[ When Fiddleford returns home on the evening of his birthday, he'll find a package and a note waiting on his front doorstep. The note reads:
Happy birthday, Fiddleford!
Birthdays can be a strange thing in a place like Trench. With luck, your first one here is more enjoyable than not. I'm afraid my usual choice of gifts are hard to access here, so I hope you'll like what I've come up with instead.
Sincerely, Stanford
Inside the package are three objects: a braided bracelet with a single darkblood gem; a flat, silver dollar-sized darkblood stone with a banjo carved into it; and a set of instructions. The flat stone can be attuned or attached to a specific item, and the bracelet can then be used to both summon that item to Fiddleford, and later return it to where it was summoned from. It just requires the stone to be within a few feet of the item being summoned.
It comes with a warning that while it theoretically works with any size item and any distance, it's unstable with objects greater than 3 cubic feet and hasn't been thoroughly tested more than half a day out from Trench's borders. ]
[He is not expecting it. Not in the simple 'oh, a nice surprise' sort of way, but in the active 'why would Ford Pines bother to remember my birthday' sort of way. It's personal, and thoughtful, and the banjo carved into the stone makes it clear that Ford has a good (and correct) idea of what he's most likely to use it for.
It is impossible to describe the way it makes him feel. Sort of sad, and sort of happy, and sort of angry all at once. Ford isn't supposed to care about him! He spent so long convincing himself that Ford didn't, not really, because that had made leaving so much easier. And yet here Ford has, again and again, demonstrated what could definitely be called real and genuine care. It's infuriating. It makes his heart ache and his head hurt. He has the strongest urge to throw the bracelet across the room. Instead he slips it onto his left wrist. Takes it off. Puts it on again. Paces a couple circles around his living room. Picks up the omni.
It's nearly midnight, because he spent most of today at Luna and Peter's party. Oddly enough he feels wide awake right now.]
You remembered my birthday.
[His tone and expression are both completely unreadable.]
[ Ford is expecting a call from Fiddleford. Not quite so immediately, but in a more general sense. Ford wouldn't say Fiddleford is someone that stands on propriety but he's a man of many peculiar quirks, one of which is his unfailing commitment to proper southern manners. Always bringing a gift for the host, making sure everyone is fed, not taking the Lord's name in vain, and, of course, always thanking people properly for gifts.
He's not expecting Fiddleford's weird, unreadable tone and expression, however. Ford can immediately tell he's missing something, but he has absolutely no idea what that something may be. ]
[He knows, vaguely, that it is bizarre to be having this kind of reaction to a birthday gift. But the circumstances are very particular, aren't they? Peculiar, because everything to do with Ford has to be.
He wants to say how dare you but that's definitely not correct. Neither is thank you, because while being polite gives him a useful script to follow when he might not otherwise know what to do, it doesn't feel right to just pretend this is a normal thank-you call. What winds up coming out is:]
You weren't supposed to. Why do you always have to make things five times as difficult as they ought to be?
[ Ford is prepared for a variety of eventual responses, but You weren't supposed to is not on the list. He blinks and lapses into a baffled, uncomfortable silence. Fiddleford isn't giving him much to go off of, and Ford isn't great at reading between the emotional lines of a situation even in the best of circumstances. So he founders for a moment, and finally settles on: ]
I'm sorry?
[ Is Fiddleford's birthday suddenly a bad reminder for him or something? But, wait, why would he say he wasn't supposed to remember, then? ]
[That does not explain it any better. And he hates the he feels obligated to explain it, but that's also part of the problem, isn't it? Or a symptom of it.]
You know after we -- after I -- [He trails off. Shakes his head. Too close. Different angle.] I used to leave myself notes, you know. No point in forgettin' somethin' if I was just goin' to make the same mistake twice. I don't know what you did to make me think you didn't care about me but I know I told myself to remember it because it'd keep me safe. I know if I hadn't I'd have been right back in that cabin the next day because you were my best friend and when I say that it means somethin'.
[It feels weird to talk about it so directly. It's been almost a year and they haven't, not really. As far as Fiddleford knows, Ford thinks he destroyed the gun. Was that before he left? It must have been. He's a little too discombobulated to realize he might have just outed himself as definitely not having done that. There is an order of priority here and trying to wrangle his exceptionally bad grasp on the timeline is not near the top.]
At the very least, Ford is already aware that Fiddleford hadn't destroyed the memory gun when he said that he would - and even that Fiddleford had used it on Ford. That's old news to him now, even if it is confirmation of the fact that Fiddleford doesn't remember a great deal the the work involving the portal. That's something he's only really been able to vaguely piece together from talking to Dipper, Mabel, and Fiddleford-as-of-2012. Regardless, it's nothing he's going to bother kicking a fuss up about now.
Especially not when Fiddleford is putting the broken state of their relationship at the time (and, it seems, even right now) directly into words, which is so wildly uncomfortable Ford instinct is to try to bail out of the conversation immediately. He's gotten much better about not doing things like that, however, and so he stays right where he is. ]
I... can't say the warnings were unmerited.
[ Thinking too long about his behavior during... well, basically any point of his life prior to 2012, but particularly during his last year in Gravity Falls before Stan's arrival, brings an overwhelming rush of embarrassment and shame, and he's thoroughly mired in it right now. Maybe it's not correct to say he hadn't cared about Fiddleford at all at the time, but he'd certainly cared about him less than he did his research. That's not really what's bothering him. ]
I hadn't realized I was still giving that impression.
[ He mostly still sounds and looks hedging and awkward, but there's a distinct thread of frustration in there as well. He'd thought he'd been doing pretty well, especially considering that Dipper and Mabel left, in his mind, very recently. ]
No, no. Ever since I showed up here you've done nothin' but try and do right by me no matter how nasty I am to you. It's made it awful hard to keep my distance and remember I'm not supposed to trust you and that's the trouble.
[But he does trust Ford, is the thing. He trusts that Ford will always be Ford, for better or worse. He's obnoxious, short-sighted, stubborn, sure. But he's also earnest, enthusiastic, endlessly curious. Fiddleford doesn't know entirely what happened in the thirty years between them, beyond Ford doing a lot of traveling and self-discovery, but apparently somewhere in there he discovered how to mellow out. Just a little. Just enough that he isn't the Ford that Fiddleford warned himself not to trust, not really, and that's called the whole thing into question.
He lets out a gusty, frustrated sigh.]
I give up. I'm throwin' in the towel. I can't stop bein' your friend no matter how hard I try so I reckon we're just stuck with each other.
Don't ever tell me what you did. I don't want to know. Just don't do it again.
[ It probably says something that Ford genuinely had not realized Fiddleford was intentionally being nasty to him. He'd noticed him being cranky, sure, but Fiddleford is not someone Ford would call slow to anger, or shy about expressing his opinion, or anything that might indicate he's a timid man. Especially not in a place that could be as stressful as Trench. 'Short-sighted' indeed.
He's not entirely sure how he feels about the idea that Fiddleford was actively trying to avoid being his friend, however. It hurts, of course, to realize that he was that close to losing Fiddleford's friendship. It also annoys him, to know that Fiddleford was content to just let things fizzle out, as he seemed to think they would, without even telling Ford first. It also confuses him, because Ford himself has never been someone that has had issues abruptly and violently cutting off people he's decided have wronged him.
But at least when he thinks about it that way it, the fact that Fiddleford didn't just cut him off is such a relief it does a lot to temper his annoyance. Which means that even though Fiddleford's continued desire to not know the details of the accident is baffling, he'll indulge it for now. ]
I can't think of a reason you would need to know right now, so I won't tell you - but I can assure you, that's a mistake I have no intention of repeating.
[On Fiddleford's end he can't imagine why the details would do him any good. He already knows it was bad, and he knows he wanted to forget it once, and he assumes if he finds out what it was he'll just want to erase it again. It would be a waste of time. And the very small selfish part of him that does want his best friend back doesn't want to know in case it destroys this (from his perspective) very tenuous connection they're rebuilding.
A lot of the tension leaves him. Not all of it, because at this point he doesn't think he can fully stop being tense, but it still feels as though a weight's been taken off his shoulders.]
Good. You're all I've got from... before, now. I don't want to lose that.
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no subject
Happy birthday, Fiddleford!
Birthdays can be a strange thing in a place like Trench. With luck, your first one here is more enjoyable than not. I'm afraid my usual choice of gifts are hard to access here, so I hope you'll like what I've come up with instead.
Sincerely,
Stanford
Inside the package are three objects: a braided bracelet with a single darkblood gem; a flat, silver dollar-sized darkblood stone with a banjo carved into it; and a set of instructions. The flat stone can be attuned or attached to a specific item, and the bracelet can then be used to both summon that item to Fiddleford, and later return it to where it was summoned from. It just requires the stone to be within a few feet of the item being summoned.
It comes with a warning that while it theoretically works with any size item and any distance, it's unstable with objects greater than 3 cubic feet and hasn't been thoroughly tested more than half a day out from Trench's borders. ]
OOOOOH GET READY TO DIE
It is impossible to describe the way it makes him feel. Sort of sad, and sort of happy, and sort of angry all at once. Ford isn't supposed to care about him! He spent so long convincing himself that Ford didn't, not really, because that had made leaving so much easier. And yet here Ford has, again and again, demonstrated what could definitely be called real and genuine care. It's infuriating. It makes his heart ache and his head hurt. He has the strongest urge to throw the bracelet across the room. Instead he slips it onto his left wrist. Takes it off. Puts it on again. Paces a couple circles around his living room. Picks up the omni.
It's nearly midnight, because he spent most of today at Luna and Peter's party. Oddly enough he feels wide awake right now.]
You remembered my birthday.
[His tone and expression are both completely unreadable.]
no subject
He's not expecting Fiddleford's weird, unreadable tone and expression, however. Ford can immediately tell he's missing something, but he has absolutely no idea what that something may be. ]
I... yes, I did?
no subject
He wants to say how dare you but that's definitely not correct. Neither is thank you, because while being polite gives him a useful script to follow when he might not otherwise know what to do, it doesn't feel right to just pretend this is a normal thank-you call. What winds up coming out is:]
You weren't supposed to. Why do you always have to make things five times as difficult as they ought to be?
no subject
I'm sorry?
[ Is Fiddleford's birthday suddenly a bad reminder for him or something? But, wait, why would he say he wasn't supposed to remember, then? ]
no subject
[Complicated.]
It's a real thoughtful gift. That's the problem.
[That does not explain it any better. And he hates the he feels obligated to explain it, but that's also part of the problem, isn't it? Or a symptom of it.]
You know after we -- after I -- [He trails off. Shakes his head. Too close. Different angle.] I used to leave myself notes, you know. No point in forgettin' somethin' if I was just goin' to make the same mistake twice. I don't know what you did to make me think you didn't care about me but I know I told myself to remember it because it'd keep me safe. I know if I hadn't I'd have been right back in that cabin the next day because you were my best friend and when I say that it means somethin'.
[It feels weird to talk about it so directly. It's been almost a year and they haven't, not really. As far as Fiddleford knows, Ford thinks he destroyed the gun. Was that before he left? It must have been. He's a little too discombobulated to realize he might have just outed himself as definitely not having done that. There is an order of priority here and trying to wrangle his exceptionally bad grasp on the timeline is not near the top.]
no subject
At the very least, Ford is already aware that Fiddleford hadn't destroyed the memory gun when he said that he would - and even that Fiddleford had used it on Ford. That's old news to him now, even if it is confirmation of the fact that Fiddleford doesn't remember a great deal the the work involving the portal. That's something he's only really been able to vaguely piece together from talking to Dipper, Mabel, and Fiddleford-as-of-2012. Regardless, it's nothing he's going to bother kicking a fuss up about now.
Especially not when Fiddleford is putting the broken state of their relationship at the time (and, it seems, even right now) directly into words, which is so wildly uncomfortable Ford instinct is to try to bail out of the conversation immediately. He's gotten much better about not doing things like that, however, and so he stays right where he is. ]
I... can't say the warnings were unmerited.
[ Thinking too long about his behavior during... well, basically any point of his life prior to 2012, but particularly during his last year in Gravity Falls before Stan's arrival, brings an overwhelming rush of embarrassment and shame, and he's thoroughly mired in it right now. Maybe it's not correct to say he hadn't cared about Fiddleford at all at the time, but he'd certainly cared about him less than he did his research. That's not really what's bothering him. ]
I hadn't realized I was still giving that impression.
[ He mostly still sounds and looks hedging and awkward, but there's a distinct thread of frustration in there as well. He'd thought he'd been doing pretty well, especially considering that Dipper and Mabel left, in his mind, very recently. ]
no subject
No, no. Ever since I showed up here you've done nothin' but try and do right by me no matter how nasty I am to you. It's made it awful hard to keep my distance and remember I'm not supposed to trust you and that's the trouble.
[But he does trust Ford, is the thing. He trusts that Ford will always be Ford, for better or worse. He's obnoxious, short-sighted, stubborn, sure. But he's also earnest, enthusiastic, endlessly curious. Fiddleford doesn't know entirely what happened in the thirty years between them, beyond Ford doing a lot of traveling and self-discovery, but apparently somewhere in there he discovered how to mellow out. Just a little. Just enough that he isn't the Ford that Fiddleford warned himself not to trust, not really, and that's called the whole thing into question.
He lets out a gusty, frustrated sigh.]
I give up. I'm throwin' in the towel. I can't stop bein' your friend no matter how hard I try so I reckon we're just stuck with each other.
Don't ever tell me what you did. I don't want to know. Just don't do it again.
no subject
He's not entirely sure how he feels about the idea that Fiddleford was actively trying to avoid being his friend, however. It hurts, of course, to realize that he was that close to losing Fiddleford's friendship. It also annoys him, to know that Fiddleford was content to just let things fizzle out, as he seemed to think they would, without even telling Ford first. It also confuses him, because Ford himself has never been someone that has had issues abruptly and violently cutting off people he's decided have wronged him.
But at least when he thinks about it that way it, the fact that Fiddleford didn't just cut him off is such a relief it does a lot to temper his annoyance. Which means that even though Fiddleford's continued desire to not know the details of the accident is baffling, he'll indulge it for now. ]
I can't think of a reason you would need to know right now, so I won't tell you - but I can assure you, that's a mistake I have no intention of repeating.
no subject
A lot of the tension leaves him. Not all of it, because at this point he doesn't think he can fully stop being tense, but it still feels as though a weight's been taken off his shoulders.]
Good. You're all I've got from... before, now. I don't want to lose that.