Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(100)
There was a faint whimpering sound then, and if Marcus had to guess, he’d say it originated from Lauren.
Alex waited another moment, head tilted in thought. Then he smiled one last time.
“No, that’s everything.” Another little bow. “I’m done.”
He strode offstage to the sound of shocked murmuring and stopped next to Marcus, his body exuding unbelievable heat. Eyes clenched shut, he was once again heaving out breaths like that bull, ready to scrape the ground and charge.
“Alex.” When his friend didn’t respond, Marcus tried again. “Alex.”
This time, Alex managed to focus on him.
“You really are done, unless you find a way to do damage control immediately.” He laid a careful hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in the room as soon as the photo sessions are finished, but you need to call your agent and your lawyer and anyone else in your camp who can help. Right now.”
Alex’s eyes closed again, and his shoulders finally dropped. He nodded.
“I know,” he said, his voice resigned but not apologetic. “I know.”
Lavineas Server
Thread: WTAF Is Up with This Season’s Scripts?
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: There are so many issues. So many.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I still don’t understand why the showrunners moved the story from ancient Rome to quasi-medieval Europe. (Yes, I know what BAWN will say.) Mrs. Pius Aeneas: “Trying to ride the coattails of Game of Thrones.”
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Exactly. But even a thousand years later, people weren’t saying “stressed out.” Even I, a woman who does NOT dabble in canon, know THAT.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Thank you for saying it so I didn’t have to, MPA.
TopMeAeneas: Even apart from all the anachronisms, the dialogue just seems so much more . . . rudimentary? . . . than in the first three seasons.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: That’s not a coincidence. One book per season. Three books.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: The showrunners never understood the characters. They relied on the books and the actors. Now the books are gone, and the actors will do their best to sell what they’re given, but they can’t simply make up plots and dialogue.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: At least, that’s the rumor. I don’t know for sure.
28
APRIL SKIPPED ALEX’S Q&A SESSION, SCARED SHE MIGHT see Marcus there. Afterward, though, she couldn’t avoid hearing about it.
“He just . . . announced it,” a guy with stylized wings on his tee said to a circle of his friends, looking shocked but titillated. Cupid Gets Shit Done, No Diaper Needed, the shirt read. “Without any prompting. And apparently his fics all include pegging?”
Edging behind a large potted plant, April listened to the fourth iteration of this conversation she’d encountered in the last ten minutes, hoping to glean some piece of information—anything—that might mitigate her worries for Alex.
A young woman with Psyche’s trademark circlet on her head crinkled her brow. “Pegging?”
Another fan, her T-shirt emblazoned with a map of the underworld, beckoned the first woman closer and whispered in her ear for a minute.
“Oh.” The Psyche fan blinked. “Oh.”
At her expression and pinkening face, they all laughed.
“Filming for the final season’s done, right?” Another of their friends, a fortysomething man with a plastic sword strapped to his hip, sounded highly entertained. “At this point, can they still fire him?”
Cupid Tee snorted. “Maybe not, but they can sue him. I’d be shocked if they didn’t.”
When the group began moving toward one of the halls for their photo sessions, April didn’t follow, and she didn’t attempt to eavesdrop on any more conversations. They all contained the same basic information, and they all offered her one inevitable conclusion.
Alex was fucked.
She was now glad she’d missed his session, and she did not intend to watch any of the countless YouTube clips uploaded within minutes of the incident. If Alex was sometimes an asshole, he was also loyal and funny and entertaining. She liked him. And she had no desire to watch him throw away his life’s work in a fit of what—according to onlookers—seemed to be total, mysterious, grinning rage.
Which didn’t mean she wasn’t looking up his fanfiction. Immediately. If anyone in the Gates universe needed a good pegging, Cupid was definitely that character.
As she began edging toward the elevators, she drew more than a few stares and whispers, as she had from the moment of her arrival earlier that afternoon.
Even after a couple of hours at the hotel, and despite her mental preparation, all the attention still disoriented her. Some of her fellow con attendees merely looked, or took pics and videos from afar, and she could live with that. But the people who approached her with comments and queries and entirely too much familiarity for her comfort . . .
She wanted to hide from them. Not because she was shy, or ashamed of herself or her appearance or her former relationship with Marcus.
Because she was grieving. Because speaking Marcus’s name hurt. Because the winks, the innuendo, the excited questions were streams of salt poured into wounds that hadn’t even begun healing.
“Is that . . .” a woman in a Dido’s Vengeance Tour: 1000 BCE tee hissed, elbowing her friend. “That’s the fan Marcus Caster-Rupp was dating. We should ask her—”