Chapter Text
The video opens to a shot of Eddie Munson attached to a lie detector machine. He is leaning his chin on one hand and grinning at the person behind the camera. From offscreen the voice of Corroded Coffin bandmate Gareth speaks:“Would you ever flirt with a fan in the interest of sleeping with them?”
Eddie’s smile drops and he gives the camera, Gareth and the polygraph examiner each a flat look before looking back towards Gareth and replying, “....No, I would never flirt with a fan in the interest of sex. What do you take me for? Some sort of deranged rock star taking advantage of people? You’re starting to sound like all those people who think we’re corrupting the youth.” By the end he is grinning again and leaning forward about to make another joke when the polygraph examiner interrupts, “He’s lying”.
“I AM NOT!” Eddie whips his head towards the examiner who simply shrugs and gestures at the machine. He turns back to Gareth who is giggling into his closed fist. Eddie levels Gareth with a look before sitting up straight and placing his hands flat on the table. He inhales, making Gareth laugh more, before looking at him head on, “Rephrase the question please.”
“Would you ever flirt with a fan that you wanted to have sex with… again?”
Eddie looks straight at the camera, blinks once and replies, “No.”
“He’s telling the truth.”
***
“All I’m saying is that this is not great publicity. You all have always had a fraught relationship with the public but this looks bad. Actually hitting on someone because you want sex is a really bad look for a performer.”
Eddie turns his head to look at his band manager Nancy. She is sitting across the table from him and looks as presentable as ever. Her hair is clipped back on one side and she is going through the papers laid out in front of her and does not even notice him looking at her. He throws up his hands and lets his head fall to the table, grumbling into the wood surface, “It’s not as if that was even what was actually going on at the time.” He picks his head up and points at Nancy, who is finally looking at him and then shifts to point at each of the other members of the band sitting around the table as well as the band photographer Jonathan who is also there for some reason. “And you ALL know that!” He lets his head fall back onto the table and creates a cave with his arms.
“Eddie, you and I both know that you aren’t taking advantage of your fans but the fans don’t know that,” Nancy admonishes, her voice softening ever so slightly.
“Though,” replies Gareth from the end of the table, looking completely unbothered, “it doesn’t seem like our fans have a problem with the idea of Eddie taking advantage of them.” Everyone at the table looks at him with flat expressions and Eddie lets his head fall back down after just being able to raise it slightly. “What? I’m serious, I have seen a lot of Tiktoks just today of people planning their outfits for the upcoming tour with the express intention of getting Eddie to flirt with them in the interest of sex.”
“I swear to God…” muttered Eddie, though no one was listening to him at all by this point.
“It matters more to me at this point what the news outlets are doing with this information and how that will affect the tour.” Nancy replies dryly. “Which reminds me, I know for a fact that that question was not cleared by the team before the lie detector interview.”
Eddie picks up his head from the table to see Nancy staring Gareth down before he eventually looks away, seeming slightly cowed. Gareth sighs before looking back up at Nancy, “The guys and I thought it would be funny to throw Eddie off in the interview. Make it more interesting. You know we’ve been having interview wars for years now!”
“I am well aware,” Nancy said looking over all of the other members of Corroded Coffin, looking as if she was regretting her life choices that had gotten her to this point. “However, in this case I don’t think you were thinking hard enough about who was going to get affected by this little prank.” She looked at all of them slowly. As she did, realization seemed to dawn on each of them. “Understood?”
All of the guys muttered agreements or apologies and Jeff, who was sitting next to Eddie, bumped his shoulder lightly. When Eddie looked over Jeff was looking appropriately chagrinned. “Sorry man, we really weren't thinking.”
Eddie just shrugged back at him and smiled a little bit. It wasn’t as if he was going to stay mad or had ever really been mad to begin with. The band had withstood worse scandals in their last nine years of being in the public eye and they had managed to bounce back from everything so far. This wasn’t really going to be any different. And, as Gareth had so helpfully pointed out, it wasn’t like they were really getting any negative press from their actual fanbase, just more people thinking about how they were going to try and get into Eddie’s pants. There were worse things. But he wasn’t the only one who was going to feel the effects of this little prank and that was the problem.
Eddie was pulled back from getting too in his head by Nancy’s voice, “Eddie, did you hear me?”
“No, sorry Nance, got lost in thought.”
She looked at him levelly. “I said that from my perspective as your manager and friend, I am fine with fielding this however you would prefer.”
He looked at her with confusion, “Meaning what exactly?”
She tidied her papers in front of her, looking down over her nose before looking back up at him. “I mean, if there was any part of you that wanted to be more public about certain areas of your life then you have the support of your team. I would only ask that you make sure that everyone involved in this situation is on board with the plan before you do anything.” She gave him a significant look that he did not have to reach to grasp the meaning of.
He nodded at her once before plastering a grin on his face and spreading his arms out to the side, “When have I ever left you out of the loop dear manager?”
She snorted before standing up and gathering her papers and bag, “Many times but don't let that happen with this.” She looked around at all of them, “Pleasure as always, you’ll all be getting my notes about the pre-show interview for Sunday. And please actually read them this time. I do not want a repeat of last year’s cosmo interview. Gareth was in the press for weeks after that.”
The guys all exploded with complaints and jibs towards Gareth and questions about the timing for the interview before the show. Eddie slid down in his seat slightly, his mind working at warp speed. Being more public… it had never even been something he had entertained as an option. He hadn't even thought of wanting it but it could be nice. He felt a presence beside him and looked over to see that Jonathan and crouched down beside his chair. “Hey man,” he said with a small smile, “I saw something online earlier that I thought you might be interested to see. I sent it to you privately but,” and he trailed off slightly before looking back at Eddie and clapping him on the shoulder. “Watch it, I think it’ll make you feel a bit better.”
***
Later, after a costume fitting and meeting with the set designer, Eddie settled back into the back seat of his driver’s car. He had been asked to stop driving himself after moving to LA because some had said that he couldn’t be trusted on busy roadways. And maybe those people had been right though Eddie would never admit to that fact. He pulled out his phone, remembered what Jonathan had mentioned earlier and checked his messages. Jonathan had sent him a tiktok and Eddie couldn’t help the sigh that escaped him. He trusted Jonathan’s judgement but he had frankly been seeing enough about his own sordid life since the lie detector interview had been released. He looked at the screen for a moment more before letting out another sigh and clicking in the video.
The video started with a kid, maybe 18 by the looks of him, in a very emo coded bedroom wearing black Corroded Coffin band tee and bleached hair. He can’t help but smile at the kid. The kid takes a breath and spreads his hands slightly. “Okay, so this is going to be a bit of a long one so stick with me. If you are a fan of my page then you are probably also a fan of Corroded Coffin and if you are a fan of the band then you have seen the news over the last 48 hours.” The video cuts to the infamous clip of the interview before going back to the kid. “Now this has caused a lot of uproar in the community for many reasons ranging from people thinking that Eddie is gross to people planning slutty concert outfits for the upcoming tour.” The kid grins at that and holds up his hands in a surrender type gesture. “Go off on that last one I guess. But anyway with everything going on I think people are missing the main point here. Later in the interview Eddie asks for the question to be rephrased.” The tiktok again stitches the interview when Gareth asks if Eddie would ever do it again and he says no. The kid appears back on screen. “Now, to me this indicates that Eddie may have flirted with a fan but that it might have been a long time ago and led to a relationship. A relationship that he is possibly still in. Eddie has been incredibly private through the entire nine years that Corroded Coffin has been in the public eye. The other guys have been spotted out at bars with hook ups or on dates with partners but Eddie never has been. And I know what you all might be thinking, that I literally have nothing to back this up.” The kid grins at the camera, clearly giddy. “Wrong! My cousin was lucky enough to catch a show that CC did eight and a half years ago when they were just starting to gain traction in the metal scene.” The video cuts again and Eddine sucks in a breath.
In the admittedly very grainy video he can see himself on a small stage with the rest of the band arrayed behind him. The video version of himself leans into the microphone grinning and looking around the audience. “Beautiful, beautiful people make some noise!” The crowd in the video responds with a wall of noise before video Eddie holds out his hands to quiet them. “Thank you thank you! You all have been amazing! We just have a couple more songs for you tonight but before the next one I wanted to make a little dedication.” Video Eddie pauses for effect and even through the grain of the camera he can see his own eyes zero in on someone in the audience. “This next one goes out to a special someone in the audience. Someone who is looking really very fine right now and who, I can imagine, is very good with their hands. Baby, if you ever want to take the plunge,” and here Eddie grinned wolfishly and leaned further into the microphone, “I’m an excellent swimmer.” The band then kicked off into the next song and the kid was back on the screen. Eddie couldn’t help but blink dumbly at the screen. He didn’t know that had ever been caught on film.
“So, all I’m saying is that that looks like flirting with a fan and maybe it just ended badly and that’s why Eddie said he would never do it again or maybe they're still together. It would explain why Eddie never dates. I don’t know, I’m probably way off base but it honestly just feels right to me. Let me know what y’all think.” The video ends and something nonsensical pops up on Eddie’s screen. He quickly closes the tab and stares at the headrest in front of him. He needs to get home now.