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Despite his favorite PhD being in theoretical physics, Ford, at his heart, is a field biologist. He’s used to observation, to working knee-deep in forestry and dirt. When his brother returns to him, after nearly ten years, naturally Ford observes him too.
He finds Stan on the cusp of autumn, wearing a thin red jacket, the fabric torn and stained. His mullet is in tangles, and there’s an unsettling split in his lip. He’s just as Ford remembers: brusque and stubborn and difficult.
His car had broken down, coincidentally, on the road towards Gravity Falls. It’s still the same car he had at seventeen, beaten-up and clearly lived-in. The bumper is littered with bullet holes. Ford is not a gracious enough person to withhold judgement.
When Stan’s eyes settle on him, there’s a foreign wariness scrawled across his face. He clutches at the propped-open hood of his car, and spits, “Yeah, yeah keep gawking like I’m one of your science experiments. Some of us actually have to work for our living, y’know, instead of getting hand-outs from some fancy university.”
It’s enough for Ford’s concern to vanish. “I’ve seen your commercials.” He grimaces. “I know you make your money off of anyone foolish enough to listen to you, so don’t you dare presume my selfishness–”
Stan balls up his fist, and for a split-second Ford thinks it’s gonna land on his jaw. But then his legs wobble a little, he draws a wearied hand over his face, and the fight drains out of him. “Look, Ford,” he mumbles. “I’ll…figure it out, okay? Just fuck off with whatever sciency-shit you’re doing.” His cheeks are gaunt, far gaunter than Ford has ever remembered them being. The bags under his eyes have worsened, and he’s bracing himself against his car like his legs will give out any second.
Ford heaves out a breath.
What Ford means to say is: I still haven’t forgiven you. I can’t see you like this. I need you to leave.
What comes out instead is: “Your mullet.”
Stan, shoulders drawn back like he expects a punch, frowns. “Got a problem with it?”
“The gnomes,” Ford explains. “They tunnel-vision on long hair, they’ll think you’re their queen.” When Stan continues to stare, dumbfounded, he hurriedly continues, “In small groups, they’ll only snap at your ankles, but it’s best to play it safe.”
“Yeah,” Stan says, with the weight of a man that just needs to lie down. “Okay. Sure.”
Ford pinches his eyes. “Just…follow me.”
Stan gives his car one last regretful look (Ford has to promise three times they’ll come back for it) and follows Ford through the woods. They’re far out from the cabin, but Ford knows these paths like the back of his hand. It’s endearing, he realizes to see Stan stare at its subtle magic in wonder, and he finds himself pointing out the oddities they pass by: glowing mushrooms, fairies, eye-bats.
Once they’re back at his cabin, his resentment has ebbed. Stan is distracted enough by Ford’s explanation of the Natural Law of Weirdness Magnetism to wordlessly take a cobbled plate of leftovers and eat without complaint. Ford is just about to break it to Stan that aliens are real when there’s a rattling at the door. Stan jumps. He’s twitchier now, Ford’s noticed.
Ah, Ford forgot Fiddleford was coming over today. “My research assistant,” he clarifies to Stan, who still looks like he’s about to bolt. “He has a key, but that lock jams up.”
“Ford,” Fiddleford calls when the door finally swings open, “I looked at your data and had some corrections.” There’s a rustle as he hangs up his coat, then walks into the living room, flipping through papers. “Tell me what you think.” He shoves a stack of papers into Stan’s arms. “Only triple-checked these, but—” He trails off at the sight of Ford, then back to Stan. “Oh, you’re not Ford. You’re—”
The blood drains from Fiddleford’s face. He and Stan stare at each other, silent and tumultuous. Wordlessly, Stan hands off the stack of papers to Ford.
“My twin brother,” Ford offers. “Stanley.”
Neither respond. The energy in the room, as Ford’s mother would’ve said, is rancid.
As Fiddleford’s expression increasingly darkens, Ford tentatively interrupts, “Do you two know each other?”
Stan coughs. “Nope. Do I look like someone who hangs out with nerds?”
Irritation flashes across Fiddleford’s face, but it’s quickly replaced with a strained smile. “Fiddleford McGucket,” he grits out between his teeth. “Pleasure to meet you.” In an aborted motion, he holds out his hand to shake.
Stan stretches his face into a grin that veers on the side of dangerous and grips Fiddleford’s hand. Fiddleford flinches. “Any friend of Ford’s is a friend of mine.”
Before the tension can grow even more unbearable, Ford quickly sets a hand on Fiddleford’s shoulder and steers him into the kitchen. “Listen, I can explain everything–”
“You didn’t tell me,” Fiddleford says quietly, “that you had a twin brother.”
Ford hesitates. “It wasn't relevant.” Every word comes out loaded.
At that, Fiddleford’s own grievances seem to melt away. He looks at Ford with a sharp eye, and Ford is suddenly reminded that his friend can read him in a way very few can.
“Don’t have to tell me everything,” Fiddleford says gently. “I trust you.”
“He won’t stay for long,” Ford replies swiftly. “Once his car is fixed up, he’ll be on his way.”
That was the plan, anyway, until Ford accidentally left his accounting notes out for viewing, and it took one glance to send Stan into despair.
“Ford,” he had said in quiet horror, “I have more failed businesses than my fingers and toes can count, but why the hell did you spend over a hundred dollars on a commissioned gold statue?”
“You what?” Fiddleford yelped, all while Ford desperately prayed that they would not uncover the tapestries.
And that’s how easily it happens: how Stan decides that someone needs to keep Ford’s accounting in check, and how Ford, despite every grudge he still holds, realizes he doesn’t want to see his brother return to whatever life he was once chained to.
His Muse despises the newest addition to the team—he hadn’t been fond of Fiddleford, either—but Ford is adamant. They aren’t completely sorted out, but a few near-punches really do wonders to mend a broken relationship. And he does need to cut back on extravagant spending, no matter how necessary those gold statues are.
Gravity Falls simply suits Stan. His brother is an anomaly, and Ford means that in the most loving way, even when Stan never tells anyone that he’s finished the milk. And Ford, as he would with any abnormality, continues to observe.
Stan blearily shuffles into the kitchen, as he does now every morning, and Ford pours him a cup of coffee. He’d never liked it as a teenager, but he now gulps it down black without complaint. “Fiddleford will be over soon.”
Stan raises an eyebrow. “He’s over here a lot, huh?”
“Well, he is my research assistant,” Ford replies, a tad touchily. “And my best friend.”
“Right,” Stan mutters.
Ford bites his tongue. He hadn’t meant to speak so sharply. Fiddleford is his best friend, and the sooner Stan accepts it, the sooner he can be at peace, because for some godforsaken reason—
Stan and Fiddleford don’t like each other.
It shouldn't come as a surprise: Fiddleford isn’t the type Stan would ever like, and Stan is notorious for picking fights with even the most mild-mannered of men. But it isn’t in Fiddleford’s nature to make his dislike so outwardly known. He’s always preferred to mask his true feelings with a kind smile, for better or for worse.
Now people in Ford’s life—his siblings, his parents, his teachers—would tell him that his one weakness lies in his social skills. He’s never liked the careful politics of academia, or the suffocating social conventions that seem to cling to him every corner he runs to. They’re all frustrating and unnecessary and he’s learned by now to just let his merits and brain speak for itself.
But he knows Stan and Fiddleford, better than perhaps anyone else on this planet. And if he’s the only person in this damn town that can mend whatever frayed relationship has formed between them, then, well…the responsibility lies on his shoulders alone.
Ford watches as Fiddleford enters the cabin with his usual morning cheer, watches as he carefully avoids Stan’s eyes the entire time. He watches Stan slam back his coffee and shoulders past Fiddleford towards the door. Fiddleford squawks in protest and Stan flips him off without looking back.
Fiddleford notices Ford’s stare. “I’m not the problem here,” he defends himself.
“Right,” Ford says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “I’ll just…go check on him.”
“You do that,” Fiddleford mutters, as Ford follows Stan out the door. His brother is sitting on the porch, staring blankly at the leaves that are beginning to lazily fall. Wordlessly, Ford sits beside him, and thinks.
Stan draws out an anger in Fiddleford that Ford has never seen before, one with a deep undercurrent of bitterness. The looks they steal at each other—secretive, complex, guilty. The gold ring Fiddleford now keeps tucked away. The past Stan holds close to his chest, the one with a long line of failed relationships.
The pieces slot together, just like that.
And so, Ford promptly blurts out to his previously estranged twin brother: “Did you try to steal Fiddleford's wife?”
Stan wordlessly reaches into his jacket and pulls out a cigarette. Ford lets him go through the motions, watching as he flicks the lighter and takes a long drag.
“Sixer,” Stan says finally, “what the fuck.”
Ford is quiet for a moment. “Remember in third grade,” he begins, “when you threw up in my backpack after eating three bags of toffee peanuts and I never told anyone out of respect?”
“No,” Stan says.
“You could do the same for me in this instance, is all I’m trying to say,” Ford finishes.
Stan lets out a sigh. “You,” He points his cigarette at Ford, “have a very punchable face.”
“It’s your face too,” Ford retorts, but he figures that means he’s forgiven.
Stan rolls his eyes in a way that’s a bit too affectionate to pack a punch, but something still nags at the back of his mind, because Stan—
—Stan didn’t exactly say no.
“There’s something more to it, I’m sure of it.” Ford’s mindscape is a void of blue, and he paces in its strange zero-gravity as equations float around him. His Muse, lounging in a small velvet chair, watches him with teacup in hand. “I know these two have some history that I’m not privy to. I just cannot imagine what.”
“Yes,” his Muse says dryly. “Your wit is unmatched. Stanley Pines is definitely cucking Fiddleford McGucket.”
Ford stalls in his tracks. It can’t be true…but if his Muse said so, then surely it is. His Muse would never lie, except that one time when he told him every lottery number off by one digit, or when he told Ford a tramp stamp would look good, or—
“Now about that portal,” his Muse starts hopefully, but Ford’s mind is already going ten miles a minute.
Ford, contrary to popular belief, enjoys qualitative data. It’s not as empirical as quantitative research, but even numbers can be misleading. There’s something uniquely enjoyable about analysis through his own senses, through diagrams and descriptions.
He flips to a fresh page in his journal. Asking either of them is out of the question: Stan will undoubtedly close up the moment Ford pries, and Fiddleford will overthink every question. No, he needs to take this slowly and, even better: scientifically.
Ford writes down everything he observes in cramped cursive, between the entries for Leprecorn and Squash with a Human Face and Emotions. Even after documenting every eyeroll from Stan and every wrinkle on Fiddleford’s forehead, he still cannot draw any conclusion aside from how wholly incompatible they are.
“Why are we bringing him?” Fiddleford hisses to Ford as they prepare for their next expedition. It’s purely fabricated on Ford’s part, in a desperate bid for more data.
“Muscle,” Ford replies, since there’s no good way to rationalize anything he’s doing.
Fiddleford and his string-bean arms have no good way to refute that, so they head out at midday into the woods. Stan and Fiddleford bicker over which fork in the road to follow. They argue over who’s fault it was that no one brought water bottles. They both chide Ford simultaneously when he tries to taste-test a suspicious-looking mushroom.
True to his nature, Ford is soon distracted by a pair of glowing salamanders, and all thoughts of observing his brother and best friend vanish from his mind. Are they magical, or simply collateral damage from that irradiated farm? Immediately, he’s detailing them in his journal while Stan and Fiddleford watch with equal parts begrudgement and amusement.
His attention is snapped back when Stan sits down on a fallen tree and peels back his jacket, wincing.
“You’re bleeding,” Fiddleford says, alarmed. He sits down beside Stan, leaving generous space between them. Ford slowly lowers his pen.
“It’s nothing,” Stan mutters. He pokes at the wound. “Scraped it on brambles, that’s all.”
“It’ll get infected.” Fiddleford bats his hand away, irritated, then digs out the small medpack they always carry. “Hold still, will you?”
Stan is surprisingly quiet as Fiddleford works. “Still like fixing things, huh?” he notes, but it comes out soft.
“It’s one of my many vices,” Fiddleford replies dryly. “How’s that?”
Stan examines the bandage. A strange look passes his face—first towards Fiddleford, then to the fingers still lightly pressing on his arm. “I’ve done better medical work with a needle and thread in a Colombian prison.”
“You’re impossible.” Fiddleford drops his hands. “How did Ford stand growin’ up with you?”
“Everyone bullied Ford for having an extra finger,” Stan replies, unrepentant. “They bullied me just ‘cause. So what does that tell you?”
Fiddleford looks unimpressed. “That you’re unlikeable?”
Stan winks and shoots him finger-guns. “Bingo.”
Absolutely incompatible, Ford writes. Perhaps he’s destined to be the glue between them forever. “Don’t say that about yourself, Stanley,” he says absentmindedly. “There were plenty of other reasons why they bullied you.”
The punch to his shoulder is both expected and deserved.
“I can’t crack the power source.” Fiddleford strikes out an equation in exasperation. He’s camped out on the porch steps, the pages of his notebook fluttering in the wind. “There’s nothing that can sustain a portal this large.”
Ford takes a seat beside him. Fiddleford enjoys working in fresh air, with his notes splayed around him like a mad scientist. Fairies do have a tendency to drown in his coffee mugs, but he seems to be content to risk it for the sake of caffeine. “We have to look beyond conventionality.”
“I just need to focus.” Fiddleford massages his temples. His gaze strays towards the forest edge. “Your brother is...distracting.”
Ford follows his gaze. Stan has taken to helping with the manual upkeep around the cabin (he keeps calling it business potential, with a slightly worrying gleam in his eye). Today, he’s busy chopping wood for the increasingly chilly autumn nights. They both watch as Stan stands up straight, wiping sweat from his forehead, then begins to roll up his sleeves. Fiddleford, who had just begun to take a sip of coffee, inhales sharply and starts choking.
Ford thumps him on the back unhelpfully. “Are you all right?”
“’M fine,” Fiddleford wheezes. “I have asthma.”
“You don’t have asthma,” Ford corrects. “Your lungs are actually quite robust. Remember when you were kidnapped by a siren and were able to stay under for a good two minutes?”
“Ford,” Fiddleford stresses. “Just take the excuse.”
On any other day, Ford mercifully would have. But unfortunately for his dear research assistant, excuses are not valid in science’s eyes. Covertly, he flips open his journal and begins to scribble.
Perhaps he’s overthinking it. Stan chops wood. Fiddleford chokes on coffee. Is it cause and effect? Causation, correlation, coincidence. It could be any of the three.
He sticks the end of his pen into his mouth and begins to gnaw on it.
“Ford–” Fiddleford tries.
Is Fiddleford sizing up the competition? Does he feel threatened by Stan's presence?
“Ford, be careful–”
Is his brother really that intimidating? Yes, he’s got quite the grizzled look on him now, but surely–
“Ford!”
The pen cracks, and ink splatters over his mouth.
“Tried to warn you,” Fiddleford says wryly, passing him a handkerchief. “What’s got you all worked up?”
Stan swings down the axe and straightens up. Fiddleford immediately clears his throat and looks away.
“Asthma,” Ford mutters, and makes another note.
His first breakthrough is mundane. Newton watching an apple fall, one might say.
Ford is busy parsing over equations at the dining table in the early morning. Fiddleford, after crashing over last night, had insisted on making them both a proper breakfast in return. Ford thanks him distractedly as he sets down their plates, then spares a glance at Stan. His mind goes blank.
Stan’s plate has one extra sausage.
Ford stares at it, his usual morning routine now completely thrown off. Of course, Stan usually eats more than Ford does, but Fiddleford isn’t one to calculate the caloric intakes of his research partners. It’s a kind gesture. A favor. Fiddleford’s a kind person, after all. But Ford hasn’t been taking into account kind gestures. It’s another variable, and introducing a new variable can change the entire equation.
It derails him for the rest of the day.
“You’re growing distracted, Sixer!” his Muse chides him in his Mindscape. “Didn’t I warn you of this? That brother of yours will only drag you down. Should’ve eaten him in the womb! And that engineer is no better, isn’t he getting a bit too close?” His Muse drifts closer. “You’re too smart to be suffocated like this.”
Ford swallows. There’s truth in these words, however harsh they may be. He knows this. He is becoming distracted.
“But it was an extra sausage,” Ford says weakly. “Doesn’t that strike you as strange!”
“NO!” His Muse shrieks, in a fit of rage Ford has never seen before. “No, I don’t care about why that repressed farmboy gave PTSD Barnum an extra sausage! It doesn’t matter! Your washed-up twin would salivate over an earthworm if it gave him affection!” His eyes glow. “They are below you. I chose you because you’re different.”
“That’s right.” Ford begins to pace. His Muse halts in his ravings, confused. “Everything is different. They’re seeing something—something in each other—that I’m not.”
“I feel sick,” his Muse groans. “I don’t even have a stomach, but it’s hurting. You’re hurting me, Sixer.”
Ford decides to take that as an endorsement.
Here are the facts:
When Fiddleford is building one of his insane contraptions for fun, Stan will scoff and call it “nerd crap”, only to dutifully hold up a ruler for three hours when Fiddleford needs it. When the science jargon becomes overwhelming, Fiddleford will masterfully loop Stan back into the conversation so he doesn’t feel left out. Their snipes at each other are never-ending, but Fiddleford will always spare time to teach Stan basic engineering, while Stan will lay an immediate, steady hand on Fiddleford’s back whenever their expeditions become too strenuous.
“He’s never put in an effort to learn science before.” Ford watches as Fiddleford painstakingly dog-ears pages in a physics book for Stan to review. “It’s a lost cause.”
“He puts up a front,” Fiddleford tells him softly. “You of all people should know this.”
But Ford doesn’t know this. Ford only remembers his brother as a child: naive, emotional, thoughtlessly speaking his mind. And he doesn’t know when Fiddleford had discovered otherwise.
Fiddleford loves to fix, to build, to help. Stan treats kindness like a starving dog would a bone.
Ford crosses out his previous notes on incompatibility. They’re something far stranger.
Emma-May Dixon is the missing puzzle piece. His first theory, he’ll admit, may have been far-fetched, but the thought of her still nags at him.
“Are you heading home?” Ford asks, as casually as he can, when they’re working through design specifications at the dining table. “For Thanksgiving, I mean.”
Fiddleford’s fingers stall as they jot down energy balances. “No,” he says mildly. “Thought I’d stay up here, if that’s alright with you.”
“Your wife won’t mind?”
Fiddleford takes in a long breath, then sets down his pen. “We’re getting a divorce,” he finally says. “There’s nothing else to say.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, Ford regrets that he ever tried to pry. He’s no good at reassuring words. “I’m sorry.” He leans back, takes in his friend’s wearied expression. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is, though.” Fiddleford rubs at his eye. “I was no good to her. Never really was.”
“You loved her,” Ford tries, and Fiddleford smiles sadly.
“Not in the way she wanted,” he says softly. “Not in the way she needed.” And then, his gaze careful, he added: “I could never—not with a woman.”
It takes Ford a good thirty seconds for it to sink in. “You’re gay?” he splutters. “But you’re Methodist!”
“As my mama keeps reminding me,” Fiddleford mutters.
“But you—” Ford starts patting his coat for a pen and notepad. “How did I never notice?”
“Ford, we drunkenly made out in college,” Fiddleford points out patiently.
“One time,” Ford insists. “That doesn’t mean anything. Two—three times, that’s inconclusive.”
“Statistically significant,” Fiddleford corrects.
“You and your quintuple-checking are not one to preach about 95% confidence intervals,” Ford huffs. It earns him a smile, so Ford drops the subject. Well, at least he’s certain in Stan’s sexuality. He didn’t watch him painfully flirt with girls all through high school for nothing. And that one boy who used to be a lifeguard at Glass Shard beach.
Ford hesitates, and starts a new page in his journal.
It’s late; morale is at an all time low. The giant bat they had been studying lunged at them unexpectedly, and Fiddleford and his fragile heart had been at the epicenter of the attack. They had all escaped unscathed, but Fiddleford’s eyes had remained haunted.
He had shrugged off Ford’s attempts at help—kindly, but Ford knows he has a tendency to offer solutions over a shoulder for support. So, instead, he’s given him space to compress, but it’s been thirty minutes and Fiddleford is still outside, sitting on the porch’s edge and staring vacantly into the woods’ darkness.
Ford pokes his head outside to call him back into the warmth of the house, but his words die when he realizes Stan is already there.
His brother had settled beside Fiddleford, not quite looking at him but not quite looking away either. Curtly, he lights a cigarette, then offers the pack to Fiddleford. “Y’look like you need it,” he says, voice so low that Ford strains to hear it.
After a beat, Fiddleford takes one. “I’m fine. Just shaken up.” He sticks the cigarette in his mouth, then curses as he fumbles with the lighter, fingers trembling.
Gently, Stan wraps his hand around Fiddleford’s. He eases the lighter out of his grip and lights the cigarette in Fiddleford’s mouth with one smooth motion. A spark blossoms between them, warm-gold against the crisp autumn night.
Fiddleford doesn’t meet Stan’s eyes as he breathes out white smoke. They stand there together, quiet, and Ford retreats back inside.
It doesn’t feel quite right to pen in the observation, so Ford instead chooses to mark down the date. But even that causes his throat to close up. He snaps the journal shut and tells himself that no one would mind an obstruction of data, just this once.
When Ford wakes up, it feels like an alien spaceship has crashed directly on top of his head. He groans and pushes himself up, forehead pulsing painfully, and hands grip his shoulders to force him back down.
“Oh, no you don't,” Fiddleford scolds him. “You’re running a high fever and you need rest.”
Ford opens his mouth to argue but the lights are making his eyes swim. He squeezes them shut again, only to almost immediately drift off once more, as hushed voices and worried hands prod at him in the background.
When Ford finally wakes once more, the sun has gone down. Fiddleford is sitting at his bedside, wringing out a damp cloth. The door clatters open and Stan walks in, carrying two bowls.
“Is he still out?” Ford watches blurrily through barely-opened eyes as Stan sets one bowl down on the nightstand, then hands the other to Fiddleford.
“What’s this?” Fiddleford asks, curious.
Stan shrugs. “What Ma used to make anytime we got sick. Thought Ford could use a pick-me-up— and you too.”
Through Ford’s haze, he sees Fiddleford smile at Stan, unabashed and open. The kind that’s too honest and sweet to be so freely given over a bowl of soup. The kind of smile that says, god, what would I do without you?
Stan must notice too because his ears flush. Those practiced walls start to close in, but they crack almost immediately as he ducks away from Fiddleford’s gaze.
Ford lurches upright.
“Ford–” Fiddleford chides.
Does Stan truly not see the unabashed affection that Fiddleford gives him? Has Fiddleford never realized how expertly he’s managed to crack into Stan’s hardened exterior? Ford feels lightheaded. Or maybe that’s just the fever.
“You two—” he manages. “You’re—”
“He’s hallucinating, I think,” Stan says, and waves a hand in front of Ford’s face. “I knew I shouldn’t have given him a double-dose of cough syrup.”
“You did what?” Fiddleford cries.
“I thought it’d cure him in double the time!” Stan argues and Fiddleford elbows him right in the rib.
They’re like a married couple, Ford thinks, deliriously, as Stan unceremoniously crams a spoonful of soup into Ford’s mouth, and the scalding broth almost—almost—makes him forget his breakthrough.
He spends the next night drafting up his thesis. Months of observation, all distilled into a research paper that would no doubt make his PI weep real tears. His Muse tries to talk to him about the portal, but he waves him away.
“I’ve never done psychology before,” he realizes with utter glee, as his Muse forlornly traces over abandoned math equations.
Across a booth at Greasy’s, Ford slides the finished project over to Fiddleford. “I wrote this for you.”
“For me?” Fiddleford blinks at the hefty research paper. “Is this that secret project that you keep working on?”
“Yes–no–” Ford tilts his head. “Just read it through, please. I think you’ll find it enlightening.”
Fiddleford flips to the first page and begins to read. Logically, Ford should leave him in peace, but morbid curiosity has him watching Fiddleford’s every reaction.
By the first page, Fiddleford’s eyes are wide in disbelief. Towards the end of the second, his cheeks have flushed a dark red. By the time he’s finished the third page and made it halfway through the fourth, his fingers are shaking, and he sets down the paper.
“Ford,” Fiddleford begins, with a quiet anger that Ford hasn’t heard in a long time. “What’s all this?”
“An unbiased document detailing your relationship with my brother?” Ford attempts.
“This is—” Fiddleford throws the research paper down on the table. “—wildly unprofessional. It’s filled with baseless accusations, uninformed conjectures—” He holds up a page and points aggressively at it. “This is a chart documenting every time I stared at Stan’s hands.”
“It started to get weird after the fourth time.”
Fiddleford lets his head drop into his hands. “For the sake of our friendship, I’m gonna forget you showed me this, alright?”
“I should have given it to Stan first,” Ford mutters to himself and Fiddleford’s face whitens.
“You can’t let him read this,” he says in a rush.
Is this how Einstein felt when he penned his equation of mass-energy equivalence? Rosalind Franklin’s euphoria when she x-rayed DNA’s double helix? “So there is something!” he declares and Fiddleford groans.
“What do you want to hear?” he mutters. “That your brother and I had some sordid affair? That I got wasted at a bar after my divorce, slept with the first guy I bumped into, then woke up with my wallet empty?”
“Oh. That is…” Ford says. “He pickpocketed you?”
Fiddleford covers his face with his hands. “And stole my wedding ring,” he mumbles. “Had to buy a replacement before Emma-May noticed.” Ford starts to speak, but Fiddleford beats him to it. “There’s nothing between us anymore,” he says firmly. “Outdated research is a liability.”
He tries to push the paper back, but Ford shakes his head. “Keep it,” he insists. “I’d like Stan to read it, but it’s in your hands.”
Their lunch arrives, fresh from the kitchen. Ford begins to eat while Fiddleford thumbs at the paper, expression unreadable.
This is what Fiddleford doesn’t tell Ford:
The year is 1981. California. Fiddleford is at the first seedy bar he stumbled across, in weak efforts to drown his failings in alcohol. It’s a dingy place, but he’d rather be here than under Emma-May’s scrutinization.
“You don’t love me,” she had told him softly, as if it were another morning in their picture-perfect house. “You never loved me. Where can we go from here?”
Fiddleford had looked away. “I’m sorry.”
And when Emma-May had smiled wryly, she’d looked like the same sweet girl from his childhood, the one who would kick his shoes playfully during service. “I don’t think I ever loved you, either.”
Fiddleford raises a glass to his lips. Pitiful, that’s what he is.
The heat and noise of the bar is cloying, compounding the nauseating cocktail of dread and anxiety in his stomach. He stands up, drink half-finished, and closes out his tab halfheartedly. He’s almost to the door when there’s a commotion from across the bar, and he turns just in time to see a bottle smash over the head of a man in a ripped jacket.
“Yeah, and fuck you too!” the man is yelling at his assailants as he backs out of the bar. He collides into Fiddleford as he does so, and balks at the sight of him.
“Shit, my bad,” he mutters.
“It’s fine,” Fiddleford says. “Wasn’t payin’ attention to—” His eyes lock with the shocking warm brown of Ford’s. No—it’s not Ford, but the stranger's face bears a striking resemblance. He’s broader, with a certain roughness that would be foreign on Ford’s features.
Something jumps in Fiddleford’s throat. He pushes it down.
“Need some help with that?” Fiddleford gestures to the gash on the man’s forehead.
“What?” the man frowns, then touches his head like he’s surprised to find blood there. “Nah, it’s nothing—”
“Please.” The word comes out strangled. “I need to be useful right now.”
Fiddleford’s desperation must wear out the stranger’s own wariness, because, after a grueling hesitation, he gives an abrupt nod. “Fine. As long as you’re quick with it.”
The rickety corner store down the street is still open at this time, lights flickering. Fiddleford buys a pack of bandages and disinfectant, and the man—Stan, he learns—throws down a wad of cash in exchange for two beer bottles.
There’s nowhere for them to go, so Stan, unperturbed, sits down on the street curb. He cracks one beer bottle open to take a swig at it, then offers the other to Fiddleford.
Fiddleford takes it, but doesn’t open it. Instead, he curves his fingers under Stan’s jaw and tilts it to examine the wound. He prefers working with oil over blood, but it still feels good to help. To fix. “Should I bother asking what all that was about?”
“Rough night,” Stan says evasively. “Not that you seem to be doing any better.”
Fiddleford’s never been one to air out his business but it’s strangely freeing to confide in a stranger. “My wife served me papers this morning.” He finishes bandaging the gash, then cracks open a bottle himself. “Wasn’t much of a surprise, but it still didn’t feel too good.”
“Eh, marriage is a sham.” Stan waves a lazy hand. “Every relationship goes downhill with commitment."
Fiddleford laughs and takes a drink. “I reckon that says more about you than anything else.”
“What can I say, I’m a free spirit.” Stan cracks a grin. There’s something fragile hiding in the white of his teeth, and it sends Fiddleford’s stomach swooping.
The sky crackles above them, and Stan furrows his eyebrows as rain begins to steadily fall. “Just our luck, huh?” he mutters, heaving himself up.
Fiddleford clicks his tongue. “The bandage’s gonna get wet. Let me drive you home, my car’s just up the block.”
“I have half a mind to think you’re some serial killer,” Stan says as they hurry inside Fiddleford’s car. He closes the car door with a heavy thunk, and rests his head back. “Usually, I don’t get this lucky.”
“Lucky?” Fiddleford repeats, taking off his glasses to clean them on his shirt. It doesn’t do much good; everything is soaked with rainwater. When he perches them back on his nose, Stan is still staring at him.
“Yeah,” Stan says, after a beat. “I just usually don’t meet people this nice.”
“I’m not nice.” Fiddleford rests his arm on the steering wheel. “I just…” He takes in a breath. “I think I’m a bit of a weak person.”
Stan tilts his head. He looks younger in the warm yellow light of Fiddleford’s car, less battered by the world. “I don’t really know you,” he begins, “but I wouldn’t call you weak. Slightly insane for giving me the time of day, maybe.”
Fiddleford shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he replies. “I feel weak. I don’t want to go home just yet.”
Stan just nods. A terrible understanding passes between them. If they never leave this car, perhaps whatever the world throws at them will cease for the time being.
Fiddleford wets his lips as Stan’s gaze settles on him, heavy and weighted. What a strange thing, to be seen. “I’m gonna do something stupid,” he starts, slow and deliberate. He reaches out, and the cold metal of his ring catches on the rise of Stan’s cheekbone.
Stan shudders. Fiddleford’s thumb moves to rest against his lips, and they part slightly under his touch. Fiddleford inhales sharply. Well, he’s already damned, isn’t he?
Stan kisses back with an eagerness unbefitting the grit in his eyes. It hits him in a rush; how he can feel Stan’s breath quicken, his pulse jump, the way his body gives under Fiddleford’s touch. He cards his fingers through Stan's hair, swallows down the low noise it earns him. It has been a long, long time since he's kissed anyone like this.
Stan pulls back, face flushed. “I have a motel room nearby,” he explains. His fingers flex at where they’re gripping Fiddleford’s shirt collar. “If you don’t want to go home just yet…”
Perhaps a wiser man would dare not to indulge, but in this moment, Fiddleford wants nothing more than to drown.
Fiddleford wakes up alone the next morning with a raging headache and a wallet twenty dollars lighter, and swears never again.
Ford is right about one thing, Fiddleford is loath to admit, and it’s that Stan deserves to know.
“Your brother found out.” Fiddleford crosses his arms, leaning against the kitchen doorframe. Stan’s at the kitchen table, detailing this month’s finances on a notepad, blissfully unaware of Fiddleford’s own emotional turmoil.
“He won’t miss one gold statue,” Stan says dismissively. “I used the money to fix the stove.”
“About us,” Fiddleford clarifies and Stan stiffens.
“You told him?”
Fiddleford glares. “What, that you robbed me blind? I hardly needed to, when he’s been suspecting us for months.”
“You needed a rebound and I needed extra money for pizza,” Stan snaps. “There’s nothing else to it.”
Fiddleford dumps Ford’s paper on the table. “Try convincing him of that.”
As Stan skims the paper, eyes dark, Fiddleford clears his throat. “So? What should we do?”
Wordlessly, Stan taps at a passage. Fiddleford leans over his shoulder to read.
The modern era paints the commitment of love to be largely transactional, whether that be through rings or paperwork or the exchange of names. Yet there is another virtue far more powerful than erotic desire or unconditional affection. How thrilling it must be, to know one’s every defense can all but crumble under the caring eye of another. This study proposes a different form of love—a love in being seen.
“He’s a goddamn genius.” Fiddleford’s tongue feels thick. “He might be hopeless with people, but…he knows us.”
Stan draws a hand over his face. “He’s trying to help us,” he admits, “in his own Ford way.” He flips the paper over, looking mildly ill. He’s trying to escape; Fiddleford can see that now.
He can let him, in the same way Stan had ran out of that motel room because one weighty conversation was too much for him to bear. Or, he can be brave for the both of them.
“So,” he begins, sliding into the seat across from Stan. “Page 12. You like when I challenge you, apparently.”
Stan huffs out a laugh. “What are you trying to say?”
Fiddleford raises an eyebrow. “I’m saying we trust in the evidence for once.”
“I still think everything goes to shit with commitment,” Stan warns him. “It’s hard to trust in any of this—to trust in you.”
“And I’ve got a weak will when it comes to anything new,” Fiddleford covers Stan’s hand with his, running a tentative thumb over scarred knuckles, “but we’re both still here, aren’t we?”
Stan doesn’t smile, not exactly, but his eyes do soften. He takes Fiddleford’s hand, and he doesn’t pull away.
In all of Ford’s years as a researcher, no study has ended as unsatisfying as this one. But it does happen, even to academia’s best and brightest. Life moves on, and he must as well.
“Someone grab our lunches,” he says absentmindedly, shoving his journal into his backpack. There’s an alien wreckage waiting to be explored, if only they could get out the door on time. His Muse will be happy he’s finally back on track.
“It’s Fiddleford’s responsibility to carry that shit,” Stan complains.
“I’m not your damn mother,” Fiddleford snaps. “I’m already carrying our field equipment–”
“Well, if you needed help you could’ve said so—” Stan swipes three paper bags from the fridge and tosses it into his pack.
Ford really wishes they could just get along. He taps his feet impatiently as they fumble to get ready. Stan half-heartedly ties his laces, as he’s known to do. Fiddleford, true to habit, double-checks he has all gadgets on hand before he zips up his bag. And, like clockwork, Stan adjusts Fiddleford’s crooked glasses, who swipes a casual kiss on Stan’s cheek in thanks.
“What?” Ford shrieks.
Fiddleford rolls his eyes and Stan cackles, clapping Ford on the shoulder. “Save it for the next paper.”