moonieandi

[moonieandi]

Two movies I like

[moonieandi]

what is she?

[moonieandi]

Rewatching Apothecary Diaries and remembering how much I love these dorks

[moonieandi]

ao3 update:

Just switched both my works on ao3 to just registered users as of right now. Apparently some company did a sweep and used all of ao3 for some generative AI bullshit. Which I had no clue about until I got around to opening my phone for the first time this weekend- ugh

It’s so upsetting that some company out there would take everyone’s generous free publications online and try to turn it around to farm their AI hellscape. It actually flabbergasts the fuck out of me how any of that is legal- ESPECIALLY with profit tied to it all. I’ll never understand the logistics of it- it was already bullshit when it came to generative AI art - TRUST me I was mad about that. But the writing? Ah man like that the hell :(

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant on my end… I plan on writing some more in the near future. Whether it’s another chapter or a one shot of some of my writing as of late we’ll see, but I may just restrict it to Tumblr for a while until things blow over. Not sure we’ll see

Hope everyone’s good ❤️love you all stay safe!

[moonieandi]

snapshots pt. 11 | stanley pines x f!reader 

Summary: a record-breaking blizzard has both you and stan out in the snow one fateful february night. you both find something in the snow. 

warnings (TW): swearing, idk blizzards?, panic-induced situtions

tags: mutual-pining, sibling dynamics, affection

notes: yoooo this was crazy hard to write guys! I had to do this in pieces! And like the ending may have been.. A last minute decision (no it was not i was thinking about it for months) but like helllooooo everyone! I am here and kinda around sometimes! I missed you all so much life has been allll over the place! I hope you all enjoy <3 look forward to the comments always i love feedback on writing and or storyline!! It keeps me going and motivated to hear for you all!! (special thank you to cass for the playlist <3 it helped w writing!!) much love to you all enjoy ! 

word count: 5.1k

| masterlist | 

February, 1988 

Living this far north had it plights, she learned. 

Not that she had never experienced winter, but it was different when it came around in Gravity Falls. 

There was an eloquent sequestering they pivoted into come the first snowfall in November. Stan had a tendency to hunker, moving blankets to and from different rooms. She especially loved stealing his hoodies and pants from their new dryer. They fell into a routine of drawing closer and closer come the colder months, and he had a tendency to ensure she always left with the appropriate coat, the red one, and her hat and gloves. He floated and pestered more when it began to snow each season. But for some reason, released the reins when it came to her driving to school despite the icy roads and blurred white windshield. 

After the escapade at the lake last January, and her handling the drive home, essentially alone, he was fairly confident in her home-taught driving skills, despite her being somewhat nervous about the road in the early snowy mornings. The headlights always cast shapely shadows on the snow and trees, blurring the lines of the road and making her reliant on the brakes too much for her comfort. She knew the breaks could not actually fight against the slick traction and black sheet ice that lay just below the surface of freshly fallen snow. So sometimes she’d give him that look in the early school mornings, staring at him across the kitchen table as he peers through the newspaper again. She’d nudge her feet across his lap, his fingers curling around her ankles, nudging her sock up her leg. 

“Yes, dear.” He’d say, not questioning. Because he knew after so many times of her insisting and nervous fretting. He always said it in a joking tone, a quick phrase his father would always say to placate his mother. A dismissal of her usual rantings and worrying and lingering in doorways. 

He liked to believe he used it in a more endearing way. One that meant more, he hoped. He enjoyed doing things for her, he discovered. A more innate need than anything, to give into her ploys so easily. He thinks that's what husbands do, anyway. Complain about their wives in an endearing way, because everything that perhaps should have been annoying about her only made him all the more dizzy about her. So he’d drive her most mornings. 

But he couldn’t today. 

He was tied up with work and the giftshop that day. Despite the reduced hours, he was insistent that morning that he needed to stay in. He had fucked up the exact delivery he usually gets every two months to resupply some of the smaller novelties up front. After the rush of a small local Christmas crowd, he was in need of some smaller and more centered gifts for the upcoming Valentine's holiday. He had been distracted by the holiday, thinking about an appropriate gift to give her for the holiday. He hadn’t ever gotten her anything for the holiday before, but things felt… different recently. There was a hairs breath between the line they continually both danced around. He was thinking about the perfect gift to give her that also danced along that winding line, when he scheduled the next upcoming order to come in at 8 a.m. sharp, instead of the usual late-day delivery of 6:30 p.m. He had sworn at the mishap, and sent her on her glum way with a brush of his hand along her hairline. The snow wasn’t that bad that particular morning anyway, he reasoned. 

“Do you want me to come and get you?”  His voice crackled over the landline, muffled by the snow on powerlines.  

She sighed. “No, Stan. I don’t want you walking in this snow just to drive me home.”  

“I don’t want you driving in it, though.” He pauses, a grunt front along the line. “I’m on my way.” A fumble and a thud along the line, a boot, perhaps. The zip of his new coat. 

“No!” She pulled the phone away from her ear, wringing her hand across her chest. He was too stubborn for his own good at times. “Stanley.” She whispered. “Don’t, please, I’ll be leaving in the next 10 minutes. I should be home in 45 minutes.” She predicted, eyeing the heavy snow out the window. The kids had been let go early today, but work from past weeks had piled up, and she insisted the lead teacher go back to her own family. (“Don’t you have your own?” The older woman had asked.) 

He humphed, unhappy at the prospect of her discomfort with the dark road. “You got 30 before I start walking hun’.”

Her shoulders fell. He always got his way when it came to her. Something she didn’t completely mind, except when it was at his own expense. Which it currently was. She hated seeing him cold in any capacity. It’s why she constantly dried his clothes and invested in more throw blankets. And why she no longer took baths in the tub she laid his blue body in last January. She was frustrated at his insistence, but also painfully aware of her nervousness at the darkness outside waiting for her. But she’d rather face some selfish fear of dark roads than have him blindly stumbling through the snow and sludge to get her. She’s never asked him to do that, but seemingly he’d do it of his own volition anyway. 

“I’m on my way, Stanley. I’ll see you soon.” She clips, the edge of a confession curled on her tongue. She thought it may be the hectic day she had, but him annoyingly strongarming the conversation was only really ever endearing. She wondered how many years it would stay that way, when she would be sick of his deep and sheltered sweetness. 

He hums, it crinkles through the phone line. A resolute tone in his deep voice. “30 minutes, hun’.” He says again, she sighs, hanging the phone back up to the head office’s receptor. Folding loose papers into her shoulder bag, cleaning up the head secretary’s desk before shrugging on Stan’s coat and her secondhand gloves before flicking off the last light on in the building to head off into the parking lot. 

Stan’s car sat rigid and the leather of the seat was cold under her thighs. She had to dig the back tires out of the deep cavern that the fastly falling snow had created. The imprint of where she had parked that morning now lay under several inches of new fresh snow. She spent exactly 5 minutes digging the tires out with her now sopping-wet gloves. She had 25 minutes. 

The inside of the car didn’t prove to be of much comfort either. It felt darker in the driver's seat, the only cast of light coming from the radio and her headlights. The staggered street lamps acted as pacers, marking the next point on the road in which she could unwind her hands from their deadly grip along the leather wheel. There were next to no other cars on the country road that led her home. She had 20 minutes. 

The radio sizzled in the darkness of the car. Scrambled late-night talk show reruns sounded crisp and rattled the dashboard of the aging car. The rumble of the motor broke up the silence between the muffled voices on the radio. She thinks to flick the radio, disturbed by the noises of the turning tires and the faint voices. She’d prefer Stan’s voice now, and his rumbling while she hummed to the radio. A song would distract her from the crispness of her breath in front of her, the coldness of the cabin, and the gentle slip of the tires. The tug of the wheel from time to time as the car displaces the inches of snow on the road. 

She glances at the clock. She has 15 minutes. 

She glances again, one hand steady on the wheel and the other reaching for the radio nob. She knows the channel she will flick to already, to that annoying 70’s music channel that Stan always grumbles at but secretly enjoys. 

Movement catches her eye in the dimness of the upcoming street lamp, and the car slips along faster against the ice than her foot can move to the brake. A flash in front of her, and a heavy movement of snow. An animal perhaps, she would believe, if it weren’t for the distinct color of clothes that moved in front of her, spotted between the heavy snowfall. 

She breaks and veers as quickly as she can.

“Oh my god.” She breathes. “Oh my god.” Hands heavy against the wheel, still she unwinds them finger by finger. Breath heavy, hand meeting her chest above her heart. She begins to rattle the door open, stepping out the driver’s side and rushing into the snow. Forgoing her hat and gloves. 

The figure is deep in the snow, directly under the street lamp. Flashes of color move in the deep snow, and the grumbling of a voice meets her. It’s too dark to ascertain, so she quickly moves closer, calling to what she believes to be a person insane enough to walk in this blizzard. 

Only Stan was insane enough to walk in the snowy dark like this. 

“Oh my god.” She thinks to take a breath again, calm her chest, and to disassociate the ringing in her ears. “Stanley!” She calls, rushing forward. 

Except she does not find Stan’s stature in the snow, but comes upon the constant movement of the snow instead, sort of like the person she had almost killed was struggling to get up above the snow. Voices grew more distinct as she reached to assist the person. 

“Give it back! It’s my turn!” The voice of a young girl met her, in sequence with a young boy’s. 

“You’ve had your turn, and we just keep going farther back!” 

She reaches into the pile now, realizing in the dark of this particular Thursday night she had stumbled upon two siblings battling it out in the middle of the road during the worst blizzard of the season. 

The children are not swayed by her hands and words, too caught up in the argument between them. Constantly grabbing and reaching for an object, passed back and forth from hand to hand. Each time a sibling breathes for a break the other moves to snatch the object back. No rest between their fight. They move in sequence as if the other can predict the nexts’ very move. 

It hadn’t been the first time she had broken up a fight between children, and definitely not the first one broken up between siblings. She had learned these past years that a sibling could be someone's greatest asset or someone’s very downfall. She had always wondered what it would have been like, to have a little shadow to teach and play with, but these years had reflected a rather different light on her pre-teen pipedream. Stanford had become another blight in a bright dream of hers. 

So, she doesn’t hesitate to reach into their tussle, separating them between her wingspan, her feet dug into the snow and ice of the road. The street lamp had reflected weird lights on the dark snow before, but the image of the children standing in front of her flashing headlights now drove her to her knees. 

They breathed separately now, the object they had fought valiantly over sat between them. Before her sat a slightly dented but sleek tape measurer. But that truly wasn’t what drew her attention. The feel and grasp of each of the children's shoulders grounded her, the heat of them spoke of their reality. 

They shared faces. They had no coats on, no boots on, and no gloves on. They looked to have popped directly here from some sort of vacation, their skin tan, their freckles distinct along the bridges of their noses. But they looked much the same. 

They shared eyes too, each looking confused from her, back to each other. They seemed to cool off, their breaths even now, the chill of the night seemingly seeping into their bones now, as their teeth chattered slightly. Stilled under her hands, their shared confusion at being caught, at being seen, passed back and forth between them now. 

She looks from each one, not being able to restrain both and keep an eye on both at the same time. First the girl under her left hand, her hair tousled and her stickered skin shining under the headlights. She looked at her confused, eyes clouded, like she was realizing something, like placing a piece of a puzzle.

She looks to her right, the boy wore his emotions plainly. His hair tousled also, and his pine tree hat tumbled off in the snow long ago. He looks contemplative and deeply guilty about something she could not piece. Like he was living his mistakes as he stood before her, and felt guilt when he tucked his face closer to her hand. 

She can’t stand to turn her face for a fourth time, doesn’t want to think about turning her head to and fro and having one of them disappear while her neck is turned. The fading of their visage on some dark horizon line. So she drags them together, bringing her wingspan to have the siblings meet side by side again. Their silly argument, forgotten on the ground between their feet. 

She must look a certain way. Perhaps it’s the tilt of her head or the quickness of her breath that gives away her clear understanding of them. She knows them. Had placed them in countless daydreams and nightmares. Recurring dreams (visions) that have wracked her head since she settled into this lonely Oregon town. She would know them in a crowded room, and in the dark of night. They shared her Stan’s deep-set eyes and streaks of stubbornness. 

She never imagined they were real, though. Thought it was a bandaid her brain had conjured up to quantify the numerous oddities in her life. Thought her mind twisted her nightmares and wishes into a litany of these children, threaded her desires into images and a realness she could not touch until now. She thought her mind had been mocking her. Had grown peaceful in her slowing madness if it meant she woke to Stanley again. Ignored alarms and forgo sleep in favor of simply wondering about the children that had seeped into her dreams. 

But they were real, or at least felt real to her. Looked real too. Reminded of the brisk wind as it tousled their matching brown hair. They both stood before her now, their matching brown eyes looking over her, confused by her visage here in the dark of this particular  night. The boy’s face looks beyond her, behind her, looking for another figure to emerge from the car. 

“W-what are you doing here?” The boy asks, not yet having shrugged her hand off his shoulder.

“I was on my way home from work.” She replies, like it’s a normal workday, like it’s a normal conversation, like it’s repetition, like it isn’t odd that the fixation of her years-long dream stands before her now. “What are you doing here?” She asks, no real scold in her voice. A litany of amusement in the brush of her voice, amusement at his typical imploring questions. (Typical?) 

The girl, who has not moved her eyes from her face, suddenly moves a piece of the puzzle behind her eyes. A flicker of some sort of recognition and excitement at having the older woman in front of her now. With a brilliant smile on her face, the girl stumbles from beneath her hand, moving forward to wrap herself closer to the woman who isn’t so mysterious now. 

“Mabel!” The boy chastises, reaching for his sister's arm to pull her away from the embrace. 

Mabel takes the boy's arm instead, bringing him forward and into the embrace they share now. A ridiculous embrace, a dangerous one. Out here in the dark of the night in the midst of the road in the middle of a blizzard. Something in her relaxed her usual anxious worrying though, with both of them folded into her embrace. Like somewhere in some universe in some time, they had done this before. That the puzzle pieces behind the girls' eyes were them somehow.

That the children knew who she was. And somehow, she knew them. 

She didn’t think to reason it out beyond that at the moment. The impossibility of the illusion of them didn’t falter her in the white blurry of the snow. It felt disproportional and ignorantly stupid in the face of the improbability of their appearance. But they felt real under her arms, as real as the coldness seeping through her pants. Warm and whole under her arms now, able to scoop the entirety of what she believed to be a dream into her body now. 

The boy's mind was always a whirlwind though, never restful and flightful, unpredictable like the scattering of the snow and wind around them. He nudges back from her embrace, tucking his head back and into the wind again to truly look at her flushed and nipped face. 

His eyes widened, noting the tearfulness of her eyes, the wet tracks around her cheeks. She hadn't noticed, hadn’t cared about raining in her emotions when it came to them. He looks at her like Stanley does at times, the quirk of his head and the squint of those same dark eyes. Like he can’t place her emotions, but can place the rest of her entirely. 

“How?” He says, the rest of the question held in the air between them. How does she know them? Why does she recognize them? Is that what this is? 

She knows them not to be a complete figment of her imagination. Suddenly made real, despite everything in this world contradicting as such. 

But in all her seeping dreams, she remembers distinctly that this one in particular is set farther into the future. That there are indications, and blurs, in her dream that hint at the dreams being beyond vague premonitions, rather than a living of the current reality. That and Stan’s demeanor in these wishful far of dreams usually acted more… well more familiar with her than he does now. Act in ways that woke her abruptly now, shamefully not wanting to dream of him in such an intimate way while he lies so closely. 

So in some impossible way, beyond her current comprehension, how could they stand in front of her now. That if, for some reason, they were real, then how could they possibly be here? Here, in her current present, if they were from her distant future?

The unrestful thoughts strike her the same way the boy’s seem to also. Which inevitably sends her on another whirlwind of thought. If the children were a figment of her imagination, a concoction of wishfully wanted familial pictures, a piece of some manipulative puzzle in her own mind, then there should be no concern from the boy. Because they were not wholly real. Until now. But if this figment of some small-version of Stan was so very concerned, struck by her image and pulling himself away from her arms like she burned then how could she argue her case in sanity in the end of all this?

The boy brushed back, flung  himself from her arms and fell quickly back into the snow. He looked scared, scared of her. Scared of what followed in her wake. Because in his mind, it made complete sense how he would recognize her. But it shook something in his core when she reached forward to brush her fingers through his tangled hair, away from his forehead to reveal the scattering of stars across his brow. It had him moving, pulling the back of his twins’ sweater, away from the embrace of the woman they both knew. Has him reaching for the tape measurer again when she finally calls his name in the flash of their exit from this time to the very next. 

Because they hadn’t been born yet. Because in 1980-something his mother was a child. 

Because how could she possibly know his name? 

And who was Stanley? 

The thirty minutes had come and gone quickly. 

Stan truly hadn’t bothered to take off his boots and coat since he put them on thirty minutes prior when his doc’ called. Because although he believed in all her abilities, the ability to drive through a record-breaking snow-storm with no state sanctioned training or driver license, left him fitful by the front door. 

But when he made promises to her he rarely broke them. Unless it was to prove a point of course. But they both didn’t play games when it came to the cold now. 

He made it out the door (truthfully) 2 minutes early. He had spent a time clearing out an adequate spot to put the car an hour prior. Looking at the almost-covered spot now had him trudging through the snow early. She was always too tactful though, he smiled to himself, she’d probably curse him out for spoiling the extra 2 minutes she had. 

He thought nothing of it now, out here in the dark with only a shitty compass his brother had left behind, a flashlight, and the driving force of getting her safely home. 

He had been following the overhead lamp-light of the street lights for a while now. Trudging through the driveway was the worst of course, but he didn’t imagine she would have trouble remembering where to turn to their house. The huge Mystery-Shack sign pointed well enough to the direction of their cabin now. Even if it was eerily covered in snow and the dark. 

It had him stumbling, running without the flashlight and compass, to see his car and her form collapsed under said lamp-light. 

She was curled into herself, her knees folded under her body, her face sheltered into the snow away from the wind. Her coat open, and her gloves gone- like she had stumbled out of the car for something. Like she saw something out here. 

“Hun’!” His yell has her flinching upwards, her arms curled around her body against the cold. Her face flushed from the wind, and the unspeakable tracks of never-ending tears from her eyes. 

He thinks nothing of falling to his own knees, grasping and reaching for her over wind and snow. He can hear her over the endless gale, her own howl's disappearing into the snow and the forest beyond. 

“No, no, no.” He hums, his hands running up and down her back, the spring of worry about the cold and her condition having him moving again. It’s too loud out here now. The wind picks him up, has him curving his arm around the bend of her cold and sodden knees to pick her up. 

Her arm curls into her body, the other grasping and reaching for the hem of the collar of his coat. Some comfort in being so very despondent in front of him and it not shaking his resolve to simply care for her despite it. 

Because she can’t breathe. 

He folds her body into the passenger side of the car. Cursing and thanking God that the car remained on. If the car shut off he was unsure if it’d restart in these temperatures. 

He takes another look at his surroundings before getting into the driver's side. No tracks, no evidence of anything that would pull her out into the street like that. Nothing he could conjure up in his mind that would have her stuck in the snow breathless and freezing. 

She’s shivering in the passenger's seat, and he instinctually pulls her into his side, into the middle of the seat. Buckles be damned, he’d drive slow but he sure as shit needed to get her home. 

She tucks her face close to him, timid now, still sniffling from the cold and the wracking sobs that overtook her not even minutes before. His simple presence calmed anything that stirred within her now. She sags, exhausted by her train of thoughts, resolute in what she needs to confide in him now. 

Because in a way he knows. He has known of her fitful dreams and triangular shadows that creeped into corners of her mind now. She had been too ashamed up until now, to confide in him about it all. Confide in him about… about them. 

Because before it was simply a figment of what she believed she wanted. But now she knew parts of it existed out there, in some plane of existence. The twin’s were that simple existence, the girls warm embrace case enough and the scattering of stars across the boys brow that she just knew were there was case enough. 

She was scared of the bigger things though. The monsters she had seen and the twisted dreams of death and loss. But wasn’t it better if Stan knew? If he knew of the danger to come? If they could prevent some of it? 

Or was she playing into something far more sinister than her twisted mind could conjure up? 

It has her sagging closer to Stan. Touching her face close to his shoulder and neck, letting her eyes droop at the heat and scent of him had her relaxing her hands more. They had been clenched before, her nails sore in the palm of her hands. She brings them up now, uncurling them to turn Stan’s face to her as he parks the car right outside their warm waiting home. 

Her hand turns his face, curving her sore palm around his jaw to his chin. 

He looks at her, so similarly. Like something she remembers from a dream. His eyes deep, a contemplative look to them. A deep concern and quirk of his brow has her pushing her hand up his face to settle his furrowed brow. 

He was always so worried about her. Always looking at her with this frustratingly endearing look. His dark eyes drawn to her in every room, in every setting. And she was always so worried about him. Even now, she complated telling him about everything that transpired in her mind, in those fitful dreams. She fears reliving some of them, of reliving the death of the children she now holds dear. That she somehow knows so well. 

There is one part of the dreams though, that she'd love to make a reality. 

Parts of it they live now. The domesticity they share is undeniable. They flit and work around each other so well. The simple affections they share also, the mornings and coffee’s he makes, to wake beside him is sometimes the best part of her day. Some days she goes the whole day waiting for darkness to creep across the horizon line, just so she could tuck herself close to him. 

They even shared a last name. 

Who were they kidding, truly? 

There is just one thing they don’t share, she thinks. Her hand moves back to his strong jaw again, her fingers thumbing the edge of his lips. She looks back to his eyes again, and the flutter that begins behind her chest at his shaded look has her gasping as he moves his warm hand to cradle her own face too. 

She leans deep into his palm, her eyes still trained on his as he leans as close as he dares. Before the quirk of his lip has her palm shaking to her chest to circle over her staggering heart. 

“May I?” 

She thinks nothing and everything when she surges forward, silencing his inquisition completely. 

She had dreamed of him, and longed for him for what felt like ages now. Touches and looks passed back and forth like some sort of game. But it was so easy to sum up the parts of him to her now, so easy for her to lilt and bend to him. It wasn’t some game now, she resolved, and she was resolute in living life more truthfully with him now too. Starting with not denying herself anything he ever offered her again. Especially if it was this. Something that still terrified her racing heart even now. 

He is wholly warm, his palm warm along her jaw and neck. It grasps her entirely, curving her head to the side to angle her lips to his, pulling her forward to swallow the noise she makes in surprise at her own instinctual action. 

She had dreamed of it of course, kissing Stan like this. But something about kissing him for the first time, she is glad she never dreamed of it. She didn’t simply want to relive it, she didn’t want it to end. 

His lips moved in a certain cadence, not too slow to call this all consuming kiss a simple peck, but fast enough to have her breathing heavily, having him tilt his head more to the side to slot himself all the more closer to her. 

He nips at her purposefully, his mouth working to dance along hers. She continues in like, opening up to allow air to pass between them. Their breaths heavier with every passing moment. 

His other hand found the curve of her waist, a warm trail from her thigh to her hip to the curve of her ribs. He hooks his arm around her now, and she tries not to think about how he moves her so easily to curl up on his lap, the steering wheel behind her. 

His enthusiastic onslaught has her being pushed back, her back arching along the curve of the wheel. His hand curves around her jaw again to pull her away from his lips only for a moment, for him to give her that frightful dark look again before they flicker to her lips again. It gives her only a moment of solace to find resolve in the future she has chosen. To feel only a flicker of guilt in having tied Stanley to her once again. 

She figures he perhaps wouldn’t mind much, this time. 

She breathes, sitting forward in his lap. His lips curve again, not in that suave way, but in that frightfully giddy way. The way she imagines she looks now. His eyes still carry that weight, that dark look of what she now knows is a conjuring of want and abortion. She brings her hands back to his face again, and he turns his face to kiss the center of her sore palm. She didn’t want that look to disappear from his eyes, but she could not continue to explain away a part of herself if it meant a future alongside Stan. 

She sighs, her brow creased. 

“There’s something I have to talk to you about.” 

[moonieandi]

I miss you! I hope all is well ❤️

miss you too 🩵all is well with me!! What yall been up to 🧐🧐

[moonieandi]

hi moonie! this is cassie. you haven't said anything for a while and i hope you're doing okay and you're taking care of yourself <3

I’m well Cassie!! I am alive I swear!!

My job and it’s training has me traveling quite a bit more than I would like 😅training will be over soon though and my schedule will not be so hay-wire. I miss writing very much 🩷I’m just too busy to even be on my phone wahhh

Rest assured I am doing okay tho :) thank you for checking in on me I miss you all!

[moonieandi]

corners and walls | silco x f!reader  

Summary: the grief of loss shakes apart the friends of four, leaving silco and her to pick up the pieces of the complex affliction between them

warnings (TW): slight spoilers for arcane season ii//act ii, swearing, mentions of death, alcohol mentioned, general trauma, violence (implied)

tags: established relationship, honestly for once NOT dumbasses, angst… comfort?, affection

notes: i think this is a oneshot. Im not completely sure (im kinda maybe sure) that this is a oneshot… im allowed to write about my interests! (pt 11 of snapshots in my drafts rn its a complicated ch im wrestling w myself about posting)--- but im in arcane brainrot…. I love dissecting it and unfortunately for all of u i LOVE silco……… hes a questionable character…… but the way the action of season ii is going i need something familiar in my life while looking at (doomed) victor/jayce (heavy sighs) — if u don’t wanna read i understand this is a moonie want (and need) — love youuuuuu <3 

word count: 2.6k

| masterlist | 

There were corners of her he did not know. 

Folds of her linens and clothes he moved to uncover in the past months. She was quiet, silent in the visage he had drawn of her, but stubborn (something familiar) and something of great consistency to him. 

It was hard to quantify her, easier to dismiss. She was not special. Of common stature and of common shape. Plain colors adorned her closet, plain and even temperament, plain tone, and of plain face. 

That is what they would say when uncovering her past. Now that she was part of this mess, part of the mess he had sheltered her into (part of the mess Vander had shepherded her into). The dream of a larger nation, of overarching architecture and structure and reasoning. A voice, they figured between the four of them, a voice that would listen and learn and speak loudly in the face of the injustices they had survived and crawled through. 

But he figured they would only comment on her appearance, perhaps. Of her coal stained shoes and the dirt under her picked nails. 

They would not know the woman behind it all. Would not know of Felicia either (now). Not with the violence inflicted on the bridge. Not with the weapon staining his hand (an accident he had sworn to them both). 

He knew of the woman before him though, knew of her mind and spite and grit. Knew of her work and the lengths and dredges she had come from. Knew of her grief. Something he sequestered in the back of his mind. Survive survive survive. She had once compared Zaun’s residents to roaches. Unkillable, dirty, and strikingly annoying. She meant it in an endearing way, she had to. She was a roach too. 

It was a different kind of insect, a different animal, that drove him to draw a gun on the woman he loved so dearly. He wouldn’t have thought to wrap a finger around the trigger if it weren’t for the feral instinct of preservation. He could discern danger like a sense, it came as easily as smell, as sight, as breathing. But it had him stuttering now, seeing her on the other end of his warranted violence (was it warranted?). 

She was a structure of poise, like usual. Another reason to keep the gun drawn to her. The silence in her acceptance of his decision. He knew though, that if they both survived the grief of his mistake she wouldn’t forgive him- never forgive him for registering her as a threat. How could she be? 

He had been waiting for the retaliation. He hid away in corners and along dark walls in wait. He waited for Vander to seek a sort of violence in him, the last violence the large man would ever do. Seek blood in the name of their shared friend, for the orphans he made. He was sick, sick with the thought of it most days. But composed, up until this point. Up until Vander used his last facilities to shake his roach of a mind from the corners of the nation they once dreamed of in the depth of caves and between stone-cold walls. She was it, was that thing that would make him waver, and he knew that. 

She had her palms raised, hands shaking. But composed, as usual. It was hard to shake the structure of her. She was rarely surprised by violence, much less the plights of men. She wasn’t quick to anger, wasn’t weepy at the thought of destruction, and stood as strong as cavernous walls, sturdy against the infrastructure of the Undercity. He admired that, he loved that. 

She had only shaken a total of three times, in front of him. Only bent her head and neck and bowed before him in emotion all of three times. Imprinted in his mind, the cascade of her hair, the shaking of her shoulders, and the sightless grief in her eyes. 

The first was the first time he truly saw her. She consumed herself with work. Whether it be their laborious job in the mines or the turmoil of finding justice in an unjustified upbringing. She had broken one day, that very first day. 

She was a sightless, unknowing girl in the crowd. But something about her hunched structure had struck him differently that day. He was younger then, only twelve. He knew of empathy but had yet to experience it. But he was shackled by it then, that day, when he first saw her. Hands bloody through her miners' gloves, shoes holey from the trek to and fro. She was younger, by a year or two. It was not unusual to find distressed children in the Undercity, perhaps more common than people would like to comment. Children, like they were, grew along the walls and innards of the city, meshed into stony hallways and bridges, faded into noise and paint of the background. It should go unnoticed by most, a crying child. But it struck him differently, then. 

The second, the day she confessed unfounded feelings. Years in the making, the dredges of the relationship between them. Even now, he could not comprehend the strings that were strapped between them. It was more than stuttered words and whispered confessions. It felt undying between them, an acceptance. 

She had been confused at the progression of their relationship, as was he. No reference to be found between them of a structure to hold their relationship. They took it in stride, took and molded their wants between them to breathe easily. Wind through a metal chime, ultimately peaceful, but prone to knots. Their strings overlaying, knotting, tightening. He had never thought to unweave them when he fled. The tug of knots and her heart led her back to him anyway. 

The third time would be now. The shake of her hands and the draw of her legs. The shimmering tears rounding along her chin. She was beautiful. She never liked when he said so, but she was captivating. He didn’t enjoy seeing her cry, it unsettled a deep dark part of him. One he would crush and stamp down, that domineering possessive part of him. He thinks of drawing the gun to his foot, squeezing the trigger at his incompetence and attitude to make her cry (this was the second time now, he swore, two strikes in the threads between them). 

“Please.” She never pleaded. “Please Silco, come home.” The grit of her teeth against a stutter, the shuddering of her breath in the cavities of her chest. Grief, unfounded. 

“You know I can’t, dear.” Too quick for his liking, he responded. He had backed himself into a dark corner, grown leaves into walls, and hid in shadows of the Undercity bridges now. It would have to be without her though, he grieved again. He had sunk so far into the stones, in the murky water of the Undercity, it wouldn’t be safe for her to follow. 

“I’m sorry.” An afterthought. A forethought. What he apologized for was lost between the notch of string on his belt and the thread leading back to her shirt. Was it for Felicia? His grief? Or was it for leaving her? (Was it for the children? For the young girls that remember his visage in Felicia’s home? For the blue-haired pixy girl that asked for him between shattered bombed dreams? The girls she shushed and rocked and cried to sleep?) 

She liked to think it was for all of it. Her stupid heart forgave him anyway. 

She was far from naive, far from gullible. 

She knew of men and violence and dark waters by the ripe age of nine. Something she would teach Felicia’s daughters now too. It was why she lived, why she breathed still, her unwillingness to bend and snap her neck in the face of shadows and men. But she had forsaken that for him, craved a subjugation in his waters, and wished to follow him up ivy walls and read the ink scrawled on his stupid notebooks. Wanted to breathe life into his ideas and into Zaun. She’d follow him into the dark, knowingly leaving the unsaught dawn behind her. 

She only bent because she knew the power between them was equal though. She was sure of exactly three things when it came to Silco. 

The first being that he was flippantly deep. That he thought not in breaths but in paragraphs. That he could not speak but write for hours on end, that he could comprehend and listen and swallow and accept, and that he did not react in haste. He was full of purpose and determination. It was more than endearing, almost blindingly inspiring that he wished for not better but only ever the best. 

The second being that he was a perfectionist. That his scripture was scrawling and hard to read, but comprehensive. That he enjoyed messes only because he enjoyed the meticulousness of planning and cleaning up. That he loved the structure of homes and corners of houses and the craft of cleaning something that was truly his. 

The third being that he loved of equal measure, that she was most sure of, could recognize in the dead of the night, in the depth of caves. That he was severely serious when it came to the strings strung between them, and not because of the disorder of them. He would have color-coded, would have untwisted knots, and lengthened rope if he wanted to. But that was the truth of it, that he was the farthest from a perfectionist when it came to love. That he didn’t measure distances and didn’t note words between them, because he threw away the scale of them long ago. Pulled her close, twisted words between them, and sang and hummed to her in crooks of her neck. That he wished for her continued safety above anything, and far above his own. She knew for a fact, was sure of it as she was of the red-pitched brick outside the bar. It was as cumbersome as the smoggy sky, but as easy to swallow as any dark liquor. That he loved her in dark corners that made him. 

But there were dark corners of her he did not know of yet. 

That the consuming grief of her long-time friend sent her into a rage, that the stabilization and measurements between them fell and broke when he was not there for her to confide in. She wished above all else that he had stayed, that he had faced Vander’s anger. She had stayed, breathed, and swam the storm of their mutual friends' grief. Stayed for the children and for their grief also. Did that make him a coward?

“For what.” She asks, the caverns of her lungs shaking now. Her hands weak, falling to her side. “Don’t say that, don’t say that if you don’t know what for.” It was senseless and miscalculated of him to say sorry. He is so purposeful, so full of preserverations. She just wished he did not feel he had to preserve himself in the face of her. 

The gun shakes now, dropping to his side, his finger poised along the trigger still. The depth of the scarcity of her image still shook him. It had been weeks, what felt like months since he’d seen her face. 

He had seen her in crowds, seen the children marking her frame and clutched in her arms. It shook him to not wake up to her face anymore, much less her smell or her frame or her voice. Her face though, the visage of tears and the weakness of her arms, awoke something in him. 

He had to remember himself, why he left. To build a nation, to structure a future for her. For the new shadows of Felicia that followed in her wake now. 

“Everything.” He meant. “For everything, my love.” 

She sighs deeply, tired. Her head tilting to the left on instinct. Powder made a home in the crook of her neck most nights now. 

It was striking to see him. She dreamed of him between nightmares and dreamless sleep. Dreamed of waking up to him, of the quirk of his lips and the crook of his nose. The smell of him and the warmth of his embrace. The fold of his jacket around her shoulders and the breath of a kiss along her brow. When she woke she could not decide the ups and downs of walls, couldn’t decide if it was a tortuous nightmare to be awake or to be asleep. 

It strikes her when he steps forward from the shadowed corner she had backed him into. His hair is longer, his eyes deeper and darker, his clothes caked with dirt. She thinks to be insistent again. Thinks of bringing him home despite Vanders’ anger, despite the grief they shared between them. But wasn’t Silco grieving also? 

He approaches with stuttering steps. Unsure of the length of strings between them, grasping her to tie her tight again to him, when he reaches for the curve of her cheek and jaw. 

“Don’t cry.” He commands for the third time in her life, sweeping his thumb and fingers along her wet cheeks. She shutters around it, breathing between the mess of string and space between them. 

“Good.” He hums, bringing his fingers to the nape of her neck, curving her neck up in revelation. He bends his own in subjugation to her, curving his shoulders and bowing to her visage to meet familiarly between them. Curving his slight frame and lips against her own warmth, the common parts of her beat faster at the affection. It burst between them, the movement of endearment and familiarity. She forgot about this above all, missing the plainer parts of life you don’t know to miss until they are gone. 

She’d miss him again and again, would string along strings and set fires in dark paths and along walls searching for him. They’d say goodbye now, and say goodbye again once she traced him back down to the cobblestone he had slid into and out of. She’d look for him in architecture and in the children of the Undercity, she’d swear and kiss away it all now, though. Anything to push off the knots between them, anything to stop a stuttering goodbye between them that was as inevitable as her own death. A thousand of them, these tiny goodbyes, she’d take though, if it meant he lived. 

Lived farther down below than she’s ever been. But then again, there were corners and foothills in her mind he did not know of, yet. 

[moonieandi]

Dude as a very new gf fan (legit only finished it a week ago) - your fic has actually taken over my life 😭 I’ve spent the whole week reading every possible Stan fic I could find and honestly NO ONE hits as hard as you do. The writing, the story, everything is some of the best I’ve read in so long. This is honestly nothing but a thank you note and please continue creating such perfect art 😭🩷

I just love a fic that hits so hard that u keep coming back ugh- like I try to read romance books some people publish today and I’m so critical of it all the time idk if it’s brain rot or like I’ve been tainted by free writing

I’m glad u like the story also sometimes it’s hard to story board or u get really in ur head about a direction ur taking things…. I prefer “” darker “” writing or perspectives (personally) and I also (personally) enjoy romance inserts/ships that feel weirdly deep. Bc I enjoy fleshing it out

Hope u enjoy my (soonish) update!! Thanks for the message ugh love messages (so sorry this has been siting here for a while)

[moonieandi]

You’re back!!!!!! Thank godddd!!!!! 💃🏾🩰🕺🏾🪩

Just read your update and of course I loved it! You write so well, it feels like I’m watching a limited series or something. Love your work and I’m glad move day was good for you!

Waiting for you next update 🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾

Hellloooooo!!!

I’m so glad people like my style I’m so critical of it at times :))) :/// but it makes me really happy that I have a quote unquote (perhaps) unique style of writing lol

The next chapter is in my draft and should be posted tomorrow (also working on something else/a oneshot for arcane so sorry lol I’ve been sucked back in)

Love yallllllllll

[moonieandi]

Every single chapter of snapshots is so amazing

🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷thank you!!!!!

[moonieandi]

I‘m so excited you are back, the last chapter was so beautiful and cinematic 🥹

Thank you!! So sorry it’s been a minute but my big girl job and move snuck up on me. I’m sure I’ll fall back into writing once I have an actual routine

Thank you tho! Sometimes I feel as if “background” chapters can be boring, but I wanted to still capture her/readers background bc I think it’s important to the story but also important to the understanding of who she was in her teens to who she is in their thirties. There’s more background to go thru also!!! But all that has to do with Ford of course which I will be pushing off until now (mmm angst)

Thanks so much for the message and sorry for my late reply!! Lots of love to u thank uuu 🩷🩷

[moonieandi]

Head in hands my head is in my hands oh my god poor Stanley pines

[moonieandi]

but i remember everything

[moonieandi]

Brothers

[moonieandi]

hi moonie!! it’s cassie! how are you?? i hope the moving has gone smoothly? remember to take care of yourself! <3

anyhow, i have a little gift for you which can hopefully make you happy. i made a playlist for your story snapshots! it has two different parts, doc’s side and stanley’s side. from the first song to ‘so high school’ it’s doc’s part, and from then the rest are stan’s songs <3 i know half of it is taylor swiftie so i hope you don’t mind haha! btw this is my interpretation of the story so maybe some songs dont make sense to u since you are the creator but um anyway!!

hope you enjoy it <3 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3rbYK0W472AHYHc50eUx3X?si=cc2vYdAdQ9ufBwHCZ2eSqg&pi=e-dUuPsWOsQem5

hello cass!!!

im doing well<3 i hope you are too!

omg, ahhh! this is so incredibly sweet of you <3 ill def be checking it out and esp when I write the next chapter ! (also I love tay swif so you've read me well lol folklore is personally my fav)

i can't wait to look it over!! thank you so much for the love and I'm glad you enjoy my work so much you'd dedicate your own time to making a playlist that's just so sweet gahhhhhhh

all the love to youuuuuuuu <3 talk soon!

[moonieandi]

snapshots pt. 10 | stanley pines x f!reader 

Summary: pictures paint a thousand words, and it’s time you take some of your own

warnings (TW): swearing, discussions of death, grief, familial-loss 

tags: mutual-pining, character background, familial bonds

notes: HELLO ALL! I am doing much better and settled into my new apartment :) ive had a rather hectic couple of weeks and it may take me a couple more to really transition into my new space and job so there may be some breaths between updates for now!! Does this chapter reflect some of my own experiences? Of course, it does. Was I always gonna write this chapter? YES- this chapter is a reflective/background for our beautiful reader/doc’! The formulative next chapter is BIG BIG BIG (unless i think something is missing in which it will be thrown into said plot between this ch and the next “formed” one) but okay! I missed u all! Apologies for the lack of actual… well STAN in this ch lol

word count: 4.5k 

| masterlist | 

Her childhood home’s walls’ were scattered with differing picture frames. If you were to ask her what she remembers most distinctly about her abandoned corn-field house she would recount the countless pictures her grandmother collected and stretched across every inch of the hallways between closed doorways. She’d recount most distinct the presence of her mother, only ever in picture form, and the bearing weight of her grandmother's ire. 

Not to say the older woman hated her. No, she constantly breathed everlasting love at her. But when she tilted her head in certain lights her grandmother would remember that she was not actually her daughter. She had existed in the shadow of a dead woman for a long time, in that home. Her grandmother didn't have a waning memory though, only a waning heart. Forget herself in between her blame and love for the young child she was to take care of. 

As she grew with age she began to sympathize with her grandmother more and more. To lose a daughter so young, to have to raise the thing that tore her apart. It made her grandmother sick at times, and she didn’t have the heart to fault the woman for open palms and harsh words.

Her grandfather was quite a pillar in her memories though, a lasting good memory of the house and her childhood. He’d come home with dirty hands from fields and fold her into his arms every day, anyway. Some of her favorite memories are shucking corn on the porch with him, the sun cresting over the skyline, and crickets chirping between. She’d talk, and he’d listen. He was a quiet man, a content one, but he also carried a certain grief in his eyes when he’d look at her at times. Something she blamed herself for entirely. 

Reasonably she could compartmentalize that the death of her mother was not her fault, even without a therapist. Her mother was young when she fell pregnant with her, still in high school, had just gotten her driver's license. She knew, could reason, that she held no fault in this. In the entire situation. Besides her looks, she blamed herself plenty for that, she blamed herself for not doing more to distance herself from those picture frames. 

It’s why her grandmother forgot at times, why her grandfather looked most grieved when the sun set just right over the dinner table. She looked remarkably like her mother, a perfect picture replica in just the right shadows, just the right cadences. 

It’s why her grandmother didn’t take down the pictures, truly. Pictures of her mother in her prom dress, of her first and last Christmas under the tree. Of her mother in the backseat of her grandfather's old Buick, of her mother in the golden-crested corn fields just outside their back door. Because there was no point in forgetting because she haunted them every day. Her face was proof enough of that. 

She didn’t have any pictures of her own, any hung up anyways. She had the official ones done, of course, the yearbook photos and the prom pictures her friends’ mother took for them. But that’s where it stopped and ended. It was her own secret grief, but wasn’t comparable to the glint in her grandparents' eyes. So it stayed that, a secret. 

She dreamed of a simpler life at times. That she was her mother. That the pictures were her own, that her (grand)mother kissed her goodnight, and that her (grand)father didn’t hesitate when he hugged her. Dreamt of a life with her very own lover, dreamt of a life filled with children and apple pie and Christmases at her (grand)parents' house. She dreamed about that fantastical American dream, of wrap-around porches and pastures full of fireflies. But this too stayed a secret, until her junior year of high school. 

School came easy to her, and it usually served as a much-needed reprieve from her mirrored hallways. Come five years old she most looked forward to early mornings and car rides with her grandfather. Her caregivers were always drowsy in the morning and forgot themselves in the darkness of early September. Her grandmother would kiss her goodbye, and fold a packed sack lunch into her small hands. Her grandfather would lean in closer, and read blurry newspaper headlines off to her, like she cared to be known and be seen. Soon though, these mornings disappeared, with age. 

From the ages of fourteen to almost eighteen years old she did everything and anything to impress them, to distress them, and to upset them. She wanted them to capture her achievements in scrapbooks, and laugh over misadventures she would get into, much like they did with her mother's memory. She figured that’s how one lived, in shadows and stories. 

She joined every school club, then quickly quit them. She excelled in writing and sciences alike, and then quickly failed them. She earned enough money to buy her first beat-up car, then quickly veered it into the nearest ditch. She snuck off, broke locks on doors and off windows, ran through fields, and came home late with mayhem in her wake. Prayed that the back porch light would be on, that her grandfather would be back there, on the porch, smoking his cigars. That he’d have that awful look on his brow, that he’d look at her different, speak to her like she wasn’t a shadow, carry a cadence in remembering her name in his anger. She hated when he didn’t remember her the most, even if the memory wasn’t a good one. 

For the longest time, her grandfather was her favorite person, even if he stumbled over his words, and misspoke her name at times. It almost didn’t matter as much to her, because he had a predisposition to always apologize, unlike her grandmother. 

She could always count on him being on the back porch, during the fall and summer and spring months. He had a favorite wooden chair, no cushion in site. Most would have called him a rather stiff man. Stiff in his gait, stiff in his politics, and he usually had a stiff drink on him. But he was a warmth that she didn’t wish to forget, she was his only granddaughter, the last line of his family. 

Her grandfather, while quiet, was an amazing listener, and had a plethora of solid advice to usually dish out most nights. But he was only open for certain hours and seasons, only ever when he was outside and only ever when the sun hung low in the sky. 

Most of her actual problems she never had the guts to voice to the stoic man, she mostly spoke of school, of subjects and passing friends and any gossip she could get her hands on. Her grandfather was a nosey man, funnily enough, and enjoyed listening to whatever she could sparse from the school halls that day.                                                                                 

Their topic that night, though, had her grandfather sitting in a longer silence than she was comfortable with, a stiff drink balanced in his left hand. Her grandmother had scolded her during dinner, for not having looked into colleges to attend as of yet. She was in her eleventh year and hadn’t even considered truly attending. She knew a handful of other female students who didn’t even plan to go, she figured she fell into that category also. Figured she’d wind up much like her grandmother was now, doing the dishes while her husband lounged. Something her grandmother claimed she didn’t mind but something she was still having a hard time wrapping her head around. 

Truly she did not know what she wanted to do after graduation. It still felt like she had so much time, but in all honestly that illusion was fading. She knew something for sure though, that she didn’t have a desire to go to college. She wouldn’t even know what for, and she wanted to be close to home. Closer to the shadow she lived in and in suffocating hallways. She didn’t know anything else. 

Perhaps that’s what her grandmother meant, that she didn’t mind, because she had no mind in it at all. She didn’t know anything else, anything other than this house and her husband and the child that had torn her own apart. It wasn’t a comfort it just was. 

She liked routine, despised change, and preferred her adventures in corn and soybean fields. Preferred late nights with friends with windows rolled all the way down in convertible cars, and preferred stiff drinks with her grandfather on the shaded porch. So she would stay. She said as such at the dinner table too, something her grandmother didn’t take too kindly to. Having her (grand)daughter speak back to her. 

She didn’t break the quiet tension between them that night on the porch. She’d love to forget what happened over the dinner table entirely. The heat in her grandmother's eyes, the ire behind her twisted words. That she would leave, would seek better for herself out there in the world. Educate herself and move on from this home, from suffocating walls, and from them. That's what she figured her grandmother really meant, that in some twisted way, she wished to be rid of her. Hated living with a mirror of her daughter around every corner. The old woman could take down sun-stained pictures and be rid of the image of her forever, rest peacefully knowing she’s finally pushed her so far away. Fold what was left of her mother into boxes and ship it all away for once. 

It made her bitter, at the time. She resented the older woman on and off for years. When she was younger she didn’t understand it all, couldn’t quantify her grandmother's grief, tucked herself into corners, and disappeared into nooks of fields and sheds to distance herself from heated looks. At seventeen it had transformed into an equal distaste. Nothing she did seemed to shape up to the image her caregiver had of her, and she grew tired of attempting to evoke even the slightest of positive emotions from the woman now. The only time she was ever at ease is when she forgets who she even truly is. How was she to pretend to be someone she didn’t even know? She couldn’t even compartmentalize the depth of her own self. She was still a little girl in her mind, still six and begging her grandmother to hang their family portrait that she had drawn on the fridge. She didn’t have it in her to beg anymore and didn’t have it in her to even define who she was. 

Looking back at it all, she realized she was never supposed to know. People change all the time, she had changed. It all just depended on who you surrounded yourself with. In that home, in those fields, and on those gravel roads she had no one. No one but a fading grandmother and a tired grandfather, and perhaps it wasn’t even fair to continuously implore that she stay. She wouldn’t be who she is now, wouldn’t recognize herself even now if she hadn’t left. And if her grandfather hadn’t convinced her of such. 

Her grandfather broke that tension between them that night. She remembers distinctly his words that he spoke between them that night. 

“You can live here sure, but could you die here?” He spoke abruptly, nursing his cup along the wooden edge of his chair. 

She scoffed, shaking her head, fixing her eyes to the fields beyond. “Now that’s just dramatic as hell.” 

“I’m being serious.” He sips his drink, humming along the rim of his cup. “You can see yourself living here because you do now, but can you see yourself dying here? Would you be happy to die here?” 

“What are you even talking about? Happy? To die?” She shifts her eyes back to him, his own eyes glassy. 

“Your mother never made it out of here. Never so much as had a life beyond this plot of land. I dreamed of her being free of it one day.” He sighs like it choked his throat and was too heavy on his chest to admit. They didn’t speak of her often, at least not when he was as sober as he was now. “ Happy, out there somewhere.” 

“Was mama not happy, grandpa?” She implores, figuring he may be being the most honest he’s ever been in this moment

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Your mother was the brightest thing in the room. But people grow up, get older, and sometimes those bright things die. I wanted her to get out, explore new bright things, things to push off the dying parts of you.” 

“So you think I should go?” 

“I think one day, when they put people to rest, that the dirt matters. I think you should find new dirt, kiddo.” 

She shakes her head, burying it in her palms. She can feel the pent-up tears, feel the shake of her shoulders before it makes its way from her stomach to her lungs. “I’m scared though, pa’.” 

“Good.” He hums, a comfort to his deep voice. “Humans are scared of things they don’t yet know. Soon, new dirt won’t be so scary.” 

She leaves that discussion on the back porch, and her grandfather does not discuss it again in her presence. He really only needed one conversation to sway her, make her consider. She kept it to herself though, felt too private to consider out loud across dinner tables and porches. She was afraid to admit that it… scared her. The thought of leaving the only thing she’d ever known, leave behind the firefly fields and the four corners of her bedroom. Perhaps she’d even miss the four corners of the picture frames, and the call of her name from the room over. 

Her grandfather's health waned that last year of high school. He soon forgot where simple things were. Forgot where the utensils drawer was in the kitchen, and wondered where the lamp in the corner of the living room was when he turned his back. She learned that memories fade in waves and that there are acts and paragraphs and distances between forgetfulness. That when he’d turn and forget to take his shoes off when he got home from the fields it would evolve into him forgetting where their gravel driveway was. That’d he’d forget numbers and words to describe things. That he’d forget soon, how to spell his name, and how to properly hold a pen. That soon he’d forget how to climb the stairs, and then forget how to put one foot in front of the other. 

Forgetting who people were always seemed to come last because categorically it was the most painful to forget. She suffered through being called by her mother’s name for months, she never had the strength to correct her wilting grandfather. But watching the man forget his own daughter was different, and she grieved differently for her and her own mother that last month of his life. 

After he forgot for good and faded from this plane into the next, it upset her, even more, to watch her grandmother do much of nothing about it. She waited in anticipation, for the rage and denial that came with death. She recounted the stages of them in her head for weeks, but never witnessed her grandmother falter in all that time. It angered her beyond anything she knew up until then. It exploded in her face one day when she came home to her grandmother folding away picture frames into boxes in the living room. 

It took her only a moment to find it was exclusively her grandfather’s pictures she’d plucked bare from the walls. Holes were left empty along the living room, nails protruding from the blank white walls behind the many portraits. How could she fold him away into boxes, remove him from walls and from corners of the house, like he wasn’t still here, in every room they passed through? 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

Her grandmother turned, her usual quirk in her brow and downturned look in her eyes. “Language, girl.” 

“No.” She stomped forward, ripping the frame from her caregiver's grasp. “Why the fuck are you putting him away.” 

“Enough.” She scoffed. “I’m not putting him away.” She waves her hands around the living room, to his recliner chair and the lamp he would turn on each night to read his newspaper. Points to his books of sudoku on the coffee table and his empty T.V. dinner tray he’d set his late-night hot coco on. “He’s still here. He’s right here.” 

“No.” She pushed back and away from her grandmother. “Why would you put his portraits away? Why would you take them down?” 

Her grandmother shakes her head, hands on her hips, a weird look of defeat on her face for once. “I won’t be interrogated about my interior design skills.” She moves around her, back through the open doorway into the kitchen light. 

She runs after her, picture gripped in her left hand, her right continuously running over her chest, self-soothing. “No!” 

“Yes!” Came her grandmother's reply from her position bent over the kitchen sink, going back to washing sudsy dishes that she left to soak. 

“Why?” She begged, stepping closer to her grandmother's back. “Why the pictures? Why the fucking pictures, ma’?” 

Her grandmother doesn’t wilt, twisting her head to look back at the girl she had raised, the girl she had raised twice now. “What?” 

“You know what I’m talking about ma’ don’t play dumb!” She never would have ever called her matriarch that in her right mind, but the disrespect felt inconsequential in the visage of her anger. “Why the pictures?” She held up the portrait in her left hand, facing it towards her grandmother. 

Only then did she melt in front of her, suddenly looking younger than she’d ever remembered her grandmother. Eyes teary and hands soaked from the kitchen sink she reached for the frame, holding it in weathered hands, tracing the portrait with slight fingers. 

It struck her, that she could not drum up a memory of her grandmother ever crying in front of her. Her caregiver had always been headstrong, stubborn at her worst, and mellow yet firm at her best. But never a wavered figure. She remembers now, the woman’s age. 

It has her moving forward, has her reaching for her grandmother's shoulders for the first time in forever, shuffling the smaller woman to the dinner table. Pulling the chair out and allowing her grandmother to compose herself while sitting at the unset table. 

It’s her grandmother that breaks that hanging tension, breathing out around her tears and stuffed nose. Chuckling at the image now held in her hands. 

“It rained right after this picture.” She couldn’t stop laughing now, bent over, and holding the image between them. “He took me out for a picnic, set up the stand for the photograph and everything. Then boom, ten minutes later we were caught in a thunderstorm! We were a good mile away from his car.” 

It was unlike her meticulous grandfather to not have checked the weather. Something she questioned out loud to her grandmother. 

She sighed, a tilt of her head that still spoke of her love for the man that haunted them both now. “He was so nervous that day, he forgot to check. He was going to propose that day, he told me later. Had it all planned out, but then forgot to check the weather.” The first thing he’d ever truly forgotten.

They both laughed, staring back at the framed photo of her grandfather and grandmother sprawled out on a checkered picnic blanket. 

She looked back at her grandmother, finding the older woman was already staring back at her. Her frail hand reached out, tucking frazzled hair behind her ear. Moving her hand back over her cheek to her chin, tilted her head up to face the older woman's head on. 

“I’m sorry.” A break in her grandmother's voice. “I kept them up because I thought it best. I thought you would want to know her.” To know her mother. “But it was selfish of me. To keep her up on all these walls.” Her thumb was firm on her chin now, tears leaking down her own face now, too. “I didn’t make any room, for you here.” 

“I’m not her, ma’.” 

She sighs a smile on her face suddenly. “You aren’t my daughter.” Moved her hand back, to cup her cheek again, palm warm against her. “But you are not nothing to me.” 

“I know, ma’.” Her grandmother moved, wiping tears from her cheeks. 

“But you need your own space now.” 

She nods, understanding what her grandmother finally meant. She needed her own walls and space and dirt. She needed to leave, and find her own four corners and hang her own pictures, and she knew her grandmother would help her get there too. 

“Do you want it?” 

“Huh?” She startles, turning her gaze to Stanley beside her. The camera in front of her was brand new, and a stupid turquoise blue. Turquoise like her mother's bike, in that one picture, hung along the wall right before her grandparents' room. Turquoise still, that bike was, rusty around the chains, when she found it stuffed in the back of one of the many sheds on her grandparents' farm one summer when she was but thirteen. Turquoise, which she loved to hate but secretly adored. Perhaps it was her favorite color, her mother's, that is. 

He’s waiting beside her, his arms full of odds and ends he found in the thrift store. Things he would tear apart and resew into new things- weird attractions to entice customers into their homes to pay the bills. 

She laughs, struck by his ridiculous tactic of not grabbing a shopping basket in favor of stuffing his broad arms full of odds and ends. Easier to steal, he claimed, when you don’t have a shopping basket. 

“Nah.” She lies. “Color just reminded me of something.” 

He shrugs, goofily dropping something from his arms. He bends over to pick it up, narrating out loud to get a smile back on her face. Anything but that deep contemplative look on her face and that scrunch in her brow. 

“I’m bending over now. Definitely didn’t just spot something on the bottom shelf that I want… definitely didn’t just get that also.” He stands again, shuffling things around in his arms. “That thing may or may not still be on the bottom shelf.” 

She laughs, taking some things from his arms and heading up. “Come on, you don’t need much else here. Let's get some dinner already.” Already thinking of the order she’d get at Greasy’s. 

They check out without a hitch, mainly because the teen at the register barely looks up from their magazine to take their money. Stan jokes about the potential to have just left the shop with their arms full without having paid a dime.

“They didn’t even look up! We could have just booked it, hun!” 

“No, we couldn’t have!” She laughs. “Plus I don’t wanna get some poor kid fired, Stan.” 

He huffs, pulling her door open, then putting their bags in the back seat of the car. He doesn’t make another comment until he gets to his own side, sighing slightly in the front seat while pulling something out of his inner coat pocket. 

“Now-” 

“Stan don’t tell me you took that dumb salt shaker from the bottom shelf for real.” 

“No, hun.” He laughs, handing over a flash of turquoise. “Just this.” 

She smiles unconsciously, holding the ugly camera in both her hands. Bringing it up to her eye to see out the camera, checking the back of it for the film. She can’t help but tear up, about something as stupid as the potential to finally take her own pictures. Something she forgot about even wanting between everything else. Next, she’d have to get out of the car and roll around this new dirt she found herself on. 

His doc’ was a terrible liar. He knew she wanted that camera as soon as she stopped in front of it. She kept passing it in the store, kept wandering back in front of it, but never reached out for it. Just… stared. He didn’t wanna figure on the significance of her fascination (unless she supplied it readily), only wanted to figure how she’d brighten up the room if she had it. So he took it. 

It was the best thing he’d ever stolen her. Between her snatched spoons and stolen diner crayons, this felt more significant. More purposeful, more solid between them. He knew she wanted it, so he got it for her. It felt significant, and it made her heart ache for the young girl surrounded by all those pictures that acted as twisted mirrors. He didn’t even know, what it meant to her. 

“Thank you, Stanley.” She smiles at him, all bright like he predicted. The edge of a tear along her eye, so he reaches and folds her into his broad shoulder. He grazes his lips along her hairline, humming close to her ear like he knows she enjoyed. Perhaps it was like that thing she did, soothing her hand over her heart and chest. Maybe the warmth of him and the vibration reminded her of four corners and hallways and home. At least he hoped, stupidly. 

He brings her back out, reaching over her and buckling her in as she smiles stupidly at him and then back at the camera back in her lap. 

“To dinner!” He exclaims, turning the cars’ keys to begin their journey to Greasy’s for their yearly anniversary dinner. 

She’d have to get some picture frames, for them.