Riddleford AU: Big Jet Plane
Here’s a little something I wrote for @time-crystals-for-sale / @felixnostop for an art trade!
Story under the readmore!
You've got no idea how the government found you, but they did. You've been called in for a Hadron collider experiment- possibly the biggest ever attempted. You're to work alongside a more practical counterpart, someone who can bring your own theoretical ideas into physical form.
They'd better make it worth your time for funding your own experiments- you're more interested in time and space than this.
As you wander through the massive complex-built into a mountain- you can't help but be impressed. It's everything you've imagined- supercooled cylinders and other machinery that you've only started to dream of yourself.
You're eventually led to a small room, another man already hard at work looking over a set of blueprints.
“Let me introduce you to your coworker-Fiddleford.”
He's a good five to six years younger than you- light brown hair and bright blue eyes. For some strange reason, smell of daisies seems to hang in the air.
“Hello, mister,” he greets, taking one of your hands in a handshake. “Pleased to meet ya.”
Something odd, something indescribable, stirs in your chest. You'd hesitate to call it something as strong as lust, but there it is, warm and pulsing and right.
“Are you sure this equation’s right?” Fiddleford asks, pulling out a sheet of the theoretical papers you've been working on, “I think it might need a few tweaks if the collider’s gonna be able to handle it…”
You scoff, “You honestly think I wouldn't double-check my own work? I've been doing this for years- give me some credit!”
“Well, not all of us can be as thorough as you,” he scoffs.
As the days pass and your partnership evolves into a steady routine, you can tell something’s up. He's avoiding touching you, brushing against doing everything to resist the close quarters you're sharing. And you'd be lying if you said you weren't falling for him despite your own marriage. He's just-everything he is draws you in, his humbleness, his ability to keep up with you and understand how far you’re willing to take things, all of it.
But you just know he's hiding something, and being the scientist you are, you want to find the solution.
3 weeks of analysis and an errant comment later, you get your answer.
“Please don't tell anyone else.” Fiddleford begs, “If anyone finds out about me, I’ll...I’ll be…”
You know what he's going to say next- and you're not going to have it. Not from the man you've slowly come to love, who doesn't deserve to feel ashamed.
“I think you mean ‘about us.’”
You quietly lift your shirt, just enough to show the thin, white scarring on your chest.
Fiddleford’s eyes widen. “That's...you're…”
You nod. “Same as you. Outside didn't match my inside.”
Fiddleford releases a breath that he doesn't seem to have realized he was holding in the first place. “Sweet lord,” he murmurs, “I never...I never thought I'd meet another person like me in my life. I thought I was alone…”
“Well, you're not.” You answer, taking him gently into your arms. “I'm right here.”
You aid him through his dysphoric moments, and your secret relationship goes full speed after that- hours talking of alternate realities and physics and thought experiments in the afterglow of your passion.
“You know,” Fiddleford speaks up one night after a particularly intense session, I hope you never find the thread to time and space. If you do, you'll surely unravel it.”
The first successful beam is a cause for celebration for the both of yousneaking a moment while everyone - months of work and dedication finally paying off into something that could unlock the truth of reality itself.
But good things never last.
The day you get the news, you're absolutely livid.
“What-what you you mean ‘they're shutting it down?” you ask. “You can't be serious…”
“It's not my fault!” Fiddleford protests, “They just...they don't see how important this is, how much of a benefit this is…”
“Thi-this is bullshit!” you rant, “ we've been working on this for months, gave them results, and they just wanna drop it like that?”
Your mind’s working overtime attempting to process all of this. With the project terminated, there's nothing keeping you and Fiddleford together.
You watch from the shadows for years after the project’s shut down and Fiddleford leaves. You can't bear to be close as you watch him and his family together, watch him go on living on without you. You keep telling yourself it's better this way, that he can at least live in peace.
Then he leaves the sun of California for some dumb hick town in Oregon, and you lose track of him.
Out of frustration and spite, you dive further into your work on your portal device- crippling months of study and calculations, shady deals and working alongside less than respectable people, one being the brother of the joker who’d asked Fiddleford to Oregon in the first place- and with the push of a button and a flash of green light, you finally manage to leave the pain and bullshit of your own dimension behind.
You hop between worlds for months, seeing new timelines, exotic worlds, and creatures that humanity's never even fathomed- but all of it leaves a bitter, dry taste in your mouth, worse than any hangover could ever bring. What's the point of it all if he's not there with you?
Eventually, you work your way back to Dimension 45’/, plugging in the coordinates for a little town in Oregon so you can keep an eye on Fiddleford even now - but what you find there isn't what you were expecting.
“N-no...no, this can't...God, Fidds, what happened to you?”
He's disheveled, aged horribly, and absolutely mad.
“Don't-don't you remember me?” You ask,
“It's me!” the desperate plea palpable in your tone. “C-come on, you have to…”
“M’sorry, mister…” He looks away, sympathetic but obviously uncomfortable. “I don’t.”
He doesn't remember you at all. His brilliant mind’s been burnt to ash by a device of his own creation, reduced to living in a dump. All because the man who should've been his friend didn’t know when to quit.
You pull out a small wad of bills, handing them over. “P-please, just take these-use it to at least keep yourself safe.”
It takes every ounce of self control you have to leave calmly and not make a scene, with every step threatening to betray you. Only when you make it back to the privacy of the hotel room you've rented and closed the door do you allow yourself to collapse to the floor, drained and spent in every way imaginable as you huddle into yourself and weep for your lost love.
If only the project wasn't terminated. if only both of you had decided to leave your wives. If only you'd convinced him to move with you….
You can't contain yourself as a strangled, keening cry escapes your throat. You can't handle the “what ifs” anymore.
You can't change the past-but as you fall into a fitful slumber, you realize you can always look to the future.
You scour every possible dimension for answers, attempt to see alternate realities and future scenarios with the gadgets you've developed-and come to two conclusions:
1: He’ll eventually get his memories back, and you'll eventually get back together.
2: It's going to be a good thirty years before that happens.
You take a breath and steel yourself for the long haul.
The universe wants me to wait? Fine. I'll wait…
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Your reunion’s long overdue when you quietly step back into Gravity Falls at the very end of the summer of 2012. Fiddleford knows you the instant he sees you, the memory gun’s effects on his mind mostly diminished.
You hold on tight to him, whispering apologies and promises to never leave him behind again, the privacy of your encounter the only reason you're acting like such a sap rather than the persona you project.
“Hush, Rick,” he whispers in your ear. “No need to cry-it's over. I'm back.”
And a kiss makes the mistakes and past fade away. Soft and full of promise, it speaks of the years you'll still have together, of peace and security.
