#gareth fell

[starcrossedjedis]

Alyse Baratheon & Gareth Fell in "Hidden Flame" // Violent Delights Series [HotD]

"You might even be queen one day." - "I don't want to be queen. And I don't want to be Aemond Targaryen's wife."

She's finally here!🖤 See below the cut for a little 🌶🌶🌶-y bonus 😏

tagged: @acabecca @akabluekat @arrthurpendragon @asirensrage @astarionbae @auxiliarydetective @bibaybe @bisexualterror @bravelittleflower @cas-verse @chickensarentcheap @curious-kittens-ocs @darknightfrombeyond @darkwolf76 @daughter-of-melpomene @drbobbimorse @eddiemunscns @emilykaldwen @far-shores @foxesandmagic @fyeahgotocs @fyeahhotdocs @harleyquinnzelz @if-you-onlyknew @jamezvaldes @jewishbarbies @juliaswickcrs @katiekinswrites @kingsmakers @koiwrites @mabonetsamhain @mystic-scripture @ocappreciationtag @oneirataxia-girl @susiesamurai @stachedocs @thatmagickjuju

[2btheanswertothequestion]

(part 3 of November Paramedic; part 2 is here.)

When Gareth mentioned a plan to locate Eddie’s paramedic in shining armor, Eddie assumed it'd be him getting into various accidents all over Indianapolis. It's something the little shit would've found funny, okay! But, Gareth's plan is much less hazardous and slightly more logical: lurk around the university until they spot him. Like a pair of drug dealers trying to tempt the goody-two-shoes protagonist into addiction and sin on an 80s Saturday morning cartoon.

It's not the simplest task since they don't know when Steve might be there. Also, other responsibilities mean they can only spare so many hours loitering. So, thirteen days post-hatching plan and nineteen days post-meeting Steve (not that Eddie's been counting or anything), with nothing to show for their ethically questionable behavior, Eddie is ready to give up. Especially since both of them have a rare simultaneous day off. Usually, those are spent jamming, smoking, playing D&D… literally anything other than this.

"This is fucking stupid," he says, cigarette clenched between his teeth. "We're not gonna run into him."

"Sure we are," Gareth says. He drops his butt among the dozens they've chain-smoked and lights another without meeting Eddie's gaze. "We're getting closer. I can feel it."

"The only thing you're feeling is delusional. It's time to give up."

"Eddie, c'mon-"

"Nope." One last drag and Eddie stomps out his cig. "Fuck this; I'm out."

He stalks toward his van at the far end of the parking lot. Gareth curses before running after him.

"Dude!" he exclaims, jogging to keep up with Eddie's longer strides. "You can't just give up! What about what you said-"

"I was being stupid. What was I even imagining? We orchestrate another meeting and, what, I use my freakish wiles and seduce him? And then we'll live happily ever after…" Eddie shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that. He'd probably turn out to be a douche anyhow."

"No, listen!" Gareth seizes Eddie's arm and yanks him to a stop in the middle of the lot. "You always do this. Self-sabotage and cut things short, even when there's potential."

Eddie scoffs. "You know what else always happens? I end up liking them more than they like me. It's not fun."

"You don't know it'll be like that this time. You have to try."

"No."

Eddie takes a step back. He's done; he's out. Gareth reaches for his wrist to pull him back in. He jerks away, almost losing his footing and stumbling into the burgundy car behind him. Gareth's arms shoot out to help, but Eddie steadies himself before crashing. For a second, silence reigns as they assure everyone's on solid ground. Then Eddie opens his mouth to once and for all-

"Eddie? Gareth?"

Their heads snap to the side, eyes landing on… Max? Looking unusually dressy in high-waisted shorts and a fitted top under an oversized jacket, and her hair in a high ponytail. She's got her skateboard under her arm, a messenger bag with a textbook sticking out, and a confused furrow between her eyebrows.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

Fuck. They can't tell her the truth – she'll never let him live it down. Fortunately, Gareth realizes this too, because he says:

"Uh, I go to school here? What are you doing here? The math building is way over there."

She rolls her eyes and leans on the burgundy car. It's a shiny BMW M5 – the limited anniversary edition. Jesus fucking Christ, Eddie almost dented that thing! It's worth more than his life. And Max is slouching against it like it's nothing. He could warn her not to scratch it, but she's unlikely to care; she's always been metal that way.

"Waiting for my friends," she says. "We have dinner on Tuesdays."

Eddie's ears ignite. Dinner? With friends? While wearing what's basically a date outfit?

"Ooohhh…" he says, sharing a grin with Gareth. "And do these friends include someone special?"

She shrugs, looking anywhere but at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"C'mon, Red! You're killing me! I need to know if he's good enough for you."

His fingers hover over her ponytail, as if to tug at it. She slaps his hand away.

"You're annoying."

He laughs. This terrible day just became infinitely better. He won't rest until he gets what he wants – or until she punches him, which'll probably come first. He's about to tell her so when a voice calls her name. Both turn to look, and…

It's a boy Max's age. He's beaming and waving, quickening his steps toward her. She smiles too, almost shyly, as she waves back. It's the perfect opportunity for teasing, if Eddie's day hadn't just become infinitely better.

His tongue is heavy, his skin is itching, his heart is bruising his ribs from the inside. Sweat is gathering in his pits and it's getting a little hard to breathe. Because walking half a pace behind the boy, carrying a huge duffel with such ease it might actually be stuffed with feathers, is… is…

"Yesssss!" Gareth hisses next to him. He may also be fist-pumping. Eddie isn't looking.

"Hey!" The boy stops in front of Max. "Sorry, practice ran late."

"It's okay," she says, cooler than ice, though her eyes are glittering. "I just got here."

She says something else, or maybe the boy does? It's all background noise, because Steve has caught up. Steve, in jeans and a polo that must've been tailored to his exact measurements because oooooooooohhhh boy. Steve, unshouldering the bag, muscles shifting and straining under his shirt with the movement. Steve, smiling, his golden eyes flying over Eddie.

"Hey! Eddie and Gareth, right?"

Eddie draws a sharp breath. He remembers!

"Y-Yeah!" he squeaks, hands fluttering to either wave or shake hands, ultimately doing neither. "Hi! You're here!"

"I am," Steve says, casual, as if inane conversations with former patients happen on the regular.

(It better not – Eddie doesn't do well in competitive settings.)

Max, keen eyes darting between them, asks, "You know each other?"

"Met at work," Steve says. "Or, I was working and he…"

"Ah." Max taps her temple. "That."

"How do you know them?" the boy asks her.

She points at Eddie. "Neighbor. And that's the guy who dumpster dives outside our apartment building."

Gareth flips her off. Eddie would laugh, but he's busy pretending he doesn't know what Steve looks like shirtless. It's hard (pun slowly growing more relevant) – his gaze keeps dropping to the polo's undone top button. Steve is just as gorgeous out of uniform, and now Eddie's thighs are tingling with want. He could stare at him forever…

Unfortunately, 'forever' is cut short by a woman arriving in a flurry. Wait, no. 'Flurry' implies some sort of graceful whimsy, while this person… she's a hurricane crashing into a house.

"Sorry I'm late! Nielsen wouldn't stop talking and got angry when people started leaving because it's an important lecture so this girl called him out for not keeping time because he goes on all these tangents and he said they're interesting tidbits and she said it's disrespecting our time and-" She pauses for breath. "You don't care, do you?"

Max, Steve, and the boy shake their heads.

"Right. Sorry." The woman turns to Eddie and Gareth. "Hi! I'm Robin. And you are?"

"My neighbor and his friend. Steve treated his concussion," Max rattles off, glaring at them. "You didn't answer my question: why are you here?"

Gareth frowns. "I told you," he says, pointing at the building. "School." He points at himself. "Student."

Max glares harder. "You don't have class on Tuesdays. And Eddie doesn't go here at all."

"I had stuff I needed to drop off."

"Is tagging along a crime? Jesus."

Max doesn't reply, though her glare remains.

Robin hums. "Okay, so this is super-enjoyable, I love just standing around, but I'm starving, so…" She looks at Steve, who nods.

"Yeah, we're going," he says, but neither moves. He glances at Eddie, which makes her glance at Eddie, and then they make a series of eyebrow-movements at each other, ending in a shared smile. Steve asks, "Have you guys eaten yet?"

Eddie shakes his head, pulse racing. Is this going where he thinks it is?

"D'you wanna come with? There's this diner we like…"

Holyshityesitis!

"Yeah!" Fuck, too eager. "I mean, uh, sure, sounds good."

"Cool." Grinning, Steve clicks a remote car key; the burgundy BMW beeps. What the fuck? How high is a paramedic's salary?! "Did you drive here?"

"I, uh…" Eddie falters. Shit, wasn't he supposed to? It's been three weeks and he feels fine – he thought he was in the green!

"Nope! I did!" Gareth says, 'proving' it by hauling his house keys from his pocket and jingling them.

Steve nods. "Should be safe for you to drive again, but the less strain you put on your brain, the better. Even a mild concussion isn't anything to sneeze at."

"Y-Yeah, I've been taking it easy. Basically done nothing. Until now."

Max snorts. Eddie is going to pour coffee through her mail slot.

They decide Eddie and Gareth will follow Steve's car to the diner, since Steve can't fit all of them (the real reason he asked if they drove here, duh). It's good because Eddie gets the chance to panic/gush/collect himself in the privacy of his van. It's bad because Gareth drives, lest their fib be revealed. Gareth spends the ten-minute journey gloating about driving Eddie's beloved girl, interspersed with 'I told you so!'s.

The diner is cozy, all wooden furniture and sepia photographs on the walls. A graying waitress who smells like tobacco directs them to a booth and takes their orders. An awkward silence then falls as they wait for someone to speak.

The boy clears his throat. "My name is Lucas, by the way. I don't think I said." After shaking his hand and introducing themselves, Lucas says to Eddie, "I think Max has mentioned you."

"Oh yeah? I've been dying for her to mention y- Ow!"

Eddie rubs where Max kicked his shin. Her glare is murderous. Lucas is blushing happily, though.

"So, what d'you guys do?" Robin asks.

Right. Time to small-talk like adults. Eddie gets his job as a mechanic out of the way, then gives the word to Gareth, who tells them he's a creative writing major. Robin turns out to be getting a masters in linguistics and Lucas studies biology.

"I don't actually know what I want to do, but biology feels broad enough to give me options, y'know? I can go to med school, or forensics, or, I don't know, paleontology?" he says. Max glows brighter with every word that comes out of his mouth. Cute.

This then segues into talking about their friends, who by the sound of it lead incredibly interesting lives.

"Dustin's at MIT, Mike's at Oxford, Will's in San Francisco…" Lucas says, counting on his fingers.

Max interjects, "El's in Africa building houses and teaching kids English."

"Erica is still at home, finishing high school and drowning in early acceptance letters to, like, every Ivy League there is," Steve says with a look of pure pride.

"Nancy and Jonathan – they're our age – are chasing scoops in Afghanistan… " Robin says.

"... and Argyle is also in California," Lucas finishes.

Eddie whistles. "And here we are, still in Indianapolis."

"Dude, I'm surprised I got this far," Steve says. "Wouldn't've managed without her."

He jerks a thumb in Robin's direction, who preens at the acknowledgment. Robin's cool, Eddie decides. Garrulous but fun and nice… and verrrrrrrrry close to Steve. The kind of close where they're always in each other's space. Where they wordlessly transfer food between their plates. Where Steve unceremoniously wipes a speck of ketchup off Robin's chin after she repeatedly fails to get it. They're comfortable, but not necessarily romantically affectionate. Like they're siblings rather than lovers.

(Dear God, if you are in heaven, let them be siblings.)

Conversation flows. They joke around, tell stories, swap opinions. Robin gets passionate about tonal shifts when stage shows are adapted to film, and Eddie tries not to stare at Steve's mouth as he eats. And then, once their plates are cleaned and they're waiting for dessert, Gareth leans his elbows on the table and fixes Steve with a purposeful look.

"I figured out where I've seen you before."

Eddie stiffens.

Steve blinks. "At campus, right?"

"Thought so, but no. I realized it's actually…" Gareth chuckles. "It's ridiculous, but uh, my mom had this calendar…"

Steve recoils, red flooding his face. Robin, Lucas, and Max shriek in delight, Robin grabbing Steve's arm and shaking it as he hides behind his hands.

"And my mom," Gareth says between bursts of laughter, "she's shameless, all right? She kept it in our kitchen. So during, what was it, November?"

"November," Steve confirms, muffled.

"For 30 days, if I wanted to check the date or make a notation… I saw you."

Tears stream down Robin's face, she's laughing so hard. She and Max have started chanting 'Slut! Slut! Slut!' at the still crimson Steve.

"You don't understand," Lucas says, gesturing for emphasis. "We've been waiting for someone to come up and say 'hey, weren't you…?' for years. Thank you so much!"

"Hey, thank my mom," Gareth says. Eddie's quite stunned he'd throw his own mother under the bus like that. She's a really nice person, too!

"Makes sense," Max says. "Moms love Steve."

"All parents do," Lucas says.

Cackling, Robin pinches Steve's cheek. "Gotta hide your mom and your dad around Steve!"

Steve bats her off, flushed but smiling. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. You got your wish, now shut it."

That only makes the three restart the chant to ridicule him for his harlotry. Steve's indignant squawk that 'it was for charity!' merely has everyone laugh more.

And Eddie? Well. As he sits beholding this man who works as a paramedic and drives a luxury car, who models for charity and allows his friends to mock him for it, who blushes and giggles when they lovingly call him a whore…

All Eddie can think is that he's in fucking trouble.

Afterward, it only makes sense for Eddie to drive Max home. Steve shakes his hand outside the diner, saying it was nice to see him again. Eddie, not knowing how to ask for Steve's contact info without seeming weird, agrees. He waits until the BMW drives off, then tells Gareth to get the fuck out of his seat. Gareth relocates to the backseat, whining since Max already called shotgun.

The initial minutes, they're quiet. Then Max turns to Gareth and says:

"When were you telling me Eddie is your mom?"

"Huh?"

"You said you knew about the calendar because of your mom. But that's not true."

The warmth drains from Eddie's face; his knuckles crack around the steering wheel. Gareth's expression is the epitome of 'oh shit' when he meets Eddie's gaze in the rear-view mirror.

"Yes, it is," Gareth says.

"It's not," Max says.

"It is!"

"It's not! The calendar was for 2021, and in November '21 you were a freshman and had already moved into the dorms! If your mom kept it in her kitchen, you wouldn't have seen it!"

She scowls at Gareth, mouth pinched and eyes flashing, daring him to contradict her.

Gareth swallows thickly. "It… wasn't for 2021."

"Yes, it was."

"How do you know?"

She puts her hands in her lap and lifts her chin, almost primly. Eddie gasps as the penny drops.

Gareth screams, "WHAT!"

"You have it?" Eddie cries. "Why do you have it?"

She scoffs. "You know why – you've seen his pecs."

"I don't- Okay, how're you so sure it's me?"

"Because you spent all of dinner looking like you wanted to crawl inside his mouth and live there." Her nose wrinkles. "At least I hope it was his mouth you want to crawl into-"

She's cut off by Gareth shouting "I can't hear you! Lalalalalalala-"

Eddie crumples in his seat. He's depleted of blood, air, life, everything. Behind, Gareth is grilling Max for information: are Steve and Robin together? Is Steve single? Is he queer?

Max replies: no, yes, and 'that's not for me to tell, moron'.

Gareth nods, satisfied. "That means he is. If he was straight, you'd say so." He slaps Eddie's arm. "You got a shot, man!"

"You… don't know that…" Eddie wheezes.

Max tuts, shaking her head. "You actually want to hit on my chauffeur."

"He prefers the term 'seduce'," Gareth says.

Eddie smacks his face into the steering wheel at the next red light.

------------------------------

Tag list: @rougenancy, @raisedbylibrarians, @yourebuckingkiddingme, @swimmingbirdrunningrock, @emma77645, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @eddielives1986, @stevesbipanic, @the-redthread, @fandemonium-takes-its-toll, @henderdads, @gay-little-bitch, @lordofthepointygerbils, @lenore1232, @imzadidragonfly, @zerokrox-blog, @eddiemunsonswife, @cherrycolas-things, @ediewentmissing, @princess-eddie, @atombombbibunny, @ajamlessbaby, @dogswithforks, @grimmfitzz, @cutiecusp, @cuips-not-cute, @manicallydepressedrobot, @messrs-weasley, @madaboutmunson, @mightbeasleep, @suikatto, @brassreign, @snapshotmaestro, @bea-sayan, @courtjestermunson, @csinnamon-fox, @steveisabicon, @spectrum-spectre, @spinmewriteround, @just-super-fucking-gay, @escapingthereality, @oneweirdcryptid, @deehellcat, @misticageri, @lovelyscot, @olivethenerd16, @linkydinky06, @rynnytintin, @anything-thats-rock-and-roll,

I won't be adding more to the tag list because there are already so many of you. Instead, I'll be tagging the four remaining parts (it'll definitely be seven in total, btw) as #steddie fic: november paramedic. Hopefully, they'll show up in the tags and you'll see them that way.

Thank you for reading 🖤

Part 4

[morganbritton132]

Oh my god! How have I never thought about this? Your Steve is a teacher! He’s probably used to trying not to curse.

Now I’m imagining him at a metal concert, everyone decked out in black with a heavy bass pounding and he’s saying words like ‚fiddlesticks‘

Oh man, these guys have been touring for months like absolute heathens and then here comes Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington for the summer stretch of the tour with his ironing board and his clean polos. Steve, off the back of teaching second graders for an entire school year, steps onto the CC tour bus and his shoes stick to the ground because they never cleaned up the beer they spilled. He says without thought or irony, “Jiminy Crickets, guys.”

Steve and Eddie are not-to-subtly making out in his bunk when they hit a pothole the size of Manhattan and Steve cracks his head against the bunk above. He mutters, ‘Cheese and rice’ and every single member of the band that they thought was sleeping starts laughing.

The worst is when Steve slips into his teacher voice with fans because wrangling second graders into an orderly fashion isn’t that different from trying to get overzealous heavy metal fans to listen. Steve’s trying to tell the line waiting for the CC meet & greet that the band is running behind and they’re just so loud. He sticks his hand in the air until people quiet down and then is like, “Hand up, mouths shut. Let’s form a line and use our inside voices.”

[denimbex1986]

'David Tennant and Cush Jumbo walk into the Donmar Warehouse’s offices, above the theatre’s rehearsal rooms in Covent Garden, and sit down on a sofa, side by side. Tennant has that look his many fans will instantly be able to call to mind of being at once stressed – with a desperado gleam in his eye – yet mischievously engaged, which has to do with the intelligence he applies to everything, the niceness he directs at everyone. He is wearing a mustard-coloured jersey and could be mistaken for someone who has been swotting in a library (actually, he has been rehearsing a fight scene). If I am right in supposing him to be tense at this mid-rehearsals moment, I know – from having interviewed him before – that it is not his way to put himself first, that he will crack on and probably, while he’s at it, crack a joke or two to keep us all in good spirits. But some degree of tension is understandable for he and Jumbo are about to perform in a play that explores stress like no other – Macbeth – and must unriddle one of the most dramatic marriages in all of Shakespeare’s plays.

This is star billing of the starriest kind. Tennant, at 52, has more triumphs under his belt than you’d think possible in a single career (including Doctor Who, Broadchurch’s detective, the serial killer Dennis Nilsen in Des, and the father in There She Goes). Jumbo has been seen on US prime time in The Good Wife and The Good Fight and in ITV’s Vera. But what counts is that each is a Shakespeare virtuoso. Jumbo, who is now 38, won an Ian Charleson award in 2012 for her Rosalind in As You Like It and, in 2013, was nominated for an Olivier for her Mark Antony in Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Julius Caesar. More recently, she starred as a yearningly embattled Hamlet at the Young Vic. A dynamo of an actor, she is described by the former New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley as radiating “that unquantifiable force of hunger, drive, talent usually called star power”. Tennant, meanwhile, who has played Romeo, Lysander and Benedick for the RSC, went on to embody Hamlet and Richard II in performances that have become the stuff of legend.

Jumbo settles herself cross-legged on the sofa, relaxed in her own body, wearing a white T-shirt, dusky pink tracksuit bottoms, and modestly-sized gold hoop earrings. She looks as if she has come from an exercise class – and she has in one sense – no need to ask whether rehearsals, at this stage, are full-on. As we shake hello, she apologises for a hot hand and I for a cold one, having just come in from a sharp November morning. She is chirpy, friendly, waiting expectantly for questions – but what strikes me as I look at her is how her face in repose, at once dramatic and pensive, gives almost nothing away, like a page waiting to be written on.

Max Webster, the director, is setting the play in the modern day and Macbeth, a taut and ageless thriller, is especially friendly to this approach. I want to plunge straight in to cross-question the Macbeths. Supposing I were a marriage counsellor, what might they tell me – in confidence – about their alliance? Tennant is a step ahead: “There are two versions of the marriage, aren’t there? The one at the beginning and the fractured marriage later.” And he then makes me laugh by asking intently: “Are they sharing the murder with their therapist?”

He suggests Macbeth’s “reliance” on his wife is unusual and “not necessarily to be expected in medieval Scotland” (another excuse for the contemporary production): “I look to my wife for guidance: I don’t make a decision without her,” he explains. “We’ve been through some trauma which has induced an even stronger bond.” Jumbo agrees about the bond and spells out the trauma, reminding us the Macbeths have lost a child, but hesitates to play the game (I have suggested she talk about Lady Macbeth in the first person): “I want to get it right. I don’t want to get it wrong. I don’t know what to say… If I improv Lady Macbeth, it will feel disrespectful because you don’t know if what you’re saying on her behalf is true. And then you’re going to write what I say down and she [Lady Macbeth] is going to be: ‘Thanks, Cush, for f-ing talking about me that way.’” She emphasises that, as an actor, you must never judge your character, whatever crime they might have committed. And perhaps her resistance to straying from the text is partly as a writer herself (it was her play, Josephine and I, about the entertainer and activist Josephine Baker, that put her career into fast forward, opening off Broadway in 2015).

She stresses that the great problem with Lady Macbeth is that she has become a known quantity: “She is deeply ingrained in our culture. Everyone thinks they know who she is. Most people studied the play at school. I did – I hated it. It was so boring but that’s because Shakespeare’s plays aren’t meant to be read, they’re meant to be acted. People think they know Lady Macbeth as a type – the strong, controlling woman who pushed him to do it. She does things women shouldn’t do. The greatest misconception is that we have stopped seeing Lady Macbeth as a human being.”

For Tennant, too, keeping an open mind is essential: “What I’m finding most difficult is the variety of options. I thought I knew this play very well and that it was, unlike any other Shakespeare I can remember rehearsing, straightforward. But each time I come to a scene, it goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting.” He suggests that momentum is the play’s great asset: “It has such muscle to it, it powers along. Plot-wise, it’s more front-footed than any Shakespeare play I’ve done.” And is it ever difficult for him as Macbeth to subdue his instinctive comic talent? “Well, yes, that’s right, there are no gags! But actually, there are a couple of funny bits though I’d never intentionally inflict comedy on something that can’t take it. I hope I’m creating a rounded human being with moments of lightness, even in the bleakest times.” Jumbo adds: “Bleakness is funny at times”, and Tennant, quick as a flash, tops this: “Look at our government!” (He is an outspoken Labour supporter.) Later, when I ask what makes them angriest, he says: “Well, she [Suella Braverman]’s just been sacked so… I’m now slightly less angry than I was.” Jumbo nods agreement, adding that what makes her angriest is “unkindness”.

It is Tennant who then produces, with a flourish, the key question about the Macbeths: “Why do they decide to commit a crime? What is the fatal flaw that allows them to think that’s OK? I don’t know that they, as characters, would even know. Has the loss of a child destabilised their morality?” In preparation, Tennant and Jumbo have been researching post-traumatic stress disorder. “PTSD is a modern way of understanding something that’s always been there,” suggests Tennant – and the Macbeths are traumatised three times over by battle, bereavement and murder. “We’ve looked at postpartum psychosis as well,” Jumbo adds. They have been amazed at how the findings of modern experts “track within the play”. Tennant marvels aloud: “What can Shakespeare’s own research process have been?” Jumbo reminds him that Shakespeare, like the Macbeths, lost a child. She relishes the play’s “contemporary vibe which means it’s something my 14-year-old niece will want to see. Even though you know the ending, you don’t want it to go there. It’s exciting to play that as well as to watch it.”

A further exciting challenge is the show’s use of binaural technology (Gareth Fry, who worked on Complicité’s The Encounter, is sound designer). Each audience member will be given a set of headphones and be able to eavesdrop on the Macbeths. “The technology will mess with your neurons in a did-somebody-just-breathe-on-me way,” Jumbo explains. “You’ll feel as if you’re in a conversation with us, like listening to a podcast you love where you feel you’re sat with them having coffee.” Tennant adds: “What’s thrilling is that it makes things more naturalistic – we’re able to speak conversationally.”

Fast forward to opening night: how do they manage their time just before going on stage? Tennant says: “I dearly wish I had a set of failsafe strategies. I don’t find it straightforward. I’ve never been able to banish anxiety. It can be very problematic and part of the job is dealing with it. I squirrel myself away and tend to get quite quiet.” But at the Donmar, this will be tricky as backstage space is shared. Jumbo encourages him: “When I’ve played here before, I found the group dynamic helpful,” she says, but explains that her pre-show routine has changed since her career took off and she became a mother: “These days, I no longer have the luxury of saying: I’m going to do five hours of yoga before I go on. When I leave home at four in the afternoon, I might be thinking about whether I’ll hit traffic or, whether my kid’s stuff is ready for the next day. You get better at this, the more you do it. The main thing – which doesn’t sound that sexy – is to make sure to eat at the right time, something light, like soup, because when I’m nervous I get loads of acid and that does not make me feel good on stage. I have a cut-off point for eating and that timing has become a superstition in its own way.”

In 2020, Tennant and Jumbo co-starred in the compulsively watchable and disturbing Scottish mini-series Deadwater Fell for C4. How helpful is it to have worked together before? Tennant says it is “hugely” valuable when tackling something “intense and difficult” to be with someone you are “comfortable taking chances with”. Although actors cannot depend on this luxury: “Sometimes, you have to turn up the first day and go: ‘Ah, hello, nice to meet you, we’re going to be playing psychopathic Mr and Mrs Macbeth.’” And Jumbo adds: “I’ve been asked to do this play before and said no. You have to do it with the right person. I knew this would be fun because David is a laugh as well as being very hard-working.” He responds brightly with a non sequitur: “Wait till you see my knees in a kilt…” Are you seriously going to wear a kilt, I ask. “You’ll have to wait and see,” he laughs.

It is perhaps the kilt that triggers his next observation: “We’re an entirely Scottish company, apart from Cush,” he volunteers, suggesting that Macbeth’s choice of a non-Scottish wife brings new energy to the drama. He grew up in Paisley, the son of a Presbyterian minister, and remembers how, in his childhood, “whenever an English person arrived, you’d go “Oooh… from another worrrrld!”, and he reflects: “Someone from somewhere else gives you different energy.” And while on the Scottish theme, it is worth adding that Macbeth is the part that seems patiently to have been waiting for Tennant: “People keep saying: you must have done this play before? I don’t know if Italian Shakespeareans keep being asked if they have played Romeo…”

I tell them I remember puzzling, as a schoolgirl, over Macbeth’s line about “vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on th’other” – the gymnastic detail beyond me. Tennant suggests that what Macbeth has, more even than ambition, is hubris. But on ambition, he and Jumbo reveal themselves to be two of a kind. Tennant says: “Ambition is not a word I’d have understood as a child but I had an ambition to become an actor from tiny – from pre-school. I did not veer off from it, I was very focused. When I look at it now, that was wildly ambitious because there were no precedents or reasons for me to believe I could.”

“For me, same,” says Jumbo, “I don’t remember ever wanting to be anything else.” She grew up in south London, second of six children. Her father is Nigerian and was a stay-at-home dad, her mother is British and worked as a psychiatric nurse. “At four, I was an avid reader and mimicker. I got into lots of trouble at school for mimicking. My ambition was similar to David’s although, as a girl, the word ‘ambition’ has always been a bit dirty…” Tennant: “It certainly is to a Scottish Presbyterian.” “Yes,” she laughs, “perhaps I should have said Celts and Blacks… Girls grow up thinking they should be modest, right? But I had so much ambition. I knew there was more for me to do and that I could be good at doing it.”

And what were they like as teenagers – as, say, 14-year-olds? Tennant says: “Uncomfortable, plooky…” What’s plooky, Jumbo and I exclaim in unison. “A Scottish word for covered in spots.” “That’s great!” laughs Jumbo. “Unstylish,” Tennant concludes. Her turn: “At 14, I was sassy, a bit mouthy, trying to get into a lot of clubs and not succeeding because I looked way too young for my age. And desperate for a snog.”

And now, as grownups, Tennant and Jumbo are, above all, keenly aware of what it means to be a parent. Jumbo has a son, Maximilian (born 2018); Tennant five children between the ages of four and 21. Parenthood, they believe, helps shape the work they do. “Being a parent magnifies the job of being an actor,” says Jumbo, “because what we’re being asked to do [as actors] is to stay playful and in the present – be big children. As a parent, you get to relive your childhood and see the world through your child’s eyes as if for the first time and more intensely. We don’t do that much as adults.”

Tennant reckons being a parent has given him “empathy, patience – or the requirement for patience – and tiredness. It gives you a big open wound you carry around, a vulnerability that is not a bad thing for this job because it means you have an emotional accessibility that can be very trying but which we need.” But the work-life balance remains, for Tennant, an ongoing struggle: “Just when you think you’ve figured it out, something happens,” he says, “and you have to recalibrate it because your children need different things at different times.” Jumbo sometimes looks to other actors/parents for advice: “To try to see what they are doing – but you never quite get it right.”

And would they agree there is a work-life balance involved in acting itself? Is acting an escape from self or a way of going deeper into themselves? Tennant says: “I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive though they sound as though they should be – I think it is both.” Jumbo agrees: “On the surface, you’re consciously stepping away from yourself but, actually, subconsciously, you have to do things instinctually so you find out more about yourself without meaning to.”

And when they go deeper, what is it that they find? Fear is another of the motors in Macbeth – what is fear for them? “Something being wrong with one of my kids,” Tennant says and Jumbo concurs. And what about fear for our planet? Tennant says: “There is so much to feel fearful and pessimistic about it can be…” Jumbo finishes his sentence: “Overwhelming.” He picks it up again: “So overwhelming that you don’t do anything.” Jumbo worries about this, tries to remind herself that doing something is better than doing nothing: “If everybody did something small in their corner of the world, the knock-on effect would be bigger.” Tennant admits to feeling “anxiety” and distinguishes it from fear. Jumbo volunteers: “I recognise fear in myself but don’t see it as a helpful emotion. It’s underactive, a place to stand still.”

As actors who have hit the jackpot, what would they say, aside from talent, has been essential to their success? Tennant says: “Luck – to be in the right place at the right time, having one job that leads to another.” Jumbo remembers: “Early in my career, I had a slow start. You have to fill your soul with creative things, which is not always easy if you can’t afford to go out. You have to find things that are free, get together with people who are creative and give you good vibes and not people who are bitter and jealous or have lots of bad things to say about the world. This tends to bring more creative things to you.” Tennant observes: “As the creative arts go, acting is a difficult one to do on your own – if you’re a painter, you can paint – even if no one is buying your paintings.” Jumbo chips in: “Because of that, it can be quite lonely when it’s not happening.” “Tennant concludes: “It’s bloody unfair – there are far too many good actors, too many of us.”

And are they in any way like the Macbeths in being partly governed by magical thinking – or do they see themselves as rationalists? (I neglect to ask whether they call Macbeth “the Scottish play”, as many actors superstitiously do.) “I am a rationalist. I’m almost aggressively anti-nonsense,” Tennant says. Jumbo, unfazed by this manifestation of reason, speaks up brightly: “I’m a magical thinker, I’m half Nigerian and that’s all about magical realism and belief in energy. If something goes my way, I think: God, I felt that energy. And the thing that drew me to theatre as a kid was its magic.” And now Tennant, alerted by the word “magic”, starts to clamber on board to agree with her – and Jumbo laughs as they acknowledge the power of what she has just said.'

[ofglories]

let's add to the bad-

Arthur: mortally injured by Mordred at Camlann, dies in battle against Lucius in some other timelines, and Percival, Gareth, and Yvain in others.

Emrys: killed by uther in one timeline, killed by vortigern in another, and in yet another he's killed in battle against Saxons

Claudas: killed by Lionel after a successful campaign against him by lionel, arthur, and bors.

Bors: died from overwork shortly before he turned 60, long after camelot and camlann.

Cynon: killed in battle against the Saxons after Camlann and the fall of Rheged, his body was never found.

Gareth: Killed by Lancelot alongside two of her brothers.

Lancelot: went mad and disappeared after Camlann, no one knows what happened to him.

Taliesin: disappeared after Yvain of the Lion's death, not a trace was found.

Marrok: killed by Mordred at Camlann.

Gawain: killed by Mordred at Camlann, though was badly injured beforehand by Lancelot.

Dinadan: murdered by Agravain and Mordred for the crime of calling them out for a previous murder.

Percival: dies during the Grail Quest at the Grail castle, though in some timelines he survives until his defeat at Camlann.

Uther: died of prolonged illness in bed.

[dontcxckitup]

[oneshoulderangel]

We know that Malory tells us what was Lynette's first impression of Gareth. What do you think was Gareth's first impression when he met Lynette?

I see two possible avenues:

1) Lynette may as well have been a sign saying “quest this way” for all he cared. She’s a damsel, she’s in distress and he just so happens to be a…A HERO!

Lynette: My sister and castle are being besieged and we need a champion!

Gareth: This is perfect!

Lynette: I can see you’re real choked up about it, huh, kitchen boy!

Option 2) Gareth sees that Lynette is trying to do the “I can’t reveal my name” thing he did and is having less luck, she’s obviously distress and uncomfortable with revealing too much. He just so happens to have at his disposal 2 wish from the king. And his whole reason for coming here just so happens to becoming a knight. Two birds, one stone.

Now, personally, I think a combination of these is best. If Gareth was acting out of pure concern and care for Lynette, he probably could asked a more seasoned knight to accompany them, if nothing else for her piece of mind. But I don’t think he was totally unsympathetic which is why he’s generally so patient with her outbursts. Thats my thoughts anyway, in terms of Malory.

[plutoniumdecay]

i was playing with a brush, blacked out and got this

[goldengirlchrissy]

tired: eddie and chrissy have been in love since the talent show

wired: gareth and chrissy have been in love since the talent show.

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

Eddie makes a bet with the rest of Hellfire to flirt with a cheerleader, it started with some stupid off hand comment from Gareth that "there's no way a member of the dark side, a cheerleader would give Eddie the freak Munson, the time of day"

Jeff said Eddie should focus on Chrissy to piss off Jason but then Eddie had met you and he could tell by the way that Jason looked at you that he wanted you.

It was fun at first, pissing off Jason by flirting with you in an over exaggerated manner, calling you princess and Milady and watching Jason's stupid face go ten shades of red.

You seemed to enjoy the flirting and gave back as good as you got, almost made Eddie blush a few times but he would outright deny it when someone pointed it out.

Turns out you were sweet and feisty, had a witty comeback for his banter every time. Made him laugh out loud at your comments.

Against all odds and surprisingly Eddie liked you. Didn't expect a small comment from his friends could lead to his life being filled by joy, by you. It turned his cynical heart into something that filled with hope.

He had come into this preparing to hate you or expecting you to dislike you or find out you were like the rest of the dark side who gave him dirty looks and muttered freak under their breaths at him.

But you were nothing like that and casual flirting turned into moments between the two of you, stolen kisses and nights like this where you are perched on his knee and pointing to stars, naming them after D&D characters that you liked the name of.

It was just you and him tucked up on the seat outside of his trailer, a blanket wrapped around you both to protect you against the biting chill in the air.

He almost fell off the seat when you rattled off Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit characters to name the stars, said them without even batting an eyelid, just turned to him with a sweet smile and cuddled into him, head resting against his chest.

There's warmth in his stomach and it's everywhere, the racing of his heart increasing tenfold when your hand entwines with his and he instinctively presses his lips against your forehead.

"Is that what you think about huh? Surprising me with knowledge about the greatest fantasy stories of all time" (well in his opinion) he grins and you peer up at him smiling shyly.

"You're all I think about Eddie" well fuck. There it was, the feeling in his chest expanding and the realisation that settles deep in his bones.

The feeling that he's sure he knows what it is. This is what love feels like.

❤️

[eddieandbird]

Home to you—

Eddie comes home drunk to you.

A/N: missed you guys so much! sorry for dipping in and out so often, but i’ve been really into bridgerton lately and i’ve been only wanting to talk about that. howerver i did conjure up this h*rny little story for eddie, so i hope yall enjoy! -Bird

tags/warnings: 2.7k words | f!reader | boyfriend!eddie | drunk sex | consent checks | f*ngering | pinv | praise kink + nicknames

—

You heard keys jingle at your front door just a few feet outside the bedroom. Your boyfriend was finally home

“Guess who’s back,” Eddie teasingly whispered, trying not to wake you if you were already asleep.

“Is it Eddie?” You deeply inhaled and stretched your arms, your voice was low and sleepy.

Eddie fell into bed with you, his whole weight causing to shake it. You gave a delirious laugh, still waking up.

“You guessed right, sweetheart,” He said before wrapping his arms around you, pulling you in from behind.

“You’re such a smart girl,” Eddie cooed in your ear before running his hands on your stomach and along the waistband of your panties.

“Someone sounds like they had a good time at Gareth’s birthday party,”

Eddie smiled, burying his face in your hair and laughing a bit at the comment.

“I did,” Eddie pulled you closer and nuzzled into your neck, softly kissing as he spoke. “But I’m glad to have my girl back in bed with me.”

You hummed before you pulled up his hand to kiss his palm.

“Mm. Happy you’re home too baby. I don’t know if I’m totally thrilled that you’re hammered, but-“

“Relax, I got a ride home,” Eddie mumbled. His small kisses along your neck was driving you wild.

“Okay, good. At least you made some responsible choices,” You joked.

“I am responsible,” Eddie grinned, his breath warm against your skin.

As you two spoke, Eddie's hand began to trail lower and lower down your stomach. He stopped once he reached your thighs before he gently gripped the soft flesh.

"I can't believe you weren't out with me,” Eddie muttered against your neck.

“I couldn’t help but think about you all night” He whispered.

The tone of his voice sounded sweet in your ear despite his alcohol-fueled state.

“Is that right?” You giggled. “What were you thinking about?” Your voice was quiet but lustful.

Eddie’s fingers slowly teased the lace on your skin, lightly tracing the outline of your thong. His touch was already turning you into mush. Your heat radiated through the thong you wore, the more his fingers trailed around it, Eddie smirked, enjoying the way it made you shiver.

“I was thinking about-” he began as he pulled your body closer to him until you could feel the heat of his breath along your ear.

“The way you sound when I’m on top of you. The way your skin tastes when I kiss every part of you,” He growled.

You let out a soft moan as he repeatedly kissed along your jaw, catching a couple kisses on your lips in the process of turning back to him.

“You sure you’re up for this, baby? It sounded like you stumbled into the room. You might be too drunk,” You said with slight concern, but you also knew what he wanted and you were not in the mood to turn him down.

Eddie laughed a bit. “I’m not too drunk, baby. I've missed you,” he slurred.

He could feel himself getting worked up just being next to you. You could feel him pressing up against your backside.

“You feel that,” he whispered, his voice thick with lust.

Your breathing hitched as you felt his length through the denim of his jeans. He pressed it right against the curve of your ass.

“Of course I feel it,” you scoffed, jokingly.

“That’s all for you,” Eddie started to grind himself against you, his hips slowly rolling into you. “Want you so bad,” He started to breathe heavily against you.

The way he slurred his words would typically annoy you, but they were so endearing when he was whispering dirty nothings into your ear.

“You gonna be a good girl for me? You gonna give me what I want?” He huffed as he worked at you.

“Mhm. Whatever you want, baby,” You said with desire.

Eddie gently rolled you onto your back so he could hover over you.

“That’s what I like to hear,” he whispered, taking a quick second to admire your body. “So gorgeous,” he added as he started to run his hands up and down your thighs.

“You going to be a good girl then? Give me.. a show,” he teased.

“What else do you wanna see?” Your eyes twinkled at him as you pushed one strap off your shoulder.

Your perspective lit flames on your skin. You saw nothing but his big, dark eyes surrounded in his black curls falling down towards you. Eddie watched hungrily as you bared more of your skin for him to look at. His eyes were hazy as he stared back at yours.

Your soft, but quickened breaths filled the air as took the hem of your tank top and lifted it over your head, putting your chest on display for him.

“My pretty, pretty girl,” Eddie groaned, starting to run one of his hands up your legs. He started to run one of his hands up your leg. He could feel the heat of your skin through the silk of your panties as he placed his thumb over it

“Eddie,” You gasped as you felt him tracing around your clit.

“Such a sweet girl,” His finger continued to rub over you, feeling the way your skin got hotter as he applied more pressure. “Missed me that badly?” He whispered before pressing his thumb harder against the spot of wetness. He could feel himself growing harder just listening to the sounds you made. His eyes flicked from your face, to your chest and your shaking legs as he slowly pressed his thumb harder. He could feel how worked up you were, but he still wanted you to hold on and wait for it.

“You’re so needy,” he muttered in your ear with a smirk while rubbing his thumb in small circles over your sensitive bundle of nerves. His dark eyes continued to drink in the sight of you.

“Isn’t that what you wanted when you came in?” You smiled wide, your eyelids heavy as you bucked your hips up into his touch. The fabric now heavily soaked now as he rolled over your aching center. Eddie groaned in response to watching you writhe under him, his eyes still taking in the sight of you while holding you firmly in place with one of his broad hands.

“Maybe a little,” Eddie admitted with a lustful grin. “You want more don’t you?” He teased before leaning down to place open mouthed kisses on your neck, his hot tongue running along your skin.

You shuddered against him, trying your hardest to let him lead you. His pace was torturous but it’s just how you liked it.

“Mhm… I need it,” You nodded and smiled wickedly, your voice stuttering.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Eddie groaned.

He let his thumb go, the absence of the touch making you feel even more strung out.

His hands gripped your underwear and started to pull them down painfully slowly as his dark eyes watched you.

“You’re so goddamn pretty,” he exhaled shakily.

You felt his warm breath surround your legs and your aching center as he dragged the silk underwear down your legs. Your eyes were wide with anticipation as he pawed at your legs.

You couldn’t help but squirm under his touch, desperately wanting more friction between you two. He sat up and spread your legs apart, giving him a full view of you in the moonlight.

“So eager for me,” he teased, the corner of his lip tugging up in a smirk as he ran his hand up your thigh and towards your heat. “Tell me that’s all for me,” He muttered.

“It’s all for you, babe. I’m all yours,” You whispered back, your hips involuntarily lifting as you felt his fingers dragging upwards toward your core. Your hands were placed down at your sides, clawing at your bedsheets.

“That’s my girl,” he groaned as he teased with a smirk before finally running his thumb down between your slit.

He felt the heat and the wetness against his skin, your reaction making him groan louder than he intended to.

“So wet for me,” Eddie muttered before leaning down and placing gentle kisses on your inner thighs. His eyes flicking between watching your face twisted in pleasure

“All yours, Eddie,” You mused.

Your breaths would rise and fall with his touches. The further his touch was from your sensitive button, the softer the moans, only growing with intensity as he got closer. You can feel yourself growing impatient, but you knew to claim the prize, you had to play his game.

You curiously put a hand on his, seeing if he’d let you control the pace of things.

Eddie couldn’t help but laugh as your hand covered his, and let you push his fingers towards where you wanted them with a lazy grin.

“So impatient, baby,” he teased, watching the hand under his, move with it as he reached the spot you desperately wanted him to touch.

You looked up at him, trying to keep your eyes open as you led his hand to rub in just the way you liked. You could tell he wanted to stare back at you, but all he was looking at was how inviting your pussy was, now spilling out love onto the sheets. Watching you make yourself feel good by guiding his touch had him mesmerized.

“My pretty girl. So desperate to be touched,” he breathed, his smirk turning into a mischievous grin as his fingers started to move a bit quicker, rubbing your sensitive bundle of nerves in tight circles.

“You’re so hot like this,” he let out a deep growl as he watched you and continued to work on undoing you while his other hand grabbed at your hip to keep you still.

“Look at you, making such a mess,” Eddie groaned in your ear, his pace increasing slightly, desperate to see you fall apart.

“You see how much I need you?” Your words were ladened with desire between small gasps.

You knew you were getting close to a peak. You gripped around his wrist, making him hold his pace as you were reaching climax.

“I see it, baby,” Eddie mimicked your tone, his gaze never leaving you as he watched you get closer and closer to the edge.

He could see how close you were, the way your body was tensing and you were desperately biting down on your lip.

His pace stayed steady as he watched you, his heart racing from the thought of pleasing you.

“Let go for me, pretty girl,” he muttered, groaning just thinking about it.

“Shit!” You hissed.

With one great thrust of your hips you climaxed against his rough fingers. The once quiet room now echoed back your moan as you came, riding out on his fingers as you went back down.

You laid there in front of him, slightly limp and completely helpless. You giggled briefly before catching your breath.

“Thank you, baby,” You took his hand in yours and kissed his knuckles, looking up at him in adoration.

“Of course, baby,” he cooed, his dark eyes looking down at you.

He moved on top of you, his hands going down to the denim on his hips as he started to unbutton them. “You ready for more?”

“Do you even need to ask?” You laughed some more, your eyes following him as he took off his clothes.

Your breath hitched to see just how hard he was, practically springing out as he shoved off his boxers.

“Oh god, I need you,” You whispered almost inaudibly.

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he heard you.

“Say that again,” Eddie muttered, his voice quiet as he hovered above you, his body pressed into yours.

His eyes searched yours as he settled in between your thighs, placing one hand by your head as the other started to trace down your body. “Tell me what you need, baby.”

“I need you inside me,” You shivered, feeling his hands run over your curves.

The heat between both of your legs couldn’t be ignored. You could feel him twitch against your soft entrance, just waiting for him to slip it in. Eddie groaned and closed his eyes as he listened to you, already breathless from the anticipation. His hips buckled against you a bit and he shuddered as he felt the heat between your legs against the tip of him.

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” he groaned before kissing you again.

You moaned back into his mouth, your nails digging into his back as you felt him enter you. He went at an achingly slow pace, but the sensations were too good to complain. His strokes would go all the way out before pumping fast and deep inside you. It drove you mad.

“It-You… You feel good,” You struggled to even comment.

Your eyes were rolling back into your head with each thrust. Eddie grinned at the small compliments, his eyes staying locked on yours as he continued to thrust into you. He watched as your eyes grew heavy and you almost lost your words.

“Can’t even talk anymore, baby?” Eddie’s eyes clenched shut for a moment as your legs surrounded his waist. He groaned at the words that came out of your mouth but he had no intentions on stopping.

He leaned down to kiss you again, the kiss was sloppy and wet as his pace began to quicken. His hand grabbed your thigh, keeping it against him as he picked up the pace.

“You’re such a good girl, taking it all for me,” Eddie said frantically between grunts. His quickened pace only meant one thing. He was going to finish soon.

“Where do you want me to come?” He asked in a trembling breath.

“Where do you want to come? I want you to have what you want,” You said before kissing his forehead, a small moment of affection during the rough, heightened experience. It was as if he could feel himself growing closer with each word and breath that came out of your mouth.

“Inside you,” He declared in a grunt. “I wanna fill you,” The words left his lips before he could even think it through, but the sight of you beneath him, breathless and all

“Go ahead, baby. You can do it,” You said with lustful encouragement.

Your legs wrapped around him tighter as he was rutting against you. Your hand brought his head down to you and brushed away his messy curls. Once you saw his neck you started to suck at the sensitive area right below his jaw. He shuddered at the touch of your lips on his sensitive skin, breathing in deeply as you sucked.

“Fuck,” he moaned, his head tilting back as his breathing became heavier. His body was tensing up, desperate to come undone, but he waited just a moment longer. “You going to come too?” He said, breathless.

“Uh huh,” You mimicked his volume, as you tugged lightly at his hair. He pinned you down pretty well, but there was still space for you to roll your hips up into him and so you did it, knowing it’d be the end of him. Eddie couldn’t keep himself together any longer as he felt your hips roll up into him.

His breath hitched and caught in the back of his throat as his pace slowed, his body tensing up just a little bit more.

Then, after one more roll of your hips, he finally caved. He buried his head against you as you both came, groaning loudly as his hips gave a few sharp thrusts, riding his way through it.

He tried to catch his breath as he laid on top of you, taking a few moments before he pulled away to look at you while panting slightly.

“You okay, pretty girl?” He asked, affectionately running his hand along your jaw.

“Oh everything is perfect,” You exhaled happily.

Eddie let a goofy smile take over his face, and laid down next to you, pulling you into his side as he settled in next to you. Soon you were off back to sleep.

[starcrossedjedis]

what   was   your   muses   first   impressions   of   each   other   ? for alyse and gareth

My babies, my favourite adulterers, my loves ❤️

Their first meeting is... not ideal 😆

The Stormlands are facing inner turmoil following Borros Baratheon's decision to pledge for the greens and even more so after he goes and executes Lords and Ladies who refuse to break feilty with Rhaenyra.

Things come to a head when Alyse's envoy is attacked by a rogue group of black loyalists en route to King's Landing and she offers herself as hostage to protect her mother and infant brother.

Now it needs to be said that, even though his aunt was one of the executed nobles, Gareth was decidedly against this whole plan from the go, even going as far as trying to throw in his name in order to dissuade the others.

So when they return to camp with Alyse Baratheon - betrothed to the kinslayer Aemond Targaryen himself - in tow he is... less than thrilled.

He takes one look at her and is like "oh great, so that is what's going to get all of us killed."

And Alyse ofc doesn't know that he was firmly against this whole thing and so to her he is just another lawless brute.

But when his men decide that it probably wouldn't hurt much if they returned her to her betrothed "slightly used" he can't stand by and let it happen and so the two unlikely allies make a daring - and bloody - escape.

And between his act of chivalry and the braver with which she stood her ground in all of it, it takes no time at all for them to see each other in a whole different light and by the time they reach King's Landing they are well past the point of no return -

[matchingbatbites]

"What the fuck did you do?"

Eddie wasn't expecting hostility when he answered Jeff's phone call, his best friend's usual calm demeanor replaced with open annoyance. And yeah, okay, the annoyance itself wasn’t new, but Eddie doesn’t think he’s actually done anything recently to earn it.

"Well-"

"Actually, no. I'll tell you what you did. You retweeted photos of Steve Harrington - internationally beloved heartthrob actor Steve Harrington - along with the caption 'not to sound like a subby slut but GOD I would be his puppy baby boy in a heartbeat'. So I guess the better question is, what the fuck were you thinking, Eddie?"

Eddie's jaw clicks shut because- yeah, he had done that. Had seen those photos of Steve smoking circling the internet and spent god knows how long just staring at them, had curbed the desire to shove his hand down his pants by posting a single thirst tweet about it.

“I was thinking, Jeff, that I'm allowed to post whatever I want to my private fucking twitter, man. I mean it's a free country, isn't a guy allowed to make a horny tweet about a sexy man every now and then?”

“You are, when you actually post it to your private account and not our award winning band's main account.”

No. Oh no. There's no way Eddie actually-

He rips his phone away from his face to open twitter, and realizes two things simultaneously. One, Jeff is right, he had posted it to the band's account. Not on his private, locked, personal account, but on the account that's actually open and free for literally anyone on earth to look at.

The second thing he realizes is that their notifications are currently flooded with responses to Eddie's tweet, somehow racking up into the thousands in the few hours it's been since. 

Jesus Christ.

“Eddie?”

The metalhead jerks back into the moment and put Jeff on speaker so he can scroll through the horde of replies, says “Fuck, I fucked up. Are we gonna have to do damage control on this?”

In the mess is a reply from Gareth's own personal account: @ corrodededdie stop tweeting from the band account challenge 🙄🙄🙄

”Maybe. There hasn't been any type of response from Harrington or his people, but they might ask us to take it down if it blows up too much.“

Eddie hums, thinking they might be too little, too late about it blowing up too much, and flips over to his main account so he can reply to Gareth's little jab appropriately. He isn't surprised to see that he has a couple of new messages, probably from other people wondering just what the fuck Eddie was thinking, but when he goes to check them-

He's never been happier that he turned on messages from followers only, because then he would have missed this, missed Steve Harrington's little profile picture beaming up at him from the screen of his phone, along with a new message request.

”Jeff, I gotta go,” he says, not even realizing he's cut the other man off.

“Eddie, what-

”Harrington messaged me. I'll call you back.“

Eddie doesn't wait for a response as he hangs up on Jeff, and his hands definitely aren't shaking as he opens the message from Steve. And listen- Eddie is a fan of the guy, that much should be obvious. 

Steve had grown in popularity around the same time Corroded Coffin had; he’d gotten some part in a drama film that had skyrocketed him into stardom, and Eddie fell in love the moment he saw that gorgeous face on the silver screen for the first time. He's never had a chance to interact with the guy, has been in the same place a few times but always missed him, like ships passing in the night, but Eddie's been fine with pining from afar, just like every other person on the planet that's even remotely attracted to men.

Besides, even with how popular Corroded Coffin has gotten over the years - a couple of Grammy’s here, a dozen chart topping metal songs there - Eddie doesn’t expect Steve to just. Know who Eddie is.

With all of this in mind, Eddie is expecting some kind of semi-casual request to take the tweet down, that it's not a good look for his image-

Anything other than what Steve actually sent.

'If you're puppy baby boy, does that make me Master? Or Daddy?'

And Eddie- 

Eddie slides down, sinks into his couch cushion as all of the blood in his body suddenly shifts, rushing to fill his dick like it's a fucking race. The phone almost slips out of his hand and he fumbles it briefly before taking a deep breath. 

Is Steve serious? He wouldn't send that if he wasn't serious, right?

This could be it, could be Eddie's one chance to impress Steve, to get his foot in the door of Steve's interest. He bites his lip and types out a reply, something quick that he sends before he can change his mind.

‘I’m open to either, actually. Do you have a preference, sir?’

He doesn’t expect the typing indicator to come up immediately, and just knowing that Steve is somewhere right now, typing out a response to Eddie, is enough to have him nearly vibrating in his seat.

‘I’m partial to Daddy, myself.’

Fuck fuck fuck.

Eddie takes a breath, tries to think of a response that isn’t just ‘Please, Daddy, can I sit on your massive dick that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since that one indie film you did that just had all of your junk out in the open?’

Steve saves him by sending another message.

‘But maybe we could start with Steve, and possibly dinner? Though I’d be happy to see where things go after that.’

He- What-

Eddie must have stopped breathing, because the next time he takes a breath his lungs burn, his mid races because there’s no way Eddie’s long term celebrity crush just asked him on a date. He sits there long enough that the screen goes dark and he scrambles to turn it back on, sees the message still there, real and unchanged.

There’s no way he can say no to this, to Steve, and his hands shake as he types out a response.

‘Dinner would be great. Just name the time and place, Daddy.’

[bettyfrommars]

Whole Lotta Love

Eddie x fem!Reader

18+MDNI, oral (f!receiving), fingering, unprotected piv, creampie, pet names like baby and sweetheart, both Eddie and reader are over 20.

I received a request for a fic where, no matter how hard he tries, Eddie can't make you cum, and I was happy to do it because it's a much more common situation than how it's represented in most media. I'm not sure this is exactly what they were looking for, but it was a very fun thing to write. This Eddie had me giggling.

a/n: I wasn't sure I would finish this wip after I wrote the first two lines, but then I was in the mood yesterday and smashed it out. It was a very quick write, definitely not my opus, but a true joy, all the same. I hope you like.

wc: 3.1k

Eddie flopped onto his back, huffing out a satisfied breath. “That was so good,” he hummed. 

The fingers of one hand drew a lazy circle on his bare chest as it rose and fell, while his other hand scrambled over to capture yours.  

Shifting his gaze, he caught you staring at the ceiling, unblinking.  “Was that…did you…?”

“Um,” you paused.  It wasn’t that you were afraid to be truthful with him, but the fact that orgasms weren’t flying out of you at the same rate made you feel inadequate, like maybe you were the problem. 

He propped up on his forearm, searching your face, brow creased with concern.  “Did I hurt you or…?”

“No, no,” you rolled over, pulling the sheet up over your hips.  “It felt great.”

At that, he gave an actual sigh of relief.

“But, I didn’t cum.  Or at least, I don’t think I did.”

“You’re not sure?” 

You chewed at your top lip.  “No, I am sure.  I didn’t.”

He traced a few hearts on your shoulder with the tip of his calloused finger.  “Have you ever? With me?”

Your silence spoke volumes, and Eddie’s mind raced to all of the times you’d been intimate in the past few weeks since you’d been together.  He blamed himself for being too eager and sloppy, and shit—he was so crazy about you, it made him dizzy.  He couldn’t believe you let him touch you, let alone cum inside.  

His head snapped up.  “But what about that time I went down on you in the closet at Robin’s party? I swear I felt you—”

“I was close that time,” you admitted, remembering how your legs shook and that heat began to build, in the same way it did when you pleasured yourself.  “But then Gareth was shouting, looking for you and it went away.”

“Fucking Gareth,” he mumbled. “You were close then, okay.  Can I try that again? Now?”

He was already moving down the bed, palming the crook of your knee to slide your leg open.

You put your hand on his head, glancing over at the digital alarm clock.  “Not now, silly, I have to get ready for work.”

You wrapped the sheet around you and got to your feet, leaving Eddie to stare into space, alone with his tortured thoughts.  “Come over tonight?” He yelled while you were in the bathroom. “Wayne leaves for work at 6, we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

“I’ll come over,” you said with your mouth around a toothbrush.  You spat into the sink and then, “But I might be too tired for…other stuff,” your words were met with nothing but silence from the next room.  “We can watch a movie or something?”

Eddie appeared sullen in the doorway next to you in his checkered blue and white boxers. “Do you not want to have sex with me anymore?”

“No, baby I do!” You assured him, eyebrows high on your forehead.  You cupped some water into your mouth and spat it out while he ran his knuckle down your arm. “I really really want to, I just don’t want us to force this.  It’s okay if I don’t have an orgasm every single time.”

“Yeah but it’s not okay with me,” he muttered. 

You turned and planted kisses down his throat, dotting smooches along his collarbone, and then the final peck was on his pouty mouth. You rubbed the tip of your nose against his, “I’ll see you tonight.  I love you.”

—------

You parked on the other side of Eddie's van at the trailer that night and assessed the windows curiously.  At a glance, it looked like the living room had caught fire from the amount of candles that were lit. The song Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin poured out into the soft yellow light of the porch, and you knocked.  

A few raps of your knuckles were met with a loud curse and something like a metal pot crashed to the floor in the kitchen.  No one came to the door, so you entered with caution, and your senses were greeted with the smell of something burning in the oven.

Eddie was by the sink and he spun around with a startled look, wiping his hands down his jeans. He wore a Slayer shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and his feet were bare, letting you see the black toe nail polish you’d delicately painted on a few days earlier.  

“What’s with all this?” You blinked a few times, marveling at how tidy it was.  But also, there were at least 15 mismatched candles ablaze on the side table, the top of the tv, and the counter. 

He wiped his mouth and went over to greet you.   “I just wanted to set the mood,” he grinned, grabbing onto your hips to pull you close. “I read somewhere that the atmosphere can help with, you know.”

“You read somewhere?”

“Just one of those magazines at the grocery checkout.”

“I missed you,” he smiled against your mouth as you said it.  His warm skin smelled spicy and sweet, like he’d recently showered and put on cologne. The yearning you felt for him was all-consuming.  A few hours apart weighed on you like an eternity.  You tilted your head to deepen the kiss, and already your loins were giving you the nod like, “yep, we need to have him inside of us.”  You absolutely craved him on a sexual level, so why was it so hard to find your climax?  It seemed to come easy for everyone else in the world: everybody at the party was cumming but you.  

Eddie was nervous.  He hadn’t felt that out of his mind since the day he confessed he had feelings for you, but if you didn’t feel the same that would be cool, because he didn’t want to fuck up the friendship: you were too precious to him.  Your presence in his life made him feel sane and loved and seen in a way he’d rarely experienced in his life, if ever.  A miracle happened that day, and you’d flown into his arms, asking him what took him so long.

But what kind of boyfriend would he be if he couldn’t please you? In every way?

You watched a sitcom while you ate dinner on TV trays, and when you came back from using the restroom, he had everything put away, dishes thrown in the sink, and he was sitting very propper at the end of the couch, watching you expectantly.  

“Are you, um,” he cleared his throat.  “How are you feeling?”

This was weird, he thought. He was making it weird.  He needed to loosen up and not be so hyper focused on his mission.  Maybe you were tired, maybe you needed to let your spaghetti and burnt french bread settle.  

You straddled his lap, brushing hair away so that you could kiss his forehead. 

“I think I’m ready to try again,” you whispered, and then you ducked down to nibble his earlobe.  “Unless you’d rather stay here and—”

Before you could finish the thought, he was up and the two of you were moving out of the room and down the hall, kissing and fumbling with clothes as you went.  

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he nipped your jaw and side of your neck, banging the bedroom door open with the side of his fist. “I hate being away from you.”

There were a few candles around the bed too; on his nightstand, and a red one dripped wax from the window sill down the wall.  

You stopped abruptly, staring at the bed.  “Are those…rose petals?” 

“Tulips, actually,” he rushed to the scene and swiped the soft pink curls away with his arm. “That was stupid, I just thought it would be—”

You caught his mouth with yours, tongues lashing at each other in such an erotic way that a small moan escaped him. 

He wondered if that night would be the night he came in his jeans.

He wasn’t going to let himself cum before you, that was the plan.  He’d jerked off shortly before you’d arrived, but that didn’t mean shit because he was absolutely ready again.  

Suck it up, Munson.

All was off but for your underwear and while Eddie licked greedily at one of your nipples, you reached down to undo his button fly.  “Release the beast,” you cooed.  

He caught your wrist.  “Not just yet, I can’t, I mean, I want this to be about you.”

“I need an even playing field if I’m going to be relaxed enough to…you know.”

He couldn’t get his pants off fast enough at the urging of your hand that was quick to breach the waistband of his boxers to stroke him. He was rock hard and the tip was already weeping, needy for you.  

“Is this all for me?” You ran your thumb in circles over the tip.

Eddie tensed and huffed out a breath that fanned the hair away from his face.  “Fuck, baby, every inch.”

If he wasn’t sharp, he’d cum right there on the spot.

You bounced when your body hit the bed, and Eddie dropped to his knees between your legs.  The visible wetness on your panties were taking a toll on his already fragile state.  He wasn’t patient enough to take them off of you, he just put his mouth right on the material, nuzzling at your pussy through the fabric in a way that pulled a few sharp gasps out of you.  

“I missed her so much,” he pulled back the final barrier with one finger, licking a few times on your swollen lips, and then cursed.  “You’re so wet already.”

“Well, that’s what you do to me,” you propped up on your elbows to look down at him, sucking in your bottom lip at the sensation of his breath on you.

He slid your underwear off the rest of the way, trying to recall what he’d read in that Playboy article he read a while back? Something about writing out the alphabet, and the woman you are with won’t make it to “x” without cumming.

“How does this feel?” His tongue rolled along your folds in a way that made you wonder what he was doing.  He lost track of the letters at around “M”, hips bucking into the side of the bed, cock pulsing so hard, he had to reach down and take some of the pressure off.  

“G-good,” you gasped.  “Just like that but then, up a bit higher.”

You weren’t exactly an expert when it came to your own pleasure, either, you only knew what felt good when you touched yourself.  If Eddie made you cum, it would be the first time you ever experienced that with another person.  You wondered if you should tell him that.  

He followed your instructions, swallowing while he consumed you, until he found the tiny pearl treasure at the top and your grip tightened on him.

“Hmm I think I found it. Hey there pretty baby,” he murmured into your cunt rolling his tongue around the spot. 

“Yesyesyes, right thereeeee Eddieeee.”

The pressure and the speed was perfect and your hand went to his head for encouragement, but then he slowed down and moved locations, licking up the arousal that dripped down  your slit.

“Baby? Could you go back to that thing you were doing a second ago?”

He compiled without a word, trying to find the same pacing again, but the moment was gone. 

“Eddie—” you spread your legs wider as an invitation. “I really need you inside of me now.”

Well, he wanted that more than anything.  But one pump and it would be all over for his dignity.  His eyes were rolling back, seeing cartoon stars just thinking about it.  

Truth? He wasn’t going to make it.  

You noticed his hesitation.  “We can keep trying…after.  But I need to feel you.  It’s lonely up here.”

“You’re so beautiful it hurts,” he crawled up onto the bed, kissing along your stomach, up between your breasts as he went, and then nuzzled at your neck.  “My dick can wait until—”

But he choked on his last words when you took hold of him and rubbed the tip of his length along your wetness.

“Sssshittt,” his whole body trembled. 

Sliding himself in, becoming one with you, made him emotional in a way he’d be embarrassed to share with anyone else. 

“I love you so much,” your voice came out as a cry when he sank halfway in, locking eyes with you.  The stretch made you squeeze around him, eliciting a whimper from so far back in his throat that he wondered if it came from somewhere else, some far off place. 

Once he started to move, he thought about that sweet little pearl and lifted up enough to put his thumb there and move it around.  Your head went back and  you exposed your throat to him.

Eddie grimaced at how close he was, fuck that—he had to slow down.  The way he was touching you, it was making you stiffen like you had when he was on his knees, and he was taking note of everything.

But then you started telling him how bad you needed him to cum, to fill you up, to make you his.  He tried to hold out but then his eyes locked onto yours when you told him you loved him again and he couldn’t stop the wave once it started, no matter how hard he clenched his jaw and his buttcheeks.

One long babble came out of him as his thrusts got sloppy.  “Oh fuck I love you so much I’m cumming so hard, I’m…I’m…holy shit I love you.”

He didn’t ask if you had come that time, because he knew better.

After he caught his breath, he pulled you with him, twisting onto his side, slipping two fingers where his cock had been.  “What if I push all of this cum back inside so it will stay there? Hmm?”

You moaned against his mouth, grabbing a fistful of his hair.  “That feels good, keep doing that.”

“You like that?” He asked, just to be certain.

You nodded, and then, your hand slotted down between your bodies and his arousal spiked when he realized you were touching yourself.  

He curled his fingers to feel that soft, spongy spot, asking how fast you wanted it.

You couldn’t speak, your concentration was intense, eyes screwed shut. 

Oh sure, he was getting hard again.  The feel of his warm spend in your tight hole was doing nothing for his resolve.  

You clenched around him, and then he was whispering, “let me try again,” as he kept his digits buried and made his way down between your thighs.

His mouth had no trouble finding the treasure that time; it practically peeked up at him, begging for a resolution.  He relaxed his shoulders, breathed in the musk of your arousal, and took you into his mouth with a vibrating groan.

“Right there!” You hadn’t meant to scream it, but it was an actual eureka moment.  “Oh fuck Eddie, don’t stop…keep doing…keep doing that.”

He hadn’t moved his fingers in a while, but when he tried to incorporate that into the mix, you stopped him.  “Keep them still,” you held his head, locking him in place—not that there was anywhere else he wanted to be.  “Don’t move your hand just…Ahh yes yes…”

Your jaw went slack in a silent scream, but then his pace quickened, and before you knew what was happening, the blinding white wave crashed through you, rolling through your limbs like satin electricity, making you whine an extended, “cummingcummingcumming,” while you clung to his hair so you wouldn’t fall off the earth. 

Eddie was astonished to learn that could feel it happening.  The juicy walls around his fingers spasmed, fluttering like tight ripples, and he drove his tongue in eager circles, wondering if he could make you cum twice in one go.  Was that even possible? His heart all but flew out of his chest, it was beating so fast, and he moaned long and hard.

But after a bit, you were trying to push his mouth away.  “Wait wait, now it’s sensitive,” but he was so determined, he didn’t pull off until you physically lifted his head.  

He stared up at you, licking his wet, swollen lips.  

You were breathless, letting the final bits of glitter swim through your veins.  “That was—”

He kissed your cunt one two three times.  “That was what?”

He was grinning now, feeling like he’d just won the lottery, or at least a new car. The sense of satisfaction was officially unmatched.

He made his way up the bed to hold you, but you surprised him by taking his fingers into your mouth to suck them clean, dragging teeth along his flesh.  

“I’ve never cum that way with anyone else before,” you said in a whisper, but when he finally registered the weight of the words, his eyes widened.

“My sweetheart,” he pulled you flush against him, giddy, holding your face to brush his lips over yours. “I’m really your first?”

You gave his shoulder a teasing love bite. “And my last.”

“Oh nowww you’re in trouble,” he rolled on top of you, interlacing his fingers with yours to brace your hands above your head, and then he went to work munching at the side of your throat, growling as he did so.  

You screamed and giggled, realizing he was hard again as it nudged at your hip. “I see you’re ready for battle again.”

“I was born ready, baby,” he straightened to see your face. “You want to try a new position? I was reading this—”

The front door to the trailer burst open.

“What the hell? Edward? You tryin’ to burn the place down?”

It was Wayne.

Shit shit shit shit it was Wayne!

Home hours early from work, for whatever reason.

The door to the bedroom was wide open and his heavy footfalls were rapidly approaching from the hall.

Eddie threw the sheet up over you, and a few tulip petals fluttered to your face.  “I’ll be right there!” He shouted, trying to jump into his jeans. He missed a leg hole and stumbled back onto the mattress, making you snort out a laugh. 

He got to the door just in time to greet his Uncle, blocking any view of the room, buttoning his pants as he stood there.  

You could hear Wayne’s voice change. “Is, ah, is your girlfriend here? Sorry, I didn’t see her car.”

“No that’s cool, we were just—” and then he maneuvered him out into the hall, shutting the door behind him.

You lifted up to listen to their murmuring voices, and then Wayne asked, “why is there wax all over the carpet? Blow these fuckers out before the curtains catch fire.”

You had to bury your face in the pillow to muffle your laughter.  

[emchant3d]

They say Captain Munson has a gift. That he’s blessed by a god’s touch.

His ship has survived every battle. His crew flourishes with bounty, with health and good fortune. He steers them unerringly through every storm, sailing directly into the gargantuan waves, into the lightning and rain, and comes out the other side pristine while other vessels would have been sunk, snapped and splintered on the ocean floor, crew turned to ghosts to haunt the waters.

They say he made a deal, sold his soul, sold his crew’s souls, will find his reckoning one day at the end of a sword or drowned in the sea he loves so much. They say he’s a devil of his own, that his eyes glow red and black and his teeth are sharp and fanged, nails clawed, that he slaughters innocents and bathes in their blood.

But the truth is much simpler. Captain Munson is no devil, he did not sell any souls, and he certainly isn’t blessed by any god.

Captain Munson fell in love.

He didn’t mean to. When the fishing nets are reeled in that fateful day he expects nothing more than a few meals, a couple pounds to send to the kitchens for Benny to work his magic with. He isn’t even on deck when the catch is brought in.

It’s Gareth’s frantic voice that draws him upwards, his shouting and knocking on his cabin door that has him strapping a sword to his hip before taking the stairs two at a time to see the threat.

He’s expecting a King’s ship. Maybe another pirate. 

He isn’t expecting a mer.

Pale, unconscious, bleeding, sprawled on the deck, plush and soft and gorgeous, tan torso tapering down into a huge, shimmering tail. He’s breathing but it’s shallow, weak, a shell on a necklace moving faintly with each hitch of his chest.

And the crown. A simple circlet, golden and shining, tangled in his chestnut hair, gems glinting from the locks.

Mers are mythical, believed to be stories by some and history by others, but Eddie grew up hearing the tales of them every night from his mother, and the evidence is right in front of them - how can they do anything but believe?

It takes three of them to move him below deck. Eddie grips him under his arms, Gareth supports his hips, and Jeff wrangles his tail. They take him to Eddie’s quarters, the only bed big enough to fit him.

He wakes in stages, delirious from pain, snapping teeth and swinging claws when he has the strength for it and slurring rambling words when he doesn’t, head lolling on the pillow, eyes rolling back. 

His injuries are strange - a band of dark bruising around his pretty throat, his back shredded, bites taken out of the dips of his sides and the meat of his tail. There’s sickness in him, but Joyce is patient. She patches him up, soothes the mer’s fever and stitches the wounds she can, bandages what she can’t, keeps it all clean, keeps it wet because apparently that’s what he needs - salt water, which makes Eddie cringe in sympathy, but only seems to ease the mer’s pain, not make it worse.

It’s a week before those pretty eyes blink open with genuine awareness in them, sharp and wary. Eddie’s taken to sitting at the mer’s side, feels a strange responsibility to him that he doesn’t want to look too closely at, and he glances up from his journal to find the other’s gaze locked on him.

“Where am I?” he croaks out, and Eddie smiles, snapping the journal shut.

“You’re aboard the Hellfire, sweetheart. Captain Eddie Munson, at your service.” He bows in his seat, and it goes over about as well as he thought it would.

There’s a lot of threats and snarling and cursing, but Eddie simply leans back, out of the mer’s reach as he crowds himself into the corner of the mattress, back pressed to the wall and sheets tangled around his tail.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he tries to soothe, and the mer scoffs. Eddie can’t blame him for his caution, but he tells him the honest truth - where he was found, the state of him, how they’ve nursed him back to health.

The mer’s hand hovers over one of the nastier wounds at his side, covered in gauze, dampened with saltwater. When he cuts his eyes back to Eddie there’s a little less animosity in his gaze, and Eddie will take what he can get.

Eventually he pulls a name from that snarling mouth. Stephan. “Prince Stephan,” he begrudgingly admits once Eddie points out the crown that he’d gently worked free of his hair. 

And he’s a mer, but different.

“Siren, is what I believe your kind calls mine,” Stephan says, “half and half. Mer and human.” 

“Human,” Eddie muses, and Stephan confesses, warily, haltingly - he’s the King’s bastard son. Born to King Richard of the land and the Mer Queen of the sea.

“And how did the Prince of the Mer find his way into my net, hm?” Eddie asks, smiling, and Stephan rolls his eyes at him. 

He’s a runaway. King Richard had come looking for his son and with his mother’s blessing Stephan abandoned his title, his home, because the King would find him eventually if he stayed, and whatever dangers he might face in the open sea would be nothing compared to what the King might use his gifts for.

“Gifts?” Eddie asks, and Stephan smiles, his pointed teeth glinting.

It’s a clear day, not a cloud to be seen, no sign of rain or bad weather. And yet as Steve begins to hum softly, a shadow crosses overhead. 

It happens slowly. Stephan’s voice builds, a wordless little melody, something melancholy and soft, and the sky beyond the windows of the cabin darkens. Thunder rolls and in the distance, Eddie can see a crack of lightning.

The ship rocks as waves begin to form, the once-smooth water taking a turn. Eddie can hear the crew above deck begin to shout to one another, confusion building, growing more insistent as Stephan’s song grows, and Eddie’s stomach drops.

The siren’s voice is haunting, terrifying. Eddie’s frozen in place, meeting his eyes even as tears well in his own. He’s transfixed, can’t move, can’t speak, paralyzed with some ancient, instinctual knowing of danger, of death.

Eddie does not scare easy. But this is terror personified. This is the true threat that lives in the sea. Not the waves, not man, this. This creature who smiles at him with sharp teeth and a haunting voice, reaching towards Eddie with a clawed hand, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear in a touch that makes Eddie’s skin crawl and his heart skip and dread sink into his very bones.

He’s staring death in the face, and death is smiling.

Then Stephan quiets, and it’s over as quickly as it had begun. The sky clears in moments. The waters calm. The vessel’s heaving calms, and Eddie’s spine unlocks.

He stares at the being before him, amazed, before a slow, brilliant smile breaks over his face.

“Full of surprises, aren’t you, Prince Stephan?” he asks, and gets a smile in return.

“Call me Steve,” he tells him, and fondness begins to worm its way into Eddie’s chest.

“Then call me Eddie.” He sees Steve’s eyes flutter, and he tilts his head. “You’re tired,” he tells him, and gets a huff in response. “You’re safe here, Steve,” he tells him, and he knows he doesn’t trust him, not fully, not yet, but that’s okay. “Rest. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

Steve watches him warily, but clearly the little display has worn him out. His hand finds that same wound on his side, cradling it carefully, back shifting like it hurts to sit up straight and stretch all that marred skin.

“Lay a hand on me, and I’ll eat you,” Steve warns, and Eddie snorts a laugh. 

“Whatever you say, highness,” and he tugs the sheets back into place over that large tail, and lets the mer get the rest he still clearly needs.

part 2 💕

[ofglories]

"I got a strange look from Sir Gareth when she saw me using my bow. Is it truly so odd for a Saber to use archery as well as swordsmanship? There was someone using a punching bag in the hall earlier who was also a Saber..."