WHO: Melpomene and Alan WHEN: From the day after they first met up till now WHERE: New York WHAT: A series of scenes, some longer than others... WARNINGS: Some longer than others because we got smutty
After a little more than three hours sleep, Melpomene’s phone dragged her into the waking world. It was Soren, calling her into work for a few hours of re-writes. With tired eyes, she looked down at Alan, slowly climbing out of sleep beside her, and agreed very reluctantly that she was on her way in.
But didn’t start moving straight away. “I have to go to work,” she said softly, settling back onto the pillow beside his head. The bed wanted her to stay. Her heart wanted to stay. Her body wanted more sleep.
Alan sighed. “Yeah, god, me too.” He blinked a few times, trying to rouse himself. All he really wanted was to keep sleeping, here beside Melpomene.
“Are you singing again, tonight?” she asked, feeling almost hungry to hear his voice in song again. “I could meet you, after?”
“I don't have a gig,” Alan said, reaching out to brush her hair. Her face was warm from sleep. “But if you come see me, I’ll sing for you anyway.” How could Alan-a-Dale, bard of Sherwood Forest, resist doing that?
“I’ll be there,” she promised, closing her eyes as he touched her curls, then forcing herself to draw away, slipping her hand out of his. “Message me, I have to go. Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.”
~*~
Time that first day apart passed with excruciating slowness, Melpomene felt every moment of it, her mind more on the passage of time that it was on her work. Re-writes could be a chore; Melpomene found much greater enjoyment in that first initial burst of creativity, and although there were a few good moments when someone would gasp an oh that's much better! as they changed things around, none of it compared to the thrill of hearing her baby's heartbeat, last night, or the promise of seeing Alan again, this night coming.
At long last, the sun set, she was released, and there he was again in front of her, waiting for her on the street outside. She met his eyes and felt herself change, stepping toward him. There was such a pull on her, as if she was caught in a rip tide and he was the middle of the ocean, but he was moving toward her like he was caught in it too.
They paused in front of each other, and despite the three hours of sleep from the night before Melpomene was ready to stay up all night talking to him again. She smiled, and raised her hand and lay it flat over the beating of his heart.
For Alan the day had seemed similarly long and dull, only the thought of meeting Melpomene again tonight sustaining him.
She was like a magnet, like an oasis in the desert and Alan wanted to drink every drop from her. As they stood in front of each other they locked eyes, and Alan put his hands on either side of her face. Then he kissed Melpomene for the first time, leaning down and in towards her, a sense of desperation and hunger within him. Melpomene’s mouth burned against his, like rum on a fire, and he thought he had never kissed anyone like this before.
Oh, he could kiss. He could kiss with as much depth and passion as he could sing. Melpomene’s hand curled into a tight fist on his chest, pulling him even closer by his shirt as her other hand roamed over the angles of his collarbone and shoulder. She’d met him less than twenty four hours ago and already she wanted him so much, kissing him was creating an ache inside her that only more kissing him could soothe.
Unbelievable, that’s what Melpomene was. Alan knew that he made a slight sound against her lips, but was so distant from anything but her touch that he couldn’t think about it.
Suddenly he reached down and wrapped his hands around the back of her thighs, lifting her up to have her closer, barely letting his lips leave hers. Alan was slender and unassuming beyond his height, but he was a swordsman and so not without strength. Enough strength to hold Melpomene, in any case, with her legs wrapped around him.
“Oh!” Melpomene broke the kiss with a gasp and then a small laugh of surprise - that strength was so unexpected! Heart racing, she held him tightly with her legs, the sudden warmth between her legs entirely inspired by his actions. “Alan-a-Dale,” she whispered his name, tracing his jaw with her fingertips before she kissed him again, her fingers roaming around the back of his neck to curl in his hair. She’d imagined kissing him tonight, but she hadn’t imagined it would take her over quite so quickly as this.
“Let me take you home,” Alan whispered against her lips, whenever he let himself pause from that glorious action. “Let me lie you down and worship you.” God, he wanted her so much. Last night everything had been on such a higher level, but tonight Alan wanted to see her body freed from her clothes, wanted to explore every inch of her, to discover what her face looked like when overcome with pleasure. The very thought of it was starting to make him hard.
“Yes,” Melpomene breathed, and kissed him again so deeply she was glad for his hands supporting her legs, the kiss was undoing her, turning her body to jelly. If she had been standing then, she would have fallen into him. His words were perfect, better than fantasy, more than she’d expected but everything she wanted. She used her curled fingers in his hair to urge his head to one side, mouth finding the pulse in his neck, the heady strength of it beating against her tongue as it wrote poetry on his skin.
“I’m going to have to let you go,” Alan said, although his voice hitched at her tongue against his throat. “So I can call a lyft.”
He walked forward a few steps and sat her on the boot of a car. Instead of using the possible free hands to pull out his phone though, he took her face in his hands again to kiss her, pressing in close. “I want you so bad,” he whispered.
Melpomene reached around and pressed one hand against the small of his back, holding his narrow body close between her knees. His words ignited a shiver over her skin because they were echoed from deep inside her, this mutual wanting that had been building all last night, that had been simmering all day and that was starting to boil over, now. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” she whispered back, her ankles crossed behind his legs. “Call that lyft, because I need to get you alone.” One ravenous part of her wanted him to fuck her on this car, right now, and yet part of her was holding back even from slipping her hand underneath his shirt while they were still in public. The first time she touched the warmth of the skin that was hidden by his clothes, she felt, should be done in private, where she and she alone was the only witness to the effects she hoped her hands would have.
Alan had never in his whole life wanted to fuck someone as badly as he wanted to fuck Melpomene, sitting on some stranger’s car and looking up at him like that. Fuck. He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the app. While the screen loaded he captured her lips again, the hand not holding his phone sliding into her hair to hold her tight. “You’re perfect,” he told her.
Then he licked his lips and scrolled through the app, finding them a ride. “Eight minutes,” he said, and then kissed her again.
Eight minutes, she could kiss Alan without succumbing to the need to unbuckle his pants for eight minutes… maybe. This man… this deep and deeply beautiful man, who’d let her see into his soul last night. Who’d slept curled up behind her in the sweetest few hours of sleep she’d had in years. Who’d spun the story she thought she was telling on its head and she didn’t even care that she couldn’t see where she was heading anymore, because when Alan kissed her she felt herself surrender. She heard herself whimper in the back of her throat, the heel of her boot rubbing against the back of his leg as her tongue explored the brand new territory of his mouth. Eight minutes…
Eight minutes was an obscenely long time when you were trying not to undress a muse on top of a car. When the car did arrive, he pulled Melpomene into the back seat with him and continued kissing her, although trying to be slightly more restrained about it now for the sake of the driver.
Alan made his tip large when they got out.
In the apartment, Alan paused in the doorway and called out for Will. No reply, only silence. He turned and smiled at Melpomene. “We’re alone,” he told her, lifting her in his arms again and carrying her towards the bedroom, laying her down as they kissed, pressing her into the bed with his own body.
“Perfect,” she said, her voice more air than sound, arching her back to push their bodies closer as they made out on the bed. Her breasts and her stomach met him just a fraction faster than they would have done a little while ago, her pregnancy adding to the swell of them, and the need that coursed through her as his chest pressed against her breasts made her gasp. Melpomene pushed at his chest to ease them apart, breaking the kiss so she could look up at him in wonder, so she could breathe, her chest heaving, her mind so aware of her nipples and the way each breath pushed them against the fabric of her bra.
And she had eased them apart, of course, so she could gather the hem of his shirt and tug it upwards, revealing his stomach, and then his chest, as she did. “I want you right now,” she whispered her thoughts out loud. “And I want to go so slow we make this last for hours. And I don’t know which one I want more and I love it.”
“We can have both,” Alan promised her, kissing her throat after he’d pulled the shirt completely off and tossed it aside. He then moved back so he could remove her own shirt, with its complicated layers and twists. But beneath it, Alan found himself utterly enthralled by the swell of her breasts above her bra. He leaned in to kiss them, his hands sliding across the warm skin of her body. “I want us to never leave this bed.”
Melpomene’s legs writhed at the feeling of his lips on her chest, digging her heels into the bed to anchor herself as she arched against him. “Oh, your mouth,” she whispered, shivers taking over. “My skin is singing.” She wrapped her arms around his back, his skin was alive with heat under her hands as she held onto one shoulder while her other hand played up and down his spine, like his body was an instrument.
“Your skin is the only song I need,” Alan told her, reaching down to start undoing her trousers, slipping them down her thighs. Once they were off he hovered above her for a moment, taking in her splendour as she lay there in her underwear.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, breath almost stolen away. “I feel unworthy to even be in your presence, but I’m thankful to every god that this is where I am.”
He leaned back down, hand behind her head, and kissed her again.
Melpomene was ancient, and carried herself with the confidence earned over hundreds upon hundreds of years, yet there were still men in this world who could make her tremble with how vivid and alive they made her feel, how immediate and vital they themselves were. Ares had done it, and Alan was doing it now, though in a very different way. She felt more naked than she'd been in years, despite still wearing her underwear. Every time he touched her it was like the first time she’d been touched, she could feel his worship in every caress. Melpomene moved her hands down the planes of his chest with the same care and wonder, clenching her thighs around him as her hands found his nipples, and kissing him again as her deft fingers started to undo his belt, every aspect of undressing him turning her on even more.
Alan let her undo his pants, but he couldn’t help leaning down and kissing across her collarbone, down the top of her breast, lower to the top of her stomach. Any more than that, and Alan would have to move from between Melpomene’s legs, and that sounded like a terrible thing to do. But he had to pull back a little when she finished undoing his pants, so he could get free of them and kick them away.
If she’d been in any doubt that Alan was deeply into her, his erection would have sent that doubt away.
Melpomene’s eyes dropped down to his cock, and she bit her bottom lip between her teeth, a little moan of yearning catching in her throat. There was no doubt - ever since his voice had first caught her attention, there hadn’t been any doubt. There certainly wasn’t now.
She pushed herself up on one elbow and kissed his throat again, her hand moving down his ribs, fingertips playing over his hipbones as she kissed toward his ear. With perfect synchronicity she pulled back so that her eyes met his the very moment she curled her fingers around his dick, eyes looking deep into his so she wouldn’t miss a moment of his reaction.
Alan’s eyes fluttered closed with a groan as Melpomene put her incredible hands on him. If that’s how good just her hands felt on his dick, he couldn’t even imagine the pleasure of being inside of her.
He made himself look at her again, leaning down to kiss her, all the while not wanting to disturb her touch. “You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he told her. “Your eyes like autumn oak. Your lips, the answered prayers of supplicants.”
Melpomene curled those lips up as she smiled between kisses, the movements of her wrist fluid and sensual. “I can’t get enough of your words,” she whispered to him, letting her lips brush against his cheek, thumb brushing over the head of his cock. “Don’t stop, Alan-a-Dale, don’t stop.”
Alan twitched against her hand, helpless with lust and adoration. His own hands were moving across her body as he told her that she was like a melody he’d dreamed but never composed. He rolled her nipple between his fingers as he told her that her hair caught the light like fine copper.
“Melpomene...”
He whispered that name against her throat, as he reached behind her to undo her bra.
Melpomene let her head tip back, soaking in the heady combination of his words and his musical accent and the endless pleasure of his hands on her skin. Gods… how perfect to be adored by such a poet, how utterly divine to hear her name in his voice, to feel her name in his breath as it touched her throat. Melpomene clenched the muscles between her legs together in anticipation, especially as he pulled her bra away from her body, and she shivered as the air of his bedroom moved over her bare breasts. “Touch me,” she whispered, and found his mouth again for a kiss. Let their bodies write the poetry now - she wanted his mouth for other things.
God, how could Alan deny such a request. Now that it had been offered, he moved his hands all across her body - although couldn’t resist telling her how beautiful she was again - and then helped her out of her underwear. His hand slipped down between her legs and then, because he couldn’t resist, Alan dropped to his knees and pulled her closer to the edge of the bed so that he could taste her.
Melpomene gasped as she let her head drop back onto the sheets, throat bared to the ceiling. Now here was one thing Ares would never do. Melpomene curled a graceful leg around him, her heel rubbing gently down his back as his tongue - oh his tongue - wrote a sonnet against her body. She barely remembered when his dick had slipped from her fingers, but she would come back to that… later… for now she was blissfully content to lay herself out and let herself be worshipped, just as he’d promised.
Alan couldn’t pretend he hadn’t been thinking about this - or variations of this - all day while they’d been away from each other. Late night they had talked and talked, but the distance from her had made him hunger for the physical, to find out what her hands were like under his fingers, to find out how she liked to kiss, to discover the taste of her and the sounds that she would make when he had his tongue buried in the most secret parts of her. And now here she was, the gift of her body given over to him completely. He wanted to exist for nothing, in this moment, but to be the ultimate cause of her pleasure.
She could hear the noises she was making, a raw kind of music, a song of abandon that developed further with each passing moment. A deep warmth spreading through her, Melpomene curled her fingers in his long hair, not to force any change in what he was doing but to send further signals back to him -and because her hands needed to be on something. Her other hand covered her breast and she could feel her heart thumping hard inside her, and a warning shudder took over her body, jerking her hips against him as they started to tremble. “Alan yes,” her voice trembled too, her lungs trembled out breath, every part of her intrinsically bound to the pleasure of his mouth between her legs. “Yes, yes!”
Each sound Melpomene made, each twisting of her fingers in his hair, each movement of her body in reaction to him: perfection. Of course she was the daughter of mighty gods. She was inspiring an almost frenzy in Alan, every sinew in his body turning towards her.
There were jumbled lines of song flashing inside him, but he dared not stop what he was doing to speak anything so mundane as words.
A jumble of similes crowded through her mind as she came, pleasure crashing through her like a wave breaking hard on the rocks, drowning everything like a river bursting its banks to wash the village away, sudden and shocking as lightning sizzling down each branch of a tree, as deeply emotional as a whole chorus tearing their clothes, wailing.
Her hand groped down for his, clamping down hard, desperate for something to hold on to while her body shuddered, his name wrung out of her throat like a sob.
He ran his hands up her thighs, across her belly, to her breasts. Alan wanted to touch as much of her as he could from where he was, between her thighs. And then, after she had reached her climax - and what a beautiful climax it was - Alan moved up along her body, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her throat and breasts.
“You are divine,” he said, and knew it was an understatement.
“And you,” she whispered, her voice stolen by her breath as she curled her arms around him as well, drawing him close, this man, this exceptional man. “You are the stuff of legends, your name should be written across the sky in the stars, unforgotten, magnificent.”
“As long as you don’t forget me,” Alan whispered, “then I will live forever.”
Alan wanted to be buried inside her so much, but he also wanted to wait. Wait until she commanded it, wait until it was the only thing she wanted. And so he kissed her, erection pressed against her thigh, tongue searching for meaning as though he could taste her words.
She whined when he kissed her, as if her mouth had forgotten what it could be to be touched like this, and the taste of herself on his tongue only made her feel as though they were bound more tightly together. Her body still trembling from her orgasm, she pushed her tongue deeper against his, her hands moving over his body, wanting him, but holding herself back a little from hooking her legs around his waist, because every moment she held back drove her a little more wild. And then his fingers brushed her nipples and almost sent her to the edge of coming again and she knew she couldn’t wait any longer.
“Alan,” she gasped, and let her thighs fall open against the strength of his erection, angling her hips so when she rolled them against him he could feel how wet she was, how warm she was going to feel when he was inside her. How had she only known him a day? It felt like they’d been building toward this for months. Melpomene kissed him deeper, rocking her hips toward him again. “I want you,” she breathed, her hand cupping his face so his mouth would not stray too far from hers. “I want you inside me, now, Alan.”
Alan’s breath was a shuddering creature as he entered Melpomene, burying his face for a moment against her shoulder, unable to even comprehend how good she felt. The soft warmth surrounded him and when Alan moved it was with long slow strokes, wanting to savour this feeling before the desire for more overtook everything else.
“Melpomene,” he said against her lips as he kissed her, one arm sliding behind her neck to stay close to her.
Melpomene curled her toes into his sheets at the sound of her name, using the leverage to slowly undulate her body against his. He fit her so well, his movements drew a deep, satisfied moan from her as she wrapped both arms around his back, holding him close to her body. “You’re perfect,” she whispered, eyes open to read his face as their bodies moved together. There was a deep core of honesty in him, solid roots of goodness and a longstanding search for the beauty in the world through the troubled shadows of his life. Everything that she’d seen last night still held true, which was not so very common; usually when a man was inside her she could see deeper, but Alan had already opened his doors wide and invited her inside.
Perfect, perfect, perfect, so perfect. Melpomene kissed him deeper, wrapping her legs around him to hold him even closer.
They moved together so perfectly, so easily, so wonderfully - was it because they had talked all night? Because they had already shared so much? He’d been beside her at the doctor when it seemed as though her whole world had changed, and she’d allowed that. She had given him the gift of seeing her, and of being seen.
Of all the horrible things in Alan’s world right now, Melpomene being in his arms as they made love was a thing that made it all easier to bear.
He’d thought, beforehand, about when he would reach for a condom, but remembered that she was already pregnant. He was glad for that, because he wouldn’t wish for anything to come between them, even the thinnest slip of latex.
The sounds he made against her lips were groans and near gasps. “You feel so amazing,” he told her, hips moving with hers.
“Gods, Alan,” she gasped, closing her eyes to better feel every long, delicious stroke for a few long, delicious moments, sweet, audible exhalations of breath escaping whenever she wasn’t kissing him. And opening her eyes, to better see his face, watching him lose himself in her.
This one, she thought, burying her hands in his hair to kiss him deeper, this one she wanted to bring to greatness. Draw something beautiful and meaningful out of his heart, weave songs together that would bring people to tears, as she felt almost on the brink of tears herself. Equally, she wanted to make him come, utterly lost in the ecstasy of her body. “Don’t stop, please, this is so good, this is everything, Alan,” she breathed, as she tightened her muscles around him, pressing her head back into the pillow. “Alan, yes.”
His name from her lips was such a turn on, as though he needed anything else to bring this moment higher. And soon enough he was coming, fingers curling in her hair and on her shoulder as he held her close to him, thrusting as deeply inside her as he could. He wanted nothing more than to be one with Melpomene, for the two of them to be a single entity.
As he caught his breath, Alan kissed her - messy, sloppy, momentarily exhausted yet adoring. “You’re everything.”
Even his post-orgasmic kiss was good, and Melpomene returned it with equal amounts of adoration. She held him close to her, not willing to let him go yet, and brushed the loose strands of hair back behind his ear, caressing his face as she smiled up at him. His words, you’re everything brought a smile from deep inside her, soft and grateful, flattered and moved. “That,” she said, with a little humour on her voice though her words were genuine, “was very good worship, Alan-a-Dale.”
“I can find plenty more worship for you,” Alan promised her and then, with a small wry smile, he added, “but maybe not quite yet.” He ran his thumb across her cheek softly.
Melpomene closed her eyes and leaned her cheek softly into his thumb. “Mmm, this is good too,” she purred. It was, it was nice being under somebody who so obviously adored her, someone who wasn’t going to roll off her in a second because he had other important shit to do. “And I don’t have anywhere to be but here till tomorrow afternoon,” she added, and kissed him slowly for a long minute, before loosening her grip so he could shift if he wanted to. “I wouldn’t change a moment of how we spent last night for the world,” she said. “But I’m very glad you kissed me when you did.”
“So am I,” he told her, and then kissed her deeply again, as though to prove his point. Only then did he shift off Melpomene, lying down and watching her with open adoration. Alan had never been very good at concealing his emotions, and with Melpomene he felt content and relaxed and inspired.
Legs entwined and arms around each other, they talked softly for a long time, fingers writing stories on each other's warm skin. They made love again after a little while and then talked for even longer, till Melpomene found she was speaking with her heavy eyes closed, her head pillowed between his shoulder and his chest. “Mmmm,” she murmured, so sleepy, her voice weighted with it, lips barely moving. “You promised you’d sing for me, you know,” she said, with an almost musical yawn. “Will you sing me to sleep? That’d be the perfect outro to this perfect night.”
Alan tried to think of the perfect song for her, but the song that came to mind perhaps wasn’t perfect. But it was the one that came to his lips when she asked him to sing, straining slightly to keep the beauty while he was lying down.
“Slow down, you crazy child, you're so ambitious for a juvenile. But then if you're so smart, then tell me why are you still so afraid?”
He stroked his fingers over her hair as he sang.
Melpomene made a little sleepy noise of contentment, both at his hand and his voice, teaming up to wrap her fully in sleep. You got your passion, you got your pride, but don't you know that only fools are satisfied - oh, she could fall in love with this, so easily. She brushed the back of her curled fingers over his heart, smiling, and nodded her approval, of every little thing. “I’ll sing for you tomorrow night,” she promised, turning her head a fraction to seal the promise with a kiss against his skin.
“Good night, Melpomene,” he whispered to her at the end of the song, leaning to kiss the top of her head. He didn’t dare move and wake her, not even an inch.
~*~
After that night, Melpomene was at every one of Alan’s shows. It didn’t matter than she had a job that sometimes made her pull long, late hours; on those days when her work clashed with his music, Melpomene would pull the pregnancy card and excuse herself. Her job was important to her, yes, but being a true muse to Alan gave her a deeper sense of purpose than her paying job could. None of her writers called her by her real name, none of her writers saw the truth of her. Alan did both; he was more important.
Alan loved seeing her there, front and centre, and he felt like his shows were better when she was watching. Surely every singer in love felt that way, but Alan was the only one in love with a true muse.
Kissing him just after he’d finished playing was always incredible, as well, his energy buzzing with music, Melpomene sank her hands deep into his hair and kissed him, drinking it all in.
~*~
Over the first week of their relationship, Alan quickly ingratiated himself with Melpomene’s writing staff. He would appear at some ungodly hour when they were all writing, plonking down a box of coffees and snacks and sodas, shooting them all words of encouragement and getting quickly out of their hair.
Alan, after all, was a creative type too. And creative types didn’t like to be disturbed.
But creative types loved snacks.
~*~
She should see her sisters, she thought. She should see Apollo. Clio had encouraged a double date between the two of them and their Merry Men, but Melpomene kept finding she wanted to keep him to herself, just a little longer.
~*~
Sometimes Alan woke in the night beside Melpomene, and he was filled with the sort of midnight energy that brought the best work out of him. He would turn on the side lamp and jot down lyrics, quietly singing them out to himself.
One night he’d desperately needed to be with his guitar and took himself out to the living room, sitting naked on the couch to strum as quietly as he could.
When Melpomene came out to find him she kissed him deeply, settling down at his side, legs bare under the shirt of his she’d borrowed (sure, she wasn’t at all shy about her own nakedness, but Alan lived with a roommate, and he didn’t get to see her naked, should he wander out.) “Keep playing,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around a cushion and leaning against the back of the couch, watching him, her expression soft and sleepy and adoring.
Alan took a moment to nuzzle against her neck. “I didn’t want to wake you,” he told her, as she leaned into him, her hand, warm from sleep, on his bare arm.
“Play,” she said softly, pulling back again with an encouraging smile. “Listening to you create is better than sleep.”
“You might think differently in the morning,” he smiled at her, fingers playing over the strings. (As though the night they met hadn’t been an all nighter. As though they both hadn’t already skipped so much sleep just to be together.)
He turned his focus back to the guitar, drawing out his newest song.
~*~
It had been a long time since Melpomene had felt power growing, in every aspect of herself. She was in the grips of a transformation, and she loved it.
Physically she loved the gentle new swell of her belly, the promise of growth and creation endlessly adding to itself inside her. The effects the baby was having on her body were not always pleasant, but if change wasn’t occasionally unbearably painful, then what was the point? Besides, she’d never been the type to avoid pain.
Melpomene bore the heartburn that rushed like a river of fire through her body, leaning into the pain, treating it like a ritual of purification. And there were times when she could barely breathe, when she would dig her fingers into any nearby soft thing – the arm of a couch, Alan’s hand, her own thighs – until something changed within her and Ares’ growing child let her have full use of her lungs, once more. It seemed appropriate that a child of war would do this to her.
Her relationship with Alan was changing her too.
Her fling with Ares had been a dangerous thrill, a story she knew, a pressure building up between them till it would explode, destructive, bloodsoaked; their union a perfect echo of how the world was going all to shit. With Alan, well, the world was still going all to shit, but instead of standing over the petrol-soaked world with a match in hand, it felt like she and Alan had buried themselves deep into the dark earth and found it a fertile place. The world may still be on the brink of burning but oh, they were going to grow some beautiful things first. Melpomene poured herself in the growing of them, encouraging the music he wrote in every way she knew how.
And the look in his eyes when she sang the things he’d written, that filled her with a power unlike any other. She’d told Ares once that it felt like she’d been living on scraps of belief for so long, but every night spent with Alan now was like a three course meal, food for her soul. He worshiped her and she couldn’t get enough.
~*~
Melpomene propped her head up with her hand, lying on her side next to Alan. How do you stop an enemy who isn’t dissuaded by death, that was the question that hung in the air.
“I don’t think I have happy answers for you, Alan,” she said, her voice soft as she looked down at him. “He comes for you because he’s always come for you. To uphold his vision of order. And you fight back, always, because his vision and yours are at odds with each other. To stop him...” she began, but paused, looking off into the corner of the room. “You could break the story, but it would break you to do it, I believe: You could let him convince you that his vision is correct, betray everything about yourselves to save your lives, but I do not think you are able to… to unmake yourself, in that way,” she turned her eyes back to him, brushing the soft hair back from his temple in slow, solemn movements.
“You may be able to slow him down. Removing his resources like you’ve done will make him less rich, yes. It has probably removed some of the weapons he would use against you. And perhaps you could keep attacking this way but… but in his heart, a man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous of all. You stole Marcie from him, you stole his money, if you find his dungeon and destroy that, too, you’ve stolen another thing. You could ruin his reputation as an upholder of the law. You could remove him from his allies. But you’d be compounding all that hatred and all that desperation into one tight little bomb inside him. On top of that, every time you attack him, his conviction that you are in the wrong grows. His dedication to destroying you grows. You are building your own enemy, as his actions built you, back in the time when you all began.” Melpomene knew these would not be easy words to hear, nor comforting ones, but she saw them as honest words, and companionship was so much more important than ease and comfort. She pressed a kiss onto his forehead, and settled on the pillow facing him, her hand trailing down his arm to take his hand. “I think untangling yourselves from the Sheriff will be as difficult as cutting off your own shadow, my love.”
Alan sighed deeply. Of course she was right. It was all things he’d thought himself, although never put into one long string of words together.
“I adore you,” he told Melpomene, her hand in his hand the most important thing in the world. He gazed upon his muse. “In all this darkness, you are such a light.” Then he smiled knowingly at her. “Without hope there is no tragedy, and, my love, you give me so much hope.”
Melpomene inched forward and pressed her lips against his smile, her fingers weaving through his. “Hope,” she echoed. “Have you considered that hope should be your angle? Instead of focusing all your energies on stopping him, which, from everything you’ve said, has been tearing your band apart, you could bring everyone back together and be who you were in the forest again. Revolutionaries, spreading rebellion and hope. These days... these dark days, I think this country needs her Merry Men. Imagine if you started to steal from the worst of the rich, as you stole from him, but this time, what if you claimed it. Hashtag Robin Hood across the doors of CEOs. Hashtag Robin Hood down Wall Street in bright paint.” She swept her arm above them in an arc, as if her hand was a paintbrush creating the picture of it in the air. “You’re forever focusing on his darkness, instead of focusing on your light. Change it up a little. See what happens,” she added, with a lively, inspiring glint in her eye.
Alan was watching her in awe as she spoke, as she became more into the words she was saying. “That’s amazing! You’re so right. How are you so right??” He sat up, thinking about this. How should he tell the guys about it? He needed to bring it up with them, because it seemed like one of the brightest ideas that was happening. No horrible prisons, no marked souls, just their own bright positivity.
Melpomene watched his face as the shine from this new inner light grew, and she sat up beside him, and kissed his shoulder in encouragement. “Imagine the uproar, imagine the joy, if you found a way to steal from one of the world’s worst billionaires – somebody everyone really hates. Or one of the soulless Fortune 500. Imagine if you could engineer a way to throw physical cash back to the masses - the spectacle of it would go viral, instantly. And you, you could weave revolution and hope into your music. Build up your own legend. He’ll hate you all the more for it, I’m sure of it, but the people will love you, and their belief may tip the scale in your favour.”
The idea of being a legend again… now that was something that appealed to Alan. Not in a personal way: he never thought of Alan-a-Dale, Mighty Hero. No, all of Alan’s dreams of great fame and power belonged to them all as a group. To Robin and his Merry Men.
“I know Marian already does big scale thievery from companies,” he considered out loud, “but she says she tries to keep it quiet because it’s dangerous. But the idea of throwing money out to the needy personally… that’s what we used to do, and it was amazing. I miss those days when money was a real thing. I don’t understand it all as numbers on a screen.” He was glad they had Marian for that, at least.
“Yes, seeing the effect you have on people first hand is so much more satisfying,” Melpomene agreed. “It would be more dangerous, there’s no doubt, but you could bring real change to people who really need it. You and the others have been a symbol of hope for the downtrodden and the oppressed for centuries, have you not?”
“We were,” he agreed and then, correcting himself, said, “We are. And we could be that again.” He smiled at Melpomene, reaching up a hand to brush her cheek. “Maybe with you around to inspire I can find a way to be the hero again.”
“Maybe?” Melpomene questioned his choice of word with a teasing smile, shifting from under the covers so she could straddle his lap, his warm thighs under hers. “You are a hero, Alan-a-Dale,” she said, and leaned forward to kiss his neck, one of her hands sliding into his hair. “I have complete and utter faith in you.” Inspiration and belief could run both ways, after all, and in fact they ran all the stronger when they did, flowing into both of them, an endless cycle of power.
Was it because she was a muse that Alan felt so sure of himself by her side? Or was it simply that she was a remarkable woman who was there for him? Alan put his hand to her cheek, guiding her face so that he could look at her, so that she could look at him when he spoke. “I love you, Melpomene.”
He spoke, his words as much of a caress as his hand on her cheek, and Melpomene’s eyes met his, a great warmth flooding her whole body. She had always been one to embrace, headfirst, the strongest of emotions. “My bard, my outlaw, my Alan,” she said, and kissed his mouth, pressing herself close. “I love you too.”
Alan let himself fall into her, his muse, his goddess, his queen. “Stay with me always,” he whispered against her lips, every emotion within him built of longing and desire for his Melpomene. “I will love you till the final star topples from the sky and all that’s left is dust.”
“Always,” Melpomene whispered back, her hands roaming down his arms. She didn’t believe in the concept of always, but she did believe in the intention of such a promise. And his poetic way of putting it, as if loving her would be his ultimate act, at the end of all existence - she liked that a lot. She kissed him again, and very nearly lost herself in it completely, but managed to pull back, though her body was aching for more. “There’s a baby, between now and always,” she said, her forehead resting against his, her breath heightened. “Where will he fit?”
Alan reached down and placed the flat of his hand over her stomach, gentle and reverent. He smiled at the thought of a tiny child growing there. “I’m hoping he’ll fit perfectly in my arms,” Alan said, looking up at her. “I know I’m not his father by rights, but I’d like to be.”
Melpomene covered his hand with hers, holding it pressed close against the changing curve of her body, her lips curving too. "A child of war raised by an outlaw bard, can you imagine anything better?"
Alan did wonder what sort of child Ares would make. He knew about Marcella only from things Much had said, but she didn’t seem all that warlike. But would the child of two gods be different to that?
“He’s sure to be a handful,” Alan grinned at her, “but I think we’ll manage.”
Melpomene echoed his grin back at him, loving the feeling of his hope, brimming out of him, the promise of what he might do with it. "Then I look forward to every moment of out future, Alan," she said against his mouth. "Especially the moments when you are kissing me."