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#i just lost all motivation to write again lol
hailsatanacab · 4 months
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I'll ask after that secret number 8!
I only remembered secret number 8 because I saw your wip here! I'd started this one based on the same prompt, then lost said prompt and stopped working on it 😅
Instead of a snippet, I'm just dropping it all here - maybe that way I'll feel inspired to finish it?
———
It’s a full house for dinner tonight and, really, that should have tipped him off.
Bruce sits at the head of the table, smiling softly as he watches over everyone’s antics. Damian is regaling Dick with everything they saw at the zoo that day (Danny had been so happy to see Delilah the purpleback gorilla again, and her new little additions to the troupe, too!) and how well they are implementing the grant the Wayne Foundation had gifted them. Tim, Steph, Cass, and Duke are all engaged in a thumb-war tournament which Danny has no interest in participating in. It just wouldn’t be fair on them.
Danny loves that look. The one where Bruce’s eyes crinkle when he thinks none of the kids can see him. It oozes love and it makes Danny’s heart, his core, ache. 
It’s been a little over a year since Alfred found him on the street and managed to wrangle him back to the manor to stay—even after the whole biting thing when he realised how rich they were. 
A little over a year here and Danny’s starting to feel like family.
Starting to feel like he might, just maybe, like to make it official.
“Danny,” Bruce says, drawing everyone’s attention. Danny starts at his name, but Bruce’s voice is warm and calm, and his shoulders lose their tension almost immediately. “Danny, I have something I would like to tell you.”
“Uhhh…” is all Danny can croak out, eyes flicking back and forth between Bruce and the rest of them. Smooth. Looking good, Danny.
Except… they’re all happy. All smiles, all relaxed body language, all radiating calm and love and acceptance. Well, not Damian—his face is as thunderous as it always is—which at least means it’s nothing too out of the ordinary.
“Danny, first of all, I just want to impress upon you that this is in no way something you have to do. You are under no obligation to join us and, no matter what, you shall always be welcome with us in the manor.”
Wait, what? Danny squints at Bruce, trying to parse exactly what he’s saying… Is he—is this them asking to adopt him? Do they want to make it official, too? 
It’s been a little over a year and of course Danny has imagined calling Bruce ‘Dad’. Of course he’s imagined being part of the family, of course he wants to make it official!
He can’t help the beaming grin or the bright and bubbling “Yes!” already waiting on his lips. All Bruce has to do is ask, all Danny needs to hear is—
“I’m Batman.”
The smile freezes on Danny’s face.
His lungs stop working, his heart stops working, he stops working, he just—
“And I’m Nightwing,” Dick smiles, breaking the awkward silence. 
Danny’s eyes snap to him, and then down to Tim when he admits to being Red Robin. Duke is Signal, Steph is Spoiler. Damian begrudgingly tells him he’s Robin, but Danny can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears.
“I’m Black Bat.” Cass cocks her head, almost looking concerned. It always felt like she understood him the most. Whenever he was feeling low, too in his memories, or stewing after a nightmare, she was always there, ready to card her fingers through his hair and never mention his tears. It makes his heart ache to think of it now. “It’s okay, Danny.”
It’s meant to be reassuring, but how—how can it be okay? How? 
Danny’s spent a little over a year with them. A little over a year with Batman. 
Batman, who works with the Justice League, who works with…
A little over a year. 
Just under 16 months since he escaped.
“Danny? Are you alright?” Bruce asks
Finally, his lungs kickstart and suck in a shuddering breath, only for everyone to drop their smiles.
Didn’t take them long, did it? Now that their ruse is up, there’s no kindness in their eyes, they’re just… cold, calculating. Evaluating. 
“Why?” Danny gasps, his fingers tingling, his heart in his throat.
Just under 16 months since he—has he escaped? Or was this just another one of their experiments?
"I... I trusted you, why—" Danny chokes back a sob, gritting his teeth as his shoulders shake. Why? Why would they do this? "I was happy here, with you. I thought... Weren't you happy?"
"Danny..." Bruce is looking at him, eyes narrow and eyebrows pinched, in some cruel facsimile of confused concern and all Danny can think is how much of an actor he is. How well he can play the part of a doting father. How much he made him want that.
"I don't understand, why..." 
"I'm sorry we didn't tell you before, I can imagine that it comes as a shock. We shouldn't have lied to you, Danny, but—"
"Stop it!" Danny slams his hands down on the table and pushes himself up on wobbly legs. Even standing, he feels so small. Smaller than Bruce, than all of his adopted siblings. They crowd above him when they all stand, too. "Just stop it! Why are you doing this, why are you still pretending? Stop it!"
It was easier, with Danny's biological parents. The knowledge that they'd do anything to get him on a lab table, to open him up and see what makes him tick, to rip him apart molecule by molecule, had always been there. He knew they hated ghosts. He knew they hated Phantom. He knew they hated him. It was easier because it was something he'd known all his life. When he died, when he became a ghost, he knew what to expect from them. It hurt, of course it did.
But it was easier than this.
"Danny, I'm going to need you to take a deep breath. You're having a panic attack and you need to breathe."
"Breathe?" Danny laughs, the sound harsh and choking, too high pitched in his hysteria. "You're joking, right? Or is this just more of the—the experiment?"
"Danny, please, we don't know what you're talking about, you—"
"You don't know? You're Batman! You work with the Justice League, you work with—" His words choke off as his stomach churns, bile rising in his throat. His whole body itches, screaming at him to leave, he can't go back, he can't, he can't, he can't!
Bruce takes a hesitant step forward and Danny scrambles back, his feet catching on the chair behind him and sending him careening to the floor. Where are the agents? Why aren't they swarming in, ready to apprehend him, strap him back on the table, carve him from the inside out.
"Please, Danny, calm down. We don't—"
Danny stops listening. His back hits the wall and he pulls his knees into his chest, his shoulders dipping down as he begins to sob. His heart throbs inside his throat, too painful to swallow around. Tears fall hot and heavy on his face.
Sure, he could run. He could phase out through the wall and he could be out of Gotham in a couple of hours. He's escaped the GIW once, he can do it again.
But that was before Batman knew who he was. Before he had the World's Greatest Detective on his tail.
Before he... 
He really thought this would be different, you know?
He wanted to make it official.
"Why did... Why were you so nice to me? Why did you make me like you? I really—I really liked you. I-I thought we could be a family."
"Danny, we are a—"
"Don't lie to me!" Danny snaps, but the force of his anger leeches all the fight from him, and suddenly all that's left is a bone-weary tiredness. There’s a lump in his throat that hurts. There’s a line down his chest that burns. "I don't care. I don't care anymore, I don't. Just... don't make me go back there. Please." 
Is it futile? He thought he knew how the GIW operated by now, the depths that they would go to achieve their results, but this... this was a whole new level of pain that Danny thought he had left behind him in Amity.
"We're not going to make you go anywhere, Danny, you're safe here, I promise."
"Safe? Safe? You must have—" he takes a deep breath, tries to stop the quivering of his voice. It’s all starting to make sense, now.  "The reason you're telling me who you are is because you must have told them everything already. I know the Justice League—I know you're working with them, which means the ex-experiment is over now, and they're coming to take me back. And I can't go back."
"Danny—"
"I can’t!” Danny glares at Bruce with all the rage he can, fingernails digging into his skin. “I’m not going back!"
"That's right, you're not going back, Danny. I won't let that happen." Bruce crouches down in front of Danny, his hands open and raised as if he's trying to say he's not a threat. "I don't know who you're talking about, and I'm sorry about that, but I can promise you that you’re not going back there. We will keep you safe."
Danny pulls himself closer, tucks himself further into the wall, eyes flickering all across the room waiting for that tell-tale flash of white as the agents start to swarm.
He should take his chances now and run, he should go, he needs to go!
The rest of them, his brothers and sisters of a little over a year, are spread out, giving him and Bruce some space. The same concern colours all of their faces. Why are they still pretending?
Steph is chewing on her thumb. 
Danny liked Steph and her brash confidence, her jokes. She's been promising to paint his nails for months now, they've just never found the time. He was going to go for green and black, or maybe a galaxy theme, depending on what she felt comfortable doing.
He likes them all.
"You were supposed to be my family." His mouth turns down at the corners and his voice shakes like a child. "You were supposed to—why? Why would you—I don't understand why you would make me like you..."
"This isn't an experiment, Danny," Bruce's voice is steady, soothing. "I promise."
"But you work with them and—"
"Who do I work with?"
"The Justice League."
"Yes, I do, but we—"
"And the Justice League works with them. The GIW." Danny trembles with the name, clutching tightly onto his hoodie. "I'm not going back there, Bruce."
Danny doesn't miss Bruce's look over his shoulder, nor Tim's nod in return. Tim turns slightly to the side to hide his movements, but Danny bets he has his phone in his hand, probably letting them know they can take him now. Guess this is it, then. They'll be here soon, and he'll be gone.
"Kill me."
"Danny? What do—"
"If you ever had any kindness for me, if you ever cared, kill me. Please, Bruce. I can't do it again."
"Danny..."
"End me now. Take my core out and break it, please, before they get here."
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skyloftian-nutcase · 1 year
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Master post (my pinned post) has been updated for anyone who uses it :)
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justporo · 7 months
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Brewing Storms
A storm is brewing - oh yes, a literal one too. Tav's scared to be alone during a thunderstorm. Astarion is reluctant but stays to provide some comfort - and realises it might have been one of the better things to happen to him.
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Author's Note: I started this a while ago and then stuff got in the way - like Gale for example (lol) - and now I'm happy to be back to write something soft for Astarion and Tav!
Pairing: Astarion/GN!Tav (You) Warnings: Talk of trauma, very light smut Wordcount: 2,4k
~~~
Astarion and you had fallen into a sort of weird routine with your little late night escapades. Since the party after you saved the Grove and the first night you’ve spent together you had come together time and time again.
First only every couple of days. Always meeting somewhere away from camp and then sneaking back sometime before the others woke up. Although you were surely fair they all knew already anyway. But now you were almost spending every night together. Fortunately for the two of you, being elven meant you were still getting enough rest despite the nightly adventures.
Astarion kept feeding you his cheesy lines – you ate them right up. No one had ever given you this kind of attention. And as much as you knew that it was an act: how could you resist? You had never experienced such flattery nor could anyone you’d shared intimacy with ever compare to Astarion. But that wasn’t even the main thing.
You’d had crushes before, you’d fallen in love before but you were pretty sure it had never been quite like this. Your whole chest sometimes ached when you looked at Astarion. Sometimes when you caught him in a rare moment when he let his perfected mask drop for a second you saw the bottomless sadness and worry in his eyes. And all you wished for was to erase whatever it was that caused that sadness – to keep him safe and always give him something to smile about.
You had quite positively fallen for the vampiric elf. What had been a crush at first had very quickly become an unyielding need in your heart: desperate to be near him, to hear his voice, talk to him, to laugh at his sassy comments, to lay in his arms and to hold him in turn. Out of everything you surely hadn’t wanted or planned to fall in love with everything else going on – but there you were.
You were a hopeless case – even though you were sure it would come back to bite you (and maybe even literally): be it that he lost interest in you way quicker than you would like or that he had ulterior motives and that you were merely a means to an end.
In fact, you were entirely sure that there was more to Astarion. You weren’t all fooled and blinded by your brewing emotions for the vampire. Maybe not really the first time, but as you got more used to sharing a bed with Astarion you were well aware that it seemed like he wasn’t fully there with you.
You could take only guesses at why that was exactly – and you didn’t like any of those.
At several occasions you had tried to bring it up. But he had swatted your concerns away every time, just making a sultry joke or drowning you with kisses until you had forgotten what you had wanted to say. In any case he always pushed you to get back into his arms.
Gladly, you would have offered him an open ear – your heart was already wide open.
But you were sure this wouldn’t last. You were in way over your head and you so desperately wanted to avoid breaking the spell.
And as much as you would have wished for him to open up more, to let you in a bit more and as much as you would have liked to confess the way you felt: you didn’t think you could do it without ruining whatever it was between the two of you.
At least, he seemed to be a bit more present when he was with you of late. The changes seemed subtle enough, but you were convinced that it slowly became different. Maybe it was just that the two of you had gotten used to this dance now, but you could swear his hands lingered longer now on your skin, that his kisses became deeper and more tender, that the way he looked at you became softer sometimes. And that those moments, when he seemed miles away, became fewer.
Tonight, when you had set up camp it had seemed like a storm was brewing.
You had already felt tense when you had noticed: growing up on the streets of Baldur’s Gate as a child with nowhere safe to go had traumatised you for life. Especially when it came to storms: too many nights you’d had to spend outside somewhere while the rain kept pouring down.
But worst had always been the thunder. Every single one like an explosion while a little child sat somewhere cowered trying to stay safe and crying from fear and loneliness. Even when you had gotten older and had always managed to secure a safe spot for sleeping and shelter the fear of thunderstorms had remained.
And thus far you’d gotten lucky that there had been no storms since this whole chaos had started. But the stroke of luck was over now it seemed.
When Astarion had thrown you certain looks after the party had gone to unwind each on their own after eating, you had very rambly and awkwardly suggested to maybe spend the night in your tent this night, because the others surely knew anyway and what if it started pouring and wasn’t it more comfortable anyway?
You just were desperate to not be somewhere outside when the thunderstorm was going to hit – and maybe even not alone.
And Astarion had looked at you suspiciously with a raised eyebrow, surely noticing that something was up. But in the end, he had simply shrugged and followed you to your tent.
So now you lay pressed against each other. Astarion on top of you, his body delightfully weighing you down, both of your shirts already off and his hands kept roaming your body as you gratefully gave in to his open-mouthed kisses. His hand had just dipped below the waistline of your trousers when you could hear the first far away rumbling.
Immediately you tensed a little but forced yourself to try and not be bothered by it. Astarion’s kisses wandered down your throat now.
A second already much louder rumble. You gasped.
And apparently Astarion had noticed that it wasn’t because of his touch – you could almost feel how he had furrowed his brows. But he kept silent and continued to kiss and caress you, leaning on one of his forearms.
When a third roar of thunder made you actually wince and recoil, he pushed up on his arm and looked at you. The other hand though stayed right where it was inside your pants.
“Afraid of a little thunder, love?”, he said and cocked an eyebrow. His tone wasn’t even overly sassy but you still couldn’t help but to feel hurt.
More thunder. This time so loud it felt like it was exactly above you. You recoiled again and felt how panic rose in you. You pushed the vampire - who actually looked hurt by that - off of you. His hand slipping from where it had caressed you.
“Maybe I am afraid of thunder. So?”, you spat back while you sat up and hugged your knees to your naked chest. As much as you wanted the comfort of his arms: panic and whatever feeling it had been that had overcome you when Astarion had looked hurt when you’d pushed him back got the better of you.
Shame mixed with the fear and you could feel your throat close up.
Astarion had knelt back on the balls of his feet watching you with a look in his eyes you couldn’t quite place. He definitely didn’t seem as cocky as a few moments ago though.
You looked away as another thing spiced up the mix of emotions running high: worry, that you had just broke something that couldn’t be repaired.
“I-“, Astarion started and then stopped helplessly.
The vampire was actually worried about you in this moment. Astarion was surprised by the sudden outburst of emotion and he was certainly hurt that you pushed him away. But more than anything: he didn’t know what to do now. Quite obviously you were not in the mood anymore for getting down and dirty.
It occurred to him that he did not want you to be afraid and upset. But then again, he had no idea how to make it so. And on top of that: he was pretty sure you weren’t interested in anything of the sort. Sure, you were absolutely the one person he talked the most to in the party. And yes, you were always making sure he’d gotten enough blood – but that was probably because you had need of him being his fittest for fighting. Also, you did actually seem to care about what had happened to him, wanting to learn more about him – but…
The vampire was confused and helpless. So he opted for the one option he deemed reasonable: leave.
He grabbed his shirt and started pulling it over his head while saying: “Alright, since it seems there won’t be any naughty indulgence tonight, I guess I better get back to my tent and you can try and-“
He was interrupted by you grabbing his wrist firmly.
“Please”, you pleaded, “don’t leave me alone.”
You were desperate: you didn’t want him to leave, you didn’t want to have ruined the delicate thing that had been forming between you.
Astarion let his shirt drop again and looked at you. Your eyes were filled with tears and full of fear. His confusion became even more: “Darling, I’m not… Maybe you should ask the druid to… help you. Maybe he has something herbal to-“ You basically yanked on the vampire’s arm.
“No please, Astarion, I just… want you to stay here with me. Just… hold me? Please?”, you pleaded with him as tears started to stream down your face.
You really didn’t want to be alone for one but also you were desperate to feel his arms around you again – to be sure he would still want to hold you, as much as wanting his comfort.
Astarion’s brows furrowed again but he dropped his shirt again and crawled over to you as you shyly opened up your arms to him to be cradled by the vampire. He slid his arms around you and softly moved you until you were laying there: him on his back with you carefully snuggled up against his chest – skin on skin.
The relief you felt was almost instant. Not only because he had agreed to stay but also feeling his body against yours immediately made some of the tension inside you ease.
Astarion reluctantly started to stroke your back as you buried your face against his chest. It all felt more than just a little awkward and you felt a blush creep onto your cheeks, but you just wrapped your arms around the vampire and tried to calm yourself.
Still tears kept coming and thunder was rolling in quicker now. Then the rain started as well and became a constant drumroll on your tent. The loud rumbles kept going and made you wince from time to time, but it was now considerably better than before.
Astarion grew more confident with just stroking your back. He even carefully placed a kiss on the top of your head at one point, in your all messed up hair. You both eased into this rather unfamiliar form of closeness.
After being stressed about the coming storm all evening, you felt that your body couldn’t retain the tension anymore. You weren’t entirely sure what all this meant for Astarion and you, but you forced yourself to just stay in this moment. Because this already was something you wouldn’t have thought to ever be possible. It was tender and sweet. Something you would have never imagined when this vampire had, upon first meeting him, thrown you on the ground and threatened you with a knife.
You were so desperate to hold onto this. So, you wrapped your arms around him a little tighter and cautiously tangled your legs with his. He let it happen.
And Astarion – Astarion’s mind was racing, utterly confused by the turn the night had taken. It definitely wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy this outcome – to his own surprise. Quite the opposite actually.
When the thunder subsided and the rain tap-tap-tapping on the tent ceiling was what remained of the storm and he felt you quite noticeably relax into his arms even more – his chest started to ache.
He was overthrown by his own sentiment and the trust you put into him; surprised, scared even.
In his thoughts Astarion kept turning around the fact how you had specifically asked him to stay with you although you had so visibly been upset. More upset even than he had ever seen you in any battle. And that you had wanted nothing but to be held in his arms. And he – to his own surprise – had been happy to be there for you, proud even, realising that he really wanted you to be alright.
You hadn’t even talked since he had taken you in his arms. Just felt the connection, your skin warm on his. His hands hesitatingly caressing and trying to comfort you while your tears subsided and your breathing became more even.
And even though it had been you who had pleaded for comfort – Astarion could feel it too. Felt, how the warmth of your body soaked into his undead body and your breath brushed over his naked upper body – now in a steady and calm rhythm again. You were so close, he could even feel the beat of your steadying heartbeat through your conjoined chests.
And when Astarion was sure that you must’ve drifted off into your dreams – because he had held you – he kept staring up at the ceiling of the tent.
The rain had become almost non-existent after what must’ve been hours now.
The vampire’s chest still ached with something he wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge yet. But he could feel that it had become something way too big to ignore. Something that would soon be unleashed – for better or for worse. And he was frightened about that.
But not in this moment. This moment he would hold onto. So he wrapped his arms around you a little tighter still, closed his eyes and full on buried his face in your hair while he was so fully aware of the feeling of your body against his.
Then he whispered so silently, even the last of the raindrops would have drowned out the words. So silently, because he was still so unsure, so scared and the words were only meant for him – and maybe sometime for you: “My love, what ever have you done to me?”
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irisintheafterglow · 8 months
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blood moonlit, must be counterfeit
summary: a guy at a party has a really good dynamight costume, and you two get to talking about your favorite heroes. (pro!bakugo x you)
wc: 1.68k
cw/tags: swearing ofc cuz it's bakugo, mentions of drinking and alcohol, halloween party, first meeting, emotionally constipated katsuki and reader is kinda oblivious lol
note: NEW HALLOWEEN HEADER BABY also this idea had me by the throat so i needed to write it down before it consumed my entire psyche. i'm back to writing for bakugo again because iykyk and halloween fics are giving me a lot of motivation right now. hope you enjoy!
likes, reblogs, and replies are always appreciated <3
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“I have to admit–your costume is pretty damn good.”
“Yeah? Just ‘pretty good?’”
“Mhmm. Almost looks like the real thing,” you remark, taking another sip of the dangerously sweet jungle juice in your cup. It's an unreadable mix of bad ideas and bold flirtation, perfect for a Halloween party of barely 21 adults. The blonde guy beside you on the worn leather couch tilts his head slightly like he's re-affirming what you just said in his mind. “I think the real Dynamight would be impressed.”
“Would he, now,” he huffs under his breath, mouth curling into an unreadable smirk. He exhales a quick breath of what you think is amusement through his nose, eyes flicking over your body for the umpteenth time since he sat down with you. It makes your face heat up and you casually avert your gaze downward, catching more details of his costume that you didn’t notice before. 
The gauntlets were obviously the star of the arrangement, covered in numerous scratches, burns, and dents that attested to their “battle” usage. The boots were impressive, too, and you wondered how long it took to place every individual orange eyelet over the front of each calf. The cinder block rectangles sitting on his broad shoulders truly looked like real stone, solid like the toned muscle holding them up. It was the domino mask that threw you off the most, though. The guy must have been wearing bright red contacts, or something, because to look so similar to the actual Pro should have been considered a crime. 
“Who’d you come to the party with?”
“Just some friends,” he replies, shrugging an infuriatingly sexy shoulder. His entire look was putting the real Dynamight to shame, in your opinion. He nods upward in the direction of a guy in an equally accurate Deku costume standing with a very convincing Shoto lookalike. “They dared me to wear this and I lost the bet.”
“Must have been some bet, if you’re moping over here like a toddler.” The shrewdness of your words escapes you until they’re already past your lips; thankfully, he just smirks again and leans his head back, resting an arm on the back of the sofa.
“I’ll ignore that you said that, 'cause you're clearly intoxicated” he mutters, shooting you a brutal side-eye. Thanks to the alcohol, though, you’re far from deterred. 
“How gracious,” you chuckle and his smirk gets a little more arrogant. “What was the bet?”
“Some dumb drinking contest. That asswipe in the green can put down more shots than he looks.” He scowls and you fight down the urge to giggle at his bitter expression. He was the only guy you’ve ever seen that could make a grumpy face look hot. The only guy besides Bakugo himself, of course. “I wouldn’t have worn this shit to a party to save my life.”
“What, Dynamight isn’t your favorite Pro?”
“I’m more of an All Might guy,” he replies nonchalantly. He appreciates the classic heroes. Good sign. “If I had to choose a different one, I’d probably say Jeanist.”
“Jeanist is pretty cool. My best friend had a cardboard cutout of Eraserhead in her closet growing up.” He barks out a laugh and it startles you, but a mysterious feeling in your stomach wants to make him do it again. “What do you think of the current gen of heroes?” He hums thoughtfully, running his tongue over his top lip and you swallow back your drool.
“Red Riot’s a good guy. Deku pisses me the fuck off, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Same thing with Pinky and that Half-and-Half asshat. Chargebolt…” His expression turns into a frown so deep you’re worried that Chargebolt killed his family or something heinous like that. 
“What about him?”
“He’s just dumb. If given the choice between his life and a grain of sand, I’d take the sand,” he deadpans and you choke unexpectedly, wincing as your drink travels up the wrong tube and into your nose. His eyes widened in concern, reaching out to pat your back but deciding against it at the last moment. His glove-covered hands hover around you like you’re radioactive matter, carefully watching as you regain your composure. “You good, nerd?” Uses the same vocabulary as the real guy, too. Kind of weird, but I guess we all have our idols. 
“Yeah, I’m good. I just didn’t expect you to badmouth him like you two were friends from high school or something,” you joke lightheartedly and the guy blinks at you twice before computing what you said. 
“It’s whatever. They’re super fuckin’ easy to read, in any case,” he states with an air of finality and you down the rest of your drink, the dim lighting starting to blur everything around you into a single greenish-orange blob. “What about you? What are your thoughts on the new gen?”
“I can’t make such bold judgments as you, but I do think Dynamight is pretty cool,” you admit, suddenly feeling a little bashful when having the same question turned on you. The truth was, you followed the lives of the heroes a bit too closely than the average person should. It fascinated you so much that you were majoring in Quirk-specific journalism, studying the social and economic consequences of being a Pro. “I think his public persona is an interesting case when compared to other heroes.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’d like to imagine that he’s not always the loud, arrogant, obnoxious piece of shit that the press shows,” you start and narrow your eyes in confusion when he flinches at your description. You continue anyway but choose your words a little more carefully. Probably isn’t good to upset the guy who might have fashioned functioning gauntlets, if the costume truly is accurate. “There’s a side to him that I think the public doesn’t know about and doesn’t care to know about, since it’s easier to understand him as a loudmouth with no sense of manners. I just wonder who that guy is under all the yelling and testosterone.” His silence is deafening and you worry that you somehow offended him, but his tone is so gentle that your assumption becomes an impossibility.
“Seems like you’ve given this guy a great deal of thought,” he says lowly, voice barely audible over the sound of the blaring house music. 
“Well, he is my favorite,” you add quietly, not expecting him to catch what you said. He does, though, and that mischievous smirk returns to his face. Somehow, you two had inched closer together over the course of your conversation, and you were now close enough to smell his cologne. It was something deep and smoky, with a surprise note of sweetness, like caramel. “I’ve been following his hero career since I was in high school.”
“I didn’t take you for a superfan, but I do appreciate your support,” he chuckles and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “You seriously haven’t figured it out?”
“Figured what out?”
“That I’m Dynamight, stupid. This is my actual costume and those are my actual friends. Hell, I'm paying for this whole shitty party,” he says incredulously, genuinely shocked that you didn’t come to that conclusion already. Your skepticism, however, rears its head and you burst out into rude laughter. 
Dynamight? Yeah, right. More like Dyna-maybe. 
“Excuse me?” He stares at you like you’d grown three heads and your heart drops into your stomach. You must have said your thoughts out loud. Fuck! “You’ve got some nerve, testing the patience of a Pro.” His words, under any other circumstances, would have cut down your pride like a knife. However, his eyes were conveying a different story, one of lust and want and holyshityouwantedhim. “Got anything to say, sweetheart? Or are you gonna just keep gaping like a fuckin’ goldfish?” You abruptly snap your jaw back into place, leaning your head into your hand and smiling in triumph when his gaze again uncontrollably rakes over your body.  
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“See what, gorgeous?”
“That a Pro kisses better than a normal person,” you murmur and his pupils blow to the size of pool balls. He wastes no time, gently but firmly grabbing your chin with two fingers and pulling your mouth onto his. His lips are ridiculously soft and you muster up the courage to bite him softly, heartbeat racing when he groans into your mouth. One arm drapes itself over the back of the couch, the other pulling you as close to him as humanly possible without practically sitting on him. Your hand combs through his hair and the other keeps him on you by the back of his neck.
Right when you run out of breath, he pulls away and swears colorfully at the phone buzzing in his pocket, answering it with one hand while his forearm is still pressed against your lower back. You absentmindedly trace his jawline with a finger while he curses out the person on the other line, eventually chucking the device over his shoulder like it was the last thing he was thinking about. “You need to go somewhere, sweetheart?” He lightly pinches your side at your mockery and you jump, flicking his forehead in defiance. 
“Nah, that was a job for Dynamight. Right now, I guess I’m still fuckin' Dyna-maybe,” he rasps and leans back in to kiss you again but you push his face away, giving him as sober of a look as possible. “What?”
“If you need to go kick ass, then go kick ass. I’m just some random makeout at a party,” you remind him, painfully aware of the sting if he was to leave you alone. His expression contorts into indignancy again but you still try to convince him to alleviate whatever situation he was called in for. “Your job is more important than a hookup.”
“I don’t do hookups, dumbass. I’m interested in you,” he states plainly and your face is set on fire. The Pro, who you just insulted to his face, was interested in you? “So, let’s get out of here, yeah? I can make you dinner that isn’t shitty pizza.” His mouth breaks into a devilish grin and you’re already grabbing onto his hand like your life depended on it. 
“If someone messes with us?”
“It’s a good thing I’m already in costume.” 
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if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)
1K notes · View notes
milaeth · 11 months
Text
୨୧┊ 𝐈. 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒. ( charles leclerc )
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ꖛ ─ you’re reading part one ∿ part two ∿ part three ( coming soon )
✧.* pairings ─ charles leclerc x fem! singer! reader
✧.* genre ─ social media au ⨾ fluff & chaotic
✧.* summary ─ in which your best friend George gets fed up with watching you and Charles secretly yearn for each other while claiming to be just friends. so, when you lose a bet to George, he takes control of your social media accounts for 24 hours, using the opportunity to help you make a move on your crush.
✧.* face claim ─ suki waterhouse
✧.* warnings ─ none, this is just really chaotic lol
✧.* mily’s thoughts ─ this is my first time writing a social media au so pls give me feedback! also, this is not proofread! btw feel free to leave requests <33
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˗ˏ ➶ IMESSAGE ➜ w/ princess george . ✧ ˚
princess george: You know what, y/n?
y/n: no
princess george: I have the feeling that i’m gonna get a podium today!
y/n: what made you think that💀 not to crush your dreams princess, but i heavily doubt that
princess george: Wow, you’re so supportive. Why should I not be able to get a podium??
y/n: keyword: shitty car
princess george: Oh, yeah, I forgot about that… But i don’t care, i will manifest it (that’s what you always do, isn’t it?)
y/n: yeah sure..
princess george: You don’t believe me? Fine! Let’s make a bet then.
y/n: it’s way too early for this shit
princess george: Blahblahblah🙄
y/n: 💀 george i’m busy
princess george: Busy writing sad love songs about Charles or what??
y/n: …
princess george: Exactly. Now let’s do this!
y/n: why are you so eager to make this bet
princess george: Oh I just want to rub in your face that I was right afterwards
y/n: lovely.. but fine, start talking ig
princess george: Finally!
princess george: I predict that i’m gonna finish P3. Your prediction?
y/n: p11❤️
princess george: And now realistically…
y/n: p6
princess george: Thanks.
y/n: and what are the drawbacks?
princess george: I don’t know, maybe the loser has to hand over their main social media accounts to the winner for 24 hours. The loser isn’t allowed to use their main accounts in that time, only their private ones.
y/n: absolutely not
princess george: Aww you’re a scaredy cat?
y/n: no i just don’t trust you with my social media accounts💀
princess george: Okay fair enough
princess george: But c’mon, it’s gonna be fun! Only for 24h
y/n: fine but the winner can’t post anything too bad
princess george: Sure, sure. So, deal?
y/n: deal! and good luck (i hope you dnf)
princess george: Lovely as always
[ seen 12:03pm ]
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georgerussell63
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liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc and 1,056,386 others
georgerussell63 P3!!!! We keep on moving🔥🔥
view all 649 comments…
user471 was a close call but congratulations!
user172 carlos deserved it more, you literally pushed him off
user93 he didn’t push carlos off but okay💀
user425 so happy for you!
user65 it should’ve been carlos
charles_leclerc congrats on p3 mate!!🔥
georgerussell63 Congratulations on P2! I nearly got you, watch your back next time😉
charles_leclerc let’s highlight the word “nearly”😉
user976 so happy to see you on the podium again🫶
yourusername still convinced you bewitched half of the grid to let you pass them
georgerussell63 Creative but no, I just had a great motivation😊😊
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˗ˏ ➶ IMESSAGE ➜ w/ princess george . ✧ ˚
princess george: Well well well, look who lost our bet…
y/n: 😐
princess george: C’mon give me the password to all your main accounts so i can log in😁
y/n: what if i were suicidal.
princess george: Honestly sounds like a you problem.
y/n: fuck you.
princess george: Still waiting for the passwords😊
y/n: fine, but remember, only for 24 hours!
princess george: Yeah, yeah. Now give them to me.
y/n: … insta is “503_UedusEiotSrk03” & twitter is “eZiyjDbbvwKi_zu_14806”
princess george: Damn, those are some ugly passwords!
y/n: are you seriously judging my PASSWORDS rn💀💀
[ seen 4:20pm ]
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scuderiaferrari
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liked by charles_leclerc, yourusername and 1,385,052 others
scuderiaferrari That’s ice cold🧊🥶 #F1 #P2 #Charles16
tagged: charles_leclerc
view all 6,175 comments…
user47 dayuumm🤭
user21 no one could ever get me into one of those things😭
yourusername That’s a sight I could get used to🥵🔥
landonorris don’t ever say or write that again.
urusername_alt🔒 @yourusername you really make me want to kms
yourusername @urusername_alt🔒 Aw, appreciate it❤️😉
landonorris y/n have you officially lost it?? why are you talking to yourself💀
user275 did we all see that or am i crazy💀
user164 yep we all saw that💀💀
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yourusername
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liked by zendaya, bellahadid, charles_leclerc and 18,364,187 others
yourusername "eyes that confess, while lips whisper 'just friends.'" my new single “just friends” is out now!!🤍 (yes, another single about my crush😘)
view all 369,270 comments…
user937 THIS IS SO GOOD AND HEARTBREAKING WTF
lewishamilton already on repeat🔥
user25 i cried my eyes out to this.
landonorris this is a BANGER
user12 how is this so cute yet so sad💀
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˗ˏ ➶ IMESSAGE ➜ w/ princess george . ✧ ˚
y/n: HPW COULD YOU
y/n: I GO TO BED AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO??
princess george: i have no idea what you’re talking about.
y/n: OH PLEASE YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT YOU DID
princess george: Uhmmm nope.
y/n: YOU POSTED ONE OF MY DRAFTS
y/n: AND NOT JUST ANY DRAFT
y/n: NO, YOU POSTED THE ONE ABT MY SINGLE💀
y/n: IM GETTING EMAILS FROM MY PR TEAM BC I WAS SUPPOSED TO POST THAT ON TUESDAY
princess george: Oh, yeah, my finger slipped🫢🫢
y/n: your finger must’ve slipped multiple times then bc the caption is somehow a different one💀 not to forget the twitter thing
princess george: Oops?
princess george: Besides, I only added one sentence.
y/n: are you fucking serious
princess george: It was an accident.
y/n: ACCIDENT MY ASS YOU EMBARRASSED ME IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!!! AND TOLD PEOPLE ITS ABOUT CHARLES WTF
princess george: To be fair that was predictable when we set the rules to this bet. And I didn’t directly say the single is about charles.
y/n: you did directly say that💀
y/n: istg i’m gonna beat you up the next time i see you
princess george: Should I be worried..?
y/n: definitely.
y/n: you give me so many seasons to kill you. this is literally the 19th one
princess george: Make it 20…
y/n: george. what do you mean.
princess george: I might’ve given you another season. On accident!!
princess george: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu-IkZstViy/?img_index=1
y/n: oh no
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f1wags
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163,948 likes
f1wags Love is in the air, and our radar has picked up some juicy rumors! It seems like the friendship between the singer Y/N L/N and Charles Leclerc is turning into something more than just a casual relationship. Get ready for the scoop as we take a closer look at the blossoming relationship between these two stars!
Y/N and Charles first crossed paths through their mutual friend George Russell, but it seems their connection has deepened over time. On late Sunday, Y/N dropped a bombshell by announcing her upcoming single to her social media followers, accompanied by a captivating caption. The last sentence read, "another single about my crush😘," which made fans curious and hopeful for more.
The plot thickened when Y/N responded to a tweet and saying that the song was indeed inspired by her "bae," none other than talented Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc. The revelation left followers shaking with excitement, and it's clear that the connection between the two goes deeper than mere friendship.
But that's not all! Observant watchers have noticed the undeniable chemistry between Y/N and Charles, catching glimpses of their interactions when they thought no one was watching. Ah, the power of love! Charles might have forgotten that the public has eyes everywhere, but we certainly haven't missed a beat.
The burning question on everyone's mind is: what's behind their friendship? Is it just a playful crush or something much more intense? Could Y/N L/N be a new f1 wag? Time will tell, but for now we can't help but root for this potential power couple.
So stay tuned, gossip lovers, because there's more to come from Y/N L/N and Charles Leclerc. Whether it's a steamy romance or just a close friendship, we'll be here keeping our eyes peeled for any hint of what's going on behind the scenes. Love may be a game of mystery, but they've forgotten that we're experts at unraveling the truth. Keep your eyes open, folks!
view all 33,647 comments…
user79 y’all really don’t know how to mind your own business
user943 why are people making such a big deal out of this like they’re just friends and y/n was probably just drunk or smth when she said those things🙄🙄 ITS NOT THAT SERIOUS!!
user27 you guys really don’t have a life huh💀
user375 who tf is this blondie
user50 girl stfu that’s literally my wife
user697 AAAA i really hope this is real bc they’re so cute💖
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˗ˏ ➶ IMESSAGE ➜ w/ princess george . ✧ ˚
y/n: 💀💀💀
princess george: I’m starting to feel bad now..
y/n: good, you should💀
y/n: i’m gonna apologize to charles now
princess george: Why, It’s not your fault.
y/n: you’re right, it’s yours. but you said all those things with my account so it looks like it’s my fault lol
princess george: I’m really sorry, I took it a little far!
y/n: a little is good💀 but dw it’s okay, i know you only meant it jokingly, i’ll tell everyone it was you and not me once the 24 hours are over
princess george: 👍 Good luck talking to Charles. And don’t forget to confess to him before I do it for you😉😉
[ seen 1:24pm ]
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∿ people who might want to get tagged ─ @81astri @cs55version @lorarri ( my taglist if you want to get tagged in my works )
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don’t forget to like, comment & reblog (it’s very much appreciated <3).
© milaeth | 2023
1K notes · View notes
elenawritesxx · 4 months
Note
Hiiii your writing is SO good hun. Could you do a fluff fic where the reader has low self confidence about the way they look and bucky’s all Nuh uh.
Thank you so much hun
IN YOUR EYES
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PAIRING - bucky x reader
SUMMARY - in the ask box
WC - 455
requests are open
EXTRA - established relationship, reader feeling insecure, use of pet names (doll, baby), no use of y/n, lower case intended
NOTES - hi angels, sorry for disappearing (again) just lost some motivation to write lol. but thanks for the ask and the compliment it made my day🫶 hope this is what you were looking for💞
PS - english isn’t my first language so if you see any grammar or spelling mistakes please don’t hesitate to point them out<3
the soft glow of the evening sun filtered through the curtains, casting a warm hue across the room as bucky lounged on the couch, engrossed in a book. you, on the other hand, sat across from him, absently fidgeting with the hem of your shirt, lost in your own thoughts.
a sigh that escaped your lips caught bucky’s attention, only to notice your distress look. he knew you like the back of his hand, he could read you like an open book, so of course it wasn’t a surprise when he noticed immediately your discomfort.
his eyes filled with concern as he set the book aside, now fully focusing on you. "is everything okey, doll?"
you couldn’t look at him, because you knew he was already looking at you and if you did, the tears would fall. you hesitated, feeling a lump form in your throat as you struggled to voice your insecurities. "i don't know... i just... sometimes i look in the mirror and... i don't feel good enough, you know?"
bucky's heart ached at the vulnerability in your voice. without a second thought, he crossed the room and knelt in front of you, gently taking your hands in his huge compared to yours. "baby, look at me," he urged, his eyes searching yours with unwavering intensity.
reluctantly, you met his gaze, feeling a surge of warmth wash over you as you drowned in the depths of his ocean-blue eyes.
"in your eyes," bucky began, his voice soft yet resolute, "i see beauty beyond compare. i see strength, kindness, and a soul so pure it takes my breath away. and every flaw you think you have? they're just reminders of the journey you've been on, the battles you've fought, and the strength you possess."
tears welled up in your eyes as you listened to bucky's heartfelt words, feeling a weight lift off your shoulders with each reassuring syllable.
"i love every part of you," bucky continued, his voice barely above a whisper as he brushed a stray tear that escaped from your cheek. "and i'll spend the rest of my days reminding you just how incredible you are."
with bucky's words echoing in your heart, you felt a newfound sense of confidence bloom within you. leaning forward, you pressed a tender kiss to his lips, pouring all your love and gratitude into the gentle embrace.
in that moment, surrounded by love and acceptance, you realized that true beauty lies not in the eyes of others, but in the unwavering love of those who see you for who you truly are. and with bucky by your side, you knew that together, you could conquer any doubt and insecurity that dared to cross your path.
381 notes · View notes
slasherx · 24 days
Note
Gurl you write so fast like a Machine 😂, I wish I could write like that, and also good luck with your finals!
Can I do a request for A Micheal Myers with a childhood crush (female) like as a kid Michael had a crush on the reader but like after he killed they were separated for years but them micheal broke out and came across the reader all grown up if you can!
Also can you do Rz Michael, he's my favorite
Lol thats cause I have the motivation to write about slashers rn. And thank you! I got a 94% on one of them, but I won't get my final grade on the other one for a bit. I hope I pass.
Content: Michael Myers x fem!Reader
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, obsessive love
Notes: Even though the gif is peepaw Myers, this takes place in the RZ universe
• ───────────────── •
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Michael was put away in the asylum when he was ten. Before he made a vow to never speak again, he kept asking his mother and Dr. Loomis where you were, and if you could come visit him. His mother promised to talk to your parents about it, but that she couldn't guarantee you could come see him.
And so she did. She tried talking to your parents, but your parents wanted you nowhere near that monster of a child. They outright refused her on numerous occasions, even when Michael's mother pleaded with them on her knees at their front door.
When she broke the news to Michael that you wouldn't be seeing him, Michael lost it. He could feel something in his head snap, the same way it snapped when bullies would hurt you or him. Or the same way he felt himself snap that Halloween night.
He managed to keep it cool until Dr. Loomis and his mother left, but when they sent in that nurse to watch him until they could escort him to his room, he couldn't hold it in any longer. He took his plastic fork and jammed it into her throat, cutting her scream short. He was angry. Why wouldn't you come see him? Why? Why, why, why? He didn't understand...he thought you were best friends.
• ───────────────── •
Eight years after that day, he had a visitor that wasn't Dr. Loomis. He had known his mother killed herself, his sister was dead, and Boo was probably far away in the foster care system, so he had hoped it was you.
When they sat him in the room, he had felt anxious for the first time in years. Had you changed like he had? Did you grow out your hair like him? Grown taller like him? He kept a mask on, one he made in rememberance of you. It was just your favorite color all over it.
Finally, you walked in and sat down across from Michael. A couple guards stood at the door, in case Michael tried to leap at you regardless of his cuffs chaining him to the table. He was breathing heavily - you had changed.
You had grown taller, but you remained shorter than him. Now at eighteen, you seemed very mature for your age, and Michael wanted to leap across the table at you, but not to kill you.
"Hi Michael. My parents don't know I'm here. I just...came to provide an explanation, since I feel you deserve one." You spoke, hands in your lap. "Your mother begged my parents to let me see you on many occasions, and each time they told her no. I remember one time she cried and got on her knees to beg my mother, but she just shut the door in her face."
Michael listened, quiet as ever. He was just happy to see you in front of him again. He was also surprised that Dr. Loomis wasn't here to supervise this meeting.
"And I want you to know that Dr. Loomis has contacted me since I turned eighteen, and we've spoken about you a couple of times. He told me you don't speak anymore, and that you killed a nurse while being in here." You decided it was now or never to try and break his vow of silence. "Is...is that true, Michael?"
Michael wanted to break his silence, but he knew Loomis would be on his ass if he did. So all he did was nod his head yes.
You seemed to shift uncomfortably. Your breathing increased, and he could tell you were scared. This saddened him - he didn't want you to be scared of him, he wanted you to love him. You two were attached to each other as children, why would a few murders make this any different?
"I...think I better go before my parents realize I'm not at my friends house." You started to get up, when Michael launched at you and grabbed your wrist, straining the cuffs on him.
He held you hard, and you could see the desperation in his eyes. He was all alone here. But he still killed those people, and if you weren't careful, you'd be next. The guards moved forward and forced Michael back, and a few more people rushed into the room. One rushed to you and put his hands on your shoulders.
"Ma'am, ma'am, are you alright?" The man asked.
You nodded. "Yeah, thank you." It was too fast for you to process it, but Michael was staring at you. "Please, take me out of here."
• ───────────────── •
Now outside, you saw Dr. Loomis by your car. He was pacing, clearly nervous about your meeting with Michael. Then when he saw you approach, he waved to you.
"How did it go?"
"Please don't talk to me. I shouldn't have come here." You responded shakily.
"What happened in there? Did he break his silence?"
"No, but he fucking grabbed me! Who knows what else he would have done if the guards hadn't been there?! I was crazy to even come here." You opened your car door and got inside.
"Please, wait, (Y/n). You don't know how much you mean to Michael, I-"
"Save it, Dr. Loomis. I'm going home. Stop calling me." You started up your car and peeled out of the parking lot. Memories of you and Michael as kids began to race through your head and you began to cry. How did it come to this...?
• ───────────────── •
Seven more years went by. Seven more years where Michael didn't see you. Seven more angry years. But now, it was different. Michael was standing in front of your house.
He was different now. He was more built, even taller, and his hair was even longer. You used to comment on his long hair as a kid, it was one of the reasons he kept it so long in the first place.
He could see you through the window. You lived alone now, just down the street from your childhood home. He was content watching you through the window. You were preparing dinner, when you suddenly got a call. He decided now was the time to enter your home.
Moving around to the back door, he began to pick the lock.
"Hello?" You picked up your phone.
With a click, he was in.
"(Y/n)! You need to listen to me-" Dr. Loomis practically shouted on the other line.
Michael slowly opened the door.
"Save it, Dr. Loomis. I told you to stop calling me." You were about to hang up.
Michael made his way to your living room, right next to your kitchen.
"He's escaped! Michael has escaped!"
"What?" You spoke, shock and fear tearing through your system. You put a hand over your mouth, and looked up through your window, but you saw a figure behind you.
"You're not safe! Flee Haddonfield!" Dr. Loomis begged.
You spun around to see a large man with a knife glistening in his hand. He had a white mask on, blonde hair poking out underneath it. You didn't need him to take off the mask to see who it was. Your fear skyrocketed as you thought he was going to kill you.
"Michael...?" You spoke, slowly lowering the phone and ignoring Dr. Loomis' pleas.
Michael moved towards you. He finally had you now, and he would never let you go again. He was yours, and you will be his.
• ───────────────── •
Here's my masterlist, in case you like what you see and want to request more!
183 notes · View notes
iambilliejeanok · 1 year
Note
Hello! Let me just say that i adore the way your write!! It’s so amazing🥰 Can i request something (however you want to write it really) where the character wakes reader up to ask them if reader loves them?
That was a terrible explanation i’m so sorry lol
I’d love if it could be with Kakashi, Jiraiya and Madara 🥰🫶 (or any characters you want)
Thank you so much!🥹🫶🏾💗😘
No warnings, Purely fluff, a small itty tiny bit angst, but just a small little bit I promise.
🌸Kakashi🌸
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Kakashi doesn’t often stay asleep throughout the night, having you beside him in the nighttime drastically reduces the amount of nightmares he has, but unfortunately, he still has those nights where he wakes up sweating, too shook to actually fall asleep again. This time around though, he has you to watch over, so he’s not shaken up for too long, holding your body close to his as he watches you sleep peacefully, the warmth of your weight against him and your steady breathing quickly relaxing him. All this and maybe a book in his hands is a great opportunity for him to spend some time alone. When you begin stirring in your sleep he freezes, trying his best to not wake you up, but even while you’re sleeping, you shift up the bed to hug him, nuzzling your face against his neck, inhaling his addictive scent. At this point he has completely forgotten about the nightmare that woke him up, genuinely grateful for your presence in his life.
He realizes that even though he’s lost too many dearly loved ones, today, in this moment, he has you and in this moment, even though you are asleep against him, you still manage to comfort him, drawing his attention to this very moment. His heart begins to beat faster, Kakashi biting his lip as he tries to push away th intrusive thoughts of maybe losing you too. He can’t help himself, panic motivating his next action, slowly nodding your arm with his hand, his heart beating faster when you don’t wake up. He can’t fight the paranoia sometimes, now attempting to sit upright to try and disturb hour sleep, hoping you’d wake up. “Baby”, he calls, “Hey…Y/n, baby…wake up please”, he softly calls, finally able to release the breath he held in waiting for you to respond. Tonight is a difficult night for him, but he seemed to forget that you’re here, and that you will always be here, you’ll never leave his side. “Mmhmm?”, you sleepily respond, drifting in between reality and your dreams, hearing someone call your name. “Baby, wake up please”, he calls again, hope filling his heart when he sees your eyes finally open. “Y/n. Baby…are you awake? I’m sorry, wake up please”, he says, waiting for you to get up. “Hey babe, what’s up?”, you ask confused, trying to shake away the sleep. “Hey, is everything okay?’, you ask, rubbing your eyes while giving him a few pecks against his neck and cheek. He already feels silly for worrying so much. “Uhm”, he says, clearing thought, worried that you’d be annoyed for being woken up unnecessarily. “I’m sorry for disturbing your sleep, I’ll make it up to you i promise”, he hurriedly says and you can hear him swallow, finally noticing the dampness of his shirt, quickly sobering up at the realization that he could’ve had another nightmare.
“Kashi, its okay”, you say lovingly, cupping his cheek in the palm for your warm hand. “It’s always okay, are you okay? Did you have another nightmare?’, you worriedly ask, sitting up on your knees to straddle his lap. Feeling a little guilty for even thinking if asking you this, he looks down in shame, and you can feel his face drop in your palm. Gently lifting his head up you place the softest kiss he’s ever share with you yet on his lips, and you feel something wet against your thumb. “Oh sweetheart, what’s the matter?”, you ask after noticing the tear that fell down his cheek. “I was just scared”, he admits, failing to drop his head low again since you held his face firm in the palms of your hands. “What is it love? Another nightmare?”, and Kakashi slowly nods. You gasp, your hand reaching the back of his head to pull him into you, holding him close, wrapping you arms around him. surrounded by your scent, he feels so safe, is voice shaky as he asks the next question. “You still love me?, a small chuckle leaving his lips to mask his feelings. But you knew him like the back of your hand, holding him tighter. “I’ve loved you for as long as I’ve known you, and I’ll continue to love you no matter what”, you say, separating yourself from him to palm his cheeks again, “Kakashi, you’re the love of my life, you don’t ever have to doubt that okay?”. Placing another soft kiss against his lips, you feel him squeeze you tighter. “I promise I’ll never leave you, ever”. Kakashi wonders why he entertained any of those intrusive thoughts to begin with, of course you love him. “I love you so much”, he says, his words muffled against your neck, but you hear his word loud and clearly, the two of you embracing one another until you feel Kakashi doze off in your arms. The cutest big baby.
🌸Jiraiya🌸
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Jiraiya constantly wonders how on earth a man like him was gifted with such a kind hearted, loving partner. A pervert who didn’t even think it capable of loving one person, but here he is, holding on to the love of his life, your hand loosely wrapped around a few of his fingers, Jiraiya smiling at just how precious you arm. Needing to use the bathroom, he ever so carefully creeps out of bed, but no, its not to cheat this time, no not with you, he left that life behind, its just to use the bathroom, the intense urge to be back in bed beside you exciting him so much it kind of scared him. After using the toilet, he stood in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection. A strong sense of shame washed over him, thoughts of unworthiness saddening him once again. How exactly is he supposed to deal with all this love? A love so graceful he wondered if he truly deserved it.
How can she love you, you womanizing son of a b—, “No, she does love me…”, he spoke aloud, refusing to let any negative thoughts occupy his head any further. “And I’m not a womanizer.”, he added, looking down in shame, trying to convince himself he was right. No matter how hard he tried to fight himself, he just couldn’t stop. No one ever bothered loving him, i mean how could they when he was always onto the next, but maybe change is true. Man can change, he reminded himself, his eyes shut to try and center himself. But the more he tried to block it out the more doubtful he became. Was someone pranking him? All those of years of playing with peoples hearts had to have finally come to bite him in the butt right?
He couldn’t hold back any longer, he needed answers. Why?, Why does he deserve a chance at love, especially with someone like you. He desperately needed to know, turning off the bathroom light to make his way to your shared bed. Uncertainty eating him from the inside out, he decided to gently wake you up, his large frame spooning you from the front, placing gentle kisses on your face as he called your name. “Princess, wake up, wake up”. He is so nervous, the sound of his rapidly beating heart loud in in his, so loud he can no longer handle it, he just needs you to tell him. “Y/n, cmon, wake up”, which you finally do, not sure if you just heard Jiraiya whining in your ear or if you were dreaming…the latter making more sense, until you hear him open his mouth again. “So…you’re awake now?”, he impatiently asks, still gently nudging your arm. “Yes baba, I’m awake, are you okay?”, you yawn, stretching out a little before you scoot closer to him, happy to feel his warmth surround you once again. “Baby, I’m okay yes. Uh…are you?”, “Mmhmm?”, is all you say, burying your head in his chest to find some sleep agin, and just when you fly yourself drifting off again, he finally asks, “Do you really love me?”, his voice so low he wonders if you actually heard him, but you certainly did, smiling to yourself before wrapping a arm around him, placing small kisses against his neck. “Nothing matters to me more than you Jiraiya, I love you so much baba!”, your words soft and genuine, Jiraiya’s denial subsiding, gently squeezing you and placing kisses on your forehead. “Will you always love me?”, he asks, a small chuckle leaving your mouth over how whiny he came across, so out of character. “I don’t ever want to stop, loving you everyday makes me so happy” and with that Jiraiya could go on another day confident that he is loved.
🌸Madara🌸
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Honestly, Madara just wants attention, he’s such an attention seeker that he’s willing to disturb your sleep if he’s bored enough, or sometimes just because its fun. I mean, he knows you love him, if anything he’d be confused if you didn’t, after all, he genuinely believes he’s the whole package and that you’re truly lucky to have him, but even so, there might be a teeny tiny bit of doubt in his heart sometimes. He will wake you up anyway, just because he can, its something you do too when you want cuddles, so he wants to have his turn tonight.
“Hey sweetheart”, he softly calls, rubbing your back as you lay on top of him. “Princess, its time to wake up”, he says, placing his hands on your underarms to effortlessly lift you up, your upper body dangling above him while he gently shakes you like a baby, which does the trick, your body jerking as you wake up from the feeling of falling, your arms flaying everywhere when you opened your eyes and realized you were not laying on anything. “Relax babe!”, Madara chuckles, gently lowering you to lay on top of him again. You immediately sit up on your elbows, your arms on each side of him as your stare him down, easily finding his blood red irises in the darkness of your room. “Babyyy that’s not funny!”, you whine, your husband still laughing at you, his pupils still spinning, recording the entire thing. “Heey”, you softly yell, biting your lips to try and hold yourself back from laughing, but his laugh was so contagious you just couldn’t, annoyed that you couldn’t be serious about this. “Babbbyyy!”, you giggle, lightly slapping his chest, his large hand cupping your cheek, as he slightly lifts himself up to plant a kiss against your lips. “I’m sorry princess, I didn’t mean to startle you like that”, his voice calm and deep, so soothing you felt like you could forgive him, leaning forward for another soft kiss, your lips simply pressing against his before parting. You could kiss him like that forever. “Why are you awake? And why did you wake me up?”, you question, your eyes almost closing as his hand now moved to the back of your head, massaging your scalp as you spoke. “I just wanted to know something”, he says, delaying the reason, making you impatiently whine, “Uh uh, i wont tell you why I woke you up if you whine like that”, he teases, “okay then goodnight”, you respond, laying down on his chest. “Okay okay wait”, he huffs, annoyed that you won.
“I, just wanted to ask if you love me?”, he asks, manipulating his voice to sound all innocent and cute, making you roll your eyes as you giggle. “I should be asking you that since you woke me up like that baby, but how can i not love my attention seeking little baby’, you tease, planting small kisses on is lips, making him smile. “Hey I’m not an attention seeker”, he says, lightly smacking you butt, a giggle escaping you lips. “Says the guy who woke me up to ask if i love him, even though I told you I love you a million times before we went to bed”, you yawn, snuggling into him once again, Madara lifting the blankets up to cover you. “Whatever princess, I love you okay?’, he says, wrapping his arms around you, smiling at your response and you quickly dosed off. “I love you so much”
@aiyaaayei 💗🫧
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chelleztjs18 · 9 months
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Love Language (W.M)
Wanda Maximoff x Fem!CivilianReader (Avengers AU)
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Summary: After Thanos, Wanda retires, along with a long term effect from all the missions she had and then she met you.
Warning: None, just some fluff. Mentions of hearing loss and sign languages.
A/n: Hello! It's me! I have a fluff now after the angsts I have posted. Thanks to my Curious George anon for the inspiring talk and ideas. Y'all can thank her too for motivating me to write and post a fic here today. lol. Welp, happy reading peeps!
Main Masterlist
Years of being Avengers was quite a lot for Wanda, not to mention losing Vision after Pietro. Mission after mission, countless fighting off the enemies felt like she was in an endless war without any possibility to end.
Fortunately, Wanda was wrong. After defeating Thanos, The Avengers are finally able to retire. Wanda is grateful that everybody including her are still alive, though it was hard for her in the beginning to get out the grief from Vision’s death. During all of the fighting she has been through as an Avengers, Wanda can’t escape the explosions or other loud sounds that happened.
It cost her an invisible permanent damage. Wanda has a progressive hearing loss. Her hearing is slowly deteriorating by time causing her to have to learn to read people’s lips in the beginning. With Natasha’s support, Wanda finally accepts her condition and learns sign language to be prepared for the day when she totally loses her hearing.
Then you come into her life.
To Wanda, meeting you at the grocery store near her house was the best thing ever to happen to her life. You brought back the colors in her life that she thought she had lost. You and Wanda have been together for almost a year. She loves you with all her heart. You are the life that she never thought that she would have ever again. Losing people that she loves has made her very skeptical in finding her happiness again but you have saved her.
You, you fell in love with her very hard. Heads over heels. To you, Wanda is perfect. No matter how much she tells you that she is not. You can’t blame her. You understand why she always tells you that she is not perfect because of her condition. Although right now she can still hear certain sounds but most of the time, Wanda can’t hear very well.
Wanda tries to stall as long as she can to not wear hearing aids. She doesn’t feel confident
about how it looks when she puts them on even though some of them don’t look that obvious and are pretty discreet. At this point, Tony has given up in trying to convince her to wear the one that he created special for her. She prefers to read people's lips than wear hearing aids.
Since the first time you both met and then officially dating, the communications have been easy. You always try to talk clearly and slowly and she focuses on reading your lips. Wanda sees how patient you are no matter how many times she asks you to repeat your words or when she doesn’t hear your soft spoken voice.
Wanda knows how hard it is to learn sign language so she always tells you that you don’t have to learn about it. She loves you so much that she told you she would wear hearing aids once she loses all her hearing to save you and your time from learning sign language.
With mutual understanding and how much both of you love each other, life has been very beautiful and happy. Both of you do a lot of things together. Her favorite is movie night together with a lot of snacks and drinks. Either watching new movies at the theater and sometimes at home or watching another rerun of her or your favorite sitcoms.
Wanda always tries to hold herself back not to ask you whenever she probably can’t hear or miss some words because she doesn’t want to bother you. Being the sweetest girlfriend you are, you always quickly pause the movie whenever you see her face looking confused because you know what is actually happening and then help her explain or ask her which part she misses.
Tonight, you just bought an older movie that Wanda has been wanting to watch with you. All snacks are ready on the table and you are waiting for Wanda to bring the drinks.
You have been munching your favorite chips while waiting for her.
“Okay, here’s your drink, my sweet.” Wanda hands you the drink. You take the drink and try to finish the chips in your mouth before you answer. “Yay! Thank you, princess.” You take a sip then put the drink down.
You have some more chips and try to finish the chips. Wanda notices that you chew in a rush.
"Baby?" She calls.
"Hm?" You tap her hands as a sign of your hum while busy chewing and turning your head to her.
"You know if you keep chewing like that you'll finish the chip before the movie even starts, right?" Wanda teases you with a question followed by a giggle.
"Well yeah, that was the point, love." You smile. Wanda squints her eyebrows a little as she tries harder to read your lips while you are chewing and talk at the same time.
"What? Why?" Wanda looks perplexed from your answer.
"Oh, I'm trying to finish them all before the movie starts because I don't want to be noisy with all the crunchy noise during the movie, so you can hear the movie better." You explained as you take more chips.
Wanda feels her heart melt instantly after hearing your reason, bubbles of joy fill her heart. Her smile shows up right away on her face.
Her hand grabs yours to stop you grabbing the chips. "Detka, that's very sweet of you. You don't have to do that, I still can hear it. Thank you very much for thinking that way."
"Are you sure? I thought you don't like crunchy food when you are watching a movie?" Now it's your turn being confused as you look at her.
Wanda laughs a little. "Well it's okay. I can still hear it. It's harder for me to hear it if I was the one that chew the crunchy snacks but thank you, y/n." She smiles once more and leans to you to give you a quick kiss on your cheek.
She snuggles up closer to you, wrapping her arms around you and looks at you with her sparkling green eyes, full of joy and thinking how lucky she is to have the thoughtful you in her life.
“What did I do to deserve you? Gosh, you are so adorable.” she says in a very loving, grateful tone.
You look at her with your blushing cheeks as usual, you don’t know how to react to her compliment for you because all you can do is smile and ask her back “What? What did I do?”
“Just being you, sweet and thoughtful to me.” she replies, followed by her giggle that always makes you want to laugh with her.
“Of course. You deserve everything.” You kiss her forehead and you hear her giggle more.
“Oh, the movie starts. Shall we watch it now?” you ask as soon as you notice the TV screen.
She nods with a smile.
_____
The first thirty minutes of the movie, both of you enjoy it together. The longer the movie passes, the more often you shift your position and it becomes too obvious for Wanda to notice.
“Y/n, are you okay?”
You look at her with a nervous smile. “Yes, I am okay, love. Why?”
“Oh nothing. Your thoughts are pretty loud. I meant I don’t really know what you are thinking but I know for sure your mind is spinning right now. Like, you are nervous or worried about something.” Your Sokovian girlfriend explains her own conclusion from what she figures from your thoughts. Despite her power that can hear your thoughts, Wanda promises you that she will never invade the privacy of your mind. Being the overthinker you are, sometimes everything in your head can be pretty loud for her to at least feel them.
You are trying your best to not think too much so it won’t give Wanda a complete gift away on what you really have on plan.
You laugh, hoping that it will cover the truth. “Nervous? Why would I be nervous?” you asked apprehensively while you clear your throat. Bunch of thoughts bounce around in your head, memorizing things while preparing the right answer for any possible questions that Wanda might ask.
Seeing more obvious and a little unusual behaviors of yours, Wanda pauses the movie. Silence is all she wants right now so she can hear you just in case you are going to say something, but you don’t.
A concerned sigh went out of her lips. “Y/n, sweetheart. Look at me, please. Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”
You turn your body facing her now with your face looking down a little. You mumble a little and your hand slightly moves in a certain way as if you are rehearsing something.
“Babe, I can’t hear you and I can’t read your lips either. What did you say?” A line of confusion appears between her eyebrows. Her eyes try to look at your lips to read them.
You take a deep breath and exhale it slowly. “Okay..” you mumble once more under your breath then get on one knee.
You hold her hands and look into her eyes. Comfortable silence fills the room. “Wanda, my love.” The beautiful brunette in front of you looks so surprised with what she sees, not from what she reads on your lips because you didn’t say anything but your hands movements say it all.
You continue doing sign language for everything that you are about to say to her.
“I’m so glad that a year ago you came for my help at work and asked me where the beddings aisle was, because you were the sweetest and cutest woman I’ve ever met. My heart skipped a bit and knew that you were the one for me right then right away. Having a life with you in this past year has been the best privilege I ever have. Loving you is so easy because you are perfect and flawless. I want to keep going, having life and loving you for the rest of my life. So, Wanda, will you marry me?” you slow down your hand movement when you reach the last sentence to show more emotions in it and right after that, you grab the opened little box with a ring in it.
Wanda looks at you in awe and can’t hold back her happy tears. Joy warms her heart. She is touched by your effort and surprise at learning sign language, let alone proposing to her with it.
“Of course! Yes! A thousand times yes!” Due to how speechless she is from the enormous amount of happiness, Wanda’s hand did the sign language for her answer. She then pulls you to hug you and kiss you.
Several quick gentle kisses land on your lips and cheeks. You pull yourself back a little to see her joyful beautiful face. Wanda’s hand gently rubs your cheek and goes to the top of your head, caressing your hair as soon as you two end up snuggling on the couch.. Both of you looked at each other with the look of so much love.
“When did you learn sign language?” She questioned you in a curious tone. “Uh, Tony and Natasha have been helping me with it at the compound, plus he created this app that can help me learn more by myself whenever I can.”
“Wait, so all these overtime at work the last few months? You actually went to the compound to learn your proposal lines?” Wanda giggles and her cheeks blush at the same time.
“Yes, I have been going to the compound and no, I didn’t learn only the proposal lines. I learned everything. I know sign language now, only for you but I’m not a pro yet, so please bear with me.” you answer after you give a few more soft kisses all over her that draws more giggles from her.
“Aww, that’s really sweet. Thank you, y/n. I’m so lucky to have you.” Wanda expresses her genuine feelings.
“I love you, Wanda.”
Those words are the most beautiful words she ever reads on your lips that will always swoon her off her feet, fall for you over and over again.
“I love you too, my sweet.
A/n: Welp, that's all for today from me. I hope you enjoyed this short fluff. Let me know what you think. Reblogs and comments are highly appreciated. Follow me for more and see you in next!
Cheerio!
Taglist: @madamevirgo @musicinourlips @unstable-sapphic-hoe @fanboy7794 @chloe7076 @b0mbdotc0m @trikruismybitch @ichala @californianwhiterabbit @honey-sweet-hiraeth @imfuckinggenius @sxfwap @chaekhan @daenerys713 @luvmcgrath @stupidsapphicsstuff @pattypavo @imdoingsortagay @marvelwoman-sugarbaby @savethefbees @frvny @franfineashell @heyyoweveryone @ygtft-chen @yaaskasey @sweeet-likeeee-cinnamonn @paumxmff @dopeyouth @beaniejennie @ineedafinghug @idkwhatimwriting @lucydiibi @mainly-rebloging-fics-i-like @gloriousfoxruins @grxvitye @mcubreakdown101 @aos22 @wandanatstan @paulawand @yeeterthekeeper @femalehomosexual666 @snowdrop1026 @modernmonalisa @nothingisrealanyway @idamaemann @sweeterlust @royalityofmultifandom @playboysaleen @peabrain112 @gwhaley127 @harleyswanda @bodhi-j @darth-rain @cristin-rjd
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bloodywickedvamp · 3 months
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Two's Company - What The Hell Is Six? Part 3
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Poly!Lost Boys x GN Reader x Michael
Series Masterlist
Summary: It's date night
Word Count: 3.5k
Warnings: swearing, touching, angst, arguments, flirting, lil kiss
I really cannot believe it took me so long to finish part 3 like...where did the time go?? It was almost an entire year...I just struggled to find the motivation but I finally did! Not sure if this is even good it's so late when I finished writing lol, hope you enjoy!
Dividers: @saradika & @firefly-graphics
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“Okay…I’ll do it.”
“What?” Michael turns towards me and asks bewildered. I can’t blame him, I’m a little shocked by my own acquiescence. 
I tear my gaze from David to Michael and briefly at our fingers laced together before meeting his eyes. 
“I know this isn’t ideal Mikey, but you heard them, they won’t stop. We can talk about this more later, okay? Just trust me.” Squeezing his hand so tight, to help him to understand why I’m doing this. Why I didn’t have a choice other than to accept their ‘offer’. To protect him from whatever they’re truly capable of. If I said no, they’d take it out on Michael, I know they would. 
He takes a moment to respond. Taking me in from top to bottom and squeezing back a non-verbal response before speaking. With more understanding than I initially thought he’d be capable of granting, he nods, brings our hands up to his lips to ghost them over my knuckles and finally lets out a soft 'okay' with a gentle smile only meant for me. I mirror the sweetness in his face back, until the moment is interrupted. 
“Well that’s just adorable.” David snorted, all too eager to have our attention not on each other. 
“But if you’re finished I’d like to get back to the date you just agreed to.” He directed impatiently. 
“Fine, but there are some ground rules we need to establish first.” I said.
“Oh?” questioned David. He seemed amused by my answer, curiosity slipping through at what I could possibly come up with. 
“First, no kissing or inappropriate touching-”
Paul cut me off to complain, “damn babe, those are all my go-to moves.”
Dwayne swiftly takes it upon himself to reprimand the wild blonde with an elbow to the side and a ‘shut up Paul’. While said blonde untangles his arm from the taller man's shoulders to soothe his aching side with a look of exasperation, like he’d been completely put out by the interaction. 
“Ow, I was only kinda kidding. You can’t hit me like that man, you know I'm sensitive.” He croaked out in a very childlike manner accompanied by a pouty bottom lip. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually got into the fetal position next with how dramatic of a person he seemed to be. In a different circumstance I would’ve found the exchange funny and how close the two are adorable. 
Instead of dwelling, I decided to continue. “Second, we won’t be going anywhere private, we’ll be in public the whole time. Third, no threatening or hurting Michael for any reason. No matter what happens on our ‘date’ you don’t get to do anything to him.” Emphasizing date with a quick eye roll. I may have agreed to this but I don’t have to be happy about it. 
Michael let out a small chuckle from my right before he leaned down to whisper in my ear “My hero.” I try my best to hold back the smile threatening to sneak its way past my serious demeanor but it’s useless and I crack. I can never seem to hold myself back when it comes to Michael, he pulls every part of me to the forefront, good or bad, he always embraces it with open arms and a warm smile. 
“Is that all or do you have any more demands princex?” Marko piped in, once again directing our attention towards the boys in front of us. 
“That’s all for now, but if I think of any more I’ll be sure to let you know promptly.” I finish with faux nicety and the sweetest smile I can muster. 
Pulling a sarcastic laugh from him followed by an even more sarcastic “Can’t wait.” 
It seems Marko and I will be having the most lively time together on our date, if we don’t kill each other first. 
This time, I hear a genuine laugh come from the same curly headed boy. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
I’m baffled at the comment. His joyous response sounded like it was directed at my previous thought, one I definitely thought to myself and didn’t voice aloud. 
“Wait, I didn’t say anything. How-”
Paul decides to answer me first. “We've got all kinds of tricks we can show you baby”, with an additional cheeky grin thrown my way. 
While David finishes with a “but we’ll save that for next time. We’ll meet back here tomorrow night where we usually park the bikes, right after sunset. Don’t be late.” He looks between Michael and I as the quartet begin to make their leave. Each boy giving their own version of a goodbye with waves and ‘catch ya laters’ till they’ve vanished from underneath the boardwalk back towards the stairs. 
“So…we should probably get home and maybe figure out what the hell you just agreed to.” Michael announces after a bout of silence following the departure. 
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After Michael drives us back home, he seems to be in a better mood than I expected. He’s acting like his old self again, not letting go of my hand or some part of my body since we arrived. The truth coming out makes him much more at ease, which I can appreciate. The rest of the family noticed his sudden presence at the dinner table with stunned expressions, Sam even commenting ‘what were you dying for moms lasagna or something bud?’ as Lucy shoo’s that off with a wave of her hand and says she’s happy to see everyone together again for dinner with a beaming smile along her face, quickly changing the topic to grandpa’s aversion to giving him an overdue haircut.
Later on, Michael and I found ourselves in the bedroom we share. After a lengthy discussion of the night to come and having to only calm him down a couple of times from leaving to find the boys again and telling them to fuck off, we agree on sticking it out just for tomorrow. After the dates I tell them it won’t work and we can put this mess behind us, hopefully. The matter of Michael being a bloodthirsty creature of the night has yet to be discussed. 
“I still don’t like this plan, just so we’re clear.” He proceeds to tell me one final time as we start to lay down to sleep with a few hours of darkness left cloaking the sky before dawn breaks. 
“We don’t have any other options…unless one of your new special tricks includes time travel to before you met them.” I jokingly tack on as I cuddle further into his side. 
He releases a light chuckle while rubbing my back soothingly. “Sadly no, that’s not in my abilities.” 
“It’ll be okay.” I say, not certain if it’s more for his sake or my own. He silently agrees with a kiss to my forehead and a soft goodnight as we both fall asleep in the comfort of this small window of time we have together. 
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Michael and I silently wake up just hours before we would need to leave, having mostly slept the day away together. As dusk quickly approaches, getting ready seemed an easier task than I initially anticipated. He showers after me and dresses in his usual attire of blue jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, and his newly acquired leather jacket that I can’t help but start to like the more I see him in it. While I put on a nice tank top, black jean shorts, and sneakers, dressing fairly casual but also something I would wear on a date with Michael. My outfit showed a bit more skin due to the heat. 
He gives me a once over before asking ‘Is that new?’ as he points to my top. I nod with a look of ‘yeah why?’ and he only shakes his head back before answering, “nothing, you just look nice…and not to sound like a jealous boyfriend but…I can’t say i’m happy seeing you wear something new for them.” 
“Hey I can chan-”
“No.” He stops me before I begin. “Like I said you look good and I’ll just have to get over the fact that they’re getting to be with you tonight and not me, when all I want to do now is rip your outfit to shreds and toss you back in that bed till morning.” He says, as he grabs my hips pulling me into a heated kiss. Only allowing himself to pull back as I’m gasping for air. 
“Very tempting offer.” I breathlessly snicker while running my hands through his thick head of curls. He pulls me back in for one more peck and reluctantly drags me along to the front door so we can head out.
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We arrive at the boardwalk and Michael parks his bike exactly where David said they’d be, watching the crowd go by and laughing amongst themselves till we’ve made our way into the group beside them as they take notice. Michael helps me off his bike as we stand in front of them, hands still intertwined. 
David looks at us like it’s cute we’re still trying to hold up some type of front to the situation, and I guess in a way he’s right, they have the upper hand. 
Surprisingly Marko is the first to speak, “And here I thought you were dreading going out with us, but by the looks of that outfit I’d say you were trying to put on a show, feel free to show off even more skin if you’d like.” It takes everything in my body to stay calm because I know that comment is only meant to get a rise out of me. I won’t give him the satisfaction. 
After I take a soothing breath I reply, “It’s hot outside and I’d rather not keel over from overheating, that’s all.” 
He leans closer with a smirk and gives a half-hearted “whatever you say sweetheart”, before leaning back and giggling like school girls about it with Paul. I simply roll my eyes and turn my attention back to David. 
“Let’s go.” He announces to the group as we all start to follow his lead. Dwayne walks in stride with Michael and I, sandwiching me between them, with Marko and Paul tailing behind us. I decide to chance it and look at Dwayne as he leans down towards me, not breaking eye contact for even a moment as we continue to walk. “Don’t let him get to you, he just likes to ruffle feathers. But for what it’s worth, you look lovely.” His lips lift into a half smile, half smirk once he notices the heat rising to my cheeks at the complement. I attempt to brush it off with a quick ‘thanks’ and steal a glance at Michaels now taut jaw and lingering gaze on us. I turn my attention forward as Dwayne’s hand coyly slides up my waist and is gone again before I even have time to register it as he picks up his pace to step in time with David. Michael lets out a scoff and pulls me closer to his side by our joined hands. 
David walked us to a section of restaurants with outdoor seating we could all gather at, choosing a wooden picnic bench for us. Michael and I are sitting on one bench with the two natural blondes and brunette sitting on the other, while David decides to grab a lone chair from a different table and pull it up on the side so he’s seated at the ‘head’ of the table. 
“So how is this going to work exactly? Are we all doing this together or…?” I decide to voice my curiosity before the conversation inevitably gets side tracked or leads to another argument.  
All eyes turn to David as he fills me in. “We’ll each take you out individually - Dwayne’s first.” Nodding his head in the direction of his friend. My own gaze found its way back to his dark brown eyes, that same smile from earlier plastered on. In that moment a wave of familiarity washed over me, like I’ve gotten lost in those eyes a million times before and would continue to do so for as long as I’d be allowed to stare into them. Like how it feels to look into Michaels. 
Michael.
Remembering he’s sitting right next to me I shake the previous thoughts away and proceed to stand to meet Dwayne on the other side so we can get this night started already. 
But I freeze in my tracks as it suddenly occurs to me that Michael will be all alone with the other boys for the rest of the evening, and the thought of him being tormented and teased about this situation he has no control over sends a pang of guilt through me. I decide I have to try and ease some of the tension, if I can. 
“Wait- before we go I have another condition to add.” 
David leans back in his chair with a raised brow, gloved fingers tapping along the table. “Yes?” 
“If this is going to work you can’t be at each other's throats the whole time I'm gone. Michael told me that he barely knows anything about any of you and vice versa, so while I'm on each date the rest of you are going to stay here and get to know each other - like real friends.” 
“What?” 
“I’m serious, you’re not going to sit here all night and fuck with my boyfriend behind my back, I’m not asking.” I try to muster up as much confidence in my words as I'm sure David actually has naturally coursing through him. He only ponders what I've said momentarily before giving a strained smile that doesn’t exactly meet his eyes and mutters out a quick ‘sure’. Looking towards the others that slowly nod along in agreement - even if their faces say otherwise. 
Now feeling better about leaving, I let Dwayne lead the way out of the seating area towards the  crowds of people scattered along the boardwalk for whatever he had planned.
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Michael turns back to the remaining boys seated with him after staring daggers into Dwayne's back before the two completely disappear from sight. He speaks up before the others can, to get the ball rolling. “Okay so…where should we start?” He sends them each a questioning glance. 
David stares back with the most incredulous look he can muster, like he couldn’t believe he was actually going through with the ‘getting to know each other idea’. After a minute a mocking smile takes over his face. 
“Yeah…” He draws out. “We’re not doing that.” He says with little room for push back. 
Michael crosses his arms over his chest and nods his head in a similar mocking manner, amused by the reply. “You’ve got a lot to learn, they’ll come back and expect a full report on what we talked about, want specifics to make sure you followed through on your promise.” 
“We’ll make something up.” David again says matter of factly. 
Michael scoffs. “They’ll be able to tell if i’m lying, how do you think I ended up in this situation in the first place? I wasn’t able to keep what you did to me a secret.” The other boys may not want to participate in this but he’d be damned if he got into trouble for not at least trying to play nice. 
“Alright, fine. I particularly enjoyed watching you get your ass chewed out in front of half the boardwalk last night. It was the highlight of my week.” David faux relents, like he’s shared intimate knowledge of himself only few know and pretends as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders with a content sigh. Stifled giggles from the terror twins echo in the background. 
“You know what, the only one you’re hurting is yourself. Keep it up and they’ll want nothing to do with you. Which will be the highlight of my life.” 
Silence followed Michaels statement as the two were now sat in a heated staring match. The tension in the air rapidly increased as neither one backed down. If looks could kill they’d both be six feet under. Even the blondes, who hadn’t said a word since the conversation began, were forced into an awkward stillness watching the interaction unfold, waiting for the underlying hostility to bubble over. 
Paul decides someone has to try and mediate before this gets any uglier and, more importantly, his turn for a date is possibly soured by the oldest and newest member of their pack coming to blows. In his opinion the best way to deal with this would be to let them fight it out, but he knows the night can’t end with them covered in blood, scratches, and bite marks - unless they’re fucking. 
All eyes are suddenly shifted to Paul as he clears his throat obnoxiously. “Uhhh…my favorite band is Mötley Crüe.” He says with a bright smile, proud that it actually worked since the boys' body languages were all seeming to relax. 
Marko, good naturedly, pats Paul on the back as an ‘attaboy’ for the attempt. 
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As Dwayne and I continue walking through the boardwalk I feel one of his hands graze my lower back and rest there. I quickly snatch his wrist and pull it in front of me.
“I said no touching.” I admonish. Before I can drop it, he seizes the opportunity to grab my hand instead. 
“I was only trying to guide you, but you’re right this way is better so we don’t get separated.” 
“Right…” I probably should have put up more of a fight, but the crowd is double the size of last night's and we could easily lose each other. Not that I really believe his reason for wanting to hold my hand is so noble. I let it slide anyways.
We make small talk about movies and music as we venture through different stalls. Anytime he asks me a question I have to mentally prepare myself before answering. His intense gaze makes me apprehensive, it's like he’s enraptured by every word and I’m nervous if what I'm saying is even adequate. He hasn’t been judgemental yet, so I let his deep baritone put me at ease when he responds to something I’ve said. 
He pulls us to a stop in front of an ice cream shop claiming it's the best in town and we should get some. After ordering and him paying for both of ours, we head towards the other side to lean against the railing while we eat. He watches as I dig out a spoonful of the sweet treat to taste. My eyes go wide from the first bite. He wasn’t kidding about how good it is and he seemed proud of himself once I told him exactly that. 
After a few mouthfuls of his own, he silently gestures towards his cup asking if I’d like to try the flavor he had and I nod in agreement. He dips his spoon in and holds it to my mouth for me to try. I squint at it before making eye contact with him and before I can even get a word out he’s anticipated why I won't try it. 
“You’re not cheating on Michael by tasting my ice cream.”
“No, but I’m not trying to swap spit by sharing a spoon.” I decline, while gently pushing his arm towards his own face to eat it and he does so with a chuckle. 
He relents and allows me to try it with my own spoon. I, in turn, make him the same offer with my cup of ice cream. 
Instead, he takes his thumb and swipes it across the corner of my mouth before bringing it back to his own and sucking on the digit. 
“Pretty good.” He says casually.
I’m in shock as my whole body is set aflame from the intimate moment. He grants me a small mercy by not acknowledging how much it affected me. I proceed to eat the rest in silence knowing if I look him in the eye or, god forbid, try and have a conversation after that I’d be a stuttering mess. 
He takes the lead once more by throwing out our trash and grabbing my hand to help me off the railing. 
“Let’s check out a few pop up booths, there might be something there you like.” He says as he walks us in that direction. 
“Like clothes and stuff?” I ask. I haven’t really explored the boardwalk before so I don’t know much about what they have or the best places to shop. 
“Yeah, that’s usually where we pick something up if we need new clothes, that’s where Marko gets all his patches because they’re…cheap.”
“Do you even own a shirt?” I jest. “Because I’ve only ever seen you in just that jacket.”
He looks back at me with amusement in his eyes. 
“I do, but the clean up from a night out is much easier without one.” 
I give him a weary look and he tenses slightly like he said something he probably shouldn’t have. 
“Do I want to know what that means?” 
He shakes his head at me, “no, probably not.” 
“Let’s just keep the conversation light for now.” I suggest, hoping not to dive into anything too heavy. I’ve enjoyed the mostly chill atmosphere so far and hope it can stay that way. 
“Deal”, he says as he gives me a genuine smile as we continue on our way.
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tiredmamaissy · 2 months
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hey 👋
i think this is the longest i've been gone. i missed you all a lot. i've been writing this entire time, and wanted to finish the last (for now, it’s definitely not completed) two chapters of the ralak series before officially coming back. i didn't want to come back without some sort of peace offering (lol how could i come back empty handed?) and i don’t want to leave you guys hanging again, gotta give some sort of closure to this series!
i'm almost finished, but i felt like i needed to come on here and explain myself.
i've been really struggling with my mental lately. it's just been pretty bad, to be frank. and when i get like this, i find it extremely difficult to juggle all that life entails, and will typically neglect certain aspects of it just to get by. unfortunately, this, and my social life, have taken the biggest hit. i find it hard to keep in touch regularly with friends, and i end up just retreating into my shell. motivation becomes little, or nothing at all.
i don't want to go into too much detail, but i've found myself between a rock and a hard place. i don't feel like i have many options in my current situation. i feel trapped. i suppose i've felt this way for the past few years, but it's just been pretty bad recently. issy has been an escape for me. i created a ‘new’ identity, one that i could unapologetically be myself. no face to the name type of thing. i fell in love with pandora, yearning to go there. and suddenly, my ideal world--my ideal everything was at my fingertips.
when i first started, the feeling of regaining my identity after so many years was exhilarating. i put many, many things on the back burner to immerse myself into this feeling and this world. quicker meals, shorter showers, later bedtimes. i did any and everything to dedicate as much time as i could muster up to hold onto this new identity. i could feel myself becoming happier, slipping back into who i was before i lost her.
but life just happens. you know? it continued, and it did so ten-fold. it was one thing after the next, and soon my plate was so full that i had to take something off of it. i guess i'm used to choosing myself to neglect first, so i told myself i'd put this off until i could get through this and then come back. so i did, and i came back. then life happened again. so i left, and came back.
but this time around life hit me hard. i felt like i was playing a game on the hardest difficulty, with a half a life, no pauses, and no way to exit safely. i'm still playing that game, but i've realised that i should really try to make the most of it. so i've been writing in what time i have. it's been one of my biggest escapes and it makes me happy that i can share it, and see that others enjoy what my silly brain comes up with.
i'm ready to come back, but i'm honestly still really overwhelmed with life. i really, really don't want to disappoint anyone…and i can't promise that i won't leave again anytime soon. i never want to leave. and honestly, i don't think i'll ever really leave for good. i will forever love avatar, and all that it’s done for me for the past 14 years. i guess i’m just trying to say… thank you all for your patience and love.
okidoki, let me stop here while i can lol.
ill be posting the chapters as soon as i'm done with them, ofc. i love you guys!! i’m heading to bed and will try to clear out my inbox and dm’s asap
-issy 💜
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crash-and-cure · 8 months
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Been a Thorn in the Side of Man (Yandere!Elvis x Reader)
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Summary: In her twenty years of the business, Jimena’s seen just about the worst Hollywood has to offer. However all of that failed to prepare her for the likes of Elvis Presley. 
A/N: Yikes on bikes, this took alot longer than I was expecting. I would like to personally thank @stylespresleyhearted ​ for keeping me motivated to write and allowing me to bounce ideas off her and on top of all of that making the beautiful mood board above. I was just able to release this on my birthday so there's that lol. Based off of this request.
Warnings: Yandere!Elvis so expect themes of obsessive, manipulative, jealous, and delusional behavior. Dubious Consent in regards to coersion being involved. Explicit sexual content depicted that includes Penetrative sex (m/f), oral sex (f.recieving), doggy style and mating press, and not to mention huge breeding kink on his part. BIG TRIGGER Warning for some suicidal ideation on his part. Loss of family members. Drug overdose. Mentions of Pregnancy. Self-loathing. Probably more that I am blanking on. Please do not interact if you are under 18. 
Word Count: I’m gonna be honest, stopped counting  after 30K (don’t judge me)
Then 
There’s an odd sense of calm once one officially accepts that they’re alone in the world. It’s easier in a way to accept that no one will ever truly look out for her, than it is to have to face the earth-shattering disappointment that is having believed for a moment that someone would. 
These are the thoughts going through her head as Jimi slowly folded her daily copy of the Excelsior. 
Most women would be violently mad after having read what she just did, but it was almost a relief to finally have an answer to why he has really been so absent in her life these last few months. It’s not like it should be surprising to her really, this town having shown her for years what it thinks about women like her: Seductive, temptress, exotic, temperamental, alluring… disposable.
It’s a story told time and time again in Los Angeles. Orson Welles and Dolores Huerta, Gary Cooper and Lupe Velez, and now Elvis Presely and Jimena Perez can be added to those ranks of doomed romances. 
I’d rather kiss three black women than a single Mexican woman, those are the words that ring within Jimenas head as she sits at her little breakfast table, though for what it’s worth it is nothing less than a deliberate action. As masochistic as it sounds she truly believes it’s for the better should she ever get to thinking this situation is in any way fixable. 
But even still as she stares unblinkingly at the plain wall of her just recently occupied home, she is a little confused as to why her vision gets cloudy. It takes her a moment to comprehend that she’s crying, something that she so rarely does these days anymore. 
And to think this is all over some musician.
She’ll never forget the first time she met him in person, all the standard camera and makeup testing that comes from early production. She’s far from the most experienced makeup assistant at Paramount, but in their words she’s the only makeup girl they trust to “behave” around him. Having grown up in the business, Jimena’s all but lost her ability to be starstruck by anybody really, so they’re not too far off in this notion. 
As they were explaining the whole purpose of this to the relatively green actor, she looked at him with a critical eye, examining his features, comparing it to other actors she had already worked on in the past, and trying to recall how best to highlight them on screen. 
He catches her looking at him and he shoots her a wicked smile, but where other girls would’ve gotten embarrassed at being caught staring she only redoubles her efforts now that she’s got a better look at his face, arguably staring even harder at him. In a funny turn of events he’s the one that looks away bashfully as though she were the one that caught him looking. 
While her official production title is as the resident makeup artist, she’s personally worked almost every job there is to have on a set save for actually sitting in the big chair and directing. Lights, costuming, talent wrangling, she’s seen and done just about all of it. She had been working behind the scenes since she was 14, where with a little bit of makeup trickery, she was not only able to convince everybody that she was an adult, but that she was the new hire. This would eventually give way to getting actually hired, as they simply trusted the fact given she was already on the lot. 
And somewhere between watching Dorothy Gale throw up in her own purse and seeing Rhett Butler remove his own teeth, did the whole concept of Hollywood movie magic well and truly die in her mind. 
Drugs, drinks, boys, girls, and every other vice to be had, Jimena’s seen even the most clean cut of stars fall into at least one category or another. So when she got the news she was gonna be on a project with him of all people, she had thought she had well and truly prepared for anything this man could throw her way. 
But when she actually gets a good up-close look at him, she starts to get that sinking feeling in her stomach. Not for anything he did or how he looked, but the way he acted. She heard his stuttering words and felt his soft cheeks in her hands, and there was only one thought in her head throughout the whole process. 
Pobrecito they’re gonna eat you alive.
All her years in this business, she’s got a pretty good grasp when people are being genuine or not. And he’s perhaps the most genuine person she had ever encountered. Wide-eyed bumpkin from down south was hardly new, but there was just something about Elvis Presley that made it a tinge more tragic than it would be normally. 
She barely spoke that first meeting, the higher ups weren’t that interested in her words these days, nor did he really try to initiate anymore conversation with the way his mouth was gaping at her. Hardly a new experience, but admittedly a little less unwelcome coming from him. 
So it took her by surprise the first day of shooting when he said “I didn’t get the pleasure of catchin’ your name last time,” he said with a grin as she set down her make-up kit. 
She’s quick to recover with a “Because I didn’t give it.” 
He gives a short huff at that before insisting once again since after all, she’s gonna be around him for the next ten or so weeks. 
“You can call me Jimi,” she says, barely sparing him a glance in favor of looking over the notes of what today’s scene will call for. 
“That really your name sweetheart?” which is not unfair to ask. It wasn’t her first choice, but it is the one that distanced her the most from her old stage name. 
“White people can’t pronounce it,” she justified as she tied her hair up with her favorite red bandana. “So I don’t bother with it here.” It’s sort of the truth, and that’s usually enough to get even the more obnoxiously “nice” ones off her back. 
“Well I’m willing to give it a shot,” he says amiably, apparently up for the challenge that she presents. 
She takes his chin in her hands and with a soft smile on her lips, and while he’s blushing up a storm she looks down at him and says a simple “No.”
He’s taken aback both by her words and the sudden spray of water from the bottle in her hand. She could’ve given a cursory warning to him but she has to remind herself that this entire situation works best when actors are indifferent towards her. 
It’s for the best, she tells herself. The less you say about yourself, the better, she wants nothing more than to keep her Mena and Nena days far in the past. 
Though it soon became clear that it wasn’t meant to be. 
“Y’know…” he starts off as he’s looking at her in the mirror. “Ya kinda look like that one girl, uhh what’s her name.” He says snapping his fingers trying to force him to remember even though you know for a fact who he’s talking about. “Elena Somethin’.” 
“Elena Leon?” she sighs, knowing already where this is going.
“That’s the one,” he would say, snapping his fingers in recognition. “Though, ‘tween the two of ya’, I think you’re the prettier one.”
“Hmm…” she answers, pursing her lips and practically shutting down as he quickly changes the subject to how excited he is to be working on another movie set. She didn’t engage much after that outside of the occasional hum of acknowledgement, until he eventually gave-up and would forlornly read his script. 
That wouldn’t stop him the next day from telling her about how his dumbass cousin made him late this morning and all the antics they get up to back in Memphis.
Or the next when he asked if Pink’s was actually any good or if it’s all just hype.
So on and so forth for the next few days as he would try to get her to talk to him again. 
She had been determined to just treat him like any other actor she had worked with, and just do her job, but then she saw him getting really cozy with a certain girl on set. Now on-set flings are par for the course on any production, and literally anyone else she wouldn’t have batted an eye, but she knows for a fact that that one is known to be dangerous. Well she’s not so dangerous, but her husband is. 
“Stay away from her,” she would whisper to him one day as she applied some eyeshadow trying to imitate a black eye.
“So you do speak,” he says, cracking an eye open, a triumphant smile on his face as though he’s won some great victory over her. 
“Yes, so listen to me,” she counters, her eyes boring into his to show him how serious she is. 
“Why do you care so much darlin’?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow, a small smile on his lips, still apparently not taking her seriously.
“My job is to keep you pretty for the cameras,” she states, in as matter of fact as she can manage. “You’re going to make that a lot harder if you don’t listen to me, and her husband beats the shit out of you.” 
“She’s married?” he asked, astonished that he could miss such a thing. “M-my manager said she could get me some good roles, that her Daddy is some big-time producer” he argues back. 
“Yes,” Jimena clarifies. “Her husband, who she calls daddy, can get you one very high paying role, and that’s only if you let him watch. If your manager didn’t know this, he’s a dumbass.” 
“Let him watch what?” he asks, confused. Her pursed lips, refusal to meet his eyes, and following silence speaks volumes, as his own cobalt eyes go comically wide as to what she was implying. “Her husband?” he says, and she gives him a small affirmative nod. “And he watches?” A raise of her brows as her eyes slide away from him just reaffirms this unorthodox situation. “So… Wait a second… does he or does he not like it when she’s with other men?” 
“Both,” she states, adding the finishing touches to her work. “He likes to watch and after that he beats the shit out of the boy in question.” And even though she’s pretty secure in the fact that no one is listening in, she still gets close to him to whisper this last part into his ear. “It’s apparently the only way he can get it up anymore.”
The fact that she sees his ears go bright red from just that little tidbit of information just really goes to show how green he still is in regards to how things work in this town. 
“How d’ya know all this?” he asks, more than a little disturbed now.
Not to brag but she regards herself as a wealth of information on the comings and goings of the Hollywood elite. Close enough to the action to overhear everything but low enough in the pecking order that most assume she’s incapable of doing anything about it. 
But this is basic information that even the lowliest of extras were privy to, so you can’t fathom how a man with a near meteoric rise to stardom wouldn’t know this. 
“Are you kidding?” she would in turn ask him. “Everybody knows.”
“Wait if everybody knows then why doesn’t anyone put a stop to it?” he asks, trying to find logic in a city not exactly known for it. 
“Because the only thing more powerful than secrets in this town is money, and he’s got a lot to keep everyone quiet.” 
Besides it’s only a matter of time before something gives in that tragedy waiting to happen. From all the whisperings Jimena’s been hearing, the girl in question has been keeping some rendezvous’ secret from her husband and more or less bragging that there’s no prenup in place. While he in turn has turned his eyes to some pretty little barely legal extra, he’s also very Catholic, doesn’t believe in divorce, and has rumored connections to the mob. 
Not even a week later did she hear whisperings that the very same producer had quickly sold all his stock in Paramount and decided to retire to the French Riviera with his wife seemingly overnight though there are conflicting reports as to whether or not she was seen at the airport. Coincidentally no one has seen hide nor hair from the last lowly actor she was seen running around with. 
Usually she kept her mouth shut about the dirtier details of an incident of this magnitude, but she couldn't help herself when she let him know the full extent as to the bullet he had dodged. 
“That's why you don’t get involved with fixers wives,” she says simply as she grabs the spray bottle for his hair, a little more secure in the knowledge that he isn’t so green anymore.
“Fixers?” he asks, and she laughs initially thinking he’s pretending to not know as is the custom when somebody on the outside asks about them. But then she sees he’s not laughing along with her, and his confusion is genuine.
“You are not kidding are you?” she asks incredulously, truly hoping that this man is not so naive. 
“Can’t say that I am,” he replies.  
Now she has two options, mind her own business and let this boy sink or swim on his own, or enlighten him to the dark underbelly of what it takes to make it in this town. Jimena had spent the last few years keeping her ear to the ground and gathering as much information as she could to one day be able to leverage it to help one person specifically… but that person hasn’t wanted much to do with her lately. 
Still she finds herself leaning more into the staying in her lane option, that is until his wide ocean blue eyes turn towards her, and she feels like a monster for the thought. 
“Well everybody around here has a job, and it’s to make movies that make money. Your job is to make the studio look good on and off screen so people spend money to see these movies,” she says as she runs a comb through his hair. “And when you fuck that up, it’s the fixers job to cover it up.” 
“When?” he repeated, clearly a little offended. 
“Yes, when,” she clarified. “Get caught with a boy, get caught holding something you’re not supposed to, get a mistress pregnant, get a ‘social’ disease, or hell, even find yourself with a dead body on your hands, you just gotta call the right producer and they make it all disappear.” She knows she’s being pretty blunt with the subject but she has been in the business pretty much right out of the womb, so she’s seen some of the worst shit this town has to offer. 
Over the next few weeks she does her best to let him in on the need to know knowledge that is necessary to survive not just in Paramount, but in Hollywood as a whole. 
“If you work with John, he’ll call you a communist for stirring your coffee the wrong way so I would avoid him. Canter’s is actually the place you want to go to for great food, Pink’s is just okay. Gable’s breath smells like death, but he will bury you if you ever mention it. Umm…” she says trying to recall any other helpful advice, though stops when she sees his overwhelmed expression. “Am I going too fast?”
He quickly schools his expression, back into one a more affable look, “Nothin’ you gotta worry ‘bout darlin’”
She is not buying it though.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, unwilling to believe his dismissal. He clammed up even more and looked straight into the mirror until she sat herself right in front of him, crossed your arms, raised an eyebrow, and gave him a look telling him she wasn't about to drop this. 
It’s a bit of a standoff until he eventually lets out a long breath and looks out the window to the awaiting set outside of his trailer, “I don’t know Jimi…” he sighs. “Guess I’m just feelin’ some type a way doin’ all this.”
“Why?” she asks, not really thinking. 
“I don’t think I’m cut out for acting.”
She simply gives a sympathetic shrug of her shoulders, and simply states, “You could be better.” 
He blinks, apparently caught off guard by her bluntness. “You just get right to the point, don'tcha darlin’,” he says with a smile. 
“Hey if you want someone to kiss your ass, you would’ve been better off asking literally anyone else.”
He gives a snort but the tight smile tells her she’s hit the nail on the head. “Alright then sweetheart, what’dya think I’m doin’ wrong?” he asks genuinely. 
Part of her wants to give a very pithy “everything,” but the other part of her is a little thrown for the fact that he is not only listening but actively asking for her advice on the matter. Granted she’s far from an expert considering she hasn’t done it in years, but she’s worked with some of the “greats’ to be confident enough in her ability to know good acting from bad. Besides she’s already going out of her way to let him in on the secrets of this town, so what’s an acting lesson or two. 
“Well for one thing, it’s called acting,” she emphasizes, “Not Wording.” 
“I-I don’t follow.” 
“Look… anybody can simply say the lines, but it’s an actor that can bring a character to life. You gotta be able to get comfortable with the fact that you’re not only being heard, but you’re being seen.” 
“Sweetheart everybody sees me.” 
“Yeah and you’re in charge of how you want to be seen,” she says. “Do you know why I wear the same red bandana everyday?”
“I was thinkin’ cuz you were tryin’ ta hide a bald spot,” he answers, which earns him a swift punch to the nipple.
“I wear it because my options are to be known as the mexican girl or as the bandana girl,” 
“So right now they’re seeing you Elvis, not Deke,” she sighs. “Say what you want about Brando and his annoying refusal to learn his goddamn lines, but he makes you believe every word that comes out of his mouth, because he believes what he’s saying at that moment…Speaking of Brando,” she pivots hard before she gets too passionate about the topic of acting and gives herself away. “Never get into a pissing contest with him. That’s how Anthony Quinn lost out on being a leading man… and I do mean a pissing contest in the most literal sense.”
“I’ll take ya word for it Jimi, but you sure do know alot ‘bout bein’ an actor,” he says giving her a once over that she can’t quite read. “You eva try bein’ one before?”
“You could say that,” she remarks, silently praying he doesn’t ask why she does have these skills. He’d already noticed over the past few weeks how she would be roped into fixing problems that were well beyond the paygrade of the average make-up girl like jumpstarting golf cars or fixing light fixtures. His attention is a bit infuriating, considering she feels she does her best work unnoticed. “When you've been in the business as long as I have, you learn a thing or two.”
“So how long you been in the business?”
Without missing a beat. “50 years.”
He gives a double take at that, and she’s pretty sure he’s trying to discern whether she’s lying or not. She’s not helping whatsoever with her usual neutral demeanor, until for the first time in years she does crack a bit of a smile at him, as she snipes with a, “I’m a very good make-up girl.”
He laughs at that “So you’ll tell me you’re real age but not your real name darlin’?
“Never.”
He gives an amused snort at that but the nice moment is interrupted when one of the PA’s pulls her away so she can help restart Gleason’s heart after his partner apparently got a little too enthusiastic about choking him mid-orgasm. 
After that the relationship between the two seemed to ease up a bit. He no longer felt the need to posture in front of her and they developed something of a -dare she say it- friendship with one another. For her, it’s a pretty novel experience to actually be heard on set for once, and the closer they got she got the sense that he may understand that feeling more than he would like to let on. 
“Any news?” he would ask, knowing full well that she always has the best stories on set. She doesn’t really talk to any of the other actors on set, and they in turn don’t really notice her, so they are a lot freer with their words when they speak with one another in front of her. 
“So… you didn’t hear it from me,” you say as you begin to wet his hair. “But apparently a certain Superman is on his way out and was seen with a younger girl in New York, and Toni is not taking it well.”
“And Toni’s husband?” 
“Taking it worse,” she says simply as she readies the eyeliner. “This was always going to happen, but I don’t think it’s the end of it.” she promises, which would be proven right a few years down the line when George “mysteriously” ended up with a bullet in his head. 
“You’re the reason I don't even bother with them papers no more,” he remarks. 
“They’re not all trash,” you defend. “There’s almost always a little bit of truth in them.” 
“Speakin’ a rumors,” he continues. “I think I finally figured out why you look like Elena Leon so much?” he says, oh-so casually trying to maintain his innocence. 
She stops combing through his hair, knowing that the jig was up. 
“Who told you?” she asks, trying to mentally prepare herself for the same three things everyone said when they did find out. It’s always an awkward subject to bring up especially as it brings up some painful memories of long hours and relationships that have yet to recover. 
“Y’know me and my mama used to watch your movies,” he says with an annoyingly charming smile.
1, 
“I’m glad,” she says in the most neutral tone. 
“Lord I never could’ve expected to meet you here, workin’ behind the scenes. You ever think about actin’ again?” 
2. 
“Oh my sister is the actress now,” she said affably. Something well-rehearsed and practically scorched into her brain since Jimena started working on sets when she was fifteen was to always talk up Elena to anybody who would listen. 
“Well thas a cryin’ shame sweetheart,” he says with a rakish grin on his face. “You were always my favorite.”
That’s new, she thought. Usually they ask her to do the old catchphrase. That or men tend to get weird around the idea of women who look almost exactly the same. 
But the idea of being the favorite is… different. Like every other relationship, she has a complicated one with the idea of being seen. But the idea of Elvis being the one to look at her is somewhere between exciting and terrifying, and it has her heart beating just a little bit faster. 
“Why didn’tcha go back?” he continues. She kind of understands where his curiosity comes from, as someone who so desperately wanted to break into the Hollywood scene it would probably be hard to comprehend someone who knew it and rejected it. 
The Leon Twins were the biggest little things since Shirley Temple. With their indistinguishable looks and charming, if slightly demeaning, premise of one sister only able to speak Spanish with the other, only English, MGM was able to pump out over thirty various movies and shorts starring the adorable little Mena and Nena and their hijinx. 
How is she supposed to explain how her mother made the unilateral decision that her sister was the “good” one and thus the one she decided would have the solo career after Jimena had the gall to go into puberty first and become slightly more distinguishable than her younger sister. Or how she hasn't talked to her sister in months despite the fact they both still live with their mother, and neither of them have acknowledged this. Or how the reason she took this job in the first place was to better lookout for said sister who isn’t talking to her.
How she sees fame as a beast of madness and obsession that will consume her given half a chance as it did with her mother and now her sister. But movies are all she’s ever known and the idea of leaving seems scarier than it is to stay. 
How the thought of having so many eyes on her once again makes her practically want to claw her skin off and she’d rather die than ever willingly step back into that arena. 
She doesn't say any of that, instead she simply says, “Got tired of it,” as she puts the finishing touches on his hair. “I had my time in front of the camera,” and hated every second of it, she thought. “And I think I’m better suited behind it,” and you give a dramatic turn of his chair so that he could face the mirror. “As you can see.”
“Yeah,” he says, taking the hand you placed on his shoulder and looking back up at you. “I don’t know what’d I do without ya sweetheart.”
Seeing his cobalt blue eyes bore into her own, Jimena feels her face heat up, though mercifully it’s hidden under her darker complexion. If Elvis notices her change, he doesn't acknowledge it, and mercifully that is when one of the PA’s calls him to the sound stage. 
Once he’s out she sprays her own face with a bottle to get herself under control. 
In spite of her typically neutral regard for actors there’s just simply something about Elvis Presley that just made her want to throw that all away. 
She had sworn to herself to never get involved with actors, she had seen this song and dance play out many a times before. It comes in different flavors, but the final scene is always the same at the end of the day: the famous white man never chooses the latin girl to be his wife. Arm-candy? Definitely. Date? Yes. Long-time Girlfriend? Sure. Fiance with a wedding date never set? Maybe. Mistress? Obviously. But never the wife. 
Besides, it was the tail-end of shooting and it’s unlikely she was ever gonna work with him again so she decided to just stamp these feelings down and hope they went away. She was afterall an actress once, she can act like he doesn’t have an affect on her now. 
Though this was blown out of the water on the last day of shooting and he would not only pull her next to him for the cast wrap-up picture, but he would also slip an invitation to the wrap-party in her purse. She had gone home hoping to take a nap and forget about Elvis Presley, only for the next curveball of her day to occur. 
“Should we match for the party?” Elena would ask, holding up said invitation. 
“...did… did you look through my purse to find that?”
“We better start getting ready,” her sister would say, completely bypassing the question. “After all it’s not everyday that Hollywood gets a Leon Twins reunion.”
“...yeah, I-I don’t think going would be…” 
“Meeeennnnnaaaa…” she whines, completely abusing the fact that she is the only one allowed to use that name and not catch a fist to the face. “We need to go together, because why else would they just invite a makeup girl to a wrap party?”
Why else indeed? She thinks and she actively has to scrub the way he looked at her out of her mind lest she get any other ideas. 
“Besides,” she says, giving Jimena a light shove on the shoulder. “You still owe me for never introducing me to James Dean.”
“I barely knew him,” she argues back, which is the truth. He only vaguely knew her as “Snake girl” when she was working as a PA for one of his movies. The closest she ever got to him was after she managed to save him, Rock, and Liz from a snake that had trapped them in his trailer and their subsequent thank-you’s being signed photos of each of them that they had their assistants bring to her. There’s a certain irony in the fact that of the few movies to depict the plight of Mexican-Americans in the US, they had no problem giving her, one of the few Mexican crew members, the most dangerous task because everybody else was too valuable to lose.
Looking at her sister, her reflection in many ways, she feels her resolve begin to waiver a bit. Nena was her first job in a sense, as being the older sister it was Jimena’s responsibility to look out for her first and foremost. She took it so seriously that she’s still doing it to this day. 
They have always been so intrinsically entwined as an act. Their tiny hand prints immortalized in front of Grauman’s and the child-sized oscar with both of their names somewhere around here prove that much. But Elena now struggles to find that same level of fame as before, and secretly Jimena doubts that this will ever be possible. 
She couldn’t understand it but Jimena could see the reason as clear as day. 
There’s an unspoken rule about being a latin or black actress in Hollywood when you’re not the star of the show: Never outshine the white leading ladies, because it has to be believable that the white leading man chooses the leading lady. 
Joan Crawford was bad enough with actresses who had the gall to be simply younger than her, but she was especially vicious toward the ones who had skin tone darker than ivory. Jimena remembers one harrowing set where this one little Cuban extra had made the awful mistake of approaching Joan and saying how she wanted to be as big a star as her one day. 
They never did find her ear, and Jimena had made it a point to stop wearing hoop earrings on set altogether. The whole incident was swept under the rug after “someone” accused the poor girl of being a communist, and they did who knows what with her. But that just confirmed her and other girls like her are unlikely to be protected on set no matter how valuable you make yourself.  
Jimena told her sister this story, warning her to dull herself down a bit during auditions, if only to get her foot in the door and get more consistent work as secondary characters. And it was working for a time, but she wasn’t seeing the kind of work she wanted and she largely blamed Jimena for it because of her warnings to play it safe. 
In fact the source of their recent falling out was when Jimena had tried to convince her to try out cinema in Italy or Mexico or literally anywhere else in the world and use that as a branching off point to get an in in Hollywood. She flat out refused saying how she “doesn’t want to die in obscurity like you.” They didn’t talk for a solid month after that and since then it was only the barest of communication between them.  
“Imagine if I was seen with Elvis Presley,” she said now, with stars in her eyes. “The roles would come pouring in after that.”
For all that it left a sour taste in her mouth, Jimena could understand the logic of wanting to latch on to someone who's already getting up there in terms of fame. Fuck the studios themselves sometimes set up these types of arrangements, all for the sake of promoting up and comers. 
And the fact he invited her in the first place, probably means he had something else on his mind for the evening. Besides he’s apparently been a fan of theirs for a long time, it probably wouldn’t matter too much to him to which sister he was handed at the end of the day. 
So really everybody wins with this arrangement; Elena gets a bump to her star power, Elvis gets to fuck one of the Leon twins, Jimena gets to stay in her lane. And it’s with a heavy heart that she agrees to go. 
The evening was apparently so special that their mother decided to make one of her rare appearances before sunset. 
Once after finding out that not only was she one of the famous Leon Twins, but that her mother was THE Gloria Leon-Sanchez from the silent film days, he of course asked what it was like to grow up with a famous mother.
“You ever seen Sunset Boulevard?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve met my mother.” 
Harsh as it may sound, that was the most generous interpretation of her mother that she could afford these days. What with her practically living in nightgowns and sheer robes, to her constant bemoaning of actresses that apparently stole her career trajectory the likes of which included practically everyone from Rita Hayworth to even her own daughters, the comparison wasn’t too far off.  
Though her mother had largely checked out once the twins had turned eighteen. Elena alone hadn’t been able to reach the same level of fame that the two of them once managed together as the “Firecracker twins.” 
It was a simple gimmick really but had just enough gas to make over 30 movies and short movies about. Adorable twin girls who get up to mischief due to their near indistinguishable looks, Mena the spanish-speaking, spitfire twin that always had a skip in her step to dance with her little, english-speaking, soft-spoken and shyer twin, Nena, who could occasionally be emboldened enough to sing. 
The two of them were a lightning rod for box office draw, having been likened to Shirley Temple levels of fame, but due to their background that hardly granted them Shirley Temple levels of treatment or pay for that matter. 
Her and her sister weren’t seen as people, they were moving props that could sing and dance, and on occasion say their famous “Ayy, No Bueno!” catchphrase. Props that didn’t need to rest, props that didn’t need to eat, props that the less scrupulous producers would occasionally try to lure into an empty room with them. 
Not to pat their mother too hard on the back, but she at the very least helped them avoid the most obvious pitfalls that come from childhood stardom, but made them arguably worse. Like refusing to let the doctor give them “vitamin shots” but would ask if they could just IV Line coffee to their veins. Or never letting either of them out of her sight on sets, but couldn’t really be bothered with them outside of it leaving them with nannies so she could go “audition” for them. Or how she never left either of them alone with any of the men, but did teach them how to mix drinks at the age of nine so they could charm them with their “maturity.” So on and so forth. All of these bad, but after encountering other mothers who wanted to make their kids stars regardless of the cost, it really put things into perspective as to the type of person she could’ve been. 
What happened to her as a kid may have been more palatable to Jimena, if it were a case of that being the only way to keep them afloat. But it wasn’t and the older she gets, the better she understands as to what was stolen from her in their childhood. Their “father” Victor, had the decency to slip into a coma after marrying the formerly famous silent film-actress, and 10 Months later out popped Jimena and her sister, so as to properly claim her cut of his fortune. 
No, it was never about the money for her mother. It was always the fame that she was seeking, even if she had to begrudgingly share it with her daughters. 
Back in those days the Coogan act was more of a suggestion in the studios, especially when they had her mothers implicit permission for whatever they wanted. The long hours, the uncomfortable costumes and the mean men were all things she had done your very best in the last few years to forget about. 
One thing she undoubtedly won’t forget was her mother’s favorite threat when she was a kid and acting up. “¿Quieres que consiga los fijadores?” Gloria would say with a sickly sweet smile on her face, knowing full well no one but her daughter understood her words. Where other Mexican kids were scared of El Cucuy, she was scared of Los Fijadores or the fixers who would take away bad little girls that didn’t listen to the directors, so that their mothers could go back to acting and not have to care for those ungrateful little girls. That would always shut her up for the day, and she would listen until the next time she got fed up and the cycle would repeat all over again. Little did she realize at the time that her mother didn’t have much in the way of influence in the business, not anymore at least, but she took full advantage over the influence she had over her daughters. 
Ironically enough it was rare that Jimena would ever get to that point, but because her sister was the “good one” she would never dare to kick up a fuss, so most of the time the older sister would do it for her. She took her role as a big sister very seriously back then and didn’t mind being the difficult one who held up production if it meant that her little sister got a break.
It was always the two of them against the world. It’s why she even stayed in the business. She couldn’t imagine where she’d be if it was just her alone, as for all the shit her mother put her through, she could at least take comfort knowing that she wasn’t alone. Even when they were angry at each other, even when they wouldn’t speak to each other for weeks, even when she felt like she just wanted to choke her, she could take comfort knowing that they would always be there for one another. 
For the occasion, her sister would choose a bold red dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Marilyn or Jayne. It felt a little too much for just a simple wrap party, but it was clear her intent was to draw as much attention as possible.
By the time Jimena made her way downstairs it was clear that it was already working, with the way their mother was cooing over her. 
“So you’re going with Elena to the party,” her mother would remark as Jimena stepped down the stairs.
“Actually she’s going with me.” 
“And you’re going to wear that?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” she says in the way only a mother intent on cutting down her daughters self-esteem could.
Jimena would self-consciously look down at her own understated blue dress, “What’s wrong with it?” 
“It’s just…” she would say, fingering the fabric on her shoulder. “This is Elena’s big night, and we need to do everything in our power to help her stand out.” 
A distraction goes unsaid, something she used to be called for wearing any slightly flattering clothing onset. Even when she did start dressing down, she could hardly say it helped anything but this is an argument she’s heard a lot over the years, and she’s too tired to fight it tonight. “Of course mama,” Jimena would say dejectedly before going back to her room to change into something a little less flattering. A simple black dress, something that is both complementary to Elena’s red dress, but will also hopefully help her fade into the background so that all focus will be given to her sister. 
“Ayy thank you Mija,” she would say, planting a kiss on her eldest’s cheek before they left. “You’ve always been so good at looking out for your sister.”
Jimena had long since accepted that between the two of them, she would always be the second choice. It happened with their mother, it happened with the studios, it happened with every single boy she had been interested in, hell she had even chosen her sister before herself most times. Why would Elvis be different?
That night when he did end up picking her, Jimena could hardly be blamed for indulging in the sensation of the first time in her life someone had chosen her over her sister. 
It was the worst mistake of her life that she would struggle to forgive herself for. Elvis would distract her almost the entire night, and as a result an awful man had sunken his claws into Elena when she hadn’t been looking. Those last few months of her sister's life would be fraught with anger, drugs, and heartache from one Tim Parsons. 
He had been claiming to be related to one of the studio big-wigs and could get her some higher profile auditions. What scared Jimi is that she could not find a goddamn thing about him in all of her little networks. Anywhere else this would mean that he’s a perfectly normal person with nothing so scandalous as to be worth talking about. In this town it meant that someone was just very good at hiding whatever the hell is wrong with them.  
Yet all the evidence that he was bad news came in the form of all the drastic changes she was seeing in her sister. Since puberty, Elena had always been slimmer than her (their mother made sure of that) as a result, she wasn’t quite as gifted in the chest and hips as Jimena. But it was impossible not to notice the fact that she dropped a few dress sizes in a matter of weeks. When Elena begged her sister to take in a few dresses for her, Jimena could practically see her ribcage. Not to mention the fact that she was unusually full of energy even late into the night when she would pace around the house only to make a call to him and then after a quick handoff from his car she would be dead asleep, until he would let himself in and the cycle would begin all over again.  
Jimena knows what these all mean. She’s seen the signs in hundreds of actors before, and she’s never bothered to intervene before. Now it feels like a karmic punishment for her previous inaction, as she can only watch helplessly as her sister goes down the same road. 
It all came to a head the day she finally heard the first thing about this man, and it was truly terrifying: that not only was he not a doctor, but that that wasn’t even his name. He had been forced to change it once his claim to fame in this town became how he was denied an apprenticeship under Dr. Feelgood because his concoctions were in the doctors words “unhinged.” The man who regularly shoots up his patients that have a blend of human placenta and ground up horse bones called another man’s “vitamin” mixture insane. 
She dropped everything the moment she heard that and begged Elena to stop seeing this man. But it was in one ear out the other, and it seems it was hard for her to believe Jimena when for a time she was actually getting her foot in the door for major roles she actually wanted all because of him. However these also came with a price as evidenced by the late nights and vacant looks in Elena’s eyes after coming back from these auditions. The more she did this the more she felt her sister slipping away.
Her mother is no help whatsoever seeing only the results of this shift, and not the consequences. 
“Mija,” she would say to her in one of her rare moments of lucidness. “This is what it really takes. I tried to protect you both from it when you were younger, but she understands now what has to be done to make it in this town.”
Jimena has to bite her tongue, when all she wants to do is scream at her mother and yell at her to look in a mirror and ask if that was the image of someone who made it.
It all came to a head when Elena would beg Jimena to help her “entertain” a casting producer who not only had a thing for latinas, but twins as well. She was practically on her knees pleading for her sister's help with this, promising her twin that this would be the break in her career that she needed. Jimena tried to reason with her that there is no role worth what they’re asking for her, especially since even sleeping with them wasn’t a guarantee for her roles.
Up until this point she’s tried to be gentle about this, but it becomes clear as day that that is no help.
“You watch!” She yelled. “He’s gonna suck you dry and spit you back out when there’s nothing left!”
“At least he’s getting me work! You’ve always done nothing but drag me down!” she sobs, angry tears streaming down her face. “The one time I ask you to do something for me-”
“The one time? Who’s the one that did all the stunts you were too afraid of? Who’s the one who dropped out of school so you wouldn’t be alone on sets? Who’s been talking you up to every producer she’s ever worked with?”
“The same bitch who ruined my life when she fucked Elvis Presley!” Her little sister would snapback. 
That has Jimena clamp her mouth shut, not wanting to own up to what she did that set her sister on this course. But that’s all the confirmation Elena needed before she turned her back on her. 
It was the ugliest fight they had ever had, and it resolved nothing, as they just stormed into their respective rooms. Those days were less Little Women and more Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Jimi knew that if one didn’t get out soon there would be blood. So when she was offered a project that would be shooting mostly on location in New Orleans she practically jumped at the opportunity, hardly even registering the fact that Elvis was gonna be there as well.
It was only landing in Louisiana and seeing room assignments did she remember why exactly she hated On-location shoots, when “mysteriously” the other seven white women she was sharing a room with all unanimously decided that of all of them, Jimena would be the one that had to take the floor. 
But remembering who exactly was starring in this production, she decided to take a chance and made her way to his room. Though upon arriving at his door, she does hesitate for a moment remembering what her sister said and probably what he will expect if they do share a room. But then just thinking of her sister infuriates her and she finds herself finally knocking on his door. 
Being in New Orleans, all her problems back home would seem so far away, and she could focus on herself for a change. In an odd way it felt like he was the only one who understood her in those days. Of all the people on set, he is the only one who knows how to put on a brave face when it feels like everything you have is slipping through your fingers. 
Him also knowing who exactly she was came with the unexpected consequence of him constantly trying to finagle stories out of her. Really talking to him about her childhood did help put into perspective how wild her formative years were as not everybody can say they got in a fist fight with Wendy Darling or that Shirley Temple taught them how to roll a cigarette. 
He seemed to just understand what she needed in a way no one has ever. It was usually simple arguably unremarkable things really, like anticipating when she was hungry or tired, even before she would admit it to herself, or when she almost lost a finger or when he stepped so this would be the first time she wouldn’t be the one to have to chase rabid animals out after a small alligator somehow got onto the set. He took care of her in a way that nobody had ever done before. 
She wouldn’t define what they had as a full scale relationship, but whatever they had, it was nice just to have something private and out of the public eye. Only later would she realize he had his own reasons to keep everything as discreet as possible. 
They were together almost every night in New Orleans, as it was easy to fall into each other like that. They were both at an uncomfortable crossroad in their life and it felt like he understood her in a way nobody else had. 
She thought she understood him as well, but it was only when she read the article did she realize she never knew him at all. 
They were a week away from wrapping up production, when Jimena got the devastating news. In a newspaper somebody else had been reading on set that day of all things. 
That was the way she learned that her sister was dead. 
She remembers saying to no one in particular that she was gonna call it a day and simply wandered off set, into the unfamiliar city. She walked for hours just trying to wrap her head around the news.
It felt like the worst sort of betrayal to learn that her sister had been dead for days, and not only had no one contacted her, but that she didn’t automatically feel it. Aren’t other twins supposed to just know when the other is hurt? So why didn’t she? Elena came into this world with Jimena, why did she leave without her? 
As a kid her mother told her that she was not a pretty crier, so she’s done everything in her power to never cry, especially in front of other people. So walking around and being surrounded by strangers at the very least did prevent her from devolving into a blubbering mess. But as the day goes on she knows there is no outrunning the inevitable, and that as tempting as it may be to simply walk until she couldn't anymore, she would have to go home soon. 
She would eventually make her way back to the hotel room only to be met with Elvis worriedly pacing around his room. He would throw his arms around her the moment he saw her and start with the condolences, and even the tears. 
She didn’t really want any of that; she just wanted to lie down and sleep forever. But she lets him pull her close and she breaks for the first time in years in front of somebody else. True to her mothers words, it is not a pretty picture.
Full body wracking sobs, snot pouring out of her nose, her screaming and cursing until her voice goes hoarse, the works. Even still he holds her all the same. For all that she’s glad he was there she can’t help but feel so humiliated, but that’s simply one of the many emotions that run through her head along with guilt and anger and regret and just about every other awful feeling under the sun. 
But who else could she turn to that would know even a fraction of what she’s going through right now. Not just to lose a sister, but to lose a part of yourself. 
In a sick way she kind of blamed him. Maybe if she hadn’t been so wrapped up in him these last few weeks she would’ve known earlier, or maybe she wouldn’t have even taken this job, or hell, if she hadn’t even gone to that party, Elena wouldn’t have even met that man in the first place. 
“The same bitch who ruined my life when she fucked Elvis Presley!” Plays over and over again in her head. But it’s easier to be mad at him because he’s actually here to take that anger. 
Though she begins to feel no small amount of guilt for this when she wakes up the next morning to find that he’s cleared everything with the producers, and arranged for her trip back home all on his dime. 
He personally escorts her to the private train room he rented for her and leaves her with a kiss and a promise to see her in a few days. But by this point she’s numb to everything and she simply wants to close her eyes forever.
She barely registered coming home and only that was due to the fact that it’s now on her to arrange everything for the funeral, as it becomes apparent that her mother in her grief is off on another world.  The biggest clue being when her mother greets her at the front door with a hug and a kiss, and calls her Elena. 
“Mena’s still not back yet,” her mother would say with her arms still wrapped around her in the threshold of their home. “So it’s just gonna be us today.”
“Ama…” Jimena whispers, unwilling to believe what she’s hearing. 
“Let's get you to the kitchen,” she tugs at her now lone daughter's arm. “You look like a skeleton these days. They’re not going to hire you if you don’t have a little meat on your bones.” She’s quickly whisked away to the kitchen where she finds a veritable feast, and her mothers hired cook nowhere in sight. Her mother can’t cook, a fact known to both sisters, but between the two of them, Elena never had the heart to tell her. 
“You should listen to your sister more Nena,” she says brushing some hair out of her face after putting down a full plate of food in front of her. “I’ve put a lot of thought into this and I think she’s right on the money with the idea of trying to make it somewhere else and then coming back.” 
“Ama… please listen to me,” she pleads softly with the older woman, wanting to be gentle with her.
“You should really consider Italy,” she would say, not even acknowledging her daughter had said something. “Or France if you want to get a slightly better chance at 
It’s then she realizes that her mother is simply parroting back to her what she had been saying to her sister. All the rage and grief that’s been building up inside her bubbles over by that point. Now is when her mother decides to back her up, when it’s far too late to do anything about it?
“She’s gone!” she shouts. “She’s not here anymore, I’m Jimena!”
Her mother doesn’t look shocked, more resolved as she places her head in her hands. “Quiero estar con Elena,” she whispers through her tears. 
It occurred to Jimena that this was the first time she had heard her mother speak Spanish in years. Alot of her mother these days is very… performative. 
She’s seen it throughout the years how much her mother puts on a show, even simply for her daughters. It’s most apparent when she talks, as rather than using her natural voice, the one that made it impossible for her to break into the “talkies” as she still insists on calling them, she’s instead adopted the mid-atlantic, but the result sounds like if Katherine Hepburn was mocking someone with a Spanish accent. 
But hearing her now, Jimena realizes that this is the most honest her mother has been with her in years. The truth doesn’t make it sting any less. Her mother is gone, she just needs to resolve this one last piece of business to go in peace. 
Just like she played mother to her own sister for years, she could pretend to be the daughter that her mother needed at that moment. And so she unflinchingly took a bite out of ceviche that only tasted like raw non-marinated shrimp and talked about whether or not to go the Josephine Baker route and start off as a showgirl.
The rest of the day is spent trying to ease her mothers guilt, only to pile it onto Jimena. Her mother would not so subtly explain why Jimena has been right this whole time and why ELena should listen to her. She suspects this is some fucked up way for her mother to tell her it’s not her fault, but all Jimena can hear is how if she had pushed harder her sister would still be here.
At one point her mother would “subtly” hint that she called in a favor with an old friend to take “Tim” down to Mexico so that he can retire. Jimena can’t even find joy in the fact that he’s gone now, because what does that leave her with, if she can’t be the one to kill the man who killed a part of her? 
“One more thing Mija,” Gloria says as she runs her nails through Jimena’s hair while they were both laying down in her sister's bed. “Thank your sister for me.”
Jimena hesitates before she asks, that distinct sense of trouble churning her stomach, “For what?”
“For being the mother I could never be for you,” she says, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Mena’s the one I never had to worry about.” And with those final words, her mother settles in behind her and goes to sleep. 
The coroner would later say that the fact that she was able to sleep and not be disturbed by whatever took her, she at the very least went without pain. 
This is fundamentally untrue as she left all her pain to Jimena.
This event had taken the story from simply sad to a tragedy. A young, beautiful starlet dying of an accidental overdose, is one thing, but add in her bereaved former silent film star mother to the mix, and that’s front-page news worthy. And before Jimena knew it, her loss was now the hottest ticket in town, because all of the cameras were not gonna dare miss such an event, and no star was gonna dare miss the cameras. 
It felt that every relatively famous person who vaguely knew either her mother or sister came out of the woodwork to tell some sort of story about them at the funeral. Jimena doesn't really have much to say other than there were definitely some who pulled off the bereaved friend act better than others. 
When it finally comes time for her eulogy, she was not as prepared as she thought. In an odd way it would have been better to look out in a sea of strangers, because looking out and seeing a hoard of famous faces who don’t know a single goddamn thing about her, all blank as there is not a single camera trained on them at the moment is far worse than anything imaginable. 
She ends up bolting to a backroom before she could make a fool of herself and scream at them all for being here when they’re not. She gives a futile effort to calm herself down by looking at all the gifts from well-wishers.
It was almost funny as it seemed everyone's publicist went to the same gift basket guy as there were maybe a dozen of the same arrangements, and she briefly wondered if they were bought in bulk by the studio and sent in different stars names. But one name in particular gave her pause, and she ripped the card off of the basket, unwilling to believe her own eyes that he could be so callous. 
Sorry for your loss
It was hard to comprehend at that moment, and she stupidly turned the little card back and forth unwilling to believe that the man who claimed to care so much for her would only send her an assortment of fruits and cheeses and not even five words. 
It’s all too much at that point, her dress is too tight, she’s all alone, her head is spinning, she’s all alone, her tits hurt for some reason, she’s all alone, she wants to throw up, she’s all alone, she’s all alone, she’s all alone… 
Jimena’s next conscious thought is realizing she’s in a hospital bed, but not in a hospital. The sound stage she’s on does a good enough job of looking like an actual hospital, save for the fact that an entire wall is missing and what looks to be a couple dozen cameras trained on her prone form. She can’t move anything save for blinking but that simply seems to make her situation worse as the cameras proceed to multiply each and every time. 
What does eventually make her accept that this is in fact a dream is when her rotting and decaying mother and sister enter stage left and proceed to rip off the thin hospital blankets. Before she can make any move to protest, she’s quieted with a wave of pain in her lower belly as they both take one of her legs in hand and proceed to spread them wide open for the cameras, each flash searing into her skin like a brand.
She can feel the way her mother and sister dig their fingers into her limbs to keep her in place and helpless as wave after wave of agony seems to flow throughout her entire body. She’s begging for them to let her go, she’s begging the cameras to stop, most of all she’s begging for someone who's not there.
She came to, maybe a day later, this time in an actual hospital with a mild concussion, a baby in her belly, and a broken heart, though they can only officially diagnose the first two. 
She had options for this situation. Every woman, famous or not, in the business knew she had options, it was practically part of orientation that they got a list of ten approved doctors by the studio for this very sickness. It was almost treated as a rite of passage for the backstage girls to have to eventually visit a doctor, it’s simply that common.
Jimena’s never had any reason to utilize this option, having 1. Avoided anybody relatively important to necessitate this, and 2. She had always been careful when it came to something like this. And yet somehow Elvis proved to be an exception to these rules. She had admittedly gotten sloppy after the first time he spilled inside her in New Orleans, as after that first time she figured that if anything came from this she could always just visit one of the studio doctors when she got back to LA. 
But sitting in a hospital bed, that once hypothetical scenario now a reality, it no longer feels as simple as it once did. She’s near catatonic in her indecisiveness until one of the nurses idly asks if she would be open to visitors should anybody arrive. 
And just like that, the prospect of going through with any other option other than keeping the baby made her sick. Because if she did go through with it… then she would well and truly have no one.
It had always been her and Elena against their mother, against the studio, against the world even, but now… she’s gone and it feels like she took a part of Jimena with her. 
Jimena’s good at a lot of things, not great, simply good. Jack of all trades they would call her, able to make quick fixes to a golf cart in a pinch, mix the perfect hangover cure, fix a few busted stitches on a dress or person alike, and practically anything else the studio demanded of her. 
Maybe in another life her wide-ranging skill set would have made her the greatest actress of her generation, able to play whatever role thrown at her. But in this life it just made her feel hollow. As though she herself is empty and without a part to play save for caring for her sister. 
Perhaps it’s true and that’s why she latched onto Elvis for a time, desperately needing to care for someone if only to outrun those fears of inadequacy. But there’s no outrunning anything when half of her is gone. 
As for Elvis, she doesn’t exactly know what to do about him just yet. She knew that telling anyone but him first would result in it getting back to the studio and at best she would be “lightly” pressured to go see a doctor, at worst anybody who asks will be told she decided to “retire” in Mexico. So her best bet was to wait it out and hope he contacts her.
Then one fateful morning as she was contemplating how best to ask the studio for bereavement leave, did she get a copy of Excelsior and she read about an exclusive interview Federico de León got with the father of her child. 
I would rather kiss three black women than one Mexican. 
She thinks she stares at that sentence for a good ten minutes trying to convince herself that she’s somehow misinterpreting this. But the inner smartass has to creep in and force her to face her new reality.
Well… he did more than kiss, she thought spitefully looking down at her belly, now far more prominent than it had been at the funeral months ago. She burns with humiliation and shame as those words run over and over in her head. 
She knows personally that there is almost always a grain of truth to stories like these, having had the scoop on many of them months before they got to print. And the fact of the matter is that it’s hard to believe the studio would allow for these to stand if they weren’t true with the movie coming out soon. 
As far as she knows, the studio has no idea about the affair between her and Elvis, and she’s going to keep it that way. 
What burns her the most is how wrong she was about him, not just as a person but as an actor. That she could’ve ever believed all his sweet words about this grand connection they had and how they were destined to be together. He’s perhaps the best actor she’s ever encountered if he got her of all people to believe all of that shit.  
It’s better this way, she tries to tell herself. In a way it is, as this was always an inevitability because regardless of whether he said it or not, there is no world where they ended up together. That’s not how this town works.
Her job makes her the first one to see actors on a given day, and she’s been forced to think on her feet as to how best to make them not only look but be presentable in front of the camera. 
She’s had to quickly sober up hundreds of actors and she’s had to figure out just the right amount of drink for each of them that will make them functional but not incoherent. Had to cover up twice as many bruises on actresses' faces so no one will speculate what goes on behind closed doors of their producers husbands. She’s even been the one to diagnose more than a few “social” diseases on set and steer them to the right doctors, so as to prevent a veritable epidemic on set. As haughty as it may sound, productions would fall apart without her. 
Low-level she may be, she’s a fixer in this town. She’s not a problem that needs to be fixed. 
And she decides neither will her baby. 
She’s not gonna beg like a fucking dog to be acknowledged by him, nor will she allow for her child to be forced into the spotlight. It destroyed her sister, it ruined her mother, and it almost claimed her once more. 
Elvis may have taken her pride but he won’t have her and he sure as hell will never have her baby.
Now
Elvis will never be used to California weather with its ability to both be hot and dry in the tail end of winter. But he hopes it’ll do him some good of defrosting his bones from the near-year round cold of Germany. Once upon a time he never thought he would enjoy it as much as he does right now.
But he’s found a lot to love and miss about California since he’s been gone so long. 
Not to brag but he’s been with his fair share of women, between actual girlfriends, publicity girlfriends and all the girls he knew at best for only a few hours. None of them can claim to have instilled in him this sense of longing the way she did. 
Nor can any of them claim to have caused as much heartache as she did. 
Bittersweet as they may be, those days filming King Creole he missed the most. It was those days that kept him sane in the lead up to boot camp, and even then some. Though of all the things Hollywood had to offer him, there is only one thing he coveted these last few years.
“You see her over there Billy,” he said to his cousin one day on set as he took a breather from the lights while she fixed up Carolyn’s makeup. “That’s the girl that’s gonna be my wife.” No words have ever felt more right to him. 
It was all the more heartbreaking and humiliating when he had sent Billy to find her and figure out why none of the letters he’d been giving to the Colonel to give to her had been answered while he was in boot camp. Billy would return to Texas unable to meet his eyes as he sheepishly handed him a single note in her handwriting. 
Three black women huh?
That sinking feeling that settled in his stomach as he remembered those words are something he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget. He recognized those words, how could he not? Afterall those are supposedly the ones he said that got him and his movies banned from an entire goddamn country he ain’t ever been to. 
It would be one thing for her to be mad at him for something he did do, but it felt like the worst sort of injustice that Jimi may never want to see him again for words that he never said from a man he never met for some unforgivable slight he never committed. 
Worst of all was how he was surrounded by his entourage who gathered around and were now owlishly looking at him, expecting a certain reaction from him, and simply waiting for him so they could properly react. 
It’s near paralyzing in that moment that he recognizes that his closest friends aren’t expecting him to react, they’re expecting Elvis Presley to react. 
“Her loss,” he remembers saying, feeling every single eye on him in that moment, trying to literally shrug off that scratchy feeling in his throat. He’s supposed to be the biggest heartthrob of America, unfazed when a girl said no because there are no less than a hundred girls that would say yes. 
They all follow suit, and quickly take to promising him a night out and reassuring him that he’ll practically be drowning in pussy before midnight. Though with one look he does put an end to that little episode when their support for him turned into disparaging her. 
He knows that there is no use in even trying to reason with her over letters. Because what can he really say to her in writing if she’s not gonna even bother reading? 
If she already has it in his head that he’s the type of man to say something like that, then no amount of letters will make her believe otherwise. 
He would spend the next year trying unsuccessfully to fall out of love with her. Indulged -perhaps too much- in all that bachelorhood had to offer. All the girls he could pull, all the pills he could handle, but none of it could even match a fraction of the euphoric feeling of being complete when Jimena was around.
She loves him. Or at least she used to. She never said it but he certainly felt loved in a way he’s not used to anymore. It’s not the fanatical worship from his fans, nor the sycophantic adoration of his buddies. Her love is something purer, less selfish, something he doesn’t think he’s experienced outside of his mama since the fame started rolling in. 
He needs her in his life. Because nobody is going to look out for him or try to protect him the same way she would. 
He’s had nothing but time to figure out ways to get her to at the very least hear him out. From there he could start rebuilding the foundation of the relationship and work his way back to her good graces. 
His first obstacle to this plan comes in the form of finding out she is no longer doing makeup anymore, and is now in fact part of the wardrobe department. This is a wrench in his plans considering he attributes her fall for him due to the fact that she practically saw him everyday while shooting. But he tries to look at the bright side of this, knowing that it at least guarantees that Brando and Newman haven’t been getting the same treatment from her. 
The next obstacle to seeing her again is her initial refusal to be a part of the new production, as now with her new title as Costume designer she’s in a better position to pick and choose what she works on. But enough pressure on the director to push for her specifically does eventually have her signing on to the project. 
The final wrench in his plans came the day he had been anticipating for almost two years. 
He’s thought about her non-stop for the past two years, so he almost immediately notices the changes in her appearance. No less beautiful (arguably even more so with her bigger tits and rounder hips, and better fitting clothes), she’s different nonetheless, yet none of that prevents him from wanting to gather her in his arms and promise to never let go. 
But a single look from her his way, stops him in his tracks. And suddenly he’s brought back to the first time he ever met her, mistaking her for his would be co-star, and wondering how he’s gonna get through this shoot when he feels like he’s two inches tall under this gorgeous creature's gaze.
He was prepared for her hatred, he wasn’t prepared for her complete and utter indifference. She had that glazed over look in her eyes, like he wasn’t even there. It reminds him of one of the few times that he dared to question why she does that whenever he asked what it was like to grow up in Hollywood. 
In a rare instance of vulnerability, she would solemnly whisper “It makes it easier to pretend it happened to someone else.” Only minutes after that would she claim to urgently need to go back to her assigned room for the night, the only time she ever did so during production. Next day she would pretend as though nothing happened, and he would follow suit all too willing to indulge her so she wouldn't run off again.
He knows he’s hurt her beyond measure, but to be put in the same categories of things she would rather pretend never happened is gut-wrenching. 
If she hated him, he could’ve worked with that, because at the very least she still felt something when she looked at him. But as the whole session went on it became clear she at the very least wanted him to believe she felt nothing for him. 
He would’ve taken any sort of reaction by that point: an “accidental” pin prick from the needle, a passive-aggressive tightening of the measuring tape around his neck, hell he would’ve settled for so much as a hateful glare his way. But nothing, stone cold professional she is, she simply takes his measurements only to then give her only acknowledgment that he was even there by giving him a simple “all done.” She then moves on to his co-star with all the eagerness of someone about to brush their teeth, just so painfully indifferent to everything in this room.
Regret is a constant companion these days, always whispering in his ear about his shortcomings, but now it feels like it’s practically screaming in his ear what a failure he is to let a woman like this slip through his fingers. 
He’s practically kicking his younger and dumber self for being so cowardly as to miss the chance to tell her how he felt. Not a day has passed since they parted had he not thought about every touch he didn’t follow with I love you, every embrace he didn’t whisper how much she meant to him, every kiss he didn’t beg for her to always stay by his side. 
He had been gearing up to try to broach the subject of something more happening, ideally ending up with a courthouse wedding before he had to be sworn in, though he was willing to accept whatever form of a relationship she would offer him so long as she would still be in his life. 
But then just a week before wrap-up, when everything was as close to perfect as it could be, that is of course when things went to shit. 
Elena Perez, of the famous little firecracker twins, found dead, age 21
It hit him like a punch to the gut when he first saw that. Even though he had never met her, it was devastating all the same, knowing how affected Jimi was gonna be.  
The closest he ever did come to meeting her was when Jimi had brought her to the wrap party for Loving You. 
He was still pretty new to the art of schmoozing, so his night was almost entirely devoted to an ever present smirk that had begun to hurt his cheeks and laughing a little more than necessary at every joke the studio heads made. He was tired but he knew he would find no rest anywhere. But his tune quickly changed when he saw a familiar figure within the crowd. 
He felt his heart go all a flutter when he saw her from behind but then when she turned around there was just something about her that didn’t sit right with him. It was like looking at a funhouse mirror of Jimi, her posture almost ridiculously upright to further push her ample breasts out, her smile a little too tight, but most of all her eyes were a little too hungry, a little too eager to please. The features were nearly entirely the same but he was so used to the casual nature of his makeup girl, it felt so unnatural to see this. 
In another life he may have been all over her by this point, taken her home, maybe if he was feeling generous, been seen out in public with her a few times before ultimately moving on. There were beautiful and eager to please women everywhere he looked, there wasn’t really anything special about Elena Leon. 
But having met Jimi first, he can’t really fathom having much to do with her.
He spent the better part of two hours ducking and weaving her approach, practically sending out his boys as human shields, to keep her away, because he doesn’t exactly trust himself not to give in to her advances, if only for the consolation prize of getting to be with someone who looked liked the one he actually wanted. 
He eventually made his way upstairs after a while no longer wanting to be surrounded by people, as there was only one person he wanted to be with at the moment, and she had apparently decided not to come. 
It becomes apparent that he’s been rewarded for his self- restraint when he finds a backside he would know anywhere on the third floor balcony. Swathed in a pretty if non-descript black dress,  bottle of champagne in hand, she was looking down on the party like an ever-judging guardian angel. 
“Y’know I don’t think they wanted anyone up here,” he would say casually. 
He could see the way she practically lit up as she saw him, a soft smile on her gorgeous face and her eyes warm, probably the first person of the night that was genuinely glad to see him. It’s a novel experience for people to see him and not the star, and it’s something he never thought he would miss. 
“Well you better get outta here before they see you,” she snarked back. 
He laughs for the first time since he got there, and it feels so easy to just settle right next to her and look down on everyone else. He finds himself relaxing for the first time since he’s gotten there.
“So what’s a pretty girl like you doin’ up here all by your lonesome?”
Around a tight smile she says, “There’s already a pretty girl like me down at the party.” He can’t help that he flinches slightly as he thinks about her sister. “I see you met Elena,” she sighs, before plastering a tight-lipped sardonic grin on her face. “So what’d ya think?”
Elvis has the good sense to know a trap when he sees one with women, so rather than using words he just lets out a long breath. 
She gives a short mirthful huff. “Yeah that’s fair,” she taps the neck of the bottle trying to undoubtedly figure out a way to change the subject. “If you say some corny ass shit like ‘I think I’m seein’ double’,” she says in a piss poor impression of his own voice. “I will push you off this balcony.” 
“You sound like ya done it before sweetheart” he smirks, swiping the bottle from her hand, before taking a swig. 
“How else do you think I avoided becoming Charlie Chaplin’s 5th wife?” The simple statement catches him off guard that champagne threatens to come back up his nose. 
“... ya serious?” He closes his eyes in relief when she snorts.
“No,” she chuckles, with a hand wave. “I pushed him off because of something else.” Her eyes slide away from him and zero in on one of the partygoers below, before he could dare ask for any further elaboration. “Oh hey… Brody’s here and… uh-oh so is Frank.” 
He follows her eyeline to find that she’s wearily looking at ol’ blue eyes himself who has decided to make an appearance. “Ya’ got a story ‘bout Frank?”
“I got a story about everyone here.” With a slight smirk, she would hold two fingers up and ask, “Wanna know how I got these scars?” 
She regales him with not just that story but others of what she’s been asked to do on set. Some were funny like having to fish a toupee out of an oscar winner's mouth to more harrowing ones of being asked to check the pulse of particularly heavy drinking stars. Anybody else, he doubts he would have humored such tales, but it’s when he started hearing other people tell even wilder stories of her that ranged from snake-wrangling to resetting famous stars' bones after some sexual misadventure, did he learn early on never to doubt her stories. 
“So you come to these things often?” he asks after her giggles had settled down.  
“Never,” you answer. “But Elena convinced me we had to come to this one especially,” a bit more solemnly as she looked down at the familiar figure down below at the party. “You know when we were little, we used to climb up onto the roof and watch the parties from up there to tell funny stories and avoid the adults, saying how we were never gonna be like them.” There’s warmth in her voice, but sadness in her eyes as she gazed down at her mirror image at the party below. 
Being a twin is not something Elvis liked to dwell on. His Mama had always talked about Jesse watching over him since he was little, but rarely if ever did he really contemplate what it meant to have a brother who wasn’t there with him. 
It feels as though he was supposed to have someone that was meant to always be with him and look out for him, but now they’re not here and now he’s doomed to a life of loneliness. This thought is only further reinforced by the way you look at your sister, and something almost akin to jealousy shoots through his being, that she can have you and not value you. 
Not like he could, a voice whispers in his head. 
“What’s it like being a twin?” he would ask before he could lose his nerve. Though he does immediately clamp up at not just the suddenness of the question but the ease he was able to ask it. He’s tried to broach the subject of Jesse a few times throughout his life only to chicken out at the last minute in fear of upsetting someone, namely his mama. 
Though the regret is instant as he watches her mood drop immediately and face him with a disgusted expression, that he can’t quite understand until she says with no amount of venom missing, “No I’m not gonna ask her if she’d be interested in a threesome,” she says, far too quick to have him not believe that this isn’t the first time she’s heard this. 
He feels his face immediately go up in flames as to how grossly his words have been misinterpreted. “N-no I-I didn’t mean it like that,” he says quickly trying to salvage the situation and gets a hold of her before she can fully turn around. 
“Mmhmm,” she hums dismissively, looking down at the hand that holds her wrist and looking down on him as though he’s the scum of the Earth. 
“Darlin’ I-I swear it ain’t nothin’ like that, I just… I…” he stutters out wondering if there’s anyway he can truly explain his interest in her status as a twin without coming off as creepy, but one look at the full moon shining behind you is all the signal he needs to be honest. “Ain’t too many people know this,” he starts, taking a steadying breath trying to find that courage of two men he’s supposed to have. “But I-I had a brother, and…” he swallows hard at this one, always a sensitive subject in the Presley household. “And he-he didn’t make it…” 
She looks at him with a critical eye, undoubtedly searching for any sign of falsehoods on his face, only for the hard look to melt when she realizes he spoke nothing but the truth. 
“Oh, umm…” she says. “I-I’m sorry to hear that,” her voice dripping with guilt at the assumption. 
“It’s fine,” he reassured you. “He was gone ‘fore I even got here.”
It’s hard to talk about Jesse with anyone, because what more can anyone say about him other than he should be here but he isn’t. He has no memories to reflect sadly on, just wishful thinking about who Jesse could’ve been or even who he would’ve been if had him in his life. 
“I really don’t know how to describe it,” she says, putting down the bottle she had in her hand. “Because she’s always just… been there, and I’ve always been the one to look out for her.” 
“You’re the older one?” he asks with a bit of a laugh.
“Yeah,” she affirmed. “I’ve been doing it my whole life. Stayed up and held her hand when she was too scared to sleep. Did all the stunts she was too afraid to do and broke a couple bones. Threw tantrums when we were filming so she could get a break that she was too nervous to ask for. Dropped out of school so I could get a job on set, so she wasn’t alone. Hell, the only reason I’m here at this stupid party is because she thought she could get in touch with someone who could help her career.” Each admission is met with a more resentful tone, only for her to then try to chase away the taste the words are leaving in your mouth, by taking back the bottle.
“O-oh,” is all he really has to say to that. 
“She’s awful,” she admits, but a sardonic smile begins to creep up on her face. “I love her so much.” 
“Really?” 
“Yes,” she asserts. “There’s no one else in the whole world I would’ve done those things for. I guess that’s what it’s like to be a twin, take care of the person who's been here since you were born. It’s like… having to take care of any other part of your body, but this one is just constantly away from you and you can do nothing but worry.”
Elvis is stunned into silence for a moment as he looks at her, because she is able to finally put into words that anxiousness that has been eating at him his whole life. Even with all the love and reassurance he felt as a kid, there’s always just been that missing part of him that no one has ever been able to understand. 
But there’s one part that eats at him still.
“And does she take care of you?” he asks, more curious than anything at this point. 
That question catches her off-guard as she rips her eyes away from him and furiously looks down at the party, before she smiles and looks back at him to ask “Wanna hear who Clark Gable had a secret child with?”
Another time he would’ve been very interested in the topic, but seeing her obvious panic as she tried to avoid the very subject keeps him focus. “Don’t do that,” he pleads softly, brushing a few errant curls out of her face. “Don’t shut me out.”
She leans into his hand a little bit and he feels her jaw clench as she tries to get a handle on herself. “I must sound like a crazy person to you,” she says. Granted anyone else, he might’ve thought that, but this is Jimi, the girl who is never bothered by anything. He was witness to how she nonchalantly filed her nails before putting out a camera fire. Watched as she hardly broke her stride when some yahoo tried to scare her with a halloween mask. Hell he’s seen her put out a match with just her fingertips, and only to stare him down to get back onto set. 
She’s seen the worst this town has to offer, and yet it’s her seemingly one-sided relationship with her sister that has her on the verge of collapse. 
Not if Elvis had any say about that.
He takes it as a good sign when the normally touch-averse Jimi doesn’t immediately pull away from the hand on her shoulder, so he decides to take a chance and fully envelope her in his arms. She stiffens somewhat but otherwise accepts it, and he feels his heartbreak over the unspoken truth that she looks out for Elena, but no one looks out for her.  
“I think it sounds like…” he says, taking her chin in his hands, “ya care a lot darlin’, and it don’t sound like she appreciates it as much as she should.” 
The ever present indifferent shell she had built over the years cracks with that simple statement of understanding. She has such beautiful doe eyes hidden behind a hard stare, and for only having known her for a few weeks Elvis can appreciate even the chance to see behind the mask. 
But he wants to know more. He wants to know all of her.
It feels almost magnetic, the sudden pull he felt towards her in that moment. Nothing could stop him as he leaned down to kiss her full lips. Everything else in the world seems to fall by the wayside, the party, the people, even the city itself no longer existed to him as he held her in his arms. 
Their first time with her was nothing short of magic. It felt like the first breath of air after being held underwater for so long. 
They just seemed to fit together so well, a fact that couldn’t be denied even as their first time was a quick and dirty session on a balcony under the light of the moon. Like they had been so desperate for each other years even before they met, and now it all culminates to this. 
They don’t even really remove their clothes, he just unbuckled his pants on the deck chair while she sat astride him, moving her skirt up her waist and move her panties to the side. Her moans as she slowly impaled herself on his length sound like music to his ears and he can’t help the low groans as he tries to prevent himself from closing his eyes too much wanting to burn the image of her taking his cock while the full moon gives her a truly angelic look behind her. 
He wants so badly to hold her but even now she denies him that as she puts a hand over his chest and rides him like she’s trying to tame a bucking stallion. He’s just as enthusiastic for this as he grips her thighs in his hands and 
The whole encounter is over and done within a matter of minutes after that, but he’s just glad that she came to and now he didn’t have to feel the shame of finishing before her. She collapses on top of him trying to hold herself upright while he holds her close to his chest as he gives a few lazy thrusts to ride out the rest of his orgasm. He’s never felt more connected to anybody than her in this moment and he wants to truly seal this perfect night when he raises her chin to try to capture her lips.
But she pulls away slightly at the motion, “... I… I should go…” she whispers, and he’s not too sure if she’s saying that more to him or herself. 
“...I-if that’s wh-whatcha want baby…” he says, not having the heart to deny her anything, no matter how much every single other part of him is screaming at him to make her stay. The inner conflict practically paralyzes him where he layed and he could only watch as she quickly fixed herself up. It’s mesmerizing to watch, as with only a few quick adjustments, Jimi looks good as new, save for the kiss-swollen lips and the slight uneasiness in her stance, it’s as though nothing had ever happened. 
That hurts in a way he can’t explain with words. The idea that the relationship they’ve built in the last few weeks will amount to a one time thing that they go their separate ways from. 
But what can he do to stop her if she doesn’t want to be here anymore?
So with all the boldness he’s learned to fake over the last few years, he grabs a hold of her wrist, and tries to give some type of meaning to this whole thing. “Wait darlin’.” He makes a conscious effort not to grip too tight lest he scare her off, but just enough to let her know he’s serious. “What’s your real name?”
Bathed in light of the full moon right behind her, a soft smile on her face as she looks at him though not without that twinge of sadness in her eyes. “Jimena Gabriella Perez.” she said as though it were a good bye.
And with the way she walks away without even a glance back, it’s clear that it was. 
He sits there for he doesn’t even know how long just in his head and staring up at the moon. He knows realistically he should be making his way back downstairs, but all desire to mingle with other people seemed to dissipate as he stared up at the full moon. Besides there’s only one person he really wanted to be with at the moment and she apparently could hardly wait to get outta there. 
He stared up at the night sky for the longest time trying to gather his thoughts about the situation, trying to figure out why it felt like every nerve in his body was screaming at him not to let her leave. It was all kinds of backwards yet somehow still fitting that he learned her name only after sleeping together. 
But try as he might, he can't justify keeping her here when she clearly wants to go. 
It felt as though he had known her for years rather than months. In a way it was sort of the truth due to having seen her movies as a kid, but never in his worst nightmares could he imagine the near debilitating feeling that rests in his chest at the prospect of never seeing her again. So he closes his eyes and tries to make peace with the fact he’ll never see Jimena Perez again.
Jimena Perez… JP… Elena Perez… EP… 
His eyes shot open at that realization, and as he hurried to make himself somewhat presentable, he berated himself for missing something like that. He has never believed in coincidences and this was far too specific to be anything other than some sort of sign. 
But to his chagrin, it’s as though she had dropped off the face of the Earth. 
The next day, all anybody could talk about was the scene that the Leon girl made of herself standing on tables and practically flashing the studio head with an impromptu can-can dance, until her sister pulled her off and quickly escorted her out. 
It would be another year before he would see her in person again, and that was only because he specifically requested to have her on-set for what he thought would potentially be his last movie. But even then he’s able to find a modicum of peace with that, if only that he will have her in the end, and this whole ride has been worth something. 
He doesn’t know what’s more terrifying, the idea that he’ll never be able to communicate how he feels about her or the prospect that he will and she’ll reject him all the same. He even at one point resorted to trying to write them down in order to sort them out. 
But each time he tried to put pen to paper it felt like his mind went blank, because how can he explain that it feels like she’s the piece that’s been missing his whole life. That the only time he’s felt whole were the few weeks they spent together. That it can be no coincidence that their names and family names match so perfectly, and it’s gotta be a sign that something else is at play here. 
But he realizes that he’s gotta put in the legwork to make fate happen too.
Requesting to have her be In New Orleans, and he planned on working his way to slowly form a friendship into something more permanent. Of course she did throw a wrench into that plan almost immediately the first night when she showed up at his hotel room and declared the couch for herself because she refuses to stay where she was assigned. He wouldn’t have her anyother way. 
It’s easy to fall into each other once more, as though it hadn’t been almost a year since they last saw one another. He hopes that maybe this time around he would be able to show her even a fraction of what he feels. In an ideal world they would already be on their way to a courthouse to make it all official so that no one would bat an eye when he brought her to Germany, but even he realizes what a tall order that would be. He’s not one to plan ahead, but he figures it’s gonna be a longer process than he anticipated with her, but Jimi’s worth every moment.  
But just like that it all seemed to fall apart.
As sad as it makes him to wake up without her, he’s used to it by this point, but what does worry him is why she wasn’t  in his trailer when he arrived on set. It ate at him that seemingly no one cared beyond the grumblings from the other makeup girls who were now having to work more because she’s missing in action. He knows he’s gonna get an earful for this alone from her considering how much she wants to keep their involvement a secret, he does blatantly ask about her by name. 
It becomes clear what exactly happened when he notices a discarded newspaper on the director's chair. He immediately calls for a halt to the production so he could go out and look for her, fearing the worst. But due to the already tight schedule practically everyone refuses to do so, even after hearing why exactly she was gone.
At that point he just walks off set and swiftly dispatches every one of his boys to go search the city. He even gets in on it and drives around for a few hours all in an effort to find her, but he returns to his suite so he can pray and pace and worry and hope she comes back before sunset. 
When she does get back, the faraway look in her eyes tells him she hasn’t been crying, but the way she’s all clenched up like she’s actively fighting herself from doing so in front of him. He’s having none of it and he brings her into his arms.
It’s only then that she seems to collapse in her grief, and he holds her still knowing that there’s nothing else he could do right now. He’s never seen her like this and immediately he recognizes that he will only ever know a fraction of what she’s going through in that moment. 
Elena was a real person whom she’s known all her life, Jimi had confided in him how she’s put her through the absolute wringer with their mama favoring her and her inability to recognize what her sister has been doing for her sake. Jesse has always just been gone, and Elvis could imagine him in whatever way he liked as an older brother. Jimi knew her through all of the ugliest bits of their lives and loved her all the same, even as she slowly spiraled downwards. 
“Jimi…” he whispers at a loss for words. He knows that nothing he says could possibly fix this situation and it makes him feel all new sorts of helplessness to the situation. 
“Why didn’t I feel it when it happened?” she asked out loud though he gets the sense she isn’t asking looking for an answer from him. 
He could hold her tighter so that she wouldn’t feel so alone right now. The rest of the night, and well into the next day, is a blur as he as he waivers between trying to comfort her and arranging for her return to California. He wants to go with her but despite the already tight schedule for filming and the looming date of his induction he’s hoping to be able to at least see her one last time before boot camp. 
He remembers finding her red bandana as she was packing everything up, and contemplating telling her. But he selfishly wants a small piece to hold onto until the next time he sees her so he slyly slips it under his pillow, and he promises to himself he would give it back once he saw her again.
But of course the lord himself seemed to laugh in his face as his stunt apparently cost a few extra days of filming and between everything else going on in the lead up to his induction, he couldn’t be there for her. The Colonel had a few of his own men physically hold him to prevent him from getting on the next train to LA after he heard about her mama passing, the only thing swaying him was the Colonel’s promise that it would only be one more day of shooting. One day turned into three and before he knew it he was whisked back home to wait out until his induction, with the only acknowledgement from the Colonel being that he made sure to send condolences to the surviving Leon daughter. 
He can only imagine what she went through losing her sister and mother so close together, difficult relationship and all. He would lose his mama only a few months later, and it felt as though every breath threatened to be his last one. Knowing she went through all of this alone, it’s little wonder why all of the letters and invitations he sent at Fort Hood went unanswered.
Sitting in his mothers closet, not wanting to have his grief turned into a photo-op for the press. He now understands why Jimi left the business in the first place. It was as though he was trapped in a fish bowl, drowning and everybody was fighting to be the one to witness his last breath. It makes him feel all the worse for letting her go through that alone.
His biggest regret is that she had to go through all of this alone. He had tried his hardest to try to head back West to see her only to be thwarted each and every time. No amount of Love was gonna thwart Uncle Sam from getting his dues. And before he knew it he was on a ship headed to Europe.
He almost had to relegate himself to the fact that the relationship is unsalvageable after all of it. Truly after experiencing loss himself, he can’t imagine any scenario where she could forgive him, as he could hardly forgive himself. 
But for the sake of making tomorrow seem even the minimum amount of bearable he forces himself to dream that things can be fixed and they would eventually be happier than ever. 
Because if they don’t… then what’s the point?
After all they had gone through separately he knew in his heart that there would never be anyone who could understand him like she could. A twin without a twin, and a child without a mother, a lonely soul surrounded by others, and most of all a person in desperate need of love beyond simple admiration. 
There had always been an ever-present hollow feeling in his life, something he never even recognized until she was no longer present to relieve him from that emptiness. She understands him more than anyone ever will, and the idea of letting her go without a fight is something he simply can’t do.
The almighty himself has tied them together unlike anything he’s ever seen before and to choose another path would be blasphemous at this point. 
All his thoughts on who Jesse would’ve been have been answered when he pointed Elvis in her direction. He has to believe that he wouldn’t do him dirty by bringing him to his soulmate only for fate to snatch her away all the same. He has to believe that things will get better, otherwise what’s the point of continuing on?
But he has to grin and bear the hell that will be trying to live without her in Germany. But if his time in Hollywood taught him anything, it’s how to pretend to be someone he’s not.
It’s easy to pretend to be the good Sergeant Preseley in Germany, charm the pants off a couple girls, do whatever he’s assigned to do by the higher-ups, take whatever the doctors give him so that he can do both, abstain from playing music, act like it’s not killing him, etc,. Behind the scenes he becomes needier than ever, truly fearing being alone now of all times, because he doubts he could keep this up without an audience presence. 
Everybody has seemed to become the audience regardless of how close they previously were to him, it’s hard to think of them as anything else considering that he’s playing a part for them all so they could believe that he’s fine. 
This all adds to his longing for Jimi, knowing that she saw through him easily and he never had to worry about being anything less than himself around her. 
But playing his role helps ease the ache that stems from every thought that she brings to his heart, as then it can be somebody else experiencing that devastation. So he bides his time and plays his part in Germany. Trying to fill that sinking feeling he got in his chest every time he thought about Jimi with more partying, more drugs, more women, just more everything. Even with all that, that sinkhole in his chest seemingly grew bigger and bigger every morning he woke up and she wasn't with him. 
His heart has been broken since the day he was born, and it has been a mad scramble for the pieces for everyone ever since. His brother took a piece with him when he left, as did his mama, and everybody else who had a piece had been doing jackshit to appreciate it. 
He had only one piece of it left really, and he had spent his entire life trying to find someone who he could trust to take care of it. And like a goddamn miracle his brother was able to answer for him, and pointed him in her direction. And finally he found the person he could give that final piece of his heart to. 
But she hurt him in a way that no one has ever been able to do so. She didn’t take advantage of his heart, or reject it, or even betray it. Worse yet, she couldn’t recognize what he was giving her. The life Jimi had been living had turned her cynical to his intentions for her. And every fear she may have ever had about him had been proven true with just that one little article. 
He can’t even blame her for being angry, as he doubts he would’ve been able to keep a lid on something like this in her shoes. But he can’t dwell on it, he can only move forward and try his best to fix this. 
It had truly felt like the world was conspiring against him in that year, as he had to watch as everything he loved slipped through his fingers, all for what. All for a dream that he wasn’t even sure was worth it anymore, nor something he could actually be a part of. 
Being enlisted and overseas already, there was always the lingering threat that if anything happens with the Reds, he’s already here to fight the good fight and all that. Be the good soldier, who would gladly lay down his life for his country. 
Really he just wants to lay down. 
Sometimes forever. 
In the worst days he was so sure he was gonna die there, whether by an enemy hand or by his own, he couldn’t decide. Really the only thing that kept him going was the slim chance that she would be willing to hear him out if he ever came back stateside. Those nights he would hold onto that small piece of her trying to convince himself of the illusion that she’s waiting for him, and dying here would only mean he would lose any chance of seeing her again. 
At one point it stopped smelling like her and he resorted to ordering a bottle of her perfume just to preserve the illusion that she was still waiting for him. He probably doused the cloth with a quarter of the bottle, and inhaled half of that all to maintain the illusion of her still willing to come back to him eventually. He’s sure if that hadn’t worked in easing his nerves he would’ve downed everything in his medicine cabinet and called it a night.
He’s put everything he is into this hope that he could possibly get a second chance, full well knowing he’s undeserving of one. 
So he’s not about to let her go so easily.
Jimi’s actually not that hard to find on the lot, especially now that she has a door with her name on it. She’s certainly made her way up, having turned her previous doodles in the margins of production notes and discarded scripts into a new position complete with a title and an office.  
He knocks at the door with her name on it, and waits a moment, what sounds like the dumbo soundtrack quickly being drowned out by the heart-pounding in his ears. She doesn’t keep him waiting long, as she opens up the door only to immediately close it just enough so that only her head is sticking out. “Fittings are next week,” she says neutrally before she then proceeds to try to close the door in his face. He is too fast though as he shoves his foot in the crack and pushes it open. 
“Jimi, please,” he pushes the door further, but stops once he sees the panicked look on her face. He holds his hands up in surrender but makes no move to remove the foot.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in annoyance, before she opens her mouth again. “If I promise to talk, will you leave me alone after this?”
So sure of himself he nods, truly believing that he just needs to explain and then they can go back to the way they used to be. 
She puts a hand on his chest to motion him to step away from the door before she herself comes out. She does so in the oddest way possible, by sliding herself between the door and the frame, as though she was trying to prevent him from seeing inside her office. She looks back inside and tells who he presumes to be the others she shares the office with that she’s gonna get lunch, and to hold everything down. 
“So you want to talk? Talk then,” she states, breaking that line of thought as she leans against the bulletin board.
He figures she would have such a no nonsense reaction like this, and takes a steadying breath in order to deliver what 
“Jimi… I know why you’re mad,” he starts off slowly. “Believe me I would be hoppin’ mad if i read that…”
“I forgive you,” she cuts in. “We done here?”  
“Wh-what?”
“Are we done here?” She repeats slower this time to really emphasize her words. 
“N-no Jimi,” he begs. “The things the papers said are just lies. I ain’t ever said that”
She gives a short mirthful laugh when she hears that, “Elvis if I had a fucking dime everytime I heard that line,” she rolls her eyes. “But it’s fine. I don’t care anymore. I’m not in the business of telling the papers anything, so you don’t gotta worry about everyone figuring out you’re a hypocrite.” 
“But… I’m not…”
She pats his cheek and gives a thin smile as she pushes herself off the wall, and gives a dry, “Of course you’re not.”
“Jimi listen to me,” he begs, briefly wondering why Jesse had to pick the most stubborn woman alive for him. “I never said any of that.”
“Mhmm,” she hums, the thin line of her mouth and the way she’s checking her nails for dirt, telling him she has no faith in his words. 
“Jimi,” he pleads with her, taking her hand and placing it on his chest. “You gotta believe that I would never say somethin’ like that. I love you so goddamn much and I especially ain’t never wanted to hurt you.”
She may not be able to rely on her knowledge of him, but he knows her well enough to know that she recognizes good acting from bad acting. Watching as her eyes soften from their previous hard stare, he knows that she understands that this is far from an act. This is by far the most honest he’s been with anyone since his mama passed, and the doubt in her own assumptions of him shows all over her face.
He thinks he’s finally getting through to her, until she glances behind him and he watches as her dark eyes harden once more. “You don’t love me, and it doesn’t matter what I believe Elvis,” she snatches her hand out of his, and walks back towards her office before slamming the door.
He stands there for he doesn’t even know how long, trying to justify why he should even keep breathing at this point, his catatonic state only helping to prevent him from doing something stupid in the face of the worst rejection he’s ever had. This isn’t a girl laughing in his face over being asked to the school dance or a stuffy actress looking down her nose at his hillbilly ways, this is a part of his soul refusing to come back to him. 
This can’t be the end, a voice in his head whispers. He tries to repeat these words in his head if only to make the hope he has a little more real. He knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as him returning, and she would automatically throw herself into his arms. He already knew it was going to be an uphill battle for her love once again, but the flat-out rejections and refusal of his declaration just made everything so real in that moment.
When Jimi cares, she does so with all her being, and he knows at some point she cared enough about him to befriend him, and there’s no way that all disappeared in the last two years. To some extent she still cares about Elvis, and that’s why he refuses to give up on her so easily. 
But she’s not one to be swayed so easily. 
Gifts and letters and songs for her, are all met with the same stony indifference that has marked her status as near untouchable. Her schedule is next to unpredictable as it seems that everytime he does try to send someone over for her she’s conveniently out of the office. 
Each rejection further drove him closer and closer towards that edge he’d been resisting since he landed in Germany. He would toss and turn at night, not wanting to be alone but at the same time wanting no one but Jimi with him. It’s even worse than it was before considering the fact that she’s so close that he could almost touch her, but she’s like smoke, he can see her there but never truly grab a hold of her.
Something that only intensifies once shooting actually begins and he knows just how close she is day in and day out on the lot. It’s nothing short of torture to have all that he needs in life so close, yet just out of reach. 
Off camera and out of the studio he’s barely keeping it together, the years of pretending to be okay in front of people only barely enough to sustain the image he’s made for himself as well as doing the job he was tasked with. Everybody wants a piece of him now that he’s back, and he doesn’t know if he has any left to give anymore.
It all came to a head one day when he walks into the wardrobe building and sees one of the girls holding a small toddler girl. It strikes him how similar the little girl looked to Jimi back in her firecracker days, even down to the ribbon tying her hair back. He muses for half a second that that’s what their daughter would look like, and then it hits him like a ton of bricks that may never come to pass. 
He’s trying to make her not hate his guts, and with how little success he’s been having, he’ll be lucky if she even looks at him again before he’s Dodgers age. He’s closer to never having her love him again than he is to someday. 
He had come with the intention of showing her the bandana he had been holding onto all of these years, to show how devoted he’s been to her. Now holding it in his hands and remembering that initial promise to give it back to her, he realizes what a fool he’s been. He’s been selfishly holding onto something that’s not there anymore, because he was too much of a coward to actually do what he needed to get what he wanted. 
He didn’t want to believe it was too late for them, but seeing that little girl, he realized how much time he’s lost. Where he’s spent the last two years nurturing his love for her, she's been feeding her hatred for him. If he’s gonna be in love with her for the rest of his life, she’ll hate him for the rest of hers. 
She’s made it clear that she wants nothing to do with him anymore, and he can’t blame her for it. He should’ve been there for her, damn the consequences, but he wasn’t and now he has to live with what he did. 
Though once he gives it back, jury's out on how much longer he will live.
Resolved in his need to do right by her, he solemnly walks to the costume department with about the same enthusiasm as he would the gallows. Perhaps there is no coming back from this, and perhaps he wouldn’t deserve one either way. He was a coward who let what he wanted walk away time and time again, not having enough will to hold on to her. 
And he doesn’t have the strength to try to hold on any longer. 
Finally as he’s just about to turn the corner to where he knows her office is, only to stop in his tracks, and realize that once he gives it back… it’s all over. He’s strangely okay with that once he reconciles he won’t be feeling that way for much longer.
Turning the corner he sees a familiar figure looking at a bulletin board, and standing right beside her was a significantly smaller figure.
It takes him a moment to realize what he’s looking at, but the second he does it feels like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs. 
He’s tempted to look down at his own feet to reassure himself he's still on solid ground, and that the floor hadn’t been taken out from under him, but truly no force on Earth could make him look away from the little one at her feet. 
The boy is standing barely taller than her knee, wearing light green overalls with what looks to be a little yellow duck on the front pocket. His honey hair - a few shades darker than Elvis’ own natural locks- is slicked back on the sides allowing for some bronze curls to hang over his forehead but it’s really his face that comes like a punch to the gut to Elvis.
Vain as it may sound, Elvis knows his own face, even when it’s softened with baby fat and slightly darkened from the California sun, and that’s all he sees when he looks down at the brown-eyed little boy that’s clutching onto a woman’s skirt and idly sucking his thumb. 
It’s as he’s wondering what happened to his eye color when the eyes in question finally take notice of him, and the little boy rapidly tugs at the pencil skirt he’d had a tight grip on. In his head he’s still trying to justify any other way someone could have a little clone of himself that isn’t the most obvious answer, until he watches Jimi crouch down in her heels as she gently strokes the little boy's plump cheek. 
“¿Que paso Papi?” she asks, adoration in her voice as she brings him close to her face, before planting a kiss on his cheek. 
The boy, too shy or too young, to answer only points a chubby little finger his way, his dark eyes wide in wonder. As her eyes follow, Elvis sees her jaw clench and most of her previous warmth seemed to sap out of her at the very sight of him. It truly feels like the first time she’s actually looked at him in a long time without her eyes immediately sweeping over him dismissively, so he can’t help but welcome it. 
In one fluid motion, she competently scoops up the small boy up in her arms and begins to make her way towards him, her heels clacking ominously as though she were an oncoming vengeful mother goddess set to rain down fire upon him. 
Elvis is usually quicker on his feet but it feels as though they had been replaced by cement as he’s frozen in place with no sign of escape. But he doesn’t think he really wants that anymore as it now gives him a better look at the boy.
“Can I help you?” she asks, painfully neutral, as though she’s simply asking what he wants for lunch and not in fact holding a mini version of himself in her arms. 
“Wh-” he starts but has to swallow before he can get too choked up. “What the hell is this?” 
“It looks like,” she answers and he perks up at that both eager and fearful of what she has to say. “My old bandana,” she states, much to his confusion, until he follows her dark eyes to the fabric still within his grasp. 
Her flippancy just enrages him, “You know damn well what I mean!” pointing a finger in the direction of the small boy in her arms. Guilt quickly eats at his belly as the boy turns from him and buries his face in her neck out of fear, as she continues to look at him with the disdain in her eyes only growing.
“Oh…” she says dryly as though she only now remembers the boy in her arms, even though she had been consistently rubbing soothing circles on his tiny back since he got scared. “This is my son.” A simple no-nonsense answer, but he doesn’t miss the way she neglects to mention a name. “You can go ahead and throw it away, I don’t need it anymore.” 
He wants to say something about that. He wants to be mad at her for being so goddamn stubborn about this as though his whole world isn’t being rocked right now. But he can’t muster any of that as he just finds himself just wanting to look at the boy in her arms some more. The little one looks back and forth between the two of them, but he does seem to settle after gauging that his mama is not in the least bit shaken by the man before them, and adopts her bored looking expression, though the boy does keep a wary eye on him even as his mother turns them both away from him.
“Wait,” he says as he quickly grabs her elbow. Her hackles rise at just that little bit of contact, like a rattlesnake coiled up and ready to strike, but he won’t be stopped from knowing the truth. “Is… is he-”
“No,” she cuts him off, before looking over his shoulder and closing her eyes- seemingly in annoyance- only to then plaster a wide phony smile on her face as she looks at him. “Thank you for bringing it to my attention.” saccharine sweet, as though she had been in a completely different conversation before ripping her arm out of his grasp and walking past him. “I’ll be sure to add those notes into the costume.” Without even a goodbye she rushes past him.
He turns around to see the second most gut-wrenching thing of the day as a woman approaches Jimi and hands over to her another child,and he realizes it’s that same little girl from earlier. The love of his life expertly balances the additional toddler on her other hip as she plants a swift kiss to her cheek before exchanging a few words with the woman in front of her and walks back down the hall, not even bothering to look back at him.
That woman quickly approaches and stands in front of him, obviously trying to run interference between the two of them. Trying to keep the two of them apart like everybody else has seemingly made their mission. 
He honestly hears nothing of it as he starts to tail Jimi down the hall, his entire focus is on the little girl, heart-breakingly sweet with her little cherubic face, her dark curls held at bay with the red ribbon, as she opens and closes her tiny hand at him as though to once again say good-bye. Meanwhile the little boy, whose face is still firmly in his mama’s collar, risks a quick peek back at him before quickly burying himself back in place as the echo of yherour heels on the linoleum floors lessens as she gets further and further away. 
He’s able to catch her before she can get out of the building, quickly blocking her from the exiting door. She still has that infuriating cool expression on her face, looking at him as though he were a mere inconvenience on her way out the door. 
“Jimi…” he pleads, taking her shoulders in his hands forcing her to look at him. “Jimi, look me in the eye, and tell me they ain’t mine.”
She gives him such a cold stare that he can feel a shiver travel down his spine, the dread of her words tying his stomach in knots, as he anticipates her answer. Somehow she’s able to make it all the crueler, even as her (his?) son starts to suckle on the collar of her blouse, while her (their?) daughter has managed to dislodge a chunk of her thick dark locks from her braid and begin to play with it. 
“Why would I want them to be yours?” 
A punch to the gut, a kick to his face, a knife to his heart, those are all the things he would have preferred she had done over saying that. For a second, even she seems taken aback by the cruelty of her own words, until that hard look returns to her eyes as the little boy begins to pat her cheek for attention. 
She looks down at him with a soft smile on her face before giving them both a kiss to the forehead and sidestepping him in order to get out the door, not even bothering to acknowledge him.
He doesn’t know how long he stays in that spot but by the time Joe (or was it Charlie?) finds him and he’s practically stiff as a board, and just about as responsive. Nobody fights him on it when he just declares that he has to call it for the day, so it’s not too long before he’s kicking off his shoes and crawling underneath the covers still fully clothed. His mind raced, doing its best to put together what the hell he had seen today. Trying to comprehend how much of himself he had left behind with her. 
When he started making waves he had to have the most awkward talk of his life with the Colonel to always wrap it or at least become proficient in never finishing inside of a woman, because the last thing he needed was a baby. And he was for it completely, nowhere ready to settle down yet, and with everything looking so vibrant and new to him, he saw no end in sight. 
He can think of one night in particular back in New Orleans, after almost twenty hours on set, Jimi had excused herself from any of the usual get-togethers and headed straight to his room. After she had declared that her room situation is unmanageable she had set up shop initially on his hotel room couch, though lately they hadn’t even been bothering with that pretext. So it wasn’t too shocking to find her in his bed, spread out on her front like a starfish in nothing but a simple slip. 
What was shocking was the wave of contentment that washes over him seeing her there, just the utter feeling of rightness that the image brings. The powdery blue slip gorgeous on her dark skin tone, and he has to hold back a groan when he sees how high it’s ridden in her sleep giving him a tantalizing view of the back of her thighs, just effortlessly sensual, even in her sleep. He can’t imagine anything better to come home to. What he found even more tempting was her defenseless pert nose, and remembering the way it would scrunch up when she smiled. He knows he’s either going to get that reaction or swift punch to the chest for what he does next.
She still manages to keep him on his toes when she simply does both after he peppers her face in kisses. He reels a bit from the blow, playing up the injury just a little as he sees her shoulders bounce a little in poorly held in laughter.
“They gotchu workin’ to the bone sweetheart,” he remarks, as he rubs the spot between her shoulder blades that has her giving a euphoric groan. He is genuinely offended that the studio would make her have to work like a dog, all for a single line in the credits. 
“This whole production would fall apart without me,” she sighs, while he lets out a laugh in agreement. 
“You ever think about quittin’?” He asks a bit off the cuff, but he can’t help it seeing the woman he loves running herself ragged for people who sure as hell don’t care for her. 
“Maybe,” she answers through her drowsy state, turning to face him directly. “I don’t think I would leave, but maybe if I get married I would probably do something with less hours, like costumes.” 
He felt his heart speed up a little when she mentioned the word “married” but not in the way it used to do when other girls brought up the idea. No, rather than having that sour feeling in his belly, he’s practically giddy over the prospect with her. “So I guess ya just waitin’ for the right actor to sweep you off ya feet darlin’?” he brings her close, smiling into her hair and absentmindedly stoking the hand she lays on his chest. 
But this happiness is ripped away by a simple snort from her, only to then be further crushed into dust as she has a full-on laughing fit at the mere prospect.
“No,” she says, wiping the tears from her eyes, trying to get a hold of her laughter, unknowing of how soul-crushing her words are. “I’d never marry an actor.”
It feels like every ounce of hope for the future saps out of him at that moment. 
“O-oh wh-why’s that?” fighting to keep his face from showing the devastation he feels inside. A knife in his heart would have been preferable at that point, because then she would have at least acknowledged he had one to break. 
She gives a mere shrug, of her shoulders, “I don’t really know how to explain it other than it wouldn't work.”
If he were a braver man, he would have had the balls to ask her “If that’s true… then what’s all this been about?” But he's a goddamn coward and this question dies on the tip of his tongue, far too afraid of what she may answer. 
As these nights usually talking leads to kissing and while she is willing she offers first to use her mouth, and while he doesn’t hold back the groan when he hears this, he knows that that won’t be enough for him even if he can’t pinpoint why. 
“Okay,” she yawns, as she lifts her hips up, presenting her ass in the air while she wraps her arms around a pillow and sleepily buries her face in it. “But you gotta do all the work.” 
She’s done this before, tried to feign indifference toward the act, and tried to play it off that she didn’t absolutely enjoy it each and every time. This is a game that Elvis has yet to lose. 
He knows her well enough to know how to get her going even when she insists she’s not in the mood. How a light touch up her spine as her perk her ass up, while a nibble to her ear has her making the most adorable little noises. And still it feels like he learns something new about her everyday, with today’s new lesson that she loses all of her carefully crafted composure when he sits on his knees and raises her thighs over his shoulders.
She lets out a surprised gasp as she barely catches herself on her hands, only for it to turn into a low moan when he takes a long lick up her slit. Nothing tastes sweeter on his tongue than the evidence that she wasn’t as disinterested as she claims, and with her so nicely open for him now he plunges his tongue as deep as he could go. 
Any semblance of composure is gone the moment he had almost entirely upside down, her arms shaking with the effort to try to keep herself up. 
“You like that sweetheart?” he whispers, only slightly muffled by her flesh. 
“Yes,” she moans enthusiastically as he feels her small hand palm at his still clothed length, and he gives a little chaste kiss of appreciation on her clit that has her gasping for air. While any other night he would’ve gladly indulged her need to taste him, he did promise to do all of the work. So as he delves his tongue as deep as it could go he knows she’s good and ready as he feels her slick drip down to his wrist as he rubs that button of hers. 
She lets out a devastating sob as she comes, and before she’s had a chance to recover barely had time to recover before he’s flipping her over and pressing her knees to her chest as he thrusts inside all in one motion. Her back arches and her mouth opens and closes repeatedly, gasping for air as though she could feel him all the way in her throat. 
Entering her is always such an indescribable feeling, somewhere between euphoric and comforting. And there have even been days when the only thing on his mind on set was how best to get her alone so that he could get her like this once again. As he crams his cock at a steady rhythm, he imagines it’s the same way everyone else who goes to work on a regular job pictures being home at the end of the day. 
If he was a little rougher that night, it was only so that she could feel a fraction of his anguish that she caused. He both envies and resents her ability to be able to picture a life without him, when no future of his would be complete without her. 
He had spilled in her before that point, but it had always been an accident as something about her made him slower on the draw than he was with anybody else. But in that moment before he knew he was gonna cum, seeing her thrash and arch her back and push even further into him, time seemed to slow for a second and there was a moment where he saw quick as lightning just the image of her heavy and glowing with a baby.
His baby.
He can’t remember a time he came so hard, and with the way she collapsed back in the pillow he knew she was just as affected by it too. The way she’s quaking with every breath before peaking out at him through the curtain of her hair is something he doubts he’ll ever forget as places light kisses on her shoulders to add some tenderness to the rough act. 
With great reluctance and curiosity getting the better of him he pulls out his softened member, and he’s treated to the most erotic thing he’s ever seen in his life as he watches his seed slowly drip out of her folds. If he wasn’t absolutely sure that that last one had taken everything out of him he would be ready to go again from the sight of this alone. 
Something in the back of his head whispers to find something to plug her up to really make sure it takes this time. But before he can act on this he sees her get her bearings on her, and she reaches between her legs. She gives a soft curse as she sees his spend on her fingers, before making a move to roll out of bed towards the bathroom. But he was quick to snatch her back and tell her to just lay with him until he fell asleep. She would only give an annoyed little huff, and give sleepy demands for beignets for breakfast in return for this favor.
He slept easier that night with his hand on her belly, believing that he would be able to find a way to keep her with him. 
This would be far from the last time he would spill in her during production, but it would be the last time he could call it an accident. If he’s being honest with himself he thinks he fully intended to get her pregnant in some sort of convoluted plot to get her to settle down with him. That once she had a baby in her, she would have no choice but to marry him and leave it all behind. No more ungrateful sister or disparaging mother, Jimi could finally focus all of her attention on a family that would take care of her back. 
But then everything happened all at once, and suddenly she was beyond his reach, and soon she took with her all of his hopes of having a life worth living. 
Since his career had taken off, more than a few women had already accused him of fathering their babies. Of the few of them that weren’t talking outta their ass, he had seen a few of the kids, and while there were some that may have had a few features similar to him, none had come close to the little clone boy he had seen of himself in Jimi’s arms. 
Others woulda chalked it up to just him getting older and wanting to settle down and any baby with a passing resemblance woulda done this to him. But there was something even beyond longing, it was that sense of rightness that has been missing from his life for a long time, something he wouldn’t’ve gotten with just any baby. 
On the day they were shooting with the babies he tried to test this theory. But even holding a few of the kids, not a single one of them was able to stir anything close to that fatherly warmth that just looking or even thinking about the two little ones she held that day. 
It’s not like he felt nothing holding these babies, like he wished them any harm, but he more or less cared about them the same way he would care about a random puppy: fun to play with in the moment, but didn’t really mean he cared enough for the hard or messy parts of taking care of it. 
As he’s holding probably the biggest one of the lot, he realized this one is still smaller than either of his babies. Someone off-handedly asked how old this one was, he feels his throat close up at the answer. 
A Year, he thinks to himself as he hands the slobbering infant back to its mother. How much did I miss? Can they walk? Can they talk? 
Even as their mamas were packing them up to leave for the day, all of them would wave goodbye to him, but none of it compared to the heart-wrenching feeling remembering those two little ones she held in her arms. 
In his heart he knew they were his, he didn't care what she had to say about it. 
Two people, both from a set of twins, get together and create the two most beautiful and perfect babies he’s ever seen, and she thinks that means nothing? That she can just step away from him and deny him his rights as a father?
What did he miss all this time away? The boy was standing on his own, so did he already take his first shaky steps? The little girl was babbling nonsense to him, has she been able to actually make words?
Lord, he doesn't even know their names. He has so many questions and next to no answers.
But even for all the anguish it’s causing him, he can feel it in his chest how their existence has reinvigorated him beyond what he thought he was capable of anymore. He had been on the cusp of hopelessness, fully believing that without he wouldn’t be long for this world without Jimi. 
But seeing them was like seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, now knowing that Jimi couldn’t get rid of a piece of him, proves it’s not too late for them.
So he went about getting answers the same way she taught him to: ask the crew. To his luck everybody seemed to know something or another about what Jimi had been up to the last few years. Through the various tidbits here and there he was slowly able to piece together a story. 
How some asshole had taken advantage of her grief after losing her entire family with promises to take care of her in her time of need, and how he didn’t even wait till the ink was dry on the marriage certificate before scurrying his ass back to Mexico leaving her with less than half of her inheritance and a couple of babies in her belly. She came back to Paramount as a costume designer a couple months back after calling in a few favors with some of the higher-ups, and has been flagrantly breaking the rules by bringing the babies on to set. 
Jimi wasn’t lying when she said that make-up girls hear everything there is to know in this town. Unfortunately he finds out the hard way that that goes for all of them, even those that now work in the costume department. 
“I hear you’ve been asking about me,” a familiar voice would coldly say as she wrapped the cape around his neck. 
He doesn’t have to look up to know who it is, but he does look around to make sure the other make-up girl was gone. This at the very least confirms that she’s keeping her cards as close to her chest as possible, and trying to prevent anybody from figuring it out. 
“I had a right to know Jimi,” he answers, not looking directly at her face but through the mirror. A trick he learned when he first met her when he wanted to get her genuine reaction on something, he could only do so when she thought she wasn’t being looked at directly. It still proves to be true when he sees her jaw clench the slightest bit at his comment. 
 “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says apathetically but immediately contradicts herself when she gives a firm yank to his hair so that he’s looking right up at her. 
He gives a small grunt, though he does smile a bit at finally being able to get a reaction out of her. “Well now, last time I saw you like this-”
“Elvis,” she cuts off sharply before she grits out, “Leave. It. Alone.”
Now it’s his turn to react as his jaw clenches in frustration at the audacity. “Why should I?”
“Elvis…” she says slowly like he’s a child. “What do you think is going to happen if you are the father?”
He opens his mouth to argue with her, only to come up short. He hadn’t really thought farther ahead other than being able to have them all in his life. But what would that mean for them?  How would people react to him not only having kids now, but having them this whole time and only now stepping up? 
“That’s what I thought,” she says, placing down the comb. “Don’t worry,” she pats his cheek, maybe a little harder than necessary, “Nobody’s gonna believe they’re yours after what you said.”
He explodes hearing this, “How many times do I gotta tell ya?! I didn’t say that shit!” He stands to his full height to tower over her.
“It doesn’t matter Elvis!” she says, raising her voice for the first time since he’s known her, not in the least bit intimidated by him. “Do you really think they’re gonna just accept that you had two kids out of wedlock, and especially with a Mexican woman? Especially now that they’re trying to sell you off as this wholesome family act, do you think the studio is gonna stand for that shit.” Her eyes begin to go a bit glassy as she says the next part. “Your career might be in danger, but my literal life is at stake if they even think I could be a threat to the comeback they’re trying so hard to make happen for you.” 
She squeezes her eyes shut at this point like she’s trying to will the tears back into her eyes, and her chest seems just a step away from being considered heaving, making it clear to Elvis she is trying so hard to keep the image she’s crafted for herself intact. Elvis can appreciate how yet again he’s the only one able to look past the curtain and see her for who she is. 
Finally after taking a deep breath her bloodshot eyes open and she gives a somber, “Do you know how my last movie ended?” Her voice severe and distant, her hands placed on the hinges of the trailer door. 
He’s a little stumped by the heel-turn of this conversation, but he plays along if only to convince himself he still has a chance to convince her otherwise. “You got your folks back together didn’tcha?
“No,” she says bitterly. “That last movie ended with the worst box office turnout of the year, because it was banned in most southern states -including yours- because the white man ended up with the mexican mother,” there the sardonic smirk on her face tells him she finds little humor in what she’s saying. “The studios forced us to tell that story and blamed us when nobody wanted to see it…” 
“Jimi,” he starts placing a hand on her shoulder before she rips it away. “Baby, it’s a different time now,” though even he realizes how hollow those words are. 
“Let me finish!” she shouts, tears trailing down her face as she looks back at him. “This isn’t a movie,” she declares. “There is no happy ending for anybody if you keep digging. Not for you, not for me, and especially not for my babies.” 
Our babies, is on the tip of his tongue, but he holds back.
“I’m not gonna have my babies a part of that life Elvis,” she glares at him. “They don’t need you. I don’t need you.” She turns her head and he can see the tears that threaten to fall in the corners of her eyes. “So just… leave it.”
And with seemingly the final word, she walks out of his trailer and he falls back heavy into his chair, utterly exhausted by the encounter. His chest feels tight, the shallow breathes he’s able to take doing little to remedy the feeling, his hands shaking out of fury and grief for the life that’s been stolen from him. On top of all of that his vision starts to blur with the tears clouding them, but that doesn’t stop him from noticing the movement in the mirror. 
He quickly gathers himself as best he could and turns to face whoever just entered his trailer, but he finds himself alone. That is until he looks at the mirror again.
He knows he must look a mess right now, but the mirror doesn’t reflect that whatsoever with the stony features he sees looking back at him. Elvis knows his face, and he knows when he’s not looking at his face. But Elvis knows who this is even before he opens his mouth with the only words he’ll speak to him.
“Go getcha girl,” Jesse whispers. 
And just like that he’s gone, and Elvis looks at his own reflection once again. With that little bit of brotherly guidance, Elvis comes to one startling realization: She’s right.
She’s right, this isn’t a movie.
So that means he doesn't gotta be nice about getting her back. 
He’s spent the last nearly two years planning how he was going to apologize to her over something he didn’t even do. Where is the justice in that? It’s as though she’s only capable of seeing him in the worst possible light. 
If she want’s a villain so goddamn bad then he’ll give her one. 
What a cruel power did God give to women. To take a piece of man, to mold and create something so wonderful and joyful, only to be able to deny him that if she felt so inclined. Usually the duplicitous ones will take from one man and claim it to be from another, all for gain, but Jimi is far more sadistic with this power, to hold two little mirrors in her arms and deny him his very own image. 
It’s enough to drive a lesser man insane.
No.
She’s not gonna deny him this. 
Jesse may have gotten him started on this path, but he can no longer just rely on fate to bring them together. He will take matters into his own hands, and they will be together. 
He remembers the first time he had seen one of her films as a kid. It was his 8th birthday and he had begged his Mama to let him go to the movies to see literally anything that day, and it so happened to be that one where the two sisters unintentionally thwarted some robbers in their house. 
He remembers laughing as Nena was sent into one room only for Mena to rip down the hallways as soon as the door was closed much to the confusion of the would-be criminals. He remembers the fear he felt when Mena seemingly fell out a window with the next shot being one of them lying on their stomach on the ground only for the next scene to reveal they had pulled the old switcheroo. He remembers the end when their parents finally came home and were glad that them burglars didn’t get their most precious treasures- their daughters. 
Most of all he remembers glancing over at the empty seat next to him and wondering if these were the sort of antics him and Jesse were meant to get up to. His mama never kept his brother a secret from him, always telling him how he’d have the strength of two, but he always knew on some level she would have preferred two regularly strong boys rather than just one really strong one. 
That feeling he got when looking at the vacant seat next to him is the same feeling he gets everytime he looks at his Hillcrest home now. The realization as to how fundamentally empty a home is without a family to fill it. 
Fate denied him his brother before he even entered the world. Death had snatched his mother out from under him. And that horrible Stanley woman was working double time to take his daddy away from him too. He’s not about to let Jimi keep him away from any more of his family, just because she wants to be stubborn.
Now, knowing of their existence he knows he needs them in his life. He needs her in his life. 
The PI didn’t disappoint, when you got enough money and notoriety in this town, they tend not to. He hardly batted an eye when Elvis had mentioned that there were kids out there that were potentially his, though he did give a funny look when Elvis told him he actually wanted him to dig up proof that he was the father, which is apparently rather novel in this town. 
Though what the PI brings back is painful in its own way. He mostly focused on what could be dug up through paper records both legally and illegally obtained: house deeds, birth certificates, medical records, wills etc.
That’s how he finally learns the names of his children.
Alejandro and Mireya.
Big names for babies that are so little, he thinks to himself. Only to realize that they will one day grow into them, and he’s wasting time not being with them. 
By all accounts, Jimi’s doing just fine: house is paid off, bills get paid on time, food is plenty, and she’s apparently in the market for a nanny. But a deeper look revealed that she’s pissing through her savings right now and with the way things are going she’ll be out of money in maybe another ten years, something she must have realized if she came back to work at all. Elvis finds himself exasperated that her stubbornness will cause her and the little ones to sink before she ever thinks to ask for help.
But it's the few and far between snapshots of the little family that threaten to do Elvis in. He has to fight the urge to frame them as they are all so wonderfully domestic. Strolls through the park, trips to ice cream shop, stops at the grocery store, and everything else that would paint the perfect family portrait of a young, beautiful mother and her two adorable babies. 
Everything except for a father. 
Though some of the most painful ones to look at were the ones from her day at the beach with them. He can almost pretend that he is the one behind the camera, that he took these pictures of her and the little ones on a family outing and not in fact a shameless voyeur of the life that should by all rights be his. In one of them, they were facing the camera as they looked out to the vast ocean before them, Jimi crouched down by the shore line as she held their little hands so they could properly get their feet wet. She wears a wrap around her one piece bathing suit in a facsimile of modesty and he already knows she turned a few heads that day. Little Alejandro is wearing a swim ring and practically wrapped around Jimi’s leg while Mireya’s wearing little floaties and pulling on her mama’s hand to try to go deeper.
So wholesome and idyllic, he can practically picture the entire day in his head. 
How he would come up behind her and swing them back and forth on the shore line as though he were about to toss them in while they squealed in delight.
How he would play with them in the sand until she insisted on them taking a nap under the umbrella while their parents could have a breather to have lunch. 
How she would lay beside them and from his position he could shamelessly leer at their mothers figure. 
How the day would knock them out on the car ride home and they would both quietly bring the little ones in the house and place them in their cribs and how she would wrap herself around his arm as they both gazed down at the two little miracles before them.
How he would bend her over right outside the hallway and fuck her raw so that they would never have a day at the beach without babies. 
If that wasn't what Norman Rockwell pictured for the ideal family life, he doesn’t know what is.
Those last few weeks of shooting, he could hardly function knowing they were all out there, the few who knew what he was going through were unsure how to approach him. Some learned quickly that he wasn’t about to be questioned on this, others had to learn the hard way. 
After the last day of shooting, Elvis would only idly register the fact that he had been sitting on a lounge chair staring vacantly at the pool. He hadn’t meant to, he just remembers after breakfast wondering how he’ll probably teach them how to swim there, and then all of a sudden the sun had already set for the day. 
His buddies had apparently gotten so worried, they had ended up calling in reinforcements. 
“Now my boy,” a familiar voice would say behind him. “I hear we been losin’ focus lately.”
As though on reflex Elvis feels his jaw clench in distaste. In a way the colonel was the best and worst choice to be the one to come talk to him. The worst because after learning what he knows, he wants little to do with the man anymore and the best because he needs someone to take out all this anger on before he can see the mother of his children again.
So Elvis really has to put all of his acting abilities to work at this moment, as he plasters on a phony grin and grits the teeth he’s liable to start gnashing at any moment. “I reckon I been more focused now than I been in a long time, Colonel.”
Bypassing what he just said, the man sits down on the lounge chair right next to him. “That’s not what I been hearin’ ‘from your buddies.” Elvis can see he has the clown head cane, which he adds to the list of things he’s finding infuriating about the man. 
“And what they been sayin’?” 
“How an old flame reared her head recently and has been getting in your head with some foolish notions of slowing down now of all times,” he says. “My boy, I warned you ‘bout women like this before. They can’t appreciate the hard work we been doin’ to make this life here, and simply will take from men ike us.”
As sour of a taste as that statement leaves in his mouth, that at the very least confirms that Parker doesn’t know dogshit about the sitation. He’s reminded of that time how she complained she never has time to take a cigarette break or something will catch on fire. Something that was proven true only moments after she put one in her mouth and then ten men were screaming fire. She would casually stroll up to it, extinguisher in hand, and use the inferno from the stagelight to light her cigarette before putting it out. 
“You don’t gotta worry no more, my boy,” he starts patting around his jacket, only to pull out two cigars and a set of matches. This and the story gives him an idea as to how to prove his own convictions.
“Why’s that Colonel?” Suspecting what he’s getting at, but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. 
“I had a word with the young lady you were so fond of back in New Orleans,” he started, every word of his making Elvis want to scratch his own skin off. “And rest assured we came to an agreement after a few words from yours truly,” he says as though that will somehow placate him. “She wants nothing more than for us to leave her and her little ones alone, and of course we can accommodate that,” he lights up a celebratory cigar and hands his client one as well as though they were in some anti stork club.  
He once made the mistake of calling the Colonel something of a father figure to him, and he’s never been more disgusted with himself than right now. But he stays silent as he lets the “Colonel” before him dig his own grave. 
“Trust me son, I get the urge to want to settle down,” he reassures him. “But you’re young and it ain’t like you don’t got all the options in the world. Next time ‘round you can have some babies with a proper American girl”
The Colonel doesn’t know it yet, but this statement truly solidifies his fate. 
He doesn’t get it. None of these assholes get it. How can they? They ain’t ever lost someone like he did, like she did. They can’t see the value of family because they think that he can just make more of them with someone else? As though forces of a higher power hadn’t gone out of their way to bring them together. 
Elvis can do nothing more than kiss his teeth at the older man’s ignorance, as he slowly but deliberately grabs the cigar from his mouth and looks him dead in the eye as he slowly stamps out the cigar on the unvarnished wooden side table. 
Jimi was right. Words are nothing at the end of the day and it’ll be actions that will show them all how fucking serious he is about this.
“Those are my babies, and she’s my girl. And I ain’t gonna hear nothin’ more ‘bout it.” Elvis gets the pleasure of watching the Colonel gape like a fish only to then go red in the face as he goes back and forth between him and the small flames that are now beginning to dance on the table. He cuts him off before he can get another word in edgewise. “‘Sides I think marryin’ her would do wonders for my reputation down south.”
The portly man is surprised by his clients words and tries to quickly recover from the shock. “Son, I-I don’t think there’s notin’ down there we need to worry ‘bout,” he scolds as though Elvis were a child, trying desperately to reign him in.
“I used to think the same thing, ‘till I hired that PI to look into Jimi…” Elvis starts as he cuts the cigar, not even bothering to acknowledge the man’s concerns, “... and a few other things.”
“...what other things?”
“Funny you mention that Colonel. I had him look into where the hell those quotes came from. Y’know the ones that got me banned from Mexico. And boy did he have a story to tell,” his words are comically gleeful as he brings the cigar to his mouth. “One with high up there politicians, birthday parties, and blank checks. A story… my manager apparently knew all too well, but ain’t ever bothered to tell me.”
The only thing that could be heard in the moment was the light crackling from the flames between the two of them, and from it’s light Elvis can see the way that the sweat seems to pour off of the man in front of him. They both know that it has nothing to do with the fire.
“So-son, this is… it’s-it’s more complicated than you think,” Parker stutters, trying to desperately wrench back control of the situation. But Elvis already knows that the next chance he gets, he’s gonna cut ties with him… but Parker certainly doesn’t. And so for the time being he still has a role to play in this production. 
“Now there’s two ways to take this,” Elvis says leaning back on the wicker chair as the flames begin to get higher and higher, attracting the attention of his boys outside, and they rush to try to do something about it. One single hand gesture from him has them all frozen in place, awaiting his command. 
Good, these motherfuckers needed to be reminded who exactly is in charge here, even if he had to burn this whole place to the ground. 
“One, a simple mistake that my manager made and will now do anythin’ to fix if he wants even a chance at his contract bein’ renewed pretty soon… or two…” he brings the still unlit cigar to the now three foot flames on the table beside him, the closest thing he’s done to acknowledge them. He even briefly blows out the flame on his cigar, really trying to draw it out, enjoying the way it makes the older man squirm in his seat. It’s only right considering how much grief he caused trying to hide his secret so long. But if Jimi had taught him anything about Hollywood, is that shit like this don’t stay buried forever. “My manager for some reason can’t leave the country and didn’t want me leavin’ it neither.” 
It's an interesting experience to watch a man go from red in the face to completely white in horror. He opens and closes his mouth in disbelief more than a few times as though god himself will put the words in his mouth to smooth over this misstep. Any doubts Elvis had about the PI’s story melted away with each little tick the man before him made. 
Jimi had taught him what makes for a good and bad actor, and boy oh boy did Parker make for a shitty one: the shifty beady eyes, the nervous tapping on his cane, the constant swallowing and clearing of his throat. 
“So Colonel,” he states with a smoky breath, and no amount of venom missing from his voice for the man that- albeit unintentionally- cost him so much time with his family. “What’s it gonna be?”
The flames are by now as tall as a full grown man, and the fire has now fully engulfed the low table that was once there. All the boys are nervously shifting and shuffling about, wanting to put it out before it can get out of hand, but the hand that Elvis holds toward them keeps them in place, not a single one of them willing to go against him. 
The message is clear to everyone though: give him what he wants or he will burn them all, and not just metaphorically. 
“I-I,” the old man stutters looking down at his feet undoubtedly looking for help even from Hades himself, only to see as an ember finds a new home on his lone client’s pant leg. 
Elvis does not acknowledge this. 
Parker looks back up at him, only now comprehending who the hell he is dealing with. 
“I’ll see what I can do my boy,” he finally answers breathlessly.
“Now that’s what I like to hear, Parker,” he gives an amiable clap to his shoulder before gesturing to the rest to take care of the inferno before them. They’re all in a dead sprint to deal with the fire and Elvis gives his foot a cursory dip in the pool to extinguish the flames creeping up his ankle, before walking away without another word to any of them. 
With the Colonel and everyone else willing to do anything to get back in his good graces, things seem to run a lot smoother now. 
Finding a lawyer willing to handle paternity suits is easy enough in this town, finding one that is willing to fight to establish his status as their father however… practically every lawyer that was consulted said it was near impossible for them to do so without the mother’s consent. Without even knowing who exactly they were meant to be representing they said the whole thing would be a wash if at the end of the day the mother remains obstinate against it, and regardless of any blood tests, no judge would believe that a woman would willingly say no to the support a man like Elvis could offer if it wasn’t the absolute truth that he wasn’t the father. 
Needless to say that Elvis could only rely on the legal route so much. Though he did learn a few interesting things as to what would happen to children if the mother is deemed unfit.
And from there, he begins to cook up a truly awful and perhaps downright evil plan but he knows that the prize is worth the risk.
It’s gonna rely on all of his skills as an actor, and she’s been in the business too long to not know an act when she sees one. But he has one major advantage over Jimi in this department: She already expects the worst from him, so him doing this wouldn’t be a stretch in her eyes.  
Even threatening to dig a little deeper into whether or not they were his, made her pull back even more, she’s not gonna make this easy for him, and part of him doubts he would want it to be so. He knows he’s not without options, and that women would practically tear down the door to be the one to give him babies.
But how can he just let her go? 
Jesse couldn’t be here with him, that’s why he sent her his way. Elvis needed someone who would look out for him no matter what. And with Elena gone, Jimi needed someone to look out for. The two of them fit together like puzzle pieces really.
So he has to be smart about this. Nothing gradual because she will bolt the second she even gets a hint as to what he’s planning. So he takes a step back and allows the PI to learn all he can about her new schedule and what she’s got in the works. 
She’s still working for Paramount, though only barely, as she now apparently only comes in once a week to talk with directors and drop off designs. Though it’s clear this is not for much longer as she’s apparently been tapped by some production company down in Mexico to come work for their wardrobe department. 
It becomes apparent that he needs to work quickly if he wants to pull off his plan, when his request to have her work on his next movie is denied for the simple fact that she is apparently only sticking around Paramount long enough to finish off a few other productions. He’s honestly a little glad for this change, it just means he can put his plan to action a little earlier and they can be together sooner. 
So it’s not even a week after the end of production does he find himself standing in front of her small, new house in East LA. 
Elvis knows his influence on women, and despite what the papers say, he’s tried to use this for good. So when he walks up to Jimi’s door and knock, he does admittedly ham it up with the hand to lean on the door frame and the slightly unkempt hair falling over his forehead, a look he knows would make any woman weak in the knees. Especially a 13 year old babysitter.
The girl (Letty, he’s pretty sure the PI said), seems to be confused more than anything else, uncomprehending as to who stands before her. She’s far from the first or last to have this reaction but it shows that Jimi is playing her cards far too close to her chest that she wouldn’t know why he’s here.  
“This here’s Jimena’s place?” He asks though he already knows the answer from the PI that’s getting paid hourly. 
“Ye-yes,” she stutters, reaching a hand out only to quickly snatch it back as she confirmed he was really here. 
“Perfect,” he grins, and he sees her look down bashfully. “I’m here to pick up the babies.”
This confuses the poor girl even more. “She… didn’t mention that.” Elvis has to hold himself back from telling her she couldn’t keep a father away from his children, but honeys and flies and all that. 
“It’s a bit of a surprise for her.” He answers.
She’s still apparently unsure of herself, as she gives a weak point back inside the house as she says,“I-I think I sh-should ma-maybe call her.”
“How much you gettin’ paid by her?” he asks affably, though a little annoyed at the girl continuing to keep him from his babies.
“Five dollars a day and an autographed picture of Marlon Brando,” she answers, though she looks back down at her feet, as though embarrassed to be talking about another star she preferred in front of him. He doesn’t take it to heart, remembering Jimi complaining how she had more autographs than she knew what to do with.
“How ‘bout this,” he pulls out his wallet. “I’ll give you 50 and get you a personal meeting with Marlon, if you get the lil’ ones ready to come with me for the day and don’t say nothin’ to no one ‘bout whatcha saw today.” 
The teen gapes like a fish at the offer and though Elvis knows it’s good for his plan that she didn’t automatically refuse his proposition, it is nonetheless disheartening that this is the girl Jimi had entrusted his babies to. 
“I-I-I,” she looks at her feet, as though they’ll have the answers for the dilemma. “I don’t think I can let them g-go with a stranger.” she puts a bit more of her weight onto the door fully intending to close it. 
“That’s the best part kid,” he pressed a palm to the door. “I ain’t a stranger to her.” The girl has no idea what kind of danger she’s in, and Elvis attributes that almost solely to Jimi’s influence. What’s a few lies when he knows he would do far worse if she dares to keep him away from his children any longer. 
“Don’t let them papers know this,” he says in a conspiratorial whisper, full well-knowing that’s exactly who she’s gonna go straight to the moment she gets the chance to do so. “Y’see their mama and I… well we been seein’ each other for awhile, and now stubborn women she is, she don’t wanna go no further ‘til I can prove I’m ‘father material’ so I came down here to prove her wrong.” 
She furrows her brow in confusion until her eyes go wide. “Wait… go further? As in…” 
He takes a page out of Jimi’s book and gives a pursed grin while his eyes slide away from her, not even trying to deny her assumptions. Seeing her hold a hand to her mouth to cover her dramatic gasp, Elvis would like to think Jimi would be proud as to see how far his acting abilities have come. 
The girl is apparently all too eager to play cupid as she quickly invites him in with a big grin on her face and ushers him towards a sitting room. Despite how cool he’s playing it he’s a nervous wreck on the inside, feeling like he’s about to walk into a test he knew he didn’t study well enough for. 
But that all disappears the moment he lays eyes on them. 
They can already do so much, he thinks as he watches them play though they don’t notice him,  Mireya holding a whole baby conversation with her stuffed animals in between trying to feed them dry cheerios while Alejandro is making little humming noises around the pacifier in his mouth as he crawls to drive his little fire truck around. Eventually the tiny boy drove the toy straight into Elvis’ foot. 
The small boy looks up at the new figure, and with the way he looks at him, Elvis doubts he remembers him. So he tries not to take it too personally when the boy silently gets up and scrambles behind one of the couches, only to then peek over the corner, as though to make sure he’s still there. 
“Ale, Mimi, come say hi,” the young teen says in a soft voice before she turns around and leaves him alone with them. Those names feel much more fitting of the small babies he’s pictured in his head, and even more fitting as he leans against the door frame of the little sitting room.
Mimi almost immediately begins to toddle over to him with a little stuffed doggy tucked underneath her arm. She looks at him and again there is not an ounce of recognition in her eyes as she merely approaches him wraps her arms around one of his shins before immediately going back to her toys. 
So much for the instant connection he was hoping to have with them, but he tries not to get too discouraged with this as he approaches. He crouches down next to his daughter and picks up a stuffed monkey and uses it to tickle her neck a little, and that has her shrieking in delight.
This does seem to settle Ale somewhat as he slowly comes from behind the couch to watch the two of them. Though he plops down right between them with his engine in tow and gives a wary look toward Elvis as though he means to act as her protector. He didn’t know it was possible to have a skeptical look while sucking on a pacifier, but his son somehow manages to do just that.
Elvis notices something in the boy's front overall pocket and when he reaches a hand to investigate it, his son is quick to react with an overhead swat to the intruding hand. Elvis can’t help but laugh at how very Jimi that reaction is. 
Before he knows it the bags are all packed and it’s time to go. Ale looks more confused than scared as Elvis picks him up with his wide brown eyes, while Mimi on the other hand is in awe of being so high up and she immediately starts trying to reach for things that he thinks would usually be out of reach when held by her mama. 
In the last few days he’s had ample time to imagine what exactly it would feel like to hold them in his arms, but all of it pales in comparison to the phenomena of the experience. Elvis is a man that has dabbled in many pleasures over the years yet all of that pales in comparison to just the utter rightness of this moment. 
It’s an indescribable, euphoric feeling that makes him never want to let go of either of them, even if one is seeming indifferent to him while the other tries to squirm out of his grasp.
He had been prepared to sneak out the back with them or pass them out the window to Jerry before sneaking to the car, hell he contemplated that he would even have to simply grab them and run. He never in a million years would’ve imagined it was as easy as scooping them both up in his arms and taking a brisk walk out the front door to the car while the babysitter hands over a baby bag to him. 
The fact that it was so easy was just further proof that he needed to get them out of there. What if it had been some crazy man that came in today and not him that took them? 
“E.P. What the fuck?” Jerry asks, more tired than confused. 
“Let’s get goin’ already.” 
The car ride gives him some time to truly appreciate how beautiful his babies are.  
Mimi has Jimi’s thick dark hair and her pouty lips, and those coupled with the cornflower blue gaze that came from him, he can already hear the heart's (and the kneecaps, Elvis will personally see to it) breaking across the country. And where Ale seems almost his exact copy, he can see Jimena’s touches here and there with the way his hair curls or the slight upturn of his nose. Truly it would be a crime to deprive the world of more pretty children like these two. 
Mimi in turn seems to also be fascinated by his face, and he takes a few playful nibbles that has her squealing in delight. Though she does lose a bit of interest in him as the car starts and she gets to see the world around her rush past her. She makes sure to point out every animal she sees whether it be a dog, a cat, or even a squirrel, and Elvis finds himself enjoying every moment of it as it feels like he’s looking at this whole city through a new lens.
“Mida, mida,” she squeals in her tiny voice as she points to a bird. “pajado!”
Ale on the other hand is just looking up at him owl-eyed, too in shock as to what’s going on around to look at anything but at his father. He clutches on to his little firetruck like a shield still unsure of this whole thing but Elvis takes it as a small victory that he isn’t balling his eyes out. Elvis resorts to trying to make faces at him to get him to crack even a little though it becomes apparent that what this kid lacks in looks from his mother, he more than makes up for by having her personality, as he barely twitches at any face. Granted it is hard to tell around the pacifier he refuses to part with. 
Jerry remains blessedly quiet for the rest of the car trip though Elvis doesn’t miss the occasional stolen glance from his young friend. The man -boy, really- had initially been on the side of letting sleeping dogs lie, and now Elvis pushes down the petty urge to hold up his own son to his face and have him try to deny his own image. 
Elvis’ living room could honestly give Santa's workshop a run for his money with the sheer amount of toys and playthings that occupy it now. All his boys had apparently been working overtime trying to make Elvis forget how skeptical they had been in his beliefs, and trying to worm their way back into his good graces. 
His daughter practically dives headfirst into the large pile of stuffed animals to be had, meanwhile his son stands in the middle of a treasure trove of toys, his red engine hanging limply from his hand, practically overwhelmed by choice. He eventually does settle on a set of blocks that he takes to stacking up only to ram his truck into the makeshift tower. Elvis can’t help the chest swelling contentment he feels in that moment seeing his babies love their new home so much.
He hardly sees anybody else all day, and he’s glad for it. He didn’t want any of them sticking around too long, as this was his chance to bond with his babies properly, and he didn’t need any of them to distract them. Aside from the occasional maid coming in to bring snacks or to change a dirty diaper, he gets an entire uninterrupted afternoon with the two. 
Mimi was so eager to play with him and show him all of her little toys, with her favorites being the little stuffed dog she hadn’t let go of, it’s neck floppy as she clutched it in her tiny baby hand. 
Ale thinks he’s subtle as he eyeballs Elvis most of the afternoon. He is not. He all but gapes at him when he thinks he’s not looking, only to turn around and try his darndest to look very busy with his blocks or cars when Elvis looks over to him. 
He tries to approach the toddler, only for the boy to rebuff him each and every time by shuffling to the opposite end of the room, and setting up shop there. Elvis has to remind himself to be patient, knowing that his son is handling being in a new strange place with a man he only barely knows better than most kids would so he has to let the boy approach him first. 
He could tell just by the way he watched Mimi like a hawk, that he was the older of the two, the same way Jimi always said she was with her sister. His weary attitude towards him only began to thaw out when Mimi stumbled over a block, somewhat able to catch herself on her hands but that doesn’t prevent her from still hitting her little forehead on the carpeted floor. Immediately father and son are at her side to comfort the wailing girl, Elvis crouching down to pick her up and rubbing her back, trying to imitate the few times he’d seen mothers do this, while Ale not fully understanding what’s wrong with her, only to tries to climb his father to try to take the girl in his own little arms and rest his head on her back. 
After a few more tears and she had been allowed to thoroughly ruin his shirt, Mimi was able to calm down and go back to playing as usual. Ale seems to only then realize that he had gotten close to his father, and nothing bad had happened, so blessedly he doesn’t seem entirely too opposed to his presence anymore. 
The only major hiccup of the entire evening was when Ale had entrusted Elvis with his most treasured toy. Elvis almost burst into tears when his son had reached into the front pocket of his overalls to pull out a small matchbox car, one that appeared to have been red at one point but had since faded into a light pink. 
This coupled with Mimi’s favorite stuffed toy being a stuffed beagle… Elvis is not one to just name anything as signs from God, but those two together had to mean something.
And it’s frustrating to say the least that Jimi refuses to see this. 
The twins begin to wind down around the evening, with full bellies and comfy pajamas on it’s not too long before Mimi practically falls asleep where she was playing, her little bottom in the air as she drooled all over her little blue doggy that now acts as a pillow.
Ale is far more stubborn about the whole thing, refusing to sleep even as he jealously looks over to his sister before stubbornly rubbing at his dark eyes and continuing to play with his toy cars. 
“Don’t go down so easy now do ya’ son?” Elvis says as though he’s actually commiserating over his miserable sleep with a friend and not his toddler son. “You get that from me,” The boy at the very least now tolerates him being so close, but Elvis isn’t going to try to push it by picking him up. Instead he would gently pick up his daughter and hold her in one arm, while offering the other to his son, a clear invitation to the boy.
In spite of all his mulishness, Ale does eventually give in and makes little grabby hands signaling he wants to be picked up, and Elvis does admittedly melt a little at the sight. He’s quick to accept the invitation and picks the little boy up and takes them upstairs. 
The nursery room as of right now is pretty barebones, having had to rearrange many things in the house, so as to make it a home for his family. But he thinks his boys managed to at least get the essentials with a crib and a rocking chair, and he figures that they can build from there. 
The experience of not just holding his children at the same time but of actually getting to do the fatherly thing of singing them to sleep is incomparable to anything he’s ever had the chance to experience. Something so new, yet at the same time feeling like his whole life was leading up to this point. Mimi’s already asleep and he knows better than to wake a sleeping baby, so he sets her down in the crib first before sitting down in the rocking chair with his son in tow. Elvis admittedly doesn’t have a wide knowledge of lullabies, and he briefly panics for a moment until remembering the one he’s performed maybe a dozen times in the last few months.
They call your daddy Big Boots
And Big Boots is his name
It takes a big man to wear big boots
That's your daddy's claim to fame
It feels only appropriate to sing this to his own son, and in a way he’s glad that he performed this before meeting either of them. He doubted he would’ve been able to keep it together singing this to any other child now, knowing they were out there. Much to his relief, Ale eases up a little on his chest, resting his chin on his arms to better look at his father, not so defensive anymore. 
Gonna tell you a little secret
You won't believe it's true
Did you know your daddy, Big Boots
Once wore little boots like you
Ale for the first time today removes his pacifier from his mouth and presses his tiny hand to Elvis mouth, seemingly entranced by the music leaving it and unbelieving that this is coming from a man and not a radio. 
But where he was barely keeping it together while singing, Elvis can’t help his reaction when Ale lets out a soft little “daaa…” 
His throat seems to close up and he has to blink away a few tears, but that doesn’t lessen the grin on his face. “Th-that’s right son,” he breathes, through quivering lips, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I’m your daddy.”
Something about that statement seems to settle something in the boy, as he finally puts his head on his chest and his breathing seems to even out. It’s as though he had been the ever vigilant man of the house. But now knowing that his daddy was home, he can finally lay his head down and rest. 
Eventually he has to put him down once he sees Mimi start to fuss in her sleep, waving an arm around and grasping for something, but she quickly relaxes once her brother is within her grasp. 
Elvis sits to watch them for a time, they’re simply so hypnotic to observe. The way they breathe in tandem and seem to gravitate toward each other, in a world of their own right now. It makes him wistful for the brother he never got to know. But wherever his brother may be right now, he feels joy that he can carry out his will and finally have a whole family once more.  
One look out at the sun setting and the clouds rolling outside his windows, he knows it won’t be too long before she arrives. He wants to be able to relax but he knows he won’t be able to until all of his family is under his roof. But he knows her well enough, to know she’ll be home soon. 
Finally he sees an unfamiliar pair of headlights shine behind the gates, before coming to a screeching halt and a familiar silhouette stands in front of the lights, to give a futile shake at the front gate. He can imagine she’s yelling to be let in, even muffled through the patter of the rain starting to really come down and the thunder rolling in the distance, he can just barely make out her voice. 
He sees Lamar unlock the gate for her, but the moment his guard is let down she takes off running towards the front, which is when Elvis takes this as his cue to start heading down to meet her. 
She was in no way prepared for this weather if her near see-through white blouse was anything to go by. Her makeup is running slightly, streaking down her cheeks making it impossible to figure out if it was rain or tears running down her face. All fury and passion, just like he loves her. 
She angrily stomps past him, still trying to ignore him only for him to block her with his full body.
“How many times?” she grits out. “How many times must I turn you away?”
“I don’t know darlin’,” he whispers in a just as low voice. “As many times as it takes ‘til you figure out I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“Cut the crap Elvis!” she shouts. “Where are they!?”
He responds with a single finger to his smirking lips. “If you wake ‘em, you gotta put ‘em down again.”
This immediately has her try to run past him towards the bedrooms, but he catches her in one arm over her waist and he sits her on the dining room table, sure to plant his hands on her knees so she doesn’t get any ideas. 
“That’s enough Elvis,” she tries to rip his hands away from her. The way she’s all clenched up, lets him know that she would scream at him if it were an option. “You’ve had your fun, now just let us go.” 
He just further smirks. “Y’know after all the things I learned ‘bout the last two years for you, I kept askin’ myself one thang,” he says pushing himself off the table to stalk towards her. “‘Why the hell is she still here?’”
Her jaw clenches tight at this, unwilling to meet his eyes. “I had to do what I had to do to support My babies.”
“Considerin’ what my guy dug up,” he starts making his way towards the table that has had her whole life laid out upon it. “You coulda worked anywhere else and left Hollywood behind a long time ago.” The heavy clench of her jaw and the daggers in her eyes tell him he’s getting close to the bullseye. “No,” he says, holding her chin between his fingers. “You stayed cuz you was waitin’ for me to get back.”
This infuriates her and she gives him a good shove, but he’s no longer in the mood to indulge her little tantrum so he stays put. 
“Is that what you wanna fucking hear Elvis, then fine! They’re yours!” she shouts, a bit of a tremble in her voice. “Are you happy now? Will it help you sleep better at night knowing they’re yours? ”
“I’ll sleep better knowin’ they’re under my roof.”
She freezes at this admission. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talkin’ ‘bout the fact that you and the little ones are gonna be movin’ in with me.”
The silence that passes is near deafening and he gets the pleasure of seeing the reality of the situation set in in her face. She gives a short mirthless but undoubtedly forced laugh but there’s no denying the fear in her eyes. 
Good.
After all, she was the one that wanted this when she wanted so badly to make him a villain in this. He’s not, he’s a father. 
“All this time, I thought you were stupid,” she says, that sardonic, slightly scared, laugh still laced in her tone. “Turns out you’re just fucking crazy.” Anybody else he would’ve been offended, but he lets her barbs slide right off his back, because truly words are all that she has left anymore. He’ll let her have them. “In what world do you think this is gonna play out like you want it?”
He gives a soft smile and raises a hand to take her chin, only for her to quickly smack it away. 
“The world the studio pays for.” 
She gives a derisive snort, “And you think they’re gonna pay for you to ruin your image.”
He simply smirks at her, finding her ignorance cute. For all that she knows how to work the system, he understands how the system works. More importantly he understands that the system works for him. His only direct response is to slide her the papers his people drafted up for him.
“What the fuck are these?” she asks, her voice lower, trying to mask her genuine confusion.
“That there is the copy of the marriage license ‘you’” he uses air quotes, “signed six hours ago, and an officiant from the studio officially signed off on these.”
“I-I don’t understand,” she says, her voice smaller than he’s ever heard from her.
“Now Jimi let me tell you two stories, only one of ‘em’s gonna be in tomorrow’s paper,” he says, gently rubbing her cheek that she quickly slaps away. He retaliates just as swiftly with his hand splayed across her collarbone to lay her back on to the large dining table, just below the neck, not enough to choke her, but just enough to remind her who the fucking man of this house is. “One is how I went and got married to a single-mother of twins and I adopted them as my own.”
“I would neve-”
“Or…” he cuts in as he puts a little more pressure on her neck. “And this one is the one the studio prefers… I marry some random girl they pick out for me and we end up adopting two poor little orphans, ‘cause their mama decided to run off to Mexico in the middle of the night.”
Almost like he planned it, he can hear the thunder roll in the distance as the threat hangs in the air. In his heart he knows he would never go through with this, but Jimi doesn’t have to know. 
All the anger drops from her face at that moment, in its place he sees something he’s never seen in her eyes: bold-faced fear. She showed her hand the other day when she told him why she wanted to keep the secret. He didn’t want to have to do this to her, but if it’s between having her fear him and staying with him vs not and her walking away, he will pick fear every single time. 
He needs them in his life.
He needs her in his life. 
“So you choose darlin’, which ones it gonna be,” he takes her chin between his fingers. She flinches slightly but knows she’s in no position to turn away from him now. “Either way… they’re comin’ with me.” 
Elvis is not a gambling man, and he wouldn’t do this unless he knew what her answer was gonna be. She’s just as crazy for family as he is, she wouldn’t be able to handle not being able to have them. She’s probably the only one who is capable of understanding what he would do for those two as he has no doubt that she wouldn’t do the same in his shoes. 
But between the two of them, only one of them had an entire studio willing to do whatever it takes to protect his image, no matter the expense. 
And for all her worldliness and experience, she knows full well what happens when you get on the wrong side of the studios. She spent the better part of two years trying to prevent them from learning this, because making her disappear and having her babies get lost in the system would have been nothing to them. 
He’s proud of her ability to successfully keep her and their babies alive in his absence, but he’s over her needlessly defiant nature to insist that they’ll never need him again.
He wouldn’t say he’s proud to see that defeated look in her eyes, but he does get the sense of relief knowing that he’s not going to lose anymore family today. 
“Let me see them,” she whispers, barely audible over the rainfall just outside the window. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and he’s practically giddy that she didn’t try to stop him. 
He finds them just where he left them, sleeping soundly knowing that their father is here to protect them, even from their mothers stubbornness. Ale is spread out like a starfish, one foot continually nudging his sister, while one hand is tightly balled up and a thumb in his mouth. Mimi on the other hand is squirming a bit, her little sock covered feet restlessly kicking at the blanket and her brow furrowed in her sleep. On pure instinct alone Elvis rubs a soothing hand on her belly until she’s calmed down enough and he quickly tucks her back in. 
The look of surprise on her face wasn’t part of the plan but is welcome nonetheless. “Y’see how important a daddy is sweetheart?” he whispers into her ear. 
He doesn’t exactly love the tears now freely falling out of her eyes, but he 
“I’ll stay,” she whispers, through her tears. “I’m staying for them.” She asserts but the words feel so hollow now. Even still he rewards her acquiescence with a kiss, more for himself and having been so patient for her. 
Even with her promises to stay now he knows that this is far from over. He knows that the next time she has them both in her arms is gonna be the next time she makes a break for it. He’s already let everybody know to never leave her alone with them, and he’s got some things in the works to make sure to make her face as recognizable as his own so she doesn’t get any ideas of trying to disappear. He’s even got a hail mary plan in his back pocket to deal with that doctor just in case he ever needs something big to keep her at his side.
But one thing he can absolutely do right now is work to get another baby in her so running won’t be so easy next time. A message she gets loud and clear the moment he works the zipper of her skirt down the mouth-watering curve of her ass. 
“Elvis please,” she half-heartedly bats away his hands. “Not tonight…” 
He’s been on a winning streak of getting exactly what he wants lately, and he’s not about to let her break that. He backs her against the wall of the hallway only to then nestle himself between her legs.
“C’mon baby,” he whispers in her ear, and he’s glad he can still get that same shuddering reaction from her, he remembers all too well. “It’s our weddin’ night and we gotta get to work makin’ it all official. ‘Sides you owe me more babies for keepin’ ‘em away so long.” 
He can’t help but be reminded of that beach fantasy he had not too long ago and while he would love to make that into a reality, he figures that he at the very least owes her more than a dirty quickie in the hallway for their wedding night. 
Besides, they'll have all the time for that in Hawaii.
So instead he opts for the classic groom move of lifting her up in his arms and carrying her into his -now their- bedroom. He doesn’t care none to be gentle with her clothes, she’ll be lucky if he cares to be gentle with her tonight after all the shit she’s put him through. 
Ever the contrarian, she obstinately looks out the window and looks as though she wishes to be anywhere else right now as he peels the wet clothes off of her body. He’s been half-hard since she walked through his door, but little Elvis stands at full attention now that he can behold his wife fully. He finds the cosmetic differences that having his children has caused her body, with the near invisible stripes he feels on her belly and her temptingly darker nipples, but what he sees first and foremost in her body is his future. 
That world-shattering knowledge that she will be where all of his seed is planted and he will never have to suffer being alone again. He has to push these thoughts aside lest he spill all over her belly like a green boy, and he has to remind himself that there’s no need to rush anymore now that he has her beneath him. 
He has to temper himself before he gets ahead of himself so he spreads her legs to dive head first for her pussy. 
He knows he has her when a simple kiss to her clit has her clenching her thighs over his ears. While it’s with reluctant acceptance does he acknowledge he wasn’t her first, he takes great pleasure knowing that he’ll be her last. It was frankly insane to believe that no one had ever done this to her before, as after he had gotten his first taste of her there was little else he wanted to do more than this. 
He remembers joking with her that he now understood where her womanly sweetness went given the lack of it in her personality. It’s true nonetheless, arguably she tastes even better than he remembers. Though he imagines it’s the same way a man dying of thirst calling his first sip of water the sweetest taste, considering how much he’s pined for her. 
Now that he’s been able to ensure she’s sufficiently wet enough he lets her hips fall back on to the bed, as he unbuckles himself, unwilling to waste another moment to undress himself, so that he can once more feel that connection he almost lost.  
Finally being able to slip into her feels like finally coming home, there’s truly no other way to describe it. He didn’t even get this feeling when he walked through the threshold of Graceland. 
“Elvis,” she sobs into his shoulder. For all the love she claims to have lost for him, her body has certainly not forgotten as he feels her thighs clench tightly around his hips, trying to keep him as close as possible. 
He quickly grabs a hold of the back of her knees and he forces them all the way back practically to her ribs. Her pleasured and shocked cries ring out though the room as her new position gives him a new angle to work with. He’s a man on a mission to ensure that he leaves a mark so deep that she’ll never be able to leave again. 
Forever, and just that thought alone has him frantically bucking into her over and over ripping her away from one orgasm to yet another as he chases his peak. One of the many he would have in that night alone, to try to make up for all the lost time. 
Once it’s all said and done and he’s sufficiently satisfied that her sleepiness isn’t being feigned, he carries her back to the bed properly so that she can rest and be ready to be the perfect mother for their two (hopefully more) little ones tomorrow. He wraps an arm around her, knowing how slippery she can be, and he rests easy knowing she’ll be there come morning.
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liyawritesss · 5 months
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Hey! If you're requests are open I'd love to read how a meeting between the reader and 1610 Miles at a party would go. Love your writing!
ᴍᴇᴇᴛɪɴɢ ʜɪᴍ ᴀᴛ ᴀ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ
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Characters: Spiderverse!1610!Miles Morales x Black!GN!Reader
Genre: Headcanons
Synopsis: At another one of Rio’s rooftop parties, there’s a new face among the crowd. How would Miles take to meeting a new friend at a party?
Warnings: tooth-rotting fluff we all deserve !!
A/N: Still slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things! A lot has been going on recently that has affected my motivation and ability to write, but I’m still here and still very present in all the fandoms i’m in, so don’t be shy to send in those requests!
Tags: @6-noir @babyboiboyega @badass-dora-milaje @jacuzziwaters @mbakuetshurisprincess @shuriszn @verachii @writingintheshadowsforever @cafehyunji @niyahwrites @marsfunzon22 @briology @honeybleed @romiantic @onlyperc @starsoirees @yasminisbroke @asensitivecookie @kdyance @sussybaka10 @famedrs-blog @milesismyhubby @foreclosure--of--a--dream @ykimobessed @soilmayo @edgyficuselastica @coffeeandtealol @moon-bo-young @imtoofineforthisworld
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I often imagine in these kind of situations, because Miles doesn’t have many friends, he’s often either off to the side somewhere just jamming to the music on his own, or the little cousins are absolutely hounding him for some form of entertainment. There is no in between lol. But for this, lets refer to the formerly mentioned, and say this also takes place after the trilogy fiasco.
Like said previously, he doesn’t have many friends. The friends he does- or, did have, he can’t ever really see again. Maybe he’s got his cousins the talk to, and he of course has Ganke on speed dial, but other than that, Miles definitely feels more alone than ever at these parties.
A new face coming around would be met with a bit of apprehension. He doesn’t know how he should approach you. Should he introduce himself first? Wait til your parent(s) do? Should he offer you something from the food table? Start the conversation about the mix the DJ is playing? You definitely see the thoughts flashing across his face, and it’s only when you’re in front of him that his mind completely halts he lets a strained ‘hi’ come from his lips, a sheepish smile on his face and his heart racing because he probably looks like an idiot right now-
Turns out, you’re the kid of yet another family friend - can never have too many of those am i right? - who’s just as lost as he is, just as nervous and out of touch as he is. Maybe you don’t want to be here, maybe you aren’t sure why you had to come in the first place. But Miles’ first act of kindness to break the awkward silence is to awkwardly shuffle his feet, reach into his pocket to pull out his earbud case, and offer one up to you with a sheepish “do you like rap music?’
You both sit for a minute as you shuffle through his music playlists - he’s kind of nervous cuz he hopes you’re not judging his music taste, but when he sees you bobbing your head to the beat, it gives him some relief. After some time with this, one (or both) of your stomach rumbles and the food table is suddenly calling your name. Miles leads you to it so that he can tell you all that’s laid out. He himself eagerly grabs a small plateful of alcapurrias de Yuca (stuffed Yuca fritters) and tostones (double-fried plantains). He makes a point to point out some foods you may like - there’s a wide array of them, no thanks to his mom and aunties who always make sure the party table is always filled with foods from home.
Remember that scaffolding under the water tower for that building that was shown in the movies? Yeah, he takes you up there. Partially because the music is too loud to hear his own thoughts now, but also because he now sees you as someone cool and potential friend, and wants to get to know you better. Maybe it’s also the looming eyes of his mom that seemingly tell him to at least try and make friends with (especially someone they know, all things considered). And that’s where you guys chill out for the remainder of the party. You share socials, send each other titktoks or instagram reels, and make sure to exchange contact info to keep in touch. I think that throughout all of this, despite the anxiety that always comes with meeting someone new, Miles is forever grateful that he’s gained a new friend, and he definitely can’t wait to hang out with you more!
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If you enjoyed, please leave a like, comment, and reblog for others to see! And don’t be shy to send in a request! Reminder, if you aren't tag, Tumblr may not be letting me tag you :c womp womp.
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ahgasegotarmy116 · 3 months
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The Art of Etiquette Part 7 | Jeon Jungkook
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Summary: Going gown shopping is proving to be a bit more difficult than you had expected and Jungkook doesn't make it any easier Pairing: f!reader x Etiquette instructor Jungkook Word Count: 4.7k~ Warnings: I don't think there's any need for warnings but so much teasinggg a/n: Sorry this too so long to get out 😭 I've lost motivation to write these days so it's been taking a bit longer for me to get chapters out but I hope you guys like it! p.s. kinda sorta edited lol I just wanted to get it out already Start from the beginning
After talking to Jesse last night about everything that happened between Jungkook and I, I've been even more confused than I was to begin with.
"HE KISSED YOU?!?!" Jesse yells into the phone making me cringe as I pull it away to save my hearing but ultimately fail. 
"I don't know, kind of but not really. He leaned in and kissed my cheek but his lips did brush up against the side of my mouth so I don't know. I'm just so confused because at the start I thought he hated me. He was rude and demanding and always tried to intimidate me. I will admit that it worked sometimes but I just never know what he actually wants from me" I complain while switching to my airpods so I can walk around my room and talk to him while looking for an outfit. 
"I think you're over thinking things. I think it all comes down to the fact that he found you challenging at first so that might've been why you thought that he hated you" he explains. 
"Challenging? What's that supposed to mean?" I question, flipping through the clothes in my closet, struggling to find something that's comfortable but not too casual, easy to take off so it makes trying on dresses a bit easier but doesn't make me look like I didn't put in any effort. You would think I was getting dressed for a first date or something based off the existential crisis I seem to be having. 
"He probably thought you were some bratty rich kid that needed a real push to break out of that mold. I bet he's had to deal with a lot of divas in his time. Don't take it personally though, I'm sure that he just goes into those first few lessons with that mindset and then loosens up a bit as you go along. Or at least that's what I would think based off of what you've told me" he explains. 
"You're probably right" I agree while trying to choose between two colors of what sweater to wear. "Pink or Blue?" I question and without hesitation he chooses pink. "What did you end up putting together?" he asks, eager to know what I've settled on. 
"Pink sweater, white skirt with nude colored leggings and some white boots. Oh and I'm pairing it with the white pea coat James got for me last Christmas" I relay, going through the outfit in my head, leaving everything on their hangers so I won't have to worry about too many wrinkles tomorrow.     
"Why are you dressing so...girly? I mean you're a girl obviously but I figured you would go with something a little more...black" he chuckles, thinking about my usual choice in attire. 
"Jungkook would send me back upstairs to change before he would take me somewhere dressed in all black clothing. He wants me to remember to dress like a lady so I might as well go into it right off the bat so I can avoid another scolding. Plus I figured a skirt would be a lot easier to take off and put back on again since I'll be trying on a few dresses" I say while finally getting myself ready for bed.
"Fair enough. If I were you though I would tell him that the only way I'm taking these clothes off is if you take them off of me if he had a problem with your outfit" he teases, making me roll my eyes at him, amused but embarrassed by his nonsense. "Jesse he's my teacher" I point out for the millionth time, hoping to get him to back off but I know it's pointless. 
"As much as you would like me to jump his bones I need to remember the purpose of our relationship. I don't want to cause James any trouble with messing around with him. I could just see the headlines, 'CEO's step daughter sleeps with her etiquette teacher', I do not  want to have to deal with the backlash from my mother either. If something were to happen between us it could ruin his reputation, making people think that he sleeps with all of his students. Plus who knows, he could've slept with his past students based off of how forward he has been with me" I say while throwing myself onto my bed and staring up at the ceiling. 
"He may be an adonis but I don't think he's the type of guy that would do that. Like he's an etiquette teacher girl, if he was to have had a scandal with a student in the past I'm sure it would've come out by now" he reasons with me and I hum in acknowledgement. 
"I guess you're right" I mumble and soon wrap up our call so I can get some 'Proper beauty sleep' according to Jesse but for the life of me I can't sleep a wink. With all of these questions spinning round and round in my head I just can't seem to ease my mind until I'm jolted awake by my alarm. 
'I guess I was able to sleep a bit' I think to myself before jumping into the shower and rushing to get ready. This'll be the first time Jungkook has seen me bright and early in the morning and not run down after a long day at school so I guess it's best if I make a good impression. 
After putting on my lip gloss to complete the look I'm met with my mother barging into my room. "You do know that Mr. Jeon is going to be here soon and oh-!" she nags quickly spewing out her speech before finally taking a look at me. 
"Look at you! I guess you really are my daughter!" she says while walking over to my mirror to stand behind me. "What's that supposed to mean?" I say crossing my arms and giving her an unamused look through the reflection. 
"It means that you look very beautiful and you're showing off your femininity and assets very well" she says referring to the shorter skirt that she hasn't ever seen me wear before. "Very funny mom now can you please leave so I can finish getting ready?" I ask, shooing her away so I can get her out of my hair, literally since she had started running her fingers through it from the back. 
"Okay okay I'm going. Would you like me to let you know when he's pulling up outside?" she asks and I nod my head and at that she's off to no doubt stand and wait for the first glimpse of him by the door. 'She's more obsessed with that man than Jesse is' I mumble to myself and quickly slip on my boots and take another look at myself before I hear my mother yelling for me to come downstairs.
I open my bedroom door and hear that Jungkook is already somehow inside the house and speaking to my mother when I had anticipated for him to just wait for me by his car. "Oh good you're here! Hurry along I heard you have a very long day ahead of you so behave yourself and do exactly as he says" she lists off and I don't bother giving her an answer. 
"Don't worry Mrs. Hart, I know she's a good girl" Jungkook shamelessly responds for me. My eyes bug out and I watch the amused look spread across his face but it's gone in a flash when my mother turns her attention back to him. "Shouldn't we get going? I know how much you hate being late and I'm sure she's waiting for us already" I say in regards to the modiste that we have an appointment with. 
"Oh yes, I'm sorry I'm holding you up. Have a good day both of you and I'll see you later tonight" she says with a smile while opening the door for us. "Oh I don't think it'll take that lo-" "I won't keep her out too late" Jungkook jumps in and I shut my mouth at his response, knowing I really have no say in the matter but also losing my wording when he places his hand on my waist to guide me over to the car. 
Walking over towards it I realize that he's switched from a four seater car to a two seater and I can't help but wonder if his motives were to not give me any other choice but to sit next to him. "I didn't realize you had another car" I say while he opens the door for me and I sit down and almost squeak at the feeling of the seats sinking down a lot lower than expected and he smirks at my reaction. 
"I have a few but I tend to take this one out every once in a while since it does best on longer trips" he informs before shutting the door for me. I nod my head while he walks around the car and gets in a lot more gracefully than I had which makes me roll my eyes and turn my face away from him. 
"Here" he says handing me an iced coffee "Oh thank you but I don't drink coffee, it makes me anxious" I say politely rejecting. "I know, Matthew told me so I got you a chai latte since to his knowledge, tends to be your favorite" he says. I thank him and receive it with both hands, my cheeks showing a dusting of pink at the thought that again he bothered to make sure he got me something that I would like. He even got me an iced one since I like those better even when it's cold outside. 
I take a couple of sips as he pulls out of the driveway and onto the street before taking notice that I had forgotten something. "Mr. Jeon I'm sorry but do you think we could turn back around? I forgot to grab my coat" I admit, cringing at the thought of inconveniencing him and messing up the schedule for today. 
"It's alright, you can just borrow mine" he says with a slight smile, no hint of irritation or condescension. "But I don't want you to be cold I-" "Y/n it's fine, I don't mind. If anything we can get you another coat once we go looking for the shoes to match your dress" he says and relaxes into his seat. 
His left hand on the wheel with his right placed on his lap where I notice that he's spreading his legs a bit further than I've seen him do before, making me gulp at the sight and turn my face away from him. 
"Is that alright with you?" he questions, making me look back over at him. "What?" I ask, not sure if I had lost track of the conversation or not. "Do you feel comfortable borrowing my jacket or should we turn back around?" he questions glancing over at me. 
"Only if you're sure" I say, wanting to give him the option to change his mind. "If I wasn't sure I wouldn't have offered. I'm asking if you're alright with it" he says and I reply simply saying yes but that's not good enough for him.
"Yes what y/n? I thought we had agreed upon using our words" he taunts and my breath hitches at the fist sign of his flirtatious attitude for the day. "Yes Mr. Jeon, I would feel comfortable borrowing your jacket" I say but he presses further. "I thought we had agreed on being more informal with each other as well" he teases and I look over at  him with a confused face as to why it would make a difference for him.
"Say my name" he says darkly causing a fluttering sensation to bloom in my stomach. "I-, what?" I stutter, not expecting this sort of behavior from him this early in the morning. 
"Say. My. Name. Or would you rather us go back to addressing each other formally?" he questions while he stops at a red light and cocks his brow at me. "Yes Jungkook, thank you for letting me borrow your jacket" I say quietly after a pause, my brain not being awake enough to come up with any smart remarks.
He smiles at that and focuses back on the road and offers me the aux to play some music since the drive is so far. "Try not to fall asleep on me again like last time. Wouldn't want to have to clean the drool off your face again" he teases while holding the chord up for me and making our hands touch since he doesn't seem to want to let go right away. 
I bring my hand down to plug my phone in and he lets his follow mine, keeping them connected for a second, letting his warm hand rest on my thigh before bringing it back towards himself and placing it back on his lap. I clear my throat to get my bearings again and quickly plug it in and play some low fi music which gets him to glance over at me again. 
"What? You don't like it?" I question feeling insecure about my choice since I don't really know what his taste in music is. Unless it's just the ballroom music that we've been dancing to for weeks now but I highly doubt that. 
"No, I do. I'm just sure that a playlist like this one would be the exact thing that would put you to sleep" he says with a crooked smile. "Well I just wasn't sure what you would like and so I figured low fi would be a safe choice" I explain and see that he's still smiling.
 "What?" I question and he glances over at me, making me suspicious of him and all of his reactions. "It's just cute that you put thought into choosing something that you thought I might like as well" he says with a lilt in his voice. 
"I just wanted both of us to enjoy the music that's all" I say, crossing my arms over my chest as a defense mechanism to hide the fact that he's made my heart rate pick up with his simple words. "And that's what I found cute about it" he says, rubbing it in since he can clearly see that it's making me shy. 
"You know, you can be quite irritating sometimes right?" I say as a way to defend myself and make him stop teasing me. "Who me? Am I not allowed to compliment a pretty girl for acting cute?" he plays coy and before I'm able to respond he corrects himself. "Excuse me, a beautiful woman from acting kindly towards me" he finishes and I can't seem to come up with any response to it so instead I choose to angle my body away from him and look out the window. 
"You can put on something you like instead. I tend to enjoy all genres of music" he says, reeling in the teasing and giving me a break thankfully. I in spite, choose to go with one of my angsty playlists full of artists like Simple Plan, Blink 182 and Linkin Park, thinking that it would be something he wouldn't enjoy but to my surprise I catch him drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel to the beat. 
As the playlist shuffles through the songs I catch him singing along to the opening of Bring Me to Life by Evanescence and it's then when I turn my body to face him again. "You know this song?" I question, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You didn't think that you were the only one who had their emo phase did you?" he laughs and again I'm given another reason to see him in another light. 
As the song progresses we end up doing the call and response of it, with him settling on the guy's part and myself on the girl's and somehow it all just clicks. It's as if we were just two friends on a roadtrip together and it feels, nice? Right? I don't know but it's as if we'd known each other for our whole lives.
There's a comfortable silence once the song comes to a close and we both glance at each other a few moments later and laugh it off. "You weren't kidding when you said you had an emo phase" I tease and he laughs in response. 
"We promised to be honest with each other have we not?" he chuckles after calming down a bit with me, wiping away the few tears that had fallen in the midst of my laughter. "You're right, we have" I respond and again we settle into a comfortable silence before he asks me a question to keep me talking. 
"Penny for your thoughts?" he questions, glancing over at me before turning his attention back towards the road. "I mean there's not much to tell" I say, not having anything in particular stick out to me but he unsurprisingly presses nonetheless.
"There must be something going on in that pretty little head of yours" he teases I take in a sharp breath, his compliments always catching me off guard. "Why do you always compliment me and tease me like that?" I say quickly without giving my brain a second to stop me. "Tease you like what?" he asks with a huge smile, not expecting me to just come out and say it. 
"Why do you do that Jungkook?" I ask, using his first name to show him I'm serious about this question. "Do you not like it when I compliment you?" he deflects. "Answer the question Jungkook" I reiterate since he doesn't have a care in the world at this point. 
"Because you're beautiful" he admits as if it would have no effect on me. "I-" "What? You expect me to spend this much time with you and not come to notice how beautiful you are?" he asks, looking over at me as we reach a stop light. I sit there without an answer, not knowing whether I should acknowledge his words or just brush them off. 
We had agreed to be less formal with each other but did he think that was a green light to trying to pursue me? I've gotta talk to Jesse about this. 
"Looks like we made it just in time" he states a few minutes later as we pull up to the modiste, seeing that the kind woman that had helped us out before waving at us through the window. 
"You ready?" he asks, scaring me at the sudden concern in his voice. "You're scaring me" I laugh off and watch as he gets out of the car and comes around to open my door for me.
"Let's just say it's going to be a long day" he explains, holding his hand out for me to take and I graciously do. Seeing how low these seats sink down I would probably make a fool out of myself if I were to try and get out on my own. 
Once I stand up I stumble a bit and lose my footing leaving me bracing myself on his chest, my hands pressed firmly against his pectorals but I push off of them once I feel them flex under his incredibly tailored dress shirt and again lose my balance but he pulls me in close by the waist before I can manage to tumble back down into the car. 
"You alright?" he smirks with his hand still firmly against my waist and his hand pressed against the car behind me, placing us in a similar position we had been in just last night. "I'm fine" I say after clearing my throat and placing my hand on top of the one he has on my waist as a way to request for him to let me go. 
"Hey, are we okay?" He asks, tilting his head to meet my downward turned gaze. "Why wouldn't we be?" I question, felling on fire being this close to him. "I just hope I haven't made you feel uncomfortable. I really do think you're beautiful" he says, placing a hand on my cheek and bringing my chin up to face him. 
"Can we talk about this later? She's watching" I ask, nodding toward the dressmaker inside who is clearly enjoying the show. "I don't mind, I just want to make sure that we're okay" he says, deepening his gaze if even possible and I just nod and utter a quick yes before slipping out of his grasp and speed walking to the door. 
He braces both of his hands on the roof on the car I had just been leaning against and lets out a dry chuckle before pushing off and closing the door, catching the last glimpse of me scurrying into the shop. 'Cute' is the only word that comes to mind for him at our whole exchange and my reactions to it all and it would continue to be his reaction throughout the whole day as he watches me try to find the perfect dress. 
~~~~
"Welcome back dearie" she greets me with a knowing smile, not even bothering to pretend she hadn't seen everything that transpired between Jungkook and I. "Good to see you again" I say, meeting her with a shy smile, hoping she won't address the topic, or at least with Jungkook right on my heels. 
"I'm sorry ma'am in all of the excitement from the first time I had been here I never managed to catch your name" I say, scolding myself for forgetting to even ask. "You can call me Genevieve dear. And remember, I said you could lose the formality with me, especially since I would love to have some girl talk with you about Mr. Jeon" she teases with a wink and before I'm able to protest she's already greeting Jungkook right behind me.
"Mr. Jeon how lovely to see you again. I see you've both become better acquainted with each other since the last time you were here" she says, stopping Jungkook in his tracks and leaving me clearing my throat and awkwardly requesting that we get started. 
I glance back at Jungkook and see how the tips of his ears have turned red, not having expected her to come right out with it but it makes me smile nonetheless, seeing once again that I'm not the only one that gets shy in this dynamic we have going. 
~~~~
After trying on dress after dress after dress we can't seem to find the right one. "What about the dress you picked out when we first came here? That one won't work for this event?" I yell to Jungkook from behind the curtain as Genevieve helps me out of what feels like the hundredth dress. 
"It doesn't fit the season nor the occasion. Just try on a few more and if we can't find one we can look through the catalogue and order one and come back for a fitting later on this week" he responds without a care. 
"It'll be a bit of a tight squeeze in terms of time if we were to do it that way though" she warns me as she zips up the next dress and before I can even take ten steps out of the dressing room Jungkook has already disapproved of it.
"You don't like this one?" I question looking down at it, but then after having seen it in a different lighting realize that I hate it too. "You really want to ask me that question again?" he cocks a brow at me. I let out a sigh and my whole demeanor droops as I walk back into the dressing room. 
"Hey" Jungkook says, walking up on me before I'm even able to close the curtain. "Don't scare me like that" I say, placing a hand over my chest as an automatic response. "Why don't we take a break? There's an Indian restaurant down the street from here so we can have lunch and then come back. That sound alright to you?" he asks and chuckles at seeing my face light up at the idea.
"I'll take that as a yes" he says with a smug smile. "Can you help me get out of this? Genevieve had a hard time with the zipper so I think her hands might be getting a little tired of doing this" I ask, turning my back to him and giving a perfectly innocent excuse as to why I'm seeking his help but I can see his amused smile in the small mirror that he doesn't seem to notice that's placed right in front of me.
"Of course Pretty" he smiles and he takes his time dragging the zipper down and his brows shoot up at the realization that I'm not wearing a bra with this dress and once he's finished he runs his finger along my spine, seeing a slight red mark from the constant rub of the zippers of multiple dresses and I see his brows draw together at the realization.
"Let's get you out of here. We can come back another day to continue but I think you've had enough" he says running his finger along the line once more, causing a shiver that I had been trying to hold back to run up my spine but at his concern for the slight marks the dresses had left on my skin he decides to ignore it.
"It's okay, let's go eat and once we're done I'll try on a few more. I feel like the both of us will be able to think a bit straighter on a full stomach. Don't you think?" I ask, turning around to face him with one arm placed over my chest to hold up the dress being the only space between him and my bare skin. 
"If that's what you want" he says, his eyes tracing the slight bit of bare skin he's able to see on my chest and up to my eyes. "I'll just ask her to get a few more dresses ready for us while we're gone" he says and tells me through the curtain minutes later that he'll meet me outside. 
"You're a sly one love" Genevieve says as I come out of the dressing room fully clothed. "What makes you say that?" I question, tilting my head in confusion. "You knew I was coming back in a few seconds but asked him to unzip the dress for you anyway" she says and I widen my eyes, surprised that she has seen that exchange. "Nothing goes on in this shop without me knowing love" she chuckles at my reaction and gives me a little jar of salve. 
"What's this?" I question curiously, turning the jar over in my hands. "Mr. Jeon noticed the red marks the dresses left on your back and got worried so he asked me if I had anything that might with that" she says giving me a quick wink. "Now hurry along love and I'll see you soon" she says ushering me out and watching as I walk up to Jungkook leaning against my side of the car and looking up when he hears me coming. 
"You sure you want to come back today? I can ask her to schedule another day for us to come back" he says, still leaning against the car with his arms now crossed over his chest and observing my form to see any signs of discomfort but the only thing that has me nervous are his wandering eyes.
"I'm fine Jungkook I promise" I say while looking down and pulling on the sleeve on my sweater in an effort to warm up my hands a bit and shield them from the cold. He hooks his finger under my chin and brings my eyes up to him and studies my features before making the decision that I'm still up for the task. 
"Okay" he agrees, caressing my face for a second before using that same hand and places it on my waist and turns to open the car door and helps me in again. He places his coat over my lap, noticing that I'm shivering. I murmur a quick thank you before he closes the door, going around the car to get to the driver's side, waving at Genevieve before getting in the car as well. 
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tempvstas · 7 months
Text
Good Things Come To Those Who Wait
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Content Warning(s): some angst, leona being emo lol
Character(s): GN!Reader(no pronouns mentioned), Leona Kingscholar
Authors Notes: Hello all, I am not dead, just busy :] Life update, started uni so I've been busy with that, also, bit off more than I could chew so I burned out HARD. Genuinely lost motivation to write. But I do want to get back into the flow of writing. I'll try and fulfill requests(esp the ones sitting in my inbox, sorry to everyone who sent me requests before im not ignoring you i swear 💀) when I can but theres no guarantee. I wanna write what I can and what I want to and atm its Leona :]]. Please enjoy LMAO
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Leona couldn't remember the last time he had felt the warmth of another.
Moonlight filters through the open balcony of his room, a gentle breeze causing the curtains to sway slightly. He can feel your hands curled around his waist, his tail wrapped around your leg respectively. He stares at you, watching your chest rise and fall slowly, your soft snores seemingly filling up the room.
Silly Herbivore. He muses, brushing a stray strand of hair out of your face, tucking it behind your ear. You're so vulnerable, nestled against his chest. Wholeheartedly clinging onto him as if you were afraid he'd disappear. As he stares at you, he can't help the slight bitterness that wells up in his throat.
Why did you choose him out of everyone? Out of pity? He's never been good enough. The elders and servants back home made that quite obvious enough. He almost laughs out loud at the thought. He would never be good enough, would never be anyone's first choice, and would never put in enough effort because he was just too damn lazy.
A worthless, selfish, arrogant, too prideful for his own good, lazy, a good-for-nothing second prince who will never amount to anything.
Does he even deserve you?
Your slight movements startle him out of his thoughts as he stares down at you, blinking up at him with bleary eyes.
"Leona?" You mumble, rubbing your eyes. "Can't sleep? That's unusual," you tease him, shooting him a sleepy grin. Unwittingly, Leona feels the edges of his lips quirk up, "I was planning on it, until you started squirming around," he huffed. You study his face, a frown marring your features. Leona pokes your brow where it's creased, chuckling slightly, "Don't do that, your face will get stuck like that." You scowl at him, "I'm not a kid," you grumble, "Besides you have that look on your face and I'm worried about you."
Leona stares at you, an eyebrow raised, "Mind elaborating on what 'that look' means." You sit up so that you're face to face with him. "You know, that look! When you get all broody and emo, and all 'oh my sevens im so angsty grr'. That look." Leona wrinkles his nose at your wording, "Very funny Herbivore." You continue to stare at him, concern causes your brow to crease even more.
"Leona, what's wrong? I can tell something's up with you. I know you don't like opening up, and that's fine, but you know I'm here for you, right?" You reach over, taking his hand in yours and giving it a gentle squeeze. Leona's breath hitches in his throat for a second, he finds himself shutting his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, he finds your gaze trained on his.
Not looking away from him, holding his gaze unwaveringly. Genuine sincerity in your eyes.
"Leona." His ears twitch at the sound of his name being called. Your voice is firm, to get his attention, but soft enough that he doesn't feel the urge to flinch away. He sighs, feeling that you wouldn't let this matter go easily.
"I know you are. If you want the truth, no I'm not fine." Leona grimaces, this feeling of opening himself up was foreign to him. "I'm far from fine. I'm just.....what did I do to deserve you?" His voice breaks a little at the last part, but he continues. "I'm worthless, selfish, arrogant, too prideful for my own good, lazy, a good-for-nothing second prince who will never amount to anything. Compared to Farena or that damned lizard Malleus, I'm nothing. I have nothing. I will never be anything more because I will always be overshadowed by people like them." He takes a second to collect his thoughts before continuing. "I've always had to work hard to earn my keep only for everything to crumble like sand. All my hard work amounting to nothing because someone just so happens to be lucky enough to just be better." His ears flatten against his head out of irritation.
You listen to his words, staying silent. You give him a moment to catch his breath before hesitantly reaching over, pressing a hand to his cheek. Leona flinches, but then leans into your touch after a brief second. "Hey...look at me," you nudge his face so that he's staring at you.
"Look, I will admit you can be selfish, hell sometimes kind of a dick. You irritate me and sometimes I want to strangle you cause you won't let me get to class on time because you won't get off me." You pause, before continuing, "But you are not worthless. And you're not a good-for-nothing second prince. I love you, faults and all. You, Leona Kingscholar, are the best damn thing that has ever happened to me okay? I would go to hell and back for your stinky ass." Leona laughs softly at your nickname for him, leaning more into your hand. "You are worthy. I didn't choose to love you because I felt pity for you, I love you because of who you are. You say that all your hard work crumbles to sand? I've seen you pick yourself back up again. You're passionate about what you're interested in, and even if you won't outwardly say it, I know you care. You're not a saint by any means, far from it. But that's what I love about you. You're flawed and imperfect, and I say that's better than some perfect curated image of who you're supposed to be." You poke his chest to emphasize your point.
"So don't you ever question why I love you okay?" Your thumb brushes over the scar over his left eye, pressing a soft kiss to his eyelid. His eyelashes tickle your face as you do so. "I love you, scars and all. And I'll say it as many times as I need to."
Leona stares at you, a mix of emotions in his gaze. He clears his throat, his tail tugging you closer to him. "Fuck...that was hot," he smirks, leaning in, his nose brushing against yours. "Seriously? I give you this long speech and thats what you have to say?" You roll your eyes playfully, smacking his shoulder lightly. Leona's laughter rumbles in his throat as a hand gently holds onto the back of your neck, pulling you in for a kiss. Despite his rough exterior, his kisses are gentle, his lips molding against yours. His other hand finds its way to your waist, holding you in place as you straddle his hips.
The two of you part for air, small gasps can be heard between you. You wrap your arms around his neck as you settle next to him, head nestled in his neck. Leona adjusts his position into a more comfortable one, his chin resting against the top of your head. The two of you lay in silence, the only audible sound being the occasional breeze that ruffles the curtains. Slowly you find yourself falling into the embrace of sleep.
"Herbivore?" You hear his voice above you. "Mhmm?" you mumble sleepily, feeling your eyes drooping.
"....I love you." You smile, hearing his words, before drifting off.
Ensuring that you're asleep, Leona leans over, kissing your forehead, watching your sleeping face. "....Thank you for being in my life.....and for not giving up on me," he whispers, before settling against you and drifting off himself.
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a-aexotic · 1 year
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Hey! Idk if you write for her lol but could you do Johanna Mason x fem reader where reader is captured by the capitol instead of Johanna, and she just sort of flips out when they tell her
—cw: unedited, mentions of mental break, breaking things, screaming and freaking out, angst and crying —a/n: hey! i'm going to do some headcannons instead <3 i hope that's okay! i also added a few things :)
when she got on the hovercraft, she immediately looks for you
she asks finnick where you were and when she saw his expression, she immediately knew
knowing johanna, it didn’t take her much time to process this information
she started screaming at finnick about how he promised to protect you from any harm and he failed to that
it hurt finnick, seeing johanna blame him and flip out on him
but he knew she didn’t really mean it
she started throwing things and destroying everything in the hovercraft and finnick didn’t really know what to do
haymitch tried calming her down but they knew the only person who could ever possibly do that—was you
and you were captured
they had to give her something to help her calm down, but then she had started crying on the floor, processing completely how you were gone
she would rather you be dead because she knew how fucked up snow was and what he would do to you
her biggest regret was teaming up with you, so even if you were captured, she would be to
when you were captured, back at 13, johanna had lost her all appetite and her entire personality
she wasn’t sarcastic or fiery, or even just herself; she repeated the same thing over and over again
the one she finally flipped to her old determined self was when she had saw you on that TV with peeta
she freaked the fuck out, almost breaking the TV itself if it wasn’t for katniss and finnick holding her back
now the only mission she had was to get her true love back
the more you came on, the more like yourself you seemed, and that motivated her more than ever to get you back
at some point, you seemed like lifeless robot, just reading a script
when the mission to the capitol was pitched, she was the first to sign up
when she saw you the first time, all she could do was cry in your embrace as you stood there almost lifelessly
she didn’t know what horrible things they had done to you, but she was willing to know anything to help you heal
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