#Austin!elvis

[youaintnothinbuta]

𝐄𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

FLUFF

meeting your family

playin’ house

“Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare leave me.”

“I didn’t know you could sing!”

Elvis the pelvis

“if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes” - PART 1

(part two in smut)

“if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes” - PART 3

first kiss

“mama, will you teach daddy how to?”

worried about you (DDM)

daddy Elvis

“oh good lord, deeper, Elvis!”

“What’re ya doing out at this time by yourself, anyway?”

“Do you have to show off?”

lunch with his family

“Thank you for being brave enough to ask.”

“I’m telling you, honey, you ain’t gon’ like it.”

“I’ve got her, you relax.”

“Are you going to come see daddy’s show, little girl?”

“What are you doing up, little lady?”

"Don't tell me you can't ever again."

“She’s being a real brat.”

“Hey now, don’t you start questioning me too.”

“Elvis, stop it.”

“I wanna go steady.”

“Just a little bit more.”

“Is everyone where you’re from this pretty?”

“I’ve been wanting to do that all night”

SMUT

“got the blood pumping quite a bit there, hey sweetheart?”

finish what you started

“if you wanted my attention, you didn’t have to go to such extremes” - PART 2

“Come home, baby, please.”

“Looks like Presley’s got himself a little plaything.”

“I can’t think straight with such a view.”

“I got what I wanted.”

“It’s okay, baby, come.”

[thegettingbyp2]

I Never Liked Him Anyway

Summary: Reader comforts Austin!Elvis after he fires the Colonel

You were up and out of your seat the moment you heard Elvis yelling, trying to make your way backstage as inconspicuously as possible. You’d noticed that something was wrong with him before the show, drinking more than usual and taking a few more pills than normal, but he’d assured you that he was fine. It wasn’t until he started slurring his words and wavering that you realised just how wrong things were.

A rush of anger filled your body when you heard the things that Elvis was saying; about how the Colonel had been lying to him all these years, hindering his career just so he could earn more money. You hadn’t told Elvis about your feelings towards the Colonel because you had seen how grateful towards the Colonel Elvis was and you didn’t want to ruin that for him, however, you couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief when you heard Elvis tell the Colonel that he was fired.

When you finally made your way backstage, you saw Elvis on his own, on his knees in the middle of the stage and you didn’t waste a single second in rushing over to him, sinking to your knees and wrapping your arms around him the best you could.

‘You okay, baby?’ you asked softly, threading your fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp lightly as your other hand began to smooth up and down his arm.

‘Years,’ was all he said in reply, his voice rough but distant, his eyes screwed tightly closed. ‘Years I could have been touring the world, taking my music to my fans everywhere and he stopped all because he couldn’t leave the goddamn country.’ His voice had risen in volume as he spoke and you could feel the anger radiating off of him.

‘I know,’ you replied sadly, knowing that there wasn’t anything you could say to him to make things better at the moment.

The two of you sat in silence for a while, you just being there for him until you felt him calm down a bit. ‘Hey, do you want to know something?’ you asked, turning your head to press a soft kiss to his cheek.

‘Always, baby,’ he replied, picking your hand up and smoothing his thumbs over your knuckles.

‘I never liked him anyway,’ you whispered, making Elvis’ body vibrate with chuckles. He leaned back to sit on the floor, bringing you into his lap.

‘Is that so?’

‘Yeah, I didn’t like the way he seemed to have some kind of control over you. And I know he didn’t like me.’

‘You’re not wrong there, baby,’ he said softly, ‘he didn’t like how I’d always run everything by you, didn’t like how I always wanted your opinion on everything.’

‘Well, then, it sounds to me that you did the right thing by getting rid of him, huh,’ you said, tilting his chin playfully, making Elvis smile softly at you.

‘It definitely is, baby,’ he murmured, leaning down to press his lips tenderly to yours.

‘How about we head upstairs, jump in a bath and try and forget all this, at least for the rest of the night?’ you suggested, tugging on his jumpsuit slightly.

‘I think that sounds amazing, baby,’ he said, standing up before helping you up, throwing his arm around your shoulder and kissing the side of your head as you left the stage.

[floralcyanidee]

˚₊✩‧₊◜kinktober 2023! ―

! please remember, in order to participate in kinktober, you must be 18+ as there will be nsfw material involved. anyone not following these rules will be blocked!

✧ hello! it's that time of year again (: I did my first kinktober last year, and it was a success (and still is), except I never fully finished it ): I'm hoping this year will be different because I'm starting as early as feasibly possible. if you think you've seen this post already from another account, you're correct. that's my account, except it is currently shadowbanned. so, I made this new account and decided to redo this masterpost as I'll probably be posting kinktober here. also, the prompt list has been edited as 28.08.2023.

✧ here is the taglist form if you'd like to be tagged in my kinktober works! click meee!♥

✧ prompt list is below!

day one. cockwarming with: Cillian Murphy

day two. nipple play with: Jonathan Crane

day three. blood play with: Charlie Walker

day four. orgasm control with: Stu Macher

day five. praise kink with: Mickey Altieri

day six. degradation with: Jonathan Crane

day seven. bondage with: Billy Loomis

day eight. edging with: Ethan Landry

day nine. breeding kink with: Roman Bridger

day ten. mutual masturbation with: Austin Butler

day eleven. throat fucking with: Ethan Landry

day twelve. threesome with: Stu Macher/Billy Loomis

day thirteen. knife kink or gun kink with: Gun Kink/ Tommy Shelby

day fourteen. sex toys with: Cillian Murphy

day fifteen. hate sex with: Jonathan Crane

day sixteen. thigh riding with: Richie Kirsch

day seventeen. sex tape with: Roman Bridger

day eighteen. squirting with: Neil Lewis

day nineteen. public play with: Jackson Rippner

day twenty. voyeurism with: Ethan Landry

day twenty-one. corruption kink with: Jonathan Crane

day twenty-two. daddy kink with: Cillian Murphy

day twenty-three. spanking with: Austin!Elvis

day twenty-four. shower sex with: Mickey Altieri

day twenty-five. roleplay with: Austin Butler

day twenty-six. face sitting with: Raymond Leon

day twenty-seven. dom/sub with: Ethan Landry

day twenty-eight. drunk sex or high sex with: High Sex/Stu Macher

day twenty-nine. phone sex with: Ethan Landry

day thirty. anal sex with: Jackson Rippner

day thirty-one. mommy kink with: Jonathan Crane

[dreamersparacosm]

austin butler - clumsy

warnings ; none

prompt ; in which your celebrity crush causes you to become a flustered, blubbering mess.

a/n ; a little something fun i wrote during the fall but never published! it’s basically anxious!reader and honestly how I imagine myself reacting to meeting aus so enjoy xoxo

Okay, don’t panic.

Do not panic.

It’s just a man. A man with blonde, curly locks, blue eyes, over 6 feet tall… but still, a man. Nothing special. You could probably find ten of him walking down Rodeo Drive.

Except that’s probably not true either.

It is Austin Butler, after all.

You hike the tail of your dress higher as you descend up the stairs to the red carpet, inhaling as much oxygen as possible to tame your nerves. It does nothing for you beside provide a placebo effect of calmness. Your publicist, Jane, stands next to you with her eyebrows furrowed in permanent worry, a crinkle she’s had since the day she took you on. “[Y/N], did you get a chance to look at your seating arrangement?”

“Uh, no, not yet,” You respond slowly, wincing slightly as you brace yourself for her reaction. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose before turning towards you.

“You know what, that’s fine, sweets. Just go stand on the carpet so we can take these pictures,” She goes back to her clipboard full of tedious things like timing and interviewers and stupid seating arrangements, and you’re trying to stay focused, but how can you do that when Austin Butler is standing 8 feet away from you, posing on the red carpet?

You’re pretty sure you’re drooling.

Whoever keeps leaving his shirts unbuttoned is a menace to society and needs to be locked away for endangerment to the general public.

This whole idiotic schoolgirl crush began relatively long ago, when he was still deeply in love with Vanessa Hudgens and playing a teen heartthrob on The Carrie Diaries. You weren’t even famous at that point, just a mediocre commercial actress trying to get her big break. Once you finally booked your first big role, the crush faded away (only the tiniest amount) but that all came crashing down like an avalanche when you saw Elvis with your best friend.

They probably could’ve posted the entire movie on a porn website and made the same amount of money. And, thus, your crush ensued, full throttle and invading your every thought at the worst moments. Including this one.

Jane kicks the back of your leg, cursing under her breath as you tear your eyes away from him. You’re not new to this scene, you’ve been in major leading roles and you’ve been nominated for Oscars. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that at your core, you are a complete and utter mess. A klutz. A loser with some money in the bank.

So, you take the pictures, with not too many mistakes as you expected, just a few shots of you blinking while smiling. You’re sure they’ll end up on Twitter where your fans will laugh about it while saying how much they love you.

This part always goes by fast. It’s camera flashes, smiles that are strained under the bright lights, talks with interviewers that always go far longer than expected, and then before you know it, you’re being ushered into a tight room with celebrities you had only dreamed of seeing in real life. Jane is glued to your side as you wait for your turn to enter the theater.

Despite the cool temperature of Los Angeles, you’re somehow drenched in sweat. You’ve done this before, you know that. But that doesn’t stop your entire body from going into fight or flight mode, teetering towards flight.

“What’s the hold up?” You hear a female’s voice yell out, and you almost think it’s Jane before you hear her chuckle beside you.

“Speak that truth. I am so sick of these fucking Oscars dimwits wasting my time,” Jane says loudly enough for the girl to hear it, and before you know it, they’re enthralled in a full-blown conversation. If you weren’t trying to fan your armpit sweat, you might’ve joined.

Maybe it’s a good idea to find out where you’re sitting. Probably will need to know that before you enter. You can only assume they’ll sit you next to your last co-star, Timothee Chalamet. What a delight that would be (and that’s not sarcasm, he always smells like cashmere and some type of forest.)

You turn your body slightly, eyeing Jane and the girl she’s talking to. She’s a redhead, also wearing a suit and clearly another publicist that has been in the position for far too long to enjoy it.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice a male figure standing next to the redhead. Hm. A black suit. Your eyes trail over his body, a soft black lace shirt that is half-unbuttoned peeking over the hem. How nice. You love that look on men.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck.

Your body freezes. Mouth runs dry. Sweat shrivels back up into your body only to start forming at impossible speeds. Heart palpates so quickly you think you might be going into cardiac arrest.

In front of you, is Austin Butler. And he completely, totally, entirely, caught you checking out his entire body, head to toe.

There’s a smirk on his face that is undeniably directed towards you, eyes glimmering with amusement. You can’t even believe that you’re looking directly at him. He can’t be real, he has to be a figment of your imagination.

“Come here often?”

You did not just speak.

No, you didn’t. That couldn’t have been real. That couldn’t have been what you just said. After years of dreaming about this moment, that can’t have been what your brain and tongue agreed on.

He chuckles, a deep one that rumbles through his chest, and says, “I try not to make it a habit. You?”

You entangle your fingers with each other, hoping the sweat that has gathered on them just slides right off. “Me either. Trying to cut down on my presence and all that.”

He raises his eyebrows quizzically, that soft smile that curves upon his lips widening a little, “Well, can’t say the Oscars is the best place to do that.”

“Yes, well…” You trail off. Thoughts empty. Brain just a shallow void with nothing but dirty, filthy fantasies about him floating around. Oh god, get a grip.

And he should end the conversation right there, then back around and not acknowledge the weird girl who clearly hasn’t had enough media training. But, he doesn’t. Instead, he sticks out his hand for you to shake, and says, “I’m Austin. Austin Butler.”

“I know,” You say almost immediately. His facial expression contorts into something unreadable, and your lips flap again to try and salvage the rest of your dignity. “I’m [Y/N].”

You shake his hand, praying to some otherworldly creature above that he won’t feel the sweat on your hands. It’s a little weird, when you touch his hand. Feels like you’re envisioning yourself with him, like you’re some kind of wizard that can tell it won’t be the last time you see him. It feels a little like something out of a rom-com, with the electricity zap and the sounds of your hearts beating erratically.

You both pull your hands away, smiling to the ground. You really, really, really hope he’ll keep talking to you.

“Nervous?” He asks, taking note of the way your thumbs twiddle and the sidestep you keep doing with your heels.

“A little. Kinda. Maybe,” You let out a sigh of relief. “I’m not really the most organized.”

“Hm. Well, I’m sure you’ll be great,” His grin widens just enough to show off his pearly white teeth that glimmer under the remaining sunlight that California has to offer.

“Thanks,” You smile back. “How about you? Nervous?”

“Always,” He responds, almost taken aback by the transparency he’s having with another celebrity. He’s never had a conversation about nerves, never felt validated enough by someone to open up about the fear that comes along with being at this level of fame. “It’s my first Oscars.”

“Right,” You say, “Well, I’ve been to a few, and honestly, I’ll let you in on a secret. Even Leonardo DiCaprio shits himself a little when the nominees are announced.”

He lets out a laugh, a real one, one that sounds like all good things in the world and you would be more than happy to capture it in a jar and keep it on your bedside forever. “Somehow, I don’t doubt that,” He switches gears, shifting his body around a little. “What afterparty are you going to?”

It’s a simple question, one you’ve been asked numerous times by other people in the industry. It usually offers a sense of dominance over who got the better invite. “Er, yes, that would be a question for my lovely publicist, Jane, because I don’t have a rat’s ass idea of where I’m supposed to go.”

He laughs. Again. Part of you is enthralled, part of you is confused as to why he thinks you’re a comedy show. Maybe he thinks you’re a joke. Yes, that makes good sense. “That honestly makes me feel better because I don’t really know where I’m going either,” He admits.

“Are you kidding?” You ask incredulously. “You look like that and you don’t know where you’re going? I think the President of the Academy Awards has a personal invite waiting for you.”

Okay, maybe you shouldn’t have said that. But really, it has to be blamed on the fact that there are a swarm of murderous bees flying around in your stomach that are making you feel woozy.

His cheeks turn a crimson glow, “Like that?”

“Oh, you know…” You trail, slowly laughing to brush off the fact that you basically just admitted your undying love to him. “Just…. That’s a great black shirt. I’m gonna buy one for my brother.”

His lips curve upwards a little more, blue eyes sparkling like little oceans. “Thanks. And, you know, you don’t look bad yourself.”

You blink twice. Did he just say that?

Before you even whip up a flirty comment, or even a funny one that’ll have him doubling over in laughter and proposing to you by tonight, you feel Jane gripping your forearm tightly. “Stop dicking around, [Y/N]. We need to go in.”

“Right, yes, totally,” You smile awkwardly over to Austin, and he returns it. You feel soft and warm and glowy inside, like you might levitate off the floor.

And then you really are levitating off the floor, because your feet miss the step and you’re falling before you even have a chance to stop yourself. Your arm extends to try and delay your inevitable fall, but it doesn’t work and you’re really sprawled out. Immediately, Jane rushes down to try and drag you up, hurriedly asking if you’re okay.

You nod slightly, balancing yourself on your knees. Thankfully, you think the vast majority of people have entered the theater and missed out on your embarrassment of epic proportions.

Well, maybe not everyone.

Suddenly, like a light peeking from beyond the clouds, you see an outstretched hand to your right. It’s tan, a male’s hand for sure. You look up to see who could possibly be nice enough to help you up. Maybe it’s God telling you it’s time to pass away.

It’s Austin. And he has a really worried look on his face that you’re shocked by, but his expression falters once he sees the look on your face. You’re smiling, a real big goofy one, because it’s so ridiculous and he’s so ridiculous and you’re pretty sure one of your heels is broken.

You place your hand in his, and his other hand wraps around your waist to help you up and steady yourself against him. Once you’re finally standing, he grins, leaning into your ear, “Remember, even Leonardo DiCaprio shits himself at the table.”

You don’t even realize his arm is still wrapped around your waist until you notice the absence of it. You giggle lightly, biting your lip. “Of course. And I think I saw Brad Pitt throw up in the bathroom last year.”

“Austin, we gotta go,” His publicist grabs his hand, and you feel a pang of disappointment. You almost think he does too, his blue eyes turning grayish as he looks back at her.

“Right,” He clears his throat. “Well, good luck tonight, [Y/N]. I hope you win.”

“You too,” The smile on your face is probably permanently tattooed on. You feel Jane’s hand on your back, slowly moving you away from him although your feet beg to stay.

“Oh, and [Y/N]?” You turn back around to face him, “Big fan of your work.”

With that, he turns away with his publicist to go and find his seat amongst the crowd. You watch him disappear, an indescribable feeling washing over your entire body. You’re also being whisked away to your table, greeted by familiar faces and friends. But it’s pretty clear that’s not the reason why you’re smiling.

Some part of your brain decides on one thing: this won’t be the last time you see him.

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

You decide that you like California. Not a whole lot, but enough to make you sign a contract for a new film. Normally, you believe that Los Angeles and all its surrounding cities are a dreadful structure that encapsulates all the worst features of privileged Southern California lifestyle. But the food is undeniably tasty, and your new apartment is decorated with high ceilings and well-lit rooms, so you’ll make do. You’ll be filming in sunny Calabasas, where the houses are painted a perfect shade of white, where time stills a little and every cloud is just the right amount of fluffy.

The Oscar’s had came and went, and you won, to no one’s surprise but your own. With that accomplishment came offers. People really, truly wanted to work with you, and although it baffled you, Jane was having the time of her life coordinating auditions and interviews.

Everything was truly perfect.

You flip through the pages of your fresh script, your manicured nails turning through the warm pages, the black ink bleeding onto the sheets. Jane sits across from you, feverishly scribbling something, negotiating your pay for your new film. She’ll deliver. In the end, she always does.

She hangs up her call, sighing from relief. You’re about to ask her how it went, if you got the price you wanted, before her phone blares again with that god awful ringtone she refuses to change. She answers it, a cheerful tone in her voice, “Kate? So good to hear from you! What’s going on?”

You tune out of her conversation, focusing your eyes back on the mass of paper in front of you. A new story to be told. A new character to embody. A new chapter of your life. It’s all very emotional and sappy and you almost want to cry tears of happiness, but you’ll save that for later, once you get home and crack open a bottle of wine.

You hear Jane place her phone down, and your eyes flicker back up to her. There’s an expression on her face that’s unreadable, and you’re unsure of how to process it. Oh, no. If you didn’t get the price you wanted, that would suck. Or, maybe you did and she’s just unsure on how to process emotion. You always thought she was a robot.

“I just had the weirdest phone call,” She finally speaks, scratching her forehead quizzically.

“What’s up?” You ask mindlessly, certain she’s going to tell you something personal like her cousin getting married to a farmer.

“That was Austin Butler’s publicist. She said he’s been asking about you since the Oscars.”

There’s no fucking way. She’s pranking you. Any second now, Ashton Kutcher is going to pop out behind the doorframe and say “You’ve been Punk’d!” and then maybe he’ll also bring out Austin to further your embarrassment.

“Excuse me?” You blink.

“Yeah,” She seems just as baffled as you are. “She said he’s been trying to find a way to get in contact with you, but turns out, you guys don’t have a lot of mutual friends.”

Well, that makes sense.

She continues on, “Anyway, she gave me his number and then said he wants to ask you on a date. So, do with that what you will.”

She unlocks her phone, slides it across the table to you, and you see a phone number typed into her notes. Your hand trembles as you pick up the iPhone, copying the number into your own contacts. You feel woozy, just like you did on that red carpet, just like you did the moment you locked eyes with him.

“Right, well,” You clear your throat. “I’ll just step outside and call him real quick.”

She nods, raising one eyebrow. There’s a small grin that appears on her lips, a knowing one, and you slide out the door into the hallway.

You don’t know what comes over you, or what demon compels you, but you click the number. You hear the ring. There’s a pause. Your heart drops as you think that he might not answer.

And then you hear him. His voice.

“Hello?”

“Uh, h-hi. Hi. This is, um, [Y/N]. Your publicist gave me your number.”

It almost sounds ridiculous.

“[Y/N]. You know, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you but turns out you’re not an easy person to reach,” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Well, you know me and my presence. All time low,” You say sarcastically, and he chuckles.

“Right. Well, congratulations on your win. Very well-deserved,” His voice is deeper than you remember. There’s a slight desire that pools between your legs for a moment before you snap yourself back into reality.

“You too. Some would call it the performance of the year,” And you can’t even believe it’s happening. You’re really flirting with him.

“Thank you,” He says so softly, so charming. He’s always grateful and humble, and it makes you even more attracted to him. If that’s even possible at this point. “So, do you think there’s a chance you would allow me to take you out to dinner? Somewhere lowkey, you know, for your presence and all?”

The question is so unbelievable that you can’t even take it in. You make a few sounds, splutter over your words and trip over them like you did your own two feet at the Oscars. Your heartbeat travels up to your eardrum, pounding with every ounce of blood that travels through you. “U-uh, umm… well, you know, let me go ahead and check my schedule.” There’s a pause. You cover the reciever and scream a silent yell into the void, jumping a few feet high.

Clearing your throat, you say, “Hm. Seems like I’m free tomorrow.”

“You can’t do tonight?”

The question takes you aback. Surely, he can’t be asking that because he wants to see you. “Oh, why? Are you leaving California tomorrow?”

“Not at all,” You hear him shuffle. “I just really want to take you out.”

“Right, yes, of course.” You let his question hang in the air. You know your answer, but you like letting him think there’s a possibility you might reject him.

“I am free tonight.”

“Great,” His voice is upbeat, a newfound excitement peeking through. “Well, text me your address. I’ll send a car to pick you up.”

“Yup, totally. Super duper cool. Looking really forward to it,” You babble on, pacing the hallway you’ve trapped yourself in.

He lets out a low laugh, “Me too. I’ll see you tonight. Bye, [Y/N].”

You say your goodbyes, leaning against the wall for stability before you collapse into a puddle. Later, a janitor might come to find your lifeless body glued to the wall. Cause of death? Man built like a Greek god asks woman on date.

But, everything is fine. You’ll somehow make it.

There’s a ridiculous feeling in your heart, a warmth that spreads to your toes and fingers. Now, everything is perfect.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

masterlist + request

[pxnsneverland]

Heartbreak Hotel | austin!elvis x oc (part 1)

(gif source: theresalwaysep)

plot summary: Angel Casteel is a small town girl who lucked into working as a costume designer at a film studio. Unfortunately, her confidence in herself wavers as she is assigned to work with Elvis on his latest motion picture. Overcome by his star power at first, she slowly starts to realize there is a man behind the fame, a man she understands. But as they grow closer, the world grows more turbulent, especially Elvis's world. Will this Angel be able to save Elvis from himself and the people around him? Or will getting mixed up in his word prove to be her downfall as well?

pairings: austin!elvis x oc

word count: 2741

warnings/notes: N/A

Chapter 1: The Costumer's Dance with The King

As Angel Casteel strolled along the winding pathways of the bustling studio, her mind was consumed with a whirlwind of thoughts. Each step she took brought her closer to her latest assignment, igniting a sense of anticipation within her. The air was thick with creative energy, as fellow artists immersed themselves in their respective projects. The vibrant atmosphere seemed to fuel her imagination, as she pondered the task that lay ahead. She found herself transfixed, her gaze locked upon the delicate piece of paper that had been handed to her by the front office. A sense of apprehension coursed through her veins, causing her to momentarily freeze in her tracks. It was in that very moment that the realization struck her like a bolt of lightning, electrifying her every nerve. As fate would have it, she found herself bestowed with a remarkable opportunity - a chance to be a part of the mesmerizing world of Elvis Presley's latest motion picture. The sheer magnitude of this moment was not lost on me, for she was entrusted with the task of personally adorning the legendary icon with his costumes for the big screen. Angel found myself staring at the assignment card in her hands as if hoping to uncover some hidden mistake. As she carefully examined the photograph, her eyes were immediately drawn to the bold letters inscribed on the back. ANGEL CASTEEL. It was as if the air had been violently expelled from her lungs. In that instant, time seemed to stand still, as she struggled to regain her composure. In the grand tapestry of music history, there emerged a man whose brilliance outshone all others - Elvis Presley. With his magnetic charisma and unparalleled talent, he ascended to the pinnacle of stardom, becoming a celestial figure in the realm of entertainment. The world, captivated by his mesmerizing voice and electrifying performances, bestowed upon him the title of the biggest star to ever grace the stage. The weight of his authority hung heavy in the air. Angel knew that one wrong move, one ill-chosen word, could spell disaster for her future in this place. The thought of crossing him sent shivers down her spine. The consequences were clear - a swift and merciless termination, her dreams shattered in an instant. The disapproving whispers of her parents echoed in her mind. The prospect of facing her family, her head held low in defeat, was a bitter pill to swallow. It seemed as though the world was determined to prove her parents right about her ill-fated choice to forgo college and embark on an uncertain journey to the land of dreams. The allure of California, with its promises of opportunity and adventure, had once beckoned her like a siren's call. But now, as reality set in, the weight of her decision pressed heavily upon her conscience.  She felt her body physically tremble at the mere notion of it.

With resolve hardening in her chest, Angel took a deep breath and forced her feet to move forward. She mustered the courage that had brought her from her small town to the heart of Hollywood, reminding herself of the countless nights spent sketching designs by the dim light of her old desk lamp, dreaming of a moment like this.

As she approached the opulent dressing room marked with Elvis Presley's name adorned in glittering gold, her pace slowed. Her hand hovered over the door handle, the cold metal feeling like a threshold to a new world. Taking another steadying breath, Angel pushed the door open.

The room was lavish, befitting a star of Elvis's magnitude. The air was scented with a mix of leather and aftershave, and the walls were lined with mirrors and photographs of famous movie scenes. At the center, seated in front of a vanity mirror, was Elvis himself, his back to her, engrossed in conversation with an old man who appeared to be his manager.

Angel cleared her throat softly, announcing her presence. Elvis turned around, his legendary smile warming the room instantly. “Hey there, darling. You must be the one behind my wardrobe for this film.”

Flustered but thrilled, I shook his outstretched hand, but was unable to make any words spill from my mouth. The old man Elvis had been talking to placed both hands on the top of his cane with a smile that seemed slightly forced. “She’s a pretty one, my boy. Don’t go getting yourself distracted here.”

Elvis glanced back at the man laughing. “Ah, don’t scare her, Colonel.” He turned back to Angel. “Don’t listen to nothin’ the Colonel says. He likes to make jokes. I’m Elvis and this is my manager Colonel Tom Parker. What’s your name, darlin’?”

Angel took a deep breath, her nerves momentarily calmed by the congeniality of Elvis's tone. "I'm Angel Casteel, Mr. Presley," she managed to say, her voice steadier than she felt.

Elvis chuckled softly. "Well, Angel…ain’t that just a fitting name for a beauty like you? And just call me Elvis. Mr. Presley is my Daddy. I ain’t that old yet.”

His laughter was infectious, and Angel found herself smiling, the tension easing from her shoulders.. “You don’t look old at all, Elvis.” His name felt foreign on her lips but she found a strange comfort in it.

“You’re bein’ too nice.” Elvis gestured towards a plush, velvet couch. "Come on over here and show me what you’ve got.”

Angel moved gracefully toward the couch, clutching the portfolio that contained all her carefully crafted designs. As she laid the sketches out on the low coffee table, her hands trembled slightly, betraying her nervous excitement.

Elvis leaned forward, his keen eyes scanning each design with an intensity that made Angel's heart skip a beat. He paused at one of the sketches, a sleek, black leather jacket paired with a high-collar, white silk shirt. "Now, this is something else," he remarked, his voice laced with genuine interest. "Tell me about this one."

Gathering her thoughts, Angel explained, "I wanted to combine traditional rock 'n' roll elements with a touch of modern flair.”

Elvis nodded appreciatively. "I like that. It’s got edge but still classy.”

"I was thinking something vibrant for the dance scenes," Angel said, pointing to a sketch of a shimmering gold jacket. "Something that catches the light and complements your dynamic movements."

Elvis picked up the sketch, his eyes lighting up. “You’ve got a real talent, Angel."

Flushed with pride and relief at his approval, Angel continued to show him other designs, each receiving thoughtful consideration and encouraging words from Elvis. Colonel Parker observed quietly from the side, occasionally interjecting with practical considerations about fabric choices and stage logistics.

As the afternoon wore on, the initial tension that had cocooned Angel upon her entrance gradually dissolved into a comfortable camaraderie. Elvis seemed genuinely interested in her thoughts and ideas, often asking for her opinion on other aspects of his wardrobe beyond the immediate needs of the film. It was a collaborative atmosphere that she had only dreamed of, one where her visions and suggestions were not only heard but respected.

“Angel, you’ve got an eye for this stuff,” Elvis said as he stood up to stretch his legs, “I think we’re gonna make a great team.”

Angel nodded enthusiastically. “I think so too.”

Elvis grinned, clapping her lightly on the shoulder. “Great! Let’s keep this momentum going. Maybe after we wrap up here, we could grab some dinner? There’s a little place not too far from here that makes the best Southern fried chicken you’ll ever taste.”

The casual invitation sent a thrill through Angel’s heart. Dinner with Elvis Presley? The very thought was almost too much to fathom. Hesitantly, she accepted. "That sounds wonderful, Elvis. I'd love to."

Elvis's smile broadened, lighting up his face with a boyish charm that few could resist. "Fantastic! It’s a date then," he said, a playful tone in his voice that made Angel's heart flutter with excitement.

Walking out of the dressing room together felt surreal to Angel. The movie crew, like a swarm of bees, descended upon him, their eager hands guiding him towards the sound stage to finish out the filming for the day. Silently, Angel trailed behind, her eyes fixed on him as he came to a halt. He engaged in conversation with the main actress, the one who portrayed the female lead and served as Elvis's love interest in the film. She stood before him, a vision of beauty. Her face adorned with carefully applied makeup, enhancing her features and accentuating her natural charm. Her luscious blond locks cascaded in perfect curls, framing her face with an air of elegance. Clad in a swimsuit that showcased her long, slender legs, she left little to the imagination. As he flashed a warm smile in her direction, Angel’s heart skipped a beat, and a sudden realization washed over her. It was a truth that had been lurking. Elvis only wanted to be kind. With her jet-black hair and eyes, the color of a moonlit sea, she was nowhere near attractive enough. Her skin was too pale, and her clothing was simply thrift shop finds that suited her well. In the vast expanse of the universe, their souls resided on separate solar systems, as distant from each other as the stars. With a heavy sigh escaping her lips, she trudged forward.

Angel's thoughts churned as she watched Elvis interact with the stunning actress. The way he laughed, the casual touch of his hand on her arm, it all seemed so effortless, so perfect. A pang of jealousy twisted in her stomach, not because she wanted Elvis for herself—she was too practical for such fantasies—but because she feared that their budding professional friendship might suffer from his divided attentions. The stark contrast between their worlds couldn't be more pronounced in her eyes; where he shone brightly, she felt dimmed by her own perceived ordinariness.

Yet, as she lingered by the edges of the bustling set, a soft hand touched her shoulder, startling her from her reverie. It was Elvis, who had extricated himself from the crowd and come over to find her. His smile was still present, but his eyes held a hint of concern. "Hey, you alright?" he asked gently.

Angel forced a smile, nodding unconvincingly. "Yes, just... overwhelmed," she managed to say, gesturing vaguely towards the chaos of the film set.

Elvis's expression softened, a mixture of understanding and empathy crossing his features. "It can get a bit much, huh?" he said, drawing her slightly away from the throng. "But you, Angel, you belong here just as much as anyone else. Look at me. Just a hillbilly who lucked into all this. Most of the time I don’t even really know what I’m doin’.”

His words, warm and sincere, were a balm to her jangled nerves. “You’re doing wonderfully, Elvis. Everyone can see that.” Angel’s voice was soft but firm, her belief in him evident.

Elvis shook his head, his hair brushing against his forehead. "Nah, it's all smoke and mirrors, darlin'.” He chuckled, then his gaze fixed more intently on her. "But you — you’ve got real talent, Angel. Don’t ever doubt that. This stuff,” he gestured broadly to the hubbub surrounding them, “It’s fleeting. But creating something? That’s forever.”

“Thank you, Elvis,” she said, her voice steadier now.

Elvis grinned, the light catching in his eyes in a way that made them sparkle mischievously. “Now, don’t let me keep you from shining today. We’ve got some more scenes to shoot, but how about we meet by the wardrobe when we wrap? Don’t forget about our dinner plans!”

“I won’t,” she promised, feeling the flutter of butterflies in her stomach at the thought of spending more time with him outside of work.

As Elvis headed back toward the set, Angel watched him go, her heart still racing from their interaction.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur for Angel. She busied herself with final adjustments to the costumes, her hands moving mechanically as her mind replayed the warmth in Elvis's voice and the sincere look in his eyes. The movie set, usually a place of overwhelming noise and activity, felt strangely muted to her ears, as if she was hearing it all from underwater.

As the hours ticked by, the set began to wind down from the day's hectic schedule. Crew members started cleaning up, actors removed makeup, and the buzz of activity slowly diminished into a quiet hum. Angel tidied up her workspace in the wardrobe department, folding fabrics and organizing her materials meticulously.

As promised, Elvis was waiting for her by the wardrobe racks when she arrived, his presence commanding even in such an ordinary setting. He was dressed casually now, in slacks and a simple button-up shirt that did nothing to hide his charismatic aura. "Ready to go?" he asked with an easy smile.

Angel nodded, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness. "Absolutely, I just need to grab my things," she replied as she reached for her jacket.

Walking out of the studio together, they found themselves stepping into the cool evening air. The sun was setting, casting a golden glow that seemed almost magical. As they approached Elvis's car, a vintage convertible that gleamed under the fading light, Angel couldn't help but feel like she was stepping into a scene from one of those glamorous old Hollywood films.

Elvis held the passenger door open for her, and as she slid into the soft leather seat, he flashed her a grin that could have melted hearts across continents. "Ever ridden in one of these before?" he asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

"No, I can't say I have," Angel replied, her voice slightly shaky with excitement.

Elvis chuckled as he started the engine, the sound rumbling softly beneath them. "Well, you're in for a treat," he said, his eyes twinkling with excitement as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the open road. The wind began to pick up, sending Angel's hair fluttering around her face, and she laughed, feeling a surge of freedom she hadn't expected.

The drive was filled with a comfortable silence initially, as both seemed content to simply absorb the moment. The landscape blurred past them, a mix of city lights and twilight shadows painting the journey in hues of blues and oranges. Elvis finally broke the silence, his voice thoughtful. "You ever think you would be here in LA?" he asked, glancing her way.

Angel pondered the question, her fingers tracing the leather seam of the seat. “No. I grew up in a one-horse town in Alabama, workin’ as a waitress in the one of the two restaurants the town had. I always wanted somethin’ better, somethin’ different. So instead of savin’ up money to go to college, I saved up money to move to California. My parents thought I was crazy; my friends didn’t really believe in me either.”

“But here I am,” she continued, her voice lifting with a newfound strength. “And every day on that set, even with all its chaos and uncertainty, I’m grateful. Grateful for the chance to be part of something bigger than just serving coffee and pies back home.”

Elvis nodded, his expression a mixture of admiration and understanding. “That’s something we share, you know? I didn’t come from much either. Just a little shotgun house in Tupelo, Mississippi. Most folks thought I’d end up pumping gas or working in the fields.” He smiled softly, his eyes reflecting the streetlights as they passed.

"But here we are, right? Chasing dreams in the city of stars," he continued, his voice tinged with a hint of wonder.

Angel smiled, turning to look at him, the wind still playing with her hair. “Right. I never imagined I'd end up here, and definitely never thought I'd be riding alongside Elvis Presley." Her laugh was light, carefree.

Elvis's smile widened at her words. "I'm glad you're here with me, Angel. It feels like this was supposed to happen. Like it’s part of a bigger plan or somethin’." He turned his gaze back to the road, focusing on the weaving path of headlights before them.

The conversation drifted then to lighter topics — music, favorite movies, and anecdotes from their respective childhoods. Each story shared was a thread that seemed to weave them closer together, bridging the gap between their worlds with laughter and mutual understanding.

Stay tuned for part 2!! Click HERE to view!

[crash-and-cure]

Every Minute, Every Hour (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Summary: You were out. You were out goddamnit. How was he here?

A/N: Soooo.... It’s been awhile. Writer’s block is an absolute son of a bitch. So this is based on an idea I had and requested to @venus-haze a couple months ago and which I almost completely forgot about until I got this request and I decided two birds and all that. I also acknowledge that there was another similar request made a while back, to the person who requested it don’t worry, I do have plans for it. 

Warnings: Yandere!Elvis so expect themes of obsessive, manipulative, jealous, and delusional behavior. Dubious Consent in regards to coersion being involved. Loss of virginity. Explicit sexual content depicted that includes Penetrative sex (m/f), oral sex (f.recieving), female mastubation, slight dumbification, and implied anal play. Brief depictions of choking. Touch-starvation. Mentions of Pregnancy. Referenced cheating on Elvis' part. Self-loathing. Stockholm Syndrome(?) Probably more that I am blanking on. Period-typical homophobia and closeted characters depicted. Please do not interact if you are under 18. 

Word Count: 19.8K

Masterlist

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You look like an angel (look like an angel)

Walk like an angel (walk like an angel)

Talk like an angel

But I got wise

You’re the devi-

It takes you longer than you would have liked to reach the radio and turn it off. And it’s only as you reach it do you realize how odd it looks from the outside when you see a customer looking at you funny. 

“Not much of a fan,” you say with an admittedly pathetic smile on your face. 

“I can see that,” he replies with an awkward smile, before going back to browsing the books. 

You bashfully turn the radio back on and quickly try to turn the knob to anything even remotely comprehensible, but it’s just your luck that this is the only station you get decent reception on in the store. With no other choice but to simply grin and bear it you put the volume on low and return to reading your book. 

You do keep an eye on your final customer of the evening, and hope he hurries up so you can finally close up for the day. Susan had been complaining about a migraine since lunch and Gina was caring for her upstairs and so it was on you to close up the shop on your own today. 

You feel embarrassed to have been seen that way but that all falls away when you hear the shop bell ring, only to be immediately followed by tiny rapid footsteps and an excited little “mama!” and you grab onto the counter before your little two and a half foot terror can knock out from behind you. Which ends up being the right call as you feel her head butt your knees and locking her arms around them nearly knocking you down.  

“Mama! Mama!” she squealed, practically vibrating, she was so excited to see you. 

“Rosie! Rosie!” you say, equally as happy to see her though you do a far better job at reining it in. She takes your hands in hers as you crouch down to look at her, and take stock. Her hair is askew with the ribbons you had tied in place this morning holding on for dear life in her beautiful curls, her face is smudgy with what you’re hoping is chocolate, and one of her socks is just gone, but both shoes are in place so you can only imagine how your little hellion managed that. Overall this is the best condition Rosie has returned to you in, after a long day with Jenny.

“Mama, Aunty Jenny took me to the Candy store!” she says, showing off the candy bracelets on her tiny wrists. 

“Really,” you say, shooting a look at your friend for giving her so much sugar before bed. The woman in question has the courtesy to at least look a little guilty about it, before giving a small laugh. 

“Mm-hmm. And we saw Danny at the playground and we-we saw Uncle Lee’s friends, and then we listened to a lotta music, and we saw a movie about a wizard and there was no one else in the whole room, and then-then…” she rapidly rambles on but you pepper her face in kisses before she can pass out from the lack of oxygen. She giggles uncontrollably and tries to squirm out of your grip, but you gotta get in one good raspberry on her cheek before you let her go.

“Alright, why don’t you go upstairs and help Aunty Gina finish up dinner,” you tell her with a smile on your face. Her “help” in the kitchen is typically watching and holding spoons and spatulas on a step stool, but she’s at an age where she believes the whole dish would fall apart without her important contribution to it, so she goes rushing to the stairs. 

But she quickly comes running back while taking the uneaten bracelet off of her wrist. “Danny said to give this to you for your birthday,” she declares. Ever since meeting Jenny’s nephew she’s seemed to hang on to every word of his, and though you’ve never met the boy he seems to be a good kid, always polite and saying hello through your daughter, but has, as you've heard, an extreme affinity towards spinning a few too many fantastical stories. But your daughter is far too young to see him as anything but a friend so you doubt you have anything to worry about as of right now. 

She’s always so eager to tell you about everything, and you’re just as eager to listen. Your folks never wanted to hear anything from you, and you pray that your attentiveness will pay off one day when she is never afraid to come to you with your troubles. Maybe if you had that with your mother you wouldn’t be where you were.

“Well tell him I said thank you,” you say, as you pull it on your wrist, placing a small kiss on her forehead before she books it back to the stairs behind the counter. As you stand back up, to your surprise you find the customer now at the counter with a good stack of books. 

“Sorry to bother Miss…ummm…” the customer says nervously. 

“Love,” you clarify for him. “Y/N Love.”

He gives a shy smile at that, “Well Miss Love, I’m ‘bout ready to check out so…” he says gesturing to his tower of books. 

“Of course,” you answer and you begin to ring him up. He’s got quite a few so at least he makes the extra time staying down here somewhat worth it. 

“Whatcha readin’ there,” he asks you, pointing to the open book you’ve left to your side. You show him your copy of We have always lived in the castle. “I-is it any good?”

“I would say so,” you answer. Though that ending did hit a little too close to home, you think to yourself. 

“So umm, d-do you like to read?” he asks hesitantly as he quietly adds a copy of the book to his pile. 

“I’d be in the wrong business if I didn’t,” you joke, and he laughs a little too hard. “How ‘bout you?” you ask, wanting to not have an awkward silence, as you’re not even halfway through the stack. 

“Yeah, I-I love reading though I don’t got a lotta time for it these days,” he says with a guilty smile on his face. 

“Why’s that?” you ask, since it seems to be the only way this conversation could go. 

“I-I just started my residency at Charity Hospital,” he says bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m Sam by the way,” apparently realizing that he hadn’t made the proper introductions. 

“Y/N,” you say, giving him a small nod and a smile. “And congratulations on your residency,” you're almost done with the final few books, but you may or may not be taking your time to finish them up, wanting to prolong the conversation you’re having for a bit. 

“Thank you, and I- well, umm… I couldn’t help but overhear your daughter, but umm… Happy Birthday,” he says ducking his head, a bit embarrassed at his own admission. 

“Oh, thank you,” you say, your face heating up slightly that he had heard. 

“Your Husband’s a lucky man,” he says, though he does steal a quick glance at you, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction.

So this is what it’s about, you think to yourself. “I’m actually not…” you trail off, and hope that he gets the message. 

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” he stated before his eyes widened as he realized what he just said. “I-I mean not glad like I’m happy that you-you’re not married, bu-but glad li-like I’m relieved that I hav-haven’t been trying to build up the courage to talk to a cute girl for the past few weeks only to find out she’s married already.” he blathers on and you can’t help but laugh. 

Your heart does flutter a bit at his confession. Everything about this feels like it should be perfect. Unfortunately for the both of you, you finally get a good look at his icy blue eyes that are a little too familiar for comfort, and it feels like your throat closes up. 

You can feel your stomach churning (and not just from the baby that fills it) and cold regret for not buying an extra pair of socks as you sit at the Greyhound terminal in Nashville, your feet starting practically turning into ice blocks. That cold November morning you had made a show of telling everybody you were gonna make a quick trip down to the shops for some eggs, now you’re almost a full state away praying that the bus gets here soon, jumping every time a set of headlights passes by and you're just barely keeping dry underneath the metal canopy. 

But for as cold as you are physically, your chest starts to heat up at the prospect that you’re so close to freedom from an even colder gaze. When the bus does get there you hardly sleep a wink afraid to let your guard down even now. You know how well he could sabotage your plans if he was so inclined, from small things like spoiling the surprise party you had planned for him to the major of ruining your chances to get into another school. 

You know he’s half a world away yet that still does little knowing what the most loyal of his are willing to do for him. It’s not until you finally make it to the train station in Atlanta that’ll take you down to New Orleans that you finally give in to your heavy eyelids, willing to trust strangers with your safety, aware they can’t hurt you any worse than those you know have done. 

You shake your head as you’re brought back to the present, and you hear him say something, “I’m sorry what?” you covertly wiggle your toes as you try to ground yourself and get sensation back in them as though you were just getting them out of the cold.

“I was just sayin’ there’s this club down on Bourbon that I been meanin’ to check out since movin’ down here, and I was hopin’ a local such as yourself could show me ‘round these parts,” he says, a nervous but hopeful smile on his lips. 

For a moment you can almost imagine saying yes to him, how he would take you out on the town, how he would kiss you, how he would throw your daughter up in the air. How maybe you could be happy with him.

But like a looming black cloud, in spite of the lowered volume, you hear what the new station is now playing, clear as a bell.

Oh please come to my arms and say you'll love me forever

For with the dawn, you'll be gone 

It’s almost as though He’s following you, serving as a constant reminder of what you did, and that you’re never allowed to imagine being with another man. You wordlessly turn off the radio before you’re forced to listen anymore. “Uhh, I-I’m sorry, I-I really don’t go out much,” you say, trying to shut this down as gently as you could. 

“Oh-uhh, that’s fine I umm,” he says, pivoting hard. “I’m more of a movie guy myself, I hear he’s got a new one out, and we can go and watch anything but that,” he gives a small laugh pointing to the radio, but quickly drops it upon seeing your grim expression. 

Without knowing it Sam just shut the coffin on any potential happenings between the two of you. “I’m sorry, it’s late and I gotta close up for the night,” you say softly, and he’s smart enough to take the hint. 

“O-of course,” he says looking down at the books he has in his hands. “But can you promise you’ll think about it?” he asks as he reaches the door to look back at you. 

Even before you open your mouth, you already know that your next words are going to make you lose a customer forever. “There’s nothing to think about,” you say, trying to feign apathy. Harsh as your words may be, you know this is far kinder to him in the long run as opposed to getting more involved with you. 

You watch him leave the store with a sagging shoulders and a long face, before you feel a hand meet violently with the back of your head, and you swivel around to see Jenny with an exasperated look on her face. “So a handsome, single, doctor who loves to read, and doesn’t mind that you already got a kid, asks you out and you say…” she trails off, seeming to only get more offended with every dreamy quality he had. 

“Don’tchu get like that Jenny,” you defend yourself, as you stomp to the door in order to flip the sign to closed and lock up for the night. “I’ve got a daughter to worry about and I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now.”

“Well newsflash Y/N,” she argues, “Rosie needs a daddy.”

You feel your hackles rising at that statement. “No she doesn’t,” you state firmly, not wanting to raise your voice, because you know better than anyone how easy it is to be overheard.

She deflates a little at your obvious fury at this line of questioning, before letting out a long tired sigh. “It’s just that… when we were at the park today… she asked me why she didn’t have one. And she… she just kept pressing,” she says obviously ashamed that she hurt you, but wanting to get across her reasoning. “What am I supposed to say to that? Especially when you won’t tell nobody what happened. I only got her to drop it when I took her to the candy shop.”

You feel guilty for snapping at your friend. Jenny Hodge had been an absolute godsend since you met her almost a year ago, when she and her new husband, Lee, had moved down from Alabama. Her arrival had coincided when Rosie started becoming aggressively mobile and insisted that running was the only way to get around anymore. And because she felt she needed practice with being a Mama before she had one of her own, she insisted on being your one and only babysitter, in exchange for free books every so often. 

The story around the block is that you are were the young widow who “tragically” lost her husband in an accident before he ever had the chance to meet your beautiful daughter, and with no one in the world left to turn to, you ended up on your “spinster” aunt and her “good friend” Susan’s doorstep. And Jenny, since hearing your story, has by far been your most fervent supporter outside of this house, with her support primarily coming in two flavors: 1) helping you with your daughter so she isn’t so cooped up in the store while you work and 2) trying to set you up with any moderately successful man.

“Y/N,” she says softly. “I get that it’s hard to get back out there, but you need to think about the bigger picture, because it’s only a matter of time before she starts asking you.”

You know she’s right, and that’s the worst part about it. Your little Rosie Love is a stubborn one, not to mention smart, always has been. Didn’t want to walk because she wanted to run. Hated her diaper so much she learned how to unpin it when she was barely a year old. Wanted to try to feed herself when she first took to solid food, and would snatch the spoon out of your hand when she could. She’s broken out of every play pen she’s ever been in. Hell, she was almost two weeks overdue, and the doctors were forced to induce you, she didn’t want to come out until she was good and ready.

She, like someone else you knew, is capable of throwing a wrench into any plan you make. For as endearing as it can be, it is all the more frustrating knowing exactly where she gets it from. 

With a long defeated sigh, you concede to her point and thank her for both her input and for being a good friend this past year. And maybe someday you’ll be ready to find another husband.

She has a wide cheshire-cat like grin as you say that, “And I’mma ‘bout to be a better one,” she practically sings. “Lee’s friend is in town, and I think you two would hit it off.” 

“And I think we wouldn’t,” you state, putting books back where they belong. 

“C’mon Y/N, I thought we were past this,” she whines.

“I did say someday, not today,” you emphasize.

“Y/N, your birthday’s comin’ up soon, and it ain’t like you’re gettin’ any younger. Besides Lee and I are already trying for a baby, so I ain’t gonna be so available much longer neither,” she says in a soft voice holding your hands in hers. “And you need to find someone you can rely on too, it’s not like you wanna end up like your Aunt Gina”

You say nothing not wanting to say anything incriminating about the relationship between your Aunts, as for all that you trust Jenny, you don’t trust her enough with somebody else’s secrets. 

“Just promise me you'll think about it at least,” she pleads, hands clasped over your own. 

What is it about people that, not trusting you when you answer the first time, and thinking given enough time you’ll come around? 

Yet you're no better as you let out a long tired sigh, before ultimately agreeing, if only to get her off your back. Or so you tell yourself. 

She tells you a bit about the man she has in mind for you, or more accurately she keeps insisting how perfect the two of you would be together.  In her mind it’ll be love at first sight, how he’ll love and accept Rosie as his own immediately, how she guarantees that you’ll be married within a year and be trying to give Rosie a little brother or sister. You have to bodily shove her out the door by that point lest she get into any more specifics in her attempt to sway you. 

Jenny’s a little older than you, but she is very much a romantic at heart, you suppose, though that’s the benefit of things going right in your life. 

But your story went wrong. 

“Why you in such a hurry to get out girl?” your accomplice would ask as he handed you the money (He had made it a point of order that you were never to handle any) the day before your escape. 

“There’s someone else,” you say simply, because it’s true and if they were to ever betray your trust this would be worse on them than on you. 

You got away with quite a bit back in the day like getting out of trouble for making out in a dark empty classroom by claiming to have been caught by surprise by your monthlies and now you couldn’t bear the thought of being seen like this. Or when you got hired by the library for the summer after you approached the front desk and claimed to be the new hire ready for her first day of training and nobody really bothered to check in with anybody else. Even that one time when you confidently strolled backstage at a music hall He had wanted to perform all to sneak them in through the back door and convinced just enough people that his band was meant to perform that night.

Your ability to make up stories on the fly and map things out in your head had led you to believe that you would make for a pretty good mystery writer. You had even tried to go to school to be one, though you told everyone it was to be a teacher, a far more respectable and womanly job.

Well not everyone.

He certainly knew. 

Knew about your talent for planning and story-telling, and was practically always in awe to see it in action. But this recognition came at the expense that he was aware of your tricks and he always knew how to throw you off just enough to make any plans you made go belly up. Whether it was something relatively small like figuring out you were planning a surprise party to the major… like when you tried to end things the first time around.

He called you almost every night when he was on tour, and you had done your best to relay all that was going on back in Memphis. And in spite of his insistence that he wants to hear about it, you suspect that he wasn’t being truthful. He especially seemed disgruntled when you made any mention of doing anything with anyone else. Your friends, his friends, even your own family weren’t safe from his ire.  

When He was here you would do everything together, yet now that you tell him about all that you’d been doing, there is a slight but noticeable edge when he speaks to you over the phone. Everytime you mention how you went to the movie theater or you went to the record store or the bookshop, it was almost always met with a solemn “we used to do that together.” 

You would have gone with him, had your parents let you, and He knows that so you don’t understand why he’s so sore about the fact that you’re not simply sitting on your hands back home waiting for him to return. 

So in an effort to spare his feelings you asked him about the things he was doing, you even go out of your way to say how happy you were when he was telling you about all of the fun things he had done on the road. You’re happy to hear it all and you thought 

You miss him just as fiercely but you don’t want it to stop you from living. 

But when you got your acceptance letter, you saw the writing on the wall. You both were going in different directions: you were going to be studying, were barely going to be home and his star just kept growing and growing each day taking him further out and making him harder to reach. You know you wanted this and you begin to suspect you may want it more than you want to stay with him, if staying with him meant being alone all the same. 

This was only confirmed in the weeks leading up to Prom when you couldn’t get a straight answer out of him of whether or not He would be able to make it. It was on you to practically plan everything down to what he would wear, while his whole contribution was to show up- maybe?

Whether He did show up or not that night, you thought the result would be the same with you officially breaking things off between you two. But you still held out hope that at least if he did come you would have one last good memory. 

And to your relief He does make it, but he’s a little off the whole night. Not in the sense that his mind is elsewhere, more like he’s trying to commit everything about the night into memory, and looking at you with sad eyes when he thinks you’re not looking. 

It all comes to a head when you’re parked outside of your house, and you’re sitting in a loaded silence with him at the wheel. He’s gripping onto that thing for dear life and you’re wondering if maybe you should save it, but you think you know yourself well enough to know that if you don’t say it now, you won't say it ever. 

So as he’s opening his mouth to say something, you cut him off with his name. 

“...I-I got accepted to Southwestern,” you blurted out to him and He looked so confused at your admission, but you push through. “I start in the fall, so I’m not gonna be home much anymore, and with y-you being on the road so much, I think it best that we-”

“Marry me,” he blurts out, panic etched across his face.

Your jaw is left practically on the floor as that was the last thing you ever expected out of his mouth. 

You would later find out that he went to Prom with the same intention as you did but it was in that moment that he realized you weren’t going to wait for him to come back did he want to lock you down. But you didn’t see that in the moment. 

What you saw at the time was the declaration that he was just as committed as you were, and so overwhelmed by the love you still felt for him at the time, you had no choice but to give an emphatic yes to him. 

“We’re gonna figure this out baby,” He promises with a kiss. 

That was the first time you tried to leave him.

“-Danny’s a real good singer Aunty. He told me he lives in Neverland and one day he would take me and-and he told me this is the only place in the whole word that they sell peanut butter cups,” you would hear as you made your way up the stairs connecting to the apartment above the store. You look into the small kitchen where you see your little girl sitting on the counter talking her aunt’s ear off idly dangling her little feet while holding a spatula you're not entirely sure is necessary. Gina looks over to you and gives you a playfully exasperated look, and you simply shrug your shoulders before moving into the small kitchen to pepper your little one's face in kisses. 

“Alright sticky missy,” you announce, blowing a raspberry on her cheek and swiping the utensil out of her hand as she trills in delight. “You go wash up for dinner now, ya’ hear, and go wake up Aunty, I think she’ll feel alot better seeing you.”

“Ok Mama,” she says. She is utterly fearless as she slides herself to get off of the counter, and lands on her feet below. You can’t help the swell of pride that bubbles up in your chest seeing it, how brave your little girl is. You hope that you can take it as a sign that you’re doing ok at this motherhood thing. 

Gina likes to say that you were just as bold at that age with the confidence of someone so sure they can take on the world, and in quieter moments she’ll lament how you lost that in you. You would be offended if you didn’t already know when exactly you lost it. 

She had always been your favorite Aunt until you were about twelve and and your father would coldly tell you she died and was in hell now. Rather than a funeral, the family got together to destroy her things and swear to never speak of her again. 

That didn’t stop her from visiting you one last time and telling you she was moving down to New Orleans with her friend Susan. She would take you to your favorite bookstore one last time in Memphis and promised that if you ever needed a place to stay, to not even hesitate to come, because she knew better than anyone what your family would do to girls who stepped out of line. 

For years the only evidence that she was even alive was the annual birthday and Christmas gift you would get from her all under the guise of Nancy Drew books stamped with the name of a bookstore all the way in New Orleans. You cherished them and it’s one of the few things you took after your parents kicked you out. 

You only wished you had taken the offer when your father had kicked you out and you were forced to rely on someone else. 

“So I hear you broke another heart,” Gina idly says as she starts scooping some rice onto a plate.

You let out a long sigh, “When did Jenny find the time to tell you?” You’re more amazed than annoyed considering she didn’t leave your sight once down stairs. 

“Jenny?” she says, raising a brow. “No Sue told me earlier how Lou from King’s Cafe ‘s been askin’ after you.”

Lou who always had extra beignets to give away when you took Rosie for a walk in the mornings. He recently asked if you had ever been on the Algiers ferry, and how beautiful it looked at night.

…You’ve been taking a different route to the playground since then. 

“Is my love life just everybody’s business,” you ask frustrated that you weren’t even given a five minute break from this. 

“In this house: yes,” she states, a grin on her face. 

“Gina if this is about me movin’ out, you can talk to me, I’m a big girl,” you insist, trying to deflect and not have to think about it anymore. 

“Sweetheart,” she says solemnly, placing a hand on your cheek. I may not be your mama, but I do think that you need to think about what’s best for Rosie,” she insists as she puts place mats down on the table. 

Gina’s a little closer to the situation than Jenny, as she had asked no questions as to why you all of a sudden needed a place to stay far from your parents with nary a husband or boyfriend in sight to take responsibility for the baby growing within you. She had also been the one to help spread the tragic young widow narrative, and for as much of a gossip she can be, you know she’s a steel trap for secrets that matter. 

“What does me getting, or not getting, a boyfriend have to do with Rosie?”

“A boyfriend? Nothing,” she dismisses. “A husband on the other hand…”she says with a smile.

“Don’tchu come talkin’ to me ‘bout gettin’ a husband,” you say, handing her another plate of food. 

She laughs at that, “It’s not just about you gettin’ a husband, it’s about Rosie gettin’ a father,” she insists amused at your mulishness. 

“Not you too,” you mourn what you thought was going to be a quiet evening. 

“I’m just sayin’ that every child deserves two parents,” putting the lid back on the pot. 

“She’s got three mama’s,” you counter.

“No,” she says waving the wooden spoon in front of your face. “She’s got one mama and two grandmas that spoil her rotten behind your back.” You open your mouth to protest, until she quickly follows up with, “Oh speak of the devil herself,” as you see your little troublemaker dragging Susan by the hand to the table, whom you had to bully into taking a rest to somewhat alleviate the migraine she had been having for most of the day.

Your daughter can talk for hours if left unchecked and you're eager to hear all of it as she bounces from subject to subject at the dinner table. You had always felt somewhat guilty intruding on their space, but Gina insists nothing of the sort and Susan jokes that the two of them are getting the full kid/grandkid experience through you and Rosie, since the traditional way ain’t for them.

Between bites she regaled the three of you with all that she did today which included seeing a dog, the playground being shiny, spinning around so fast on the merry-go-round she almost went into space, made friends with some of the ducks, saw another dog, Danny gave her his popcorn, got a lot of candy from the candy shop, and gave some jelly beans to the last dog she saw today, but only the green ones she doesn’t like, and then feeling bad about it and giving it some of the red ones to even it out.

She doesn’t mention anything to you about asking Jenny about why she doesn't have a daddy, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the first break you’ve had all day. Some may say you indulge her too much, but all three grown women at this table know exactly how it feels to have their thoughts and feelings ignored, and you all had come to the mutual understanding that Rosie would never have to feel this way in this house.

“Mama, I forgot to tell you,” Rosie states after she shoveled the last of her food into her mouth. “Barbie got a new job today!” she delights as she thrusts the doll in your face. 

“Really?” you say trying to match even a quarter of her excitement. “Is she mmm… a firefighter?”

“No!” she squeals, delighted in the game you play with her. 

Making a big show of putting a finger to your temple and closing one eye, apparently deep in thought, you ask, “Is she a… detective?” 

“No that was yesterday!” she’s practically buzzing to tell you, but holds it in to keep this game going.

“Oh!” you say, pretending to have a lightbulb moment. “She’s a wizard!” You know your daughter well enough, so you’re reasonably confident in your guess knowing that Jenny took her to see that Disney movie today. 

“No,” she laughs, “She’s an actress, but she also sings in all her movies.”

“O-oh,” you say, genuinely caught off guard by that. “Why’s that?” It’s certainly not an unusual thing for a little girl to declare, but for your daughter it most definitely was. When she declared what Barbie was going to be it was always influenced by something she saw that day. Sometimes she was a baker, sometimes a ballerina, even one memorable time a bus driver, but this is a first. Even when she has seen movies with actors in it she didn’t quite understand the concept that those aren’t their real jobs on screen, and she would pick that, which is why you guessed wizard.

“Because Danny does that,” she declares, as she starts to make Barbie dance on the dinner table.

And then it made sense, your daughter’s friend, Danny, who according to Jenny, has a penchant for making up stories. To your daughter the boy’s been a cowboy, a soldier, he’s as strong as superman, can play any instrument, and now apparently is a famous actor. 

You give an amused huff, “I see Danny’s at it again,” you state, as you take her plate. It’s a literal miracle that Jenny’s impromptu trip to the candy store didn’t spoil her appetite, and but you don’t know how much of an appetite she’ll have for dessert so you decide to just split a slice of King cake with her. 

“At what mama?” she asks as Gina wipes some of her food off her face. 

“He’s telling stories again,” you say as you bring Gina and Susan their dessert plates. 

“No he’s not,” she states, furrowing her brow, and you can’t help but quirk a smile at how stressed she looks as you sit down. “I saw it myself.” 

“I’m sure you did, but Honey, it's just… sometimes boys have a habit of telling… tall tales,” you suppose that’s the nice way of putting it. It’s a fine line you walk with her, wanting to have her believe in herself most of all, but also wanting her to not believe everything she’s told, especially by boys. You’re the textbook example of what happens to supposedly smart girls who get in too deep with charming boys.

“But it’s true mama,” she insists, raising her voice a bit. 

“Sweetheart, I think he means, he wants to be that when he grows up,” you try to gently justify, as you subtly try to nudge the fork closer to her. 

“No mama, I saw it,” she asserts, getting progressively more upset defending her friend. “He is a famous actor and he was singing and dancing at the theater.”

“And I’m sure he’s gonna be a big star one day when he’s all grown up,” you try to assuage how worked up she’s getting. “But I don’t think he’s one right now.” 

“No mama!” she yells at the top of her lungs, angry tears streaming down her face. “You’re a liar!” You feel your stomach drop to the floor and she herself looks shocked at what she just said. She proceeds to cry even harder before turning tail and running straight into the room you share with her and slamming the door as hard as she could. 

When you were far enough away, and somewhat comfortable in your new environment in Your Aunties home, the first thing you did was read nearly every book about motherhood you could find. You were determined to do this right as you had made the unilateral decision for your baby to only have one parent. So you decided as a means of making up for it you would be all the parent she would need. 

Doubt creeps into the back of your throat that you made the wrong decision and that you in fact were not enough on your own and that she never would have done that if He were around. 

“You want me to go talk to her?” Gina would ask after hearing your door slam shut. 

As bad as you want to say yes from the exhausting day you’ve had so far, you’re not about to foist your duties as a mother off onto her right now. She understands but you don’t miss the pointed look she gives to Sue, as she walks away to clean up dinner, and you bury your hand in your face hoping if you wish hard enough this day will finally come to a close. 

“I remember the first time I yelled at my mama,” Sue off-handedly says after a few minutes. “Always too scared that that wretched woman would beat me black and blue if I was ever less than perfect,” she takes a sip of her tea. “And she did just that when I got fed up with all her teasing about me getting a boyfriend.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“What I’m gettin’ at is… I was never comfortable enough with my own mother to be angry with her.”

“Am I bad at this?” 

“You’re still new at this Hon,” she reassures you. “There's a big difference.”

Despite the fact that Gina was the one related to you by blood, Sue’s the only one in the world who even has an inkling as to what exactly you left behind. And that is only because she was a front row spectator to it.

You had managed to get permission to leave the hotel room for a few hours while He was on set that day. He had brought you down from Memphis, not wanting you so far out of reach and yet you were still pretty much kept confined. You had long since exhausted the books you had brought for the trip, and you were practically itching to get out. 

Books were your only escape from this place. Where you could vicariously solve a mystery or meet royalty or stop a war or any other number of exciting things in your head. But inevitably you close the book and the story ends and your back in this fucking hotel room. 

You realize by getting more books you're just masking a symptom rather than actually treating the illness. You couldn’t take it anymore and had begged Him to at least let you go to a bookstore to keep you occupied, because by that point you were willing to pay the price for it. 

Sue had been the only one in the store the day but you hadn’t really taken notice of her, your eyes had been darting around everywhere trying to find Gina. Sonny was in there as well, as you were only able to bargain your way to being in here and picking out the books, but not enough to be able to enter the store alone. Sonny had been the one to pull the short straw and had been put on Y/N duty today. Usually that consisted of sitting in the hotel and making sure you didn’t go anywhere while also completely ignoring you.

Everybody knows the story of the last guy that paid a little too much attention to you. You still couldn’t look at raw ground beef without crying.

Outside of the occasional gathering you don’t really interact with anybody out of the immediate vicinity of home. It’s funny how He can put you in a room filled to the brim with his people yet make you feel so alone at the same time. It would be amazing if it didn’t make you feel so awful at the same time. 

It’s a terrible thing He does, but it’s made all the worse that so many people can see what he’s doing keeping you prisoner and isolated and yet no one will ever dare breach it 

If anything they actually help him as they all report to him practically what you did that day, do their best to talk you out of leaving the room, and even when you do insist on going off on your own, the men are quick to remind you that He won’t like it one bit. They won’t physically stop you, (they know the worst thing they can do is put their hands on you) but you know that’s where their “help” begins and ends. 

At one point you even tried to play ball and asked for His permission last time you were in LA and you had wanted to go to the Griffith Observatory. You had asked in advance, agreed to only being there for two hours, and even gave in to being essentially chaperoned from a distance. Initially He had agreed to the terms and You thought you had done good and maybe you were finally coming to somewhat of a middle ground with him. 

But in the days leading up to the trip He would ask for favors in return. They all just happened to be things you had refused to do for him up until that point. When you refused He would at first seemingly accept your answer, and then He would idly remind you of your upcoming trip before asking you again. You weren’t stupid enough to miss the connection and so you did what you thought you had to do for just the slightest taste of freedom.

Who are you kidding?

You practically begged and did tricks for Him like a dog for just the slightest bit of slack on your leash. 

You could barely move the morning of the trip both physically and emotionally drained from what he had you do the night before, but you still persevered if only to make all that you went through worth it.

It wasn’t worth it. 

Everything you saw that day was completely soured by what you had to do to get there. Every step felt like agony, and you had to make a conscious effort to not walk funny. And before you knew it the two hours were up and Red was telling you it was time to leave. 

You don’t know what’s worse, the punishments or the favors. 

You had to go the favor route today as otherwise he would have simply sent for someone to get you whatever books they could find, rather than letting you pick. You already know you’re going to get it when he finds out you went to a different bookstore than initially planned. You thought you could at the very least make it worth it by seeing one familiar face, but even fate denied you that as Gina was nowhere to be seen. 

It was cold enough to justify wearing something to cover up most of the bruises, but that didn’t mean they were all hidden. You wouldn’t know it at the time but your skittishness coupled with the bruises struck a chord with Susan before you fully checked out of the store.

“I’m sorry if this sounds like an odd question but ummm…” you say, glancing around, making sure that Sonny was too far to hear. “Does Gina work here?”

Sue immediately tenses up, and you curse your caginess, as you reassure her that you’re Gina’s niece, Y/N. She seems to relax hearing that so at least she knows that you try to maintain a good relationship, sporadic your letters may be. 

“What happened there honey?” she asks, gesturing to your wrist that has a ring of bruises on it, which you quickly move to hide. You internally curse yourself for your sloppiness. He doesn’t mean to hurt you but he tends to lose himself and be a little rougher especially when he’s worried about something else. 

He’s been a little rougher for a few months now.

“Oh-ummm,” you steal a glance at Sonny, who was making his way to the counter. “Yes I am ready to check out.” Gesturing to the three towers of books you’ve managed to accumulate.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Sue nor does she miss Sonny's statement of remembering the rules as to what you’re allowed to get, if her disapproving look is anything to go by. He’s fine with you reading but doesn’t like you reading books that will put “ideas” in your head. 

You don’t exactly know what that means as the standards seem to change depending on His mood and it’s always a gamble as to what he will or won’t allow you to have. You fear the day He grows the same hatred for fictional men that he has for any man within your vicinity. 

You're genuinely sad when it comes time to pay, (Well Sonny pays, He doesn’t like the idea of you handling money), and then Susan does something you could never have anticipated in a million years as Sonny grabs one stack and goes to put it in the car. 

You wished it had been anybody but Sonny that day. His last girlfriend, whom he swore he was gonna make Mrs. Sonny West, had made the mistake of trying to befriend you outside of gatherings. She stopped by the house frequently just to visit and even invited you out to the salon. 

And it was your mistake to believe you could have a friend that he would finally approve of. Friend or family, He eventually found something to disapprove of for everybody close to you previously. You thought that because she was already nominally part of the group, it would be fine to go.  

He made it clear by the time you got home that it wasn’t. 

You never saw her again after that and Sonny’s resented you ever since. You can hardly blame him, it’s easier to point the finger at you for not anticipating the unspoken rules, as opposed to the man who signs his checks and makes the rules. 

You know that even the slightest toe out of line will be reported back to Him in the worst light. So you had to be on your best behavior. 

“Y’know I highly recommend this book,” Sue says, sliding the book she had been reading at the counter to you. 

Wide Sargasso Sea, the cover reads.

“Oh thank you but I already paid,” you say, almost afraid of this conversation. “And besides I already have enough books.”

“Sweetheart you can never have too many,” she insists and without looking opens it up to the first page where you see a little handwritten note. She closes it up before you can see what it says and slyly slots it in the middle of a stack. 

Later on when you feel sufficiently safe enough to look at it you nearly burst into tears.

In case you need help

feel free to call

(xxx-xxxx)

Such a small thing really, but it’s the most human connection you’ve had with anyone else but Him in a long time. 

You spend the next hour or two committing that string of numbers to memory before you proceed to rip out that page, shred it, and flush the remnants down the toilet. 

Even when you were burning the number into your brain, you never thought you would have ever had the guts to use it. Back when you thought you could accept what looked to be your fate. 

It would be unfair to say it was all bad, after all there was a reason you did fall for Him in the first place. When you would read mysteries and He would listen to you criticize the culprits' plans and schemes and he would look in awe at how you would’ve gotten away with it. Or how fun it was to sneak out with him, your family none the wiser. Even when things got bad and it felt like He was the only one that would talk to you for days, you cherished it because it truly felt like he was your life line. 

When things were good they were great, it was just when they were bad did you start to recognize them. 

Things were bad a lot towards the end. 

Gladys had been one of the few willing to go to bat for you, and perhaps the only one who He would listen to. She was the only one who could set him straight when he got huffy at the thought of you having some basic independence of being able to go outside and not needing to be watched like a child all the time. 

She was the one you went to with your suspicions and early symptoms, when you were too afraid to go to the doctor that reported right back to Him. 

She had also been the only one who knew your fears about having this baby. In your mind there were a total of two possibilities for the life the baby would live. One that they would live a life like yours, isolated within the walls of the house under their fathers obsessive gaze, never to experience the outside world. Or two He would hate the baby on principle and see it as just competition for your time and attention like he did with everybody else.

She did her best to try to quell your fears, trying to assert He would never do either of those things, especially, the last one. 

But you saw it in her eyes how she knows how sour He would get when he would come home to find you playing with his younger cousins. How He gets when someone new so much as looks your way a beat too long, or has the gall to get your attention.

How you’re barely allowed to talk to other girls your own age and that’s only saved for special occasions when his friends bring their girlfriends and He’s otherwise occupied. And even then He has a penchant for just removing you from them just to have you sit with him, and you’re out in the awkward position of being the odd one out in his group.

How when you did gather up the nerve to bring up the topic of babies to him one night his answer was “I ain’t ready to share ya’ darlin’, I don’t think I’ll eva be.”

But your most hard-hitting evidence was what happened to your dog, Hardy. He had been an old stray you saw skulking around the property, and whom you took in when He was touring. Hardy didn’t have much of an interest in running around or playing fetch, just sitting by your side and eating treats. 

Everything was good until He returned. You knew it was gonna be trouble the moment He walked through the door and saw you scratching the dog’s belly. Inspite of the fact that Hardy was usually tolerant of strangers, something about Him immediately put the usually placid dog on edge. You immediately got to work on trying to find some sort of compromise in regards to him, and offered everything from making Hardy a permanently outside dog to even being willing to have him be boarded with a family member while He was home. 

You had asked Gladys where Hardy was the very next morning when you couldn’t find him anywhere, only to be told that He had taken him out for a walk. You didn’t have the heart to be told a lie when He returned alone.

He started taking you with him at that point, and you hardly knew a moment's peace after that.

Your attention is not your own to freely give away, let alone your affection, He expects it all to go to him. He did lord knows what to a dog that had had the misfortune of occupying some of your time when he was there, you hardly wanted to chance the life of a baby that would need all of it. 

However in spite of all of that, you thought with her by your side you would be able to weather his reaction, whatever it may be. Even if your worst fear came to be and He didn’t really want anything to do with the baby, you could at least have someone to love the baby just as fiercely even when you were otherwise occupied by Him. It wasn’t necessarily fair, but you could somewhat see the function of it, and in spite of the weariness he’s instilled in you by that point, you were still reasonably confident in your ability to plan for the long term.

And then Gladys died.

And you were left to navigate the hardest thing you could face alone. 

“Ain’t nobody ever talks about how hard this can be. Or how easy it is to mess up,” Sue continues as she polishes off her plate. “But maybe…” she prods. “If you had a partner to help ease the load, you wouldn’t doubt yourself so much.”

You groan at this point wanting to truly be done with this day already. “Not this again,” you bemoan. 

“Honey,” she says with a firm but comforting grip on your shoulder. “I know a thing or two about leaving bad things behind, but I do think sometimes you need to let someone else in to help you recover,” she says. And almost like they rehearsed it, Gina comes in with a mug of tea, and a kiss to Susan’s forehead as she demands she go back to bed to rest up.

You want to argue back that you did a good enough job of recovering by yourself, but that’s hardly fair to say considering how you were about as helpless as Rosie herself that first year and a half you were here. You had thought that you would’ve been out of here maybe a couple months after giving birth, and been in a completely new place with no ties whatsoever. But the reality is that there’s no possible way you or Rosie would have survived without the help they were so willing to give. 

And that’s all they’re trying to do now. 

You take a minute to fully gather yourself, as you realize you being upset won’t help Rosie in the slightest. You also pick up the slice of cake, as you don’t want her to think she’s being punished for being upset with you. 

You find her hiding underneath the blankets of the bed you share with her and you can only hear sniffling at this point. You try to approach this delicately, as this is new territory for the both of you, so you place the cake on the nightstand, crawl underneath the sheets with her, and allow for her to come to you. Luckily you don’t have to wait for long.

“Mama!” she cries as she buries her face in your bosom, her tears already soaking through the cotton material. “Mama, I didn’t mean it! Please don’t be mad! I’m sorry Mama! Please don’t leave.”

“Sweetheart it’s okay,” you reassure her, running your nails up and down her back, as it always did the trick of settling her down when she was a baby. “Mama’s not goin’ anywhere without you. I’m always gonna be with you.” You hardly put her down her first year of life, going against all the books and holding her at just about every possible moment, so you can hardly fathom where she got this idea in her head that you would leave if you got upset with her. But remembering what Jenny had told you earlier, you have the sneaking suspicion it is related to her noticing the lack of a father in her life. 

“I’m sorry mama! I’m sorry…” she repeats over and over again, and for each time you make sure to reassure her that nothing she could ever do would make you leave. 

Finally when she’s tired herself out and her eyes are red and raw do you finally speak. “Rosie, it’s okay to be mad, but it’s not okay to be mean, because you’re mad,” you say softly to her running your nails on her back, something that has always soothed her. 

She rubs her eyes and wipes her runny nose before looking up at you again, and gives a groggy “I understand Mama.” 

“Good,” you say, kissing her forehead. “Now can you help me finish this cake.” 

You see her eyes widen before she eagerly grabs the fork and dives right in. With your help, it’s not long before it’s almost entirely gone and when she takes that final bite of the cake she goes wide-eyed sticking her fingers in her mouth to pick out the errant piece. “What’s this Mama?” she says holding the little porcelain baby up. 

“Oh you found it Rosie,” you say excitedly, “This means you’re going to have good luck.”

“... Like a wish?”

“Sort of,” you answer.

She gives an excited shriek before she clasps the little figurine in her hands and whispers something almost inaudible to it, with the only recognizable words being “Danny” and “Neverland.” You’re slightly disappointed that your lesson hadn’t quite landed today, but you choose to leave it for now, as you don’t see the harm in wishing to go to a non-existent magical place. 

Once teeth are brushed and pajamas are put on, Rosie settles into bed, but not before making sure you’re not about to break your long-held tradition of storytime. She’s the type of kid who when she likes one story she demands to hear it over and over again. 

And lately she’s latched onto Rapunzel. 

The whole concept does unsettle you greatly, for how close it is to your story. But whatever qualms you have with the story you’re not gonna deny your daughter, because your problems are your own cross to bear, not hers. 

As you read it you get to the part where the witch mother casts her out of the tower and she wanders the forests with her children. You wonder if Rapunzel ever found joy in those years away from the mother who isolated her, away from the prince who could have taken advantage of her. She survived not only on her own, but kept others alive as well. WHat did she do? Did she forage and hunt for her babies, did she find a village where she could work to support her family? 

Sometimes you wonder if she did truly live happily after the end of the story, or if she traded one cage for another as you did before. 

Your daughter is long asleep by the time you reach the happily ever after part of the story. She’s still in the habit of sucking her thumb at night, so you gently remove it, and put one of her favorite stuffies in her arms. And that marks the end of your daily duties, so in theory you should be able to finally fall asleep and be done with this day. 

In theory.

In actuality you creep out of the bed you share with your daughter into the single bathroom of the apartment. Usually her steady breathing tends to be enough to get you to fall asleep, it’s been that way ever since she was a baby, but you’re left feeling agitated having had to think of Him more than usual today. 

Not just because of the song on the radio, but Rosie’s outburst reminded you far too much of her father. It feels like the worst injustice that she mimics someone who isn’t even here.

Now that ain’t my fault now is it darlin’? A familiar voice whispers in your mind. You feel a shudder run down your spine at the thought of him, not to mention the way you shamefully feel yourself pool within your underwear. You slide down the bathroom door, out of sight of the mirror, as though that will prevent you from facing what you’re about to do. You even close your eyes for good measure as your hand reaches your folds and your fingers caress the slick outer lips of your pussy. 

You had tried to ignore this part of yourself for so long. You justified it during your pregnancy, as your body had been making you want to do other stupid things like sleep right in the middle of the store or eat paint chips. Even after giving birth and your inner feelings remaining unchanged, you justified it by thinking you were just particularly lonely, and for all that he kept you isolated, you were never alone when you were with him. Or that he was the only man you ever knew that way so he’s all you had to go off of in order to satisfy these urges.

For as much as your mind curses Him for ever coming into your life, even after all these years, your body has yet to catch up. 

You’re far from unique in your desire for him, but it’s especially shameful for you as you know what he’s truly like. It’s like scratching a mosquito bite, you may know that it’ll just make the itching worse, but dear god did it feel good in the moment. 

But even that is far from an accurate description as you plunge your on fingers into your sopping channel in a poor imitation of what you remember. 

You bite your lip in an effort to keep noises at bay but it just makes you concentrate on the wet squelching sounds echoing through the bathroom as you plunge your fingers into yourself. The sharp sting of pain forcing your mind back to where you experience the most of it. 

“You’re so sweet darlin’,” he purrs, his jaw glistening from your juices having just made a feast of you for the past hour or so. He had made it a game to see how close he could bring you without actually letting you cum, something he tends to do when someone looks your way for a little too long, as though he means to re-establish his claim over you. That only he can give you pleasure like this but take it away on a whim if he chooses. 

“No more…” you beg, new tears forming and following the trail previously set, your lips undoubtedly bruised from how much you have been chewing on them throughout. “Please,” your thighs aching from the death grip he has them in, undoubtedly leaving bruises for you to feel in the morning. 

“Alright,” he says seemingly conceding. But before you can breathe a sigh of relief, he continues, “we’ll switch it up for tonight.”

He flips you over to your front, spreads your legs wide open again, and dives right back in. 

You can’t help the way you’re left trembling from the memory, but what does shake you somewhat is the when you realize that it’s not simply the ghost of the memory that is making you feel that bruising pressure on your inner thigh, but in fact your own hand keeping it there. 

Still the masochist within you that yearns for the ghost of a man you once thought you knew takes a hold and refuses to let go now that you’re so close to release. So you give in and continue your frantic movements biting down hard on your lip to prevent any errant cries from leaving, and grip onto your thigh for dear life, even now trying to deny yourself that you want him here with you.

As you’re coming down from your high, you fight back your tears of shame. Trying to remind yourself why you left in the first place. How for all the moments he made you feel amazing, they weren’t worth the amount of grief he caused you on a near day-to-day basis.

Grief he’s still causing you more like it. 

You don’t think you could have written a better love story in the beginning. You met him when your eyes locked on each other from across your favorite bookstore back in Memphis. He had oh so shyly approached you and asked what you were reading, a bit starry eyed as he listened. Back then and arguably still the concept of a man listening to you was such a novel and unique thing to experience. 

It progressed from there, hand-holding in the school hallway, shared milkshakes at the local diner, and Sunday dinners with his family. Of course there were the less than wholesome aspects of your relationship of stray hands when no one was looking and heated kisses after a particularly rousing performance.

Truly the hallmarks of the greatest love story the world had ever seen. 

If only you knew how wrong a love story can go, because your story went very wrong. 

You vividly remember your first time with him.

Undoubtedly the cruelest thing he ever did to you.

You were never supposed to find out about the other girls, well that’s not true. The newspapers sure knew about them but he had convinced you that it was all nonsense and that he would never do that to you. All of his friends knew, hell even some of their girlfriends knew, but ideally you were never supposed to find out. 

But the only chink in the armor was that there was in fact someone who had wanted you out as soon as he stepped in. Fact of the matter is that he was practically giddy as he told you what your fiance had been doing on the road up until that point. You were heartbroken and humiliated as to what he did and even more so when you learned he had been gearing up to break up with you the night he proposed, but only stopped when he realized that you wouldn’t be waiting for him, once his career settled.

He had been calling your house non-stop and sending his friends over all with the mission to coax you into talking to him. Worse still he even got your own friends in on it and now you can’t have a single conversation with any of them that doesn’t turn into them telling you how sorry he feels for hurting you and how he desperately wants you back. 

The only people, aside from his manager, that were happy at this development were your parents. They had liked him up until he started to really take off in his career, and they wanted none of the controversy, especially when it came to your squeaky clean, good girl image they had for you. 

They’ve been walking around with the smuggest “I told you so” looks ever since you announced that you were done with him. If only they knew their good girl had been sneaking in her boyfriend for the past three years and had a whole routine for doing so.

But the downside to this is that He was just as aware of the routine as you were. And despite it having been awhile he evidently remembered enough as he stood outside your window, right after all the lights in your house had gone out. 

“Get outta here,” you hiss at him, opening the window just a crack. “You’re gonna wake up my parents.”

“Baby I gotta talk to you,” he pleads, his face utterly heartbroken. Guilt eats at you, knowing how there were days you wished you could go back to not knowing at all. But then you get angry at not only him but yourself for these thoughts. 

If only all of your love for him had died the moment you found out, you would’ve had the strength to shut the window on him that night, and your life probably would’ve taken a very different course. 

But no, you’re hurt and you felt that you had to have the final word. “Talk to one a your other girls,” you say as you move to close your window but he beats you to it and ends up opening it wider, allowing for him to fully step into your space. 

“Get out,” you say severely. “Get out, or I’ll scream.” 

“Darlin’, please listen,” he begs.

“Don’tchu ‘baby’ ‘darlin’ me,” you whisper-yell. 

“I swear things’ll be different this time round,” he pleads, clasping his hands in yours. 

“I’m done with your nonsense, I want you outta my house and outta my life.” tears are already streaming down your face and you make no motion to wipe them away. If he’s gonna hurt you like this he deserves to know. 

He looks at you. Truly looks at you and sees that you’re dead serious about this, that for you there is no coming back from this. 

“Okay,” he says solemnly, looking down at you more defeated than you’ve ever seen him, unfelled tears doting his eyes, and his bottom lip trembling. 

That takes you by surprise, but you try not to show it. “Good,” you say, trying to stamp down the urge to be mad that he’s not fighting harder. There is a hurricane of emotions going through your entire being, hating him and loving him at the same time, but you recognize that you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to sort through said emotions while he’s here. 

“But…”

“But?” you say, confused as to what more there is to say. 

“Let me have you,” he begs breathlessly, stepping closer to you, boxing you into the wall behind you. “Just for tonight,” he clarifies as though that’s gonna make it better.

That offends you but you can’t afford to raise your voice so you hiss at him that it’s not as though you didn’t offer when he was here. “I ain’t ever gonna forgive myself for bein’ so stupid and steppin’ out on you, I-I thought I had more time, tha-that we’d got the rest of our lives together,” he says his voice painfully small, and his eyes pleading with you to agree. 

Your heart swells hearing his words, pleading with your brain to forgive him seeing how much pain the thought of never being with you again is causing the both of you. Another, unmentionable part is also hounding your brain to accept his offer if only for the fact that you had wanted this yourself for so long.

“If-If I do that…” you say in a low voice, your face burning as to what the both of you want but aren’t saying aloud. “Then you’ll leave and never come back?” though even as you say that you’re not exactly sure how you feel over that prospect.

“Just one night sweetheart,” he begs, giving you a quick desperate kiss to your lips. “One night to know what a life with you could’ve been like, and I’ll be outta yer hair forever,” he says with a quick peck to your lips. 

He makes it almost sound romantic, not like he’s quite literally backing you into a corner, and coaxing you into something you’re not sure you want just so that you would finally know peace from him. But that's far from your mind as that little bit of contact does something to you and it’s like opening the floodgates for all the feelings for him you’ve been trying to bury. 

It feels like you're transported to almost a year ago when, he would sneak his way back into your room after having said his goodbyes to your family and parking his car around the corner out of view. How you both move your blankets and pillows onto the floor to avoid the creaky springs of your mattress, how you both keep your voices low, and muffle most sounds with the pillows, how he kicks off his shoes and unbuttons his shirt before slowly undressing you, your body being treated like a present to unwrap. 

Like this it’s easy to forget what he did, easy to forget the pain he’s caused when he’s treating you so sweetly. Kissing every inch of skin, nipping at your sensitive skin every so often, before laving at the bruising area with his tongue. You bite down on your lip hard, willing yourself to keep a cap on the filthy moans and declarations of love alike. 

You had done things with him before but it had never felt quite like this. He had always been insistent that you wait until the wedding night for that, wanting to savor you and all you had to offer before the time came. Which made it feel all the worse when you did find out about those other girls. Your friends had tried to justify it by saying that he was just getting in some “practice” for you, but that hardly made it feel any better. 

But the way he touches you, so sure of his newfound skills, it’s almost easy to forgive him. He treats you almost deceptively sweet, and for as hard as you try to keep yourself quiet, you admittedly don’t do a great job at it. But you manage to keep a good enough lid on yourself. But as it goes on it feels like he himself forgets that he had to do the same, as moans and groans alike continue to escape from his mouth. 

That should’ve been your first clue that he was up to something, but by then as he continues to bury himself deeper and deeper into you, you can’t focus on much else. Had you been thinking straight you would remember he arguably has better control of himself than you do, as he often would tease you over it. 

But in the moment that’s not what you’re thinking about. All you had on your brain was him, and how good and right he felt.

If you could go back in time you think you would’ve strangled your younger, far more naive self, as now in retrospect it became clear what he was planning on doing. He had no qualms to exposing what you had done already with him if it meant merely getting a chance to talk to you, why wouldn’t he take the opportunity to go full scorched earth if given the chance. 

He continues his steady rhythm, and when he whispers in your ear, “It’s only ever gonna be you, darlin’,” you find yourself letting out a silent scream. Your eyes screwed shut, so lost in the pleasure of it all, you would only get the tail-end of the disdainful look he would give upon failing to get you to crack. 

Still you vividly remember how conflicted you did feel in the moment, how for all that it felt good, it also made your stomach turn, for all the hurt he’s caused you yet how deceptively sweet he could be to you. It just gave you a serious case of whiplash. 

But you were so focused on keeping as quiet as possible not even being able to fathom the heap of trouble you would be in should your parents ever find out. You could hardly fathom the agent of your destruction laid within you, but it wasn’t until it was too late did it truly click. 

That devious look he had in his eyes, the one that spoke nothing but trouble. The very same look that seemingly first trapped you all those years ago when you caught it staring at you from across the bookstore. He picked up his rhythm, not allowing for you to fully recover, from the last time, as he pistons into you seeking out release for himself.

You were so dizzy in that moment you didn’t register how he raised his hand onto your night table, before quickly slamming it three times into the wall. 

The very wall you shared with your parents. 

Even in the moment you didn’t fully recognize what he had just done, everything sort of blurring together. Before you can even hope to get your bearings, he’s spinning the both of you around so that you now were on top of him, his fingers digging bruises into your hips, as he thrusts back up into you, no longer trying to feign tenderness, as he seems to rip another climax from you as he lets an unrestrained groan fall from his lips, while your inner walls tighten around him. 

Even in your haze, you realize that this is bad, and you manage to gather yourself enough to slap your hand over his mouth, but that does little to muffle the singer. Especially as it seems as though he's hellbent to be heard. “What did you just do?” you ask unbelieving, frozen in fear even as you hear the muffled shouts of your father through the wall. You feel underneath your palm as his mouth curls into a grin, as he shudders and you feel his hot seed burn you from within. And that’s when you hear the powerful footfalls of your father burst out of his room before he slams open your bedroom door. 

You can only imagine the image you make at that moment, naked sitting astride the nearly fully clothed boy you had sworn up and down for weeks you were done for good with. “What in the hell is going on in here!” your father shouts at the top of his lungs.

Everything after that happens in a blur of your fathers harsh shouts and the sharp sting that comes from your mothers hand across your face as she calls you a whore. By the time it’s all said and done you’re on your knees at the front door begging them to let you back into the house. 

“Take her with you,” your daddy practically spat at him as he tossed you to your knees outside of what was once your home. “I didn’t raise no whores, and you seem to now be in the business a collectin’ them.” 

You can almost hear the sound of a rattlesnake as his arm coils around your shoulder, laying his jacket over your weeping form like a gentleman. “Don’tchu worry baby,” he whispers in your ear. 

He’s almost angelic in his appearance, playing the savior role well, having escaped your home relatively unscathed and in remarkably high-spirits for the situation. But you don’t have much of a choice in the moment, remembering Gina’s words of how easily this family will toss aside wayward women, but it never truly sunk in that you were liable to become one. 

He would tell everybody that your daddy had thrown you out after asserting that you still wanted to be with Him in spite of all of that he’s done, and your folks practically disowned you for it. You let him say what he wants because you don’t see a point in telling the truth and if you’re being honest, part of you wants to believe it. It was a far more romantic story than what had actually happened. 

As you’re coming down from your second and somehow less satisfying orgasm, does the guilt start to creep in. Even after all these years you still yearn for his touch. 

But that is so much easier to admit than the alternative of missing Him.

It eats at you that you still think of Him like this after all that he did to you, and worse still it’s almost like you want him to come back.

Your heart practically leaps out your chest when you hear a soft knock at the door and for one horrifying second you think you’ve somehow summoned him to you. 

“Mama…” you hear a small voice whimper behind the locked door, and you breathe a sigh of relief. “Mama, I threw up.”

You don’t know if it’s a consolidation of three different people telling you the same thing in one day, the culmination of your late night loneliness for the past four or so years, or the noxious fumes of the truly unholy combination of stomach acid, red beans, and Jelly Beans that you had to clean up in your sleep deprived state, but you come to the conclusion that you can no longer do this by yourself. 

Being a mother tended to be enough of a deterrent to most men in the city, which didn’t bother you one bit, but it did make you feel all the worse when you did meet the few who were still willing even after learning about Rosie. 

Sam or Lou may very well have been as nice and understanding as they seemed to be, but because of Him, you now look suspiciously at every man trying to get close. 

Perhaps the women in your life were onto something and it is about time for you to move on with your life. Because if you resolve yourself to being for all intents and purposes a shut-in who never knew another man’s touch other than His, then you ran for nothing. 

So it’s with a semi-defeated sigh that you tell Jenny the next morning to send over Lee’s friend to the shop while you’re working to “see how it goes.” 

You do admittedly put a little more effort into your appearance than you would on an average day and you perk up every time a man who looked close to your age walked in. But if any of them were sent by Jenny they didn’t mention it. 

You only ever had one boyfriend when you were a teen, so it feels more than a bit intimidating to go into this, but you can’t deny yourself a life anymore. 

Afterall if you don’t then you may as well have stayed in Memphis. 

The day goes by and of the few men that do enter the shop, of the few that seem interested in you, none of them knew who Jenny was.  

It’s well past closing and feeling both tired and rejected, however the bane of your existence you call Jenny has yet to return, so you instead just flip the sign without properly locking up and hope they’ll be back soon. This isn’t necessarily unusual but you’re just eager for this day to end and hope that a nice cuddle with your daughter will be enough to lift your spirits. 

But for now there are books that need to be out back.

Soon you finally hear the shop bell ring, but instead of the comforting tiny footsteps or the recognizable clack of Jenny’s heels, you instead hear an unfamiliar pattern of heavy footsteps over the low volume of the radio. You look between the shelves from where you’re stocking books in the back and while you can’t make out specific details you see what is undoubtedly the shape of a man standing at the counter. 

“I’m sorry Sir,” you announce still from behind the shelf. “We’re closed for the evening, but please feel free to return tomorrow.” 

“Oh I ain’t going anywhere sweetheart,” a voice drawls.

A voice you would recognize anywhere.

You think you begin to understand at that moment why some animals will chew off their own arms to escape a trap. After all, what is a limb or two in the face of inevitable doom? And even when they do eventually die, they will at least go with their head held high knowing that they did all that they could, because better dead than captured.

But you stand there frozen, barely capable of breathing at a steady rate. You feel like every drop of blood has been drained from your body. Like someone reached into your lungs and snatched the air right out of them. Like your bones have lost all integrity and you’re only kept standing by the mere fact you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. 

He is here. 

Elvis is here.

Not only that but the footsteps getting louder tell you he is getting closer. 

Fuck.

Your mind is going a million miles an hour to try to get out of this, but all of them fall flat when you remember your daughter is not here and if you were to run that would just leave her in his clutches. So rather than act on any plan, you walk out from behind the bookshelf, because there is no point fighting the inevitable. 

You’re hoping your look isn’t so much deer in the headlights and more awestruck and in disbelief that he found you. Which is true to some extent as you thought you had been so careful all these years, so all you can muster out when you see him for the first time is a pathetic little “h-how?”

Your hackles raise slightly as you see him reach behind him, and to your surprise he pulls out an old battered copy of Nancy Drew. You’re so confused for a second until you recognize it as yours. 

One of the many that Gina would send you periodically when you lived with your parents.

One of the many that had the name of this very store stamped to the inner cover. 

One of the many you took with you when you were kicked out.

One of the many left behind at Graceland. 

Fuck.

You want to kick yourself both for being so careless in your haste to leave, but you have no time for that as he says, “I ain’t as smart as you baby, but I figured out your breadcrumbs eventually.”

He thinks you wanted him to find you. 

Didn’tchu though?

“E-Elvis…” you whisper, the single name somehow feeling wrong as it comes out of your mouth. You’ve avoided even thinking about it all these years, as though if you try hard enough you’ll be able to purge him from your mind and thus from your life. As though simply uttering it will somehow summon him. 

That theory isn’t disproven as he, as usual, wastes no time in getting straight to what he came here for, his long legs carrying himself to you as he moves to engulf you within his arms. You stave off the immediate instinct of putting your hands up and allow this to happen, remembering what used to happen when you would deny him. 

He even goes so far as to spin you around, and you lose your footing and have to rely on him in order to not face plant onto the floor. But this works all the better to create the image of the long-lost lovers joyfully reuniting after so long. 

But as he gazes into your eyes, it isn’t fully complete until he leans down to capture your lips. You would like to say you had to force yourself not to flinch away, but even you would know you’re not that good of a liar.

It’s a kiss for the ages truly, both all-consuming and yet leaving you longing for more. The pitfall of having denied getting close to anyone these past few years now show themselves full-force as you on instinct lean full-force into his touch, and welcome his kiss, even fully knowing how precarious your situation is.  

All these years you never could’ve imagined how much you could miss touch- how much you could miss his touch. The kiss itself isn’t even broken until he roughly moves you against the bookshelf and forces his thigh between yours and your left gasping for air as you feel him for the first time. 

And you can’t help the little whine that leaves your lips before you gather yourself once more to look him in the eyes. 

“Did’ya miss me sweetheart?” he whispers against your lips. 

“I…” you say, tears welling in your eyes. “I’ve thought about you every night.” 

This is not a lie.

His fond expression doesn’t crack an inch as you say that, but before you can sigh an internal breath of relief, you feel a tight grip on your wrist as well as on your jaw.

“Then where’ve you been all these years,” he says, low and dangerous. 

It’s certainly not an unfair question to ask. But you’ve been prepared to answer this question since the moment you stepped foot outside of Graceland for a quick errand.

You don’t know what he knows yet, and that’s terrifying.   

“I…I…” you say in a quiet voice, all your years of preparation failing you when you needed it the most. 

In the back of your mind, though you are loath to admit it, you think you always knew this day was coming, that he would find you, and the only thing you could do was to try to lessen the blowback you would experience. It’s why yours and your daughter’s last name is Love. It’s why you never tried to get involved with another man. It’s why you even made that goddamn deal in the first place. 

“I’m going to disappear,” you say, casually taking a sip of your tea, not truly a fan of the taste, but lately it’s been one of the few things your sensitive stomach could handle. “And you’re gonna help me do that.” You couldn’t just ask anyone for help on this, you were surrounded only by sychophants who would do practically anything for Elvis, so you had to look elsewhere to the person whose only side he was on, was his own. 

“And why would I help you?” The Colonel said, idly stirring his coffee, but obviously trying to mask the spark of interest in his eyes. For as much of a slimeball as he can be, you would be a fool to not acknowledge that he’s a decent enough businessman at the end of the day to recognize  a good deal when he sees one. 

“Because you want me gone as much as I wanna be gone,” you state. He hated that Elvis kept you around, even more so when Elvis made it clear he had no intention of staying a bachelor once he finished service. 

Truly under any other circumstance he would be the last person in this house you would confide in, but though your desires were very different they did often run parallel. Something you realized when he talked Elvis out of eloping right before he got shipped out and into a long engagement. Truly the greatest boon you’ve been given since you’ve gotten here, the lack of recognizability or association with the rockstar will serve your purposes all the better.

“Can’t argue with that logic girl,” he says, taking a bite out of the muffins you had baked this morning as a peace offering to him. “Why do you even need my help?” he questions.

“Because I need someone to make sure that he doesn’t ever find me,” you declare, you had practiced this in your head so many times, too afraid to ever voice it aloud or write it down should any of it get back to him. Even an Ocean away you still feel his breath on the back of your neck, with the only safe place being inside your head. 

You had excused yourself from following him to Germany by feigning sickness with the promise that you would join him as soon as you felt better. Which wasn’t hard to do considering your symptoms before he left, left you practically bedridden.

Ever since you figured out your… condition (it felt too scary to even think in your head, let alone voice out loud), your mind had been running rampant with all of the possibilities of how he would react. None of which you're willing to risk coming to fruition. 

“And if I said No?” he asks, but from the look in his eyes he’s all but ready to pack your bags himself. Part of you feels guilty to leave the boy you once loved with such a man, but you have bigger things to worry about now. 

“You’re absolutely free to say no, Parker,” you assure, but he’s savvy enough to know that’s not the end of it. You don’t know whether it’s you mimicking the late Gladys Presley, or something that comes natural with becoming a mother, however you do know you need to assert yourself now of all times, not just for your sake but your baby’s. “Regardless of your help or not, I’m gonna to leave. Now whether I’m gone for twenty minutes or twenty years, will all depend on you, but know that this will also determine how long you’ll be able to keep your position as Manager.” 

He seems to bristle at your words, “And how do you figure dat Lil’ Miss?” he says with a dangerous look in his eyes as you seem to threaten the only thing he happens to care about. But once you do explain it he looks at you with no small amount of respect in his eyes as he mulls over your plan. “Quite devious,” he comments, literally tipping his hat at you. “I think I’m beginnin’ to get what he sees in you.” 

You're far from proud of your plan, and the slimeball’s admiration of it doesn’t help either, but you know for a fact it will work, and Parker is gonna make damn sure that he doesn’t ever find you. 

You made that plan practically bulletproof, but you never factored into account that you would choke in the moment that it truly matters. “Elvis I…” you trail off, trying to swallow the lump in your throat, clutching your hands on his shirt to keep yourself somewhat steady, trembling from the effort it takes to maintain that makeshift barrier. You’re either about to give the performance of a lifetime or… or…

No 

You can’t think like that otherwise…

This has to work. 

Your brain is going a million miles a minute, trying to remind yourself that you have to make this work if you have any hope of getting out of this without him ever having a chance of finding her.

But in real time you watch as this notion turns to ash in your mouth. 

You feel as your blood freezes in your veins when you hear the door slam open only to be followed by the familiar little dashing footsteps. Your heart drops into your stomach as you hear your daughter stop dead in her tracks and you want to throw up at the thought of him laying eyes on her. This is truly what all your nightmares have been building up to, but even they paled in comparison to the reality of what would actually happen. 

“Danny!!!” she squeals at the top of her lungs, before sprinting right into the arms of the man you were so desperately running from. You’re too shocked to do anything about it at the moment, and only watch in horror as something beyond your worst nightmare plays out before your very eyes. 

Even when your instincts kick in to keep her away from him, he casually moves your hands out of the way as he easily scoops her up and over his head, practically playing keep away as you try to take her back. “Is today the day!?!?” she squeals, wrapping her arms around his neck as best she could, giving him a kiss on the cheek, none the wiser at the danger the two of you were in.

“It sure is baby girl,” he says with a mile wide grin on his face. “Why don’tcha go pack everything you’re gonna need in Neverland?” You don’t miss the way his eyes slide your way, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction. 

She squeals in delight, as she jumps out of his arms and makes her way to the stairs, completely oblivious to your state. 

Everything your daughter ever said about “Danny” suddenly makes a whole lot more sense, and you can’t help but want to kick yourself for not paying attention. You thought she was safe with Jenny, you want to throw up at the thought that you unintentionally sent her into the lion's den without her.

She doesn’t even have the decency to face you in that moment, seeing her right outside the window, in Lee’s arms -or Charlie as you would later learn- pointedly not looking in. 

You don’t have the luxury of being mad as you feel his attention focus back on you in that moment. 

“Now…,” he says as he brings your face closer to his, tenderly grabbing your chin, wiping away a tear. “You wanna try again, sweetheart,” he grins maliciously, knowing you’ll have no choice but to be “honest.” 

And that’s it you have only one card left to play and you pray whatever forces that have written the story of your life will be merciful and let this plan work as you hoped it would all those years ago.

You fall to your knees and begin to sob uncontrollably into your palms. It’s actually easier than you had initially hoped, it in fact takes more effort not to cry when you think about him. It’s a miracle you’ve been able to stay this intelligible up to this point.

“Elvis,” you cry, trying to sound as pathetic and heartbroken as you possibly could. “Elvis I-I-I’m so sorry,” you stutter trying to really sell it. “He-he told me that you kn-knew and you didn’t want me anymore,” you hiccup for good measure. “Ho-how you couldn’t have a baby weighing you down, and that-that if I ever came back, he would make sure I would lose her for good.”

You start to hyperventilate, but it’s far from intentional, as you know your very life is at stake in this moment. If he doesn’t believe you… you can’t think like that. 

You know him well enough to know that he won’t believe your words specifically, but he does believe in the world he’s created in his head. That regardless of what you feel, what you say, or even what you do, you love him and want to be with him- always. It’s just others preventing that from happening. It was the women who tempted him on the road, and then it was your family speaking poison in your ear, and then it was the men he couldn’t trust to not look your way. It was never you personally, regardless of how he would sometimes lash out at you, you wanted to be there because he wanted you to be there. 

In the back of your mind when you had just barely begun to formulate leaving, you knew it would be foolish to believe there wasn’t a chance, no matter how slim, that he would find you. And you knew that it wouldn’t go without punishment should he ever find you should it ever occur. So you had to formulate a plan not just to leave, but how best to set yourself up if he ever returned. 

(There have been some nights that you lay awake believing that you prepared so well not because you were paranoid, but because it was an inevitability.)

You hear his clothes shift as he kneels down before you, and he takes your chin into his hand though much gentler this time. 

“Who’s ‘he’” he demands, voice as cold as a tomb. 

He’s buying it, you think, though you have no time to celebrate. You let out a truly pathetic little blubber through your tears, purposefully unintelligible trying to sell the emotions. 

“Who?” he asks, softer this time around, but no less urgent.

“The co-” you cut yourself off taking a deep steady breath. “The Colonel,” you whisper as though you fear speaking his name aloud will bring him to this very spot.

Parker’s far from innocent but you feel a slight twinge of guilt that his downfall would be for something he didn’t do as opposed to all the things he had done. But you can’t think like that anymore, it was gonna be either him or you. 

Someone would need to suffer because of what you did, and you would be damned before it was you or your daughter. 

And so Parker is now the villain who cruelly kept you and your daughter away from him, and not that you wanted so desperately to get away from him that you practically disappeared off the face of the Earth. But it seems like a fair trade. Parker loses his job, you lose your life. Maybe not in the literal sense, but in all the ways that matter you’ll be gone. 

You don’t relax at all when you feel him gently cup your face in his hands to softly wipe your tears away. You look upon the devastatingly handsome man, as he looks as if he means to take you in his arms to never let you go.“Don’tchu worry baby,” he says, wiping your tears away. “You don’t gotta worry bout that rat bastard no more.” You let out a small cry, hoping it sounds more out of relief than out of devastation to his words. “So now you and Rosie can come home,” he states with a delusional smile on his face. 

Despite the fact that you knew this would realistically end one of two ways, you can’t help but balk at the words. You try your best to smile at his words, but even you realize how hollow that gesture is, in spite of the part you know you’re meant to play in the moment, between the two of you, only one of you is an actor.

He’s having none of it as you feel the previously gentle hand cupping your face wrap around your throat. “Now. You. And. Rosie. Can. Come. Home.” he grits out, his grip around your neck tightening with each word emphasized. 

He knows what your answer is, no doubt he’s just trying to rub salt in the wound knowing that it’s not a choice he’s giving you. This is all the proof you need that he doesn’t fully believe you, but is willing to play along. Leaving may have been forgivable, staying away for so long is another matter entirely. 

He’s just punishing you for not being as enthusiastic as you should be at the prospect of coming “home,” as you should be.

You’re not playing pretend well enough.

“Mama!” Rosie squeals excitedly and when he lets go, you turn to see her making her way back downstairs, her favorite blanket now a makeshift rucksack of what you assume to be all toys dragging behind her. “Mama it worked!” she said, as she ran full tilt toward you, holding something in her palm. “Danny’s gonna take us to Neverland today.”

You see the little porcelain baby from the king cake and you find yourself wishing you were anywhere else. But you know better than to believe in wishes.

“Can we go now?” she says, her little hand grasping one of Elvis’ fingers and shaking furiously. “Now please,” she begs, before he scoops her up into his arms and propping her on his hip. He holds her close and you're forced to face what you have been ignoring all these years. The shape of the nose, the way her lips curl in such a specific way, there is only one place she could have gotten all of that from. It feels like just your luck that your child would be practically a carbon copy of the man you so desperately tried to get away from. Really it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out. 

“Now hold ya’ horses yittle,” chucking her under the chin in a far too familiar manner, as she giggles in his arms. “Yer mama’s gotta get ready herself.”

“I… do…” you say, playing along, trying to keep a cap on your distress for your daughter's sake. “I-I gotta pack a few more things baby,” you say, giving her a kiss on her forehead, hoping she misses the tears in your eyes. “I’ll b-be right back.” you manage to stutter out.

“Don’t worry sweetheart,” his voice so saccharine sweet it makes our teeth ache. “We’ll be right here.” 

As you turn around you feel a hard smack on your ass, and you fully stop, burning in humiliation that he would treat you like that, especially in front of your daughter. 

The humiliation only further ramps up as you walk up the stairs, and you can feel the slick already gathering between your thighs. Less out of titillation you believe and more out of a defense mechanism, knowing what will more than likely happen the second he's able to get you alone.

Or is it?

It doesn’t feel real as you step into the upstairs apartment, you see Gina at the stove and Sue filling out a crossword puzzle, her glasses threatening to fall off her nose, none of which suggests they have any idea of what’s going on downstairs. You’re almost angry about that, like it would’ve been easier to walk away from them if they had also been in on it as well. 

“Where’s Rosie so eager to rush off to?” Sue asks idly, not looking up from the paper.

“Oh ummm…” you say, trying to think on your feet for a decent enough lie. “ Sh-she’s going to a sleepover with-with Jenny.” 

You’re usually a better liar than this, but him being so close again has you all out of sorts tonight. Not to mention your mind is running rampant with all the worst case scenarios possible at the moment with the most egregious being that he’s gonna take her and run, forcing you to chase him down the same way he’s undoubtedly done for you these past few years. You’re practically feeling every second tick by, fearing the longer you take the greater the chances will be that they’re both gone. 

Is that how he felt when he was away from you? A small voice in your head asks. It’s an awful roiling feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you couldn’t even begin to imagine how it would feel if the person you loved most wasn’t where you left them. Would he be so cruel to do that to you?

“Did that fella Jenny setchu up with ever show up?” Gina asks, wiping her hands on her apron. 

“Ye-yeah and… and I’m gonna get dinner with him,” you swallow, the lie tasting like bile in your mouth. As you turn to your room, already mentally mapping where the important documents were in your bedroom, preparing to pack a few outfits for Rosie, and whatever other odds and ends you would need. 

Your answer catches Gina off guard, and Sue immediately looks up from the paper sharing a look with your other Aunt. “Ain’t that a little fast, Hon?” 

“Maybe…” you say, hesitating as you try to hold back your tears. 

“Ya don’t gotta go if you ain’t ready for it,” Sue says behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder, that you flinch away from. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong If it’s still a little too early for you.” 

That’s the worst part about it. You know they would fight tooth and nail for both you and Rosie if you just asked. But you know the type of mess Elvis can and will bring into this house should you decide to fight him on this. After all they’ve done for you, keeping them out of the type of spectacle he brings is the least you can do.

“I have to go,” you say sternly. 

One look at your squared back shoulders and your far away look they know there’s no stopping this. You hold back your tears as you accept their hug and accept their well wishes. You say your goodbyes promising to be back soon, unsure if you will ever see them again, and you put on your biggest fakest smile as you let go of them, wanting to at least leave them with one happy memory.

Relief floods your entire being seeing her at the bottom of the steps, only for the dread to return seeing him there with her. Especially when you hear the story he’s telling her. You don’t miss the glance he steals your way before focusing on your daughter once again. “I thought to myself, ‘thas the girl whose gonna be mine.’”

“Like-like love at first sight,” Rosie asks, and you can practically hear the stars in her eyes.

“Exactly yittle,” he drawls out. “Took her awhile to figure it out though but she learned eventually. Now we’re all gonna go home.” His eyes slide right off her and cut directly to you. Her eyes follow him and she quickly scurries off of him to reach you. 

“You ready Mama?” she asks you as she takes you by the hand leading you to the door where you see a car parked right out front.  It may as well have been a hearse in your mind. 

You pick her up and you look down the darkened streets and you briefly flirt with the idea of just sprinting and never looking back. But the hand on your elbow guiding you to the car puts a halt to those thoughts. 

You still don’t know how much of your story he does actually believe, so you sit yourself down in the car without so much as a fuss and resolve yourself to your fate. Though that doesn’t stop you from seating yourself in the middle and placing Rosie by the window, as you still aren’t totally out of the mindset of keeping her as far away from him as possible. Neither of them seem to mind as she eagerly presses tiny hands up to the glass in awe of the nightlife of New Orleans, while he slithers an arm over your shoulder bringing you closer to him. 

As you contemplate what your life will look like from now on, you pass by so many places you’ve become familiar with these last four years, but what nearly breaks you are the unfamiliar places. Record stores, movie theaters, restaurants, and so many other places you avoided all due to an irrational belief that he would somehow be there. You did your best to limit your time in the outside world to only when you absolutely had to be out. 

Maybe that’s why you were so willing to trust Jenny and her altruistic generosity to watch over your daughter and take her places you were too anxious to venture to. 

You caged yourself into your new seemingly better life, but you didn't live at all. You were hiding. Always so afraid that he would somehow find you, you neglected to live. You put yourself in a different cage and convinced yourself you were free. 

“Mama? Mama, why are you crying?” your sweet little girl asks. 

But you’re gonna do what you’ve always done for your daughter. What you’ve always done when it comes to Elvis. You’re going to play pretend. 

“Mama’s just so happy we’re going baby,” you say with a solemn kiss to her forehead as his grip further tightens on your shoulder. 

“I know what’ll cheer you up!” she declares and completely unaware of the salt she’s about to pour on your wounds, she pulls something out of her little rucksack. “Danny, do you know the story of ‘Punzel?”

“Can’t say that I do darlin’” he says, eyeing you over her head. She sets the Grimm fairy tale book down on her lap and opens it to the worn pages she’s seemed to memorize by heart. She proceeds to read to the both of you, in the sense that she recites the story she’s heard maybe half-a-million times before word-for-word, going off pictures more than the actual words on the page to know where she’s at in the story. You try your best to focus on the book for your daughter's sake, but it’s nearly impossible to do when you feel Elvis' familiar bruising grip on your inner thigh. 

You shoot him a look and grab a hold of his wandering hand, trying to signal for him to stop and pay attention to Rosie. He gives a mirthful smile to you as he feels the slick there and seemingly tightens his grip in retribution, as though he wants to get a head start on re-establishing his claim over you. You in response bite your cheek and bear it, until at one point it nearly becomes too much and one lone tear rolls down your cheek and onto the page of the prince wandering blindly through the forest.  

Your daughter is far too sweet for her own good, as she notices this and gives you a gentle pat on your cheek, trying to comfort you the same you’ve done for her before. 

“Don’t worry Mama,” she reassures you, mirroring what you’ve done for her when a story gets her a little too worked up. “They always live happy ever after.”

You give a shuddering sigh as Elvis finally let’s go of your thigh. You clutch onto that little porcelain figure in your pocket and hope she’s right.

You make it to Memphis in record time, Rosie having long since tired herself out, is wrapped securely in your arms, but you’ll find no suh peace with his arm coiled around your shoulder as he sadistically whispers how Rosie’ll have a blast meeting the rest of his family while the two of you get “reacquainted,” of course he used more colorful language but you don’t want to have to think about that for right now. 

When the familiar gates come into view 

“Ahh, my baby missed home that bad,” he whispers, giving a deceptively sweet kiss to your tear-stricken cheek. “Why don’tcha hand the ‘lil one over to me and you just head up to bed and get ready for me?”

Despite the questioning lilt in his tone you know for a fact he’s not asking. And so going against all of your instincts screaming in your head, you let go of your daughter and watch as he takes a hold of her. To your relief she’s at the very least on the same floor as you, but you can only hope that she, at the very least, will sleep through the rest of the night, because you doubt he’ll let you out even a minute sooner than he has to. 

The bedroom has changed in many ways since you’ve been gone, though the most striking thing  was how your side of the bed looks as though it were converted into a little shrine for you. Small baubles and trinkets you left behind on the stand, you even find an old nightgown of yours on your side of the bed, the last thing he ever saw you in. It doesn’t fit you like it used to, having and breastfeeding a baby will do that to you, but you put it on all the same knowing he will want to see you in it. 

Looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing your breasts straining against the silk material and the bruises peeking out beneath the scandalously short hemline, it really does settle in that this was all inevitable. This is the very same image you saw the night before he left for Germany.

The same image that confirmed your decision to leave in the first place. 

This moment, feels like the dread you always felt when getting to the last few pages of a book. As things were wrapping up and you would have to face the harsh reality of your situation...

You’re back in the fucking hotel room.

You won’t even have the luxury of daydreaming of your escape, because there is no world where you leave without Rosie, and he knows that. He knows she’s the reason you ran, and knows that without her you’re never gonna run again. That’s why he went to the lengths he did to endear himself to her first before you ever had an inkling as to what was going on. 

Your thoughts turn to Jenny, and how you entrusted what you loved the most to her, only to have her spit in your face by turning around practically handing her over to him on a platter. Either she knew that he was her father and didn’t bother to question why you were so desperate to get away that you faked a whole other life, or she didn’t and handed over your daughter to a stranger. You don’t know which is worse. 

You also can’t forget how she was perhaps the most vehement about you dating again, which you can’t even begin to understand if she was working for him the whole time. But you can’t put it above him that he wouldn’t have Jenny push the issue if only to further twist the knife if you ever did take up her offer. As though to remind you that you never had a chance of moving on. 

Because it always goes back to him.

You want to hide from it all and you give into the urge, and crawl under the silky sheets of the bed, for all the good it will do to protect you. 

Monsters don’t hide under your bed. They crawl into it. Those are your last conscious thoughts as you feel the bed shift 

“Welcome home Satnin,” he whispers before you feel the sheets being ripped away from you.

Taglist

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[stephstars08]

Falling Apart

Austin!Elvis Presley x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Mention of Drugs being taken, Drugs, Mention of Drinking Alcohol, Divorce, Depressed Elvis, Yelling/Fighting, Elvis having a meltdown on stage, Colonel trying to manipulate Reader, Mention of Elvis collapsing, Fluff at the end, and Maybe some Grammar Errors. (Sorry if I forgot any!!!)

Summary: Due the Colonel making Elvis take a bunch of drugs to keep him energized to perform, it’s making Elvis completely fall apart. It get’s even worse when Pricilla packs all of her stuff up and leaves Elvis taking their daughter with her. After Elvis’s dad’s assistant Y/N hears the news she does everything she can to help Elvis pull himself back together.

Word Count: 2,162

Author’s Note: FINALLY MY FIRST ELVIS MOVIE STORY IS HERE! I’ve been waiting for basically a year to finally get a plot for a story for one of my favorite movies of all time! This isn’t just my first Austin/Elvis story but this is also my first story of the new year so I hope you all enjoy! If any of you want to you can read this as Elvis x Reader or Austin!Elvis x Reader! It’s up to you!!

Y/N Y/L/N is the assistant to Vernon Presley who is of course the father of the one and only Elvis Presley. Vernon is in charge of Presley Enterprises. Vernon hired Y/N to be his assistant when Elvis came home from the army. Due to all of the films Elvis was staring in at the time it was getting too hard for Vernon to take care of everything by himself so that’s why he hired Y/N.

When Y/N got the job, she wasn’t expecting to be around Elvis so much. Of course, Y/N isn’t complaining since Elvis has brought her in with open arms and so did his wife Priscilla. Elvis has thanked Y/N so much for helping his father out.

Y/N would be lying if she said that she has never had a crush on the heartthrob. When Elvis first started out Y/N immediately grew a crush on him, but that crush did fade away after she graduated from high school and when Elvis went overseas to be in the army. But as time went on that crush returned and the more, she was around Elvis, the more the crush grew. Y/N wished she didn’t feel that way about Elvis since he’s married to Priscilla, and she is really good friends with Priscilla as well. But those thoughts just flood her mind whenever she is with him.

Y/N loved everything about her job except having to work with the Colonel who is the manager of Elvis. Ever since the first day she met the Colonel she knew he wasn’t very fond of her. She hated being around him since she always feels uncomfortable around him, and she always gets bad vibes from him.

But Y/N didn’t see the Colonel’s dark side till Elvis started to play a residency in Las Vegas.

********************

Y/N was at her apartment getting ready to meet Vernon at a business meeting. Right before she walked out the door, she heard her phone ring. When she answered the phone, she heard Vernon’s voice.

“Hi, I was just about to walk out the door to meet you.” Y/N said into the phone. “Priscilla left Elvis this morning.” She heard Vernon tell her which made her heart drop. “Oh my gosh.” Y/N said in a shocked tone. Even though she’s shocked by the news she knew the reason why Priscilla left. “She moved all of her stuff out and she took Lisa with her.” She heard Vernon tell her. She could hear the sadness in his voice. “How is Elvis?” Y/N asked in the phone. That was the only question that was coming to her mind. “He’s a complete mess.” She heard him tell her which broke her heart.

“Can you go to Graceland and just stay there with him till I come back from the meeting?” Vernon asked her. “I just really don’t want him to be alone right now.” He added. “Of course, I can.” Y/N answered into the phone.

“Thank you so much dear.” She heard him say. “I’ll talk to you soon.” He added which made her smile a little. “You’re welcome. I’ll talk to you soon.” She told him through the phone. After they said their goodbyes Y/N hung up the phone.

********************

Y/N parked her car in front of the big Graceland mansion. She turned the car off and grabbed her purse from the passenger seat. She got out of the car closing the driver's seat door. As Y/N made her way to the front door she wrapped the strap of her purse around her shoulder.

When she got to the door, she rang the doorbell and waited but no one answered so she rang the doorbell again but still no answer. Y/N put her hand on the doorknob and twisted it which made the door open. Y/N walked inside the mansion. “Elvis!” Y/N called out as she closed the door. She looked around and noticed that things that belonged to Priscilla were gone. Y/N let out a sigh she she walked into the dining room and put her keys and purse down onto the table.

“Elvis!” Y/N called out again as she walked over to the bottom of the staircase and again, she got no response. She knew Elvis had to be home because where else would he go. Y/N walked up the staircase and right when she got to the top, she heard whimpering. Y/N walked down the hallway and stopped in front of the door to what was the bedroom Elvis once shared with Priscilla. That was where the whimpering was coming from. She was going to knock on the door, but something was telling her to just walk in.

When she opened the door, she saw a bunch of medicine bottles on the floor. Y/N walked in and at first, she didn’t see Elvis till she walked past the king-sized bed. Elvis was sitting on the floor crying into his knees that were hiding his face. It broke Y/N’s heart seeing Elvis in this kind of state. “Elvis.” Y/N said in a soft voice. Elvis looked up at her with his eyes filled with tears and his cheeks soaked with tears running down them. “What are you doing?” Elvis asked her. She could hear how broken he was in his voice. “Your father wanted me to be here with you till he comes back from his business meeting.” Y/N told him. Elvis didn’t say anything back. He just looked away from her.

Y/N sat down next to him. “I’m so sorry about what happened.” Y/N told him with sincere in her voice. “Why are you saying sorry to me?” Elvis asked still not looking at her. “What do you mean?” Y/N asked him. “I’m the reason why she left. She said I’m like a zombie.” Elvis told her as tears continued to stream down his face like a waterfall. “Those pills are what turn you like that.” Y/N told him which made him finally look back at her.

She can’t just keep jumping around it anymore. When he’s on those pills it’s like he’s a completely different person. Those pills are making him fall apart.

“The pills. They just keep controlling me. It’s like they have taken over me.” Elvis told her as he started to cry harder if that was even possible. “I know.” Y/N started. “That’s why I’m here. I’m going to help you get through this.” Y/N told him looking him straight into his eyes. Elvis believed her as he stared back into her eyes. “Okay.” Elvis said in a soft voice.

“I’m going to go downstairs into the kitchen to get you some water.” Y/N told him but before she could stand up, he grabbed her hand. “Please, don’t leave me. Please stay with me.” Elvis said to her in a pleading tone. “Okay! Okay, I’ll stay here with you.” Y/N told him in reassurance. Y/N wrapped her arm around him and rubbed her hand up and down his arm as he cried.

They stayed like that till Vernon came home.

********************

As a lot of time pasted Y/N kept her promise to Elvis. She’s been looking after him as much as she could. Even though Y/N has been doing her best to take care of Elvis, he’s still not the man he once was.

The only time Elvis looks happy is when he is on stage in front of his fans. The only people that knew what he was going through were the people he sees every day.

Elvis was playing another show in Vegas. Y/N watching him perform from the side of the stage with Jerry by her side. “You’ve been very quiet this evening.” Jerry said to her which earned him a glare from her. “You know damn well why I’ve been quiet.” Y/N told him in a stern tone. “The Colonel came before I could call you and right away, he made Dr. Nick shoot him up with drugs.” Jerry explained to her. “I’m not mad at you, okay!” Y/N told him with a heavy sigh. “He should be in a hospital bed but instead that monster decided to make the decision to shoot him up with the same drugs that is what made him collapse in the first place.” Y/N said with anger in her tone.

Jerry saw the tears forming in her eyes, so he brought her in for a hug. He knows about the feelings she has for Elvis, so he knows it’s hard seeing him like this. As Y/N returned the hug she tried her best to keep her tears in.

They released from the hug when they heard Elvis singing to Suspicious Minds with no music. Y/N could sense right away that something was wrong, and it was just going to get worse. As Elvis went on a rant about how this was going to be his last show in Vegas the Colonel immediately made his way up to the stage.

“Pull the curtain down!” Colonel told someone in a demanding tone which made Y/N and Jerry look at him. “What is going on here.” Colonel asked Jerry in a stern tone. Jerry took a glance at Elvis and then back at the Colonel. “I think he wants to know that, too.” Jerry told him.

When Elvis saw the Colonel started to act even more out of character. Elvis was having a melt down and it was starting to scare Y/N a little since she’s never seen him act like this. As the curtain started to fall Elvis started to yell at the Colonel. When Elvis said, “You’re Fired!” to the Colonel Y/N felt her heart rate speed up.

As the Colonel walked closer to him, he just kept saying “you’re fired” louder and louder each time. “YOU’RE FIRED!” Elvis screamed into his microphone which made everyone, and everything go silent. Everyone looked at Elvis with shock as the Colonel looked at him with sadness. “You’re fired.” Elvis said more calm and not into the microphone.

When he dropped his microphone, it made Y/N jump by the loud noise the mic made when it hit the stage. She watched him turn away from the Colonel and walk off the stage.

********************

Y/N decided to wait an hour before going up to Elvis’s room to check on him. Y/N was walking down the hallway to the elevator when she felt someone grab her left wrist. Y/N turned around to see that it was the Colonel who grabbed her wrist.

“Let me go.” Y/N told him in a demanding tone. “You go up there and tell him to take me back.” Colonel told her in the same tone she used. He knew she was going upstairs to talk to Elvis. Y/N let out a scoff as she pulled her wrist out of his grip. “You are the reason why he’s falling apart!” Y/N told him. “You’re the reason why he’s hooked on all of those drugs and you’re the reason why Pricilla and Lisa left him!” Y/N added as she looks at him with a fiery look in her eyes.

“Do it or you’re fired!” Colonel told her in a warning tone. “You’re not the boss of me and you never were.” Y/N said not back down to him. “You stay the hell away from him!” Y/N told him in a warning voice and walked away from him.

********************

When Y/N got to Elvis’s room before she could knock on the door it opened to reveal Elvis. “When I heard footsteps, I figured that it was you coming to check on me.” Elvis told her letting her inside. Y/N could tell that he was more calmed down then what he was just an hour ago. “I was going to come up here right away, but I decided to let you cool off.” Y/N told him while he closed the door.

“I’m sorry that you had to see me like that. I guess I just lost control.” Elvis told her turning around to face her but didn’t look at her. “Elvis, you have nothing to be sorry about.” Y/N told him. She put one of her hands onto one of his cheeks which made his eyes meet hers. “It was the drugs and that shot of alcohol didn’t help either but that’s what made you lose it.” Y/N reassured him.

“But what you did right was you set yourself free from that monster.” Y/N told him stroking his cheek lightly with her thumb. “I didn’t want him taking you away from me, too.” Elvis told her.

Before she could say anything, Elvis’s lips connected with hers. Y/N immediately returned the kiss. They continued to kiss until they had to pull away for air.

“I think I’m falling in love with you.” Elvis confessed to her. Y/N’s lips curved up into a smile. “Me too.” Y/N told him and leaned back up to reconnect her lips with his soft lips again.

[prettyprissyblvd]

This is my renaissance, I shall even go so far to say this is my, "The Creation of Adam"

But instead of Adam it's Elvis

[floralcyanide]

˚₊✩‧₊◜kinktober 2023! ―

! please remember, in order to participate in kinktober, you must be 18+ as there will be nsfw material involved. anyone not following these rules will be blocked!

✧ hello! it's that time of year again (: I did my first kinktober last year, and it was a success (and still is), except I never fully finished it ): I'm hoping this year will be different because I'm starting as early as feasibly possible.

✧ please fill out this form (form is closed) before august 21st. this gives everyone a week to see this post and vote on who they want to see get kinky this october! I'll try my best to complete all of the prompts by october 1st and schedule out the posts for every day of kinktober. but PLEASE fill out the form, it would help me out a lot, just so I know what you all wish to see! I will update the prompt list when I get the results of the poll.

✧ again, here is the form: click meee!♥ (form is closed)

✧ here is the taglist form if you'd like to be tagged in my kinktober works! click meee!♥

✧ prompt list is below!

day one. cockwarming with: Cillian Murphy

day two. nipple play with: Jonathan Crane

day three. blood play with: Jonathan Crane

day four. orgasm control with: Jonathan Crane

day five. praise kink with: Cillian Murphy

day six. degradation with: Jonathan Crane

day seven. bondage with: Billy Loomis

day eight. edging with: Ethan Landry

day nine. breeding kink with: Cillian Murphy

day ten. mutual masturbation with: Austin Butler

day eleven. throat fucking with: Ethan Landry

day twelve. threesome with: Stu Macher/Billy Loomis

day thirteen. knife kink or gun kink with: Gun Kink/ Tommy Shelby

day fourteen. sex toys with: Cillian Murphy

day fifteen. hate sex with: Jonathan Crane

day sixteen. thigh riding with: Cillian Murphy

day seventeen. sex tape with: Cillian Murphy

day eighteen. squirting with: Cillian Murphy

day nineteen. public play with: Jackson Rippner

day twenty. voyeurism with: Ethan Landry

day twenty-one. corruption kink with: Jonathan Crane

day twenty-two. daddy kink with: Cillian Murphy

day twenty-three. spanking with: Austin!Elvis

day twenty-four. shower sex with: Cillian Murphy

day twenty-five. roleplay with: Austin Butler

day twenty-six. face sitting with: Cillian Murphy

day twenty-seven. dom/sub with: Ethan Landry

day twenty-eight. drunk sex or high sex with: High Sex/Stu Macher

day twenty-nine. phone sex with: Ethan Landry

day thirty. anal sex with: Cillian Murphy

day thirty-one. mommy kink with: Jonathan Crane

[surferblues]

bodies on bodies | a.b

pairings boss!austin x fem!reader

warnings SHORT, (18+ only, minors dni) , teasing, , unestablished relationship,spelling errors, and obviously sexual themes.

tap. tap tap.

the sound of the pen clicking was invading your ears, a noise you would kill for to stop. but Austin was too nervous to consider how annoying the unrhythmic tapping was.

you had been seated on the floor, while he was seated on the leather black sofa across from you. you leaned over the table as you watched him write short lined jokes, then cross them out.

repeat.

"mr.butler, have you came up with... anything yet?" you spoke, sparing him a quick glance - breaking the uncomfortable silence filling the small dressing room.

he dropped the pen, causing a halt to the clicking sound. instead, he leaned back on the leather couch - manspreading his long legs.

his chest rose as he let out a breathy sigh, his hand running through his golden locks. "take a look for yourself." he chuckled nervously, sliding the lined paper across the table for you to get a peek.

"not looking like much, sir." your eyes glimpsed towards him, your eyes full of sympathy.

you had been hired a few weeks ago as austin's assistant, this is your first job as working for any person as high as his status. so of course, you were nervous. making sure to have no slip ups.

"im going to go on that stage, and look so stupid tonight." his deep voice groaned out, grabbing the sheet of paper from your reach and crumbling it up.

you brows pinched together as you tried to think of a reasonable response, but nothing came to mind.

"what's got you so nervous?" you muttered out, your voice barely above a whisper as you asked him. the number one rule to this job - do not ask austin personal questions.

that was on that stupid contact that you had to sign, actually.

but, you knew that you couldn't bear any more awkward silence.

Austin looked towards you, eyes squinted and full of suspicion as the crumbled paper remained balled up in his hands.

"what makes you so sure i can trust you?" his words coming out half teasingly. his previous nervous expression playing into a more teasing one - head tilted, eyes squinted, and his smile crooked.

"oh, please, not everyone has it out for you mr.butler," you grinned, shaking your head as you made sure to let your words have a playful tone.

"besides, i was just trying to help." you rose from the floor, going to grab another piece of blank paper just for austin to write on and ball up in dissatisfaction.

"how about this... what do they want you to do for your monologue?" you spoke in pure concentration, walking over towards the small sofa where he sat and placing yourself next to him.

"my childhood, i think." he answered, watching you write on the paper yourself. "ok... so what are you so nervous about?" you asked in pure confusion, all the man had to do was talk about his childhood - how was that hard?

he looked towards you dumbfounded, as if you said the dumbest thing in the world. "the thing is, I don't know how to make my monologue funny, what if no one laughs?" he sarcastically spoke, playfully bumping his knee to yours.

"sounds like you need to put yourself at ease." now it was your turn to ball up the paper, there was no use to write jokes if you couldn't deliver them right.

"how do you suggest i do that? meditate and connect with my zen?" he sighed, looking towards you with playfulness.

as you looked at him, you couldn't help but realize the insufficient amount of personal space between you two. you were practically hip to hip on this small sofa.

"whatever you prefer, sir." you shakily breathed out, faking a tight-lipped smile - lightly tapping his spread leg before getting up off of the sofa.

"wait,wait,wait," austin husked out, lightly pulling you back towards him. "We could... do it." he shyly cooed, keeping his eyes trained on you as your lips parted.

you had a few ideas of what "...do it" meant, suggestive ideas.

"mr.butler?" you squeaked out, sitting back down as his cold hands pulled you towards him.

"just go with it." he pulled his long legs, watching your face for any changes of emotion. “I need you to tell me what you want first, Mr. Butler,” you say with innocent eyes, you never let go of the respectful tone.

He groans and smiles widely, chuckling and dropping his head back. His head returns forward as his wide grin turns into a smaller, sweeter one.

[headfullofpresley]

More Than Friends

Pairing: Elvis Presley x reader

Summary: You and Elvis have been best friends since birth. You have been each others' first for pretty much everything so you couldn't picture yourself losing your virginity to anyone else.

Word count: 4,4K

Warning(s): fluff, inaccurate timelines etc, reader and Elvis are both 17 (you can picture them a lil older if you want), 1950s!Elvis, virgin!reader, virgin!Elvis, smut; oral (f. and m. receiving), vaginal penetration, accidental creampie, unprotected sex.

Author's note: this was requested by (i believe) anon a while ago but i never got around to write it, woops. something light and cute this time - enjoy luvs <3

masterlist

You and Elvis had been friends for as long as you could remember.

Gladys and your mother went to school together and had been inseperable the moment they exchanged ‘hello’s’, so it was only natural for them to let their kids grow up together.

The two women were pregnant around the same time and you were born on the 8th of February, exactly one month after Elvis. Just like your mothers, you and Elvis were glued to the hip ever since you could walk and talk.

Once the Presley’s moved out of Tupelo to Memphis, your family followed not long after. Sunday dinners and holidays were always spend together, as well as birthdays.

Elvis was the only boy who was allowed to stay the night in your household, your parents not too worried about anything happening as you two got older because you could bicker like brother and sister.

What they didn’t know was that Elvis had been your first kiss and you were his. And the older you got, the further you two were taking things.

In your adolescence mind, you weren’t in love with Elvis and he wasn’t in love with you.

You couldn't be. He was your best friend, nothing more, nothing less.

You hated how he flirted with every girl in school and his young arrogance. You hated how loud he was whenever his male friends were around and he put up this facade of a bad boy to appear cooler. You hated that stupid sailor hat he started wearing everywhere he went.

He hated how every boy, including his friends, fawned over you when you’d walk down the halls. He hated how every year the tops and dresses you wore filled up more and more. And he especially hated that you were entertaining those boys that gave you attention.

Because truth was, you both were jealous of the attention the other received. Despite you telling yourself it wasn’t so, you were in love with your best friend and he was in love with you. But both of you were too stupid and too scared to admit it, not wanting jeopardize your friendship.

Both of you were at an age where you wanted to experiment, getting more and more curious about sex. While you and Elvis had enough people to choose from to do this with, because you were confident enough to say you belonged to the popular crowds at school, it just felt right to do this together.

Maybe this could ruin your friendship, maybe things would never be the same anymore but the more you thought about the deal you and Elvis made, the more excited you got.

Your parents trusted you both enough to go out on a Saturday night and leave the house in your hands. Because both your parents were all together, you knew it wouldn’t be a while until they’d come home and that was exactly what you hoped for.

“A-Are you sure?” Elvis whispered softly as you sat on the edge of your bed together, the reason why you were in this position very obvious tonight.

The bad boy that he’d often pretend to be around his guys was nowhere to be seen. It never was when you had him alone.

“Yes.. yes, I’m sure. I’m a little nervous though,” you laughed softly, looking at him as you kept your hands in your lap, picking at the fabric of your dress. You decided to wear your favorite one tonight; baby blue, tight on top and flowy skirt sprawling out graciously. You had worn white flats with it, but kicked them off minutes ago.

“Do you still want this?”

“Yes!” Elvis immediately exclaimed, clearing his throat a little before he spoke again – this time hopefully not as eager and desperate he did the first time. “Yes, I-I still want this.. I wouldn’t want this with anyone else,”

You smiled at him and nodded, swinging your legs back and forth a little as silence fell over you two again.

You two had kissed before – had full out make out sessions during sleep overs and study sessions. He had touched your boobs over the fabric of your clothing a few times and you felt him up, feeling how kissing you got him hard every time. But you had never touched each other without clothing, never been able to give each other the pleasure you heard your girlfriends brag about so many times.

They had all lost their virginities already, so other than their stories, you had nothing to go off on. The only education you got was in school and you never paid attention, feeling too awkward at the young age of 13. But now you and Elvis were both 17 and you felt like you were blossoming into your womanhood – this was simply the last step that needed to be taken for you to turn into the flower that you wanted to become.

Elvis startled you by jumping up from the bed and walking to your record player in the corner of your room. He turned it on, letting the record that was already in there play. He didn’t care what it was, he just needed something to fill the silence that hung above your heads.

Your heartbeat quickened alarmingly fast as he walked over to you, looking down at you as he stood in front of you. A small gasp got stuck in your throat as he leaned forward, your body automatically moving back until you were laying on your bed. He was on top of you now, his lips pressed against yours.

Kissing him wasn’t foreign, but knowing that wasn’t the only thing about to happen tonight got you even more nervous.

Elvis wasn’t doing much better than you. Just like you, he had nothing to go off on other than stories he had heard from friends. While nervous, he was excited as well, blood rushing to his cock from the feeling of you sucking on his lower lip.

He was curious how your lips would feel on other parts of his body.

“Don’t be nervous,” he whispered after you managed to crawl further up your bed, laying against your pillows with Elvis still hovering above you. He had managed to get in between your legs now, your skirt tightening around your thighs as he pressed his pelvis against you firmly. No friction was created due to the fabric in between your bodies, but the pressure was enough for arousal to tingle in between your legs. “Just.. just do like we always do,”

You nodded your head slowly, kissing him again when he leaned back down into you. You held your arms around his neck, gasping softly as he creeped one hand underneath the skirt of your dress to caress your thigh. His hand was moving closer and closer to your panties and it felt as if your entire body was set ablaze, your heart thumping in your ears.

Sliding your hands down over his shoulders to plant them against his chest, he pulled back and looked at you. Before he had time to question if you were okay, you pushed him further back and sat up. Reaching your hand behind your back, your fingers were quick to pull down the zipper of your dress, pulling the fabric down your torso.

Elvis immediately mimicked your actions, pulling his shirt over his head and taking off his trousers with shaky hands. He took his socks along with it, knowing from the stories of his friends that girls didn’t like if boys kept them on in bed. He wanted this to be perfect, a fond memory to look back on – not only for himself, but also for you.

Especially for you.

When the both of you were in nothing but your underwear, he couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering down your body, drinking in every detail of your bare skin as if you were the sweetest tea on a hot summer’s day. He had only ever seen you in a bikini and this was so much more intense and exciting.

He was as hard as rock, his underwear sitting tight around his waist. And when he noticed the white panties you were wearing, a small stain of arousal seeped into them, he could feel his cock twitching as if his body had a mind on its own.

At this point, he was pretty sure it did.

“Y-You’re p-pretty,” he complimented, sitting on his knees in front of you. A blush crept upon your cheeks as you squeezed your thighs together, embarrassed at the view he had of you.

“You too,” you whispered, watching as he placed his hands on your knees, spreading your legs again. Although a little shy, you didn’t stop him because you wanted him just as bad. You wanted him to touch and kiss and taste you in places no one ever had.

As he placed shaky kisses along your thighs and hooked his fingertips behind the elastic of your panties to pull them down, you grabbed onto the small stuffed panda bear that was on your bed.

He had gotten it for you at last summer’s fair and you hadn’t slept without it ever since.

While you usually cuddled it up to you, now you were squeezing its face so firm the eyes nearly bulged out. Neither you or Elvis paid attention to it, far too occupied with other things.

Elvis let out a shaky breath, the cool wind of it accidentally hitting your clit and it made your hips stutter at the feeling. He looked up at you, wide eyed. “S-Sorry,”

“N-No.. It felt nice..”

He licked his lips as he smiled softly, looking down at your exposed pussy in front of him. He could see the slick of your arousal and he couldn’t hold himself back anymore, too turned on and too curious to wait any longer. Leaning in, he licked hesitantly.

The taste was nothing like he had ever tasted before, but he soon found himself wanting more of it. He went in again, his movements gaining confidence as he heard the moans leaving your mouth. He didn’t know if it were those pretty little noises coming from you or the way you tasted so good that made him more and more turned on, but he didn’t have control over his hips as he grinded himself against the bed.

His tongue flicked at your clit curiously and when your moans got a little louder, he realised that was probably your most sensitive spot. He did it again, and again, and again, until he suddenly sucked on it and your eyes rolled into the back of your head, your back arching off the bed.

“Does that feel good?” he asked as he pulled back, his fingers slipping through the wetness of your folds as he looked up at you. His voice was raspy and deep, making you look at him as a moan rolled off your tongue.

“Y-yes.. Elvis.. please.. please don’t stop,” you whined, bucking your hips up at him and he smiled as he leaned back in to repeat the action. You were greatly stroking his ego, but he wasn’t going to tell you that.

He decided to take things a step further, slowly sinking in his middlefinger. Your hand let go of the stuffed animal, clasping both of your palms over your mouth to muffle the shriek that left you. He looked up at you with worried eyes, afraid that he was hurting you but before he could pull his mouth away from you once more, your hand flew into his hair. He let out a small huff as you pushed him firmly against you but immediately went back to stimulating your clit as he slowly moved his finger in and out of you.

You never had an orgasm before. You’d touch yourself now and then but you always stopped it as soon as you felt that knot in your tummy threatening to explode. You were afraid of making too much noise all alone in your bedroom or dirtying the sheets, because your mother was the one who did the laundry.

The fact that Elvis was about to give you your first one was almost poetic to you. After all, he had already given you so many of your firsts.

You didn’t want anyone else to be in his place.

Elvis kept his eyes on you the entire time as you came undone, grinding harder against the bed as he felt your walls tightening firmly around his digit. The way you were moaning and writhing on the bed made him nearly lose his mind and while he removed his finger out of you, he didn’t pull back. Not yet. He wanted more.

You weren’t able to keep your hips still as his mouth nearly engulfed your entire pussy, tongue eagerly lapping up your essence. It was becoming too much but you didn’t have the strength to pull him away – all you could do was moan and whine and tug at your own hair.

Once he did pull away and raised his head to look at you with his lips and nose glistening of your arousal, your heart skipped a beat. His hair was messy because of your hands and he looked so pretty, you never wanted this night to end.

“W-was that good?” he asked as he laid down beside you, throwing the stuffed animal to the end of the bed. You laughed softly, still catching your breath as you nodded.

“Really.. really good,” you told him honestly and he smiled, leaning closer to you to kiss the corner of your lips.

“It was good for me too,” he whispered, his eyes meeting your eyes as you turned your head to look at him. He brought his hand up to your face, thumb caressing your lower lip. “You taste sweet,”

You blushed at his words and at the way he was looking at you. As far as you knew, he had never looked at you like this. As if you were the only person on the planet.

It made your heart jump for joy against your ribcage.

“I want to taste you too,” you whispered as you smiled sweetly at him, moving away from him and further down the bed. You sat on your knees as you pulled his underwear down, watching how prettily his cock bounced free against his lower abdomen before standing upright in front of you.

He spread his legs a little as you got in between them, making yourself comfortable by laying on your tummy. You kept your eyes on his cock as you wrapped your hand around it, moving it up and down once, taking his foreskin down to expose the tip. A drip of pre-cum wandered down his shaft and to your fingertips, making him let out a deep breath.

He raised himself up by pressing his elbows in the bed, too curious to look away as you stuck out your tongue and lapped at the head of his cock once, his toes curling.

“Oh my God,” he whispered to himself as you looked up at him and boldly wrapped your lips around him, slowly sinking down onto his length. He gasped, hands grasping onto the sheets firmly as he tried his best to keep his hips from thrusting upwards.

He had no idea where you learned all of this, but he sure as hell wasn’t complaining as you were bobbing your head up and down, sucking him off hungrily. The sight of saliva dribbling down the corner of your mouth and your hand wrapped around him to help your movements had him moaning freely, shamelessly.

He was turning to putty in your hands, hips rolling up out of his control and his head hanging back as his eyes fluttered shut. He couldn’t stop himself from moaning, not caring that some of them sounded high pitched. He remembered his friends telling him girls didn’t like that, but he simply did not give a damn.

Just like you had been doing to him, he was feeding your ego now as well, motivating you to pick up your pace.

And when your other hand found his balls to fondle them softly, he was an absolute goner.

“Fuck.. my G-God.. yes.. Y/N,” he looked back down at you, his breathing growing more erratic as he couldn’t keep himself quiet even if he wanted to. “So good, baby.. shit.. M’close, so close,”

Compared to you, Elvis had given himself an orgasm plenty of times and he was familiar with the feeling, but now that you were the one giving it to him, it was so much more intense.

So so so much better.

You weren’t sure how you could tell, but you pulled back just in time, watching as he came undone right before your eyes. He painted your fingers that were still wrapped around him and his own abdomen white, a long moan escaping his throat. His head was pressed in the pillow, hips stuttering up into nothingness.

You slowly took your hand off him and giggled softly as you laid down next to him, watching him catch his breath as his eyes were screwed shut, shade of crimson on his cheeks.

“You taste sweet too,” you whispered to him as you snuggled up to him, kissing his neck. He tilted his head, wrapping one arm around you to tangle his fingers in your hair, keeping you in his neck.

“Fuck,” he sighed, biting his lip as you were ghosting your lips over the shell of his ear now. “Where’d ya learn that, baby? You were so good,”

The both of you froze at the pet name. He called you the same when you had his cock in your mouth but you figured it was because he was close to climax. Maybe it was because of the sex haze you were still in, but the sound of it made the beat of your heart speed up again.

He had never called you that. Sure, he used pet names with you occasionally, but in this moment it felt… different.

Like you were the only girl he had a name for. Something you knew definitely wasn’t true, but you liked the delusion of it.

His eyes met yours as you pulled your head out of his neck, a small smile on your face. He let out a soft sigh of relief, pushing your head closer to him with the hand that was still in your hair. You kissed him back immediately when he firmly pressed his lips against yours and allowed him to push you back onto the bed.

In your state of arousal, you quickly took off your bra and threw it over his shoulder. His eyes wandered down to your exposed breasts immediately, leaning in to kiss his way across your chest, dipping down further. Your hands flew into his hair again as he wrapped his lips around your nipple, swirling his tongue around the sensitive bud.

“Wanna be inside of you,” he whispered against your skin as he had kissed his way back up to your neck after giving both nipples equal attention. He couldn’t keep himself in one place, wanting to kiss you all over. As he pulled back and raised himself on his hands to hover above you, both of you looked down and you giggled softly at the way he was hard already again.

“Don’t laugh,” he whined softly with a chuckle of his own as he hid his face in your neck, his cock heavy against your folds because he pushed his hips forward. “S’because of you… you make me so excited,”

“I’m not laughing,” you whispered with a smile on your face, kissing his shoulder as you wrapped your arms around him. “I want you, Elvis,”

He pulled back to look at you, smiling sweetly as he nodded and kissed your lips. Moving his hand in between your bodies, he wrapped his hand around his cock and pumped himself into his fist a few times before he aligned himself at your entrance.

“P-Please go slow,” you warned him with a shaky voice as you looked up at him, hands holding onto his shoulders. He nodded as he frowned in concetration, slowly pushing himself into you. Your nails dug into his skin, thighs shaking as you let out a soft cry, squeezing your eyes shut.

It took him a while to bottom out and once he did, he was too afraid to move. You were so incredibly warm and tight and he had no idea how long he would last once he’d start to move. The fact that you were close to tears and shaking like a leaf underneath him didn’t help either.

“Baby, do you want to stop?” he whispered as he looked down at you with worried eyes, one of his hands reaching up to caress some hair out of your face. He was leaning on the bed with his forearms on either side of your head, chest pressed against yours while he was buried deep inside of you. “You’re cryin’,”

You could hear the worry in his voice and opened your eyes, shaking your head. It hurt – God, it hurt like hell, but you didn’t want to stop.

You wanted him to take your first time, even if it meant you would have to bite down on your teeth for a little bit.

“S-Sorry,” you apologized, not wanting to ruin this experience for him. He leaned down and kissed your tears away, shaking his head.

“Don’t say that. You’re allowed to cry,” he smiled softly, pecking your lips before looking at you again. “We’ll go at your.. at your tempo, okay? I’ll go slow,”

You sniffed, nodding your head as you cupped his cheeks. You told him to move, because it had to happen eventually and despite the sting and the feeling of being so full, you were curious.

You were positive the pain would go away soon.

He thrusted slowly and gentle, moaning softly as he watched your face the entire time. You couldn’t seem to relax around him, walls firmly tightening around him as you held onto him for dear life. But the longer he thrusted, the more pleasure crept its way into your bones to take over the sting between your legs.

“F-Feels good now,” you moaned softly and his eyes lit up a little, grin tugging at his lips.

“Can I go.. go f-faster?”

All you could do was nod, the both of you moaning together as he picked up his pace a bit and kept himself up, fingers sprawled out against your sheets. You lifted your legs a little, wrapping them around his waist and grabbed onto his arms.

He looked so pretty on top of you like this – upper lip tugged upwards as he grunted, eyes squeezed shut as he snapped his hips forward faster every time to chase his second release of the night. Despite it not being completely painless, you couldn’t care less. You didn’t want him to ever leave you, wanted him inside of you every minute of the day from now on.

You didn’t want this to be the first and last time you’d ever see him like this.

Due to his inexperience, he didn’t have much control yet. His orgasm reared its head around the corner sooner than he wanted and he couldn’t stop it – nor did he have enough self control to pull out of you before he came.

You were both too far gone to think about using a condom or about the fact you were playing a dangerous game. You weren’t on birth control.

Your mother would have a heart attack if you would ask her to put you on it.

The thought of pregnancy never occured to you and Elvis, not even right now.

You were too enchanted by the way his hips stuttered into you, your name falling off his tongue in a string of moans and grunts as his eyes were boring into yours.

You didn’t cum the second time, but you didn’t care. To you, it was just as good and seeing your best friend like this was worth it.

As he slowly pulled out of you, you whined softly and kissed his lips before he rolled off of you and next to you on the bed. Other than the sounds of both of you catching your breath and the music from the record player, silence lingered between you.

Before you could, Elvis was the first to break it. “That was… really nice,”

“Y-yeah,” you agreed softly, turning your head to look at him. “I’m glad it was with you,”

He looked at you and smiled, nodding. “Me too,” he mumbled as he reached his hand out to caress his finger along your cheek, to your lips. “I wanna ask you somethin’,”

You turned on your side and watched him do the same, leaning on his elbow as his hand wandered to your hair. He didn’t look at you, rather at his fingers and the way he was tugging a lock of hair behind your ear.

“I-I wanted.. wanted to ask this b-before, but, uh..” he cleared his throat a little, looking at you for a second but he avoided eye contact as soon as he continued. “Do you.. Would you like.. d-do you wanna be.. be my g-girlfriend?”

You stared at him, feeling your cheeks heat up as your heart was embarrassingly skipping beats again before it’d drum in your ears. You were quiet longer than you realised and Elvis pulled his hand from your hair, coughing a little as he looked at the bracelet around his wrist as if he had never seen it before.

“I mean, it’s okay.. if you don’t want to,” he mumbled, his ego bruised. “You can just tell me,”

“I want to!” you immediately said, laughing softly as he looked up at you with wide eyes. “But only if you stop feeling sorry for yourself,”

He gasped softly, about to tell you he definitely wasn’t feeling that way, but you had already pressed your lips against his. He laughed softly before he kissed you back, pulling you into his arms as he let himself fall back on the bed.

Maybe your friends and Elvis’ friends had plenty of stories to tell about how they slept with different people already, bragging about what they had done in the bedroom. Maybe you and Elvis were more inexperienced and still had a lot to learn.

But at least, you got to do it together. Being intimate with someone you truly cared for and loved sounded way better to you than with a person you barely knew.

Your best friend was your first everything, maybe he’d even be your last. And nobody in this whole wide world could take that away from you.

[asshlyyyy]

Red String

Before I see the comments, there will be no part two. I need to crank out these fics if I want to finish my ongoing stories. This idea came to me when I learned about the red string legend. I tweaked it ever so slightly, but the main concept still stands. This one is a weird one, and I hope you enjoy it!

Masterlist

Pairing: Elvis (Or Austin!Elvis) x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Swearing, Teasing, Some Angst, Spelling and Grammatical Errors. Some information regarding the legend may be false. Let me know if I missed anything!

Word Count: 2.1k

You looked down at your ankle and let out a sigh. No matter how hard you worked to try and shorten the distance, it never seemed to lead you to anything… or anyone. You were getting on in years and quite frankly, you were about to give up and cut your string. Which honestly, you weren’t sure if you could even do that. 

The story of the red string was one that everyone grew up with. It was a way to explain why they had a red string attached to their ankle. One end was attached to yours, and the other end was attached to your soulmate’s ankle. Once your soulmate was found, the string would turn to gold and would turn into an anklet. It was to indicate you had found your soulmate. 

Most people found their soulmate early on. Middle school early on, hell some even met them while they were still babies! Yet, here you were in your thirties, and still… no golden anklet. You’ve been asked so many times why you wouldn’t follow it to the other end. The answer was simple, by the time you reached your soulmate the string would rip. Greed is what breaks the soulmate bond. 

You were supposed to find your soulmate off of some fate. You would bump into each other and you would mold. You watched your friends and family mold with their soulmates and you were tired. While no one has ever dared to cut their string. It is said that if you cut your string you give up all hope and chance.  When you cut your string you give up the chance of ever having a soulmate.

It wasn’t like you wanted to give up. Heck no! You wanted to get married and have kids. You couldn’t do that without finding your soulmate. It was very rare that you saw two people together with red strings still. They were the rule breakers. The ones who didn’t care much for finding their soulmate. You wish you could have been like that.  

“I need two cheeseburgers and fries for table five!” You told the cook and placed the menus in their dedicated spot.

“Coming up!” The cook responded and got to work. You leaned down over the counter and placed your chin in the palm of your hand.  You looked around at the couples in the diner. Each and every one of them had their gold anklets. It wasn’t fair. How come they found their soulmate and you were still standing around like a lost puppy. 

“How’s the soulmate hunting coming?” Sherrie asked as she came riding on by. You turned your head over to her. 

“Well, I’m still tripping over my own red death so I would say… shitty.” You responded as you watched her skate around. She frowned and made her way over to you. 

“Hey, one day he’ll show up and… it will be so magical… so romantic… And hopefully not embarrassing like mine was when I met Chris.” She let out a pout. You remembered the day. It was like any other day in the diner. Well, besides the fact she bumped into someone. Everyone here was practically skilled at skating so bumping into someone was weird. 

“But isn’t meeting them supposed to be out of the blue? That’s why you can’t just follow your string.” You explained to her. In every single story you’ve heard or read about, soulmates found each other out of the blue. It was when they least expected it. 

“Do you want to meet your soulmate while covered in burning hot coffee?” She raised her eyebrow at you. A soft laugh left your mouth and you shook your head. She had you there.

“Table five, order up!” The ding broke you out of your conversation. You skated over to pick up the order and brought it over to the couple. You asked if there was anything else you could bring them. When you heard that no response, you made your way back over to Sherrie. 

“He helped you clean up though, and apologized a bunch. Your eyes met and…” you smiled softly, “and it was like you two knew. That was your magical moment.”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right.” She smiled as she remembered that meeting. You rolled your eyes playfully at her. After you two started to do some other tasks you heard a bunch of high-pitched screams. You turned your head towards the sound and found a multitude of girls crowded outside. 

“What’s up with that?” You asked Sherrie. She raised her eyebrow in confusion as she looked outside. 

“I have no idea,” she shrugged. You two decided to ignore the screams and got back to work. You cleaned up some of the tables and helped the customers. Pretty much what you did every day. 

You looked over at the clock and did a mental celebration. It was your break, or at least it was about to be. Not only did you finally get to eat, but you only had half a day left. You announced to the other girls that you were going on your break and grabbed your lunch bag and headed out behind the building. 

It was very rare that you ate food from the diner. The food there is amazing, but you just liked being able to make your own food. The cooks already had to make so much food, they shouldn’t have to cook for you too. 

As you walked outside you shielded your eyes from the blasting sun. When your eyes adjusted to the new light you noticed a tall man standing over you. You let out a scream but it was soon concealed by his mouth. 

“Please don’ yell,” The guy said. Okay, who the hell did this person think they were? Not only to be standing out behind your business of work but for putting his hands on you. You took the opportunity while he was distracted and bit down on his hand. He yelped in pain and pulled his hand away. “The hell was that for?!”

“You put your hands on me!” You looked up at the guy. “I should be the one saying that.” You huffed and walked away from the creepy man. 

“That still don’ give ya the right to bite me.” He followed after you. You stopped in your step and turned to face him. 

“Do you want me to call the cops on you?” You said it in more of a statement rather than a question. When you first stepped out you didn’t get a good look at him. But now looking at him, you saw who he was and you froze. Your mouth gaped open and you heard him laugh at your reaction. 

You quickly closed up your mouth and marched away. That self-entitled prick! Does he really think that he deserves everything and an apology just because he’s Elvis!? Hell no he doesn’t. You just wanted to enjoy your lunch in peace, and yet you had to deal with this famous rockstar, who was too busy in his actor era. 

Don’t get everything twisted up. You loved Elvis Presley, you thought he was a great singer and some of his movies were great. However, you were on your break. It was your personal time, and you didn’t want to have to interact with anyone or anything.

“Hang on now,” his southern accent wisped its way through your ears. You couldn’t help but feel your knees almost tremble. Those southern accents always got to you.

“What could the king possibly want with a little low-life servant like myself.” You looked at him annoyed. Any other time, you would be crying at seeing his beauty. Right now though, he was taking out the minutes of your half-hour break. Quite frankly, you didn’t appreciate one bit of it. 

“‘M sure you’ve seen those girls out front, I-I just wanted someplace to eat… Figured I would try the back door.” He tried to explain himself. Whoever goes and tries the back door first off? Especially when there are big letters on the door that say Keep out.

“You know that’s for employees only right?” You pointed out to him. You didn’t know if he was missing his glasses or just blind. The back door held big letters on it saying employees only, keep out, amongst other sayings. 

“Yes, I can read. But I fi-”

“You figured just because I’m Elvis Presley I can get what I want.” You mocked him. He looked at you annoyed. Out of all the workers he could have possibly bumped into, he got you. The girl who possibly wouldn’t care if he was some high-top celebrity or even the president. 

“Are you-”

“No, I am not, because you are wasting my lunch.” You peered down at your watch, “You already waste ten minutes of my thirty. So, I am going to walk away before you take away the other twenty.” You turned and walked over to the picnic table. You sat down and opened your lunch box and started to eat. 

There was this small outdoor eating area that the surrounding businesses use. It was a small beautiful area. Around summertime and the weekends, you guys would get around and have a cookout. The community was great, and to sit outside and eat while enjoying the fresh air… It really helped you calm down. 

“So-” you let out a loud groan and looked down over Elvis. Why was he following you? Why did he feel the need to talk to you while you were on your break? You didn’t want to converse while on your break. You wanted to sit, eat your food, and calculate when you had to get back to work. 

“What do you want?” You asked him as you munched down on your sandwich. 

“You treat me differently.” He stated the obvious. You looked at him with the Are you kidding me look. “I… look, ‘m used to people always screamin’ and runnin’ towards me. You… you yell at me. You don’ praise me.”

“Oh yeah, no problem. I would do that to anyone who bothers me on break so… You’re nothing special.” You explained with a shrug of your shoulders. It was true, you were gently a nice person. When it came to your personal time though… that’s when you started to get grouchy.

“Well, your string would say otherwise.” You looked at him confused before you looked down at your ankle. The once red string was no longer there. When you left for break it was there and no- that only had to mean one thing. 

“You got to be kidding me.” You spoke under your breath. You slowly turned your head to look at Elvis who had… a pleased look on his face. It was like that… you teased me and now I’m getting my revenge.

“Oh come on, I can’ be that bad.” He chuckled lightly. 

“You have taken away so much of my break time… I disagree.” You said in response. 

“Well, now ya don’ got to work anymore. I can provide.” Because that is something every girl wants to hear. Quit your job, stay home, cook and clean… look after the kids.

“Who says I even want to be with you.” You tilted your head to the side lightly. 

“Are you one to go against your soulmate's choosing?” Elvis questioned. He had you there. You weren’t one to go against the person who marked you and Elvis as soulmates. There had to be a reason for it, and you just couldn’t see that right now. 

“Absolutely. Because all I want right now is to eat my goddamn sandwich-”

“Y/n! Your break’s over!” The cook called out to you. You closed your eyes and breathed in a long thick breath. You got three bites out of your sandwich. Three goddamn bites! You dropped your sandwich down onto its wrap and rubbed your eyes.

“I have to get back to work.” You said softly and gathered your things before getting up. Looks like another day where you’ll starve a work. The rest of your shift should be very exciting. 

“Before ya go, could I get ya number?” He questioned as he turned to face you. As you looked at him you let out a sigh. He was your soulmate and you had to accept that. Maybe he couldn’t be so bad. Plus… you would be able to travel the world.

“Visit me at closing and I’ll consider.” You told him and walked off. Unbeknownst to you, Elvis wore a smile on his face. This was certainly not how he planned his day, but he was glad he met his soulmate. He was glad, he met you. 

Mutual Taglist: @darlinboypresley @emmymaehereeeeee @venus-haze @austinstyles

[thegettingbyp2]

Front and Centre (Austin!Elvis)

You and your best friend were standing right at the front of the stage, your friend bouncing up and down excitedly. You’d spent the afternoon at the fair, going on the rides and taking part in the various activities that were on offer, and now you were waiting for the one and only Elvis Presley to come onto stage. Your friend was a huge fan of Elvis, however you didn’t really have an opinion of him. Sure, you’d heard some of his music on the radio and thought that he had a good voice, but you’d never actually seen him, only heard from your friend about how hot he was and how he danced so differently from any other music act you’d seen or heard.

‘(Y/N), you’re going to love him,’ your best friend, Tana, gushed. ‘He’s incredible!’

‘I never said I wasn’t going to,’ you replied, laughing at your friends enthusiasm.

The moment Elvis came onto the stage, you couldn’t help but be struck by how beautiful he was, the way a strand of his hair sat perfectly on his forehead had you wanting to wrap your finger around it and tuck it neatly back into place. However, the moment he started to move had all thoughts leaving your head. The way there didn’t seem to be a single part of his body that was able to stay still whilst he sang had put you in a trance.

You could hear the screams from the rest of the girls in the audience but they quickly faded away to almost nothing when Elvis’ eyes caught yours. It was as if time stood still and you watched as a smirk began to grow on his lips as he continued to sing, not breaking his eyes away from you. He made his way over to the edge of the stage, sinking to his knees, still singing as he reached out to take your hand in his, pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles before finally breaking your gaze and moving away continuing with the performance.

By the time the performance was over, it had seemed to have gone by in a blur, your hand still tingling from the feeling of his lips on your skin earlier in the night. ‘Oh my God! Did you see the way he was looking at you?’ Tana exclaimed as the two of you made your way out of the fair. ‘And he kissed your hand, you’re so lucky!’

‘He was looking at everyone, it’s kind of a part of his job,’ you laughed, brushing the experience off. As you walked through the exit, you startled at the feeling of a hand wrapping around your wrist. Turning around sharply, you were shocked when you looked into the eyes of the same man who had kissed your hand earlier.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he spoke with his Southern accent, ‘I just saw you at the show and I thought you were beautiful and I really wanted to speak to you.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ you said, shaking your head slightly, trying to work out if this was really happening, ‘but we’ve got to go and - ’

‘Well, I’ve got to go and actually try to find the car, I can just drive up here so you have some time,’ Tana quickly cut in, her eyes not straying from Elvis.

‘I don’t mind driving you home, if that would be alright with you obviously,’ Elvis said, turning back to you. You looked over at Tana and saw her nodding her head quickly.

‘Sure, that would be nice,’ you replied, smiling up at Elvis before saying a goodbye to Tana, promising to tell her everything once you get home.

‘Shall we?’ Elvis asked, offering his arm to you as you both turned back into the fair as you slid your arm through his. ‘I’m Elvis.’

You couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped your chest. ‘I know,’ you said, your smile evident in your voice as Elvis shot you a shy smile, ‘I’m (Y/N).’

‘Well, (Y/N),’ he began, and you felt a shiver roll down your spine at the way your name slipped easily off of his tongue. ‘How about a go on the ferris wheel?’ You hadn’t realised that Elvis had pulled you both to a stop in front of an empty carriage, just waiting for the two of you to get on. Instead of replying, you grinned up at him and moved to sit in the carriage, loving the way he let out a small laugh before rushing to join you before you were both hoisted into the air.

Once your carriage had stopped at the top of the wheel, you let your eyes close softly as you felt the gentle breeze brush through your hair, however, the breeze could do nothing to cool your cheeks once you looked over at him and saw the way he was looking at you; he was looking at you as if you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

‘I really liked your performance tonight,’ you said shyly, averting your gaze.

‘Thanks,’ he said, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck. ‘Couldn’t help being a bit off my game tonight though, I was a bit distracted,’ he continued, a smirk forming on his lips as he looked at you, causing a blush to quickly rush to your cheeks.

‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t think anyone noticed,’ you replied softly, looking up at him from underneath your eyelashes as a shiver suddenly ran through your body. Instantly, Elvis sprung into action, shrugging his jacket off.

‘You must be freezing up here,’ he murmured, draping his jacket over your shoulders, his arms lingering around you and you felt your head grow fuzzy as you were enveloped in the warmth from his jacket and his scent lingered around you. Elvis’ finger came to rest under your chin as he gently tilted your head up to look at him. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he spoke lowly as he began to lower his face to yours.

Just before his lips brushed against yours, the carriage you were in jolted as you came to a stop back down on the ground. You quickly pulled away, much to Elvis’ amusement, so you wouldn’t be caught by the ride operator, and hopped out of the carriage, Elvis following close behind until he gently pulled you to a stop, pressing you lightly against a wooden beam that was holding some of the bunting up, away from the rest of the crowd.

‘Where are you off to in a rush, darlin’?’ Elvis chuckled as he stepped even closer to you.

‘I didn’t think you’d want to be seen, where everyone knows who you are, with me,’ you began to ramble, only stopping when Elvis’ fingers gripped the sides of his jacket that was still draped over your shoulders, pulling you into him.

‘Darlin’, what I wanted,’ he started once you had looked back up at him, ‘was to kiss a beautiful girl. Imagine how I felt when he all of a sudden ran away from me,’ he made you laugh when he threw an overly exaggerated pout your way.

‘Wow, that girl really must not have realise who it was that wanted to kiss her, hey,’ you smiled coyly, bringing your hand up to lightly trace his jaw.

‘Are you going to let me kiss you now, darlin’?’ he asked, his accent sounding thicker as his eyes were trained on your lips.

‘Why don’t you find out,’ you said softly. Elvis tugged you impossibly closer by his grip on the jacket and finally pressed his lips to yours. You both sighed into the kiss as you felt yourselves get lost in each other, not caring if anyone walked past and saw you. You were enveloped by Elvis and, in that moment, you wouldn’t have it any other way.

You only broke the kiss when the both of you ran out of air and Elvis pressed his forehead to yours, practically grinning. ‘I wanna take you out on a date,’ he said, taking your hands in his and pulling them up to loop around his neck. ‘Whatd’ya say?’

‘I’d like that,’ you replied, grinning up at him before he moved to press his lips against yours one more time, tugging you away from your secluded spot as the two of you made your way back through the fair.

[therealslimshakespeare]

🪺 Crawfever Masterlist

Summary: I adore the notion that Elvis Freakin’ Presley himself might have shown up at your doorstep to fix your electrical problems in the early 50’s. The concept that all that untapped charisma and talent and beauty could be found just going about his business, helping housewives with their glitches…well, this came out of the imagining of what one such call might look like. And if it devolved into poorly written Southern Gothic literature, blame Eudora Welty. 🥰. Also, A Streetcar Named Desire may have influenced my artistic choice of copious descriptions of a sticky southern summer and the feelings they can provoke. If you’ve found yourself wanting baby Elvis with a milf, I’ve got you covered. This hasn’t been proofread by any eyes except my own exhausted ones. Cheers.

-An Electrician Named Elvis

-A Couple’ve Hot Summers

-Intermediate 3

-Intermediate 4

[aconflagrationofmyown]

Three Way Script

A Sarge and lil Mama fic

Warnings: rather angsty and with some strong language -but with a load of gentleness and love thrown in as is typical with this universe, please note the subjects covered here relate to infidelity and the death of an infant. Everyone herein is coping and not in a very tidy way but they’re tryin’.

Note: this is written in experimental first person view from Ann-Margret’s perspective. I’ve zero intention to vilify anyone and even had a little bit of qualms regarding using her in this at all. As is, I’m creating more of a character for her in the form of “Thumper” and her dynamic with the fictional Presley’s than any true resemblance to the lady herself. Cheers 💋

Dedicated to sweet @ab4eva who loves her hot tamale

Circa: summer of ‘63 on the set of Viva Las Vegas

It was a dark and deathly quiet quarter to four in the morning. I’d just been decked in the face by a sleepwalking Elvis Presley for trying to wake him up. Face throbbing, nerves strained from our undefined tryst, I clumsily chased him as he wandered outside, strangely stubborn in his unconscious quest for air, or space, or -her.

I didn’t know the etiquette for this, for any of it. I’d told him just that as he, a married man of such notoriety, pressed his lips against mine and told me that we had a connection.

He and I.

As if I couldn't feel it thrumming and seething and tugging between us during every scene and more concerning still, in the lulls between, in the quiet and unpretentious moments of rest when it wasn’t our characters, when it was just us. When he admitted to being gutted by the loss of his child, estranged from his ever-ebullient wife in her own bereavement, envious of his son, not even four years old, who occupied his space in her bed and took comfort from her body while he was obliged to dance and sing his way to another hit as if he wasn’t fragmented by the grief of it all.

“I thought you’d be all tough n’shit, a real firecracker.” he’d breathed with immense relief after uncovering that gooey, soft, vulnerable place inside of me that something about his grief and his hollow smirk and his lonesomeness had almost immediately unleashed in my soul. That urge to comfort, to assure him he wasn’t going out on a limb, it had me spending my days making a fool of myself for him.

Yet it seemed the price for such misplaced loyalty and pleasure was about to be extracted as I trailed him, calling out to him in vain, ignoring my aching jaw in an attempt to stall his sleepwalking, quelling the panic I felt at what must be done.

His guys didn’t know he was here with me and I wasn’t sure if I should tell them anyway, though I would have at this crucial point if I could have found or telephoned any of them. Tell them he was about to wander bare as the Lord made him into the studio lot.

I had to spare her that at least.

I had to call Graceland.

When I had entered my studio apartment earlier that evening Elvis had been sat in the kitchenette chair, twirling the landline cord around his finger, feet propped up on the Formica table, perfectly at home in my space, saying his goodbyes to a child or four. He gave me a dazzling smile as I stepped over my own threshold yet held up his finger for silence in my own space as he finished speaking with his family.

“Your phone ain’t bugged like mine is.” he had said casually by way of explanation for his entitlement to my rented room and then took me in his arms. I’d forgotten to press my point regarding privacy and rumors after that.

Now I fumbled the receiver off its hook and with all the cold, dreading heroism of a soldier launching a nuclear missile, I pushed redial.

One of the Presley cousins answered, I calculated the truth would get me where I needed fastest, so I said outright “Elvis is sleep walking on the lot and no one knows how to wake him”.

I was asked to hold and about twenty seconds later the receiver picks up again and this woman’s soft drawl comes over,

“Thumper? Is that you? Is he with you?”

Elaine was anxious. I could feel the strength of it through the phone, a visceral connection with a total stranger just by the waiver of her voice. So very anxious in that way that people who’ve been in a rash of losing things start to freak over the slightest possibility of another blow. It was the first time we’d ever spoken and yet I told her the situation as it stood, clear and concise. She knew of me -not just of Ann-Margret but of Thumper- and god knows I knew of her.

Elaine gained strength with details, demanded how long he’d been asleep and if he had his eyes open at all. With the first question I thought she was trying to trap me and get me to admit something I was more than ready to own up to. But then I realized she was just trying to triage. I gave her all the details I could tell and she gave me some suggestions.

“Make sure you duck away when you touch him or he’ll wallop you in the face, Thumper.” she warned with the surety of a veteran and her tone was so kind it took me ten whole minutes later to process the fact she had anticipated everything that had occurred and would occur. Despite that she was kind.

She was still kind after she suggested I let the dream run its course and maybe try to steer him from the gates or keep the outer door locked, and I had to tell her sheepishly he wasn’t wearing anything. Again, instead of what I was expecting she just let out a little huff and said

“Why didn’t you say? That makes things easier, you’ve got an ice pail, don’t you?”

So I ended up tossing ice at Elvis Presley’s chilled skin till he woke up and startled. Then led him back inside and when he saw the phone off the hook he got spooked and yelled at me that it wasn’t something to call the police for.

I said it was his wife instead. It was like he turned into a little boy then, he just yanked a sheet off the bed and curled into a chair at the kitchenette table and picked up the receiver.

I heard him whisper,

“Tink?”

before he waved me away and off as if this wasn’t my place that he had crashed in. But they were still softly chattin’ in a foreign sort of gibberish on the line by the time I gave up and fell asleep with the lamp on and him mumbling to his wife about his dream and asking to talk to a kid if one was awake.

He was gone when I woke up, so were his clothes.

Next I saw him, he was on set looking chipper, full face of pancake makeup disguising his exhaustion, playing cards with the boys waiting for the director to show. A quart’s worth of makeup was lathered to my own face, meticulously plastered on my left cheek five layers deep to disguise the purpling bruise he’d given me.

He acted like nothing, and I do mean nothing of any sort, had happened the night before. It was puzzling and I began to realize just how well he could compartmentalize everything. Lines and paces and dances and duets, he moved through them all that day with ease, belying the man who told me the night before he didn’t think he could keep going on like this.

‘This’ being the continuing of the smiling and dancing and grinding for all the nation to applaud, anything to market his resilience, once again having to rebound from his unsellable grief. But a child buried comes back in a man’s dreams.

“They made me choose, Annie,” he’d wept to me, “came out in their coats and said ‘which would ya like us to save, Mr. Presley?’ What was I s’posed to say to that, Thumper?” he begged me for an answer like I had an opinion on such a horrific conundrum. It’s times like these when a twenty three year old starlet isn’t sure what to say. “I can’t live without her! Can’t keep ‘em all well and happy without her, chose her. Now my baby girl’s dead.”

Her was always Elaine. And baby girl had been named Joe.

Josephine Belleaza, though her daddy couldn’t say her name, the name he’d lovingly chosen in happier times, couldn’t say it aloud without sounding strangled.

“It wouldn’t have changed a thing.” I kept insisting, I didn’t know what else to say except the truth of it, “They just ask those things to put it back on the -the- the patient.” The victim, the father, the parents. Putting those sleepless nights about choices back on his shoulders. As if a child drowned in the amniotic fluid that had once been its home and haven could be revived if the mother was cut apart to take it out. It was cruel, there never was a choice that god hadn't already made. “Wouldn’t have changed a thing. She doesn’t blame you, does she?”

“No, no never.” he’d sighed bitterly.

We talked a lot about her for a young co-star and her married leading man, laying in those twisted sheets he laid me out on, reveling in the fact I had no old memories etched on my skin, yet was soft and giving in all the ways to mimic the familiar one. It was an unfair usage, but when you’re in love you take a married man happily even if he seems as if he’s looking for more and less than your unstoried body could ever give him. A respite from things associated with dreams gone wrong, turned dark and twisted. He made me feel like a lifeline, he made me feel indispensable for him getting up each new day, he made my body rejoice and thrum from even the smallest of child play beneath the sheets, he made me fall in love with him.

And then he railed at me for calling her. I was the lifeline to get him back to her alive, sane and somewhat devoted. I was never his wife and according to him I should never have made his wife listen to his passing dalliance recount our tryst. It was unfair, I had done it to protect him but the minute the cameras stopped rolling he had cornered me and cut me down for the night before.

“You told her about us!” I accused him right back, righteous and misled all at once.

“There ain’t no us!” and he said it so easily.

That was true, I’d never met a fully grown man with such drive who found a way to make love in every possible way except the typical insertion method. I had not pressed it before, thinking it connected to his fear of pregnancy. “You told her about me being Thumper!” I clarified my complaint.

“Course I did!” he acted like I’d cracked up, “I tell her ‘bout all of ‘em, she’s accommodatin’ like that. Don’t mean she should have to have salt rubbed in the wound by talkin’ to ya. Ain’t fittin. She’s my wife!”

That stung, the categorization. There was little ole me, one of an apparent host of good time girls, and then there was her. And the fact she was his wife, that he really had his priorities straight despite his wandering eye, was a virtue lost on my love sick heart.

I was just furious and hurt.

“Did she put you up to this?” I seethed and he said no, no she hadn’t but this was just the way of things. He told Elaine about all his friends, which he considered me one, and on the flip side he kept them separated from his family life. It was traditional and tidy and archaic and we fought bitterly over it and made up in my bed.

He was gone again when I woke the next morning. But across the room in his stead was a large spray of roses he must’ve allowed in, shaped in a heart like a valentine, though the month was July. I anticipated conciliatory words in his childish scribble on the note. Instead, there in a delicate cursive was a quote, from Anna Karenina, I recognized,

“There are as many kinds of loves as there are hearts”

and down below in tiny, achingly gentle words was the sentiment:

“to a very tender young lady, for her pains and kindness to us, hope the cheek heals by the time I come and kiss it, all my thanks, -Elaine.”

———————————————————

I so hope I can crank out another of these or one for Gigi before too long, and a happier one at that, but for now I hope y’all enjoyed and thanks for all the love and questions flooding into my inbox for this make-believe family, it makes me so soft 🥹

Hope y’all enjoyed xoxo, lemme know below if you’d like to added to the taglist

@paradsol000

@eliseinmemphis

@prompted-wordsmith

@ab4eva

@foreverdolly

@powerofelvis

@butlersxbirdy

@crash-and-cure

@elvisabutler

@heartbrake-hotel

@stylespresleyhearted

@thatbanditqueen

@crazymadpassionatelove

@myradiaz

@ash-omalley

@whatstruthgottadowithit

@arianatheangelgirl

@steph-speaks

@burningloverdoll

@angelface-555

@lookingforrainbows

@missmaywemeetagain

@coolgirl462

@kingdomforapony

@18lkpeters

@richardslady121

@from-memphis-with-love

@lillypink

@artlover8992

@pennyroyalcreep

@notstefaniepresley

@ellie-24

@renaissingle

@waiting4brucewayne2adoptme

@presleyenterprise

@marriedtopresley

[pxnsneverland]

Ruthless Grace | Austin Butler x OC (part 1)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

plot summary: Amidst the grime and squalor of Victorian England's winding cobblestone alleys, a young woman's life hangs precariously in the balance. Violet, a poor peasant girl with long raven locks and piercing gray eyes, possesses a haunting beauty that belies the harsh realities of her existence. Tragedy struck two years prior when Violet's mother succumbed to illness, leaving her to fend for herself and her father – a cruel, selfish man consumed by vices of alcohol and gambling. On one fateful night, Violet's father drags her unwillingly to that very den of iniquity, and there she learns a horrifying truth from the club's greedy, perverted owner: to repay his mounting gambling debts, her father has sold her into sexual servitude. Violet's vehement protests fall on deaf ears, until an unlikely savior emerges from the shadows. Lord Austin Butler intervenes with a bargain of his own. This dangerous man offers to pay off Violet's father's debts in exchange for her accompaniment, and Violet is torn from the only life she has known. While Austin's demeanor remains shrouded in mystery and detachment at first, Violet gradually glimpses his softer, even playful side as time passes within the manor's walls and an unexpected connection blossoms between the unlikely pair.

pairings: austin butler x oc

word count: 3,025

warnings/notes: I decided to post another Austin fic I've been playing with for a little while. This is a set up chapter for the story and hopefully you guys enjoy it. The romance will begin soon :)

Chapter 1: Anchors and Aspirations

The icy wind bit through Violet's thin shawl as she maneuvered through the bustling market square, her gray eyes flitting from stall to stall. With the stealth of a seasoned thief, she slipped a hand into a basket, withdrawing a bruised apple before anyone noticed. At her heart, there was no love for thievery, but survival in the grim alleys of Victorian England left little room for scruples. As she tucked the stolen fruit into the folds of her dress, a shadow loomed over her. Her heart caught in her throat. She turned slowly, only to see Mr. Clarence Johnson, a local shopkeeper known for his scrupulous eye and unforgiving nature.

“Miss Everly,” he said, his tone surprisingly soft, his gaze not on the stolen apple but on her face. “You look more worn than usual. Are you unwell?”

Violet tensed. Clarence Johnson was an uncommon figure in their decrepit part of town; his presence alone suggested he was either lost or up to something far beyond her understanding.

“I am just fine, sir,” Violet replied, her voice steady despite the fluttering of her heart. “Just tending to some errands for my father.”

“Aye,” he nodded slowly, his bushy eyebrows knitting together in concern.

“But you needn’t resort to pilfering for your sustenance,” he continued, glancing at where the apple had disappeared into her dress. “There are other ways, Miss Everly, ways that do not risk your slender neck at the gallows.”

Violet stiffened, her hand instinctively clutching the fabric over the apple. The threat of the law was always a ghost that haunted her every step in these streets. “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Johnson, but I assure you, I manage as best I can.”

Clarence surveyed her with those discerning eyes that missed little. “Your father,” he began, his voice dropping to a softer timbre, “he does little to provide, am I right?”

The accusation stung because it was true, yet Violet felt a surge of defiance. “He is my father still,” she said coldly, daring him with her gaze to speak ill of the man despite his failures.

Clarence sighed digging into one of his pockets and pulling out a few coins. He handed it to Violet. “Go buy the apple, girl. It would be a shame to see you hang for a fruit.” A trace of regret flitted across his features. “Miss Everly, I—” He paused, seeming to choose his next words with care. “I find myself in need of a reliable assistant at my shop. Someone keen and observant. Your... talents could be put to better use than thievery.”

Violet's heart pounded fiercely against her ribcage at the offer. Employment from Mr. Clarence Johnson was an unexpected lifeline, a beacon in her relentless sea of struggles. Yet, mistrust curled inside her like a dormant snake. Why would a man of his standing offer her, a known petty thief, an opportunity?

"I appreciate your offer, Mr. Johnson," Violet started cautiously, her voice a low murmur as she glanced around the bustling market to ensure no eavesdroppers lurked nearby. "But why would you trust someone like me in your establishment? You know very well my... activities."

Clarence's eyes softened, hinting at a depth that Violet hadn't noticed before. “Everyone deserves a chance at redemption, Miss Everly. I’ve watched you, not just today but many times. You’re quick, smart, and despite your current... enterprise,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly, “you have morals. You steal only what you need and no more.”

He was right—Violet never took more than necessary to survive. Her actions were driven by desperation, not greed. The acknowledgment of that fact from Clarence Johnson stirred something akin to hope within her chest.

"Consider it," he urged gently as he started to turn away, leaving the coins in her palm.

Violet watched Clarence's retreating figure, the coins heavy in her hand like the sudden possibility they represented. In a world that had offered little but hard edges and cold shoulders, the warmth of an unexpected offer ignited a flicker of daring in her spirit. She could almost taste the promise of stability, a stark contrast to the bitter tang of pilfered fruit and the relentless ache of uncertainty. Still, Violet knew better than to leap without looking. Her life had taught her the sharp lessons of betrayal and disappointment too well. As she moved away from the market square, her mind raced with both the perils and prospects of Clarence Johnson's proposal. Could she truly step into the light of legitimate work without the shadows of her past pulling her back? And more pressingly, what did Clarence see in her that others didn't? Was it pity, a calculated gamble, or perhaps something more personal?

As she wandered through the alleys, her route took her instinctively towards home—a term used loosely for the cramped, dingy room she shared with her father. The door creaked ominously as she pushed it open, revealing Edward Everly slumped over a table littered with empty bottles. The stench of stale liquor and despair hung thick in the air. Violet's entrance went unnoticed by her father, his consciousness lost to the depths of another drunken stupor. She stood there a moment, her gaze hardening as she took in the sight of his decrepit form. This was the life she was born into, one suffocated by poverty and neglect, a stark reminder of what awaited her if nothing changed.

With a soft sigh, she stepped over the threshold, her boots echoing softly on the bare wooden floor. The coins still clenched in her hand felt like both a promise and a burden. She walked past her father, careful not to disturb his fitful slumber, and seated herself on the small, worn-out chair near the cold fireplace. Here in the dim light of their one-room abode, Violet allowed herself a moment to think. Mr. Clarence Johnson’s offer was tempting—an escape from this life of constant desperation. Yet doubt gnawed at her; trust was a luxury she could scarcely afford. Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden groan from across the room. Edward Everly stirred, his eyelids fluttering open only to squint at his surroundings in befuddled drunkenness.

"Violet?" he slurred, his voice soaked with alcohol and confusion.

"Yes, Father," she replied quietly, steadying her voice to hide the tumult inside.

"What are you doing, sitting there like a lost soul? No food again?" His voice was rough, accusatory, as he tried to focus his bleary eyes on her.

Violet's hand tightened around the coins, the metal biting into her palm. She considered telling him about the job offer, about the possibility of change, but the words died on her lips. Her father's unpredictable temper and his disdain for any sign of ambition or hope outside his own distorted view discouraged any such revelations. Instead, she rose to her feet, smoothing the front of her dress with a practiced motion. "I'll get us something to eat," she said, her tone neutral. "Rest now. You need it."

Edward grunted in response, collapsing back onto the table with a weary thud. Violet turned away, feeling the weight of responsibility press down on her once more. As she stepped out into the waning light of day, the coins still in her grasp represented more than mere currency; they were a test of her courage and resolve.

The streets outside whispered with the voices of dusk—traders packing up their stalls, children playing before they were called in for supper, men heading towards the pubs for their evening respite. Violet moved through them like a shadow, unnoticed yet sharply attentive. She made her way to the tiny store at the corner of the street, its windows dimly lit and shelves sparsely stocked. Mrs. Bauble, the elderly proprietor, looked up from her knitting as Violet entered, her eyes narrowing slightly with suspicion and then softening as she recognized the young woman.

"Back again, Violet?" Mrs. Bauble asked, setting aside her knitting. Her voice was raspy yet carried a warmth that was often absent in their bleak surroundings.

"Yes, Mrs. Bauble," Violet replied, approaching the counter with the coins still tight in her grip. "A loaf of bread and whatever meat you can spare for this."

Mrs. Bauble eyed the coins and then Violet, a knowing look crossing her features. "Trouble or fortune, my dear? Those coins look heavy with one or the other."

Violet offered a small, weary smile. "Perhaps a bit of both," she confessed softly.

The old woman nodded as if she understood all too well the dual nature of sudden opportunities. She turned to gather the requested items, wrapping them carefully before handing them over to Violet. "Be cautious, child. Fortune's favor is a fickle friend," she advised, her wrinkled hand briefly squeezing Violet's.

Violet nodded, feeling the weight of the old woman's words sink into her heart. "I will, thank you, Mrs. Bauble," she murmured, taking the small parcel with a sense of gratitude mixed with trepidation. As she left the store, the cool evening air brushed against her face, whispering possibilities that both exhilarated and terrified her. The walk back home was a quiet one, filled with the sounds of her own footsteps echoing off the cobblestones and the distant laughter of children not yet called to their suppers. Violet's mind spun with thoughts of Mr. Clarence Johnson’s proposal. It was a chance to step away from the shadowy margins of survival into something resembling a normal life. But at what cost? Could she really leave behind the streets that had taught her everything about resilience and distrust just as easily?

The uncertainty churned inside her as she approached the door of her humble abode once more. Violet paused, hand on the latch, feeling the divide between her current life and the one that might await her with Clarence Johnson. She could almost hear her mother’s voice, soft and encouraging, urging her to take a chance for a better future. Yet, the haunting memories of past betrayals loomed large, making her hesitate. Resolutely, Violet pushed open the door, stepping back into the shadowed confines of the room she shared with her father. Edward Everly was now snoring loudly, lost in an alcoholic haze that seemed to provide him the only peace he knew. Violet set down the small parcel of food on the shaky table and took a moment to look at him. Despite everything, he was still her father, and a pang of compassion tempered her longstanding resentment.

Quietly she unpacked the bread and meat, setting aside a portion for herself before preparing a smaller plate for Edward when he would inevitably awaken. Her actions were mechanical, performed with little thought as her mind wrestled with larger concerns. She knew that accepting Clarence’s offer would mean more than just changing jobs; it would mean stepping into an unknown world, risking exposure and vulnerability in ways she hadn't before.

Later, as darkness enveloped the room and the flickering candle cast long shadows across the peeling walls, Violet sat with her thoughts, tracing the outline of the bread with her fingers. The sense of impending change weighed heavily on her. It wasn't just the prospect of leaving behind the familiar, suffocating squalor that gnawed at her; it was also stepping into a realm so vastly different from anything she had known. What if she was unprepared for the challenges? What if she failed?

As these doubts swirled in her mind, Edward stirred from his stupor, his movements sluggish as he adjusted to the dim light. He squinted at the plate set before him and then up at Violet, a rare flicker of confusion crossing his usually indifferent gaze.

"Did you fetch this, Violet?" he mumbled, his voice hoarse.

"Yes," she replied quietly, watching him closely.

He took a piece of meat and chewed slowly. For a moment, there was silence between them—a silence filled with unspoken words and stifled dreams.

"Why do you stay?" Edward's question came unexpectedly. His eyes, clearer now, fixed on her with an intensity that made her flinch slightly.

Violet paused, her breath catching in her throat. It was not like Edward to show interest in her choices or her life. The question hung in the air, heavy and laden with implications that Violet had long avoided. She searched for an answer that could appease both her father and her own restless heart. "I stay because this is my home," she replied quietly, her eyes not meeting his. "And because you are here."

Edward snorted, a bitter laugh escaping him as he looked around the decrepit room that barely served as a shelter. "This? This is no home, Violet. It's a prison. You're young still. You shouldn't be shackled by my failures."

His words, so starkly honest, struck Violet with unexpected force. It was rare for Edward to acknowledge his own shortcomings so openly or to express concern for her well-being. This glimpse of the man he might once have been—before grief and vice had reshaped him into the figure he now presented—left her momentarily speechless.

"You could leave, find a better life. Isn't there anyone...?" His voice trailed off, his question unfinished but clear.

Violet’s heart pounded in her chest as she considered her father's words. They echoed the very thoughts that haunted her nightly dreams—the possibility of a life beyond these walls, a chance at happiness that seemed so tantalizing yet so remote. But the thought of leaving her father in this state, as wretched as it was, tugged at her conscience. "There might be," she admitted softly, allowing herself to think of Clarence Johnson once more. His offer had been genuine, filled with promises of respect and a new beginning. Yet, the weight of her current reality shackled her ambitions.

"But I fear what leaving would mean for you," she continued, her voice barely above a whisper.

Edward scoffed, looking away from her piercing gaze. "Don't make an anchor out of me, Violet. I'm already drowning." His voice was gruff, edged with the harsh self-awareness that alcohol sometimes brought to his lips.

Violet swallowed hard, feeling the sting of tears she refused to shed. Her father’s usual indifference made his moments of clarity all the more painful for their rarity and raw honesty.

"I need to think on it," she finally said, standing up and moving towards the small window that overlooked the dim alleyway below. There, she pressed her forehead against the cool glass, trying to draw strength from the night itself. The tangled streets of London sprawled out before her—so familiar and yet suddenly brimming with the promise of escape. Her heart fluttered at the thought, a wild bird caged by years of oppression and fear.

Inside, Edward shifted uneasily in his chair, watching her silhouette framed against the weak moonlight that dribbled through the grimy window. For a moment, he seemed about to speak again, perhaps to retract his harsh truths or to further encourage her departure. But no words came; instead, he sank back into his chair with a heavy sigh that spoke volumes of his resignation to life's cruel turns.

Violet remained at the window long after her father's breathing evened out into the rhythm of sleep. Her thoughts were tumultuous waves crashing against the shore of her resolve. Clarence’s proposal was not merely an employment offer; it was an invitation to step into a world where she could perhaps wash away the stains of her past and emerge reborn. It promised safety, respectability, and above all, an identity unchained from the degradation that had colored her life. Yet, her father’s words haunted her: "Don’t make an anchor out of me." Could she really leave him here, adrift in the haze of his vices, or was it her duty to stay and prevent him from sinking deeper into despair? The weight of decision seemed insurmountable, anchoring her to this moment of indecision.

Violet pressed her cheek against the cool pane, the glass fogging slightly with each exhaled breath. Outside, the labyrinthine alleys of London whispered secrets of escape and adventure, but also murmured warnings of betrayal and hardship. Each whisper tugged at her soul, a symphony of opportunity and fear mingling in the night air. Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft noise behind her. Turning slightly, she saw Edward shifting again in his chair, his face etched with lines of discomfort and regret. For a fleeting second, she saw not the man who had failed her but rather the father who had once held dreams and aspirations beyond the confines of their dreary existence. The weight of his words echoed in her mind, a haunting reminder of their shared struggles and the unspoken bond that tied them together.

Drawing in a deep breath, Violet stepped away from the window. The cool air had not offered solace nor had it stiffened her resolve. If anything, it had only deepened her turmoil. Walking over to the flickering candle, she snuffed it out with a quick pinch, plunging the room into darkness. She navigated through the black with practiced ease, her every step whispering against the wooden floor. Reaching her modest bedding in the corner, she lay down without changing, drawing the thin blanket up to her chin. The darkness was not just a physical veil but also a metaphor for the uncertainty that clouded her future. As she lay there, her mind continued to race, replaying her earlier conversation with her father, weighing each word, each pause.

As sleep eventually claimed her in its restless embrace, Violet dreamt of vast oceans and endless horizons—a world away from the cramped confines of their decrepit home. In her dreams, the ocean was a deep blue, not the murky grey of London's foggy mornings. She stood on the deck of a ship, the wind tugging at her hair and billowing her threadbare dress like a sail. This was a freedom she had never known, unshackled from the burdens of her father's failures and the oppressive weight of their squalid existence.

Stay tuned for part 2!! Click HERE to view!