#you have all that support/sex/whatnot

[redkoi1]

We're really here for trying to help everybody reach a middle-ground with understanding...

... but i'm starting to learn why Christians really didn't like the homosexuals. And I really don't want to count ALL HOMOSEXUALS! But as a psychologically sensitive born-Christian, i'm getting really tired of hearing premises of 'getting sucked off' in my head. It's distracting. It doesn't serve any other purpose [PERSONALLY] than distracting and dampening my spirits, and the same beings don't seem to honestly give a damn. It's not my fault you're fucking gay guys. When I say I don't want to 'hear' that, it still continues. Which means it's either of two things:

'Soul-rape'

'Mindless-masturbation'

'Impure sex' I need your lil' rainbow community to think about this; there's no F in the LGBTQ acronym. Stop being faggots to straight/heterosex/demi people. I'm demi. I've always went with that. I need emotional connection to experience sexual pleasure. Not 'lip smacking' going on in my god damn brain 24/7 because, "well, he just makes me horny and i like pretending i suck him off". idk how many people it could be!! but it goes on in my right ear all the time. most of the fvcking day. stop it. i might need some 'soul-help'. because you're holding us back from a utopia at this point by being so mindless and distracting. I don't care if you disregard your humanity and deny it. congratulations. that doesn't give you the green light to suck people's spirits out. you should be murdered for such type of behavior.

BACK IN THE OLD DAYS WE'D JUST BURN YOUR HOUSES DOWN AND ASSASSINATE YOU BEHIND YOUR BACKS! STRAIGHT FROM A SPIRITUAL PAST LIFE. CONTINUING THE SAME BEHAVIOR MEANS YOU'RE JUST BEING DEGENERATE FOR NO GOOD REASON.

#"SOLIDARITY" #MOBILE_ERROR

[refiwrites]

Happy Father’s Day

Pairing: ID! Leon S. Kennedy x Fem! Reader

Warning/s: 18+ SMUT MDNI, p in v, unprotected sex, BREEDING, rough sex, creampie, mating press, praising, cockwarming, lmk if i missed anything

Note: It’s father’s day and Leon is the only daddy I know 🤪 sorry this is probably unhinged I just had to write this out rq sorry if its short- and i just HAD TO USE THIS GIF BECAUSE DADDY– also my breeding kink going brrrrr

GIF is not mine, credits to the owner!

You and Leon were once again entangled on the bed. His muscles tensed under your every touch, breathing becoming uneven and the grunts falling from his lips and yours- along with the hot sloppy kisses you shared.

“Are you really this needy?” He jokes, a little breathless as he sat up on his knees while you were all splayed out in front of him, the sight making him want to bury his throbbing cock inside of you already.

Your heart was hammering in your chest as you stared him as he knelt before you, light sweat drenching both of your bodies but the glow of the afternoon sun hitting him–

It made him look like a fucking god.

But you had something else in store.

The moment Leon’s cock finally sinks in your drenched cunt, both of you moan out in pleasure as Leon supported himself to hover above you, your legs simply locking around his waist as he fucks you in missionary.

“So needy… squeezing me so tight already..” He chuckled, those blue eyes of his never leaving your face as he studied you with every slow thrust he gave.

You bit your lip and laugh with a slight heat to your cheeks.

“I just missed you..” You whisper against him as he moved his hips at a gentle pace. It was killing you. You wanted him to hold you down and fuck you till next week but no– this time you’d take your time, especially with what you had in store.

Leon probably didn’t have a clue what day it is, nor did he even care to as he was buried deep in you, but you knew.

Father’s Day.

Of course the two of you had talked about kids before but with your busy jobs, especially his, it was hard to find time to actually try for one. The two of you had been married for about three years now, settled into your new home and whatnot.

But you’ve seen the way Leon would watch as you two simply walked down the street and he’d spot some parents in the park- or anywhere really- playing with their children, picking them up, witnessing them with the brightest look on their faces.

While Leon looked like he longed for something like that, now with you on the picture. He wanted to have a family, with none other than you. His wife. But his job was a pain in the ass.

You wrap your arms around Leon’s neck, grazing your lip against his skin as you left hot open mouthed kisses, making him groan and put his chest flush against you as his movements slowly began to increase, making you moan out his name, hands tugging on his hair as your eyes rolled back.

The feel of him throbbing and dragging in and out of your soaked walls only made you want it more. Your hands now snaked over his back, pushing his hips down further against you.

Leon felt you clench around him and he chuckled lowly. “God- you- fuck..” He couldn’t even finish his sentence because your cunt was pulling his cock in so deep.

“Shit..” He breathed out as he stared at you with a light furrow to his brows before his eyes closed shut momentarily. “I’m not gonna last long with you doing that- ah..”

That was the plan.

You moaned as his pace finally increased as he sat upright back on his knees, holding your legs apart as he snapped his hips against yours making your body jolt and his hand instantly reaching for your tits, cupping it with his hand and squeezing.

“So fucking beautiful.” He uttured underneath his breath as he went back to grab at your hips to steady himself as he pounds into you. Him lifting your hips up, making him hit a new angle that had you seeing stars and grasping at the sheets.

“Leon- oh fuck yes just like that.” You whine.

The way you were reacting to him as he fucks you never gets old. It was like the first time all over again and he grunted in response, working harder and pressing you against the mattress. His finger slipped in between your legs to rub against your clit.

“O-oh fuck..” You whine out, arching your back as Leon worked for both of your orgasm.

You almost get sidetracked as you could feel him already twitching inside you.

“I’m close sweetheart, need you to cum for me, yeah? I just need to feel you cum for me..” He whispered, leaning back down to lazily kiss you, tongues meeting sloppily as you moaned against the kiss.

You were close, he was too.

Your mind was already buzzing, eager to experience that high but you still had to act. “L-Leon- Leon..” You call out for him in between pants as you held onto his strong arms.

“Y-yeah sweetheart? Fuck I’m so close..” You hear him say but your next words stunned him.

“C-cum inside me..”

Leon’s hips stuttered as he stared at you wide, pupils dilated as he gripped a little too tight on your thighs. “H-huh what..?”

“P-please Leon..” You begged. “F-fill me up.. w-wanna have kids with you..” You were starting to get lost in the pleasure as you rambled on about having kids with him and you wanting him to stuff you full of his cum.

Leon’s brain buzzed and it felt like a switch had been turned on that had his nerves setting aflame as he let out almost a growl.

“Fuck, sweetheart..” He was still holding back from folding you and fucking you until you were dripping of him as he tried to gather himself. “Y-you want this? You want me to cum inside you? Fuck a baby into you? Holy- fuck- shit..” His mind was racing.

You couldn’t respond further but you tried as you nodded desperately. “Yes- Yes Leon!”

“Fuck- thank you sweetheart- gonna cum inside you-“ Leon couldn’t believe it- the tiredness was washed out of his body, replaced by the need to shoot his load in you, his eyes glued to your belly, his mind already engaged in scenarios of your baby bump growing and he lets out a loud grunt of exertion.

His newfound energy being put to good use as he suddenly lifted your legs up, folding you, his arms grasping at the back of your knees as he held you in place as you continued to clench around him.

“Thank you baby- fuck I’ve wanted this for so long..” he managed to groan out as he fucks even deeper inside you. “I’m gonna make you a fucking mommy- you’re gonna be so good…”

All you could do was moan out your replies as he talked to you that way, the coil in your stomach bound to snap. “Leon- I’m so close- p-please..”

“Hold on, sweetheart… wanna do it together..” he breathily says as he leaned down and captured your lips, you kissing back without thought.

“A-alright come on- let go for me sweetheart- fuck! I’m- ah fuck cumming!” He moaned in your ear as his whole body stilled, his thighs shaking a little as he finally came inside you, the feeling making him dizzy a little.

When it did, you cried out in pleasure as your body spasms against his. “Yes- oh yes..” You chant out along with his name as you held him close, rolling your eyes back as he twitched inside you, spilling the last of his hot ropes in your walls.

It took a while as Leon grunted in your ear, breathing out and leaving a kiss on your neck as he shuddered at the sudden sensitivity of his cock.

“That- thank you sweetheart..” He whispers, chuckling as he carefully tried to pull away but you shook your head and held him in place as you bought your legs down.

“O-oh? You want me to stay inside you..?” Leon asked, you really never failed to take his breath away.

With your mind clouded with pleasure, you nod and he shakes his head with a smile, brushing stray hairs away from your face as he was careful to lay beside you whilst keeping himself sheathed inside you as he lets you hike your leg around him. Both of you catching your breath and Leon still couldn’t believe what happened.

“Did you really mean that..?” He asks once his breathing calmed down as he looked at you intently. You blinked up at him and nod, leaning in and kissing his jaw as you snuggled against him, the feeling of being so full of him making you sigh in content. “Yes, I did..”

Leon broke out into a wide grin, sending a kiss to your forehead as he pulled you closer. It seemed like every worry slipped away from him in that moment at the thought of finally getting to have this with you. “You’re amazing..” was all he managed to say as he let his lips linger against your head.

Tiredness was seeping into you as your eyelids droop close, not without you saying one last thing to Leon.

“Happy father’s day, honey.”

[pinkysberg]

i think susan grimshaw is very emblematic of the exacerbated scrutiny that female characters face in comparison to their male counterparts. susan absolutely has missteps and flaws that are easy to point out and criticize. however, that isn't unique to susan. she's an outlaw in a gang, and of course the other members of said gang also have flaws and missteps. in many cases, they have many more overt flaws and missteps in comparison. however, the conversations surrounding susan come with significantly more disclaimers and caveats.

it's totally normal and okay to say "i really love dutch van der linde" and most of the time people aren't cosigning all of his worst deeds and that's something that doesn't require a disclaimer.

nobody thinks that your love for arthur morgan is a love for his brazen murder of innocents, the way he beats up and threatens poor and destitute folk for money or so on. just like when you say you love john marston nobody thinks you support his absent parenting and whatnot.

loving susan however? requires you to say you don't support the way she puts hands on people as a form of discipline. i am not in support of the way she tries to encourage abigail to get back into sex work just like im not in support of the way the gang members who slept with her when she first joined effectively exploited her as a minor.

it's frustrating that susan isn't offered the same level of nuance and understanding. she's a woman of middle age in the late 19th century who has likely faced violence and physical discipline. she is a product of a violently patriarchal society and in her own way she shows authentic care for the gang.

comparatively, susan has done significantly less in terms of disagreeable acts and i find im always having to include disclaimers and offering defences for things i don't think anyone would bother criticizing from the likes of dutch or hosea.

[nthspecialll]

When it comes to Abigail Marston leaving John in 1907, a lot of people throw mean comments at her, say that she was unfair for doing so and a lot of other things, however I think that people fail to consider the time that this game is set. This is not our modern day woman, this is 1907, and it might sound like I am stating the obvious but by the hatred that she gets it I think it needs to be said again.

1907!

Do you know the rights that women had then? Or the lack of. Women were bound to their husbands, they weren't allowed to own close to anything and were only allowed to vote in about 4 different states, some women that is. Women were seen as a servant to her husband.

It was also hard for women to earn money, the average woman over 16 working in a factory (as the majority was) earned 5-6 or 6-7 dollars a week, a week! Eggs on average costed 29 cents by the doz, a pound of round steak cost 15 cents and half a gallon of milk costed 15 cents as well.

What about rent? New Austin, which Blackwater and the surrounding area is in, is based of Texas which in 1904 had a rent per room pr month of 28 dollars.

So why would Abigail ever go through all of that? Because of John, because of Jack. Abigail stuck around John for eight years, practically begging him to fix himself, to become better because she knew that she was pretty much dependant on him, because she needs his support to be able to live and she wants to give her boy a chance at a better life but she can't with John constantly picking fights and literally putting her and her son's lives at risk.

A lot of people make it seem like she just suddenly took that chocie, but she didn't, it was a choice that most likely took her years not just due to the financial burden but also the social burden that comes with being a single mom in a time where pre-material sex was seen as a death sin. She could very well be killed merely for being seen with Jack and without a husband.

And not just that, but it was probably also a hard choice because despite of everything she loves John, she really does, yes she screams at him for going out with Saide but who wouldn't. "She won't allow him freedom," no she is scared he is going to die, for us it is easy to say "he isn't going to" because he is a main character and we can just redo if we die taking on twenty skinner brothers or whatnot, but it isn't like that for her. I want you to imagine that your partner/friend/parent told you they were going to fight a gang of who knows how many, you are going to be scared no matter how skilled that friend is because you don't want to lose them. John himself admits it is dangerous work by saying "we always find a way to almost get killed, dont we?" Which Sadie agees to.

Abigail took the choice to leave, putting herself in a terrible situation, not for herself, but for her son. She gave up her one true love so that her son could have a chance at life, have a chance to be better than her and John. It was not easy and it is not something we should shame her for, if anything we should praise her for putting her son before herself.

I love John, I really do, but I think it shows just how shitty of a father he really was, and that Abigail leaving was exactly the push he needed to get himself together, it was the wake-up call he needed. He knew how shitty women had it, he would have to realize how terrible he must have been for her to prefer that over him.

Now am I saying Abigail did everything right? No, she did not. Although I understand her fustrations with him doing bounties she has to realize she is not in a place to be picky about jobs. She did ask John to take on a huge debt for the farm and John is right in one thing "it is legal work that I can handle," and while the farm is taking some time to get up and running it is the best form of income that they have access to.

Now to talk about her annoyance with John going after Micah, it is understandable as it could trigger a decline to their former life of crime or just lead to straight up death. It is unnecessary, revenge is unnecessary, meaning that John is risking their entire life for "nothing." He argues back with "I am doing it for Arthur" but again, yes Micah killed Arthur but killing Micah wont change that, killinh Micah will not bring Arthur back nor put him in a better situation, it is revenge, it is not nessesary, it doesn’t do any good.

If John had died she would not only have lost her husband but also the farm, as women could not own property. I am not that knowledgable on debt laws in 1907, but I would imagine that in some way or another the massive debt John got would end up with her or Jack either way, putting her in a terrible situation.

@heavenlymorals made a similar post back in may 11th where they also explore and explain Mary Linton and Abigail in 1899, it is really amazing and also puts some other light on it.

Sources:

Rent, page 369: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/annual-report-commissioner-labor-6306/eighteenth-annual-report-commissioner-labor-608452?start_page=370

Food, page 233: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951000014585x&seq=233

Wages, page 15: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.cu56779232&seq=15

[vicariousresearcher]

It’s always Price getting the under desk support but what about ME

Cw: f.receiving oral, hidden sex, public sex, price being needy, husband!price

Something something about John married to an office worker who whenever he's home always pops by on her lunch break with something. Coffee, sweets, something from that sandwich place you love down the street. But you keep on getting in shit because he’s not supposed to be in your office because of “confidential files” or whatnot.

John already has limited time with you and he isn’t meeting you in the lobby, no.

So he just sneaks back into your office. Looking gruff yet confident enough that most just think he’s a maintenance worker. Shushing you when he comes into your office and shuts the door.

“Just missed ya bird,” he hums, mouth already slotting over yours, tasting like tobacco and the coffee he brought you both. Yours obnoxiously flavoured with enough things to get him tongue-tied when he was ordering it.

He’s all over you for the first week or so that he’s back. Waking you up with his mouth on your tits, half-hard cock rutting against your thigh. Groping you appreciatively while you do some supper or laundry, murmuring bout how much he loves you.

This is no exception.

He’s worming his tongue into your mouth, hands pawing at your ass through that pretty skirt jesus he really should just find a way to hire you on base as his little secretary so he can have you whenever he wants-

The knock on your door has you choking on his saliva, eyes wide as you think of where to hide a 6-foot big ass man in your cramped office.

‘You busy?’ has you shoving him haphazardly under your desk. Calling back out and letting your new, young coworker come into your office. She’s always talking and coming to you for every little thing which normally you don’t mind but you know she wouldn’t keep quiet about seeing your husband back here.

John’s big body bent in ways he really doesn’t appreciate until you clamour back into your chair and slide back in front of your computer. Legs spread to accommodate the man under your desk. And of course, your skirt is giving him the perfect view up to your clothed pussy.

Burying his face between your legs, skirt pushing up from his head and when you try to clamp down he’s still trying to move forward. A man on a mission, beard scratching along your thighs too noisily and making you finally relent.

Fat tongue tonguing along your folds through your underwear. Spit soaking the fabric as he tries to tonguefuck you through it. Trying to taste you through it.

And you just have to sit there and keep quiet, listening to your coworker yammer on and on about what you can’t quite tell but shes is happy with you just responding with nods and placating ‘oh yeah’s n ‘definitely’ that eventually tapper out because John is working just right and his nose is pressed right into your clit and if you just sit back a little you’re sure he’ll be able to just get right where you need him-

“Oh did your husband come by?”

You just about bolt out of your skin when she mentions him, eyes snapping to the coffees he’d left on the desk.

“Umm yeah, got me a little something for lunch…”

“You’re on your lunch and you let me keep talking? Jeez, I'm so sorry, you should’ve told me to shut ages ago.” She jokes and you can feel John grin.

By the time the door shuts, you’re already kicking away from the desk to look at this man and all his audacity.

Chin shining with his spit and your wetness, kneeling under your desk like a dog yet looking more than content to be under there. Has you wondering if this was your penance for all those times you warmed his cock in your mouth during all those endless meetings and video calls.

“Come ‘ere, you only got 10 minutes left.”

Johns already dragging you back, hands bunching up your skirt. Already deciding you’re going to come at least once before he’s gone. Maybe more if he can convince you to let him stay past your break.

You don’t even have to do anything! Just sit there nice and pretty and tapping away on your computer and let the old dog entertain himself.

[celestialprincesse]

🪩♢

The 141 casino, usually bustling at all hours of both the day and night, is surprisingly quiet when you make your way in through the side door, the usual suspects undoubtedly having been ushered out by security in order to allow the cleaners to do their job, for the dealers to sort through their cards and the boss upstairs to keep an eye on his club whilst there's no one to keep an eye on him.

It's hard not to feel relieved at the lack of women in beautiful dresses and double digit karats who normally make an appearance in your day-to-day life, leering at you as though you're the one in control of their husbands stares. Occasionally you've had patrons invite you back to their rooms with them and their partners, mostly in the hopes of spicing up their otherwise non-existent sex lives, or trying to seem far more liberal and easygoing than they are. It's really not the compliment they think it is, more verbalising their perception of you as essentially a sex toy on legs, made only for their pleasure. One look at the shiny pole supported by a perspex platform up at the front of the room reminds you that the latter is somewhat true.

"Well, look at who the cat dragged in." Kyle's observation is quiet, his clear earpiece hanging down the lapel of his jacket whilst he nurses a whiskey at the otherwise empty bar. "And here I was thinking that you only came out at night." His warm accent continues to chide as you drop your duffel and begin to remove your hoodie and sweats in favour of more practical clothes, less slippery.

"Got hungry." You quip back, long used to the old vampire joke which Kyle and MacTavish find to be particularly amusing, especially after a few rounds after a shift.

"Come to work on some new stuff?" The bouncer admires you over the rim of his glass, just like he does every night after his shift wraps up and he sits behind the bar, watching you with reverent eyes through the mirrored backsplash, protecting you long after he's required to.

"I've been meaning to for a while now. S' been too busy to get into the feel of things most days though." Your murmured response fills the room as you stretch your arms so hard your shoulders pop.

"I liked that one you tried out a while ago the star .. star girl?" "Stargirl? The Lana one?" You murmur, looking up to him as you stretch before checking that everything is secure with the pole.

"Yeah, yeah that one. Suits you. Shining and whatnot."

[thezombieprostitute]

Cops and Robbers

A/N: This is entirely unlike anything I've written before. This is written for @the-slumberparty's Sundae Bar. I'm using the following prompts:

🍧Black Cherry: enemies to lovers – a dark flavour has a sweet tang. So your characters go from one extreme to the other, hate to love.  🍧Rocky Road: rags to riches – it's been a long road. Cinderella, a lottery winner, a sudden inheritance. You decide how your character gets their windfall.  🍧French Vanilla: stranded/locked in - vanilla, but make it fancy. Forced proximity to the max. Whether your characters have to work together to escape or survive, or just need to wait out the night, they’re stuck together.  🥄Toasted Almonds: heartbreak – your character is going through a heartbreak 

Word Count: ~3k (I think this is the longest one-shot I've ever written!)

A/N2: Character is female. No physical descriptors used.

Warnings: Corruption, Implied murder, Mild violence, Talk of sex trafficking, Theft. Please let me know if I missed any!

You know you shouldn't be here. You're a wanted woman in this county. Wanted by law enforcement and the people who buy law enforcement. It's dangerous to be here. But you can't bring yourself to stay away. Your great-aunt Mabel was the only person who ever loved and supported you. Attending her funeral is the least you can do for her. Even if you're watching from afar, sticking to the tree line, well away from the grave-site.

Everything was paid for by you. Again, it was the least you could do. But you couldn't trust the funeral home to not let the authorities know it was you. If you're lucky, they'll think you gave them the money and ran. But luck is not reliable so you're staying amongst the trees, finally letting yourself cry at the loss.

That's how you missed the Sheriff sneaking up on you. That and his surprisingly light steps. For a man his size, he sure as hell knew how to watch his steps.

He places a hand on your shoulder, startling you. “Ma'am, I'm gonna need you to come with me.”

“Is this official or off the books?” If he was doing this for the criminals he'd been bought by, you'd risk running off or getting shot. But official capacity work meant some legal protections.

“I'm arrestin' you under suspicion of robbery at the Governor's Mansion.” His hand squeezes your shoulder, a warning not to run. His tone was level, professional even. You nod your head and let him cuff you before getting to his car.

Inside the police station Lee walks you to a holding cell. Your existence has been a thorn in his side for years and he'd love nothing more than to lock you in jail and throw away the key. But you're also good press, which the local police need. That means he has to make sure you're not too roughed up. So if he has to play the gentleman for a while, he will.

At least when you were just stealing from Dunlap's crew he could tell them to fuck off. He's done a lot of bad things for them but hunting down someone who, in the public eye, had done nothing else wrong? It would look too suspicious, no matter how much they paid him.

Then you hit the Governor's place. Must've been one hell of a payday given the quality loot you picked up. That got him heat not just from Dunlap but from the damn Governor as well. You caused a lot of late nights, paperwork and black eyes.

He orders the closest deputy to get you processed then put you in the updated interrogation room. It had all the latest recording gadgetry and whatnot so it would reduce the likelihood of your testimony being dismissed because of some clerical error.

Getting to his desk he sits down and dials the Governor. He's not surprised when he gets the assistant instead. “Do me a favor, Darlin' and let Ol' Jim there know we got the thief. Just gotta get her processed and then I'll be gettin' a confession.”

When he finishes with that he dials up Dunlap. “I got the thief, but you an' yours gotta keep away until she's in lock up. Anything goes wrong with this and you're out a sheriff. Be patient and you'll get her but I gotta do a bunch o' shit by the book right now.” Lee hangs up before Dunlap can respond.

You're sitting in the cold, sterile interrogation room, handcuffed to the table. You're barely able to recognize yourself in the two-way mirror because of how puffy your eyes got from crying. The deputy assigned to process you tried to comfort you, thinking you were crying out of fear. You didn't bother to correct him. You're glad Aunt Mabel never saw you in custody.

The door opens and Bodecker walks in with a small stack of files. He sits across from you, leaning back, eye you up. You glance back at the door and he tells you, “ain't no use lookin' for a way out, darlin'. That door is locked from the outside. Only one of my men can let you outta here.” You nod your understanding.

“So, you gonna make this easy for me and go ahead and confess to the robbery of Governor James Williams?” You remain silent, fidgeting with your cuffs. “Figured as much,” he gripes as he opens one of the files. “We got your fingerprints on the doorknob. We got testimony that you were in the area. And you're the only one with the skills to break into that safe.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Sheriff,” you reply. “What are these skills you think I have and what makes you think I have them?”

He gives you a glare, “we got reliable witnesses that say you're damn good with a lockpick.” Left unspoken is that those witnesses are Dunlap's crew. That you stole from them what they had stolen from others. That they couldn't report anything missing or stolen because then suspicion would be on them.

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Sheriff.” You're no fool. You know you're being recorded. You know their admissible evidence is circumstantial at best. Just keep calm. Keep denying.

“Alright,” Lee sighs as he stands, gathering up his files. “I'll just let you sit in here for a while longer and think these things through.” He walks over to the door and knocks twice. When it doesn't open right away, Lee turns towards the door and bangs on it a couple of times, not happy to me made to look like a fool. The peephole slides open and Lee is taken aback at the sight of Dunlap himself.

“Well ifn' it ain't the thief and the traitor,” Dunlap chuckles darkly. “And both trapped in here like the rats ya are. See, Bodecker, we've gone and sent all your boys home. Ain't nobody here what can open this door. We're gonna leave the two of you in here overnight and, come morning, one of you'll be dead. The other will have been recorded per the camera watchin' y'all and we'll be making copies to keep safe. So long as the survivor behaves.”

You quickly glance to Lee's belt and notice he isn't wearing his holster. No gun, you might have a chance.

“You sunnova bitch,” Bodecker bangs the door, hurting his fist. Dunlap laughs before closing the slider.

Lee sits back down, slamming the files down. “Shoulda known you'd get me in trouble like this. You ain't been nothin' but trouble since you started hittin' their properties.”

“I'm surprised you're not already choking me to death,” you reply coldly. “You've been in their pocket for so long, I figured there was nothing you wouldn't do for them.”

“I have my limits, little missy,” he retorts.

“Yeah, limits that keep you looking good to the public.”

“Limits that help good people keep doing good things,” he argues. “Your Aunt Mabel was one of them good people.”

“Don't you talk about her!” Your outburst is just as surprising to you as it is to him.

Lee sees his advantage and presses, “do you know how many times I had to keep them Dunlap boys from takin' her hostage so they could get to you? Your great-aunt was a pillar in this community. The kind o' person who's disappearance would get everyone up in arms, and they still wanted to use her as bait to get you to stop stealin' from them. I was the only reason they didn't.”

You try not to cry in front of him. You're horrified at the thought that you put Aunt Mabel in danger. “I have no reason to believe you,” you snap at him. “You lie through your teeth all the time for them. Why wouldn't you do so now?”

“Because, as I said before, I got my limits.” He stands and puts his hands on the table, leaning right into your face. “And you're pushing all of 'em right now!”

You smack him so hard he has to sit back down. He'd been so distracted with being angry he hadn't noticed you'd picked your handcuffs with an earring you'd palmed during processing. You toss the handcuffs at him, “I've got my limits, too. I don't kill. Now let's see about finding another way out of here.”

“Good luck with that,” Lee seethes. “That two-way glass can't be broken by the chairs and the table is sealed to the floor. Safety precautions and all that.” You're out of your cuffs so he needs to be even more on guard.

“Such a defeatist attitude,” you chide.

“I'm bein' realistic here,” he counters. “That door can only be opened from outside. It's got electric seals or whatever. There ain't any way to break that mirror. And those are the only two ways outta here!”

“Oh just shut up a minute and let me think,” you yell at him.

The two of you glare at each other for a while before he takes a deep breath and throws his hands up. “Fine. We'll call it a truce until we're truly desperate.”

“Thanks.”

You stand up, rubbing your wrists, and start pacing your side of the small room. You never turn away from Lee, never let him fully out your sight. He might look like he's in a relaxed position but you're not one to underestimate him.

“I'm guessing we're not worried about spilling the beans,” you huff. “Otherwise you never would've admitted half the shit you just did while being recorded.”

“Dunlap's gonna keep the tapes. Ain't nothin' we can say that'll get us in more trouble than we're in already.”

“Do you want to know why I stole from everyone that I did?”

“Meh,” he shrugs. “Might help pass the time until we really snap.”

“I was stealing back the ID's and personal belongings from the girls they were trying to traffic.”

Lee freezes for a moment before looking at you, “what do you mean? They ain't doin' any human trafficking.”

“Oh like you didn't know,” you scoff. “You've been to Leon's Red Motel more than once.”

“Never allowed back there,” he shakes his head. “Only ever allowed to drink at the bar. Said they couldn't have the sheriff seen enterin' a whorehouse.”

“Bullshit, Bodecker. You knew it was whorehouse but you didn't think to ask how they got the girls to work there?”

“They told me it was just girls that was down on their luck, needed the money,” he says thoughtfully.

“Yeah, they were down on their luck because they'd been kidnapped. Their identities got stolen and used for fake ID's to sell to rich kids. Helping them escape was...easy enough. But they needed help getting home. They needed money and ID. So I stole from the people who stole everything from them.”

“Then why'd you hit the Governor's place? That's the part that never made no sense to me.”

“I'm genuinely surprised he called that in.” You stop your pacing and look at Lee. “That safe I hit was full of his own bribes from Dunlap and others like him. The cash he kept off the books and used when he didn't want to get audited. Largest payday I ever made.” Your tone softens, “got to help a lot of people and sent Aunt Mabel a check every month.”

“She said you'd promised to send her money from the new job you told her you got.”

“She didn't need to know it's source. Just needed the cash to know I was alive and doing well.”

“Funeral director said you'd paid everything in cash.”

“More difficult to trace, of course. Not too surprised he turned me in. He tried to overcharge for everything and I called him out on it.”

Lee chuckled at that, “he shoulda known better than to try that with a bitch like you.”

“Damn right,” you say with a half smile. “Aunt Mabel didn't raise me to get walked all over, no matter how distracted I am.” A tear runs down your cheek and you're unable to wipe it away before Lee sees.

“She was a good woman,” Lee nods.

Silence falls over the two of you. You're unsure of how much time has passed but the angry tension between you and Bodecker seems to have calmed a smidge.

“I'm gonna go ahead and examine this door, then the mirror,” you tell him. “Can I trust you not to attack me while I'm doing so?”

“I fully support you findin' a way outta here where neither of us has to die,” Lee informs you. “So I'll happily keep from attackin' you. I'll even let you cuff me to the table if'n you need, provided you promise to pick the lock for 'em to get me out again.”

You nod, “I'll consider it. For now, door.”

Lee nods and, as a sign of his intentions to not attack, moves himself so he's on the opposite side of the room as you.

You look the door over for almost an hour. You turn back to Lee, “what all do you have in your pockets? I've got an idea, but I need to know what I've got to work with.”

“Not much,” Lee admits. He pulls out a couple of pens, his wallet and badge.

“More than what I've got.” You look over everything and the plan starts forming. “You said that the door is electrically sealed, right?”

“Sumthin' like that. Never really learned the actual details,” he confesses.

“The fun thing about doors like this, they ain't as strong as they look. It's a heavy door, made from good material, but it's got weak spots.” You grab the unlocked cuffs and, between them and one of Bodecker's credit cards, you're able to work out some of the screws around the sliding peephole. You use some leverage with the handcuffs and are able open a small gap to the inner workings of the door itself. Not much, but it's a start.

“Holy shit,” you hear Lee mutter.

“Would you be willing to try to pry this open a bit more? Pretty sure you've got the stronger arms here.” You move out of Lee's way as he gets to work with the handcuffs.

Your theory proves true as he has a much easier time prying away a bit at a time. The material is still strong stuff, but with more of the door's interior exposed, the more you can mess with. The more you can mess with, the weaker you can make the whole thing.

“I gotta ask,” Lee grunts as he works at more of the seams. “How d'you know your meddling won't result in the whole thing locking up even worse? Like so that even with the code or whatever it can't open?”

“I don't,” you confess. “But it's not like we've got much choice if we want to stay alive.” He nods in agreement.

When there's finally room for you to work you grab one of the pens from the table. You work carefully to bring some wires out without dropping the pen. Several of them are bundled together and you get them just out of the door's interior, using the pen to keep them from falling back in.

“Now, the odds of this being the bundle we need aren't great,” you tell him.

“But it's what we've got to work with,” he finishes for you. “You want the pin side of my badge to try piercing or cuttin' 'em or do you wanna just try pulling them out?”

“Never thought you were one for pulling out, Sheriff,” you joke. His cheeks turn pink and you're quick to apologize. “I'm nervous so I'm making bad jokes. Sorry.”

He nods in understanding. “How about I just go ahead and pull?”

You step out of his way, hand never leaving the pen so the wires don't drop back in. Lee nimbly grabs the wires with a couple of fingers, all that he can get to fit around them in the small space, and yanks them with all his strength. He doesn't have a lot to work with but the more he pulls, the more give he's getting.

“Try angling your pull,” you tell him. “Pull away from the sides, not just straight up. I think we'll be able to unplug them.”

Lee nods and tries out your strategy. It takes some work but after a bit the two of you hear a small snap and bundle of wires, including their plug, come out. At the same time, you both hear subtle click of the lock.

“That's progress,” you tell him.

“The door ain't openin',” Lee states.

“Not while the latch is still in place,” you concede. “But without that electric seal or whatever, we can bash a chair against where the handle is and break off the latch.”

“And by 'we' you mean 'me' I'm guessin'?”

“Well, you are the big strong Sheriff, right?”

You smile as he huffs, “I'll get to work.”

It takes a while, and several breaks, but eventually the two of you do break the latch and get the door opened. Considering no one yelled or inquired about the loud banging on the door, you both figured no one was around. You were still wary, though. Better safe than dead.

Lee leads you both to his office and he quickly grabs his keys before opening up the door next to the interrogation room. He grabs the camera and smashes the whole thing to pieces.

“No one's gonna get to hear what we talked about,” he mutters.

“So, now what happens? Are you going just going to let a wanted criminal go?”

Lee sighs, “whether you leave or stay, I ain't got much of a life here anymore. Between Dunlap's gang and knowing the Gov is in on it all? I'm a dead man if I don't leave the state.”

“Well, Bodecker, I guess it's a good thing I've got experience helping people escape bad situations.”

“I know we didn't start off on the best foot,” Lee rubs the back of his head nervously, “but I would appreciate the help.”

“Least I can do for your protecting Aunt Mabel. Now let's get the hell outta here.”

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @fluxxdog; @ronearoundblindly

[reformedowo]

Vote Like Lives Depend on It.

The Republican party wants you dead. Trump is calling people who don't openly support him "the enemy within." He has called immigrants "vermin" who are "poisoning the blood of our country." This is straight out of the Nazi playbook and is one of the key steps in enabling a genocide in the eye of the public: dehumanization.

I know this is an intense introduction, and I apologize, but those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, so just take a moment to remember before we look to the present, if you'll indulge me.

Thank you.

Starting on just page 5 of Project 2025, the whopping 900+ page guide about how to dismantle the American democracy and install Donald Trump as the authoritarian emperor with no guardrails, lies the first topic so innocuously titled "PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN", and is all about and explicitly mentions the banning of pornography while continuing on to include "woke," queer, and transgender ideologies within that definition, stating those "who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders." Page 5, as in you literally just opened this thing, skimmed through the table of contents, and it's already calling for the direct and express prohibition and marginalization of the entire LGBTQ+ community, to be placed alongside real criminals while further muddying the waters for justice to be served against actual abusers. Now if you will, jump 549 pages forward. To the death penalty. Yes, the death penalty, where it states under new Republican rule the government should enforce capital punishment against sex offenders. Now, maybe your brain has melted after reading or being passively exposed to 554 pages of intensely racist, dangerous, hateful Fascist rhetoric thus far, but I think the book practically opened with something about that quite intently. Do not be mistaken: this is not a coincidence. This is not poor wording. This is a direct threat, and as it says in the title, it is a promise. The first, #1, most important promise, apparently. I truly insist that you look at it with your own eyes to believe it, if you're willing to be exposed to the political equivalent of toxic waste.

Trans or queer folk, of any kind, as well any vague notion of "immigrants" in particular are a few of the main talking points of the Republican party and their ads this election season for a reason: Fascism needs an enemy, preferably a minority for its followers to target and be whipped into a frenzy over to keep their following alive. If you'll note, this follows the same logic Trump used when making a call to Senate Republicans, while out of office, to kill the bipartisan border bill, a bill that would have solved an issue Trump was planning on running on, while simultaneously expanding access to legal immigration to begin with. That logic being: you can't sell a solution if there's no problem. Now maybe to you this isn't your cup of tea regardless, legislation and whatnot. But that's not what's important to them, what is important is that they want problems. Any non-white, non-straight, non-Christian, non-Trump loving, non-cis-man is always going to be up next on the chopping block to feed the machine of hate. They want you, or your family, or your friends, or your neighbors to be that problem. Where do you draw the line? However, zooming back out for a moment, this is just skipping 5 pages in, plus some forward for full context, and we've seen only one of the many insane, Fascist concepts concealed within the pages of Project 2025, and it's already a beyond thinly veiled call for genocide. Though Trump denies his connection to the project, the document was penned by over 140 people who have previously worked for him, several members confirmed to be returning, has a running mate who penned a foreword to an architect's book, not to mention he already implemented many of the concepts in his first term. With a second Trump term he will make the rest of this doctrine a reality, with the help of the Supreme Court he installed, without any proper government authorization mind you, the same court who stripped women across the country of their rights to life saving medical treatment, and under that reality you or somebody you know can and will be made their next problem.

Now, sidestepping to an extremely important note, there are horrible things happening in Gaza right now as you read this, and I implore you to please send any donations you can afford to the countless families afflicted, and feel free to go and express your right to protest from now until the Palestinian people are free of Israeli occupation. The right to protest and your right to speak against the government is one of the truly undeniable great things about living here, whether you realize it or not. Donald Trump and Project 2025 want to take away those rights. His illegal use of the National Guard against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters, American people exercising these very rights, during his previous presidency speaks volumes to this regard, amongst others such as his blatant hatred toward non-white Americans having said rights. Now with that I say this: please do not think, even for a second, that Donald Trump is the solution to the conflict in Gaza. This is a man who has openly admitted, himself, to having met Netanyahu multiple times in violation of the Logan Act to kill the Biden administration's ceasefire agreements, the same man who when asked if he was "on board" with the way Israel was “taking the fight to Gaza” responded: “You’ve got to finish the problem." Do not award Trump the presidency for making Palestinians suffer, do not act like willingly sitting this one out in protest gives you the moral high ground, because in actuality it makes you complicit. Netanyahu is counting on disinformation and the suffering of the Palestinian people to convince you to not vote for the people doing everything in their power to end his invasion, and if Trump loses, he has no ground left to stand on. However, if Trump wins, he will allow Netanyahu to continue his genocide and you could very well have no voice left to speak up for the Palestinian people.

Do not think that it is a choice between anyone other than Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. The broken and antiquated electoral college established ensures a two party system, whether we like it or not, and we don't since despite losing the popular vote in 2016 we were still subjected to the first unfortunate Trump term, it is the system. And while that may dissuade or discourage you from voting, even a whisper is better than sitting in silence when it's time to let yourself be heard. Hell, if it makes you feel any better on the matter, vice-president candidate Tim Walz is on the record wanting to abolish the electoral college for any future elections, which would not take place under Project 2025. And while Harris may not be your personal perfect dream candidate, we've worked with and fought through worse than imperfect for over 200 years, and she's miles better than a number of the people we've had in charge then, and an unimaginable degree better and more qualified than a second Trump term. Her website has a list of policies and she has appeared on many news networks talking about her vision for the country, if you're at all inclined or inspired to look, please do, and compared to what Project 2025 has in store for both the American people as well as its disturbing foreign policies, it's a breath of fresh air.

Do not let democracy backslide, do not let years of blood, sweat, and tears be in vain because you took that democracy for granted. It's much easier to make progress one step at a time than trying to course correct in free fall. This is the Republican party's last chance to steal everything from you and the American people, and they've been giving it their all because they know that the mask is off and there's no going back for them. You can no longer say "both sides are the same" to convince yourself it's okay that you're not voting. From the world's richest man openly giving millions of dollars away to bribe voters after announcing his support for Trump to stay out of prison, to complex voting disenfranchising schemes on both the state and federal level, to rampant disinformation being blown out of control by the unregulated use of AI by foreign nations with only yours and others worst interests at heart, even if Harris wins the electoral vote they will do whatever it takes steal the election any other way they can. But if you or anyone you know is not willing to take the first, easiest, most crucial step in fighting to preserve and grow your rights, and the rights of others, can you trust they'll be willing to fight for those rights when things get ugly, when it's time to fight? And if Donald Trump is elected to the White House, it's only a matter of time before things get ugly, and we'll have to fight like Hell.

And to all those who are still not convinced, my last and final plea is simply this: Only one of these people will win. Clench your fist, grit your teeth, hold your breath if you need to, but please vote for Kamala Harris. If not for her, if not for yourself, for everybody else whose lives depend on it. Don't be on the side of history that kills us.

Vote like lives depend on it, because they do. Thank you.

[its-pluto2]

A lot of people like to say radical feminists are white women and therefore white supremac*sts and whatnot. Have you not noticed that a lot of radical feminists aren't even white?

We're Mexican. We're Latin American. We're from India, from the Middle East, from Asia. We're from places where it is life and death to be a woman. Where we're targeted as criminals for protesting the injustice we live every day, where one late night might mean we won't return home, where our sex means a difference in how we're treated all our life in every aspect of it. Jobs, socializing, studies. Everything.

Take a look at Iran. At Mexico. At Korea. Do some research before you throw around words like white supremac*st and n*zi around like they mean nothing when you're talking about radical feminists, the women fighting and putting their lives on the line to stop all of this horrible, terrifying violence against us. Literally, google any of these countries next to the word "femicide" and open your eyes a little to the harsh truth (and I must warn you, if you do this, the results will be upsetting).

You guys like to tag radical feminism as this horrible trend that oppresses other movements when in reality, it's a handful of new, "progressive", "liberal" movements that are trying to demerit and oppress feminism and feminists, whether they're aware of it or not.

If your movement has to take away women's rights, you need to revise what it is you're fighting for and how you're doing it.

I am a radical feminist because I am tired of living in fear. I am tired of hearing in the news of another woman whose life was brutally ended simply because she was a woman.

We're not dying out here, we're being murdered. We're being discriminated, we're being denied safety and body autonomy and the right to choose over what happens to our bodies, we're unable to earn the same as a man for doing the same job, we're unable to express a strong character without being called manipulative or hysterical. We have so. much. bullshit to deal with simply because we are women.

And you still think our sole purpose is to target some random movement and some set of pronouns? No, honey, feminists, real feminists, have our priorities very clear.

What we don't like is that now, we have to be reduced to our organs and that we can't even freely call ourselves women because some people will be offended even by that. I cannot fathom how some people still don't realize the slap in the face that is calling women "uterus-havers" just to coddle other people. Use what pronouns you want, but don't take away women's right to call ourselves women - how absurd is that?! I can't call myself a women to not offend certain people!

Are you really telling me that, on top of having to deal with all of the risks that being a woman implies in my life, I have to not call myself a woman and instead use some odd, progressive term just so I don't offend you?

No. Enough is enough.

Women do not deserve to be silenced, on the verge of the year 2023, because other people with very specific needs and wants, want to be coddled by us. Fight for your rights, by all means, but don't try to take away ours just so you can feel better.

Get a grip on what feminism is, what it stands for, and understand that radical feminism only exists because movement after movement tries to crush everything we've fought for and everything we've achieved.

And, if you're a woman and claim to be libfem, or claim to hate feminism, or claim that feminism doesn't represent you, think again. You're only able to have access to a computer or a mobile platform to express your opinion, wear pants, and have access to basic education, among countless other privileges you take for granted, because of feminism.

I mean, come on. A woman wishing for another woman (e.g. "terfs") to be hurt and die? How awful do you have to be to wish that upon another woman? Who's the bad feminist in this scenario?

Women should support and help women before all else, because we're all each other has. You can coddle and favor men all you want, but heaven forbid, if you ever have to deal with sexual harassment, gender violence, anything related, those men you defend won't help you. They will blame you. The men who love women who hate feminism are the men who are most prone to causing harm to a woman for any reason, and you're coddling them by saying "Oh, feminism isn't about me! I believe in not all men! Death to radfems!!"

Think about that if you consider yourself "libfem" - it's a lie. It's a goddamn lie fabricated to coddle and submit to people who feel entitled to our social struggle, people who are so privileged already that they have to find problems and social causes and make up endless terms and pronouns and bullshit to justify it.

Nothing justifies you trying to silence feminism when, all over the world, no matter what country you look into, women are hunted and hurt simply because we are women.

Get that in your heads.

[pippin-katz]

And so it truly begins… the unbridled suffering that accompanies the red carpet and press junket content for Mary & George, thinking about all we could’ve had, all they could’ve had…

Jokes aside, I’m gonna be honest about how I’m feeling, so feel free to move along if you don’t want to hear it.

Let me be clear, I am in no way saying this out of anger towards Nicholas or hate towards the show. These feelings of disappointment and whatnot would have arised regardless of what project either of them did.

I’m not going to lie about it though. As wonderful as it is and as happy as I am to see Nicholas getting this moment, I am undeniably sad.

I’m sad seeing him attend a red carpet when RWRB couldn’t have one, especially considering that Taylor has still not gotten to attend a red carpet for one of his projects.

I’m sad seeing him pose with Julianne and Tony for pictures when there have only been two official pictures taken of him and Taylor together since RWRB’s release.

I’m sad seeing him laughing and talking with Tony for what is undoubtedly the first of many interviews when he only got to do one with Taylor prior to the strike and has not done one since it ended.

I’m sad seeing Nicholas posting pictures and videos from behind the scenes of Mary & George when he hasn’t posted any for RWRB.

I’m sad seeing Nicholas talk about George when I know he cares so much about Henry but missed his chance to talk about him.

I’m sad seeing all this attention on this queer project that’s entirely focused on filthy and outrageous gay sex for power when Nicholas was just in a film that showcased true queer love, with sex and everything beyond physical intimacy.

I am fucking sad.

And I’m allowed to be. I’m allowed to be sad about not getting to fully experience the release of one of my favorite films the way it was meant to. I’m allowed to be sad that we didn’t get any interviews, or press, or anything we were supposed to.

I am so happy for Nicholas and looking forward to seeing this show. I will be posting and reblogging support and positivity, of course. I will try my best to focus on the excitement.

I’m saying this to get it off my chest, and to potentially reassure anyone feeling the same way that it’s okay. We will probably never fully get over these feelings of longing for what we didn’t get. It’s hard loving something so much, waiting for so long, and having it mean so much to you, and knowing that you were robbed of the entire experience by corporate greed. If you’re feeling down about all this, don’t feel guilty. Try to keep focused on the positives, but know you’re not wrong for being upset.

[bloggingboutburgers]

cw: discussions of bullying and aphobia

Hearing aroace peoples' existential crises over their friends discussing crushes, as someone who was socially isolated and severly bullied for their whole childhood and most of their adolescence so had NO friendgroup until adulthood and NO community or inclusion in literally anything (and when it came to sex and romance the other kids explicitly considered my potential involvement in either to be impossible / laughible because of how "weird" they found me (my autistic traits before I even realised I'm autistic)), felt like starving while listening to someone else complain about the food they're actively eating.

Food intolerances and dislike of different foods (as metaphor for being aro/ace) ARE important and difficult to grapple with when you're expected to eat specific foods in specific proportions at different times - but man did it sting until I realised why I felt that way and gave myself a talking to since my trauma doesn't justify belittling the very real struggles of aroace people.

I guess since the choice between 'stay alone or conform' was never really a choice because I was rejected no matter how cis straight or allo I was it taught me to go "fuck it" and accept myself regardless of what other people do or say (which ironically has lead to me becoming dramatically popular all of a sudden at uni, which has been weird to get used to since I have literally no experience with any of this - platonic or otherwise - which did lead to some advantage being taken of me but f*ck it we ball ^^'). And I guess it's just been difficult understanding why anyone would care so much about whether they're "normal" or not? You really have nothing to gain from that, safety is not guaranteed in conformity so best to live aroace and damn all aphobes to hell if they have a problem with that.

It's a mindset I'll never understand and that's only ok now insofar as that lack of understanding no longer results in misplaced anger at people who, for a time, I had once considered spoilt, ungrateful and out of touch. Basically, I'm full of sh*t and to every aroace person reading this you deserve good friends that actually respect you for who you are and do not even TRY to get you to change your mind about sex or romance. Have a lovely day x

Sincerely,

An aggressive emotional support anon

I'm genuinely sorry for all the hardships you went through. I don't mean to equate at all, truthfully from reading you and considering I WAS asked some of those questions as a kid regardless (the "who's your crush" bullshit and whatnot), it definitely sounds like I had it less hard than you did, but... I was bullied in elementary school and middle school, also not necessarily because I was aroace (I don't know why it happened really, I don't know if anyone ever knows, I boil it down to... me being me and there being something fundamentally wrong with me ig), and I definitely also get some of those feelings of "oh boo hoo you call that struggle" boiling in me when people discuss their own past struggles sometimes, so... Yeah, every one person's experience is unique, but I can at the very least very much sympathize.

I think a way it manifests in me is that I now have that compulsive, debilitating fear of being "othered" in any way, shape, or form, so I guess being aroace doesn't help my case. But at the same time... Well, like you brilliantly put it, when you're in a situation like that, no matter what you do, you won't be accepted anyway, and having that knowledge back then is probably also what lead me to figure myself out as aroace so early in life. Because I was treated as this much of an outsider, I ironically had that much room in my own head to form my own identity, far apart from others and the need to conform. Yeah, that identity may include a "piece of shit that doesn't deserve to be supported of part of a group" side that's been forced in, buried deep down and can't be erased, but... It also includes asexual and aromantic, and it's been cemented so hard from so early with such self-affirmation that later down the line, it saved me from a lot of stuff. I never had to force myself into a romantic or sexual relationship because I was undoubtably aroace – and people saw me as an outsider and an eyesore anyway. I spent years of being scared to go to school or out in the street every day, but later down the line, somehow, I feel it saved me from doing so many things I wouldn't have wanted to do.

...Bleh, sorry, didn't mean to turn this into me-me-me crap when you had the courage and sincerity of not only showing your experience, but finding the strength to show more love, understanding and support than a lot of people probably cared to give you for so long, despite all the pain you felt for so long. I guess I just wanna say... This take is definitely inspiring, so thank you on behalf of myself and others I'm sure, but also... I hope that, for yourself, you're also managing to own what you lived through in a way that allowed you to affirm yourself more strongly (it sounds like you are, I hope it IS the case), and most importantly, I hope you're in a much better place in your life now and you'll never have to return to that level of loneliness again.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Light spoilers for the Barbie movie, but mostly a reflection about myself and gender. (You also don’t need to have watched the movie to read this.)

Something that really resonated with me was the part of the movie where it was said that in the context of the gender roles of our patriarchal society, in order to be attractive to men, women act like they are more vulnerable, less intelligent, and generally helpless, insecure and in need of men’s assistance. The Barbies eventually weaponize this, but it is still a statement about something that projected me back in my high school years.

Back then I had no idea I was queer or anything (it was the mid 00s, we were fed a steady diet of Bush era conservatorism, islamophobia and fascistoid ideas on the corruption of the west and whatnot - the future queer-friendly climate was baaaarely a germinating seed thanks to cultural milestones like Brokeback Mountain, but damn it was a different world, really) but I was perfectly, acutely aware that I did not perform femininity in the way the girls around me did.

I had no knowledge of the concept of performing femininity or anything of that sort, but I remember being very perceptive about the difference in which I related to the “opposite sex” and in which my female friends did (not all of them, of course, but in retrospect they likely were not all heterosexual).

I knew that I couldn’t act like them even if tried, but also that I wasn’t actually interested in trying. Part of me was saddened by it, kind of regretted it, because I believed that I would never be attractive to boys unless I acted like the other girls. (Turns out I didn’t actually care, but back then I just assumed it was something that one just cared about, and blamed my “shyness” for my unwillingness to try going out with boys. Turns out that if someone wants to bang guys, they go and do it. Wild, right?)

But another part of me just couldn’t... summon the willingness to try. I didn’t want to act like I was insecure of my own intelligence and abilities compared to boys’. I didn’t want to act like I didn’t know my own value. I didn’t want to act like I thought I was stupid, and that I needed (wanted) a boy’s support and assistance.

I saw boys as competition, not as objects of desire, not as something to attract. I wanted to show that I was just as smart as the smartest boys. Heck, I wanted to show I was smarter. Later I learnt I was trans and asexual, which explains why I saw myself as a peer to the boys, not as a potential girlfriend for them.

(The biggest regret I have about my adolescence was that I didn’t realize that I should have tried to hang out with the boys more than the girls, but back then we self-segregated based on sex a lot, kind of crazy to think about now.)

This post doesn’t really have a moral, except maybe that it’s so incredibly fundamental for kids to know about the facets of gender and sexuality. I was smart, I understood things that I was not given the tools to conceptualize but I still managed to understand some of them, but I still lacked fundamental tools to understand the whole picture.

But also that gender non conformity just... happens. I didn’t have the conceptual tools to understand any of it, but I was gender non conforming and I fundamentally knew it, even if I didn’t have the words for it. You don’t catch gender non conformity from the outside; you have it, and from the outside you learn to understand what it means and how to navigate the world the way you are.

I’ve felt suddenly very close to my teenage self thanks to that scene in Barbie. She was a girl, she didn’t have the tools to be anything but that. But she was a girl in a way that didn’t conform to what being a girl was supposed to be according to the gender roles of the world she was in.

As a child, I was absolutely a girl. I played with Barbies with other girls. I wore dresses and skirts and read books with girl protagonists and watched movies and shows with girl protagonists. You can see the clues of my future gender and sexuality in my childhood, but only if you know what you’re looking for. I was indeed a girl. But I didn’t grow into a woman, I grew into something else, and teenage me - the age when you are in between childhood and adulthood, the age I was supposed to go from girl to woman but didn’t - was in between those. Still a girl, but without the germs of womanhood.

I wore a pink Barbie shirt to the movie theater (literally a Barbie shirt, with a print of several Barbie dolls on it). It felt like a homage to girl me. It was also campy enough to feel right for my current me, of course. But mostly it felt like something that had to do with my past girl self. The entire movie felt like something that had to do with my past girl self and how that intersect with current me. I’m not a woman, but I was a girl, and the movie said something about my past girl self, but also to current me, the one who knows they’re asexual and trans. It’s hard to put into words, but the fact that the movie said something about non-conformity to stereotypical gender roles and to heteronormativity (including allonormativity) through the lense of girlhood femininity... it felt like something that wrapped together past me and current me.

We’re not two different mes. It’s still me. We are one person. I am one person. I am that girl and this transmasculine person. I am me. (And I am Kenough. We are all Kenough even without what society says we must have to be complete.)

[missmaywemeetagain]

Pink Scarf - PART 18.2 (Elvis/Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Character/Fandom: Elvis - Elvis (2022)

Requested: kinda

(Read more here--Pink Scarf Series Masterlist!)

Prompt: You are part of Elvis Presley's coveted inner circle, and the currently-disgruntled wife of one of the members of Elvis' famous entourage, the Memphis Mafia. After Elvis' dynamite first performance in Vegas, you find yourself in deep water when his magnetism finally gets to you after all these years.  [ Fem!Reader ]

TW: Sex. SO MUCH ANGST. Medication/drug use/overdose. Dub con (sort of?). References to medical trauma, miscarriage, infertility. Blood. Cussing. Infidelity. Historical inaccuracies in the Vegas timeline. Priscilla doesn't exist in this timeline.  

Rating: Explicit/Mature (NSFW, 18+, so minors Do NOT Interact)        ||     Word Count: 16.3k (LOLOLOLOLOL)

A/N: Y'ALL, I'M SO SORRY, it's a monstrosity. I couldn't help it. There was just so much to be said while still in E's POV, so that's how we ended up here, over 16k. But we finally learn Elvis' BIG SECRET and experience the mighty fallout from that in his eyes, so hopefully it's worth it. This is my Thanksgiving gift to all of you, but you may want to pace yourselves. I feel like I had to rip my heart out a little bit to really get in E's headspace. Prepare yourselves emotionally. That's all I will say.

A quick note about the pictures...the first is actually from when he bought Graceland in March 1957 and it just works PERFECTLY for the beginning. I couldn't resist the pics from Red West's wedding in 1961, even though I know the timeline and the people don't match but the VIBES, the VIBES my friends, are oh so Jack and Reader's wedding so I just had to include them. The one for 1960 was taken the night of the Rollerdome. *sob*

If you so desire, you should now have the ability to tip my blog or different chapters in the story! Some of you have been asking about this, and of course, no one is obligated to do so! If you do choose to tip, thank you so much! I've never had anyone want to pay for my work before, so this is a big step towards my romance novelist dreams. 💜

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I am so FREAKIN' GRATEFUL for every single one of you babies, honeys, and lil' mamas supporting me out there, YOU ARE EXTRAORDINARY which is always evident but especially so when someone tried to steal PS last week and y'all went 'ride or die' for me instantly, without question, getting it taken down in record time. I didn't in a million years expect this kind of support and response for Pink Scarf, and your reactions, reblogs, messages, asks, and comments you've given me have been a blessing beyond expression. You all are the best community a writer could ask for! Thank you so much for your support. I am loving getting to know y'all better! I love every single reaction and comment and ask, and I'm sorry if I don't get back to them all as soon as I'd like but know that I love you all and am so excited to be making new friends! And a big "Hey, Y'all!" to our friends from Elvis Twitter, Elvis Discord, and Elvis Instagram--I see and appreciate you coming over to join us! 👀💋

If you feel so moved, please let me know what you think or how you're feeling (or send me asks)! I think I put everyone on the taglist who requested it, but please let me know if there are any issues or if I missed anyone. There seem to be some issues with tagging that I can't seem to fix, so please know I'm not leaving you out intentionally! Also, if you comment on a previous part that you want to be tagged, I might not always see it, so feel free to message me if I miss you!

I imagined this with Elvis in mind, but Austin!Elvis works here, too, whatever floats your boat! 

Apologies in advance if there are any grammatical errors or TW that I didn't catch. 

(I did start cross-posting Pink Scarf to my AO3 account, as well as my NEW Wattpad account. so if you are so inclined, you can check it out/support me over there with kudos and votes and whatnot!)

(Elvis in March 1957, Graceland)

March 1957

Elvis parks in front of your house, his mind whirling with noise. He’s not exactly sure how he ended up here, but as soon as he’d gotten off that train, he knew he needed something that he couldn’t get from any of the guys or even his mama. So, he finds himself unexpectedly here.

Turning off the car, he seeks any sort of relief from the heartache he feels. He’s been holding it all in since the train stop in New Orleans, the one that sent the world crumbling under his feet, destroying the pretty picture he’d had for the future. But all that is gone now and here he sits, hands tapping on the steering wheel with nervous energy.

He nods to himself, finally leaping out of the car, and then he saunters down the walkway to the front door. The chime of the doorbell can be heard through the door, and he listens carefully, grateful to hear light footsteps from beyond.

When you open the door, it’s like he can breathe again for the first time since the train pulled away in New Orleans. You look surprised to see him, those big eyes of yours widening the slightest before you speak.

“Elvis, you’re home?” you ask with a hint of confusion, but overall, you seem pleased at finding him on your doorstep.

“Just got in, baby,” he says, that boyish smile curving up. He gathers you up into a big bear hug and instantly feels better as he breathes in the unique scent of your shampoo and lingering perfume. A scent that feels like home.

“And you came right here?” you ask, brow furrowing when he pulls away. He notices that you look a bit worn around the edges, darker circles rimming your eyes as if you haven’t been sleeping well.

You’re right to be confused. Of course, he hadn’t planned to see you right away. He’d planned to sweep June off her feet in New Orleans, wanting to show her Graceland immediately, the home he’d thought they’d share together for the rest of their lives. But all that had been dashed as soon as she’d blurted out that she was engaged to another man. Engaged. His June.

“I want to show ya something,” he blurts out instead of saying any of this. “It’s a surprise! Will ya come?” Oh, god, you have to come, he thinks. His heart might shatter if you don’t, though he’s not exactly sure why. You’re not his—you and Jack have been dating for nearly a year—so it’s not as though if you don’t come that it really means anything. Yet, still he hopes. He needs this. He needs to share this moment with someone he cares about.

Despite the fatigue in your eyes, you nod quickly, and then as if you can’t leave the house fast enough, you grab your purse and coat and shut the door behind you without a word.

He smiles gratefully, and relieved, he grabs your hand and practically skips to the car. Once he has you tucked in safely, he runs around the front of the Cadillac, jumps in, and peels away. It’s not too far of a drive, and he yammers on about the last few months he’s been away, the words flying out of him. You nod and ask all the right questions, but he notices that you are pensive, quieter than usual.

His verbal diarrhea halts for long enough for his brain to take into account that you don’t seem your usual self, and he asks, “Are you okay?”

You look down at your hands and then out the window, as if contemplating if and how much to share, which makes him a little nervous. Your fingers twist in your lap.

“Honestly? It’s been a hard few weeks, E,” you finally say, still unable to meet his eyes. “My nana passed last Tuesday.”

He’s mortified that he’d just been going on and on about himself and here you were dealing with such a loss. “Oh, darlin’, I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t know. I know how close you two were,” he says remorsefully, reaching his hand over to clasp one of yours.

You shake your head, sniffling back tears. “It’s okay, you’ve been away. There was no way for you to know. And I keep telling myself that she’s in a better place now, but that doesn’t really help all that much. I guess it still doesn’t seem real.”

He nods, because he can’t seem to think of anything to say that will make any of this better for you. “We can do this another time, baby, if you’re not feeling up to it,” he finally gets out.

“No, no. I need something to do instead of moping around the house. I’m worn from being sad and worrying about the rest of it. No, I’m glad you showed up, E. I can’t wait to see your surprise,” you add quickly, trying for a smile.

“The rest of it? What’re you so worried about, baby?” It’s obvious you don’t expect him to pick up on that because he sees the quick look of panic that flashes over your face at the question, so he’s quick to add, “I mean, you don’t hafta talk ‘bout it if ya don’t wanna, but I can tell somethin’ else is weighin’ on ya.”

“You could say that,” you sigh, raising your eyes to the roof and back down again. The twisting fingers are back. “God knows I haven’t been sleeping, and it’s giving me these terrible headaches.” You pinch the bridge of your nose for respite. “I…well, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to tell you, Elvis, because it’s about Jack, and I really don’t want him to think I’m running around telling everyone our business.”

A warning rush rolls over him at this because he suddenly and very desperately wants to know what has happened with Jack, and that is a dangerous game for all kinds of reasons, many of which he’s not ready to admit to himself.

“I swear and cross my heart I won’t say a word, if you wanna tell me,” he says instead, a little too eagerly, so he quickly adds, “If it’ll help ya feel better and all.”

He forces himself to watch the road and not you, but he can practically hear your mind whirring.

“Oh, fine, but not a word out of you to anyone, Elvis Presley, I mean it. I know how bad you are with secrets,” you glare at him.

“I promise, I promise!” he concedes, crossing his heart. “I swear on my mama!”

“Well, in the midst of all this with Nana, I found out that Jack was dating other women a while back while we were going together. Apparently, I thought we were exclusive, but he didn’t, and well…” you trail off bitterly.

Elvis has to bite his tongue and bite it hard because somehow this wasn’t what he expected, and oh, lord, he knows too much for comfort.

Thankfully, you take this as him listening intently, because you continue, “I know I shouldn’t be too mad at him. I suppose it’s an honest mistake, seeing as maybe we didn’t communicate clearly enough about where we stood with each other. But it was so obvious to me, and I don’t understand how it wasn’t obvious to him. It’s not like I was going around with other guys all the time! I know it was months ago, but damn if it doesn’t really sting. Part of me feels like such an idiot, you know? What else don’t I know about him and what he’s doing? It just makes it hard to trust him, even though he was truthful about it when I asked.” He can sense the conflict in you, as your voice fills and shakes with the emotion of your held-back tears.

His heart is beating fast now, and all he is seemingly able to do is nod furiously, as if agreeing vehemently with all you are saying. The problem is that Elvis is complicit in all this and you have no idea. You have no idea that he was the one who pushed the showgirls onto Jack when he came to visit him in Vegas in November. You have no idea that “dating” didn’t have much to do with it at all. And now he feels altogether shitty for being the one to put Jack in that position in the first place. He’d managed to spread his own unfaithfulness and debauchery right on over to Jack, and now you are the one paying for it.

Shit.

Although, knowing Jack, it’s also possible that there was other dating happening, too. Either way, Elvis knows he’s got to tread real careful here and needs to keep his trap shut.

But Elvis can’t stand that hurt look in your eyes when he dares to take his eyes off the road to glance at you. He hates how angry and sad you look, the blue-black circles under your eyes conveying your distress.

And his emotions feel complicated, too complicated for comfort. He suddenly wonders if he didn’t present Jack with those temptations on purpose because there is a very deep and selfish part of him that desperately wants you to kick Jack to the curb for this, and that terrible, selfish part of him wants you to finally see Elvis in the same way he sees you.

Maybe there’s a reason that things didn’t work out with June, that voice pokes at him hopefully.

Stop that shit right now.

All this is playing through his head and leaving him outwardly silent. He realizes he has to say something, anything, because you are waiting for him to do so.

“I-I’m sorry that happened, ‘specially finding out at the same time as all this with your Nana. W-What are you gonna do about Jack?” he says, trying not to gulp.

He watches your eyes narrow and then he quickly looks back at the road. He can feel you shift in your seat.

“I…well, right now, I wanna pummel his brains out, so I told him I need some space to figure out what I want to do. I just—I thought we…” you trail off dismally. “I don’t want to go through this again,” you add quietly.

Elvis knows you are talking about Ted. Stupid Teddy who stepped out and got Judy Cole knocked up and then left you brokenhearted in his wake. It still pisses him off, even though he knows he’s got no right to judge Ted, not now, not after all the foolin’ around he’s done.

But when it comes to you, he can’t help but be protective. It’s in his bones, the way he wants to take care of you. In fact, he wouldn’t mind punching Jack in the face right about now for hurting you like this. And he’s even more pissed at himself for his part in it all.

Elvis just wants you to be happy and to be with a man who deserves you, and deep down, he doesn’t know if that man is Jack, even though he loves Jack like a brother. But the real problem is he’s not sure if he thinks any man will ever be good enough for you.

But his brain is wary to dwell on the meaning of that, wanting to avoid anything else that feels uncomfortable, so instead, he lets the excitement of showing you his new home overshadow any other unwanted feelings he might be experiencing.

“Okay, baby, we’re almost there, so close your eyes,” he says excitedly, changing the subject abruptly, before pulling up the long drive.

“Alright, Elvis, this better be a big surprise with how hyped up you are,” you chuckle, letting the mood turn by doing as you are told.

“The biggest,” he breathes, sliding to a stop in front of the Colonial mansion. “Don’t open your eyes yet! I’ll come around!”

You wait until you hear the car door open and feel his hand take yours. He gently brings you out of the car to standing, an excited energy vibrating through him.

“Okay, darlin’, open!” he drawls dramatically.

You do, blinking out the early Spring sunlight. He watches your face light up as you take in the architecture.

“Oh my god, Elvis, it’s beautiful,” you say in awe. “Is it yours?”

“Yes, baby, it’ll be all mine very soon. And for Mama and Daddy, of course,” he adds hastily, as if you’d thought he’d abandon his parents.

“Of course,” you smile, looking at him with those pretty, though tired, eyes of yours. “Can we go inside?” you ask.

All he can do is nod excitedly. Elvis takes your hand, pulling you up the steps and past the huge white columns on either side. He can’t unlock the door fast enough, the keys rattling and shaking in his hands. Once inside, he pulls you through the house, mouth running a mile a minute about what he wants to do in each room, how he wants it to look.

Finally, you make it to the top level, the last room. “This is gonna be my bedroom,” he rambles on. “I’m gonna get the biggest bed you’ve ever seen in your life, made special.”

You gently pull your hand out of his, and he watches as you take a small pill bottle out of your purse and pop two of the pills before downing them dry. Aspirin, probably, for the headache you were talking about in the car.

“E, stop a minute,” you say. “This is all amazingly wonderful and beautiful, and I am so excited for you, but…well, what exactly am I doing here?” You look at him with curious and concerned eyes.

“I…uh…I…,” he stammers, unsure of what to say or how to say it, as it’s all been spinning inside for hours and hours. He looks away, unable to meet your eyes. He certainly doesn’t want to put any of his stuff onto you, not now, not after what you told him earlier. His hands fall to his sides, and he shakes them, wiggling his fingers like he does to come down after a show. It doesn’t help. There’s just too much emotion rolling through him all the sudden.

You step to him, first putting your hands on his shoulders, then you run them gently down his arms before grabbing his flailing hands, absorbing some of that wild energy. The feeling still manages to send little electric shocks through him, even after all this time. Only then does he finally still and dare to look at you.

“E, what’s wrong? You let me talk earlier, so why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?” you ask, your eyes searching his, open and concerned. He should’ve known you’d see right through him. Maybe that’s why you’re here, because he knew you’d understand, that you’d be able to tell he wasn’t okay when no one else cared to.

It takes a moment for him to gather his words as his emotions get in the way. Emotions he stoically hid from the guys the rest of the way to Memphis. Emotions he pushed down when he saw his mama because he just couldn’t bear to break her heart yet with the news. God, he’s spent so much time recently learning how to hide everything real about himself in order to become the man everyone wants him to be. But here, now, with you, it all begins to overflow.

“I-I-I told June to meet me in New Orleans. I-I w-w-was gonna bring her back here, to show her w-what I-I wanted to buy…for us,” he says, bouncing on his toes, tears welling and clouding his vision. He hates how it’s tearing him in two to say this.

You squeeze his hands, urging him to continue, and for you, he does.

“But when I-I got there, she was acting so strange. There w-wasn’t much time and, uh, she told me she’s engaged to someone else.” He blinks and the tears run over, finally spilling down his cheeks. Saying it out loud suddenly makes it feel all too real. His chest aches with betrayal, with loss.

You look at him with such care, though you do not look shocked at this news.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, E. I know you how much you loved her,” you say, squeezing his hands again gently.

‘Loved.’ As in past tense.

“Did you know?” he asks suddenly, stepping back, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

You take a conscious deep breath. “No, I didn’t. But she did call me a few times wondering where you were, if you were okay. She said she hadn’t heard from you in months…” you say awkwardly, petering off.

“Aw, shit,” he curses, running a hand through his greased hair. A wave of anger rolls through him, burning him from the inside, but as much as he wants to put it on June and her spiteful engagement, he knows the anger is mostly towards himself. He fucked up. He fucked around. And he’d expected June to just sit back and wait for him while he did it. He didn’t even make the time to call her.

And you know what he’s done. He can see it on your face. He looks down, unable to meet your eyes.

You don’t speak. You don’t lay into him or tell him he’s an asshole, although it might be better if you did. God knows he’s already thinking it. You just look at him with sadness and understanding and forgiveness, even though he doesn’t deserve it.

With that ache in his heart, he finally realizes that he couldn’t have loved June the way he said he did and then leave her hanging like that. But he did love her…at least, he had. They’d had such a beautiful summer together and he was sure he wanted to marry her, once his fame was settled. Three years, he’d told her.

Shit, I didn’t even make it six months, he thinks absently.

And then everything changed almost overnight. His fame exploded. There was Hollywood, then Vegas. And the girls, good god, there were so many beautiful girls who wanted him, needed him, who threw themselves at him. He’d been weak. He hated being alone. He couldn’t help it. It was just sex, he’d told himself, just a way to blow off steam as his world became smaller and smaller and nearly suffocated him. A thousand excuses run through his head, but in the end, it was his choice not to pick up the phone. It was his choice to screw around, to live this life.

It’s no wonder that June moved on, he thinks. I’m a first-rate asshole.

“Y/n, I messed it all up,” Elvis finally chokes out. The sob fully breaks the dam holding him together, the pressures of his fame and the realization hitting him like a truck: he is never going to be able to have that normal life with a wife and kids he’d once dreamed of. His knees buckle under the weight of all of it—his decisions, both good and bad, the fame he doesn’t know what to do with, the unexpected consequences of this privileged but isolating life he’s chosen.

He sinks to his knees, defeated, on the carpet of his future bedroom, the one he’ll probably never share with someone who loves him for who he truly is. Because he isn’t just Elvis Aron Presley anymore—he is “Elvis Presley,” the celebrity, the commodity, the fantasy.

While he relishes in the luxuries of it all, in being able to provide the life his family deserves, a small part of him cannot help but feel like he’s made a deal with the devil. That this talent he has been blessed with will also be the thing that damns him. He is overcome by the feeling that he’ll never know ever again if he is loved for who he really is, or if it is his fame and his image they love. And there is something about that that crushes his soul.

But he can’t say all this to you because it sounds dramatic and indulgent, and he knows there are very few people in this world who’d actually understand.  This is his cross to bear.

And yet you still comfort him. You are still here. “Oh, hon, I know. It’s okay, I know,” you say, kneeling down with him.

In the midst of all he’s achieved and gained these past few years, June is the representation of all that he stands to lose, all that he’s already lost. “She was my last chance, y/n. I’m never gonna be able to trust that a woman loves me for me and not for my fame after this. And I screwed it all up,” he says quietly, tears running freely. “I just feel so fucking alone.”

“Oh, that’s not true, Elvis, it’s not,” you say, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “You’ll find her, I know you will. And you have so many people who love you for just being you, not for the fancy cars or the mansion or the fame. You’ve got your family, you’ve got Jack and your true friends. And you’ve got me.”

The way you say it, so softly, yet so matter-of-fact hits him hard, so hard that his heart stops beating for a moment. If he wasn’t already kneeling, the honest way your tired yet beautiful eyes search his face might knock him right off his feet.

It’s you, it’s you, it’s always been you, he thinks suddenly. This is the feeling he was avoiding in the car. The feeling he’s been avoiding since he watched Jack kiss your cheek in the diner a year ago.

It takes his breath away. You take his breath away, you always have. He’s been enamored with you since you plowed into him all those years ago in the hallway at Humes High.

Suddenly, June is all but forgotten because you reach up, cupping his face in your cold little hands and wipe a tear off his cheek. He cannot help the way his eyelids flutter closed at the sensation of the pad of your thumb dragging softly across his face. His breathing, rapid from his cries is now labored for another reason entirely.

Opening his eyes slowly, he shouldn’t be shocked to see tears in yours, your grief and sorrow, not only for yourself, but for him, too, welling there, as if you are connected to him. In fact, Elvis feels like his brain is short-circuiting because you are too damn close and the tension in the room is suddenly so thick, he feels like he might suffocate.  

Every cell in his body feels on fire as you lean in closer and closer until your lips press against his forehead. You’ve never kissed him, not once in all these years, and this alone sends heat rushing through his young body. Then when you kiss his nose, and then one tear-stained cheek, he holds his breath, feeling like he might die from this chaste sensation.

Warning bells explode in his brain because suddenly he wants you more than anything in this world, always has. And now you are so close. This is Jack’s girl, he thinks, and she’s my dear friend. Don’t be an idiot.

But when you lean in to kiss his other cheek, you place your lips alarmingly close to his, his tears wet underneath your soft lips, and his body is on high alert as only a twenty-two-year-old’s could be. His heart flutters as you pull back just enough to look deeply into his eyes, tears shining in your own, and then you lean in once more.

This can’t be happening. This should not be happening, his mind screams, but then your lips are grazing his and all rational thought ceases to exist.

You taste so sweet.

Heat blooms through the ache in his chest, and in his disbelief, he freezes. Part of him wants to devour you whole, but he is terrified that if he moves, he might spook you and he cannot bear that.

His confusion is overridden when your hands, shaking but demanding, pull him closer. Your lips are soft and sure, and he cannot help but be swept away by them. He’s kissed so many girls, too many to count, all over the country, but not one has ever made him feel like this, like his heart is going to leap out of his damn chest.

But this is a betrayal of a monumental kind, for both of you. While he is no stranger to betrayal, he does not want this for you. As much as he wants you with every fiber of his being, he does not want to be the source of your regret or heartache. He’s already done enough in that regard already, though you don’t know it. Mustering up every ounce of his self-control, Elvis pulls out of your kiss.

“Y/n, baby, you don’t want this. I’m no good for you this way,” Elvis says in a hushed tone, his forehead resting against yours. “I-I can’t have you regretting me, I-I-I couldn’t bear it.”

You lean back the slightest bit, and he thinks you might be listening, reconsidering, making him feel mostly dismay but also a little relief. What he does not expect is for you to press your little pointer finger up against his lips, hushing him, as you stare into his eyes. It’s as though your soul is as weary and needy as his and it feels as though you see him, truly see him, which is a new feeling for him. This sends a welcoming shiver down his spine, and he knows that despite every scrap of logic and propriety he is trying to lean on, with you he is powerless.

When your finger drags down his lips, catching on the bottom one, it sends a bolt of pleasure straight to his groin. Yet still he resists (even though he wants more than anything to see where this is going), thinking you might realize your mistake, and this will all be over in an embarrassed, yet still salvageable, flash.

Instead, you very deliberately scoot closer, your knees bumping his on the carpet. You lean in again, your lips grazing his again with a yearning he cannot help but return in kind. It’s barely a kiss, but the intent is there and when you pull up, effectively opening your mouth to him, the way he can feel your warm breath mingling with his own has him struggling to control himself.

You are testing him, testing the waters, hesitant but somehow insistent at the same time. His long lashes flutter closed when your fingers brush his jaw then rake into his perfectly styled hair. But it’s when the tip of your tongue touches his, sending a hot shockwave through him, that he can stand it no longer and closes the gap between your mouths with a longing sigh.

Pressing his pliant lips to your yielding ones, he rolls his tongue softly but firmly against yours, earning him a quiet moan from you. This is like fuel on the fire, finally spurring him into action, and his hands fly to the back of your head, pulling you closer.

If there is one thing besides music that Elvis excels at and loves to do, it’s kissing. He plays with it the same way he plays a crowd, listening to you and adjusting his performance as necessary. The buzzy way it makes him feel, like every nerve is magnetic, is one of the only things in this world that is anything like how it feels for him to perform for an audience. He loves the way it makes him feel.

But kissing you is unlike anything Elvis has experienced before. It’s as though you are tuned to the exact same frequency, finding his rhythm immediately, adapting easily. The usual fumbling of people getting acquainted in this way does not seem to apply to the two of you, the ebb and flow so natural it’s as though you had done this with each other many times before.

But the passion of it stokes a fire that has been denied a long time. Intense heat crashes over him, sending tendrils of warmth through his limbs and deep into his belly. He drinks you in as deep as he can without being desperate, and oh how close he is to being desperate for you. His grief over June melts away the more he tastes you, and he wonders how he ever lived before having the taste of your lips on his.

It's all very dramatic and romantic, which he is both at heart. From just a few kisses, he suddenly knows that if he could kiss you and only you for the rest of his life, he would be a happy man indeed. This surprises him.

But what truly shocks him is when you lean so far into him that it pushes him over, his knees screaming a little, and he falls back into the wall with a thump. He scrambles backwards, maneuvering his long legs into a more comfortable seated position while you don’t even miss a beat or attempt to come up for air. And when you crawl into his lap, hoisting the flowing fabric of your dress up just enough so your warm, bare thighs are straddling his, his heart actually flies right out of his goddamned chest.

Speaking of which, you are currently running your hands down his, pulling his silky shirt up enough to dance your fingertips over his stomach. His breath hitches then hisses at that, his arms involuntarily encompassing you, large hands splaying across your back to draw you ever nearer.

And you go willingly, inching up his lap until you are straddling his hips. When you grind down into his lap, he thinks he might’ve died and gone to heaven, his blue eyes rolling back into his head with a low moan.

He'll admit he’s dreamed of this, fantasized about this, but nothing could truly prepare him for the reality of the way you are making him feel. A trickle of attraction that began six years ago is now a roaring river, and is so, so much more than anything he’s felt before with anyone else.

He doesn’t understand it. He loves women. He always falls in love too fast, enjoying the rapid descent into the madness of it all. There have only been a few that he feels were true, though every girl he’s with, he loves in his own way.

But you are not like any of them, not at all. With you, it has been slow, so gradual sometimes that he didn’t even realize it. A teenage crush turned into friendship, and within that has blossomed a love that he didn’t know he was capable of. It is not until this very instant that he realizes it truly for what it has become. He doesn’t just care for you. He loves you.

He is in love with you.

Fuck.

Realizing this as your hips begin to rock steadily over his crotch is not the best timing. He’s as hard as a rock, fighting both the swell of his physical need for you while wrestling with the emotional needs he’s quickly realizing at the same time.

If he didn’t love you, he might not care if this is just a quick fuck between friends, but he does care. And he’s worried about where this is coming from, likely your overall grief and your anger at Jack. No, he doesn’t like the messiness of that at all.

But another grind of your pelvis into his, coupled with your tongue down his throat has the physical quickly taking over any and all rational thought. He wants you, more than he’s ever wanted anyone. And he desperately wants to give you what you need, which based on the mewls escaping your lips, is a physical release, a connection.

God, he can feel the wet heat of your cunt now through your panties and his pants as you slide over his length, back and forth, again and again. He clings to you as your hands wind through his hair, burying his head in your neck, his lips taking in as much of your skin as he can. He revels in the scent of you, your perfume and your irresistible musk that is permeating the room. He is positively dizzy with it.

You are frantic in his lap now, chasing something he’s not entirely sure you’ve ever had. He knows about Ted, but he highly doubts Ted knew what to do with you. And with Jack, well, he’s not sure how far the two of you have gone, but he can only guess based on Jack’s recent actions and your desperation for no one to know that Ted had popped your cherry that you’ve been trying to be good and pure and wait.

But as you reach for his belt, pawing at him, for the first time in this whole event, he gets the distinct impression that you’re not sure what to do next, only that you are needy for something. And goddamn him, he is willing to give you what you need, but only if you really understand what it is you’re asking for.

“Wait, baby, just…wait,” Elvis pants, stilling your hips with one hand while grabbing the hand at his belt with the other. You whimper a little at the interruption, rolling your hips for emphasis, but despite the groan he can’t help, he’s having none of that.

“Baby, I need to know that you really want this,” he says, brushing your hair off your deliciously pink cheeks, your lips swollen from his kisses. He looks into your eyes, almost getting lost in them and forgetting what he set out to do. “You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yes,” you whisper, and then add, “Elvis, please,” in a begging tone that sets him completely aflame.

“Oh, damn, okay, baby, okay,” he breathes, barely able to contain himself with that. He’s only human, after all. He races to help you with his pants, pulling them over his hips and down his legs in record time, his erection springing free, precum already glistening the tip. You lift up on your knees, you move your panties aside, and touching the silky soft skin of his cock, you help him line up with your entrance. He can’t help but gasp at the feeling of your cool little fingers circling his shaft, losing it a little more when he feels how incredibly soaked you already are.

He can’t believe this is happening. It shouldn’t be happening. But all logic is gone from him, replaced by the sweetness of your mouth and the wetness of your pussy and his desperate need for whatever love you have to give him.

He watches as you bite your lip in concentration, your fingers digging into his shoulders as you try to take him in. You are incredibly tight around the sensitive tip of his cock, and he moans a little at the constriction. That’s when he knows for sure that no one else has touched you like this for a long time. You aren’t ready for him, not yet.

Reaching under your skirt, he deftly finds the delicate little bundle of nerves there and begins to work it ever so gently. He shifts his hips down, his cock regretfully released from your hold on it. Sliding his fingers through your folds (oh, god), he gently slips one finger into your tight heat, then two, allowing you to adjust around him before pumping them in and out. Your eyes go wide and you gasp with the intrusion, but then they flutter closed with a sigh, and then another, and another before your hips begin to rock again.

He watches you in your ecstasy, taking in every delectable reaction he can and committing it to memory. The way your brow scrunches and your mouth falls open into a little O. The feel of your thighs clenching around his hand as he massages and fingers your dripping pussy. Those alluring little breathy moans escaping your lips. Every part of you has him completely mesmerized and he knows it. He knows his mouth is agape and he is moaning softly right along with you. He is so aroused just by watching you, he feels like he could come without you even touching him.

“E, I need more…I need you,” you breathe with your eyes closed and brow concentrated, and oh sweet lord, those might be the best words in the English language with the way they come out of your mouth.

He is utterly unable to deny you this. He can’t even speak, he just pulls his fingers out of you, lifts your hips, and maneuvers his cock back to the place it wants to be most. And you are more ready for him now, your tightness yielding much more easily around the sensitive tip of him.

It’s in that moment, as you sink down ever-so-slowly onto him and he is enveloped by your wet heat, that Elvis realizes he is utterly ruined for any other woman, ever. They cannot and will not ever hold a candle to you. He should’ve known before. He should’ve stopped this while he still could. But as you finally settle in his lap, taking him in completely, your fingers relaxing and your eyes bright and glassy, he knows he is well and truly fucked in every way.

He kisses you deeply again and again, memorizing your mouth, as you begin to raise and lower yourself on his cock. You feel so good, so completely perfect, it’s as if you were made just for him. He is drunk on you, hands wandering your body, finding what makes you keen, and he’s unable to get enough of you.

But you are so needy and ready that unfortunately it doesn’t take very long of you riding him and him playing with your clit for you to begin falling apart at the seams. Based on your surprised gasps, he’s not sure you’ve ever come before, so he does his best to help you get there while holding on to his own release for dear life. You begin to shudder around him, clenching his length, and with a strangled moan you hit your peak. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, the way you are coming undone on top of him, around him, your eyelashes fluttering closed and then popping open, all wild-eyed and rosy cheeked as the hushed sound of his name falls out of your perfect mouth.

He's so fucking enraptured that his orgasm hits harder and faster than expected, chasing yours almost immediately, not giving him time to pull out like he should have. But he can’t bring himself to care because it’s all you. All he’s ever wanted or needed—it’s you.

Oh, sweet Christ, I love you, I love you, I love you, he chants in his mind as he follows you over the edge.

He clings to you, head pressed into your breasts as he pulses hard into your warmth with a grunt, then stays there as he comes down from the high. And then you are both gasping in the silence, and there is an air of disbelief that fills the room that the two of you just did that, together.

This is making love, he realizes suddenly. It must be, considering the incredibly overwhelming feelings he has for you that are pouring through him in unreasonable amounts. He never wants to let you go, not ever.

He pulls back enough to kiss you tenderly, lingering a little too long. There is a sinking, nearly unbearable feeling that this may never happen again, and it threatens to break him, so he pushes it as far away as it will go.

You press your forehead to his, silent, you still enveloping him as he eventually begins to soften inside you. Neither of you rushes to move. He cannot read what you are thinking and that makes him nervous.

“Are you okay?” he finally whispers, his thumb grazing your cheek.

You nod but say nothing.

“Okay, baby.”

You both sit there a while, simmering in what you have done, and he wishes you would say something, say anything at all to let him know what is going on in that head of yours. But you are quiet, unreadable.

Finally, you remove yourself from his lap and stumble your way into the ensuite bathroom to clean up.

Elvis runs a hand down his face, wiping away the mixture of salty tears and sweat that has collected there. He uses his handkerchief to wipe himself off and then puts himself back together. Blissed out in his refraction, he is so full of love for you that he almost can’t stand it. He thought he’d known love before, and perhaps he did, but this realization of love for you is so big that he doesn’t know what to do with it. God, he feels like with you by his side, he could conquer the damn world.

But you’re not his girl.

Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit.

His head falls back onto the wall with a thump.

Somehow, he’s both on top of the world and completely buried by it at the same time. You interrupt his thoughts, coming back in quietly and falling, exhausted, into his arms. He takes off his coat and puts it on top of you both. He can’t help but pull you closer, up into his lap, so your head rests against his chest. This is where you are supposed to be, he can’t help but think.

He knows the two of you need to talk about this. While he has been having his epiphany, he has absolutely no idea what you are thinking. He has no clue if you feel anything even close to what he feels for you. It is possible that all of this was just some sort of revenge on Jack, and that breaks his heart a little. And even if you did do it for that reason, you chose him. You felt safe enough with him to choose him.

But something deep inside him tells him it isn’t just that, not with the way you kissed him, not with the way he felt like his damn soul was connecting with yours. That deep connection he’s always felt to you, it can’t possibly be one-way.

But what if it is? a worried little voice creeps in.

He wants to ask you, but he looks down and sees you passed out on his chest. Fatigue begins to hit him, as he hasn’t slept in over a day.

It’s not long before he, too, falls into an exhausted slumber.

*

He’s not sure how long you sleep, but when he wakes, the sun has moved and the room is nearly dark. Disoriented, it takes a moment for him to realize that it’s you in his arms, and when he remembers why, his cheeks flame with heat.

Oh. Oh.

Drowsy, he rubs his eyes with one hand, trying to wake up. As the memories of your lovemaking resurface, his heart beats faster, and he knows the moment you wake you will both have to face what you’ve done. You’ll have to decide what comes next. And more than anything, the hopeful little voice inside him realizes that he wants to share this all with you—that’s why it is you he brought to Graceland today, and why it was so important to him that you like it.

“Y/n, honey, wake up,” he says quietly, not wanting to shock you awake, but you don’t even stir. He shifts under you, hoping that might get you moving, but you just lie there.

“Hey, baby, it’s time to wake up,” he says at full voice now, but you remain still, too still, and silent.

His heart starts to pound. Something isn’t right.

“Y/n! Honey, I need you to wake up!” He is getting frantic now, his hand gently tapping your face, which feels too cold. But still, you do not wake.

“Fuck. Fuck! Y/n, wake up!” He shakes you. Panic and confusion roll over him as he tries to figure out why you are knocked out. His sleep-addled brain runs through what happened before you both fell asleep, before you made love.

Her headache, he thinks. She took pills for her headache.

He had thought they were aspirin, but as he frantically rummages through her purse, pulling out the little prescription bottle, he reads “Percodan, one tablet every 6 hours for pain and sleep relief” on the label.

Elvis swears you took two tablets, not one, way too much for a girl your size. You hadn’t read the bottle.

Shit.

Having been in Hollywood, he knows that this happens. People overdose from taking these narcotics, usually to get high, but he knows that you did it on accident. Based on how full the bottle is, he’s guessing that you maybe hadn’t even taken the meds before today.

Regardless, he’s not taking any chances with you. There’s no phone hooked up at the house, so with his adrenaline now working overtime, he lifts your unconscious form and quickly carries you to the car. He peals out, driving to Baptist Memorial Hospital as fast as he possibly can.

The those few hours are some of the most terrifying of his life.

He bites every nail down to the quick in that waiting room, pacing there as your family sits, equally worried. He can’t help but feel that they are judging him for letting this happen, even though it was an accident.

He can’t bring himself to call Jack.

Guilt eats away at him, even though he knows he had no idea about the pills, but if he hadn’t fallen asleep, maybe he would’ve realized sooner that something was wrong. Part of him feels like this is punishment for his sins, for what he let happen in the house. He prays and prays to God, harder than he’s ever prayed before.

Please, God, I love her. I can’t lose her. Do what you want to me, just let her be okay.

His prayers work.

You wake up. The doctors say you are going to make a full recovery. His heart nearly explodes with relief.

He offers to stay while your family goes home to get some rest. It is past visiting hours, but being Memphis’ own superstar, the nurses take pity on him and let him stay, as long as he doesn’t keep you awake.

When you finally stir, it’s the middle of the night.

“E—Elvis?” you croak. “What happened? Where am I?”

He sits up straight and leans forward to take your cold little hand in his. “Y/n! Oh, baby, you took too many of your headache pills and I couldn’t wake you up. You scared the hell outta me. You’re in the hospital, but you’re gonna be okay,” he whispers, squeezing your hand.

“Wake me up? Why—why was I asleep?” your brow furrows in confusion.

His heart drops into his stomach, dread like ice in his veins. He doesn’t want to ask, but he knows he must:

“What’s the last thing you remember, honey?”

Obviously still groggy, you close your eyes for a moment to think. “Um, I remember you picked me up and took me to…to your new house,” you say, then your eyes pop open, “You were showing me your beautiful new house, and then my headache got really bad, so I took some of my pills, and then…” You stop, looking at him blankly. “And after that, I don’t remember. You said I fell asleep?”

Oh, God, no. No, no, no. He feels like he’s going to vomit.

The force of his dread hits him like a tsunami as he runs through what happened in his head again. You took the pills first and then he told you about June and then you kissed him.

But you don’t remember. You don’t remember because you were accidentally fucking high.

“Elvis, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” you say.

“Sorry, baby, I-I-I was just really worried about you, is all. I-I guess it’s all kinda hittin’ me at o-once, now that you’re o-o-okay,” he says, unable to keep his voice from shaking, unable to keep from stuttering through the half-truth.

“Please, go get some rest, E. I’ll be fine. I’m so tired, I feel like I could sleep for days…” you say, drowsily, eyes fluttering closed.

“Okay, okay, baby, I will…Get some rest,” he says, kissing you on the top of your head as you drift back into slumber.

In a panicked daze, he manages to make it down the hallway and to the men’s room before his stomach rolls and he is violently sick into the toilet.

Oh, sweet Lord, he took advantage of you. You were drugged and didn’t know what you were doing, and he had sex with you.

He vomits again, tears running down his face.

I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have ever let it happen if I’d known! I would never hurt her! the reasonable part of his brain cries out.

Shame eats at him from deep inside, cutting him. He deserves it.

How could he do this? How could he let this happen?

I should’ve known. I should’ve known the moment she kissed me that she wasn’t in her right mind.

But he didn’t, and what the hell does that say about him? He’s fucking selfish and he took something from you that you weren’t in your right mind to give.

He dry heaves, wanting desperately to expel his regret but knowing that he never will, not until the day he dies.

And what’s even worse is that he is still left with the fact that he is desperately in love with you. You don’t remember what, up until a few minutes ago, was one of the most amazing moments of his young life. You can’t share that with him. And that makes him feel even more selfish because the last thing he should be thinking of is his own damn feelings.

Sitting there on the cold floor, he tries to convince himself it’s for the best. It’s much less complicated for you this way. For you, there was no betrayal. For you, making love with him can never be a mistake you once made in a moment of anger and desperation. For you, there is only the love of friendship between you two.

Yes, it’s better this way, he thinks. He can carry the burden for both of you. He deserves to.

Because he knows he cannot give you what you need. He cannot be there for you, day in and day out, holding you tight and keeping you safe. Especially not now. Not after what he’s done.

He has to lock this away. You can never know, not ever. He must protect you from this and from his guilt. He knows you wouldn’t be able to look at him if you knew.

Oh, God. Please forgive me.

He can’t stop crying. He has to stop crying because he has to go out there and he has to look fine. He has to be fine, for your sake. You’re alive and going to be okay, and it’s that which he latches onto as a mantra in order to slide into the persona that has made his name.  

He manages to make it to the car without losing it again, as the dawn starts to break on another day. He can’t bring himself to go home; he can’t look his mother in the eye right now. So, he drives aimlessly, for hours, his sins eating away at him until he finds himself at the church.

He waits for Reverend Hamill in a pew, his thoughts dark and churning. This is just the straw that broke him, for he knows that since his fame began two years ago, he has fallen so very far. He has been self-centered and vain. He has fornicated and broken hearts and caused pain to those he claimed to love, all in the name of this new life of his. And he’s pushed his friends to do the same. His stupid, selfish actions have had a ripple effect that has completely ruined lives.

Not only had he driven June away and into the arms of another man, he’d played with your life and Jack’s as well. If he hadn’t pushed Jack to cheat, you would never have needed those pills in the first place. You almost died because he didn’t want to be alone in his debauchery, and he knows that some sick part of him pushed Jack to it because he wanted to sabotage your relationship.

Then he realizes that, on top of all that, he did another incredibly selfish and stupid thing. He came inside you, which means that you could be pregnant. And that would ruin you completely, and you wouldn’t even know why, you wouldn’t understand. He would do the right thing, of course, and maybe, someday, you would learn to forgive him, but it would ruin you all in the process.

Oh, Lord. Oh, Jesus.

He thinks he might vomit again.

When the Reverend emerges, he looks surprised to find Elvis sitting there.

“Pastor, I am the most miserable man you’ve ever seen. I am doing the things you taught me not to, and I’m not doing the things you said I should,” he sobs, “Please, please pray for me.”

“Oh, son…come in,” Reverend Hamill says.

Deflated, consumed, and heavy with his guilt and the repercussions of his actions, he follows the pastor into his office. He can’t bring himself to admit what he’s done, to admit how horrible he is. He just cannot get the words out. Instead, he weeps and prays, over and over, the Reverend praying with him.

All he can whimper out is, “Please, please forgive me for my sins. Please.” He’s not sure if he’s asking the minister or God or both. He only knows he cannot live with himself for hurting you, even if you don’t know it.

After over an hour of this, by the grace of God, he finally calms some. His entire body and soul aches.

But he knows what he has to do now. He understands the deal he has made.

It doesn’t matter what he wants or needs. You being okay is all that matters. He has to make sure you’re taken care of. He has to make sure that you are happy.

In the days and weeks and months that follow, Elvis pretends he is having the time of his life, becoming every bit the budding superstar that the country insists that he is now. Sometimes, he even believes it; sometimes, he even forgets. Though every time he sees you, his heart breaks a little more, his love for you permeating him to the core.

But he knows he can’t have you. He knows he doesn’t deserve you.

Instead, he plants seeds in Jack’s ear. “You love her, don’t ya, Jacky Boy? When are ya gonna make an honest woman of her?” He pushes Jack to fully commit to you. He even goes with Jack to buy the ring, though he stops himself from paying for it. Jack has his pride, after all.

Instead, he throws himself into work, grateful for the grueling cycle of touring and recording and appearances and acting. He throws himself into fixing up Graceland for his family, building a life of extravagance that he never could’ve dreamed of.

And, God help him, he starts seeing other girls. He leans into the image of the playboy they all want him to be. He dates and he fucks, thinking that maybe, just maybe, one of these girls will make him forget the perfect way you fit into him, forget the way your face looked when you came undone around him. That maybe one of them will come close to the wonder that is you. That they will help him forget his past sins by cutting new ones. He cannot seem to help but do the sinful things he swore he wouldn’t do, lest he drown in his sorrows, but the girls help keep him from the one thing that is off limits: You.

When Jack finally pops the question in the summer, and you accept immediately, he can barely keep himself together. He convinces himself this is the right thing, that he is happy for the both of you as he stares into the night sky knowing deep in his soul that it should be him. He reminds himself that this is the deal, this is what he wanted, to see you happy and taken care of.

And he will damn himself for your salvation every time.

December 28th, 1957, Graceland

Oh, God, what have I done?

The moment you appear down the aisle, looking ever the most beautiful, blushing bride, every part of him aches with love for you. He’d thought that by giving you the life you dreamed of, the life you needed, that it would be enough to let you go. But as Elvis stands by Jack’s side at the altar, he realizes that no matter what has happened, no matter what he has done, he is always going to love you and it’s never not going to hurt, especially not after this.

Not after the quick look you shoot him as you step up to meet Jack, your pretty, wide eyes full of excitement and emotion. Not after seeing you all in white and wishing to God that it was him marrying you right now. Not after he keeps his peace after the minister asks if there’s a reason these two should not be married.

He somehow manages to keep himself from openly weeping during the ceremony by biting the inside of his cheek repeatedly but still finds himself caught in your radiance more than once and must force himself to look away. During the wedding pictures, he cannot help but maneuver himself close to you to press a lingering kiss to your cheek, to be memorialized for all time on film. The press of his soft lips into your warm cheek sends that tell-tale shiver through him, one that drives in the fact that he still loves you. He gives himself this tiny thing, and no one questions it because they all know you are close friends, and a congratulatory cheek kiss on your wedding day is not strange.

Discretely, he makes sure to let the photographer know he wants copies of the pictures, with the excuse that he is paying for them and wants to make sure they are perfect. This, too, is not questioned, as if it is the most normal thing in the world.

To torture himself even more, he offers Graceland up for the reception. These are his two best friends, after all, now cleaved together in holy matrimony for the rest of their lives. No expense should be spared because they deserve all the happiness in the world.

And they do, he reminds himself throughout the day. They do deserve all the happiness in the world.

At least if you are with Jack, he thinks, he still has you in his life. He can still see those beautiful, wide eyes whenever he wants without question or suspicion.

He clings to this.

Even so, he feels as though he is being sucked into a riptide. It seems fated that his life is going in a much different direction than the newlyweds. The draft notice he received a week ago confirms this, weighing heavy on his heart and feeing like a nail in the coffin of his hopes and dreams.

God is testing him, he thinks. It is all a very clear and stark reminder that where he goes, you cannot follow. He cannot help but feel that God is punishing him for his sins by taking him away from the fame he has just settled into to, taking him from the people he loves and the things he loves to do. He wants to lament that it isn’t fair, but part of him knows that he deserves this, too, for what he’s done and for what he’s done to you.

And perhaps God works in mysterious ways, as while he is loathe to leave his parents and his career and his fans, he cannot help the small part of him that is relieved he doesn’t have to watch you and Jack in your newlywedded bliss for the next two years. It’s the only upshot to this entire disaster.

But he won’t let his sorrow overshadow your big day. With a smile plastered on his face, he gives a charming and loving speech of how wonderful it is to see his two best friends find such happiness with each other. He only stutters once or twice, which comes across as endearing rather than damning. But the thing is, even though he is miserable, he is still happy for you two. He wants more than anything for you to have everything you’ve ever wanted and more, and if that is with Jack, then so be it.

The only time he truly falters is during the dance.

Your little sister (who at 18 is not so little anymore), Rosie, as the Maid of Honor, dances with Jack, while he, the Best Man, dances with you. The moment he touches you, sparks fly through him and down his spine, and he cannot help but pull you in a little too close, even though everyone is looking. His large hand wraps around your smaller one and the other clings to your waist.

The thing is, you do not react to this at all, not outwardly, anyway. You let him hold you and press his cheek against your temple. You let him breathe in your scent and lean into you, as if memorizing everything about you. You let his hands contract, pulling you in closer. You let him lead because it’s like somehow you know, in your soul, that he needs this, even if you’re not exactly sure why.

And for that he is grateful. He is grateful as he takes in every bit of you, committing you to memory, knowing that soon that is all he will have of you. All you will be is a memory, imprinted on his heart, for the rest of time.

When the song comes to an end, he leans back slowly, his eyes searching your face for any recognition, any understanding of his plight, any feelings of your own that might linger in your subconscious. You stare back at him openly for a moment, and for a second he thinks he sees a glimmer of something in your eyes, but then Jack is pulling you away and the moment is gone.

As the party continues into the night, he feels like he is suffocating and escapes upstairs to his room. And as people know not to enter his bedroom without express permission, he feels safe to let out the shaking sob he’s been holding back for hours.

He’s not sure how long he cries before a tap at the door startles him into motion, frantically wiping at his face.

“Bewbie, sweet boy, can I come in? It’s just me,” his mama’s voice echoes through the door.

“Yeah, Mama, come in,” he croaks out, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. While he is relieved that it’s her and not one of the guys, or God forbid, you, he still doesn’t know how he’s going to explain the state he’s in.

His mama comes in quietly, shutting the door quickly behind her. She looks him over and in one fell swoop seems to understand, even though he’s said nothing, even though he’s spent months perfecting his nonchalantness for the world, what is going on.

But a mother knows.

His mama sits next to him on the edge of the bed, putting her arm comfortingly around his broad shoulders. “Oh, my wittle baby, it’s her, isn’t it? Our beautiful y/n. You love her,” she says, less of a question and more stating a fact.

That does him in, the way his secret is exposed so easily by his mama. It terrifies him that she knows him so well, and terrifies him that if she knows this, what else does she know? There’s no point in denying anything, so he curls into her like a child and lets go of it all, the tears streaming once again down his cheeks as his body shakes with quiet sobs.

His mama has always loved you, taking quickly to your genial ways and how you always made time to spend with her. Maybe she suspected something from the start, he doesn’t know, but she doesn’t judge or scold him now.

“H-hurts so bad, Satnin,” he hiccups out. And it does, now that he’s letting it. It feels like his heart is being ripped from his chest.

“I know, baby, I know,” she coos, rubbing his back. He can sense all the questions she wants to ask but doesn’t.

“I-I-I couldn’t…I-I ain’t w-w-what she needs or wants, Mama,” he stutters out. It’s as close as he’s willing to get to telling her the truth.

“It takes a brave man to let the girl he loves marry another, when he knows that’s what she wants, though I can’t say I wish it didn’t work out the other way,” his mama tuts.

“Y-you knew?”

“Course I knew, Bewbie. A mother always knows. To be fair, I been watchin’ the way ya look at that girl for the past few years and it didn’t take much t’put it all together, baby,” she says. “But the question is, does she know?”

He stills and stays silent for a moment, before answering truthfully, “I don’t know, Mama. I don’t think so.”

“Hmm,” she tuts, “I’m gonna trust you had good reason for lettin’ that wonderful girl go without tellin’ her how ya feel?”

His heart constricts, causing him to doubt his choices, but he can’t explain how he nearly killed you with his terrible decisions. He certainly can’t tell his mama that he made love to you when you weren’t yourself, no matter that it was you came on to him. And he knows his mama would balk if he told her how much he doesn’t deserve your love because of his sins.

“It’s better this way, Mama,” he says quietly, sitting up and staring at his hands. “And she’s happy, both she and Jack.”

His mama nods, resigned. “Alright, my sweet baby, puttin’ your friends’ happiness before your own…I know ya made the choice ya thought was best,” she says, wiping his face and pinching his cheeks, “but ya get yourself cleaned up now ‘n go be at least a ‘lil happy for your friends, okay?” She leaves the obvious unsaid—that he’s leaving to film in a few days and straight from there, it’ll be into the Army, so this will be one of the last times he can spend with them.

He nods. “O-okay, Satnin.”

And with that, he does as he’s told.

*

And then, in a blink of an eye, she’s gone. His mama is gone and his world fully collapses and it’s all his fault.

You are the only one who saves him from being completely swallowed in the blackness of his despair, and he’s not in his right mind to think or care how that looks. All he knows is you’re there when he needs you the most. You’re there to get him through the absolute worst of it before they send him a world away, and then, he loses you, too.

He loses everything that means anything to him—his mama, you, his career—and he wonders how long God will continue to punish him for his misdeeds, until he can’t bring himself to care much anymore about anything at all.

Germany feels like a cold fog that clouds his brain, even when he brings his Daddy and Dodger and Red over to live with him off base. In his haze, he writes Anita promises he wishes he could keep but deep down knows he won’t. Then, he turns around and does all the things he shouldn’t do because he can and what does it even matter if it’s all lost anyway? He takes the pills they give him to keep him awake in the field, and those make him feel pretty good, for a time anyway, and then he starts taking other pills they give him to bring him down after. In his off time, he screws and tries to forget the life he used to know.

And in those horrible quiet hours when he lies awake, trying to sleep when even the pills won’t let him, trying to escape and can’t, he thinks of you. He thinks of his love for you and your hold over him even now, a world away, and when he’s extra lonely, he imagines you on top of him, writhing and beautiful. And when he comes undone, there’s nothing left but a gaping hole in his heart and a mess in his hand.

*

March 1960

Elvis bites his nails to the quick on the long journey home. It’s not just because of the planes and the exhaustion and not knowing if he’ll ever get back to being “Elvis Presley,” but he knows he’ll be seeing you in a matter of hours. Not years or months or weeks, but hours.

And he thinks that maybe he is finally over you, that maybe he’s healed enough from everything and that he’s on his way to start something new, something fresh.

But, God, somehow you are more beautiful now than before, but you act so strange around him, and his heart wants to leap and implode all at once. Somehow everything has changed…but you, you still own his heart.

Once he discovers your pregnancy, he is over the moon for you because he can sense how badly you want this. He doesn’t care that the baby is Jack’s—he loves it more than anything because he loves you and seeing you so happy brings him true joy for the first time in a long, long time.

His career is taking off again, his new image impressing those who denounced him a few years ago, and he already has appearances and recordings and films lined up to go. Life feels…almost good, like maybe he’s finally paid his karmic debt.

Then you almost bleed to death in his arms.

His terrified confession of love is spoken in an act of desperation, a singular hope that if you know he loves you, you won’t be able to go, that the string of fate that draws you both together cannot be broken, that he can somehow will you back to life with the power of his love.

He begs God, begs as he’s never begged before, an inner wail of blood-soaked prayer that does not cease as he rides with your near-lifeless form to the hospital, nor when he calls Jack and your parents, nor as paces the waiting room.

Singularly focused on his pleas to God, he doesn’t even realize he’s covered in your blood until Charlie and Jerry arrive shortly after the ambulance and look at him in shock.

“Jesus, EP,” Charlie gasps quietly, taking in the macabre scene, “We need to get you changed and cleaned up before Jack gets here.”

That’s when he looks down and sees your life’s blood staining his pants, his shirt, his arms, his hands. God, it’s even under my nails, he thinks as he watches his hands shake, feeling utterly disconnected from his body.

He’s frozen, unable to move, repeating his prayers again and again, until Charlie whisks him away and has to physically help him strip down and wash the blood from his body in the bathroom. As he watches the pink-tinged water swirl down the drain, he cannot bear the thought that maybe it’s the last thing he has of you, these stains, and that maybe he’s truly lost you.

He just got you back. He can’t lose you. He won’t.

No, his inner mantra of prayer doesn’t cease until he is absolutely sure you are going to be okay.

Though “okay” is relative, he learns quickly. You have a long recovery ahead of you, the surgeons say, wiping their sweating brows, and the next few days will be crucial. The baby is gone, and the doctors say that more tests need to be done once you are well to see if that is even an option in the future.

He is heartbroken for you, and for Jack. But you are alive. You are alive.

Lamar and Red have to physically drag him from the hospital in the morning to get him ready and put him on the train to Florida for Frank Sinatra’s special, which is the very last thing he wants to do. But it is absolutely pivotal in his career comeback, so he tells Rosie in no uncertain terms that she is to keep him posted about her sister and any developments.

As he showers and packs, exhaustion seeping into his bones, it suddenly hits him that he told you he loved you, and it’s likely there will be fallout from that. It makes him incredibly worried, and he is even more loathe to leave until he knows where he stands with you. It’s possible you won’t even want to see him again.

Or it’s possible she loves you, too, a little voice hopes. But he knows better than to feed that monster. You don’t love him, not like that, and it’s selfish of him to even consider at a time like this.

“It’ll take your mind off things, EP,” Jerry tries to convince him, seeing his trepidation, prodding him along to get on the train. “And it’ll give y/n and Jack and her family time to get situated.”

The message is clear. Elvis is not in the inner circle of your life, not anymore, not as he wants to be. This fact is both sobering and cutting at the same time. It reminds him yet again that where he goes, you cannot follow, and where you go, he is not always welcome or needed.

He nods solemnly, thinking he finally understands, yet again, the terms of his deal with God. You live and he keeps his distance, he keeps his sins from tainting you. You live and he lets you go.

He pops a couple of pills, brought over from Germany, to wake him up, to get him in the performing mindset, to rev him up to being THE Elvis Presley. “Anything she needs, anything at all, comes to me,” he tells Jerry, “Hospital bills, recovery costs…and I want the best doctors helping her figure out her pregnancy issues. Oh, and send flowers, every day.”

Jerry nods, eyes observant and keen. “Of course, EP. Anything for y/n and Jack.”

Yes, anything for you.

*

You don’t remember a thing from that night, he learns from Rosie, and most of him thinks it’s for the best. But a small, egotistical part of him thinks bitterly that you certainly have a knack for forgetting anything monumental that happens between the two of you.

But he is busy. So busy, in fact, that he barely has time to think of you at all after that.

Except half the songs he chooses for his comeback album have something to do with you, which he only consciously realizes when he steps up to the mic to sing. And just as he thought of you the night of the talent show, he thinks of you now, singing about the girl of his best friend and how it feels so right being with you. He pours his hopes and dreams and frustrations and sorrows right into that album.

Perhaps it will cleanse him of needing you. Perhaps it’ll help him let you go.

When you find out that children are likely not in the cards for you and Jack, he sends more flowers, every day for a week. Jack is devastated and practically begs to come out to Hollywood to escape the sadness, so he agrees.

Anything for his friend, right?

He takes care of you from afar. He takes care of everything. Anything you could possibly want or need is yours. But he keeps his distance.

That is the bargain.

He falters at Christmas, almost letting his grief and yours ruin everything. He swears that you feel something for him, that maybe your impulse to be with him was not entirely driven by the drugs all those years ago. That maybe you do somehow remember his confession. Part of him swears if he had let it happen, you would’ve been his once again.

But you are not his, you never really were.

And while he knows this on a logical level, the more he is away, the more he fills his days with mindless movie making and wooing his costars and taking pills that bring him up and more that pull him down, the more he lets himself imagine you are his. From a distance, he can take care of you. From a distance and in the deep recesses of his mind, you belong to him and him alone.

“Elvis Presley” becomes a household name, now with a clean-cut image, alluring to both housewives and teenagers alike. His fame and wealth grow, and so does his isolation and loneliness. So does the need for the pills and to bring the rest of the guys into it all with him. Even Jack.

Especially Jack.

But he doesn’t like to think about why that is.

He manages to destroy his relationship with Anita along the way. He loved her, in his way, he really did. But she was not you. Neither is Ann, though he thinks for a moment that she may be the answer to his prayers, but in the end, he screws that up, too.

As the years drag on, he thinks he finally understands why he sabotages every relationship he’s ever had—it’s you—none of them are YOU. So he flits from fling to fling without ever truly landing because all he really wants is your love. But he doesn’t deserve it, he never has.

He knows this as he watches Jack descend into alcohol and drugs and women, and a small, horrible part of him wants Jack to self-destruct, and even though he knows this hurts you, he is too selfish to stop it. And the guilt of this, coupled with the downturn in his career, pushes him to self-destruct, too.

Still, he keeps his distance. When he’s home, he tries not to shoot you too many lingering glances. He reins himself in, most of the time, but in moments of weakness, he allows himself to get too close. He catches you alone, he makes a pass. But because you are you, you always rebuke him with a laugh. Silly Elvis, ever the jokester.

But sometimes, in the dark of night, in your beautiful, wide eyes, he sees something else. That deeper connection that drew you together in the first place, mixed with a heat he has only seen once or twice. And it is that which keeps his hope alive.

In an attempt to bury it and fill the hole in his heart, he almost marries, but in the end, he can’t go through with it. He’s wildly unhappy and dissatisfied, and it’s not until he finally gains some control over his career again that things take a turn for the better. He finally starts to clean up his act. He seeks knowledge and spiritual clarity. He finally finds his passion for music and performing again after nearly a decade.

But it’s too late for Jack. He managed to drag Jack to hell and while he made it back, Jack has not. And you are miserable because of it. This breaks his heart.

He tried to give you everything you wanted and needed by stepping back to let Jack do so. He kept his distance. He did what he’d promised God, and yet life still destroyed your dreams.

Jack no longer makes you happy. Jack is no longer the man who can give you what you need.

And suddenly Elvis wonders if he was wrong all along. That perhaps he wasn’t the man you needed then, but he is now. Perhaps his sins have been forgiven. Perhaps the more he pushes you away, the worse things become for both of you because you are indeed supposed to be together.

You are his. You’ve always been his.

So, riding high from his first Vegas performance, he finally allows himself to pursue you. He pushes away a decade and a half of guilt and shame and lets his charm and confidence entice you. He lets the sparks fly between you, finally free after all this time, and more intense than ever. To his gleeful surprise, you accept him willingly, if not a bit hesitantly.

Maybe it is just sex, he thinks at first, this carnal need he has for you, but he knows better. As soon as he tastes you after all these years, he knows he can never let you go again. As soon as he coaxes, then watches you come undone again and again, he realizes that still, after all this time, this is it for him. You are it. You always have been. And he will do anything to keep you, to make sure you know that you are his.

He thinks you might remember it all after that first night, but you don’t, not right away. He senses your fear to let go, to let yourself have him, to have this affair. He knows you want this to be only sex. And maybe it is for you, at first.

But he will have you. He doesn’t care how many mountains he must move or what he has to do to convince you to stay, but he loves you more than anything in the world and he’s not willing to part with you, not anymore.

It’s true that his fame, wealth, and influence have spoiled him into always getting what he desires. Of course, what he truly desires always has been you. Now unlocked, his love and want and need for you is insatiable, and he will do anything to keep it that way.

Anything for you. Anything but letting you go.

*

As the blackout of his rage starts to dissipate and he comes to, he assumes that his friends are holding him back from quite literally killing the disheveled and beaten man who used to be his best friend, and he watches with deep satisfaction as you slap the shit out of your husband.

He also feels the immense guilt of letting it get this far, of not knowing just how bad Jack was to you, and his part in all of it.

But when you vomit and promptly fall to an unconscious heap on the ground, his fear is what overshadows his rage and guilt. Something is wrong, he knows it.

Not again, not again, not again.

Triggered by your history, Elvis, with untold strength, wrenches himself from the four men holding him down and clamors to your side, everyone else forgotten.

Pulling your limp body into his lap, he screams for someone to call the doctor. His heart pounds so hard he thinks he might need one, too.

Please God, please God, please God. Not now, not after all we’ve been through.

That deep-seeded, old shame creeps back in as he rocks you: This is your fault. Your selfishness did this. You destroyed Jack, he took it out on her, and you’ve put her at risk, yet again. You are a scourge on this woman you claim to love so much. A pestilence.

He’s getting lost in this fearful despair, and then Jerry’s voice in his ear snaps him back: “EP. EP! You have to let her go, man. The doctor is here.” Jerry pulls his arms off her as the doctor examines her.

Elvis’ fingers go straight to his mouth, his obsessive habit of biting his nails taking over as he watches the doctor carefully.

The doctor looks up, taking in the scene. He looks at Elvis, then at Jack bleeding against the wall, and purses his lips. “Will somebody tell me what happened to this young lady?”

“There was an incident…” Jerry begins diplomatically.

“Her husband slammed his fist into her face!” Sandy yells over him, furious, earning scathing looks from the entourage. They knew better than to give details, knowing to keep things close to the chest and avoid any legal issues, to protect him at all costs.

“Sandy!” Jerry admonishes her.

“No, it’s okay, Jer,” Elvis says firmly, waving him off. “I’m sure the doctor knows to be discreet.”

The doctor looks up at his hovering, intimidating form, and says nothing for a moment. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I need to get her to a hospital and stabilized as soon as possible. She needs x-rays. It’s likely she has a serious concussion, Mr. Presley.”

The men start to argue, knowing that as soon as she leaves this room, a whole host of problems could fall down on them, but that’s the last thing he cares about right now. All that matters is you.

Elvis holds up his hand and everyone goes silent. “Do what you need to do, Doc. Anything she needs.”

The doctor nods and asks that someone phone for an ambulance.

Elvis looks up and sees that the men cleared the room at some point, leaving only the major players. Jack still sits, leaning on the wall next to Red, his face battered and bloody, watching the doctor. Elvis can’t tell if Jack is sorry or not. Elvis walks towards Jack, his anger tempered only by his concern for you.

“EP!” Jerry says in a warning tone, signaling for the men to flank him.

“I’m fine,” he commands, crouching at Jack’s side.

Jack flinches.

“Are you proud of yourself, Jacky Boy? Are you satisfied, seeing her laid out on the ground like that? Is this what you wanted?” he hisses.

Jack says nothing. He sees the tears in Jack’s eyes, the regret through the pain, and for a second, Elvis almost sees the man he used to know in there.

“Hmm,” he tuts, looking over his friend with disgust, shaking his head. “I’ll deal with you later. And you, too,” he says, with a low, deadly calm, pointedly to Red. Then he rises easily from the floor, his attention on the men with the stretcher who just entered the suite.

“It’s never enough with you, EP, you selfish motherfucker. The man who gets everything he wants, no matter how many lives he has to destroy to get it. The rules never apply to you, do they? Dammit, you coulda had anyone, anyone! Why did it have to be y/n?” Jack spits out mournfully from behind him.

Shame snakes through him, through the anger that continues to boil under just the surface, covering the sorrow that flows under that. There is truth in Jack’s words, he knows that, even though he wants to deny it.

“How long, Elvis?”

He supposes he owes Jack that much, though he doesn’t even turn his head.

“Opening night.”

“No, you bastard. How long have you been in love with my wife?”

The room goes silent yet again.

Elvis turns around, but he cannot bring himself to look Jack in the eyes for a moment. A lifetime of memories flashes through his head, of times much better than this, of times when they had each other’s backs. Ultimately, he knows what Jack has become is partially his fault. Ultimately, he knows it was wrong of him to want you when you weren’t his, wrong to have sex with you, even before the debacle of you and the pills. It was wrong of him to manipulate Jack into marrying you.

As much as he hates Jack right now, he once loved him, and still, he betrayed him.

Jack chuckles darkly, “That fucking long, huh?”

Elvis finally looks Jack in the eyes but says nothing. Nothing he can say will make any of this less of a fiasco. Nothing he can say with make it right, no matter how much he wants to jump in to defend himself, to tell Jack he saw you first, to tell him he wanted you first, to fucking explain that you’re his goddamn soulmate and he’s had to watch you be with someone else for almost two fucking decades.

“Ahhh, and she didn’t even know, did she?” A hint of a smile plays on Jack’s bloodied lips. “Didn’t even give the King the time of day! Well, at least I got that goin’ for me,” he laughs.  

His brow furrows as he fumes, and he steps towards Jack again. Lamar puts himself between the two men.

“It’s fine, Lamar, let him at me. What do I have to lose now anyways?” Jack laughs, which turn suddenly to sobs, “You were my brother. I gave up my life for you! I loved you, man!”

The words cut Elvis to the bone, flooding his fury with more guilt.

“And I love her,” Jack sobs.

“You don’t fucking love her,” Elvis says, infuriated, pushing past Lamar to grab Jack’s chin, wrenching his head to look at you being put on the stretcher. “You hurt her. You been hurtin’ her. And Jack, if she dies, I don’t care what brotherly love was between you and me—I will fucking kill you,” he says, low and vehement in Jack’s ear, for only him to hear.

He pulls back to stare Jack in the eye, to let him know just how serious he is, to make sure he understands that through the pain and the alcohol and whatever pills he might be on.

Jack blinks through his tears and nods his head once, shakily.

Elvis releases him.

Then he steps in behind you, still unconscious, on the stretcher as they take you out of the penthouse and to the elevator.

“EP, I really don’t think it’s a good idea to…” Charlie starts, hustling behind him.

He turns, seeing the stares of the men who have given him their lives to stand by his side. Some of them are befuddled, some understanding and resigned, some even a little suspicious after tonight’s events.

“I don’t give two shits if it’s a good idea or not, I’m goin’ with her. Anyone wanna argue with me about it?” he says impatiently, shooting up an eyebrow.

No one does.

It’s good it’s the middle of the night, otherwise he would’ve caused a huge scene at the hospital. But the nurses and doctors seem to gather by his demeanor that now is not the time for autographs. Instead of putting them in the waiting room, they set up an empty room at the end of the hall for the lot of them, a gruff old nurse warning them they best be quiet and not wake any of the patients before she closes the door on them.

And for the third time in his life, he waits to know your fate.

He waits for you, just as he’s been waiting for you for the last 18 years.

He waits and he prays, though this time, he makes no bargains with God.

He stills when the doctor finally comes to tell him that, yes, you do have a concussion and though you will likely experience symptoms as you recover, you should recover fully. He feels like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders.

When the doctor leads him and him alone back to your room, the doctor mentions the other symptoms you’ll likely experience and that you might have issues with your memory leading up to the event. Elvis cannot help but chuckle at that.

“Oh, I’m betting she will,” he says under his breath, though this time, he thinks it might be best after what you went through tonight.

He sits by your side in the quiet, dimmed room, and is taken aback by the angry bruising already spreading over your beautiful face. His fury at Jack swells through him once more, followed immediately by sadness. You look so innocent and fragile lying there. Suddenly, he feels afraid to touch you, as though you might break.

So, he waits. He waits for you to wake and he prays. He thinks of the lifetime he’s had without you and the life he wants with you going forward. And this time, he knows he won’t be leaving your side for anyone or anything.

But his secrets still lay heavy and dark on his heart. There are those things he cannot tell you of that day at Graceland so long ago, and the things he still cannot bring himself to admit to, like his confession of love as you almost died in his arms and his meddling in your life. He doesn’t want to tell you how all of it has led to you lying here in this hospital, hurt and fragile but somehow still his, he hopes.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do about it yet, so for now he just waits for you to come back to him.

He’s been too rough with you, he thinks, in his quest to show you how you are his. Pushing you too hard to keep up with his rockstar lifestyle and his insatiable need for you sexually has not been good for you. You’re exhausted, not eating, and have been on an emotional rollercoaster for days, and he was too consumed by his own selfishness to listen, so much so that he almost drove you away. The hurt, the feeling of pure panic that shot through him when you said you were leaving was enough to bring him to his knees, but of course, he could not tell you that. He couldn’t show you that weakness. Instead, he’d covered it with anger and passion, fucking you into submission.

He realizes his dominance, while fun in the bedroom, is perhaps masking his true feelings. He has told you in so many words how desperate he is for you, how he wants you to be with him, to let him take care of you, how he is yours, that he needs you. But in truth, he is afraid. Afraid that you don’t and never will feel the same towards him as he does towards you. That it is only his coercion, manipulation, and his sexual prowess that keeps you here with him. No matter how much you say you are his and that you will stay as he fucks it out of you, he’s not convinced that you’ll feel the same in the light of day, of your own accord.

Lord, the way you said you needed him tonight flashed him right back to that first time with you at Graceland. The time you don’t remember. He is putty in your hands now, just as he was then. But that need of yours was only sexual. If it is truly just sex for you and you are only staying for that…well, that scares him and makes him want to hold onto you so tightly that you can’t leave even if you wanted to.

If you don’t ever feel that same pull inside your heart, in your soul, that he has for you, he’s not sure what he will do.

Gone is the bravado and confidence gleaned from years of being Elvis Presley. Instead, he sits here at your bedside feeling stripped to his core: a nervous, stuttering boy with a funny name who loves you more than life itself. He is that boy who picked your books up off the ground, the one who you calmed backstage with your sweetness and wit. For you and you alone, he is just Elvis. And he’s worried he won’t recover if you don’t ever grow to love him.

Anxiety courses through him, a throbbing pulse that serves to remind him that for all he has and is in this world, he is still only a man. And you are the girl who has comforted him through some of his worst moments, yet now after all this time he’s still terrified to let you truly see him. If he lets you in, you will see him for all that he is and all the terrible parts of himself he’s ashamed of: his selfishness and possessiveness, his overindulgence, his obsessive tendencies, his goddamned vanity and ego. His secrets. If you know the things he’s kept from you, he’s not sure you’ll ever forgive him. Certainly, you could not love him.

His heart aches at that thought, flooding him with despair. He needs you so badly that he cannot bear to risk showing you everything; however, a deep part of him wants to flay himself bare to you, to expose himself in a way that he has never done before, not with anyone.

Elvis puts his head on the bed near your hand. He is going to be gentler with you, especially after tonight. He will prove to you that he is worthy of your love, that this is so much more than just sex. He’s going to take care of you and give you the life you’ve always deserved.

God has humbled him once again tonight, and he knows he must do better.

He loves you so deeply he can hardly breathe.

So, he waits. He prays.

And he hopes that one day, you will love him, too.

*

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[someoneq]

local libraries <2

was at mine to return a book I had finished (your wish is my command by Deena Mohamed, an Egyptian graphic novel about a version of our world where you can buy wishes) and looking around for more books because library

picked up a couple more and went to the teen section because that's a good place to find queer books that aren't too long or full of sex scenes and whatnot and in the window they had this

image description: a sign in a window that says protect trans kids on top of a trans flag. the sign is reversed because it was taken from inside /end id

which just melts my heart, all is well in the library

they have pride flags in the other window and I was back round that way a little later and took a photo of them, noticing that some were upside down

image description: a 12 pane window with small paper pride flags blue tacked to 9 of the panes. from left to right, top to bottom they are:

the intersex flag: yellow with a purple ring in the centre

pan: pink, yellow, and blue horizontal stripes. this flag is upside down, so blue is on top

aro: dark green, light green, white, grey, and black horizontal stripes. this is upside down, so black is on top

bi: pink, purple, and blue horizontal stripes, with the purple stripe being thinner than the pink and blue

trans: light blue, light pink and white horizontal stripes in the order blue, pink, white, pink, blue

ace: black, grey, white, and purple horizontal stripes. this flag is upside down, so the purple is on top

gay: the ocean gay flag which is horizontal stripes of 3 shades of teal getting lighter towards the middle, white, and 3 shades of blue getting darker towards the bottom. this flag is upside down so that the blue is on top

enby: yellow, white, purple, and black horizontal stripes

lesbian: the sunset lesbian flag which is horizontal stripes of 3 shades of orange getting lighter towards the middle, white, and 3 shades of pink/magenta that get darker towards the bottom

on the bottom 3 panes there are also some origami butterflies in the trans colours /end id

I went in and told one of the librarians that some of the flags were upside down and she fixed the ocean one and got a couple of the boys sitting in the area to get the aro, ace and pan ones because they were taller

also it's not visible in the first photo but there's a little progress flag in that window too

happy happy times, support trans youth and your local library

[koskela-knights]

How I think AW2 characters would react to you coming out as transmasc

Alan Wake: He understands. He's been through it too. He'd probably be enthusiastic to share his experience with another transmasc person because, besides Barry and Alice who are supportive, he doesn't have someone else to talk about it. He probably has some old binders lying around which he'd offer you for free.

Saga Anderson: She'd be supportive from the get-go. She would probably do some research to understand you better, but would mainly ask how she can support you. She'd be quick with using a new name and/or pronouns.

Alex Casey: Supportive Uncle Casey comes out whether he wants to or not (He can be a softy even if he doesn't want most people to know). He will give you some life advice and might share his hair routine and hair product secrets with you. Besides that, he will be casual and formal about it and move on as usual.

Thomas Zane: He'd be compelled by you and might see some of his own gender fluidity reflected in you. If you'd feel uncomfortable or uncertain about your appearance he would definitely love to give you some fashion advice. He would probably do, regardless of your situation. He'd like to tell you about his late wife, Barbara who was also trans.

Rose Marigold: She'd try to be supportive but wouldn't know how to be discrete about it in public, which could lead to some awkward outing at the Diner. However, if anyone would try to start shit with you, she would immediately jump to your defense and scold the person in question. She has probably read some trans AU fanfics so she'd have some of the terminology down.

Anderson brothers: They would recall having met the 'rocking transsexual community' during their Ragnarok tour back in 1975. Tor would call you a 'hardcore guy'.

Koskela brothers: Ilmo would start using super masculine words to try to validate your identity, maybe would even start calling you 'sport' and 'champ' (words he normally doesn't use). He would make bad puns too (if you're an employee he'd point out every payment as a trans-action or some shit) Jaakko would be supportive in a more quiet way. He'd perhaps start wearing an allyship flag pin on his jacket and have a small trans flag plotted somewhere in the workshop.

Valhalla Nursing Home residents: Some might not really know much about trans identity, but they'd try to at least gender you correctly. Some residents might tell tales about a nephew or an aunt 'back in the day' who had changed their sex and since then lived as the other gender and everyone was chill with it.

Tim Breaker: He would definitely try to help change your legal papers if you were to live in Bright Falls or Watery and you hand't had the chance to change those things. In the same conversation, he will invite you for a D&D session and treat you like a friend. No big deal.

Kiran Estevez: She'd be serious about it and formal. Quickly changing name and/or pronouns if applicable before your coming out. Trying to relate or show understanding, she might talk about statistics regarding medical transition and the increased happiness rate that often comes with it.

Warlin Door: His stage persona would be enthusiastic, willing to bring you onto the show to tell him and the audience all about your life story and whatnot. Off-stage, he would act formal and neutral about it. As long as you're not in the way of his plans, he doesn't care what your gender identity is or was.

[chaifootsteps]

I find it laughable how Viv and others praise her for handling 'complex' topics yet Viv takes the easy way out every time. She will defang characters instead of giving them steady development into changing and to distract from their crimes, will have others be one-dimensional hate sinks so people will ignore the flaws of her other characters.

Ozzie being pro-consent was clearly Viv's way of hand-waving the issue of Ozzie supporting shit like child molestation, rape, necrophilia and whatnot. Stolas has become a woobified version of himself, going from a menacing sex offender elitist who neglected his daughter despite caring about her to sad owl boi. She's defanging her characters at the expense of her worldbuilding purely to keep them likable and throws previous characterization and buildup under the bus.

If anything, Stolas is probably more accurate of an abuser albeit unintentionally on her part. It's hard to accept but most abusers have people they care for, hell, they probably care about their victims since most of the time, these people are either close to or related to them. I wouldn't be suprised if most abusers are abused themselves one way or another. That doesn't stop them from abusing, gaslighting and hurting them, but I think it's better to take a more nuanced approach since most abusers aren't those lurking in the shadows, they are your friends, your family, your coworkers and superiors. Valentino is easy to hate because he's so obvious and one-note. It's easier to accept a one-note hate sink than to come to terms most abusers aren't one dimensional mustache twirling villains, but the people you care for who are capable of great harm.

There it is. Vivzie wants all the credit for creating complex characters but without the work -- and the risk -- of actually writing them.