Fiddleford H. Mcgucket

“Heh, I got a few inches taller! Well, if I hold a grudge against you I’d have to hold one on Gideon still, and Pacifica which I don’t sooo… We’re okay! Plus you were hungry, it happens. Waddles is an adorable pig after all.” She keeps this warm approach as her feet tap on the ground idly; a hum in her words.

This was their second year coming back to Gravity Falls, and she had picked up a habit of sorts. Not that anyone needed to know, nope. No one. 

“I picked up gardening, starting to help Melody and Soos make the shack look even better!”

Perhaps she could offer him a drink at this point, it was kind of awkward just standing here after all. “Hey, are you thirsty by any chance? I made a whole pitcher of tea.”

Fiddleford chuckled a little as Mabel proclaimed to be a few inches taller. He looked interested when Mabel talked about how she had picked up gardening.

“Oh? Is that so? I’ve been doin’ a little gardenin’ myself back at my mansion alongside the other gardeners. Yard’s a bit too big for me to keep up with all by myself, but it’s kinda relaxin’. Plus, I sure do love seein’ things sprout after all the hard work. I don’t reckon ya need any help, do ya? I’d be happy to offer ya a hand with your garden if you’d like!”

Was this a hotel? Was it someone’s mansion? Either way wherever she was was huge. The woman was hungry too, but she didn’t know where a kitchen or perhaps a snack bar would be.

She wandered around in hopes of finding something that could jog her memory and tell her where she could be. Nothing helped however. Eventually she came to a room. A workshop? No no it looked more like some odd twist between that and some mad scientist’s laboratory.

There was an old man who she didn’t know but he seemed to have a friendly twinkle in his eye. She hesitantly approached with an awkward smile on her face.

“Um, hello? Sir?” She waved to get the man’s attention, “I’m sorry for like, bothering you but I think I’m lost?” Her stomach growled, “For that matter- is there like, anywhere to eat? I got money if that’s an issue.”

Fiddleford was looking over a blueprint for a new machine while hamboning some calculations. As such, he didn’t hear Pacifica come in, at first. Then, he heard her voice, quiet and uncertain. He stopped hamboning and turned around, offering her a smile.

“Why, howdy, Pacifica! Awful nice day out to-” He paused, noticing the awkward smile on her face and... had she called him sir? He watched her, eyes widening slightly as she apologized for bothering him, explained that she thought she was lost, and asked him if there was anything to eat. 

“Oh,” Fiddleford said, biting back a gasp. “Oh no.”

He almost ran to her, ready to check her temperature, to ask over a dozen questions, but he restrained himself. He forced a smile.

“It’s all right, hon. Ya ain’t botherin’ me none, and ya needn’t worry neither. This is your home. You’re safe here.” He swallowed and walked past her, gesturing for her to follow and looking back every now and then to make sure she was. “Let’s get ya somethin’ to eat, and we’ll talk, okay?”

Pacifica isn’t exactly happy to be stuck at another one of these gatherings. After her father had stupidly invested in Bill and they’d lost a good chunk of their fortune, they’d become laughingstocks. So instead of being the center of attention, she was leaned against a wall, glancing around coolly and trying to pretend like she doesn’t care.

And then McGucket walks over, all dressed up. She’d half-expected to catch him with a trimmer beard, but of course her hadn’t done a thing to it. She smiles wide when he walks over. She laughs when he talks in a circle. “You look pretty fancy too, McGucket!” She bites at her bottom lip nervously, “So, uh, what are you doing here?”

Fiddleford beamed when the young Northwest girl told him he looked fancy, too. He had tried his best. “Awfully kind of ya to notice! I ain’t never been to one of these here fancy shindigs before.”

He scratched at the back of his neck, then blinked. “Oh, that’s right. Maybe ya haven’t heard. Y’see, I made a lot of money a short while back selling some patents to the U.S. guv’ment, and now I’m a billionaire? Fancy that, huh?”

She blinks, looking at him with a softer expression as she smiles; patting his arm. “It’s alright Mcgucket, and I don’t think Waddles is mad at you really, isn’t that right Waddles?” The pig next to her gives a noise, snorting out before sitting down. Good pig. 

“So, with that out of the way! How have you been?”

Fiddleford brightened when Mabel patted his arm.

“You’re a sweet girl, Mabel. I appreciate ya holdin’ no hard feelings.” He smiled at Mabel, then smiled at Waddles. “And ya, too, of course, Waddles.”

He straightened his hat. “Oh, I’ve been good. Better than good, and better than I deserve.” 

Dale handed over the memory gun, and at first, as Fiddleford looked uncertain and expressed unfamiliarity with it, Dale had this awful sinking feeling. Already teetering on the edge of dread and remorse, the idea that he’d gotten bad intel and involved another innocent was more than his stomach could take. He felt and struggled to hold back a rise of anxious gastric distress, swallowing hard, feeling the sourness burning up and down his chest.  But then, thank God, the hillbilly kept talking, and as he spoke, it became clear that he DID know the device, that he understood it. Then Dale took a long, relieved breath and started to settle back into the hay bale.  Well, that only lasted until Fiddleford mentioned the thing could potentially be used for mass mind control and nervous system manipulation. Then Dale’s stomach started doing gymnastics again. “Please, no,” he muttered, his paranoid and trained mind already leaping ahead, trying to piece together: had it happened? If so, when? Was that how Preston got people back on his side? Did he make them FORGET Weirdmageddon entirely? Was he smart enough to have done that? Was BILL? Bill was, but could he have explained the technical side clearly enough?  By the end of it, BOTH of them looked like jittery wrecks. Dale quickly pushed the gun back into his backpack. “I’ll tell you everything, but you might want to sit down for it.”  And then he did so. He told Fiddleford everything he knew: Bill’s return, Preston’s involvement, the new family caught up on the wheel, the actions of the cult across town, where they were hiding out, the movement of the statue and artifacts, how they’d stolen the one he had in his possession. “There’s no doubt in my mind Preston and Bill are working together to reactivate Weirdmageddon,” Dale finally said, as he scraped his hand along the top of his head, fingers clenching in his hair. “Preston thinks he can get his wealth and prestige back from Bill.” “Please, Mr. McGucket, if you can think of any way to jam this weapon somehow… they’re counting on it to keep people quiet about their plans, and they’re still using it on people all over town as we speak. We think they have more than one. We need to hit them hard, and fast, before they can take any more minds.” He lifted his head and tried to catch McGucket’s eyes. “Please help us.” 

Fiddleford kept tugging at the brim of his hat, looking for all the world as if he was about to rip the brim right off. “Y-yeah, of course.”

He sat on a hay bale directly to the side of Dale, listening and watching. His leg was bouncing wild as Dale talked, and he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes from darting to the backpack where the gun resided. 

“This is terribibble,” Fiddleford said, pulling his hat right off of his head. His hand instantly went to what remained of his hair and tugged.

“How could anyone do this? Throw their lot in with that - that demon.” He tugged at his hair a little harder and closed his eyes tight. It looked like he was trying very hard not to hyperventilate. He sent a rough slap down on his knee in an attempt to keep it from bouncing. He looked away from Dale when the other tried to meet his eyes.

“P-please, call me Fiddleford. I’m glad ya brought this to my attention, Dale. I think I might be able to help, but I’ma gonna need that there gun to make sure I got it right. It’s, uh, gonna be a bit tricky. Stoppin’ the memory-erasin’ gun is almost like tryin’ to stop a regular ‘ole gun. Most of the time, best ya can do is wear protection like a bullet-proof vest or in this case, maybe some protective headgear-”

Fiddleford’s brow furrowed in concentration. “But since the memory-erasin’ gun uses electrical signals instead of bullets... Perhaps I could build an EMP that’ll knock ‘em out. Problem with an EMP is it don’t really discriminate. It could take me a while to make it so that the EMP narrows its focus to the memory-erasin’ gun.”

Dale wasn’t sure what to expect as he nervously waited in the front hall, bag containing the memory gun heavy across his lap. He half expected a time traveller, or Doctor Who or something - and he was sitting on a chaise lounge eyeing the glowing circuit-lines on the wall, they almost seemed familiar somehow…  Then the owner of the house arrived, and Dale immediately felt his gut sinking. Fiddleford was so.. geez, so nice. He seemed kindly, if a little on the side of goofy hayseed, and was so welcoming that Dale started to feel guilty, knowing what he was going to have to say. The young man stood up and tried to steel himself, putting his bag back over his shoulder - he wore the typical outfit of the area, though was that an Edgy on Purpose hoody with a stitched heart hanging off him along with his flannels and jeans?  He followed Fiddleford, glancing now and then at the mansion, and as they reached the grand lobby, Dale smiled, slightly painfully.  “I’m really sorry about this; I would have liked to do this differently.” He shook his head at the offer of water and approached one of the hay bales, setting himself on it and pulling his bag back into his lap.  He unzipped his bag and drew out the memory gun, handling it like he expected it to go off randomly; he was careful to keep it pointed away from both himself and Fiddleford.  “My name is Dale, and I came to you because I was told you invented this. I was told this by a Stanford Pines from another world.” He lifted his hands, and the dreadful device, toward McGucket. “I’m really, really hoping you know how to stop it, or can create something that will block out its effects.”

Fiddleford could see how the smile didn’t reach the young man’s eyes, and his heart went out to him.

“Don’t ya go apologizin’ for needin’ help,” he said, trying to sound as gentle as he could. Years of screaming himself hoarse, tobacco chewing, and the harsh chemicals of the moonshine he drank gave his voice an almost terrifying quality. He gave a nod of his head when Dale rejected his offer for water and waited patiently as the young man unzipped his bag.

For a moment, there was a blank, slightly puzzled look on Fiddleford’s face when Dale pulled out the gun-shaped device. He listened to Dale’s explanation carefully, the confusion in his face deepening.

“Hm, so, this is our first time meetin’, then?” He gingerly accepted the device from Dale. “A Stanford from another world? He’s sure I was the one who invented this and not the Fiddleford from his world?”

Fiddleford’s brow furrowed, and he carefully inspected the device, scratching at his head from underneath his hat and adjusting his spectacles. “Hm, I don’t recall buildin’ somethin’ like this. Looks like some kinda ray gun.”  He messed with the dial on the side, noting the letters showing up on the screen. “Hm, interesting that ya can utilize an input here. Display screen for confirmation of the input. I’m guessing that’s for precision. Targetin’ something or other.”

He turned the gun over in his hand carefully. “Fascinatin’. Looks like it’s got a port here and a frequency tuner. So, it can probably be used to amplify the gun’s effects on a massive scale.” Fiddleford reached into his pocket pulling out a custom multi-tool and fiddling with the device. “But what does it do?” he murmured.

He seemed thoroughly absorbed in his study of the object, almost seeming to forget Dale was even there. “Hm, there’s my initials just inside there. Y’know, this all does seem kinda familiar. A storage unit? Electricity. Loop circuit-” He prodded at the device. “Ah, yep. Doesn’t seem like it was designed to be lethal. Probably don’t even hurt hardly. Yeah, I’d say it’s probably used to manipulate electrical signals in the body. Kinda hard to narrow it down from there. Maybe it’s for nerve pain, seizure control or induction though I can’t imagine any me would do a somethin’ like that, or given the storage unit, it might be possible you could just zap away someone’s mem-”

Recognition flickered in his eyes along with a flurry of emotions: terror and regret chief among them. It seemed he had even stopped breathing for a moment.

“Oh.”

That’s right. This was the reason he still had so many memory lapses in the first place. Of course. How could he forget? Well, he knew how. He was holding it. It was right there.  But Mabel had destroyed it, hadn’t she? But no, it was right there. Intact.

“Oh no.” His hands started to tremble, and he handed the device back to Dale carefully because he was sure he would drop it otherwise. He half-turned away from Dale and put his hand through his sparse hair under his hat, tugging at it. Yet, he couldn’t fully keep his gaze off the memory-erasing gun.

“W-where did ya get this? I thought - I -” He wondered how many of these he had built. How many? He couldn’t remember. He wish he knew. He wish he could remember, but he didn’t know.

He shook his head. “I- I did invent it. Years ago. It’s one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made... ”

“Jesus fucking-”

An exterminator was going to have to be called. Stat.

“Did you like, have to test this in the manor?” There was a multitude of things Pacifica loved about Mcgucket. His kindness, his intelligence, this however- was not one of those things.

Her phone was produced, she was now looking up local pest control companies. “Well now I like, need to get rid of all of them.”

“Now, Pacifica, ya can’t go a cursin’ Jesus’ name like that. My momma used to tell me it’d make Baby Jesus cry, and we can’t go a-havin’ that.”

“’Course it never seemed to stop my uncle, bless his heart, but he ain’t exactly what ya call role model material.”

Fiddleford put his hands up in a surrender motion. “I didn’t think somethin’ like this would happen. I did a lot of calculations just to make sure I didn’t end up accidentally infesting the whole town with a bee swarm of town-destroying proportions. I also set it so I didn’t end up accidentally attracting bees to my workshop. And that’s why we’re not up to our ears in bees here downstairs.”

@hillbillyisms  As Fiddleford settled in to his favorite chair, in front of a nice warm fireplace, ready to enjoy some lazy banjo plucking after a delicious dinner, one of his help staff approached him. Keeping to a respectable distance, the formally-dressed servant asked, “Sir? I’m terribly sorry to disturb you, but a young man has arrived and is asking to see you. He says it’s quite urgent. Shall I ask him to return at another time?” 

It had been a great day. He spent some time helping his son in his shop near the lake, he had made great progress on his brand new robot in the workshop, Soos had invited him over to the Mystery Shack to watch a new anime with him (and he’d even gotten Stanford to sit down and watch it with them; though, he suspected Stanford was bored with the show), he’d had a great breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and now... Now, he was just relaxing. The chair was plush and comfortable, the fire crackled, the blanket on his lap was soft and heavy. The soothing sound of his banjo reminded him that everything was going to be okay. Maybe this would be one of those nights where he wouldn’t have a hard time sleeping. He smiled at the thought.

He blinked when one of the butlers, Geoffrey, approached him and told him of a young man at the door asking to see him because it was urgent. He stopped plucking on his banjo and let it lean against the side of the chair. “Aw, don’t ya worry about it none. You’re never disturbin’ me, Geoffrey. Why, heck, you’re such a quiet fellow; I can’t imagine ya disturbin’ anyone! Now, then, I ain’t never one to turn down someone in need of help! Of course I’ll see him.” Fiddleford hurried to the door, keeping in mind that the young man had said it was urgent that he see him. He opened the door with a soft smile already on his face. He took a quick look at the young man and wondered if they had met before. He had no memory of such a meeting, and he did not recognize him in the slightest, but he knew from experience that his memory wasn’t reliable in such matters. “Why, howdy, stranger! Geoffrey was just tellin’ me ya had something urgent to tell me?” He opened the door wider and made a motion to usher the young man inside. “Come in, come in.” The grand lobby of the mansion had definitely changed since Fiddleford had moved in. The decor had gone from pretentiously rich, classy, and snobbish to some odd mixture of southern country style and a futuristic sci-fi looking style. There was also the occasional random hay bale. For some reason. 

Although, Fiddleford often enjoyed a good get-together, he couldn’t help but find himself feeling more than a little nervous about this particular get-together. He had been invited to what, as far as he could discern, was some kind of rich person’s convention (formal attire required). He couldn’t have felt anymore like a fish out of water. He had dressed as nicely as he could for the event (he’d actually put on a suit and tie for the first time in over 30 years), but he looked disheveled compared to the fancy get-ups everyone else was wearing. Still, he didn’t regret attending the event as of yet. It seemed like it would’ve been rude to decline. Still, he didn’t know anyone there. 

And then, he spotted Pacifica. His eyes lit up. He hadn’t seen her since Weirdmageddon! He started to make his way over to her. 

Fiddleford McGucket didn’t want to investigate what was happening at the creepy shack in the woods. It had seemed to him that nobody really knew what happened up there, and he, along with the other members of the Society of the Blind Eye, had agreed that it was probably for the best. Besides, for a while, it seemed that there was nothing going on, and no telling whether its occupant was alive or dead. 

And then, word began to spread about a mysterious man setting up tours of the shack - the so-called Murder Hut. Mysteries. Oddities. Creepy crawlies. This all put the Society of the Blind Eye on edge. What were the townspeople seeing? And did it need to be unseen?

As leader of the group, Fiddleford had been nominated to investigate. Although, it made him exceedingly nervous just thinking about going near the shack, he knew he could not refuse. Members of the Blind Eye were beginning to question whether he was truly capable of leading, and he’d always had trouble with disappointing people.