#FiddleTurnip backstory
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Kinship
(This is a snippet from a larger work. There are some references to details from the canon of the story that aren't explained, but the bulk of it can be understood without context.)
(This is unedited! Please be kind)
"Hey, Pines." Sierra poked her head around the stacks.
Stanford looked up from his book. The library was both quieter and louder than usual today; so many students were out at the protests that the remaining staff were barely enforcing the rules. He'd tuned out the world pretty thoroughly, and hearing his name pulled him him back with a slight shock.
"Uh, you got a phone call? It's McGucket. Seemed urgent."
"McGucket?" Stanford put down his pen. "He called the library?"
"To be fair, he knew you'd be here."
It was true. Stanford Pines didn't deviate from his own schedule by more than half an hour combined on any given day, and that was usually DD&MD related. It was library time. He was in the library.
He followed Sierra to the office where the phone was just lying on the desk. No reason to put it on hold; who else would call at this hour?
"Fiddleford? Speak up, the connection is bad - Slower, that's - yes, I can hear you now."
"P-pines, I'm sorry about this, I really am, I know your busy. But can you pick me up?"
"Pick you up?" Stanford didn't own a car, and busses would be running late today anyway. "I guess? Um, do I need to hire a cab, or something?"
Fiddleford's voice was trembling and as he spoke, he told Stanford that he had some money from busking in a box in the closet, he'd been kinda setting it aside but he wasn't sure how much it was- and Stanford suddenly realized exactly what was going on and that he was far more qualified to deal with it than Fiddleford.
-
Stanford didn't say anything when Fiddleford, exhausted and disheveled, was led to join him out front. He didn't look upset or particularly surprised. He didn't even look that put out, like this sort of thing was an average Tuesday for him.
Fiddleford gave them about a block, hands pushed hard in his pockets to keep them from tapping or shaking, before he braved a question: "How much do I owe you?"
"Don't worry about it," said Stanford, which probably meant either hardly anything or way, way too much. He'd pay it. He'd get a number out of him whether it was a nickle or the whole sum and he'd find a way to pay it. He was a working boy, darnit, no matter the reputation he got back at home for being too much a booknerd to know what the real world was like.
They walked silent, Fiddleford biting hard on his top lip, snapping his fingers quiet as he could in his pockets, willing himself not to cry.
Fiddleford had a bunch of reliable, affable fraternity brothers who had been at the protest and had plans in place for just this sort of situation that he was in. He probably should have called one of them instead of Stanford. If you had asked him why he didn't in the moment, Fiddleford wouldn't have had a good answer.
It was probably the situation with Will, though. Fiddleford felt babyish. He was eighteen now, he wasn't a kid anymore. He would always be the kid brother of his fraternity, though, and he heard the way the cops joked and lamented that he was dragged into this thing that he was clearly not able to understand. It was dumb. It was insulting. It was condescending. Maybe he agreed with them, even; he was a kid who got in over his head and got caught.
"I have three brothers," Stanford said suddenly.
It shocked Fiddleford out of his reverie. He stared at Stanford, who looked awkward and stiff but trying not to be.
He had never really volunteered information about himself before. They talked about school.
"Didn't know that," Fiddleford said.
"They aren't much like me," Stanford replied. "I'll call home now and then, but I'm going in a very different direction from the rest of the family. So there isn't much to talk about."
"Still. Family's family."
"I suppose."
There was history there, he could feel it. Long history. He wasn't sure if he'd been given an invitation to ask more, though, or if this was just a notice. Stanford was prickly, and he didn't really work like other folk.
"Anyway. When I say they're not like me, um."
Fiddleford waited. Listened.
"Look. It's not family policy to ask your brother to pay back bail."
Fiddleford gasped, caught it, didn't quite manage to stop it so much as made it a bizarre little hiss slash swallow. Stanford stopped walking, and aw, shucks, Fiddleford had first, hadn't he? Now Ford's cheeks were pink and his jaw was clenched and he was starting to look real upset and Fiddleford had been too quiet he had to say something-
"Look," Stanford said in a clipped voice. "We can't all be from respectable families. And I'm past that. And you are hardly one to judge right now, are you."
"N-n-no, no, I don't - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off l-like that, I-"
"Come on." Stanford kept walking, faster now, and Fiddleford ran a few steps to get in pace, and felt like a right fool because all this time feeling sorry for himself for being the countrified pig boy in a rich Yankee town and here he'd flipped that awful feeling right around on someone else. He took a second to get his words in order, to make sure he knew what he was saying.
"Look, Pines, that ain't why I seemed... shocked," he said, letting his accent hang a bit heavier because his words always felt more earnest when they sounded like home. "It's not that."
"Fine." Stanford clearly didn't believe him, and didn't even feel the need to dignify him by arguing. Fiddleford steadied his nerves again.
"I'm just, I'm glad I called you."
"Glad that my sordid background could he useful." He sounded even more bitter now, and he was walking even faster, like he wanted to leave Fidds behind, but Fiddleford wasn't having it.
"I mean I'm glad you trust me," he blurted out.
Stanford slowed, then stopped. His face was a mask. He stared straight forward. He wouldn't look at Fiddleford.
"I, it's just, in the country. In Tennessee. Family's everything, it's all you got. And I'm.... I wouldn't ever dare tell these college boys about the things my kin got up to, because, well, because..."
He trailed off.
He didn't know how to say it.
"Well, you know how they'd be, I guess."
Stanford sighed. "Yes. I suppose I do."
"I don't wanna be like that. I, as much as I wanna fit in, I don't want to be..."
"You don't want to be a traitor." Stanford's voice was perfectly clear and very quiet. Fiddleford noticed his hands; they were clenched hard at his side.
"Yeah." Fiddleford kicked the sidewalk with one beat-up shoe. "You're treating me like kin, Pines. I don't ever plan to forget that."
Stanford sighed, and kept walking. "Kinship isn't everything. It's not wrong to move on."
"Still. Still, I'm not gonna forget it. I owe you, Pines, more than I can say."
#FiddleTurnip backstory#gravity falls fanfiction#fiddleford mcgucket#stanford pines#Backupsmore university#ambiguous 1970s political event#Fiddleford is Very Young#He's legit like four years younger than most of his peers#he's only slightly younger than Stanford#Because they both tested out of a ton of classes
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