#Winter Issue 2022

[389]

Jack O’Connell Wonderland Winter 2022 Issue

[cultofpoppy-tm]

Pre-Order AltPress’ Winter 2022 issue featuring Poppy from WWWY Fest!

[sinnamonscouture]

Doja Cat Covers Dazed and Confused magazine's beautiful issue, winter 2022

[yours-stevie]

My boy 😍

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

down and out and out of luck (we're spinning, but the needle's stuck)

Stephanie Brown is not the first former Robin to find out about her successor’s fate from the news. The experience is as brutal as it ever was.

_____

@amonthofwhump‘s 12 Days of Whumpmas Prompt: Too Late

Titles taken from the song Sinners by Barns Courtney.

You can find resources related to the current Roe crisis on my sideblog here.

(tw vomiting, canon-typical violence, no happy ending, major character death, past child abuse)

See also on Ao3

_________________________________

So, here's the thing:

Steph's walking down the street, back to her safehouse, fresh from an undercover op. Not the nightmare that St. Hadrian's was, thankfully, but still a bit of a rough business. She's got blood drying on her knuckles and a bit of ash in her hair, but she's breathing easy, satisfied that another branch of Leviathan has been snapped off for good.

It was really more her own op than anyone else's, self-contained in a way that reminded her of the early Spoiler days. The people she was working "with" didn't know a hell lot about Talia al Ghul's plan beyond the broader outline, so there wasn't a whole lot she could pass back to Bruce there, but she got some work done. Did some good.

She's powering up her phone as she walks, her real phone, not the burner that Talia's people used to keep track of her when they thought she was theirs, the one she spoke into when she wanted to channel Arthur Brown's most villainous drawl. She feels a bit of relief as she does it, like she's coming up for air, coming back to her world.

Then she sees the first item in her news alerts, and she stops breathing.

And Stephanie, okay, she has stopped breathing in this line of work. Not just having the wind knocked out of her, no, she's talking about the place between life and death where you find yourself standing when you least expect it. She has closed her eyes and teetered on the edge and it's a feeling, a memory, that never really leaves you.

She's standing there while people flow around her, standing like a lump in a strange city with no one who gives a second glance to the girl gaping at her phone. She's standing there and she can't breathe in a way that makes her feel dead all over again, except the dead aren't meant to hurt like this.

Steph looks down at the headline for a minute or an hour or an eternity and then she realizes it's buzzing in her hand, blasting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme. She chose it to be funny; she can't quite remember the joke.

Brown, do something about that inane music.

The phone is so cold against her ear. When did it get so cold?

"Steph?" Her Batman--not the Batman, her Batman--sounds exhausted, wrung out. He sounds like he'd been crying, raw and burned out. "Steph, I need to--"

"Is it true?" she asks. It hurts to speak, like forcing out words on a hospital bed.

Dick lets out a choked, frantic sound. "You--no. No, I was supposed to get to you in time. You weren't supposed to see it on, on the fucking, on the fucking news, not like, like..."

"Shut up." The words feel like spitting blood. "Shut up, this is, this is bullshit. This is another stupid fucking plan like faking his death or naming him after Tim's car. This is Bruce being an asshole, this is another test."

He lets out a sob and Steph's knees start to buckle. "It's not, Steph. I'm so sorry."

"You don't know--"

"I was there. I saw, saw the light leave his, his eyes."

Eyes. Big eyes, suspicious eyes, bruised eyes, lost eyes. Sometimes they flashed green, sometimes they looked bluer, sometimes they were a dark and thoughtful brown. She never could figure out the deal with her Robin's eyes.

"I held him, Steph."

“No, you didn’t,” Her voice is building to a scream. "You didn’t, you stupid fucking partner, put him on the phone--”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry--”

“Shut up, shut up.” Her words tangle with his, like that time they tried to out-sing-scream each other on patrol and Damian called them disgraces. “Shut up--”

"Hey, lady," someone says. "Calm down--"

"Steph," Dick whispers, like a prayer. Batman reaching for his Batgirl across the miles, hands joined over a spreading pool of blood. Calling her Steph and not Brown, and she never thought that something like that would hurt so much.

A body jostles hers. The phone slips from nerveless fingers and this time she lets it fall, watches it smash to a million pieces in the street. Steph doubles over and vomits on the remains.

Then she's running, sprinting past red lights and swirling crowds, feet smacking against the ground like bullets. She runs like she can escape the tears stinging in her eyes or the scream caught in her throat, like she can escape the words ROBIN DEAD IN GOTHAM smeared across cyberspace.

Damian, she thinks.

She misses the funeral.

It's rushed, fuck knows why; maybe Bruce was trying to get ahead of the Leagues, keeping them from stealing Damian back again. Maybe he just couldn't stand the idea of Damian cooling above ground for so long. Maybe he wanted to punish her and Cass and everyone who wasn't in the immediate area, personally. She will never know with that man.

To be honest, she does seriously consider digging up Damian's corpse and hauling him back to Nanda Parbat--homicidal rages be damned, Steph's dealt with the little shit over sugar-highs and violence-happy lows, she can deal with this. But there's no way she's getting out of that situation alive and the thought of leaving Damian, confused and hurt and alone with the people responsible for this mess in the first place, makes her a little sick.

Besides, she has more immediate concerns. Steph knows what she's going to do long before she walks into the Batcave, eyes red from more than jet lag, buzzed on shitty airport coffee, shaking all over.

Her hair is a mess and every time she has to brush a lock out of her eyes, she remembers Damian braiding it, his fingers more delicate and careful than she had ever expected. I used to do this with Mother, he'd said.

Jason's memorial glints at her and she remembers sitting in the cave with Dick back in his Batman days, Damian sleeping beneath a tangle of wires between them after one fucked-up mission or another. Dick's voice, soft and weary, telling her a story about dead Robins and missed funerals and truths you weren't meant to learn from the news, Dick telling her about leaving his own home with an aching, bloodied face.

"Bruce," she says, dead calm, and he turns to look at her. Or rather, at her fist.

It's a harder blow than the time she slapped him, back when he fucked with her day while pretending to be dead. Back then, she hadn't none that he'd been hiding from Dick and Damian, that he'd left them alone with fucking Elliot for as long as he could before getting off his ass and coming home.

He staggers backward, reaching out to brace himself on a nearby table. If he was more himself, he probably would have either ducked or not flinched at all. As it is, he just stares at her, one hand pressed to his cheek, face perfectly blank.  

"Hi," Steph says. She doesn't mention that the second time she'd called Dick, he'd been given sedatives and loopy enough to tell her that Bruce had almost given Damian up to the League, a tidbit that had left Steph throwing up again as Arthur Brown's face melted into Talia al Ghul's behind her eyes. She doesn't talk about Tim's text, saying about how they'd spotted Bruce kissing Talia like an idiot on the Batcave's security footage, for whatever fucking reason.

She doesn't scream like she wants to, yell I left him in your hands, I trusted you to figure it out, I thought you knew what you were doing. You broke me on the altar of Robin, you burned Jason, you fractured Dick and Tim in ways I'll probably never fully see, but Damian was supposed to survive. He was supposed to fly.

None of that, because if Steph opened her mouth wide enough to let it out, she'd rip open a black hole buried inside her, the one where Arthur Brown and her baby and No Man's Land and Roman's laughter and the sharp claws of her nightmares all wait. She'd suck in the cave around them, and it wouldn't be enough, it wouldn't be enough, it'd just break her in two and she can't have that. She can’t remember Damian if she goes mad today.

So, Steph just shrugs and says, "Good to see you." Then she turns and walks away.

"By the way, if you hang his suit up like a taxidermied head in here, I'll tell the entire world who Batman is," she calls over her shoulder.

She thinks she hears him call out for her as she climbs the stairs. She doesn't look back.

The house is quiet around her, still and dark, sheets hanging limply over furniture. Tim is passed out at his desk, surrounded by piles of papers. Titus is sprawled in front of the cold fireplace, breathing gently, while Alfred-the-cat's eyes gleam suspiciously from the shadows. Alfred-the human is sitting in the same chair he was in when she arrived, sipping from the same methodical cup of tea.  

"I believe Master Grayson is out visiting the young master's grave," he says, dead calm, when she asks, like Steph can't see the dull look in his eye or the slight rattle of his teacup. It makes her feel just a little bad about kind of wanting to punch him, too, for letting Damian go that night.

She nods and slinks away; she doesn't have the courage to deal with Dick's face or Damian's grave right now, but she can't quite bring herself to leave, either. Her feet drag her upstairs, down the gently creaking hallway, towards the room she's only really visited once or twice.

The door gives easily, and that feels so wrong. Damian was the kind of kid that always kept his door locked, always wanting to be in control of his exits. The thought makes her hesitate, wondering if this is somehow a violation of his privacy, but the thought of his room being left cold and empty feels wrong, too.

So, she steels her resolve and makes her way inside, blinking as her eyes adjust to the dark. She can make out the glint of swords on the walls, the outline of his books on their shelves, the flicker of moonlight in the window, Alfred and Titus's beds lined up neatly on the floor. And she--she can see the body of a small boy, slumped across the bed.

It says far, far too much that her first thought is horror, outrage. Did one of them really dig the body up and leave it like that, prop it up like Jason's uniform in another hideous dimply? It takes a few seconds for her to think maybe, maybe...

But no, hope is crushed before it even has a chance to form when the boy shifts slightly and she sees the flicker of red hair, the curve of a shoulder covered by a flannel jacket. He's sprawled across the bed awkwardly, without getting under the neatly folded sheets; clearly, he didn't intend to fall asleep at all.

Steph hovers there, not sure if she should slip back out or not, but the door decides for her by slipping close with a thump. Shit. Colin Wilkes jolts awake, automatically fumbling for the light at one hand as he rubs at his face with the other.

"Dames...?" He sees her and stiffens, reddened eyes going wide. "I--I'm so sorry, Ms. Batgirl, I didn't mean--"

"It's okay, sweetie," Steph says, keeping her voice gentle. She crosses the room, letting him see her hands (Colin's background is murky, but something about the way he acts and his history in the system has always reminded her too much of home), and plops down in Damian's old chair. "I don't mind, really. And call me Steph."

Damian would fill her with holes if she ever dared to call him "sweetie," and laugh at the idea of using her nickname, but Colin has always been different. Better at being a kid, in his own way, even if he fights crime in the body of a gigantic man. And to be honest, she's always had a soft spot for the boy; call her sentimental, thinking of her old days as a self-starter who wanted to do good.

"Did you go to the funeral?" she asks. It sounds better than Did he let you go? She's not sure how Bruce feels about Colin, to be honest--sure, he managed not to be a dick about Colin attacking him under Scarecrow's fear gas, but he's still spewing that "no metas in Gotham" nonsense, and well...his headspace as a whole is a mystery to her right now.

She really hopes he doesn’t act like an asshole here, because then she’d be really mad. It's not like Colin asked for this shit to happen to him anymore than Damian did; they both just choose what to do about it afterward. The thought makes it a little hard to breathe when she thinks about it for too long.

"I...yeah." He shrugs. "It was pretty down-low cause nobody's supposed to know Dami's, um, y'know...." Colin swallows hard. "I didn't stick around for long, but I think the cops came and arrested Mr. Wayne."

"Seriously?" Even if she's pissed at Bruce, that sounds like a brutal turn of events.

"I dunno what happened," Colin shrugs. "I mean, they let him go. I don't think he's gonna go to prison like that thing with the Lynd lady."

Right. Steph had almost forgotten about that--first Vesper in the bedroom and Talia in the Batcave, like a goddamn game of Clue. They're sitting in a house full of corpses, aren't they?

She tries to focus on the living boy in front of her. "How're you holding up, huh?"

Colin looks down at his hands, rubbing one hand over another. There's a faint scar on his right palm and she wonders where it came from. If Damian knew that story.

"I was runnin' around, trying to help some of the kids Leviathan fucked up," he says softly. "Then I looked up and...it was on the billboard, you know, where they show the heroes and stuff sometimes? It was all over the news. He looked so..." A low, guttural sigh. "I know Dames was small, real small, but he never felt small. Does that make sense?"

Steph nods. "Yeah, he was larger than life. And he always wanted you to know it, didn't he?" She tries to smile, but it feels flat and dull.

Colin cracks a wan, short-lived attempt at a smile. "Mr. Ni--Dick, he came to the orphanage. Said how sorry he was, got me to the funeral. He just kept crying. I mean, I, I was, too...I..." He rubs his eyes again, harder this time.

"Dami, he--he told me his mom was the most beautiful lady in the world, that she was the best fighter he'd ever known, that she was smart and wise and brave. Then he told me I had to stay away from her, 'cause she wasn’t always herself, and there was a part of her might kill me. And then she....and I know that parents do things like that to their kids sometimes, but I don't know why."

"I don't know, either." And she’s been asking herself that question for a very long time.

"Were you, were you there, Ms--Steph?" Colin's voice is small, smaller than a body on a screen. He's not asking about the funeral. "Did you see him when..."

"No." Her mouth feels dry. "I wasn't there." Too late, too late.

"I shoulda been there," Colin whispers, like he's plucking the words straight out of her head. "I should--should have--" He slumps over, head in his hands, sobbing. "I'm sorry..."

"No," Steph whispers, and to her horror she finds her voice starting to rattle and break, too. She forces herself to stand and make her over to the bed, to Damian's bed.

"Colin, can I hug you?" She knows it's cruel to keep comparing the two boys like this, but she can't help remembering...

Damian, can I hug you? Just this once, I'm cold. (He'd had a bruise on his small cheek, and he'd been staring at the river for far too long, but making it about herself seemed to make things easier)

Tt. If you insist.

"Okay, Ms. Batgirl," Colin whispers, and she doesn't bother correcting him as she drops onto the bed and throws her arms around his skinny shoulders, tugging him close. He sobs into her chest and Steph lets herself sob back, because apparently, she still has some tears to shed.

"It wasn't your fault," she whispers, to him and to herself--to him because he needs it, and herself because if she can't believe it, she'll go crazy, or worse, turn into Bruce. "It wasn't your fault, you hear me?"

"It feels like it," Colin forces out. "And it hurts so much. I miss him so much."

"I know," Steph whispers, because that's all she can give him, that and the tears that drop onto his hair as they weep together in a dead boy's room. "I know, kiddo. I know."

[geminiiviolets]

just started watching the new Wednesday show and holy hell Wednesday is relatable

[sarcasmic-skies]

<?> i am a true psychopath… almond joys r my fave halloween candy! i went as riddler tn & my little eddie figure is in my pocket!! can u tell i am very short?? this german military parka is (allegedly) a medium. anyway this costume is great for minnesotan hallowe’en and i hope everyone had/is having a fun & safe holiday! k bye :D <?>

[deelovesbooks]

i take issue with that diagnostic question that goes "do you struggle wearing socks" not because its meant as a more open ended question for you to pop up being like, no for you see I have a system!

no i take issue with it bc my oblivious ass took until this year to go, huh i wonder if it doesn't just mean socks but any type of clothing

because as long as socks aren't cutting off my circulation i couldn't give a shit, but you know what i do actually struggle with? Fucking. Sleeves.

[painlandpalace]

dead boy detectives reading list

with the show finally out i figured it was a great time to share my reading list again! check it out below the cut 👻☠️🔎

-

⏳ the sandman #25 (1991)

this is their first appearance!

🐇 the children's crusade (1993)/free country: a tale of the children's crusade (2015)

1. the children's crusade #1

(2. black orchid annual #1

3. animal man annual #1

4. swamp thing annual #7

5. doom patrol annual #2

6. arcana annual #1)

7. the children's crusade #2

alternatively you can just read free country. whether or not you read the annuals i recommend reading free country's middle chapter

!!! in place of the annuals there is an additional middle chapter that was created for the book "free country: a tale of the children's crusade" where it is placed between the two children's crusade issues. the boys don't actually appear in most of the annuals (they are in two panels of swamp thing and appear in doom patrol) and reading them isn't necessary but i figured i would include them as they are part of the story.

❄️ winter's edge #3 (2000)

this is an anthology. their part is the 'books of magic: waiting for good dough' story starting on page 19

🐦‍⬛ the sandman presents: the dead boy detectives (2001, 4 issues)

i believe the tv show's esther finch was partially based on this run's villain.

*

(they do have a part in 'death: at death's door' from 2003. it's short and really just a retelling of events from sandman #25 with some minor changes. the entirety of their appearance in death: at death's door is included at the end of the next comic im listing so i am not really adding the death: at death's door book to the list)

☠️ the dead boy detectives (2005, one-shot)

this book was made by jill thompson in a very cute manga-esque style

👻 ghosts (2012), time warp (2013), the witching hour (2013)

these three are anthologies. the story 'the dead boy detectives in: run ragged' runs through all of them. 'run ragged' kicks off the next run.

🔮 from the pages of the sandman: dead boy detectives (2013, 12 issues)

this is the comic where crystal is introduced! a book collecting all 12 issues titled 'dead boy detectives by toby litt & mark buckingham' was released in 2023

🔎the sandman universe: dead boy detectives (2022, 6 issues)

the most recent run, centered around some really interesting thai mythology and featuring multiple edwin moments that i am sure you will love

-

and that's everything! i also recommend buying the omnibus if you can. it includes everything minus the 2022 run plus some additional bonus content!

i hope this is helpful! feel free to ask me any questions you may have about the comics. dead boy detectives is my number one interest so i should be able to answer

have fun reading! 👻

[aefward]

Port Magazine Issue 31 Dark side of the moon All clothing and accessories from the Dior Winter 22 Men’s collection Photography by Olya Oleinic Styling by Lune Kuipers Grooming by Gabriel de Fries Model: Jon at Tomorrow Is Another Day

[reasonsforhope]

"A 1-megawatt sand battery that can store up to 100 megawatt hours of thermal energy will be 10 times larger than a prototype already in use.

The new sand battery will eliminate the need for oil-based energy consumption for the entire town of town of Pornainen, Finland.

Sand gets charged with clean electricity and stored for use within a local grid.

Finland is doing sand batteries big. Polar Night Energy already showed off an early commercialized version of a sand battery in Kankaanpää in 2022, but a new sand battery 10 times that size is about to fully rid the town of Pornainen, Finland of its need for oil-based energy.

In cooperation with the local Finnish district heating company Loviisan Lämpö, Polar Night Energy will develop a 1-megawatt sand battery capable of storing up to 100 megawatt hours of thermal energy.

“With the sand battery,” Mikko Paajanen, CEO of Loviisan Lämpö, said in a statement, “we can significantly reduce energy produced by combustion and completely eliminate the use of oil.”

Polar Night Energy introduced the first commercial sand battery in 2022, with local energy utility Vatajankoski. “Its main purpose is to work as a high-power and high-capacity reservoir for excess wind and solar energy,” Markku Ylönen, Polar Nigh Energy’s co-founder and CTO, said in a statement at the time. “The energy is stored as heat, which can be used to heat homes, or to provide hot steam and high temperature process heat to industries that are often fossil-fuel dependent.” ...

Sand—a high-density, low-cost material that the construction industry discards [Note: 6/13/24: Turns out that's not true! See note at the bottom for more info.] —is a solid material that can heat to well above the boiling point of water and can store several times the amount of energy of a water tank. While sand doesn’t store electricity, it stores energy in the form of heat. To mine the heat, cool air blows through pipes, heating up as it passes through the unit. It can then be used to convert water into steam or heat water in an air-to-water heat exchanger. The heat can also be converted back to electricity, albeit with electricity losses, through the use of a turbine.

In Pornainen, Paajanen believes that—just by switching to a sand battery—the town can achieve a nearly 70 percent reduction in emissions from the district heating network and keep about 160 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually. In addition to eliminating the usage of oil, they expect to decrease woodchip combustion by about 60 percent.

The sand battery will arrive ready for use, about 42 feet tall and 49 feet wide. The new project’s thermal storage medium is largely comprised of soapstone, a byproduct of Tulikivi’s production of heat-retaining fireplaces. It should take about 13 months to get the new project online, but once it’s up and running, the Pornainen battery will provide thermal energy storage capacity capable of meeting almost one month of summer heat demand and one week of winter heat demand without recharging.

“We want to enable the growth of renewable energy,” Paajanen said. “The sand battery is designed to participate in all Fingrid’s reserve and balancing power markets. It helps to keep the electricity grid balanced as the share of wind and solar energy in the grid increases.”"

-via Popular Mechanics, March 13, 2024

--

Note: I've been keeping an eye on sand batteries for a while, and this is really exciting to see. We need alternatives to lithium batteries ASAP, due to the grave human rights abuses and environmental damage caused by lithium mining, and sand batteries look like a really good solution for grid-scale energy storage.

--

Note 6/13/24: Unfortunately, turns out there are substantial issues with sand batteries as well, due to sand scarcity. More details from a lovely asker here, sources on sand scarcity being a thing at the links: x, x, x, x, x

[seffien]

don’t think anyone’s posted it yet, so here’s the cover for the winter 2022 issue of the nintendo magazine

[sinnamonscouture]

Gisele Bündchen for V Magazine Issue 139, Winter 2022

[yours-stevie]

This woman 💥

[indizombie]

Indian media's collapse has meant that serious issues such as unemployment do not get the attention they deserve. Joblessness is not framed as a question of political accountability but is couched in technocratic language and buried in a maze of data and conflicting claims. Those who intruded into parliament reportedly told the police they were upset about high rates of unemployment. Youth unemployment in India is at around a staggering 23 percent, the highest for any major global economy and nearly double that of neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh. For graduates under 25, a report by the Azim Premji University estimates, this number rises to 42 percent. IT firms such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro have announced they will reduce the hiring of engineering graduates by 30 percent-reducing it by 40 percent from the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology-leaving thousands of freshly graduated students without jobs. Since the onset of the 2022 funding winter, 34,785 employees have been laid off by just 121 Indian startups, with 15,247 of them fired by 69 Indian startups so far this year. An improvement is unlikely. Pranjul Bhandari, the chief India economist at Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, estimates that while India will need to create 70 million jobs over the next decade, it will only end up with 24 million. Put simply, India's demographic dividend has turned into a demographic disaster.

Sushant Singh, ‘Fire and Smoke’, Caravan

[dreamingofep]

Behind the Curtain: A Sinned Awakening Story🩸

An AU Elvis fic

(Vampire!Elvis/ Vampire Austin! Elvis x reader)

Fandom: Elvis - Elvis (2022)

Prompt: Getting promoted to be Elvis full time housekeeper, you realize the man holds secrets beyond belief and your undeniable attraction makes you tear the unknown. [Fem!Reader]

TW: Cussing, mentions of blood, SMUT,

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 3.7k

A/N: Hello again! I have found some inspiration regarding Vampire!Elvis 🫣 I've had this idea for a while and thought to make it a stand alone one shot but why not make it part of the Sinned Awakening universe? I think it works well considering what goes on in this part😉 Elvis is on his worst behavior in this one... you've been warned hehe.

If you'd like to start from the beginning, start here or Ao3! hope you enjoy and message and comment what you think.

Las Vegas, February, 1974

You could hardly believe that it was a year, almost to the date, when you first met Elvis here in Las Vegas. It felt like another lifetime since you first saw each other and fought that undeniable attraction. Through struggle and heartache, you both could not deny the connection you had. Now you were a vampire too, madly in love with Elvis Presley. More in love than you thought was ever possible. He constantly reminds you of that fact too. How he cannot believe you are his and drowns you in his love. 

He was about to open his winter residency at The Hilton tonight. He was as usual, very nervous and couldn’t contain it. You tried to stay backstage to calm him down. He said you made him feel more relaxed when you were right next to him. But the other issue on hand tonight was that he hadn’t been feeding. He took rehearsing so seriously for these shows and put all his time and energy into practicing these last few weeks to make this the best show anyone has seen. You tried to gently remind him to take the time to feed but he always dismissed it. He would assure you he was fine and would feed later but of course, he wouldn’t. You can sense how hungry he was just standing next to him. He was trying to focus on getting mentally ready for the show but the overwhelming scent of blood from every human in the audience was driving him insane. 

It was almost time for the curtain to go up and you had to get to your seat. Jerry was waiting to escort you to the ballroom and take his seat with you. Elvis didn’t trust anyone anymore and was forever paranoid that someone would try to take you again. Even with you being a vampire and stronger than ever, he didn’t want to take a chance. So any show you went to, Jerry always accompanied you. He was always such great company and never complained he had to escort you anywhere. 

You tell Jerry you’ll be right there and quickly pull Elvis to the side. 

“Baby, are you okay?” You ask low, squeezing his hand. He looks at you nervously, his eyes darker than you’ve seen in a long time. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just nervous that’s all,” he says flatly. 

“I know. But you still haven’t fed have you?” You say bluntly. 

He looks down and shakes his head no. You reach for his face to look back at you. 

“It’s okay. You’re going to have an amazing show tonight. Just focus on me. If you can’t control your thirst up there, focus on me. That’s what I’ve always done and it always helps,” you try to assure him. He nods his head and smiles at you sweetly. 

“Then after the show you better feed,” you scold him. 

“I will. Thank you, baby,” he says leaning down for a kiss. 

You go walk with Jerry and take your seats in the center booth, your usual spot. The house was packed and was buzzing with excitement. There was a lot of anticipation for this engagement. The public was noticing a very different Elvis. He wasn’t the usual recluse who would avoid people at all costs. He wasn’t locked up in the penthouse for hours on end anymore. Elvis liked to be out and primarily show you off around town. It was a nice change. You were glad you could bring the more adventurous side out of him. 

The band starts to play the opening riff and the crowd bursts in applause. Everyone is on their feet including yourself, waiting eagerly to see him come from the wings of the stage. You hear his heart racing away and he takes a deep breath before stepping onto the stage. The audience somehow gets even louder when they see him emerge with his white fringe jumpsuit and green macrame belt. It even has your jaw on the floor. Something about seeing him on stage with the dozens of lights on him somehow makes him look more attractive. Hell, you had seen him naked but something about him on stage in a jumpsuit had you incredibly weak.

He picks up his guitar and puts the strap on around his shoulders. He grabs the microphone and pulls it toward him, spreading his legs slightly as he stands there. His voice booms through the speakers and sends chills through you. He was so electric without even trying. His leg won’t stop shaking and it only draws your attention more to those impossibly long legs. 

It was an hour of nonstop hits and some new songs he’d never performed live. He was just sensational. It never failed to amaze you to see him on stage and do what he does best. The crowd was rowdy and loved everything he did. How he would tease the audience, walking slowly to the edge of the stage to the screaming fans and quickly walking in another direction, leaving them begging for him. Or how he would move his hips in the most subtle of ways and leave everyone drooling for more, including yourself. You didn’t care how many times you saw him, there was no denying how that man would make you feel when he moved. You could feel the blood rush to your core if you thought about that for too long. You try to pull yourself together and not make it noticeable to Jerry that you are feeling a certain way about Elvis’ performance. 

Can’t Help Falling in Love starts playing and Jerry motions for you to follow him backstage. The gold curtain dropped and the crowd was going wild for Elvis. He kneels on the floor with one leg stretched out, along with his arms and his head bowed. It was quite the thing to see. The most simple act of showing his appreciation to his fans. He gets up off the floor and everyone from the band congratulates him on a great show. You wait patiently to greet him. He deserved to be acknowledged by everyone. After some time, through the sea of people, you see him there. His hair was wet and his jumpsuit clung to his body. Your eyes meet through the crowd and your heart hammers uncontrollably. His eyes lure you in and make you feel like a puddle. Oh God, you know what the look means…

He walks through some of the crew and goes straight for you. He picks you up and holds you tight. 

“Come here mama,” he whispers seductively in your ear. 

Goddamn it, he just can’t help himself, can he? He wants you to lose all control right here right now. 

“You were incredible honey! I couldn’t believe what you did up there,” you say as you hug him tightly. He sighs contently when he feels you pressed against him. 

You feel his hands tangle in your hair and pull you in by the nape of your neck. He kisses you fervently, igniting a blazing heat inside of you. You cling to his wet body, needing to be as close as possible to him. He starts to walk backward, his lips never leaving yours. He pushes back through the black curtain that separates the band from the storage area of the backstage. 

You quickly look around and see lots of sound equipment and storage containers for the band’s instruments. You glance back at Elvis and see that devious, dark, hungry look in his eyes. It makes you quiver. With a motion of his finger, he lures you in and beckons you to get closer to him standing in the corner. You willingly walk over to him feeling like putty already. His hair was an absolute mess and his chest glistened with sweat. He looked like he had just been fucked but you hadn’t laid a hand on him. Yet. 

He was impatient and pulled you in quickly, pressing you to his body again. You softly groan with the way he’s touching you, urgently and unrelenting. He starts to kiss your lips again, groaning when he does this. His whole presence has you drowning. He was so on edge and adrenaline still pumped through him after completing such a stellar show. 

You feel the hard concrete wall press against your back and Elvis’ hands squeeze any part of you he could touch first. He puts his hands on your hips and covers your face with kisses. Those lips will always leave you feeling breathless. 

He leans into your ear, “I’m starvin’,” he groans. Your heart hammers away by just that notion. 

You pull your hair to the side and expose your neck to him. “Go ahead baby, it’s okay,” you encourage him. You hear him take a deep breath in and suddenly feel him lick the side of your neck. You groan at the sensation and pull at his jumpsuit’s collar.

“I’m starved for all of you,” he groans as his hands go lower and brings your leg up to wrap around his hip. You feel his cock begin to get hard, pushing into your body and making you weak by the thought of having him.

He starts to ravage your neck with kisses, nipping and sucking at the spot where he wants to bite. You can’t help but get turned on by all of this, the way he was desperate for you was more than you could ever ask for. You feel his hands scrunch up your dress around your hips and his fingers find your aching bud. You gasp at the sensation and hold onto him tighter. 

“Elvis, oh God,” you moan. He doesn’t lift his head from your neck yet, he is still fully wrapped up in your scent while his hands find new ways to make you a weak mess. You then feel his fangs enter your neck and you have to sniffle the moan he made you produce. He makes satisfied grunts as he starts to drink your blood, holding onto you tighter and teasing you more with those fingers. He was enjoying every second of this. He lifts his head up and you watch as he licks the dripping blood that falls down his bottom lip. His eyes looked much brighter and he had more life in his face. But he still looked dangerous. He was looking at you like he wasn’t quite done. He wasn’t completely satisfied. 

You hold your breath as he looks at you like this. You’re unsure what to do or say right now. He takes a step back from you and eyes you up and down. You watch as his fingers start to unlace the jumpsuit. Your heart nearly stops when you realize what he’s about to do.

“What do you think you’re doing?” You whisper in a gruff fashion.

He doesn’t answer you, he just keeps looking at you like he did when you were human. You didn’t know it then, but he was on the verge of draining you when he looked at you like that. Lord, those heated looks should have killed you right then and there and they just might tonight. The laces were untied and he started to unzip the rest of the suit.

“What does it look like I’m doing baby?” He says low with a smirk on his face.

“Elvis right here? No, we can’t. Someone can walk by and catch us,” you panic, still hearing the hum of the crowd and chatter of the band members beyond the curtain.

He starts to shrug his arms out of the suit and looks down at how his cock is fully hard now, begging to be let out. God, you were a dead woman. You take one look at him and you’re ready to sink to your knees for him. He pulls down his jumpsuit a bit and you watch as his hand reaches in it to pull his cock out. 

“Elvis, please,” you whimper. You’re not sure what you’re asking him at this point but you can’t handle any of this.

“You’re gonna be a good, quiet little girl for me okay? That’s how we’re not gettin’ caught,” he says seductively. You can’t tear your eyes off of him, his whole presence right now is dominating and you love it too much to stop it. He takes your hand and has you wrap it around his length. Without even thinking much of it, you start to jerk his cock, watching the pleasure wash over his face. It was addicting to see him so turned on. It didn’t matter how many times you were with him intimately, you couldn’t contain the pure shock that went through you as you touched him and felt the size of him. The heat that came off of him was overwhelming and he was throbbing in your hand. 

“Fucking hell baby,” you gasp. 

“You’re gonna let Daddy fuck you right here,” he growls in your ear. You freeze, you had never done something like this and you knew you were not prepared for any of it.

“Take your panties off for me,” he commands. His voice made your core throb and you looked down at his length. Precum started to come out of him and you couldn’t think any rational thoughts. You pull his foreskin back and spread the sticky fluid all over his tip with your thumb. He grunts and pulls away from you quickly. 

He grabs your face in his hand to get you to look at his intimidating eyes and sharp fangs peeking out from his upper lip.

“I won’t ask again. Or do I have to rip them off with my teeth?” He growls. You whimper in agony, not ready for this man. 

Your silence speaks volumes and he lets out a frustrated grunt. He lifts up your dress and he starts to sink to his knees. He nips at your thighs with his fangs and draws blood. He licks at the wounds greedily and inches closer and closer to your core, leaving little marks of his fangs all over your legs. You open your legs a bit wider, hoping his tongue might pay a visit to your aching bud. But he wasn’t going to give you what you wanted, he was only going to do what pleased him.

You watch helplessly as he bites at the elastic of your panties and tears them off of you in one motion. He lets them fall at your feet and you tremble uncontrollably. He looks back at you with a hungry stare, not liking that you didn’t listen to him. 

“Always so difficult hmm? A good girl listens to me when I tell her to do something,” he hisses. You nod your head at him but it’s too late, you didn’t listen and you’re sure he’ll make you pay for it. He lifts you up and has you wrap your legs around his hips as you’re pinned to the wall. The grip he has on your thighs is tight and you can feel how bad he’s dying to fuck you. You feel the tip of him hover at your entrance and your eyes are blown wide, silently begging him for forgiveness. 

“Baby please, I-I-I’ll listen. I’ll be good.” You try to beg but he doesn’t listen.  

He swiftly enters you and you yelp at the forcefulness of his hips. You gasp for breath as he stuffs you with his cock. He quickly covers your mouth with his hand and continues to move inside of you. 

“Good girl,” he grunts, “Take Daddy’s cock like only you can,” he says with a devious smirk. Your eyes roll back in your head at his tone. 

He fills you hard and fast, giving you no time to adjust around his substantial girth. He revels how your sopping wet cunt hugs his length tightly with every thrust. You cling onto his shoulders and hold onto him for dear life. The only thing you can hear is the sound of you two breathing, trying to keep it together, and the sound of his cock plunging into your wet pussy. It was all torture. You wanted to move too but the grip he had on you was too tight for you to do anything. He takes his hand off of your mouth to watch your face drown in pleasure. He looks damn good like this. His hair was such a mess and was so concentrated on you. 

You’re stuffed to the hilt and his hips move in short, powerful thrusts, hitting that spot inside you that can make you come on his command. You can’t stay quiet. He was killing you and he knew it. His hips were unrelenting and driving into you like he had never had you before. You tilt his head to the side and sink your teeth into his neck, muffling the scream he’s made you produce. He groans softly at your actions, finding it all amusing that he’s made you such a mess. 

“Doing so good baby girl. You like how deep my cock is?” He groans in your ear. You dig your nails into his back, unable to handle what just uttered from his lips. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he chuckles. 

Each movement of his hips made you hold back loud moans you couldn’t help but make. You were biting down hard enough on his neck to draw blood and let the delicious taste of him coat your tongue. You slowly drink his blood and feel your orgasm looming. 

You take your fangs out of him and press your head to the wall, writhing in agony. You watch Elvis’ face smugly look at you and enjoy every second of this. You were so close to finishing, you felt your body become weaker and weaker with every thrust of his hips. Your ears suddenly pick up the sound of footsteps walking in your direction backstage. Your whole body freezes, petrified of someone walking by. 

“EP, you back here?” A man’s voice calls out. 

You look at Elvis terrified, you want to run away as fast as you can. He doesn’t let you budge though. He shakes his head at you and continues to hold you tight. 

“I could have sworn I saw him go back here,” another man said. You recognize it’s Jerry. Damn it, no. You claw at Elvis’ arms, begging him to stop. He moves slowly but it is still so agonizing and a small whimper escapes your lips. His eyes flash a warning at you and proceeds to put two fingers to your lips. 

“Shhh…Open those pretty lips baby,” he whispered. You helplessly do as he asks and he pushes his fingers into your mouth. 

“Suck baby and be quiet,” he says, his voice low and gruff. You eagerly do so and swirl your tongue around his long fingers. His face looks intoxicated from what he is seeing you do. You slowly suck on them, liking to see his reaction to this act. His eyes don’t leave you for even a second.

“Fuck, just like that honey,” he praises. His hips drive into you harder and your eyes roll back, feeling yourself about to come undone. He was unrelenting and on a pursuit to make you come regardless if people were walking around backstage.

He pushes his fingers further into your mouth and stuffs you to the brink with his cock. You come hard and your walls squeeze around the base of his cock. You see fireworks behind your closed eyelids and your whole body shudders. He can’t hide how good you feel around him and his jaw drops when he feels you come. He can’t hold on much longer either and burrows his face in your neck, hiding his own muffled groans. 

“Goddamn baby,” he growls. He thrusts his hips into you once, then twice and you feel his length twitch inside you. He pours his warm, thick load inside of you and groans into the crook of your neck. You gasp for air and your walls squeeze around him again, loving to hear how good he feels. He moves in and out of you slowly, making you both writhe because of how sensitive you are. 

He lifts his head up to see your spent expression on your face. He takes his fingers out of your mouth and goes to kiss you. It was passionate and sloppy and you loved it. You moan into his mouth and pull at his wet hair. You look into his beautiful eyes and see how he can’t get enough of you. He gently takes his cock out of you and sets you back on the ground. Your legs feel weak and cling to his body as you try to regain your normal breathing. 

He kisses the top of your head and makes a soft chuckle.

“You alright lil’ darlin’?” He asks coyly.

You look up at him with a mischievous glimmer in your eye. “Yes Daddy,” you say defiantly. Your hand wraps around his length and you slowly rub his head. You knew he’d be too sensitive to handle this and smirk to yourself. His hips buck into your hand and his face is shrouded in agony.

“Woman I swear to God-,” he growls. You stop briefly and hum softly.

“What baby? I'm being good, I swear,” you tease.

You pull down your dress and start to walk away from him with a smug smile on your face. You knew you got under his skin and you were amused by it all. You don’t make it very far backstage before you feel Elvis pick you up and throw you over his shoulder.

“Elvis!” You yelp. He chuckles low and makes quick strides to exit the backstage and into the elevator. He swiftly sets you down and presses the button for the penthouse. He smirks at you and takes your face in his hands as the elevator lurches up.

“It’s going to be a long night mama,” he murmurs, placing a kiss on your lips.

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