Spoiler Alert

by Olivia Dade

  Can you BELIEVE IT???!!! Mrs. Pius Aeneas had virtually screeched Wednesday night on her brand-new OMFG MC-R ASKED OUT A FAN chat thread, linking to the relevant tweets.

  LaviniaIsMyGoddessAndSavior responded with an endless stream of heart-eyes and streaming-tears emojis, too emotional for mere words.

  I TOLD YOU he was really a nice guy. I TOLD YOU! TopMeAeneas crowed. The way he defended her, I just— Her subsequent legs-spread, crotch-up gif said it all, really.

  Did you see that awful thread? It really was kind of him, LavineasOTP wrote. That poor woman.

  April had winced at LavineasOTP’s post. Taken off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, wondering if she’d made a terrible mistake.

  Pity. Shit, she despised pity, and the last thing she wanted to be was that poor woman.

  Then Book!AeneasWouldNever, largely absent from the server for a few days, had interjected. Why does everyone assume he asked her out of kindness alone? I mean, look at her. She’s pretty, and obviously very talented.

  His comment had changed the tenor of the thread, which—after a flurry of posts agreeing with his take—had then shifted to speculation as to what the date might entail.

  April had been tempted to post endless heart-eyes and streaming-tear emojis herself.

  Instead, she’d simply DMed BAWN one last time before bed. Thank you. Just . . . thank you.

  For what? he’d immediately responded, but she was too tired to explain.

  We can talk about it this weekend. I have some things I need to tell you. For now, though, I have to get some sleep. If I don’t hear from you before then, have a safe trip home, okay? xx

  The blinking dots had flashed and flashed. Okay. Sweet dreams, Ulsie. I’ll be back in your time zone soon.

  They both lived in California. She knew that much.

  She also knew he traveled a lot for work, something else they’d had in common until now. She got the sense he was a consultant of some sort, although she didn’t know for sure. In recent months, they’d both mentioned evaluating their career paths and their next professional steps. Finally, she knew he was a he, unlike the vast majority of Lavineas fans in their group.

  As soon as he’d helped set up the server, in fact, he’d explicitly informed everyone, concerned they’d feel misled or uncomfortable if they found out later.

  If my presence here ever makes any of you feel unsafe in any way, please tell me, and I’ll immediately bow out, he’d written. P.S. As a cishet guy, there are certain threads that may not be as applicable to me, so please forgive me for sitting them out.

  Via DM, he’d said a bit more to April last year. If you notice me being inadvertently creepy or offensive in any way, please, PLEASE let me know. I might not see it.

  She’d agreed, but so far, she hadn’t had to intervene. Not once. Other than the prompt way he bowed out of conversations about the hotness and fuckability of various actors, his maleness didn’t seem to influence his interactions on the server much.

  Of course, he didn’t write sex into his fics either, which had made her wonder.

  Maybe sex and sexuality in general made him uncomfortable. Maybe writing sex into his fics felt somehow predatorial or boundary-crossing to him, given his status as one of the few men in their group. Or maybe he just didn’t like writing explicit scenes. Some people didn’t.

  Not April. She loved including the Bang That Was Promised in her fics. But she’d long ago decided to either steer those particular stories toward other beta readers, rather than BAWN, or redact any explicit sections in the drafts she sent to him, because she absolutely, one hundred percent did not want to cause him any discomfort.

  Her latest story, accordingly, had been betaed by TopMeAeneas, not BAWN, even though—for once—she’d delved a bit into canon, or at least canon-compliance.

  She shoved her glasses more firmly onto the bridge of her nose.

  Okay. No more delays.

  She could either sit against her headboard and think about BAWN, or read the man’s actual messages from that morning and respond to him. Tell him what he needed to know and gauge his reaction.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: You went canon-compliant, huh? Bold choice, Ulsie.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Didn’t I say you’d rock canon if you ever tried it? You really captured Lavinia’s resentment at the marriage, the reluctance in her attraction, in a way most can’t. Also, the description of her wielding the sword: A+. Narrating a clear action sequence informed by her character’s history, her personality, and the skills she would and wouldn’t have is damn hard, and you pulled it off.

  She smiled at the screen. BAWN was so supportive of her work. Always.

  Funny how his praise of her action sequence echoed Marcus’s description of how the Gods of the Gates crew handled the show’s battle scenes. That approach must be more common than she’d realized as a fight sequence newbie.

  Later that morning, he’d sent one more message.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: You said you had something to talk to me about this weekend?

  Well, she supposed that was her cue. He deserved to know what was happening. In so many ways, for so many reasons.

  She wanted to know more about him too. Wanted to meet him in person at the next Con of the Gates, despite his professed shyness. Maybe tonight, once she took that first step and told him who she was on Twitter, showed him what she looked like, they could move toward a relationship that didn’t exist solely online.

  And if whatever was happening between her and Marcus would damage her chances with BAWN, she would happily—or at least, not overly unhappily—DM the actor and tell him the second date was off. He could comfort himself with one of his many hair products.

  Biting her lip, she winced at her own callousness.

  He wasn’t the shallow, uninteresting man she’d once thought him. She knew that now. He could be hurt. Would be hurt, if she changed her mind about their second date. But for BAWN, she’d handle the guilt and forgo the opportunity to dig deeper beneath Marcus’s surface.

  For BAWN, she’d expose her heart now.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Thank you for the lovely comments, here and on AO3. I have a feeling I’ll be writing a lot more canon in the near future. Which is related to what I need to tell you, actually.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: So . . . you saw that uproar the other night, when Marcus Caster-Rupp asked out a fan on Twitter?

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That fan was, uh, me. I use the handle @Lavineas5Ever there. Please don’t tell the rest of the group yet. I will eventually, but I wanted to talk to you about it first.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: We had our date tonight. Dinner at a restaurant. I’m posting pics later tonight on Twitter, although other people in the restaurant probably have their own shots up already.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: When you’re online, please let me know. Let’s chat.

  With that information, he could see her at long last. Face. Body.

  Caught talking or eating. From the side, the back, the front. In motion. Still.

  Oh, God, her heartbeat was echoing in her ears. And when BAWN’s response popped up within seconds, she literally jumped.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m here.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Wow. This is a surprising development.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: It’s wonderful to see your face, Ulsie.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Only my face?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: All of you. I just checked, and there are some very nice shots of your dinner tonight appearing online, as you said.

  Wonderful, he’d said. Very nice.

  Slowly, her heart rate was calming, the prickle of nervous sweat at her hairline diminishing.

  It was okay. It was okay. He’d seen her, and hadn’t turned away.

  She should have known. BAWN wasn’t shallow or unkind.

  He hadn’t even seemed especially shocked by news that she’d gone on a date with one half of their OTP, weirdly enough. Unable to resis
t, she did a quick internet search of her own, to discover what version of herself he’d just seen, and . . .

  Yes. There she was, on Twitter and Insta and one entertainment blog post already. In some shots, those bastards had caught her midchew. In others, though, she was smiling.

  In one, Marcus was leaning across the table, staring at her intently. Touching the back of her wrist in a way that made her shiver to remember, shiver to see from an outsider’s perspective.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You’re right. I just found a few of the pics.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I imagine it must be hard to have your private life suddenly so visible. Does it bother you?

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Well, it’s not my FAVORITE thing in the world, but it’s okay. In general, I don’t give a shit what strangers think. Just the people I care about.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Good.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: So how was the date?

  Here be dragons, she thought.

  Because she couldn’t really tell him much about her topsy-turvy dinner with the man who played Aeneas, could she? Not without violating Marcus’s privacy and contradicting his chosen public persona, which she refused to do.

  Even if that hadn’t been an issue, though, she wouldn’t have described the date in detail. If BAWN cared about her the same way she did him, hearing those details would sting, and she wasn’t about to hurt him. Not for anything.

  God, if he’d gone on a date with a famous actress, she couldn’t even imagine how insecure and worried she’d be. So no, she wasn’t sharing specifics. And depending on how he responded to their conversation tonight, there might not be any future specifics to omit.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: It was pleasant. He seems like a genuinely decent man. The food was EXCELLENT too. If you make it to San Francisco for Con of the Gates, maybe we could go there? My treat.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Any interesting tidbits? Behind-the-scenes secrets he let slip? Or personal anecdotes?

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Nope. None.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: He was very circumspect.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Do you want to see him again?

  His assumption that Marcus would be willing to see her again, that the existence or lack of a second date was entirely up to her, was flattering—but BAWN had entirely ignored her mention of meeting in person. Dammit.

  And she wouldn’t lie to him, so double dammit.

  She hoped he wouldn’t take her answer the wrong way.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: We agreed to meet again.

  While she was still in the midst of typing the second part to her answer, the part where she’d explain her willingness to cancel that agreed-upon date with Marcus if BAWN wanted to meet in person instead, her friend’s next message blinked to life on her screen.

  Then—

  Then, she had to swallow against the taste of bile as she read BAWN’s DM. Read it again, just to be sure she’d understood it correctly. The actual information, yes, but also the possible implications.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m glad we got a chance to chat tonight, because I wanted you to know I’m traveling again soon. I have a new job. Where I’m going, I don’t think I’ll have much internet access, if any. So this may be the last time you hear from me, at least for a while.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m sorry, Ulsie.

  AS SOON AS he returned to his hotel room from the restaurant, Marcus called his best friend.

  “I don’t know what to do.” He didn’t bother with formalities, not even a token apology for bothering Alex at such an ungodly hour—ha, ungodly—in Spain. “I need advice.”

  To Alex’s credit, he only called Marcus an asshole once or twice before asking for details. Even though Alex was still filming for one last week, still suffering through that endless climactic battle sequence, and still fuming over the abrupt, surprising end to Cupid’s character arc.

  Thank fuck for good friends.

  Gratefully, Marcus spilled the whole story, April and Ulsie and Book!AeneasWouldNever and—all of it. How he hadn’t confessed his own fanfic alter ego to April, even when she’d told him about hers. How he was going on a second date with her soon. How he didn’t know what to say to Ulsie as Book!AeneasWouldNever, or if he could even continue corresponding with her in that context without either explaining the truth or being a shady prick.

  “Maybe I should tell her who I am.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “She probably wouldn’t let it slip to anyone. When I asked her for the AO3 handle of her friend with dyslexia, she wouldn’t tell me. She seemed very protective of his—my—privacy.”

  Which hadn’t surprised him, not after more than two years of close online friendship. Still, people’s online identities didn’t always match their real-life selves. He was evidence enough of that.

  To win a second chance with April, he’d needed to reveal something personal about himself. Something private. And after a minute or two of thought, he had. But he’d chosen the revelation of his dyslexia for a reason. If that bit of news broke, he honestly didn’t care that much. Plenty of other actors were open about being dyslexic, and joining their ranks wouldn’t bother him.

  That particular secret wasn’t as damaging as, say, the fact that he’d been aping a shallow, dim stereotype of a Hollywood actor for years. Or that he’d posted comments and written stories about his character, his show, that clearly showed just how much he hated the scripts he’d been given in recent seasons.

  “I want to tell her.” He sighed and slumped over his phone. “But one inadvertent word to the wrong person, and I could lose everything.”

  His reputation in the industry. His prospects of future gainful employment. His hard-fought pride at everything he’d accomplished over two decades and the respect he’d earned from others.

  With Alex making occasional, sleepy grunts of affirmation in the background, Marcus rambled for a while longer. A long while longer. By the time he eventually wound down and asked point-blank whether he should tell April about Book!AeneasWouldNever, his friend was too tired to sugarcoat anything.

  Alex expressed his opinion in three short words: “Dude. Your career.”

  His judgment about further DMs with April as Book!AeneasWouldNever required four instead: “Don’t be a dick.”

  And that was that, in the end.

  So by the time April finally appeared on the Lavineas server and responded to his earlier DMs, Marcus already knew what he had to do. Had to say.

  I’m sorry, Ulsie, he dictated into the microphone, and he meant it.

  The prospect of a second date with April shimmered in the near distance like an oasis. Or better yet, Virgil’s description of the Elysian fields in the Aeneid, which the Gates crew had faithfully tried to bring to life for the finale. Welcoming. Blissful.

  Still. Cutting off communication with her as Book!AeneasWouldNever hurt. Worse than Marcus had even imagined. Worse than that time Ian hadn’t sufficiently pulled his kick on camera and nailed Marcus right in the kidney.

  But what else could he do? Ever since he’d walked her to her car after dinner and left her with his number in her phone, a squeeze of her hand, and a kiss on her cheek—

  Warm. Velvety. Rose-scented. Infinitely nuzzle-able. God, he wanted her.

  —he’d been considering his options, and as Alex had helpfully confirmed, he had none. Not really. Not unless he wanted to be either a fool or an asshole.

  He wasn’t a fool, despite what his parents and a good chunk of the world believed. And he wasn’t enough of an asshole to keep communicating with April under another name without her knowledge.

  The way he’d prodded her for inside information about himself as a sort of test, the way he’d discovered her feelings about their second date and public scrutiny under false pretenses, all that was bad enough. He wasn’t doing worse. Not to the woman he’d been corresponding with for years, and not to the woman he’d met tonight.

  If the second date didn�
�t work out, Book!Aeneas could return early from his business trip, and their online friendship could resume, with her none the wiser. And if the second date did work out . . .

  Well, without all those DMs, he’d have more time to spend with April in person.

  Face-to-face. Body to body. Finally.

  Although he didn’t honestly know what he’d do without the Lavineas community and his writing. It was going to be a hard, hard adjustment. Worth it, though. For her.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You won’t have internet access? Not even on your phone?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m not allowed to contact anyone outside work, not on this job.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Uh

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Are you a spy, or

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Dammit.

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Look, BAWN, I want you to be honest with me.

  Oh, no. No, no, no.

  He didn’t want to lie to her more than he already had, but—

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Did you see those pictures of me, and think

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Think what?

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Think maybe you weren’t interested in talking to me anymore, because of them?

  What? What the actual, ever-loving fuck was she talking about?

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: NO.

  Book!AeneasWouldNever: Absolutely not. JFC, Ulsie!

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Okay, so if that’s not it, is this about my second date with Marcus? Because if you wanted to meet in person, at Con of the Gates or wherever, whenever, if

  Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: If you were interested in me that way, I could DM him. Cancel the second date.

  At the confirmation that she’d grown just as attached to him as he was to her, that she valued the man he’d shown himself to be online—his real self—more than the gleaming star he’d put on display earlier that night, Marcus collapsed in on himself.

  Chin to chest, he covered his face. Breathed deeply. Tried to recapture the certainty that had burned so brightly mere minutes ago.