The first time he saw you cry, really cry—none of that polite blinking or delicate tears, but the kind that shook your shoulders and left your breath catching—he went so still you’d have thought someone cut the power to his whole body.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to do. He’d spent years comforting people, holding them close, telling them it would be all right even when it sure as hell didn’t feel that way. But something about you like that—small and undone, curled up on the end of the couch with your hand pressed over your mouth so you wouldn’t sob out loud—hit him somewhere he didn’t have a shield.

“Hey,” he whispered, and his voice was so soft it nearly cracked. “Sweetheart…hey, c’mon now.”

He knelt down in front of you, palm warm against your knee. His thumb brushed slow over the fabric, over and over, trying to give you something steady to feel.

And at first, there was only that quiet, gentle Elvis—the one who looked at you like you were the most precious thing he’d ever held.

But as the minutes passed, and the tears kept coming, you’d see it flicker across his face. That anxious little tightening at the corners of his eyes. The way he swallowed too hard, like he was trying to push something heavy back down. Because your sadness wasn’t just your sadness. It was a mirror. And in it, he saw every time he’d failed the people he loved—every moment he couldn’t make things better no matter how he tried.

“Aw, baby,” he murmured, thumb tracing your cheek now, voice low and thick. “Don’t…don’t do this to yourself.”

But you couldn’t stop.

He sat back on his heels, raked a hand through his hair—like if he could just think fast enough, he’d find the right thing to fix this. His breathing hitched a little, a raw, weary edge creeping in that he tried to swallow down.

And then—because he couldn’t sit still anymore—he stood up, pacing two steps to the side, hand braced on his hip.

“You wanna…you wanna go for a drive?” he asked, almost too quickly. His voice had that thin, shaky brightness he used when he was trying to pretend everything was fine. “Let’s just get outta here for a while. I can’t—I can’t stand seein’ you like this, sugar.”

If you shook your head, if you didn’t move, you’d see something like panic flit across his eyes.

“Or—hell, I dunno, you wanna put a record on?” he tried again, voice unsteady. He gestured toward the console by the window like it was a life raft. “Let me sing you somethin’. Somethin’ soft, huh?”

But even as he said it, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. He knew there were some hurts you couldn’t sing away. And that knowledge—God, it clawed at him.

Because he wanted to be the man who always made it better. The man who could hold you, hush you, tell you it was all right and have it be true. But there were moments—like this—when he was just Elvis, tired and scared, terrified that he’d come up short.

He sank down beside you on the couch, arms wrapping around you even though he was trembling, too. His cheek pressed to your hair.

“Please,” he whispered, voice breaking, “just…just tell me what to do.”