#this has been in my drafts forever. i kinda hate it but whatever | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

becausethathappens · 3 years

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Will you please write a super angsty fic where Link is freaking out because he thinks the wedding vows he has written aren't good enough and Rhett helps him go over them and make corrections and says they're perfect but also, just says the vows he would say for Link if it was them like it should've been because he's heartbroken and Link can tell but their hands are tied and they don't know what to do so they soldier on without saying a word, but wordlessly communicating lifelong love and misery and everything, maybe comfort as well?

i'm really really sad and i can't shake it off and i really want some good angst and hurt/comfort and i really love you, maura, you're awesome

I don't do unhappy endings, anon. I'm confident you don't either. In fiction or otherwise. So, pardon this if it’s not what you expected.

Please enjoy? This was done a little hastily to share it with you (and I should be writing other things per usual) but I've had a rough week and I want to hopefully make someone smile. (I have way angstier stuff in the drafts and I will be sure to get those out eventually, too.) You’ll feel better soon. 🤞 Thank you! 💞

-———————-

now or forever

4k - Rhett writes Link vows.

If you were my boy, Blue

I’d bathe you in honeys (sp?)

I’d sing write you a love song

I’d shoot you a star**

If you were my boy, Blue

There ain’t nothing in this life I wouldn’t give

From my heart, to my toes, to my fingers, my nose (**)

Whatever it takes just to watch you live

continue to ‘ ’ grow with you like a vine ‘round a rose

If you were my boy, Bue

I wouldn’t want you all for myself

There’s no star bright enough to match your lightin’

In sickness, blue, so certainly while we have health

Hand in hand, no longer fightin’

What’s destiny (**)

You and & me

If you were my boy, Blue

I'd marry you

Thank God for Rhett. Giving him, delivering him, blessing him with Rhett.

Link is in the middle of a spiral (what he’ll later recognize as a panic attack) when Rhett arrives, the eve of his wedding. Bailing him out of this with pen, paper, and a smile.

Link has always been good at improv.

Though Rhett tended to find the words to start. These were his own vows and Link has been putting time to sit and start them off for weeks. Now that he has to, he’s dumbfounded, despite being deeply in love.

Amidst all the planning and chaos, writing his vows was such a given that Link left it as priority sixty-seven on a list of many more.

Unfortunately, even as busy as they’ve been, that list was shredded with the “who gifted what” tracking sheet (both literally, accidentally, and figuratively) back around the bridal shower and it’s been anarchy ever since.

So he thanks God for Rhett, who’s here, to stop another needless disaster from happening.

That same generous God, however, watches him plagued with thoughts of utter devotion at Rhett’s willingness to drop everything on a weeknight and rush over to help Link find his words.

His lyrics, really, is what Link has in mind. Since they used to write songs together and this felt much the same. He’s been floundering all night and now that Rhett’s here, he knows he’ll at least get what he needs done. Even if it’s not all he wants, right now.

That same God seeks judgment on his every decision or flinch against His will, for any reason, to spite him.

For this reason.

He wants to smush Rhett’s face and kiss him. Deeply. He doesn’t.

Even if there were sometime in the past that he could get away with a platonic smooch, now he can’t. He simply could not prevent that from escalating.

So, he merely tightens his grip on the wrinkled scrap paper in his hand and scrunches his eyes.

“Why can’t it be you up there…” Link bemoans, loudly, in his frustration.

Rhett’s eyes widen, in horror, and Link slams his other hand at his mouth, rolling his eyes. “Not like - I mean - why can’t you go say my lines for me. You’re so much better at this kinda thing.”

“Let me read what you’ve got,” Rhett says.

After some review, Rhett sighs, not unkindly and sits down next to Link. “Let’s just talk through what you’re trying to say because, yeah, this reads like liturgy.”

“Ain’t is supposed to? It’s in a chapel!”

“What do you like about her?�� Rhett asks, ignoring his nitpicking. “Christy?” Rhett stares at him, waiting, too upset for Link to chastise but clearly wanting to.

“She’s patient,” Link says, reminded by the similar. Rhett folds over the book to an open page and clicks the pen in his hand, writing that down. “A-And she’s kind. Like considerate, ‘specially with babies and little animals. Sh-She does this thing where she immediately drops to their eye-level to make sure they don’t feel unheard or seen. Probably ‘cause she’s always been so tall…”

Rhett’s still writing.

“Then when I’m sick, she forces me to rest. You know I hate that,” Link says, voice rising a little, at the memory. “But you know I need that. You won’t be the last to make me stop and smell the roses or take a break, once in a while.”

“Her hair, write, her hair - the way it looks in the sunshine. Like warm caramel with flecks of gold. She’s a vision, an angel. Especially when she’s wearing all white, like,” Link says, pausing to point to Rhett’s undershirt and pale grey sweats. “Makes blondes look ethereal-like, always has.”

“Oh, and her voice. Sometimes, the way her accent catches, well, you know she don’t like to sing like us, never has, but when she says certain things, asks a question the right way - it’s music. The way it harmonizes with my answer, reminds me of singing, reminds me of us.”

Rhett keeps writing, quiet, and focused.

After a short time, Link can’t stop and wants to crane over to see what he’s come up with. Rhett hands it over after crossing a final “t” somewhere on the page.

“Those’re good, Link, but I think you need to keep closer to what I wrote, leave out the stuff about me.”

“Stuff about you?” Link asks, having spoken in a stream-of-conscious style, Link forgets most of what he even said

Rhett looks away, shakes his head.

Distracted by the desire to read the rest, Link abandons the lingering questions he has about Rhett’s suggestion and response.

“These are great, man, thanks,” Links says, pushing a soft hand into Rhett’s side.

His eyes scan to the bottom where Rhett’s added a few lines about the journey, the marriage, all the ceremonial aspects of the day for him to close with, but then something more.

Something about him.

Rhett catches him catch it and looks further away. “I know Christy pretty well, too, y’know. Y’all are just alike, in that way. She might need some back-up vows, to have and hold.”

Link reads them.

“You know, just in case.”

Link looks up and tries to laugh.

He doesn’t laugh.

He goes back to reading them.

Rhett shifts uncomfortably, touches the back of his neck, and shuts his eyes.

“Rhett, these ’re…”

“I know, bo, you can forget ‘em,” Rhett excuses, still not meeting Link’s gaze. “You want me to… I can rewrite the others on a different - I can turn the page and write ‘em there so you can just…”

“Hey, hey,” Link interrupts him, mad at Rhett putting down his best friend, and eager to explain his actual thoughts. “Rhett, these are perfect. These are… I’m sad I can’t say anything as nice in return to you.”

Rhett finally looks up to acknowledge that and their gaze heats and lingers.

“Not that I…” Link stutters to clarify. “Y-You’d have to be a - if that’s something that was gonna - you know - if that was gonna work…”

His mind does it’s usual jump to a visual for the worst case scenario depicting the implication he stumbled across. Him out eight grand on the wedding. Not to mention a wife, a family, a future, a faith -

a friend -

Link gulps, pushing that back away, pushing them both forward, in his estimation.

It’s too much to bear to think about for another second. When he glances at Rhett, he can’t get a read on his face what he thinks about it, and that’s scary enough for him to want to abandon the concept altogether.

“Christy’s gonna love them.”

It’s enough, saying his fiancée's name, to ground him again. Enough to make it okay for him to grab Rhett’s palm and squeeze it in thanks, between them.

Rhett’s made his choice to give up on film school.

Link’s made his choice to give up on whatever schoolboy obsession he has with monopolizing all of Rhett’s days and nights.

He’ll stick to the days or every other weekend, however they can still fit time together, is fine by him. This ceremony, tomorrow, feels as much about his graduation from friend to husband, and all that that entails.

They’re adults.

They both know there’s a lot of sacrifices to be made and this feels like the first time he’s really acknowledging how hard they’re going to be to make. He hopes they’ll still see each other.

He hopes their kids will get along.

He has a lot of hopes.

All of them involve Rhett.

There’s a lot he should write down for when Rhett finds his own bride to wed.

Link notices, suddenly, that Rhett is crying. The same part of him that's nearly broken the headwind of these conflicting emotions turns back to comfort him.

“Hey, don’t cry,” Link soothes, realizing he’s also still holding Rhett’s hand.

“‘M sorry,” Rhett intones, the words bubble up and out of him simultaneously, sounding like water draining in a filled sink. “And the night before your wedding, good Heavens.”

“Hey, I’ve been crying all week,” Link says, waving a hand at the stress that planning a wedding has kept put on him. “Nothing I haven’t seen in the mirror.”

Rhett laughs, rubbing a thumb over his own thigh in a way that brushes upwards against the place Link’s clasping his hand. Link nearly pulls his hand back, thinking Rhett’s trying to get him to sense his want for space, but when he meets his eye it’s clear he’d like nothing less.

“I think I’m just -” Rhett starts to say, trailing off. The light from the lamp on the far coffee table is the only thing on in the room. Link drops his gaze a few inches to try and see more of Rhett’s downturned eyes as he hems and haws. He squeezes their hands together, again, this time clasping it more firmly, still pressing Rhett’s large palm down from above. “I think I’m just a li’l jealous, is all.”

It’s the quietest admission he’s heard from Rhett since he told him he failed their chemistry mid-term in eleventh grade.

Link is also so lost at the innocence of the admission that he can only think of follow-up questions. “Of me?”

Rhett looks at him for a long, long minute and finally, when Link’s gaze remains confused for the whole length of the pause, he shakes his head, no.

Then he waits.

He waits for Link to realize what he means.

But he’s still waiting when Link, oblivious, moves onward trying to comfort Rhett, instead of understanding him fully.

The tension in the room is palpable as Link talks, but only to Rhett, it seems. Only Rhett pictures air bags being deployed in a car safety video as metal hits cinder block. Only Rhett moves his hand, though it’s all it takes to dislodge them from each other completely.

“I know you’re gonna make an amazing husband some day.” Link is saying.

Rhett’s hand aches where cool air now surrounds it.

“I know your wife is gonna get to hear you say such wonderful things about her.”

Rhett wipes his hand of the misunderstanding on the cotton of his pants.

“I know she’s gonna say the same kind of things about you, when it’s your turn up there.”

Rhett mourns the idea that this would ever be requited.

“I know she’s gonna love you, just as much as I do, so she’ll have plenty to say.”

Rhett looks away, wiping the last of his tears from his eyes.

“I’ll make sure she has plenty of ideas where to start.”

Rhett pats Link’s leg, in camaraderie, and nods.

And that’s it. They shoot the shit, they make a plan to meet up at a donut place for the groomsmen’s breakfast to thank them for their help, before the ceremony, and they’ll talk things through if Link’s feeling jittery still. Then Rhett’s gone.

It’s not until the next day at eleven on the dot (everyone has an agenda to follow and every moment is accounted for) that Link understands Rhett’s pain.

His mother straightens his tie and flattens the edges of his suit. “You’ll wanna know I heard Christy looks like an angel in her dress, from the girls upstairs.”

“Those actual angels you been talkin’ to, Sue?” Rhett jokes, where he’s twisting his cummerbund around every so often, bored.

“Very funny, honey,” Sue ribs back. “From the cousins, Beth and Hailee Sue. Remember they’re friends with the hairstylist you got to do the curls for Christy’s hair, today? She was over last night getting Christy ready for bed with how to wash and dry it a special kind of way. They were there, too.”

Link starts to tune her out, since there’s a lot on his mind, but then she says more.

“She says the hairstylist was talking about how jealous she was of Christy, all night, getting to marry you,” Sue relays.

“Oh, mama, please,” Link dismisses. The compliments he’s been getting have felt faker than the toupee on his uncle Bruce. That girl has never even met him. “I’m the only person here people should be jealous of, who would be jealous of Christy,” he says, trailing off, muttering his reasoning as he did. “Marrying a trainwreck like me.”

Link looks up in the mirror where some of his friends continue to mingle in various states of undress. Rhett is already dressed, however, and staring straight at Link like he’s been caught with a hand in a cookie jar.

Link’s about to ask what’s wrong when he remembers his words. Then looks again over the planes of Rhett’s face.

Last night’s words slam back into his mind and Link’s mouth drops open.

The church organ belts out an opening flurry of notes before Canon in D begins playing loudly through the sound system built into the rafters above them. Link looks up to see one of the church staff at the door instructing them to join the bridal party to line-up.

Link’s mom dashes off to where she’s paired with her nephew, Link’s favorite cousin, to be escorted down the aisle.

Rhett sees Link’s face rushing through a wash of emotions from a distance, he nods to the staffer in silent understanding that he’ll handle it, and then they’re alone.

He walks up to Link and takes his hand. He squeezes it.

“Hey, you gotta go. We gotta go. It’s showtime,” Rhett insists.

Link looks around like a bomb went off, since in some ways it did, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Rhett seems to pick up on that. He squeezes Link’s hand again.

“I’ll get over it, Link, it’s okay,” Rhett whispers, on the verge of desperation.

That confirmation is enough to fully shatter Link.

Only for a moment.

The music continues and Rhett keeps his hand hold.

They are adults. They are in love. They have to marry.

None of these things can be helped.

“I’m gonna be so jealous of Her, too,” Link whispers back. He squeezes Rhett’s hand one last time, as they part.

They leave.

They walk straight.

They part again.

Until later.

They move houses and cities and states.

They move mountains, inside and out.

They move together.

Much later.

They join again.

They run crooked.

They return.

To one another.

Link has spent years worrying a ring that means too much to too few people.

In the beginning, when he cries himself to sleep at what he thinks has been the mistake of a lifetime, it’s His talisman. It reminds him of the expectations upon this life he’s made.

As the years pass, however, the adherence to the bogeymen of their childhood’s rules wears thin. It starts to strictly represent love and patience.

Sacrifice.

It begins to feel like a burden. A representation of what’s been lost, not what’s been found.

He contemplates taking it off, but believes that to be a betrayal of all that it stands for to the people he stands for.

Then, one day, (surely mid-spin) he hears Rhett tell a story about wanting to change his ring.

He watches the silver twirl as Rhett explains.

He believes he was rushed into a certain type of marriage and a certain type of life by a certain type of person.

It’s a life that he’s grown to love but the ring represents a union forced by custom and not one that’s grown through devotion.

His ring reminds him of that too often to be good for him.

Link twists his again at the admission.

So, Rhett’s thinking about replacing the ring.

Link returns home that night in a stupor. He’s sure he said one too many things to Rhett to emphasize how wild it felt to hear him talk about changing rings.

Any memories of that day, their wedding, bring up a rush of emotions that he’s never been good at sorting through.

Today’s admission makes him feel the same spur to make use of idle, betrothed hands he feels when he cleans the fridge.

He wants to clean the slate.

He finds an old DVD copy of their wedding ceremony that he paid to have converted from miniDV some years ago. Now he struggles to find a place to watch that DVD. How quickly time has flown by.

Eventually, he ends up in his son’s room - no one’s home for the remainder of the night but he and Christy - now, he’s sitting on a bean bag, squinting at the game console’s controller trying to get the joysticks to move to “play” on screen.

The ceremony bursts to life and, like it was yesterday, Link’s nerves fizzle awake.

About halfway through the video, Christy finds him like that and sits down next to him in a thwump absorbed mostly by the stuffing of the chair.

They watch themselves smile happily at each other and Christy takes his hand.

“Should I be happy or scared to find you alone watching this on a Saturday night?” she asks, wryly, squeezing his palm.

Link doesn’t know what to say. He’s caught up in Rhett’s bygone script being spoken on screen. Words about Christy and about Link that were not their own, declared loudly in front of the congregation.

“I don’t know,” Link admits, shrugging. He doesn’t. He squeezes her hand back.

“You wanna tell me what’s eating you?”

Link hesitates, but relents. He wants that clean slate, after all. “Rhett’s getting his wedding ring replaced.”

“Replaced?” Christy asks, balking.

“Replaced, yeah,” Link responds, sure he didn’t misspeak.

“With what?” she asks.

“Oh, some new one. Fancy thing, very cool, made of trees or something. Honestly he wears the other one, the slick black one more than his wedding band half the time. He says it feels like the old one? It’s the kind of ring you get in a bauble at a vending machine crank. So, he wants a new one.”

“Jeesh,” Christy says, making a face at the screen. The camera catches Rhett stealing glances at the couple, then at the crowd, beaming at all with unbridled pride.

“Wouldn’t you be mad if I did that?” Link inquires, still baffled at the idea.

“Well, no, but don’t you love your ring? Heirloom and all that,” she says.

Link cringes. “Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I do.”

“So?”

“So, I still kind of want to and I’m not sure what that means.”

They watch the screen together.

“Do you wanna stay married?” she asks, in a small voice.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

There’s a long pause.

“To me?” she asks, her voice even smaller.

“Yes,” he breathes in.

She squeezes his hand, her confidence built back up. She begs him to join her.

“And him?” Christy whispers.

They both look the screen, the lens centered on the two of them, but their gaze is mutually torn to where Rhett stands wiping a tear from his eye at Christy reciting the last of the vows that he wrote her. Wrote him. Wrote them both.

She squeezes his hand again.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

She leans her head on his shoulder.

“You should probably get another ring, then,” she jests. “We shouldn’t have to share everything.”

The slate is clean.

There’s a lot he wants to say to Rhett about it, but just as before, he’s relied on Rhett to give him the right words to say. So, instead of words, he starts wearing Rhett’s ring.

Then, a new one, when he realizes he can match him separate from the other, all told. Have something of Rhett’s, all to himself.

In his unspoken push towards something more, their hands now match along with their steps, as they walk forward.

On the last week in July, they get ice cream at the fifth place that month to mistake them for husbands, but the first one he hears Link crow an affirmative in response.

Rhett waits for him while he triple-tips the cashier (for the guess) and pays for their cones.

“Bad joke,” Rhett says, softly, but firm.

“Who’s kidding?” Link parries back, a smirk dancing it’s way across his lips.

Rhett watches him with a wistful look of disbelief.

“Link, we’re married,” Rhett warns him.

Link shrugs. “I know. I’m just waiting for you to figure that out and minding my ice cream here, all right?”

He’s got a mouthful of vanilla bean and extra cookie crumble, the next second, so his vow ends there.

Later, at home, Rhett startles Jessie awake when he fully realizes Link’s words.

He shakes her awake. He shakes them both awake.

“I’m in love with Link,” he says, like it’s a confession.

She kisses him because so is she. So are most people.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

Rhett repeats himself.

So does she.

They stare at each other under the cover of silk and moonlight.

“We’re married,” Rhett whispers, touching his hand to hers. Their rings clink, new and shiny.

“Yeah, and so are we,” she whispers back.

They fall asleep smiling.

The next day, Rhett sneaks up behind Link while he’s working and causes him to spill his cup of coffee. He gets the stink eye for only a minute because it’s the same length of time he can stand Link’s grumpy mug before he has to swoop down and kiss him on the lips.

“You figured it out,” Link says, grinning.

“I did,” Rhett chirps as he kisses Link more.

They take a car to their house. It’s filled with their love and the history of it; before, during, and after.

“What’s this?” Link asks, dazed in their post-sex glow, naked and alive.

He spots an old chord book of theirs from last time they wrote music.

“Oh,” Rhett says, bashful. “I came looking for you here this morning, hoping you slept over again, but, uh,” Rhett stalls, looks away and tries to take the songbook from Link’s hand. Link pulls it far enough he can’t reach. “You were already at the job.”

“And?” Link asks, using his spry, sinewy body as an advantage to slink away from the bed out of Rhett’s grip. He still has the book in hand.

“Those are your vows,” Rhett explains.

Link looks down and squints, confused. These aren’t the vows that Christy read at their wedding. He’s seen that video only a few months back and is sure of it.

“Our vows,” Rhett whispers, explaining further, at Link’s puzzled look.

“It’s a love song,” Link notes, marveling at the gesture. What it means to a young version of himself that once felt like they had surely cut out and mourned the possibility of this - all of this - ever happening. To have that thought coexist with the image of a nude, hulking tree trunk of a husband laid before him smiling up adoringly felt panoptic.

“So are you.”

Link begins to cry.

“Play it for me.”

Rhett wipes his cheek.

“Get my guitar.”

They sing twice more that night, always in harmony (not always in lyric), then spend the rest of their lives together doing much the same.

#things i wrote #@anon #i hope you are doing well soon #💙#rhink

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hiddennerdworld · 3 years

Text

When You’re Close to Me w/ Katsuki Bakugou

Warnings: some tears from characters, but still just a bunch of fluff

A/N: I love this song so much. (Go listen to it now). I feel like I didn’t do it justice but whatever. This has been in my drafts forever. Idk how it turned out but here we go. Also ik it’s kinda long, don’t come after me lmao

Are you here with me? Just looking out on the day of another dream

Bakugou just started to stir awake, the sun slowly starting to beam in the window. His blurry vision came to focus on the digital clock next to him that said 5:45 AM. He sighed and flopped his spiky head back onto his pillow. He opened his eyes again slightly as he turned to face his partner next to him. God, he still can’t believe how lucky he is. Every morning he gets a little wave of relief when he sees you by his side. He’s got a little smile on his face as he holds back from just cupping your cheek and pecking you on the forehead to tell you how much he loves you. But he thinks you’re so cute and peaceful when you sleep and knows you need rest otherwise you’ll be a little brat. Instead he wraps his arm around you, closes his eyes, and hopes he falls back asleep as his mind still focuses on you.

Well, you can’t get what you want, but you can get me. So let’s set out to sea.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, baby. I couldn’t get out of it. They needed all the help they could get.” Bakugou pleaded to you while holding your hands in his. It was your 3 year anniversary and he had to cancel your plans for the evening due to a villain attack downtown.

You sniffled and looked towards the ground, limply holding his hands back. “I understand. I knew what this was going to be like, being with a hero. It’s just hard sometimes you know? I miss the days where we would spend all day together. We would go to class together, eat lunch together, visit each other’s dorms whenever we wanted. I miss you, Katsuki.”

He pulled you into a hug where he ran his hand through your hair as you buried your face into his chest. “I know. I miss you so much. Being a hero is amazing, but it’s damn exhausting, especially not having you there with me. I love you, Y/N.” He said softly as he kissed the top of your head and then rested his chin on it.

“I love you too, ‘Suki. We’ll figure things out.”

“Of course, we will. We always do. You and I are a pretty kickass team if I do say so myself.”

“Huh, you really think so?” You looked up to meet his gaze. He just nodded and hummed in reply. “Well, I do too.” You then pulled him into a sweet kiss. Something you guys had done a thousand times, but it still brought butterflies to your stomach every time. You guys remained in each other’s arms for a bit longer, just swaying slightly despite the quiet.

“You know, I may have a way to bring back the old days.” Bakugou said breaking the silence.

You looked up at him. “Oh yea? Do tell, pretty boy.”

“Well..” he cleared his throat and continued in a low tone, “I was thinking maybe we could move in together. Like when we lived in the dorms, but with no Aizawa on our backs. It’s not perfect but at least I’ll get to see my beautiful idiot more often” You thought for a few seconds just staring into space. “Nevermind, it was stu-“.

“It’s perfect.” You kissed him again. “I would love that, babe.”

“Tch- well yea, of course you would it was a great idea.” He said with a shit-eating grin on his face after getting an ego boost from you agreeing with him. You just rolled your eyes back. “I would too, though.”

Cause you are my medicine when you’re close to me. When you’re close to me

Katsuki had no idea where he was. He was lying down on a bed, staring at the stark white ceiling as his vision began to clear. When he finally regained consciousness, he jolted up realizing he didn’t know was was going on. Then, you got up from your chair that was beside him in order to calm him down. He suddenly felt a sharp pain on his side. He winced and quickly put his hand on the wound.

“Oof, honey. I was trying to prevent you from doing that. Are you okay?” You said as you softly rubbed his arm.

He listened and lied back facing toward you this time. In a low, gruff voice he responded, “Yeah, I’m fine. Where the hell are we?”

“We’re in Recovery Girl’s office. After training today you ended up getting pretty beat up and passing out.”

It was all coming back to him. It was him versus Deku. One of their last days at UA and everyone was going all out. The two were moving quickly, jumping around each other trying to dodge and land hits. Eventually they started to wear down, but you know them, they will never stop. So after a while, Midoriya was able to use a little more than 10% of One for All, causing Bakugou to crash into a wall and fall to the ground. It wasn’t over yet though. He stumbled back up while doing his signature yelling. He was setting off explosions to fly up to his opponent and land a huge hit, but midway he just passed out and ended up falling on the concrete.

“Oh, yea I remember now. THAT FUCKING DEKU!! I’M GONNA MAKE HIM PAY!!” He yelled while trying to get out of bed. You then had to get up and set him back down.

“No, no, no. Katsuki, you can’t do anything right now. You need to just relax.” You said softly while pushing him back down by his shoulders.

“But I can’t lose to him! No fucking way!” He was still attempting to get up.

“You have to let it go, Suki.” You sat back down next to him and held his hands in yours. “I understand you wanting to get even, but you can’t right now. You’ve already gone way too far today.” You take a deep breath and continue, “You’ve been worrying me. Recently you’ve exhausted yourself so many times just in training alone. I get we’re close to graduating, but you need to relax, take it easy. Exerting so much energy in an emergency, I understand, but you’re just fighting ‘stupid’ Deku. You’re not going to be doing much hero work if you’re always in the hospital.” You sighed and put your head down, “I’m sorry, Suki. I just hate seeing you hurt.”

He knew what you meant. A couple months ago you were also injured badly and had to stay in the hospital for a few days after fighting a tough villain during your internship. He could barely take it. He couldn’t do anything except be by your side. All he wanted was to see you back to being the badass you usually are.

He sat up and rubbed his thumbs on your knuckles as you continued to hold hands. “Don’t worry about me, dumbass,” he said at almost a whisper, showing how ‘dumbass’ is just his way of saying he loves you. “I can take care of myself just fine…. But as much as I hate to admit it, I know you’re right.” He said with a smug grin which didn’t go away after you hit his shoulder. “Jeez, babe I’m just kidding. Point is you’re right. I can’t just go in ready to kill some people. I need to be smart about it. I need to be able to prove myself.”

“But you already have proven yourself. In more ways than one. You can show how great you are using methods that aren’t beating the shit out of Izuku, you know?”

“But those ways aren’t as fun.” You ended up slapping him on the shoulder again as he almost died laughing.

“Can you just promise me that you won’t end up in the nurses office again?”

“Alright, I’ll try my best.” He pulled you over and gave you a kiss on the forehead, “Thanks for putting up with me. I love you.”

“I love you too, even though you give me migraines.”

And surprisingly Bakugou kept up his promise, saving himself a whole lot of pain and saving yourself a whole lot of stress.

Just looking out for the day when you’re close to me.

The heat was rising as the your second year of UA was coming to a close. For the last half of the year Bakugou was slowly accepting his feelings for you and couldn’t hold back any longer. Somehow he tolerated you more than all the other extras. Hell, he even liked spending time with you and would go out of his way to do so. He didn’t want to spend the summer without you, but he didn’t know how to approach the situation. He couldn’t risk looking soft, but then again he “doesn’t care” what other extras think. It was a position he’d never been in before and he didn’t know how to handle it.

You were in the same boat. You may have had crushes before, but not like this, and definitely not like Bakugou. It didn’t take much to notice that he was somewhat nicer to you. He did schoolwork with you and didn’t smack you upside the head. He started choosing you as his partner more often in training. And never exploded when he got he annoyed with you. Maybe he was just nice to you because you were nice to him? You didn’t want to take things the wrong way and upset him. He was so predictably unpredictable. A literal ticking bomb, but somehow he was a lovable one.

The two of you were becoming unbearable. Your friends had all been planning to get together before summer break anyway, so they decided to do some meddling.

You had just joined the Bakusquad in the common room waiting to have some fun. You and Bakugou were sitting next to each other on the couch while Sero, Kaminari, and Kirishima all were chilling on the floor around the coffee table. Meanwhile, Mina was nowhere to be found.

“Ugh! Where the hell is stupid Pinkie?! I wanna get this shit over with?”

“We love you too, Kacchan.” Kaminari replies and you can head Bakugou growl next to you and you try not to laugh. “I’m sure she’ll be here any sec. She had to grab something for the super special thing she planned.” He said while wiggling his eyebrows and Bakugou just rolled his eyes. Kirishima then kicked Kaminari and whisper-yelled “Dude!” Then he turned back to you guys and said with a nervous smile, “What he means is that Mina wanted this to be the perfect hang out before we have to go back home, so she has some stuff for us.”

“I sure do!” Mina yelled as she burst in the room with her arms up.

“tch- finally” Bakugou mumbled under his breath.

“We just gotta set up and then we can do the super special thing. Sero and Kirishima wanna help me grab some stuff from the kitchen? And then the rest of you can you check to make sure we have enough room in my dorm? Great!” She gave no one time to respond and everyone just got up and followed suit.

“Wait can I use the bathroom first?! I totally gotta take a whiz!” Kaminari whined.

“Yea, just hurry up! I wouldn’t want you to miss anything! Y/N and Bakugou we’ll all meet you up there in a sec!”

Sero, Kirishima, and Mina shuffled into the kitchen while Human Pikachu bolted (lol) to the bathroom. You and Bakugou weren’t as frantic as the others but you still went with it.

When you both arrived you found Mina’s room to be totally clean. “OI, PINKIE YOU’RE RO-!” Bakugou was on the way his way out but then you saw a flash of yellow and the door slamming on Bakugou’s face.

“What the-?” Bakugou tried to turned the handle but it didn’t budge. “I SWEAR IF YOUR PLAN WAS TO PRANK US IM GONNA BURN YOUR DUMBASSES ALL TO HELL!! NOW LET US OUT!!” He banged on the door, still attempting to get out, but all he heard back was some snickers and the sound of something being put in front of the door. The Pomeranian, now angered, was still aimlessly attacking the door until he heard you sigh and flop on the bed.

Sprawled out with your hands covering your face you muttered, “Ugh, I’m sorry.”

Bakugou stopped and turned around to face you being the most confused you’ve ever seen him, “Wait... you knew about this!” He started stomping over.

You quickly sat up anticipating something to happen. “No, no I didn’t. I just.. I think I know what this is about. I think this is all because of something I said to Mina.”

You move your eyes around the room afraid to make contact with the ruby eyes of the man standing above you.

“And what’s that?”

You sigh and fidget with your fingers, “Well, I may as well say it because I don’t think we’ll get out of here otherwise. I like you, Bakugou. I have for a bit now and didn’t know what to do. So I asked Mina, and this is definitely not how I wanted to handle it so I’m sorry and-“ you were interrupted by Bakugou tilting your head up which was staring at the floor while you rambled. He quickly leaned down and pressed his lips against yours. You sat there wide-eyed. Not that it wasn’t good (it was), you were just thinking holy shit, my crush is on my face right now.

“Shit, I’m sorry I should’ve asked first. I just wanted to stop you because you don’t need to apologize. And I’m pretty sure you know this now but I like you too I guess. I don’t find you as annoying as I probably should. I haven’t for a while now.” He now was stood back up with a blush spread across his face and his one hand in this pocket with the other one rubbing the back of his neck. You stand up next to him and place your arms on his shoulders.

You giggle and say, “It’s okay. I enjoyed it. I was just surprised because I didn’t expect it from you. I actually think we should do it again.”

“Really?” He looked up as you nodded in response while biting your lip. You both then leaned in and kissed each other once more. It was definitely not as awkward as the first one. The kiss was sweet and passionate. When Bakugou feels something, he feels it wholeheartedly and it was evident in the way he was kissing you. He treated you as if you were an illusion that could shatter at any moment and he wasn’t going to take any of his time with you for granted.

You were suddenly interrupted by a loud banging on the door, “YOU LOVEBIRDS DONE IN THERE YET?!!! I ACTUALLY WANTED TO DO STUFF TONIGHT!!” Mina yelled through the door.

When you’re close to me

Bakugou woke up again but this time due to you booping his nose. “Good morning, Sunshine.” You whispered as you placed a kiss where had previously booped him. He just groaned and looked over to see the clock reading 8:30 AM. When he looked back your head was on his chest while you held onto him. He smiled a bit and pulled you in closer.

“Can we just stay like this all day, babe?” He said with his cheek pressed on the top of your head.

“Did I hear that correctly? Katsuki Bakugou said he wanted to stay in bed?! I must be dreaming still.”

“Tch, you’re such an idiot.” He chuckled and pressed a kiss onto the top of your head. “I love you though, you know that right?”

“Enough to help me make us some breakfast in bed?” You looked up at him with puppy eyes. He just sighed loudly and started to dramatically get out of bed. You soon followed and caught up to give him a hug as he grabbed stuff from the fridge. “I love you too, ‘Suki.”

#katsuki bakugou #bakugou fluff #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x you #bakugou x y/n #mha fluff

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soukokuwu · 4 years

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➤ @fyowyn-writes said: okay clarifying that, s/o’s ability basically makes them immortal, but they can die it would just take several centuries to die from old age so they joined fyodor in order to find a way to get rid of their ability because you know that’s kinda his thing

➤ genre: angst

➤ pairing: fyodor x reader

➤ warning: death

➤ synopsis: fyodor has to choose — loving you or to love you?

➤ word count: 2.1k

➤ a/n: hi i know this came out super late and i’m very sorry ma’am, but i really hope you like this gwynn!! 🥺✨ sorry tumblr deleted your ask djsjds let me know what you guys think hope y’all enjoy this too!

The moment of separation

Forever is a long time.

Fyodor remembers thinking what a sin it is — immortality. You do too, over time. And so you wish you could end it.

But a wish is just that — an expression of desire. Never something that can be guaranteed. Though rumours have it that if there’s one thing that Fyodor can guarantee you, it’s death.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Fyodor always had a house; a roof over his head. But never a home. It changed — only because of you.

You are the comfort in his chaos, the still in the waves, the knowing that some thunder might come with rain. It is weird, how Fyodor thinks he always knows what’s to come, but he doesn’t with you. With you he always anticipates, looks forward to the next day. And not for himself, but for you.

Everything has an explanation, but this emotion he feels? The small warmth inside his chest — the one he tries so hard to deny, the one he never expected to feel in this life — it grows every second he spends with you; subtly, slowly, just as the best things do.

The first time he lays eyes on you — he doesn’t bat an eyelash, doesn’t do a double-take. Only when you let your voice escape you, only when you offered to help him with his plans, give him all of your extensive knowledge. Only then did he offer you an ear. You vow to give him all you are in return for one thing, a simple prayer.

Death. Instantaneous, painless. Then cremated and thrown out to sea.

You played right into his wheelhouse — you tell him of your sins, of your ability. You tell him that you wish for him to grace you with the powers of god, to give you the salvation you needed. Fyodor has never had anyone that brave, that... foolish to ask anything like that of him. Which is why he agrees. Not only are you useful, you are an interesting one.

Maybe he will find more use out of you. Maybe.

He does.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

People are made up of their own sins, be it greed, lust, envy. Fyodor tries to figure out what you’re made of.

But his own answer frustrates him. When he tries to put a word to it, he remembers you getting up early to brew him coffee. He remembers you putting a blanket over him when he falls asleep in front of his blueprints. He remembers you holding your own when he talks down to you. He remembers you protecting him in missions, even over the littlest things.

Even domestic things. A pill on his pillow when he’s sick and refuses to acknowledge it. A tray of food (healthy ones too, because he’s anemic and you know that) in the microwave when he comes back late from surveying an area. A plan drafted up for the next mission when you know he’s too tired to do it by himself.

Sunshine.

That’s what you’re made up of. Warm, soothing. And he hates his answer. This... affection towards you. He can’t explain it either. He hates it too.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Slowly, but surely.

That is you — fitting into your position in his life. One of great importance, one that pains him to deny to himself. It is bound to end in ruins anyway. And still, Fyodor can’t control it. No, no, he can. Could it be — he doesn’t want to?

The subtlety of inching closer to each other while looking over the details of the next mission. You on his left side, right hand taking refuge on the surface of the table for no purpose whatsoever. He on your right, left hand brushing against your arm, heartbeat drumming in his ears. Pinkies intertwined. But no words about that exchanged. Fyodor notices the goosebumps that form on your skin though, and for a second, he guesses — is this what hope feels like?

Late nights where he used to bug you to go to sleep — he prefers planning by himself after all — he doesn’t anymore. What is he wishing for? He’s puzzled himself. But then you remind him — every time the old grandfather clock against the wall strikes midnight, when your eyes automatically get a little droopy. Every time each minute passes after that, when your voice gets thick with sleepiness and you drawl out your words. And every time you try to stay awake and fail, when your head drops on his shoulder as you drift into sleep. And Fyodor feels... oddly blessed. Is this what he’s wishing for? A simple gesture such as being your shoulder to sleep on? Isn’t this silly? No, says his mind, not if it’s you. And he takes a closer look at you in your slumber.

Since when did you become so beautiful?

Conversations about your ability where he usually shows a distaste for it — he freaks you out when his disdain turns into praises. And the sweet moments in his mind vanish whenever he hears you say anything in relation to your coming death. His voice gets louder, tongue gets sharper, until it drives you away from the room, in tears. And it takes him but a while to find out why he’s acting this way now. He doesn’t want you to go.

Fyodor bangs the table as hard as he can, frustration taking over him, tears falling from his eyes in a silent cry. The last thing he wants is for you to know how deeply he cares. It would just cause more problems for both of you. And you would feel bad for him, won’t you? The guilt would eat you up, wouldn’t it? He doesn’t want you to feel that way. But he’s never felt this way before. He doesn’t know how to do this right.

And in the next room you lean against the door and fall to the floor. You drown your cries in polyester, hearing the bang that is undoubtedly caused by you. You thought everything was going well... were you wrong?

But the days after, when he apologises and gets the courage to call you names? He treasures them. No, not harsh names — but pet names. “Moya dorogaya (my dear),” he’d always call you. And you’d play along with a whisper in his ear, “moy dorogoy (my dear).” He doesn’t tell you, but it consumes him with happiness and relief when he hears you say the words with such tenderness. Fyodor always acts like he’s joking, and you always let him believe you think he is. But you both know the other is hiding something, and yet neither of you press on the matter. Some things are better left unsaid.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Live in the moment, they say.

If that’s the only way to distract him from the horror that would be his future without you, then he figures he may as well take it.

“It’s the first time I’ve been with an older lady,” he jokes.

“Hey, I’m not that—”

Fyodor seals your words with his lips that night. As the alcohol seeps into both your systems, he makes the decision to cross the line. The promised time is soon, and he’d rather know every inch of you rather than spend the rest of his life wondering, guessing what you feel like. And he ignores the logical voices in his mind telling him to stop as his fingers dance across every single surface of your body, as his ears tingle hearing your moans that he is responsible for, as he smells the coconut of your hair, as he tastes the wine lingering in your tongue and the sweetness of your essence.

That night isn’t his first time ever, but he’s never felt passion that can mirror his experience with you. The way he doesn’t want it to ever stop, the way you look as you enjoy his each and every thrust, the way you blush when you realise he’s soaking in every ounce of you; the way you look — he wants it imprinted into his memories.

For a moment, after the deed is done, when you are lying bare against his chest, hearts beating as one — for that moment, he wonders if he’s able to change your mind.

But “thank you, Fyo,” you murmur. “You’ve made these past few months of my life more worthwhile than the previous centuries I’ve lived.”

In your words he hears the answer. And he realises.

The foolish one... is he.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You taught him how to love, but you never taught him how to stop. Death already had you in its grip. But death cannot kill what never dies.

Whatever Fyodor felt — and still feels — for you, he wishes will disappear to the void, along with you and the memories of you. But he’s more rational than that. This will never go away. The warmth he knows he felt, the pain he still feels, and the sorrows that he has yet to felt. None of them will ever vanish.

Never. Unlike the light in your eyes as he presses his palm to your forehead, unlike the gratitude in your voice as you whisper a “thank you” to him before you fall lifeless in his arms.

Fyodor used to pride himself in being the leader of his organisation, in being a god of sorts. And now, with you gone — he doesn’t know who he is anymore. Every little thing that made him him, they’re all tainted with you. From his morning cups of coffee to the additional meticulousness in his planning, each and every part of his life you’ve invaded, and unlike you, they’re here to stay.

“We’re here, lyubimaya (honey),” Fyodor mumbles, holding up the urn.

It’s a beautiful day. The sand under his shoes, the ocean breeze singing past his ears, the sun slowly setting, reminding him of his sunshine. His sunshine who, after all those months, still sought death. And he didn’t want to be the reason you continued to resent life, so he gave in. He gave in to his love for you.

As he looks out at the horizon, he lets his mind wander aimlessly for once — to think irrationally for the first time in so long. Was it possible that you were watching over him? Rationality be damned, he wishes you are. It is lonely once again, without you. He doesn’t want to let you go, he thinks as he uncaps the urn. He doesn’t want the last remains of you to leave his side, he thinks as he tilts the urn sideways over the ocean. But “farewell, radost moya (my joy),” he bids to you as your ashes disperse themselves into the vast sea.

“I love you,” he mumbles, hoping it gets to you wherever you are. The words he’s never said to you, they suddenly come so easy now that you’re gone. He chuckles in self-deprecation. Oh, how human you’ve made him feel.

Fyodor acts as though the tears aren’t real. He doesn’t wipe them away as he watches the last of you slip away from him. He curses the tears for not blurring the vision of you flashing in his mind, for not marring the smile he remembers.

Love leaves memories no one can steal, and this love exists beyond worlds, this feeling won’t be separated from Fyodor no matter how much he begs for it to. And trying to forget you would be trying to forget the only home he’s ever known. It will be impossible, he is sure. And for the first time in his life, yet another first you have cast upon him, he does what he never thought he would.

Fyodor falls on his knees, the now empty urn falling in place right beside him. He doesn’t care for the sand staining his white pants or the water that runs across his legs. Gods aren’t supposed to feel this way, are they? Helpless, pathetic, and yearning for something they can’t have? Or is it normal to be a slave to love?

The tears now blur his vision completely. Not like he can see anything clearly anymore. Everything is murky with you gone. And he lets his sobs out this time. What a capable woman you are, he thinks, in life and even in death, because how amazing must one be, to be able to bring a god down to his knees?

He peers out at the sea, knowing your spirit is free. There is nothing left between the two of you now but an ocean of silence.

Fyodor is drowning in it. Forever.

And forever is a long time.

tags: @yokelish @gogolparadise @fyowyn-writes

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natsu-tte-noodle · 3 years

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手紙 (Letters) - To Guy

(Cross Posted on AO3)

Words: 1031 Warnings: ACT 2 Episode 5/8 spoilers, mention of death as a concept

Dear Izumi,

Thank you for giving me the chance to write you a letter. I’ll be pouring every drop of my heart into it, just for you. On nights when you’re lonely and I can’t be there, I hope you can read this and feel as if I’m next to you

Dear Izumi,

I know you just said that we’re supposed to write to the person whose name we pulled, but isn’t it ok if I write to you anyway? I’m sure he won’t mind. Surely he understands that

Guy,

Izumi said we have to write in pen and that we have to do this all in one draft, so sorry about the crossed out lines. Don’t read them. They aren’t for you.

Since you aren’t the director, I don’t really know what to say to you here. Or, maybe it’s just that I don’t talk to you all that often. I’m sure I could think of something if it was someone from my own troupe.

But this is something that Izumi wants me to do. I’m going to do it as best as I can.

So forgive me if I say anything weird. If she asks, tell her I wrote the perfect letter.

I guess it’s not a perfect letter for you if I only talk about her, though. Like I said, though, it’s not like I’d know what to say in a letter to you. Aside from collecting music, we don’t have a lot in common. I can’t imagine that this letter will mean much to you.

Would you care about that? I don’t know how much the contents of a letter matters. It’s not like I have experience to pull from or anything. Looking back, it feels a little weird that I never got postcards as a kid, when my family was away so much. (Should I be telling you this? Izumi said to put down whatever came to mind, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Actually, she wrote me letters before, but I could never compare anything to her.) I think my grandma would have sent me letters if she knew my address, though. And I think that would have made me happy, so maybe it does matter what I put on the paper. Or maybe it only matters who sent the letter. If that’s what it is, sorry that you weren’t pulled by someone else.

But speaking of “who”, I guess there is one more thing we have in common. And when I think about that I feel like I should thank you.

Ever since you joined our company, Citron hasn’t been as annoying anymore. He’s still loud, and he still has too much energy in the morning, and he still says weird things, of course. But something about it isn’t as annoying as it used to be.

I think it’s because he’s being more real. Less annoying as a front. More annoying because that’s just who he is. Tsuzuru would probably tease me for noticing, but wouldn’t anyone notice it?

That sort of thing would bug anyone, but I don’t blame him for feeling like he couldn't be himself even around us. I get how it is to be too powerful for something like friends. Especially when it’s something you were born into without being given a choice. And I get how it is to lean so much on one person, like how I think Citron leaned on you. Maybe I could understand because he and I are more alike than we look.

In that case, Citron must have felt really alone even when he was with all of us. Sakuya would have hated to know that, but I don’t think he could tell. Citron would have hated for him to know, anyway.

I wonder how many people did know. Itaru, probably. Definitely Tsumugi. I could tell to some extent. None of us said anything, so I guess we were all on the same page. I don’t think I cared about whether or not I upset him, though. I was probably worried that he’d get even more fake and annoying if someone pressured him about it.

But then you showed up, and thanks to that he knocked it off a little. He doesn’t make weird jokes just to bother Tsuzuru anymore. Now he makes them because he thinks it’s funny to get him worked up. That might sound like it’s the same thing, but it’s not. There’s a difference, and I’m sure you can tell, but I guess it’s like, he wants to instead of feeling like he needs to. The jokes are funnier too, now that they’re more real.

More importantly though, he was able to stop hiding so much. And start being who he wanted to be instead of who his family wanted him to be. Some of his family wanted him to be dead. I don’t like to think about that. What would we have done if And he got back someone he thought he had lost forever. You did too, didn’t you? I don’t really understand what happened, and it’s fine for it to stay between you and the Winter Troupe, but it’s easy to tell that you’re happier than you were when you first got here.

This changed from a letter about Izumi to a letter about Citron. It’s still not really about you, but I kinda feel like you won’t mind, so I’ll just keep going with this. I’m almost out of room on the page anyway.

It’s weird to think that 2 years ago I didn’t care at all about something like this. If you had shown up earlier, I wouldn’t have cared about him leaving. I wouldn’t have cared about how sad everyone else was. And I never would have gotten the chance to care about him or you.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care now. He’s my family, and you’ve made him happier. And you’re family too now.

So, thanks. And welcome.

Masumi

P.S. Is it true that snow is orange in Zafra? I know it’s stupid to believe anything he says, but it would still be cool if it was.

[Top] [Next - To Omi]

#a3!#masumi usui #a3! guy #a3! citron #a3! masumi #a3! fic #a3! fanfic

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land-under-wave · 3 years

Text

This used to have a direction, but I don’t know where it’s going anymore, so have this semi-coherent character study. This also isn’t actually what I was planning when I said “I might have something Pokemon-related by the end of February,” but TECHNICALLY IT COUNTS.

Slightly AU in terms of characterization and on my more experimental side of things. It’s more of a first draft than anything and I’m probably going to try to polish it up later, but right now, I don’t want to look at this for a month.

If you were to ask him, Red would tell you he’s never been much one to care about respectability. He’s a pretty simple person at heart. He cares about his mother, he cares about his Pokemon, and he cares about his friends, but whatever people say about him isn’t the kind of thing that registers to him. At some point, he’d stumbled his way into respectability with the whole Champion of Kanto thing, but he hadn’t been trying to. He’d mostly been following Green’s lead.

Green inspires something in Red that he can’t really explain, so when the interviewers nag him to define their relationship, he just tends to shrug. It’s not Green’s brash personality or them being childhood friends, but some weird mixture of it brings out this previously unknown competitive streak in him. Green’s always charging into things the same way he charged into Red’s house all those years ago, and when he does, he throws everyone for a loop. After the dust settles, Red’s usually uncovered something about his life he didn’t even know he was unhappy with, so he tends to go along with whatever Green’s doing, at least for a bit.

So no, respectability isn’t important to Red. But it is important to Green, and that’s why Green went for the championship. It really doesn’t make sense that Red’s the one who ended up with the title even though he was just caught up in Green’s fervor, and he knows he has no real reason to feel bad, but he does anyways. Red spent a lot of time afterwards trying to find a way to make it up to him, but mostly, he just succeeded in pissing Green off.

He missed Green a lot during that time. He doesn’t know that their relationship ever would’ve been fixed if it hadn’t finally clicked for him that since Green hates pity more than he hates losing, the best thing Red could do is treat him the same as before, like the match was no big deal. Because really, it wasn’t, not in terms of his skills or who he is as a person. He didn’t lose Red’s respect by losing that match. And once the public realized Red still saw him as worthy, they started to treat Green like he was in fact one of the best trainers in the league, which is messed up, but at least it means they got past that.

A lot of people seem to think this whole episode was a “spoiled brat finally wises up” kind of story, but that’s not fair to anyone involved. Green is too complicated of a person to be reduced to that. He might be the cool and confident gym leader representing Kanto’s finest as well as an arrogant prick who thinks he can win any fight he picks, but he’s also the insecure kid weighed down by his grandfather’s legacy, always trying to prove himself worthy. He isn’t one of those kids who acts out for attention, because he already had it from the start — the distinction is that he wants to earn it. Unlike Red, who’s too apathetic to care about cries of nepotism, Green cares fiercely about things like what people think of him and having his effort acknowledged. Even at his flashiest, he was always scared, and all his bravado was at least one part that terror. So he takes compliments about his battle prowess pretty easily but gets embarrassed about ones to the way he runs his gym. He bristles at any insult unless it’s a senior questioning his adequacy. He might act like a rich kid, but he also works harder than anyone else Red’s ever seen.

There’s so many nuances and sides to him that you could probably get lost in Green’s head and stumble around forever without ever finding your way out. And the thing is, Red wouldn’t want to.

Green is so complicated but he isn’t a mystery; he wears his heart on his sleeve, and Red’s never met anyone else like him. Most complicated people are just confusing. They say one thing but mean another, they’re fragile in ways that Red can’t expect, they’re prickly about weird things and Red doesn’t know how to avoid setting them off. But Green is loud and upfront about almost everything. His diva tendencies mean his expressions are big and easy to read. Green scowls when he’s annoyed, he smirks when he’s entertained, and he sneers when he’s being petty or he’s uncomfortable but doesn’t want to show it. He bristles when he’s insulted, he yells when he’s upset. He turns bright red when he’s angry or embarrassed, and it’s beautiful.

It’s kind of fitting that Green has a color for a name, because Green’s emotions are so bright and vivid that they might be the only uncomplicated thing about him. They play out like the prettiest kaleidoscope on his face, and Red doesn’t think he could ever get tired of drinking in the sight of it when there’s always something new to uncover. His own feelings have always been a filtered, watered down thing, so at least part of the fascination is probably because he doesn’t understand it, but it’s also more than that. Red’s not passive, exactly, but he’s a reactive person, not an active one. He needs someone else around to bring out the best in him, and who better than the boy he’s known since he was a toddler? Green knows all the right buttons to push. He cares so much and believes so deeply that the force of his conviction can pull emotions out of Red from unknown parts and turn him into a complicated person too. Being around Green is like waking up from a slow dream and only realizing how unreal it was when the intensity of real life starts seeping in. Green gives him a sliver of insight into another world, a different layer of life where the pace moves faster and the colors are so strong that it almost hurts.

Red can’t imagine living in that world all the time, and yet that’s Green’s reality. Caring the way he does must be exhausting. But Green’s also never had the option not to care, because everyone was going to be watching him from the start. The Oaks made a hole in Green’s heart at a young age so they could drill in concepts like duty and family and never shaming his grandfather, and even though Green’s filled the hole up with his own dreams, Red knows it still hurts. So maybe pain is the source of his cares and his ambitions, the deep-seated hunger that keeps pushing him forward even though he’s already carved out a place in the world. Maybe that’s the reason for the days when Green seems like he’s teetering on the edge of overspill.

It’s funny that Green’s the Oak, because a tree is more suited to Red, quiet and consistent and steady. Green’s more like a fire, there’s always something burning in him even when he seems to be at rest. Once something stokes the banked flame, he bursts back into an inferno, chaotic and messy and lovely.

Red doesn’t get why people spend so much time trying to puzzle him out when Green’s the real fascination between them. Sure, he’s the silent and kinda mysterious champion of Kanto, but his poker face doesn’t hide anything underneath, there’s not much depth to him until someone else can draw it out. He’s pretty boring when it comes down to it. Meanwhile, Green’s so on fire that his embers catch everywhere, and sometimes, they can even set someone as unmoving as Red ablaze. And some part of Red wants that to happen, wants to burn. He wants Green’s fire to consume him and for the two of them to burn together, so brilliant and glorious that they meld into a single great flame that subsumes them both. When they’re writing the history books, he wants it to be “Red and Green,” like salt and water. He wants to entangle himself in Green’s innards and never let go.

The people who say Green is selfish don’t get it. Red’s the selfish one in this situation, because all he does is take and take whatever Green can give. Sometimes, he goads him just to see the spark of his prickly temper or the coldness of his contempt. It’s all so brilliant and there’s a part of Red that wants to own him, to hold him forever and ever and never let anyone else see.

That ugly side of him is a part that he keeps locked away where it can’t hurt anyone. But he thinks Green probably already suspects that it exists. Green already knows most of the worst of Red — his ability to be deeply petty, his insensitivity and the way he covers it up with his poker face, how sometimes his obliviousness is feigned because he doesn’t want to bother. Green doesn’t expect Red to be the nice, quiet boy that everyone else sees in him. Green just expects him to be Red, and Red doesn’t want him to be anything other than Green.

Time will pass, things will change, but Green has always been a constant. Red doesn’t really believe in things as cheesy as together forever, but he does believe in patterns, and he doesn’t want this one to break. Red and Green, fire and wood, call and response.

For now, Red can be content with this.

#Fanfiction #Pokemon #OriginalShipping #NamelessShipping #Green Oak #Red #Trainer Red #WIP

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oh-my-may · 4 years

Text

City Lights - Spiderman! Jeno

Okay so I wrote this in 2018 back when I mainly wrote for kpop on this blog and I found this in my drafts... I read through it and honestly it was a little too good for me not to post it, I couldn’t just let it rot without anyone ever seeing it... So here you go. Also I’m a sucker for both lee jeno and Spiderman, so it is no wonder I wrote this and poured my everything into it back then :D Enjoy!

genre: friends to lovers, fluff? A little bit of action, I guess

pairing: Lee Jeno (NCT) x fem! reader

warnings: mentions of violence, bruises etc., sexual assault (kinda, not too much though)

word count: 5.7K

The same people, the same classes, the same routine, the same city. Everything was just how it always used to be. You didn’t complain, though, it was fine. You just wished there was a little more excitement in the big city of New York that everyone knew.

And so you looked out of the window, bored to death, as your math teacher was writing exercises on the black board. It was not like you hated math, it was rather that math seemed to hate you. You were seriously trying your best but you and mathematics were just an impossible pairing.

„Hey, need help?“, Lee Jeno’s voice carried through your thoughts and awoke your from your daydreams about adventures and action.

„I was just dreaming, but yeah, please.“, you pleaded and Jeno gave you his all too famous smile.

Jeno was your savior. At least when it came to math. Whenever you looked especially clueless in class he made it his task to whisper some answers or important formulas you might need. He has quite the good memory when it came to stuff like that. Other than that, you usually didn‘t hang with him. He has his small group of friends and they sometimes go out together but they usually keep to themselves. However, everyone swooned over Lee Jeno because he was a sports ace and one of the schools most important basketball players. He also had this smile, where his eyes turn into crescends and everything else around him suddenly seemed unimportant when he gave you that smile. The only thing that made him seem odd occasionally was his particular liking of repairing and fixing things, or in general just doing things with his hands. He was often found in the art class room after school where he worked on whatever project.

But generally, Jeno Lee had everyone wrapped around his fingers, even if he didn’t notice that. And it was not a big deal at all because he was not an annoying guy or one of those bad boys or a class clown. Lee Jeno was just horribly normal and you loved and hated him for it, because this school was filled with enough of weird kids.

At lunch you sat with your friends, like you always did, right next to the table of Jeno and his friends. Your friends were talking about the usual – dumb homework, weird teachers, the latest school gossip – as you just listened to them while eating your sanwich and salad. But then one of them got a notification on her phone and it was a news article on the crime rate of the city and how it apparently increased heavily.

„Honestly, this is horrible. They write that the police is totally overstrained because they don’t have enough men.“, she explained after reading the article. Suddenly everyone turned serious and quiet, a worried expression was plastered on everyone’s face.

„They only seem to focus on the big crimes and important accidents such as big car accidents or bank robbery while the rate of sexual assaults and rapes literally doubled over the last year.“, one of your friends added, looking around the cafeteria.

„Honestly, none of us should go around the city after dark. At least not alone. It seems to be far too dangerous.“, you said, putting your sandwich back on your plate, suddenly not hungry anymore. This is not what you wanted when you asked for more action in this city.

Your friends agreed and then fell into a heated conversation on superheroes and solutions while you kind of clinked yourself out of the conversation and got lost in your thoughts again, your gaze lazily wandering around the room.

That however stopped when your eyes landed on Jeno. Just like you, he didn’t seem to have a lot of interest in his friends‘ conversation and instead looked over to your table. Maybe you were wrong but it seemed like he was listening to your conversation and he probably has for a while now. But then Jaemin, one his friends, ruffled his hair and motioned for Jeno to get up and follow him as everyone was now leaving their table. You just sighed quietly, trying to find back into the conversation of your friends.

The next day, you were alone in math. Jeno didn’t sit in his usual spot behind you, nor did he sit anywhere in class. His friend Renjun told the teacher that Jeno didn’t feel well and therefore stayed home sick today.

It was okay. It was just that now you needed to pay attention to the teachers words as you had no Jeno who would tell you tasks you might have missed. You still stunk at math, but you figured maybe you’d get better if you actually paid attention from now on. Especially now, in your senior year, you kind of felt the need to pay attention and be a good student. And so your tried your best.

Excited about telling Jeno about your recent realization, you happily walked into class the next day just to see that he wasn’t here today, either. You nodded slowly as you thought that maybe Jeno was actually sick, even though he never seemed to miss one single lesson. It was weird; you never once remembered Jeno to be sick at all, he was always there, sitting on the desk behind you, making small talk with your or telling you dumb jokes.

On the fourth day, you began to worry. Jeno was still sick at home, at least that was what Renjun kept on telling the teacher. And she was just nodding and smiling at him, asking if Jeno will be alright soon and come back. Of course she also had a weak spot for him, he was one of her best students. The only one that honestly seemed to be annoyed by Jenos absence was the coach, who desperately asked Jaemin every lesson when Jeno will come back and if he’ll make it to the game on the weekend. Jaemin always just ends up stuttering that he doesn’t know, because the coach always grabs his collar and presses him to the wall while talking to him, then releases him.

Today you decided to sit down in the gym and watch the teams practice as you had a free period. Again, the coach was asking around if anyone has seen Jeno today. Still, not a single sign of a comeback. It was the Friday before the match and the coach seemed even more stressed than before. He threatened Jenos friends, Jaemin, Chenle and Haechan who all were in the team as well – with a raised index finger. „Tell Jeno that if he isn’t here tomorrow I’ll raise hell for the whole team. No one stays home sick for a whole goddamn week!“ The boys just nodded quickly and then got back to playing. You closed your textbook and watched them practice. Maybe you’ll attend your first ever High School basketball match tomorrow, you thought.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t. Your mom had the genius idea of making you look after your younger siblings as she and your dad went out to eat. It was horrible. Your friends didn’t even answer your texts. After your parents arrived again, you instantly took the next bus and ran into the gym, only to be greeted by the leaving masses.

„Y/N!“, your best friend shouted as she saw you. She instanty grabbed your wrist and you followed the people that were now going outisde.

„How was the match?“, you asked as it was the question that burned your tongue the most.

„I guess it was okay.“, she simply replied while trying to watch over the heads of the people. „How can I know, I don’t understand anything about basketball. Jeno was there, however. Apparently Coach Johnsons threat worked. But he wasn’t in a good condition at all, Y/N.“, she then said in a serious tone.

„What do you mean ‚he wasn’t in a good condition‘?“ The cold air of the evening was hitting your face as you went through the door that led to the parking lot of the school.

She turned to you, frowning. „He wasn’t concentrated on the game at all. He also looked horrible, there were scratches and bruises all over his face. It was obvious that he had tried to cover them but not with a lot of success. I mean, it did look hot but like – I don’t know why he stayed home all week but it definetely wasn’t because of a fever or the flu or whatever.“, she sighed, a concerned look in her eyes as she looked around the parking lot. „My brother’s picking me up, you can drive with us.“

You spent the whole weekend at home as your parents said it would be more safe for you. You didn’t complain, though, you had a lot to think about. You also had homework for math and for the first time in forever you considered actually doing them.

But you also had a little hope. When Jeno was back for the match he’ll probably also be back in school, right?

And you were right. The next Monday Jeno was sitting on his seat behind yours. However, you weren’t greeted by his bright smile and a soft ‚Good Morning‘. Instead, there was silence and the dark blue hood of his sweatshirt that was pulled deeply into his face. Still, you could see some bright red scratches on his chin.

For the quiet ‚Hey‘ you gave him you got a murmured ‚Hi‘ back. The teacher seemed happy to have Jeno back and she celebrated it with a suprise test that just got her groans from her students. This time though, Jeno didn’t bother to help you. It was not like you needed it since it was about stuff you did last week but still, it would have been nice to hear his voice. But he remained quiet. After class ended, Jeno was the first one to leave, which was even more unusual behaviour of his.

At lunch, Jeno wasn’t sitting with his friends. They were alone and you took your chance to talk to them. „Hey, Jaemin.“, you asked and the brown haired boy quickly turned his head to you.

„Y/N, right?“

„Yes. I was just wondering where Jeno is? And why he left class so fast? I wanted to talk to him about some of the exercises we did in math today.“ That was a lie. Well, not exactly a lie but also not completely the truth.

„I think he’s crafting again. He’s been like that the whole day, I think he’s just busy.“, he answered and you could see that he said the truth.

„You should go and ask him yourself some time, Y/N. He doesn’t really tell us the truth, either.“, Renjun threw into the conversation and smiled at you a little. You nodded, focusing on your food again. You thought that it would be best to visit Jeno in the art classroom after school, if he was still there.

You waited a few minutes before you headed down the hallways to the art classroom. Most students had already left school when you passed lockers and the last jocks that went to practice on your way. Much to your surprise the classroom was unlocked and the door was even opened a little. You got a glimpse of Jeno hovering over a table, trying to repair something small, as it seemed.

„Hey, Jeno.“, you said as you opened the door a little more and stepped into the room.

Jeno flinched the second you did so, instantly clearing away everything from the table with a wide movement of his arm, hiding the thing he worked on behind his back whilst he turned around. „Y/N!“

You seemed to have truly surprised him, as his expression told you exactly this. Without the hood covering his face and in exposure of the daylight shining through the windows you could actually see all the bruises on his face now. There was one on his right cheek bone and another one above his left eyebrow, a big scratch on his left cheek and a ton of tiny grazes all over his chin and forehead and it almost seemed like he had a healing black eye.

You gulped and whispered a small „Oh my god.“ while Jeno quickly put on the hood again. „How can I help you?“, he asked and then cleared his throat. You tried to read anything in his expression but even if Jeno was trying to hide something, he was defintely good at covering it. The only thing that was different was that he didn’t smile as much, which broke your heart a little more than you wanted to admit.

„I just …“, you stopped for a second, before letting your coverage fall. „I just wanted to check if you’re okay, you seemed a bit off the whole day.“, you confessed as you nervously folded your hands in front of your body.

„That’s very cute of you but … uh ... I’m fine, really. No need to worry.“ The words he said however didn’t convey his body language as the corners of his mouth twitched nervously and his hands were shaking.

„Really? These bruises seem to be quite bad, if you ask me.“, you tried again.

He unconsciously raised his hand up to one of the bruises but then quickly let it fall again. „Oh, those? Last week I got into a really bad street fight and it was honestly not nice, that’s why I needed some time to recover. However, I’m feeling better now, really. I guess it just looks worse than it is.“

You nodded, realizing that he won’t tell you the truth now. „You know … You missed a lot in math last week. Maybe I could explain the subject matter of last week to you when you’re free?“, you then offered, trying to give him a little smile.

He replied with one himself and made your heart jump with it. „That’d actually be quite nice. I totally failed that test today to be honest.“, he said, brushing his hand hrough his hair.

„Cool, then … When are you free?“

„Tomorrow after school? Like … 4pm I’d say?“, he suggested, scratching his neck .

You smiled to yourself at this action that you occasionally saw on him. He looked really cute doing it. „Yeah, 4pm sounds perfectly fine.“

The next day, Jeno left school after math. The whole lesson he seemed a little impatient, he constantly kept rocking his chair und you felt his feet nervously tap on your chair. He almost managed to make you nervous too and you wanted to ask Jeno about what was wrong but he instantly raced out of the classroom after the bell rang and after he didn’t attend any class, as your friend told you.

You almost saw your ‚date‘ in danger, but you still left home at 3.30 pm to be at Jenos‘ on time. You weren’t even sure if it was a date – actually it was just you helping him catch up with math – but you were alone with Jeno and that idea kinda made your stomach turn in excitement. Right now, you didn’t want to think that maybe Jeno just saw the girl in his math class in you.

Quickly after you knocked you were greeted by a middle-aged woman with black hair that was held in a lazy bun. A hand towel in her hand was busy drying a saucepan. She was smiling softly at the sight of you. „Hi, how can I help you?“

You pressed the books you held in front of your body a little tighter to your chest. „Hi, I’m Y/N. Jeno invited me over to catch up on math.“

The woman quickly raised an eyebrow and let both of her hands sink. „Well, I’m May, Jenos‘ aunt. Unfortunately he left 30 minutes ago but I’m sure he’ll be back soon, don’t worry. Please come in.“ She stepped aside to let you walk in.

„His room is upstairs, the last room in the hallway, you can wait there. Do you need anything? Cookies, tea?“

A little swamped with her hospitality you stuttered out „Tea would be nice, thank you.“

You waited in the kitchen until the tea was ready and then went upstairs, following Aunt Mays instructions.

Jenos room was quite messy but you didn’t expect less. You awkwardly sat down on his bed, the only clear space you could find. You dropped your bag onto the floor and put the cup of tea on the nightstand. You really were not the type to snoop around but there literally was a big wall right in front of you on which a hundred pictures and documents were pinned. There were pictures of different kinds of spiders and then spider bites and a lot of old documents from like 10 years ago. All of them were written by or adressed to a man whom you could only identify as Jenos dad. In between all those pictures you found pieces of different fabrics pinned on the wall as well and then there was red string in between, connecting different pictures and notes he wrote himself. You didn’t understand any of what was written on there but before you could get to at least trying to understand it, there was a loud noise coming from the window. It almost sounded like something dropped onto the fire escape outside of the window, so you went to check. But nothing was there, just a cat that was walking around in the inner courtyard and surely didn’t just jump from the roof.

„Y/N!“ Jeno opened the door and walked in the room. „I’m so sorry I forgot about our little math date, Mark needed my help with something.“, he explained breathlessly.

You nodded, still in surprise over his sudden appearance. „It’s okay, really.“, you said, sitting back down on the bed. You discovered new bruises on his face and pressed your lips together at the sight of it.

„I hope you didn’t had to wait too long.“ He kept on talking as he quickly took off his hoodie and dropped it to the floor. He walked over to what looked like the cupboard and opened it, searching for something else to wear. However the mirror that made out one side of the cupboard showed you that Jenos‘ shirt had several blood stains on it. You instantly got up and walked towards him, a more than worried expression covering your face. „Jeno, oh my god that … That looks horrible, someone needs to take care of that.“

Jeno held a new hoodie in his hand, his arms trying to cover his chest in defense. „No, Y/N, I’m fine, I swear- “

„Jeno no, don’t lie. Look at that, that’s fresh blood. What the hell happened?“ You stood in the middle of the room, hands fiddling nervously.

Jeno just shook his head in denial, not sure where he should lay his eyes on. „Y/N, really.“ He took a step into your direction and took your shaking hands in his. „I’m fine.“ His eyes found yours and fixated you, calmed you down. They were like a deep hole you fell into, like one of the rare nights where you sat on the rooftop and looked up into the night sky with a thousand stars shining down.

„Jeno, please.“, you begged in a desperate tone. „I won’t leave before you go to the hospital to let those check. Or at least let me look at them please. I know how to do that, my younger brother constantly needs someone to tend to his wounds.“

Jeno sighed, taking his hands down and letting yours go. „You really won’t give up, will you?“, he then chuckled, looking into the distance. „Okay, you do it then. I don’t have time for the hospital.“

Much to your relief Jeno just rolled up his shirt instead of completely taking it off. However, the deep cut totally distracted you from the fact that Jeno was leaning half-naked in front of you.

You just constantly shook your head and murmured words of disbelief as you treated the wound. Jeno just flinched a few times, not saying a word the whole time. His head was leaned back the whole time and his eyes were closed, his hands resting crossed on his chest. You were almost sure he had fallen asleep and were about to leave, until he called you back. „Wait, please.“

When you turned around you saw that Jeno was looking at you with his head tilted in your direction and just one eye opened. „You forgot about math.“

You almost bursted out laughing at this normal question. „Okay.“, you nodded, sitting down on the desk chair, taking the notes out of your bag. You started talking about the subject matter while looking on your notes, but Jeno stretched out a hand and touched your knee. Surprised at the sudden touch you stopped, looking at him. There was a small smile on Jenos lips as he looked at you. „How can you tell me about this without me looking at the notes? Come closer, I won’t bite. Promise.“ Then he laughed for an unknown reason and you hesitantly rolled closer to the bed. So close that he felt your breath on his cheek and it would have been easy for yu to just lean on his shoulder while both of your hands were holding onto the notes.

It was actually quite realxing talking to him like that, even though you occasionally felt his gaze burn on your skin and his breath on your cheek and his hand that brushed yours - But then you were through with your notes and you left them on his totally overfilled desk before you got up to head home.

Jeno stood up as you did, watching your every move. „Thanks.“

„Hm?“

„Thank you. Thanks for not asking quastions and for treating the wound and explaining math to me, it helped me a lot. I mean it.“ His eyes told you the truth for once, but you were sure he was hiding a lot more in them. He just wasn’t willing to talk now.

You nodded slowly, a smile creeping up on your face. „No problem. It was a pleasure.“

Jeno laughed and handed you your bag, stepping a little closer to you. „Don’t forget that.“, he murmured. You suddenly realized how close he was and everything in your body began to tingle and burn in a sensational way you’ve never felt before. The excitement rushed through your whole body, pumping adrenaline into your veins in high expectation of what was about to happen. You felt your lips brush his and closed your eyes because the feeling was just way too good to be real, but your lips didn’t touch his again.

Jeno pulled back quickly, running his hands through his hair in a chaotic and confused manner. „I’m – I’m so sorry, Y/N, I just really can’t do this. Not now. Please believe me when I say that this is for your own good. I really like you it’s just that … Not at this time, okay? It’s better if you leave now. Again, I’m so sorry Y/N.“ And with that your turned and left, paralyzed by what just happened.

On the subway home you got a message in the groupchat of your friends – one of them had shared a link to an online article on ‚Spiderman – The man who saves our city?‘

With a raised eyebrow you leaned your head against the window and opened the article, suddenly curious as to what it’s about.

Apparently Spiderman was a superhero who swung through the city with something that remdinded people of spiderwebs. It was also his suit who resembled this feature. On a picture that was taken by the journalist who wrote this article you saw someone swinging from one building to the other on an almost invisible string. The suit he wore was completely blue and red and the mask covered his entire face, not giving a glimpse of the person wearing it. According to the article Spiderman supports the police by saving women from sexual assaults as well as he helped catch criminals. You smiled a little as you finished reading, thinking that someone finally heard your calls for some action and adventure.

You got off the sub and walked upstairs just to realize that it was already pretty dark out. Quitely cursing you thought of the fastest way home, which led you through several narrow alleys. You sighed in defeat as you started to walk home quickly. Even if there now was a superhero in this city, you still were sure he couldn’t look over everyone every single minute.

A reliefed sigh escaped your lips as you arrived in the last dark alley without any incidents. You actually liked the darkness, but you preferred it when you were at home, sitting in front you window rather than walking through narrow streets.

You were just about to turn right when suddenly two men in their late twenties appeared right in front of you, slowly walking up to you. You gulped, stumbling backwards as you were hastily searching for something sharp in your bag. You thought that you needed at least something to defend yourself with. Unfortunately though, you couldn’t find anything.

„Hey sweetie.“ „Want some fun?“

You began to shake uncontrollablyas you felt as helpless as never before. A whimper left your mouth as one of them pushed you against the wall and laughed. Both of them held your trapped between them and the wall as they held your wrists so tight that it hurt. One of them laughed in your ear and you could smell a wave of alcohol that came from his mouth.

„Hey, what’s wrong with you guys?“

A voice from behind them suddenly caught their attention as they turned around. All you could see was someone standing there, clothed in something red and blue.

„Don’t have anything better to do than harass innocent girls, or what?“ The guy continued to mock them, earning unpleased growls from both men. They finally let go of your hands, but still took your view of your savior.

„Who are you?“, one of them asked, voice lurring from alcohol.

„Me? Oh, no one special. I’m who they call the Spiderman.“

You instantly felt relief in your body as you raised your eyebrows to see more. Just a second after both men gave weird noises from them as their hands were stuck to the wall with something that looked like spiderwebs. Spiderman motioned for you to walk to him and so you did, stumbling over the mens feet. Then you saw that their mouths were covered with the spiderwebs as well and you had to smile a little.

For a moment you just stood there in shock of what had just happened – or what almost could have happened.

„Hey are you … are you alright?“ Spiderman suddenly turned to you, waving one of his hands in front of your face.

You nodded slowly. „Yes, I guess so. Thank you, really. So much.“ You tried to give him a smile.

„It’s my job to save beautiful girls like you.“, Spiderman said, bowing. You blushed, not sure how to show him how grateful you where.

„Thanks, but seriously … I …“, overwhelmed by your feelings you quickly wrapped your arms around the superhero, mumbling a „Thank you“ into his chest, before quickly turning around and walking home, too shy to turn around again.

But Spiderman stayed there for a while before making sure that you got home safely, following your every move from the rooftops of NYC.

Your mom decided that it would be best for you to say home the next day after your experience. Not that you’d mind, though. A day off seemed to be exactly what you needed after everything that happened the day before at Jenos‘.

In the evening you sat at your desk, trying to concentrate on writing an essay for school. However, the words didn’t want to flow like they usually do, so you were welcoming everything that gave you an excuse for not writing. For example your friends who wouldn’t want to shut up about the fact that you met Spiderman and he literally saved you from sexual assault. Or the knocking on your window that almost made you drop your phone by accident.

You got up, checking what it was. As you opened your window and sat on the window-sill you saw how someone bent down to pick up new stones. „Hello?“

„Y/N!“

„Jeno? What are you doing here?“, you whisper-shouted at him, leaning far out the window.

„I was worried because you weren’t in school today. I also brought Pizza and Ice Cream and math homework.“ Jeno held up a basket, in which the said foods were placed in.

You giggled, hiding your face behind one hand. „I’ll open the front door for you, just wait a minute.“

„No! There’s no need for that.“, he explained, before grinning and then climbing up the house, using pipes and and the balcony as support. And before you could even blink, he stood right in front of you, still smiling.

„How did you do that?“, you said, still in utter shock of what he just did.

„Just like that.“, he chuckled and then shrugged, placing the basket on your desk. „Can we … Can we talk?“ The dark blue hoodie he wore was a big contrast to his pale skin and the healing red wounds on his handsome face.

„Of course Jeno. You even brought food.“, you smiled as you sat down on your bed.

„Maybe not here. Is there a way to get up on the roof of this building?“, he asked, looking around your room.

„Yeah sure, but I won’t climb the facade if that’s alright.“

It was a relatively lukewarm night for the fact that it was october. You both sat on a picnic blanket as you were munching on the pizza and later on the ice cream – you wondered how Jeno got both of it in your favorite type/flavor.

Turns out Jeno actually wanted to talk not only about math but also the happenings of the night before. After every tiny piece of Pizza and every scoop of Ice cream were exterminated, Jeno walked up to the railing and leaned against it, watching how the night slowly lay across the city. After a moment you followed him as he held his hand out for you to take. He pulled your forwards with so much power that you almost fell over. However he managed to prevent that.

„Sorry. Sometimes I have trouble controlling my strength.“, he quitely confessed.

„Oh really?“, you asked a little too high-pitched as your heart was still beating in your throat from all the adrenaline.

He just chuckled and then shook his head, making his fluffy hair float around for a second. You giggled and then everything got silent for a few minutes as you both enjoyed the night view of New York.

„This is beautiful.“, you then murmured, mesmerized by the beauty.

„Indeed. I love New York at dawn so much. I try to watch the sunset as often as I can.“, he agreed, looking over at you with that look in his eyes that had you freeze on the spot.

After that the conversation turned and you kind of talked about everything and nothing at the same time, laughing about stupid jokes and stories and then talking about your wishes and hopes for the future.

„Now tell me … Why were you not in school today? Were you not feeling well?“

You sighed, brushing a hand through your hair. „Well, kinda. My mom thought it would be best for me to stay home for a day after yesterday I almost got into a sexual harassment.“ When Jeno immediately turned his head to you, you shook yours. „No need to worry, a superhero called Spiderman had my back and saved me from anything bad that could have happened.“ A small smile formed on your lips at the memory of the young man in a red and blue suit.

Jeno laughed. „Spiderman? Who’s that? Sounds ridiculous, like a wannabe.“

„No! No no! He’s really cool! And he has those … strings that are like spiderwebs and … Wait, I’ll show you an article on my phone.“ You turned to get it as it was still laying on the blanket, but before you got even close to it, Jeno turned around and you felt something sticking on your back before you got twirled through the air and landed in Jenos arms, who just grinned widely. With widened eyes you looked down just to see one of these strings hanging on your body – Jeno had pulled you towards him with it.

„It … I …“, you stuttered as realization began to hit you. „Oh my god, it’s you! You are Spiderman! You are the guy with the spiderwebs and the suit!“, you laughed, feeling dumb and oblivious that you didn’t realize it before. „And all the wounds and bruises and scratches that -“

Jeno cut you off by laughing himself and then pressing his lips to yours, first a little powerful but then he got gentle and wrapped one of his arms around your waist as the other lovingly caressed your cheek. You stayed like that for a while, both smiling into the kiss at times, melting in each others arms.

Then you heard a rustling and just seconds later the police radio Jeno had went off and announced something about a fugutive prisoner.

„I’m so sorry, Y/N, really. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.“, he apologized a million times as he slowly let go of you and put on the mask you’ve seen before. „I really am, Y/N, please believe me.“ His voice was now more muffled but you could still recognize it. You sighed a little desperate before leaning in once more to place a small kiss on his fabric covered cheek. „Good luck with saving the city, Jeno Lee.“

And then he jumped over the railing into the City Lights and all you could see was his silhouette swinging through the busy streets of Queens as the darkness lingered over the city.

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sirfluffig · 4 years

Text

Lucy O’Sullivan - HPMA MC

Yeah, so...how do I explain this. I know I promised you guys that I dont continue to make more OCs...which I also kind of broke right off the bat...but this boyo has been in my drafts for so unbelievable long and I always wanted to continue his profile till I noticed....I havent even made an introductory post for him. Which admittingly is kind of sad because I absolutely love this whirlwind of absolute CHAOS.

Also I kinda miss all the Hufflepuff HPMA MC’s...like...is it only me or do we have a gigantic hole of our favourite Badgers in this timeline? Well...I dont actually know but that doesnt change anything about the fact that we can add a +1 to this amount nonetheless..

Anyways, here goes nothing!

This boy over here is Lucian O’Sullivan drawn by the amazing and adorable @immagrosscandy and brought to you by yours truly.

--Even though his apparent first name is “Lucian” he isn't much of a fan of being called that. There is no tragic-background reason why he hates it, but the boy just generally think its a horrible sounding name especially in combination to “O’Sullivan” which also ends on “an”. Therefore he tells the most people he encounters, teachers included to just call him “Lucy”. Something Slughorn especially picked up on, entirely to the disdain of Lucian.

--One of the reasons Slughorn might be so keen on having Lucy as his “friend” is the Hufflepuffs special ability of shapechange. From some apparently unknown source, Lucy inherited the abilities of a Metamorphmagus and doesn't hesitate to use them quite openly. This might cause a little discomfort by students, but its nothing really harmful especially because of Lucy's tendency to apologize if he sees someone with an overly frowny face.

--Even though the Metamorphmagus doesn't look like it but on his first day at Hogwarts he was sorted into the humble House of Hufflepuff. Something quite unusual if you consider this characters strengths to be his keen mind, his easy-going attitude and his silver-tongue. Lucy tends to be a bit of a trickster, he loves to cast illusions and confuse his fellow students, while sitting back and laugh his soul out. The Metamorphmagus, similar to an apparent other one, written down in history, finds comfort around other pranksters and cunning minds.

-- Admittedly, every time you are going to ask Lucy about his past, he tells you another story of how he managed to pull off something incredible but untrue. The main reason for this is not that he is a chronic liar but rather….that he doesn't know anything real from his past. It seems like his entire memory was obliviated, as far that he isn't really confident about his name either. The only thing he surely remembers is that after another confusing day on the streets of apparently Ireland? He was found, cold and almost starved by a wandering circus that took it upon themselves to adopt the young urchin and give him a home. They were especially intrigued by the abilities Lucy has shown them. One of the people in this freakshow-family, also was a Hogwarts Alumni that fled his pureblood family to live in peace, in the world of muggles. To prevent an obscurial, he taught Lucy how to control and use the power inside of him, to a point where the Metamorphmagus learned rudimentary wandless magic. This is all, he remembers ignoring his life in the circus and all the emotional bonds that have forged over the time being. Yet something bothers him...for whatever reason...Lucy is able to speak, read and write Swedish.

I HAVE PREPARED SO MUCH MORE FOR THIS WONDERFUL BOY THAT I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO SHOW YOU AND I PROMISE YOU THERE WILL BE MORE CONTENT SOON!!!

But anyways, because he is such a mess I would love to have him some friends...so if anyone wants to have a younger, male Tonks-like Character as their best friend forever...feel free to hit me up >:333 Please... Also!! Little Bonus...because I know you guys love...well love-life reveals...have this treat @immagrosscandy and I prepared for you <3

#HPMA #Lucy O'Sullivan #Harry Potter Magic Awakened #Hufflepuff #I absolutely love him #and I am sorry its not that detailed #but I needed to post this #but I also need to go to bed #because Im tired >:(

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theabandonmentissues · 3 years

Text

EPISODE ONE TRANSCRIPT

Warning: The following podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Trespassing is not only illegal, but often incredibly dangerous. The hosts do not condone any activities that could put their listeners in harms way, and encourage you to proceed with caution and do your research before exploring the unknown. We cannot be held liable for any accidents, injury, or hauntings that may occur. Listener discretion is advised.

(full transcript under the cut.)

E:Alright I think this is right.

Z: Is it?

E: Yeah, yeah that's right, okay.

Z: Beautiful.

E: Let me find this tweet. The first thing in my drafts, is (laughs)-

Z: I'm scared.

E: (laughs)...I remember typing this out at like 2 o'clock in the morning when I had to be up for work at five. I put, “I love not learning new pop culture terms. Love being blissfully unaware. I still am not sure what poggers means. I do not care. I am free.”

Z: (laughs)

E: And I was so tired I thought that was profound. Let's see.

Z: (continues laughing)

E & Z: (laugh)

Z: Damn. That's like our declaration of independence.

E: (laughs) I'm going to print that out on the wall.

Z: That's Gen Z's declaration.

E: Let's see, where is it? There's one about Jack Black being sexy.

Z: Yeah, and it's in the drafts, why?

E: (laughs) This one says, this one all it says, no capitalization, no punctuation is, “I want Ellen Ripley to knock me out cold.”

E: (laughs)

Z: (laughs)

E: And I live by that.

Z: That's your truth and you should speak it.

E: Okay, here it is. “Sometimes, facing your fears means letting out that earth-shattering fart in the public restroom, even if there are other occupants. Speak loud, even when your voice shakes, babes.”

Z: (laughs) Shut the fuck up.

E: (laughs)

Z: No!

E: Yeah, that one...uh, that one is in the drafts. Alright, well. You asked about an intro, and I had something that was work shopping.

Z: Oooooo...

E: Do you wanna hear it?

Z: Yes, please. Please, please.

E: Alright. Hello, welcome to The Abandonment Issues, a periodical podcast about the past, the paranormal, and the just plain perplexing. I'm your host, Em.

Z: And I'm Zack.

E: How'd you feel-

Z: The other host. (laughs)

E: How'd you feel about that alliteration?

Z: You know I love alliteration.

E: I do too, I got really excited about it.

Z: (laughs)

E: I was like dead asleep, well, I wasn't dead asleep. I was very close to being though.

Z: Right.

E: And I had that thought, and I was like “Fuck, I gotta wake up and type that.” So...

Z: It was worth it though.

E: Thank you.

Z: I like it.

E: I don't know if that'll stick, but I think-

Z: I don't know, it's a start

E: It's a good start. Yeah.

Z: Yeah. Well..

E: So.

Z: Howdy doody, how ya doing.

E: Oh god, well um, I just whacked my headphones against my mic and I think it's still vibrating. But otherwise, I'm doing great.

Z: (laughs) Well, that's good.

E: How ya been?

Z: I mean, I've been alright.

E: That's good.

Z: We haven't seen each other, I mean, we haven't like recorded-recorded in two weeks?

E: Yeah.

Z: It's been like two weeks, so.

E: Yeah, I think so.

Z: It's been a second, but yeah.

E: Oh?

Z: So.

E: This is our first official, like official recording, the other ones were just tests, so.

Z: So, it's a little different, yeah. Like Em said, we did a couple recordings, so we kind of like, dipped our toes in the water of what it's like to just get behind the mics and stuff, but again this is our first episode, and we kinda just wanted to, lean in and kind of explain why we are here.

E: Yeah.

Z: What we are going to be doing, things we are going to talk about et cetera, et cetera.

E: Yeah.

Z: So. Do you want to-let's start with the-we have a couple ice breaker questions.

E: I'm so excited.

Z: Because, okay, so, you have a college degree.

E: I do.

Z: I have college credits. So we both went to college. (laughs)

E: Yes.

Z: You know, it's fun to do the ice breaker questions when you start a class.

E: Yeah.

Z: Because, even if you don't pay attention to anything that anybody else says-

E: Someone is going to change something that changes your life.

Z: Every single time-

E: Especially, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Z: No, you're good.

E: But, especially if you are playing two truths and a lie. I have found that that is the ice breaker game that I come away changed forever, like I've learned some things about some people playing that game. Are you okay?

Z: There's a burp coming.

E: (laughs)

E: Just let 'er out.

Z: (burps) There it is. (laughs)

E: Wow, that was lovely.

Z: Not to derail, real quick, but-

E: Go for it.

Z: Have you ever used Bumble?

E: Very briefly.

Z: One of my favorite things about Bumble, is that you can do like questions or whatever-

E: And that's one of 'em.

Z: That's one of them! It really, it's really telling. And I love, cause one of my truths is always so bizarre. You know which one I am talking about, but no one ever goes for it.

E: I honestly can't-

Z: The car. *laughs*

E: Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that one is pretty unbelievable. But-

Z: Yeah, we'll save that for another time.

E: I've seen that one, uh, I've seen the repercussions of that one in real time.

Z: Anyway.

Z: (laugh)

E: Alright, well...

Z: Episode one, we are going to expose my entire past.

E: Yeah.

Z: Okay, so. When we first kind of, started talking about the idea for this podcast, which really was just bred, I think just kind of like a joke text that I sent. Or that you sent.

E: I honestly don't even remember.

Z: It was, I mean just the, the very cliché, “We should start a podcast!” and then it just kind of went from there. Just I mean, 2020.

E: Yeah.

Z: It's nothing but boredom. When when we first started talking about, what we wanted to do with our podcast. It really just stemmed from, for me anyway, just really wanting to bring light to the history that exists here in the south.

E: Yeah we didn't really say that, we-

Z: No. (laughs)

E:...we are in the south, we are some good 'ol southern boys.

Z: Just a couple of southern boys.

E: Yea!

Z: We grew up very close to each other, as far as, location.

E: Yeah.

Z: And you know, our high schools probably taught around the same genre and path of like history.

E: Yeah.

Z: It's all white washed and gross. Bleh. But-

E: It's only getting worse, did you hear that Tennessee is like, passing laws to, how did they put it, it's so, it's such bullshit. Basically erasing any history of slavery or discrimination. I think that call it something like Radical Race Theory.

Z: Well, that's great. Welcome to our podcast where we are gonna nip all that in the butt.

E: Yeah.

Z: Because truly, like Em just stated, it's only getting worse, apparently. Jesus Christ, I hate Tennessee.

E: Yeah, I found out like a week ago.

E: Hi guys this is Em, I'm doing the editing, and I just wanted to clarify something really quick. When we were recording this episode, I misspoke and I said that this concept was called Radical Race Theory, but that is incorrect. The correct term is Critical Race Theory. So, I am sorry for that error. If you don't know what a ban like this would mean, the short version is basically, is that American lawmakers are trying to dictate and restrict what can and can't be taught in public schools about the history of systemic racism and slavery in the United States. I'm going to include some links in our resources for the episode where you can learn more about this and we really encourage you to check those out and do your research, because this is obviously an important part of American history for everyone. To erase these topics from lesson plans, really presents a biased and skewed version of events. Anyway, I'm sorry for that error and I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode .

Z: There's just so much history and just stories that are just passed down even by even just word of mouth-

E: Mmhmm

Z:...down here in the south. That literally no one knows about.

E: Yeah.

Z: I think that's, that really is what piqued our interest. When we were throwing around the idea of this podcast to begin with, it really was just like, “We're gonna find an abandoned building, we're going to dig into the research of it, and we're going to talk about this abandoned place.” And from what we are now, it's really expanded to literally just like a history lesson.

E: History, I think it's important to not only to cover the actual facts, but also, I think, not necessarily, like fiction and urban legends and that kind of thing. I think that sort of thing has a lot to do with like story telling, and the culture of the area like-

Z: Right.

E:..like there are, you know, you have things from like, the stories that your grandmother would tell you to keep you from being a little shit when you were a kid.

Z: (laughs)

E: Or, you know, why if there's like an anecdote for why is the sky blue, how did this mountain range be formed. Y'know I think stuff like that is really interesting. When you're driving along some random ass back road and you see an old house, and you think, “Huh, I wanna know the history of that place.” That is the kind of, the kind of thing, that I think really inspires me, is like. Seeing something, not knowing anything about it, wanting to learn about it.

Z: Exactly. And-

E: (laughs)

Z:...we had created like a little baby list of questions that we wanted to ask. When we first started kind of throwing around the idea of what we wanted to do. We kind of already covered a couple of them. But I guess I'll just kind of go down the list again.

E: Okay, sure.

Z: Just to kind of like, ya know, put the nail in the coffin, so to speak.

E: Yeah.

Z: So, the first question that we have, is who or what are our inspirations?

E: Okay.

Z: So I would say, for me personally, like I said, just growing up, and like I can't think of anything off the top of my head. But like growing up and learning that an event happened. Or someone did this thing and, you come to realize later on in life that what you were taught, wasn't necessarily the truth. The whole truth, anyway.

E: Yeah.

Z: So for me, I guess, it's not so much a who, as so much as a what. For me it's just really like uncovering what is real.

E: Okay, yeah.

Z: So.

E: I think, I think that's a good way to put it. And I feel like, y'know, disclaimer, we are not perfect, we are probably not always going to do perfect research. You know, we're not exposing all the facts, in their, 100% true form, 'cause you know. We're just taking the information that we can find and putting that to use. But I agree, I think that that's a big part of it for me is like. I can remember several times when I was younger, like having a teacher, do a lesson and be like, “Oh well this thing happened,” and then being like well, “Okay I want to know more about that but I don't know how.” And now, you know, I'm an adult, and I have better research skills, so.

Z: Right.

E: I think it's a far more entertaining use of my time, that what I was doing previously. Which was just, laying on the floor and looking at TikTok.

Z: Right. (laughs)

E: (laughs)

Z: TikTok truly, worms in my brain.

E: Yeah.

Z: But, it truly, this is just, even, I mean, we've been batting around the idea of this podcast for a couple months.

E: Mmhmm.

Z: And just getting started, and doing the research and like looking into these stories, has been so much fun.

E: Oh yeah.

Z: And, I know the story that you're going to cover today has been one.

E: Yes.

Z: And I know that I've heard bits and pieces throughout our friendship, pretty much.

E: Mmhmm.

Z: And we've known each other for awhile.

E: Mmhmm.

Z: So I'm excited to get, like the full, like get in there.

E: Yeah, I'm excited about yours too, because like,it-it's, I mean, I think, I feel like maybe comparatively I might know just a tiny bit more about yours than you might know about mine.

Z: Right.

E: Just because I've been to this location.

Z: Right.

E: And I've like snooped around there.

Z: Everyone has in this area.

E: Yeah.

Z: Well, goals for the podcast. Do you have any goals in mind?

E: I want a Lamborghini.

Z: I want to be Mr. Beast.

E: I thought you were *laughs* I thought you were gonna say Mr. Bean.

E&Z: *laugh*

E: Oh my god, which actually-

Z: That too.

E:...derailed, for a second, but this is relevant considering what I just said, um, did you know-do you listen...I know you like Gracie Helbig and Mamrie Hart.

Z: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

E: Do you listen to their podcast?

Z: Oh yeah.

E: Have you heard the one where they talk about how Mr. Bean has wrecked two McLarens?

Z: YES!

E: Apparently the man has like a 170 IQ and a passion, a deep burning passion for sports cars. And he has-I don't know if he has if he has wrecked two different ones or if it's the same one that he's wrecked twice. But he is currently trying to sell it for like 12 million dollars. And that, I have thought about that fact all fucking week. All week. They were talking about cars at work yesterday and I had to just like clench my fists and hold in the fact that I wanted to yell across the expo station, “MR. BEAN HAS WRECKED TWO MCLARENS!” Anyway.

Z: Truly it's a-

E: So sorry, but I had to get that off my chest

Z: Oh my god.

E: Rowan Atkincenter, what is his name? Ronan? Rowan Atkinson?

Z: Mr. Bean?

E: Yeah.

Z: I don't know his-the only thing I know about Mr. Bean is that he has wrecked two McLarens.

E&Z: *laughs*

E: Oh my god..

Z: Um, jesus. Goals for the podcast for me um. Yeah, a Lamborghini would be nice.

E: It would be nice, wouldn't it?

Z: No, truthfully, and I feel like I've said this like 50 times already. It's just getting the information out there. Letting people be in the know about what's going on in the south. Because I feel like *clears throat* excuse me. There's like this weird stigma against the south.

E: For sure.

Z: And it's just poor and dirty...

E: And ignorant.

Z: And ignorant. And like, there's so much that goes on down here that no one really knows about because it is so outside of “normal society?”

E: Yeah.

Z: I guess in other people's eyes? And that's even just like in the United States, even outside of the United States I'm sure that...The south is just like a cesspool of jokes.

E: Yeah.

Z: But-

E: Well I agree with that. I think that it's very much, uh there's a disconnect between like, people who actually live here and people that have never been here. And just like how it's, you know portrayed in the media. There's so. I think there's something like, I don't know the exact statistics, but I'm pretty sure that if you actually look at the numbers there is so much more diversity than in a good deal of the United States. Like, um I was reading something the other day that said that the south, like the American south is one of the most diverse places in terms of like LGBT folks and I'm not sure if that's true. But honestly, I would believe it. But yeah, I think that that's very much, getting the information out there, but also, it's a desire, personally, it's you know, a desire for more information in general.

Z: True.

E: Because-

Z: Yeah.

E: You know, I've lived here my whole life and I feel like I know a lot of cool little bits and pieces about stuff but you can always learn more.

Z: Oh yeah.

E: That is my motto.

Z: 100%.

E: You can always, always find something else out. Even if it's something that you think that you know everything about it, you can always dig deeper and find out more. So.

Z: 100%.

E: For sure, for sure.

Z: This next question is past exploration stories. I'm about to tell one of mine.

E: Okay.

Z: That's my whole story. So, do you have any that you would like to share?

E: Hm...

Z: I mean, I've done like geocaching, that sort of thing, but like.

E: Yeah,

Z: Other than that, like.

E: Yeah. I have been geocaching, I actually, I have been to the location you're going to cover today. And I thought I was going to get in big trouble, because the owner pulled up in his pickup truck and I was so afraid. I was there with my sister and, Vivian, I don't know if you'll hear this. But um, my friend Vivian, and we were walking around. We climbed the steps. We like went-I was too chicken shit to go all the way up to the top because it's a very tall structure and the stairs are very old. And I was like “nope, Imma go halfway but this step is broken, I'm not going any farther.” And then we came back down and this guy pulled up and I was like “Oh god, he's gonna get so mad at us.” He pulled up and we had Vivian's puppy with us and he rolled the window of his truck down, and he was like, “Can I give the dog a biscuit?!” And we were like, “Yes sir you can!” And he just stood there and talked to us for a little while, it was very cool.

Z: Yeah.

E: But yeah, I can't think of anything other than that, not offhand. I would like to make some more.

Z: Yeah. Same.

E: I have not been in an old building in a cool minute. Um, actually, I'm sorry, I did think of one.

Z: No, you're good.

E: Uh, we were walking around, I don't want to triangulate our location. *laughs*

Z: Right.

E: But we were, a couple of my friends and I, were walking around in this, kind of like, like uh small back road I guess you would say near one of their houses. And there was this old kind of a house? I don't know if it was actually a house at one point or if it was just like a shed. But we uh, hiked back a little off the road and went in there, and there was just like all these old bottles. Like, from the '50s all over the floor and that's something that I collect, and I was like “Oh shit, this is private property, I know we're probably trespassing. Imma take some of these bottles.” And I had a coat on with big pockets. So I put a couple of them in my pocket.

Z: *laughs*

E: And we hiked back out, and my mom called me, and I was probably like, I don't know sixteen, seventeen maybe?

Z: Sure.

E: She was like, “Hey where are you?” And I was like “We went for a walk, we're walking back to so and so's house.” and she was like “ Okay well, we'll meet you up there, I have something to give you,” and I was like “okay.” And when she pulled up I was like, “I have something to give YOU.” And she was like “What?” and I pulled out this crusty ass bottle of like vanilla extract from the 1960s, and was like, “Here ya go!” And my mom of course, I get that fascination from her, she also collects that stuff. So she was like, “Wow! This is so cool, where did you get it?” And I was like, “Well...-

Z: *laughs* That spooky building! As the thunder claps.

E:...we went in that spooky house.” And she was like, “Oh my god that's dangerous!!” And I was like, “Well, we already did it.”

Z: Yeah.

E: So yeah, that was fun. I love doing shit like that.

Z: God, me too. Is this trespassing? I love trespassing.

E: (laughs) I do, I do.

Z: Oh my god.

E: Yeah.

Z: Any topics that you wanna cover, discuss, why?

E: I think we both have a list of stuff that we would like to cover in the future.

Z: Right.

E: I will say, I don't want this to be like specifically true crime. Like I don't want to have all my stories be in one genre. I will say that some of them are paranormal related, some of them are true crime related, some of them are just general history.

Z: Same yeah.

E: I am always, I have very much a morbid curiosity.

Z: Same.

E: I will do my best to treat those with respect and there is one in particular that I am very interested to cover, because I have never heard of it, and it happened, like, in the town that I grew up in, which is very small.

Z: Right.

E: Not a whole lot of reported murders, but his name is Joe Shepherd and he was a killer in that area in the 70s I believe? And I was having a conversation with a friend of mine one day, when we were, like, first work shopping this. I don't think we'd even bought our mics yet-

Z: I don't think so either

E:...and we were talking about it, and she was just like, “Oh you know about Joe Shepherd right?” And I said, “No?” And she was like, “ Yeah, he murdered somebody and put her in the wood pile.” And I was like, “EXCUSE ME, how have I never heard this?!” So I uh, I have to, have to know more about that. I gotta know whats going on.

Z: Right. For me it's kind of in the same vein of, I mean my stories are kind of gonna be everywhere, but I'm really excited for my story for the next podcast that we're gonna do. Because it was right around the time where we started really figuring out what we wanted to do for sure with this podcast. And we went to just like a couple of used bookstores just to look for some, just some paper sources. And I found a book that was super cool, very interesting. Loved it, I've read it like twice already.

E: Oh really the whole thing?

Z: It's not very long, but I've read it like twice already, just reading through. The first story in that book is truly whacko-

E: Yeah?

Z:..so I'm going to cover that the next time we record

E: That's exciting.

Z: And I'm really excited for it. It's a missing persons. We won't say true crime, but I'll say it's a missing persons.

E: Yeah, 'cause we're not really sure if a crime was committed. Like I don't really know the whole story obviously but you've told me bits and pieces, and you know, there's several theories right? Of what actually happened?

Z: Oh yeah, I've got a couple theories that I have that I wanna, but we'll get to that.

E: We'll get to that next time.

Z: Alright, so full disclosure, this whole operation, it's just us, it's me and Em and Em and me. We do have an assistant.

E: Vanessa.

Z: Her name is Linda and we love her.

E: We love Tracy with all our hearts

Z: Veronica, she really gets it done. We asked our lovely assistant, Carly, to get some normal ice breaker questions outside of the podcast because it's really, like we said before it's really telling of someone's character to have these questions answered and we just told. We told Carol to go nuts, so.

E: I'm excited for this, because you've had a little bit of a look at these, I don't know anything.

Z: I've read like the first two, and was like okay, I can see the direction that Sharon's going. Okay, so you haven't looked at these, I've read a couple so I'm just gonna go for it.

E: Let's go.

Z: The first one is if you could be on any reality/game show what would you choose?

E: Wheel of Fortune.

Z: Wheel of Fortune?

E: I always loved Wheel of Fortune. Or Jeopardy. I'm not smart enough to be on Jeopardy, but I love Jeopardy. I miss Alex Trebek, rest in peace.

Z: Rest in peace.

E: That man, god fucking bless.

Z: God bless. For me, and you'll know this, here lately, I've been really into discord, like, essentially role play survivor games. They're so much fun. I've applied to play my first one, but they're so much fun to watch. So I would say maybe that, or if it had to be a game show, I'm going to go with either Press Your Luck-

E: Okay.

Z: Or Shop Till You Drop.

E: I don't know what either of those are

Z: Really? Press your-

E: What is press your luck?

Z: Press your luck is the no whammies, no whammies, that one?

E: I don't know what that is.

Z: You don't know that one? I will show you a clip of.

E: I feel like I've heard someone say that.

Z: So well, here's the tea, my grandma would wake up in the mornings and she would watch us before we went to school. She would wake up in the morning, she would make my grandpa food. She would sit her butt in her recliner and turn on game show network, until her husband came home from work, and then she would make him dinner and then she would watch more game shows until she went to bed. That's all this woman did.

E: I love that.

Z: So, this brain-

E: It's in your brain forever.

Z:..is a rolodex of game show trivia, but that one's a fun one. Shop Till You Drop was essentially, I don't know which one came first, but Supermarket Sweep.

E: Okay.

Z: Have you ever seen that?

E: Like guys grocery game?

Z: Kind of, but they don't like cook, so they'll have like a list, like you'll get carrots on aisle five, and tuna on aisle six, and baby formula on aisle 12, and they just, they go for it. And the first to do it wins or whatever.

E: That sounds like a lot of fun. I do love to grocery shop. I think that would be a fun one too.

Z: So number 2, if you could eliminate one food, so that no one ever ate it again, what would you pick to destroy?

E: My gut instinct says tomatoes, because I hate tomatoes.

Z: *whispers* Same.

E: But I do, it's only, like. I like tomato based sauces and I like tomato soup, so I feel like I would regret that choice.

Z: Ketchup.

E: I don't know if you're for or against ketchup.

Z: I like ketchup but I hate tomatoes. I was adding to tomatoes' cause.

E: Yeah. That's a tough one.

Z: I'm gonna go with green beans.

E: I don't think I can agree with you on that one, I'm sorry.

Z: That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion, but I'm destroying green beans.

E: Okay, okay, um, god, that's really hard. I don't, I don't like tomatoes at all. I hate touching them, I hate dealing with them. I work in food service. I could also say mushrooms 'cause I really hate mushrooms.

Z: I love mushrooms.

E: That is something I find so interesting about you.

Z: That I like mushrooms?

E: Yeah, you know. You're kind of a-I don't know much about. I don't know, you're-in my eyes you're kind of a picky eater. Cause you don't like, like lettuce.

Z: I don't like lettuce.

E: What about like a good arugula? Do you like arugula?

Z: What's arugula?

E: Okay, we're gonna get you some arugula. It's a leafy green. You'll probably like, well no okay. I should-I take that back. You like Spinach.

Z: I do like Spinach.

E: Okay.

Z: Baby kale.

E: Do you like kale?

Z: I like baby kale.

E: Oh, okay.

Z: I don't like that-

E: I don't know that I've ever had the baby-

Z: It's just like spinach.

E: I mean it's-okay. Yeah that's fair.

Z: But.

E: Yeah, I'm gonna hard answer, I'm gonna say mushrooms 'cause I really fucking hate mushrooms.

Z: Valid.

E: Alright question 3.

Z: What is your favorite restaurant? In parenthesis, Zack, you cannot say McDonald's.

E&Z: *laugh*

E: Oh.

Z: Well.

E: Oh, Clarice. She's roasting ya.

Z: She really is. Shoot. I'm just going to go with fast food because-

E: Okay.

Z: Restaurants can mean any-

E: Fast food/fast casual, I think that's good.

Z: Sure. Dang, I really like. Well fast casual, I'm going to say Chili's.

E: Ooh yes.

Z: That street corn, honey chipotle tenders.

E: Those honey chipotle tenders, if I ever get married, that's what I want at my wedding.

Z: Catered?

E: Yeah, catered.

Z: Remember when I went to a-if you're hearing this Morgan, I'm sorry, remember when I went to a wedding that was catered by Cracker Barrel?

E: Yes!

Z: Morgan, I love you but, a choice was made. Okay, favorite restaurant?

E: The first thing that popped into my head was Olive Garden.

Z: *gasps*

E: I unironically, unashamedly, unabashedly. I love Olive Garden. I am-

Z: I'm white.

E: Very. Yeah, I am-I think like I don't wanna go all 23 & me, given that I haven't even taken one of those fucking tests. As far ass my family has told me I am like an 8th or a 16th Sicilian or something, so that Italian blood, it makes be crave Olive Garden like nobody's business.

Z: The breadsticks.

E: I see like the sign in the sky and it's like a werewolf to a full moon. And I go crazy.

Z: *laughs* I love Olive Garden.

E: The tiramisu? The chicken gnocchi soup with breadsticks?

Z: Gnocchi!

E: The Tour of Italy? Ah.

Z: The five dollar, to go entrees? You have lunch tomorrow.

E: That is a brilliant business plan.

Z: True.

E: You know what I want? What I desperately desperately want one. The unlimited pasta pass. I have wanted one of those since the day. Justin McElroy did an unboxxing and he got one.

Z: Olive Garden.

E: I really wanted one ever since.

Z: *whispers* Same.

E: Olive Garden sponsor us?

Z: Please god, I know this is our first episode but please.

E: I had an idea for another sponsor. Oh, Subway! Subway should sponsor us.

Z: Truly.

E: I can't believe that neither of us said Subway, actually. We-fun little BTS, behind the scenes, not the K-Pop group, sorry.

Z: Why did my brain go there first?

E: We know why.

Z: Not today. That's a song.

E: LITERALLY every time we've gotten together to brainstorm, put together anything for this show, with the exception of maybe once or twice, that I can't even recall, it's subway every single time, so.

Z: We gotta eat fresh.

E: Somebody, at Subway headquarters, say, “Hey, sponsor The Abandonment Issues-”

Z: Sponsor these people.

E: Plead our case, please.

Z: Please, please, we'll send you merch if we ever

get any.

E: I'll figure it out. I'll use my art degree. Alright. Question four!

Z: If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?

E: Hm.

Z: Forks, Washington.

E: Oh my god.

Z: Final answer.

E: Oh my god. That's a good one, shit.

Z: (laughs) 'Cause genuinely, I don't know 'cause there's so many places to go.

E: Yeah, yeah it's very hard. I always did-okay, well on the topic of my Italian heritage.

Z: Oh Jesus.

E: I was supposed to go to Italy my junior year of college and, the trip got canceled because we didn't have enough people to go. And I was very excited for it, and I would still really enjoy it. I would love to go make that trip, because we were going to stay at a farm in Tuscany that's been there for like, I don't even know. Since like 700 A.D. Or some shit.

Z: That is crazy.

E: It's called Spannocchia if you want to look it up. There's this incredible little-they have this website with like a video that you can check it out. You get to eat like all the food that they give you and all the wine that they have is like made on site. We were going-they have like the original wood kiln-

Z: Wow.

E:...on site, and you could make things in their ceramics studio and you fire it in the kiln at the end of the trip. But they also do like chefs and like butchers internships there where you can go over there and learn how to do things the way they do them and I think that's fascinating.

Z: That's really cool.

E: One day I would love to go there.

Z: Oh yeah, 100%.

Z: Get the swear jar ready.

E: Oh god.

Z: What game or movie universe would you most like to live in? Kingdom Hearts.

E: *Did you bring a roll of quarters?

Z: I'm just gonna leave it at that. Kingdom hearts.

E: I know you said game or movie-

Z: Book?

E:...but can I fudge it a little bit and say podcast?

Z: Sure!

E: I would love to be a citizen of the town of Nightvale. I know you don't know anything about Welcome to Nightvale, but boy lemme tell ya. I would live there in a heartbeat. I love it. It's so weird. I know that that's maybe not some people want because it's kind of fucked up. Bad things happen to people there all the time.

Z: Right.

E: But it's that cosmic horror, but in a fun lighthearted way.

Z: Right.

E: That's the best way I can explain it. I just love it so much. Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kramer.

Z: God bless.

E: God bless you. You two really do some amazing work. I'm literally looking at a signed photograph of Symphony Sanders and Cecil Baldwin right now. They watch over our podcast. But yeah, I would love that. I think that the aesthetic is immaculate. There's deserts, there's glowing lights in the sky above the Arby's.

Z: There's an Arby's in this Universe?

E: Yes bitch! They're just regular people like you and me. There's literally, I wanna say in episode one, there's this beautiful passage where Cecil is like “Lights, blinking in the sky above the Arby's. Not the glowing sign of the Arby's, but something higher.

Z: Did I write this? Did I ghost write this?

E: You could have. I have all the books behind me, I'm very much a fan.

Z: If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be?

E: Hypogriff.

Z: That was a fast but good answer. I would probably be a gnome.

E: (laughs) Oh fuck! Yeah.

Z: I spend my entire life-

E: Yeah.

Z:..being 6 foot tall, I just wanna live a little down there.

E: That's a good one.

Z: Yeah. What small, insignificant thing gives you joy?

E: Thrift store knick knacks.

Z: Sure.

E: That's pretty much the biggest one. I go into Amvets like once a week. And I'll get-I don't have my Keith Urban mug in here. But I get so many tiny dingy things and they always bring me such joy. That tiny little frog that I got at the antique store the last time you and I went, that thing? I'm still riding the high.

Z: For me, I would say it's like when you, complete a book series, and you get that final one and you put it up on the shelf, and you see it on the shelf together. That's my-and it doesn't have to be like, for me it's like books, video games, manga, whatever.

E: Yeah.

Z: Just seeing it complete on the shelf just does it for me.

E: I love that. That's a very good feeling.

E: Yeah.

Z: What is the dumbest purchase you have ever made?

E: Oh Zack, oh Zack, this is a hard question, cause I really-

Z: I don't know! Because I make a lot of dumb purchases.

E: I know exactly what mine is, I'm afraid to say.

Z: Can you say it? What is it?

E: You know what it pertains to.

Z: Do I? Why are you blinking? You don't have to say it if you don't want to.

E: No, I'm gonna say it.

Z: Thank god.

E: So, what was the year? I wanna say 2011/2013.

Z: Uh-oh. I know where we're going!

E: God, I made you promise not to mention this, to not drag me about any of this but i'm going to go ahead and out myself in episode one.

Z: Oh no.

E: I was a backer of the-

Z: Ahaaahaahaaaaa!!!!

E: Stop screaming and just let me get the words out. I was a higher tier backer of the Homestuck Hiveswap Kickstarter in 2013. And that haunts me to this day. To this day I will never-I will never recover from the amount of money that I spent on that when I was god-I was not a legal adult. I spoke to my mother, and I said, “Listen, I need to get this money out of my savings and I need it now.” And she was like, “Are you sure you wanna do that?” and I said, “Yes please.” and then she let me do it. And I respect that she gave me that freedom but I wish that she had just told me no.

Z: That's fair.

E: It was not worth it, and the worst part. It's been like a long time. I still have not played that game.

Z: That's just how the cookie crumbles.

E: Yeah.

Z: Dumbest purchase, my mind just scrambled. Because me and Em just shared a very panicked glance at one another before this story was told and it just jumbled everything I had lined up. I make very-

E: I'm like sweaty.

Z: (laughs)

E: That really stressed me out that I had to admit that. Feel my hand.

Z: Oh, you're clammy!

E: I am disgusting right now.

Z: You're a whole seafood buffet with them clammy hands.

E: I am.

Z: Oh my god. What was the question? Dumbest purchase. I don't know man. I make a lot of dumb purchases. I'm probably, most recently, I'm going to say my book drug dealer.

E: Oh yeah.

Z: Robert. I feel, like I feel obligated at this point to meet up with this man to buy antique books and some of them aren't really the best.

E: But still it's a cool hook-up.

Z: Yeah, I buy them anyway. So, the last time I saw this man, I bought this falling apart copy of Orwell or something.

E: That's pretty dope though.

Z: I mean it's cool, it's got a bunch of his novels and shit. It was pretty cool, but it not in the condition that he said it was in.

E: Aw, that sad.

Z: It's fine. Sorry Robert if you are listening. I'm just going to say that because literally my coworkers put me on a Facebook Marketplace timeout, and I wasn't allowed to buy from Facebook Marketplace.

E: I didn't know about that, oh my god.

Z: They were like, you have to take off two weeks. And I was like, “Fine, that's fine, we get paid in two weeks it's fine.” So, I'm just gonna say that. (laughs)

E: Oh wow.

Z: Question number 9 is what is the longest you have gone without sleep and why? I know mine.

E: Oh man.

Z: I know mine.

E: I mean, the why really for me is-it's one of two answers. College or the pandemic. And I'm leaning more towards the pandemic because I was basically only sleeping like once every other night. Over when I got furloughed from my job last spring. I remember a couple of times I was like, “I'm gonna start a craft project!” and was just cracked out on Monster Energy at 6:00 in the morning, ironing patches onto a denim jacket and shaking my ass to Glass Animals. But yeah, I wanna say the longest amount of time was like three days, but I know you got me beat, I think.

Z: You know mine.

E: Do I?

Z: You know mine. When I was in high school and I watched Men in Black.

E: Yeahhhh.

Z: So I didn't watch Men in Black when I was a child. Probably watched the first one when I was in high school and then I watched the second one, and then there's that whole subplot that there's a universe wrapped around a cat's collar or whatever.

E: It's in his little tag.

Z: It sent me down a rabbit hole. I did not sleep for four days because I was deep in infinite space theory because I just drove myself crazy. Because I was like, “If a cat collar can hold a universe, what if we're the universe inside the cat collar? Which I feel like was the entire point. But it drove me up the walls. I couldn't sleep, I just stayed up for four days straight in front of my computer just googling infinite space theory, and learning more and digging into it, and then I crashed, obviously after four days, and I woke up and was like, “Never again.”

E: Well.

Z: So.

E: I bought a book not long ago, it's called Time Warps. And I opened it and the first two pages this guy starts talking about time travel and the secrets of the universe and everything and reincarnation and physics are all connected and that really reminded me of that. So, maybe I'll read you a little passage of that after this and see if it-

Z: I can't wait.

E:..jogs anything in your brain.

Z: I'll see ya next week and I will still be awake.

E: (laughs) Oh my god.

Z: Last question, who is the most intelligent

person you know?

E: Brownie.

Z: Where is he?

E: He just walked right behind you.

Z: Oh.

E: He's not a person. He's very smart.

Z: That's a tough question.

E: Yeah, that is a really tough question.

Z: I'm gonna say it's our assistant Becky.

E: Yeah, yeah. Trisha, she really, she's probably. What even is her IQ it's gotta be in the 170s?

Z: It's probably at least a thousand.

E: The smartest person that I know of is Mr. Bean. I genuinely can't believe he has an IQ that high. Not anything against that man, I don't know him personally, but the fact that that is the kind of movie that he makes.

Z: Oh my god, and apparently there's only like 12 episodes of that show.

E: 13 I think.

Z: Yeah, so he really stretched it out.

E: Yeah.

Z: I don't know. Welp.

E: Well yeah.

Z: Thank you to Veronica for all those icebreaker questions. Really eye opening.

E: It was great. You really did the damn thing.

Z: Well. I guess that now everyone knows our deepest darkest secrets since we exposed them in episode one, I guess we can kind of get into our topics a little bit?

E: Yeah.

Z: So I feel as if you're gonna go hard.

E: Perhaps, perhaps.

Z: So if you don't mind I'm gonna go first.

E: Okay.

Z: I'm not gonna go as hard as I could. With mine, mostly just because I wanna leave it open for a return, if I want to cover it again maybe later on. My first topic is going to be about the Roundhouse that exists in Tellico Plains, TN.

E: Nice.

Z: Fairly local, kind of close to us for the most part. Here's the issue with this, is that it was a silo for a local mining company and dating back to even before the civil war, this thing was operational. So there's a lot of stuff that has gone on-

E:Okay.

Z:...in this big old building. Another problem is that there's not a plot of information online.

E: Yeah, that was a problem I ran into mine too actually.

Z: Unfortunately, the person who posted this, the beginning of this is going to be a lot from Reddit.

E: Oh, okay.

Z: The person who posted this is a local urban explorer. I've seen some of their stuff, all of their stuff is really cool, their photographs are amazing. They do posts on Facebook and stuff here and there. All of their stuff is really well researched and really good, but I don't want to set a trend of making Reddit a, you know.

E: For sure, it's not like a primary source. So do you want to-did you make note of who that person was though.

Z: Yeah, the post that was made thearcherofred on Reddit. That is their username. When we post all of our sources I will give a link to this specific person I am talking about.

E: Excellant.

Z: Yeah, that's the problem I ran into and I guess that's probably why I didn't get as into it. Mostly because I wanted to leave it open so I could share a little bit about my own experience when I went.

E: Cool, okay.

Z: I am going to give a little bit of a backstory about the area, the place, what all happened. Like I said this was a post made by thearcherofred on Reddit, all one word. About 30 years after the Civil War, Southern Slate Works purchased the land where the Roundhouse exists now. This land before used the be part of the Tellico Iron Works Company. The Iron Works Company basically mined iron and other ores during the Civil War. It was demolished during the war, and really from what I can tell, nothing really happened in this area where the Roundhouse exists now up until it was purchased on December 7th of 1893.

E: Okay.

Z: In June of 1920, J.B. Preston bought 300 acres of land from another citizen of Tellico named Cyril Herford with the intent to mine the area. It is unknown if this was part of the Southern Slate Company or a solo kind of gig. Preston had plans of making a fully working mine complete with machinery, houses for the mine workers, storage facilities, and other stuff you'd need to run a mine. He also was-he was also given permission to construct a railroad system to the mine and the quarry was set to open on January 1st 1921. He then leased this area out to Tennessee Rocks Products Company and it was operational from 1921-1928. In '22 Cyril then sued the rock company because some of the debris had gotten into the creek that ran through his property and it polluted the water. There was another lawsuit that same year against the rock company. This lawsuit came from a local farmer named Henry Fritts. He was suing for very similar reasons as Herford, because the dust coming from the mines and quarry had killed crops and vegetation. That lawsuit was settled for 600-I'm assuming there's no information about the 1st lawsuit, because there was no information on this post about it. From what I can tell, nothing really happened after that, company shut down until 1928-er shut down in 1928, that is until the mid to late 50s.

E: Okay, that's kind of a long time.

Z: Yeah, it's a minute. At this point, a man named Dr. William Alfred Rogers purchased the property in the 50s, and he was a local practicing doctor. A little bit about Mr. Rogers, he was born in Violet, NC. During the late 50s he was one of 6 doctors that lived in the Tellico Plains area during that time. He had a small stone house, that stood in downtown but eventually he built a large three story home on Unicoi Mountain.

E: Oh, okay.

Z: He thought that the high altitude would help his more chronic patients, so that's why he wanted his house to be so far up in the mountains. Rodgers and his wife ran the practice out of their home for about six years before the couple had the idea of turning the silo into a hotel/Air BnB. Not Air BnB. Sorry, that's the Gen Z in me speaking. Just a B&B. Just a normal B&B.

E: A 1950s Air BnB.

Z: Beautiful, ahead of their time, truly.

E: You get a telegraph after and they're like, “How was your stay? Please rate us.”

Z: God. So he essentially divided the space inside the silo into multiple floors and created small apartment like rooms on each story. Supposedly, right when it was set to open, a fire marshal came to inspect it and it was deemed unsafe as there needed to be two clear exits from each room, but there was only one considering that it's a large tall vertical-

E: It's just a tube.

Z: It's literally, quite literally a tube. I will. I will post some pictures and some links to some pictures so you can kind of see. But truly, it's an old silo, it's a big stone, round silo. Cylinder, and on the outside there's a staircase that leads into the first floor but there's essentially just a round staircase that-

E: It's like a fire escape.

Z: It just wraps around the outside of it and that's how you would go up there and get into your little hotel room or whatever. The fire marshal said it was no good so they couldn't really open it as a hotel.

E: So did it ever have guests like that? Or did he just kind of kill that immediately?

Z: It's hard to really pin down what really happened after that. Some sites claim that Mr. Rogers and his moved into the Roundhouse after this and they continued the practice there. Other sites claim that they went back to the house at Unicoi and ran the practice out of it. I also read somewhere, and I couldn't really pin it down again, now that I started doing the research on it again but there were some rumors about someone running a restaurant out of it.

E: I think I've heard that one actually.

Z: And it was just on the first floor, it wasn't on any of the other floors, I think there's 5 stories in that thing. I couldn't really find that again, so I don't really have any information on it. The doctor passed away 10 years after this ordeal in '67, and it has just kinda sat dormant since then, aside from the possible restaurant owner being in there, but there's not really a whole lot to go off of on that route. Unfortunately as of now, the inside of the roundhouse has been completely destroyed by vandals. The walls are covered in graffiti and there was a house that was right next to it, and again, I can't really pinpoint what that was really for. I would assume that it was probably just another house that was-

E: Yeah, I heard from somewhere that that was something to do with the hotel aspect of it.

Z: Sure, I mean. I wouldn't doubt it, but that house is all but rotted to the ground. I've been inside, and the floor is rotted to the ground. There's no foundation, there was also a large fire that happened inside the roundhouse. Can't really pinpoint a date or time. Because it sat, it was just out in the middle of nowhere.

E: Not necessarily keeping track or reporting that to-

Z: Right.

E:...anyone.

Z: It basically made everything from the bottom floor to the top floor inaccessible. I've been on the top floor. Probably wasn't that smart of a move.

E: Prolly not.

Z: I was like 17, and you're invincible at 17, nothing matters. We went up there and just kind of hung around, and I'll talk about that in a second. But that basically made all the other floors inbetween inaccessible. That's really, literally all I could find online about it. I definitely have tried to join the local library to get some book sources or something about it, but I'm currently fighting with our local library. It's so shrouded in mystery that no one really knows what's going on in there. We've got a couple reports about the lawsuits and the early 20s. Nothing until the 50s, and then this random guy wants to build a hotel there, and someone says no and it just sits there again.

E: Do you know-I know when we first started doing the research, we were talking about how it was for sale. Do you know if it still is or did it get bought?

Z: I looked at it yesterday before I was putting the finishing touches on everything. It is currently off the market, it was not sold, but it is off the market. It was going for upwards of like $500,000.

E: I would love to buy it.

Z: Same I would also-Subway?!

E: Subway sponsor us!!

Z: Please.

E: Subway just buy us The Roundhouse.

Z: We will put a Subway in the bottom floor.

E: (laughs) Like the food court in a mall.

Z: Truly. That's all the information that I have on it.

E: Well tell us your story.

Z: Well, when I was like 17/18, I worked at a local grocery store and one of my cashiers, the current at the time, the caretaker now is a new guy, but at the time she was friends with-the caretaker was a family friend. And she basically reached out to him and was like, “Hey we wanna explore after work one night. Do you think it would be cool if we went up there?” And he was like, “Yeah, sure no problem, let me know and I'll leave the gate unlocked for you guys.”

E: Cool.

Z: We went up there after work and it was probably like 10/11 o'clock and we were just gonna check it out and then leave, but I was just very curious and very fascinated so we went into the first floor and I will try to dig up photos because I took photos. The test of time has not been kind to them-

E: Absolutely not.

Z:...with phones and just everything, I think they're on my twitter somewhere so I have to really dig and find them, but like I said, the first floor there was a fire. You can look up and see the damage has been done to this place. It's covered in graffiti. We kind of poked around a little bit, there's not really much to see. There's old appliances, wood here and there, debris, vandalism, that sort of thing. We found the beginning of the staircase that leads up around the side of the Roundhouse and we climbed up to inspect it, about halfway up, it's broken-

E: Yeah that was-

Z: Very teetery.

E: Yeah.

Z: Once you get over that step it's solid again, bolted into the side of that wall or whatever, and you just keep on trucking. We went up to the top and we sat down on the floor up there, we pulled out a Ouija board.

E: Oh my god Zack.

Z: (laughs) Not my finest moment.

E: (laughs)

Z: It wasn't even a good Ouija board, it was obviously, very much produced by Hasbro, and it had the glow in the dark light in it, to where if you pushed down on the planchette it would glow.

E: Oh my god.

Z: Obviously, we got nothing because nothing happened in that building.

E: I can't believe it.

Z: Then we went back down the stairs and then we went into the house that's next to it. Like I said, there was very few places where I was comfortable standing. Floors rotted, walls punched in, knocked in, burned. We were able to go up-there's an attic.

E: Oh really?

Z: Yeah, there's an attic in there. I wasn't able to go-I didn't go up in it because I didn't really trust it. I stood at the top of the staircase and peered in a took a picture or two.

E: Cool, I never knew that.

Z: Then, we discovered a basement.

E: Oh god! Under that same house?

Z: Yeah. Here's the deal. You didn't know this did you? About the basement?

E:About the basement, no.

Z: So there's a basement, and the stairs have rotted off, so you kinda had to hop in that hole and-

E: Love it.

Z: We got down there, and it was trash.

E: Yeah.

Z: Broken glass, beer bottles, cans, old screen doors, anything that you could think of, old appliances everything, underneath that house. Then I saw a little filter of light off in the distance, so I was like, I'm gonna go in that direction. There was a tunnel.

E: I know you were going to say a tunnel and I was so afraid.

Z: A tunnel that lead directly underneath the roundhouse.

E: Bro!

Z: It's crazy.

E: That's really cool. Very scary.

Z: Very scary. I was like, “This is some-,” have you every seen House of Wax?

E: No but I think I know what you're talking about.

Z: Very House of Wax. Secret-

E: Like trap doors and stuff.

Z: Was not a fan. So then after that we kinda booked it outta there. 'Cause I was like, “Who's idea was it, to build a tunnel-,” I don't even want to know. I'm sure there was a reason.

E: I wonder if was with the intent of it being a hotel, if it was a service hallway or something like that?

Z: I mean, has to be. Has to be. Otherwise-

E: It's the only non-creepy answer.

Z: It's what's gonna let me sleep at night.

E: Oof.

Z: After that we kinda hightailed it out. I have since reached out to that cashier, and obviously neither of us work there anymore. I've since reached out, and asked if she knew who the current caretaker was and unfortunately that caretaker had passed away. There's currently a new one.

E: I wonder if that was the guy I met that gave us a dog biscuit.

Z: Might've been if he was nice.

E: He was just a nice old man.

Z: I never met him, but I'm assuming if he let a group of teenagers go wild out at the Roundhouse he probably didn't care and was a nice guy.

E: That's sad.

Z: Like I said a minute ago, it's not on the market, but when it does come on the market, I will be very eager to see if it sells this time. Hopefully, to me.

E: Maybe by then we'll get some sponsorship cash.

Z: Olive Garden please.

E: Can I trade an unlimited pasta pass for this house?

Z: Truly.

E: It's worth it's weight in gold.

Z: Truly, 'cause you think about it. We go to Olive Garden three times a day, lunch, dinner, second dinner. We don't eat breakfast anymore.

E: Oh my god, well I don't eat breakfast to begin with. Who has time for that nonsense?

Z: I do, but only because I'm at work.

E: Eating a banana. You're being very healthy.

Z: I'm eating a banana, having a monster.

E: Alright, well.

Z: Well, that's it for the Roundhouse. Like I said, thearcherofred on Reddit, thank you so much for that post. They're a couple more that they have made about the Roundhouse. I've only used the one, so feel free to look into it yourself. I'll be posting a couple links to some pictures, and hopefully I will be able to find the pictures that I took when I went. We'll post all those.

E: Thank you very much for that story. Today-

Z: Please, go off.

E:...I'm very excited about this story, because this is a story that has fascinated me literally since my childhood. I remember my teacher telling me about it when I was in, I wanna say 5th grade. Then, it turned out that there was a book about this guy, and I had the book because it was my dad's copy, and that's actually the copy that I used today for all my research. I am about to tell you the story of Mason Kershaw Evans-

Z: Yeeesss!

E:...the Hermit of Chilhowee Mountain.

Z: Yes.

E: Basically, my sources-I did have a couple, just for a little bit of fleshing out about the area and a couple facts about the specific region, but everything about Mason himself came from the book. As I discovered, the man doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

Z: Right.

E: Which isn't really that surprising to me. 'Cause the area that he was from was a very tiny place, it was in the early 19th century. There wasn't a whole lot.

Z: Right.

E: So, let's get into it! Our story takes place in the area surrounding Chilhowee Mountain, which is more commonly known today as Star Mountain, but it was named that because of a plantation owner named Caleb Star, who back in the day, he basically owned the entire mountain. Chilhowee Mountain is located partly in the southwest corner of Monroe County, TN and in Polk County. It is in the Cherokee National Forest. The flat, plateau like mountain is about halfway between Tellico Plains and Etowah and it's elevation ranges from 750 to 2,290 ft. This mountain was a favorite hunting ground for deer. So that's actually how it got it's name, because Chilhowee means cold deer in Cherokee. During the 19th century, this area was the home to Mason Evans. As I said before, it's kind of hard to find anything about him on the internet, he doesn't have a Wikipedia page, so everything I know about him I pulled from this book, Torment in the Knobs by R. Frank. McKinney. To quote the book, “This book was written give it's readers the highlights of the main events from the early advent of the early white settlers in the area during the early 20s, during the Hiwassee purchase of 1817, the removal of the Indians in 1838, the great American Conflict, The Civil War of the 60s, the building and operation the fabulous White Springs Hotel atop Star Mountain, the coming of the railroads into McMinn County, and many other events of that century. So it's not just about Mason's life, it kind of encapsulates basically everything that was going on in this area at the time. Because there was a lot of stuff going on, there was a lot of conflict, it was the time of the Civil War. It was a lot. It is a very interesting read, it's one of the more detailed accounts of this area, however, it's not without it's flaws. It was published in 1976. R. Frank McKinney was an old white man living in a very rural area of the south. He had some prejudices. I'm not really going to talk about that a whole lot, but if you do decide to-if this story does interest you and you do decide to get a copy of this book and read it, just go into it knowing that. There is also a lot of dramatization and speculation. That is explained by, another quote from the book that said, “Torment in the Knobs is a historical novel but throughout the author was at many times forced to draw his own conclusions to what was said in the conversations or dialogues between the people. This he believed was actually said, but not verified. The pages of the book are mostly written in the newspaper reporting style, but not all in together for into the phraseology of fiction writers. In many places, it combines the two. There would have been no need to write this book, Torment in the Knobs had there been a printed history of the east side of McMinn County and the lower regions of Monroe during the 19th century. What little had been printed in the newspapers and periodicals was wildly scattered and never compiled into a comprehensive history of the area. This book is not intended to be a history of either McMinn or Monroe counties, although the events mentioned took place in one or the other. The book was inspired by this pamphlet and was written in 1890 by W. F. McCarron, who was the founder and editor of The Athenian newspaper. The pamphlet was called-this is a hell of a title. I thought The Abandoment Issues was kind of a long name. This pamphlet was titled The Wild Man of Chilhowee: the True Story of Mason Evans the Hermit, 40 Years in the Wilderness, the Most Wonderful Creature of Modern Times Lives in a Cave in this County, Subsists on Raw Meats and Stolen Food. That's the whole ass title of a pamphlet.

Z: A pam-that's the whole pamphlet!

E: Yeah, literally. The book also says the great many people thought was a legend was unfolded as fact as 90 years later when a house in east Etowah was being raised to the ground. An 1890 issue of The Athenian was found in a chimney and brought to me, the author R. Frank Mckinney, who was then the editor of The Etowah Enterprise. Mickinney also did extensive research and interviews with local folks who's parents and grandparents has either met Mason, or had seen them visit their homesteads. Okay, so, there's this hermit..

Z: (laughs) I was waiting for it! Oh my god.

E: So there's this hermit..R. Frank Mckinney is the king of the fucking run-on sentence. This man could ramble. I think he's dead now? Probably. He had a lot to say, and not a whole lot of punctuation to put in it.

Z: He had a lot to say and no comma, period, comma splice was gonna get in his way.

E: Lots of question marks though. That is evidenced by his introduction to the story of what happened to Mason Evans. He said, “What happens to a man when his sweetheart suddenly jilts him? Does he take it in stride, or does his brain snap and he resort to unearthly things? What really did happen that day in 1848 in that little school house in Monroe County, TN, that caused a brilliant teacher to suddenly walk out of the school room, head to the mountains, never to say another intelligent word? And live there on snakes, rabbits, or other raw meat and whatever he could forage from mountaineers' chicken houses or gardens, and for forty years? Let's find out.

Z: Let's. Find. Out.

E: Mason was born May 10, 1824 in a log cabin at the base of the Chilhowee Mountain. At the time, the Chilhowee Mountain region was occupied primarily by the Cherokee Trible of the Native Americans. The capital of their nation, Chota, was only a few miles from the Evans's home. Mason's parents were names Robert, I'm sorry if I pronounce this wrong, I believe it's Hebrew. Her name is Karen-Happuch. That is K A R E N – H A P P U C H. I think Karen-Happuch.

Z: Okay.

E: I'm not sure though. They immigrated to Greene county in 1820, but they moved to Monroe after the Hiwassee purchase of 1817. The Evans' family was of Quaker faith, and their family consisted of Robert and Karen-Happuch, and their four boys and five girls: Moses, Robert, Mason, Samuel, Abigail, Sophia, Demaris, Caroline, and Octavia. Don't you just love that name? I love an Octavia.

Z: It's so out of left field though.

E: It is. I wonder-is that like a biblical name?

Z: I don't think so.

E: I've never thought of it as such but maybe it is.

Z: I don't think so, but go off, Imma google.

E: Mason was said to be the most talented of those children. I don't know how I'd feel about that as a Sophia or an Octavia in that family. Mason-that's kinda not fair, you don't get to be the best. Anyway, art seemed to come naturally to him. His penmanship was the talk of the settlement. Men in the region would commonly come to him to solve medical problems. In his youth, Mason was good friends with many of the Cherokee children of his age. He was 14 when the Native American Removal began, and it impacted him for the rest of his life. I mentioned Caleb Starr before, he's the one that lived on this mountain and basically gave it its current name. I had never heard anyone call it Chilhowee, fun fact, until recently. One of his son's named James was very active in Cherokee politics and he actually worked to negotiate the treaty that would result in the Trail of Tears.

Z: Ah.

E: Because of his native ancestry, eventually forced him and his own family to leave home and move westward, and he was accused-rightfully fucking so-of selling out the Natives to the white man. Eventually he was killed because of this. James, come the fuck on, what did you expect?

Z: Truly. Hello? Okay.

E: I don't want to make light of that obviously, because it was this horrible thing. At one point I had the numbers written down here, but I must have moved them. Thousands and thousands of people lost their lives on the Trail of Tears and this man basically was just-

Z: Didn't help!

E: Yeah, I don't know what he was-what he thought was going to happen. His whole family had to leave and give up their land. Hundreds of other families had to, too. Caleb Starr, as I said was a slave plantation owner and he had many 100 slaves. This is another really grim part of the story, because the way it is written, it kind of makes it sounds very praisy? They basically kind of put him on a pedestal a little bit, and they talk about about how-they talk about how much the people Caleb Starr literally bought and sold adored him and how much pride they took in their work they took for him. It is said when he left on the Trail of Tears some grieved themselves to death and were buried alongside the waters of Conasauga Creek. And that may have been true, they were grief stricken but it really grossed me out that a book written in like the 20th century was like, “Yes, this man was great, he owned 100s of people.”

Z: Yeah.

E: Anyways, but that's just-I only included that to highlight the way that it is kind of a biased telling of the story, but again it was pretty much the only source I had. Within a year the treaty was signed and the removal began in 1838. What at one time had been 50,000 square miles of native territory were reduced to only a few hundred. Until he saw them driven from their homes to an unwanted territory in the west, Mason Evans pleaded the case of the white settlers. After 1838, he formed a different opinion but kept it to himself, is what the book says.

Z: Okay.

E: I would imagine that was a pretty traumatic experience. Having all these friends and then seeing them be forced to move away.

Z: Right, yeah.

E: Anyways, so Mason went on to become a captain of a militia commissioned as such by the governor in 1841. He was 17 years old. Then, in his adulthood, instead of-I think he was supposed to go on to be a general or something. Initially thought he would have a career with the military, but he was so smart we would really rather you be a teacher, so he accepted a job as a teacher at a local school. Now we get into 'The Heartbreak' is what I have titled this chapter.

Z: Yay.

E: Essentially, the cause that is attributed to Mason deciding to go off into the wilderness forever is that he had his heart broken by his sweetheart. No one knows her true identity. What is known about her, is that she was the daughter of a prominent doctor in the area. “She was the apple of his eye, an only child whom he love more than life.No one would say, nor was it in print who the prominent doctor was, or what was his daughter's name. Was it because people wanted to protect the girl? Or was it because the doctor was so influential in Monroe County, that no one would even think to breathe a scandal such as the Mason Kershaw Evans affair.” It's all written very dramatically.

Z: Right.

E: Like a tabloid, but she was a co-teacher with Mason at the same school. They spent a lot of time together in the schoolhouse, but they would also go out together and roam around in the forest. They would ride their horses together. Mason would paint pictures for her, and draw for her. They just had a great time together. When he proposed to her, and she accepted. Mason didn't really wanna tell anybody, but she insisted that she had to tell her daughter, and he was like, “Okay, well, you tell your father, and I'll tell my mother and that'll be the only people that we tell.” Earlier, before we got started this was one of those where you could tell I was getting tired of their bullshit and just tired in general. Despite her anonymity, the author of the book gave her a name, that I quite honestly to be fucking hilarious. Dawn O'Day, and I put here, “Like bitch what is she, a leprechaun?”

E&Z: (laughs)

E: The whole that there was, there's this very dramatic story of her birth because Mason's mom a midwife, and though her father was a doctor, he decided it was bad luck to deliver your own baby, so he called for Mason's mother because she was an experienced midwife, and she was actually pregnant with Mason at the time. He and Dawn are only a few months apart in age, so she was born at the brink of day, and so the author was like, her name is Dawn O'Day.

Z: Oh-

E: Yeah

Z:...my god. What's his name again? The author?

E: R. Frank McKinney.

Z: R. Frankly, I don't like it.

E: (laughs) As I said, Mason's mother was the midwife who delivered his eventual sweetheart. What?

Z: Another thing.

E: What?

Z: I wouldn't care about bad luck. Well, I guess this was a different time period. But-

E: Yeah.

Z:...just, it's free. Just have the baby, you ain't gotta worry about it.

E: That's free real estate.

Z: That's free real estate, truly, but I mean, as soon as I said it, I was like “They didn't really have hospital bills.” But!

E: Well here's the thing that bothers me too about this whole debacle in the-I had a lot more of this whole birth scene when I initially was doing my notes because it was just. It's so hard to tell what of this was actually true, and what of it was speculation because everything seems like it was speculation the way that it was written.

Z: Right.

E: Basically there's this whole scene Dawn's mother is obviously in distress, she's in labor, she's in pain, and he just fucking backhands her and tells her to quiet down, and then she dies. Yeah, she fucking dies. She dies in childbirth. Okay first of all, he smacked the hell out of her, she falls back quote, “whimpering onto the pillow,” he drugs her to keep her calmer, and when she does deliver the baby, she dies. And he's like “Oh my god, my wife died, and I slapped her.” Like no shit. First, you shouldn't be slapping your wife in the first place, what the hell? That really-I'm sorry I just got real loud.

Z: No you're fine, speechless.

E: Oh, it frustrated the hell out of me. I could really go on about this book. He slaps the mother of his child, until she literally falls back on the bed, she dies, and that is part of why he was so protective of his daughter. Ironically, in turn, when Mason was born the doctor was the one that they called on to deliver him. This family structure, this community, they're all very tight nit, it's a very small place, they all know each other. As they got older, Dawn was very drawn to Mason because of his skills in the arts. She quickly became friends with him. She was allowed to spend some of her free time hanging out with Mason, but her father said, “Mason Evans is a bright chap, but I just don't have any use for soldiers.” It was speculated that he felt this way because he maybe had something in his past that made him kind of resent the military. A lot of people in this story in particular were draft dodgers for the Revolutionary War, which is a really weird thing to think about.

Z: 100%

E: I don't know why, I never really thought about the Revoutionary War having been-having had a draft. I guess that makes sense?

Z: Yeah.

E: It's possible that that's why he felt that way. He in general was very possessive and protective of his daughter. So she never really brought up the topic of her having any sort of affection for Mason until he proposed to her, and she said, “Well, I have to tell my dad.” She went home, and when she told him that she had intended to marry Mason, they had this massive argument and he forbade her to marry him. As incentive for her to not marry him, he promised her the farm and $1,000.00 in gold if she would turn Mason down. Now, I didn't google how much $1000.00 would have been in 1820 whatever, actually no that was later. I think this is like 1840. This is also one, in your story you had said there aren't a lot of really exact dates. There are very few exact dates in this too. Basically, I have his birth date and his death date and anything pertaining to the Civil War that was recorded by the government, but nothing specific in between. So, he promised her the farm and $1000.00 in gold, and he said, “Compare that to tending babies, scrubbing floors, tilling the ground, never having money of your own, your own husband being gone from home, soldiering, leaving you with all the chores to do. If you're in your right mind, you'll never do it.” And I have here, which, this guy was a raging shithead, but he did make some valid points. I would take that money.

Z: (whispers) Same. And a farm?!

E: A farm?! Yes.

Z: Cottagecore!

E: Yes, exactly.

Z: I don't mean to scream.

E: It's fine. That's how you feel about cottagecore.

Z: I love it, I love it.

E: Dawn didn't go to school the following morning. Mason received a note from her father's gardener, informing him that she would not be in school that day, and her students were to be sent home and return the day following. Mason accepted that, but he was acting very strangely after that. He was very anxious, and his students were taking notice. “At times he would lose his train of thought, stop his teaching, stare into space, and after a moment of silence, would again gain his pupils attention by frequently running his fingers through his hair, laughing foolishly, and whispering to himself.” Students feared that he had been bewitched because they had seen him act similarly at religious camp meetings, writhing, wringing his hands and crying. There's another quote here, “This was the first time anything had happened to him since the time he fell sick at his brother's home in Mississippi several years back.” He had gotten really ill. I don't think they ever said exactly what he had, but he had a very high fever. This is kind of where they think things started to really effect him, because he was kind of-It was a a high enough fever to where it was starting to effect his brain function, and they think that that may have permanently damaged his brain. His brother had actually said he had congestion of the brain, but Mason said, “But I wasn't crazy.” This is another-basically, any quote that I'm gonna say is certainly written by R. Frank McKinney, not by the actual people that said them. It says, “But I wasn't crazy, it was the high fever that caused me to go out of my mind,” he rationalized with himself. Mason had studied enough medicine to know something about fever. If he hadn't became a teacher, he would certainly have became a doctor, as he had said many times before. He wrote all of this behavior off of his anxiety and he told himself that he would see Dawn after class. The gardener came back, and brought him another note, telling him not to leave until Dawn showed up. Which I think is kind of funny, because why send this poor man to the schoolhouse, when you could have just said “She ain't coming to school today, also Mason, hang out for a little bit after.”

Z: Yeah.

E: Put it in the same note!

Z: Yeah.

E: I digress. So Dawn comes up, and they have this fight, she breaks it off with him. She basically does that whole thing of, even though she didn't actually hate him, she played it up like she really hated him, just to make it a cleaner break, which I get, I guess.

Z: Been there.

E: Yeah, it happens. Doesn't make it hurt any less, but that's what happened. He was devastated, and he got on his horse and he rode away into the forest to be alone. After that, he eventually went home, but Mason didn't come inside to get his food like he always did. His mom looked outside and she saw him run into the barn, grab a coat of a hook, and run back into the woods, leaving his horse behind. She said to his brother Milton, “Mason's gone off without his supper, wonder where he's headed for?” Milton replied, “To Panther Cave, I guess.” That's where he's gone a lot lately to write poetry and compose songs for that female school teacher. He said that Panther Cave is the quietest place in the Knobbs for when you wanna meditate.” Now what we'll learn here is that Mason is a douche. Oh, not Mason, sorry, Milton. Milton very much hated this girl. He, the whole time is portrayed as just thinking she has the worst of intentions. He literally calls her a witch at one point. That's another thing about this, all the exaggeration I've talked about before, instead of portraying as what I believe it to be, and what I think most people that would read this in modern times to believe, is that Mason was sick, he had some underlying illness and his behaviors after this point were possibly inflamed by trauma. To me it all reads as very much this man had undiagnosed mental illness in the 1840s. However, they demonize the shit out of Ms. Dawn O'Day.

Z: Great.

E: Constantly talking about Mason is wandering around in the woods just thinking about how he misses her, thinking about how she destroyed his life. Milton is constantly quoted as saying she ruined everything for him, and destroyed his future. It's fucked. Literally, all she did was break up with him.

Z: Right.

E: That really is another beef I have with this book. Panther Cave. Panther Cave is this cave on the western side of Chilhowee Mountain that was as the name implies known for being a hiding place for panthers and it became Mason's primary hide out in the years following this event. His family went looking for him there after he ran away, but they didn't find him because he had already left, and he was on his way back to the house. That evening, they heard someone in the barn and they thought that someone had broken in. When his father went in to investigate, he found Mason sitting on the floor in his horse's stall hugging his legs. Which, they say, this is a great horse, but I would not wanna be down there.

Z: No.

E: A horse could kill you straight up with one kick.

Z: Oh yeah.

E: Not the point.

Z: Mason's crying, he's sitting on the floor hugging his horses legs. He keeps repeating to his family, “I had to see my horse, I had to see my horse, he's the only one that would understand me.” And same, Mason I get it. Listen I understand you. I was a horse kid, okay? My mom still has horses. They're good animals. You still coulda got kicked in the head. His family convinced him to stay and have a meal with them. His mother told him to sit down at the table but he wouldn't. “Instead he began pacing the floor with bodily agitations and jerks. He ran his hands through his hair, jerking his head back and forth, then letting his body fall on the floor, writhing as if in extreme pain. Robert and Milton tried to get him off the floor but he fought them off. Finally, Mason righted himself, began to sing in words never heard before, singing most melodiously, not from the mouth or nose, but but entirely from the breast. I don't-that still boggles my mind, I have no idea. He would run from one end of the kitchen to the other and back again, often barking and grunting with each stroke of his head. His family basically thought what was happening to him was “a spell,” similar to behavior that they had seen people exhibit at Methodist camp meetings. Such as like speaking in tongues, that kinda thing. Mason was obviously in distress and they didn't know what to do. One of his parents said, “Mason's just like the man in the Bible that was possessed by demons, full of unclean spirits, until Jesus sent them into a heard of swine. But what could have caused such a thing? That was another point in which Milton was like, “It's all that woman's fault.” called her a witch. Like I said, they didn't have any idea what was happening because they had no understanding of mental illness or any kind of brain injury, knowledge or anything like that.

Z: Right.

E: So they just tried to make him comfortable and placate him. They finally fed him, and it said, “Mason ate his meal ravenously, with his hands rather than any other utensils. He ate everything they put in front of him and downed two quarts of coffee.” Which sounds like a great day. I would love for that to be me.

Z: Same.

E: I wanna do that.

Z: Same.

E: They tried to convince him to explain what had happened, but he jumped up from the table, grabbed a knapsack from a hook on the wall, and ran back into the woods. His brother Milton was a medical student and he insisted that one day he would become a doctor and he would fix Mason's problems. We're gonna time skip a little bit.

Z: Sure.

E: In July of 1850, there was a 10 day stretch of near constant rain. It brought widespread flooding to the region. Many people were forced out of their homes, and dead animals, human waste, and debris were washing up in massive quantities on the farmland. I feel like I should specify, in this area where this is all taking place. It's a lot of flood planes between mountains, so when it rains, even now, it's really easily flooded. Ten straight days of rain is bad. It was very bad. Mason, at this point, had been living in the wilderness about two years. His father had sold off his horse because Mason wasn't around to care for him. He gave him the money from the sale, he was paid $100.00, and he told Mason that he needed to take it and use it, but Mason didn't want it. He put it in his backpack, and just let this $100 bill get shredded up in his backpack.

Z: Mason.

E: Yeah. He didn't have any use for money, he was out in the woods-

Z: Fair.

E:...and at this point he had become an expert at chicken snatching, taking food from gardens in the middle of the night, anything that he could find, he could eat. He was an expert forager, he knew all the berries and roots and stuff he could eat. He did eat all his meat raw, but he didn't really have anything to cook with in a cave.

Z: You gotta do whatcha gotta do.

E: Yeah, although it's not like he didn't know how to light a fire, it's just he apparently didn't cook his food. That didn't kill him, so I guess it's okay. Disclaimer, if you're listening to this, and you're considering the Mason Evans Diet, don't.

Z: Don't.

E: Don't. Cook your chicken thoroughly. At this point, he'd lived out there for two years. Dogs would bark and chase him up trees and hunters had to come and call them off to rescue him, because they would tree him like a bear. Overall, he was adapting to his new life. He was learning how to function out in the wilderness, but things were about to take a turn because the Evans family was victim to a lot of the flooding damage. They lived right on the banks of the creek and they had to clean up a lot after the storms. By this point, all of Mason's siblings had grown up and moved away and gotten married, so his parents were all alone to deal with this. This is topical, unfortunately, the flooding brought with it something much worse than just property damage, it brought illness. There was an epidemic of typhoid fever, and people just started dropping like flies. Entire families were dead in days. Milton had gone to Knoxville to go to medical school. He was called home, not because they were enlisting all the doctors in the region to care for people, but because both of his parents died like (snaps fingers) immediately.

Z: Jesus.

E: It was horrible. He said, “I wonder how many people thought to boil the water before drinking it.” 'Cause they wouldn't have known.

Z: Right.

E: That was a lot of what was killing people was they were drinking unclean drinking water. The Evans family all came together to make arrangements for their parents, and the question came up, “What do we do about Mason?” Milton, always the spokesman of the group, decided he was going to track his brother down, but when he did find him, he decided to just yell at him. He told him that he was disgusting and that he looked like a wild animal, that he didn't look like a person at all anymore. He told him, “If you'll come and get cleaned up you can go with me, but not before. You can't see Ma and Pa looking like that.” He was just now finding out that his parents had died, he's already traumatized by a number of other things. Mason of course, didn't want to hear it and he ran off into the woods again. He didn't do what Milton told him to do, however he did attend their funeral. He followed the procession of, there was like a wagon with matching white horses that carried their caskets. It's described in this very beautiful and flowery way that honestly, genuinely very sad, and his parents were buried at Hickory Grove Cemetery, while Mason watched from the woods. After that, this is where things are getting up into the Civil War, because we are coming up on the 1860s. At this time, the construction was finishing up on the White Cliff Springs Hotel. It is a very important location in Mason's life, in his history. The owner, Harvey McGill, and instructed Jonas and Betsy Jefferson, the couple that ran the hotel kitchen, to attend to all of Mason's needs. They would feed him, and often, Mr. McGill would come to the kitchen while Mason was there and he would talk to him and kind of give him the scoop on what was going on. I also feel like I should mention at this point, Mason basically went non-verbal. He didn't really speak very much, if at all. At lot of time in the book they describe him as kind of communicating in grunts and hand gestures, but it wasn't that he didn't understand things that people were saying to him. A lot of things in the book kind of-at the same time they're like, “yes, he was brilliant,” there was kind of this air of, “well he didn't talk anymore so he was stupid.” I just want to say, that's not how it works.

Z: Right.

E: You can be nonverbal and understand things, you know.

Z: Yeah.

E: Anyway, that's a whole other spiel for another time. So he would come in, and he would get the hot goss, and he would find out what was going on. He basically learned, at the White Cliffs Hotel, that the war was coming. He learned all about states seceding from the Union and that sort of thing. He was like, “Well, I am of the age of the draft,” he would be draft-able, so he was like, “I gotta hide.” He hunkered down Panther Cave for a little while, a long time, several months I guess? While he was still in hiding there was an accident. He decided that he was afraid of being caught by the authorities, he wasn't even gonna go to the hotel, he was just kinda gonna stockpile supplies, stay in his cave. One night while he was out foraging, he sees this light in the sky. He followed it, and the hotel was on fire. Burning to the ground. He shows up, and the fire marshal is there, and they're like, “Well, there's your fire bug,” and they basically threatened to arrest him. He is very upset, he ends up-they describe him as kind of having a fit. He started convulsing, he was very upset, he didn't know how to communicate that he hadn't been the one to do it because people were basically just accusing him already.

Z: Right.

E: Fortunately, at the same time that this was happening, this woman came forward, and was like, “My daughter knocked a candle over into a laundry basket, and that's what happened.” He was exonerated and he got up and ran away. The hotel burned to the ground. Mason went back to Panther Cave. This is another one of those points in the story where the author speculates that Mason spent much of his time lost in the memory of his ill-fated love affair.

Z: I don't think so.

E: I have here, “Like come on bro, it wasn't that serious.” After that he visited his sister Demaris and her husband Horner Coltharp, and to his surprise, he learned that his brother, Milton, had become a doctor, like he said he would. Instead of doing anything to help Mason, he filed paperwork with the court system in Monroe County to declare Mason a lunatic and subject to the confinement of a lunatic asylum. Milton also sold the land that was willed to Mason, without his consent, and basically was like, “Okay cops, go get him. Lock him up.” Very helpful. So-

Z: I don't like Milton.

E:...yeah, Milton is a shithead!

Z: Truly.

E: Demaris and Horner explained to Mason that Milton had moved away, but he had alerted local authorities to be on the lookout for him. Demaris requested that her husband build a shelter for him, where he could be supervised and he could be safe. Horner Coltharp did what he was asked. He constructed an 8x10 shanty for him, supplied him with food. They implored him not to wander off. He did, of course, try to leave to go back to the forest, and he was captured and chained to the floor. Which was great, because when people heard about this, people would come and just stare at him like he was a fucking zoo animal.

Z: Great.

E: Yeah, but there is a silver lining to this because this group of women heard what was happening to him. They were sympathetic so they came to see him and they brought him some supplies. They asked him if he could make use of a file, and he was like, “Yes, fuck yes, I can use a file. I can get out of here if I have a file.” So they baked him a loaf of bread with a file hidden in it.

Z: (gasps)

E: He was able to eat the bread, get the file out, and escape. How cool is that?

Z: I love that.

E: I know! These vigilante southern mamas are just like, “Nah this is not okay, you can't be doing this. This is a grown man, let him live his life. Let him out, here's a file, go be free!” I have so much respect for that. That's probably my favorite part of this whole story.

Z: I love that.

E: Yeah, so he escaped and he basically-he vowed never to return to his sister's property again because even though they had tried to help him, he didn't wanna get captured again. He continued to wander. He did go back occasionally and visit the White Cliff Hotel because they were constructing a second one, or rebuilding it. But he felt really uncomfortable being around there. He set up a number of outposts throughout the knobs with supplies and shelters where he could hide, should the authorities come to hunt him down again. A lot of people had complained about him raiding their gardens, and stealing their animals. The police never really caught him. Four years passed from the night of the fire and Mason showed up and he was very surprised to find that there was another hermit living there. Well, he wasn't living there, but he was a visitor, and they were treating him the way they were treating Mason, where they would feed him and give him whatever he wanted. His name is Gabriel North, and he'd had a very hard life. He had been fending for himself since childhood due to a strained relationship with his family. The book also implied that he had some mental illness as well and that that might have been effecting the way that his family treated him, so he was on his own. He did, however, have two dogs and Mason did not like dogs. When Harvey McGill was like, “I don't want you two at my hotel at the same time, I think you both should leave, go show him Panther Cave.” Mason was like “Cool, let's go,” Gabriel was like, “Okay well here's my dogs, and the dogs immediately attacked him. Immediately attacked Mason. They get into a fight, he hits the dog, because the dog is trying to attack him, and Gabriel was like “If you ever hit my dog again, you'll regret it Mason.” He kind of explained, “I have a checkered past with dogs, they do not like me,” and Gabriel basically was like, “Okay, cool that's fine. Just don't do it again,” and they became friends. But, another epidemic of illness hit the region. Yellow fever this time, and Gabriel was like, “I don't wanna be around for that. I'm afraid, I don't wanna get sick, I'm leaving.” So he left, and Mason was left alone again. That was in 1878. At this point, the book talks about what Mason had done for companionship previously. Allegedly, he had a couple of different animals for companionship. He had a rooster that he stole from a farm, like a prize rooster. This rooster and him were like BFFs. He kept it in a hollow oak tree that he called his rooster house. It road in his pocket until the action of squeezing in and out of his pocket caused it to loose all it's feathers. So he had a naked chicken that-

Z: (laughs)

E:..that was his best friend.

Z: (still laughing) I love that.

E: I know!

Z: Oh my god!

E: He also befriended a very large yellow tomcat, which followed him around for a long period of time. Now, here's the thing that's kind of icky. The rooster eventually died, and Mason ate it. Which, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say, I get it because he, you know. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive, and he was already catching and killing chickens before that.

Z: Sure.

E: The thing that bothers me about this, is that people were very into the speculation that he ate the cat too.

Z: I was afraid you were gonna say that.

E: I don't know that that happened. That's another thing that is in there just for shock value I think.

Z: I think so too. I feel like he was smart enough to know not to eat the cat.

E: I don't know, and honestly who the hell am I to judge him if he did.

Z: I've never had cat, who knows maybe it's good.

E: Living in a cave in the woods, you forage for all your food. Honor every part of them right.

Z: Yeah...

E: I know that's kind of fucked up to say about a cat but yeah. I just thought that that was-it was just randomly tossed in there between, “Here's a story of the Civil War,” “Mason Evans may have eaten his cat.” Like what??

Z: (laughs)

E: What are you talking about??

Z: Written. Like. A. Tabloid.

E: It must have been a slow news day.

Z: Truly.

E: Anyway, we're finally winding down. In the 1880s, a lot of things began to change. Lumber became a big industry in the Monroe County area, therefore, railroad started moving in. It was also at this time, that The Athenian, the newspaper that printed the pamphlet that I mentioned in the beginning, began it's operation. The publisher was a man named Wilbur F. McCarron. McCarron had promised the people of McMinn County “a newspaper of prestige, one whose literary content would be the best in the nation. There, the people who subscribed to the newspaper could be assured of many interesting features about McMinn, Meigs, and Monroe Counties.” The funny thing about this, is that people were not about this happening because they were like, “We wanna know about politics, we don't give a shit about whatever literature you're trying to bring us.” They also didn't like him because this was in the time period where Democrats and Republicans were flipped values wise-

Z: Right.

E:...and he was a Republican, and I thought it was really funny because they were like, “We don't like republicans around here.” And I was like “Boy you better fast forward 200 years.

Z: You better buckle up!

E: That's all we got. Within a month of the publication's beginning, McCarron came to visit the White Cliff Hotel and he told Mr. McGill that he wanted to know about Mason and eventually write a piece about him. Mr. McGill basically told him that the best person to talk to would be Horner Colthrop, his brother-in-law. When he returned to Athens, McCarron immediately published a series of articles in his paper about quote, “The Wild Man of the Chilhowee.” He recounted the stories of the people who had encountered him through direct interviews. The article stirred up a lot of controversy, and on January 9, 1886, ,the sheriff captured Mason and brought him to the Athens County Jail, and yet again, his capture drew in a lot of spectators. A lot of people came to watch them, arrest him basically and put him in prison. They took his photo on the steps of the courthouse, gave him a change of clothes and sentenced him to an insane asylum in Nashville. Very, for context, Monroe County is like the bottom eastern corner of Tennessee. Nashville is 4 hours away?

Z: Yeah, like three of four.

E: Three or four hours away, so that's very far from anything he's every known. In The Athenian, Mr. McCarron wrote, “Till a short time ago, Mason Evans kept with regularity the date of his birth, the day of the week, the month, and the year, and when urged to do so, would write a few sentences and solve problems with as much exactness as the days of yore. But age is creeping upon him. His eyesight is failing, and the little spark of passion and the reason that should have never left him is gradually being extinguished. It was only by the exercise of strategy and urgent persuasion he was induced without using force to come down from his mountain home and get into a wagon waiting to convey him into town, a distance of some 15-20 miles.” Mason did not want-whether they forced him or not, he did not want what they took him to do. He attempted to escape several times. So far as to get the start of his guards, several 100s of yards going at full speed toward the mountains. Mostly reports said that he was harmless, but a few people had said that in his older age he would get confused, he would lash out a little bit. What it actually said was, “attacks of raving lunacy.” Which, yikes. A few weeks later, McCarron wrote that Mason was taken the McMinn County Poorhouse. Once he arrived there, he very quickly made his escape. He walked a distance of around 20 miles back to his brother-in-law's house. Horner Colthrop provided him a shelter to stay in at night and he was free to roam during the day. Which is kind of what the situation was before, but this time there wasn't really much of an issue with it. He actually used the shelter he was given, the cops didn't try to come take him away, they all kind of came to an agreement. At this point, things were really, finally starting to calm down for him. During the winter of 1891-1892, Mason stayed in the cabin intermittently. He continued to visit the White Cliff kitchens and he was very grateful for the services that they gave him, because he was 68 years old, and his health was beginning to decline. Any food that they could give him, any warmth, he was grateful for. Unfortunately, on the morning of January 11, 1892, Mason's body was found frozen sitting under a tree. His brother-in-law claimed his remains, and Mason was buried in a simple wooden casket near his parents at Hickory Grove Cemetery. For 40 years, he had lived alone in the wilderness, kept himself alive. I think that that is fucking crazy.

Z: Truly.

E: Obviously, if you threw me out there now, given that I am of the-I'm on the millenial/gen z cusp. I've basically always had a cell phone in my hand. I would not last a day.

Z: I can't even poop in the woods.

E: Exactly! Thank you! I know it was a different time but wow. 40 years, completely alone.

Z: Yeah.

E: Didn't have a house, lived in a cave. Finally I have a quote here from Harvey McGill, the owner of the White Cliff Hotel who said, “Mason Evans is much better off dead than alive and Hickory Grove is a much better place than the shack he lived in. The final resting place of his soul is with God, I am sure.” That is-

Z: That's sweet.

E:...the story of Mason Evans.

Z: Oh my god. I am still shook about those women.

E: I know.

Z: The loaf of bread.

E: It's so cool. It's so cool.

Z: Oh my god.

E: That just goes to show you. That's the definition of southern hospitality.

Z: Truly.

E: Truly.

Z: Well, thank god I finally know all about Mason.

E: I'm sorry that was so long-

Z: Nah.

E:...for our first run, but I really just needed to

get that one off my chest. Fortunately, it had given me kind of a branching off of some other topics that I want to cover too. I definitely want to talk more about the White Cliff Hotel and I am actually planning on doing an episode on sinkholes.

Z:OOooo.

E: Caves and sinkholes are all kind of connected. So that's that. Thank you for listening.

Z: Of course.

E: What's your issue this week?

Z: My issue this week, and-okay there is a side of TikTok-

E: I'm afraid now.

Z:...currently, and again, brain worms. My issue this week is cleantok. Cleaning TikTok.

E: Ooo, that sounds nice.

Z: I'm gonna do a little bit of a trigger warning here-

E: Oh, okay.

Z:...for child abuse.

E: Okay...

Z: Because skip ahead like 2 minutes, if you don't want to hear about this, but-

E: I was not expecting this.

Z:...have you ever read the book A Child Called It?

E: No, but I know about it. I know like the general plot.

Z: There's a scene where household chemicals are mixed and it's supposed to be-

E: Oh.

Z: Okay.

E: Like the mustard gas?

Z: Yeah, pretty much.

E: I think I know where this is going.

Z: There's this side of TikTok now where people are like, “We're on cleantok, we're gonna clean.” and they'll dump half a container of AJAX, Clorox, Dawn, literally everything under the-

E: Ammonia.

Z: Ammonia, everything and that's just where my brain goes is mixing chemicals together and making deadly toxic gases and I'm just waiting, because there's livestreams of people that'll just go live and dump-

E: Yeah, I've seen a couple of those videos where people are just throwing in 4 different kinds of powder and dumping multiple liquids on top of it.

Z: Yeah!

E: How are you not dead? Someone's gonna get hurt.

Z: Truly, and that's where my brain went. I was like, someone is going to not realize it. 'Cause it's science, they're chemicals. You're mixing shit together, you don't know what you're mixing. Somethings going to happen, someone is going to get hurt, because these people on TikTok are like “Oh I'm going to make a rainbow in my toilet today.”

E: Can I say, I feel like a lot of that we don't have home-ec in schools anymore.

Z: Yeah.

E: Because I learned, my mom was the one that told me, don't mix ammonia and bleach cause you'll make mustard gas, but I don't know if that's actually true. I know that it makes something that is very dangerous, but that is kind of where you would learn about these household things. Schools are so underfunded that you don't have that anymore.

Z: Yep.

E: That's just sad.

Z: Well, that was my issue. Sorry to get a little dark there for a second but truly I saw just one video, and you know how TikTok is, they'll be one here or there, and it really made me mad.

E: Well, hey, PSA don't do that. Don't mix things.

Z: Please.

E: Do your research if you're going to use multiple chemicals because, because holy shit you could literally gas yourself to death.

Z: Here's the tea. One is enough.

E: Yeah, most of the time.

Z: Scrubbing bubbles? Fine.

E: Yeah.

Z: Dawn Dishwashing Liquid? Fine. Don't start mixing shit. You don't need to. That's what they're there for.

E: Yes, yes. Please be safe. Please don't get hurt.

Z: What's your issue now that I'm all worked up?

E: My issue, maybe this is dark, my issue is honestly that I had to take Brownie to the emergency vet.

Z: Yeah.

E: 'Cause that was a nightmare.

Z: Yeah.

E: I had to take my sweet little boy to the vet because I came home from work and he had poopied blood and I was terrified and I thought he was gonna die. It turns out that he just had a mild infection, and he's had his antibiotics. He's good to go now. We did his follow up, and the vet said he looked fine. His issue this week is probably the fact that they shaved that funky chunk out of the side of his neck, because they had to give him fluids, so he has this wonky ass-it looks like the state of South Carolina.

Z: Have you ever seen that episode of Bob's Burgers where he gets the stitch in his finger-

E: Yes!

Z:...and he's like, “Why did you shave my arm?”

E: That is exactly it, yeah. God that's such-I love Bob's Burgers.

Z: Same.

E: But yeah, that's my issue. He's fine. I'm still-I don't think I'm ever gonna recover from that. That was so stressful. He's okay and he's standing here staring at me because it's been two hours, and he probably needs to poop.

Z: He probably needs to poop.

(dog shaking his head noises)

E: Yeah.

Z: We'll take that as a yes.

E: Alright, well, thanks for listening.

Z: Of course, thanks for listening to me ramble, thanks for listening to Em ramble.

E: Thanks for really listening to me ramble.

E&Z: (laughs)

Z: Well we'll hopefully see you next time, hopefully we'll see you next time, I'm really excited for my topic next week.

Z: Hi guys.

E: Hey.

Z: How's it going? So when we initially recorded this episode, we didn't have all of our social media set up completely. There were a couple that had different usernames or whatever, just rookie mistakes that we had made, but we just wanted to rerecord the ending here. Kinda touch base with you, so you know exactly where to find us so there's no confusion, and we're all on the same page. So Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @issues-podcast. Our Tumblr is @theabandonmentissues. Or you can simply go to our LinkTree whick is linktr.ee/issues_podcast. And all of this will be linked in the description below. But that's got all of our relevant links including our cited sourced, social media, and our Patreon can be found there as well.

E: We also have an email for listener story submissions now. So if you have any places nearby you that you think are relevant to the topics that we cover, we would like to hear from you. You can send those to us at [email protected], and we might read it out on the air.

Z: You never know what could happen.

E: You never know. You can also send whatever you want to that email. Anything you want us to know. Anything relevant.

Z: Send us memes. We'll print them out, and we'll hand them to Gertrude.

E: Exactly. Yeah.

Z: No problem.

E: That should pretty much cover everything, contact wise.

Z: We appreciate you guys understanding that we're fools.

E&Z: (laughs)

E: We're just some fresh faced youngsters.

Z: Listen, we're little rookies, we gotta figure it out as we go, and unfortunately this is one of them.

E: If you need anything from us, that's were you can find us.

Z: Please, send me memes.