Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(8)

For a ship whose essential heartbeat was all about love for goodness, sterling character, and intelligence over appearance, Lavineas fics included a surprising, disappointing amount of fat-shaming. Not BAWN’s, to his credit. But some of his favorite fics, the ones he’d bookmarked and recommended to her, did.

After a lifetime of struggle, April now loved her body. All of it. Red hair to freckled, chubby toes.

She hadn’t expected the same from others. Still didn’t. But she was tired of fucking hiding, and she was done with more than just contaminated mud on her jeans and colleagues she only allowed so close.

This year, she was attending her fandom’s biggest convention, Con of the Gates, which always took place—appropriately enough—within a sunny day’s view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Countless bloggers and reporters showed up to that con, and they took pictures, some of which always ended up going viral or printed in newspaper articles or splashed across the television screen.

She wouldn’t care. Not anymore. If her colleagues could openly discuss their terrible folk-music trio, she could certainly discuss her love for the most popular show on television.

And when she went to the con, she was finally going to meet her fandom friends there in person. She might even meet BAWN in person, despite his shyness. She would give all of them an opportunity to prove they’d truly understood the message of their OTP.

If they didn’t, it would hurt. She couldn’t lie to herself about that.

Especially if BAWN took one look at her and—

Well, no point in imagining rejection that didn’t yet exist.

Worst-case scenario, though, she’d find other friends. Other fandoms more accepting of who and what she was. Another beta reader for her fics whose DMs were beams of sunshine to start her morning and the warmth of a down comforter at night.

Another man she wanted in her face-to-face life and maybe even her bed.

So she had to do this tonight, before she lost her nerve. It wasn’t the final step, or even the hardest. But it was the first.

Without letting herself think too hard about it, she checked a thread on Twitter from that morning, still going strong. The Gods of the Gates official account had asked fans to post their best cosplay photos, and the responses now numbered in the hundreds. A few dozen featured people her size, and she very carefully didn’t read replies to those tweets.

On her phone, she had a selfie from her most recent Lavinia costume. The image was uncropped, her face and body both clearly visible. Her colleagues, present and future, would recognize her. Her friends and family too. Most nerve-racking of all: if she told him her Twitter handle, Book!AeneasWouldNever would finally see her for the first time.

Deep breath.

She tweeted it. Then immediately put down her phone, shut her laptop, and ordered some damn room service, because she deserved it. After dinner, she began her one-shot fluffy, modern AU fic so BAWN could give her some feedback over the weekend.

Right before bedtime, she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Block finger ready, she checked her Twitter notifications.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck.

She’d gone viral. At least by her modest standards. Hundreds of people had commented on her photo, with more chiming in by the second. She couldn’t read her notifications fast enough, and some of them she didn’t want to read at all.

She’d known how certain swaths of the Gods of the Gates fandom acted. She wasn’t surprised to find, scattered among admiring and supportive responses, a few ugly threads.

Looks like she ate Lavinia seemed to be the most popular among those tweets.

It stung, of course. But no stranger on the internet could truly hurt her. Not the same way family and friends and coworkers could.

Still, she didn’t intend to inflict that sort of harm on herself longer than necessary. It might take time, but she needed to wrestle her mentions into submission.

But . . . Jesus. Where had all these people come from?

Blocking all the haters in one particular thread took a while, as did muting—at least for the moment—certain key livestock-and zoo animal–related words.

By the time she finished, she had dozens more notifications. These seemed friendlier, for the most part, but she didn’t plan to tackle them until the morning.

Until she noticed one at the very top, received seconds before.

The account boasted a bright blue bubble with a check inside. An official, verified account, then.

Marcus Caster-Rupp’s account.

The guy playing Aeneas—fucking Aeneas—had tweeted to her. Followed her.

And . . . he appeared to have—

No, that couldn’t be right. She was hallucinating.

She squinted. Blinked. Read it again. A third time.

For reasons yet unknown, he appeared to have—

Well, he appeared to have asked her out. On a date.

“I read a fic like this once,” she whispered.

Then she clicked on the thread to find out what the fuck had just happened.





Lavineas Server DMs, Two Years Ago


Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I saw that you wanted a beta reader for your fics? I know we don’t write the same types of stories, but if you’re willing to beta my fics too, I’d be interested.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: Hi, ULS. Thanks for writing.

Book!AeneasWouldNever: I figure it might be good to get a different perspective on my work, so—to me, anyway—our different styles are a bonus, not a drawback. I’d love your help with my fics, and I’m more than willing to beta your stories too.