“Blah, blah, blah.” She rolled her eyes. “His moral responsibilities didn’t begin and end with the residents of Mount Olympus. He could have left a damn note, at least.”
His nostrils flared as he exhaled. “Okay, okay. You’re right. That was shitty. But it was one of the bits included in both the Aeneid and Wade’s books, so there was no way to play it differently.”
BAWN had made the same argument to her before, and he’d been equally wrong then. “Of course. Because your showrunners were always so very faithful to the source material they were given.”
He didn’t bother arguing, probably because there really was no good counterargument. Instead, he only grinned at her and took her hand again, interlacing their fingers. “No comment.”
“Oh, I think that’s comment enough.” She scooted closer to him. Closer again, until she was pressed along the length of his side, softness against taut strength. Heat against heat. “If you’re still worried I don’t know who you are, show me who you are. I’ll prove I can differentiate the man from the performance.”
“I’ll—” His voice choked to silence as her open mouth roamed along his shoulder. Over the ridges of his ribs. Down to that blessed divot at his hip, then in and down again. “I’ll try my best.”
“Thank you. Now I intend to try my best too.”
After that, her mouth was too occupied for further discussion, and once she was through with him, that worried expression was gone, gone, gone, replaced by dazed pleasure and appreciation and a sort of panting beam in her direction.
“April . . .” He reached for her afterward, dragging her up into his sweaty, trembling arms. “Jesus. California should declare your mouth a national treasure of some sort. A landmark? Something.”
Smiling as smugly as he ever had, she basked in every well-earned bit of praise. Lord knew she wasn’t going to argue with him.
He might have mastered unicycling and chopping and emotive sniffing and swordplay, but she had her own particular set of skills when it came to swords. They deserved appreciation too.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Fandoms: Gods of the Gates – E. Wade, Gods of the Gates(TV)
Relationships: Aeneas/Lavinia, Aeneas/Dido, Lavinia & Dido
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe – Modern, Alternate Universe High School, Competition, Fluff, Emotional Sublimation through Trivia Domination, Jealousy, The Author Doesn’t Actually Know a Lot of Trivia, She Probably Should Have Chosen Another Premise, Whatever, Too Late Now
Collections: Aeneas and Lavinia Week
Stats: Words: 1754 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 34 Kudos: 115
Bookmarks: 8
Trivial Concerns
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan
Summary:
Dido and Lavinia don’t like one another. More specifically, Dido hates Lavinia for dating Dido’s ex, and Lavinia does her best to avoid Dido. But when trivia competitions call, a woman must answer.
Notes:
A response to the prompt: a showdown between Aeneas’s two lady loves. Thank you to Book!AeneasWouldNever, as always, for your insightful, patient, supportive beta services.
* * *
. . . next round, their score now tied.
A new question appeared on the screen. This movie won James Cameron a golden statuette for Best Director in 1998.
Well, that was obvious enough. Lavinia managed to ring in first. “Titanic.”
“Ah, yes.” Dido straightened into her Class President stance, eyes narrowed. “The story of how true love never dies, even after a lengthy separation.”
Lavinia rolled her eyes. “Rose eventually had kids with another dude, Dido. She got over it.”
The unspoken message: Maybe you should too.
“She waited eighty-four years to say goodbye to Jack. Eighty. Four. Years,” Dido retorted, hands on her hips.
Lavinia threw her own hands in the air. “Instead of waiting eighty-four years, maybe she should have moved her butt a bit to the side and shared the damn board with him in the first place!”
“Ladies—” the teacher in charge began.
“If he’d let her, she would have!” Dido yelled. “But he just turned into a Popsicle without warning her!”
They weren’t talking about Rose and Jack anymore, if they ever had been, and Lavinia took a deep breath.
Aeneas was her boyfriend. She loved him. But the way he’d ghosted Dido right before junior prom, at his parents’ demand, was cruel, and she wouldn’t make excuses for him. She and Dido might never be close, but she knew the other girl had hurt then, and was still hurting now. Truly.
“You’re right.” She met Dido’s tear-bright eyes. “But then he was gone, and he wasn’t coming back, and she deserved to be happy again without him. I know he would want that, because he truly cared about her.”
Dido nodded, a jerk of her trembling chin.
“Maybe we can move on?” the teacher prodded.
Lavinia eyed Dido questioningly. The other girl nodded again, and even tried to smile at Lavinia. It was shaky, but genuine.
“I think we can,” Dido said.
The next day, when Aeneas saw the two girls huddled around the same cafeteria table at lunch, laughing together and sharing secrets, he turned on his heel and ran.
19
AFTER APRIL RETREATED TO HER TINY OFFICE-SLASH-guest-room with her coworker Mel, the women chatting about seam allowances and detachable panels and other topics that totally baffled Marcus, Alex turned toward him on the overstuffed couch.
“So you just followed your girlfriend home like a stray kitten and refused to leave her lap afterward?” Alex raised one dark brow, clearly amused. “Good move. Pathetic, of course, but effective.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong, necessarily. Irritating, yes. Incorrect, no.
As Alex knew all too well, after that first night with April, Marcus just . . . never left San Francisco. Not for longer than a weekend, anyway. Not for the past month.
He’d kept a nearby hotel room reserved in his name, paid for with his credit card, but he hadn’t spent much time in the suite. If at all possible, he never intended to. Its availability was more a statement to April. A declaration that he wouldn’t assume his welcome in her apartment, even though they were together now. Reassurance that if she tired of him, she could send him packing, and he’d have someplace to stay, even in the dark of night.
So far, though, she hadn’t seemed to mind his near-constant presence in her life and home. So far, he hadn’t experienced a single moment of regret for the choice to stay there.
Nothing was keeping him in Los Angeles, not until he picked another role, and he hadn’t done that yet, despite the ever-more-anxious emails sent by his faithful agent. April’s apartment was more comfortable than his house, if significantly smaller and less expensively furnished, and his filming schedule had kept him away from LA for months at a time before. The extended absence didn’t bother him. The Bay Area, despite its painful associations for him, had always felt more like home than Southern California anyway.
His current location also offered a certain amount of extra protection from paparazzi, who would travel north from LA for exclusive pics of a television star with his new girlfriend, but only grudgingly and for short periods of time.