#Hayride to Hell | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skeltnwrites · 1 month ago

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The Shape of Family ‧₊˚❀༉

As a single dad, Steve’s world revolves around school drop-offs, bedtime rituals, and tee-ball practices—and he's struggling to keep up. But you're always there, happily lending a hand when he needs it most. / part one masterlist

part two - at the rec center's fall festival, you and steve finally make plans to hang out 11k

a/n - how did this end up twice as long as the first chapter this was supposed to be a short one!! general warnings/tags here

── .✦

Utah’s pretty this time of year. Fall is in full swing. The maple and cottonwood mellow into rich shades of orange, there is a constant crush of leaves underfoot, and the crisp scent of pine needles mingle with the breeze. Your neighbors go all out to decorate. Pumpkins are for sale on every corner and the apple orchards buzz with families for the harvest. This kind of weather has every brush of sunlight feeling like a hug you didn’t know you needed.

The rec center hosts an annual fall festival, bringing hayrides, corn mazes, and costume contests. And though you wouldn’t normally volunteer on a Sunday, Steve’s hard to say no to. It’s not like he begged you or anything, a half-shrug and simple “If you want to” was enough convincing.

You’d volunteer with or without Steve. You have the time and the goodwill and thus it’s a cork on the end of your monotonous work-week. But there’s no denying that Steve makes it a hell of a lot more enjoyable. He’s the sunrise after a long night, guiding you into the days ahead. And yeah, maybe you’re romanticizing too much. Too caught up in the way his tongue sticks out when he’s concentrating or how he mumbles to himself when he forgets you’re near. But working with him is delightful, nonetheless.

You and Steve are friends now. Well, work friends. You’ve never actually hung out outside of the rec center but there isn’t a Friday that one of you doesn’t mention it while you eat lunch in his office. You’ve learned trivial little things about him, like his favorite brand of pen, the store he buys his groceries from, and how he likes his coffee– hot enough to burn, with as much sugar as he can get away with without attracting strange looks. You ask about Penelope often and he’s very open; eager to rant and rave about the latest details of their lives. She visits every now and then, usually too sick or naughty to be at school. So you’ve come to know her just as much. That she loves Barbies and Salt-N-Pepa and insects but not the furry ones.

Being in each other’s lives is routine at this point– parking beside his car, leaving sticky notes on his desk, setting your bag in his office. It would be crazy to say you love him, you don’t, obviously, but you feel like you could. And you know you’d be devastated if he left the center. Your shift assignments are arranged so they almost always thread with his.

He’s always hated asking for help, but then you came, puttering into his office with a lovely smile and open arms and suddenly it’s not so bad. He��ll ask for your assistance on more projects than not: your advice, your creative eye, your hands to hang something that he most certainly could do alone.

Like now, you trail only a few paces behind Steve, cradling a wicker basket full of decorations. He billows a tablecloth over the nearest picnic table, considering your dispute over the best holiday.

“I dunno, I’m more of a Christmas guy,” Steve shrugs, smoothing out a ripple in the fabric. “The music is just inarguably better. You get to open presents and eat delicious food. Not really a contest in my book.”

You hum, centering a plastic pumpkin.

“Penelope is like the queen of Halloween, though.” The corners of his eyes crinkle with mirth. “This morning, she told me she wished she was born on Halloween so she could go trick-or-treating on her birthday.”

You wear a similar expression, gaze flicking over to Penelope. She’s not far, crouched in a strip of dirt, parting a pile of leaves to search for ladybugs and other creatures. “I bet she’s excited for all that candy.”

“That’s all she’d eat if I let her. I’ve already scheduled a dentist appointment for her in November– But, I’m just as bad, she gets her sweet tooth from me,” he admits.

“Figured. The amount of Reese's wrappers I find in your trash.”

He squeezes your shoulder playfully, not hard enough that you should need to squirm away but you do. “Whatever. Why are you going through my trash anyway, weirdo.”

You click your tongue, “I wasn’t going through your trash! They are on the top where anyone could see.”

“Mhmm, whatever you say… dumpster diver.”

Joan, the youth counselor, whisks over to interrupt with arms full of mason jars before you can retort. Steve smothers his smirk with an answer to her question. Your tongue prods the inside of your cheek to prevent your own.

It’s like this with Steve, now. Teasing and taunting each other like schoolchildren. A game of tug-of-war, where every knowing glance and light-hearted jab pulls the rope just a little tighter between you. It’s as thrilling as it is nerve-wracking.

It’s not much later when guests filter into the festival. The earliest glow of sunset mists the courtyard in gold. There’s cider stations and pumpkin carving and a whole bunch of apple bobbers fighting to win a pumpkin pie. Monster Mash bleeds from several speakers lining the trail to the tented area you find yourself in. People dance and laugh and drink. It’s a very successful event for the rec center.

Steve plops down on the bench across from you, Penelope at his hip. A silent, self-invitation he knows you won’t decline— you enjoy their company more than people-watching. He seems to find you no matter which way you drift, even through a sea of townsfolk.

A big scoop of chili is spooned from his paper bowl into a second. “Blow on it,” Steve reminds, planting it in front of Penelope.

She does blow on it, a spray of more spit than air that merits her a shoulder nudge to knock it off.

Penelope simpers over her steaming food as Steve offers you an apologetic look. Last you saw her, she was waving her way up the stairs to the costume contest. She’s since been bundled up– a tiara traded for a knit beanie and the gown from her dress-up bin crammed underneath a thick sweater and spilling out the hem.

The string lights bathe their faces in a white glow. It highlights the beauty mark on the slope of Penelope’s cheek, like a half of Steve’s pair in the same spot. It’s not often you get to just enjoy their company. No scrambling about deadlines or standards. It’s a calm you could get used to. But Steve’s always ten steps ahead, already plotting which crew needs the most tending to when he’s finished eating. He’s selfless like that. Your feet ache from running around, but Steve’s probably worse.

“Penelope, is that what you’re wearing on Halloween?” You ask.

Her chin presses into the neckline of her sweater. “No,” she recalls, mouth full of sauce. “I’m being Dorothy.”

Steve swipes a napkin across her lips before anything drips.

“From The Wizard of Oz?”

“Mhmm,” she grins, popping the spoon out of her mouth.

“Very cool. Did you get your costume yet?”

She nods, glancing at Steve, “Daddy made it.”

Steve’s in his own little world, slurping his belly full of warm food and basking in the second of peace he‘s been given. But he blinks back into reality at your questioning stare, leaning in to hear you over the boisterous laughs of nearby people.

You try to reel in your surprise, soften your features. “You made her costume?”

“Oh,” he waves a dismissive hand, “I just sewed a shirt to a dress. Nothing fancy.”

“Still– that’s really cool, Steve.”

He stirs his food, voice torn with guilt. “I dunno. It’s cheap.”

“Costumes are better homemade. The ones in the stores are tacky. I bet it looks amazing.”

Fragments of a smile find his lips, more a peace offering than a true one.

“I painted my shoes red and I put so much glitter on them so they sparkle,” Penelope adds cheerfully.

“You did?”

She nods, shining with pride.

“It’s been two weeks and I’m still finding glitter everywhere,” Steve comments, more amused than he lets on. He can’t be that mad when they’re little reminders of his favorite person in the world.

“Are you dressing up?” You ask him.

He huffs, side-eyeing Penelope. “Yes.”

A glint forms in her eyes, a sly little smirk beneath. “Daddy is going to be the lion because he’s hairy.”

You laugh and Penelope joins you because Steve has a funny pouty face.

He rolls his eyes. “Tell ‘em who’s your Toto?”

“Cinderella!”

“No way!” You match her level of excitement. “Does she have a costume?”

“No, but I have a basket for her to sit in.”

You coo, “I bet Cinderella will love that.”

Steve snorts because he knows you know Cinderella will in fact not love that.

Cinderella is supposedly the grumpiest animal he’s ever met. She was a quick, unfortunately painful, lesson on boundaries for Penelope– not to pet certain areas or animals as a whole. Steve described her as an old, scraggly thing with a temper flaring unpredictably from one moment to the next. He wasn’t a cat person to begin with, growing up in a house with no animals probably started his revulsion to having fur on his clothes; but at two and a half, Penelope begged to feed the stray on their porch and she just kept coming back.

Steve wanted a dog when he moved out, if anything at all; but in four years he’s learned more about sacrifice than any speech his parents tried to drill into his head. And Cinderella is practically Penelope’s best friend now. She sets aside birthday money for new cat toys– the crinkly ones are her favorite– and sneaks the cat through her bedroom window from time to time. She even cradles her like a baby, not without protest and the occasional scratch, of course, but Penelope knows the risk.

“I told her Cinderella probably won’t want to come trick or treating but she can still take a picture with her at home.”

“I told you she will want to go because there’s candy.”

“Yes, but I told you cats can’t have candy,” Steve jabs her side lightly.

Penelope only pouts. “That’s sad. I think she would like candy.”

“It is,” he agrees, slotting a rogue strand of hair behind her ear. “But it makes them sick, remember? So we can’t share with Cinderella.”

Her cheek melds with his sleeve, begrudgingly agreeing with a sigh. “Can I get my face painted?”

Steve traces her line of sight to the ring of kids swarming the face painter. It’s not far. He can see well enough to recognize most of the children. Many are younger than Penelope too.

But Steve hesitates, “Can you wait until I’m done eating? I’ll go with you.”

“Daddy,” she whines, pinching his arm hair. “You take forever.”

Penelope’s got magical little eyes. You don’t know how Steve ever says no.

“I can take her,” you offer, stacking trash on your plate. “I’m done anyway.”

“No, it’s okay.” He deflates with a sigh, curling into his ribs so he can see her face. “You can go by yourself–”

Her frown washes away just as fast as she peels herself off of his arm.

“But! You have to come straight back when you’re done and you have to stay where I can see you. ‘Kay?”

“‘Kay!” She beams, nearly tripping on her dress as she swings her legs over the bench and breaks into a run.

Steve can’t hide the wobble in his smile as hard as he tries to be strong. Most of the hardships he’s faced as a parent are foreign to you, but clearly, this isn’t easy for him.

“She’ll be fine,” you reassure with a ginger squeeze to his wrist. “We aren’t far if she needs something.”

He nods, still locked in on Penelope. “I know, I know. I’m trying really hard not to be a helicopter parent as she gets older. It sucks though, feeling like she doesn’t need me anymore.”

“Steve,” you deadpan, prying his attention back. “That’s… silly. You’re her dad, of course she still needs you. Maybe not all the time or as much but she’ll always need you.”

“I dunno. I feel like she grows an inch every time I turn around. I never thought I’d say this, but I actually miss when she was in diapers. She’s cute now, but God was she cute then.” He chuckles to himself, eyes swinging from Penelope to you and then back.

“I believe it,” you grin, admiring his girl. Her cheeks are red from the cold, like two tomatoes framing her lips. She might like to wear your jacket, you consider, but she’s so small, perhaps she’ll overheat from too many layers.

Penelope scrambles into the chair when it’s her turn, talking a mile a minute to the face painter. A funny wave of emotion roves over you. There’s affection and joy and and then something heavier and harder to describe.

“I’ll have to show you her baby pictures sometime.” You hear the parting of a true smile. “There’s this one– it was her first birthday– I gave her a whole cake and she just demolished it. Had it in her hair and her eyelashes and in between her toes. She was so damn happy.”

You exhale a happy hum, turning back to Steve. He’s propped on his elbows now, close enough to discern each eyelash from the next. It doesn’t startle you as much as it just scrapes the words right off your tongue.

He’s reading you, churning, and chasing the right words all in between the blink of an eye. “We should hang out, you know? Like actually– We always talk about it but…” He shakes his head, trailing off.

He’d let the words be carried with the wind if you wanted. It’s hard to imagine you’d say no, but people have surprised him in worse ways. Just when he thinks he knows someone, truly knows them, they cut him off like he’s no more than a dying branch. The ghosts of past someones and somethings still haunt him. It makes being so forward with you all the more difficult.

You wear a whimsical sort of grin that you hide behind the brush of your hand, fighting your own flood of emotions. “Yeah– I mean, yeah. When?”

Excitement flares across his features. “What are you doing on Halloween? You could come trick-or-treating with us?”

“Probably just home handing out candy– but Steve, I don’t want to intrude on Halloween. It sounds really special to Penelope.”

“You wouldn’t! No way, Penelope would be thrilled if you came. She talks about you a lot, you know?”

“No she doesn’t,” you grin madly into your palm, peering over to her. Her face is dressed in a bright shade of orange now. With her pudgy cheeks, she reminds you of a little pumpkin.

“She does! Swear it– on my life.” He’s not lying. He can’t hold your eyes when he lies, even about silly things.

You huff, feeling foolishly giddy. “I don’t have time to get a costume, Steve.”

“Nonsense. We can find you one. I’ll make it if I have to. The Tin Man and The Scarecrow are still up for grabs.”

You swallow, washing the sudden dryness from your throat. Why does Steve have to be so damn cute and sweet all at once? “I dunno. Would it be fine if I didn’t dress up?”

He chuckles dryly. “Penelope won’t have that, I can tell you that much. Plus if I’m going to be tortured into some itchy lion onesie I expect you’ll do the same.” He’s teasing, which is typical for you both, but it’s like you’ve forgotten how.

“Steve.”

“Come on. If not for me, for Penelope. She’ll love it.”

“Okay,” you settle. But you aren’t really settling. He could ask you to dress up on any other day of the year and you’d do it.

Penelope races over– a tabby cat with long whiskers and a pastel pink nose– yelling, “Daddy, look!”

Steve beams at her like he stuck a lightbulb in his mouth, somehow brighter than before. “I see! You look so pretty, princess.”

“I’m like Cinderella.”

“You are!” He pats her former seat beside him until she sits.

Her long lashes flutter questioningly.

“Nell, don’t you think we need, I dunno, like a Tinman or a Scarecrow to go with our costumes on Halloween?”

She tracks his gaze over to you, adopting your smirk. “Are you coming trick-or-treating with us?” Her voice is uneven and bubbly with anticipation.

“Do you want me to?” You ask genuinely.

Penelope’s tongue wriggles in her mouth like she can’t find the proper words to express what she feels. But she nods in this bashful way against Steve’s shoulder that surprises you.

“Are we being shy now?” Steve remarks, pulling her into his arms effortlessly to peck her hairline.

“No,” she whines against his sweater, overjoyed to be smothered in love. Dry paint creases with her scrunched face. It’s an adorable sight. You keep wishing you had a camera on you because this is the kind of thing Steve probably puts in his photo albums.

The moon climbs the sky quickly, draping the party in a silver veil. Many stay for the campfire and the promise of smores. But the later it gets, the crankier kids become for their parents. Penelope’s no exception, whining and clinging to Steve until he agrees to hold her. And he tries to work still, but his arms are starting to burn and stamping hayride tickets isn’t easy one-handed so he makes the hard choice to leave before cleanup.

He feels awful, apologizing to several of his coworkers on the way out but most are too drunk on cider or too high on festive cheer to care. Besides, he’s paid a salary, doing this out of the kindness of his heart. He has no obligation to be here– you’d reminded him of that multiple times. But the festival does feel empty when they leave, even with half the town still around.

ᯓ★

Steve lives in a quiet pocket outside of town on a curvy, secluded stretch of road. The directions he’d scrawled out on a receipt weren’t as useful as you’d hoped as one of the street names you were intended to turn on was smudged beyond legibility. But you made it, parked in front of a white house with a similarly white picket fence. Steve’s beamer is idled to your right. It’s strange seeing it somewhere that’s not the rec center. But it’s a familiar comfort between so much new.

There’s a tire swing knotted to the oak tree in the yard, a collection of painted rocks in the pebble-lined path up to the house, and two carved pumpkins set outside the door, caving in on themselves but not yet rotting. A lot of love is shared here.

Penelope answers the door when you knock. She’s half dressed– stockings hugging a pair of fleece leggings and a flowy pajama tank top. Her eyes outline your costume and light up with approval.

You sport a flannel and denim overalls stuffed with prickly straw straight from the local farm, courtesy of Steve. But Penelope ogles your face paint more than anything– a stitched grin and two circles for blush. You hope it’s not scary looking.

She doesn’t know how to let you inside– she’s not supposed to answer the door after all– so she hangs clumsily off the door handle until you ask, “Can I come in?”

“Yes,” she teeters out of the way, closing the door behind you with a sweeping grin— the mischievous kind that makes you wonder what she’s up to.

The foyer is situated between the living room and kitchen, both of which are missing Steve.

“Where’s your dad?”

“Umm. Cleaning?”

“Oh. Are you getting ready to go?”

“Yes, but I can’t find my shoes,” she makes a strangled face and shrugs with her entire wingspan.

“Do you want me to help you look?”

She nods, “I think they’re in my closet.”

Penelope sprints up the stairs easily, leaning over the railing at the top until you hesitantly follow. You hope he won’t mind. You were technically let in.

It reeks of chemicals upstairs. You stifle a cough and hope it’s Steve, not some science experiment in Penelope’s room. But you don’t worry long. The culprit swings around the corner, juggling several bottles of solutions and sprays. Steve would’ve barreled straight into you had you not thrust your arms out in defense, but still, all his things scatter across the floor.

“Christ, you scared me.” He kneels, tucking a roll of paper towels against his chest. “Nell, you can’t answer the door without me.”

“I looked in the window.”

You hand him a sanitizer and shimmy your hat back into place. It’s too big and far too floppy, sagging over your brows no matter how you situate it. Amusement draws his cheeks up as he realizes. You look ready to plop yourself in the middle of someone’s crops and he’s in a tee and jeans you might find him in any other day. His smiley-staring only makes you feel sillier.

“The straw’s really a nice touch, huh?” Steve teases, picking a sandy stem from your collar with his free hand. He’s got that smirk you so often find on Penelope’s lips.

You yank the strand from his grasp and poke the column of his throat with it. “I’m definitely more itchy than you’ll be.”

His fingers encase the entirety of your fist like a shell. They’re knobby and mannish, stout against your own. But there’s a tenderness to his hold as he eases your fist away. You don’t push back, though you contemplate it. He’s never touched you for so long; he’s basically holding your hand.

“Could’ve been the Tinman,” he says, releasing your fingers at your thigh.

You suck in, like fuel for a reply, and exhale a breathy, nervous laugh. “And paint my entire body gray? No thanks.”

He chuckles, eyes darting behind you. “Well, you look great. You like it, Nell?”

You’d almost forgotten she was there. She’s quiet as a mouse when she wants to be.

Penelope bobs her head behind you, patiently watching from the doorway to her room. “I have oh-ralls like that.”

“You do,” Steve confirms, fidgeting with the nozzle on the disinfectant bottle. It reminds you of the smell.

“You kill someone?”

He stiffens. “What?”

You flick the bottle of Windex, serious facade fading. “Smells like you’re trying to cover it up.”

“Oh! No,” his shoulders soften, “Just a little spring cleaning… in fall.”

You hum gaily. “I like your house.”

“You do?” His voice is light, buoyant with relief. “I can give you a tour. A proper one.”

“I would but I’ve promised a patient little lady I’d help her find her shoes first.”

Penelope beams when you glimpse at her. “I think they’re in my closet,” she shares with Steve.

“I think so too,” he says, eyeing past her. “What happened to cleaning?”

“I was but I had to find my costume first.”

“It’ll be easier to find when your room’s clean.” He sends you a look, “Don’t let her trick you into cleaning for her. She’s sneaky.” Steve whispers the last part, loud and teasing.

“I’m not sneaky!”

“Mhmm. I’ll go get ready and then come help you, Nell.”

“Then trick-or-treat?”

“Yes,” he starts down the stairs, “Yell if you need me.”

Penelope tows you into her room by the arm, unphased by the clinking of toys crammed behind the door. Anything in her way gets kicked or shoved aside without a second thought. It’s like her toy chest exploded, a kaleidoscope of pink and purple across the carpet. And no wonder it’s a mess; she starts chucking things out of her closet, adding to the pile spilling out like an avalanche—books, stuffed animals, barbie dolls, baby dolls, and so so many clothes.

You squeeze by a play tent, scanning the floor.

“They’re red and sparkly, ‘member?” Penelope calls from behind her closet doors.

You tip a beanbag over with your foot, “I remember.”

She babbles to herself as she looks, just like Steve does– little hums and scraps of thought that are hard to catch. It’s a funny thing, to see it translated from one human to another.

It doesn’t take long to find the shoes, wedged underneath her bed with numerous other things. You go prone against the floor to dig them out and hold them up by the straps. “These it, Pen?”

She gasps vibrantly. You wish you got up in time to see her face.

“How did you know they were under there!” She shrieks, snatching them from you.

“Just had a feeling,” you sit up properly, happily watching her slip the flats on.

She practically twinkles, clicking her heels together like Dorothy.

“They look stunning! You painted these?”

“Yes,” she skips over to her dresser, shuffling through drawer after drawer. Anything folded surely isn’t anymore.

“You’re a talented artist.”

“I know. Daddy says.” Penelope yanks out a blue line of fabric. “My dress is so pretty. I’m going to be the prettiest Dorothy for Halloween.”

“I know you will! You should give your dad a big hug for making such a pretty dress.”

She buckles into the costume as fast as she can, patting the skirt down with a satisfied grin when it’s on.

After several compliments and much debate, you’re able to convince her Dorothy would have a clean room. Penelope puts a few things away, but she’s easily distracted. And it’s hard to blame her with so many toys about. So you do most of the cleaning, but you’re happy to. It’ll make Steve happy– lest he finds out it was you– which makes you happy.

The floor’s mostly cleared when Penelope decides Steve’s taking too long; it’s time for your house tour, with or without him. And when he doesn’t answer her shout it’s decidedly without him. She shows you downstairs first– the living room, the kitchen, the half bath, her favorite hiding spot underneath the stairs. All the while she explains her very detailed and strategic trick-or-treating plan. Staying out until midnight is the priority, she doesn’t seem to care if it’s past her bedtime, and filling several bags with candy is also high on the list.

“And this is Daddy’s room.” She jerks the door knob several times before yelling, “Daddy!”

“What?” Steve calls, muffled.

“Let us in!”

“I can’t hear you– hold on!”

Steve unlocks the door donning the promised lion onesie and a pair of sneakers. It’s ridiculous how handsome he looks even with a stupid fur collar and tail.

“Cute,” is all you manage to say. He takes it as teasing, rolling his eyes, though you really mean it.

“Can you help me? I can’t get my whiskers right.” He taps the cap of an eyeliner pen against his cheek where he’s drawn two lines.

“Sure.” You take the stick and follow him through his room to the master ensuite.

“Wait!” Penelope shouts and waves vaguely at the room. “This is Daddy’s room.”

You pause to look it over, jovially commenting, “Wow! Very nice.”

And it is nice. There’s a rustic set of furniture striped in blue and green accents; paired well with the framed floral prints above his dresser. And the bed’s made, only slightly surprising, topped with a Care Bear’s quilt you assume is Penelope’s.

In the bathroom, Steve leans against the counter, arms braced behind him on the sink rim. You shuffle in front of his legs, skimming knees accidentally. He has no abhorrence for physical touch, you know that for certain. He’s touchy with not just you, but everyone in the office. An arm around the shoulder, a pat on the back, a gentle squeeze to the arm– he gives these out like candy on Halloween. But even so, touching him isn’t always easy. It’s vulnerable, runs the risk of rejection.

Steve smiles at you, ever-patient and encouraging when you stall awkwardly.

“Sorry,” you whisper. Talking any louder feels illegal when he’s so close. You cup his jaw and steady your opposite hand against his cheek, picturing the line how you want it.

But just when you press into his skin and flick the pen, Penelope slams a drawer shut, startling you enough to flinch. The ink slants all the way behind his ear like a jagged nail.

You gasp and recoil, “Shit.”

Penelope gasps twice as loud and Steve crumples into laughter, even more so when he turns to view the damage in the mirror.

“Oops,” you chuckle nervously, thumbing at the black streak. “This washes off right?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ve redone it like four times.”

You douse your finger in water and work the pad across his happy cheek gently.

He’s watching you. You don’t see, just feel it in the fringe of your peripherals. It’s not like he has many places to look when you’re a hair’s breadth from his nose. But he might as well press a magnifying glass against your face, point out every pore and blemish and hair you're insecure about.

Your cheeks burn and the beginning prickles of sweat coat your upper lip. You brushed your teeth before you arrived, but how could you forget a mint? And what about an extra layer of deodorant? That wouldn’t have hurt. You glance at Steve anxiously and his eyes jump to Penelope. For once you’re grateful not to keep his attention.

Penelope digs through his cabinet on a quest to find nothing in particular.

You pull away to judge your first line as Steve opens his mouth. “Nell, go get your brush and hair ties.”

The top half of her face pops up over the cupboard door like a puppet. “But I want my hair down.”

“I still have to brush it. And I thought you wanted the bows?”

She considers his words– her prior words– brows pinching before she shrugs, “Okay.” The cabinet door thuds against its hinges as it claps shut, and not a second later, Steve’s bedroom door slams as Penelope charges out.

“You would not believe how often I tell this kid not to slam the doors,” he scoffs, though it’s devoid of any real anger.

You take his chin again, packing away a grin. You have to focus. “Don’t move,” you prompt.

He’s relaxed in your hold. Still as a stone, maybe apart from the slight tug of his lips when you resume drawing.

“Tickles,” he murmurs when you lift the nib.

You print another three to match the trio on his right. It’s not bad, but you wouldn’t say it’s good. The angles are skewed weird and one’s shorter than the rest. But if he wants them any better, you might not be the best person to ask.

“How’s that?” You draw back, searching for any smudges.

He spins, briefly inspecting his reflection before facing you again. “Perfect! Thank you!”

Perfect is definitely a stretch.

Steve’s a perfectionist. You’ve seen it innumerably in the office. How he’ll spend hours revising something only to ruminate on an insignificant detail after. And with Penelope, every parenting decision is subject to endless second-guessing, as if her health and happiness hinges on the smallest nuances.

But as much as he’s a perfectionist, Steve would never judge you in the same way he might himself. Your whiskers truly are perfect in his eyes, not for the shape or size, but because you drew them– wonky and all.

The ink warps around his smile. You study his face under the guise of checking your work. Steve’s a handsome guy. An inviting kind of handsome, with shallow laugh lines and the start of stubble stippled across his jaw.

“Wait,” you square his shoulders, brushing the nape of his neck to reach for his hood. The lion’s mane is laid gently over the top of his hair.

“Now it’s perfect.”

He smirks. “Sexy, huh?”

“Should leave this unzipped a little. The cougars will love that.”

Steve laughs, harder than you think you’ve ever heard him. It’s so contagious even Penelope joins your hysterics when she returns, though she hasn’t a clue what you’re laughing about.

“What’s so funny?” Penelope lurches into his legs with a handful of hair things.

“We just think my costume’s kinda silly. Here, baby.” Steve heaves her onto the counter and props her right in between the sinks.

Her dress pours over her crossed legs like a layered cake, baby blue and white gingham. Steve really did a great job with the stitching; you can’t even tell it was done by hand. And Penelope hasn’t complained about the fit once so it must be comfortable too.

“Face forward please,” Steve reminds gently for a third time when Penelope twists her neck to speak.

Penelope frowns at his reflection. “You’re pulling too tight.”

“Sorry. You have to stop moving though.”

There’s a mild curve to his lips. He’s not aggravated with her fidgeting, in fact, quite the opposite. Maybe because you’re around, he’s in too good of a mood to spoil with something as trivial as his daughter's hair. But regardless, it’s endearing as it is entertaining to care for Penelope. He loves being a dad, even when it’s frustrating. And you can see the love as he braids her hair– how he cards through knots from the ends up and slowly sections off pieces to tackle one at a time.

“I’m not moving.” Her chin droops as she scratches the polish from her nails.

Steve cups her jaw, steering it back up. “You are, monkey.”

“Monkey?” She chortles, seeking your gaze in the mirror to see if you also find the nickname funny.

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, seizing the rubber band from between his teeth. “Monkeys move a lot.”

“Do they have tails?”

“Mhmm.”

“You have a tail 'cause you’re a lion.”

Steve hums and bends back, evaluating his performance. “There. You look so gorgeous, Penelope.”

And he really has done a great job, especially with all her wiggles. Steve takes a lot of pride in styling his hair– much of his confidence derives from it. And he tries to extend that care to Penelope; to teach her how gorgeous she is and that she deserves to be nurtured.

Penelope shakes her head disapprovingly. “I’m Dorothy now, Dad.”

“Oh, sorry.” Steve turns toward you instinctually, happy to catch your smile.

“You look very very pretty, Miss Dorothy,” you correct.

She slides off the counter, aided by Steve’s hand. “Can we go now?”

Penelope waits patiently in the foyer for Steve to gather everything needed to leave. This lasts for all of about ten minutes before Penelope is halfway out the front door, too excited to wait any longer.

“Wait, Nell!” Steve shouts from beside you in the kitchen.

You’re choosing snacks and filling water bottles. Steve doesn’t really need to pack a bag for Penelope anymore, she’s a year and a half past diapers, but he likes to feel prepared.

When Penelope doesn’t answer, he meets her on the porch to explain, “I’m almost done. And we still have to take pictures.”

“I don’t wanna. I’m ready to leave.”

“Well, we aren’t leaving until I get a picture of Dorothy.”

She sighs, lugging herself back inside like she’s got bricks for shoes. “What about Cinderella?”

“Go and look– get the treats.”

She scrambles into the kitchen, snagging a jar of cat treats from the counter quickly. You shoulder the backpack and follow her out. Steve joins you not long after, two flashlights and several glowsticks in hand.

“No Cinderella?” Steve asks, unzipping the bag pressed to your back to stock with more things.

“No,” Penelope pouts, vigorously shaking the jar in the air. “How can I be Dorothy without Toto.”

He yanks the zipper back up, then pats her head, “Keep calling. Where’s your jacket?”

“I don’t need it.”

“You will. It’s gonna get cold later. When it’s dark.”

“It’ll mess up my costume. Dorothy doesn’t wear one.”

“Let's bring it, just in case. I’ll carry it.”

Steve jogs back inside, coming out this time with a camera around his neck, a jacket over his shoulder, and a plushie in hand.

“Here,” he sets a blue stuffed dog on Penelope’s lap. “Backup Toto.”

Penelope glares up at him, insulted. “This isn’t Toto.”

“I know. But if we wait for Cinderella we might not have time for trick-or-treating. Why don’t we bring the treats? See if she’s started without us?”

Penelope deflates, stuffing the dog in her wicker basket.

“Can I take your picture now?”

“Why, Daddy?”

“So I can remember how beautiful you look tonight.”

A petulant bow creases her lips as she peers up. Round, sullen eyes connect with his.

Steve squats in front of her, taking her much smaller free hand in his. “I know you’re sad about Cinderella but she’d still want you to have fun, right? And she might show up later. I just want to get a picture now so I don’t forget.”

Penelope nods and Steve kisses her forehead, standing and backing up a few paces.

“Smile, baby. Please?” He blinks at her through the viewfinder.

She offers a strangled face– more of a toothy open mouth than a smile; not even close to wide enough to round her cheeks or crescent her eyes like the real deal. But it’s funny and just as cute. Steve snaps a photo and the expression drains from her face as fast as the camera’s flash.

You wander behind Steve and her eyes flick to you. You try funny faces first, frowning so deep your jaw aches, pulling the tip of your nose up like a pigs, winking terribly, but none of it works. Your fingers arch into bunny ears behind Steve’s hair and you stick your tongue out at the back of his head, but still, no dice.

You have a really awful idea. You’re pretty sure you might die of embarrassment. But it’s worth it to get Penelope to smile.

“Hey, Penelope? Remember when you told me dinosaurs are silly?”

She nods.

“Well, I have a really good dinosaur impression. Can I show you?”

She nods again, equally jaded.

You take a deep breath and shake your head, mentally preparing yourself and simultaneously erasing Steve from existence for the moment. A feral screech erupts from the back of your throat, the kind of sound you didn’t know for sure you could make.

Steve buckles in his crouch, barely catching himself on the pavement with his free hand. A chorus of emotions ripple his features. He’s shocked and then amused and finally focused on capturing the picture, but what resonates the most is a fondness for you.

You cup a hand over your mouth, rendering a string of different noises, inspired by several animals because what the hell does a dinosaur sound like anyway? You haven’t the faintest clue at the moment.

Penelope fuses her lips together, unbreaking.

“Come on Nell, I see that smile,” Steve rallies.

But she doesn’t give up easy. She’s like Steve in that way.

As a last resort, you press your lips to your mouth, blowing a raspberry and screwing your face in disgust. “Oh my God, Steve! Did you just fart?”

He gapes at you, then Penelope, tickled and tongue-tied for comebacks. He can’t think straight, not when you’re making a delightful fool out of yourself, on his behalf, especially. As far as he’s concerned, Penelope’s smiling now or at least failing awfully at hiding it. So he takes several photos of her as she unravels into a giggly heap on the driveway.

Certainly one of them is photo-album-worthy, but you continue your stunts anyway. “Goodness, what did you eat today?” You backpedal a few steps, fanning the surrounding air, partially to hide your own laugh. “Penelope do you smell that?”

“Ew! Daddy!”

You aren’t sure if Penelope actually believes you or if she just wants to join the fun but either way, she’s convincing.

“I didn’t do it!” Steve defends, dropping the camera on its sling and raising his hands in surrender. “I think it was Penelope this whole time.”

You gasp. “Penelope!”

“I didn’t!” She cries, shaking her head aggressively. “I promise, I didn’t!”

“I dunno. The closer I get the more stinky it smells.” Steve slinks up to her with outstretched hands that threaten tickles.

She screams when he snatches her up, swearing up and down, “I didn’t, Daddy!”

He’s well-practiced at being the tickle monster; knows every sensitive strip of skin to target. She was doomed from the start. Giggles spill out in jagged layers punctuated with gasps of air. Steve tickles her all the way down the driveway to the car, out of breath himself by the time he sets her on the trunk.

Penelope deliriously eyes his hands where they rest on the beamer.

“You ready to go trick-or-treating, Little Miss Dorothy?” You ask.

She nods, dimples deepening with mirth.

“Here. Will you start it?” Steve fishes his keys out of his pocket and tosses them to you. “Come on, pretty girl.”

She slides into her car seat happily, bouncing with excitement as he buckles her in. Steve’s told you before it’s not always so easy.

“I really didn’t fart,” Penelope says.

He chuckles, sewing a kiss to her cheek, “I know, baby. We’re just kidding.”

Steve settles into the driver’s seat, depositing the stack of developed polaroids in your lap. You shuffle through as he backs out, flashing him your favorites; the best is one where she’s planted a hand on her hip and is rolling her eyes. You adore this little drama queen more and more every day.

The drive’s only a few minutes, just to a denser part of the neighborhood to avoid long stretches with no houses. Steve parks against an empty grass lot behind another car. This area’s already bustling with kids which adds to Penelope’s anticipation.

“Daddy, look– it’s Minnie Mouse!”

Steve inspects the crowd through the window. “Yeah, you remember when you were Minnie Mouse?”

“I was?”

“Mhmm. You had ears and I painted your face. You were little.” He unbuckles, grabbing the backpack stashed at your feet.

“Oh. Am I still little?”

He pauses to melt, just to himself and only a bit. It’s too early to be sentimental– a long night of fun awaits. Steve cranes over his seat to see her face. “Yes, you’re still little. But you’re growing a lot. I think you might be as tall as me, one day.”

“Nooo,” she giggles, waving her foot at him.

“I dunno,” he sing-songs back, squeezing her shoe before turning back around.

Steve distributes a handful of glowsticks, shoving a few extra in Penelope’s basket. You guys start down the block as the sun sinks below the treeline, more than enough time to complete Penelope’s plan which she reminds you of. She takes Steve’s hand, then yours, and it strikes you suddenly how much you appear as a family to outsiders. It’s not an unwelcome feeling, just a strange one.

At the first house, Penelope knocks hard and declares to the elderly woman who answers, “Trick or treat!” She repeats it, insisting with wide eyes that she deserves two pieces of candy for her double effort. And the woman can’t resist her charm, obliging with a handful of pieces. Steve jokes it off, calls her a bargainer, but you gawk at the interaction.

At the second house, she points to you and Steve, arguing you deserve candy too since you’re both in costume. And it works, scoring you each a piece that ends up in her tote anyway. By the third, you can’t keep a straight face, her antics are hilariously cute and you compliment Steve for raising such a little mastermind.

You fall into a routine steadily, loafing along the road with Steve while Penelope trots up to each house.

“Last year she was Snow White and the year before a cat,” Steve explains when you ask.

“She likes princesses’.”

“Less so now but yeah. She used to say she wanted to be a princess when she grew up.”

“Can’t blame her.” You watch her fondly from afar. She picks a piece of candy off the ground and debates before tossing it in with the others. “What does she wanna be now?”

“Changes all the time. Last it was a detective.” He beckons Penelope over. “Nell, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

She fiddles with her basket handle. You’ve done two streets and it’s almost full. You're starting to think you’ll have to buy a pillowcase off of someone.

“Umm… Can I be a trick-or-treater?”

“What!” Steve flips her braid over her shoulder, “That’s just for one day, goofball.”

“Well… then,” she hums, squinting at the surrounding swarm of characters and creatures. “Maybe a pirate?”

You and Steve share a look of amusement. You do that a lot now. It’s instinctual. Finding each other's eyes, even in a room full of people it’s easy. Sometimes there’s just too much joy not to share.

“Daddy, how many houses are left?”

“There’s quite a few on this street. You tired?”

“No. Can I see? I want to count.”

She doesn’t seem tired to you but Steve’s able to read her with the tiniest details. It’s like he’s got superpowers sometimes– dad superpowers. But maybe he’s just guessing, it’s getting closer to bedtime.

Steve boosts her onto his shoulders with a hefty groan about “getting old” which you bicker over because he’s only twenty-six.

Penelope counts eleven houses, eight with lights on, but buzzes about a particular home illuminated with rainbow LEDs and a giant spider. And it’s even cooler than she described up close, mansion-like, decked out with spotlights and decorations taller than you and Steve combined.

A motionless clown holds a bloody bucket of candy outside. Their decorations are so extravagant, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake. But you’re pretty sure the clown just blinked and you make sure Steve’s aware of that, not that he was letting Penelope go alone anyway.

Steve scoops Penelope up before she gets very far up the driveway despite her complaints.

“I’m not scared, Daddy,” she assures. And there’s nothing that tells you she is– she’s just as cheery and bright-eyed as before.

“I know, princess.” He rubs her arm, scanning for other statues with the potential to come alive. “I’m kinda scared, though.”

She tips her head at him, puzzled because it’s always the other way around. But her arms coil around his neck, a loving press of affection that she learned from him.

And whether he’s actually afraid to be jumpscared or just subconsciously ingraining in her that it’s okay if she is, you aren’t really sure. Probably both, and either way, it warms your insides.

The clown cocks its head slowly when Penelope reaches in the bowl.

She cocks her head back, innocently amused. “Trick-or-treat?”

The clown nods, pushing the bowl toward her.

Steve sags just a hair but remains very much on high alert.

You mouth your appreciation— “Thanks.” Thanks for not scaring my coworker-friends-child who I’ve grown really fond of and would hate to see cry.

“Daddy, can we go in there?” Penelope points to a tunnel opening, fringed with black streamers and flashing lights– some sort of haunted house walk-through that wraps around the home.

“No, baby. That’s for big kids.”

She spots a group of teenagers exit the other side, screaming, laughing, and doubling over each other into the grass.

“I really wanna go– please, I’ll be so brave. I’m not even scared,” she pleads, flashing him a wobbly frown.

But there’s no expression she could pull right now that would change his mind, not when he hears a chainsaw buzzing inside. She could throw herself on the ground and kick and cry and he’d still refuse. He knows enough kids that have been traumatized by horror-movie-type creatures and characters; he’ll be damned if his daughter becomes one of them.

Penelope sulks for a few houses but she has loads more candy to collect and decides not to waste her time for too long.

“Can you hold this?” She thrusts her basket toward Steve. It’s overflowing at this point; you’ve all started cramming candy in your pockets, hoping it’s cold enough outside that nothing melts. Steve’s been beating himself up for three blocks for forgetting the backpack in the car.

“Sure,” he says, retracting his hand from his pocket.

But before he takes it, you joke, “Better keep an eye on him. He might eat some when you’re not lookin’.”

Penelope studies him for a long moment before shifting the bag toward you.

“Penelope! You don’t really believe that do you?” He scoffs, breathily laughing.

You cackle as she shrugs and sprints to the next house.

Steve bumps your shoulder, snaking a hand in the basket to steal a pack of M&Ms off the top. “Blowin’ my whole operation.”

“Steve,” you scold and bump him back. “Don’t get me in trouble.”

“She won’t notice.” He waves you off, tearing the wrapper with his teeth. “But if she does I’m saying it was you.”

You whack his arm, glowing bright as the moon, “Asshole.”

Penelope doesn’t complain about her feet aching once the whole night and you know they probably do because yours started hurting forever ago. Surely she gets some kid-sized Oscar for that. And Steve being the great dad he is offers to carry her on the way back to the car anyway.

“Daddy?”

Steve hums, hoisting her up where she slips.

“Can we go trick or treating tomorrow?”

He glances at you, confirming you also hear this cuteness. “No, baby. Tomorrow’s not Halloween.”

“I know, but we should still go. I bet lots of people still have candy. Like, leftovers.” She yawns into his shoulder where his fur hood has been tugged down to warm his neck and double as a makeshift pillow.

“Don’t you have enough candy?”

“No. I need more Reese’s for you.”

“You’re gonna give them to me?”

“Only some. I like them too.”

“That’s kind of you.”

Her eyes are half-lidded and struggling, but she’s still awake as Steve stows her into her car seat. She chatters sluggishly to keep herself up and you and Steve entertain it; it’ll make bedtime easier if she doesn’t fall asleep in the car. Perhaps handing her a pack of Smarties was overkill because apparently, it has enough sugar to wire her longer than the five-minute drive home.

No slower than Steve can lock the front door, Penelope dumps the contents of her bag on the floor. A bouquet of candy wrappers, big and small, enough to last her months if she’s patient.

“You can have five more pieces tonight.”

Penelope smirks at Steve before he’s even finished. “Ten?”

“Six. But you have to brush your teeth for twice as long.” Before she can rebuttal he shakes his head. “Final offer.”

“Fine,” she huffs, combing through her pile. She sorts them into categories while Steve prepares her bath. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is already on– Steve has a bad habit of forgetting to turn the TV off when he leaves– but you find the remote when Penelope asks you to turn the volume up.

“You can have these,” she announces, pushing a chunk of her goodies toward you. It’s mostly things she doesn’t like: twizzlers and dark chocolate and anything with peanuts. But she did sneak in one of your favorites you’d mentioned earlier that night. She really is a sweetheart.

“Thank you, Penelope. That’s very nice of you.”

“These are for Daddy,” she points to a second pile, smacking loudly on the gummy bear she just decapitated. “He loves chocolate but he got a cavity once because he ate too much.”

“Are you talking about me?” Steve hollers, clambering down the stairs two at a time.

“No?” Penelope giggles.

His hands snap to his hips once he treks into the living room. “Alright, it’s bath time then bedtime Miss Dorothy.”

Penelope looks utterly betrayed. She’s only eaten three things and– “It’s not even late yet,” she whines.

He pretends to check his watch, “It is.”

It’s not but she can’t tell time yet.

“Can we watch Oz, Daddy, please? There’s no school tomorrow, ‘member?”

“We watched it last night, peanut. Why don’t we watch a Halloween movie?”

Peanut, pumpkin, princess, he calls her all sorts of cute things. Is it wrong to wish he called you cute things too?

“I wanna watch Oz. I’m Dorothy so we have to.” She drags out the last syllable until she runs out of breath.

Penelope’s over-tired. Delirious and whiny and easily hysterical when she doesn’t get her way. And it’s not that Steve thinks he should give in when she’s like this, he’s just tired too. And you’re here and it’s the weekend so what will one movie really do? He can guarantee she’ll fall asleep during it anyway.

“Okay. Only if you’re super-duper fast in the bath.”

She shouts and whizzes upstairs.

Steve diverts his attention to you, “You wanna stay? I can make popcorn.”

Of course, you’d love to stay, and not just for the promise of popcorn, but you’re afraid if you do, you’ll never want to leave.

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He makes a face– a ridiculously lovely one. “Go sit. We’ll be quick.”

They aren’t quick but there are photo albums on the coffee table that you’re happy to look through in the meantime. You flick through beats of their life like stills of a movie. There are baby photos, school pictures, movie stubs, plane tickets, and several people you don’t know the names of. It’s weird– getting snippets of things about them you had no idea of. You’re filling the gaps as you go.

Penelope returns first, frolicking her way to the entertainment center in fresh pajamas. She’s on a mission by the looks of it, making a mess of the VHS collection in the cabinet. By the time Steve arrives, most of the films are splayed across the carpet.

“Oz is already in, silly goose. We watched it yesterday remember?”

Penelope drops the tape in her hands, “Oh.”

Steve hunches over her, slotting the films away one by one. She doesn’t help much, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Penelope clambers onto the couch beside you and Steve beside her. It’s a long sectional, enough room for several others. But Penelope scoots in right beside you so you're hip to hip. And Steve makes himself comfortable more in the middle cushion than the farthest.

His onesie has been traded for sweats and his whiskers scrubbed away– though a faded, gray smear crosses his jawline. You consider telling him, or licking your thumb and scratching it away yourself, but it makes you feel less weird to be the only one still in costume so you let it stay.

“I like these,” you tug the cotton pant leg of Penelope’s outfit. It’s a matching set, frilly and plaid with a black cat stamped to the torso.

She tucks her lower lip away sheepishly and pushes her crown into your shoulder. Her hair's damp, soaking your sleeve cold, but you fawn at the affection more than anything.

“Did you find that picture? From her first birthday? I think it’s in there.” Steve gestures toward the closed album in your lap with the remote but remains glued to the TV.

“No, I didn’t finish looking.”

“I wanna see,” Penelope arches over your legs, prying the book open.

Steve rewinds the film to the start and pauses it so he can look too.

You thumb the plastic sheet over a recent image of Penelope scrunching her nose at the camera, a riot of stickers across her face.

“RoRo!” She taps the photo beside it. It’s a haphazard blur, most likely captured by Penelope; you make out the shape of Steve first, then the less angular, slightly shorter person– a woman, RoRo. You think Penelope’s mentioned her before but nothing about the picture rings any bells.

“Mhmm. That’s Robin. Remember this was at the airport?”

“Is that when we got pizza?”

“Yeah!” Steve rubs her arm. “You have a good memory.”

You turn the page, revealing a set of grainy, blue-tinted photos from the same roll of film. Steve looks young for his age now, but he looked like a baby then. Strangely though when there’s an actual infant in his arms. He was thinner then but even softer in the face. Not unhappy, per se, but maybe missing a lightness he has now.

“This was on my twenty-third birthday,” he explains. “Look how little you were!”

“Did I eat cake?”

“No, you were too young, baby.” He chuckles, pointing to another photo. “You tried a banana for the first time in this one.”

“I like bananas.”

“You didn’t used to.”

Steve and Penelope share slices of their pasts fondly. You study the photos, compare these reflections to the people you find yourself next to. There’s an unexpected pinch in your chest– not getting the chance to know these versions of them, it makes you sad. But it’s a happy sort of sad. You’re grateful to know them now.

Penelope begs to flip through another album but Steve decides it’ll be too late to finish The Wizard of Oz if they do. His true reluctance stems from how emotional the first one made him– though you’ll pretend not to notice for his sake.

Steve bets Penelope an extra Reeses that she’ll fall asleep by the time Dorothy meets the scarecrow. It’s unfair, really. You tell Penelope not to pinky promise it but she does. And she loses awfully, yawning within five minutes and startling herself awake within ten. You scoff when Steve starts carding through her hair– her guaranteed snooze switch. It’s evil and you tell him so. So of course, that finishes her off long before Scarecrow makes an appearance; she curls into Steve’s side and digs a heel into yours. Poor girl never stood a chance.

“She had a lot of fun tonight,” Steve utters. It’s alarming at first, how his voice eclipses the TV like there isn’t a child snoring against his stomach. But she doesn’t stir. He knows she won’t.

“Did you?” You ask, skating between a whisper and not.

“Very much. You?”

“Mhmm. Loads,” you answer without hesitation. It’s possibly the easiest question anyone’s ever asked you. “I think Penelope’s right.”

He quirks an eyebrow against the front of the couch. His cheek is sinking further into the cotton like he might fall asleep.

“We should go trick-or-treating tomorrow too.”

His lips wane into a soft smile. If he wasn’t so drained he might laugh too. “What should we be? Penelope has a strict no-repeat costume rule.”

You hum, scraping your memory for the best costumes you’d seen. There were Power Rangers and Ghostbusters and several Batmen with their Catwomen. But the image of one young family sticks out the most in your mind. A young pair of parents with their son and daughter decked in moody black and white.

“Addams family?”

“Who’s who?”

“She’s Wednesday. Obviously.”

Steve chuckles, accidentally too loud and Penelope twitches against his thigh. He draws her against his chest readily and strokes her spine with the back of his hand. “Obviously,” he whispers.

“You’re Morticia and I’m Gomez, though.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She’s tall and pretty. Strong jawline, kinda sassy. I think you’ll make it work.”

You’re flirting. You know you are as soon as you say it. And you don’t mean to, it just happens; the words come intuitively as blinking. Your brain does all sorts of crazy things around Steve.

“You think I’m pretty?” He’s smiling hard. You can’t tell if he’s serious or not.

“Pretty sassy, yeah,” you deflect. It’s a safer truth than admitting you do think he’s pretty.

He rolls his eyes. “My mom says Nell gets her attitude from me. Says it’s payback for how I was as a child.”

You gawk emphatically. “Were you a bad kid Steve Harrington?”

“I wasn’t bad– just needed attention I think.”

You hum. It’s a little surprising since you know Steve’s an only child to wealthier parents. You’d pegged him to be spoiled in both money and attention.

“Are you close with your parents?”

He shakes his head, “Not really. Talk every now and then.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I came to terms with it a while ago. Even more after she was born.” He skims his lips against Penelope’s head. “I can’t imagine not being in her life. You know, not really knowing her? Not knowing her favorite things or when she’s hurting or what she’s up to every second of the day. I don’t think that’ll ever change.”

“She’ll be so grateful to have that kind of relationship when she’s older.”

“Yeah, maybe. Like way older.” His shoulders droop as he sighs, “She already thinks I’m smothering her. Wouldn’t hold my hand yesterday because she’s ‘too big’ she said.”

“Already?” You laugh.

“I know!” He groans. “I almost cried.”

“She loves you. Kids just show it in strange ways.”

“Yeah… She forced me to hold a slug last week.”

“You held it?”

“I had to! She was so excited to give it to me.”

“Aww. You’re a good dad.”

Steve's eyes caper down and his cheeks pinken. “I’m trying to be.”

Apart from the movie and an occasional sleep sigh from Penelope, silence swallows the room. It’s a comfortable silence; the kind you only get around people you’ve known forever; It feels like you’ve known Steve your entire life. You have to remind yourself it’s only been a few months. Remind yourself this is the first time you’ve ever even hung out.

You find yourself drifting to the future. A future, with Steve and Penelope. Vacations and school events and hiking trips and movie nights and so much more. It’s silly. It makes your heart want to rip itself from your chest.

Steve clears his throat. Your fantasy is only partially dissolved. “I’m gonna take her upstairs. Put her to bed.”

You lean forward and press into your knees, gearing to stand. “Okay. I should get going. It’s late.”

“Stay for a minute. I’ll walk you out.”

You have no reason to decline but even if you did, you aren’t sure you would be able to. Saying no to Steve is as hard as saying no to Penelope. They have the same puppy-dog eyes– brown and soft as sun-baked clay. That must be it.

Steve strains to stand with the added weight. He’s strong but Penelope’s four now and having growth spurts like there’s a race to be the tallest kid in school. She clings to him instinctually, slotting her face into his neck like it was sculpted specifically to be her pillow. Her gangly legs sway against his thighs as he slowly climbs the stairs and disappears onto the landing.

You don’t notice Steve’s return. He’s much quieter than before, taking softer steps and more calculated movements. He doesn’t have the buffer of his body heat to soothe Penelope back to sleep if she wakes. The palm on your shoulder startles you.

He whispers an apology from behind the couch, voice sweet and buttery as caramel. You let him guide you the short distance to the front door– expecting it to end there– but he presses into a pair of laced sneakers thrown beside the entry table.

The night’s chill is jolting, even in your coat. It’s easy to forget the months are slipping into winter when Steve’s around. He radiates warmth, not just in sun-kissed skin and honeyed eyes, but in his tone and his touches and every aspect of his spirit. And it bleeds like a fire. Brushes your cheeks like flames and stirs perpetually in your belly like magma.

He walks you the entire length of his driveway to your car. Probably would’ve opened the door for you if you didn’t beat him to it.

“Thank you for inviting me Steve,” you say, lingering in the threshold of your open door.

“Thank you for coming. I’m really happy you came. So is Penelope.”

“As much as I am looking forward to The Addams Family next year, we should plan something… maybe a little sooner?”

“Mmm. Let me check my schedule first,” he teases, rapping his fingers against the roof of your car.

“Whatever, boss-man.”

You still don’t get in. There’s a stretch of silence, not awkward, just a placeholder for when the right words come. And they don’t. Not tonight anyway. You could hug him? Peck his cheek? Pat his back as he might yours?

You settle for a safe and simple tight-lipped smile. He appreciates it just the same.

“See you Friday?” He asks.

“See you then.”

Steve guides the door closed after you settle in. He waits until your taillights have completely fizzled out in the shadows of his street to stroll back up to his house.

He thinks of you as he locks the front door and again as he finds your hat on the sectional and a third time as he slips under his sheets. Steve isn’t sure what to do. He feels sick. His heart is hammering and his gut twists itself in knots like it does when he’s afraid. He hasn’t quite figured out what about you is so scary but how can he possibly wait until Friday to find out?

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fluff #dad steve harrington #steve harrington #coworker steve harrington #stranger things fic #stranger things #the shape of family #skeltnwrites #my work

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crash-and-cure · 2 years ago

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Burnin’ a Hole Where I Lay (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader) (Omegaverse)

Gif by @troubleinapinksuit

Summary: In which you long ago decided that the standard Alpha and Omega Relationship wasn’t for you, but your best friend Elvis had other plans.

A/N: This is a backup post I made because I absolutely refuse to let this be a case of this one not ending up in the tags again. Based on this request. Semi-Relevant, as i’ve been writing, in my head I’ve been ranking each reader as to how likely they are to bite, and undoubtedly this is my most feral creation, too bad she exists in a world where it may as well be a whole ass love language. So as a quick note as to the dynamics of this Omegaverse, relationshipss are primarily judged on their ability to Breed so A/O are the preferred/seen as the standard, wtih B/O and B/B being seen as acceptable, as a result an A/B relationship is seen as unacceptable. Also Alpha Presentation is marked when they gain their unusually elongated canines, and later go into a rut, Omegas go into their first heat, and Betas essentially present by not presenting whatsoever. Knotting is a bit of a secret in this world, as it only occurs under pretty rare circumstances. Probably some other rules I’m spacing on right now, so feel free to ask if any questions arise. Also I fully acknowledge that there is no way they would be watching The Twilight Zone, but for the purposes of this story let’s pretend.

Warnings: First and foremost this is a Yandere!Elvis so expect themes of delusional and manipulative behavior. VERY dubious consent, (in which reader is a slave to their own desires of consciously not wanting, but their body uncosciously does want it). Set in an Omegaverse so expect the usual. Implied birth control tampering. Bit of a breeding kink implied. Sexual harassment masked as being especially touchy. Smut depicted, that includes penetrative sex (m/f), knotting, cockwarming, cumplay, marking, and a bit of blood play. Also depictions of Parental abandonment and neglect towards reader. Reader is not in a good place y’all and as a result has humor as an unhealthy coping mechanisms and self-depreciative attitude. Instances of reader being yelled at both by Elvis and another character. Best friends to lovers (albeit reluctantly) Please do not interact if you are under 18 years old.

Word Count: 21k (I need to be stopped)

My Masterlist

Denim jeans were a mistake, you think to yourself trying your best not to fan yourself in a very indecent place as you and your group walked back to the rest of the motorcade sitting idle on some backwoods route somewhere in the Florida panhandle. It was a nice cool 102 degrees this morning when the lot of you had taken off so by noon it was hotter than hades, which had been the perfect time for Hank Snow’s car to all but combust, forcing the entire convoy to a screeching halt. The Louisiana Hayride apparently operated the same as the Military: No man left behind.

You and your naturally-run-hot-thighs were having a wonderful time, walking down this stretch of road, along with the other non-talent people who were roped into making a snack and refreshments run at the nearest service station about a half-mile back. You dab yourself, praying you haven’t sweat the last of your face off, as that is the last thing you need right now. The last leg of the hayride tour was proving to be the most arduous as now home felt so close yet still so far off. And this hiccup further proved your theory that hell is to be found on tour.

Though upon seeing them not too far away from you now, your group does admittedly make this far more bearable. You’re not about to let them know that though. So before your thoughts get too chummy about them you set the brown bag from the service station down onto the grass and grab a hold of one of the bottles before you silently stalk forward. Some of them see you and are all too willing to comply when you hold a finger up to your lips in order to better sneak up on your mark. Your prey none the wiser to your dastardly scheme, gleefully tells the tale of seeing Big Boy Crudup as a boy, before it’s interrupted by a yelp and then a subsequent long string of curses as he’s taken by surprise by the cool kiss of the bottle to the back of his neck.

He whips around ready to unleash his fury on the poor soul who dared interrupt him, until you watch in real time as the fire in his eyes dissipate and turn softer upon seeing you giggling up a storm. “Goddamn Y/N, what was that for?” Elvis says exasperated, but doing a piss poor job of hiding his amusement as he wipes the now cool sweat off the back of his neck.

“Felt like it,” you shrug, handing him the bottle before you turn around to retrieve your bag where you had left it, and return bearing gifts.

“Say lil’ lady, you got anythin’ in that bag for some talented musicians?” Scotty asks.

Quick as a whip, you reply, “Sure do. Ya know any?” as you set the bag down on the hood of the car.

Elvis gives a full belly laugh at you, and a beat later, do the others follow suit.

“Did they only have orange soda?” Red remarks as he’s digging through the brown bag.

“No, but one of you mooks, and you know who you are,” you say, pointing to the lot of them. “Have not eaten a single goddamn fruit or vegetable since Texas, and this was the only way I figured I could get y’all to not die from scurvy.”

“Don’t be stupid Y/N,” Billy asserted, nervously trying to hide that he was the one you were talking about. “You only get that when you're out on the sea.”

“I thought you get it when you eat too much salt,” Scotty questions, unsure as to your words.

“No you get it from bad fish,” Red asserts, all the confidence of a man who has never been out to sea.

“You’re all wrong,” you say as you look through your bag trying to find a bottle opener. “You get it when you don’t listen to the Pharmacist’s daughter and eat a goddamn orange every once in a while. Now drink.”

You can see it clear as day as, simultaneously, all of their hackles raise at the thought of being ordered around by a Beta, so they do what they usually do when you do this: they look to Elvis.

Elvis, who has been able to open his own drink with his keys, stops drinking for a moment only to state, “You heard her.” And without a second thought they all sigh in defeat as they each grab a bottle for themselves.

“That’s what I thought,” you state, triumphantly, as you fail to locate anything close to a bottle opener. “You mind,” you say to Elvis, holding your bottle up to him. He gives a little smirk as he brings the still capped bottle up to his mouth.

As he uses his teeth as a makeshift bottle opener, you catch a glimpse at his pronounced canines, and you can’t help but absentmindedly swipe your tongue on that errant tooth in your own mouth. The one that tricked you into believing that you would present as an Alpha only to disappoint nearly everyone in your life.

You’d like to believe you’re past your admittedly childish envy of his status as an Alpha, still that does little to quell that funny feeling you get in the pit of your belly when you see him pop the cap off the bottle with ease.

“I meant use the keys dummy,” you say exasperatedly, swiping the orange drink out of his grasp. “You’re gonna crack a tooth like that one a these days.”

“Aww you do care,” he half-sings to you, and you can only roll your eyes and tell him to shush. He nonetheless listens and uses the keys for his second bottle.

While you languidly sip on the orange drink, that word circles your brain for a bit. Caring is not something you’re exactly used to being called. Years ago you were called protective or watchful, when the entire world was sure as to how you would present. Nowadays in spite of the fact that you doubt you’ve changed too much over the years, you’re called nurturing or motherly.

It’s actually part of the reason you even went on tour with them. You had initially refused Elvis’ invitation to join him on tour, figuring that now was as good as any to move out of the Lauderdale courts. He begged you to go with him and be his makeup assistant on tour as you had been for every show he’d performed up until then. You were reluctant to go due to not wanting to leave the good thing you had going with your job at the Cathouse salon but then Gladys had convinced you to go in order to prevent the boys from getting too buckwild on the road. After all her years of hospitality and refusing your rent payment, you figured this was the least you could do to compensate for your extended stay in her home.

The irony of which was not lost on you as there were many nights after the two of you had your nightly phone calls with her where you would have to kick Elvis out of your motel room to go “talk” to some little chicky that would be skulking around his room (More like you slapped him on the ass and told him ‘go get em tiger’... because you absolutely did do that a few times). You did this mostly to get him out of your hair for the night, but also because in those days you had no idea how long any of this would last and you wanted him to make the most of it. You knew better than most that all things are temporary, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the ride.

Your musings are interrupted by The Colonel’s speaker car announcing the issue had been fixed and everybody better be ready to leave in less than a minute because “Time is money.” Your group quickly packs up, making a beeline back into your respective vehicles.

You quickly check your makeup in the mirror (wouldn’t do for THE Elvis Presley’s makeup girl to look anything less than immaculate, even in this abominable heat, though he’s not exactly a THE yet) as Elvis gets behind the wheel making sure Scotty and Billy got into their car, while Red scurries into the backseat (he lost all privileges to shotgun after a legendary loss to you at a bowling alley back in Baton Rouge). And just like that you’re off to hightail it to the next venue, though not before you catch a particularly nasty side-eye from Hank as he passes your car. With all his huffing and puffing every time Elvis performed, you figured it would only be inevitable the Alpha would eventually burst and blow the lot of you all the way back to Memphis. Especially as his Beta boy kept glancing your way.

So imagine your surprise when by the end of the night Hank ended up leaving and Elvis had news that that Colonel fellow wanted to go into a partnership with him. You’re gone for all of five minutes to get funnel cake and suddenly Elvis is officially on the up and up, with a new manager and everything.

Elvis trusted everybody and you trusted nobody: it made you two the perfect team. It was your natural suspicion of others that had you look over The Colonel’s initial contract and when some of the wording wasn’t sitting right with you, you called in a favor with your former boss, Kitty, who was in turn owed a favor by a Lawyer friend of hers. Even with the favor in place, he ended up taking a good chunk of your savings, which in your book was fine, as it was mostly made up of the rent that the Presley’s refused to accept from you for the past few years. Your intervention would actually prevent Elvis from going 50/50 with The Colonel, and unknowingly save him from so many headaches later down the line.

The Beta Man didn’t quite make your skin crawl, but just about, and he made it no secret how little he cared for you or how much Elvis valued your opinion. Were it not for Elvis’ insistence that you’re the only make-up artist in the world that could achieve the right look for him, you think The Colonel would have elbowed you out early into his career.

And much to his chagrin you go everywhere with him; shows, movie sets, tv appearances, you name it. Those weeks when you had back to back shows with him and just as many public appearances to keep the momentum of his career going, those were the days where you found yourself longing for the far simpler days.

You honest to god miss 8th grade year. When the world made about as much sense as it could to a twelve year old. The days when you were called the Boldest Little Girl this side of Memphis you were called after you brazenly told your music teacher to shut up when she told the stuttering new kid that he had no future in music in front of the entire class.

After a long lecture on respect and Mrs. Whatsherface made sure your knuckles had a meeting with her ruler, you left her classroom only to be met with that same kid you defended turned around and talking to himself in an empty hallway. He still somehow managed to stutter even when no one was there.

"Th-th-thank y-you," he would say before taking a long steadying breath, before squaring his narrow shoulders and looking as though he were preparing for war.

"Who ya talkin' to?" you would say over his shoulder, and instead of words he would let out a very undignified shriek. "Sorry 'bout that. I'm Y/N."

"El-Elvis," he would say, looking down at his shoes. He’s all sandy hair and knobby knees, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen a boy with such long eyelashes before. He was just a bit shorter than you, and with the growth spurt you had recently your mama was hopeful that you would present soon.

"So Elvis… you new to Memphis?" you would say, after a painfully long pause, waiting for him to say something else.

"Ye-ye-yes," he said, still trying to find the secrets to the universe in his shoes. You can’t exactly pinpoint why but in that moment, he reminded you of a wet puppy. One that's just pathetic enough that you want to pick it up and take it home to dry it off and give it a snack.

So that's exactly what you do and you throw an arm around his shoulder, “C’mon, Elvis,” you say as the sandy-haired boy blushes up a storm. “I’m gonna show you around these parts.”

You end up taking him to some of your favorite places around your neck of the woods, and finish this little impromptu trip with a stop off at the neighborhood drugstore, where you ask him what his favorite soda is, and he nearly has a heart attack when you grab one from the cooler and walk out without even attempting to pay for it. Annoyed but willing to humor the boy, you walk up to the counter and tell your daddy you were taking them for you and your friend. You could see the bit of pride in his eyes as you took rather than asking for what you wanted. Elvis meanwhile seemed to be in awe of you. Though he quickly goes beet red when you show him how to open a bottle with your teeth and hand it to him.

“Y’know you don’t stutter when you sing,” you say as the two of you were making your way to his place in the lauderdale courts. “Why’s that?”

“I-I-I don’t know,” he said solemnly, sipping on the Pepsi you gave him. “I gu-guess, it’s cuz I-I-I’m good at it… or I th-thought I wa-was.” he says sadly.

“You do sound good,” you say matter-of-factly, and it makes you feel warm as he lights up at the compliment. “Not everyone’s gonna think so, but you do.”

“But some of ‘em are gonna hate it?” he blanches at the thought.

“Yeah, but that’s just the way a things ain’t it?”

“I-I guess…”

“Elvis trust me on this,” you state, more sure of yourself than any twelve year old has a right to be. “If people don’t like how you sound, it’s on them to not listen, because there are plenty more people who will love it.” Simple piece of advice really, and not applicable to all situations you recognize now, but with the way you watched him hunching in on himself to look smaller only for him to walk straighter into his home, it looked like it’s what he needed to hear.

Elvis would return to music class the next day with his own guitar in hand and sing his little heart out in front of the entire class. Mrs. Whatsherface still didn’t approve, stating how she “didn’t like how he sounded.” But he in turn looked her right in the eye and told her what you had told him, and you had never been more proud of another person in your entire life.

“Well Mrs. Wilson, you don’t gotta listen.” he asserts, more confidence in him than you’ve seen in all the time you’ve known him.

Your friendship however was really solidified after that jerk that sat behind you in class, Leon, cut Elvis guitar strings as a “joke” he claimed. Seeing Elvis' heartbroken expression and knowing his family’s financial status, awoke some latent protective streak within you that had you dip into your meager savings for a record player to buy two things that night: guitar strings and gum.

The next day you would give Elvis the replacement strings before school would start as well as an ominous suggestion to watch you during study hall. And he would watch as you proceeded to stick a wad of gum in your own hair and proceed to flip over the table behind you and try to knock Leon’s lights out. Nobody ever really made that connection that it had anything to do with what he did to Elvis’ guitar. No, all anybody ever knew was just that Leon sat behind you and someone had put gum in your hair, and you swung first and asked questions later.

Elvis would watch in utter awe of you as the teacher escorted you and Leon out of the class by your ears, and you would wink at him as you passed by, but you think the sentiment of it was lost considering the eye you used was the one already swelling shut. Unbeknownst to you at the time, Elvis would return home that night and let his Mama know he found the girl he was gonna marry.

You saved Elvis the embarrassment of having to be defended by a girl, and the focus was solely on how Leon had gotten beaten up by one. You would even cleverly and cruelly dub him “The Cowardly Leon,” for the rest of the year, and only let it die out after you needed to start flying under the radar once you had presented.

You cared a lot about justice back then because that’s what your father instilled in you. In fact the first thing he said to you when he came to pick you up, was asking whether or not you won. God he was so proud of you for standing up for yourself, and he ended up taking you out for ice cream. In retrospect not the best thing to teach a kid, to handle conflict with physical violence. Back then it was seen as blooming Alpha behavior of play-acting at being territorial and rough-housing. But once you presented as a “Beta” that same behavior that was seen as charming, became deviant or atypical of how a proper beta should act.

That year was the last one of simplicity you would ever experience, as you were comfortable in what your future would look like. Your daddy's side of the family came from a long, unbroken line of Alphas, both male and female. And it only felt inevitable that you would present as one, and one day you would inherit your family drug store, you would settle down with a nice omega partner, have a couple kids, who would also be Alphas, pass it on to them, so on and so forth. With his ever present, yet endearing stutter and his unabashed love for his mama, you had thought Elvis would be such a partner. And the way you sometimes caught him looking at you at times, you didn't think he would be entirely opposed to it either.

You were an only child and your daddy did his best to teach you long before you were even close to presenting how an Alpha acts. Lessons to always be bold and aggressive. To take what you want and how to fight for what is yours. The benefits of remaining stoic, and relying only on yourself. How to essentially be the perfect Alpha.

Lessons that would ultimately be wasted on you, you would learn that summer after 8th grade. It was just supposed to be a nice ordinary trip to visit Nana up in Nashville. First day, you would be slightly uncomfortable and very tired, nothing cool refreshments and a nap couldn’t help. Day two you felt a lot warmer that wasn’t the least bit helped by Nana’s brand new Air Conditioner. Day three you would spend covering the windows with blankets in order to better curl up into a corner on your bed with pieces of clothing you had taken from your parents. Day four there was no more denying what was happening as you cried into mama’s lap, feeling oddly betrayed by your own body as you waited for all of it to pass.

Your daddy put you on suppressants the second you were all finished and were back in Memphis. He was the only one whose disappointment in your presentation matched your own. Mama tried her best to convince you it wasn’t so bad to be an Omega, but the words feel hollow as you overhear her insistence to daddy that she wasn’t too old to try and get it “right” this time with another baby.

Nothing felt real those summer days, and by the time newly presented Alpha, Elvis Presley, strolled into the store, you officially accepted that you were in some sort of upside down world. You didn’t even really see him at first, you were so used to seeing him at less than eye-level to you, that it didn’t register to you to look up, and find the previously waifish Elvis Presely having been replaced by a taller, broader -and dare you say it, handsome- young man before you.

Of all the people you knew, you thought Elvis would be the one that you would be able to tell, but as the light softly glints off his newly descended canines you knew that could never be.

There’s a part of you that wants to tell him. To admit to someone, who will undoubtedly accept you as you are, but you catch sight of your parents staying on opposite sides of the store. A painful reminder that nothing is ever a sure thing.

“My what big teeth you have,” you instead remark as you lean against the counter.

“Heya sweetheart,” he says, propping an elbow on to the counter, though not without some awkwardness as he catches your magazine and slides forward a little before catching himself.

“Sweetheart? What is that about?” You ask, acting dumb and hoping you’re wrong.

He grins even wider at that

“Oh yeah,” you say, trying to be as non-chalant as you possibly could be. You hook your pinky into the corner of your mouth to show him the normal canine you have. He perks up ever so slightly as he sees it, only to deflate once he hears your muffled “Beta.”

“O-oh… oh, ummm…” he stutters, unsure of what to say to you.

“Disappointed? So’s my daddy,” you say flippantly.

“N-no it ain’t that,” he stutters. “It’s just I-I… well I…”

“Was expecting something else?” you finish for him. “You and me both buddy,”

“...Y-yeah umm….” he says glancing down between you and the floor as though waiting for the sike.

“C’mon, don’t be upset for my sake, you’re an Alpha now, cream of the crop and all that,” you say, hoping you don’t sound too jealous. You hand him a Pepsi on the house and call for the next customer knowing you’re gonna have to be on inventory later so you’re daddy won’t notice it missing.

In short order by the start of your freshman year you would learn three awful things. First, that while the state of Tennessee’s single bond and marriage laws were still in place, they do make an exception for Alpha business owners who wish to pass down their legacy to an Alpha Child. Secondly, that your daddy was aware of this exception because he had done it once before, as you and your mama were his second attempt at an alpha child, after his first born son presented as an omega. Third, the reason you had a babysitter until you were fourteen, was because your daddy apparently needed a backup for his backup.

That is how you found yourself moving all of your belongings into the Lauderdale Courts, where you would find a familiar face. He was surprised to see you there, especially with the load of boxes behind you, but he wasn’t about to let your surly demeanor get in the way of him rolling out the welcome wagon for you and your Mama.

Elvis is not one to be ignored, and you find it amusing that he was now the one that more or less bullied you into doing things. And as loath as you are to admit it he more or less did become somewhat of a protector to you when Leon tried to get his licks back. It is a strange reversal, but not a wholly unwelcome one. You do at least try to find the comedy that is the tragedy of your life now.

Your mama was with you, but you could hardly say she was present anymore. The days she wasn’t drinking herself into a stupor, were the days she was cursing your father’s name and long-winded rants about how he stole the best years of her life. For all the passion and fury in her words, they were hollow, as instead of getting on suppressants to combat her heats, she instead went back to him every single time to take care of her. There would be times you would come home from school only to find your place empty, cash in an envelope on the table, nary a note in sight, and you would spend the week with a neighbor.

You try to justify it in your head with the fact that Mated Omegas could die if they go into heat without their Alpha, but that was exactly what suppressants were made for. They weren’t true mates so there should be no problem for her alone to break the bond, and yet like clockwork every three months she would be gone for the entire week, and wouldn’t be able to look you in the eyes for about the next two weeks following that.

You hated those days when you would come back to the apartment only to find her missing, that ominous pink dot on the calendar, and some money left in an envelope for you to take care of yourself for the week. Gladys Presley didn’t even hesitate in offering you a place to stay so you wouldn’t be alone, but as welcoming and kind as the Presley’s were to you during those weeks you felt humiliated not only for having to rely on their hospitality, but also the reason why.

You knew where exactly she went. Everyone in the Lauderdale Courts- hell, everyone in Memphis- knew where she went, as those were the same weeks that your father and his new wife would disappear off the face of the Earth. All those pitiful looks and derisive snorts when you walked by felt the same, they said “oh look, there’s the little unwanted girl.” Your mother went from wife to glorified mistress in a matter of months, and people shaped their own opinions on you solely around that.

You got by though, especially after you were able to get a part time job in Sophmore year. Kitty LeBlanc is perhaps the most feared Alphas this side of Memphis. She and her wife, Jeanie, have been running the Cathouse Beauty Salon, for the last twenty or so years, the place to go when you’re looking to get done up for a date night or a divorce. It’s well known in these parts that any Omegas having trouble with their Alphas need only come to Kitty to get them to start doing right by them. So suffice to say, she was furious at what your daddy did to you, and the only thing stopping her from launching a full scale whisper campaign against your daddy’s store, is that you and your mama were still financially dependent on him and so didn’t want to leave him completely destitute.

But you also had the underlying reason that you needed him to stay open so you could still get the suppressants you needed. They were created way back when during war times, to prevent mated omegas from dying due to their Alphas being gone so long, and nowadays they are only prescribed to mated Omegas under the most extreme of circumstances. Legally you’re not supposed to be on them whatsoever, but while normally your father being a pharmacist had few perks, this was absolutely one of them.

It’s bad enough he’s known for having more or less abandoned an Omega Partner, but it would have absolutely devastated him, socially and legally, if it had gotten out that he had abandoned not one but two Omega children of his. So rather than having that be his reputation he made everyone believe that you in fact were a Beta. And you’re fine with this, because you already push it by acting like an Alpha when you’re known as a Beta, you doubt you’ll be tolerated anymore if it comes out that you’re an Omega.

Kitty would respect your choice and instead offered you a job, mostly sweeping the floors and taking out the trash after school, for a little extra cash on the side. That’s where your interest in makeup first began, seeing how someone could be having the worst day of their lives, but their appearance exhibiting none of that.

“Think of it like a mask,” Kitty would explain to you as you attempted eyeliner for the first time. “You’re only showing the world what you want them to see.”

High school was a bit of a blur, and before you know it you’re in your Senior year. Prom was something you had been looking forward to. You had saved up all your money from the Cathouse to buy a beautiful red dress, had been asked out by a nice Beta boy from your art class, and Kitty promised you the full salon treatment for such a special occasion. Really everything was looking up with the only hitch being how weird Elvis had gotten when you told him about your plans for the evening.

After the talent show (where you almost resorted to pushing him onto the stage), Elvis certainly wasn’t without options, but he still insisted on going Stag with you and the rest of your friends for Prom. Those plans didn’t change with your news but he clearly seemed to have become grumpier as of late.

But you didn’t pay it any mind, as afterall the shit you’d been through up until that point, was one night really too much to ask for. Evidently it was, because as you were getting into David’s car, you realized you had forgotten the evening gloves your mama was letting you borrow, and you ran back into the building only to be met with your mother with a suitcase in hand as she set down an envelope on the small dining table.

You vividly remember how she would look up at you with only the slightest hint of guilt in her eyes, before her expression steels itself with a calm demeanor, as she gives you a cool smile, places the envelope in your hand with a friendly pat, and then she walked out the door without even a glance back.

You would never see her again.

To My Darling Daughter,

I’m sorry for what I have to do, but you must understand that while this is a choice, it’s not an easy one.

If you can take comfort in anything, know that it is your strength and resiliency and seeing you as bold as you are for what you are has inspired me to take control of my own life. I’ve met a Beta man who has promised me a better life away from this place. My only regret is that I can’t bring you with me.

But I know for a fact that you, unlike me, can and will survive on your own.

I Love You So Much,

Mama

You had to read her letter several times, not fully believing the words before you. You recognize that there was a part of you that had wanted this for years. For her to run far and fast from your father, but you had just always assumed she would’ve taken you as well.

You hardly have time to process that as you hear David’s horn honking out at the front. No, instead of sitting with your feelings about the matter, you fix your makeup, grab the gloves, and walk out to the powder blue chevy. After David offers whatever was in the flask he swiped from his daddy, the entire dance turns into a haze, with the only evidence that you were even there being the commemorative photo and the blisters you feel forming on your feet.

“Say Y/N, my folks are outta town this weekend.” David says idly as you’re walking out of the school gymnasium.

“That’s nice,” you slur, not really having heard a word he said, trying hard not to fall on your face as you stumble in your kitten heels.

“So why don’t we head back to my place?” He asks practically buzzing with anticipation.

“Sure fine,” you sigh apathetically, understanding what he’s implying, and going mostly because the prospect of going back to an empty apartment is far more terrifying to you.

You can see the excitement on the Beta boy's face grow until he looks past you and you watch as the blood-drains from his face. “There you are Y/N,” you hear from a strained yet distinct voice behind you. You turn around only to see Elvis’ icy blue eyes somehow burning holes into your date, as he says through gritted teeth. “Your mama made me promise to get you home early.”

You can hardly be faulted for your almost knee-jerk reaction at Elvis’ blatant- well to you-lie: you burst into a near hysterical fit of laughter, to the point tears are streaming down your face. You laugh a little too hard and a little too long at a joke neither boy seems to understand, that David, by the time you’re mostly done, is long gone. It doesn’t matter though, because in your drunken state your thoughts turn to how embarrassed Elvis is going to be when he takes you home and realizes he got caught in a lie, because you don’t have a Mama anymore.

As you’re stumbling to Elvis’ car, he stops you in your tracks, “Y/N, you alright there?” he breathes and you see his nose flares for a moment, no doubt smelling whatever the hell was in that flask. “What did he do?” He hisses, with murder in his eyes.

“Oh dontcha worry about ole’ Davey over there,” you dismiss, as you grip onto one of his forearms to keep yourself standing (when did they get so big?). “How ‘boutchu take me back home because… I. Gotta. Surprise. For. You.” You say, punctuating your last few words, tapping his nose each time. You can see his eyes widen and his adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows nervously, before he quietly agrees.

He gets you back into his daddy’s car seemingly content to have gotten you away from your date, until you’re on the road, and in a fit of… grief… madness… something, you open the window and let one of the evening gloves your mother had let you borrow fly out into the night.

“Ain’t those your mama’s?” He asks, slightly perturbed at your seeming indifference, when you’re usually so careful with your clothes.

“Mmm-hmm,” you hum as you let its twin also fly out. The rest of the ride back to the Lauderdale Courts was filled with a thick silence, as you were upset, and Elvis could tell you were upset, yet neither one of you knew how to address it, so you both remained quiet.

Elvis gets you into the building and in repayment for his act of chivalry, you didn’t vomit all over his rented suit. No, instead you bolt into your apartment, that you had left unlocked for your mama without another word. After brushing the taste of bile and fruit punch out of your mouth, you would find him sitting on your couch with that damn letter in his hands.

It is at that moment where you enter and you see the heartbreak and pity in his eyes for you, did you finally recognize that this wasn’t as funny as you thought it would be. No, in fact it leaves you with a hollow feeling inside of you, seeing him that way, but instead of dealing with that you choose to laugh at the situation.

You laugh because otherwise you’ll cry.

“Tell me Presley,” you joke with him. “You make it a habit of reading through other people’s mail?”

“Y/N, I-I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” he would say, tears welling in his eyes for you.

“Well we got that in common,” you say, wishing to be numb to the whole world by this point.

“I-I just don’t understand wh-why she would do somethin’ like this,” he states, genuinely unbelieving that a mother could do something like this. You’re confused for a different reason, as you can’t quite find the logic in leaving you behind when she was so close to being able to do so legally after you had graduated.

Guess she just wanted out that bad.

“Oh I know why,” you stated as you threw off your shoes and tossed your legs over his lap. “I’m unlovable,” you say flippantly, while shrugging your shoulders. You weren’t seeking his pity nor his comfort. In your mind you were simply stating a fact. The same way you would state that the sky is blue or that water is wet, Y/N is unlovable. How could you not be, as both people that were all but hard-wired to do so, want nothing to do with you?

You see so many emotions pass through his face at your statement. Until he throws his arms around you and brings you as close as possible to him. “You’re not unlovable,” he declares.

“No I am,” you say, resolved to your fate. “I just need to accept that.”

“You’re not unlovable, Y/N,” he blubbers a bit, tears in his eyes, holding your face in his hands. “Because I lo-”

You quickly slap your hand over his mouth, shushing him, truly not wanting to hear the next words to come out. You’re not an idiot, you remember the way he would look at you before either of you presented, it’s the same way he looks at you now, when he thinks you’re not paying attention. But you know, as did he you suspect, that if either one of you were to ever verbally acknowledge it, everything would be ruined.

It’s not like you haven’t thought about it before. Nothing would be wrong considering you are actually an Omega, and anybody would tell you being close friends with an Alpha would eventually lead to this. But one thing throws a wrench into this idea: the fact that the thought of being bonded to an Alpha, even Elvis, terrifies you to your core.

You’ve seen how wrong those relationships could go, what happens to the omega and how the Alpha could get out scott free. You know yourself well enough to recognize that you are far too willful and bold to make for a good wife for an Alpha when most would prefer a more demure, submissive mate. Add in how apparently easy you are to leave behind, you doubt your odds of having the ideal life for an Omega look too good.

In your quieter moments you would wonder who you were supposed to be. If you hadn’t been raised with the expectation that you were going to be an Alpha would you have actually exhibited the traits that go with being an Omega. Or would you have still ended up the same way? Neither scenario fills you with comfort.

You try not to dwell on these thoughts too long, as afterall, as far as Elvis knows, being with you like that is impossible. Besides you and Elvis have a good thing going on right now and the last thing you want to do is mess it up.

You’ll later blame the alcohol for what had happened next, as you sat next to him, doing your best to stop crying, in spite of your feelings of being unwanted and unloved. But you’re somewhat comforted by Elvis being so close to you, and you liken your next actions as some latent part of your omega brain trying to compensate for your crippling loneliness that night by trying to start something with the nearest Alpha, who just so happened to be your best friend.

Your face buried in his neck, you could feel yourself steady the longer you breathed in his heady scent of leather and rose water, disparate yet no less intoxicating, all tied to something uniquely him. Something you had never really noticed before, given that the suppressants did a good job of dampening your smell capabilities, but being so close to him now, you begin to understand why the other omegas would get giddy moments before he walked into a room.

You remember just every breath filling you with a sense of comfort and warmth, and simply wanting to be as close to its source as possible. His scent reminded you of burrowing yourself in warm blankets on a cold morning or taking the first sip of hot cocoa on a frigid night, that feeling of being so comfortable in your discomfort that you don’t even recognize what it was until you felt the slightest bit of relief from it.

Wanting to further immerse yourself in that scent, you find yourself quickly going from leaning on him, to full-on straddling him, all so that you could better nuzzle your face into his neck. Though from the rumbling in his chest he didn’t seem to mind your invasion of his space too much. In fact he had followed suit by wrapping his arms around your waist and burying his nose into your neck.

Though his discontented snarls tell you he’s apparently having a hard time. As a “Beta” you hardly even register as an option for him, the suppressants apparently making your scent so subtle, you’re about as appealing as a houseplant to him. You on the other hand were practically getting drunk on what little scent was making its way through to you.

So drunk were you in fact that you didn’t realize what you were doing with your hips until he let out a strained groan that reverberated back onto your neck. You don’t exactly know where your head was at, you just remember that he smelled so good and felt even better against your burning core, which is why you felt little shame as you continued to grind into him, the salacious act being hidden from your view by your skirt.

Your eyes meet his and you’re not exactly sure who leans in first, just that somebody did. But almost like magic, that tentative and nervous brushing of your lips against his, broke you from your spell, and made you realize what exactly you were doing.

You tear yourself away from him, nearly cracking your head on the low table as you land on your rear in front of the couch. Horrifyingly you’re now put at eye-level with his legs where you see something tenting the front of his pants. You take advantage of his utterly bell-rung state as you would pathetically crawl away from him and into your own tiny bedroom, to get away from this confusing and frankly terrifying situation.

There’s no lock to speak of so you block the door with your own body, crying into your hands, praying that he sees himself out, though like usual your wishes go unheard.

“Y/N?” You hear from the last person you want to deal with, knock at your door. His voice quivering as though he’s close to tears.

You sob harder.

“Y/N, I’m beggin’ ya here. Please talk to me,” he says, sounding genuinely distraught.

“Go away, Elvis!” You beg through your blubbering. This back and forth continues for a while until your stubborn nature prevails, and you’re left alone.

And all is right in the world.

You would wake up with a god-awful crick in your neck, and feeling unpleasantly feverish beyond belief. You quickly take your suppressants as you have done religiously since you had started on them, and you would spend the day barricaded in your room waiting for your fever to cool down.

Come Monday, Elvis wouldn’t be in school, and in spite of the fact he was the last person you wanted to see, you were given the task of passing along his school work to him. You were no stranger within the Presley household, oftentimes spending the weeks your mother was in heat with them, as Gladys couldn’t stand the thought of you all alone in that apartment. So it was surprising to say the least when she was the one to bar you from entering the door.

“Sweetheart,” she sighs, looking tiredly between you and the apartment behind her. “Elvis is umm… a bit… sick, and he won’t be fit for seein’ for… a few more days.” The blush on her face and the embarrassment in her voice tell you exactly what exactly is happening to him. You quickly dismiss yourself back to your empty apartment.

Well that at least explained why he let you do… that. He was a young Alpha going into his first Rut, he probably would have done the same with a box of cracker jacks if it promised him a good time. It meant nothing, so you were going to treat it like that.

It made more sense than the alternative of your “mini-heat” sending him into a rut. Afterall everybody knows that only true mates are capable of doing that. Most mated couples take a few cycles in order to sync up properly, while in contrast true mates can almost immediately trigger the other's time just by being in the same vicinity while going through theirs. You’ve also heard rumors of something else happening with those couples, but you’ve never bothered to dive too deep into that, and all you know is that it had something to do with how they almost always get pregnant during their first cycle.

True Mates are just rare enough to be special, but happen frequently enough that everybody at least knows one pair. It felt like every single Omega you met dreamed of finding their true mate regardless of how unlikely it is to happen. It also had all the hallmarks of being devastatingly romantic, with the idea that these are the only bonds that are truly unbreakable and that both parties could potentially die without the other, rather than just the Omega.

In theory it should sate your worries about being left by an Alpha, but it does little to help, as the idea scares the shit out of you. The idea that regardless of your own wishes to never be mated to an alpha, some force has apparently fated you to be with someone. Add to the fact that they have yet to make suppressants sufficiently strong enough to quell an omega with a true mate because apparently the bond is that strong, and all you see is a disaster waiting to happen.

You spend the next week trying to figure out the logistics of living on your own. You know Graduation is roughly a month away and without your mother to renew the lease or your father not willing to pay past his legal obligation, you’re going to be homeless. You can chance it with the foster system you suppose if you declare yourself an unaccompanied Omega, but more than likely they’ll send you back with your father, and he’ll more than likely hock you off to the first Alpha that gives you a second glance.

By the end of the week you’ve accepted that your best option for the time being is hoping that Kitty is kind enough to allow you to stay in the storage closet while you get your full salon training. If you sell everything in the apartment and by the time you're making full salary you may just be able to afford a room in a girl’s boarding house. That is until Gladys Presley, after three days of you dancing around the question of “Where’s your Mama, sweetheart?” finally sat you down and refused to hear any more excuses, and you had to quietly admit how you didn’t know.

Gladys is surely a force to be reckoned with as within an hour of your solemn confession she has you at her table with a warm meal, her couch already set up, and the landlord agreeing to forward you the last two months of payment your father is supposed to pay for rent. But what she can’t fix is the fact that you are suspiciously not making eye contact with Elvis.

You had insisted on making yourself useful and helped Gladys clean up afterwards, but once she and Vernon called it a night, you knew there was no getting around it anymore. At around midnight do you hear Elvis shuffle into the living room, clearly hesitant to have this conversation as well.

“You up?”

“No.”

That gets a short huff out of him before he plants himself on the opposite side of the couch as you, essentially sitting on your feet. The room is too dark to really see him, but the slight shaking in his leg and constant shifting tell you he’s just as uncomfortable as you are.

“Elvis about Prom ni-”

“Are you really a Beta?” he cuts you off.

In spite of the darkness within the room, you still try to school your expression to one of confusion rather than shock. “What kind of question is that?” you say, managing to sound tiredly exasperated with him, while your heart is going a mile a minute. “Of course I’m a Beta, why’d ya think I wasn’t?”

“It’s just…” he pauses. “That night-”

“The night nothing happened.”

“Y/N,” he says severely, a tone he has never in his life used with you. “I need an honest answer here.”

You think about your next words carefully. As far as you know Alpha’s can’t literally sniff out lies, nor do you have any reason to believe he can hear some sort of minute difference between a lie and a truth.

For a brief moment you contemplate being totally honest with him, but you quickly dismiss that notion when you shift slightly and feel the hard edge of the couch armrest. Your situation is far too precarious to risk it on a gamble that he may want you, when if anything this past month has proven how unwanted you are.

“Elvis… you’re my best friend,” you state, as this much is true. “Do you really think I would lie to you about something like this?” you say, too cowardly to lie through your teeth and say no, instead you put it on him as to whether he believes you would do such a thing to your best friend.

He sighs in defeat, believing you wouldn’t invoke your relationship on a lie this big. “No… No, you’re right,” though you can hear the slightest quiver in his voice. “It-it’s just bad luck, that all that happened in the same night.”

“Exactly,” you say relieved that he came to the same conclusion that you did about that night. “E, I-I didn’t get a chance to say this yet but… thank you.”

“For what?”

“For taking me in,” you sigh, not a fan of the coy act.

“It was nothin’ Darlin’,” he says though you can hear him relax a bit at that. “Mama wasn’t ‘bouta let that stand.”

“Well then thanks for nothing Presley,” you say with a grin.

He laughs at that, and says “C’mere you,” as he brings you in close for a hug. You do notice as he buries his nose in the crook of your neck, and pointedly takes an extra long whiff of your neck. He’s undoubtedly trying one last ditch effort to prove his theory right only to find nothing.

“But I hope you can accept that I’m your mama’s favorite now,” you say as seriously as you could to break the tension, in an effort to ignore what he just did.

He pauses at that before pushing your face back into the pillow and saying around a smile, “alright, go back to sleep, you.”

Those months following your graduation, there was something so simple about those days, almost idyllic, in an odd way. You would be the first up in the household, so it was on you to push Elvis out of bed, take care of breakfast and lunch for the both of you. He would drive you to work in his company truck listening to the early morning radio and you would muse that it would only be a matter of time before the two of you would be hearing him. He would always get red in the ears at that and drop you off at the salon. He would occasionally drop in for lunch and afterwards the two of you would hit up Beale street for a while before heading home. Have dinner with his folks, go to bed, repeat all of that the next day.

You would often practice your makeup skills on him when Gladys was unavailable, giving you a better understanding as to how to not only put makeup on someone else, but how to also highlight a person’s best features. And working so close on him, did you realize that Elvis had many. In return for your ��experimentation,” you would go to every single performance of his as support which evolved into doing makeup for him. Oftentimes you’re the last person he talks to before he gets on stage, as you would often help him clean himself up when he got too in his head about the whole thing, but also the first one to greet him once he got off the stage.

Though as the years went on and performing became more routine, and you find yourself in the midst of show business alongside him. Traveling the country and working on movie sets are never things you ever expected to happen, even in the days when you had your life set out before you.

Those days seem so far away now, as though they were a dream of a different life. But now you were in a new era, the “New Elvis” era, which would be one of the worst you ever had the displeasure of witnessing. It was like watching a Peacock be plucked and be told to still be just as eye-catching, and you let the Colonel know as much. You thought it was bad enough having to see him dressed in tails, but you knew the disaster that was headed your way the moment you saw that damn dog being rolled on stage with him.

When they moved into Graceland, the Presley’s took you along with them, and even tried to offer you a room on the top floor, the one specifically designated for family. It was one of the few times you and the Colonel were on the same page about… anything really, as you were vehemently against the initial room he offered you and instead took a moderately sized room on the first floor. You did this as you know that keeping some distance between you and them will make it hurt a lot less when they inevitably drop you.

Elvis Presley being in your bed is not an unusual experience, something you had gotten used to way back when your bed was the Presley’s couch, and he made it a habit of letting himself in as he pleased in your room at Graceland. So you hardly blink when you wake up to him laying next to you in the middle of the night. Or rather you do several times in order to get all the sleep out of your eyes and try to get a grip of your bearings as you suddenly awaken to a bed full of rockstar.

You had watched him storm out earlier, all passion and fury at the world that wants different and contradictory things from him all at once. Now all that fire has seemingly been extinguished as he lies next to you hands on his stomach, voice quiet and unsure of himself as he asks “You awake Y/N?” imperceptible through the non-existent lighting in the room.

“No.”

He huffs at you, and you can almost hear the smile on his lips, before the room turns solemn once more. And you give a big tear-welling yawn, but you’re still willing to help him through his identity crisis.

“Sweetheart, be honest with me,” he says into the inky darkness. “This ‘New Elvis” thing… ya’ think it’s a mistake?”

“Yes” you answer without missing a beat. You were never one to mince words for him and you’re not about to start now. “Now answer me this: is your name Frank?”

“No,” he answers confused.

“Is your name Bill?”

“No.”

“Is your name Buddy?”

“Y/N, what the hell are ya gettin’ at?”

“What I’m getting at is if they wanted a old crooner in a boring suit, they woulda gotten Frank Sinatra. They wanted clean sanitized rock n’ roll, they woulda gotten Bill Haley. If they had wanted someone popular but not so controversial, they woulda gotten Buddy Holly.” You say, impassioned as you are sleepy, hoping you’re making even a lick of sense to him. “They didn’t get any of them. But you know who they asked to be there?”

“Me?”

“Who?”

He chuckles before saying, “Elvis Presley.”

“That’s right,” you say, poking his chest. “They want you E, controversy and all, because you know what, ain’t nobody better at getting asses in seats and panties on the floor.”

“Y/N!” he exclaims, scandalized and, you can just imagine, red in the face.

“It’s true though,” you continue. “Being controversial these days hardly makes a difference anymore.”

“How’d ya figure that?”

“Elvis…” you say solemnly. “To my face people shake their heads and click their tongues as to what my daddy did to me and my mama. That doesn’t stop them from patronizing his store and giving him their money to better support his new family.” You feel him give a comforting rub on your shoulder. “Look what I’m trying to say is that, when what you give is good enough, people will overlook just about everything else. And trust me what you sell… sells.” You pause when you feel something hard beside your feet. “Are you wearing your shoes in my bed?”

“...maybe?”

“Get outta here weirdo,” you huff annoyed at his antics, and use all of your might to push him out.

“Alright, alright,” he says, acquiescing and getting out of your bed. “Guess I’ll head to that diner you love all by myself.” You can almost hear the smirk when his statement gets the pause he was looking for.

“You’re a cruel, cruel man Elvis Presley,” you declare. “Give me 20 minutes.”

The next day at Russwood Park, you’re putting the final touches on him before he gets on stage. You can still see the tiniest bit of conflict still on his face so you tickle his nose with your makeup brush to get his attention. “Remember. They don’t like how it sounds…” you trail off.

“They don’t gotta listen.” he finishes, apparently remembering your bit of 12 year old wisdom. Once he got on stage, he would take your advice, but the next time he would crawl back into your bed would be the night he got his draft notice.

None of you were exactly surprised, as everybody had known to expect it sooner rather than later, especially given that Elvis had slowly and steadily become one of the most controversial singers in the country. However the days immediately following it were some of the bleakest you’ve ever experienced.

With The Colonel’s whole rebranding spiel, and how much trouble he got in after Russwood Park, the fresh start idea isn’t terrible at this point, but you wish you could have gotten out easier. As cold as it sounds to say, you now saw the writing on the wall. You’re fully aware of the fact that, of his crew, his make-up girl is on the lowest of priorities. Regardless of how fond he is of you, he is undoubtedly about to be put under a microscope and whether he realizes it or not, he’s about to embark on a new chapter of his life, a chapter that more than likely doesn’t include you.

You want to do your best to put on a brave face for him, the last thing you want to do is add to his stress. And besides it isn’t like you ever truly believed that this was in any way permanent. As life had taught you that nothing is permanent, so why would living with the Presley’s be any different?

It’s just a hard fact of your life that people inevitably get tired of you, and you get left behind for something better. As fun as it’s been with Elvis and his family, never once did you trick yourself into believing that this is how it would be forever. Maybe in those simpler days of practicing makeup on him in the bathroom and lunches in the bed of his company pick up truck… maybe. But as Elvis’ star burned brighter, you were snapped back to reality at how temporary and tenuous your situation was. The same way Elvis outgrew Lauderdale courts, he would outgrow you.

What would he even need his make-up girl for while he’s deployed? The Colonel made it clear he’s not to perform while he’s enlisted, and you doubt wearing makeup will do him any favors in the barracks. And besides, Omegas are unable to even get a passport in Tennessee without explicit permission from their designated Alpha, who in your case, would still be your father.

The father whom you interact with very little these days, the last time being almost a year ago and that was simply to stock up on a year's worth of suppressants. Your father whose business is not seeing as many customers these days because as far as Kitty knows, you don’t need anything from him any more.

Bright side of this is that at the very least you’re not without options this time around. Kitty had made it loud and clear that you’ll always have a place at the Cathouse, and hell you have enough savings to see you through the next few years in Memphis if you simply wanted to wait out his time in the army. But neither seemed appealing to you, as either way your future would still rely on others' good will.

When Elvis had started making movies, of course he dragged you along for the ride up there. You were still the only one he trusted to do his makeup and as a result the studio ended up giving you a crash course as to how to do movie makeup, which you learned was a completely different beast to stage makeup, as you now had to toe the fine line of subtlety. Regardless of all that you did end up making a pretty important discovery, in regard to potential future prospects for yourself. You learned that in the movie making business, Betas are like gold in Hollywood especially for the more practical and technical parts of movie making. This is all due in part to the fact of their overall lack of appeal to Alpha actors, as well as not being as distracting for Omega ones either, not to mention they are far more reliable as they don’t have to worry about pesky heats or ruts.

You also learned that up in Hollywood, you could get access to suppressants about as easily as you could get your hands on a packet of M&M’s, as unlike in Tennessee you didn’t need to be mated in order to gain access to them. As a result, you discovered there were more than a few behind the scenes hands who were also Omegas that masqueraded as Betas in order to get work on the sets, doing wonders to make you feel less out of place there.

Janet, the head of the make-up department Paramount, was initially reluctant to have you aboard but was nonetheless impressed with your ability to pick up the craft as quickly as you did. You had kept her phone number from way back when and decided that now would be a good time to take her up on that job offer. She was ecstatic to bring you onboard but the hiring process being what it is you still technically need to be recommended by former employers.

“You sure I can’t sway you to come back here,” Kitty says as she’s signing the bottom of the letter. The sentimental part of yourself that you had believed you had smothered long ago is screaming yes in your head, not wanting to leave everything you ever knew in Memphis, but the pragmatic part of you knew that your days here are numbered.

You want to be able to bury yourself in her chest and tell her how she’s been like a parent to you all these years. To thank her for all the years she’s cared for you in whatever way she could, taught you your trade that has proven invaluable, steered you in the right direction. But all of that feels too final for your liking, and instead you remark “Unless you got a rich Beta man in the back, then no dice,” all the while giving a casual shrug.

“Well at least you ain’t followin’ that good for nothin’ boy across the world,” she sighs in relief. Kitty was not a fan of Elvis, she made no secret about it, less so when you turned in your resignation to be his makeup assistant for the Louisiana Hayride. Your best guess as to the animosity is how eerily similar they are when you really pay attention. The same way Kitty could give a single look to any fellow Alpha she had ever met, and make them act right, Elvis could do the same, except make them act however he liked. They’re the type of people that just magnetically attract those around them.

But you also think that it is also on the principle that she dislikes any and all partners her children bring around… Which is ridiculous because everybody knows it’s impossible.

You decide not to waste the trip into town and start heading toward your least favorite place in Memphis. You only make this trip once a year anymore, and you’re hoping to make this as quick and painless as possible. But as the little shop below your old home comes into view, do you recognize what a tall order that is.

“What in the hell is this?” your father seethes as you approach the counter, throwing down a newspaper before you. You see yourself wide-eyed looking into a camera with Elvis leading you by the hand into the car after Russwood Park. The draft notice had left the paper's tongues wagging and apparently of all the photos of him that have been printed, it was just your luck that this one was apparently the one most worthy of being reprinted.

Rather than react with the same guilt or shame that any normal Omega would have when confronted by their father as to why they were seen with perhaps the most controversial Alpha in America, you idly pick up and open a candy bar that was sitting at the front.

“A newspaper,” you say with a mouthful of Baby Ruth. “Can I have what I came here for now?” He throws the pages at you, but if you learned anything from him, it is that flinching earns you nothing but letting the other person know you’re scared of them.

“Don’t be cute with me girl,” he spits that last part as though you were a stranger and not his daughter. “Why the hell do I find out like this you’re living with that boy?”

“You didn’t care a single goddamn bit where I was livin’ before, why’s it matter now?”

“It matters because what you’ve been doin’ makes me look like a bad father lettin’ my own daughter run around with that… that…” he says snapping his fingers, searching for the right word.

“Degenerate?” you finish for him, as it is the most common insult you’ve lobbed Elvis’ way.

“Don’t interrupt me,” he seethes, a rumble emanating from his chest, but after being surrounded by the likes of Elvis and Kitty, this does absolutely nothing for you, and you wonder how anybody has ever been intimidated by this man.

“Well good news, the only reason you look like a bad father, is because you are a bad father,” you tell him with a smile on your face. “No one thinks of you enough to bother telling lies about you.”

“Outta the kindness of my heart, I been footin’ the bill for these,” he holds up the bag for emphasis. “Only to find out you've been holdin’ out on me.”

“Mmm-hmm, of course that’s what this is about,” a smirk on your face, figuring ou what has got him so worked up. “Why you so worried about money? Saving up for your next attempt at an Alpha kid that’s not gonna happen?”

“Don’t think I don’t know about you and that vicious bitch of a woman, you been costin’ me more money than what these pills are worth for years,” he spits.

“Pills you put me on,” you accuse. The argument ceases almost immediately when you hear the tell-tale ring of the bell at the front of the shop.

“You gonna pay me what I’m owed, or no?”

You want to refuse on principle alone, but you’re so close to being free from all of it, so you don't want to risk it so soon. But you know the kind of trouble something like that could dredge up for you specifically. So it’s with a heavy heart that you agree to pay for them once you get paid for the next movie.

But if your father is good at one thing, it’s believing in his own myth of being the big tough, and in charge Alpha. That you as an Omega will have no choice but to obey his will, even as he hands over the very tool that negates his influence over you.

You have no intention of ever paying him a single goddamn cent of any of it. You’re only on them because of him, and if he wants to scream and holler about how you owe him money, but he won’t be able to do a damn thing, lest he out himself as well.

Besides, you'll be long gone by the time he wises up to the fact that you won’t be paying.

Now there’s only one more letter you need, and it’s not as easy as you would have hoped for. After getting your medicine, you take a few days to really pluck up the courage to do so. He’s been a lot testier these last few days, as was to be expected considering the circumstances.

If all goes well you’ll be able to work on this final movie together with him, before you part ways, and leave with the crew back to California. If not… well you’ll probably just start making your trip far earlier than expected.

You find him in the upstairs office, looking through mail, a stony expression on his face, but it lightens considerably when he sees you with the food Gladys has sent you up with. Well, more like you insisted on taking it up as you’ve been hoping to catch him in a good mood, as there are few things on this Earth that put him in a better one than his mama’s cooking.

“Sorry to bother you E,”

“Ain’t no bother,” he insists, moving some papers out of view to make way for the dish. “I’m tryin’ to get a head count for how big a house I need on base in Texas.”

“How many you at now?”

“Including you? 7,” he says casually, taking a bite out of his food.

“Why would you include me?” You say genuinely confused.

He pauses at that, positively shocked by your response, until a grins splits his face and he gives a short huff of a laugh. “You almost had me there, Y/N,” he chuckles at your apparent antics, settling back into his affable disposition.

You swallow nervously at that, “That’s actually kinda what I came to talk to you about. I-I got offered a job from Paramount out west to work for them, but they’re saying I nee-”

“Jokes over,” he declares, his smile dropping a little, bypassing what you were trying to say. “You got me, alright?”

“... Not alright, Elvis,” you state trying to get your point across. “I’m trying to tell you I’m getting another jo-”

“Y/N,” he says, cutting off your plea, the look in his eyes familiar, but you’ve never had the misfortune of it being directed at you. “Quit the jokin’ now,” he says, his tone severe which you do not care for one bit, but you have to tread lightly if you want to get his sign off.

“I’m serious Elvis… this… this probably isn’t the best time,” you sigh, for once in your life trying to be careful with your words. “Th-the studio needs letters from former bosses to know that I can do the job, an-and I was hoping you could write one for me.”

The tension hangs thick between the two of you once you are finally able to make your point. You swallow nervously but you don’t sway and inch as he stands from his desk.

“If this is a ploy to get a raise,” he said coldly. “You win Y/N, I’ll pay ye’ whatcha want?”

“No Elvis…” you sigh, trying to keep a cap on your frustration. “You’re not listening. I’ve got a new job lined up in Hollywood, I just need you to write a letter for them telling you I can..” you trail off seeing the expression of fury in his face.

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me right now Y/N!?!?”

“I think we’ve established that I’m not joking right now,” you say bitingly, your hatred of being yelled at overriding all other things.

“So what… you’re gonna leave me high and dry when I need ya’ the most!?” He says, something akin to heartbreak painting his features.

“Why do you gotta say it like that? Like I’m breaking up with you?” you argue, not liking how he’s making this a bigger deal than it is. “It ain’t like you’re gonna need a make-up girl while you’re doing drills.”

“But I’m gonna need you!” He asserts, placing his hands on your shoulders.

“Oh don’t be like that,” you tell him, literally shrugging him off. “It’s not like I’m gonna be able to live on base with you.

“Then we don’t gotta live on base.” he waves away, as though it were that simple.

“Elvis… I don’t wanna go with you,” you say simply leaving it at that leaving no room for him to argue the logistics of it. It hurts but you know you gotta get out now while the getting is good, because if you wait any longer, he’ll be the one that leaves first and that will be all the worse. For the first time in your life, you want to be the one that walks away on your own terms. “E, I-I gotta go where the work is,” you try to justify.

“So that’s it ain’t it,” he says, his pursed lips turning into a frown. “this was all just a job to you and you’re leaving cuz there ain’t one no more?” he shakes his head at you, disappointment evident on his face.

That… that cuts deep. That he can reduce not only his role in your life like that without guilt, as though you’ve been playing the longest con in history, when you first decided to defend a scrawny 12 year old from his nay-saying music teacher.

“Yes Elvis, if that’s what you want to hear,” you say without a hint of hesitation, willing your tears not to fall now of all times. “This has all just one big job for me, has been since the very beginning. Now there ain’t no job to have and I gotta fucking move on with my life because I don’t fucking need you anymore!” It doesn’t feel great as it leaves your mouth, and the angry tears streaming down your face prove it.

Nor does it get any better when you watch him stagger a bit at that, as though he had just been shot, even taking a hold of the corner of his desk for full effect. A million emotions pass through his face in seconds until he eventually lands on pure unadulterated fury. “Get out! I don’t wanna fuckin’ look at you right now!” he shouts dismissing you, his hands shaking as though itching to wring your neck.

“You got it Boss,” you say bitingly while giving a sarcastic curtsey, to which you turn around and walk out of the room, paying no mind to the destructive sounds coming from behind you. In spite of the biting cold outside your rage is keeping you warm as you pace back and forth along the back patio, trying to figure out your next move.

You’ve had your fights with Elvis before, but you don’t think you’ve ever seen so upset past the point of not wanting to talk with you. Even the biggest blow out between the two of you was exactly that, when he had walked in on you with that Beta who served cotton candy.

“Well now you know what I’d do for cotton candy,” you tried to joke after they had left, but Elvis proceeded to scream in your face, asking how dare you do something like this to him. You’d seen his territorial side before, as you’re not stupid enough to actually believe there isn’t anything behind all the times he’d casually pick you up and take you away when you happened to be talking to some Beta. But you did not care for being screamed at whatsoever, so you packed your things and proceeded to walk to the nearest bus station. You proved yourself to be far more stubborn than him, as you walked down the road, ignoring his demands that you get into the car as it crawled at a near snail’s pace to keep up with you, and talk you out of going back to Memphis.

As the cars lined up and started honking, you refused him still, even his threats to throw you into the trunk if need be, you didn’t falter. It wouldn’t be any sweat for him to do so, what with that crazy alpha strength of his, but you both knew that would hardly be the end of it if he resorted to that. Finally as the bus terminal got within view did he finally crack and promised to never yell at you like that again.

“You drive me up the goddamn wall, Y/N,” he says, rubbing his eyes.

“You love it,” you declared, glad to finally be able to rest your feet, having picked the worst shoes to walk in.

“Yeah… I do,” he sighs and looks over at you from the driver's side. There is a bit of an awkward pause as you find your faces much closer than you remembered and he glances down at your lips.

“God, I’m starving. I don’t know about you,” you quickly say, turning your torso fully around to look out your window, trying to break the tension. “But I could go for a bite and I think I saw a diner up ahead.”

You hear him clear his throat, as he hoarsely replies with a simple “Yeah.” By the time the two of you returned to the motel, you’re the best of friends once more, and neither of you ever mentioned that awkward bit again.

You had hoped after all this time he would’ve let go of that weird possessiveness he has over you. With all the girls that he could have, why do you matter to him so much? You know you’re good with makeup, but you know so are many other girls. And he is capable of opening up to them as he does with you if only he ever got his head out of his ass.

Christmas Eve, Gladys spends the day cooking up a storm, roping in you and Dodger, determined to make this the best Christmas yet. Elvis is still not talking to you but you do find him when you’re looking for your purse, and you watch briefly as he stares deeply into the fireplace, something he’s been doing a lot since your fight.

But he’s got another thing coming if he thinks that you have anything to apologize for. You’ll be leaving with or without his permission… which you absolutely do not need either way. And if he chooses to end your friendship like this, then so be it.

Hell if need be you’ll go over his head and ask the Colonel for a letter. You have no doubt that if it means getting you away from Elvis, the Colonel will write nothing short of a glowing review and personally hand deliver it to Paramount.

Christmas day comes and everyone and their mother is over to celebrate. Everybody is living it up and trying their best to not acknowledge the big ole’ elephant in the room. Elvis seemed to be in higher spirits though as he proceeded to act like nothing was amiss, trying to make this a good Christmas for all. It’s almost as though the weather itself knew his plans for a perfect Christmas with the fresh blanket of snow that covered the outside.

Everyone tries to follow suit with keeping up the festive denial, though it doesn’t take long of the both of you obviously avoiding each other for seemingly everyone to notice something is wrong. Some point blank ask what happened between the two of you.

Some of the guys, weirdly enough, ask if you’re feeling sick, which is an odd experience considering that their eyes tend to slide right over you most days. You find yourself compulsively checking yourself in any available surface over and over again, trying to figure out what had them questioning your state. Nothing is out of place, your makeup is flawless and your outfit is perfectly coordinated and festive.

You look beautiful and nothing is wrong. You’re hoping if you repeat that enough times you’ll start to believe that.

You eventually call it a night after a few hours though not before presents are exchanged and you get the pleasure of seeing Elvis' eyes go a bit glassy once he puts on the new coat you got for him only to find the pockets filled with Gum and Guitar strings, because as upset as you are with him you’re not about to break tradition.

By the time you make it back to your room you all but pass out fully dressed on top of your sheets, and you feel the slightest twinge of guilt when you wake up wrapped in Elvis' old Crown Electric Jacket. You don’t really get a chance to dwell on that too much though as after taking your suppressant, do you notice the noise- or better yet the lack thereof.

Graceland is many things but it is definitely never quiet, you learned that early on into moving in. There was always something happening, someone visiting, and something new to do, with the occasional errant chicken running around the house, so it takes not even an hour that first day for you to notice the silence.

It’s almost like a ghost town on the floor below, with the only soul to be found, being the head of this household idling away at the piano. You’re about to head back to your room, wanting absolutely none of this until you hear a “Y/N?” from the piano room. You silently curse his uncanny knack for sniffing you out when others couldn’t, while simultaneously breathing an internal sigh of relief that he no longer sounds angry at you.

“Yeah it’s me E,” you state as you walk into the room, resolved to whatever fate you had signed yourself up for.

He turns around to see you see his face flushed and his eyes puffy, no doubt he’s been having trouble sleeping again.

“Y/N… we’re close right,” he asks genuinely, and you know that that boss comment hurt him deeply.

“We’ve both seen each other without makeup, absolutely nothing is closer than that.” you answer.

That gets a chuckle out of him at least, and it’s almost a relief to hear it after going without it for so long. “How many years we been knowin’ each other?” he asks solemnly, as you sit next to him on the piano bench.

It’s as you're saying 8 do you actually realize how long it’s been. “Time is one sneaky sonuvabitch,” you say, your eyes still wide at the revelation.

He laughs a bit at your reaction, “It sure is,” he says. The next look you can’t quite read as he says, “That's 8 years of believing in my dream longer than even I did at some points.” His eyes wide and his face soft.

You’re very uncomfortable at the amount of vulnerability being shown right now and you quickly course correct by lightly moving his chin with your fist and saying, “Hey now don't chu go gettin’ soft on me Presley,” you say, laughing to mask your nervousness.

He takes your hand in his as he says “What I’m tryin’ ta say Y/N, is th-that it’s been 8 years of you supportin’ me in whatever way I needed.” He gives a sad smile at this, before he continues, “I figure it’s ‘bout time I pay that back. I’ll write whatcha need darlin’.”

You’re stunned at this, truly having believed you would be the first to crack. But here he is, subverting expectations as usual. You’re not the most physically affectionate person, you’ll admit, but you can’t help the overwhelming urge to hug him. Not the obligatory side hugs you give on occasion, nor the awkwardly stiff stance when someone hugs you. This is a full on arms-behind his neck bury your face in his neck kind of hug, as you squeal you thank yous over and over to him.

You remember yourself, you pull away slightly once you feel his hands on your lower back tenderly holding you to him, and with your hands on his chest you look at him directly in the face. His eyes gazing up at you, a soft smile on his plush lips, his breathing steady and strong, as opposed to yours which hitches in your throat.

You clear your throat, “Say where is everybody?” you ask casually releasing yourself from his grip and turning your attention toward the window, which showcased the freshly fallen untouched snow of December.

He approaches you from behind and idly places a warm hand on your shoulder, before saying“I let everyone know I need some alone time and I didn’t really wanna see anyone, till we hear back ‘bout the deferment.”

“Shit sorry,” you say, quickly trying to get up. “I’lll get outta your hair,” you say, only for his grip on your shoulder to slip down to your waist.

“You’re not just anyone to me Y/N,” he drawls, his face far closer than necessary.

"Okay weirdo," you say, turning away hoping your face isn’t radiating how warm you’re feeling. You focus your attention on the snow covered lawn before you declare, "But if this ends up like the Donner's, I'm eating you first."

That gives him pause and you see as he purses his lips, clearly trying to hide a smile before he leans in real close to your ear. You don’t fully understand why your heart seemingly skips a beat as he says in a husky drawl, "Not if I don't eat you first."

There was the briefest of moments when you feel your face heat up at his tone until you roll your eyes at him and move him and his stupid little lip bite away from you. You turn around and try to leave the room, content that your little orphan angry ass isn’t going to be thrown out into the snow just yet. But before you can do so, you feel him grab a hold of your wrist, “ain’tcha cold like that darlin’?”

You look down only to be reminded that you had not in fact dressed for the weather today and your short-sleeve blouse and light skirt reflect that. Though oddly you don’t feel the least bit cold, and you feel mildly perturbed as to how in fact you are feeling very comfortable like this. Though of course you hide your concern by saying “You forget, I’m cold-blooded Presley.”

“Of course you lil’ lizard you,” he says with a smile on his face, as he’s taking off his own jacket. “But mama would have my hide if she found out I let you walk around like that and get sick,” and he drapes the warm material around your shoulders, and then chucks you under your chin to look at him. In spite of your supposedly “cold-blood” you feel uncharacteristically warm as he looks at you.

You quickly make your way back to your room, to open up that secret compartment of your purse to find your suppressants. You take them religiously and know exactly how many you should have left by this point, and you’re relieved to find the correct amount left. You quickly think back to everything that you’ve eaten in the last few days, and nothing sticks out to you that would have affected them and you don’t drink whatsoever so it couldn’t be any of that.

Finally you’re left with no choice but to chalk it up as nothing but you being paranoid. You decide to read on the couch, and somehow between the warmth of his jacket and the soft notes he’s playing, you find yourself in a hypnotic trance and you give into the heavy feeling of your eyelids.

You’re later startled awake when you feel something hit you squarely in the face, confused until the snow begins to melt on you and you feel the cool burn of the cold water on your chest. Elvis is laughing his ass off seeing you like this and nimbly dodges when you throw one of your house slippers at him.

“There were easier ways of wakin’ me up,” you remark through your exasperation.

“Ain’t one of ‘em as funny though,” he says slyly, and you roll your eyes, but your sigh tells him you can’t help but agree. “‘Sides that Twilight show’s ‘bouta start, and I knew you woulda done worse if I let you miss it.”

You’re surprised at that, and as you look out to the dreary looking sky you see that it has in fact been more than a few hours since you’ve been asleep. But it hardly feels like any time has passed between now and then as you still feel like you could sleep for another few hours or even days. You quickly disregard these thoughts though as he tells you it’s only a matter of time before your favorite shows starts.

You take a seat next to him just in time to catch the beginning of Twilight Zone, placing the popcorn between the two of you. You have always loved scary stories like this, and Elvis loved scaring you when you got too wrapped up in the stories. Low and behold as you’re anxiously waiting for Inger Stevens to come across the hitchhiker once again, you feel his cool hands grasp at your side making you all but jump out of your skin.

“I hate you,” you say mulishly as he continues to laugh. Though he doesn’t remove his arm from around your waist which takes your full focus off of the screen, as you look down at his hand curled around your side. You move slightly away from him only for his grip to tighten and you’re pulled even further into him until you're all but sitting on his lap. You’re viscerally reminded of Prom and wonder briefly if he even remembers that night anymore, or if it’s become lost in the shuffle amongst all of the other girls he’s had over the years, and an ugly feeling of jealousy shoots through you in that moment.

“Oh there’s the popcorn,” you say, as you use your whole body to stand up and get off of his lap. You grab it and rather than get back on the couch, you sit yourself on the floor, clutching the bowl in front of yourself as though it were a shield, as Perry Mason was just about to start. You’re hesitant to look at him right now, until he reaches down and grabs a handful of popcorn from the bowl.

“Wait I know how this one ends,” Elvis says, with a cheeky grin. “Perry Mason wins.”

He’s just a naturally touchy person, you justify to yourself, don’t read too much into it. “It’s not about if, it’s how goddamnit,” you assert, with a smile on your face. As the show continues you hardly notice when Elvis makes his way to the floor or when he casually throws an arm around your shoulder, though that’s mostly due to the fact that by the half-way mark of the episode, you were struggling to keep your eyes open. Even finding yourself leaning on him more and more, and if you weren’t so tired you would wonder why, considering that you spent most of the day napping.

No, you just find yourself silently grateful for that crazy Alpha strength of his to carry you to bed, your bed feeling more comfortable than you can ever remember it as you settle in.

Waking up to find Elvis in your bed is not unusual. Waking up to him under the sheets with you holding you around your waist is rare but occasionally does happen. Waking up to find that you’re in his bed as he nuzzles his nose into your neck with a handful of your ass while… something… pokes your belly, absolutely unheard of.

You try to peel his hand off and carefully remove yourself from his grip, only for him to roll over fully on top of you and bury himself between your breasts. You stop breathing entirely for a moment, too worried that any sort of chest-heaving may wake him and make this whole situation all the more uncomfortable. Part of you wishes to go back to sleep and hope that this was simply a bad dream, but as he shifts you feel his thigh place itself firmly by your core, the action so sudden and shocking that you audibly gasp.

You feel him stir at that and your face is burning, embarrassed by this whole ordeal, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling you get as he plants a sleepy kiss on your neck and removes himself from you. You think you’ve reached new heights of humiliation, until you find him between your thighs and feel one of his hands start to travel up your skirt.

This has got to be a dream, you think.

“Ok, you’ve had your fun,” you say, trying not to make your skittishness so apparent. “You can quit it now,” but then his other hand travels further up and you’re almost too distracted to notice its twin hook on to your panties and begin to drag them down. And before you can make any noise of protest, it turns into a surprised squeak as you feel his hot breath waft over your now naked cunt. You’re frozen in place as to what the hell is going on, both fearful and hopeful as to what he’s about to do next.

Those seconds seem to drag on for hours, there’s nothing stopping you from closing your legs or even covering yourself with your hands, but neither of these occur to you. Instead you lay there paralyzed as he further parts your thighs and using his tongue lightly trace up the seam of your cunt.

That sends you into overdrive and removes any possibility that this is a dream, as he languidly tongues your core. Your hips almost immediately buck up but he keeps you down with a forearm across your lower belly, as he tenderly nurses at your clit.

You grab at his hair but that only seems to further invigorate him, as his groans seem to reverberate off of your walls and he goes from focusing on that bundle of nerves, to delving lower and lower to that seldom explored entrance of your cunt. You restlessly try to push his head away from you, but your thighs apparently have a mind of their own as they box him in when you feel the tip of tongue lightly trace the rim of your fluttering hole.

His tongue, you are learning, has talents well beyond singing as you feel that wicked muscle eagerly delve into what little access you have (reluctantly?) granted him. The pleased hums he’s making, demonstrating how much he’s enjoying the act don’t help either.

Eventually you find your hands running through the hair that you, probably more than anyone in the world, are most intimately familiar with, even seeing the hint of his light roots that you’ve neglected to touch up in the last few days. You’re at the very least glad that the two of you are alone in the house, because you doubt you would have been able to muffle the downright filthy sounds coming out of your mouth.

The noises you’re making seem to only spur him further, as his thumb goes from an unhurried pace to a far more goal-oriented motions as his tongue goes rigid and plunges as deep as it could go and then, almost playfully, wiggles within you.

You’re left seeing stars, your pussy clamping down around his tongue, though he removes it almost immediately in order to prolong your euphoria by sucking on that little button of yours.

Even after all of that, you still held out hope that this was some weird sleepwalking episode and somehow feeling another warm body, he was going off of instincts until he removes himself from your pussy, nonchalantly wiping his mouth with his thumb, and looks you right in the eye with a look that tells you he has an appetite that has only been mildly wetted.

“Guess I ate ya’ first darlin’,” he remarks with a very sweet kiss to your lips, as though he didn’t just make you have the best orgasm of your life. God you’re so familiar with these lips, yet it still takes you by surprise as to how soft they feel against your own. You’re only human so lord forgive if you wish to indulge in the fantasy of perhaps every teenage omega in the country. But quickly you gain your bearings, remembering that as far as he’s concerned, you’re a Beta through, and through.

It kills you a little to remove yourself, breathing raggedly as you try to come to grips with what is happening. His eyes are blown out entirely, and he licks his lips as though you’re a meal waiting to be devoured, but even then you instinctively know he’s seeing you as you are.

This trance you’re both in is broken by the shrill ring of the phone from the upstairs office. He gives a soft curse, before he rolls out of bed and casually walks out of the room. You’re left leaning against the pillows. Looking up at the ceiling, utterly shell-shocked, mindlessly fixing your skirt to cover up your bare pussy as you try to figure out what the hell just happened.

But it’s as you’re doing that does an unbearable fire come upon you. A terrible fever emanating from your lower belly overwhelms you and as you helplessly inch out of his bed every instinct within you is screaming how bad of an idea that actually is. Every step away from that bed is agony, as though you’re wading through lava, away from any safe haven you may have found. Even trying to move your panties back into place feels scalding and you’re left with no choice but to remove them completely, leaving you completely accessible. You shiver at the thought, and not from the cold.

Briefly you wonder if maybe Elvis had something to do with this sickness you’re experiencing, but as you feel a throbbing emptiness from deep within you, do you realize that this is in fact a long ignored part of yourself that is simply roaring back to life. You finally recognize what exactly this is and recognize what sort of trouble you’re in.

You skittishly look out the door and, finding the office door closed with his voice behind it, you make a quick beeline to the staircase, and from there dash to your room, where you quickly barricade yourself in with your vanity table. And in the mirror are you forced to face what you are. Your eyes blown out, your clothes wrinkled and disheveled, the makeup you neglected to take off before bed smudged, sweat running from the warmth emanating from within you, and your whole body trembling under the effort to not flip over the table and run directly back to him. Not to mention the slippery feeling of your thighs as your slick runs freely, unhindered by any. You look at the very image of the idyllic debauched Omega and you finally recognize something is very wrong.

You have never in your life neglected to take your suppressant a day in your life, and quickly counting them, you find no extras, so that’s clearly not the case. It is as you are doing a double count do you realize something off about them. Looking directly at your suppressants underneath the light, they looked off. They were a slightly more yellowish white than they usually are and picking one up to inspect it, your nail catches the edge of it and it crumbles a bit. Neither of these things bode well for you. You desperately look for your extra doses of suppressants only to find them missing.

That’s when it goes from less than ideal to utter nightmare territory. You don’t know how nor do you know why, but your suppressants are no longer effective and you may very well be hurdling full force into heat, alone in a home with an unmated, virile Alpha. You immediately get to packing what you can, trying to figure out your best means of escape.

You try to assess your options as to where you can go for the next few days, but with all your options being either Alphas or out of town, you have no choice but to go back to your father. But your most pressing issue as of right now is how you’re going to get out of this room. Your windows are sealed shut, so you’re left with no choice but to venture out back into the house and pray he’s still upstairs.

You’ve done your best to ignore the steady stream of slick that has been running between your thighs, but the idea that he’s out there somewhere, causes a new rush of it to burst out, and you know it’s only a matter of time before you lose all restraint and give in to what your biology is demanding of you.

You made a beeline for the front door, your mind determined to make it out of Graceland but it was upon actually getting to the front door do you find your hands hesitating for a second. Some latent part of yourself really questions if it would be so bad to be his, questions why you have to fight it when he’s been nothing but good to you.

But it was your moment of hesitation that gave enough time for a familiar ringed hand to slam the door shut on you. “Baby, there you are,” despite the door now shutting out the cold, you can’t help the shiver that runs down your spine.

“Elvis I-I-I,” you swallow, his scent so heady and powerful you can almost taste him on the back of your tongue. “I need to leave.”

“I just got the good news,” he states, completely blowing past what you just said. “They granted me the deferment for the movie.”

“Elvis, I’m begging you,” you plead, as a bruising grip on your wrist forces you to let go of your packed bag. You’ve only ever cried once in your life in front of him, but now the tears flow freely down your face.

“Don'tchu worry your pretty little head ‘bout anythin’ darlin’,” he coos, wiping the tears from your cheek. “You go where I go, ain’t nothin’ gonna change ‘bout that.”

Even after all the time that had passed, you can still vaguely taste yourself on him, not an unpleasant taste, but your thoughts quickly turn to wondering how he would taste, or better yet how the both of you would taste together. The kiss becomes heavier and deeper as you wrap your arms around him and boldly run your tongue over those sharp canines of his, some masochistic part of you demanding to press harder.

Your chest is heaving, needing more oxygen than you personally think is necessary, and yet you find yourself giving pathetic little whimpers as he leaves your lips in favor of marking a trail of kisses down your body.

He kneels down before you, burying his face in the crevice between your thighs, the only barrier between you and him, being the thin material of your skirt. It was only then did you notice the brief relief from the fever you felt, all due to his close proximity. “You smell ripe for the pickin’ sweetheart,” he breathes out in a raspy tone, looking up at you as though he were in prayer, as his hand drags the zipper of your skirt down. It slips down fully with only the slightest of tugs, and your left trembling, bare from the waist down in front of him, as your thighs shift uneasily the slick that’s gathered making it all the easier.

You try not to look down at him, as though that will stop what’s happening right now. His tongue is now collecting every trace of your wetness it could find and just barely missing where you feel you need him most, to which you’re not afraid to voice your disapproval of.

“Don’t mind if I take the first bite,” he whispers, the tip of a canine barely scraping the smooth skin of your thigh. It’s that contact that reminds you what exactly is at stake here. Without warning you do your best to push him to the ground. He’s caught off guard but manages to catch himself before he lands on his ass, but the momentary surprise gives you just enough room to slip out.

You are about to sprint all the way back to your room, hoping to lock yourself in, until you feel an iron-like grip on your ankle. You’re barely able to catch yourself with your hands, but you're quickly dragged backwards. You desperately claw at the carpets, trying to find some kind of purchase only for him to grab a hold of both your wrists in one hand.

And that’s that. You’re thoroughly wrangled, no means of escape and no one coming to save you. You recognize how thoroughly fucked you are (or ar going to be) and that really no point in fighting it anymore, but you can’t even trust yourself enough to say that it wasn’t intentional on some level.

Let it never be said you’re not stubborn until the very end.

“Now I didn’t appreciate that one bit,” he hisses at you, and you hear the tell the shifting of fabric as he moves his pants down his hips, still holding your wrists down.

“Please Elvis,” you say desperately, only managing to wiggle your hips slightly which doesn’t help your case whatsoever. His hand is now splayed along your lower belly, as he lifts your hips into a new position to you, your cheek still stuck to the carpet. “You don’t want to do this,” you sob hoping he’s not too far gone, though with the way he groans at the feeling of your warm ass on the underside of his cock, even you understand there’s nothing that’s going to stop this from happening.

“What I want is ta tan your hide, for denyin’ me this sweet little pussy a yours for all these years,” he growls hungrily next to your ear, and those words shouldn’t have you keening and writhing like you were, but they do and you are. “But we’ll save that when it won’t be so pleasant for you. ‘Sides your cunt is achey enough already, ain’t it?” he purrs, the head of him prodding at your core, barely catching the rim of your entrance.

“Yes, oohh yes Elvis,” you whine, pathetically. “Please-”

You can’t say for certain whether or not you were gonna continue to deny him, all you can say is that all thoughts or hesitations seem to melt away as you feel him push himself in. Your eyes threaten to roll back all the way into your head, it felt so good. You're practically dripping wet at this point, but even still the girth is still something to contend with, as you’ve never had to handle equipment this big before, and at the angle you’re at you can’t quite make-out how much more of this you’ll have to take.

Elvis though is about as patient as he could be under the circumstances. He’s like steel wrapped in velvet, silky yet unyielding, as he sinks into you like hot butter, until finally his hips meet your ass. His heavy member has found a home in your cunt, and with the patience of a goddamn saint, he waits until your moans and groans aren't so ambiguous, and has the sound of a woman enjoying herself.

You’re low groan when he moves out, turns into a high-pitched shriek when he slams back into you. You sympathized with him when the papers started calling him The Pelvis but now being here underneath him , you can’t think period, let alone think of a more fitting nickname considering how well he’s wielding his to go at a harsh yet tender pace behind you.

In his rutting frenzy, he’s seemingly forgotten his hold on your wrists, but you in turn have abandoned your initial fervor to get away from him. You find yourself pushing backwards, desperate to keep him inside as best you can, frantically rubbing tight little circles on your clit with a single-mindedly chasing release, while you push off your other hand and try to meet his thrusts.

But he hasn’t quite gotten over that sadistic streak of his as he stops mid thrust and holds your waist preventing you from moving any further. You want to cry, you were so close, but the part of you that wants to be good and obey him wins out over the willful side of you, and you bury your forehead into the carpet. And as still as you can manage, you wait with bated breath for his next move.

“I tried bein’ nice ‘bout it, let you come to me,” he whispers in your ear as he moves the collar of your shirt out of the way, kissing the newly exposed skin. “But you gotta be so goddamn stubborn ‘bout everything,'' He hisses and you feel his warm breath waft on the back of your neck, and you know what’s coming next. You’ve dreaded this happening for years, but it’s so much worse than you ever could have imagined, because it’s coming from the last person you expected. You feel his lips curl into a small smile against your skin, and you feel the light scrape of one of his canines against your skin. “But I ain’t about ta have you any other way.” And without wasting another moment, he sinks his teeth into your neck marking you as his until the end of your days.

The sheer amount of pleasure and pain surging through your body makes you feel everything and nothing at all. All that registers really is the euphoric feeling as to where the two of you are joined together -at long last- so you didn’t miss a single moment as you feel the base of his cock start to swell. You're so startled that you try to pathetically crawl away only for him to take a hold of your still sore hips and bring you flush against him, as he seemingly grows and grows within you, well past what you ever thought could have fit up there.

You briefly black out for a moment not so much reaching your peak, but being rocketed to heights beyond what you could have ever imagined. Longer and more intense than you’ve ever been able to achieve, with a partner or otherwise, you’re a shivering pile of flesh, no longer tied to another worldly want other than the man behind you.

His moans are pure ecstasy, his hands undoubtedly leaving bruises on your hips, and his member resting heavy inside of you. Even though, on some level, you know it’s a fool's errand, you nonetheless try to separate yourself from him only to be given a painful reminder why this thing was often described as being “locked in.” You could feel yourself already stretched past your limit, refusing to let go of him, and you hear him groan from the new sensation, as tears flow down your cheeks from the pain.

What’s worse is that when you finally give up and snap back into place do you both shudder at the sensation as he reaches some part deep inside of you. You black out for a moment from going from intense pain to immense pleasure almost immediately can do that to you only to now find yourself on your side with Elvis behind lazily rocking his hips into yours as he leaves blistering kisses where he can and scorching trails everywhere else he could reach.

You’re left with no choice but to stay put and try not to enjoy every roll of his hips against yours, though you stubbornly bite your own lip to prevent yourself from making any noises, approving or otherwise. But this plan quickly falls apart as your mulish defiance of him and his wants are nothing compared to the swift slap on your pussy that causes you to bite down hard on your own lip. Your stupid protruding canine gets your lip, and upon your instinctual cry and release of your lip do you begin to taste the coppery flavor of your own blood. You attempt to hide your face only for him to grab a hold of your jaw, only to lick up the small trail of blood to your chin. You’re way past being able to be shocked by him anymore, and simply choose to relish in this sinful act, with a man who has been trying to clean up his image for the past few months.

If you had to guess, you’re like that for roughly an hour, until finally he’s at a size where you're finally able to remove yourself from him without discomfort, other than the veritable flood that comes gushing out of you without his cock to keep all of it in. Towards the end, he had shifted you so that you were back on your knees, your head resting on your forearms, with your ass in the air and you could only watch mesmerized as a small stream of his milky white seed runs down your thigh only to stop where your knee meets the floor where it proceeds to disappear into the ivory carpet beneath you.

You hear him purr behind you, apparently just as captivated by the show your pussy is giving him. In one swift motion you find yourself on your back and as he follows the path his cum had trailed down your leg, back to its source. You gasp as you feel him dip his fingers back into you and he hooks some of the seed out of your cunt only to use your now open mouth to stick them in there.

It’s almost like a switch goes off in your head with that first real taste of him. You no longer try to fight with yourself, not even choosing to give in really, because with the way you're feeling right now it’s not even really a choice anymore.

“Anything that ain’t goin’ into your pretty pussy is goin’ in that smart mouth a yours, you understand lil’ mama?” he purrs, satisfied as your tongue splits his fingers trying to get every single drop of him you could. “We don’t wanna let any of this go to waste now do we?”

“No,” you cry desperately, truly ashamed as to what you’re becoming. But you have no time for those thoughts as he surprises you by returning back down to your pussy.

“Keep your mouth open,” he orders between your thighs, words slightly muffled as they are against your lower lips. You're confused as to what he’s doing until he gives a light press on your lower belly and his cum gushes out of your poor abused hole and into his waiting mouth. He takes what comes out before he crawls back up to you to get a hold of your jaw, a dangerous look set in his eyes.

You dutifully do as he says and open up. Once that hot, heady flavor of your combined fluids hits your tongue you’re gone, without ego and fully submitting yourself not only to him but the primitive Omega brain that wants nothing more than to be his. You even wrap your arms around his neck to bring his lips to yours, so that the two of you could fully share this obscene cocktail that you both have managed to create.

“Aww baby,” he breathes, his lips brushing against yours. “We wasted so much goddamn time not doin’ this.” In your state of mind you can’t help but agree.

He takes you on just about every available surface of the house, and you truly believe that the only reason he didn’t venture outward was due to how cold it was. If you had the capacity to think beyond seeking your next release you would feel ashamed as to what everybody will undoubtedly smell when they return. But all you could really focus on at any given moment was how good he felt inside you, or tasted on your tongue.

As frantic as he was to keep as much cum inside of you as possible, he also seemed to gain a specific kind of pleasure seeing you drip with his seed and having you swallow it in penance. You can’t get enough of any part of him and he makes good on his promise as to where his cum would go (where it belongs,) and for a solid week you are sustained almost solely on that save for whatever Elvis can scrounge from the kitchen. There’s almost a soft melancholy when you swallow him, as though he’s truly saddened over the lost potential of that particular load, as though he’s not stuffing you full of it seemingly every hour.

But in your haze you were all too happy to take what he could give you, you cunt greedy for all that he can give you.

And it’s underneath him that you learn about Alpha anatomy. Knotting, as you learn it’s officially called, is something Elvis can only do two to three times a day before he has to rest. Doesn’t stop him from trying every single time, nor does it stop him from having you

It becomes easier and easier each time, until you find yourself after each peak desperately grinding on to him, hoping that his knot would make a reappearance and make you feel whole. By the third day you even find yourself falling asleep with it within you, finding the fullness comforting, as though reassuring you that he won’t disappear on you in such a vulnerable state. The few times he’s left the bed you’re left a helpless, writhing mess desperate for him, even when he’s promised you he would be gone only for a few minutes. Part of you thinks he leaves more often than strictly necessary, considering the smug look he gives seeing you so needy for him and practically begging for his cock as you fruitlessly tried to replicate that sense of fullness only he could give.

“Empty,” you mewl, at this point incapable of full sentences.

He’s decided to torture you a bit rubbing the head of his cock on your clit. The hand splayed on your soft stomach prevents you from moving too much, wanting to take his time with you. Your whimpering begging for what you want desperate

“You ain’t ever gonna feel that way again,” he whispers through his kisses along the mark he left. “I’m gonna fill you up so good, ain’t no way you won’t be carryin’ my baby. Ain’t that whatchu want sweetheart.”

“Yes,” you cry desperately, willing to agree to anything, if he would only give you what you wanted, perhaps marking one of the few times he’s won a battle of wills against you.

You’re more animal than woman that week, a slave to her desires, a creature whose sole purpose is to be fucked and have his babies, if Elvis’ whisperings during this time are to be believed. You worry as to whether or not this more primitive side is due to your lack of experience with being in heat or if this is what to expect from every heat going forward. You feel as though someone else has taken the reins to your body and you’re simply meant to enjoy the ride.

Elvis on the other hand stays aware, and he takes care of you throughout it all, making sure you eat enough and drink water, makes sure your lips don’t dry out, licks at your wounds to help speed up the healing process, etc. You’ve never felt so needy, and you’re barely coherent enough to form complete sentences, and so you show your appreciation by being both as vocal and as obedient as possible.

He usually spends recovery periods licking you clean, though not necessarily where you initially thought he would’ve. You can’t help but conclude his love affair with the taste of your blood considering how much time he spends on the small wounds he’s made all over your body. In his initial eagerness to explore your body in those first few hours, he had “accidentally” nicked you every so often, the sole exception being the twin crescent marks you can feel on your neck and on your ass, which was clearly nothing less than intentional. Though your state and his efforts have significantly sped up the healing process, you know by the end of this you will be left with a constellation of scars.

“This one” he said lightly running his fingers along the marred skin of your neck. “That one’s for the world baby,” he coos, as he gives it a light kiss, making the slap that lands perfectly on top of the mark on your bottom, all the more surprising. “That one’s just for me and you. So you best not forget who that belongs to.”

“Never,” you sigh happily.

It’s almost funny when you think about it, how the world demands a clean-cut, sexless teen heart-throb, as though a majority of them aren’t also beholden to this primitive state of theirs. Looking at him now above you, his teeth sharp and bared, his grunts and groans echoing throughout the house, the bruises and scratches you’ve been able to leave on his torso, even the stubble you’ve felt more than you’ve seen, all paint a very primal portrait of him. He’s something wild, untameable even, someone who isn’t afraid to show how he is beholden to his own desires and instincts as the rest of the world hid from them, and tried to act like they don’t exist.

If it weren’t for the knot you would be hard-pressed to find much of a difference between this Elvis and the standard one.

By the end of your heat, you’re thoroughly exhausted, you don’t even have the energy to be mad at him anymore. You’ve just resolved yourself to your fate that will forever be tied to the boy you once thought you knew. You don’t even have the luxury of knowing whether these thoughts are your own, and not some long suppressed Omega part of you that simply wants to enjoy the way his calloused guitar hands gently rub the soft part of your lower belly.

But if this week has been about satisfying long-standing desires you’re not about to hold back on your desire for knowledge. Specifically how he discovered your secret.

“I wasn’t ‘bout a let you go without a fight baby,” he whispers, comfortable in not needing to hide anything from you anymore, as you’re thoroughly ensnared. “I was cookin’ up some not so nice plans to keep you by me no matter what. Only for a goddamn Christmas miracle to drop into my lap.” he says, allowing you to make your own pace at which to ride him.

“Your daddy sent me a bill in the mail, and I think you know what he was charging you for, dontcha?” he purrs, lazily thumbing at your clit and watching as your breasts bounced in rhythm with your frantic bucking.

“Bein’ the good mate I am, I let him know that you weren’t gon’ need any of that shit no more,” he says, giving a firm slap on your ass seemingly just because he felt like it. “And I some interestin’ things about them pills. You know what stops them pills from workin’ right?” he asks, lazily rutting into you.

“What?”

“You add a lil’ heat,” he growls, and suddenly his obsession with the fireplace these last few days makes perfect sense.

He spoke to you of how he’s been dreaming of this for years, and how he’s known that you were it for him, even when he thought nothing physical could happen between the two of you.

But even as he spoke, there was an ever present air of inevitability when he spoke to you as to how he envisioned your future together as though this was always meant to happen. And it was only a matter of you catching up to him. Afterall you were the one who taught him to ignore what he didn’t want to hear. And he didn’t want to hear no from you.

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