Turned out there was a reason they’d never expected that kind of honesty from a Gods of the Gates actor. Because it damaged careers. Specifically, Alex’s.
As soon as she finished reading his fanfic, she searched for recent tweets about him, as well as new posts on entertainment blogs and websites, because there was absolutely no way knowledge of his online alter ego wouldn’t cause an uproar. Not given the content of his stories.
The search lasted seconds. Less than that.
Alex’s name was everywhere. He was trending on Twitter. He was the subject of breathless articles on the internet and smirking tidbits on television. On her laptop screen, he was looking out at her from a generic hotel dais, his face ruddy, his smile feral, his reputation in his chosen industry damaged. Maybe irreparably.
According to the most reliable blogs, Gods of the Gates’s furious showrunners were considering legal action or eye-popping monetary retaliation. One of Alex’s costars, the guy who played Jupiter, had denounced him on camera as an ungrateful turncoat. Worst of all, everyone seemed to agree: future directors and producers would avoid working with Alex, for fear he might turn on them in public as well.
Unhireable, one article called him.
CASTING POISON, an entertainment show’s chyron read. ACTOR’S WRITING PROMPTS BACKLASH.
His agent and lawyer were apparently working feverishly behind the scenes. Marcus too, of course. The articles didn’t say as much, but she knew him. He would be in the midst of the chaos, trying to support his friend and help however he could.
Before she quite knew what she was doing, her phone was in her hands, and she was tapping out a quick text to him.
When you get a chance, please tell Alex I’m thinking of him and wishing him luck. I hope he’s okay. After a moment, she added, No need to respond. I know you’re both busy.
Delivered, her phone told her. Good. He hadn’t blocked her number.
Within a minute, he’d written back, and just that simple fact made her eyes blur yet again. It didn’t even matter that his response was brief.
Lauren’s fired. Too late to fire him, since filming’s done. He might be able to avoid fines and a lawsuit, but IDK.
He’d responded. Not only that, he’d told her private information he wouldn’t want disclosed to the public—even though they weren’t officially together anymore, and she had reason to feel vengeful.
He trusted her. He did.
Okay, she wrote. Thank you for telling me.
Marcus didn’t respond a second time. Not then, not later that night.
As she waited for a text that never came, she kept scrolling through Twitter, kept reading more articles about Alex and the ruins of his hard-won Hollywood reputation, kept questioning herself and how she’d excoriated Marcus less than a week ago.
He should have known, she’d told him so self-righteously. He should have trusted her with his online identity. He should have laid his career in her hands once he found out she was Unapologetic Lavinia Stan, heedless of the danger to his livelihood and the reputation he’d built over two decades of endless, dedicated work.
And he should have done all that, according to her, even though public knowledge of what he’d said, what he’d written, would have damned him to Alex’s same fate.
The words had rolled so easily off her tongue, as if she knew what the fuck she was talking about, as if she understood the consequences he would invite. But as he’d tried to tell her, she hadn’t understood. She really hadn’t, as the aftermath of Alex’s revelation made clear.
Maybe Marcus still should have trusted her. After a month together. After two. But for a man who’d found his first, hard-won taste of self-worth and pride through his career, she could see how he would hesitate, even then.
Of course, he’d said trust wasn’t the main issue. Not in the end.
I was scared. I was terrified you’d leave me.
And she had.
On her laptop, she found herself searching for his parents’ articles about Gods of the Gates. They weren’t hard to find, given how extensively tabloids and entertainment reporters alike had publicized the obvious rift between Marcus and his mother and father.
Even years before meeting Marcus in person, she’d found the media’s fascination with that rift ghoulish, and she’d refused to read any articles on the topic. But now—now she needed to understand.
Stomach churning, she sat on her bed and studied his parents’ op-ed essays, inspecting them for some connection to Marcus, some telltale indication that these were the people who’d birthed and shaped him.
It was like seeing Marcus through a funhouse mirror, his image distorted and unsettling.
His intelligence was transformed into disdain. His facility with writing turned dry and unemotional. His life’s work warped into a source of shame rather than pride. His place in their lives rendered so small they didn’t have to acknowledge it.
But she could see him, still. On her couch. In her arms. Unsteady and wet-eyed and whispering in a cracked voice about what he owed them. What they deserved from him.
If he could forgive them, good for him.
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
He didn’t owe them anything. She, on the other hand, owed him an apology.
For all her talk about trust, she hadn’t prepared him for her own parents or her volatility after time spent in their presence. She hadn’t described the disgust on her father’s face when she needed new clothes, in a larger size, yet again. She hadn’t told him how her mother would stand naked in front of a mirror and pinch folds of her own flesh, near tears as she evaluated whether she was still thin enough to be loved by her husband.
She hadn’t explained the abject humiliation of realizing a man who’d just seen her naked, who’d just been inside her, wanted her to have a different body instead, and she hadn’t shared her heartbroken rage when that same man would expect her to get naked, spread her legs, and offer her deficient body to him again, regardless.
Those pieces of her past were crucial to understanding her, as crucial as his online identity was to understanding him. But neither of them had said a word.
I was scared. I was terrified you’d leave me.
Even if she wanted to fix things between them, though, even if she could fix things between them, now wasn’t the time, and this hotel wasn’t the place. They both had responsibilities and meetings and friends to attend to.
As if on cue, her phone buzzed with a text from a number she’d entered into her contacts only yesterday. Cherise’s—AKA TopMeAeneas’s—number, shared through a DM on the Lavineas server in preparation for the con.
Sorry to text so late. Hope I didn’t wake you up. Didn’t see you on the server tonight, so I wanted to give you a heads-up: we’re all still meeting for breakfast on Sunday, but you’ll see us tomorrow morning too. Like hell we’re missing your cosplay contest debut, woman.
Well, fuck. Time to wet yet another washcloth and claim even more tissues.
These were different tears, though. Happy tears.
She had a community now—communities, actually; plural—and she didn’t need to hide anything from any of them. Not at work, not online, not anywhere. They knew her and accepted her, exactly as she was. They wanted to support her.
Thank you, she finally wrote back, vision blurry from fatigue and the aftermath of tears. But you don’t have to come. I know there are other sessions happening at the same time.