Life Changing Meeting (FiddleStan)

He wasn’t sure how it all began, honestly.

Where did you two meet?

Such an innocent question, right? However, the question caused a slight amount of pain for one half of the couple, their significant other having no recollection of their fateful meeting.


Stanley had lived in Gravity Falls for three years at this point, having settled into his routine of running a tourist trap by day, and working on the portal that had taken his brother from him most nights. That night had been a rare one he afforded to himself, snow falling rather hard as a blizzard swept through town. He had heard an odd rattling around where he kept his trash cans, the man going to investigate after growing annoyed with the sound. His flashlight barely cut through the expansive white, but when it caught on something shaking, Stan went pale as he quickly dropped to his knees. Lying propped against the Shack was a lanky thing of man, his feet bare and wrapped poorly in bandages that spotted through with blood. He had a patched-up blanket wrapped around him, but it did little to guard against the cold that was slowly starting to turn his skin a pale blue, blank, unfocused eyes staring forward as Stan took off his coat and draped it around the man. He weighed about as much as a feather, Stan rushing him into the house and in front of the fireplace.

“I’ll be right back, I swear.” He told the shaking man, promptly raiding the house for every blanket he could find, as well as his thickest sweatshirt and sweatpants. Stanley spent the next hour slowly warming the poor man back up, knowing that if he tried too quickly there could be consequences. For most of the time the man was unaware, but thin cold fingers startled Stanley when they gripped his hand, Stanley freezing as the man squinted.

“S-Stanferd?” Stan’s eyes went wide before he nodded slowly.

“Yea, that’s me.” The man frowned, looking upset as he released his grip.

“Yer not him…yer not Stanferd…” The words were full of what seemed like fear and sorrow, Stanley at a loss of what to do as the man fell asleep. His name was Fiddleford McGucket, Stanley floored at the man that had worked with his twin mere years before, his hopes beginning to rise at the thought maybe he could help him. They fell just as quickly however, as it became clear that the man had lost a significant portion of his sanity. His conversations were erratic, laced with manic laughter and tears of desperation that would vanish in seconds. It had taken Stanley nearly two hours to convince the poor man to stay in his home, the snowstorm outside likely to kill him if he went out in his ratty clothes that were in sore need of a wash. Fiddleford acquiesced, the smile on his face making Stanley smile for the first time in 13 years.


Ever since that winter, Stanley and Fiddleford had begun a sort of relationship, though if you asked any of them they would deny such a thing. Some nights Fiddleford would have a rare flash of lucidity, realizing the Stanford Pines that was running a tourist trap was not his former partner he had met in college, leading to more than one fight that ended in hysterics. Each time Stanley would hold the crying man close in his arms, assuring Fiddleford that his twin wasn’t angry with him until the man would be asleep. Over the years Stanley’s caring nature had a positive effect on Fiddleford’s psyche, the man remembering more slowly as the years passed, having even given him some help on the portal.

When Dipper and Mabel came to Gravity Falls, that’s when things kicked into high gear. The world turned upside down (in some cases quite literally) and soon the man Stan had been waiting to see came back into the small town. Fiddleford greeted his former partner warmly, having started to regain his memories just a few short weeks previously, the two laughing and spending hours talking in the kitchen.  

Stan wasn’t gonna lie, his heart ached at the warm smiles and gazes they held for each other, something he had never had with Fiddleford to such an extent. Such thoughts were placed in the back of his mind as the last roller-coaster of the summer came in the form of an invasion led by Bill Cipher. His worries about Fiddleford quickly vanished when his twin erased who he was, and he was content until a lanky man approached the younger twin while the town held an all-night celebration. Stanley had been going around and regaining his memories of those whom he had lived amongst for 30 years, smiling at Fiddleford kindly as the man offered him an old sweatshirt that had definitely seen better days.

The memories hit him like a truck two days later, Stanford startled when his twin all but ran out of the Shack like a bat out of hell, peeling off in his car down the road. He was holding the sweatshirt in his hands when he knocked on the door that had once belonged to the Northwest’s, Fiddleford a bit surprised to see the town hero on his doorstep, panting like he had run a marathon.

“Believe this is yours.” He grinned cockily, watching a blush cross Fiddleford’s face accompanied with stammering. Ever since then the two had finally acknowledged the one thing everyone else had known, often sharing loving glances while walking down the street. Fiddleford often chatted away at a mile a minute, Stan nodding or commenting while sometimes taking the smaller man’s hand in his, often causing a blush to light up his face.

They were an odd couple, but then again Gravity Falls was filled with the strange and curious, so they were just another part of that strange collection.