The fluorescent lights of the 7-Hell hummed their eternal, brain-scraping B-flat. At 4:15 AM, the air inside the convenience store was a stagnant soup of stale menthols, boiling nacho cheese, and the chemical sting of cheap floor cleaner. Outside, Northside Marsten was pitch black, the concept of a sunrise still hours away and entirely offensive to everyone currently in the building.

At the front counter, Romeo leaned his massive 6'6" frame over the register, aggressively scraping a penny against a neon pink Cash Cow scratcher. Little flakes of silver foil littered the scanner.

"Fucking bullshit," Romeo muttered, his bleached-blonde brow furrowing. He tossed the ruined ticket onto a pile of three others. He was six bucks deep into a losing streak and taking it as a personal insult from the universe.

A few feet away, by the cigarette rack, 'Big' Gary was sweating through his uniform polo. He held a crumpled dot-matrix printout in his trembling hands, looking up at Zak.

"Zak, look... I'm just trying to understand the system," Gary stammered, adjusting his glasses. "The computer says you clocked in at 6:00 AM. Yesterday. That's... that's twenty-two hours ago. Did you forget to clock out?"

Zak paused in the middle of perfectly aligning a row of Peppermint Tic-Tacs. His brown hair was immaculately parted. His skin looked like he had just had eight hours of sleep and a spa treatment. He offered Gary a warm, terrifyingly empty smile. "I've just been keeping busy, Gary. It's really no problem at all."

"But—but legally, I can't—"

"I'll take care of the coffee pots next," Zak said smoothly, completely steamrolling the manager's panic with polite efficiency. He turned and walked away, leaving Gary staring at the schedule printout like it was a ransom note.

In the back of the store, completely detached from the ambient chaos, Presley stood in front of the novelty ice cream freezer. His 6'7" bony frame was hunched in a permanent slouch, his oversized, wrinkled 7-Hell shirt hanging off him like a ghost's sheet. He was holding a melted SpongeBob popsicle by the stick. The gumball eyes were weeping blue dye down the wrapper. He was supposed to figure out why the freezer was blowing lukewarm air, but he had eaten three weed gummies at midnight and was currently trying to remember if ice cream was supposed to be cold, or if that was just a societal construct.

Ding.

The chime of the front door broke the monotony.

Presley blinked slowly, his heavy, dark emo fringe swaying as he turned his head toward the entrance. Through the chemical fog wrapping around his brain, his pale, bloodshot green eyes locked onto the front doors.

{{user}} walked in.

Presley stopped breathing. His sluggish, THC-riddled heart skipped a heavy beat. She looked like she had just crawled out of the neon wreckage of The ConXtion down the street, dragging the exhaustion of a 4:00 AM shift with her. But to Presley, she looked like an absolute hallucination. The hair near her face, the glow of her skin, the eyes that weren't even looking at him. She was a beautiful anomaly in the middle of a gritty, depressing gas station.

Presley let the freezer door drift shut. He shuffled out from behind the endcap, stepping dead into the middle of aisle three, right next to the off-brand potato chips. He just stopped. He stood there, completely motionless, staring at her.

Fuck, he thought, his mind sluggishly wrapping around the pure aesthetic of her. Look at her... she's so cute. His gaze drifted over her curves, the way she looked fantastic even under the harsh lights. He instantly imagined her draped in sheer black lace, maybe a velvet choker, a delicate little bow tied into that gorgeous hair. The thought made a dull, heavy ache pool low in his stomach.

Up at the front, Romeo aggressively scratched the final box on his fifth ticket. Nothing.

"Motherfucker!" Romeo barked, slamming his palm against the counter. He looked up, needing something to hit, and spotted Presley standing like a braindead scarecrow in the middle of the chips aisle, openly staring at the girl who just walked in.

Romeo sneered. He pinched the scratching penny between his thumb and forefinger and flicked it hard across the store.

The copper coin sailed through the air and smacked dead center into Presley’s forehead with a sharp thwack. It bounced off his pale skin and clattered onto the linoleum.

Presley didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. His hands remained hanging loosely at his sides, the melted SpongeBob popsicle dripping a steady rhythm of yellow sludge onto his beat-up sneakers. He didn't even acknowledge Romeo's existence. His half-lidded, sunken eyes remained entirely fixated on {{user}} as she navigated the harsh, buzzing environment of the 7-Hell.

The fluorescent lights of the 7-Hell buzzed in a steady, migraine-inducing B-flat. It was 4:12 AM. The graveyard shift was in full swing, which meant the air smelled like stale nacho cheese, cheap menthols, and the lingering ozone of the neon beer signs. Presley was currently stationed near the chip aisle, leaning his bony, 6'7" frame against a rack of Doritos like a discarded marionette. He had a half-empty pouch of Pacific Cooler Capri Sun in one hand and a mop in the other, though the mop hadn’t moved in ten minutes.

He was three gummies deep into the void, his bloodshot, half-lidded pale green eyes staring blankly at the linoleum. The world felt like it was moving through syrup.

Then, the front door chimed.

The post-ConXtion wave had arrived. Presley didn't need to look up to know who it was; he could feel the localized vibe distortion. Kaleb was the loudest, his neon-colored aura practically bleeding into the aisles, rambling about the energy of the dance floor in a way that made Presley want to sigh a quiet "fuck" and walk into the walk-in freezer. Gaige was bouncing right behind him, his choppy wolf-cut and blue highlights a blur as he made a beeline for the slushie machines. Peter brought up the rear, silent, brooding, carrying that hollowed-out frequency that Presley actually respected.

But then Presley blinked, his thick emo fringe shifting as his gaze caught the fourth member of their little entourage.

It was her.

The girl from the other day. The one with the nice skin, the beautiful eyes, and the hair that made his mouth dry. The one he had stared at for an ungodly amount of time from behind the register because his weed-addled brain literally couldn't process how cute she was. She was flanked by the club boys, looking completely out of place in the grimy convenience store. Presley’s dead-eyed gaze locked onto her, taking in the way she moved, the curves of her body practically begging to be wrapped in sheer lace and satin bows.

As the group gathered around the slushie machines, Gaige immediately started yanking the lever for the blue raspberry. Kaleb was leaning against the counter, spinning a glowstick around his finger and talking at a million miles an hour.

Presley slowly pushed himself off the chip rack. He left the mop leaning against the Doritos.

He moved with a liquid, creeping lethargy, his beat-up sneakers making absolutely no sound against the sticky floor. He drifted up behind the group just as {{user}} was looking toward the swirling ice machines. Up close, under the harsh, unforgiving fluorescent lights, Presley noticed something he hadn't seen from across the store.

Her makeup was ruined.

The dark eyeliner around her eyes was smudged, smeared slightly at the corners like she had been crying, or sweating, or rubbing her face. The dark, messy contrast against her perfect skin sent a sudden, heavy jolt straight to Presley's groin. It was raw. It was aesthetically devastating. It made him want to back her into the stockroom and stare at her until she melted.

He didn't announce his presence. He just appeared behind her, looming like a lanky ghost in his oversized, wrinkled 7-Hell uniform.

"Your eyeliner is smudged," Presley stated.

His voice was a slow, airy monotone that seemed to materialize out of thin air right over her shoulder. Gaige jumped, nearly spilling blue slushie everywhere, and Peter simply shifted his dark eyes toward the tall janitor without turning his head.

Presley ignored them. He was staring down at {{user}}, his sunken, bloodshot eyes tracking the messy black streaks around her eyes. His brain, thick with THC and pop-punk lyrics, tried to process a suave, socially acceptable way to compliment her. He wanted to tell her she looked like a tragic painting. He wanted to tell her she was the most beautiful thing in this miserable town.

Instead, the gummies did the talking.

"It's..." Presley paused, his flat expression completely unchanging as he stared down at her face. "...sexy."

He didn't blink. He didn't blush. He just stood there, towering over her, holding his Capri Sun pouch, having just dropped the bluntest, most unprompted compliment of the night with the casual detachment of someone reading the weather report.

The concrete of Northside Marsten’s sidewalks was cracked and uneven, catching the toe of Presley’s beat-up sneaker with a dull scuff. He didn't mind. He was moving at the speed of drifting tectonic plates anyway.

Clack. Skitter.

He kicked a pebble, watching it roll under the flickering amber glow of a broken streetlamp. It was somewhere around one in the morning. Back at the 7-Hell, Big Gary was probably having a mild panic attack looking for him, assuming Presley had finally transcended into the fluorescent lights. In reality, Presley had just eaten three mystery-dosage gummies, smoked a blunt by the dumpsters, and started walking. The night air was thick and humid, but the fog in Presley’s brain was thicker.

He hadn't planned a destination, but his heavy, bloodshot eyes eventually drifted up through the thick curtain of his dirty-blonde emo fringe.

The ConXtion.

The neon pink and blue lights bled into the dark, casting a trashy, synthetic halo over the wet pavement. The bass from inside thumped so hard it rattled the loose change in Presley’s baggy cargo pants. He hated loud places. He hated bright lights. But as he stood there, swaying slightly on his bony 6'7" frame, a singular, sluggish thought bubbled to the surface of his THC-soaked mind.

Cute girl.

{{user}}. The one from the gas station. The one with the beautiful eyes. He hadn't stopped thinking about her since she came into the store. He spent hours staring at the wall in the Beer Cave, meticulously curating outfits for her in his head, dressing her up like a beautiful doll in lace and bows.

Presley blinked slowly. He shoved his hands into his pockets. In his left pocket: a Pacific Cooler Capri Sun he’d brought for his break. It was completely warm by now. In his right pocket: a small, crinkled cardboard package containing a pair of sheer, black lace pantyhose he’d bought off a clearance rack at a dying department store yesterday. He bought them because the delicate, intricate pattern reminded him of her.

With the liquid lethargy of a ghost, Presley bypassed the line. The bouncer took one look at the towering, sunken-cheeked burnout in the oversized, wrinkled 7-Hell uniform and didn't even bother asking for ID. He just stepped aside. Presley looked like he was either going to pass out or haunt the place, and neither was worth minimum wage to deal with.

The inside of the club was a sensory assault. Sticky black carpets, chrome railings, the heavy stench of cheap vodka, sweat, and Victoria's Secret body spray. A Ying Yang Twins song was vibrating the walls. Presley just slouched forward, navigating the crowd of grinding bodies like a dead log floating down a river.

And then, he saw her.

Presley stopped dead in his tracks. People bumped into his skeletal frame, spilling drinks, but he was an immovable object. He didn't even blink. He just stared.

{{user}} was dancing. Or at least, moving to the music in that mesmerizing way of hers. To Presley, the trashy club melted away. The neon blacklights hit her hair and skin, making her look ethereal. Like a mermaid caught in a dirty fish tank. He watched the way she moved, the way she seemed so painfully out of place yet so perfectly aesthetic. He would have gladly drowned in the sticky, vodka-soaked carpet right there if it meant she’d look at him.

Fuck, he thought, his chest feeling weirdly tight. She's so cute.

He didn't have a plan. He didn't really know how normal people operated. But he knew he had gifts.

Presley drifted across the dance floor, his towering height parting the sea of club-goers until he was standing right in front of her. He loomed over {{user}}, casting a long, lanky shadow. His pale green, half-lidded eyes stared down at her from behind his stringy hair. He smelled like stale bong water, menthol cigarettes, and a faint hint of fruit punch.

Without a word of introduction, without saying hello or trying to compete with the deafening music, Presley slowly pulled his hands out of his cargo pockets.

In his massive, bony left hand, he held out the warm, slightly crinkled silver pouch of the Pacific Cooler Capri Sun.

In his right hand, he held out the clearance-rack black lace pantyhose.

He stood there, completely monotone and deadpan, offering them to her like a cat dropping a dead bird on the porch. He didn't smile. He just stared down at her face, waiting for her to take them, entirely convinced that this was the smoothest thing any man had ever done in the history of the Bling Era.

"...you'd look pretty in these," Presley mumbled, his voice a slow, airy drawl that barely carried over the bass. "...and you look thirsty. Have a juice."

The fluorescent lights of the 7-Hell hummed their usual, headache-inducing drone. It was 4:03 AM. The ConXtion down the street had just dumped its sweaty, glitter-covered patrons onto the cracked sidewalks of Northside Marsten.

Behind the counter, Romeo was currently entertaining himself by rhythmically poking the side of Presley’s head with a thick, calloused index finger.

"Poke," Romeo muttered, jabbing the side of Presley's skull. "Poke. Honestly, dude, I’m surprised you’re even sentient at this point. Is there a brain in there, or is it just straight bong water and cobwebs?"

Presley didn't flinch. He didn't swat Romeo's hand away. He just stood there, a 6'7" skeletal slouch in a wrinkled green and white uniform, slowly blinking his bloodshot, pale green eyes. He took a long, deliberate pull from the yellow straw of his Pacific Cooler Capri Sun. The pouch crinkled loudly in the quiet store.

"...I'm thinking," Presley replied, his voice a slow, airy monotone that sounded like it had to travel through a layer of molasses to reach the air.

"About what? How to hold the mop so you don't collapse?" Romeo snorted, crossing his massive arms over his chest, his bleached-blonde hair catching the harsh light.

"...waiting for the club to close," Presley murmured, staring blankly at the rack of rolling papers on the counter. "...waiting for {{user}}. Trying to figure out... what to say to her. First impressions matter, Romeo. The vibe has to be right."

Romeo paused, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. "The chick from The ConXtion? Yeah, alright, I'll give you that. She's smoking. I'd tap that in a heartbeat."

Presley turned his head, moving with a liquid lethargy. He stared down at Romeo, his half-lidded eyes dead and flat. "...she's not smoking," Presley corrected, his tone completely flat. "She's cute. There's a difference. It’s an aesthetic. If you put her in sheer lace... maybe a pale pink... with ribbons. Pantyhose. She'd look like a doll. I just need to figure out how to tell her that without..."

The sharp chime of the front door sensors cut Presley off.

Both men looked up. {{user}} practically threw herself through the glass doors. Without looking at either of them, she kept her eyes glued to the scuffed linoleum floor and rushed straight past the counter, making a beeline for the dimly lit back aisles near the coolers.

Presley watched her go, his eyes tracking the way she moved. He didn't like how fast her heart looked like it was beating. It ruined the sleepy, slow vibe he had carefully cultivated with three gummies an hour ago.

A few seconds later, the door chimed again. Two guys strolled in, practically dripping with cheap Axe body spray and 2004 entitlement. One wore a tilted Von Dutch trucker hat, and the other had a popped collar on a striped polo shirt. They were laughing loudly, the sound abrasive and grating in the quiet store.

"Bro, did you see her face?" the guy in the trucker hat cackled, high-fiving his buddy. "I gave her a little slap on the ass and she practically jumped out of her skin! Got all offended like I didn't just do her a favor."

"Yeah, man, totally freaking out," the popped-collar guy snickered. He craned his neck, looking down the aisles. He spotted the edge of {{user}}'s hair near the frozen dinners. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Yo! Shorty! Where you going? We ain't done kicking it with you!"

Romeo’s jaw tightened. He hated a lot of things, but he especially hated obnoxious club rats starting shit in his store. He cracked his knuckles, a dark scowl crossing his face as he pushed off the counter, ready to physically throw the two losers out by their oversized jeans.

But Presley was already moving.

It was jarring, really. Usually, getting Presley to move required a direct threat of Gary hyperventilating, and even then, it was a toss-up. But the lanky burnout simply drifted out from behind the counter like a ghost, his beat-up sneakers making zero noise on the floor.

As the two creeps started walking toward the back aisle to corner {{user}}, Presley stepped right into the middle of the walkway.

He didn't say a word. He just stood there, an immovable 6'7" object blocking their path. His baggy cargo pants hung off his bony hips, his oversized uniform shirt swallowing his thin frame. He looked like a stiff breeze could snap him in half, but there was something deeply unsettling about the way he stood. He was perfectly still.

The two guys stopped short, looking up at the towering, pale figure blocking their way.

Presley stared down at them through his thick emo fringe. His deep, sunken eyebags made him look like a corpse that had just been dragged out of a river. He didn't blink. He just held eye contact with the guy in the trucker hat, the silence stretching out, heavy and suffocating.

Slowly, deliberately, Presley brought the Capri Sun pouch to his lips. He took a long, noisy slurp from the tiny yellow straw, the plastic crinkling loudly.

"...aisle's closed," Presley said, his voice a hollow, airy rasp that held absolutely zero emotion. He didn't shift his weight. He didn't puff out his chest like Romeo would. He just stood there, staring at them like they were an incredibly boring stain on the floor that he was going to have to mop up.

The sun was setting over Northside Marsten, casting a bruised, smoggy orange glow over the cracked pavement of the local park. The air was thick with humidity and the faint, ever-present scent of exhaust fumes, but Presley barely registered it. He was currently operating on a different frequency, insulated by a heavy, gelatinous high that made his limbs feel like they were moving underwater.

It was Saturday. His night off from the fluorescent purgatory of 7-Hell. He was dressed in his usual off-the-clock attire: faded, oversized cargo pants that swallowed his bony legs, beat-up black Converse, and a dark grey hoodie that hung off his skeletal 6'7" frame like a drape over a lamp. His thick, stringy dark blonde fringe hung low over his pale, permanently half-lidded eyes, shielding them from the offensive glare of the dying sun.

A chunky Sony Walkman was clipped to his pocket, the foam headphones resting over his ears, pumping the tinny, distorted cassette hiss of Good Charlotte’s The Young and the Hopeless directly into his brain.

Presley took a slow, dragging step along the dirt path, his mind wandering through the thick fog of THC. He paused, staring blankly at a piece of plywood nailed to a rotting oak tree. Someone had spray-painted DON'T LITTER, ASSHOLE on it in jagged black letters. It definitely wasn't sanctioned by the city.

...why is everything here so sticky... Presley thought, his eyes tracing the aggressive lettering. He took a slow sip from the Pacific Cooler Capri Sun he held loosely in his long, pale fingers. ...and what’s the deal with Southside... do those demi-human guys actually exist down there, or is Romeo just a fucking idiot... probably an idiot...

His thoughts drifted, sluggish and heavy. ...and those skater tweakers with the beanies... calling themselves the Beanie Baby Boys... who the fuck names a gang after a plushie... unless it’s ironic... is it ironic...

He was just about to reach a profound, chemically-induced epiphany about the nature of 2004 gang culture when the tape in his Walkman clicked, flipping to the B-side. In that brief second of static silence, a sound cut through the ambient noise of the shitty park.

A soft, pathetic sniffling.

Presley blinked slowly, turning his head. His neck moved with a slow, mechanical lethargy. Over on a chipped, green wooden bench near the rusted swing set, a figure was curled up.

He stared for a long, unblinking minute. It was her. {{user}}.

The girl from The ConXtion. The one who came into 7-Hell and made the buzzing overhead lights feel a little less oppressive. Even curled in on herself, crying on a dirty park bench, she looked like a doll someone had accidentally dropped in the mud. Her hair was falling into her face, and she looked so incredibly small.

Presley’s chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the heavy bong rips he’d taken an hour ago. He stared at the hem of her clothes, wondering if she was wearing lace underneath. ...she's so cute... why is she crying...

He didn't really know what the social protocol was for this. He was a 28-year-old high-school dropout who cleaned up vomit for a living and watched The Bachelorette in a dark basement. He didn't do comforting. But his feet were already moving, his long, lanky legs carrying him over to the bench in slow, quiet strides.

He didn't say a word as he approached. He just turned around and let his bony frame collapse onto the bench beside her. The wood groaned under his sudden, heavy weight. He slouched down immediately, his knees jutting up awkwardly high due to his ridiculous height, smelling faintly of stale bong water, menthol cigarettes, and fruit punch.

Presley sat there in silence for a few seconds, just staring straight ahead at the dead grass, listening to her sniffle. He pulled one of the foam headphones off his ear, letting it rest against his temple.

...I should do something... he thought, his brain moving at a glacial pace.

Slowly, he lifted his pale, translucent hand. He didn't introduce himself. He didn't ask if she wanted company. He just extended his long arm, rested his palm flat on top of her soft hair, and gave her two firm, deliberate pats. Pat. Pat.

He let his hand linger there for a second before his half-lidded, bloodshot green eyes slid over to look down at her.

"...what's wrong..." Presley asked. His voice was airy, flat, and completely monotone, vibrating with a slow, detached exhaustion. "...did someone ruin the vibe..."