A/N: Hey! So, first up is a first impressions. Not really any shipping, but just a little something. Hope you like it. Please review.
Unpacking at Backupsmore University wasn't hard at all for Stanford Pines. Being in a tiny cramped apartment for most of his life, he had very little to actually move. Books aligned on the shelves, typewriter sat on his trunk at the foot of the bed, clothes put away, bed made, things neat and tidy. He was starting to like the idea of being on his own if it meant he could keep a decent organized system in his room. As opposed to sharing one with a slob for so many years like he had.
Ford glanced at the picture he had sat in the window of him and his whole family before Stanley moved out, and sighed. He still stung a little from how it was Stanley's fault that he was in Backupsmore when it he should've been a shoe-in at Westco. He came over and turned the picture down, noting himself he'd have to replace it later with a better photo.
'Hopefully my new room mate won't be as terrible.', Ford thought to himself.
Suddenly the door opened and a taller man with dirty blond hair, dragging a couple of bags and a trunk and carrying a red and yellow box with "Bojangles" written on it, came storming in.
"Damn sorry excuse of a...", the taller man muttered, a Southern accent hidden in the growl of his voice.
"Oh! Y-you must be the room mate.", Ford tried to be polite and gave a smile but he was brushed aside as the other staggered, turned, muttered another swear, and hauled in his trunk with a growl. "...would you like some help?"
The tall man pulled in his case with a quick jerk and then kicked into the wall on his side of the room which made a clatter that caused Ford to cringe a little.
"It's a damn mockery! That's what it is! Damngummit.", he grumbled when he kicked the trunk.
"Excuse me?", Ford tried again.
The man turned to look at Ford. And for a moment, Ford worried he shouldn't have interrupted him at all. Finally the man slung off one of the bags, throwing it onto his bed and dug into the Bojangles box with his free arm and shoved something into Ford's mouth before he even had a chance to see what it was.
"Taste that and tell me whatcha think.", he huffed.
Ford immediately rejected the offering and spat out something cold that was a combination of grease, smoke, wet, lumpy, dry, doughy, salty, and over all foreign and unpleasing.
"Yeah ya see?! It IS disgusting!"
"What the hell is that?!", Ford gagged.
"A cheap imitation of what REAL comfort food is!", the man said. "Damn fast food and its high fructose corn syrup deep fried wannabe with its poly-craptic SHIT they keep stored in factories for 30 sumthin' years they try to pass off as somethin' edible! If I EVER came close to tastin' something as repulsive as that shit it'd have to be actual SHIT!"
He threw the box onto the bed as well.
"..I see..", Ford said, not having a single clue what the hillbilly was going on about.
"If they wanna BEGIN to think that could hold a candle to biscuits 'n gravy, I'LL BE A SUCK-ASS MULE!", the other ranted and turned to drop his other bags onto his trunk.
"I suppose..", Ford shrugged, stuck with the perplexed image of perfectly good warm biscuits with strawberry jam, sitting in a bowl of dark brown gravy.
Suddenly the light dawned on the taller and his rage vanished almost instantly. He stood up straighter, and looked over his shoulder at Ford as if the New Jersey native had just appeared out of thin air and claimed to have the answers to the universe. Slowly he turned around as Ford's attention was more and more drawn to him rather than his own thoughts.
"...Oh dang!", he breathed, brushing back his hair. "I just looked like some kinda weirdy bustin' up in here with that, didn' I? Oh shit! I'm sorry! I didn' mean to go off like that on ya!"
Ford wasn't really sure how to respond other than giving a simple shrug again.
"Um.. It's okay I guess. You..seemed pretty upset."
"Yeah but dang it, you're the room mate! I'm sorry! I'm Fiddleford McGucket!", he said, holding out a hand and giving a friendly smile. "I'm powerful sorry if I scared ya or something... I swear! I don't bite!"
Ford hesitated but then gave a small smile and shook his hand.
"Stanford Pines, and it's okay. It wasn't scary as it was perplexing.", he said. "If you wanted scary you should hear my father."
Fiddleford laughed.
"I'd say that's about the same with any father, I'm sure.", he said.
Suddenly Fid's hand froze and he looked down and turned Ford's hand over to observe the knuckles. Ford immediately felt tense and wanted to pull his hand away, but was afraid of appearing rude.
Fiddleford frowned, Ford could watch his eyes roaming back and forth, counting them in his head.
"4, 5..6?", he asked quietly, letting go of shaking his hand and simply holding it by the fingers instead. "Jiminey Christmas, you've got six fingers?"
Ford quickly slipped his hand away and tucked them away in his pockets.
"Ah.. I was..born with them.", he said, looking away and hoping to find an excuse to get away from this.
"Dang..", Fiddleford breathed in an awe Ford hadn't ever heard before.
Where as most people would've more scared or uneasy about it, this one sounded genuinely amazed. And the shock was evident on the man's face as he looked back at Fiddleford. This earned him a smile of similar awe proceeding what he heard before and Fidds looked back up from the bulging pockets to Ford.
"That's about the niftiest thing I've ever done see!", Fidds complimented. "Ya must be pretty innovative in dexterity with them digits."
The unusual crossing of vocabulary with his Southern drawl, couldn't help but come across strange to Ford. For a moment, he wondered what species Fiddleford really was. But otherwise, he wasn't sure how else to respond to such a positive outlook on his hands.
"...You're not like other people, are you?", he was unable to help ask.
"Aw hell no.", Fiddleford shrugged. "Y'know how you hear that Southern country folk're all about peach dumplin's, sweet tea, and trucks and seem as dumb as mud? That's cause they typically are. And it doesn' help being born a engineering prodigy out in Georgia. But my mother would let herself be damned if she was gonna let me get ta feelin' low cause I wasn't like the others. Just cause it's weird, doesn't mean it's bad. After all, my dad was born with a second Adam's apple. Don't mean he's dead or worse. Just claims it helps him drink more whiskey."
He laughed and Ford chuckled some in return.
"Wow.. Um.. Thank you, I suppose?", Ford smiled. "You're about the only person I've met who understood."
Fiddleford gave a nod in understanding.
"We've all been there.", he said, before finally noticing the clock Stanford had hung up. "Well shoot, I better get to unpacking. It's only gettin' later. Hey you know if you want that Bojangles, help yourself. I ain't touchin' it again."
"Reminds me. Why were you so mad about them?", Ford asked curiously while Fiddleford went to unzipping his bags and looking around for what he wanted to put up first.
"Well tell me somethin' first where are you from?", Fids asked.
"New Jersey.", Ford replied.
"Wow, dang! Now that IS a rough life!", Fiddleford said, momentarily pausing to give a teasing smirk over his shoulder. "See then, you don't get it. I may be a nerd, but you can't take the hillbilly outta that. Nothin' beats home made biscuits and white gravy the way your mama would make them. Iz been a long car trip out here to Backupsmore and I was feelin' kinda home sick. But damn that shit takes like crap compared to real biscuits and gravy."
"...You're correct to assume one thing, I don't understand.", Ford answered bluntly, chuckling a little. "You lose me with the idea of biscuits in gravy, let alone the fact you specify in saying that gravy, typically being brown, is 'white'."
"Well when I get done, I'll show you what I mean.", Fiddleford grinned as he worked. "Fortunately I did have a batch from home, but I didn't want to climb into the back seat to pick it out while I was drivin'."
Ford sat back on his bed and watched a little while. Fiddleford McGucket seemed like an unusual hybrid of his own, and yet somehow Ford felt less experienced in comparison. Still, he was a friendly face, though being angry certainly seemed like some sort of second personality compared to now. Ford hoped, at the very least, they would be something like friends.
"Stanford?", Fids interrupted.
"I'm sorry?", Ford blinked, pulling out of his thoughts.
"Was askin' if you had family you missed?", Fiddleford asked with a curious shrug.
"Hm? Oh.. Um.", Ford glanced at the picture on the desk and simply shrugged. "No. Not really. Except my mother and baby brother I suppose. But I'm not exactly homesick."
Fiddleford nodded some before going back to his work.
"Was just curious. You were starin' off. I didn't wanna say something to make you feel too bad, Stanford."
"Thank you. But I'm fine.", Stanford smiled. "And please.. Just call me Ford."
"Well then, Ford.", Fiddleford paused to turn around and face his room mate smiling once again as if there wasn't a thing he'd judge Ford on. "..I get ta feelin' we'll be the best of friends."
Ford couldn't help but smile too, seeing him do so.
"I agree...", he nodded. "The best of friends."