#fiddlemarch

“Don’t you hear the bees a humming And the sound of banjo strumming?

Honey, close your sleepy eyes And gently, softly toddle off to sleep.”

Fiddleford stroked the banjo strings gently and smiled at the toddler that was curled up in his bed so he could face his father. The boy hugged the teddy bear in his arms tightly and seemed to hold onto every word that his father sung. The same old lullaby since he was a baby.

The toddler’s eyes started to slowly drift down as the soft strumming of the familiar instrument seemed to rock him to sleep. His father’s voice seemed to act like a second blanket that made him feel secure and happy. Tate rubbed his face and snuggled down further into the star patterned sheets as his dad started the next line.

“And a thousand angel voices are in tune. When they come out and rejoices by the moon.

When we pass the pearly gateway, Betcha we won’t notice straight ‘way How as Heaven ain’t a great way off from June.”

The eight-year-old in the bed seemed to be asleep and Fiddleford slowly stopped playing the instrument in his lap. He let the banjo rest as he watched the boy’s chest rise in fall slowly as he hung onto the little teddy bear loosely. His heart hurt with how much he was going to miss his son but Ford needed his help and with how things already were at home this was probably for the best. A little break would not hurt anyone.

With a soft smile, the man stood up and moved to leave the room quietly.

“Dad?” A sleepy voice called out and stopped Fidds in his tracks.

Fiddleford looked over his shoulder at his son.

“Yes, Tate?” He whispered and made his way back over to the bed, “Ya’ need something, sugar cube?”

The boy rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked over at his father.

“You’ll be back soon, won’ ya?” Tate whispered.

“Of course, I will,” Fiddleford smiled and took his son’s hand, “I just gotta help my friend out with somethin’ and then I will be back before ya’ know it. You won’ even know I was gone.”

Tate gave a small smile but did not seem convinced. “When will you be back?” He asked quietly.

“If all goes according to plan I will be back next June,” Fidds said with a small smile, “But I will call you every day.”

“Promise?”

Fiddleford leaned over and kissed Tate’s head, “I promise. Now you get to sleep. Ya got school in the mornin’.”

The man moved to leave the room but a tug on his sleeve kept him in place.

“Can…can you finish the song?”

Fiddleford smiled softly and moved back into the chair he had occupied a moment ago. He settled the banjo back into his lap and plucked a few strings.

“Anything for you, Tater-tot.”

Tate smiled at the nickname and snuggled back down into the blankets as his father started to pluck the strings to the banjo. The soothing and familiar tone of the instrument lulling him slowly to sleep.

“Don’t you hear the bees a humming And the sound of banjo strumming?

Honey close your sleepy eyes And gently, softly toddle off to sleep.”

Tate stopped his footsteps as he walked around the new McGucket manor when he heard a familiar song from one of the rooms he had just passed. The man backed up slowly and looked into the room with interest. Even after so many years of the tune being lost to time he could recognize it instantly.

The man stared at the man that was plucking away at the strings in front of the fire. His father seemed to get younger as he sang the last few lines of the song. Tate suddenly felt like he was eight again and was about ready to get ready for bed so his dad could sing him to sleep.

Fiddleford let the last note die out on his own and stared ahead at the crackling flames. The old man did not even seem to know that his son stood in the doorway and watched him.

“Used to play that for ya’ every night,” Fidds said softly as he let his fingers brush over the strings, “Ever since ya were born. Put you right to sleep when I started to sing.”

Tate slowly moved into the room and took the other chair silently.

“Never got to that stage of life where ya’ would have fought me out of yer room to make me stop,” Fidds said sadly, “Or give ya’ the chance to have kids so you could sing it to ‘em.”

Fiddleford stopped his fingers and let the soft strum of the notes die.

“I’m sorry, Tate. I didn’ just ruin yer life; I ruined yours too.” Fiddleford said that words sadly and hugged the banjo close to him.

Tate frowned at his father and looked into the flames in front of the two of them. He had never been that good at words.

“That doesn’t matter, Dad. What matters is you are getting better and you shouldn’t be sorry for my bitterness over what had happened to you. I should have tried to help you but,” Tate took a breath, “I didn’t. I just pretended I did not know you.”

“Oh, sugar cube,” Fiddleford set the banjo down and put his hand on Tate’s shoulder, “That don’t mean nothing. I wouldn’t have tried to help me neither seeing how far gone I got. Heck, the fact that ya’ did stick around town and didn’ split is enough fer me to be grateful about.”

Tate looked over at his father and almost crumbled when he saw the man had just the same amount of love and affection in his eyes as when Tate was a child. Even after messing up, his father still loved him above everything in the world.

“I love ya’, Tate,” Fiddleford said as he tipped the hat up some.

Fiddleford snorted at the terrible joke while Stanford gave a deep sigh and shook his head. Around the room the response was pretty much the same; a few people laughed while others groaned. Mabel cracked up laughing at the front and clapped.

“Thanks,” Stan chuckled, “I worked hard on that pun but this isn’t about my tasteful jokes. Today is the day I have been waiting for since me and my nerdy bro turned thirteen.”

Stan looked at the two sitting next to him and smiled.

“Today my brother and my best friend tied and knot and I could not be happier,” The man chocked out. His eyes getting that misty look like when he was about to cry.

The man took a breath and looked back at the crowd.

“I know this is supposed to be me talking to you about funny stories about these two and all this stuff but,” Stan grinned and pulled out a little remote from his pocket, “I think it is better if I showed you all.”

In the back of the room, Carla McCorkle gave his boyfriend the thumbs up and hit the lights while a few screens lowered behind the main table.

“What is going on?” Fidds asked as he looked at the screens behind them.

“Stanley?”

“This is my present to ya both,” Stan said with a grin, “I’d turn your chairs around.”

The newlyweds looked at each other confused before doing what they were told and facing the screens.

As soon as the two were settled Stan hit a button on his remote and stepped away from the main table and a video began to play. Fiddleford gasped a little as the image of a familiar twelve-year-old boy appeared on the screen.

Stanford Pines was laying with his head over the end of a bunk bed. His glasses were slowly starting to slide off his face but the child did not seem to care with his eyes stuck to the video game in his hands.

“You excited to head to Gravity Falls?” A voice belonging to the camera owner asked the young child on the screen.

“I guess,” The child said with a shrug, “I don’t see why we have to be over there for our birthday.”

“Oh, come on, Sixer. This will be an adventure and who knows…maybe we will find you a girlfriend!”

The younger Stanford snorted and pushed the camera that had gotten way too close to his face away.

“Yeah right. Like anyone would want me as a partner.”

The video faded out and changed to a familiar attic room. It was covered in streamers and a few slices of abandoned cake were on plates on the floor. A young Stanley’s braces filled smile filled up most of the screen suddenly and made many people around the room laugh.

“Okay,” The Stan on the screen whispered, “So, today was our thirteenth birthday Sixer. I know, if you ever see this, you will probably kill me but…”

The young Stan looked across the attic room, out of the camera’s range. The smile on his face turned from mischievous to one of affection. The boy looked back at the screen and flipped the camera back around to show the forms of two sleeping people.

A younger Stanford and Fiddleford were sleeping soundly on the other bed in the room. Both children still had on their clothes that they had been dressed in for the party and were snuggling close.

“I had to capture this, Ford. You look so happy,” the younger Stan laughed behind the camera, “I mean, who knows, maybe I will just delete this later.”

Fiddleford felt his eyes get all misty as that video faded out slowly and pictures started to fill the screen. A hand on his shoulder pulled him back to the reality of sitting there at his wedding that all those memories playing on the screen had led up to. Stanford smiled at him with a teary-eyed expression and gently pulled him close.

A vide showed up again and the expression on the younger Fiddleford’s face made the man watching the screen groan. He knew this clip all too well from trying to edit it out of Stanley’s guide entirely.

The thirteen-year-old Fidds was sitting on a stump by the forest and watching something just off-screen.

“So, Fiddlenerd, what’s your favorite color?” Stan’s voice said from behind the camera.

“Ford,” the teen on the screen hummed with a love-sick smile on his face making the people watching the video laugh and Stanford pull his husband closer when the man hid his face in his arm.

The child on the screen’s smile dropped quickly as he became aware of the real question.

“Wait, what was the question again?”

The younger Stan giggled behind the camera, “Oh nothing, I got what I needed.”

“Stanley, what did you ask me? A-are you recording?”

The boy behind the camera giggled and the camera pointed and looked over at the boy Fidds had been staring at. The younger Ford was unaware of his best friend’s affections and was trying his best to capture a gnome.

The video faded out just as Fidds jumped Stanley and the camera fell to the ground.

The video went on with pictures and secretly recorded video chat segments that neither groom had been aware of but were happy to see. A few laughs were given when Stanford fell asleep at his desk while talking to Fiddleford; the giggles changes to ‘awes’ when the, then sixteen, Fidds gently smiled at the sleeping man and said ‘I love you’ before letting the call end.

The full video ended on a clip from Stan’s home High School graduation video. The teen had the camera bouncing around the shack before landing on Ford and Fidds who were hugging tight in the Shack’s hallway.

“Give us a kiss for the camera.”

The teenagers on the screen looked at each other curiously. With a smirk, the Fidds on the screen pulled Ford in for a kiss and Stan laughed in victory behind off screen. The wedding party cheered as well as the cheesy heart transition appeared on the screen when Ford dipped his, at the time boyfriend, and shoved a hand at the camera lenses. The screen went dark and the video ended.

The crowd clapped as the screens went up and the lights came back on. Fiddleford and Stanford did their best to regain themselves and wipe away the tears before they were noticed.

“I am bad with words but watching my brother and Fidds slowly grow up together and just fall more and more in love,” Stan said slowly as he wiped his eyes subtly, “It is something a brother can only dream of.”

Stanley looked at the two of them and smiled, “And, I mean it when I say, you two couldn’t have done better. Let the memories of the past be the building blocks of this marriage and let the future create more…or something cheesy like that.”

Stanley held up his glass and the rest of the wedding party did so as well.

“To these nerds and the happy future they are about to go into as husbands.”

The guest cheered.

Stanford and Fidds stood up and pulled Stanley into a hug.

“We are gonna have to talk to you about how it is wrong to record video calls,” Fiddleford whispered into Stanley ear with a laugh.

“Aw, come on, Fidds. You know you were happy I did.”

Fiddleford laughed and patted Stanley’s face as he released him from the hug. 

“Yeah…still doesn’t make it ethical.” 

“Since when as Stanley been ethical?” Stanford asked. 

Fiddleford sat at the desk in his motel room in the late hours of the night. The flickering bulb of the motel lamp was not helping his scattered mind focus on the scribbled ramblings written out in his own writing. He did not remember writing this note to himself but the chicken scratch was undeniably his.

GUNS AFFECT GETTING WORSE!

NEED TO FIX!

MUST STOP!

The man groaned and hid his face in his hands. His leg bounced widely and made his thin frame shake. He was barely in control of his own Society anymore and now he was going to have to go in there and ask for the gun back. The newer members barely believed he was the founder seeing how he would go into fits of insanity.

The insanity. That was the worst side-effect he noticed. There would be times in the day where he would just black out. Whatever he did during those times he did not know but it was severe.

His voice had been getting hoarser, his hair thinning, and the loss of his home was enough evidence to back him up. The man did not even remember where he got the hat that was not perched on his head.

Fiddleford shook his head and crumpled the note into a ball.

“I won’ do it. I can’ do it,” he muttered, “They won’ listen ta’ me.”

He turned his head to throw the ball into a waste-paper basket but frozen when he caught his own reflection. He was barely recognized the hillbilly that stared back at him. Gone was the young man that had barely reached his thirties, the man that was just beginning to see what life had to offer, and in that man’s place was an old hick that was nearing the end of life.

“They gotta,” he said to himself sadly and looked at the balled-up paper in his hands.

Slowly, he unfolded it and read the last words on the page.

SOCIETY MUST DISBAND!!!!

The man let the paper slide to the ground and he hid his face in his hands. He had to talk to Ivan tomorrow; Ivan would see reason.

A loud bang broke him from the shakily regained memory and he honed back into the present.

Someone had entered the room he was being held captive in and their slow, sure footsteps were only driving wedges of fear into him. At least he had some idea on what was happening around him.

This must be the result of him trying to stop the very Society he had created. The simple talk must have gone in a terrible direction to lead to this. Maybe he had gone into another one of his fits in front of the younger members and freaked them out. He just needed to find Ivan and reason with him; the kid would understand.

The footsteps that had ominously getting closer to him had stopped and silence returned to the room.

Fiddleford could sense a presence near him and heard something get picked up. The sound of a dial turning meant it was the very device he needed to avoid using at all costs; the gun.

The southerner’s nails dug into the arms of the chair he was restrained to as the cover was pulled away from his face. The sudden rush of being thrust into a world of color was daunting; his eyes rushing to take in and put to sight what he had heard and felt.

Just as Fidds had suspected he was in the hidden room of the museum where the Society met. It had taken a lot of work and ‘unseeing’ to set this whole place up to his liking but it had changed since then. The chair had been nice once, one for willing customers, now it held him prisoner. He did not even remember having straps added to it but he must have given the ‘okay’ at some point.

In the dim glow of the troches he found himself faced with the one person in his organization he thought he could really trust; Ivan. The gun was in the man’s hand and he had a face that was hard as stone.

“Ivan?” Fiddleford asked the question cautiously and looked around the room, “What’sa goin’ on? I coulda sworn I came in here to talk to ya’.”

“I know why you came, McGucket,” Ivan said slowly. The man moved over to the box that usually housed the memory gun and gently placed it inside.

“Ya’ do?”

Ivan did not grace Fiddleford with a response; his eyes fully on the gun that sat in the torch glow of the room.

“I followed you when you began to form this Society,” he said slowly, “Did not question when you began to take and use the gun whenever you felt that you needed it. I watched as you slowly deteriorated and yet you come here to destroy everything we have worked for just because you think that your own faults and mal-use have made you what you are now?”

Ivan turned on his heel and narrowed his eyes at the man restrained to the chair.

Fiddleford stared at the man as if he had just come face to face with a stranger. He had been so focused on finding the negative side-effects on his constant use with the gun that he had not even considered what it was doing to these people. How it was tearing them apart.

The gentle soul he vaguely remembered meeting was now a hardened master of a group he had created for good.

“No…,” Fidds spoke slowly so not to mess up any of the word, “No. There is more than me bein’ effected here, Ivan. You are being all changified. All of y’all are being changed.”

He pulled on the restraints to see if they would give away and budge.

“Please, Ivan, let me take the gun and fix this. Let me give y’all yer lives back before ya’ lose them like I have.”

Ivan shook his head and turned his back to the trapped soul in the chair. He pulled his hood back up and seemed to school himself into the character he had created through this group.

“Ivan. Ivan please,” Fidds pulled more at the chair’s restraints, “You gotta listen to me! Ivan!”

Fiddleford felt the most nauseating sense of déjà vu as he pleaded with someone he considered his friend. Had he been in this situation before? Had it ended as badly as this all seemed to be leading towards?

Ivan picked up the memory gun again and then a well-used memory tube that the hillbilly in the chair knew all too well.

“I can’t let you destroy this,” Ivan said as he made sure the gun was set, “I thought erasing your memory of that conversation would give me a better chance to reason with you but I see you cannot be swayed.”

“I-Ivan?”

The hooded man seemed to be admiring the memory gun in the light of the torches. The way the red of the fire bounced off the blue and gold of the machine. He slowly turned to face Fiddleford and the gun was pointed straight at him; between the eyes.

“I do wish there was another way but we swore an oath to secrecy,” Ivan said. His voice was even and his hand did not even shake as he aimed. “I would say I was sorry but I will not remember this come tomorrow.”

Fiddleford pulled against the bonds. He had never thought his own device to take away his pain could be the very thing he was fighting to get away from.

“Ivan please,” he begged, “I’ll never bring it up again. I know what I need ta just ferget. Ya just gotta give me the gun and we can…can…let this whole thing just blow over.”

Ivan shook his head and pressed the cold blub to the older man’s forehead.

Fiddleford froze in terror feeling the glass. How had things gone so wrong?

“Ivan!”

The robed man’s finger hovered over th trigger.

“We can work this all out!”

It pressed down.

“Ivan! Listen to some reason! We don’t have to stop the Society but I do need to work out some kinks in the doo-hickey!”

The blub began to glow and the gun began to whir. Fiddleford panicked more when he realized Ivan was not going to move it back some from his head. It was going to be a direct hit. He had no idea what the effects would be from that.

“Ivan! Listen to me!”

The light encircled the main bulb and seemed to come racing towards him in slow motion. In the back of his mind, the southerner knew he should move his head. He knew he should try to get out of the blasts range but he seemed to be stuck still as the blue lightening came racing towards him.

“Ivan!”

It got closer.

“Please!”

It was so very close.

“Please! Please listen to me! This has to stop!"

Something snapped in his mind as the light hit him and he finally tried to move out of the way.

"Listen to reason! You can't do this! STANFO-!!"

“Sir.”

Fiddleford’s eyes opened quickly as the moment of peace left him. His mind going from the musings of how wonderful this new place was to high alert in case of trouble. He turned in the direction of the voice and looked at the woman that had called him.

“Yes?”

“The research team has found something over the hill. They think you should take a look at it.”

She pointed over the large sand dunes that cradled the small shore they had landed on. The southerner glanced around the black sand beach to find that most of the research team had already left the water’s edge where they had been gaining samples and was gone.

Placing a hand on the hidden gun at his side he nodded.

“Lead the way, Ms. Frias.”

She gave a nod and turned to lead him up the large dunes. Fiddleford took his time to follow as he observed the way the sand barely felt like anything as they walked across it. It felt as though they were walking on air.

“Did the team get a few samples of this sand?”

“Yes, sir,” Frias confirmed, “They collected a few samples from different parts of the beach and took some water samples.”

“Good. We will need to take a closer look at them once we get back to the lab, I want to know what the sand here is composed of to give the feeling of walking on air.”

She nodded and climbed up a dune quickly and easily. Fiddleford tried to follow her example and almost ended up falling on his face as the sand slipped out from under his boots. The woman moved down some from where she stood at the top of the hill and offered a hand.

Fidds gave her a sheepish smile and took the hand.

“You didn’t see that,” he mumbled.

Frias just sent a smile to him, “Didn’t see what, sir? I just remember you telling me how you want the sample sent to testing as soon as we get back home as we both successfully climbed up this dune.”

Fidds paused in brushing the sand off his jacket and looked her over with a raised eyebrow. He tried to keep an unimpressed and stern expression on his face but it failed miserably as a chuckle escaped him.

“Good,” he said, “Because that is all that happened.”

“Of course, sir. Consider it forgotten.”

“No idea what you are referring to, Ma’am.”

“Me either, sir.”

“Doctor McGucket!”

Fiddleford’s attention was brought back to the task at hand with the call for his name. He looked down at the young intern that stood at the base of the dune.

“Yes?” Fidds asked.

“We found life forms, sir,” the man said happily, “They appear to be friendly but we did not want to approach without your say so.”

Fiddleford nodded, “Thank you for telling me. I will be down in the moment to assist.”

The intern gave a mock salute and scampered off leaving the two on their own. Fiddleford sighed and looked down at the steep slope he would need to travel down.

“Do you need assistance, Doctor McGucket?” Frias asked.

“No. No,” Fidds waved off her hands as he stepped near the edge, “I can do thi-AAAAHHH!”

Fiddleford lost his footing and went tumbling down the dune. He slid down the soft sand and came slowly to a stop at the base of the dune with a huff. His clothes were covered in the small particles of the sand.

Frias moved to catch up with him. She was more in control with the journey down then the senior member of this expedition.

“Sir, are you alright?”

Fidds sighed deeply and nodded slowly.

“I’m fine.”

The woman didn’t look convinced but she was not going to push it. She just held out her hand for him to take and helped him back to his feet.

“You are not to mention this, either.”

“No idea what you are talking about, Doctor.”

“Good.”