Of course you chose the option that’s both canon-compliant and rife with possibilities for Man Pain. Of course.
MARCUS SNORTED, THEN SAT UP IN BED.
As soon as he’d blinked awake in the early-morning dimness of a curtained hotel room, he’d reached for his phone. Before his eyes could fully focus, he’d already checked his messages from Ulsie on the Lavineas server.
Although, to be fair, that blurriness could just be a sign of advanced age. He was turning forty in a few months, and maybe he needed bifocals now. Even the special font and extra spacing didn’t always help him read his screen comfortably these days.
Late last year, he’d finally asked Ulsie how old she was.
Thirty-six, she’d promptly replied.
At that bit of information, he’d heaved an embarrassingly enormous sigh of relief and hoped like hell she wasn’t lying. Some of the people in their group were barely out of high school, and although he’d figured he and Ulsie were about the same age—one day, they’d discussed how they might turn to the X-Files fandom at some point, due to their adolescent crushes on Scully and Mulder, respectively—the explicit confirmation that he wasn’t DMing a near-teenager was . . . good.
Not that anything suggestive had ever passed between them, either in public or in private.
But still.
Ulsie’s most recent message had arrived only minutes ago. He was surprised she was still awake. Glad, though. Very glad.
Shoving a pillow behind his back, he sat up against the leather headboard. Took a sip from his bedside water glass, still smiling at her snark.
Using the voice-to-text feature on his phone, he sent her a response. At least I mostly write happy endings now. Cut me some slack. We can’t all be masters of fluff. After a moment, he added, Are you about to sleep? Or do you want to talk about your fic and brainstorm a bit? If you have anything written already, I’m happy to look it over.
Or, more accurately, have his computer read it aloud to him. Short messages he could handle without extra technical support, but deciphering lengthier blocks of text simply took too much time, given his recent shooting schedule.
Of course, he had plenty of time right now. Until his flight back to LA that afternoon, he planned to do nothing more strenuous than hit the hotel’s breakfast buffet and visit the gym. If he wanted to, he could read her fic with his eyes. But as he’d discovered over the years, there was no need to struggle unnecessarily and no reason for frustration and shame. Not when his relatively common problem had relatively easy workarounds.
While he waited for her response, he checked his email. Overnight, he’d apparently received a confidential message in his inbox from R.J. and Ron, one addressed to all cast and crew.
In the past several days, multiple blogs and media outlets have reported rumors of cast discontent over the direction of our final season. If anyone reading this message is the source of such rumors, let us be clear: this is an unacceptable breach of both our trust and the contract all of you signed upon being hired by our show.
Your job, as always, involves discretion. If you cannot maintain that necessary discretion, there will be consequences, as per your contracts.
Well, that seemed clear enough. Talk out of turn about the show and prepare for unemployment, a lawsuit, or both. They’d received at least one similar email each and every season, all phrased almost exactly the same way.
The only difference: In recent seasons, the messages had started to make him sweat. For the sake of his coworkers. For his own sake too.
Would Carah share her deeply felt and profanity-laden hatred of Dido’s final-season story arc to someone outside the cast? Had Summer confessed her disappointment about how Lavinia’s romantic story line with Aeneas had ended so abruptly, in a way so inconsistent with their characters? Or maybe Alex—
Shit, Alex. He could be so reckless sometimes. So impulsive.
Had he bitched to anyone but Marcus about how the finale fucked up seasons’ worth of character development for Cupid?
Despite his own discontent, Marcus hadn’t said a word to anyone other than Alex, although . . .
Well, some might argue his fanfiction on AO3 and messages on the Lavineas server did plenty of talking for him.
By some, he meant Ron and R.J.
And if they ever found out about Book!AeneasWouldNever, there was no might about it. They would definitely accuse him of violating his contract terms, and he’d lose—
Shit, he’d lose everything he’d worked for more than two decades to achieve. The potential lawsuit was the least of it, really. His reputation in the industry would be destroyed in an instant. No director wanted to hire an actor who might badmouth a production behind the scenes.
His fellow cast members would likely feel betrayed too. Same with the crew.
He should give up his fanfic alter ego. He knew it. And he would, he would, if only the writing didn’t mean so much to him, if only the Lavineas server group didn’t mean so much to him, if only Ulsie—
Ulsie. God, Ulsie.
He wanted to meet her in person almost as much as he wanted a clear path forward in his career, in his public life. Under the circumstances, though, that was never, ever going to happen. So he would appreciate what they could have. What they did have.
And what they could have, what they did have, he wasn’t giving up. Contract violation be damned.
After deleting R.J. and Ron’s email, he ignored the rest of his inbox and checked Twitter instead.
His notifications were bristling with commentary on the photos Vika had posted of him overnight, complete with multiple references to him as a dirty boy. There were a few pleas for retweets and birthday wishes, as well as some impressive examples of fan art.
Nothing he either needed or intended to answer. For the most part, he used this account entirely for the sake of publicity, retweeting especially flattering pics and alerts for con appearances and upcoming episodes. Occasionally he responded to one of his Gods of the Gates costars’ tweets, but that was about it. Keeping up the Well-Groomed Golden Retriever act was tiring enough in person; he had no intention of continuing the performance on the internet unless absolutely necessary.
His real online life happened on one site. Okay, two sites: the Lavineas server and AO3.
Ulsie hadn’t responded to his DMs yet. Dammit.
He could wait a few more minutes before giving up and getting breakfast, though. With a sigh, he scrolled back further through his Twitter notifications, until he reached ones from an hour or so ago. Then he hesitated when an odd word caught his eye.
Hoifer. No, heifer.
Heifer?
Frowning, he paused. Read the actual tweet.
It was connected to a photo of a curvy, pretty redhead cosplaying Lavinia. She’d apparently posted the pic in response to the official Gods of the Gates Twitter account’s request for images of fan costumes. Then some prick had attached his own commentary to the redhead’s tweet, comparing her to a farm animal.
He’d tagged Marcus too, inviting his favorite actor to join in the hilarity at the very idea that a woman like—Marcus checked her Twitter handle—@Lavineas5Ever could ever imagine herself capable of portraying Aeneas’s on-screen love interest.
She hadn’t responded, but other fanboys had piled on afterward, and shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
He couldn’t just ignore this.