#I know some people don't like him as Elvis

[devonjwerkheiser]

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growingupwithdevon “Did you know @austinbutler was on Ned’s? Big congrats on his Best Actor Oscar Nomination announced this morning for his portrayal of Elvis!

Tune in to this weeks full episode w @spencermusic now!

#austinbutler #nedsdeclassified #oscarnominations 

#growingupwithdevon #devonwerkheiser“

[sissylittlefeather]

Heartbreak Hotel

A/N: Whaaaaaaat a smutless one-shot? Never have I ever lol. No, but really. This idea came to me and @ccab and I couldn't not write it. This is Elvis during the filming of King Creole and a very shy reader.

Warnings: kissing, an erection, some sexy thoughts, and a foot rub

Word count: ~2.7k

"Y-you want me to do what?" You hold your clipboard to your chest and shake your head nervously. Surely your boss isn't asking you to do what you think he is. You're not even sure how you ended up working on the set of King Creole anyway. Your father must've had something to do with it.

"Go to the hotel and bring Elvis back to the set. I know we told him we were done for the day but we really need him to try on his wardrobe for tomorrow and the costume people just finished it." You understand the logic behind the request. That's not the part that confuses you.

"But why m-me, sir?" You anxiously chew on your bottom lip. It's been hard enough for you to work here with Elvis wandering around. Walking up to him directly is about the last thing you want to do. It's not that you don't like him. Quite the opposite, in fact. You love him. But you've always been a little mousy and shy and unsure of yourself. The idea of talking to him makes you want to crawl into a hole.

"You're young and cute. This assignment is going to really piss him off. We figured you might soften the blow. He can't very well yell at you." You blink several times and your eyes go even wider. The fact that it won't just be Elvis, it'll be angry Elvis, really makes your heart race like a rabbit's.

"W-what if he won't come?"

"Not an option. Convince him. Now, just go." You consider quitting your job right then, but you know that's not realistic. Sighing deeply, you turn to walk from the small office.

"Y/n!"

"Yeah?"

"Clipboard."

"Oh... yeah..." You hand him the clipboard and cross your arms tightly on your chest.

"Y/n. Please try not to look like you're about to cry." You nod your head and try to rearrange your face, but you are about to cry.

******

Somehow, the next thing you know, you're in the lobby of one of the nicest hotels in New Orleans.

"Can you please call Mr. Presley down here? I-I-I need to speak to him." The receptionist nods and calls up to his room. You don't hear the conversation, too distracted by looking around at the fancy decor.

"Alright. I'll let her know." You turn back to the receptionist. "He says you can come on up. He's in the penthouse. Just push the button with the "p" on the elevator."

You stand there with your mouth hanging open and she turns away to do some other task.

No. He was supposed to come down, not you come up. You look at the elevators and swallow deeply. Then, you walk over and push the button.

Once you're on the elevator, it dawns on you that you're going to be walking into what is essentially his home. That thought hits you like a freight train and you feel like you're going to throw up or pass out or both. Just when you decide you're not getting out of the elevator, the doors slide open and there's a quiet ding. The room is carpeted and you see him sitting on a couch.

"Hey, honey, come on in." He hollers without moving. You feel like you're about to die, but you inch your way into the room anyway and the doors close behind you. He leans forward a little and gestures for you to walk towards him. "C'mon then, I won't bite."

You take a few steps into the room and then try to speak. All that comes out is a quiet squeak, though and you shake your head, frustrated with your own incompetence. He can tell you're struggling, so he stands up and walks towards you. That does not help. He's even taller, more attractive, and more intense up close than far away.

"What is it, honey? They send you to fire me or somethin'?" You look up at him and squeak again. He tucks a piece of your hair behind your ear and strokes your cheek gently. "You're a shy little thing, ain'tcha?"

"They want you back on set." You breathe a sigh of relief that you were finally able to talk.

"Back on set? No, I'm home for the night." You blink a few times, not really sure how to respond as he shakes his head.

"Please..." It comes out of you as a whispered plea and you want to scream at how pathetic you sound. He smiles softly.

"Okay. But only because you're too damn sweet to say no to." He squeezes the top of your arm and then encourages you toward the elevator with his hand on the small of your back. You really hope he can't feel how sweaty you are as he touches you.

You get back on the elevator and he pushes the button for the lobby. The elevator begins its descent and you stand next to each other in silence. A breath of relaxation washes over you. It's almost over.

Then it happens.

Somewhere between floors 5 and 6 the elevator screeches to a grinding halt. It knocks you off balance enough for him to have to catch you in his arms, your hands on his chest to steady yourself.

"Woah, honey, you okay?" You look up at him frozen in fear. He holds you for a few seconds too long and then stands you back up. His hands stay on your upper arms and you swear it's like he doesn't want to stop touching you.

And he doesn't. He rather enjoyed the feeling of you pressed up against him, your eyes wide and seeking reassurance. But he can't just move in and kiss you like he normally does with other girls. You might actually pass out. So instead, he leans his back against the wall of the small elevator and tries to smile at you in the sweetest way possible.

"Do I make you nervous, honey?" You look over at the elevator buttons like pressing one might get you out of this nightmare, but probably not. "Nobody else here. You're gonna have to talk to me."

You reluctantly look up at him and try to breathe steadily. You're finally able to whisper a response.

"Yes." His face breaks into an amused smile.

"Why?"

"Have you met you?!" It comes rushing out of you before you can stop it.

"I'm not sure how to answer that, sweetheart."

"I mean... I'm sorry..."

"Don't apologize. I'm just not sure I know what you mean is all." For some reason, it's getting a little easier for you to talk to him.

"You're ridiculously famous. You have a presence. And you're unbelievably attr-" You stop yourself and look at the floor, blushing. He steps forward off the wall and tips your chin up, so that you have to look into his face.

"Unbelievably what?" Part of you wants to slap the cocky smirk right off his face, but you'd die before you did that. Finally, you squeak it out.

"Attractive." He steps forward again almost closing the gap between your bodies.

"You know, you're not so bad yourself."

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I'm serious, honey. I'd letcha eat crackers in my bed." Without thinking about it, you burst into a fit of giggles. "It wasn't that funny..."

"I'm sorry; it's just the image of me sitting in your bed eating crackers. Like that's what I'd be doing if I was in your bed." He runs his finger down the side of your face and moves just the smallest bit closer to you.

"What else would you be doing in my bed?" All of a sudden, you're not laughing anymore. Now you're thinking of all the things you might be doing and it makes you blush an even deeper red than you have before. Your heart is going so fast it feels like it might leap out of your chest. He senses your anxiety and backs up a little. "You don't have to answer that, honey. I'm sorry."

He's not used to how delicate you are. It's endearing. Like you need him to take care of you. It's a job that sounds better and better the longer he's on this elevator with you.

You nod and stay quiet, but you kind of miss how close he was to you. His presence, albeit intimidating at first, is comforting.

He turns and slides down the back wall to sit on the floor of the elevator. Then, he pats the floor beside himself. You decide there's not much else to do and he actually seems pretty harmless, so you sit down next to him on the floor and lean back against the wall. It feels good to sit down. You wore new shoes to work today and your feet have been killing you for hours. A small whimper falls from your lips as you try to stretch your feet a bit. You're dying to take the heels off, but you don't want to freak him out.

"What's wrong, honey?" He hears you whimper and his eyebrows come together with concern.

"Oh, nothing. My feet just hurt from these new shoes."

"Take 'em off."

"Really? You don't mind?" He chuckles a little.

"Not at all. There's no tellin' how long we might be stuck in here. Get comfortable." Normally, you'd never do such a thing but your feet do hurt really badly and he's right. You're trapped. You reach down and slowly pull the shoes off of your feet, wincing in pain. Your hose make it look like you have webbed feet, but you really don't care as you gingerly wiggle your toes. He watches you, dying to kiss you. You might be the cutest thing he's ever seen and your feet are so small and pretty.

"Do they hurt bad?"

"Yeah. I shouldn't have worn these today." You tap the shoes together in your hands. "I suppose beauty is pain, though."

He laughs and then an idea settles on him. He's not sure how you'll respond, but it's worth a try.

"You want me to rub 'em?" You look up at him suddenly for three reasons. First, you can't believe he said it. Second, it sounds amazing. And third, there's a hint of something in his voice that almost sounds like uncertainty.

"I couldn't let you do that."

"Why not? I really don't mind and what else are we doin' right now?" The vulnerability on his face melts you and you know you can't say no. You smile bashfully and turn to lean against the other wall and put your feet in his lap.

"Well, alright then. Thank you." He smiles a very natural and relaxed smile and then goes to work massaging one of your feet. You'd be lying if you said it didn't feel amazing. His hands are strong and he seems to know what he's doing. You moan a little louder than you intend to, but your feet were so sore that the relief is almost overwhelming. He looks at you when you moan and bites his bottom lip, thanking God that your eyes are closed as his gaze travels down over your figure. If you weren't so shy, he'd probably already have you half undressed. But he kind of likes that you're shy. It's cute and he can't complain about the added challenge. It's almost getting too easy to get girls to say yes.

You spend the next twenty minutes or so like this. He switches feet halfway through, but you sit in silence, moaning and whimpering every once in a while. What you don't know is that you're driving him absolutely crazy with the sounds you're making. If you're this vocal with a foot massage, how might you be in bed? The thought sends a shiver of pleasure down his spine and he shifts to keep your feet away from his erection. Surprisingly, you're the one who breaks the silence. You look up at him and he's looking down at your feet while he works. You can see his eyelashes and for some reason that makes him seem more real.

"What's it like? Being famous?" He takes a deep breath before he answers, not looking up from your feet, like he's trying to decide how honest he should be. He looks up into your eyes intensely.

"Lonesome. I was trying to think of a nicer word, but that's all that comes to mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for everything that's happened. I wouldn't change any of it. But it's really very lonely, not knowing who loves you for you and who loves you for who they think you are."

By the end of it, his voice is thick with emotion and you don't think, you just act. You move back to sitting next to him and entwine your arm with his, taking his left hand in both of yours. He looks down at you as you settle your head onto his shoulder. Something inside him flip-flops and he doesn't feel so alone all of a sudden. He presses his lips to the top of your head gently.

You feel him kiss your hair and are overwhelmed with the need for him to kiss you more. He seems to sense this and tips your chin with his other hand, so that you're looking up into his face. There's only a few inches between his lips and yours and you notice his eyes flicking down as he leans in slowly.

"Can I...?" He asks quietly practically against your lips. This time your whisper is appropriate.

"Yes." He doesn't wait another second to dive into a kiss. It's sweet at first, but before too long, you part your lips and his tongue slides into your mouth. He holds the side of your face and you both sit up and turn towards each other as the kiss deepens. His hand drifts down to your hip and he squeezes it, pulling you towards him gently. You start to lift your leg to climb on top and straddle him, but just as you do, there's a soft ding and the elevator doors slide open.

You gasp and scramble back, wiping your mouth and shoving your shoes back on your feet. He looks at you dumbstruck with how quickly you shifted gears. He's still in the mindset that you're about to crawl in his lap.

"Honey, wait?" He rushes to his feet and tries to smooth his clothing. There's nothing he can do about his massive hard-on, though, so he turns and shoves it up under his belt. He feels you touch him near his hip, but he's too focused on what he's doing to acknowledge it.

By the time the doors open all the way, you're both mostly presentable. He's ushered out of the elevator by a group of his friends and family, led by his manager. You watch as they fuss over him and he makes eye contact with you through the crowd.

He'd give almost anything to be back in that elevator with you to finish what he started. But more than that, he already misses the feeling of companionship. The heavy weight of loneliness is starting to settle in his chest again. He looks down and back up and you're gone.

******

You wipe the tears from your face as you make your way back to your car outside the hotel. If only the doors hadn't opened. What might've happened? Oh well. You'll never know. It's up to him now.

******

Elvis manages to keep it together long enough to assure everyone he's fine, do the wardrobe check, and get back to his hotel. He stands in front of the elevator when it opens and seriously considers taking the stairs to the penthouse. But he doesn't. Instead he steps onto the elevator and slides his hands in his pockets as the doors close.

He gasps softly.

Out of his pocket he pulls a small silver bracelet. It's not his. It must be yours. You must've slipped it into his pocket while you put yourselves back together when the doors opened. He turns over the little silver pendant and finds your first and last name in script.

He smiles widely and kisses the bracelet. Looking up, he whispers.

"Thank you."

He's not sure if he's talking to you or God. Maybe both. Either way, now he can find you. He steps off the elevator and heads into his bedroom.

The pieces of his heart start to come back together and he sets your bracelet on his nightstand.

Tomorrow. He'll find you tomorrow.

******

The End?

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

@ccab @elvisfatass @elvisalltheway101 @aliypop @18lkpeters @dkayfixates @tacozebra051 @your-nanas-house @deniseinmn @joshuntildawn13 @lookingforrainbows @60svintage @littlehoneyposts @epthedream69 @louisejoy86 @rjmartin11 @from-memphis-with-love @deltafalax @atleastpleasetelephone @cinnamoroll-things @burnthheparaphilia @jhoneybees @cattcb @everythingelvispresley @returntopresley

[monzabee]

chronically online (social media au) - dr3

masterlist || series masterlist ||

Summary: The one where everyone's favourite couple is chronically online during winter break.

Pairing: daniel ricciardo x actress!reader (model used: dakota johnson)

Warnings: none other than some cursing?

Request: "hi ! i loveee ur smaus !! i was wondering if u could write some more daniel x actress!reader? maybe like interacting with some of her friends/costars? thank youu have a nice dayy <3"

Please also note that all of my works are protected under copyright, and not available for reposting on other platforms. 

ynverse

Liked by danielricciardo, rileykeough, sydneysweeney and 934,746 others.

ynverse: proof that we can go without checking our phones for like twenty minutes.

user: we love you mother, even if you are glued to your phone

user: if you told me we'd be seeing daniel on her profile a year ago i would've laughed but here we are

danielricciardo: fucking carolina

ynverse: i fucking hate social media detox

user: i love how they are not serious at all

sydneysweeney: need any cars fixed?

ynverse: will make sure to hit syd's garage!!

user: okay but why is daniel on a tractor

user: girl i don't think that is a tractor

view all 435,269 comments.

danielricciardo

Liked by ynverse, scottyjames31, redbullracing and 763,829 others.

danielricciardo: in nyc with the missus.

rileykeough: when did you guys get a fucking cat?

ynverse: do you want to know her name?

rileykeough: with that reaction? no

danielricciardo: but you have to know the name

ynverse: yes riley, you have to know the name

rileykeough: is it elvis

danielricciardo: of course not

ynverse: it's graceland

rileykeough: you named a cat graceland?

danielricciardo: happiest place on earth, baby

user: when did they change countries and how did we not notice??

view all 52,735 comments.

user: am i the only one who thinks they are in new york for something big??

ynverse: yeah

ynverse just posted a story!

ynverse

Liked by taylorswift, danielricciardo, f1wagss and 873,540 others.

ynverse: crazy night with a crazy bunch of people, thank you to everyone at snl and thank you to daniel who had to deal with at least 10 panic attacks and had to get me copious amounts of coffee.

user: okay but it's so cute that they support each other

user: girl they are in a relationship... that is like the bare minimum thing to do

user: i just know daniel was laughing his ass off during her monologue and i love that for him

taylorswift: i'm obsessed!!

user: i can imagine the chaos these two must have brought to the set... god

ynverse: okay but why hate outside of the club when you can't even get in

user: mom and dad taking over the entertainment industry step by step

landonorris: a shoutout might've been nice

danielricciardo: stop whining

ynverse: that was kinda hot

landonorris: ew

view all 73,928 comments.

[undying-love]

John and Paul on each other: A Compilation

John:

"He [Paul] looked like Elvis. I dug him."

"I'm like everyone else, Harry. I fell for Paul's looks."

"..an old, estranged fiancée of mine called Paul."

"Paul...you're so well-built." (X)

"Groups like this are normally not friends. They’re just four people out there thrown together to make an act. There may be two of them who sort of go off and are friends, you know...Strictly platonic of course."

"Oh, I've had him, he's no good."

"I was riding on a boat called Paul, and now I'm riding on a boat called Yoko."

"I've compared to a marriage a million times and I hope it's… understandable. For people that aren't married. Or any relationship. It was a LONG relationship. It started many, many years before the American public, or the English public for that matter, knew us. Paul and I were together since he was 15, I was 16."

"Nobody ever said anything about Paul's having a spell on me or my having one on Paul! They never thought that was abnormal in those days, two guys together, or four guys together! Why didn't they ever say, "How come those guys don't split up? I mean, what's going on backstage? What is this Paul and John business? How can they be together so long?"

"Well, Paul had met Linda before [the Apple press conference], you see. I mean, there were quite a few women he'd obviously had that I never knew about. God knows when he was doing it, but he must have been doing it."

"I don’t even think about Paul unless somebody brings him up. Or if some song comes out or something happens, they’re in the newspaper. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t just leave him alone—I haven’t really seen him in ten years. I can talk about him forever because I know all about him, but you see, there’s nothing much to say."

[Studio chatter] Paul: I will be overpowering this time. John: Oh good. I like it when you’re brutal. (X)

Paul:

"John was really my only male friend, if only because of proximity."

"[While playing live] John was to the left or to the right of me, so I never got to sort of see him perform so much. Except in the film [Get Back]. And there he is in massive closeup. I can study everything about him.”

“I’ll just sit around and hug him forever, because that’s the depth of my feeling for him."

"And I would often sketch John when we worked together, often without him knowing it. It was so easy doing John because he had glasses, those sideboards...and that long, aquiline nose."

"When I painted him recently, I found myself saying, ‘How did his lips go?"

"I can still see John now: checked shirt, slightly curly hair…I remember thinking, ‘He looks good - I wouldn’t mind being in a group with him."

"James reminds me very much of John in many ways: he's got beautiful hands. John had beautiful hands."

"If I'm going to see a face in a painting, it's highly likely to be his."

"I still remember his beery old breath when I first met him that day. But I soon came to love that beery old breath. And I loved John."

"I’m often thinking of him. I dream of him."

"Delicious boy, delicious broth of a boy."

"John and I used to hitch-hike places together. It was something that we did together quite a lot; cementing our friendship, getting to know our feelings, our dreams, our ambitions together. It was a very wonderful period. I look back on it with great fondness. I particularly remember John and I would be squeezed in our little single bed."

"There's a song I do called Here Today which is specifically written for John. That sometimes catches me out. I realize I'm telling this man that I love him and it's like I'm publicly declaring this in front of all these people I don't know. I sometimes wonder what I'm doing."

"We are individuals— all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl.”

"Please Please Me was a John idea. John liked the double meaning of “please”. Yeah, “please” is, you know, pretty please. “Please have intercourse with me. So, pretty please, have intercourse with me, I beg you to have intercourse with me.” He liked that, and I liked that he liked that."

"[John] was a wild and woolly genius who it was my pleasure to work with, walk with, talk with and occasionally sleep with. "

Q: If John Lennon could come back for a day, how would you spend it with him? Paul: In bed.

"Then also [me and John] were like married, so you got the bitterness. It’s not a woman scorned this time, it’s two men scorned — probably even worse. And I had to make way for Yoko. My relationship with John could not have remained as it was and Yoko feel secure.”

"I think really what it was, really all that happened was that John fell in love. With Yoko. And so, with such a powerful alliance like that, it was difficult for him to still be seeing me. It was as if I was another girlfriend, almost. Our relationship was a strong relationship. And if he was to start a new relationship, he had to put this other one away."

[hotvintagepoll]

hotvintagepoll Hot Men Tournament rundown thoughts

I promised a final recap post and here it is! I'll try to cover the questions I saw the most as we closed out the bracket, reveal my ✨secret faves✨, and talk about the biggest surprises and turnarounds I saw in the brackets.

Yes, this will get silly.

ROUND 1

As I've mentioned before, I worked off submissions for who to include in the bracket, so if your fave was missing—that's why. I used submitted pics when I could, but many submissions didn't have one, so I tried to find decent ones in the couple of days I had to prep the first round (I didn't always succeed). By decent, I mean pics where 1) I could see the hot man's face, so not too much moody lighting, and 2) hopefully conveyed something about his vibe, even if it was a funny thing (yes, I showed Howard Keel in full Shakespeare get-up—I'm not beyond putting up a pic because I think it's funny). I didn't know all of these hotties going in, so some I had to guess with, but when I could I tried to pick shots that had a touch of the humor, class, or genre of the hot man.

For Round 1 and Round 2, I grouped the hotties by each decade, so only '60s actors ran against '60s actors, '50s against '50s, etc. Male beauty standards shifted pretty dramatically over the sixty years this tournament covers, and I didn't think it was fair to pit dramatically different styles of beauty against each other immediately.

I pitted hot men against each other based on opposing energies—hot vs cold, elegant vs rough, comedy vs drama, etc.. I wanted the polls to be interesting and I've never liked brackets where everyone is clearly in different "lanes" until the finals! I also wanted to make polls where I couldn't tell which way they would swing, so by setting matchups that felt opposite but equal, I got to be surprised by the bracket results too.

The only reason we had any three-way matchups is because the amount of men submitted didn't round to a nice bracket number. I don't like them generally and find them really hard to balance.

Secret faves from Round 1—I am a James Coburn girlie and knew he would die immediately, so that was not a shock but a bummer. I similarly knew Robert Preston is only magical to people who have seen him do His Little Dance Routines in That One Iowa Musical, but it would have been nice for him to last longer.

Surprises—Jeremy Brett was a last-minute add and I didn't think he really had a shot, so I put him in as a third wheel on the Sean Connery/Dean Martin matchup. Little did I count on the Granada girlies. (Always count on the Granada girlies.) The Elvis/Peter Falk poll was the first one to gain any momentum—Elvis was winning for the first 24 hours but then, my god, did Peter fight back. I didn't expect the Tab/Toshiro poll to make that bad a mincemeat out of Tab—people have different tastes, and I thought the people who like blonde sunny All American white boys might turn out for The Blonde Sunny All American White Boy. Sorry, Tab. I hope you've peeled yourself off the sidewalk by now. And, of course, I was SHOCKED and APPALLED that James Cagney would be obliterated by, of all people, Mr. Bing Crosby.

SHADOW BRACKET

The fervor of the Harold Lloyd and Fredric March people inspired the shadow bracket, and I couldn't be happier at the way it's gone. You were right, the original photos I had for them did suck. Cunty Harold Lloyd in his little life guard uniform was a revelation.

ROUND 2

For Round 2 I'd gotten a better sense of who was doing well and who was not, so a little of that came into play, but I mostly paired on vibes again. (I genuinely think this is a good way to make a fun, challenging bracket.)

Secret faves—Noooo not hot dilf Dick Van Dyke don't take my hot inventor dilf away uwu!!! (He was up against Marlon Brando. I would have been shocked if he'd won but for a minute there, a glorious second, it was possible.) I am also a big old softie for David Niven's particular brand of repression to the point of volcanic rupture, but he is one of many hotties who does not look good without moving and speaking so I figured he would be going.

So much beef—hey! hey you. I ran a poll asking if we are horny for dancers. Yes, was the resounding poll response. Where, then, did all the fucking dancers go? This round we lost Donald O'Connor, Fred Astaire, Harold Nicholas; Sammy Davis Jr., Danny Kaye, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby all sneak into this category as well, by token of having been in the kind of big MGM bang-a-pan-and-put-on-a-show beloved bedlams we all watch at Christmastime. Round 2 voters HATED musical matchups. Except for one.

The one—SOUND OF MUSIC, the voters said, WE LOVE SOUND OF MUSIC. we will KILL the man responsible for salad dressing because of the SOUND OF MUSIC. every other dance man can die but THIS man dances a FOLK DANCE with JULIE ANDREWS in a GARDEN. I did not go into this poll with strong opinions about Christopher Plummer or Paul Newman but my god did I leave having heard all of them.

Surprises—James Edwards/Anthony Perkins matchup was a nail biter! Conrad vs Oscar kept me up at nights. Surprised to see Basil Rathbone survive against Sabu Dastagir—both very fetching, but Sabu had some top-tier propaganda. Cesar Romero put up a surprisingly stiff fight against Cary Grant (an omen for things to come).

Oh horrors—horror heroes surprisingly fell all over the place. I was sure either Bela Lugosi or Turhan Bey would sweep their three-way matchup, but Michael Redgrave of all people carried through; Boris Karloff went down against Johnny Weismuller (while holding hands with fellow fallen hottie Fred Astaire), but at least we got his guacamole recipe before he went. Delighted to see that the Venn diagram of the coalitions who support horror hero Vincent Price and funny lil guy Donald O'Connor is a circle.

Secret faves pt 2—oh yeah, I fucking love Danny Kaye and Donald O'Connor. RIP funny lil kings.

ROUND 3

For some reason this was the hardest one to make matchups for. Oh no, all the men are hot.

Secret faves—Michael Redgrave i love you SO much you're SUCH an idiot, how did you make it as far as round 3. I want you to sweep the whole thing but you should NOT be surviving this. I love you, here's a kiss, go home.

Surprises—Marlon Brando is gone! Errol Flynn is gone! Christopher Plummer exhausted himself beating the organic oreos man to death and goes out with a whimper. Beginning to actually see the roots of #mifunesweep as Tyrone Power, a hot man very different from Burt Lancaster, who was in turn very different from Tab Hunter, also gets swept under the wheels of the unbeatable toshirobus. Conrad Veidt finds that no amount of purring svelte eccentricity compares to the people who will fuck a young Lt. Columbo.

SHADOW BRACKET 2

Cannot believe it but Veidt loses this one too. Perkins sweeps and becomes Prince of the Shadow Realm!

ROUND 4

At this point I've set a formal bracket that I'm following.

Secret faves—this isn't secret anymore, but losing Jimmy Stewart hurt.

Surprises—The Gene Kelly/Jeremy Brett matchup was the diciest one all round, moving back and forth between the two by sometimes .01%. Far more surprising, however, was Cary Grant getting eliminated before the quarterfinals. Grant has never been my type, but he is famous for being THE type, so while the writing had been on the wall the whole tournament—how on earth did Michael Redgrave even get 36% in his matchup?!—seeing Grant go down was a SHOCKER. Other fallen hotties included Gregory Peck, James Dean, Harry Belafonte, and Sessue Hayakawa. Peter Falk finally met his match in Omar Sharif.

QUARTERFINALS

Secret faves—I don't know if it counts as a secret fave, tbh, as my horses in the race really went out with Stewart, but I do have a soft spot here worth mentioning. Here's my childhood dog, Keaton.

The resemblance is truly striking, and yes, he was short, fast, and not prone to smiling.

Surprises—I couldn't predict how any of these matchups would go down, but I was most interested in Keaton vs Sharif, as they are both SO hot in SUCH different ways.

SEMIFINALS:

This was such a good batch of semifinalist contestants. By this point I think we could all tell Mifune was unstoppable (though I thought Sharif might give him a run for his money), but I really didn't know which way Robeson vs Poitier would flip.

FINALS:

I wanted Sidney Poitier to pull a last-minute sweep out of nowhere, but alas, Toshiro is just THAT GOOD (maybe. I will admit that I find Toshiro's domination a little hard to believe, given the variety and hotness of all his competitors; the man is hot but all these men are hot). I'm still happy with how the tournament went.

FINAL MEDITATIONS:

Biggest shock of a dropout: the loss of Paul Newman

Biggest "you people have no taste": the loss of James Cagney

Biggest victory: Paul Robeson making it to the semifinals over often-assumed champion Gregory Peck

Biggest coalition who deserve justice: dancing men

Biggest ask character: vents anon (currently eating Laurence Olivier)

Biggest, uhh, anything: how many of you are here! I genuinely thought it would be me and 10 other people voting for the whole tournament. I'm thrilled it took off like this!

I think that's everything, but I'm happy to answer addl asks. And THANK YOU to everyone for your tags, rants, impassioned propaganda, beautiful pics, and love for the hot men! See you for the ladies!

[splatashahowlett]

sharing is caring

logan howlett x reader (inspired by @keigohawks <3)

you've been a teacher at xavier's school for gifted youngsters for a decade now and you loved everything about it. the kids were wonderful, the place was amazing and the other teachers (that you were lucky enough to call your friends) were the sweetest people on earth. nothing was missing.

well, if you wanted to go into details: settling into a routine was pretty hard for you. you were used to going on adventures, meeting new people everyday, feeling the thrill of getting caught when you where somewhere you weren't supposed to be. so waking up everyday at 7, eating breakfast with ororo and jean, teaching your class all morning, eating lunch with ororo and jean, teaching your class all afternoon, eating dinner with ororo and jean and then going to sleep after showering was draining. again, you loved your life here and wouldn't trade it for anything, but you got used to it. and that was the worst thing that could have happened.

so when he came along, you saw the perfect opportunity. logan howlett was the new P.E teacher and to say that you two got along very well would be an understatement. you loved the dynamic between you two, you were constantly bickering over who the kids liked more (the obvious answer being you) or who could run the fastest considering you had a very similar mutation as his, you could also fight (read flirt) over who knew more about elvis presley biography.

the whole school was waiting for you to get together already. it wouldn't be that big of a deal anyway taking into account that you both already acted like a couple. you would go together at any type of meeting/social event. logan would stand very close to you without even noticing. you would always have each others back when one of the students complained about the other. charles would assign you two on missions together cause you were the only one who could handle him. even a blind lawyer could see the way you were looking at each other.

but of course, you would both deny it.

"logan is just a friend! nothing more!" you would say to jean

"there's nothing between y/n and I, well not in that way" he would say to rogue

and everybody would roll their eyes...

given you were an art teacher, the art studio was probably your favorite room in the mansion. and you loved to spend time with the people you cherished there. so on a sunday afternoon, you decided to bake some cookies, make some tea and paint with scott, ororo, hank and logan who would just watch everybody else (his stubbornness could be seen as a lifestyle at that point). charles and jean couldn't come but you promised to save cookies for both of them.

the afternoon was spent laughing and smiling, you would take quick looks at logan from time to time and your heart will stop when you'd realize he was already looking at you each time. the hours passed and everybody left, except logan who stayed to help you clean up the mess you made.

"you don't have to do that you know?" you smiled, touched by his kind gesture.

"it's the least I can do, you planned everything" he answered, washing brushes.

"you didn't even paint or ate anything" you retorted

"yeah, I was busy looking at you" he joked (flirted?). your cheeks blushed, shy and flattered. before you knew it you were scooping paint from a plate and throwing it on his back. you acted like a fucking teenage girl around him.

logan froze and slowly turned around, a smirk on his face. with the brushes still in his hand he walked toward you while you were stepping back, grinning from ear to ear, and rubbed the still full-of-paint brushes on your face, grabbing you by the waist so you couldn't escape. you laughed and reached for the glass of water you used to paint and threw it on his face. he gasped.

when he opened his eyes he looked at you intensely. logan grabbed a whole paint tube and threatened you with it. you ran on the other side of the room (so not too far away) and raised your arms before you as a shield. you were both moving in circles in the room, smilling and laughing like kids. it was your turn to grab a tube of paint. logan ran toward you and tackled you against the bookshelf. you squeezed the paint in his hair, knowing it would be impossible to get off (you would help him anyway).

"you little shit" he screeched, when he tried to step back, his feet slipped on some paint and he fell on his back, dragging you with him. you landed on top of him and immediately asked if he was fine, worried about his head hitting the ground.

"logan are you okay?" you gasped. he didn't answer.

"logan?"

"logan!" he didn't wake up. you were considering calling someone for help when he burst out laughing and squeezed his tube of paint right into your face. you screamed, both surprised and angry at him for messing with you. but only seconds after you laughed together, on the ground, covered in paint.

"thank you for helping me clean up" you joked, getting up. logan pulled you back to him.

"with great pleasure" he replied, your faces closer than ever. your hair were falling on his paint covered face. you thought he looked beautiful

"you look beautiful" the words didn't come from your mouth but his. you looked away, embarassed. "don't hide your pretty smile from me bub". so you looked at him lovingly.

"come on, I have to get the studio ready for tomorrow" you said, knowing you would need a great excuse for him to let you go. and he did, reluctantly.

you finished cleaning the studio (without any paint fight this time), while chatting, smiling and accidentally touching from time to time.

you were shuffling around in bed. after about an hour of fighting yourself into sleeping you gave up. you sat up, remembering the dr pepper you hid in a fridge of the back kitchen where none of the kids were allowed to go. no one knew of this secret of yours but you didn't feel guilty about it. the worst feeling is definitely feeling your mouth watering at the idea of a soda just for someone to steal it from you.

so you put on some pants and huried into the kitchen. you were met with logan seating at the kitchen isle, reading the newspaper. you walked past him without even giving him a second glance and went to your secret hideout. but you were meyt with pure horror. the last dr pepper was missing. your mouth opened and you audibly gasped.

you could hear logan asking if everything was okay and decided on going back to the kitchen, defeated. you sat down next to logan, sighing. he put his paper down and looked at you. you looked up and widened your eyes.

"where did you get that?" you looked at the dr pepper in his left hand, still full.

"in your secret hideout, why?" he acknowledged nonchalantly.

"how do you even know where my secret hideout is?" you furrowed your brows,

"you go there each time we're in the kitchen together" he chuckled and looked down at the glass bottle. you were also looking at it, pounting unconsciously. he slide it over to you with an amused look.

"no, keep it, I'm fine"

"you clearly aren't"

you smiled and stood to grab two glasses. you poured the soda in both glasses and gave one to logan.

"I don't usually share my dr pepper" you clarified.

"I know" he smiled and added after a moment of silence: "I don't usually let people in".

you grabbed his hand and stroke it with your thumb, a sign of gratitude, support, love?

he placed his other hand on the nape of your neck.

"I'd like to let you in just a little bit more, if that's alright with you" he whispered.

"I'd love to"

logan closed the space between you two, your lips meeting in a delicate kiss. none of it felt weird or strange, you were already used to intimacy with logan, even if it never went that far.

it felt familiar.

it felt right.

[eee-lordy]

Hiiii! Can you write about jacob elordi x fem reader who is in charge of the makeup and outfits on saltburn or elvis?

Maybe there is a video going viral where he is looking at her (WITH THOSE PUPPY DOG EYES HAHSHAJDVDSJ IM GONNA EAT HIM) while she is doing his make up and she is clueless, yk those videos where the music is lana del rey and the caption is like "me when im literaly obsessed with her" or "when hes completely in love with u>>>>>"

And when that goes viral, the cast teases him and they go on a date?

Idk i think its cute :3

───※ ·❆· ※───

You were never one to get star struck. In the year and a half you'd been professionally applying makeup to the mugs of many stars, you'd been unfazed by celebrities captivating auras. You hardly blushed when Chris Pine tried asking you out as he sat in your makeup chair. You'd laughed in understandable assurance as Billie Eilish apologized for almost knocking your powder kit from your grasp; when her brother burst in the room to surprise her. You saw your clients as just that, people who trusted you to properly apply blush and fake scars.

But all the composure you'd been proud to claim went out the window when you'd been assigned to work with the cast of Sofia Coppola new film. You hadn't expected to lose your cool. In fact, you'd been rolling your eyes as the hair stylist that shared your caravan had droned on and on about this new Elordi fellow and how dreamy he was. Some of the other workers in the hair and makeup department parroted her yearning for the guy. But you were certain you'd remain calm and cool in this supposed deities presence.

And then he sat down in your chair. And he looked up to you with an intriguing set of droopy dark eyes. And you knew Jacob Elordi was about to be a real problem for you.

It wasn't his fame. You weren't swept up by his essence because of the collective crowd on the internet drooling over the guy. It wasn't even his magnetism. Because he did have a lot of that, you wavered it was necessary to survive fame. But it was more the way he would look up at you from that make up chair. With those dumb stupid big beautiful eyes.  And his smile that followed. And then the infuriating way he'd start conversations with you, those first few days on set.

"What'd you have for breakfast this morning?" Jacob would wonder, watching as you readied a sponge. You would answer and ask for his in return. He would mention stopping by a cafe earlier and go on to ask you where you grew up and if you liked it there and what the best book you've ever read was called. 

"You've got to stop chatting away, makes it hard to do your touch up's." You'd smile, reaching out to adjust Jacobs perfect fucking face so you could work on his brows. 

"Sorry." He breathed out, seemingly genuinely guilty. He went on explaining himself still, slowly as you continued to do your job. "Don't like awkward silence. Or bullshit small talk. Getting to know you seemed like the safest route. Since you'll be covering the dark circles under my eye's this whole shoot."

You laughed in understanding before announcing that you got it, and waved over the hairdresser on site today. 

"Wait, before you go, that book you mentioned..." Jacob pointed your way as you turned for closing up your kit of brushes. Then you watched as the guy wrestled his cellphone from his jacket pocket. "Here," Jacob said, extending the device your way. "Write the title in my notes app. I will forget, but I don't want too. It sounded properly readable."

"Oh." You turned your lips down in a twisted grin of surprise. As you took the device from Jacob's grasp, you felt a surge of gratification that the guy trusted you enough with his phone let alone wanted to read a book you mention not having read since uni. 

Not missing the way the hairdresser rolled her eyes, you grinned and found Jacobs notes app with ease, straining not to glance beyond your means. With the press of a few buttons you wrote down the title, and fought off the impulsive urge to include your very own phone number as well. That would be embarrassing, knowing full well this man would never call or text or probably even dare to glance your way beyond the makeup chair. 

///

The next few weeks went by the same. Jacob would yammer away until you almost had to hold his mouth shut to finish his makeup. And you would fill the silence by telling stories of your own, because he'd mentioned he wasn't fond of silence and you knew your job went beyond applying lip liner, it was also to keep celebrities happy as royalty.

And all the while you blinked away thoughts of how funny he was. How beautiful Jacob was. You wouldn't let yourself realize he was exactly your type. You wouldn't let yourself dream that you might be his. You simply relished the times you made him laugh. Once you made him laugh so hard he cried, tear tracks ruining the powder you'd only just applied. 

The hairdresser who was the leader of fawning over Jacob as soon as he left the room had taken to frowning in your direction most days. You reckoned it was because she'd never been able to make him laugh that hard, or at all, ever. And the stories she told him when he asked her to seemed to lose his interest halfway through every time. Try as Jacob might, you saw his eyes glaze over as the hairstylist droned on about her retirement plan or the grocery list she'd put together that day.

After acknowledging her sorry excuse for conversation Jacob would stop you from packing up and heading to lunch so he could ask you for more books to read, more films to watch, more stories from you. Then his assistant would interrupt, or he'd be called to set and you'd be left to head to the craft table with dangerous feelings of lust and intrigue to push away. You would not let this boy break you of your career long streak of professionalism, damn it.

///

One night, in the middle of a week break from set, you spent an evening scrolling mindlessly. When a tiktok with Jacob's name in the tags popped up, you scrolled away at the speed of light. You didn't let yourself linger too long on posts with him there, not wanting to know anything good bad or otherwise so long as you were assigned to work with him on this project. But it wasn't long before another tiktok popped up featuring the guy in a very familiar setting. He was too famous at this point. You watched as you saw leaked footage from behind the scenes of Priscilla, but weren't too shocked. The stars of the film were occasionally being interviewed by publicists between takes to document their experience, beginning to promote the film.

And maybe you let yourself keep watching out of a sense of entitlement, you'd been working on this set. You could watch a video of Jacob from work, right? You couldn't tear your eyes from him no matter how hard you tried now anyway. You watched as the person holding the camera zoomed in on the guy while he adjusted his suit jacket. You watched as he seemed to talk to the costars at his side. You watched as he looked up and smiled. And you couldn't help but melt a little at the sight, he seemed so happy, so at ease. And then you watched as Jacob's grin widened as he waved someone closer. And much to your horror, you saw yourself step into frame. 

You remembered that day, where you waited on the side lines to fix Cailee's eyeliner. While the director was storming up a new camera angle, Jacob waved you over to mention the last chapter of your favorite book he'd almost finished reading. He was laughing over a bit that you'd warned him about the week before. And you were laughing over how excited he was about it, finally having someone to gush over your favorite plot with.

Now, huddled beneath the blankets of your bed, you slammed your phone down at your side, bewildered to know someone had caught your interaction on camera. Raddled to have just seen Jacob lighting up at the sight of you. Angry at yourself for hopping you'd read his body language in a way that suggested he really liked you that much.

When you picked your phone back up, you watched the candid moment over and over, trying to debunk Jacob's smile. Trying to convince yourself he was only being friendly, only cared because he had to find someone to mingle with during down beats. 

And then you read the comments. 

"If Jacob smiled at me like that, I would die."

"Imagine making him laugh like that she's so lucky."

"Who is she??" One comment read. "Her last name will be Elordi if he hasn't married her already, calling it." Someone replied.

You shouldn't have read the comments.

///

When you were due back on set you swallowed away the excitement bubbling up in you at the prospect of seeing Jacob again. This was so unlike you, to be awaiting the arrival of your client with an embarrassing giddiness. As you reminded yourself that this was your job and Jacob was simply a guest in your makeup chair- the man himself eased into the caravan, ready to get ready for the day.

"Hey, you! I had a bunch of points earned up to get two free coffees so I brought you one. I remember you said you like almond milk so I asked for that." Jacob was all smiles as he extended a latte to you. Awe fuck. 

"Thank you, Jacob." You struggled not to sigh with angst as you accepted his very generous surprise. Luckily, he seemed none the wiser that you'd answered through gritted teeth. He just kept smiling as he headed to your chair.

"Oh, me first today lovie. Need to start your dye straight off, you're little makeup girlfriend will have to wait." The hairdresser announced, daring to grab Jacob by his sleeve, yanking him toward her end of the trailer. The other workers around rolled their eyes, sick of her endless commentary. You bit your tongue as you leaned against the counter, shaking your head when a coworker scoffed in the hairdresser's direction. Luckily, Cailee waltz in, ready for you before anyone else. You thanked God for the distraction, readying your brow pencil and chatted to the girl about her break from set. 

All the while, your least favorite coworkers voice demanded to be the loudest in the room. She made everyone listen to some boring ass story and practically whinnied when Jacob got up to trade Cailee places. 

"No offence, you're fine and all, just don't have hair as silky smooth as Jacob's." The hairdresser told Cailee but made sure her comment was loud enough for everyone to hear. "Oh wait, silly me," 

As Jacob settled in the makeup chair and began to ask if the drink he'd brought you was good, the hairdresser of your nightmares shoved her way between you and the person you were meant to be working on. 

"I left of a bobby pin, how'd I forget," She droned in an annoying pitch, nearly shoving you over in her attempt to get closer to Jacob. 

"Can you please get out of my space?" You called, annoyed that she was pushing you away from your station without a single polite excuse.

"Can you please stop being such a jealous bitch?" The hairdresser whipped to face you with a manic smile.

"Oh my God?" You almost laughed in shock at her comment when another coworker dared to reach out and pulled her away, and out of the trailer. Another hairdresser apologized to the room for the previous girl's behavior and stepped up to lead charge of Cailee's wig.

With no time to shake the rage that had been born in you, you pushed it down, biting your lip hard as you went about finding the right sponge for Jacob's foundation. 

"Are you okay?" He asked, seemingly worried. And that pissed you off too. Why'd he have to act like he cared so much? Why'd he have to be so damn wonderful?

"I'm fine. Thank you again for the coffee, it...is kind of bitter but it was a really sweet gesture, I swear. Close your eye's please." You responded as calm and cool as possible.

"Bitter... sweet..." Jacob winked, just for you to see. It was the best thing you'd ever witness. And the worst all the same. You were sure you blushed. You tilted his chin and struggling to suppress how much you'd miss when you didn't get to be this close to him. He stayed quiet as you finished his face, and so did you. When his makeup was done, almost everyone else had left the trailer. The last remaining beautician was walking out as you'd closed the case to your kit. 

"I thought you didn't like awkward silence." You dared to mention, as Jacob stood to leave. It wasn't like you'd thought to ask. It was just a thought that ended up blurted out. And then you were bold enough still to look up and right at the guy with those perfectly shaped eyes to find he'd already been staring right at you. 

"S'not so awkward with you."

You really wish he hadn't said that. You really wished you'd never prompted him too. You really wished he wasn't still standing there looking across the features of your face like he was waiting on you to respond. There was a knock on the door just in time, and a voice calling for Jacob to hurry to set. 

"I'll see you after lunch, right?" Jacob wondered as he moved toward the door. You muttered something like "Yeah sure," as you turned to start collecting your things. As far as Jacob knew you were headed to the craft table. But as your feet started marching out of the trailer, you found yourself headed toward the manager of the crew you'd been hired in with. You explained to her that you really thought it was best you turned in your resignation. 

You'd never dared yourself to tread the line during work. Never been so enamored with someone you were meant to be professional with. It wasn't in your best interest to see how far this went. And it wasn't in Jacobs best interest that you kept lingering around distracting him with stories and novel suggestions.

So, on a decided whim, you packed your things, swallowed frustrated tears, and headed home for good.

///

You let yourself be mad once your front door was shut and locked. You threw away the stupid coffee Jacob bought you. You turned the telly off and tossed the remote toward the hardwood when Euphoria came on. You muttered and cursed and slammed cabinets as you made a carb heavy comfort meal and called your best friend. 

The day went on and turned to night as you tried to stop feeling sorry for yourself. You began getting ready for bed, talking yourself into sleeping off all the weird feelings and events that had transpired today. Tomorrow, you'd find a new job and make sure to decline any with that one awful hairdressers name on the list of beauticians. 

As you sat on the edge of your bed and set a reminder for yourself to job hunt tomorrow afternoon, a notification interrupted your typing. 

Instagram was alerting you that one certain Jacob Elordi was sending you a fucking message. He'd followed you a couple weeks ago, when you handed him your phone to show him a picture of your beloved childhood pet. He scrolled away from it and found your handle to promptly pull up on his very own Instagram, following you with a smile.

Your eyes widened and your thumb worked faster than your brain, clicking the popup before you could talk yourself out of it. Oh, shit now he was going to know you opened his fucking stupid ass message. You really wished you hadn't met this boy. He wasn't even here and he was torturing your every thought. 

"You were NOT there after lunch as promised. Call me? xx"

Before your eyes displayed a row of numbers that if pressed would call Jacob Elordi's cell phone. You tried really hard to talk yourself out of it. But being away from him for the last ten hours had really done a number on your heart. It missed him more than your brain was afraid to admit. Your thumb clicked the numbers. Your phone started to ring. 

After one buzz he answered. 

"I got off set to hear you'd quit and left me to bear that horrid hairdresser without you? Was the coffee really that bad?" Jacob's voice crackled through the line, soft and saccharine. You chuckled morosely at his coffee joke before responding.

"No pleasant greeting. What if it wasn't me calling? What if it was some crazy fan girl?" You dared to venture. 

"Are you saying you're not a fan of mine?"

You wanted to assure him that you were probably his biggest, but sighed in place of a response, struggling to choose your words. 

"What happened? That hairdresser should be fired. You shouldn't've left." Jacob spoke, as you watched the traffic out your window and relished the sound of his voice in your ear. 

"It..." You couldn't help it. You couldn't hide it any longer. "It wasn't really her. I quit because of you, Jacob."

"Me? I- I'm sorry I thought we-" He sounded too worried, and you realized you'd spoken a little too cryptically.

"Not because you did anything wrong." You hurried to explain, interrupting his unnecessary apology. "It's me, not you." 

"Is this a break up? I never even got to ask you on a proper date." He laughed a humorless laugh.

"That's the thing." You said. "I like you way more than I should've ever let myself. It's too unprofessional for me to work with you and have these feelings. I'm sorry, I shouldn't even be telling you this. Everyone treats you like a piece of meat, I hate that I-"

"So... what I'm hearing..." Jacob's voice rose a bit as he interrupted you, catching your attention off guard. "Is that I can actually ask you on a proper date? And this doesn't have to be a break up at all."

"Oh! I- wait are you joking?" You blurted, shocked by the tone of his voice and the fact that it seemed like Jacob Elordi was asking you out. 

"I like you too, dummy. I've been doing my damnedest to make that clear. You know I don't just follow every wardrobe artist on Instagram and bring camera men cafe treats. I used my free coffee on you! I'm so sorry it was no good though." 

"It wasn't the worst coffee ever." You smiled, feeling a calm and hopeful buzz wash over you. 

"Well, let me take you on a proper date, for a proper cup of coffee, and talk you back on set." 

"I can date you, or be your makeup artist, but I will not allow myself to do both. I have a very strict moral compass as a working lady." 

"I'll choose the first option then by a long shot." You could hear Jacob's smile in the tone of his voice. You let him ramble a little longer about the day he'd had and how bad he felt that you'd been moved to quit. He asked you to meet him at the cafe across from the set during lunch tomorrow, and you promised you would in fact show up without a doubt this time. 

Fuck finding a new job tomorrow. You were going on an absolute dream date with Jacob. But you were most definitely ordering your own coffee.

[precious-little-scoundrel]

Let’s Fall Out of Love

Divorce Part 1

Fully co-authored with @elvisabutler 💋

Thanks: are due to so many friends on here who helped craft this timeline and concept and helped me hone the motivations into something I trust our readers will find evocative and sympathetic. Y’all know who you are, thanks for being my buddies

Warnings: 18+ for thematic and sexual material. Strong language and bitter accusations between spouses, mentions of drugs, divorce proceedings, lying to spouses (for their eventual good???) mentions of past infidelity, Colonel Parker being the worst, poor Elvis being in a bad place with his health and mentally -and dub con smut. It is in no way non con but the context, the lack of voiced or implied consent and the aggression make it dubious. It is fairly clear both parties are engaging in hysterical bonding, still the scene is dubious as is the language used by the man regarding a wife having no say in it. So please heed that.

Note: it was the attempt of the writers to craft a rather cinematic experience with this fic, one aim was to skip times and have plenty of fade to black moments. Please note the time stamps above each scene to keep track of progression. Anything that is not clarified in this chapter will either be clarified in the next part or else in others. You’re of course welcome to ask questions.

|| 10th, APRIL 1977 ||

Divorce. Lil Tink is divorcin' him. Lil Laney is gonna be his ex-wife.

The thought rattles around in his aching brain as he chases her up Graceland’s stairway, past the portraits of their children and the plaques celebrating their successes and haunting likenesses of younger selves. Both of them home for a brief stint after Vegas Showrooms and California Courtrooms.

Home -it won’t be his home much longer, she’s gonna see to that.

Divorce.

It had taken up half his year already but he was so sure, so damn sure all she needed was to make a fuss and threaten like she does and then it would cool down, smooth over. He was ready to humor all sorts of shit and then she went and pushed for more. More money, more assets, took out a damn lien. His Tink who happily chucked half of custody at him without a fight has now drug this little show on for months, all for a couple more bucks.

She’s takin' everythin' he's worked so hard for, takin’ it all, going back for more even, just to make sure she can still be taken care of in the conditions and standards he had raised her to.

Spoiled lil middle class girl grown into a spoiled, hardened rich woman.

“Till death do you part”, he hurled the promises at her over the phone, as soon as that court order had landed in his hands -but if ya ask Elaine, he's been dead more times than she can count. Maybe he's dead to her in everythin' but body. Ain't that the other joke, he feels half dead even in body.

"Elaine Presley! Turn 'round when I'm talkin' t'ya! Ya know I hate it when people do that” As if she’s required to listen to him or required to pay attention after two decades of focusing so much of her attention and time and energy on a man who has forgotten all of that. On a man who’s forgotten that he’s married to her. That’s forgotten he has children with her, a life he promised her, and not to his manager who's twisted so much of what was between them into this. Whatever this is.

"Why?" She spits still climbing stairs she's climbed a thousand times before. Faintly she hears Marie playing in her room and a surprising amount of silence from Jack's and her heart twists. They don't need to hear this. None of her children do but her youngest- oh her youngest deserve to think their father is still something resembling a good man.

"Why?" As if Elvis is some sort of parrot, he repeats the question back at her. His confusion colors his face, warring for control with his anger and frustration as he follows her through the padded master doors. "Why? The hell kinda question is that?”

“I told you come by and grab those things you said you needed so badly.” she hauls open one of his drawers and the thing squeals on its track from her violent tug. “So do that. If you wanted to chat then we coulda chatted somewhere else. Or, you know -a year ago? Ten?”

“I’m just askin’ why.“ He embraces her own wording and tries to get nearer her, hem her in against the dresser like he’s done countless times before in this very room with dazzling success.

Elaine slips away between them like water and he’s left bracing himself on the smooth wooden top.

“I’m not actively trying to be a shrew.” she murmurs as she turns away and goes to the other side of the room, opening the wardrobe, “No matter what you believe. I told you that you’ll be welcome in this house no matter what, so that’s why.’I’m not allowing you to come around -you just can, it’s your mama’s house still, for all I’m concerned.”

“No, no I mean- why’re you throwin’ this away?” He emphasizes it with his hands, a pleading gesture that sweeps the whole room and its host of sacred memories. He’s used this before but that was back when he figured it was all one big tantrum. Signing custody papers has rather shaken that hope, delusion, comfort.

Tink purses her lips and he notices her face has gone so white this summer, rarely in the sun and addicted to wearing black like some melodramatic Prima Donna. She does look stunning in the papers all decked out in veils and heels, he’ll give her that. He doesn’t know when she turned from being the heart of the operation to the glamor of it all -and he the opposite.

“What’s my favorite color these days?” she asks him instead.

He stares at the sable color he’s seen her wearing for months now and sighs in exasperation, “Shit I dunno -black?” he swings, knowing it’s a miss the second he says it.

“I can’t do this anymore.” she informs him, like color has broken up a twenty year long marriage and he grinds his teeth so hard he thinks he cracks a filling. The pain adds to his headache that matches the pounding in his chest and the roaring in his ears builds to such a degree he’s honestly terrified for them both.

“Stop this.” he warns her, quite sure she knows the red hot fit she’s stoking with her callousness and hurt that she won’t help him out of it like she used to, that she’ll let him go into a blind rage and then blame him for it, no doubt. “I know when you’re lyin’, woman, and I ain’t ever seen a more lilly livered liar than you right now.” he snarls and tries a last appeal that comes out as a barb anyways, “You wouldn’t be goin’ on so rash if your daddy were still alive,” he jabs a finger at her, “guess I can be grateful he ain’t, so he’s not breakin’ down my door for explanations ‘bout a offense you won’t admit to me!“

Elaine absorbs this blow with a wavering face before the nonchalance cloaks her features once more and Elvis would resort to smacking it off her if he were a different sorta man. “Black is practical, that’s why I wear it. It’s not my favorite though.” she simpers, clutching at the shoe she’s picked up from the floor, something for her hands to worry, to hide her own anguish at having to keep him in the dark. To lie repeatedly to him as he breaks apart, she didn’t know it would cut him up so much.

It’s a mess, this web of connections that used to prop them up, used to be a community. Now it’s a den of tattle tales and if one of them suspects she’s anything but angry at Elvis, that this this divorce and seizing of assets isn’t a scorned wife gone nuts, but rather a calculated endeavor to get at his manager once and for all -well Charlie will spill to Vernon and Vernon will spill to Elvis and Elvis will have all the fuel he needs to plead her right back into complacent heartbreak in his arms -before he goes on tour again and murders himself from the workload.

“I’m on orange kick, actually.” her voice is hoarse.

“Then I’ll buy ya some fuckin’ orange curtains and you’ll stop divorcin’ me.” he jabs a tinged finger at her and he looks like he might fall over, his face is so flushed and sweaty, from pills and passion. Elaine readies to catch him, break his fall if he tips. At least here there’s carpet, unlike the hotel hallway that busted his head last year.

“I’m rather in the mood to buy my own from now on.” she lies and sweeps past him to get to the closet.

She never gets past him. His hand darts out and engulfs her dainty wrist, tugging her back and in a spin like he practiced in his movies so many times, a romantic, gallant, possessive gesture that lands her smack against his broad chest, locked in with an arm around her shoulders.

"Buy your own, hm? Gonna sell my mama's house to do that? Gonna sell ya children's home to do that?"

“Elvis, you get your damn hands off me.” she bites back, throwing her weight on his forearm that might as well be made of steel, so little room does she gain from her effort.

"Never minded my hands on ya before. Even 'fore I married ya, it was fine for me to touch ya. To inspect that lil house of yours to make sure it could have all those lil babies ya wanted. Gave 'em to ya didn't I? Gave ya every last one and two've ‘em are even still with ya till they leave." Never mind that Jack's been bouncing between here and California in an effort to do what he's wanted to do since Elvis would play sharks in the bed with him. "But now you're wantin' my hands off. Goin' on 'bout gettin' new curtains yourself."

His words are punctuated with spit and a hissing anger Elvis doesn't normally indulge in. The bitter anger she used on the road with champagne making her head float in a sea of lies and wants and needs and a twisted sort of love till she had to call it. She can feel her jaw tensing up at his calloused fingers finding their way under her chin, tapping at first to try and have her look up at him before clenching around it and tilting it upward instead.

"Who is it, Laney? Who's the person who's gonna take care of ya? Gonna help ya buy those curtains? Get Marie those cameras? Help Jack and Rosie pay for those commie schools of theirs?" With each passing word Elvis’s voice drops lower and lower in octave until he's reaching levels Elaine's never heard. Against her will, her body shivers in his arms. A sneer crosses his lips- a twisted version of his raised lip that everyone knows and loves. That raised lip she's kissed before with laughter and jokes on how "if you keep doing that your face'll stay that way, Naughty." It shouldn't be there like this and yet it is. "That why ya dragged me to our lil Ella Bella's weddin'? Figured the Martins could spoil our daughter rotten away from you and your new caretaker? Your new piggybank? Don't get shy on me now, Laney! Who's the lucky sonuvabitch who gets to have my wife?"

Elaine's learned how to be composed in every situation with Elvis. She'll shoot at the Colonel over love handles and movies that killed her Elvis's spirit. She'll titter at army wives mocking her house and implying she couldn't keep up with being Mrs. Presley and growing a second set of twins in two years. She'll handle losing little Joesphine with a body that betrayed them all and with a smile on her face because Mrs Kennedy had just lost hers and then John died and the US can't handle their Irish Catholic and their Southern Baptist Camelots falling to pieces all at once. But this, this is too much. This is her soon to be ex husband mocking her. Like she'd have had time to find someone else who would take care of her, like taking care of Elvis and their children allowed her to seek any other comfort than in the aging movie star her husband sought to emulate once upon a time before realizing he's just a man too. The aging movie star she considers one of her nearest and dearest friends and who'd- who would be her caretaker if she let him.

Knowing her luck it'd end up worse than this.

No, this is Elvis throwing out an insult to her character, the one he'd have defended till his dying breath except for when she turns on him like Red and Sonny did. Their book's gonna be coming out sooner rather than later and- she's made it obvious he can't trust a soul any more.

It won't do either one of them any good to react. It's not going to help her escape from his grip that's a vice around her. It won't help him see what she's doing and how she’s doing it for him. But she is only human just as he's only human and her lipstick covered mouth opens in defense of her own honor.

"What makes you think you deserve to know?" He can't see through everything to see why shes doing this, so why should he get an answer. "You won't have to worry, we'll all be taken care of. And you can be rebranded! A seasoned entertainer who's free as a bird to do whoever and whatever he wants. Or oooh -maybe the colonel will pick you out a new wife. Pretty little fool to take my place, without trappings like children -or brains."

“I chose my wife.” it sounds like a beg, anger and hurt battling for the upper hand in Elvis’ heart, his hand squeezes her chin stronger, watching her lips pucker just that little bit. Such a soft mouth has no right being so stern and derisive as it’s been these past months, once upon a time he knew how to make it gasp and smile with a word, a kiss, a mere glance. “I chose you, and you promised. It ain’t me breakin’ that promise, ain’t me sayin’ I can’t do this no more -I-I-I’ve spent my goddamn career givin’ you all this, I gave up w-women for you, I gave up movies for you, when you come to me with what’s wrong I do my damndest to fix it. Now you won’t tell me nothin’ but orange curtains, and if I thought those’d fix us I’d be out the damn door right now, headed to find you the best in the country. I would, Laney, you know I would. I’ve given-“ he stops to gasp in a ragged breath, unsure of what part of himself he hasn’t poured into his Tink, entrusted to her once caring little hands, vulnerability poured like so much oil into her heart for safe keeping, his flaws and secrets tucked safely in the little nooks and crannies of her generous mind. “I’ve given-“

-So Damn Much.

“I’ve given you my life.” His Laney stares back at him entirely unmoved, her eyes hard and sharp with their ebony liner, the squish of her lips beneath his fingers barely dismantling her disdain for him, “And seven children from my body. I never said you weren’t a good man,Elvis, or that you're not generous, but we both know we don’t want to go toe to toe in measuring costs for twenty years in heaven. And I’m saying, -I can’t do it anymore.”

“Anymore?” it’s bothered him all these months, that word and he wonders what she thinks she’ll have after this, like they’re not so intertwined and connected that, like twins, they will forever feel what the other feels, want what the other wants, a string tied between them from countless, immeasurable amounts of time spent merged as one, “I ain’t ever not gonna be in you, woman, once mine -always mine. What’s there for ya after this, huh? Seven children -twenty years! -Goddamn I’m in you!” he shakes her at that and sees a spark of something he knows light up her eyes.

Elvis slides a hand from her shoulders, down over her sternum and feels her heaving intake of breath at the missed feeling of his hands on her, down past the tie at her waist, down to the planes of her firm belly, just a little swell and some soft skin that speaks of the souls they once made with their love. He presses his hand, large and warm and cupped to that precious sanctuary, kneading it, lifting it, weighing it just that little bit in his palm.

The little house is empty.

Elvis outright laughs at his mistake then, a booming, jarring laugh at having forgotten just who he’s got in his arms. He can feel Elaine’s violent shuddering along the entire length of him at the strange sound in their gloomy bedroom. Or maybe it’s from the dig of his fingertips at her womb, like he’ll claw inside it from the outside if he’s barred from plundering her the natural way.

Sweet Miss Phipps, Elvis thinks, with her hungry mind and starved body, so damn eager to be possessed, to be made good use of, to be pumped full and burdened with child again and again. He shoulda kept her swollen this past decade, prioritized her hunger over the tours and then, maybe then, she’d not have gotten notions like this.

“God gave me a remarkable woman.” he murmurs to himself in realization, his hands loosening their grip on her jaw to run the backs of his fingers against against the soft swells of her cheeks and Elaine’s heart speeds up in recognition of the shift in his demeanor, that thrumming resolution taking over his body behind her and helplessly her own responds to it.

As if she's another person, someone she would counsel to resist, to stay strong, Elaine feels her face turn towards the caress of his ringed fingers, towards the admiring touch that’s been her joy to wake to a million times, a touch that’s brought her purpose and comfort for twenty years. Her mouth falls open with a surrendering quiver and she makes no move to avert her mouth when his fingers sweep over her face and across her lips in a revenant mapping of his wife’s well known features. Her tongue darts out to taste even a sliver of his salt, she tastes metal instead as his ring glides by. It’s a heady feeling for anyone to realize Elvis Presley intends to fuck them, it’s entirely heightened by a familiar knowledge of his capabilities and a divinely witnessed right to his person.

It’s no villain staring down at Elaine, pressing himself to her -the distance has been necessary all these months to keep her anger and fear prominent, to remind her of the need for such dire action as divorce, the slightest, kindest of touches from him would dismantle that resolve, that garish image in her imagination. Now she’s close to the finish line, so close he’s fully panicking and she can feel the lightness of soon being free of her deceit. He’s no villain, he’s just a good man who has hurt her, who hurts himself more often and worse than how she’s hurting him. And soon they’ll be able to save each other. Just not today.

His hand slips to her throat and he kneads it, contemplating the give and delicacy of her pale flesh, and her responses, the languid subjugation of her body to his touches, just like he’d taught her in this very bed across from them.

She sees when his eyes flick up from her throat to their marriage bed and it’s like a million hummingbirds erupt in her belly in disbelief, in panic, in a frantic sort of hopeful missing.

“Elvis-“ she doesn’t know if she’s trying to warn him, trying to remind him of the wrongness of what he’s thinking, or if it’s a beg for him to ignore her sensibilities, to take her and make her that new little wifey with the carefree face and the mindless little head.

His face is dark and flushed like he gets when he’s aroused, his features seeming to get richer with the heightened intensity of his feelings and she can feel the sweat break out behind her through his silk shirt, slicking up her own back through the gauze of her dress. Elvis’ eyes drop back to her face, remaining there with a million intentions painted therein but not a single flicker of wavering shows.

Elaine had no reason to be as startled as she was when she felt his hands drop to her waist and spin her around, picking her up beneath the ribs with his astounding strength and tossing her like he would rag doll on his karate mats. She landed with a silly bounce amongst the bedding. It could have been romantic if he had any blue left to his irises as he looked down at her, sauntering to the foot of the bed himself and surveying her where she lay.

“Wife.” he greeted before taking hold of a footsie in each hand and spreading them apart for him to step between her legs.

"Elvis." A whisper as if saying his name any louder would unleash something they might both come to regret. As if it'd cause the dam she's locked her emotions in this entire ordeal will finally break. If she calls him husband it's over. He knows her inside and out, every crevice and dip in her body and soul has been mapped by him. The lie will come apart with a simple utterance of his title that he still has in this moment. The title he still has for three more weeks.

"Elaine." Her name comes out in a shaky breath that she can tell he's attempting to control, to rein in. Those blue eyes she's fallen in love with more and more as years had gone by are an inky void, pupils covering every inch they can and not just because of some pill he had to take or because she had watched him die right in front of her. Both their tongues dart out to wet lips and catch errant drops of sweat before she hears the *clink* of his belt.

That noise isn't new to her, the jangle and clanging of the metal a familiar sound. In the quiet of the room, in the quiet of the house? Of their home? It steals a breath from her lungs as sure as his body pressing down on her would have. The belt sounds like one of the heaviest ones he owns and a shiver unbidden rolls through her body as the cacophony of that gaudy belt gets louder and louder in her ears. Each breath takes effort, forcing air between the two of them that threatens to stifle any calming thought or action. A final puff of air- of his breath- warm and humid runs across her hair, forcing a loose strand of it to move.

Elaine doesn't. Elaine doesn't move an inch even as his belt finally comes off in a subdued flourish and a minor curse. Her eyes focus on the gaudy little harem lamp above them even as Elvis drops the belt ever so gently next to her body. It still clangs against the rings of his hand and its own golden links.

Sweaty and warm, his bejeweled hand moves to cup her cheek. "Mrs. Presley." he breathes her title into her lax mouth like it’s Holy Spirit anointed before slotting his mouth against hers with firm conviction in the rightness of his claim to her.

"Elvis."

It's not fair that all this force, all this passion, all this wanting that has -if she’s being honest- waned for her at times over the years is coming out of him only now, now when he thinks he’s lost her. Now that he’s more fool than he’s ever been. They’ve been alone too often in their marriage, if not separated by miles and oceans, separated by intent and interpretations of it.

“Still mine, for a few more months you’re still mine. Ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. You jus’ take it, jus’ take me, Laney”

And if she weren’t blinded herself by a heartache the proportions of which were only matched by losing a child, she might think every grip and clash of their bodies tells her he wants her every bit as bad as she wants him.

Still.

Mindless and hazy she waits for him to notice how every give and shudder of her own frame declares her want for him. He thinks he’s forcing the matter -but all he’s doing is giving her some false hope to curl around and cry over when the fissure finally splits apart.

I wanted you. But I thought I was alone in it, she thinks she hears them both saying it with every lewd squelch and pant.

It’s cruel confirmation of how entwined they’ve become, how much knowledge of the other they’ve collected over the years that he can make her writhe even under these circumstances, have her shattering beneath him effortlessly like older, kinder, gentler times. It’s made worse when she can feel him slow, stopping partway in that familiar way when he’s edging himself, intending to make her go round the loop once more, the familiarity of it makes her want sob, not from any hurt of the present, but at the notion this may be the last time she feels it -they both want this to last. And that unity is a mocking thing, all context considered.

He’s sweaty and she’s trembling, there’s so much warmth coming off his angry frame that she feels like curling inside the furnace and letting him make her forget anything beyond this physical connection that was never in doubt, the sheets are cold and dry and foreign against her back by comparison and she thinks of sleeping alone amongst them for the rest of her life. Elvis seems to sense this weakness of hers, one he wished he supported sooner, taken advantage of back when she looked so indestructible but was privately fraying at the seams, trying to hold the whole fairytale together. He shoulda done this sooner.

Old dog, new tricks, maybe, but Elvis has always been clever, opportunistic even, and he keeps his thrusts shallow and tantalizing as his wife gasps back to life beneath him and he keeps her close, his hands wound into her hair, hairy forearms beneath her shoulders, her ankle caught somewhere near his ear and his sweaty nose dripping onto her cheek.

“C’mon now Tink, you’ve thrown your fit,” he reasons to her in a coo that is underscored by the cajoling gait of his hips rocking into her, it has her clenching around those first few inches of him again, “ya made your point. Don’t -don’t do this to us baby. You c’mon back now. Ain’t anythin’ out there that’d satisfy you like us. Ain’t nobody else needs ya more dan hims does, satnin, don’t leave hims, baby.”

A good fuck, that’s all she needed, he’s sure of it. Or a couple of ‘em. He shoulda started dishing them out in Palm Springs but he’d been so angry when she filed and she’d been so cold. A couple of good fucks, that’ll solve it.

And to be heard. Which -she’s gotten that, all of America’s been hearing how he can’t keep his own wife.

Whatever bit of sentimentality he’s feeling right now, the sort that makes him wanna spill over how pretty she looks, vanishes in the angry tumult of his recalled humiliation. It fires him up instead and he snorts in his breath above her like an angry bull, perfectly capable of making her pay, making her see some sense, too. The longer she doesn’t reply the more this feeling surmounts the gentler ones and if Elvis were being honest, he knows denial had given way to rage and now bargaining and he’s full on panicking, trying to keep a woman who he shouldn’t have to chase.

She’s his wife.

“Elaine?” even to his own ears he sounds frantic and rough.

She is crying beneath him now, he thinks, that’s not all sweat making her face shine and her lips are taut like when she’s trying to hold it in and he wonders why the hell she’s the one crying. He feels like crying, he’s being left without an explanation or a pot to piss in. And all that while he’s still perfectly capable of proving he’s the best she’ll ever get. It’s like she’s agreeing with him when her hips start to move on their own accord, disagreeing with his teasing thrusts and instead she impales herself up on him, rough and sloppy to the rhythm of her fits of crying.

“I loved you.” Elaine sobs into his neck and he could wring hers for the confusion of it, for the way he just doesn’t get her after a lifetime of trying and how only this, this communion, this passion, this fucking is the only thing they make great sense at. Back when it had a purpose, back when it was to bring joy, to make a baby or five, and even now -to tie her to him somehow.

He folds her body viciously and plants his foot on the bed, thrusting so hard into her with all that wild abandon he knows she’d been jealous of him expending on his audience and not his family. “You greedy lil bitch, you love me,” he growls, “-what a revelation.”

‘Just an ounce of all that passion would go a long way, Elvis’ -he can hear the echo of her stupid little voice even now.

Passion? You want passion, Tink? He doesn’t think he’s ever been so passionately furious when he’s climaxed before ever in his life. For once it’s quite obvious he’s not ‘made love’, war maybe, but not love -and ain’t that another joke, he’d meant to make her love him again.

Elaine tears at his back with her fingernails and hears him snarling at her that he won’t stop, can’t stop, why can’t she stop this nonsense? She grips him harder, she seizes herself as he starts to slow, claws at his back with each vicious pump -seems they’ll both be shifting in their seats next time in the courtroom.

“Elaine?” he sounds so broken, like he does those times when they bring him back from heaven’s gates, it’s mumbled into her neck again like always but this time there’s no drugs to blame, not directly, not if she’s honest. She’s the one killing him. This little plan of hers to save him, just might finish him.

She prays God will be kind, prays he’ll keep her man alive long enough for her to finish this ugly business and restore his freedom, prays that maybe the hot slosh of spend coating her womb won’t be a waste. That she’ll have something of him left, just once more, please just one more. Something left of the man she married. Something to remind her of why they married and of what it was like to be happily married. Maybe just once more she wants to carry his entire world inside her.

“No, Elvis. I-I’m sorry, no.”

When he pulls away, it's not just sweat coating his lashes and his face. This plan of hers might just finish them both.

_______________________________

Every day in that courtroom is another layer of pride and image stripped away from Elvis and her and their perfect Southern Camelot. Every day is another headline for the papers with pictures of Elvis making a fool of himself in a way that can’t be smoothed over by anyone. Every day has cameras being shoved in Elaine’s face as she leaves with another hickey on her neck, bruising and blossoming in a way that looks grotesque when she sees it on the news later that night. The black outfits don’t help the contrast.

Every other day is being thrust against a bathroom stall’s wall with heels digging into Elvis’s back.

“E-Elaine-" He’ll stutter out, the feel of her clenching around his cock making it hard to focus or maybe it was the bite of her nails through his dress shirt. "You stop this. Been grovelin' 'n I deserve to have my wife listen."

"Ex. Wife." Elaine will huff out, words slurring into a quiet mewl as his cock brushes that one spot.

"Wife." An argument and a fact that he'll hammer home until the very last second he can. She never corrects him after the first time, too worried the knowledge would crush him to the point of everything finally giving out.

Jesse has taken to looking askance at her, worried and haunted little looks with fluttery hands at shoulder level that remind her of Elvis before he married her. If she had Elvis’ grit she’d ask her son if he had something to say and tell him to say it.

As it is she just pats his elegant hands, a man’s hands, she realizes, and thanks him profusely for his support, for being there at court with her day after day, missing practice and missing dates, letting a youthful spring and summer slip on by. They’ve been at this for close to a year.

“It’s nothin mama.” Jesse insists, almost offended at the idea he’d be anywhere but by her side.

________________________________

|| 5th, JUNE 1977 ||

When Ann makes her call, Elaine’s heart fills with all the old butterflies and girlish excitement of a past decade. They’ve kept in touch, of course they have, but between the touring, the marriages, and the unspoken acknowledgment of life falling apart from one and coming together for another, there’s less common ground to chat about compared to the days when Elaine used to share her husband and two little vixens named Thumper and Tink got to pick him apart in gleeful adoration like girls with their crush.

“Can I come by?” Thumper asks her, soft and kind but without the playful undercurrent that precipitated all her other visits.

“Well of course you can, you know you can.“ Elaine puzzles, finger worrying the wire in a nervous tick that has nothing to do with anticipation, dread pools in her belly instead.

There’s no children to greet Ann when she comes to the door, Marie at school and Jack away at his apprenticeship in California, Jesse has taken to spending his days in the studio when he’s not needed elsewhere, Daisy on the road and Rosalee in College, Ella married and attempting to assimilate with her in-laws. It feels like a ghost house compared to what Ann recalls. Maybe it’s just the passage of time but something terribly wrong and lonely strikes her at the lifelessness of the grand house, like it’s become haunted without a single death.

Unless it’s the death of the Presley’s as a whole. That would do it.

Elaine stands at the top of the stairs like old times, but there’s no gambit of children to wait for and so she speeds down the stairs at a breezy gait, smiling soft and subdued even as she refuses to be coy with her hug. She wraps Thumper up in a deep embrace and Ann squeezes her back, saying a million things at once by their clutching hold, murmuring little half sentences of condolences and “missed you’s”.

“What’d you come for?” Elaine asks her at the dining table after having supplied ice water and coasters for her guest. Ann turned down the saltines Elaine devoured with peculiar relish.

Always a straight shooter, Elaine. It makes Ann sigh and smooth out her skirt, clearing her voice to repay her candor with like. “I came to see what on earth was going on. To see if you were ok. And, I guess I came to see if it’s really happening. Nobody really thinks it’s happening. Or -I don’t know.”

“It’s happening.” Elaine replies with grim resignation.

“I don’t understand because Elvis says you’re the one divorcing and I always thought if one-“ Ann stops herself to scoff, “-I actually never thought either of you would ever divorce. You’re sincere?”

“It’s happening.” Elaine repeats, shielding her saltine chewing with a manicured hand. The action also flashes her still worn wedding band.

“So it’s not a threat?” Ann marvels, “When Roger insisted it was true, I thought it must be some drastic measure, something to get Elvis’ attention. His cooperation, you know, something to just-“

“-I’ve tried many drastic measures to gain that.” Elaine responds, “ all of them failed. I’d never ‘threaten’ something as horrible as this.“

“But…you’d do something…this horrible.” Ann murmurs, scared to play devil's advocate but utterly confused.

“You don’t know what I’ve been dealing with and, what you saw in the early days of residency, even the stuff on the film sets, it’s like aspirins compared to what he’s on now.”

“So it’s the drugs?” she whispers, heartsick, “You can’t handle being…around them? Around him?” she asks, then adds after careful consideration, “I have noticed you seem, seem still very tactile with him. I see the-“ she waves her finger at Elaine’s collarbones, “-I see the marks. Are you scared of him?”

It is unthinkable of Elvis. It really is, and Ann knows her face must show disbelief even when presented with her friend's mottled skin, and she hates herself for doubting a woman’s account, but if Elaine were to say she’s scared, Ann isn’t sure she’d be able to buy that. Not of Elvis. Even under the influence.

“Gosh no.” Elaine scoffs, a beat too late. “I just can’t do it anymore. All of it. Just the typical little things that build up in a marriage, I suppose.”

She tries to grin and Thumper thinks it’s the weakest acting she’s ever seen. Elaine more convincingly played a virgin in their home movies when deepthroating cucumbers for Elvis’ enjoyment.

“How’s Roger? Elaine asks, through with defending herself and Ann feels lost, adrift and unable to get near like she once did.

“Roger is fine.” Ann replies, “He sends his best. How is Ella?”

“Tell him I’m sorry they brought your name up, last week.” Elaine sighs, no apology offered to Thumper. They both know she’d be offended at an apology for being associated with them. “Ella is decidedly pregnant, that’s what she is.”

“Is she?” Thumper coos, followed by an alarmed quavering of hope and concern on her face. “Elaine, that’s-“ it is wonderful despite the circumstances but Elaine’s brittle posture suggests a to-do about it might sink her. “Congratulations, Grandma Tink.” Thumper settles for, daring to reach across the table top, seizing Elaine’s hand and squeezing its saltine dusted elegance.

“Thank you.” she whispers hoarsely, “She calls me everyday. Reminds me of you and me back when … her man he -he sounds sweet. Of course he’ll be gone awhile and so I’m all she has got to talk to about throwing up each morning and watching things swell.” None of this is how they expected or intended, Elvis and Elaine should both be hovering about and annoying their first grandchild before they’re even out in the world. Instead Ella’s perched down in Texas, no doubt terribly homesick, and Elaine’s talking about grandbabies like it’s another addition to the carport. “Tell Roger we’re sorry they brought your name up. Please tell him.”

“We don’t care.” Thumper insists and Elaine hopes that’s an accurate representation of Roger’s feelings. “He only asked-“ Ann stares out the front windows and down the drive towards the gates, summer colors brilliantly lush outside the house, she’s seen this view so many times it hurts, “-he asked that I make sure that…any…videos, and such, were disposed of.” she winces as she gets it out, once her manager, always her manager that man. “I wasn’t sure which of you to ask about them.”

Elaine stares at her intensely as if trying to read her soul. “I’ve most of them upstairs. Ruined by pregame juice mainly but the labels are sentimental so I’ve kept them.” Ann wonders if they’re ruined at all, and if they are she wonders if it’s by orange juice or by something far more lewd. Elvis never had great aim, “I’m sure Elvis has the ones we sent him under lock and key. Either way, you know neither of us would endanger you. You know that, Thumper.”

“Yes, yes I do.” Ann breathes, resting her chin in her hand, mournful at having insinuated otherwise.

“So you can tell Roger they’re not a worry.” Elaine prods with the shadow of an old smirk, “And you never know, in future it might not be so hard to track Naughty and I down at once.”

“Oh?” Ann squints at her in confusion.

“Mhmm.” Elaine just hums and shrugs her shoulders, the purple little mark on her clavicle shadowing with the movement. “Are you saying the night, Thumper?”

Ann leaves that evening more bewildered than when she arrived. “You were right, Roger,” she tells her husband as she settles beside him late that night, “she didn’t tell me a thing. Not really.”

___________________________

|| 9th, JUNE 1977 ||

“They’re gonna stop pressin’ ‘bout Thumper,” the murmur of his voice registering before the hand on her arm does as they both find themselves heading to the bathroom. It’s a flimsy sort of an excuse and one she’s beginning to think the papers and the news cameras see through.

“That’s good.” Her voice is a little too airy but today’s been a back and forth of yelling and excuses and all Elaine’s thinking about is how one of Daisy’s bandmates called her up from a payphone telling her that they almost couldn’t wake her for the show. The show she shouldn’t be doing but the show that Elaine let her do because she’s been playing being an adult for so long that who was she to argue against it?

“Told her we’d make sure it was- nothing came out. Roger was worried about it. For her image and for his, maybe.”

After all, it’s one thing to just be married to Ann-Margret, another thing entirely to be married to Thumper who’d rolled in the hay literally and figuratively with the Presleys at their lowest point. He’s never minded her continued friendship with them but that was before whispers of infidelity turned into whispers of sexual romps that were taped and stored or pictures that were taken and used as masturbatory material. He's never minded until Joe E, bless his soul, implied he might've seen copper locks in a video from Circle K that Elvis had shown a few of the members of the Mafia. Not that the court or anyone could find such a video.

The lock to the bathroom clicks behind Elvis and he turns around, raising an eyebrow. “Now hold on a minute, she- Thumper thought we’d- I’d never-”

“She didn’t. Roger was concerned. She knows us well enough, Elvis.” Still reassuring him as if they’re not going through what is turning out to be the messiest divorce the world has ever seen and likely will ever see. “I told her as much and she felt bad about asking.”

About the tapes and the photos, not so much about their divorce, Elaine reasons. As much as she wants to fault one of her oldest friends -it’s understandable. That was the purpose of the divorce. To come out of left field and appear to all concerned as if the faithful wife has finally grown unable to force herself to put up with Elvis Presley any more. The Colonel wouldn’t question that and had wanted it for years, if anyone were to ask him. Ann- their lil Thumper wouldn’t have been able to keep her plan a secret, her loyalty to Elvis and Elaine would have put her in a spot that Elaine didn’t dare want to shove her into. No, it was better for her to question the same as everyone else. Maybe if this went well they could all have a laugh about it in Hawaii. Or at the very least, Ann could forgive her.

“Don’t know why she didn’t jus’ ask me, ‘m the one who-'' Elvis's voice trails off when it hits him. Why would she ask the person who likely doesn’t hold most of them. Who’s fixin’ to lose everything in a divorce he desperately doesn’t want. “Least she knows now."

Elaine should agree with him, she should agree with him that at least Ann knows now, but she only knows part of the story. She only knows that the man she fell in love with on a movie set and his wife she maybe sometimes loves as more than a friend won’t damage her the way they’re damaging each other. How even Elaine had to joke that maybe it would be easy to run into them together in the future. Even during these hellish days in court they can’t escape each other’s orbits.

Pretending to not love and care for Elvis is an impossible task when what she’s doing is because her love and her care for a man who is sometimes brutish and stupid and selfish is so overwhelming it threatens to choke her.

At her silence, Elvis allows himself to crowd into her space, hands grasping at her hips ever so gently. "How's Rosalee?"

They're both too tired to fight in this bathroom, their energy having been spent outside of it for everything else. Asking about his favorite daughter, the one who's lived and breathed for her daddy for years feels safe.

"Not- she's not very good, Elvis. It's been- she hasn't really been the same." Since what happened. If things were different maybe she'd be taking the time to relax at home and maybe Daisy wouldn't have run off from guilt and - no. Elaine can't dwell on that even as her eyes start to water.

"It's hard on them." His tone isn't accusing, instead managing to just state a fact. This whole divorce has been hard on all of them. Even if Elaine's the one instigating everything he sees how unhealthy she looks. Feels how her body seems to be breaking down in ways that aren't as flashy as his body but the signs are there.

God knows he's not always been the most pious of men in action, that somehow all his good intentions and gospel songs haven’t managed to pull him back as he skidded down the road to hell, yet he’s got such a hankering to hide in the cleft of the rock once again. Acknowledge he’s a man, a failing man, a wayward husband, a prodigal son.

He finds himself reaching for Laney’s hand, palm up in a way she recognizes without a word. She clasps it without hesitation, in a time worn manner they’ve used before marriages, births, trips, shows, bedsides of sick and dying friends and here in this tiled little haven of the courthouse where they’re allowed to be as vulnerable and broken as their Heavenly Father knows them to be.

They bow their heads and Elvis finds himself begging his Almighty not for a return of fortunes but merely a cessation of tragedies. Elvis’ hand twitches, a pinky disentangling from Tink’s clasp and tickling her belly, like a presentment, like a benediction of nothing more than a heartbroken hunch on his part.

_____________________________

|| 29th, JULY 1977 ||

Elvis regrets answering the door to his penthouse the moment it swings open to reveal Johnny Cash with that sort of frantic and half crazed look in his eyes that Elvis thought he'd given up at the beginning of the decade. Wasn't that a hoot, the two of them swore up and down they had gotten clean for their women, the loves of their lives- the ones that God blessed them with to live out their present and future everlasting lives with- only to fall back into those old habits. What a cosmic joke.

"You're a fool, Presley." Short and to the point in a way that only Johnny can manage. Elvis exhales, wondering what exactly he's done to God to earn one of his oldest friends calling him a goddamn fool at the closest thing he's got to a home nowadays. His lil Schnucki comes to visit him, and Jesse's called once or twice but ever since that- ever since he realized how serious his Laney was about leaving him- Graceland ain't his home anymore.

"Ain't gonna say anythin'? No fight left in you?" The door to the penthouse is kicked in and if Elvis was any other person, or Johnny was any other person Elvis might've jumped. As it is, all he manages is a shrug as he pinches his nose. His head's achin' and his eyes hurt and all he wants to do is sleep. Take something to make every whisper floating in his head die down. An older brother telling him how he's ruined his life isn't remotely something he's got the patience for. Not after today's courtroom.

"Whatcha want me to say, John? Ya know everythin', so whatcha want me t'say, hm? Laney's leavin' me, takin' what she wants and leavin' me poorer than I met her."

Not monetarily, no, Elvis figures he could handle that better than the reality of his Laney, his Tink, the bjggest part of his soul other than his mama leaving him. Elaine's leaving him a man with barely any soul left in him to fight and go on. And he swears- lord he swears he felt something different about her recently. Something swelling that shouldn't.

"What I want'ya to say is that I'm gonna go back to my hotel and me and June are gonna tell each'otha that this whole thing's jus' you all been stubborn as a pair o'mules. Cause if it ain't, I gotta be real concerned June's gonna up and do the same thing on me." Johnny's always been someone who doesn't let Elvis get away with half the things everyone else does. Maybe it's because of how they started things together or how Johnny knows that half the reason he's got June is because of Elvis. Or maybe it was some misplaced need to be a brother to Elvis- to fill in a spot he figures his twin would've.

"June ain't gonna-" Elvis starts before Johnny uses the two inches he's got on Elvis to his advantage, staring the other man down as he cuts him off.

"Lane wouldn't've. Shouldn't've. Yet she is. This ain't- this ain't 'bout whatever damn excuse she's got. Can't be. There's somethin' you ain't tellin' everyone."

More and more Elvis has to laugh at his life and how everyone seems to think he's got some power over his Laney. That this whole divorce and the way he's embarrassing the both of them day after day is just another show. A snow job as the colonel would put it. This would be so much easier if that was the case. It isn't the case though, it isn't the case and Elvis feels his laughter escape him like the boom of a cannon.

"If there's anythin'- The whole damn country thinks I'm an idiot who can't keep his wife and here- I don't need you to be thinkin' 'm an idiot who don't know some grand plan his wife's cooked up. Ain't no plan. Ain't nothin' I ain't already groveled about and cried about in those hallowed halls. Laney jus' don't want me any more."

A silence settles between the two men at that revelation with Elvis breathing sounding so labored that even through the haze of his own drugs Johnny levels a look at his friend. It’s only after he’s sure that the other man won’t pass out and die on him that he actually speaks.

"You- You ain't me. She ain't Vivian. She- Elvis there ain't no way she's- that ain't it. You're both- you two can't keep your hands off each other even divorcin'. She- she still wants ya.”

“She wants my cock, John. Wants my money. Wants my house. My mama’s house. Know I said it was hers the moment we got hitched but- it wasn’t ever supposed to be hers. It’s- It’s ours.” Elvis isn’t one to break down, not in front of certain people and Johnny might be one of his friends that are near and dear to him but he doesn’t want to lose it in front of him. Doesn’t want to cry and blubber like he has been in the courtroom, pleading and begging for Elaine to just see sense. “We don’t- She don’t love me any more. T-That’s all there is to it. No grand con-spear-ah-see. Jus’ my wife wantin’ to be my ex-wife. Don’t know if I blame her. I ain’t-”

“You been a better husband than I was. Better husband than a lotta men. If- if 'Lane wanted to leave ya? She'd have done it back in the 60s. When you were carryin' on wit' what's her name- Swedish girl- fire hair. But she went 'n made friends wit' her. That woman's supposed to be yours till Kingdom Come 'n beyond. This doesn't make a single lick of sense and ya know it!"

One would think that nothing could echo in this penthouse and yet somehow Johnny's booming yell, filled with bass that Elvis is sure have made men greater than him bend and cower, echoes and reverberates in his ears. A stark reminder that Elaine and him seem to affect everyone around them for better or worse. Elvis's heart pumps a little harder as he tries to wrap his aching head around everything for what feels like the millionth time.

"I-I know it don't. This- you know these things don't take this long, John. I've-I been draggin' this out. Stickin' my damn heels in the mud. Anythin' to get her to come back, to see what- anythin' to not lose her. And she's jus'- ain't none of it workin'. Daisy up'n'ran off, Rosalee jus' wants me to be near her mama or her mama near me. Jesse's lookin'-"

"That what it is? Her doing it for the kids?” Johnny’s question has him tilting his head, not entirely unlike the millions of dogs Elvis’s children have had over the years. He ought to be offended Johnny cut him off so easily and without a care in the world and yet Johnny’s one of the few people he’d let do that. “She’s doin’ this for your kids.”

For once, Elvis has to look at Johnny and guess at what he means whether it’s because the man is too stunned to put it into words or because he doesn’t want to even entertain the idea, Elvis doesn’t know. He can hear his heartbeat going a bit too and a bit too hard in his ears as he answers.

“Ya mean- have i been failin’ them too? Have a been as bad of a father to ‘em as ‘ve been a bad husband?” The laugh that leaves Elvis sounds more like a sob than anything else. Johnny purses his lips even as he listens. "Ya mean how I found out I'm havin' a grandbaby through Laney? Or how Daisy's worse than you’n’I together on whatever she's takin'? Or how my boys acted like superheroes for their sister? How my lil Schnucki had- how I had to find that out from the Harrisons and my boys? ‘N I wasn’t there to blow those fools’ heads clean off their necks?”

Johnny realizes right then he’s made a mistake coming here. Or maybe just made a mistake pressing this point like it’s honestly any of his damn business. “You haven’t-”

Elvis cuts him off with a wave of his hand as he steps away, trying to feel less like a caged animal. “That’s right, I haven’t. I haven’t, John. Haven’t been there, haven’t given ‘em what they need. I had one job. Take care of all of ‘em and love ‘em. Failed so- I don’t blame her, John. I- I love her. Ya know I do. You know this sorta love but I can’t, I can’t make her love me again. S-she ain’t gonna love me again. Not the way she has.” His breath comes in short pants as his hand shakes and his leg jitters like he’s a man twenty years and nearly ten children younger. “I tried fixin’ this. The kids- the kids tried fixin’ this. But they can’t- can’t get through to her, these days! They’re all beggin’ and cryin’ and torn up and the Tink I know wouldn’t’ve lasted a week after causin’ such hurt to our babies. Well this new edition of her’s done made it close to a year.”

Johnny opens his mouth to speak only for Elvis to hold up a finger and force himself to take a deep breath, like Laney told him to those times after she thumped his heart back to life for him. Laney’d get what she wants if he died but he’s got a grandbaby he’s gotta see. Wants to try and see. “A year. Been nearly a year and it ain’t workin’. Nothin’- been tryin’ to remind her’ve what we had. What I give t’her. It-” Elvis starts to trail off, the fight that Johnny had put inside him slowly deflating till all he’s left with is the shell of a man who’s bone tired. Bone tired and losing everything no matter what fight he puts up. His shoulders slump.

Watching someone who’s as larger than life as Elvis Presley seemingly fold in on himself feels wrong in Johnny’s mind, but it gives him the answer he needs. It gives him the answer he’s looking for when it comes to just what’s going on with this whole divorce and what’s going on with Elaine and Elvis. His legs cross over to where Elvis is in only a few steps and without missing a beat, his arm wraps around Elvis’s shoulder. Elvis might not be his brother in blood but they’ve gone through enough that- that he wouldn’t leave him out in the cold without a hint of comfort.

“You gotta make peace wit’ it, then. Gotta- The Lord ain’t gonna want to see the two of ya fightin’ till ya keel over and die. Gotta give- If what she wants is to not be your wife any more, ya gotta give it to her. Just to make peace.” His voice isn’t much louder than a low rumble and yet Elvis can hear him clear as day.

“She won’t be my Laney any more. Won’t be my Tink.” A response as if he's a child being denied his favorite toy. Johnny doesn't stop himself from huffing out a laugh.

"But she'll still be Elaine, your children's mama. It ain't like you won't ever see her, EP." But that’s not the problem, that’s never been the problem and from the way Johnny’s looking at him, he knows that. “But ya gotta- it’s not doin’ either of ya a bit o’good to be draggin’ it on and on. Not after everythin’. Been livin’ ‘part for so long-” Johnny trails off, hand moving to rub at his eyes as he shakes his head. “Nothin’ you’ve done’s fixed it. Might not be meant to be fixed in those ways.”

“I-I- I don’t have anythin’ to fall on, John. I leave her it’s jus’ me and-” The medicine I got coursin’ through me, is what he should say. “I don’t know how to not be her husband.”

A silence settles over the two of them, punctuated only by Elvis’s heavy breaths and Johnny’s sharp and quick ones until Johnny settles himself against the wall, crossing his arms and raising his leg to press against it.

“Never said ya had to stop actin’ like you were.”

__________________________________

|| 6th, AUGUST 1977 ||

It’s a supreme irony that after a year of wishing for a cessation of that old stubbornness, that bitter pride of his, when such submission comes in the form of a mute and sullen husband opposite in the courtroom, Elaine feels her heart hammer in her chest, bewildered and terrified as he concedes one settlement after another in quick session.

Jesse gasps beside her at the change, even looks ready to beg her to reconsider her greediness as 90% gets handed over without a hint of the raging qualms her opposition has been voicing for five months.

Only Colonel Parker appears scared as shit, angrily grabbing at Elvis’ limp arm and trying to interrupt his directions with the lawyers. Each new verdict gets waved through by a lazy flick of a bejeweled hand and Elaine thinks the repetition of the gavel granting her all she wants could make for a decent backbeat in the studio.

After an agreement to give up 90% of his catalog, Elaine and Jesse both share a look, heartbroken and relieved that he’s really, truly, finally given up.

It’s obvious to all that it’s a bodily wearing out, Elvis looks awful and no amount of jewelry or eyeliner or Snow Job paraphernalia can hide the fact Elaine’s husband is a sick man. Even the papers who’ve found him easy pickings for ridicule and blame suddenly find some heart for his obvious suffering, even if the compassion is wedged between headlines about his expanding waistline and her latest money grab.

“What’s with you?” she demands and this time it’s her hand around his wrist, the unsteady clop of his boots following her heels after the click of the bathroom latch. When she drops his wrist his gold studded hand lands heavily by his thigh, he makes no move to crowd her, to grip her hair and kiss her like old times. “What was all that about?” she finds herself angry instead of relieved, mimics his lazy hand waves and scoffs in his face. She knew and planned on this day coming, but it doesn’t make it less unsettling as she takes in the victory of her spirit over his. He’s her man after all, her daddy and her provider, tough and proud and one of a kind and she’s beat him at the game of wills. She can feel her eyes pooling and angrily runs a hand under her nose as he stares at her with a blank, droopy expression.

“M’tryin’ to make peace.” Elvis shrugs, it was Johnny’s advice. Whatever it took, even if it meant giving in, he’s the man of their house and he’s here to make peace. Maybe if they end on a kind note he’ll be thought of, invited into the inner circle even even, by the time Ella pops out their grandbaby. “Never cared about the fuckin’ catalogue Tink, was only ever about buyin’ time to convince you to stay.”

The colonel’s panic at this latest settlement, one that finished the final prying open of his carefully constructed facade, one that’s exposed him to years of investigations, jail time maybe -though few outside of Elaine, Mr. Corleone and the FBI know that yet- is like sipping a mojito after a long day baking in the sun for Elaine.

Two decades of her saying he wasn’t right and Vernon telling her to go mind the carpet bill, change a diaper, redo a curl.

It should be refreshing, it should be a tonic to the way she feels shaky most mornings and ravenous in the evenings. Instead she finds herself trembling and laying an icy hand to Elvis’ burning forehead, registering the unnatural heat even in this chilled bathroom. It’s not just the stupid velvet coat, one blue eye is far more dilated than the other now she’s pulled his glasses down. He flinches from it, whether from the brightness of the bare bulbs or her touch, she isn’t sure.

“What’ve they got you on?” she sounds like a frog, throat all constricted and voice thin. She cares, she still cares so much and it could’ve been just yesterday she folded her handsome young groom into that bathtub in Germany and held him through the shakes. She wishes she could ask him ‘why do you always waste my love?’ But somehow, even after all her cruelty, that feels a little mean. “Baby, talk to me, what’s -“

Elvis grabs her hand, gently this time and he folds it with her other in both of his, a tan, sparkly little cage, she wonders how long it’ll take him before he pulls his wedding band off. Will he discard it before they make it out of the courthouse today? “Don’t you fret yourself, lil mama, those days are over.” he rumbles as he squeezes her hands and she wonders if he means days of fretting or drugs, they coincide often enough, “You jus’ take care of y’self, ok?” he sucks in a trembling breath and his glasses pinch between her fingers in his squeeze, “Without me there to nag ya bout it I-I -you take care of y’self.”

“Oh Elvis-'' she whimpers, moving closer, wanting to beg for some forgiveness, all clever plans and well timed revelations beginning to fray as she watches him rally his old magnanimity despite his grief.

_____________________________

|| 28th, SEPTEMBER 1977 || >>

He’s not alone in this concern, Elaine doesn’t know if she has Jesse or Daisy to blame for the way Marlon shows up in Memphis like that Yankee son of a bitch belongs that land bound. There’s never been a reason to see Brando except on one coast or another and it’s jarring for Elaine, seeing him take up space that’s so uniquely Elvis’ property, even if it’s under her name.

To see him in her home. Her true home.

She’s no good at hiding her nerves or the exhausted paranoia of wondering how Elvis will react when he hears of this visit. Marlon reads her like a book and leans against her kitchen counter, acting like Mary isn’t throwing them a million side eyes over the biscuit batter, and asks after her well being.

“Pretty terrible, thanks. And you?” she shrugs, wringing out a dish towel over and over. She doesn’t know when she became so fidgety, nowadays it seems she’s always betraying her nerves with restless hands and she never had that trouble before. Always a baby to hold if she needed the excuse, she guesses.

Her last baby is nine years old. And so she wrings out her dish towels and stares back at an old lover with the weary openness of a woman who doesn’t really care anymore. Elvis has been her one goal, and saving him is killing her as effectively as it is him. Those last days she wasn’t sure he was going to keep making it into the courtroom, shifting in his chair not from her nails furrows but from the repeated shots in his rump. The ones that have killed him a few times over.

Jesse made a visit to him in Vegas. Elaine doesn’t know what he said but her boy has barely spoken since. She asked her son how his father was, quite aware she doesn’t know the particulars from his fevered attentions in the handicapped bathroom of the Santa Monica courthouse. Her man would crawl out of his grave for the chance to make love one last time, it’s not a good gauge. Jesse said he keeps the curtains closed constantly. That he’s not letting anyone up. Charlie barely let Jesse up. His eyes are bad, so bad the curtains stay closed, otherwise Jesse couldn’t tell, couldn’t get a good look at him. He didn’t stay for the concert. Cissy says his voice has held up this time, at least.

“Pretty terrible.” She tells Marlon, because he’s always been more friend than lover, and that’s why he’s in Memphis when it’s a fool's errand anyway.

For all Marlon will speak his mind about this that and the other on things he cares about- yet God does he *care* about Elaine and so he bites his tongue at the first thought that pops into his head. *You've been pretty terrible for years and now you decided to care and do something about it*.

Instead: "You look terrible."

Which is a gross oversimplification of his feelings, but Elaine doesn't watch as his eyes slide over her pale and wan cheeks that look thinner than he's ever seen them. She doesn't watch how his eyes drift downward to breasts that are pressing against the dress she's wearing.

They remind him of when she was pregnant with Marie. They remind him of her breasts when she cried out beneath him against her tiki bar. If he closes his eyes he can picture them bouncing in front of his face, begging for him to bury his face in them. The boy- her oldest boy was right. Marlon doesn't even need to look at her stomach and yet some sick twisted masochistic tendency compels him to as if that'll change things.

It's small. Smaller than he figures any of her bumps have been and yet it's there. Mocking and growing at its own pace.

Proof that Elaine Phipps wants to remain Elaine Presley till one of them dies and maybe even beyond. Marlon can't help the way he exhales through his nose, unable to look away even as Elaine talks,

"Marlon, are you even listening?"

No. But he needs to.

"Mind wandered off, you know how I get, Elaine." He straightens up and tries to stay alert, “So, all this really fixed things for ya, eh?” he quips sardonically and she smiles, rolls her eyes, fully aware he’s not mocking her, he’s mocking the hopelessness of it ever working.

“Yeah. It’s all coming up roses.” she snarks.

“I uh-“ he stipples his fingers on the counter and weighs his next move, “-I heard that Colonel Parker’s recently landed in some seriously hot water. Something about the audits during the divorce and how certain things don’t match up. Got it from the papers, you know how long they stretch a few vague facts. I had to read two whole pages to get ‘fraud’ and ‘debts’ out of them. Anyways, I thought you’d find that nice -hot water, all that.”

“So hot it’ll boil his coat of lies right off with any luck.” Elaine seethes and her sudden passion takes Marlon by surprise. Stirs an old appreciation for just how much verve is always bubbling beneath her doll-like exterior. His fingers itch to let out the excess in a gush around his fingers. “Illegal alien.” She expounds, warming to her argument in the way of someone long overdue a listen, “Would you believe it? All those endless homebound tours -runing Elvis into the ground on the same circuit simply because that greedy fool couldn’t tag along. Couldn’t step outside the country. Always wondered why he never crashed our time in Germany, knew he would if could. Fake, heartless, toad.”

“Fuck him.” Marlon agrees vehemently and Elaine looks up with the same appreciative eyes of a decade past when she got no arguments from him, unlike all the menfolk surrounding her most days. Marlon abides by a simple rule: if it pisses Elaine Presley off, he needs no further research to say it ain’t shit.

“Yes, well, I’ll leave that to the Justice Department, I’ve done my bit.” Elaine sighs, her little victory crow short lived and even with his bias for the unattached Miss Phipps, Marlon can see how hollow her achievements are without Elvis to pat her pretty head for them. “It’s been weeks and I- I’m afraid he’s angry Marlon.” they’re not talking of the Colonel now, Marlon can tell by her love-sick face, “I knew he would be, with the divorce and probably with framing Parker but -he was so kind that day. So kind I thought he might’ve forgiven or just, I don’t know but now, now he won’t even answer my calls. Marie hasn’t gotten through either and -it’s not like him, Marlon, it’s not.”

“You got something pressing to tell him?” Brando asks and doesn’t even bother to hide the way his eyes flick back over her ripening form, pondering if her boy hadn’t been silly after all, going on about her not noticing. If he were a woman, a pretty woman like Elaine still is, Marlon would be weighing those growing tits each day with pride and mesmerization -but then again, Elaine’s had more on her mind than appreciating her own assets like a horny old star who never learned to aim for his own league.

“No I only wanted to-” she bites her lip as if unsure or else what she wants is unspeakably optimistic for a woman who just threw it all away. “I missed his voice.”

_______________________________

<<< || 16th, AUGUST 1977 ||

The knock at the door startled them both. Elvis pulled his back from it and faced it like he was gonna defend his wife from the mob he suspected was outside. Old habits die hard.

“Y’all?” Jesse yelled through the thick wood, “There’s half the city crowdin’ outside, there’s not gonna be a path to squeeze through soon.”

“Yeah alright son, thank you.” Elvis cleared his throat as he dropped her hands, straightening his posture fully. “You ready?” he asked dully, eager to get the worst moment of his life over.

“I gue- I- yes.” she stumbled over her meaning and smoothed out her black jacket.

"Daddy?" Jesse's voice was heard over the wood once more and both Elaine and Elvis took matching deep breaths, sweat droplets falling on Elvis’s eyes with a wince.

It's not pity that had Elaine putting the glasses back on Elvis’s eyes, her fingertips brushing against his temples in a simple gesture she's done a million times before. No, it's her last hurrah as his wife, her last action as his wife. They may have signed the papers within the past hour and legally she may be Elaine Phipps once more but until they walk out of this bathroom and this courthouse she was Elaine Presley, wife of Elvis Presley. A low hum reverbated against her chest before she pulled away, a soft smile across her lips.

"There there, Mopey, all better," she whispered in the sort of tone she only uses for the children when bandaging a hurt. "Let's- let's go face the music."

“Got me more nervous than any curtain I’ve been behind,” he joked even as it falls flat and his breath comes quicker and quicker. This was the beginning of their new life as separate entities. As an ex-husband and an ex-wife.

The door wasn’t that heavy when he shut it earlier and yet it felt as if someone had remade it out of concrete as Elvis tried to push it open once the lock clicked open. He could already see the flashing bulbs from the cameras and the press of the mass of people outside waiting for them. They were no stranger to crowds but this one was one none of them wanted to face. A look was exchanged between the three of them as their shoes clicked against the floor of the courthouse, a silent acknowledgement to try and get to their waiting cars as soon as possible.

"Jess! Mama!" Elvis and Elaine looked up through the mob of people as they pushed and pulled at each other trying to catch a glimpse of the former couple with their oldest son. They found themselves half blinded by flashes of cameras and the sun's own light, trying to find the source of the bellowed words. "We're over heyer!"

Jack then. Jack who was growing more and more into Elvis’s twin if not in bulk but in charm and whose shout sounds something like Sargent Presley’s in the army. Elaine looked at Elvis, biting her lip as she did.

"Soundin’ more like me everyday." Elvis commented as if he was commenting on the weather. It had never been hard to talk to Elaine. Yet in this moment, Elvis found himself at a loss for words. And from the way Elaine was looking at him, the feeling was mutual. Matching pink tongues darted out to wet dry lips and Elvis opened his mouth, his arm outstretched as if he was going to grab at Elaine's only for his oldest son to pop up between them, taking Elaine's arm without a second thought.

"I've got you mama. I gotcha, let's go."

The look he leveled at Elvis made every single moment in this courtroom for the past five months seem like child's play. To have his oldest son look at him like he did with any suitor that tried to come Elaine’s way, hurt. But that was his life now wasn't it? That's Elvis Presley’s life without Elaine Phipps. That's Elaine Phipps's life without Elvis Presley, protected only by her sons and her daughters from a man she once called husband. The man she once loved with every fiber of her being or so Elvis thought. Make peace with it, Johnny said. Make peace with her, Johnny said. Elvis didn't think that it would feel like this.

“I know you do, Jesse. Let me say goodbye to your father.” Elaine said as softly as she could in order to avoid the prying ears of every journalist between here and her car. “Jack and your siblings aren’t going anywhere. Not in this crowd. Even if Jack’d run them over to protect me.”

A smile unbidden crossed Elvis’s lips at the joke between their eldest and Elaine. She wasn’t wrong, but that was his boys and their love for their mother in a nutshell, wasn’t it? Capable of murder to protect her the same as him. She- she would be alright even if- even if what he suspected to be true was.

“Jack drove us here, all of us.” She explained as her eyes flitted across his form one last time to check for imperfections and for signs he might be needing anything. “I’ll make sure Ella calls you about-”

“It’s fine, Elaine. Made my bed, gotta lie in it now.” His eyes scanned across the crowd, even as he winced from the light of the sun and the flashes even through his sunglasses, finally settling on his car with Colonel Parker in the passenger seat, waiting for Elvis with a look of pure displeasure and mild panic on his face. “Gotta get him and I outta here ‘fore I give him a heart attack.”

Elaine’s face hardened at the words, and Elvis, in a fit of nostalgic responsibility for her happiness, moved to place a soft kiss against her cheek, squeezing at her hands as he did.

“S’been the joy of my life knowin’ you, Miss Phipps.”

🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀

If you’d like to be tagged in this particular series please drop a note below. 🌹

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[bellesdreamyprofile]

sad days with y/n - 1970´s elvis

You've never experienced long-term happiness before. You've had great days that even turned into happy, delightful weeks - which you were thankful for as you were finally able to spend your energy on the people you loved. But when those happy days turned into sudden pits of endless sorrow, you felt guilty and as powerless as ever.

Why did you feel like this? You thought of a necklace and the love of your life bought it for you without batting an eye. Business class, shoes, hair, makeup and even an entire room with every book that your little heart desired.

Why did you feel like this?

You sighed as you gazed out of the large window, shiny Las Vegas lights blinked every now and then. People's chatter mixed with loud thoughts running in your head. You couldn't even concentrate on what the wives were saying, let alone at the grand entrance Elvis made in the room after another one of his magnificent shows.

"—and Joe kept complaining at the pair of shoes I bought the week before we departed for Vegas.", Joanie tapped her cigarette on the ashtray. Patty nodded in understanding and lit up her own cigarette.

"Red's been the same.", she rolled her eyes. "Like I haven't given him a son just months ago. That's the excuse I like to use anyways."

The chit chat went on for another hot minute and you couldn't help but sigh.

"How about you y/n? You and Elvis thinking of having a couple?", you blinked at Joanie's words.

"Sorry?"

"I meant if you were thinking of having kids.", if it weren't for your pitiful mood you would've blushed.

"We never talked about it, no.", you shook your head. "Now that he's started performing again a-and with the tours... I wouldn't wanna do it on my own.", you gave a brief explanation. Joanie and Pat exchanged a look, making you frown a little.

"You really think that Elvis would take some time off to stay with you?", she asked with irony laced in her voice.

Your lips parted. "When the baby comes, yes. I'm not expecting him to be 24/7 with me all throughout my pregnancy.", you said honestly.

"Oh, honey.", Patty shook her head and took a sip of her drink. "A man like Elvis Presley would never leave the luxury of a Vegas hotel and the love of thousands of fans for — don't take it personally — for a baby."

At this point your night couldn't take a worse turn. You hadn't been feeling your best and now they were trying to convince you not to have a baby with Elvis. Like the baby would've been neglected by a man like him. It secretly made you wonder if your dreams of Elvis being a wonderful and caring father would ever come true.

"You're telling me that Red didn't take some time off to be with you and your baby?", you raised an eyebrow.

"Honey, he's Elvis' bodyguard. In no universe would he have been by my side.", she said, nodding. Her eyes wandering outside as if she was reliving every single thing she went through. "Giving birth alone, taking care of the baby alone, feeding the baby alone... It's a lonely life."

"For the wife of the Mafia.", Joe added in. "But for the wife of the King..."

"It's even lonelier.", Patty finished off and sighed, her now finished cigarette on the ashtray. "Shame you don't smoke y/n, it's a great stress reliever.", she stood up and dusted off her skirt. "I'll back in a sec.", she exchanged a knowing look with Joanie, who reluctantly stood up. They knew what happened if they left the King's wife all by her lonesome. But they had already screwed up the moment they started talking.

"Yeah, I'll go grab another drink.", Joe offered you a tightlipped smile. "You want anything, y/n?", you shook your head and gazed outside the large window once again. You sighed and gulped as you felt salty tears form in your eyes. You let out a few shaky breaths and then decided to stand up and leave the party. Grabbing your purse and wiping the fallen tears away, a voice interrupted your actions.

"Hey honey.", it was him. It almost made you want to burst out in tears. You turned around and automatically smiled at the pretty face looking back at you.

"Hey my love.", you placed a hand on his cheek and tenderly kissed his lips. "Great show, like always.", you complimented, offering the best smile you could muster. But it seemed like he had already caught up on the glistening tears in your eyes.

"Thank you baby.", he said lowly and placed another kiss on your lips. Elvis gently took hold of your hand. "Let's go somewhere quieter for a moment, yes?", you simply nodded, not understanding why he would leave his own party. Jerry was quick to approach him, but Elvis waved him off.

"I'll come back later.", he justified and led you both in another room. "Go sit on that couch, honey.", you followed his words and sat down on the couch facing the large Vegas window. You sighed once again and that's when you realized he was going to confront you as to why you weren't as socially active as every other wife was.

Or perhaps he was going to compare you to the other girlfriends he had-

"What's the matter with you, lovie?", his finger gently moved your chin in his direction. You sighed, not being able to meet those baby blues. "Mhm? Honey?", another shaky sigh escaped your pink lips.

"C'mon baby, deep breaths for me.", Elvis grasped your hand and squeezed it — that was when everything started crumbling.

"It's been— It's been so hard lately, Elvis.", tears were now rolling down your cheeks as the built up tension was suddenly released. His hand was no longer on yours as your body was now engulfed by his own. How could you have doubted this man?

"I feel— I feel so fucking sad all the time I-I don't know what to do.", you confessed through your sobs. Though Elvis chose to remain silent and let you continue. "Then the girls said— The girls said that if we had a baby... You would leave me to care for it on my own.", that was when your gaze met his. "I can't raise a baby without you, Elvis. I can't.", you buried your face in his chest, desperately seeking for his familiar warmth.

Elvis' hand rubbed up and down your back, bringing you impossibly closer to him. His thoughts brought him reminders of the couple of days where he wasn't able to check up on you as he usually would. He was aware he was your comfort person and yet he chose to prioritize his career over your wellbeing. Elvis knew you would never resent him for that — you were his very own cheerleader. Yet he couldn't help but feel like he let you down — to the point of little, glistening tears rolling down your usual rosy cheeks.

And those women letting you believe he wouldn't be there for you when your little bundle of joy would eventually come along? They were going to pay. But there was a warm, fuzzy feeling in his tummy at the mention of you two having a yittle baby of your own. A little baby that would be the perfect mix of you and him. Those women were able to turn something so beautiful into something so fearful to you.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, Satnin.", his finger grazed your teary cheeks. "With the new tour and the death threats— I just wanted to keep ya safe—"

You jolted up, giving him a confused look. "Death threats? Elvis!", but his eyes remained in yours, now proud you were finally able to look at him.

"You're telling me you would've been able to handle that information, baby?", Elvis raised an eyebrow and you lowly huffed, muttering a little "no".

"But still. You should've told me. I could've helped.", you justified and wiped a tear away. Elvis still gave you that look.

"Yeah because little miss over here was also open enough to tell me what's going on in her pretty head.", he tapped your temple, making you look down. "Little one, look at me.", another finger brought your chin up once again. "You need to understand that your emotions are in no way too much or not enough to tell me. You'll feel so much better afterwards, don't you?", you nodded and sighed, realizing that all of this could've been avoided with an honest conversation.

"I love you.", Elvis said firmly. "And it hurts seeing my best girl like this.", he placed a tender kiss on your lips, your eyes fluttering shut at his action. "Promise me you'll tell me everything from now on?", he showed you his pinky, making a small grin appear on your lips.

"You're silly.", you said in a light tone, but your words made his heart soar and his lips smile the biggest smile.

"Only for you, honey.", Elvis hooked your pinky with his and brought them closer to his lips, placing a small kiss on top. He suddenly furrowed, remembering a topic he forgot to mention to you. "Y/N?"

You looked his way and softly hummed.

"You do know that those bitches know nothing about you and I, right?"

You complained at the choice of words. "Elvis—"

"When the time comes for us to have a mini us...", he trailed off, mindlessly playing with the rings around your fingers. You fought back a small smile at his anxiety-led actions. "I would take off all the time we need. There ain't no way you're raising our child on your own, honey.", his eyes searched for yours and his honesty touched your heart.

It should be a given for a parent to take care of their child — but with Elvis and the world he has created for his fans, family and friends, it was a little more challenging. That's why you appreciated his words. Though only time will tell.

"Thank you, baby.", you said, letting your finger wander on his jaw. You placed your lips on his and then pulled away, feeling your heart as light as a feather. "I don't know what I would've done without you.", you confessed and he pouted.

"What would I do without you, honey?"

MASTERLIST

[kiragecko]

How to Support People With Faceblindness/Prosopagnosia Online

This isn't super important. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only faceblind person whose response to not recognizing people was to stop caring about celebrities (and most live action). Unless it's an important political post, we're unlikely to NEED to recognize a random image on Tumblr. But if it you have the energy, this really helps:

Caption photos with the names of whoever is in them. Even if it's someone like Elvis Presley or Donald Trump, who EVERYONE recognizes.

I can't consistently recognize Marilyn Monroe. And I don't want reassurance that she looks just like someone else, so you understand. There will be someone you don't understand, and I still won't be able to recognize them. I'm bad at faces.¹

-

I notice that reaction images are especially hard for me. People LOVE seeing how much context they can remove while still leaving a reaction image recognizable. I have to guess that the zoomed-in eyes are probably still the Obama reaction image from years back. They're just eyes to me. Even normal reaction images are hard if they don't have distinct enough poses.

If you can mention the person's name in the alt text or a caption below your reaction image, it would help a lot.

-

This doesn't apply to people whose names aren't well known. If their identity isn't adding to the meaning, I don't care who it is.

For example:

With the 'then perish' Obama meme, part of the humour is that the then-president is the one telling us to die. So mentioning that it's him aids my understanding of the meme.

With 'Dead Dove: Do Not Eat', mentioning that the actor is Michael Bluth, or that the scene is from Arrested Development, allows me to go find out the context if I want to know more. (Which might have stopped me from distributing misinformation to thousands of people about the meaning of the phrase!)

As far as I can tell, the fact that the 'snakes started manifesting' guy is named Uhrie Anthony is NOT particularly important to the meme. I don't need to recognize him from somewhere else to understand what's going on.

-

I don't struggle nearly as much with cartoon characters. Just live-action/real people. Not sure if there are faceblind people that will struggle that way. It's still nice to get context for where some anime character is from, but it doesn't affect me the same way as seeing a random blond woman on my dash, and trying to figure out if she's a singer, an actor, an activist, or something else completely.

-

¹ I'm not annoyed, just trying to support those who struggle with reading comprehension. This isn't about the individual people I'm mentioning. It's about my ability to recognize ANYONE.

[elvispresleywife]

Elvis Skin Appreciation Post!!

I know this is a weird post and BE WARNED A WHOLE BUNCH OF RAMBLING AHEAD! Ok so I just wanted to make this post because while it's 100% natural to fall in love with the sexy, charismatic, entertainer it's also nice to have a reminder of the thing that made him human and yeah so...for me his skin is one of them. Now I'm BIG into skincare and things and looking at his skin, I'm just fascinated by every pore and acne scar on his face. It just made him more human you know? Because like I said it's nice to put him on this pedestal and keep him all high and mighty and admire him but...it's also nice to look and hear about the human side of him you know? I don't know maybe I'm crazy but I love to look at his photos, and look at him, his imperfections make him more beautiful to me. All those enlarged pores that he tried so hard to hide and even got dermatologists to see him to get them "fixed". Those acne scars just make him even more real....it reminds you he was human....and he wasn't perfect, physically, behaviorally, emotionally, any of it...and for me anyway...it makes me admire him more. The fact that he still did what he did and achieved what he did and was human you know? Like he wasn't a superman or anything...he started off as an ordinary, poor boy from Tupelo training to be an electrician who in his words was "wired the wrong way" and ended up being one of the most if not THE most influential artists of the 20th century. He has and always will have my heart. I love him so much. So I don't know. That probably made no sense at all but...for me I like it when I see things that remind me that he's human, whether that be some scars I never knew he had, or voice crack in one of his takes, or a stutter in his interviews, even hearing about his temper flaring makes me love him all the more because it again reminds me he was human. He wasn't perfect and yet, he still made it to where he did. I don't know I guess this turned into a hopeful message for people but the moral of the story, keep pushing on...you never know where you might end up.

Weird segway from skin to this but anyway...HAVE A NICE DAY/NIGHT 😭🤣❤️❤️

TCB ⚡

[jhoneybees]

How could you not find him attractive in his later years?

Look at that smile🥺

Alright, if you all know what this post is going to be about then that's great, for those who don't then you may scroll past or keep reading.

I definitely don't want my blog to become ranting about drama and disagreements or anything, I'm just willing to share my opinion on this matter.

Please just ignore if I don't make sense but there has been something going on about sexualizing Elvis in his later years, some people don't like him in his 'fatter' stage which is fine, understandable, not your type, but to go tell people that it's disgusting and disrespectful to sexualize him.

One thing, those people you're saying that to they love him in so many ways than one. Definitely not just because of his looks and two it's not just Elvis that gets sexualized.

For those who like him for his looks, that's great, I think he's a sexy, breedable, adorable, sweet man as well.

Anyways, it's not very respectful for you to force something like this on others. If you don't agree with what we're doing then sorry to be the break of bad news but that's just too bad.

I don't know about others but I really do think for us to love him even in his later years, it would make him so happy and loved. I've read somewhere he's had a face lift and you know why? Of course, it's to keep being good looking on screen and pictures but it's also because he was insecure.

Now just think about that, would you like it if people are laughing and calling you names for your weight and figure even though your mind is already filled with terrible self doubting thoughts and not only that but having awful, energy draining health conditions?

And how about even after you pass there are people, forty odd years into the future, doing the same thing? Saying that you 'lost your good looks' because of your growing, wider figure?

Would you like that?

To me it seems like you're just being disrespectful.

I just think we gotta support each other with what we like, love and enjoy and I really do think Elvis would think the same.

[sissylittlefeather]

Fools Rush In (where angels fear to tread)

A/N: I don't know what's up with me and elevators right now, but here's a one-shot I hatched after a conversation with @atleastpleasetelephone about what I'd do if I met Elvis in an elevator. This is obviously the fantasy version 😂

Thanks to @ccab for helping me with this one. It was a little rough at times!

Warnings: 18+ SMUT minors DNI, cussing, kissing, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), p in v penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie, someone has a glass of wine

Word count: ~3k

You work at the hotel, so you're no stranger to this elevator. You ride in it all the time to take things up to guests when they ask for them. Thats kind of been your job since you started here three months ago: fetch-things-for-guests-girl. You're supposed to just be working the front desk but for some reason anytime anyone needs anything, it falls on you to run it up to them. You've run up toothbrushes and newspapers and even trays of room service. That's really not supposed to be your job but you're not sure you can say no when they ask. That's probably why you keep ending up on the elevator.

Today, you brought a guest a sewing kit. He was a nice older gentleman and he asked if you could help him with a button on his shirt. Again, not a thing that's part of your job description but you did it anyway. He even tried to give you a dollar for helping. A sweet gesture, but you assured him it was unnecessary.

Now you're on the elevator headed down. Or at least, you were supposed to be headed down but for some reason the elevator starts rising towards the penthouse. You don't think much about it, not sure which rich or famous person is up there right now. You look at your shoes and notice the toe of the left one is scuffed. You're trying to figure out how that might've happened when the elevator dings and the doors slide open. It takes you a second to look up. But when you do, your heart stops and you do a double take.

Elvis Presley.

And he's alone.

He gives you a small smile and steps into the elevator with you. You can't stop yourself from whispering.

"It's you..." He gives you a sideways look and smiles.

"It's me." You look up at the ceiling and try to politely ignore him, assuming he doesn't need another person fawning over him. That would probably get old fast. You look at the buttons. 30 floors. That's a long time to ride in silence.

"Wouldja push the L for me, honey?" You're rattled out of your deep thought by his smooth baritone. It dawns on you that you're standing in front of the only set of buttons.

"Oh. Yeah, sure." You gently press the lobby button with your finger and look at him sheepishly.

"Thank you." The doors finally slide closed and the elevator begins its descent. You've fantasized about something like this happening for as long as you can remember. He's been your favorite singer since you saw him on Ed Sullivan as a teenager. You're not a kid anymore, though, and you know he's been playing Vegas for about a year now. He's a regular here at the hotel, but he hasn't been here since you've been here. You must've had your head buried in the sand to not know he was here right now.

You chance a quick glance in his direction, trying not to make it obvious that you're looking at him. He's absolutely stunning and it's like you can feel him in the tiny room with you, alive in a way that other people aren't.

"You're staring, sweetheart." He says, just above a whisper. You snap your mouth shut and look away panicked. Your heart rate is through the roof and you can't believe he caught you looking at him. But it's so hard to look away from him knowing he's right there.

"I'm sorry." You whisper it quietly and he chuckles.

"It's okay. Happens all the time." You feel him turn to look at you, but you will yourself to keep your eyes forward. "Besides, I don't mind when pretty girls stare at me."

Your head whips around and your mouth opens again. Did he just call you pretty? Now you're looking directly into his face and he's so breathtaking that you feel like you might pass out.

"You always this speechless or is it me?" He smirks mischievously. You've never been known to be quiet. It's him. You still can't find your voice to answer him, though. His smirk falls and he turns back to the doors, sighing bitterly. "Sometimes it would be nice to not have this effect."

You look at the buttons: you're passing the 19th floor. Still so many to go and goddamnit why can't you talk?!

"Sometimes I wish I'd just stayed a truck driver so I could have normal conversations with pretty girls on elevators."

He did it again. He called you pretty. You have to find your voice. You've got about 16 floors before he walks out of your life forever.

"You probably wouldn't be staying in the penthouse of this hotel then." Good God. What on earth made you say that?! You finally find your voice and that's what comes out?!

He chuckles and looks back at you.

"That's the damn truth, honey. I guess I should be thankful for what I have."

"I should be thankful for the opportunity to talk to you like this, but I can't seem to make words. Nobody's perfect." You finally lift your eyes to meet his and he gives a little snort-laugh.

"No, nobody's perfect. Except angels. And I'm not so sure you ain't one." Now it's your turn to laugh.

"Me? Let me assure you, I'm as human as they come."

"Good. Me too." You stare at each other in silence for a bit, both of you taking in the other. "You work at the front desk?"

"I do. I'm the errand girl." You cringe again. He doesn't need to know that.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you forget your comb or need a set of nail clippers, I'm your girl." It's like your mouth has disconnected from your brain and is working all on its own.

More silence. The elevator is playing a song you recognize and you hum along to try to soothe the awkwardness. To your utter shock, he hums with you. When you pick up the higher harmony, your voices blend and it gives you goosebumps. He doesn't tell you that it gives him goosebumps too.

"Hey listen, I-" He's cut off when the elevator reaches its destination and the doors slide open.

"EP, we thought we'd lost you!" One of his bodyguards hollers and they hustle him off the elevator. He turns to look at you one last time and you wave awkwardly. He smiles and lets himself be whisked away. You put your palm on your forehead as the doors slide closed again.

A wave?! Seriously?!

Then you realize you were supposed to get off in the lobby too and kick yourself for your idiocy.

******

The next day, you come in to work like usual and the hotel is abuzz with the fact that Elvis is back and playing shows. Thats why you didn't know he was there yesterday: he'd just gotten in. You think back to your encounter with him and try not to cry. He called you pretty twice and what did you do? Acted like a complete fool.

Your shift ends at 4:30 and you're just about to pack up and leave when there's a call down to the front desk. Your coworker picks it up and talks to whoever is on the line. At one point, he looks at you strangely. You're not listening to the conversation, but the way he looks at you makes you nervous. Finally, he hangs up.

"I need you to make one last run."

"Mark, I'm almost off the clock. You can't handle it?"

"They specifically asked for 'errand girl'. That has to be you." You sigh deeply and put your purse back under the desk.

"What is it and where?"

"A comb and some nail clippers to the penthouse." You look up quickly.

"Wait, really?"

"Yep. That's what the guy said." Your heart skips a beat and you stand there staring at Mark. "You better go..."

You nod and gather the two things from the place where you keep all the supplies. Then, you make your way to the elevator. Your stomach is in knots the whole way up. It has to be him asking for you, right?

******

Elvis paces the floor in the living room of his penthouse suite. He's only been awake for an hour or so, but he's been thinking about you since he got off the elevator last night. When he told Joe to call down and ask for you, Joe looked at him like he'd lost his mind. But he has to see you at least one more time to make sure what he's feeling isn't real. He had half a conversation with you. Why can't he get you out of his head?

The doors slide open and he takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself. You step out of the elevator and look around cautiously.

"Come on in, honey." He smiles awkwardly and you almost giggle. You never dreamed he was capable of awkwardness.

"I brought your things." For some reason, it's a little easier to talk to him this time. He laughs.

"Oh, right. Thank you." He walks to you and takes the comb and nail clippers from you and sets them on the table. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Sure! White wine?" You try to smile as he walks to the bar and fixes you a glass of wine. "Listen, I'm sorry about yesterday."

"What do you mean?"

"You probably get tired of people being all starstruck." He hands you the glass and shrugs.

"I'm used to it."

"Doesn't make it right. Can we just start over? I'm y/n." You hold your hand out for him to shake and he takes it and kisses the back of it gently.

"I appreciate the gesture, honey, but we don't need to start over. I'm Elvis. It's nice to meet you." You giggle softly and pull your hand back.

"See you can't do stuff like that!"

"Like what?" His eyes twinkle with mirth.

"Be all charming and cute like that."

"You think I'm cute?" You roll your eyes.

"You have to know you're cute. This isn't breaking news."

"I still like to hear you say it." There's a moment where he's looking down at you and it feels like he wants to kiss you. And he does, he really really does, but he's nervous all of a sudden. He clears his throat and sits down on the couch, spreading his legs wide. He pats the cushion next to himself. "Come sit with me."

You walk over and perch on the edge of the couch by him, sipping your wine and trying to think of something to say that won't sound dumb.

"Are you glad to be back in Vegas?" You wince. You did not succeed.

"Yes and no. I love performing for people. It's my favorite thing. Gets a little lonesome here, though." He's not sure why he's telling you this, but he just feels comfortable talking to you.

"Your... your wife doesn't come with you?" He shakes his head.

"No, she doesn't. And she's not really... I mean..."

"She's not good company?" He sighs.

"No, not really."

"Hmm." You're not eager to be the other woman, but he seems so desperately lonely that it's hard to imagine leaving him here.

"Enough about that. You wanna come to my show tonight?"

"Elvis, it's been sold out for months."

"I'm Elvis Presley. If I want you there, they'll build a table for you." He shrugs nonchalantly, but you can tell it matters if you say yes.

"I'd love to see it." He looks at you with his eyes sparkling.

"Yeah?"

"Of course. I've loved you since 1956. Why wouldn't I want to see you perform?" He raises his eyebrows and you wish you'd kept that part to yourself.

"That long?" You nod sheepishly. He sits up and puts his hand on your cheek. "You're somethin' else, sweetheart. You sure you're not an angel?" A soft laugh falls from your lips and you take a sip from your glass.

"Not an angel. Just a fan." He shakes his head.

"No. Not just a fan." Without warning, he pulls your face to his and presses his lips against yours. Fireworks explode inside you and it feels like you might die with the sensation of his soft lips. After a few seconds, he pulls back, sets your wine glass on the table, and presses his forehead to yours. "You're about the prettiest thing I've ever seen. And you seem to understand me in ways I didn't think possible. I'm pretty sure you're my angel."

You look deeply into his eyes and it's like your souls touch. All of a sudden he's a part of you and the idea of being without him breaks you.

"Elvis, I..."

"I know, honey." He dives back into kissing you, parting his lips to slide his tongue into your mouth. His hand grips your hip and he pulls you onto his lap, straddling his thighs. He mumbles against your lips. "Can I make love to you?"

"Yes... oh God, yes." You moan into his mouth as he lifts you and carries you into the bedroom. He lays you on the bed gently and hovers over you, rolling his hips forward to meet yours.

"My beautiful angel. I want to give you everything."

"Everything I am is yours, Elvis. Please..." He groans and runs his hands over your body, stopping to memorize the gentle curves of you. You lean into his touch, desperate to feel him on your skin. In a shockingly small amount of time, he has you both stripped naked, his body pressed against yours in a feverish frenzy of passion. His hands make hot trails over your flesh, followed quickly by his lips pressing desperate kisses to you. You've never experienced anything like this: the unbridled need for connection and sultry heat as it possesses you.

When he presses his tongue into you, it's like you've been waiting for him your whole life. Your body trembles with need and he moves his tongue on your clit with such fervor that you'd swear he's trying to devour you whole. But the ecstatic pleasure that rushes through you causes you to arch into him, begging for more. He obliges, sliding two of his long fingers into your pussy to tickle and tease you on the inside. You whimper and cry out, desperate for the release that's building in your hips.

"Elvis... god..." You moan, overcome with desire. He licks and finger-fucks you harder than you've ever experienced and you dance on the edge of an explosive orgasm.

"Cum for me, angel." He whispers into you, obsessively chasing your pleasure. It doesn't take long for you to do what he tells you, leaping over the edge into oblivion as your climax overtakes you, spilling out onto his hand as you shudder and pulse and scream his name.

"Elvis! Fuck!" He licks you through it, coaxing more ecstasy out of you as you cum harder than you ever have. When he feels your clit soften and your body relax, he pulls back, lips and chin glistening, and crawls up your body.

His cock aches to be inside you, to feel you wrapped around him and connected to him in an undeniable way. He kisses your neck and shoulder and cheek until he finally lands back at your mouth. You position him at your entrance and roll your hips forward, begging him to fill you.

"Such an eager little pussy. You want me to fuck you, angel?" He whispers it in your ear and you swear you could cum just from his voice.

"Y-yes..." He thrusts forward, his cock pushing into you halfway. You yelp and he stops to give you time to adjust to the size of him. As your pussy relaxes around him, he presses deeper until his hips meet yours and his dick is fully inside you.

"How does it feel?" You whimper and sweat.

"S-so good. Don't stop."

"Oh, my angel, I'm won't stop. Not until I know you're fully satisfied." He groans as he begins to pump into you with more speed and intensity. Your breasts bounce and he bends down to kiss you as his cock pounds you, over and over again. He fucks you like this for a while before he pulls out and rolls you over on your stomach. You moan as he pushes into you from behind, pressing his lips to your back and shoulders repeatedly.

The overwhelming sensation of being filled and fucked from behind threatens to push you into another orgasm. He slides his hand between you and the mattress to reach your clit and run over and around it with his fingertips. The orgasm crashes into you like a freight train as you scream into the mattress and cum on his dick.

"That's it, angel... I'm so close." Your pussy squeezes him and he grunts, no longer able to hold back. His cock throbs and fills you with his release in the aftershocks of your own climax. He whispers in your ear as his body jerks into you. "Yes, honey, yes..."

For a bit, he lays there with his head on your shoulder, the sweat dripping off of his hair onto your back. Then, he pulls out and rolls you over, collapsing on your chest and breathing heavily.

You run your fingers through his hair and hum again. He closes his eyes and soaks in the intimacy of being this close with you. The heavy weight of loneliness that's usually in his chest has dissipated and it feels in this moment like he'll never be lonely again. He looks up at you from where he's settled between your breasts.

"Stay with me."

"Tonight after the show?"

"Forever." It's crazy to consider. You've known each other less than 24 hours. But you hear the word as it exits your lips.

"Yes."

******

The End

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Taglist;

@ccab @elvisfatass @elvisalltheway101 @aliypop @18lkpeters @dkayfixates @tacozebra051 @your-nanas-house @deniseinmn @joshuntildawn13 @lookingforrainbows @60svintage @littlehoneyposts @epthedream69 @louisejoy86 @rjmartin11 @from-memphis-with-love @deltafalax @atleastpleasetelephone @cinnamoroll-things @burnthheparaphilia @jhoneybees @cattcb @everythingelvispresley @returntopresley

[headfullofpresley]

𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐧' 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬

Pairing: Elvis Presley x reader

Word count: 4,5K

Summary: You and Elvis are always playing pranks on each other. This Halloween, you come up with a prank that goes horribly wrong as Elvis doesn't think it's so funny and gets genuinely upset. But like always, your partner eventually comes around and gets his revenge.

Warnings: strong language, playing with a ouija board, fake demonic possession, mentions of the devil, elvis being upset, elvis calling reader a bitch, pranks that you probs shouldn't use on other people, tiny bit of angst, reader and larry gellar disliking each other. guess that's it?

A/N: hello, hi! i guess this isn't really spooky but felt like it fit the season! there's pranks in this that i don't advise you to use on anyone unless that's you're kind of humor. wrote this in an hour or so because it randomly popped into my mind and well... i thought it was funny 👀. just want to make clear that this is in no way me making fun of elvis' spirituality in any way, nor is reader, if some people might think thatttt or if it comes across as that. just wanted to write something else rather than a vamp!elvis fic like my brain already was thinking about for halloween, AAAAH. also, this doesn't include all members of the mm or any of the other guys because i didn't know where to place them. okay, bye. p.s: be a smart cookie and don't use a ouija board.

Elvis didn’t care for Halloween.

Never did when he was young and never did as he was growing into an adult. Sure, when he was a little boy and his friends would drag him along to go trick or treating he could appreciate the free candy, but that was about it. After complaining about the people in scary costumes on the street when he was around 7, his mother stopped him from going out on All Hallow’s Eve and he appreciated her doing so.

As he got older, he’d usually be working on the last day of October and whenever he wasn’t, he would rent out the Memphian and watch horror movies with the guys, other friends and some of his fans. He enjoyed playing pranks and scaring the shit out of the people around him, but that’s where celebrating Halloween ended for Elvis.

His Christianity or beliefs didn’t have anything to do with it. He simply preferred holidays that involved lots of homecooked foods, spreading joy, giving gifts and being surrounded by his loved ones. Like Thanksgiving and especially, Christmas.

You on the other hand are obsessed with Halloween. You always put a lot of effort in your costumes and Elvis allowed you to put carved pumpkins by the front door with a lit candle inside of it, but he wouldn’t celebrate with you in any other way than watching movies. You were too old to go trick or treating, so you were happy when Lisa Marie was over at Graceland on some Halloween evenings to do so with her, but this year she unfortunately was in California with her mother.

 

This Halloween you put little effort into your costume, opting for a black cat suit with a tail, some drawn on whiskers that complimented the dark eye make-up you were sporting, and a pair of black cat ears. Elvis wasn’t complaining because you looked smoking hot in it, but he wasn’t aware that you chose this simple outfit because you had bigger plans for tonight that involved… well, let’s say, a lot of action.

After watching a few movies at the Memphian with Elvis, some fans and the guys, you all made it back to Graceland. It was only around 1 in the morning which was early for the bunch you were living with, so nobody was tired yet. Which was good, because you and Charlie Hodge had come up with the perfect prank to play on Elvis and the two of you managed to convince everyone to get involved in it.

The only one who wasn’t up for it was Larry Gellar and you were slightly worried that he’d out your little plan and ruin the whole thing. You were praying that he’d just go home already, but much to your chagrin, he was sitting on the couch and conversing with Elvis, not looking as if he’d leave any time soon. You were just going to have to risk it.

“Let’s play a game!” You chirped happily as you held up a plastic bag, pulling off your cat tail and throwing it by the side of the couch. “I found this today at the store. The sales girl told me it’s the perfect game to play during Halloween, because then you know it really works,”

Elvis watches with curiosity as you pull a large box out of the bag, turning it around and showing him the front. As he realises you were holding up a ouija board, he was immediately intrigued. Ever the curious person, especially when it came to things about spirituality, Elvis slides to the edge of the couch and takes the box out of your hands, opening the lid to take the board out and inspect it.

“Hell no, I ain’t playin’ that,” Lamar immediately says as he glances at the board and you try to suppress a grin. His reaction was the one you told him to give. If Lamar would play, Elvis was going to take the chance to tease the hell out of him for a week straight because Lamar scared easily when it came to these things.

“Ah c’mon, Fike. It’ll be fun,” Elvis grins as he places the board in the middle of the coffee table. You give Charlie a quick thumbs up and he grins, agreeing to play the game. Sonny and Red agree as well, but Larry decides to sit this one out. You were happy about that and as you go around the living room to dim the lights and light some candles, you feel instantly annoyed when you hear Larry’s voice.

“Elvis, I don’t think this is a good idea. Playing with an object like that can be dangerous, you know?” Larry chimes in, looking at Elvis with worried eyes. Never really having liked Larry, you roll your eyes. Elvis doesn’t see it but Red does and he sticks his finger in his mouth, feigning a gag. The two of you silently laugh and you sit down on the floor by the table, Elvis sliding onto the floor next to you.

“It’s not dangerous, baby. It’s just a game,” you quickly tell Elvis as Larry once more expresses his concern. Elvis looks at Larry once more before he turns to you and grins, kissing the corner of your mouth as he grabs the planchet and puts it on the board. Larry gives you an annoyed glare and you ignore it, happy that he decides to retreat back into the kitchen. Joe sits back on the couch along with Billy to watch the game unfold, simply because there wasn’t enough space for more fingers on the planchet.

 

“You sneaky sonofabitch. You’re the one movin’ that thing!” Elvis exclaims in slight annoyance as he glares at Sonny who sat on the opposite side of the table. Sonny widens his eyes, trying his best to hold back a laugh as he shakes his head.

“I swear to God, I ain’t doin’ it!”

You and Charlie exchange a knowing look. It was the two of you taking turns sneakily moving the planchet with the tips of your fingers, but Elvis didn’t notice a thing. He was too intrigued and focused on the words “it”, or in this case you, were spelling out. You hadn’t propeely opened communication or whatsoever, so the board wasn’t working at all. You believed that a ouija board could truly work if you wanted it to and you could communicate with… well, someone or something, but that wasn’t the intention for tonight.

You just wanted to play the prank of the century on your man like he has done to you so many times before.

All of you ask random questions at first that require simple answers. Then you decide to take matters further into your own hands and add up the dramatics a notch. You needed it to be spooky. Elvis doesn’t scare easily, the morgue trips he often makes with you were proof of that, and you want him to be terrified tonight.

“Someone dies tonight.”

All of you exchange uncomfortable glances, though only that of Elvis was real. He shifts a little on the floor and takes his finger off the planchet, accusing Charlie instead of Sonny now.

“Hodge, stop pullin’ my leg with this bullshit!” He huffs and Charlie widens his eyes, scared that you and him got caught, and just as he opens his mouth to defend his case, you speak up.

“Elvis! You’re not allowed to take your hands off of it without saying goodbye!” You grab his hand and bring it back to the board, putting his finger back on the planchet. He looks at you and scoffs, squinting his eyes.

“Oooh, I see. It’s you, ain’t it?”

You mentally curse yourself. Was your acting that bad? Shaking your head as you give him your most serious face, you tell him that it’s truly not you who is moving the planchet and before he can question you further, Charlie sneakily spells out something else.

“The girl.”

“That’s it. I ain’t playin’ no more. Say goodbye, goddamnit,” Elvis barks in annoyance. He wasn’t going to admit it out loud but he truly believed the planchet was moving by itself and spelling out these things. He was having fun when they started and asked random and silly questions, but now it was getting a little too serious for him.

A little too scary.

This thing was threatening your life and he felt a sense of paranoia fill his chest. What if you’d really die because of this stupid game?

No. No, you weren’t going to die. It’s just a game. It’s not real- he refuses to believe it’s real.

You quickly say goodbye along with everyone else, moving the planchet over the word before taking your hands off. You bite your lip to hold back a laugh and wrap your arms around Elvis’ neck as he leans back against the couch, crossing his arms after he shoved the board across the table. You giggle softly and hug him, planting kisses on his cheek.

“Stop that worryin’. It’s just a game, El, nothing is going to happen.”

Although he doesn’t believe you and is still worried, he slides his arms around your waist and pulls you onto his lap, hugging you back.

 

You spent the rest of the late evening playing some music and Elvis doing a spontaneous jam session, which got his mind off of that damned ouija board. After all, it was just a game. Nothing was going to happen and tomorrow afternoon, he’d wake up with you in his arms.

Alive and well.

But as you two got upstairs to his bedroom and got ready for bed, he wasn’t going to take no risks. There was a baseball bat leaning against the wall by the door and a hand gun laying atop of his Bible on the bedside table. You look at it as you got into bed where Elvis already was, sitting against the headboard with the TV on.

“What are you gonna do? Shoot a ghost?” You joke with a soft snort and he looks at you, simply nodding his head.

“Hell. I will if I have to,”

“My protector,” You swoon playfully as you run your fingers through his hair, laughing. He chuckles softly and sighs, kissing your lips before he allows you to settle in the bed. You pretend to watch some TV with him but couldn’t contain your excitement, curious to know what his reaction was going to be when the best part of the prank would play out.

Since you fell asleep pretty quick most of the time, Elvis didn’t think anything of it when he heard you lightly snoring as you had turned your back to him. He had his arm leaning across your hip, needing to touch you in one way or another, always. Unbeknown to him, you were wide awake and looking at the alarm clock on your side of the bed. You had told Charlie to give you twenty minutes before you’d set things into motion and as that amount of time had passed, you started off your little prank slow.

Ease Elvis into it, so to speak.

 

Pretending you were having a nightmare, you twitch lightly while mumbling some soft incoherent sentences, moaning uncomfortably. Elvis who was still wide awake moves his hand from your hip to your hair, caressing it soothingly as he sits up a little to look over at you. Figuring you’re still sleeping, he leans back against the headboard of the bed but only a split second later, you suddenly shoot up to sit in the bed. Startled, his heart skips a beat and he quickly sits up again too, moving some of your hair over your shoulder. He’s familiar with sleepwalking, but he has never seen you do it before. He knows not to wake someone when they’re in a state like this nor call out their name, but his worries grow by tenfold as your body slumps against him.

And then starts twitching and goddamn near convulsing as you throw your head back. He widens his eyes in shock as your eyes roll in the back of your head, your arms hanging limp by your side. Holding your frame, he tries to keep you still as he cups your face.

“Y/N! Y/N!” He slaps your cheek softly, unsure of what to do in a situation like this. He curses loudly as he reaches over to the phone on the bedside table, putting it to his ear as he calls downstairs and yells to whoever is on the other end of the line to come upstairs.

Like clockwork, Charlie comes running in not much later and feignes a gasp at the sight of your state. Elvis looks over at him, desperate for help.

“Goddamnit, Charlie, do somethin’!” Elvis yells as your body seems to be twisting and turning into uncomfortable positions, arching your back as you let out deep groans and grunts. You didn’t even know your voice could get that low, but you were impressed by yourself.

An eerie feeling washes over Elvis and he slowly lets go of you as you push yourself out of arms, standing on top of the bed. And then you just start… laughing.

Like an absolute maniac.

The sound sent shivers down Elvis’ spine and he quickly got off the bed, standing next to Charlie as they both look at you, unsure of what was happening. Well, at least one of them. Charlie was completely sucked up into his role though and he took a step back, fear in his eyes.

He was a damn good actor.

Something clicked inside of Elvis’ brain as you look at him with a menacing look in your eyes, smirking like the Devil himself just walked into the room.

That goddamned board.

“Get my Bible,” Elvis orders Charlie, never taking his eyes off of you. Charlie does as he’s told and grasps the Bible from the bedside table, handing it to Elvis. The singer takes off the necklace he was wearing with a cross pendant hanging on the silver chain and hands it to Charlie, looking at the smaller male.

“Put this on her forehead,”

“Elvis...” Charlie widens his eyes, holding onto the necklace and pretending to be terrified of going near you. “Can’t we.. can’t we just call an ambulance?!”

Charlie was going to do whatever Elvis told him to do anyways because it makes the situation seem more natural but even if he wouldn’t be acting, the glare that Elvis gives him is enough to have him sprint into action. He runs over to the bed and pulls you down, keeping you down on the mattress as he presses the cross against your forehead. As you look at Charlie, you have to try your damnest not to ruin things and laugh, but luckily you manage to stay in your role.

Writhing on the bed and trying to get out of Charlie’s grip with what truly is little effort but looks like a lot, you let out a bloodcurdling scream. Elvis comes closer to the bed while he is quickly reciting any kind of prayer he thinks might work, reading psalm after psalm. He’s taken back for a second when you did what Charlie and you rehearsed- kicking the brunette off of you and making him land on the floor. You swear you could hear Charlie chuckling, but Elvis is only focused on you.

Now you are the one that is taken back as he gets on top of you and grabs your wrists, holding them above your head as he’s still reciting prayers. He’s yelling at the non existent demon inside of you to get the hell out and Charlie has to muffle a laugh in the palm of his hand, curious about what you were going to do because neither of you expected this.

You felt a laugh bubbling in the back of your throat, so before it could come out, you stop writhing on the bed and drop your head to the side, pretending that the prayers worked and it has all come to an end. Elvis sat on top of you for a few more minutes until he releases your hands and gets up, closing his Bible. He watches you, ready to once more go into action as he sees you casually sit up and get up from the bed. He frowns a little as you walk over to Charlie and hook your arm through his, clearing your throat.

“The end.” You and Charlie gracefully bow, bursting out into uncontrollable laughter.

Until you notice one person in the room isn’t laughing.

Feeling the mood shifting in the room and as if a thunderstorm just passed over Graceland, you stop laughing as you see Elvis glaring at the both of you. You walk over to him as he throws his Bible on the bed and cup his face, but he’s quick to swat your hands away and get back into his bed.

“Elvis, c’mon. Don’t be mad, baby. We were just having a little fun,” you laugh softly, sitting on the edge of his side of the bed. He turns his head to look at you, his blue eyes icy cold. You weren’t unfamiliar with that look but usually it was something more serious that brought it on and you never liked it.

But what you weren’t realising is that this was serious to Elvis. He thought he was going to lose you to some freaky demonic entity.

“Get out.” He simply states in a low voice, turning his head back to the TV that was still on. You look at Charlie and he gives you a little nod, taking you out of the room with him.

You succeeded in pranking the prank master, but you’re afraid you pushed him too far and that simply wasn’t worth it.

 

You figured Elvis would be over it by the day after Halloween and things would go back to normal. But then again, you know Elvis like the back of your hand and although you were not surprised by him ignoring you for a week straight, you were still hurt.

When he learned that all of the guys were involved in your little prank, he let them have a piece of his mind and that was that. But you were walking on eggshells. He even made you sleep in Lisa Marie’s bedroom for that entire week.

By Sunday night, you were fed up with it. Maybe you had taken things too far, but it was just idiotic that he wouldn’t even let you sleep in the same bed as him.

“What do you think you’re doin’?” He snaps as he watches you burst into the bedroom and get into the bed next to him, fluffing your pillow.

“What does it look like?” Maybe you don’t have the right to be annoyed with him, but you are. He knows how much you hate to be ignored and you’ve been worrying yourself all week with all sorts of doom scenarios, like him ending the relationship.

He grabs your arm to pull you out of bed but you sit up and pull your arm out of his grasp, the words flying rapidly off your tongue. “Good God, Elvis. I’ve told you I’m sorry about a thousand times, but you don’t wanna hear it! You haven’t spoken a word to me in a week. At least yell at me, be angry with me, do something!”

His nostrils flare as his jaw clenches and he sits up more straight, turning his body into your direction.

“You want me to yell? Be angry? Fine!” He barks harshly, his loud rich voice booming off the walls. “I thought I was gon’ fuckin’ lose you that damn night! I thought you really were gon’ die, Y/N. That there was some sonofabitch inside of ya who was takin’ ya away from me. If you think that’s so hilarious, well hell, then you really are an evil bitch,”

You weren’t hurt by him calling you a bitch. You and Elvis fought enough times in the past that involved ugly name calling but you always made up minutes later. It never lasted for days. But learning that he was truly afraid of losing you in that moment causes your heart to clench uncomfortably in your chest. You feel a pang of guilt in your gut and your shoulders slump, tears burning in your eyes as you could see a tear rolling down Elvis’ cheek. He quickly wipes it away and looks at the TV set, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Elvis, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” You exclaim breathlessly as you crawl closer to him and hide your face in his neck, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. His body tenses up but then he quickly relaxes under your touch and wraps his arms around your frame, placing one hand on the back of your head to press you firmer against him. “i didn’t mean to scare you like that, I really didn’t. I just thought it would be a fun prank for Halloween. I never thought it’d turn out like this.”

It was never your intention to truly hurt Elvis or emotionally scare him. Deep down inside, Elvis knows this and he feels a little guilty about giving you the cold shoulder for a week, but he doesn’t feel the need to apologize to you for that. Instead, he accepts your apology with a long tender kiss and then cups your cheeks as he looks into your eyes.

“You can prank me, baby, jus’… no more pranks like that, okay?” He whispers as he brushes some hair out of your face, thumbing a tear away from the corner of your eye. You nod, promising him that you’ll never do something like this again and keep it at small pranks only.

 

That same night, you and Elvis stand outside at the back of Graceland, watching the ouija board melt into mush in the firepit.

He wasn’t going to take any chances and forbids you to play with a board like that for the rest of your life. You have no problem promising him that you will never touch another ouija board again and content with your answer, he wraps his arm around your shoulder and looks at the flames.

“Don’t ever do that to me again, Little,” he whispers as he presses his nose into your hair, inhaling the scent of your shampoo before he kisses your head. You wrap your arm around his waist and hold him close as you nod, resting your head against his chest. “I can’t lose ya. Ever.”

“I promise, Elvis,” you say as you raise your head and look up at him, kissing his chin. “You’ll never lose me. Even the Devil can’t take me away from you.”

He grins at your words and pecks your lips, but then he pulls his head back and looks past you, frowning. Curious, you look over your shoulder and a hot feeling of fear immediately spreads throughout your chest, widening your eyes as you see two man wearing scary wolf masks stalking toward you and Elvis.

It was only you and your boyfriend at the house tonight, but still when one of the men grabs you and a few others that came from the other side of the premises grab Elvis, you scream at the top of your lungs for help. It doesn’t do much and your vision is taken from you as you’re being blindfolded, a hand being placed firmly over your mouth.

You were thrown in the back of a car and after driving for what felt like hours, you were being lifted out of the car. You couldn’t speak as one of the men had shoved what you guessed was a tie in your mouth because you wouldn’t stop cussing at them in the back of the car. You were surprised they hadn’t knocked you unconscious yet.

You were terrified of what was to come, but more so you were worried sick about Elvis. The last thing you had seen were a couple of masked maniacs overpowering him and dragging him away. Having no idea where he was or if he was even still alive, you were determined to break free and get out of where ever you were.

You needed to get to Elvis. The thought of never seeing him again made your head spin, feeling like you were about to either faint or be ill.

Despite your inner turmoil, you didn’t stop fighting your kidnappers. Not even as you were being placed on a chair, your hands tied behind your back and your ankles tied together. As the fabric was pulled out of your mouth, you were about to scream again until your blindfold was taken off. As your eyes adjust to your surroundings, you widen your eyes when you see Elvis and the Memphis Mafia standing in front of you, all wearing shit eating grins.

You realise you’re sitting in the pool room.

The guys all burst out into rumbling laughter, Elvis included, and he bends down to be at your eye level, his hands placed on his knees as he grins.

“Honey, I’m gon’ say this once and for all,” he bites his lip as he laughs, that mischievous little boy gleam in his eyes. “Don’t prank the master.”

You sarcastically laugh along with him as he unties you, glaring at Lamar who was having an uncontrollable fit of giggles when he tells you you should’ve seen yourself when him and Sonny were driving you around the block to make you think you were being taken somewhere else.

You stand up from the chair as Elvis has let you free and grab a poolstick from the wall. Red snickers.

“We should probably start runnin’ now, huh?”

“Yup.” Elvis smirks, popping the ‘P’ as he shoves the guys out of the way and starts making a run for it. You were immediately hot on all of their heels, your main suspect being Elvis, as you yell profanities at them while trying not to laugh.

Both you and Elvis know that this was only the start of what would become a very, very long prank war and you’re determined to take his title away from him, although you doubted you’d succeed at that.

As long as it didn’t involve ouija boards and any kind of demonic possession, Elvis was ready for whatever you had planned for him. But just to be absolutely sure, he made a mental reminder to have Lisa Marie stay at Graceland for Halloween next year so he could benefit of the free candy and admire your matching costumes with his daughter rather than thinking he was going to have to give you up to the Devil.

Because one way or another, he would shoot the sonofabitch.

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[hooked-on-elvis]

The Green Scrapbook 📗

Why is Elvis a legend? Simple answer: HARD, HARD WORK... on and off stage.

That's the most interesting thing I've learned about Elvis lately.

This fanzine was out… it is called "Elvis Answers Back!", printed by Sound Publishing Corp in 1956 (view photo 8 and video 1 further on). In its pages, Elvis answer questions about his career and personal life in that genuine way we love so much about his interviews. There's very interesting answers in those pages (I'll share more in this blog in a while) but this one got me in awe. What we're about to read Elvis did in the 50s, while he was in the peak of his success as a young artist, specifically in the year of 1956, it's a demonstration of his courage, down-to-earth spirit, and a passionate level of dedication to his craft that few artists, or normal people for that matter, have.

Some of the pictures printed in the Elvis Answers Back! magazine: August 18, 1956. Elvis at the Knickerbocker Hotel, Hollywood, CA. Photograph by Ed Braslaff.

The magazine article is in topics. This one is entitled "THE GREEN SCRAPBOOK", and here's what Elvis had to say about this "rumor":

"Yes, it’s true that I keep me a scrapbook of a lot of the stuff that’s printed about me. But you know something? I don’t save the articles or stories that tell nice things about me. My scrapbook only has stuff in it that isn’t very friendly. I’ll tell you why this is. "When I first started out, my momma wanted to save all the programs and pictures and things that everyone put in the papers and magazines. I wasn’t much interested in doing this, because I was so busy singing and working and learning that I just didn’t want to take the time to sit down every so often in the middle of something and start cutting out pictures and things. Momma bought her a big green scrapbook, though, and asked me to send her stuff whenever I got the chance. For the first year or so, I didn’t send her a thing, and the scrapbook was empty, except for a couple of clippings she got out of the Memphis papers.

Some of the pictures printed in the Elvis Answers Back! magazine: (1) June 30, 1956 in Richmond, VA. Elvis drinking water after having a bowl of chili, sitting at the Jefferson Hotel lunch counter; (2) Elvis at the RCA's Studio One in NY, for a recording session on July 2, 1956, when he recorded "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel." Both photographs by Alfred Wertheimer.

"Then one day I saw this article about me not being a very good singer. I cut that out and send it to momma and she wrote back and told me I didn’t want to fill my scrapbook with things like that. But I wrote back and told her, 'Momma, anyone can fill a scrapbook with good things. But what good does it do? I’d like to know the things people don’t particularly like and study them and try to make myself better if I can.' "So that’s how The Green Scrapbook got started. I’ve got a lot of pages filled, and a lot of them are still empty, but I’ll tell you this. Every time I go home to Memphis, I take down that scrapbook and study it. I know most of the things in it by heart, and I’m always going to do my best to improve whenever and wherever I can." — Elvis Presley, 1956 interview.

Cover of Elvis Answers Back! magazine, published on August 28, 1956 | Source: elvis100percent.com

SEE THE CONTENT IN THE PAGES OF THAT 1956 ELVIS MAGAZINE (this is an US limited edition reproduction of the 1956 original magazine):

Thanks "Collecting King Elvis Interviews and Memobilia" Youtube channel for sharing this gem.

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UPDATE

I just crossed an interview of Elvis for the Hy Gardner Show ("Hy Gardner Calling") on July 1, 1956 (right after Elvis' performance on the Steve Allen Show). Hy Gardner asked Elvis if he reads the reviews on his concerts and he answers it with "Not if I can help it". Then Gardner goes on in the same matter and asks him further, "Do you keep a scrapbook at all?" -- Elvis' answer to this: "Only of the good stuff." -- We can figure, although Elvis had the Green Scrapbook probably since 1954, considering he said 'When I first started out, my momma wanted to save all the programs and pictures (...)', it was around mid 1956 that Elvis consciously decided to face his detractors more often and make a good use of their critics to help him improving his act. Fascinating. It's fascinating for a young man as talented, handsome and successful as he was, to pause the rush of excitement going on within himself just so he could think things through. Elvis was enjoying a tremendous amount of success already, so it would be more convenient to just have fun and let it happen while it lasted. 1956 was THE year when everything he ever dreamed about was happening at once in his life and he couldn't be more excited and thrilling with the attention he was getting from all over, yet that young man had the maturity to understand he had to keep working hard so he truly could have something worth sharing with the world, something better to offer to the people who seemed be starving for more of him. Fascinating.

WATCH THE FULL HY GARDNER INTERVIEW WITH ELVIS (July 1, 1956):

[biteofcherry]

It's Wetnessday my hoes 💦

You're invited along to a bachelorette in Vegas but don't have a great time. It's ok but you often get left out. Just like now in an expensive club that you can't even afford a drink in. You're watching your friends dance and have a good time until a handsome stranger sits down next to you. He's easy to talk to and even buys you a few drinks without seeming to want anything out of it. It's so nice you even forget your friends and your drinking limits. One drink too many and you're more than tipsy. Which ends with you waking up with a huge handover. You're sore all over and don't know why till you open your eyes and realize you went back to the hotel with the stranger who definitely was naked next to you. Holy shit his dick was huge and judging by the soreness it was inside you just a few hours ago. You go to rub your face and something sparkling on your finger catches your eyes. As you're freaking out your husband wakes up and makes sure any rational thought is fucked out of your brain. He can't have that when he's taking you to your new home later today.

Who's your new husband?

xoxo Wetnessday anon 💦

Hi Wetnessday Anon! 🥰 I hope you're feeling better and this week is treating you good 🩷

Now I decided to give it a serious thought. On one hand, many of my favored babes could fit the description of a charming, slightly deceitful man with a pretty, big cock 😎

Now I thought of not only which man would hold the conversation through the evening, making you feel at ease, but who wouldn't feel guilty for getting you really tipsy and using your vulnerable state to get what he wanted.

He may have been drinking, as well, but he sure paid attention to his level of alcohol. I don't believe the Vegas marriage here was pure stupidity and coincidence of the typical Vegas crazy drunk night. He orchestrated it. Even if it was a decision made on a whim. Bet it wasn't even an Elvis chapel, but some scared registrar brought to officiate the wedding in the privacy of the most expensive hotel room.

Which means your husband is someone who can be impulsive in his decisions, but makes sure their execution is perfected. No mistakes. No trails leading hounds to his door.

Lloyd crossed my mind, but would you really feel at ease with him in the beginning? There's this edge to him that wouldn't make you trust him enough to let him buy you more drinks.

Andy or Ari, however...

They don't spend each evening in their clubs, they have trusted people who are responsible for the smooth working of that business machinery. But it just so happens they were in that particular one when you and your friends were celebrating, since they held a meeting in the office right above the main floor.

Andy was quite annoyed with Ari, who kept glancing through the two-way mirrors at you, sitting there alone and nursing a drink while you pretended your smiles were genuine.

But Andy has been prickly lately, ever since the head of the mafia family declared that Andy was to solidify their take-over of the turf by taking a bride. A sister of the man who was now subservient to the new iron rule.

Andy would follow with the plan, even if he wasn't happy about it (even if he snapped at Steve Rogers himself that he should get himself a wife, if he so wishes for unions in blood).

Ari - the romantic that he was - fell into the wedding spirits. Especially as he watched the bachelorette party take over the dance floor and gain attention of most of the patrons.

He wasn't planning on actually marrying anyone, not at the moment as he walked down the stairs and onto the club floor. But then he slid onto that chair beside you and with each passing quarter felt the need to possess your attention forever increase.

Ari may not believe in love at first sight, but he trusted his instincts. And they whispered at him to take you. To make you his.

Now, as you screech and storm out of the bathroom, holding your hand outstretched as if the big diamond on your finger was burning you alive, Ari feels that excitement and satisfaction ignite anew.

Your eyes are so beautiful as you stare up at him shocked and hopeful, as if he could solve this problem and save you from any dangers.

And he will.

Just not from this marriage. No, this he will ensure you see as a blessing, not a problem at all.