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* * *
“There’s bound to be some tension,” Davos predicted reasonably as they drove to the home of Stannis’ brother. “They’re not used to the idea yet. You’ve only just come out.”
“Cersei won’t need a reason to be rude.”
Rude was a kind way of putting it. Before they’d even made it to appetizers, he and Stannis had been insulted by Robert, Cersei, their oldest son, and Cersei’s father. From Renly and his partner, Loras there came some gentle ribbing. There was ribbing of a not-so-gentle kind from Cersei’s two brothers. Cersei evidently thought it was a contest of some kind because the woman never shut up.
The only thing Davos could say for the evening was that their host had a free hand with his single-malt Scotch, vintage wines, and fine old brandy. By the time they escaped and were in the car heading for home, Davos felt like his feet were sloshing about in his new leather shoes.
While not quite a blur, the ride back was somewhat hazy in his mind. What did register was that Stannis was livid. He had been angry from the moment he got into the sedan, and by the time they reached the house, he was fuming. Davos followed Stannis inside.
Davos thought Stannis was probably more than a little hurt too.
“. . . Alcoholics, the pair of them . . .”
His partner, the man he loved, was hurt. It was his duty to fix this. Davos held up a hand. “One moment.”
Stannis stopped mid-rant.
Davos somewhat unsteadily weaved his way over to the phone. He found the number for Robert and Cersei and dialed.
Cersei answered. “Hello?”
“Is this the lady of the house?” Davos inquired in his best Volantene accent. He ignored the very puzzled expression on Stannis’ face.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“I am calling from the King’s Landing Power Authority. We have detected a disruption in the power for your area.”
Stannis was openly gaping at him.
“Have you experienced any problems?”
“No.”
“Do you have a refrigerator? We’ve received reports that our customers may be having problems with their appliances.”
“Of course, we have a refrigerator.”
Stannis’ confusion was deepening by the second.
“Would you mind checking to see if it’s running?”
There was an exasperated sigh on the other end of the line. “Fine. Hold on.”
Davos held up a hand again when he saw Stannis about to speak.
“Yes, it’s running.”
“Well, then you’d better go and catch it.” Davos held the receiver out so Stannis could hear his sister-in-law ranting and then he dropped it on the hook.
“You made a prank call to my sister-in-law,” Stannis said slowly.
Davos reached down and pried off his extremely uncomfortable shoes. He flung them violently against the wall. He yanked off his tie. “I did.” He saw Stannis blinking rapidly. Davos tugged on the knot of Stannis’ tie.
Stannis seemed perplexed. “Why?”
He was somehow hotter for his confusion, Davos thought. He continued pulling at the tie until finally the silk gave way. He fumbled with the buttons on Stannis’ shirt. His fingers weren’t working properly and Stannis still looked half angry, half confused, and half aroused. “Too many halves,” Davos muttered.
“Too many halves?”
Davos pulled at the shirt and buttons scattered all over the floor.
“You’re drunk.”
“I do believe I am.” Davos put his hands on either side of Stannis’ head and kissed him hard. After a few seconds, Stannis kissed back.
They made a half-hearted attempt to make it up the stairs, but Davos was too insistent and they ended up on the floor.
It was, they both admitted the next day, one of their better couplings.
It also started a tradition.
* * *
The first half of the party wasn’t quite the ordeal Stannis grumpily predicted it would be. It was swarming with blond children, but the older boy aside, they were well-behaved and happy. The adults were less so, but they seemed wrapped up in their own problems. It didn’t help that a half an hour in, the Baratheons’ central air conditioning broke.
Joffrey Baratheon, when he wasn’t trying to impress Margaery, made a series of increasingly homophobic slurs clearly directed at Stannis and Renly. He seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the girl’s brother was gay and the partner of Renly.
And then Tyrion Lannister decided to liven up the festivities.
Stannis was on the other side of the room making grim conversation with his sister-in-law’s uncle when Tyrion offered Davos a drink. “It’s very refreshing,” he promised. “Iced milk with honey is just what you need on a hot day like this.”
Milk was never Davos Seaworth’s beverage of choice, but he was a polite man and he took the tumbler. The first sip was surprisingly pleasant. The second and third were even more so. It wasn’t until he was three-quarters of the way through his second glass that Tyrion revealed the secret ingredients were Kahlua and vodka. Quite a lot of vodka, Davos realized as his face started to flush.
“It’s called a White Walker,” Tyrion told him in a smug voice.
Judging by the way the adults were sucking them down, Davos wagered they’d all be members of the walking dead very soon.
It was no doubt a good thing that as the designated driver, Stannis was sticking to his beloved lemon water.
“Do you know I’ve never seen my father drunk before?”
Davos followed Tyrion’s gaze to where Tywin Lannister and Catelyn Stark were sniping at each other. They had been politely distant at the start of the party, but things were clearly getting heated, when suddenly, Catelyn put a hand to her auburn hair and gave Tywin Lannister a positively flirtatious look. Tywin Lannister gave her one right back.
In the midst of this, the oleaginous Petyr Baelish, who seemed to have his fingers in all sorts of enterprises, came up to talk to them.
Davos had overheard a few not-so-thinly-veiled insults directed at him by this man earlier, so he was not entirely unamused when during a lull in the conversation, Tywin Lannister told Baelish in his deep, distinctive voice, “Fuck off, you grimy, pathetic little pimp.”
If it weren’t for the fact that everyone was sweltering to death and drinking White Walkers, this probably would have achieved more comment. As it was, the only other person who seemed to have noticed was Loras Tyrell, who was laughing so hard he was crying.
Davos set the White Walker down on the table.
“Seven hells.”
Davos looked at Tyrion.
“He’s smiling.” Tyrion announced in a strangled voice. “My father is . . . oh dear gods, he’s laughing?"
It got progressively more interesting from there.
Oblivious to whatever the hell it was that his wife and Tywin Lannister were doing, Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon began singing. The songs they sang were not unfamiliar to Davos. He wasn’t what you would call a cultured man, but “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?” really didn’t seem to fit this particular occasion. What the two men lacked in vocal ability, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. At first the guests stared, but then several of the men began to join in.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Jaime Lannister was engaged in conversation with an extremely tall blonde woman. Whereas before she’d seemed gawky and awkward, now she looked very much at ease. Jaime Lannister was evidently being quite witty because she was laughing uproariously. In between his jokes, he kept staring at her eyes.
Renly came up to Stannis. “Stanny!”
Davos would have moved toward his partner, but he was having a hard time standing upright.
Stannis’ eyebrows went skyward.
“You’ve always been there for me and I’ve never appreciated you properly.”
Stannis started to say something when Renly enveloped him in a bear hug.
Davos could have predicted the stiffened body language, the awkward arm flailing, the terrified look on Stannis’ face. Stannis never responded well to sudden or public displays of affection, but Renly paid no heed.
Jaime Lannister and the tall blonde were now becoming what Devan liked to call “goopy.”
The only person not having a good time—other than Stannis, who was having difficulties extricating himself from his brother—was the hostess. After trying and failing to restore order, she looked for someone to blame. Cersei’s gimlet eye fell on Tyrion and then, by extension, Davos. She laid into them and she did not hold back.
Whether it was the White Walkers, the situation, or a combination of the two, Davos found it all extremely funny. The anti-gay remarks, the rudeness, the hostility, all were things he could forget in the face of what was shaping up to be one hell of a party.
Stannis could not. After they’d dropped Shireen off at her mother’s, he ranted for some time. “Bigots and drunks,” he said before going off about “licentious” something. Davos really couldn’t follow all of it. He was leaning his head out of the window trying not to vomit.
When they got back to the house, Stannis handed him the phone.
It took Davos a second to realize what he was supposed to do with it. He took a deep breath and dialed.
“Hello,” snapped Cersei on the other end of the line.
Davos decided Petyr Baelish’s raspy voice was one he could mimic. “Is this the Baratheon residence?”
“Yes.”
“I am calling to confirm your order.”
Stannis was watching him eagerly. He wasn’t laughing. Stannis never laughed at the prank calls. Actually, when Davos thought about it, he realized that he’d never seen Stannis laugh, not once.
“My order? What order?”
“According to our records, you requested twelve Lysene exotic dancers for the 3rd. I’m afraid we weren’t able to ensure that they’ll all be double-jointed.”
Cersei made a hiss a cobra would envy. “If you send just one of those girls out to my home, I will sue you for every copper stag your wretched company is worth.” And then with her mouth clearly away from the phone, came “ROBERT!”
Davos closed his eyes and laughed silently. “It wasn’t a Robert Baratheon who ordered them,” he said.
“What? Who? If it was Tyrion, I’ll kill him.”
“Were they all supposed to be girls? The request we received was for six boys and six girls.”
“What?”
The boy was twenty. He was, Davos decided, fair game. “Perhaps we have the wrong number.”
“Yes, I think you must.”
“It must be another Baratheon.”
Stannis cocked his head.
“You don’t happen to know a Joffrey Baratheon, do you?”
He barely got the phone in the cradle before Stannis was on him.
* * *
Stannis had flushed a dull brick red.
Catelyn Stark wore an expression of polite interest.
Davos had noticed that although they were seated next to each other, she and Tywin Lannister seemed to be doing their level best to pretend that the other wasn’t there.
Everyone was drinking water, even Robert, and it was making them all very, very grim.
Tyrion perked right up. “Prank calls? Did someone ask if you had Prince Rhaegar in a can? Or if your refrigerator was running?”
“Excuse me a moment,” Davos murmured while Cersei made scathing remarks about the unwashed youth of King’s Landing. He found a quiet corner in one of the many, many rooms of the Baratheon mansion and made a few calls of his own to some former associates possessed of a few last minutes on burners and some time on their hands.
When he returned, Cersei was busy explaining how she no longer picked up the phone unless the caller’s number was displayed.
“We’ve done that for years,” Ned commented. “They’re usually telemarketers.”
Clearly miffed to find that her idea was not a new one, Cersei went on to say that since adopting this practice, they had been free from the antics of juvenile delinquents for over a month.
Coincidentally, Stannis and Davos had not been forced to endure any gatherings at Robert and Cersei’s for over a month, but Davos focused on his salad.
Cersei kept getting up to check on the main course. She casually informed them that they were “roughing it” tonight because of some crisis with the household staff, but from what Stannis had told him on the car ride over, Davos gathered that the crisis was financial in nature. Robert Baratheon was deep in debt to his father-in-law, and rather recently, Tywin Lannister had declined to extend them any additional credit.
Surprisingly, Cersei turned out to be a rather good cook, but she’d chosen a menu that required a lot of her time and attention and it wasn’t improving her mood any having to run back and forth to the kitchen. It probably also did not help that both of her brothers had brought dates. Tyrion had shocked everyone by arriving in the company of Margaery Tyrell and Jaime Lannister had come with the 6’3” blonde.
They’d all started on the soup when the phone rang. Cersei let it go to their answering machine.
“Good afternoon, this is Tycho from the Iron Bank of Braavos. Please call us immediately at 1-800-555-9403 regarding the state of your—” Cersei was quicker than her husband to pick up the phone.
It didn’t seem to occur to her or Robert that all they had to do was turn the answering machine volume down, which worked out rather well as far as Davos was concerned.
From then on, every ten minutes or so, the phone rang. Every time, Cersei leapt for the phone. “Hello?”
Davos purposely didn’t look at Stannis once.
“No, there’s no one named Edd here. You must have the wrong number. No, I will not take a message for him.”
They were all variations on a theme.
Around the third call, Cersei grew suspicious. She hit *69 to obtain the number and she wanted answers. Her face cleared after an earnest conversation with someone who identified himself as “Sal.”
Davos could feel Stannis’ dark blue eyes focusing in on him like lasers cutting through steel. He would not look. If he looked, he would lose it.
“This Edd person has a similar number,” Cersei informed them all. “It’s off by a digit. He must have given it out incorrectly.”
Even with this new knowledge, Cersei’s temper was strained by the seventh incident.
They were having coffee and dessert when the phone rang for an eighth time. Robert thought it best if he picked up the receiver and this time Cersei let him.
“Hello?” Robert’s brow furrowed. “Edd?” He ignored his wife. “Now listen here—what?” He looked thoroughly confused. “You’re Edd?”
Davos stirred three sugar cubes into his coffee, willing himself not to look at Stannis.
Robert was deeply puzzled. “Cersei? He wants to know if he has any messages?” For a moment, Davos wondered if he’d gone too far. No one seemed to find it at all funny.
And then from across the table came a wheezing sound.
Everyone turned.
“It’ll be snowing in Dorne next,” Tyrion said in a wondering tone. “First Father laughing and now, Stannis.”
* * *