#FiddleTurnips prologue

[fiddleturnips]

Shamford

This is the actual beginning of the fic and the point at which things diverge from canon.

Nothing was particularly different about this night. Everything was proceeding, business as usual, the same old predictable, boring routine. But for some reason, when Fiddleford walked into the lab, his hair all stood on end. For some reason, today his nerves decided they were ready to riot.

Stanford was there, doing nothing different than usual, looking no different than usual. Everything was the same as it always was. Nothing was different.

"Hiya, McGucket!" he said with a grin.

"You're not him," Fiddleford said immediately. Which was stupid, why did he say that, why would he think that?

But when he said it, Stanford stopped moving. Then his accent changed. His face changed, he grinned wider. His eyes got huger than they already were, till it looked like they hurt.

And that, that one little thing, tipped it. It had been completely invisible before, but the light hit them now, clear through Stanford's glasses.

His eyes were different, weren't they?

"Perceptive, aren't you?" the yellow-eyed creature said.

Fiddleford bolted to the elevator. He pressed the button over and over with shaking hand, it seemed to crawl down, why hadn't they installed stairs, why did it just go up occasionally for no reason, why why why…

"Woah, there, Rockytop," the thing behind him said. There were footsteps. Fiddleford pressed himself against the door to the elevator - not again, not again, another not-Stanford with Stanford's face, another night all tied up in a closet, another inhuman thing -

A Stanford-like body took him by the arm and pulled him back just as the elevator opened. It wasn't gripping too hard, so he broke off and rushed inside. Stanford schmanford held the door open, and Fiddleford pressed hard into the back corner.

"Would you gimme a second? I'm not hurting you. Look. Look at me, not hurting you."

"You're not Stanford."

"Geeze, you act this way around EVERYONE who's not Stanford?"

Fiddleford swallowed. "Don't be stupid. You don't belong here."

The creature's eyes narrowed. Its grin drooped, but didn't vanish. "….Fine. I wanted to be friends. But no."

Not-Stanford stepped through the threshold. Fiddleford swallowed and pressed himself hard into the corner.

He half-heartedly lifted his fists.

The creature ignored him.

"You know I could crush you," it said.

"G-get back," Fiddleford squealed.

It rolled its eyes, then came all the way in, letting the elevator close. Fiddleford couldn't actually throw a punch; he didn't have room. The Shamford pressed so close to him that he could smell the aftershave Stanford's ma had sent Stanford last Chanukah and the mismatched tang of formaldehyde from specimen preservation.

Not-Stanford, the one that looked like Stanford and moved like Stanford and even smelled like Stanford, reached an hand past Fiddleford's awful fight posture. It took Fiddleford's throat in one big six-fingered hand.

Fiddleford warbled.

It laughed. "I'm not a threat to Stanford. He and I are pals! You, on the other hand, are annoying."

The elevator went up with a clatter. Fiddleford pushed ineffectually against Stanford's chest and whimpered.

"But I'm not going to hurt you," it said again, then it pulled its hand back. Fiddleford grabbed his throat where he had been grabbed. His eyes were moist with tears.

Shamford backed to the other end of the elevator, hands raised. "See? I'm proving it! I can hurt you, and I'm choosing not to. You don't have to worry about me unless you provoke me. Got it?"

The door hissed open. It stood aside and gestured out with an exaggerated bow.

Fiddleford was afraid to move at first. When he did, he pressed his back against the side of the elevator and scootched along it until he reached the door.

Shamford laughed.

"Hey, uh, buddy. On the subject of not provoking?"

Fiddleford was backing away, refusing to turn from the thing, arms folded close to his chest.

"Let's keep this interaction between just the two of us. Okay?"

Fiddleford turned and ran.

"Our little secret!" it shouted, then, not too quiet to hear, "idiot hillbilly freak."

-

Fiddleford paced all night, then in the morning he went downstairs the instant he heard the coffeepot start. He stood fidgeting in the kitchen doorway until Stanford turned to greet him.

His eyes were clear.

"Doctor Pines. I need to talk to you."

Stanford raised his eyebrows. "Of course. What do you need?"

"Stanford, please listen to me on this because I know I sound crazy, but I saw something last night."

"Of course I'm listening, McGucket." The coffeepot burbled away. Stanford had a box of eggs on the counter, but he stood and held his hands behind his back in that oh-so-carefully-modeled Attentive Listening posture he got whenever he felt like Fiddleford was being particularly paranoid.

Fiddleford took a deep breath and let it out. He put his hands on his hips. He sucked his teeth.

"Ford, I met something last night. Another thing with your face on it, down in the lab."

"Bill?"

"You NAMED IT????"

"I didn't name him, that's just his name!" Stanford said, frowning at Fiddleford as though he was being unreasonable. Fiddleford was flailing at him, but frankly that seemed justified given the circumstances.

"That's HIS name???" Fiddleford wasn't bothering to effect calmness, he was just shouting now. "What kind of cockinahenhouse balarney did you DO???"

"This is exactly why I didn't tell you!" Stanford shouted right back. The last drips of coffee were hissing out, but the pot sat ignored. "I knew you'd react like this!"

"This is absurd. This is absurd." Fiddleford was pacing faster than he had all night, tapping out a three-sets-of-four pattern on his right arm with his left hand. "What was it? What did I talk to last night, Ford? Why did it look like you?"

"Sit down, Fiddleford. Please." Stanford covered his face with his hands. "I'm not going to explain if you're not even going to try to listen."

Fiddleford stared at Stanford.

Stanford dropped his hands and took a deep breath. He met Fiddleford's eyes. With a very exaggerated motion, like he was trying to model good behavior to a particularly unreasonable child, he sat down.

And, well.

It was Stanford.

He… tended to be better at this sort of thing.

Fiddleford sat down.

-

The conversation did not exactly go well. Fiddleford was not happy that his boss was possessed. Stanford was not happy at Fiddleford's snap judgement. The whole thing devolved into a shouting match three separate times.

But in the end, it simply was what it was. There wasn't much that Fiddleford could do, and Stanford swore up and down that Bill was not a danger. He was a companion. He was a mentor. He was, if not a friend, then at least a respected colleague.

A respected colleague, Stanford was not too proud to add, who had extensive academic credentials.

The implication was obvious. Fiddleford was not the brains of this operation. He was the hands. He made things. If the executive team was two people instead of just the one he had been led to believe in, then, well, he didn't have much to do with that fact.

Fiddleford hadn't slept after his scare. Stanford insisted that he take today off. In the meantime, he said, he'd talk to Bill and smooth things over. He would make sure that the professional respect went both ways. He would make sure, he assured Fiddleford, that next time, Bill remembered the rules of human interaction, and didn't frighten Fiddleford by mistake. That's all it was: a mistake. A misunderstanding. There was no reason for that misunderstanding to be repeated.

Fiddleford sat on the porch and picked out nervous improvisations on his four-string until the afternoon, then fell asleep for fourteen hours straight. Come morning, he shaved, got dressed as neat as he could, and took some pills for the anxiety. Then he went down and met with Stanford again, ready to apologize for his behavior and do his best to pretend he was emotionally stable and perfectly fine with all this.

Stanford was in a good mood, bright-eyed and smiling. He gave Fiddleford's shoulder a squeeze, told him it was all worked out. He walked with him down to the lab after breakfast and they worked like nothing had even happened.

-

Fiddleford was finishing up some soddering in the workshop that evening, making up for time lost on his unscheduled day off. Stanford was going about his usual too-long workday, only breaking for meals and meditation sessions.

Nothing seemed particularly different - which, of course, it wouldn't. Nothing had actually changed. Except that now, something that had been secret wasn't anymore.

"So."

Fiddleford spun in his chair. The Shamford with the gold eyes - Bill - was glaring at him, face plastered with the most insincere smile Fiddleford had ever seen.

"You told Sixer about our chat! When I specifically told you not to, haha!"

Fiddleford put the soddering iron back in its mount. "I'm not gonna keep secrets from my lab partner," he said, but his voice shook.

"No, no, I don't blame you!" Bill laughed again. "Not. At. All."

Sweet sassafrass, he was creepy.

"-And you know what? I'm over it! We can work together! We're lab partners too, you know."

Bill walked over and Fiddleford did his best not to show cowardice. He held his hands flat against the desk to keep from tapping. He swallowed back any nerves that he had. He looked Bill in the eyes, weird though they were.

"We'll be best friends, kid, don't worry." Bill ruffled his hair.

Fiddleford slapped Bill's borrowed arm away.

"You mind your business," Bill continued, "and I'll mind mine."