#because apparently I liked (not by mistake I liked consciously)

[persephoneflouwers]

Billie jeeeeeean is noooot my loooover she’sjustagirlwhoclaimsthatIamtheone BUT THE KID IS NOOOOOT MY SOOOON

[goddessxeffect]

《 MASTERPOST: Let go and let God 》

Quotes from blog post and answers from other bloggers regarding certain topics based in the teachings of law of consciousness and non duality. This is a summary of everything I think is incredibly useful and has been for me in understanding and applying this lifestyle. Long post ahead.

Basics & Teaching

"I contain all, nothing contains me." - Nisargadatta Maharaj

This subject cannot be learned intellectually, it cannot be learned through the mind [ego] because it's perceived just behind the mind. We can use the mind to gradually undo the limitations enough so that we can get behind the mind by getting it quieter. @4dbarbie-backup

What you can point out as 'this' or 'that' cannot be yourself. Surely, you can not be 'something' else. You are nothing perceivable, or imaginable. Yet, without you there can be neither perception nor imagination. Identity or Ego is merely a pattern of events in time and space, which are also just concepts belonging to the world of ego.@4dbarbie-backup YOU are life. you are life itself. you are all. you are how this all works. "me? this body? this mind?" not the body, mind, ego or thoughts. not even the feeling, beliefs & emotions. i'm talking about Self. Infinity. God. I AM. the awareness. the one that observes all. the life force is you. you animate all of what you see. @lains-reality

Realize you are never not IT. We are actually fully realized all the time. We are fully realized Beings saying that we are not. @4dbarbie-backup There is no becoming "aware". You can't become something you already are! You keep forgetting you are not the body-mind (ego). The body-mind lacks things, the body-mind takes it's surroundings to be real. The body-mind has a very limited viewpoint, it knows what it knows, it only sees what it sees. @iamthat-iam The [body-]mind cannot intimidate the Pure Self, it can only intimidate the idea you have of who you are, your self image. what the mistake is, is that we are taking the idea of who we are as the fact of who we are.@lains-reality

Everything you see and experience is only a mental condition, a dream-like state, easy to dispel by questioning its reality. Both sleep and waking are imagined.@4dbarbie-backup Dreams are just "materializations" of whatever our consciousness is aware of while the body rests. You can touch it, you can interact with it, your senses become active when you're dreaming at times. there's even a phenomenon where people actually thought their dreams were memories or something they legitimately experienced.@piercedblunt "But I am not conscious of myself when sleeping?!" You are aware of something though, being unconscious, which manifests instantly, you are sleeping. Being unconscious is an experience, and you're doing the same thing in the waking state.@4dbarbie-backup

Let's now take a look at this so-called physical world. The apparent solid outer world is just an illusory world. We created it mentally, which is also backed up by human science. But, and that's the catch, it is not external and so the only way to control the outside world is to step out of the world. The ego IS IN the world, and not you. Both the ego and the world are IN YOU.@4dbarbie-backup

When 'you' desire something, you [Consciousness] already have it. How do you already have it? Your true self is everything, it can't desire anything if it's already being anything. Everything that your ego desires already exists within consciousness. Remember that whenever your ego tries to bring up a desire. @iamthat-iam After all, when 'you' desired in your mind, wasn't there a moment where you had it? Where you imagined what it'd be like to have it, what it'd look like or how it'd make you feel? @cheryawa It is not instantly visible to you because you identify with the body and not your pure being. No matter how much you use your mind/imagination, you are who you are regardless of the imagines playing in the head. I could think of a panda a million times, imagine what it's like being a panda a thousand more, that doesn't make me into a panda when I still know myself to be a person.@4dbarbie-backup

Here's a scale of emotions you'll go through in your journey, from bottom to top: apathy, grief, fear, hostility, anger, indifference, acceptance, freedom finally - and then unlimited, independent joy. @4dbarbie-backup It’s not an euphoric feeling either but a real feeling of knowing and with that - indifference and power. It is very calm and serene, as if nothing can disturb you. @adadisciple

I've been looking at the things I want as existing for me to experience them. When I have a desire, I experience it as something that already belongs to me because everything is coming from (within) me. @4dbarbie-backup

NON-DUALISM

"It is the Self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being IT." - Ada B.

Let's break the word down first. “Non” of course means “no” or “not.” And “dual” means “two.” So, non-dual means not two. It says there is only one. This is referring to you, awareness [or consciousness], that there is only you, [...] the only thing that exists. You are the true reality. The only purpose for awareness is to observe, to oversee, to be. Nothing more, nothing less. For example, awareness is human, it can take on a human form, but human is not awareness or defines awareness as a whole. A human is simply a temporary form, but awareness is always free to be aware of any other form @itzalizeyyy

Whatever you imagine is the same as seeing it in the physical world, because both are still being an observed experience by the awareness, and therefore both are the same, as one (imagination). @itzalizeyyy

Helpful metaphors: When you watch a movie, you know it is a movie bc you are outside of it. you are observing it. now what about the characters in the movie? they dont know its a movie bc they are not outside of it. they think they are just regular ppl and they dont see the truth, their true selfs: which is just characters in a movie. @msperfect777 The ego is like your character in the game (of life), it's already a "manifestation" so it can't manifest (just like a book can't write itself or another book). You are aware of a character you go through life with. @consciousnessbaddie

Ego Death is then the disappearance of the egoistic sense of Self. You feel that your are no longer that.You don't disappear; you don't lose anything. There's no reason to fear losing your body, or losing anything. Yet, most of us are fearful that we're going to lose our body and be nothing. That's a serious error. You could be a hundred bodies! When the idea 'I am this body' dies, the witness does not. Death is merely the idea 'I have lost my body'. What you think yourself to be before death continues to be after death. Your sense of Self survives. @4dbarbie-backup

In Non Dualism, the goal is to stop identifying with ego and realize who you are.You see there's no seperation between you and anything so that means everything you once "desired" is already who you are. You never feel the sense of desire again because of this. Any "physical materialization" that happens after will not seem like such a big deal, since it was already who they were to begin with. @iamthat-iam

"I am that, I have always been that. All is well. There are no mistakes. I am in my right place." All you have to do is realize/ know your are not the mind (= identitiy, character, ego). Robert Adams

Self-Inquiry

" To know the source as source and appearance as appearance, and oneself as the source only is self-realization " - Ada B.

The mind is doing a good job actually, because it bites you and kicks you and teases you, because if it doesnt do that, then you'll want to make this limited feel your home.@lains-reality

Every thought is a thing of limitation. Therefore when we quiet the mind, we still these limiting thoughts and this infinite Being that we are becomes self obvious to us. We have convinced ourselves over the millenniums that we are these limited bodies, and we think it takes time to let go of these concepts of limitation. But time is a thing of the ego, it's a thought. @4dbarbie-backup

Learn the art of being aware of you (awareness). [...] You must not become what you already are, as the detached witness of every thought or sensation that comes and goes. [...] The practice of self-inquiry is returning to the fact of who and what you are. @anon-i-mus

It's a kind of surrendering but to me, truthfully and honestly, it felt more like a giving up. Even if it makes you miserable, accept the person you're identified with until you no more fear it or care if you stay the same. @4dbarbie-backup

-> Questions to ask yourself

Detachment

"Transcend your desires and your fears and you will have everything." - Ada B.

As Buddha taught, the root of suffering is attachment. It is not having the emotions and thoughts [...] but resisting or supressing them, and resisting the transitory nature of life and all things. Emotions and thoughts pass. No big deal. It is holding on to them when they are just coming up to leave or pass through that causes suffering. @lains-reality You need not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. It is disinterestedness that liberates. If you say, “There's no problem,” they won't vanish because you're saying, “There's no problem.” You're mentally holding onto the problem and therefore sustaining it. Erase the problem from your mind means to know (be aware) that everything is perfect and then the problem is necessarily non-existent. Basically, let go of it, because the problem is just an illusion. @4dbarbie-backup

You then ask how to stop being "Vanessa" ? - the reason you can't stop is because it's ALL YOU THINK YOU ARE. For example: You're driving a car. "I AM" is the car. You know how to drive it because you're already driving it by being Vanessa. Vanessa is something you add to the "I AM" and not you. You can't stop being Vanessa while being Vanessa! I think that's what everyone keeps asking: Vanessa wants to be Lara, not awareness [first]. @4dbarbie-backup

To talk of re-uniting the person with the self is also not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite. You are That. @4dbarbie-backup Nothing can remove your being. Nothing has ever stained your being.@lains-reality You think you have to do this and that because you think you're it, and you should act from it. That is not the case. There's nothing to do except disbelieve. But disbelieving and denial are not the same thing. Denial is when you deny reality to something you're already giving reality to. @4dbarbie-backup

Detachment is not lonely. It's freedom and it's real love. Needing is selfish, it's self-centered. The self has no preference and it's because of that that it can be everything. @4dbarbie-backup

Some of you are on this path for a while but to some extent still are identified with ego and that's OK. Don't get caught up in "your" expectations of what self-realization is supposed to be like. The expectations are making you turn this into a task, when it is supposed to be effortless. Yes, we have talked about feeling peaceful once you've realized yourself, but you're going to need to drop the expectations. It's okay if ego isn't completely grasping it, ego isn't real and it isn't who you are. @iamthat-iam

Fear is an invitation to remember who you truly are. Acknowledging fear doesn't make you any less worthy of or further away from what you truly desire. Similarly, acknowledging your shadows does not dim the Light that you are. The shadows you battle against are simply the seeming absence of you. Becoming entangled in the world of shadows is simply the forgetting of your Self; and Light casts shadows that come and go only to remember itself. The truth is that Light knows no opposition or enemy. Shadows have no separate existence from Light. Your fears are made of you. @lains-reality

The more I detached from ego, the freer I was to imagine what ego wanted without interference from conflicting thoughts/thoughts that "oppose" the desire. @iamthat-iam In fact, abandon all imaginings and know yourself as you are. Self-knowledge is detachment. All craving is due to a sense of insufficiency. @4dbarbie

To anyone who also wonders "how am I still picking this ego?": how many times have you thought about tomorrow? next week? future plans? there's your answer. and the worries about "life" come from them too. "if I don't prepare for/worry about this event that'll happen, I'll have to deal with the consequences of this action" you're telling yourself you will keep waking up as this exact same ego over and over. @glitterdoll888

If you come straight from Law of Assumption or Law of Attraction please keep on reading this last section!

“The simplest answer is usually the right one!.” - Occam’s razor

I think, that what we call 'manifestation' is life itself. i do not mean life in the way that you live A life, like its happening outside of you. i mean it as: it is natural & normal to manifest, its existance itself. it is not something you have, it just is. 'manifestation' is just life itself. it's how all works & is.@lains-reality

The similarity between ND and LOA is in the fact that What you’re aware of, is. LOA’s inner self is still ego. To talk about fulfilling self means fulfilling ego. There is nothing to fulfill if you are the Self and the only one that needs to be fulfilled is an ego, you’re still catering to an ego. @adadisciple

Please, please, understand that you don't have to DO anything! You are always awareness,you will never lack anything. Please stop worrying about the "physical" world and stop trying to materialize things within it! Non Dualism isn't a "new manifestation method" to "get what you want," you are realizing you never lacked anything this whole time. @iamthat-iam

The way the sun rises up in the morning, in the same way Vanessa happens to awareness. It is natural. Do you try to make it happen? It comes by itself (because you choose it as you).@adadisciple For example "I am a body" is a thought that runs automatically ("subconscious), because we do not look at it/know it, we have just accepted we are bodies and that's why we "see" a body. @4dbarbie-backup

You just need to allow something else to happen, not try to make it so!! You cannot help being what you are: Vanessa is the absolute to you now. But if she can be TO YOU, if she happens TO YOU, who is YOU? Your Vanessa "I" runs on autopilot, she is a symbol. She has no free will. To the Self, she is only an idea. She has been conditioned and programmed to think the way she does, it’s the only way she knows how to function. And that’s fine, let her be. Just don’t pick her as you.If she were a random stranger on the street, you would have no concern about her life. If you were Lara now, where would Vanessa be in your thoughts? That is the behavior you should strive for in your thinking, dispassion, disinterest, detachment. Let the thought of being her go. Just let them BE. The way you let Vanessa be. And you let Vanessa be by thinking that’s all you are, that’s what is true. @adadisciple

If you want a "method", then the very best method of all methods is to quiet the mind to see the Being that you are. Pose the question: “Who am I?” and if other thoughts come in, ask, “To whom are these thoughts?” The answer is “To me.” “Well, who am I?” and you're back on the track, seeking to see your Self. @4dbarbie-backup I sit in the feeling while focusing on something else in the present moment, and it usually goes away. @iamthat-iam

Non Dualism does not believe in “affirming” or “persisting” because if awareness is already everything, then it does not need to affirm or persist for its desire if it already has [or IS] its own desire. @itzalizeyyy Like repetition, it keeps you in lack. Do you need to remind yourself that you are a man or a woman? That experience, that form, is already being observed, is already being aware of. You know 'your' gender. @4dbarbie-backup

The truth is, there was no "3D" or "4D" in the first place. there is no imagination VS reality. nothing is real, it has always been illusion VS illusion. If anytime you get thoughts like "why is it not here" "why don't i see it" "why hasn't it manifested yet" you are immediately identifying with your human self. [...] Relying on the human senses will always be our downfall. @iamthat-iam

If you don't have the discipline to at least cut off all this excess of knowledge of information, you'll only be making it tougher on yourself. After you do that, stick to it until you're ready to let go and rely on yourself. Until you start behaving like the teacher and one is needed no more. You create the teacher because you think someone is more knowledgeable than you. That's fine for now, but trust the teacher, listen and apply.@4dbarbie-backup

I have Psychiatrist & doctors appointments, work, still need to eat, want to commit suicide? Psychiatrist appointment. What is that for? To correct your thinking, isn't that right? Reconditioning, changing, or even eliminating patterns of the mind. Now, I'm not telling you to stop going/stop working and or eating. That would be irresponsible of me. Leave your mind alone, that is all. @4dbarbie-backup

DO NOT ACTIVELY INTERFERE in ego's life or try to stop living that life while still being very attached to it, i.e. still identifying with that ego. Let the person continue to live it's life and fulfill it's obligations like studying, but maintain the knowing that it's not who you are. @iamthat-iam

But what about random things that I wasn't even aware of before they came? It's very simple, really. You are aware of being Vanessa and with Vanessa come specific beliefs. Characters have their own beliefs like certain weather can give you a cold, certain environments have insects etc. Thoughts dominate you only because you are interested in them. By resisting evil, you merely strengthen it. If you are "I AM", it means you are not the person experiencing the 3D world/thoughts/circumstances, you never were. The problem is excessive interest, leading to self-identification. Whatever you are engrossed in you take to be real. @4dbarbie-backup

[darkcircles4lyfe]

Life after NDE

Before reading, please see this post. It’s where I first explored the possibility that what we think we know about One for All is unreliable. It also ends with my own guesses about how Katsuki plays into it all. Now, with chapter 404, I can continue where it left off.

There are a lot of different tangents floating around here that I need to bring together for you, so let’s start with what came to light in this newest chapter. There’s a clear emphasis on Toshinori’s vestige form:

but did you catch the slight of hand?

How about now?

As soon as I saw the panels where Shigaraki talks about how the vestige is taking full form, I was practically shouting “OBJECTION” Ace Attorney-style, because they were a complete contradiction to how we were made to understand vestiges in chapter 304 (oh hey look, exactly 100 chapters ago!). Back then, it was suggested to us that Toshinori was special because of his quirklessness, that it allowed him to imprint upon OFA in a way that none of the other previous users could. In contrast, Shigaraki makes it seem like Toshi is no different from the rest. Like oh yeah, this is just how it works, they aren’t fully formed until they die, right? Hello?? No? I thought we were assuming the vestiges didn't have to do with actual souls, apart from Toshi? Given Shigaraki’s own brand of unreliability in his immature frame of mind, I found myself wondering: is he making an assumption, or is he letting slip a secret bit of information about OFA? Idk man, OFA wasn’t even doing this whole vestige thing until like a few months ago, so.

Either way, we can observe the change. As Toshinori’s lifeforce fades, he appears in OFA. I’m left with the simple observation that if he were truly different from the other vestiges because of his quirklessness, it would not have happened this way, since OFA doesn’t have Toshi’s own unique quirk factor to work with, but rather the other way around. You would have expected his vestige to stay the same, or possibly disappear altogether, since it was ostensibly exclusively based on the influence of a living consciousness.

That exception to the rule described in 304 never sat right with me anyway, and I’m not convinced that OFA contains mere memories of its previous users via their quirks just like AFO does. Sure, it’s nice and edgy to imagine that OFA/AFO are more similar than they are different, deep down. But poetic opposites are more interesting to me: AFO isolates by taking, while OFA connects by giving. Previous OFA users give themselves to their successors. One for All was “truly born” not when All for One tossed Yoichi a stolen consolation, but when 2nd extended his hand. There is something distinctly emotional and personal about that. Nana was right—it is kinda romantic.

Because Toshinori kept living, because Izuku has meaningful relationships, that chain of giving linked down through OFA was finally brought to light, like a circuit that’s being closed. At least, that’s how I see it. That’s pretty much what I talked about in my previous post.

Back then I also suggested that this theory of personal connection in some way explains Katsuki apparently having a vestige. Since chapter 403, where Toshinori describes his legacy as being embodied in both Izuku AND Katsuki, I was reminded of how Toshinori was gradually shown this over the course of the manga, as he came to understand Katsuki and his relationship to Izuku, how they are inseparable.

When Toshinori was inspired to pass OFA on to Izuku as he witnessed him trying to save Katsuki, he had no idea the two boys even knew each other. What he saw as a random act of selflessness was in reality a desperate manifestation of a connection that extended beyond memory, of osananajimi. With the eyes of traditional heroism, one could choose to see this as Toshinori’s fatal mistake, that he accidentally chose a successor with a “weakness” of personal attachment, but we all know that heroic isolation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. No, I think Toshinori made precisely the right choice.

This is going to seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, but bear with me: you know how we still haven’t been told how the first OFA transfer happened? I feel almost silly admitting this, but I think it absolutely had to have been done instinctually, because it’s just too damn specific. As in, they didn’t know what they were doing or what it would accomplish, but they did it anyway. As in. They moved. Without thinking.

Toshinori didn’t fully consciously understand what he was seeing when Izuku ran to Katsuki, but deep within OFA, perhaps he recognized something familiar.

What if, somehow, without knowing it, Toshinori gave One for All to two people? His conviction and intent to give it was inspired by Izuku’s connection to Katuski. Yes, the transfer is inherently physical, but it also relies on mental assertion. Plus, how we think the transfer works may also be an assumption (again, the first time it happened was probably on instinct). Let me break it down even more: Toshi probably thought, as he passed OFA on, “I’m giving it to a successor who has my same balance of heroism—save to win, win to save.” But, in reality, Izuku relies on Katsuki for that balance, as his image of victory. Therefore I think I can argue that their relationship is irrevocably bound within the pact of the OFA transfer. Maybe because Katsuki’s part of OFA is based on emotional connection, once that connection is reciprocated…

…the full extent of that dual transfer is awakened.

I understand I’m making a lot of logical leaps here, but there has to be some sort of explanation for the Katsuki we see at the point of his death, talking to Toshinori’s vestige. I used to think it meant Katsuki had a vestige too. But then why are Katsuki and Toshinori alone, and without Izuku knowing? Moreover, why didn’t Katsuki materialize from the metaphysical mist around Izuku when he died, just as Toshinori did here?

Here comes the other thing I realized in 404. The simplest explanation may be that Katsuki isn’t a vestige at all, but rather he was visiting the OFA interior just as Izuku has done in his sleep or in a coma. Because he’s not a previous user, he’s a current user. The sequence of Toshinori’s NDE (near death experience) in 404, the way it manifested externally around Izuku as something Izuku was aware of, rather than internally within OFA from Toshinori’s point of view, shows me that what happened to Katsuki was different.

A lot of us have been speculating that Katsuki “has access to” OFA in some form or another for quite some time now, but I think the way the idea is suggested in 403/404 is an important distinction because it specifies the mode of connection. To me, it matters that they have two halves of a whole given to each of them, as opposed to, “the chosen one + his sidekick with a little extra OFA boost.” This puts them on equal ground, and it implies that the closer they become, the stronger One for All will be against All for One. It promises that these two idiots who have been toeing around each other and leaving things unspoken for so long will have to really face the facts of their relationship.

One last thing: you might be wondering why the other vestiges apparently haven’t picked up on what’s going on and told Izuku. Well, Yoichi may have felt it? (Where has he been?) But also, Toshinori is the only one directly involved, the only one who realizes his legacy is carried by two. Up until this point his connection to his vestige self has been limited, sort of one-way. For example, he could tell the other vestiges about his research into OFA, but in return he could only faintly pick up on things, and only while Izuku was unconscious.

The time Toshinori spent as a full vestige was brief, but I’m sure it was enough to learn some things about where the shade of himself has been. Even if I’m wrong about everything else, I bet he can give us the answers now.

[genshin-squabbles-and-wobbles]

May I request this idea that had been in my mind

What if wanderer remembered hypasia and started telling reader all she had done for him and started comparing reader to hypasia. Reader ignores him until this man gets the fact that reader is jealous and mad because of the comparing so in the end he asks nahida to help him make it up to reader

Ty have a good day/noon/night

Yes ma'am! Sorry for this scenario for taking so long, but here it is! I love you and I hope we can marry our pinky toes together and merge in the woods and then we can die as mermaids together, then go to heaven and find each other in heaven, but then I have to fight all of heaven to get to you in the devil's lava bathtub and then we reunite and destroy all of existence but I'm sorry and I love you. :D

Scaramouche was walking with Nahida, as he was telling her his current issue with you. He was annoyed as he didn’t know what to do to get your attention, more so, for you to "get over it" per say.

"I don’t understand this childish behavior she is doing, she is making a big deal out of nothing, like what was I supposed to do?" He complained and sighed.

Nahida stopped and looked at him. "So, to restate what you have told me, you talked about Hypasia to your lover, and she got upset and stopped talking to you? What were you saying about Hypasia?"

Scaramouche looked to the side with his hand on his chin, he had one arm crossed and shifted his hips. "Well, that she and I had shares a consciousness, and that she was the only one who was well attuned of my past, compared to my lover, she only knows it through my words, or well, she doesn’t know it to the extent as he-"

Nahida interrupted him and chuckled. "If I may, interrupted. Haha, do you perhaps not see that your lover, is perhaps...jealous?"

Scaramouche looked at Nahida confused. "Jealous? Why?"

Nahida looked at him with a smile. "Lets say, your lover had an ex lover, but that ex lover knows her very well, inside and out, compared to you. As this ex lover touched her more than you, and knows her better than you."

"I...I woudn't like that, she could leave me to go back to him..." Scaramouche sighed, exposing his insecurities slightly.

"Exactly. That is what you have did to her." Nahida placed her hand on wanders hand.

"But Hypasia was just a follower, not my past lover." Scaramouche argued, trying to understand his mistake.

"Yes, but you have described her in intimate details, and farther more, you have compared her to your lover, as IF Hypasia was your ex lover. Scaramouche, your lover just feels inadequate, you hurt her with how you have been talking about Hypasia, the best thing to do is at least apologize and give her some space. It shows she loves you and cares, so please go forward with that in mind."

Scaramouche looked at her and sighed. He then looked down with his arms crossed, he had a scowl as her realized this was much more complicated then he realized. A part of him wanted to challenge you, and wanted to be resistant and stubborn. A part of him didn’t want to deal with this or take accountability with this.

But the other part of him misses spending time with you and talking to you. He cares and really wants to make things okay again. Two sides tore at him. He just wished this wasn’t something that the great Wanderer haven’t fallen down to, petty things that he had done to ruin his relationship with you.

Later on, Scaramouche walked into your house. Well, no. He walked into your window, as he never uses your door, he would always somehow gets into your house though any other entrances. He had an anemo vision after all, he utilize the ability to fly around. He entered your home through your window, as he walked to your bedroom door and knocked.

Nothing, you ignored. You were on your bed, deep in thought. You were overthinking.

About what? Well of course, your performance as a lover compared to Hypasia. You heard the knock, but ignored it. What is the point of being his lover, when he apparently had a better lover in mind? No point. You closed your eyes and sighed.

Scaramouche sighed and placed his forehead on the door. After a few moments. "Listen...I am...I am sorry for the way I compared you to Hypasia, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I only had you and a few other people in my life, that is why I ended up comparing, but I never meant to hurt you. It was no...excuse of me. I..I love you. And I am sorry...I'll leave you be and give you space...if you need me...I'll be out dealing with business. I won't be coming back until you want me to..." With that, Scaramouche left and stuck to his word.

You widen your eyes and immediately sat up surprised. Pondering for a few moments, you ran to open the door, however, it was too late. He was gone. You stood there in silence, staring at the window he left from. Your arms and shoulders went limp as you slowly started to blame yourself for your emotions and reacting the way you did to the situation at hand.

[crash-and-cure]

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

Gif by @troubleinapinksuit

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

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

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

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

My Masterlist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I-I guess…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He grins even wider at that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You would never see her again.

To My Darling Daughter,

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

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

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

I Love You So Much,

Mama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You laugh because otherwise you’ll cry.

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

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

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

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

Guess she just wanted out that bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You sob harder.

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

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

And all is right in the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You up?”

“No.”

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

“Elvis about Prom ni-”

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

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

“It’s just…” he pauses. “That night-”

“The night nothing happened.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No.”

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

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

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

“No,” he answers confused.

“Is your name Bill?”

“No.”

“Is your name Buddy?”

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

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

“Me?”

“Who?”

He chuckles before saying, “Elvis Presley.”

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

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

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

“How’d ya figure that?”

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

“...maybe?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sorry to bother you E,”

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

“How many you at now?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This has got to be a dream, you think.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Never,” you sigh happily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

Taglist

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[airyravenmaid]

SAGAU: My Style

Back at it again with sharing my personal ideas with the Self-Aware Genshin AU. I don't see myself writing a full-on fanfic about it because I do NOT trust myself with characterizing everybody properly, and some of the ideas I have in mind wouldn't make for a good universal experience for all, if that makes sense. So, instead, I'll just stick to pitching like I'm at a silly ol' business meeting and providing a simply layout. Now, keep in mind, this is going to focus more on my rendition of an Imposter AU specifically, which means I'm also going to do a little nitpicking of some common tropes in it that I find could be done better or even differently. It won't be me saying that anybody who writes them in the traditional sense is bad or doing a bad job, just what I'd do differently. So, without further ado, check out my mish-mushed ideas below the cut:

It all starts with the Creator Themsleves, aka, us. Or, rather, us before we became us. Not making sense? That's fine, but lemme delve into that a little better. Game lore-wise for this AU, there actually was a fully existing, fully breathing Creator that's been around since even before the Archons (but not by too much; Zhongli's still no spring chicken in spite of this). Yes, they did create Teyvat and all that's good in it like the flora, the fauna, and the creatures, and they had a close bond with said Archons not just as people serving, advising, and worshipping their God/ruler, but also in a legitimate friendship (so, no, they're not 100% subservient or gutless ass-kissers-- it's more of an equal dynamic). Maybe one Archon of your choice (within reason) being close enough to the point of being (secret) lovers, if you'd like. Such explains the Archons' deep attachment to the Creator, and their eagerness to see them again after tragedy-- like, say, the Cataclysm that razed Khaenri'ah-- renders them comatose and not to awaken again until present day. Until then, the Creator's body lies safely in sleep like Princess Aurora within their main temple/palace, occasionally visited by their old companions (minus Ei, who's in her hidey-hole until the Inazuma AQ's, but that goes without saying).

But, just before they do wake up, here comes a little (presumably Celestia-sent) POS known as the Imposter, who worms their way into the temple where the Creator lies, steals their garbs and replaces them with normal, less divine attire before sending their body far away apparently never to be seen again and lying on that resting spot acting as the Creator on the verge of waking up. And since no one knows what really happened, it looks like the promised day has come without issues, and the Imposter is welcomed by nearly all back to a throne that never actually belonged to them. As for the actual Creator... they're in good hands, because Teyvat would never mistake another for the All-Parent that breathed life into it and acts to protect their body hidden amidst nature in whatever region they landed in (your choice) until they really do wake up.

And when our in-game body does wake up, our real-life consciousness is transferred into it and overwrites our old, godly memories with our normal ones. Since I can't stand isekais that require us dying an early death IRL (like, at all, actually), we're either magically transported to Teyvat the old-fashioned magic way, or part of our consciousness goes into our in-universe body and leaves our physical forms in reality alone, thereby creating two versions of us going around two separate worlds. For better wording, that is, but that's the gist of it. Either way, we're the real deal Creator, but one without our old memories (apart from short visions we get of our old divine life that come up every now and again) as far as everyone else in Teyvat is concerned. They're not totally wrong, anyway. I was thinking this could be justified to everyone by our "past self" saying pre-slumber that they will reawaken without the knowledge of this world (aka, the Genshin one), but it will still very much be them/us.

By the way, when we stumble into the main town or city of whatever region we wound up in, the locals don't just immediately attack us for looking like the Imposter. While sometimes, I do enjoy kicking back and enjoying pure angst, I otherwise found that aspect of Villain/Imposter!SAGAU to be, comment dit-on... absurd, especially with nobody in Mondstadt (outside of that one nun not buying it and simply scolding him) giving two honks about Venti despite him looking like (being) Barbatos, and nobody in Liyue even noticing the resemblance between Zhongli and Rex Lapis/Morax. And given how much those nations revere their god, the argument of us being a higher deity cannot be made. So, instead, at absolute worst, people are just really unnerved by the uncanny resemblance we have to the Creator, but otherwise don't get alarmed... until the Imposter catches wind of us and changes that. The reason people start attacking us at all is because the Imposter weaves a forewarning of the Creator's antithesis equal to them in power known as the "Destroyer" will descend on Teyvat, attempt to steal the throne using the Creator's face, and do worse to the world than the Abyss Order ever could try to if not stopped. And, this may sound like something they just made up to get us killed, but in a way... it's true, only issue is that the acolytes + citizens have the wrong idea of who's who, of course. Plus, the actual, all-powerful Creator, if pushed too far by say... an incredibly lengthy and traumatic manhunt after being mistaken for the Destroyer, is capable of tearing the world limb from limb, because those who create can as easily destroy, but those who destroy can never create.

Speaking of "all-powerful"... why are we always completely powerless in these SAGAU works apart from crying and/or getting really angry (which ARE realistic and valid reactions to the shit we're going through, but it's not mutually exclusive to getting cool abilities)? Because we're not actually from Teyvat? Even Aether and Lumine have the power to wield the elements despite coming from somewhere else, and for us to not get that same honor is frankly dull as dishwater. That's a lot of missed potential to dip into the fantasy aspect of a fantasy game like Genshin Impact. It's here I'd like to take some inspiration from a show I've enjoyed for years known as none other than "Avatar: The Last Airbender". Not to mention, the term "avatar" generally refers to a "divine incarnation in human form", hello??? Ahem! In other words, instead of being completely incapable of defending ourselves, we-- being the almighty Creator-- are able to wield all seven elements at once, but we have to gradually learn how to effectively use and master them. We do start with one element (any of your choice), then work our way up in order of the loading screen. IE: say your element is Cryo, you'd have to go Geo -> Pyro -> Hydro -> Anemo -> Electro -> Dendro. Such was the same in our past life, but we had the Archons to teach us and help us master those abilities through time.

Which means now, we need other people to help us do it again in our new "incarnation", and that's in the form of 5-star Vision holders since they fit the bill of "master" a bit better, being the rarer, stronger characters and junk. Of course, this is likely with discretion, because some might not be wise to learn from (such as Klee, funny as that'd be). I'm also discounting learning from the Archons because not only has our time with them from the previous life passed, but I don't find it fair to learn from a powerful god of that element, even if we're a god ourselves. It's more balanced learning from someone beneath that level (so, yes, an adeptus would still qualify). Also, important note here: not every single playable character is going to try and kill us for the Creator-Destroyer thing. NPCs are one thing because, let's be real, they're sheep, but it isn't realistic or in-character for everybody playable to want us dead. While a fair chunk would probably be on board for the sake of not letting the world blow to smithereens (and not because, you know, Same Face Syndrome, because that's completely insane), some might not outright believe the alleged prophecy for one reason or another, such as not being fond/trusting enough of the apparent "Creator" to just listen to them right off the bat, or getting to already find out who the real Creator is and knowing we're not the enemy. Whatever the reason is, we're going to have allies, including ones that join us in our quest to defeat the Imposter and take back the throne to restore balance to Teyvat. This can also include those who initially sided with the Imposter, but for one reason or another such as seeing our gold blood, they have a change of heart and tag along for the ride. For us to just go about Teyvat on the lam with nobody having our back is just... depressing, and not even in the fun way, either. I understand this faction of SAGAU tends to be purely angst-based, but come on, it doesn't have to all be a total bummer all the time. There's no rule that says we can't go through the angsty, heartwrenching stuff with traveling companions to call our own there for us through it all.

Now, of course, whoever those traveling companions are is really up to you because not all of us are gonna wanna tag up with and learn from the same bitches as the next guy. So, it's anybody's game with anybody's reasoning and circumstances (such as which region we wake up in, who our first companion(s) would be there, then which region we move onto, and even what element we have to learn next). Also, fitting the max. number of characters you can have on one team, it'd just be four actively traveling alongside us through Teyvat with other allies remaining where they are, whether they helped us master an element or not. But, no matter anybody's personal tastes and choices, I really wish there was more of a thrilling "fantastical group adventure" kind of element to this genre of SAGAU, because the potential is there, just-- seldom reached, from what I've seen, personally. I'd be more than happy adding onto this with anything I might have missed, but that's basically the gist of my view of this AU.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

At some point in my life, I probably saw two strangers doing something together and just assumed that they are in a romantic relationship - even though they were platonic friends.

Most likely it was a situation like “Ohh, there is the waiter with my food! Finally!... never mind, it’s for the couple over there”. Just some random moment where I made an automatic judgment about their relationship status without even consciously thinking about it.

I do not remember it happening but how would I? Unless I randomly overheard them loudly discussing the fact that they are not dating, there's no way my mistake would become apparent. I'd just finish my meal and leave the restaurant none the wiser.

Another reason I wouldn't remember it is that the world didn’t crash and burn. I did not singlehandedly erase the concept of friendship. They were not forcibly married right there in the restaurant by the sheer power of my thoughts. They left the restaurant as friends, just like they entered it. And me? Well, the wrong assumption didn't magically turn me into some weird pervert who pushes the heads of random strangers together and yells "Now kiss for my enjoyment!". I also left the restaurant just like I entered it: ignorant about their personal relationship - something that ultimately has no bearing on anyone's actual life whatsoever.

Yeah, I am being dramatic and silly here. Nobody would actually expect any of that to happen, would they? But some people do freak out about queer fans making an assumption about fictional characters and their relationships.

I keep seeing panicky comments about it - two characters of the same sex can't be friends anymore without some people on the internet shipping them! They are erasing the concept of friendship! This will lead to kids missing out on important platonic connections with the same gender and ultimately leave them unable to connect to anyone at all unless it's sexually!

Oftentimes this is simply a way to justify homophobia. Saying you are worried about the kids causes less backlash than "Eww, gays are yucky".

But sometimes it comes from inside the house, from people who are actually queer themselves - this can be internalized homophobia but it may also be an overestimation of the impact of queer internet fandom. Many of us spend a lot of time there because it's a (fairly) safe space for us... but it's important to remember that tumblr doesn't properly represent the real world in many aspects. Gay shipping is essentially a (comparatively small) group of people re-telling stories as a hobby. This can be very meaningful for the people in the group - but it won't influence the entire world. Fandom will never erase the concept of friendship. It's really not widespread or powerful enough for that.

Panicking about that is unnecessary - just like freaking out about me potentially assigning the wrong relationship status to the people at the table next to me would be.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

[warningsine]

Just over a year ago, a woman told a crowded room that her ex-husband had kicked and slapped her. She described him throwing a phone at her face. She described him penetrating her with a wine bottle. “I remember not wanting to move because I didn’t know if it was broken,” she said. “I didn’t know if the bottle that he had inside me was broken.” While she said all these things, people laughed. People called her a whore and a liar. People cheered for her ex-husband, and made posters and T-shirts emblazoned with his face.

Only about 14 months have passed since Amber Heard was mocked and shamed on a global stage. But, apparently, that means it’s now high time to relive it. This week, a new three-part series from director Emma Cooper drops on Netflix (UK viewers can also watch via Channel 4 on demand). That’s right folks, we’re back in the hellscape that is Depp v Heard.

There are certain legal cases that transcend courtroom drama to become full-blown ‘where were you when’ cultural moments. Usually, these ‘trials of the century’ are criminal trials. Charles Manson in 1970; OJ Simpson in 1995. But, occasionally, a different calibre of case will grip the public consciousness – one that spins around sex and humiliation; one that strikes to the heart of how contemporary culture understands gender and power. In 1991, attorney Anita Hill testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her while she worked as an adviser to him. The Senate ultimately confirmed Thomas’ nomination, while Hill received death threats. Just a few years later, as the new millennium swam into view, another sex scandal rocked American society. This time, the main characters were President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Despite Clinton eventually admitting to having had an affair with Lewinsky, for many years the court of public opinion was clear in its verdict: Monica Lewinsky was either a whore, or a liar, or both.

In a sense, the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial, which took place from April 11 to June 1 2022, in Fairfax County, Virginia, combined elements of all of these previous ‘trials of the century’. As with Clinton and Lewinsky, a relationship between a younger woman and an older, more famous and more powerful man was under the microscope. In an echo of Hill v Thomas, during which lawmakers accused Anita Hill of suffering from a ‘delusional disorder’, a psychologist hired by Depp’s legal team ‘diagnosed’ Heard with borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. Like Charles Manson, the man at the centre of proceedings was also the figurehead of an obsessive fan club. And if that fan club grew to resemble a cult, in its slavish devotion to Depp against all reason, it’s largely because, like Simpson’s trial, the whole thing was televised.

However, one key difference between Depp v Heard and these other previous high-profile trials, is the influence of social media on public opinion. The trial was not only ‘televised’ but also TikToked, live-streamed and memed. The tagline for Cooper’s three-parter Depp v Heard even bills the trial as ‘the first trial by TikTok’.

The show opens with the Hollywood sign flickering into Amber Heard’s face on a red carpet. There’s old footage of Depp and Heard on the Hollywood walk of fame, at a dinner, and stepping off a boat in Venice glitch and distort into shots of Los Angeles freeways. News anchors read headlines about the couple, and about the trial. The screen glitches again, into a tree lined highway in Virginia. More clipped footage, more contextualising news clips. Then one anchor raises an important issue – a crucial factor in the trial proceedings that, a year on, often gets lost in the heady internet fog of misinformation, conspiracy, clout-chasing and PR campaigns. Why was the whole sorry spectacle staged in Virginia, when neither Heard nor Depp live or work there?

Well, the ‘official’ reason Depp was allowed to sue in the state is because the news outlet that ran Heard’s article, The Washington Post, “houses its printing press and online server in Fairfax County.” Yet, it’s also because, under Virginia law, the trial judge can decide whether to allow cameras in the courtroom.

Heard’s team tried to exclude the cameras from the trial. At a pre-trial hearing in February, attorney Elaine Bredehoft noted there was already a huge amount of media attention on the trial, as well as scrutiny from what she described as “fearful anti-Amber networks”. “What they’ll do is take anything that’s unfavourable,” Bredehoft said, “they’ll take out of context a statement, and play it over and over and over and over again.” Depp’s team, on the other hand, wanted the trial televised. “Mr. Depp believes in transparency,” his lawyer, Ben Chew declared. It should have been a sign of what was to come that the judge sided with Depp. “I don’t see any good cause not to do it,” Penney Azcarate, the chief judge of Fairfax County, announced. Others saw it differently. “Allowing this trial to be televised is the single worst decision I can think of in the context of intimate partner violence and sexual violence in recent history,” Michele Dauber, a professor at Stanford Law School said in May 2022. “It has ramifications way beyond this case.”

One of the ramifications of Judge Azcarate’s decision is that Depp v Heard is now on our screens. But, none of those quotes from various legal professionals are taken from the series. Indeed, there are no expert voices at all. There is no narration. No one who was involved in the trial is involved in this directly. There is no ‘broad view’, or ‘behind the scenes’, or ‘recontextualising with the benefit of hindsight’. This is a documentary in the loosest of senses. Early takes from the other side of the pond have been split – some critics have suggested it “casts the trial of the decade in a new light”, while others have deemed it “nothing more than a tactless win for pro-Johnny fans”. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that the trial itself was so notoriously divisive. Personally, I’m inclined to agree with Audra Heinrichs of Jezebel, who described the docuseries as playing “like a highlight reel from hell”. 

If Depp v Heard suggests anything, it’s that people consuming the trial were biased. Well, that’s hardly a scoop, and to my mind, it’s certainly not worth the full, three-hour docuseries treatment. The series doesn’t dig into the motivations of the anti-Amber content creators or their backgrounds. For example, one prolific poster and top Depp stan who is featured extensively but anonymously in Cooper’s three-parter is Andy Signore. Not long before the Depp v Heard trial began, Signore had been fired from Screen Junkies, the YouTube-focused company he founded, for a variety of sexual misconduct allegations. Having set up his channel Popcorned Planet after being dismissed, Signore now posts livestreams about ‘daily news’ and ‘pop culture justice.’ Mainly, he covers what he characterises as the injustice of the #MeToo movement. Signore more than doubled the following of his YouTube channel during Depp v Heard. He made more than 300 videos about the trial, ratcheting up millions of views as he built a new reputation as a crusader for ‘justice’ and, crucially, making money in the process.

All the content creators immortalised in this series, and many more besides, were making money – but this also isn’t discussed or made explicit in Depp v Heard. Cooper presumably believes this allows the content to speak for itself, and lets the viewer weigh up their own thoughts, becoming another member of the public jury. But the true effect is just blur – an endless stream of stuff. Just how much money were all these #JusticeForJohnny content creators making? Was there a coordinated and well funded online PR campaign for Depp throughout the trial, fuelled by bots, as many alleged post-trial? Depp v Heard has no answers, just more clips. He said, she said. No thoughts, just vibes.

I wrote about Depp v Heard last year as the trial was ongoing. Then, I felt like I had to maintain some semblance of neutrality in my discussion of the ‘facts’ of the case itself. The piece wasn’t about who was ‘right’, or who was telling ‘the truth’ – it was about how strange the spectacle of the case had become, and how dangerous a precedent it seemed to set, if trials about intimate partner violence could be spun into comic TikTok clips. I didn’t want to come down on one ‘side’. I wrote that “treating an ongoing defamation trial, featuring graphic and distressing testimony about physical violence, coercive control, and sexual assault, like […] Netflix’s latest true crime documentary series is, at best, distasteful and, at worst, actively dangerous.” Now, as Netflix’s latest documentary series opens up the can of worms again, the only true takeaway is how little we’ve learnt since then.

[moonblossom]

Where I've been for a week...

This gets graphic about physical injury below the cut, so please don't read if that's something you're not up for right now. TL;DR I fell down the stairs and massively fucked up both my legs.

So last Tuesday, I was working from home as I usually do. I went upstairs to have a coffee and some banana bread my dad made. While up there, I realised I'd forgotten to set my work phone to DND so I hurried up and ran down the stairs to my room where my office is.

Big mistake.

The stairs into my room are varnished wood, awkward heights, and not very well lit. I slipped and missed my footing, which has happened a million times before.

This is where things get unpleasant. Read on with caution.

Somehow, both the tibia and fibula in my right leg snapped in half with enough force to drive them both through the front of my shin.

I was in and out of consciousness, but I do remember being surrounded by what felt like 40 EMTs (was closer to ten according to my folks - three ambulances showed up), one of whom was utterly charmed by my lizard. He looked about twelve. Bless him for distracting me while one of his partners cut open my favourite lounge pants and shoved the bones back inside my leg. I was not wearing underwear at the time.

We get to the Montreal General Hospital in... mediocre time, due to a fuckton of construction and detours. Bienvenue a Montreal, fuck right off.

They put me straight into a trauma unit and pumped me full of fentanyl and antibiotics. I vaguely remember one of the EMTs referring to my pain level as a "fifteen out of ten". They checked my entire body to make sure nothing else was injured, both manual and ultrasound to make sure I still had my spleen and shit. Thankfully, all my innards are still functional. They cut the remaining shreds of my pants off but managed to get my tank top off without too much drama. Someone was kind enough to drape a hospital gown over my boobs and... possibly my crotch? I was in too much pain to give a crap at this point.

They manage to take a few x-rays while I curse them and their ancestors and the hospital and just... the entire fucking world, and then fill me up with some delightful cocktail of propofol and ketamine. I remember very little after this point, but apparently they yanked my leg into place, noticing my right left ankle was severely sprained in the process. So that was fun. Apparently I cursed a bunch more, and made a bunch of jokes that were likely inappropriate but broke the tension I guess?

I "woke up" from the cocktail feeling like I was underwater, and then convinced I was inside Disney Dreamlight Valley, which frankly was a lovely way to come out of sedation. I think I was picking flowers with Mirabel Madrigal.

At some point during all this nonsense my mother managed to get in touch with my boss who was adamant that I take as long as needed, which was a good thing. My dad came to the hospital with me but they wouldn't let him into the trauma unit. It was very chaotic and crowded and likely gross to watch so I get it.

After the realignment, they pushed my gurney to the space between X-Ray and CT to get better scans. They were both occupied so I sat in the hall for a few minutes and vaguely remember saying "Bonjour, hi!" and "Can I help you?" to random people who passed me. Once a retail worker, always a retail worker, apparently.

CT confirmed I also had a broken bone in my left foot. They moved me into ER main, put a boot on the left and bandaged up the wound. I was told I'd need surgery but they were so overwhelmed (ER was like at 160% capacity or something) so they had no idea when I'd be cleared.

They brought me dinner which claimed to be frittata and mashed potatoes but I'm fairly certain was actually upholstery foam and wallpaper paste. Thankfully it was so unappetizing I didn't eat more than a few bites, because my nurse was like "Hey so you're next on the OR list. If they ask if you ate, say no." XD Bless you Meagan, you saved my arse multiple times. You are a sarcastic, foul-mouthed, adorable angel among nurses (and really all the nurses were lovely). About an hour later they wheel me up to the ER, wash me down as best they can, and start prepping me. I meet the surgeon, who is as brusque and no-nonsense as orthopedic surgeons tend to be, but he did take the time to explain the whole procedure and risks, and make sure I was comfortable and understood.

What they were gonna do was drill down through my knee and insert a titanium rod down the centre of the entire tibia. The fibula was close enough and a clean enough break that it could rely on the tibia's stabilisation. Fun note about this particular surgery - you can walk on it within days of it being installed. No cast or anything!

The anaesthetist suggested a sedative and a spinal block (similar to an epidural) rather than a full unconscious anaesthetic because of my medical history and they're just generally less dangerous. However, it turns out the sheath around my synovial spaces in my spine is made out of fucking Kevlar or something. They bent SEVEN NEEDLES trying to get a shot in. Took about 45 minutes. I was numb so it was nbd but it was like... ten PM at this point and everyone was tired so when the anaesthetist was like "I think we should do a general" I was like "sign me the fuck up where's the consent form" I woke up a few hours later in the PACU (post-anaesthetic care unit) with a titanium upgrade, 37 staples in four separate locations, an incredibly fashionable thigh-high bandage, and my mother at my side. I faded in and out for about an hour and then remember being in a tiny little private room with its own bathroom. A total luxury in our older hospitals (The MGH as an institution has been around since the 1800s and the building I was in was built in 1955 - the bathroom even had adorable black and white tiling typical of the bathrooms of that era). That's pretty much all the dramatic bits of the story. They kept me for a week working with nurses, orthopedic residents, and physiotherapists until they were comfortable enough that I could move around enough at home to attend to my basic needs. I have crutches, a walker, a rolling commode so I can do the needful literally a foot from my med, a desk that slides over my bed, and thankfully two incredibly patient and indulgent parents. I'm fairly certain they never expected to be cleaning their 42 year old daughter's poop out of a bucket, but what can you do?

If anyone is genuinely curious, I have photos and would be willing to write up the hospital stay itself but 90% of it will be me complaining about the other patients on the ward who screamed at the nurses for everything and if I'd been able to walk I would have smothered with a pillow, or the "food" they tried to feed me which got increasingly inedible as the week went on.

If you've read this far, bless you. If you leave a note or message me I'll do my best to reply but I'm floating in and out of a dilaudid-infused haze so it might be a while.

At this point I'm not too proud (or possibly I've just lost whatever shame I had left when they cut my pants off), if you feel like sending me a get-well gift my amazon wishlists are here: general wishes | https://www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/1K85M74WULR1N?ref_=wl_share

craft supplies | https://www.amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/PXBKTW4UK0AQ?ref_=wl_share

US wishlist | https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2MT3KS1ZDZG0O?ref_=wl_share

(stuff will be delivered to my boyfriend and I'll open it whenever I'm allowed to fly down there)

[chronosh0t]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 𝐈 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐢𝐟 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮...

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐒: male x Lee, alternative universe, hurt, hurt-comfort, angst, mature content, physical and emotional violence, psychotic. 〔 NO BETA 〕 MDNI！

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒: “you just wait, when I meet you for real , I will poke you right back”... how many times? 133...thousands...?

────────────── ❁ ──────────────

How could this be? How could this be remotely possible? Did he make some sort of awful mistake to be going through this? Maybe he was having a very realistic nightmare.

But, did it matter? Whether he was having a nightmare, or a bad joke, that wasn't important anymore. After enduring for who knows how long, his brain couldn't come up with a reasonable answer to this new reality. Trying countless times to find a solution, to talk through, finding a way to set himself free and reaching nowhere, giving up led the list. Why would he keep trying?

Physically and emotionally devastated, inside such a tiny room with no window at sight, the only artificial light of a pale blue colour, tied up to a hard iron chair, his skin felt extremely dry. His eyes already accustomed to the darkness would squint at the mere brightness, a sharp pain in both of his temples would force him to close them. He needed sunlight, he needed food, clean water and a warm bath.

Those daily needs that seemed so common and more like a right as a human being were now a far dream. A luxury he was not allowed to experience anymore. Why?... well, just for “poking” too much, apparently. Alone, again, in that room he would remember how everything started, cursing under his breath, but could he actually blame himself?

Poking, yes. He remembered playing a game, he remembered liking a bit too much a certain character and he ALSO remembered quickly tapping the screen because he liked that interaction the most. How this character would “joke” about being childish or how he would “pat” him, with a soft smile and gentle blue eyes.

“You just wait, when I meet you for real I'll poke you right back.”

“Every time you poke me, I will pay it back exponentially… So– you've done it a total of 133637 times. Are you ready for me to return the favour?”

Those two lines would make him giggle. It was just a game, it was just a character and it was just a cute interaction. So how come he ended up in such a situation? How can he blame himself when no one would've thought that character would be able to come out of the game and “poke” him back? However, it doesn't matter anymore, if it made sense or not. The reality was different, and the pokes were no longer a silly joke.

So, sitting on that chair, tied up. Inside that room, he would wait for Lee to come every now and then and…

……

…………

When Zenas logged into the game a month ago he found out his main character on the screen was not there. A glitch? Could be, after all, his phone's battery was at its lowest and it wouldn't be weird if the game lagged a bit. He didn't pay much attention and decided to play for a little bit before going to sleep. Totally unaware something was coming for him.

Waking up, feeling something warm playing with his hair, it took him a solid minute to realise someone else was there. Abruptly his body jolted and sat on the bed, his tired eyes were forced to quickly adjust to the morning light and focus on the person sitting on the mattress as well. A mechanical body, soft light blond hair, pretty pale blue eyes and a gentle smile, everything he was used to seeing every time he would log in. The character, Lee, was there… right in front of him.

Zenas, not sure what to do, body not moving at all and his mind was going haywire. How could that be? Was that a joke? A dream? Yeah, it must be that, a fucking dream. But the Construct talked and Lee's voice reverberated through his skin, growing deep within his heart, he lost consciousness seconds later. When Zenas woke up again, he found himself in the room he's locked in at the exact moment.

The door screeching against the wooden floor brought him back. He could feel the pain again, he felt his skin getting colder with each passing seconds, minutes, days and weeks. There were even moments when Zenas thought his pain tolerance was at his limit but Lee would do his best to refute that, awakening his senses from the slightest numb sensation. The character he thought was the sweetest of all ended up being a psychopath. How laughable.

ㅤㅤㅤ“Commandant.” Lee broke the silence, with the usual gentle voice, manipulating Zenas’ mind. “Did you miss me?”

Zenas let out a chuckle. No, it wasn't funny, at all, but that involuntary action was out of his own insanity, the amount of pain he had felt the past month after being physically tortured with different objects, his skin being ripped apart and stabbed countless time with screws and needless of all sizes, pushed his mind to limits Zenas thought he didn't have. Weirdly enough he would answer that question with a yes.

Was this what therapists would call Stockholm Syndrome?

ㅤㅤㅤ“Let's start with our daily routine, shall we?”

✂………………………………………………………………………………………………

〔 🎐 〕 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛... 𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚝? 𝚒𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛.

〔 🎐 〕 𝚙𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙻𝚎𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚔𝚎𝚢 𝚊 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚙.

〔 🎐 〕 𝙸 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚏𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚢 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍.

[aliahm]

Summary: After stress and frustration have left you feeling broken, you find yourself being comforted by a demon. You know you’re dreaming, but you soon realize that he’s giving you an opportunity to be with him, somewhere between dreams and reality. (Fluff, and some angst)

Warnings: Descriptions of stress, mentions of church and religion (very brief, and the reader is not religious in this story), negative thoughts, emotionally insecure reader, crying, pet names, kissing

If I’ve left out any content warnings or made any mistakes writing for a gender neutral reader, please let me know, so I can correct them, and make this story as inclusive as possible.

(The moodboard and divider were created by me, using images and gifs found on Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest and Google, and the gif and picture within the story are from here on Tumblr as well. Full credit for these images and gifs goes to the owners).

You were almost relieved when you finally made your way to your bed that night. You had immediately buried your face in your pillow and then, after having put up with what felt like an endless loop of malevolent thoughts and feelings swirling around inside your head and attacking you relentlessly and viciously, you finally let the tears escape your eyes.

Your strained sobs filled the darkness of your bedroom, and the last thing you remember thinking before you drifted out of consciousness for the night was that you wished you didn’t have to be alone while you felt this way.

The next thing you knew, there were arms wrapped around your waist, as someone behind you rested their chin on your shoulder.

“Aww, what’s wrong sweetheart?” a voice cooed in your ear.

You jumped, turning around immediately, and you were met with someone you had never seen before. He was tall, slim, and had coppery red hair. Your eyes drifted downwards and you saw that he was wearing a grey shirt and scarf, with a black jacket and vest, as well as matching black trousers and shoes. Your gaze snapped back up to his face and you gasped softly.

His eyes were a bright, golden yellow, with narrow slits in the centre of each one. They were like nothing you had ever seen, and they were beautiful.

“Shh, it’s alright. There’s nothing to be afraid of” he purred, rubbing his hand over your hip in small circles.

There was a gentle, concerned look in those eyes, and after all the stress you had been through, it apparently didn’t matter that you had never met him, you didn’t know his name, not even that you could feel in your mind that this was all a dream. His attention was on you. You weren’t alone anymore.

You tried to take a deep breath, but all that left your lips was a whimper. Then you were suddenly clinging to his jacket, while you hid your face in his chest. You could feel your tears soaking his clothes, as you held on to to him desperately, as though being near him would make everything better.

“Oh, darling”

He wrapped his arms around you and rubbed your back soothingly. “You can cry to me, I’ve got you. You have nothing to be ashamed of”.

Hearing his words, having someone tell you that it was okay to let your feelings out, somehow seemed to make you even more aware of it all. All the thoughts, the emotions, the frustration, the fear.

You cried as though you were trying to force all the pain you were feeling out of you, and he held you the entire time, hushing you softly. After what felt like a long time, your sobs had stopped and your breathing was shallow as you tried to regain your composure.

“Breathe, sweetheart. Come back to me.” He whispered, running his hand up and down your side.

When you had gotten your breathing under control, you let go of his jacket and looked at him once again. “What am I doing?” You asked, both because you were embarrassed and because this felt different from your other dreams, yet you didn’t know why.

“What d’you you mean?” He asked, brushing tear tracks off your face with his thumb.

“I know I’m dreaming, that none of this is actually happening. It’s not real”. You stated, though there was some disappointment in your voice that you tried to pretend you didn’t hear.

“You’re right, this is a dream. Your dream, but it’s happening, right now. You’re in control of everything you do here”.

“Where is here? What’s going on?” you questioned him, as you stepped back and began looking around. The first thing you noticed was an ornate gold and red throne in the centre of the room. The only other furniture was a grand, golden desk, the top of which looked to be made of deep red marble.

“Come over here. I’ll explain everything.” he suggested, offering you his hand. He led you over to the desk and picked you up, placing you so that you sat on the end that was closest to the throne, with your legs dangling off the edge. He sat with one of his hands resting on the expertly carved armrest, and the other draped across his leg.

Looking at him in that moment, you realized that this room seemed to mirror his appearance in some ways. The hard lines and dark interior were reminiscent of his perfectly tailored clothing, but then, as your eyes drifted back upwards, to his golden ones that seemed to hold fire within them, you thought that he looked as though he belonged on that throne, like it was made for him. There was no question about it. This was his domain, and here, he was in charge.

“How is this happening?” You asked him again. “Who are you?”

He told you his name was Crowley, and that he was a demon. That revelation gave you pause, to say the least.

“A demon?” You repeated, feeling an incredulous grin lift the corners of your lips.

“I take it you’re not the religious type, love. No churchgoer I’ve ever heard of would be beaming the way you are after finding out they’re in the same room as one of my lot”.

An amused laugh left your lips before you replied, “You’re right, I’m not religious, but I’ve been fascinated by demons for a long time”.

(You saw his lips curl into a smirk at that statement).

“I’ve never actually believed in them though”.

“To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t blame you if you still didn’t, but for what it’s worth, demons, angels, ‘the powers that be’,” he drawled, with a bit of an amused scoff in his voice on the last one. “It’s all as real as you are”.

“Normally I’d roll my eyes and probably laugh in the morning at the nonsense my brain came up with, but,”

You looked into his eyes, then you examined the room once again, focusing on the incredibly high ceilings for a moment, before continuing slowly and thoughtfully.

“This feels too real. As silly as this sounds, just looking at you I can tell that, whatever this is, it’s not like any dream I’ve ever had”.

He smiled. “Honey, you’ve got no idea”.

The eye roll you had mentioned made an appearance at that comment, but the corner of your lips twitched up into a smirk that was all amusement and curiosity.

“Exactly. I don’t, so why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in one of my dreams, and how this all works in the first place”.

His playful expression became more gentle and the fiery glow in his eyes seemed deeper now.

“Do you remember the last thing you thought before you fell asleep tonight?”

You froze for a moment. “I- yes”. You replied, as the tightness you had felt in your throat earlier returned.

“What was it?” He prompted, though there was no demanding or mocking tone in his voice. He spoke softly and waited patiently for you to answer him.

“I wished I wasn’t alone”.

“Yes, you did,” he replied. There was a lightness in his words now, as though he was proud that you had told him the truth. “That’s why I’m here”.

“What?” You breathed. The very thought that he knew that made more unshed tears sting the back of your eyes.

“Come here sweetheart” he cooed, holding his hand out to you. You simply stared for a moment, wishing it wasn’t so painfully obvious how self-conscious you felt. “It’s alright, I promise.” He encouraged you, and after another moment of hesitation, you took his hand in yours and he guided you onto his lap.

“You’re here with me because I can be the one you come to when you’re upset. From now on, whenever you go to sleep, and you’re worried, or stressed, whenever something is bothering you, no matter what it is, if you want me, I’ll be here”.

You were silent for a bit, as you let his words sink in. You looked down at your hands as you remembered time after time that it had all become too much, and you would shame and insult yourself for feeling the way you did.

As if he could tell (which, if he knew your hope from earlier that night, he probably could), he drew lines across the back of your hand with his thumb, attempting to soothe your unease.

“Look at me”.

You looked up, but you didn’t think you could look him in the eye right then. Your gaze drifted to the side of his face, where you noticed a beautiful tattoo of a black snake, which you began tracing with your eyes. He gently turned your head so you were face to face and when he could tell you were focused on him, he told you:

“Wanting someone to be with you when things are difficult doesn’t make you weak. It takes strength to admit it, to yourself or anyone else. I know you can handle so much on your own, and you know it too, but that doesn’t mean that the times you can’t are times that you’ve failed”.

He wasn’t telling you anything you didn’t already know, but you had never actually believed that, no matter how much you had always tried to.

“I just- I always feel like something is wrong with me”.

“No darling, there’s nothing wrong with you. That’s the truth,” he insisted, “and you’re the one who needs to believe it, but it’s okay to want to hear it from someone else.”

“Do you really want to do this? What would you get out of it anyway?” you wondered. You just couldn’t believe that he, that anyone, would want to be there every time you felt like the world was about to end.

“I get to be with you”.

“Why would you want that in the first place?”

“What kind of a question is that?” he asked, seeming more taken aback by your words than anything.

“I mean, look at right now. Why would you want to be with me every time this happens? There are who knows how many things that make me want to cry, or scream, every day. Why would you want to deal with that? I don’t even want to deal with it”.

“We both know that you don’t feel that way all the time, love, even though you feel like you do”. His tone remained just as kind as it had been this entire time, but in that moment, it left no room for argument.

“Listen to me, even if you come to me every day and night and tell me every single thing that’s on your mind, I won’t ever grow tired of you, or think of you as anything other than the strong, wonderful person that you are”.

You had been hanging on to his every word, but once again you couldn’t look at him. Still, what he had said was beginning to get through to you, and it meant more than you felt like you could explain.

“Do you really mean that?” you asked him, hoping to do away with the disbelief that still clawed at the corners of your mind.

“I mean it. All of it”. he answered without hesitation.

Your eyes found his again and you were amazed that you’d managed not to cry. “I don’t know what to say”.

“It’s a yes or a no, love. Whatever you want, that’s what you’ll get.” He assured you, his thumb tracing your face in the spot where he’d brushed away your tears earlier.

You closed your eyes for a moment, focusing on the feeling of his hand against your skin.

“Yes. This is what I want”. You answered, wrapping your arms around him and resting your head in the crook of his neck.

He held you the same way he had done earlier that night as he whispered, “Then I’ll be here for you, sweetheart. I’ll take care of you”.

You looked up at him after a moment, replaying all the events of the night in your mind. He had offered you what you had been hoping for for as long as you could remember, and although you tried to stop yourself, you wondered what you had done to deserve it.

“What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” he hummed, studying your thoughtful expression.

You had told him that this is what you wanted, and in that moment, you were doing your best to accept how true that really was. You wanted to be with him. You wanted his attention, his reassurance, his affection.

“I- well,” you began, attempting to still your trembling hands.

You had wanted to keep your eyes on his, but they involuntarily flickered down to his lips as you tried to tell him what you were thinking, and he noticed immediately.

He sensed your apprehension, and without hesitation, he told you, “If you want me to kiss you, all you have to do is ask”.

Your face burned as you paused for a moment before explaining, “It’s just- I feel like anything I ask of you would be something you do just to make me feel better. Would you actually want to kiss me?”

“Sweetheart, everything I do when I’m here with you, is because it’s what I choose to do. Because it’s what I want. Yes, I want to kiss you, and I will whenever you want me to, but I need to hear it from you”.

You repeated his words in your mind and once you felt ready, you nodded. “Okay.” you replied, trying to cast aside the last of your hesitation. “Could you kiss me?”

His expression melted into a sweet smile and he ran his thumb across your lower lip. “I knew you could do it”.

He leaned in and pressed his lips against yours, placing his hand on the side of your face, and you felt him grin against your lips when you kissed him back. You let him take the lead, and he was gentle and patient with you the entire time. Just before you pulled away from each other, he nipped softly at your lower lip. He laughed faintly at your surprised gasp, then he pecked your lips once again.

You smiled bashfully at him before laying your head on his shoulder, and the two of you stayed that way for a while, just relaxing together. You thought about what your dreams could be like from that point on, while Crowley admired the peaceful look on your face, as you toyed with his scarf.

Eventually you spoke again. “How long do I get to stay with you?”

“Any time you go to sleep, as long as you want to come back, you’ll wind up here with me. You can leave whenever you’re ready, even if you’re not ready to wake up yet.” He explained. “Time doesn’t work the way that you’re used to around here”. He added with a mischievous grin.

“Why am I not surprised?” you replied, amusement lacing your words.

“There’s only one thing I need from you”.

What would a demon with the power to combine dreams and reality ask in return for his affection? You realized, as you anticipated his request, that you were essentially living what could be the plot of a gothic novel.

That somehow felt right to you.

You looked up at him, and he told you, “I need you to always be completely honest with me about whatever you’re feeling. Even if it’s difficult to say, I need you to tell me”.

You wished that that was as simple as it sounded.

He placed his hand on the side of your jaw. “I’m not going to judge you. You don’t have to hide anything from me”. He reassured you, as you leaned into his touch.

“Will you do that for me?”

You were silent for a moment, picturing what that might be like.

“I need to hear it, darling. Just like before”.

You took a deep breath, then you nodded. “I will”.

“Good”.

With that, he pulled you closer to him and kissed you deeply.

“You’ve had a long day, and a long night, for that matter. Do you want to stay here or do you feel like being by yourself for a while?”

“I want to stay here. I’ve only just met you, after all. I want to know more”. You told him.

“About?”

“All of this. About you, about this place, about demons, whatever you can tell me”.

“Well,” he began, his lips tilted upwards into a smirk and there was a glint in his eyes that told you he was someone who had many, many stories to tell. “Where do I begin?” He sighed, though it was obvious that he knew exactly what he wanted to say next.

“Ah, I know.” He grinned.

He snapped his fingers and suddenly a book that had been next to a pair of sunglasses on his desk, “The Extremely Big Book of Astronomy”, opened, and some of the pages zipped out and began drifting through the air. An awestruck, soundless gasp left your lips as he reached up and took hold of a textless one that displayed a nebula, holding it so you could both see.

“See that? I helped build it”.

“You what?” You were still wide eyed and slack jawed.

He pointed to a particular area of the nebula and said, “There? All me”.

“Beautiful.” you breathed, and he beamed at the way your eyes were sparkling.

“Wait a minute. You helped create the stars?”

“That I did”.

“How old are you?”

You hadn’t meant to come off as rude or insulting, but when you heard yourself, your face instantly heated up and your gaze snapped down to your lap.

Thankfully an airy laugh drifted from his lips in response and he leaned down so his forehead was against yours.

“Oh, honey”.

You couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

“I’ll give you a hint,” He began, motioning for you to stand. You did, and he did the same, before leading you over to the framed sketch on the wall at the back of the room. The Mona Lisa.

He stood behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder once again. “This is stunning”. You mused, having always loved art.

“Do you speak Italian?”

“No, I wish I did”.

He gestured to the inscription: “Al mio amico Antonio dal tuo amico Leo da V.”

“That says, “To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V.””

“Anthony? Is that your first name?” You asked him, smiling.

“Not literally, no. I made it up. Helps to have one when you’re a demon among humans”.

“Anthony Crowley?” You hummed amusedly. “I like it”. He rolled his eyes at that, his smile mirroring yours.

“Are you telling me you knew Leonardo da Vinci?”

“According to him, her husband-“ he told you, nodding towards Lisa Gherardini, “had a few things to say about the final painting”.

Incredulous laughter bubbled from your lips. “Where else have you been?”

“Where haven’t I been? I suppose it’s cause I’ve been around since the beginning”.

“The beginning?” You repeated, wondering if he meant what you thought he did.

“I know you’re not religious, but you’ve more than likely heard this one before-“.

Link to Part Two here:

[denimbex1986]

'Finally watching the first of the three 60th anniversary Doctor Who specials may have left you feeling transformed – like you've regenerated into a new you, even. One that now exists in a world where David Tennant is the Converse-kicking Doctor and his best friend Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) is his no-nonsense sidekick in a newly refurbished minimalist TARDIS. Better yet, she has her memories back.

'The Star Beast' gave us flashes of that infamous moment, which first aired in 2008, when the Doctor did a Men in Black-style memory wipe on Donna to prevent her human brain from frying to a cinder under the weight of all that Time Lord knowledge.

Despite portentous warnings that if Donna ever remembered anything at all of her time with the Doctor she would – imagine this bit in some scary cursive font, surrounded by exclamation marks – be deader than the deadest dead that ever did die, she gets it all back ahead of a TARDIS tootle for old time's sake in the two specials to come.

How so then? Let's not get too bogged down in the details, because in classic Whovian fashion, it was a bit of a marvellous timey-wimey fandangle. This is still a world where perils can be done and undone at the turn of a sonic screwdriver.

Donna has her memories flood back into her consciousness in a way that doesn't harm her and, with her daughter Rose (Yasmin Finney), saves London from the dastardly havoc of the Furby-with-fangs Meep (Miriam Margolyes).

It may even now feel a bit harebrained looking back on the Doctor's fearmongering to Donna's grandfather Wilf, played by the legendary late Bernard Cribbins, about what might befall her if she ever spied an Ood or the like. But when it first aired in 'Journey's End', the fate of such a beloved character was one that essentially felt worse than death.

Few enjoyed watching Donna manically repeat the word "binary" like a DVD with a scratch on it, and barely anyone liked seeing her reduced to tears, begging the Doctor not to do what he then did. In those final moments, Donna said she thought they would travel space and time "forever"; to lose that is one thing, but then to not even know you had lost it felt like an additional cruelty.

There's a reason it was described as "the saddest end for a companion ever" at the time.

Rose (Billie Piper) got her own Xerox copy of the Doctor as a parting gift, while Donna got some lottery winnings – which we now know she gave away to charity anyway – and a forever-gap in her memories.

That heartbreaking conclusion to mighty Donna has rankled with many fans since, after her character had been shaped into someone with a profound sense of self over those adventures with the Doctor, only for that all to be stripped away, leaving her much as the same as when we first met her, chattering away on the phone.

When the Doctor returned to visit Wilf and get that £1 to buy the winning lottery ticket, he confided how challenging his time travelling had been without her, while Donna had been left knowing something was amiss. "Sometimes I see this look on her face," Wilf told the Doctor. "Like she's so sad. And she can't remember why."

'The Star Beast' rewrites an ending Russell T Davies may have since sensed was a foot stepped wrong – perhaps the juiciness of Donna's tragedy, and the impact it would inevitably have on the Doctor, was a storytelling move too tempting to pass up.

While Rose or Martha (Freema Agyeman) might dominate fans' affections, Donna marked a refreshing change in Tennant's companions, moving away from the starry romantic eyes of the two before her to a relationship based on friendship.

Bringing her back and undoing the wipe allows Davies to do more with her character, but also more importantly to do more with her and Tennant's Doctor as he wrestles with what it means to be the apparently softer Fourteenth Time Lord, but back with the face of the Tenth.

It's an absolute thrill to see him back, and it's all the better having her there. From the moment they first run into each other near the shops, the quips are back.

"Word of advice," she tells him. "You can wear a suit that tight up to the age of 35. And no further." In many ways, Donna's lack of romantic interest in the Doctor often allowed her to see him clearest. Even if we will always love the pin-striped suit.

The broad comedy is paired with real soulful warmth. When Donna's reunited with her memories in the Meep's space shuttle, it's moving enough to forgive the memory wipe. "It's like the good old days," Donna tells us.

The Disney cash injection oozes from this special – particularly if you have any recollection of moments like the Slitheen unzipping foreheads and peeling skin suits off in Christopher Ecclestone's reboot season. But underneath the swish new money special effects is a bedrock of humanity, with that friendship now firmly at the heart of this sci-fi story.

Wilf said it best way back when, as the Doctor wrestled with what he had done without a companion at his side. "Don't you see? You need her, Doctor. Wouldn't she make you laugh again? Good ol' Donna."'

[lykegenia]

The Towel Started It

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles Pairings: Nate Sewell x Female Detective (Leah Kingston) Rating: Explicit Warnings: None

So this art by @greyhands lives rent free in my head, and what follows is shameless smut. No regrets.

Read on AO3

--

Leah frowns as she takes in Nate’s empty bedroom, the leatherbound notebook she borrowed from him clasped in one hand. She’s sure she heard a muffled response to her knock, inviting her in, and yet…

“Nate?”

“In here.” His voice reaches her from the opposite doorway, where a lazy waft of steam billows into the main room.

“Oh – sorry,” she calls. “I didn’t know you were in the bathroom.”

A chuckle. “It’s quite alright.”

“I just came to give you back the research notes you leant me.” She waves the hand containing the journal as if he can see it, and casts around for a flat surface that’s not already covered in books. “Is there somewhere you’d like me to… put…”

Nate has emerged to lean in the doorway, his usual fond smile giving way to a smirk as he drinks in the strength of her reaction. She tries – she really does – to keep her gaze on his face, on the way his still-damp hair curls slightly as it falls around his ears, but the expanse of his toned chest, still glistening a little with moisture, draws her eyes like the pull of a magnet. He’s only wearing a towel. It’s tucked around his slim hips and conceals down to just below his knees, the fluffy white contrasting with smooth, tawny skin. She watches, and he brings one arm up to rub a hand contemplatively along the stubbled line of his jaw, the movement flexing his bicep in a way that she knows is entirely on purpose. The part of her brain still monitoring systems reminds her lungs to inhale as he apparently comes to a decision and pushes off the doorframe.

“You’re early,” he purrs, lazing across the floor of his bedroom.

“Um.” She shakes her head. “Yeah. The meeting with Agent Markham didn’t last as long as it was supposed to. I thought I’d…” Trailing off, she waves the notebook again, vaguely, aware of the burn climbing the back of her neck.

“The research notes, yes, you said.” His brown eyes don’t leave her face as he reaches for them, and a jolt goes through her as his fingertips deliberately brush against the back of her hand. “I’m very grateful.”

She wonders if this is how the vampires feel all the time, needing to consciously remember to breathe – but so close, it’s a mistake, because the clean, rain-fresh scent of his skin is all but overwhelming, the glitter of water droplets still in his hair dazzling.

“Are you alright?” he asks. “You seem a little flushed.”

She can see the smile he’s trying to hide beneath the play of concern he wears, bringing his hand to her forehead as if to check her for a temperature. As if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.

“Fine – I’m – I just wasn’t expecting you to be so…”

“Informal?” He glances down at himself. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, rouhi.”

“You know that’s not the point,” she manages.

“Is it not?” His gaze is focussed like the sun through a lens – it’s a wonder she doesn’t actually burst into flames – and at some point he took the journal off her and spirited it away, but she only notices now because of the way his touch moves to the inside of her wrist. “Perhaps you could enlighten me.”

Her heart hammers in her chest as he leans down, but ghosts away from her lips to the exposed edge of her clavicle instead, warm breath chasing over her skin. Eyes closed, she has to reach out for his arm to keep her balance.

“I – you’re seducing me, aren’t you?”

There’s a pause, and then a laugh as he draws back to frame her face in his hands, a mutter in some foreign tongue that she can’t quite catch. Amusement crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“I must be doing a poor job if you had to ask,” he says.

“No, it just – I mean –” she flounders, searching for the right thing to say “– it was good, but I really did just come to give you the notes. I didn’t expect… you know… anything else.”

With a sigh of fond exasperation his fingers skim down to twine with hers, his forehead a welcome balm against her embarrassment, because at least it means he can’t see the flare of crimson across her cheeks. But standing so close, there’s heat of a different kind brewing between them, one that makes her swallow against her dry mouth and clench her thighs together.

There’s no way that towel isn’t going to fall off.

“Ya rouhi,” he breathes. “Will you permit me to start again?”

It’s her turn to laugh. “Do you really think you need to?”

“Oh, yes.” He pulls back with a half-lidded look that has her smouldering. “I think I will need to make sure you are thoroughly” – an inch closer – “unequivocally” – a thumb brushing her bottom lip – “irredeemably seduced.”

A knock on the door makes her freeze. Her eyes flutter open to find Nate frowning, the look of a man searching for patience where there is none to be had.

“I hope you two aren’t up to anything in there,” Felix calls from the corridor. “Rebecca saw Leah turned up early and wants to brief us on tomorrow’s mission while we’re all here.”

She bites her lips together, bows her head.

“Library in five minutes!”

“There’s always something,” Nate mutters as the footsteps fade down the hallway. “I suppose we’ll have to –”

She dodges the kiss. “I don’t think so.”

“Wh–”

“You said you’d seduce me.” Grinning, she ducks out of his arms completely. “I’m not feeling very seduced.”

“Leah…”

The strangled tone of his voice almost makes her cave, but there’s a certain amount of perverse enjoyment to be had from knowing how much she affects him, from denying him what he hoped to get so easily.

“I only came here to drop off the research notes, remember?” she reminds him as she backs towards the door. “Besides, I think you might need a little more than five minutes if you’re going to be ready for this meeting.”

His brows draw together, and she casts a slow glance downwards to the tented front of the towel, which gives a brief, definite twitch.

“Don’t worry, I’ll save you a seat.”

Still smirking, cherishing the near-desperation her retreat has baited to the surface of his usually suave demeanour, she fumbles for the door handle, her heart bounding with the uncertainty of his self-control. The way he stutters towards her ignites anticipation in her gut, but instead of closing the space entirely his hands clench and he reels away, a harsh breath blown between his cheeks.

“Cruelty does not become you, you know,” he says, with a sidelong glance that shows off the perfect arch of his throat.

Unfair.

She swallows. “Maybe not, but it’s fun.”

A groan is the only reply as she escapes into the hall.

--

Leah still feels a little overheated as the team gathers in the living room, her forced calm betrayed by Adam’s glower, and the grin spread wide as a crescent moon across Felix’s face. That last sight of Nate as she closed the door, eyes hungry and every muscle coiled with want, kept her blood fizzing the whole way through the warehouse. She refuses to look Rebecca in the eye.

Five heads turn when the living room door opens.

“Finally,” Adam grumbles, without a slip in his professional veneer.

To his credit, Nate barely lets his gaze flicker over Leah before turning to Rebecca. “Sorry, there was something I had to take care of. What did I miss?”

He’s dressed in a regular shirt and jeans, and he seems to be in no discomfort as he slopes into the room. Felix’s gaze shifts between him and Leah with the anticipation of a pundit at a boxing match.

“We hadn’t started yet,” Rebecca says crisply.

There’s a pause while he crosses to the sofa, where Leah shifts in invitation and gives him room to settle against the cushions close enough to almost touch – but not quite – one arm stretched casually along its back.

“Nice of you to join us,” she murmurs.

“Now that we’re all here,” Rebecca interrupts, before he can answer, “there has been a change from your regular patrol routes. There have been reports of magical activity south of the lake, so you’ll be starting from Cairn Point to see if further action needs to be taken.”

From the corner of her eye, Leah watches him nod along to the brief, blithe and apparently unconcerned by her scrutiny, his presence buzzing against her skin like the noise of an unseen fly she’s determined to ignore, until after a moment of imagined, prickling heat caused simply by his closeness, a featherlight touch finds the back of her neck. She throws a sharp glance sideways as a shiver tenses across her shoulders, but he’s not looking at her, pretending instead to be oblivious to the reactions drawn out by the caress of his fingertips. To the shallowing of her breath and the uptick in her heartbeat.

Across the room, Mason rolls his eyes.

She swallows. Her body’s autonomic responses might be beyond her control, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to let him get away with it.

“What about the regular patrol routes?” she asks, shifting in her seat. Her knees draw up to tuck against Nate’s side, not quite inappropriate but it disguises her real aim, which is to slide her hand across the top of his thigh and rest it there, right on the inner seam of the denim. A breath hisses in through his teeth and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep the victory from showing on her face.

Somehow they make it through the briefing, neither breaking the veneer of composure despite their subtle attempts to one-up each other. None of the rest of Unit Bravo are likely fooled, and even Rebecca’s lips start to purse when Nate has to clear his throat and cross his ankle over the opposite knee to give himself more room, but nobody comments. Eventually there’s nothing left to say and Rebecca stands with a brusque instruction to have reports filed promptly by the morning, before she sweeps out of the room.

Leah watches her go with what she hopes is a polite expression. One index finger is tapping a faint rhythm against her lips, as if she’s pondering something innocuous and not bending all of her attention to the way Nate sits taut as an overwound spring next to her, unable to do anything except tighten his knuckles in his lap.

“Can the rest of us leave now too,” Mason demands, “or are we going to be treated to the whole fucking show?”

Her face burns, but she doesn’t rise to the bait.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Nate says.

“I need a cigarette.”

He stalks out. A silent conversation is raging between Nate and Adam, the team leader’s arms folded so tightly his shirt nearly bursts with the effort of keeping his disapproval contained. A moment passes where Leah contemplates leaving too – to give them more room for their little staring contest – but as if sensing the thought, Nate’s fingers give a minute flex on the back of her neck. Instead, she looks to Felix, who’s watching the scene unfold with open glee. She’s still in control enough to look down, bashful, her lips rolled between her teeth, when he throws her a wink.

Finally, Adam moves towards the door. “Felix, you wished to show me something in the training room.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” The word seems to cause Adam physical pain. “Now.”

“I don’t remember – Ohhhh, right.” Felix grins. “Well, if you really want me to show it to you now…” He rises from his chair with a dramatic roll of his eyes, only to turn with another wink when he reaches the far end of the room. “Hope you two don’t mind being left on your own!”

“We’ll manage,” Nate replies. “Thank you for the concern.”

The younger vampire dodges around Adam, who stands to cast one last meaningful look over his shoulder before pulling the door shut behind him.

“Well, that was about as subtle as –”

The rest of the words are consumed in the hungry crush of Nate’s mouth, the instant of surprise giving way to a whimper as need unspools through her limbs. She meets him, fingers dragging at his collar as the hand on the back of her neck winds into her hair, as the kiss deepens into a rough press of lips and tongues. Her legs are still folded across his lap – he winds around them, so close all she can feel is the warm, firm plane of his torso.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he gasps against her mouth.

“Is it the reason you were late?”

He growls and slips a hand beneath the hem of her shirt, grinning when her back arches under the touch. It makes her laugh, to be so giddy, and when her head falls back  out of reach of his kiss he obliges by dropping his attention to her collarbone instead, peeking out from the edge of her shirt, and with a blunt scrape of teeth the sound deepens into a groan.

“You know why I was late.” His mouth lifts again to her jaw – not her neck, never her neck – and trails a path towards her ear.

“It’s – your fault.”

“How so?”

“You started it.”

“No, that can’t be right.” He pouts and draws back, his touch running down her arms until their fingers can lace together. “I’m sure I’m perfectly innocent in all of this.”

“I was trying to do you a favour by giving you your notes back!” she cries, playing up her outrage.

His expression turns lofty as he tilts forward again. “And I only wanted to thank you for such kindness.”

The moment hangs between them, teasing, her heart thundering in anticipation as she catches his face and brings him to her lips. “Then thank me.”

It’s easier said than done, despite Nate’s obvious enthusiasm. The sofa, generously proportioned though it is, is narrower than his bed, the back a hindrance to her limbs as they shuffle for a more comfortable position, but she’s too busy kissing him to care, too happy to have his fingers dancing over her ribs. When they finally get their legs untangled he finds his place between her thighs, weight settled deliciously over her, arms wrapping around her back to eliminate the last of the space between them. His hips roll and sparks fly behind her eyelids.

“Fuck.”

He smirks against her cheek. “That’s what I was thinking.”

She laughs again, breathless, clutching at his shoulders. “I can tell. I’m pretty sure everyone else could as well.”

“Was it too much?” he asks.

Her face is scarlet, the bare need of a moment before giving space to his concern, the worrying bright in his brown eyes. The scent of arousal is now so thick in the air around them that it overwhelms even her human nose.

“No?” she tries. She wants to reassure. “I’ve just never done anything that… public. God, in front of my mother.”

“Perhaps I should have been more restrained,” he allows, tracing her jaw. “But when I walked in and saw you sitting here, the thought of not touching you was unbearable.”

To emphasise the point, he leans forward and kisses the same path as his finger, little nips that tense her legs around him.

“Is that so?”

Instead of a true answer, he hums and covers her mouth again. She draws him close, seeking friction, arching into the brush of contact as he once more slips a hand beneath her shirt.

“We’re really doing this here?” she asks.

He stops. “We don’t have to.”

“I don’t want you to stop,” she breathes. “Though usually in my head – when I’ve thought about this – we’re the only ones in the warehouse.”

“Are we?” His eyes light up. “You’ll have to tell me more. But first…” A pause, and his touch falls to the top button of her shirt, his gaze dragging upwards to focus on her face. Waiting.

He really is beautiful. His hair is tangled from her fingers, his lips swollen from her kisses, his lashes a dark flutter against his cheek as he leans into her touch.

Compelled forwards, she shifts beneath him until they’re close enough to share breath. She hears him swallow, thrills with the power she has to hold him back.

“Don’t stop.”

He surges forward. Still mindful of her comfort, he holds the back of her neck as he slants his mouth across hers, the other hand already at work on her shirt buttons, and as she gasps and rolls against him, slow and deliberate. The last of her thoughts go out of her head.

“This is what I thought about,” he purrs, dipping to lap at newly exposed skin. “When you left me, I had to use my imagination.”

Her breath catches.

“Would you like to know what imagined?”

She gives a desperate nod, grounded only by the iron strength of his arms. His fingers drop to the button on her jeans and unfasten it with ease, and when he hesitates – deliberate, poised – she tries not to squirm.

“What might we have done if we hadn’t been interrupted…”

“Nate –”

“I’m here,” he tells her. “The way you respond to me, ya rouhi…”

Another undignified noise as he undoes the fly, her hips stuttering to chase the movement. Instead of giving her the friction she wants, however, he caresses upwards again, pushing aside the fabric of her shirt with a nonchalance she knows is being drawn out for his own enjoyment.

There’s an appreciative hum when he reaches her chest. He would never say he dislikes her sports bras, which provide many benefits for someone with a semi-regular acquaintance to peril, but even so he craves her in silk, in lace, in fine embroidery that glides beneath his palms. Not that she owns anything quite that fancy, but as he runs his hands over one breast and bends to tease the nipple of the other through the sheer fabric, she allows a flare of triumph for taking the time to change.

And he’s thorough. He maps her curves with patient fingertips, with a light graze of teeth that breaks into sharp counterpoint when he bites down. His hair is cashmere-soft in her fists, her lips clamped together to keep quiet, but even so noise slips out – bitten-off, broken throated moans that she can’t help, and which bring a smirk to his generous mouth.

“I could keep you like this for hours,” he confesses, like it’s a sin. He knows the rough edge to his voice does things to her, and no doubt catches the hitch in her breath as he pours the words into her ear, the tick in her pulse as desire throbs low in her belly.

Almost beyond speech now, she can only turn into him, arch into his palm, bracing against the taut muscle of his shoulder to keep herself from flying away.

“Fuck – Nate –”

His touch moves down again, slips beneath her jeans. She bucks, pins him there by the wrist as two fingers press in a slow, firm glide against her, and has to bite back a whimper. A brief thought passes through the haze of sensation that she’s not being very fair – his breath is as ragged as hers, after all, and he keeps shifting his hips to find relief – and so her hand drifts lower, seeking out the hard outline of his own arousal, and maybe a little bit of payback.

“Ah-ah,” he scolds before she can touch him, pushing her away. “Don’t distract me.”

Her laugh verges on a sob, her gaze half-lidded and flicking between his lips and the hand once again inching between her legs. His eyes are intent on her face, on her reactions, the rich brown of his irises swallowed by black. He doesn’t resist the curl of her fingers on the back of his neck, but before she can demand a kiss he chooses that moment to finally slip beneath the thin cotton of her underwear and suddenly there’s no space in her head for anything else. Her muscles lock, her eyes squeeze shut, and he’s whispering in her ear now, rocking his fingers just stubbornly shy of the pace she needs. As her breath shortens into harsh, hummed pants she feels him, too, straining against the rising tide of pleasure, trying to make it last. Cramp threatens in her calf – she ignores it, grinds harder against his palm, uncaring of the whine in her throat as sensation condenses into one bright, glowing point.

She feels the orgasm coming an instant before it crashes through her. Drawn tight, her back arches, lips bitten hard together on the moan that tries to escape her throat. Legs clench together. Nails bite into skin. For a long, lovely moment the waves of it carry her in suspense, and when it finally subsides Nate is there to catch her, with a kiss pressed to her temple and strong arms that run calming patterns along her side.

“Are you alright?”

Little aftershocks skitter across her shoulders. “‘m gonna need a minute.”

His chuckle blooms against her cheek. Turning, she presses a blind kiss to it, secure and safe, enveloped in his scent, with his pulse a focus beneath her fingertips. It’s this moment she loves as much as what comes before, the casual affection and assurance in gentle touches that tell her she won’t be left alone. In a minute, she’ll care again that they’re in the warehouse’s living room, wrapped around each other on a sofa other people have to use, but for now she’s content and absolutely does not want to move.

“Do you not want a turn?” she asks when she finally finds her voice again.

“I took mine earlier,” he rumbles. “We’re even now.”

Her laugh comes out more like a sigh, drowsy and replete. “Nobody said we only get one turn each.”

“True. Though perhaps the finer points of that discussion should be had somewhere with less chance of interruption.”

“You’re still the one who started this,” she points out.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“And you’re far too pleased with yourself.”

He hums and nudges a kiss against her cheek. “Should I not be?”

“I think you’re –”

A gurgle from her stomach interrupts. There’s a beat of silence before they collapse together into quiet giggling.

“I suppose that settles that,” Nate says when he’s recovered. “May I treat you to dinner?”

She nods. “Dinner sounds good.”

“And then… the rest of the evening is ours.”

[sasusakucoded]

Back then, you taught me that solitude is suffering, Sasuke-kun.. Now I know exactly how that feels. I have both family and friends.. but if you were no longer here, Sasuke-kun, for me it will be the same as solitude..

Sasuke replayed that moment in his mind while watching Sakura sleep. It had been 3 days since they left the village to travel together. No matter how many times he tried to forgive himself for his past actions, this one mistake he couldn't seem to get over with.

"If I just stayed.. If I just listened to Sakura.. Things would've been different," he contemplated.

He could still remember clearly when that night happened. The finality of his decision was apparent but he still intended to leave at night because he knew his friends would stop him.

"I really couldn't care less if they'd try to stop me," his young self thought. "No one will change my mind. Absolutely no one. Not Kakashi. Not Naruto. Not even Sakura."

But she was there.. waiting for him.. for days in fact. She knew it would happen eventually.. That one day he'd abandon the village for his revenge. She waited and waited with the goal to stop him.. To make him realize that it was not the right path.

"Why is she saying these things?" Sasuke asked himself. "Why should she care for me that much? Nothing can change my mind, so stop," he thought, almost begging her to stop her speech.

"I don't need to hear this. This would not change the path that I want to take. My goal is to avenge my family.. my family! The most important thing to me."

I.. I love you with all my heart! If you were to stay with me, there would be no regrets. Because every day we’d so something fun. We’d be happy, I swear! Please stay with me. I’ll even help you with your revenge. I don’t know what I could do but I’ll try my best to do something. So please, stay with me.. or take me with you if you can’t stay here..

"Stop.. Please.. Don't say these things.. Why are you making it hard for me? Take you with me? This has nothing to do with you.. Why would you want to have blood on your hands? For someone like me?" He knew he couldn't further endure her words because they made sense to him. "There's no turning back now.. I'm sorry."

"You really are.. annoying." And swiftly, he went behind Sakura to say his last words. "Sakura, thank you." He grabbed her as soon as lost consciousness. He carried her gently to the bench. He looked at her one last time before leaving. "I don't know if our paths will meet again.. but take care. And don't be sad."

---

Sakura: Sasuke-kun?

Sasuke: *startled* Hn.

Sakura: Why are you not sleeping?

Sasuke: I'm not yet sleepy.. Ah, Sakura..

Sakura: Hmm?

Sasuke: Thank you.

Sakura: For what?

Sasuke: For that night.

Sakura: *thinks hard* Which one?

Sasuke: Nevermind.

Sakura: Sasuke-kun! You can't just drop something like that and won't tell the—

Sasuke: You're right. Solitude is suffering..

Sakura: But you're the one who taught me that—

Sasuke: This. This is better than me traveling alone.. So stick with me, Sakura.

Sakura: Sasuke-kun! You don't even need to tell me!

Sasuke: *smiles* Thank you.

[yellowaugustnights]

3 ep Nong Last

OK, Mork took the position of caretaker seriously, using the chance given to him to the maximum. Already in the opening scene, he examines Day's previously injured leg. 100% care. Day is sitting in Paradise utopian world T-shirt with images of records (I have already talked about the final scene with records earlier, also records mean sound, and there were many points about sound in this episode: headphones and speaker, audio books, do you like to listen to my voice, Mork's bag with the words I love to here your voice, to focus on the voice of Mork during a panic attack, to hear the voices of his friends at the university, etc., I can list for a long time). I will also note that the room has become more focused on yellow things (an armchair, a seat on a chair, inscriptions on Day's and Mork's T-shirts, yellow flowers in the background, yellow walls flash more often, a pale yellow small T-shirt on Day), so we are moving in an optimistic direction. Day's world, unlike the first episode, is really moving towards something more… paradise.

We also have goof mistake with sunglasses. And groping tits. But I won't dwell on it again.

The guessing game seems to enter into their daily routine. It equalizes their chances and, even if it's just a game, we can see how it makes Day happy when he guesses. Even though he is blind, his other senses are sharpened to the limit and he may have advantages over others. A simple guessing game brings Day a little self-confidence. Also, the way Mork treats Day like a child, using silly methods of influence with him - I just melt from it. At first, he dragged him out of the room under silly pretexts. Now he says with silly childish excuses that it was just practice. Gmm correctly wrote on the poster for episode 3 - Day is Mork's stubborn boy.

It probably makes no sense to say that on this stage I imagined their future together and I am sure that they will not be bored with each other at all, because these idiots are on the same wavelength.

What a revealing scene with the sauce. What a surprise Mom and Night are in, and what a calm Mork. Previously, none of them had thought that Day could do simple household things instead of complete isolation.

They kept the billiard scene. Even Porjai's blouse is the same (it's a pity they didn't leave the ring earrings). Porjai, my girl, why do you say "I" and not "Us"? Already at this point, questions arise, why is groom silent and does not correct her? Who does he work for and does he work at all? Apparently it was assumed that he would embezzle all her money and rush off into the sunset with his "sister". Mork may have been rude to leave you when he was in prison, but at least he was honest with you. He sincerely assumed that he was only capable of dragging people to the bottom and did not want to be such a person. Despite his reputation as a "bad guy", Mork is very kind, realistic and smart.

Apparently we can say with confidence that the color of MorkDay is shades from yellowish to brown, sandy, orange, like Songkhla with its hills and ledges, like the sunset they will see there. The number of yellowish-brownish shades in this episode is still off the scale.

It was at this moment that I remembered the photos that Day had taken and thought that the corneal transplant was unsuccessful and Day would no longer be able to see. Hope should always be in our life, it moves us forward, gives us an incentive, but sometimes it can no longer be and then comes humility. For some reason I thought it was waiting for Day. Damn it, why am I always getting into pessimism?

The way Mork is watching Day closely at this moment… And not just this one. Mork is always watching Day: his emotional state, his needs, he knows when to push Day to get him out of the room, he also knows when not to push, for example, if it concerns the university, or when he knows that Day is unlikely to go to the market for a book again another day. Consciously or not, Mork made Day's welfare a priority for himself. Even during a fight with groom, he remembers Day, runs to him, while a year ago he ignored the call of a loved one and allowed his weaknesses to take over. Development? Definitely. And this is only episode 3.

I want to know the circumstances of Day's accident as soon as possible. We know that he panics next to busy traffic. He also panics when he is afraid that friends and acquaintances will see him like this. In the next episode, will he panic again when Ji calls out to him? Will the panic with people continue to fade away? After all, he looks much calmer in the bar scene. Could it be that he got into an accident in the noisy company of his friends?

I will not dwell on the moment in the audio library. The fact that everything there is stuffed with references to Vice Versa made me yell yesterday in such a foul language that I thank God that I am unemployed now. It feels like P'Aof called P'X and said that he would make a bunch of references to Vice Versa and P'X should help him with a selection of the most epic moments. P'X asked which places would appear in the series and P'Aof said there would be a library and P'X interrupted him in mid-sentence saying THEY SHOULD LIP-READ. There are too many references to PuenTalay in this scene, and I haven't even gotten to pink yet. If MorkDay ever talk about parallel universes and Day says he wants to be a colorist, and Mork says he'd like to be an actor, I'll pull out all my hair. Of all the fucking colors choose pink. No, Jimmy warned us about pink, but he didn't say a damn thing about references to Vice Versa. What about my prudence? And thank you for taking this phrase from the pilot trailer.

The very case when I didn't even realize that it was an advertisement for oishi. Why couldn't do the same in Vice Versa? No mention of 0% sugar * crying*

For some reason, I thought that this habit of looking around appeared in Mork in prison. I've seen him look around several times over the course of three episodes.

Stay close to me, Day asked him. And it meant not only the subway. And when there was a fight scene, Mork rushed back to get back to Day.

I liked the scene in the fitting room. I won't say another word. Everything is fine in it: angles, sound, namely focusing on breathing, and acting with the voice, because the voices of Mork and Day were trembling. And yes, now Mork can take a good look at everything, because last time there were the wrong circumstances. Well done, man, take the opportunity while Day licks his lips, waiting for you to fasten his buttons (which you didn't actually fasten, but just pretended to fasten and just wanted to touch him). That's it, I'm silent, otherwise I'll start parsing into atoms and molecules.

It's funny that in the episode where bright colours are poked in our face, we see a book about the harmony of colors. As a result, Mork found the right book in the gardening department😂 Hia, you should sort out your counter a little.

The way Mork, step by step, through games, through his tea purchases or subway fare, through searching for things, helps Day replenish his self-confidence - this is such a precious moment. He allows him to do independent, simple, but very important things, make decisions, and asks Day about something, showing that Day's opinion is considered that he is a person, not an invisible.

Day needs this self-confidence, which he had with him all the time when he saw, played sports, won. It's important for him to be an ordinary guy now, it's important to know that he looks normal. It is also important that in addition to Mork, other people will gradually appear who will instill confidence in Day. Like Hia, who praised him for finding the book. Look how important it was for Day to hear this. I'll bet my head, the last time he was praised, when he received some kind of prize in badminton. But no one praised him for his simple home successes after blindness, that he was just able to find ketchup on his own. Small victories are also victories.

A book with an open ending, but with the inscription good night, meaning closed eyes and darkness? Well, that's it, bye.

It's yellowish-brown tones again, but despite the situation, wearing the same optimistic attitude, as Mork stops in time and runs to Day.

Also Sea, doing something unimaginable with his eyes, not forgetting that he does not see. How do you do it, boy?

Pink again (no comments). Yellow inscription everyDAY. Yellow color on the background. Pink outdoor umbrella on the background. PuenTalay's vibes. Hugs, apologies (we met in our universe, right?)

I have already written about this scene. I really love this scene. It is important for all its participants. For Mork, who was given a chance despite his prison past (someone doesn't see the tracker on his ankle). For Day, who admits that he needs only Mork as a caretaker. For Night, who is always protecting his little brother. For Ramon, who was opened her eyes to what Day feels. I will only add that Night supports Day again in his decision regarding Mork, as in the last two episodes (Night, everything will be fine, my boy, you will make up, and in the meantime I will hug you both)

And again, this is an amazing episode, sinking into the very heart. The plot does not sink, it only becomes more interesting. You can feel the gradual change in the relationships of the main characters to each other. There are a lot of questions that should soon be answered little by little. And again I wonder where are the views? That is, Nong Last is a really good show, very well done. It has a prime-time broadcast, which means that bets were suddenly placed on him, although before the trailer was released on Twitter, he was discounted. Nong Last has an ad block present only before the episode, and at the moment a light product placement has been introduced once. I do not know how things are with television in Thailand, but in my country in prime time advertising just kills you, because ad blocks last more than 10 minutes. If the bosses put Nong Last on the air in prime time, it means they felt something (for once). And here the question arises: where are all those on whom the bosses are counting? Also, I do not understand the number of views in each episode of part 1/4 exceed the number of views of other parts at times. How does it work? Do people leave after watching the first part, or is YouTube somehow magically counting the views? Oh, I don't understand. Not that I've ever been interested views anything. I generally have a specific taste for Asian cinema. But I worry that because of this, JimmySea may be pushed into the background, because, as I have repeatedly said, the guys have potential, they know how acting, and they can become even better, but only if they are not put in the basement. They still have a lot to grow, but the potential is huge. In general, I hope for word of mouth that will lead people to Nong Last.

[alleykatart]

If you get this, answer w three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs! Anon or not, doesn’t matter !

Thanks for the tag, @aria-ashryver

I apparently lived in a haunted house with my family for three years in my 20s, though I never experienced the spirits personally (though sometimes it felt like someone was watching me from the doorway, like someone curious about me). My mother and brother both reported that when I'd go to stay with my boyfriend at the time, the atmosphere in the house got distinctly more uncomfortable or angry. I don't know if it's because I was a calming influence, or if it's because I was missed (by the spirits, not my family). There were other issues, too, but they never seemed to impact me. My brother's stuff kept going missing, and Mom kept feeling like someone was trying to push her down the stairs, to the point where she refused to go to the second floor and would drive 20 minutes to shower at her sister's. My brother swears it's because spirits like me and were trying to make me happy. (They'd have been pushing HIM, in that case). The house has sadly fallen into deep disrepair since we moved out, because it can't keep a tenant. I loved that house.

The first crush I consciously remember as a crush was my best friend Miwako's older brother. I was in 3rd grade, he was in 4th. Our romance wasn't meant to be, as I moved like two weeks later and never saw him again.

One time in ASL 2, I was telling the story of how my mother, brother and I went to see the early release movie premiere of Batman Returns. I meant to sign, "Mom bought popcorn for me and my brother." I signed, "Mom bought stripper for me and my brother." Our instructor and one of our Deaf students started howling with laughter. (This mistake was then repeated later when another student tried to sign 'burnt popcorn'. 😐)

Bonus fact: I lived in a near constant state of deja vu from when I could speak until my delayed puberty at 14, and would routinely argue with family and friends about events and conversations that hadn't happened yet that I remembered clear as day, and would have conversations with people that weren't there. Apparently this happened with my grandmother as a child, too. Almost photo of me as a child is just this solemn eyed changeling child staring directly at the camera like a local cryptid that foresaw the photographer's end.

So, no pressure, and let me know if you want to be de-tagged, but:

@scribblerrva @bisexual-in-every-gender @jinglebellrockstars @moominofthevalley @aces-and-angels @aallotarenunelma @letrune