#im cookin some stuff i promise

[yooo-lets-go]

Dear followers, today I offer you: this bullshit

Tomorrow: who knows

[silenceofthewave]

ooc

im COOKIN okay

i know i said a couple months ago that this blog is undergoing MAJOR improvements. and while it doesnt look like a lot has been done, trust me. its in the works.

@/prevailinghatred has made a WONDERFUL promo gif for me (i commissioned her!) that i cant wait to unveil. but to do so, i gotta get this carrd done...which will be fun, given that im stuck on mobile. so. pray for me?

anyway, just some general updates: i am officially on semi-active status. just in case that wasn't clear by now LOL. unfortunately my job has been very demanding of me recently, and by the time i get home i am absolutely exhausted. right now I think i have like... 5 or 6 replies waiting for me.

so to those of you who are waiting, dont worry. i have you in my drafts. i will get to you, i promise. i am not dropping any threads.

i do try to reply to people in order, but sometimes the muse hits me like a freight train for a certain thread.

(in case its not clear, i am a ball of anxiety and i dont want people to feel left out or like theyre being ignored. thats not happening i promise.)

so yeah!! thats kind of whats going on with the blog. i'll still shitpost and have fun w dash stuff and ask games, but unless i have a day off or i get smacked with inspo, i more than likely will not be cranking out huge replies.

----

if you're curious about what i'm doing other than this blog, all i can say is that I'm signing up for the Transformers Big Bang and I hope all of you are ready for some Earthspark Megasound lovers to enemies to lovers. >:3c

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

hi mac!!!! mentally i am sitting with u on the couch watchin youtube videos w u. i hope ur day was good :3 i had work 2day. did not stop me writing ghostknife!!! i wrote 2k more words in my tumblr drafts over my seven hour shift. im at 8.5k words total now. get my ass out the kitchen im cookin too hard!!!!! THAT ASIDE mac can u gimme some nhw thoughts. i wanna hear about nhw mark winters. tell me abt ur favourite gay depressed blond man!!!!!!!! i wanna hear abt him and what the winters family torment nexus is like in nhw!!!!!! holding out a microphone 2 u the floor is yours 🎤

OKAY . HI. I LOVE TORTURING THAT BLONDE MAN. im going to direct you to the mark winters essay just in case you havent read that one yet because its got context for a lot of what im gonna talk about hehe (beware for worm spoilers, ill make this answer easy 2 understand without context i promise) under the cut bc i tend to ramble about him. oops

god . okay. basis of the entire nhw mark winters character is that he is the most unlucky man in the entire world. like. literally. hes been targeted that way. universe's favorite punching bag. i could make a joke here about being god and such but ill save that for my dnd campaign.

literally. so much bad shit happens to him. and then keeps happening to him. and keeps happening. and he has to be so fucking. emotionally repressed and logical and analytic and focused or else he will go crazy. mark is one of those capes that got powers artificially (overlord forced them on him- parallel to forced experimentation in canon) but the dramatic irony of it all is that even if mark would have gotten his powers naturally through a trigger event... with the way worm powers work he probably wouldve ended up with the same powers anyway. man is a striker/tinker, which comes from "facing an immediate, in-your-face threat, usually a singular object or individual" (indirect danger from simurgh, immediate danger from ashe in his very unstable breaker form immediately after killing his mom) and "solutionless problems over long periods of time, culminating in a crisis moment" (faking his and ashe's deaths in order to escape the quarantine process of simurgh survivors, having to be on the run from any sort of scrutiny for nearly TEN YEARS, eventually resulting in being offered a job working for overlord (a notoriously cruel crime lord)) . i have a lot of feelings about that. mark goes through all of this and never has a trigger event, he gets through it all with his humanity mostly intact. and then he ends up getting powers anyway because hes forced into a corner by a fucking alligator man.

ANYWAYYYYY. the fic im writing rn is from tide's pov and its immediatly after overlords death, where tide finds mark (and a bunch of other people) unconscious in tubes after going through biological experimentation and getting. animal features. this is how mark gets the lizard stuff in this au. anyway since the fic is from tide's pov i want to take a second to talk about what it would be like from marks pov. mark disobeyed one of overlords orders because it would have meant fighting the wards (who ashe . recently joined as part of the team) . overlord does not take this well and punishes him by using him for unethical human experiments. so between that moment and overlords death, mark had been subjected to over a week of near-constant testing and surgery and he was probably awake for a lot of it and. thatll fuck a guy up!!!!! pretty fucking severely!!!!! but in the grand scheme of things a week isnt that much time. which is why his transformation is only minimal and he can still pretty much pass as human with some disguising (some of the other subjects were. not so lucky).

mark was unconscious for the entire overlord fight, so he has no idea what happens. because he was unmasked, the heroes dont recognize him as a villain so instead of going to jail he gets taken to a hospital with all of the other subjects and is basically just treated as a civilian victim. but because nobody knows who he is or his relation to ashe/auxiliary.... nobody. tells him about what happened to overlord. the wards arent as closely involved with mark in this au (and honestly they dont really like him enough to care, they really just know him as "ashe's shitty dad" and thats about it). um. well. the only person who knows his identity and knows his relation is. tide.

working for a supervillain and constantly surviving out of the public's eye for fear that someone might discover your past doesnt leave a lot of room for friends, and his only living family is currently being turned into a puppet by another supervillain (not that he knows this yet) so the only person who really visits him is tide. theyre not friends, theyre not anything to each other, really, but . they KNOW each other. they UNDERSTAND each other in a way that. nobody else in the world would. go read roswells nhw tidalwave post its everything to me . anyway im getting distracted. like i said, over a week of constant unethical experiments and body horror will fuck a guy up. three of his base biological senses/instincts have been SEVERELY messed with (eyesight is fundamentally changed by the heat sense, he cant really thermoregulate well anymore, his balance is completely thrown off by the Addition Of A New Limb) and so that makes it. really hard for him to recover into some sense of lucidity. the next handful of days after he ends up in the hospital are a complete blur of consciousness, any time he opens his eyes hes totally disoriented, hes getting these awful migraines from the strain, he cant control his body heat and it seems like hes always too cold, the scales are fucking itchy, etc etc etc. hes bedridden most of the time because he cant even stand up on his own without support bc he has to get used to the weight of a tail. for those days where he's basically stuck in bed, stuck in his room, etc. he is. bored out of his mind, hes angry, hes scared (ohhh god hes in a hospital did someone do a background check do they know who he is. he hasnt been to a real doctor in over ten years), he doesnt know how much time has passed.

tide happens to visit the first day mark is feeling lucid enough to ask about ashe. this is like. a week or so into his recovery. he overheard one of the staff talking about the date and it made him like. snap awake because he realized hes been away from home and had no way to contact ashe in like. half a month. he cant ask any of the hospital staff about what happened to his son because thats a surefire way of getting a billion questions about his identity. so when tide shows up its immediately like "where is he is someone taking care of him i hate you heroes and everything you stand for but i know hes part of that team now please tell me theyre keeping him safe" and. tide is really really good at keeping a straight face but he just has this Look in his eyes and mark Knows in that moment that every single one of his nighmares is coming true. he tries to leave, tide has to catch him because he still cant walk and hes behaving like a fucking wild animal, hes biting and clawing and just in this rage because why didnt anyone tell me sooner i couldve done something i couldve protected him ("mark, you were basically in a coma" "i dont care") . nobody knows what actually happened to ashe yet. he killed overlord and then just. went missing. nobody saw him leave. they have no lead whatsoever on where he could be (yet) and it drives mark CRAZY dude like. all mark winters knows is grief and rage. eventually the wards are given that hint about where to find him and see him with the trickster and now THEY know, but. again, they dont.. know mark as well. they dont have any reason to go tell him right away. i havent decided yet whether it would be more painful for tide to break this news to him too or if the first time mark sees his son again is . on tv unmasked using his powers in some gaudy outfit he knows ashe would never choose to wear with his hair pulled back out of his face in some intricate braid and. why are his eyes orange . what the fuck happened to him. his wholeeeeee. entire world entire existence just comes crashing down around him .

mark winters universe's most hated man

[novantinuum]

the time we lost, the time we mended (Chapter 4)

AO3

Rating: T

Words: ~ 3600 

Story Summary: Before the summer of 2012, Ford and Fiddleford never thought they’d get the opportunity to see each other again. Now… they have a second chance. A chance to rekindle the love they once shared, reconnect a family once lost, and to mend old wounds. But as they’ll quickly discover, fixing the mistakes of the past doesn’t always come easy. Nor is it always possible. RP to fic.

A Fiddauthor reunion story written by @the-ill-doctor​ and I! This chapter features Stan and Fidds bonding over cooking, the ol’ McGucket family gravy recipe, and scrapbook-ortunities. Also, Ford can’t deny it any longer- he definitely still has a crush...

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Fiddleford crept across the hardwood floor at a sloth’s tempo, gently testing the corners of each board for extreme creaks and whines before pressing his full weight upon them. The little alarm clock resting on the dresser in the parlor Stanford let him sleep in read eight o’ four when he left. Since he didn’t know how late or early anyone in this here Shack slept in normally, he figured he should stay as quiet as he could. The last thing he wanted to do was give any of the fellas living here an unexpected spook.

He yawned deeply, quickly slamming his hands over his mouth when he realized how unintentionally loud he was being. Dagnabbit, he wanted his surprise breakfast to be a surprise to the family, not announced to the whole world before he could cook it! Muttering to himself, he hurried his pace, luckily managing to avoid the brunt of the squeaky boards as he entered the kitchen. He then set about rummaging through the shelves and drawers to see if they had all the right ingredients for omelets, or maybe biscuits and gravy. Definitely biscuits and gravy, he decided, since Stan didn’t seem to have any veggies he could toss in an omelet.

Hopefully he could remember his ma’s recipe in full this time...

Fidds heard heavy footsteps approaching, and a brash yawn. He turned and froze like a spooked deer intercepted by headlights on the backroads, standing on a chair in mid-reach for a baking sheet on the top of the shelf. Stanley stood in the doorway of the kitchen in his underwear and a tank top.

“Oh,” he said flatly, drinking in the scene before him. “Good mornin’, possum breath. Need help cooking anything?”

“M-mornin’, Stanley,” he said, and nervously tugged at his beard. He climbed down from the counter. Honestly, he still wasn’t sure how to act around Ford’s brother, considering how stand-offish he’d acted towards him in the past. “I- I’m fine, I just wanted to surprise y’all with some grub to thank you for lettin’ me stay here!”

“Well, no need to thank me,” Stan mumbled almost imperceptibly. “It’s Ford’s house, after all. But... eh, you’re welcome I guess.”

Fiddleford could practically sense the cool metallic intensity of that man’s eyes boring through the back of his head as he continued searching about the kitchen, trawling for ingredients. He scratched at his arm. Constant surveillance made him feel kinda itchy.

“Uh, hey? If you’re making biscuits, then how ‘bout I make some bacon?” Stan spoke up then.

He grinned wide, flashing what teeth he had left. “Sure! Can’t have biscuits and gravy without ‘em! Now let's see, after flour I need... uh-" His brows sank, growing pensive as he desperately tried to sort through recently recalled memory. "Come on, Fiddleford, you should know this..."

Wordlessly, Stan pulled the correct ingredients off the shelves and placed them on the counter for him. He then got out a frying pan for himself, for bacon duty.

"Oh, thank ya’," he said, walking over to the counter to observe the ingredients. "Although-" He placed his hand on his mouth and leered at the food Stan set up for him. "There's somethin' missin', I just know it! Mcgucket, Mcgucket... The Mcgucket Family Secret Gravy Recipe!" He opened the fridge, and found a half used can of brown meat. "I can't believe I almost forgot this! My ma would have my hide if I messed up her gravy!"

“You’re rememberin’ more and more every day, aren’tcha?” Stan asked suddenly, glancing towards him as he watched the bacon beginning to sizzle. “After all that mind wiping cult stuff got taken down…”

Fiddleford nodded amicably, amid measuring flour and baking powder into his bowl. "Some days I get a ton o' them back and other days it's very slow." He looked up at the other man, smiling sincerely. "It's tricky piecin' a lot of them back, especially the ones about your brother. But I'm just happy I finally remember who I am!”

"That's, uh... that's real great," he said with a weak laugh, attention drifting away to the bacon again.

His smile faltered. Part of him wondered what was going on in Stanley’s mind right now, but the other part of him feared gathering the nerve to ask. It probably ain’t his business anyways.

Within a few minutes, he’d mixed everything together and formed the biscuits between his hands on the baking sheet. As he waited for the oven to heat up, he began to hum an old silly song he recalled his pa used to sing while strummin’ on the guitar... Oh, grandma’s in the cellar, and boy don’t you smell her cookin’ biscuits on that darn ol’ dirty stove? In her eye there’s a matter that keeps drippin’ in the batter, and she whistles as a- *SNIFF*- runs down her nose! His ma despised it, if he remembered correctly. He carefully edged the sheet into the oven, and pretty soon the sweet aroma of his cooking began to waft throughout the shack.

"Ya know, I used ta’ make this all the time for your brother,” he mentioned offhand.

"Is that so?" Stan said, raising a brow. "Well, good on ya'. Some days I think Ford would've starved to death if there weren’t someone there ta' feed him. I swear, it’s like he’s too distracted to eat half the time."

"You’re tellin’ me!" Fiddleford laughed. "I literally had to wrangle him into a chair and tie him down to get him to eat whenever finals came around!"

The other man’s face lit up, and he let out a loud bark of laughter- genuine, this time. "Yeah, that sounds like 'im, that nerd," he said, laying the cooked bacon on a plate. "Hey... it, uh- sounds like your memory's returning better then you thought. You said you had trouble remembering stuff about Ford, but... that's two memories right after another."

Fiddleford's amused chuckling died down as he stopped to think for a moment. "You’re right,” he murmured, eyes widening into saucers. He stared up at Stanley with probably the calmest expression he's ever given him. "Thank ya’!"

"For what? You're the one remembering everything, all I did was talk to ya'..."

"Well, talking to ya’ really helped." Fiddleford replied, still smiling. "It's hard rememberin’ on your own."

At that moment, the two heard footsteps approaching from around the corner, and muffled voices. It sounded like Ford and Dipper, cheerily talking about some supernatural creature they’d both encountered in the woods. Stan froze at the sound, and Fidds was sure that man was mentally hyperfixating on every last detail of his last not-so-friendly interaction with his brother the night before.

Ford poked his head into the kitchen first, drinking in the sight of the home cooking occurring. He inhaled deeply, likely having followed his nose to the kitchen. "Good morning, Fiddleford. Stanley." Can I talk with you outside? he mouthed at his brother.

Stan nodded nervously, ducking out of the kitchen with him.

"Mornin', Dipper!" Fiddleford said.

"Morning, McGucket." Dipper shuffled toward the breakfast table. “I, uh- I see you're making breakfast?”

"Yep, biscuits and gravy!" Fiddleford scooped up a heaping spoonful and offered it to Dipper. "Wanna taste? I promise it’ll be the best dang gravy you’ve ever tasted!" he said with a wink.

Dipper seemed hesitant, which he didn’t blame him for— the kid saw him cooking roadkill on a spit a few days ago, after all!— but it seemed the smell was too alluring. Walking over, he took the offered sample and gave it a shot. The moment his lips closed around the spoon, his eyes widened, and he promptly licked the utensil clean. Fidds beamed.

"Heh heh, guess that means I made it right!"

The boy stayed at the counter next to him after that, watching him finish cooking the gravy. "So Mr. McGucket, you and Great Uncle Ford were roommates in college, right?"

"Yes, siree we were!" Fiddleford replied.

"What was he like?"

Fiddleford paused from his cooking, considering the question seriously. "Honestly? I love that man, but he was an absolute pain in the tush to bunk with!"  

Stanley tensed as he walked into the hall with his brother, already getting flashbacks of the first argument they had here. As with every other interaction with Ford lately, nothing good could come out of this. He crossed his arms pensively. "Whatdy'a want?"

Ford sighed, pressing fingers to his temple. He seemed to almost deflate in his presence, oddly enough. "Stanley? Let me be frank with you."

Nevertheless, Uh-oh was all that could run through Stan's mind.

"I was-" Ford continued, forcing himself to look Stan in the eye. "I might have acted a little harsh towards you last night, and..."

"You think??" Stan burst out suddenly, residual anger from last night's encounter boiling over. "You were 'bout ta’ kick me out before the summer ended! Before my time, before I was ready, and exactly like what Dad did all those years ago!"

Ford stiffened at the comparison to their father, and continued. "I'm aware of that. Or at least, I was helped to become aware of that, and..." Another weary sigh. Where was he going with this? "There's no reason for me to treat you this way,” he said finally. “I'm- I'm not kicking you out. Obviously, you're free to leave if you ever wish to, but it would be unfair of me to uproot you from this place."

Stan stopped, and blinked. Dumbfounded. Did he just-? Did those words seriously come out of Ford's mouth? It wasn’t exactly an apology, but...

"So you're... you're letting me stay?" he said, mouth agape. "I don't have to leave after the summer?"

"No, you don't have to leave," Ford confirmed, a gentle smile crossing his face. "This has been your home for far longer than it's been mine, after all. I'd still like to talk about your Mystery Shack at a later date, and determine what compromises if any we could come to on that front, , but-"

Without any warning, Stan rushed forward and wrapped his arms tightly around his brother. Ford nearly stumbled back in surprise, at first not sure how to respond to this at all. But eventually, his hands stopped awkwardly floating midair and settled on Stan's back, tightly returning his embrace. They might still have a lot more to hash out- issues from their past to unpack- but for the moment they were simply happy to share in the kind of sibling affection neither had experienced in over forty years.

Meanwhile, Fiddleford continued to share embarrassing stories about his college years with Stanford, Dipper seeming wholly engrossed with each tale.

"Wow, so you two really didn't get expelled for setting the lab on fire?" he asked.

"Nope!" Fiddleford replied as he started to set the food on the table. "And luckily, too, the last thing we needed was to get kicked out of school. But boy howdy, were they not easy on us with the community service!"

“Are you giving me up, Fiddleford?” Ford asked suddenly, peaking around the corner of the doorway with a wry smile on his lips.

Fiddleford let out a surprised yelp. "H-howdy, Ford!" he said, grinning sheepishly. "Just sharin' some of our tamer days."

"Really? That's tame?" Dipper asked.

"My boy, setting a university laboratory on fire is child's play. Just wait until you hear about the time we almost accidentally released an alien superbug into all of greater Gravity Falls!" He walked over to his old friend, grinning mercilessly. "Fiddleford and I had all sorts of misadventures, back in the day..."

Fiddleford leaned his cheek against his arm, giggling at the memory. "Most of them were ‘coz someone liked to poke his nose into other critters’ business," he said, playfully nudging him in the stomach. "Yer’ just lucky we were able to synthesize that antidote, or else the town wouldn't be here anymore!"

Ford could feel the blood rushing to the capillaries near the surface of his face at the sudden physical affection, and while it left him with a sort of light, jittery sensation in his core he couldn’t necessarily attach a bad connotation to, he also felt a tinge of embarrassment that Dipper was there to see his reaction. He hadn’t gotten the chance to properly explore and catalogue his increasingly muddled thoughts on the matter yet. He’d far prefer to do that in private than in front of family, yes...

"Yeah, I fear we nearly destroyed the town on a number of occasions in those days," he replied to Fidds.

"Don't stop fearing yet," Stan butt in suddenly, returning to the kitchen. "Now that you're back in this dimension again, you've got plenty more years of potential destruction to cause!"

Ford frowned, picking at the stray threads on his jacket. Something about the way Stan phrased this brought the rift to mind, the rift he'd securely enclosed just this morning.

Mabel sleepily shuffled behind Stan, clutching onto a stuffed unicorn. "Mornin'," she yawned before climbing into one of the kitchen chairs.

"Mornin', pumpkin," Stan said, and gave her hair a nice big ruffle. He turned to the rest of the group, all loitering in the kitchen and surrounded by food. "Hey, we gonna eat, or what? This all smells delicious! Whoever cooked it must be a culinary genius... especially the fella who cooked that bacon!" He laughed boisterously at his own not-that-funny joke, and Ford promptly rolled his eyes.

"Do you need help taking any of these plates to the table, Fiddleford?" he asked, grateful for the change of topic from before.

"If y’all don't mind givin' me a hand. I'm hoping y’all like the food! Been a while since I've properly cooked anything."

"Tasted amazing to me!" Dipper smiled while helping a sleepy Mabel up to migrate.

Stan and Ford each grabbed a dish and carried them to the table in the living room. Ford carefully placed his at the center, and promptly returned to the kitchen to find some plates. Stan on the other hand, sat directly down, strategically positioning himself in the chair right in front of the bacon. "Hey, uh, kids," he began. "Just so ya' know, the Shack won't be open today. Maybe not for the next few days, who knows. But anyways, until this pigsty is fixed up, you two little gremlins are off the hook, okay? Go play with your friends, or in the woods, or whatever it is ya' do when I'm not lookin'."

"Really?" Mabel asked with a sleepy smile as she climbed into the seat beside him.

"Yeah, what's the catch?" Dipper asked, skeptical of his intentions as always.

Stan frowned deeply, more for show and dramatics than any true expression of disgruntlement. “The catch is, do it before I take advantage of Gravity Falls’ lax child labor laws and put you two to work on somethin’ else! Now, who wants bacon?”

“I’d like a strip or two,” Ford said eagerly, just returning to the table with plates and silverware for the five of them. He set the plates down and let the kids pass them out. “I don’t think I’ve eaten bacon for over thirty years. There’s not anything quite like it, out there in the midst of the multiverse...”

"I'll have a slice!" Dipper replied.

"Me too!" Mabel added.

Fiddleford walked in and set his gravy pot on the table. "It's been a long time since I've seen any bacon smellin’ this good,” he commented as he took his seat. "I wanna thank you again for helping me out with the cookin', Stanley."

“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome, or whatever,” he said, brushing off his thanks with a flourish of his hand. Ford shot him one of those looks, but said nothing. Stan dished out the bacon to everyone, grabbing four slices for himself, and soon everyone began digging in.

Fiddleford noisily gobbled down his share of biscuits. To him, this was the most luxurious meal he'd eaten in months. After polishing off his first, he realized he’d spilled crumbs all over his beard, but he was so caught up in enjoying his food that he couldn’t bring himself to truly care. Meanwhile, Dipper practically drowned his poor biscuits in the gravy, and with food in her stomach Mabel was finally beginning to wake up.

Stanley worked away at his own plate quietly for a moment, too hungry to provide much in the way of conversation. As he ate, he glanced from Dipper, to Mabel… to Fiddleford, and sitting next to him— after all these years— his brother.

“Heh,” he muttered suddenly. “Y’know, now that I think of it, it’s funny…”

The four of them paused, Fiddleford mid-chew, when Stan spoke up.

"What is, Grunkle Stan?" Mabel asked.

“This… well, it’s dumb, but once I got ta’ thinkin’ about it, this is the first real meal I’ve shared with Ford in over forty years,” Stan said breathlessly, staring off into the distance, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes.

Ford dropped his fork against his plate, brows furrowing as he counted the years, calculated and double checked his claim. “You- my word, you’re right,” he said, eyes widening as he contemplated the truth behind this statement. Even yesterday— his first evening back— they hadn’t crossed paths much, since he’d dedicated nearly all of that time to constructing a containment field for the rift in the basement.

Mabel let out a loud and dramatic gasp at Stan's realization. "And it's the first time Grunkle Ford has eaten with me and Dipper period, meaning-" She shot up from her seat, all the vim and vigor Ford remembered from early this morning returning in a flash. "Be right back!" With no explanation, she rushed out of the living room, excitedly stomping up the stairs. Before anyone could truly comment on her outburst she returned with her polaroid camera.

"SCRAPBOOK-ORTUNITY!" she announced, holding the camera with lens facing her, the entire family in the frame behind her. When the camera flashed Stan was in the middle of picking his nose, and Ford was eighty percent certain he blinked. The greyed scientist began to laugh heartily at Mabel’s happy antics.

“You remind me of my Ma,” he said through laughter. “She was always taking pictures of Stanley and I, and mostly when we weren’t prepared for them.” He took another bite of his biscuit. A stray bit of gravy dribbled from his lip.

Mabel giggled and shook the polaroid when it came out of the camera. "I never miss a scrapbook-ortunity!"

“Mabel,” Dipper whined, “I was chewing when you took that picture!”

“It’s candid photography, that’s kinda the point, duh!”

Fiddleford gave his finger a lick, and reached towards Ford’s face. "Ford, ya’ got a little somethin' on yer chin..."

Ford blushed a deep scarlet as Fiddleford dabbed the gravy off his chin and the corner of his lips, his eyes blowing wide. He suddenly felt clammy, almost itchy as he felt the rest of the room stare at him… He knew for a fact they all saw the way his ears and cheeks flushed like some lovesick fool at Fidds’ touch, and his heart pounded at the thought of having to explain this to his own family when he hadn’t even taken time to fully consider these feelings himself. Not for the first time, he felt achingly like an alien— perhaps even an imposter— in his home, that is, if he could even claim it as such.

Mabel slammed her hands over her mouth and excitedly wiggled in her seat. She began to repeatedly nudge her brother's side, much to his annoyance.

When Fiddleford finished, he gave Ford a shy smile and leaned back in his chair. "Sorry, old habit from the old days," he said, blushing as well.

“Sheesh, if you two want to leave the room for a sec or somethin,’” Stan said snarkily, “then don’t let me stop ya’.”

Ford roughly set his cup down on the table. ”Stanley. That’s enough,” he hissed. “We will not be discussing this at the breakfast table.”

The kids flinched from Ford's sudden outburst.

“Wow, okay, okay,” Stan muttered, recoiling a little. “Hit a nerve there...”

"Stanford, there's no reason to get so upset, he was only teasin'." Fiddleford said, trying to diffuse the tension.

“I-I…”

Ford looked back and forth, from the kids— who were staring at him with slight apprehension— to Stan— who looked much like a kicked puppy— and finally to Fidds. Fiddleford. The man he knew deep down he’d never gotten over, never stopped loving, not even after thirty plus years, and the man who was currently gazing at him with such a gentleness in his eyes even despite his rough outburst. His palms sweat as he clasped them together, nervously threading his fingers between each other. Before his mind could catch up with his body, he found himself bolting through the door between the house and the gift shop.

Stan stared at the chair he left empty for a moment, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong. He was only teasing. Surely Ford didn’t think he would judge him if he did have an old crush on Fiddleford, if his prediction was in fact accurate? “You, uh,” he began lamely, glancing towards Fiddleford. “You might wanna go after him before he locks himself away in the basement for the rest of the day.”

"Yeah, uh..." Fiddleford stood up. "E-Excuse me fellas."