#and If anyone feels inclined to vote

[umemiyan]

how it’ll work: so basically you guys will pick the prompt first, and after that we will vote on which character will go with the prompt! i’ll write a little drabble/fic according to the results.

if there happen to be any ties i may run a tiebreaker or decide myself depending on how it goes. there could also be potential for more than one prompt or character, but i can’t make any promises!

there’s a big chance that more than one kink/prompt will end up in some of these anyway, but the one voted on will be the primary starting point and focus. dark content may of course also be present because that’s just how my blog and writing is sometimes lol

i wanted to try something fun and interactive for kinktober to get myself involved a little 🧡 it’s pretty informal and chill but i’m excited to see how this goes! 🎃

[ladyofrosefire]

fuck it, bg3 companions shower routine

Shadowheart: Shar hates self-care, but a Shadowheart does take pride in her hair, and a Shadowheart who has learned to be kind to herself can indulge. Long, complicated hair routine, very specific water temperature, and a tendency toward long-ass depression showers. LOVES a bubble bath and will make a whole event of it with flower petals and candles just for her. Will bring a book with a little book tray and a glass of wine.

Astarion: Similarly complicated hair routine. Gotta hydrate the curls, and being dead does not do nice things to your hair. Less prone to standing there staring at nothing while the horrors set in, but prone to scrubbing too hard. Similarly fond of a bubble bath, although without the book or flowers, although he will fuck with an essential oil heater and likes to make his own blends.

Lae'zel: Queen of the 4 minute shower. She has been accused of not even waiting for the water to heat up, but she likes it blistering. Does not actually use 3-in-1, thank you. Having fairly short hair helps. She finds the other companions baffling. Would get bored in a bubble bath unless she had company (rubber duck counts).

Wyll: Sings. If someone called him on it, he would be embarrassed, the first time, for about a minute. Neither wildly efficient nor inclined to standing there for ages and ages and prefers to shower in the morning. Washing his hair is a chance to relax and take care of himself, although before he has his family back, it can be a bit melancholy. He has fallen asleep in the bath before. I feel like he'd love a bath bomb and he'd love the full romantic evening with candles and flowers and music.

Karlach: Please, please someone boil her. Once she gets her engine fixed all the way, she tries a cold shower just to remember what it feels like and keeps up a running commentary about how much it sucks while also not turning up the temperature. Absolutely loves sharing a shower with someone and will also sing. Should not attempt her little jig on wet tiles. May try anyway. Someone should introduce her to proper hair/skin care because if anyone is using 3-in-1, I'm sorry, it's Karlach. Genuinely cannot sit still for a bubble bath unless she has company to cuddle.

Gale: Voted Faerun's Most Likely to Relitigate Arguments in the Shower, Even if He Won Originally. Loves to pamper himself, canonically, loves a spa day, also canonically. You simply are not getting the bathroom back for a good hour, although not all that time involves running water. Plays around with different products and researches the living hell out of everything. Loves a long soak. The only person with a feline in their house to ever bathe in peace. Constantly torn between wanting a book with him when he has a bath and not wanting to get the pages steamy and damp, much less actually wet.

Minthara: Her ideal hair wash involves someone else doing it for her while also having the utmost certainty that the person will not attempt to murder her. If her partner washes her hair for her, she turns into a puddle. She has an incredibly specific lineup of products. If she shares, understand that she has bestowed upon you a great gift. More about bath salts than bubbles and could be persuaded to a sufficiently elegant bath bomb (it would not be a difficult check).

Halsin: Low-flow showerhead user. Hell, he might be the kind of person to turn the water off entirely when not soaking/rinsing out his hair... However, he is not immune to the "shower together to save water" line even though he KNOWS it doesn't work that way. He needs low-scent soaps/etc considering his heightened sense of smell. And listen, this man does not fit in a bathtub unless he goes somewhere special or finds a particularly large one. He made everyone floaty ducks, properly sealed against water damage, and he has one for himself that holds his soap.

Jaheira: Understands that having a chair in the shower is just being kind to yourself and proceeds accordingly. Will revisit arguments she had that day, but despite that has a quick and fairly simple routine. She needs the water pressure to pound the everloving hell out of her back. Loofa on a stick user. Like Wyll, she has fallen asleep in a bathtub, in part thanks to having and using a bath cushion. Truly, the expert on bath-based comfort.

Minsc: Also sings in the shower. LOUDLY. Boo is allowed to sit a shelf out of the way. The best way to get him to use lotion is to give him something that smells yummy. He has similar problems to Halsin regarding fitting in bathtubs. He tries anyway. He has been banned from at least one hotspring for doing a cannonball.

[ceilidhtransing]

As someone from the UK I'm stunned that there are still people talking about “boycotting” the [US presidential] election in order to “send a message”. No one in politics actually interprets low turnout as some kind of message and that's pretty obvious from the general election we just had over here.

We had crashingly low voter turnout, at 59.9% - down 7.4 percentage points since the last one. But it's worse than that makes it look: 59.9% is just the percentage of actually registered voters who turned up; the proportion of total UK adults who voted was 52%, the lowest since 1928.

Yet Labour still took a massive victory (with fewer votes than in both 2019 and 2017). There has been a little mention in the media of the extremely low turnout, but overall the Story Of This Election as it's being presented by both the media and politicians is not “wow, looks like half the British adult population wanted to send a message that they were dissatisfied with the options” but rather “what an incredible Labour landslide”.

And the fact that Labour won power despite only 52% of adults actually voting is not going to affect the way they run things. They're not going to water down their plans, they're not going to say they have a smaller mandate, they're not going to try to work with smaller parties who took votes from them, they're certainly not going to “move left” to try to scoop up lefties who are decidedly unenthusiastic about the current state of the Labour Party (in fact, if anything they're likely to move even further to the right to try to attract voters who went to the far-right Reform UK). Staying at home and not voting has not “sent anyone a message”. The attitude of politicians towards non-voters is overwhelmingly “why bother trying to appeal to people who aren't inclined to use their political voice”, not “wow we need to enact change right now in order to appeal to people who feel unheard and disenfranchised”. Non-voters are assumed to be apathetic uninterested people who couldn't be bothered voting, not a bloc of highly motivated people with strong views who are refusing to vote in order to make a point. And I'm not saying this is a good thing! Ideally politicians would try to connect with people who don't feel politically represented, especially since non-voters are more likely to be marginalised in some way*. But that's the state of affairs we have. The inaction of not voting is not treated as some special kind of protest action; it's just treated as inaction.

*In this election, turnout was 7% lower in constituencies with the highest proportion of BME people, compared with the lowest, and 10% lower in constituencies with the highest proportion of Muslims, compared with the lowest. Compare this with turnout being 11% higher in constituencies with the highest proportion of >64-year-olds and 13% higher in constituencies with the highest proportion of homeowners.

Trump cannot be allowed to get into power again. And I know that Americans have the horrible quandary of “well how on earth are we supposed to communicate to Democrats that we don't like what they're offering other than not voting for them”. This is one of the many flaws with the US electoral system; it's a simple two-horse race and there's no realistic way to send a message that actually you don't like either option without just making it more likely that the candidate you most hate will win. It's not a great situation to be in, especially since there are very valid reasons not to like Biden and not exactly be hyped to vote for him. But oh my god NOW is not the time to be trying to “send Democrats a message” by not voting (or voting third party). You won't be sending anything and you'll just be handing Trump a second term because that is, very unfortunately, how it works. The best-case scenario of a Trump second term is “merely” an intensification of violence towards people of colour, crackdowns on LGBTQ rights, the further stripping away of reproductive freedoms, heinous crimes at the border and towards migrants and undocumented people, dangerous and apeshit foreign policy that will further endanger vulnerable oppressed groups everywhere, the emboldening of fascism and Christian nationalism not only across America but across the entire world, the list goes on. The worst-case scenario is the straight-up end of the last vestiges of representative democracy the US still has. None of this is a price worth paying in order to “send Democrats a message” and “move them to the left”. And I would feel the same way if Reform UK - a party whose supporters talk about wanting to gun down asylum seekers in the sea - were at the gates of power and the only realistic way to stop them was to vote for the current deeply flawed incarnation of the Labour Party. Some prices are too high.

(And I've seen a few people seem to embrace the notion of a Trump second term with the idea that “then we'll just form the antifascist resistance”. Trust me, you don't want to have to become “the resistance” to a fascist state. That is a last resort. So many people will die if it gets to the point where Trump or some other far-right ghoul is a dictator presiding over an authoritarian one-party state. This stance of “bring on the fascist nightmare so then we can be The Resistance” feels like it comes from people who get their idea of political action from Star Wars rather than from those familiar with the harrowing stories of real-life historical antifascist resistance. It's not hanging out at the secret HQ with your friends and blowing stuff up and having fun; it's being thrown in a camp and executed.)

It's good to want the Democrats to move left, to want to tell them that you're dissatisfied with Biden as a candidate, to want to let them know that you're profoundly furious with their handling of Gaza. But the way the system is set up means that “not voting” is not sending a message at all; it's just handing a victory to their opponents. And again: some prices are too high.

[traineecryptid]

NPSS Weibo Q&A (20240831) Part 1

This is a Q&A session held on Weibo. People will tag their questions with the hashtag #南派三叔藏海花在线答疑# (#NPSS Zang Hai Hua Online Q&A#) and NPSS will look through the tag to pick some to answer. The event started at 1500 hours on 2024 August 31st. For comedic purposes, this translation will include the timestamps for the answers. And for efficiency purposes, I have left out all usernames. The usernames of the question-askers can be found via the screenshots in this folder if anyone is inclined to do that.

1422 Come ask questions at #NPSS Zang Hai Hua Online Q&A#. I will stay online and pick questions to answer without limits from 3pm onward. 1500 Q: Sanshu, what was the thing that Zhang Qiling wanted Pangzi to tell Wu Xie that Pangzi mentioned when he was fixing Wu Xie’s dislocated shoulder? My friends and I would love to know. 

A: Eat well, sleep well, wear socks even in the summer. 1500 Q: Lei, do you like this pic I made? [It’s an edit of NPSS’s face on a pink dressed magical girl body]

A: I feel like this pic is affecting the fengshui in my house.

1502 Q: Shu, it is confirmed that Ten Years is included in the ZHH drama. Then, will the drama show the changes between ZHH Wu Xie and Ten Years Wu Xie? In yesterday’s livestream you said that there are four turning points in the drama. Is it that Wu Xie will become Xie Di after being tricked four times? A: Every character and their fate all have big turning points. Whether he’s a good person or an evil person, whether his answers are real or fake, you must watch till the end [only then you’ll know].

1502 Q: Sanshu, what was Wu Xie thinking in the split second when he saw Menyouping’s portrait in Tibet? A: “What the fuck!” (T/N: swears are not very translatable in meaning. I tried.) 1503

Q: Pumpkin Sect (T/N: this might be an intentional typo punning of nanpai which means southern sect), what would the scene be like if Xiaoge’s mom met Wu Xie? Would Bai Ma be happy that her child had gained some humanity because of Wu Xie? A: Bai Ma would probably teach Wu Xie to sing. Something like The Night of Ulaanbaatar.

1505 Q: Shu, why have you been answering so many questions lately? Has there been some big thing happening?

A: They said that I’m a liuliang celebrity so I should shoulder the publicity mission. (T/N: Liuliang celebrity refers to celebrities who are popular (or controversial) and are able to generate a lot of social media traffic. For example: when a celeb would get on the trending searches whenever they post selfies/ attend events/ do just about anything.)

1513 Q: What would Mo Yungao from Southern Archives do if he had really found Xiaoge? A: He would eat Zhang Qiling.

1523 Q: Is the audience viewing experience taken into deep consideration when making drama and movie adaptations? For example, allowing those who haven't read the novels to understand the plot. I saw some people saying that they couldn’t follow the plot [from the drama].

A: For Reboot, in order to help the audience get into it, we introduced the characters and their occupation in the first episode. But for ZHH,  according to the number of votes, we all chose to do a cold open based on the novel. 

1524 Q: Sanshu, Sanshu, I want to know, based on Zhang Qiling’s arm strength, how many Wu Xies can he carry?

A: If he uses the strength from his waist to assist, he can throw Wu Xie up to the third floor.

1526 Q: What is the ending for Boss Jiao in the Reboot novel?

A: Became Jiao. (T/N: The character for Jiao means burnt).

1527 Q: Will Xu Zhenxuan play Wu Xie in the Heavenly Palace re-shoot?

A: Yes.

1528

Q: Shu, did Zhang Haike recommend Xiaoge’s drink to Wu Xie because he wants to show off that he understands Xiaoge? A: Hahahahaha

1532 Q: ZHH drama and novel will have two separate endings. Now that the drama has an ending, have you decided on the ending of the novel? When will you experience Tianshou? A: I always understood the dramas as the dreams of the characters from the books. That means that the changes in details in the dramas, to me, I would always explain it as the intentional and unintentional amendment to the details as they tell this story to someone else. Or that these are part of their dream and after-the-fact fears. I will explain it again after [you] see the end.

1533

Q: I would like to know the mental state of the company. It seems like it’s taking big steps towards a beautiful direction.

A: It’s rare to be able to legally go crazy. Everyone’s very happy.

Here's the first 15. There are more answers and I will chip at them at a pace that will hopefully be able to keep up with NPSS. The folder also contains a google doc that has all the complied Q&As if anyone prefers to read on that.

[viablemess]

Gale's Childhood + Mystra

I just have some thoughts and need to articulate them because they will not leave my brain alone at all and I cannot think about much else. Feel free to sit down and join me as I word vomit how I imagine Gale’s childhood went. I did not edit this or proof read it at all, so bear with any grammar/spelling/flow mistakes please!

So, Gale’s mother is Morena Dekarios, we know that. She’s an angel, an icon, and she cares so much, and she is wicked smart. I also headcanon that she is a high quality escort in the City of Splendors, and so grew up knowing how to please people and blend in with high society in any way she can. So, she raised Gale right. She told him about what she did, never hid anything from him, and would bend over backwards to ensure that her son was happy, healthy, and cared for. Because she had to blend in with high society, she had so many books, and art pieces, and high quality alcohol and clothes all over her house. Gale grew up around these, and absorbed it all with ease, and Morena thought that was fantastic. She frequently sent him to school whenever she had to work even if he had already spent the entire day there because she knew he would be safe and looked after, because his dad was not around to look after him.

Speaking of his dad, let’s talk about Waterdeep politics for a moment, shall we? We will circle back to Gale’s parentage. Waterdeep is ruled by a council of 16 Lords, all of whom are anonymous. Whenever they are ruling in public, they use magical masks called the Lord’s Helm that hides their identities. A common game in Waterdeep is to identify the Lords and figure out the rumors that float around about them. The Lords actually start most of their own rumors, though, so these can be easily misleading. Because the Lords elect the other Lords via anonymous vote, it is difficult for the Lords to even know who is who, but they do know their names, and so they have more information. So, while the Lords are frequently protected from assassination / bribes / stalking / lobbying from the public, they are not as always well protected from each other, so the secrecy is still important, and caution is warranted. I imagine some of the Lords take this very seriously, and value the job over forming families or bonds, so high quality well-to-do escorts like Morena are highly sought after.

Now, back to Gale’s father. So, Morena is an escort for a Lord, one thing leads to another, some mistakes are made, and Morena gets pregnant which was definitely not the goal, but she can’t tell anyone she is pregnant with a Lord’s child, so she just pretends the child’s father is another client and moves on. So, if the Lord happens to be a (maybe red) wizard/cleric/paladin of Mystra… who is to say? If this Lord happens to be highly talented and magically inclined (or magically manipulated) who would ever know? Gale starts showing magical inclinations in the womb. Morena’s 9 months of pregnancy are absolutely hell. She isn’t ready for a child, but she isn’t not ready, either. So, she gets shit done and gets ready. She talks to the local Blackstaff Academy and seeks help and these teachers are /interested/ because rarely does anyone show magical talents in the womb and they are here to support her and more importantly here to teach this would-be-prodigy.

Morena is wealthy, so she can pay for private tutors and Gale shows magical abilities akin to a teen when he is a child, and so she fanes those (sometimes literal) flames. She knows her son’s child is powerful, and so Gale must be powerful, too. She loves him, and fully enables him to make his own decisions, but he is /good/ at magic and a child. He likes being good at things, and so of course he follows his talents naturally. So much so, in fact, that when he accidentally sets off a fireball trying to pick his mom some roses with a mage hand, Elminster shows right up. He had been watching Gale, after all. Mystra had told him to. Mystra had told him to watch Morena when she was pregnant, too, because Mystra knew what would happen. Mystra willed this to happen, and neither Morena nor Gale are any wiser about it.

“I wanted to give my mum something pretty,” tiny Gale had said, tears in his eyes and chubby cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry! I thought the roses were pretty, like sunsets are pretty, and I must have thought of the fire of a sunset by accident and—and—please don’t get mad at me.”

Because if there is one thing that Morena did instill in Gale other than politeness, a love for the finer things in life, and a sense of ambition (heh, ouch), it was to be respectful of authority, because Morena isn’t stupid. If a Lord could use another Lord’s child against them, they would, no hesitation. So, Gale is taught to be a good, rule-abiding little boy who has a healthy caution of leadership but mostly knows how to smile and nod and keep his head down. And Elminister, while not masked, gives off waves of authority, so Gale aims to please and keep his head down.

Elminster smiles. Gale clutches Morena’s skirt and hides behind her and Morena glares at Elminster as if daring him to do something. Elminster puts out the fire with a wave of his hand, and introduces himself. “I’ve been keeping an eye on your talents, Gale Dekarios. You’re so talented, but you do not know where to aim your talents. May I help you?”

Morena knows who Elminster is, she has heard the rumors. She does not know he is Mystra’s chosen (Morena knows Elminster to discuss grandiose tales with her clients, not to study magic or doctrine) or his relationship with Mystra at all. Morena frequently says, only in private and after a few glasses of wine, that the Gods can fuck right off because they were no help to her, she helped /herself/ thank you very much, so she does not know. She just sees this powerful and well-known figure who might be able to help her protect her son from his dad who is maybe still a Lord, and says yes.

Gale’s private study with Elminster goes on for a few years before Mystra gets involved when he turns 11. He excels, he goes to Blackstaff as one of the youngest students ever, and his classmates hate him. He is too good, too favored, too young. He does not have to try, as if he is blessed, and Gale does not understand why his classmates hate him. He’s studying just like they are, just many years ahead. He is young just like them, but a few years more. He has a favorite teacher in the form of Elminster, just like his classmates have their own favorites who actually are teachers at the academy and not a rumored hero of Faerun. His experience is close enough for Gale to not understand why his situation is unique, and why his peers hate him for it. So, he asks for a cat. Cats are nice and soft and hiss at people who they do not like, and Gale always had a hard time saying when he didn’t like someone so maybe the cat would do it for him. But Gale needed to focus on his studies, and cats couldn’t live with students at Blackstaff, so everyone tells him, respectfully, no. Gale keeps trying to make friends, and keeps failing, and he finally says “fine I’ll summon my own friend!” and summons Tara, which is an impressive feat, and within a single hour Tara says “fuck everyone this human is /mine/ and no one can tell me otherwise.” People try to banish Tara away, and she always comes back, but only for Gale, and sometimes for Morena.

Everyone knows Gale is talented, but it is not until he casually wields the Blackstaff entirely by accident that everyone realized how much so. The staff molds to his hand, and flutters in his direction ever since he picked it up. The school is furious, and Gale does not understand, because does that not mean that he is good at what he studies? He doesn’t understand it means he is a threat, he is too good, he is too strong, and some people would rather eradicate him than educate him.

One of the requirements for students at Blackstaff is survival training. The students are released into nature and told to fend for themselves, summon food and water or use their magic to otherwise make some, to create shelter, to prove that in practice they can manage a bad situation. The teachers are nearby, of course, to help should something go wrong. However, at this point, teachers feel one of two ways about Gale Dekarios, and that sometimes is a help but frequently is a hinderance. These teachers see this child, and can easily understand that one day he will be a threat to their jobs, their research, their theories. He’s just that good. And some of the teachers get together to make this test akin to the hells for Gale, and he goes off by himself. Waterdeep is surrounded by beautiful golden beaches and stalagmite caves, which are beautiful blessings during the tourist times of year. They are deathtraps during high tide, and the teachers know this, and so does Mystra.

It's pouring by the end of the first day, and Gale does not know where to go. He can heat his closes, and summon food and water, but he is aware of the fact that magical exhaustion is a thing, and that he cannot keep himself dry and warm constantly with magic for the duration of the test. So, when he sees a rainbow will-o-whisp that feels safe, he follows it into the cave. Mystra leads Gale into a shallow grave planted by the Blackstaff teachers, and watches him almost drown. The teachers would have let him drown. They would have let this eleven year old boy get grabbed by the rushing water and dragged to the bottom of a sharply pointed, mud filled cave. At the bottom of that cave is a large hollow tree trunk, and the teachers would have waited for tide season to end, and eventually drug Gale’s tiny corpse out of where it was wrangled around the smooth wood, where Gale had tried to hold in and climb out feebly, crushed by the weight of the water overhead, until the calmness of unconsciousness met him.  

Drowning was calm, for Gale, at first. It was calmest when the rainbow will-o-whisp appeared again, a single speck of bright light in the murky darkness, his eyes stinging with water, his chest and stomach throbbing for oxygen. Drowning was calm, as he felt warm arms wrap around him, and felt the water get expelled from the hollow tree. Gale felt the weave rid his lungs of water and dry him off and warm him. Mystra lead Gale to his death just so she could save him, and so easily, Mystra became an exception to Gale’s distrust of authority, because she taught Elminster. She was the very rush of security and rose and love that Gale felt every time he channeled the weave. Mystra was magic—what Gale was good at, what made Gale who he is, what Gale loved. So how could he not love his savior? His muse? Mystra welcomed him into her hollow tree and taught him of Her. Her world. Her gifts. Her abilities. The three days of the test passed in a blink, and Gale emerged from the cave tinged with blue and white and the teachers who sent Gale to die heard Mystra’s laugh in their ears.

Mystra had staked her claim on Gale, and everyone knew it. Everyone had suspected it, when Elminster kept showing up, but now they had proof. Gale’s magic was sprinkled with starlight, brilliant blue and white and purple of Mystra. Gale vanished in his dreams to visit Mystra in her domain, and she continued to teach him everything that the teachers couldn’t or wouldn’t. The teachers who tried to kill him snapped to attention and did everything they could to help Gale, then, because to not would be to betray the Weave itself.

Gale went back to the hollow tree when he was about to graduate and the tide lowered, and met Mystra again. She took a more physical form, then. She guided his hands and arms as she taught him magic, and she kissed him on the forehead. She whispered, “my child, my star, my boy, my prodigy,” and Gale fell further and further under her spell. The Blackstaff Academy had graduation ceremonies where everyone would dance and celebrate their victories with one another. Morena was so, so proud. A few Lords showed up to congratulate the students, and check on the fresh talent. Gale was the equivalent of the valedictorian, and when he danced with himself, the more learned students and the teachers and Tara could see the strings of Mystra’s weave manipulating his movements like a marionette until they were perfect. Because he was her’s, and she would settle for nothing but the best.

[ofmdrecaps]

07/03/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Leslie Jones; Ruibo Qian; Dominic Burgess; Samba Schutte; Logie Awards; AdoptOurCrew; Auxillery Wardrobe Zine; Teal Oranges & Garlic Soup Week Spotlight Cont'd; Fan Spotlight; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika

New month, new blog! Thanks everyone, as you probably can tell there's a new blog for the recaps! I'm doing this to allow for some more silly shenanigans to happen on my main, but also keep the recaps available and more easily accessible to those who want them! For the first few weeks I'll be reblogging them from main, but then will eventually move to just here so as not to overwhelm anyone following. Thanks so much for reading! I love doing these and I was actually surprised how many people followed! I didn't realize so many people were reading, so tysm that warms my heart and made my day!

== Rhys Darby ==

Rhys will be join Baron Vaughn and Rory Scovel on AfterMidnight with Taylor Tomlinson on July 8th, 3 PM PST in Los Angelos, CA! Are you in the area? You can request tickets on their website!

Source: 1iota's Instagram

Next up-- Peacock has posted an exclusive clip of the upcoming The Hungry Games: Alaska's Big Bear Challenge-- starring the voice of our very own Rhys Darby!

== Taika Waititi ==

Awesome new promo for Time Bandits! I'm gonna keep reminding you because I'm actually super psyched for this. July 24th on Apple TV!

Source: Matt_Grace_Photography

== Leslie Jones ==

Leslie out with the LA Sparks! <3 Also, did you know Leslie will be voicing a character in the New Hulu series Hit Monkey? I didn't know! New seasons starts July 15th!

Source: LA Sparks IG / JoshuaGordon

== Ruibo Qian ==

Our Pirate Queen is going to be taking on the role of Ms. Sherlock Holmes in Ms.Holmes & Ms.Watson in APT 2B at the Old Globe Theatre in San Deigo CA! You can buy tickets for July 27th, opening day -- or any of the showings here!

Source: OldGlobeTheatre Instagram

== Dominic Burgess ==

Dominic is gracing us once again with cat pics. I love it <3

Source: Dominic Burgess' Twitter

== Samba Schutte ==

More pictures with Samba at Dancing with Fire LA with the cast / crew of Advanced Chemistry!

Source: alecmoore219's Instagram

== Logie Award Nominations ==

REMINDER! Our beloved Mads, aka Eddie Redcliffe in Deadloch, aka The Baddest MF in Tasmania, has been nominated for a 2024 Logie for Best Lead Actress! So was Kate Box, her costar, and Deadloch was nominated for Best Scripted Comedy Program!

-- and guess what? It's done by vote! If you feel so inclined, please take a moment to go and vote for our dear Archie/Deadloch (or Dulcie whomever you'd like)! https://vote.tvweeklogies.com.au/ Note: You do need to use your email to submit, just FYI!

== Adopt Our Crew ==

Looks like something exciting will be coming soon from @adoptourcrew! I think I might have an idea what it may be related to...

Source: Adopt Our Crew Twitter

== Auxiliary Wardrobe Zine ==

There's a new non-profit charity zine starting up-- in honor of our beloved Captain Stede and OFMD!

"From his flamboyant coats to his sword-slashed shirts, we want to celebrate EVERY way that Stede and fashion come together! Whether this be a canon look you're fond of, his job as a luxury fashion designer in an AU, or Stede in a style of clothing you personally love (or lack of clothing… pinups anyone?!) we encourage contributors to make this prompt their own. This zine will be a digital-only PDF and will consist of a SFW edition and a NSFW edition featuring fanart and fanfic. All proceeds for the zine will go to Care for Gaza."

Want to learn more? You can visit their carrd.co below for scheduling and FAQ's!

Info & FAQ: https://auxiliarywardrobezine.carrd.co

Artist & Writer Signups will start July 6, 2024!

Follow them on Instagram and Twitter!

Source: The Auxiliary Wardrobe: A Stede Bonnet Zine

== Teal Oranges & Garlic Soup Week Spotlights ==

Teal Oranges & Garlic Soup Week may be over, but that doesn't mean the spotlights have to end! Tonight we have the fantastic @hameko1019! I absolutely adore her style and use of color! You can check her work out on Hameko1019's Twitter! Thank you again to @garlicsoupweek for the wonderful prompts!

Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 / Day 6 / Day 7 / Bonus

Source: Hameko1019's Twitter

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Cast Cards =

Tonight's cast card by our fantastic @melvisik is Jordan Feldman who "was listed as 'Heavily Made-Up Man' in The Best Revenge is Dressing Well."

Source: @melvisik's Twitter

== Love Notes ==

Well lovelies, you've made it half way through another week. Only half more to go-- for those of you in the UK, good luck at the elections! For those in the US, tomorrow is July 4th, and while I know there are mixed feelings this year in the US, please remember to take some time to relax and enjoy a day off if you have it.

You're doing so very well friends. There is SO much going on in the world, so much going on in the fandom, so much going on in your lives. But you are still kicking, and I'm so very proud of you for that. If you need to take a break-- do it. Give yourself some grace and get some rest, the world will still be there in a few days. If you've already done that and you're taking some time to yourself-- great job-- you deserve it. Remember that we will still be here, and we will still love you when you get back. Ed and Stede? Still in love when you get back. They're off terrorising some poor patron of their Inn with stories of being gut stabbed, or forcing them to watch a puppet show they came up with.

You're kicking ass at whatever struggles you are dealing with right now-- give yourself time to celebrate the fact you're surviving them. Rest well lovelies, see you soon <3

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

Tonight's theme is these two goof balls singing. Someone help me find Taika singing Queen, cause then we'll have some gif smushes <3 Tonight's gifs courtesy of @celluloidbroomcloset and @eddie-redcliffe!!

[2amtechnicolor]

We Need To Talk About Mahiru

Mahiru's second Trial is out and oh my god she just jumped up on my faves list. I love analyzing the MVs from different perspectives so I thought I'd give my 2 cents on Mahiru's character.

My vote: INNOCENT

The first thing I really feel the need to bring up is that people tend to ignore that Mahiru is actually very intelligent. There's multiple kinds of intelligence, and while she might not be "traditionally" smart in the linguistic sense, she's incredibly emotionally intelligent. She's a master of empathy and mood making and is an incredibly charming talker to the point you don't realize she's completely controlling the conversation. That being said, I genuinely don't think she uses her intelligence for malicious gains.

One of the theories going around with her first MV was that she was overbearing to the point of being abusive, while being oblivious to her own toxicity. Now after rereading and rewatching, I'm inclined to disagree. Her love may be seen as overbearing to some but we have not seen any explicit bad behavior towards her boyfriend. (Contrast with someone like Muu, who was revealed to have bullied as much as she was bullied herself). In my unpopular opinion, I genuinely think Mahiru was in a "healthy" relationship, at least on the surface.

[TW for discussions of death, murder, and fictional depictions of suicide]

[Side Note: One of the sticking points people have while saying "Mahiru was toxic" is that "Mahiru's relationship only lasted 16 days" which is blatantly not true when you check the translations for MV1. Day 1 takes place during college finals (mid-March-ish in JPN), Day 7 explicitly takes place in the summer, and Day 15 is New Year's Day (January). Mahiru's affection towards her boyfriend lasted almost a year, and they dated for around 6 months-ish during that. The "16 Day Memorial" isn't about a period of 16 days, it's about 16 days over the course of their relationship where she was explicitly making moves towards her boyfriend.]

I need you to take a real hard look at how Mahiru talks about "love" and "being in love." More specifically, when she talks about the concept of "love," she often brings up the action of "loving/showing love" in her explanation. Never once have I heard her say "My boyfriend loved me." or "This is what my boyfriend did for me." The focus is all on her actions towards the boyfriend. And I genuinely think she was a sweet girlfriend! She loved trying his hobbies and cooking his favorite foods and going to his favorite spots. She was sweet, and kind, and playful, and maybe just a bit clingy. But she was never jealous or possessive.

Es: I see. So, you became a murderer as a result of some relationship conflicts? Jealousy… Grudges… Having your partner stolen from you… Those stories aren’t all that uncommon now are they?

Mahiru: You’re wrong. It wasn’t that. I…never even wanted to kill anyone in the first place!

She explicitly states that her crime was not based off of negative feelings towards her boyfriend, but she still takes responsibility for what happened. Compare that to Fuuta, who, despite his own feelings of guilt, continually verbally denied that he had anything to do with his victim's death. Mahiru not only takes explicit responsibility, but also pins her "love" as his cause of death, to the point where if she was voted guilty, she would never try to love anyone again. Without "loving" anyone, she has no reason to live.

"To not forgive me means to take the act of loving away from me. That’s the same as not being alive. It’s the same as not being able to drink water or breathe."

It's interesting the way she compares basic needs to "the act of loving". Not the concept of "love" itself, but the act of showing someone love. If she is not allowed to show someone love, to her it's like suffocating, like dying of thirst, or maybe...dying of starvation?

Mahiru in her second MV may be dirty and barefoot with torn clothes, but the one thing she is not is starving. You could argue that "perhaps it doesn't show," but when compared to her boyfriend...

She's incredibly healthy.

And of course she's healthy! Her lovely boyfriend's been feeding her those bites of cake! So is the cake "love" then? But if the cake is love, why is her boyfriend, the one whose being "smothered," the one starving?

Feeding the cake doesn't represent "love." Feeding the cake also doesn't represent "the act of loving." Feeding the cake represents the boyfriend letting Mahiru "love" him. Does that make sense?

The boyfriend lets himself be vulnerable, he feeds pieces of himself to Mahiru for her to "love." But yet, he himself is starving.

...Have you even noticed Mahiru hates talking about herself?

It's evident from her first interrogation. Es can barely get two words in before Mahiru interrupts them to ask them questions about themselves or to offer her own advice to problems she thinks Es may be having.

Es: Oh… yeah. Uh… I apologise for that.

Mahiru: Did you zone out just then? This job must be pretty difficult, so you might be mentally burned out from work. Herbal tea’s good for that, you know? Oh! Like ginkgo tea—they say it helps improve brain function.

Es: Oh, is that so? I’ll try a bit then… I mean, no! Enough about me.

Compared to one of the few times Es gets a question in:

Es: I don’t completely understand what you’re saying, but… Being in love and loving someone—are they really that important?

Mahiru: They are.

Es: Hm.

Mahiru: They are… More so than anything else.

When reflected back to her, her answered become short and vague. Her voice grows soft and shy. She avoids questions, especially questions about difficult topics, not because she doesn't understand the gravity of them (like Haruka) but because she does. Like I said at the top, she's incredibly emotionally intelligent. She was beaten nearly to death because Kotoko decided to be Es's "fang", and yet she still empathizes with them. She still makes a strong attempt to see their point of view, and even to encourage Es to keep working hard. Compared to the other attacked prisoner we've seen, Fuuta, who blames and grovels for forgiveness, these responses are like night and day.

But what do we know about Mahiru, really?

She's 22

She's a university student

She likes romantic novels, comic, and dramas

She loves love. [But she's not obsessed with being loved. Haruka is obsessed with being loved, Haruka wants to be loved and taken care of, Haruka killed out of jealousy and for attention because he didn't feel loved enough. We never get that from Mahiru.]

Everything else we know about Mahiru? Is for other people.

Her favorite hobbies? Whatever her partner is doing.

Her fashion sense? Whatever will catch her partner's eye.

Her favorite food? Well, as long her partner cooks it, anything's her favorite!

The only time we ever get a sense of her and her boyfriend possibly disagreeing on something is Day 14 in MV1. Mahiru wants to see a French film and begs her boyfriend to take her. This is odd, because just a few scenes ago, she was bragging about how their tastes in films perfectly line up. If their tastes are the same, why would she have to beg him to take her to see this one?

Mahiru, like Yuno, is hiding behind a facade. But unlike Yuno, Mahiru doesn't have a strong core underneath her mirroring. Yuno can drop her "nice girl" act and she still has strong opinions and feelings and acts accordingly. Mahiru, when you try to go behind her mask, clams up, redirects, searches for a way out.

So. Back to cake.

The boyfriend feeds pieces of himself to Mahiru. He makes himself vulnerable, he lets her in, lets her care for him, lets her "love" him.

But Mahiru? She never feeds him until the very end, and even then, her "cake" isn't anything edible.

She's not stupid. She knows she can't give him what he really wants: any sort of vulnerability.

Their relationship is one-sided, but not because Mahiru is toxic or the boyfriend is apathetic. Their relationship is one sided because that's how Mahiru wants it to be. She wants to be the perfect girlfriend, because, if we're being honest, Mahiru doesn't like herself very much.

Why else would she hate talking about herself? She clearly loves to chat.

She puts her all into everything...as long as it's for someone besides her.

She will outright ignore her own pain and suffering, her own emotions, because she doesn't want to make anyone else upset.

Mahiru: Sorry… for making you worry. I’m fine! It doesn’t hurt at all.

Es: It’s a horrible injury. There’s no way it doesn’t hurt.

Mahiru: It doesn’t!

So why did her boyfriend die?

Mahiru's very good at hiding her emotions. If she slipped up and her boyfriend realized and noticed how she refused to love herself, it could cause friction in their otherwise perfect relationship.

Maybe Mahiru was the one who wanted to die in the woods, and her boyfriend, starved for any sort of real connection to her, found her at the last moment? Maybe her mental health dragged his down with her.

Mahiru's incredibly complex and tragic and endlessly relatable. She only loves too much because she can't love herself. If she's truly unforgivable, and she keeps her promise to stay alone...what's stopping her from killing the only thing she hates most?

[vampirevatican]

Milgram and The Court of Public Opinion.

this analysis will be about milgram's voting system, nuance and a whole lot of my own opinions mixed with eng fandoms translations, theories, and observations.

t1 = trial one / t2 = trial two

mv = music video

vd = video drama

voting and verdicts:

voting forgiven/unforgiven or innocent/guilty from the standards milgram sets for us (including es) isn't enough or easy.

being that milgram is set towards the court of public opinion and judgement can come from:

"sensibility, morality, ethics, legality, preference, taste, or sexual inclination..."

we end up arguing semantics, trying to find specifics in the crimes and making the best judgement possible. although in doing that the only conclusion anyone can come to is innocent when all is considered.

if we were doing it based on guilty and innocent then 5 are guilty, 2 are guilty on technicality and 3 are innocent

just in case you're curious, in guilty to innocent order as i just stated.

haruka, muu, amane, mikoto, kotoko, shido, fuuta, kazui, mahiru and yuno

it'd be over so quickly. but this... is milgram.

nuance/the grey area:

as the undercover song says, can you really judge them?

001. haruka did it for attention. with how he's coded - intellectual disability - and his mother being extremely neglectful after a certain age which prevented the possibility of his growth in intellect (understanding cause and effect/actions and consequences, along with many other things) it's easier to claim he's innocent. even more easier to forgive him due to this and extremely so if looking at it from his view point, albeit flawed. killing = attention = "affection", even if that attention/"affection" is negative it what he wanted. for someone, anyone to acknowledge him. he's innocent/forgiven because of his circumstances but if he's forgiven then he's being told it was his only option, and he was right, when the fault is on his mother.

002. yuno, as for now, doesn't have a reason. ofc in western (american specifically) public opinion or at least those who view abortion as a choice. she's been innocent from the start. this is her autonomy, her choice, even if she's 18. i won't deny she is so young to be doing sex work, or more specifically compensated dating, and yes it may be common in japan but that doesn't take away the age being factored into what she decided to do. it wasn't for money and she has a good home life. with how analytical and cold she can be, im assuming her desire to be loved in this way comes from somewhere and she's become jaded towards actual relationships. opting for the material and superficial. even without pitying her, she'd still be forgiven/innocent since t1.

003. fuuta was only trying to call out liars and scumbags. he is well versed in the court of public opinion, but he has never seen or experienced a result that lead to someone's death. looking at the undercover mv, then we can see he possibly doxxed his victim. if we take a nuanced approach here then we'd be looking at how he feels after the fact. he remembers the victims name, the fear in his eyes in his t1 and t2 mv, his voice drama after the first trial, him not approving of violence as a solution are all evidence of him feeling horrible. if he could go back, if he would've known. sure he did question why he's there instead of the people who actually killed the victim, but he also recognizes that he lead the charge. his innocence/forgiveness comes in the form of recognizing his actions were wrong. him being guilty/unforgiven is the action in itself.

004. muu is a love/attention reason. she's always been adored, admired, and cherished. she's always had her way. she also has never had to face heavy adversity. sure she was a bully, the queen bee, and a drama queen but didn't her school's culture allow her that? infact with us/es forgiving her, in the second trial song she claims as such, she'll always be queen. and for the t1 mv she says, "my 'im sorry' spells aren't working anymore." which leads me to believe that she's cried and apologized so many times that her old friends couldn't believe her. not forgiving her affirms to her that "two wrongs don't make a right" but forgiving her says the opposite to her. if she's to be forgiven/innocent the blame is tossed to the school, not her, but she won't see it that way.

005. shido is a love case, but for family. im thinking son because of a theory i saw, but either way when looking at it with nuance it gets heavier here. is taking from brain dead patients to save someone wrong? are the brain dead really dead? in my opinion yes, but that's the crux of the situation right? same goes for all the other inmates in this court of public opinion. he can be innocent from the view point that brain dead patients are already dead, and forgiven for his motive.

006. mahiru is another love case, romantic, and in a roundabout way she never committed a crime in the first place. from the voice drama and interrogation q&a slips, we find out that she's a sheltered girl and loves/idolizes soap opera and shoujo mangas. from her mv's we see she romanticizes everything, especially with her t1 mv. she's innocent because of not actually committing murder and forgiven because this is her first love, she wouldn't have known that it was toxic and messed up.

007. kazui did it in hopes of a dream, righting a mistake, being free. although he deeply regrets it, although he says he loves his wife? that love is mainly platonic. from his second trial mv, we see that he met her through his job - most likely police officer - so they had some kind of amicable relationship through their job. he only married her out of societal obligation, and noticing she liked him. not to mention in his t1 mv he says he messed up from the beginning. he is innocent because his crime is indirect, and forgiven because being gay isn't a crime and the regret he feels shows he never had negative intentions.

008. amane did it out of obligation. now, listen to me. i know she's literally 12 and was raised in a cult but notice how im stating the motive of each of these as they are from being stated in vd or pure observations from the mv's. now to any grown up it's self defense, but also imagine having gone through the worst hell imaginable all because you did something "wrong" stated by the adults around you. wouldn't the revenge be sweet? justice in its purest form. now take that and double it down with what you were taught. amane is not only forgiven/innocent because she was just a child, but because of the circumstances surrounding the murder.

009. mikoto (miko from here on) did it out of pent up stress an emotions, in turn creating john (koto from here on). miko is innocent without a doubt, and no i am not taking on the theory he actually did it til we get trial three. if koto was supposed to be his protector, and if he was born from a sudden explosion of pent up anger then (at least to me) it makes sense that he reacted the way he did. imagine being a corporate slave - no actually double it down, again, with growing up always trying to keep the peace. miko has a habit of laughing when he's upset. he laughs it off in hopes that things get better, his vd affirms this and even his mv after that. miko's smile that shifts to an extremely tired expression right before koto is born and a mirror shatters, right at the start. an intolerable stress from working so hard he grew grey hairs, cried himself to sleep, and yet continued to work, hold it in, and endure. the fault isn't on him or on koto. it's japan's work culture and the endure it mentality. koto is innocent/forgiven in the sense of motive. miko is innocent/forgiven because he's never killed to begin with.

010. kotoko did it to save the innocent. though she doesn't deal in nuance, much like fuuta. a key difference between the two is kotoko chooses violence because the justice system failed her. infact she's been hunting down the awful criminals of the world so much that she even has a covered bulletin board with pinned strings on it. on top of that, from the interrogation cards, we find out she dropped out of college and she was studying law. she'd be innocent for what she was seeking to do, in the court of public opinion, many would agree that awful people deserve a murderous punishment and she'd be even forgiven with that same reason. the nuance appears when considering the criminal, the crime and the reason. factoring those in then she can easily become guilty and unforgiven in the eyes of many, see the results after t1.

when it's all said and done:

they all had their reason, it all has a reason. who are we to say their crimes weren't just or fair? we're the judge, the jury, the executioner, and warden. in milgram whatever we says goes.

i'd love to see them all innocent, but at the same time do each of them deserve that? are their ideas being affirmed a detriment to them or their saving grace?? will they kill again?? will some of them be able to get the therapy and treatment they desperately need??? will they go back into society with an improved outlook on life or will they remain the same?

ofc i already have who i'd like to see forgiven and have already forgiven them myself, same as you reading this and those in the jpn fandom (where it originates)

anyway. moving forward please vote with this in mind, and check out the audio dramas i beg you all. i hope that there are nuance voters and voters with sympathy but with how amane was guilty in t1, i have a strong feeling it's not gonna end well. but if it does, you'll see me rejoice.

[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.

*

Taglist:

@atombombbibunny @yesimwriting @uselessbutinteresting @mirandastuckinthe80s @dark-as-love

@domaniquessidehoe @im-lame-irl @allybrooke05 @hangmanswhore

@jazmin2211  @kvcssghbjbcd @coldonexx @dudinhahoff @whatstruthgottodowithit @tiredbuthappy  @amiets2  @saintmagx

@kvcssghbjbcd @butlersluvbot @babydollie43 @vainbimbo @meladollsims @wstelandbaby @dre6ming @normatural @ash-omalley @xcallmetaniax @galvz-42 @thejezebel @fullmetal-falcon @robinismywife @dre6ming @seaweedbrain00 @amiets2 @mslizziesblog @heisatroubleinapinksuit @calusussss @dont-feel-so-good-peter @rainydayz101 @pizzaisrelationshipgoals  

@liaaacantwrite @kittenlittle24 @kaitaesupremacy @butler-trouble @eliseinmemphis @russian-soft-bitch  @tattywood 

@sassanoe @re3kin @thella @suspiciousmidge @hiddlepiddlediddlewiddle @carolinesbookworld @juggernort @aesthetic-lyss @stitchattacks @donnamarie23 @ab4eva 

@fic-over-cannon @lacyluver @littlebitofgreen @paigevis 

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[rose-of-gabriel]

My Teammates, My Friends

Set at the end of s1 ep12: Basic Straining

Harold's revenge doesn't go the way he planned. Courtney reflects on what her team means to her.

Beginning of a series of Season 1 rewrites bc I still love Duncney and can't let things go.

It was the breeziest Courtney had ever felt going into a bonfire ceremony. Yes, they’d lost the challenge, and she was fully prepared to start strategizing again in the morning, but for right now everything just felt right. Duncan stood amongst their fellow Killer Bass members on the other side of the fire pit, meeting her gaze before giving a dramatic roll of his eyes at how much Chris was milking his time at the podium. Courtney ducked her head, a heat rising in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the burning embers of the fire.

Even when Bridgette and Geoff were called, leaving her in the usually precarious position of bottom two, she didn’t feel worried. For maybe the first time in this competition, her team actually felt like her friends. It was probably - definitely - sad to admit, but she’d never experienced that before. Every “team” she’d ever been a part of - debate team, model UN, student council - had all been so performative and impersonal for everyone involved. Courtney would call those people her friends but she knew it wasn’t the kind of friendship she read about in books or magazines; friends who made you feel at ease, who had your back unconditionally. Yes, she was aware that this was still a competition, but as long as the teams remained, there was a tentative, hopeful, nearly forgotten part of her that trusted the four people before her more than she had anyone else in a long, long time.

These thoughts wrenched to a halt when she realized Chris had cut himself off mid-monologue. She re-focused, expecting to see military personnel or aliens raining down on them since there wasn’t anything else she could think of that would make Chris surrender the spotlight. There was no surrender, though. The devious, snake-like expression curling across his features opened up a pit in Courtney’s stomach, and from the looks of her teammates she could tell they’d noticed the pause with equal trepidation.

“Now campers,” Chris said, setting the plate and final marshmallow atop the podium before reaching into the placket of his shirt, “we have an interesting development.” He produced a folded stack of paper and held it aloft. “See... according to the ballots we received in the ballot box, every. single. person. voted Courtney off.”

The pit in her stomach imploded, leaving her sick and dizzy. She barely heard the reaction of her teammates over the rush of blood in her ears.

Pressure built behind her eyes as her gaze ricocheted across their faces, landing finally on Duncan, or where he would have been had the punk not already taken several imposing steps in Chris’ direction. “Dude, no fucking way! ”

Chris jumped backwards, raising the ballots high in one hand and throwing the other up in front of him. “ Hey! Hold it, hold it, hold it!”

Geoff and DJ both reached to grab Duncan’s shoulders, and while he did stop, his expression was murderous. Chris continued quickly. “All six ballots were for Courtney, making me and the producers more than a little curious as to why one of our fiercest competitors would vote herself off. So we went back and had a looksie at the confessional booth footage.”

Chris inclined his head to where Chef Hatchet was laboriously pushing an old dolly with an even older projection set up the slope toward the bonfire. While Courtney by no means had her barings back, she still noticed how Harold’s shoulders had hiked up to his ears and he had scooted as far from her on the log stool as he could. Suspicion stirred in her mind but she was too rattled to interrogate it.

“Lights please!” Chris called. The array of tiki torches and lanterns surrounding the fire pit suddenly faded to nothing, the only light now coming from the bonfire and the harsh, white light of the mobile projector. “Chef, if you would be so kind, roll tape!”

Chef arranged the projector so it displayed on one of the massive, flat rock faces that walled in the area. He pulled a VHS tape from the front pocket of his apron and opened a compartment on the side of the projector. Before he inserted the tape, though, Harold burst to his feet. “Wait!” he screamed, throwing his spindly body in front of the lens. “Wait, you don’t have to show it.”

“Oh, don’t we?” Chris grinned.

Courtney’s nerves were frayed to the point of snapping. “ Harold.” She growled, rising to her feet with her fists clenched. “ What did you do?”

Duncan was next to speak, cracking his knuckles. “You are dead, shrimpy.”

Unaffected by their outbursts, Chris continued coolly. “You’ve got a choice here, Harold. We can either play the tape or not, but somebody has to walk the dock of shame tonight.”

Everyone had put the pieces together by now; even Geoff’s usual half-grin was soured in a glare. Duncan started toward their condemned team member, but Courtney beat him to it. Harold shrieked and covered his face, but instead of clocking him Courtney grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt. Though he had a good few inches of height on her, Courtney yanked him down with enough force that his knees buckled, putting them at eye-level.

Her voice simmered with intensity as she hissed his name. “You have exactly five minutes to get on that boat. Because if I watch what I think is on that tape and you’re still on this island, I promise that you are never. leaving it. Understand?”

“Yes.” He squeaked, eyes nervously flitting between her and the team.

The instant she released her grip he was gone, sprinting for all his worth back to the cabins. Courtney inhaled deeply through her nose, efforts to calm herself ruined by Chris chiding, “Easy, Courtney. Chef’s gonna escort him to make sure he doesn’t hide out anywhere and to make sure no one tries to deal out their own justice, vigilante style.” He chuckled. “Although that would be awesome. ”

For a second Courtney thinks she might actually punch Chris’ lights out, but the host is saved by Bridgette throwing her arms around her teammate. “Oh my gosh, Court! Those were like the worst two minutes of my life.”

Two minutes? Had all of that really just happened in two minutes. Courtney felt like she’d just stepped off a rollercoaster and her stomach was finally catching up with her. When Bridgette released her, she pressed the heels of her palms against her forehead and closed her eyes. There was sound and movement all around her but nothing concretely registered except for the rough, warm pressure of a hand sliding down her spine to rest at her lower back.

“You okay?” Duncan said into her ear, so quiet she wasn’t sure if anyone else heard.

His voice and his hand on her back were the anchors she needed to feel like she was on solid ground again. She dropped her hands from her face and her shoulders fell with them as she surveyed the teens around her. Bridgette was visibly the most affected, hazel eyes wide like Courtney would vanish if she blinked. Geoff and DJ wore similar looks of both sympathy for Courtney and anger for the situation, and Duncan…

Well, Courtney didn’t know what to make of the look he was giving her. It was somehow soft and warm yet still retained its fierceness from before. She wasn’t sure if it was the intensity of his gaze or the crash of adrenaline that made her shiver. “I’m good.” She tried to sound more confident than she felt.

“Man, that is one sick little dude.” DJ groused, crossing his arms over his chest.

Geoff added, “Yeah, Court, that was wickedly messed up. Sorry, brah.”

Courtney shifted her weight just a fraction to press more firmly into Duncan’s hand, forcing a steady exhale from her lungs. “I’m just glad he was dumb enough to make all of the ballots the same.”

“Seriously.” Duncan agreed, pulling her an inch closer.

She turned her head to look up at him, nerves settling enough to crack a smile. “You have any experience with voter fraud?”

“Pfffft, that’s weak shit.” He dismissed, though the corner of his mouth ticked upward.

The vice in her chest eased, and the airiness from before was returning. These were her friends , friends who were angry on her behalf and happy that she was still here. Friends that surrounded her with support but she knew would give her space if she asked for it. That was the last thing she wanted, though, threading her arm across Duncan's back.

“Anyone up for stealing some brownies from the mess hall while Chef’s distracted?” She asked.

Geoff whistled, “Heck yeah!” at the same time Duncan praised, “Atta girl.”

It was DJ who hesitated. “Sure you don’t wanna see the ginger twerp off, Court? I know I’ll be happy to see him go.”

Courtney hummed thoughtfully. “The look on his face would be pretty satisfying.” Her gaze flickered to Duncan’s with a mirrored grin. “If we’re quick we can do both.”

The expression on Duncan's face turned wolfish as he addressed the group. “You heard the lady.” He said and the five of them took off toward the mess hall, Courtney’s heart soaring with every step.

[queenendless]

Does anyone know how to make masterlists on here?

Can anyone make one for me?

Cause LORD I can't make one.

I have tried and failed.

Idk what to do right!

Also I'm trying to get back to writing JJK stuff.

Cause writing for Hawks now is SO DAMN HARD IDK WHY!

Why is this happening?

Maybe cause this JJK withdrawal is meeting resistance.

That and I got three JJK mini AU series ideas.

I do have several Hawks pieces in the works.

But I'm feeling less inclined to work on them.

To those that voted for Hawks in my recent poll, sorry for my ADHD coping mind.

But I miss JJK.

Writing it and seeing it.

Writing to cope with it.

Also tagging my AU mini series cause I can't make a masterlist to save my life.

Hawks stuff will come out when the mood hits.

Otherwise ...

Stuff.

[masterjedilenawrites]

Thought I’d have a little fun with a classic… vote for the one you think is the lie!

Tagging some random friends - no pressure but would love to see your own truths and lies, if you feel so inclined! 🤗 @nahoney22 @clonethirstingisreal @proadhog @freesia-writes @orbital-mirror @eternal-transcience @arctrooper69 @dragonrider9905 @justanothersadperson93 @starlightsearches @the-bad-batch-baroness @ireadwithmyears @moonlightwarriorqueen @sunshinesdaydream @vodika-vibes @starrylothcat @dangraccoon

+anyone else who wants to, i don’t mean to leave anyone out!

[tosahobi-if]

would asking if the ros have kinks be too specific? :0 if it is, then which ro's will peel the clementines and which ro's want mc to peel the clementines :> (casual acts of service my beloved)

kinks are fine! i was running a temperature this morning (i'm sick rn 🥲) and i briefly thought peeling clementines was a new euphemism for topping and bottoming and i was like oh! how creative!

jinwol is repressed both sexually and romantically and up until his mid-twenties thinks missionary with the lights off is the height of scandal. he has a thing (like a REALLY BIG thing) about control so i think he'd be into overstim and edging tbh

yul is up to try most things at least once with the mc! i think they're pretty adventurous in that regard, but imo they have a strong inclination towards light bondage. i think they'd enjoy shifting the power dynamics within bdsm like that, but i also just have an inkling it's because they like looking at the mc and enjoying the surge of possessiveness they feel

iseul is really into shows of strength. like reaaaaally into it. both manhandling the mc and getting manhandled, she's lowkey (highkey) into fighting and would have the time of her life sleeping with the mc after sparring. she's an adrenaline junkie, that one. voted ro most likely to grab you by the back of the head and start kissing you with a nosebleed after the two of you have a friendly fistfight

??? is harder just because i think they're the opposite of yul in that they've done so much when they were younger they're a little been-there-done-that at this point? LOL i think it also has to do with the fact that they don't have anyone they'd consider enough of a partner to try things out with so they're pretty vanilla in that regard. and with that being said they have a praise kink

[gods-no-longer-tread-here]

shit it's been a while since I've done a silly tag game, s/o to @lizardsexposed

Game's objective: pick stuff from your room and have people vote on which one they want to take home

let's tag @tracytvrnblad @yourlocal-charlatan @ao3-brihna @roseforthethorns @kenisle and literally anyone else who feels so inclined <3

[reiverreturns]

tagged by: @meyerlansky and @redbelles 💕 thank you darlings!

rules: summarize your WIPs badly and let people vote on what they’d most like to read

and i'll reblog with a snippet of whichever fic wins! (or you can ask for one if you're feeling saucy)

tagging @aeide @artschoolglasses @leofrith @natashatrace and anyone else who is so inclined 😘