard the wince in his voice.

"But you didn't--" Lee glared, then gestured as he got to his feet, "Why didn't you-- I mean, you're the one who said--!! --Why the hell did you do it now!? You freaking' hypocrite!" Lee yelled out at him. "--Yeah, I said it! Twenty-dollar words, I got 'em! I got a whole bunch!" Lee yelled out at him next, looking stubborn, and...

...and more than a little freaked out.

"--It's fine," Ford rushed to assure him, and he had no idea exactly how he was able to say it, but when he saw both Stan and Lee look over at him in something like-- Ford winced and said, "I-- that is--" Ford winced hard, then looked down a little and said, "I… I held onto that anger about that for so long," Ford said, unconsciously clenching a hand against his chest, "I-- no!" he said quickly, as Lee's fearful look. "I-- Knowing this now, I-- your brother…" Ford pulled in a breath. "Maybe he can let go of it sooner, and..." 'I wish I had known,' he thought to himself, looking away from both of them, feeling the strain.

...Except he hadn't known and, sometimes, the anger had been all that been keeping him going, kept him from sinking into despair for having lost his twin--

And Ford hadn't been the one kicked out of the house for it. (And Bill had said that they weren't the same person.) Ford hadn't expected his younger not-self to smash his own project himself, into the deck himself, deliberately (though hadn't he felt that own urge himself before?)... Ford had no idea if things would 'maybe' be better or not, and he almost felt like a liar as he stood there and looked at them, and...

...And Stan was still staring at him. And Lee was looking back at him, almost like he thought that...

Ford swallowed hard. And he felt an even worse urge to cry at the way Lee was looking at him now, because...

"...C'mon, Ford," Stan said roughly. "It's been a rough night, and one hell of a week." Ford looked over at him, having no idea what he was meaning with these words of nothing remotely resembling comfort or encouragement, until what Stan said next, which was:

"Let's go home."

---

They found Sixer upstairs hunched in a corner with his head on Miz's lap while she pet his hair. "You don't have to be angry all the time. Lee's allowed to be smart too," she told him gently. Bill just snorted. "You're wasting your time on him."

"If there's any chance for him to improve, I want to support that." Miz couldn't help it. When a child looked so upset, she just wanted to comfort them. Ugh, she was spoiling him, wasn't she?

"He'll get the wrong idea," Bill said next, then seemed to give up, as both Stanley then that Stanford made their way up onto the deck from the hold.

Miz nodded, petting Sixer gently. "He lost his mother a week ago. I know he's gonna get the wrong idea, but a sad child is still a sad child. I don't want him running off and doing something rash."

Lee poked his head up onto the deck next, and he didn't look too happy at what he'd just heard Miz say.

"We didn't lose ma," Lee said, "We can still go to her if--" Then he flinched as Sixer shoved Miz's hand off of him angrily, sprung to his feet, and ran off across the deck, and down the gangway. "--Sixer!!" Lee yelled, then cursed as he lost sight of Sixer off into the night. "Damnit..."

"Kid, odds," Stan said lowly, not sounding all that happy with anything in general just then.

"Hm," said Bill. "Probably headed back for the pawn shop, if I had to make an 'educated guess'," the demon noted. He made a small gesture with his wrist, and flicked his eyes to the left for a moment. "Probably."

Miz picked herself up. "I've got my Eye on him, just in case." She'd planted a small triangle onto his shirt while she'd comforted him, just in case he ran off like he did.

Lee shifted from foot to foot.

"Might wanna let him go there alone," Stan said with a sigh. "You both go, and ma'll have to split her attention between ya."

"Probably need to watch the boat, anyway," Lee said dourly, "And all our stuff."

"Oh, that's not much of a concern," Bill said lightly. "Unless you want Miz and I to remove the 'anti-theft' spell we turned the perception filter spell into for you." He looked rather pleased at this.

Stan glanced over at Ford, who still looked a little too shocked to be dealing with this stuff right now. ...Damnit. He hadn't wanted to do it, but Ford had refused to let go, and with the way Sixer had been acting? --It would've been worse than what had happened between them, if Lee hadn't spoken up when he did. Sixer had been starting to think that Lee had broken his project on purpose, and when Ford had started to consider it-- that had been the last straw. No way was Stan going to leave here with Lee feeling guilty about what had happened; he'd done nothing wrong, and Sixer would've walked all over him for the rest of his life without Lee feeling like he could do anything about it, or leave him to it, on his own, himself. It would've been worse than prison--

"It's a pretty good effect. Ensures you won't have your boat stolen or boarded by pirates or stowaways." Miz said matter of factly. "You have to invite people onboard."

"A list of names invited is shown in the cabin on the side wall," Bill told him next. "Touch the list, or the railing, and say whether to remove a name or to add it. Access types are listed in the columns. No-one can see it but you and 'Ford, and no-one can remove you from the highest-level access list, not even everyone on that list trying to do it together, including you." And yes, Bill had been very careful in setting that up. (And yes, that 'remove you' did not include Sixer, only Lee…)

Lee wasn't in the mood to appreciate her and Bill's thoughtfulness though. "What's Sixer doing right now?" Lee demanded of them. "Is he okay?" The streets weren't all that safe this time of night--

Miz's eyes Flickered. "Climbing in through the window of the pawnshop."

"Which floor?" Lee demanded.

"Upper bedroom -- yours," Bill reported, eyes flicking to the side. "He was quiet, and Filbrick isn't in the house at-present."

Lee let out a breath.

Then Lee looked to Ford.

Ford looked uncomfortable as hell.

"...You should likely leave him be for awhile," Ford said quietly. "Either he'll come back, or…"

"Or?" Stan said, unsure about that last bit.

"Or he'll stay at home," Ford said next, which had both Lee and Stan staring at him.

"...Pa won't let him stay," Stan said slowly.

Ford looked tired. "Don't be ridiculous, Stan," Ford said. "Just because you didn't come back--"

"--because I knew he wouldn't let me come back, Ford," Stan said tersely. "Not without--"

"--Swallowing your pride and being ready to say a simple 'I'm sorry'?" Ford said bitterly, looking away from him.

"--Without paying back the millions that you were supposed to make," Stan said in a tone of voice that had Ford looking back over at him, and...

"...You can't be serious," Ford said, in a mouth gone horribly dry. Because Stan could not possibly have thought that--

"That's what Pa said, and Pa meant it. You were there. You heard him. You know he wasn't joking around. He's never joked about anything like that, especially not money. Not now. Not ever," Stan said in a tone so tired and resigned, and with such a dull edge of old anger to it, that Ford would have had to do a double take, if he wasn't already looking his brother straight in the face. (Miz was scowling and looking away, wanting to comment once more about how Filbrick was a terrible father, but Stan had gotten so upset the last time she'd said it that she forcibly kept her mouth shut.)

And for a few very long moments, Ford stared back at Stan, truly speechless. He couldn't believe that-- he couldn't believe that Stan actually thought--

Ford pulled in a breath. Because, like the science fair project apparently, that didn't matter, because Pa being the 'man of the house' aside, Pa listen to their mother, and--

"Ma would've--" Ford said quietly but firmly.

"She wouldn't--" Stan began, and Ford felt a chill go down his spine.

"--She would, Stan," Ford insisted. "If-- if either of us were kicked out of the house, or hurt in any way--" Ford said, trying to encompass the entire situation at hand.

"--Maybe for you, but not for me," Lee said quietly, and the two old men fell silent for a moment as they both looked over at the teenager.

"....She would, Lee," Ford said quietly, "Please. You have to believe me." Ford remembered what it had been like, after Stan had been kicked out. How Ma had cried for days, and begun to rail on end at their Pa. How Pa had gone from being obstinate in the first week, to dour in the second, to deathly quiet in the third week, and silent in the fourth as Stan kept just… not coming back, and when it became clear that there was no sign of Stan ever coming back...

Lee looked at Ford skeptically, and Ford felt his heart nearly skip a beat in anxious stress. And then Lee looked to Stan.

...And, to Ford, it was very clear that Stan didn't believe what he'd just said one bit.

Ford's heart sank. And he felt… He shivered and he wondered, in a corner of his mind, if this was the same sort of feeling that everyone always called 'heart-sick'.

"Why would she?" Lee said, with a terrible new edge of bitterness to his tone that Ford recognized out of Stan himself as an old one, so very many years later. "I'm just the stupid one who isn't gonna amount to anything, not like Sixer. I left on-purpose to follow Sixer, when I didn't even need to; when she told me not to, and I went off and did it anyway," Lee said, looking away from him, before he added even more bitterly, "I'm stupid--"

"No you're NOT!" Miz snarled. "I told you-- no matter what shit people have told you all your life-- you're not stupid!" Miz was so angry for a moment that her form seemed to glitch. "Stop saying that about yourself!"

"--I'm stupid, because I can't figure out how to make my brother feel better, okay?!?!" Lee shouted out at her, then winced away from her almost automatically right after, expecting Bill to--

Bill patted Miz on the head. "Miz, why don't you go down to the shoreline. You remember where the portal was, don't you?" Bill said lightly, not taking his eyes away from Lee. "We'll be there just in a few moments; a minute at most."

"Kid…" Stan said warningly, not sure what was going on here.

"It's fine," the demon-kid said. "You and that Stanford should go, too. I can handle this. You're the one making this worse than it needs to be, now." Stan clenched his jaw at that.

Miz was huffing, frustrated tears in her eyes as the edges of her form seemed to flicker and twist. "T-that still doesn't ma-make you stupid," she huffed out at Lee before she went, as her breath hitched from holding back sobs. Miz nodded stiffly at her brother and turned to step over the side of the boat.

After she'd left, the kid looked a little stiff himself -- after noticing the 'flickering' that his sister was doing -- but he looked Stan straight in the eye and said, "I want you to go. You should take Stanford with you."

Lee felt himself go cold.

"Don't go hurtin' Lee," Stan said quietly.

"I will not hurt or kill him," the kid said in return. "You have my word."

Stan gave him a long searching look -- while Ford, frankly, looked alarmed -- and then...

Stan gave the kid a nod and walked off. But before he made his way down the gangplank, he stopped, sighed, and gave a hug to Lee before he went, to say goodbye, wanting to make him feel at least a little better, and Bill watched him do this.

Stan went down the gangway, and now it was three.

"You can't--" Ford began.

"GO," Bill said, starting to look irate, then said almost sing-song, with an edge to his tone, "Unless you WANT to leave your brother all alone at the edge of a portal with--"

"--You want to kill me for yellin' at your sister, just do it already," Lee cut in, trying not to shake in place. "But you'd better throw my body over the side or somethin' when you're done, don't want Sixer coming back to a mess like--"

He stopped at the blinking look on Bill's face.

Bill looked between that Stanford, and the little Lee.

And Bill sighed.

He stood where he was, and shoved a hand into his pocket.

"Wasn't going to do this in front of him," Bill said, ticking his head at Ford as he worked, pulling out-- his phone, what was he--?? "He gets all upset when I talk to people in other dimensions."

Lee wasn't so sure what was going on, but he relaxed a little when he looked between them, and the older Sixer went from looking like he was ready to kick ass and get drop-kicked himself for trying it, to confused and shocked instead.

"You aren't giving him--" Ford said, stunned.

Lee frowned as the demon seemed to be doing some kind of shuffling act, with one or two things in his hands that looked… kind of like blocky rectangles? Then he put the one away, and held his hand over the other.

"He's not Stanley," Bill said almost firmly, "But he could have been Stanley, if Stanley wasn't first." Lee had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but the older Sixer looked shocked, then more shocked, and, "Little Lee loves his brother, and wants him to be happy. And Stanley hugged him," Bill muttered, as he shifted the hold of whatever that thing was in his hands, then started making a few plucking motions at it, all of which was making Lee uneasy. "Have you ever seen Stanley hug anyone who he doesn't consider to be family?"

Ford stilled in place.

"...He hugged Sixer down in the hold, last week," Lee said, starting to get an inkling of maybe where this might be going.

"That's different," Bill said tersely, looking up at him. "Stanley hugged YOU without provocation, other than an 'I'm leaving now'. --You're on the priority list," Bill told him, looking back down at the device, "Like it or not."

...Lee wasn't sure what it meant, that the older Sixer looked like he'd just been socked in the gut on hearing that one, but...

Then Lee startled as Bill walked up to him and slapped the chocolate bar-sized rectangle he'd been holding and doing stuff to into his chest.

"Invisible to anyone but you," Bill said. "Intangible to anyone but you. You remember what Miz showed off in school earlier today? --It's similar, but different," Bill told him. "You can't contact Miz with this, the way I have it set up right now," Bill told him. "But, you can call me on my phone! --This is a phone, among other things."

Lee stared at him.

"...Why would I ever want to call you," Lee said slowly.

"If you want help, or want to talk to Stanley, then you can use that to get it," Bill said to him next, pointing to the blocky thing. "It will connect to mine," which must be the other thing he'd been holding, okay. "I can hand mine off to Stanley. I live in the same house as he does," Bill told him, "And I know where Stanley is at all times. --If you need help from him, you can call him through me, and I will pass your call off to him," Bill said. "If you want to talk to me, you can talk to me, also! --No inspiration from me, though," Bill said, glancing over at that Stanford with a long look.

"Did you talk this over with Stan," Ford said quietly.

"No," Bill said tersely. "This is a safety-of-family issue. It's his line. I am not crossing his line," Bill said, "And I am not leaving any of Stanley's family alone, in a place where neither of us are when I can't guarantee their safety -- not without a way for them to tell me-or-him if someone is messing with them, so that we can come back here if we need to and immediately take care of their little problems ourselves!"

Lee felt like he'd swallowed his tongue.

"The power button is there," Bill pointed. "You turn it on or off by pressing-and-holding it for three seconds -- then letting go of it. It doesn't need recharging; it will always have power; power is beamed in remotely. The sound and light are directed; no-one can see or hear anything on it except you also -- this is how it is 'invisible'," Lee was told. "Intangibility for others would take too long to explain right now; it is also waterproof and almost-completely indestructible. All of these spells work on the device, not on YOU. There are instructions for how to use the device on the device," the demon told him next, "You'll see them when you first turn it on."

"...Right," Lee said slowly.

Bill smiled at him. "I'd say 'don't lose it'," the demon told him almost cheerfully, "But I put a spell on this thing that will make it appear in a pocket of yours if it's more than twenty feet away from you, so you can't ever 'lose' it 'accidentally'!" Bill told him next. Then he leaned in. "So either always wear something with at least one pocket on it, or don't wear any pockets at all at your own peril and the penalty of seeing US all again VERY SOON," Bill intoned, almost in Lee's face, with the widest grin he'd seen out of the demon yet.

Lee was trying to figure out what to say to this, when Bill's face was abruptly not in his own face anymore.

And Lee was left blinking after them, as the older Sixer continued hauling Bill off and down the gangway plank by the grip he had under the demon's shoulder -- while Bill griped about it in his usual complaining demon-fashion, and the older Sixer grumbled back at him, stiff-backed as he marched the demon away from him, about not scaring people--