After leaving her kudos and comments, she was eager to log out of AO3 and turn to the Lavineas server instead. And once more, she ignored BAWN’s DMs, delaying what she needed to do and say.
Not much recent activity in the group threads. So far, they didn’t appear to have spotted any photos of her date with Marcus on Twitter or Insta, but that was only a matter of time. And if the server’s response to his public dinner invitation was any guide, she needed to prepare herself for one hell of an uproar.
Can you BELIEVE IT???!!! Mrs. Pius Aeneas had virtually screeched Wednesday night on her brand-new OMFG MC-R ASKED OUT A FAN chat thread, linking to the relevant tweets.
LaviniaIsMyGoddessAndSavior responded with an endless stream of heart-eyes and streaming-tears emojis, too emotional for mere words.
I TOLD YOU he was really a nice guy. I TOLD YOU! TopMeAeneas crowed. The way he defended her, I just— Her subsequent legs-spread, crotch-up gif said it all, really.
Did you see that awful thread? It really was kind of him, LavineasOTP wrote. That poor woman.
April had winced at LavineasOTP’s post. Taken off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, wondering if she’d made a terrible mistake.
Pity. Shit, she despised pity, and the last thing she wanted to be was that poor woman.
Then Book!AeneasWouldNever, largely absent from the server for a few days, had interjected. Why does everyone assume he asked her out of kindness alone? I mean, look at her. She’s pretty, and obviously very talented.
His comment had changed the tenor of the thread, which—after a flurry of posts agreeing with his take—had then shifted to speculation as to what the date might entail.
April had been tempted to post endless heart-eyes and streaming-tear emojis herself.
Instead, she’d simply DMed BAWN one last time before bed. Thank you. Just . . . thank you.
For what? he’d immediately responded, but she was too tired to explain.
We can talk about it this weekend. I have some things I need to tell you. For now, though, I have to get some sleep. If I don’t hear from you before then, have a safe trip home, okay? xx
The blinking dots had flashed and flashed. Okay. Sweet dreams, Ulsie. I’ll be back in your time zone soon.
They both lived in California. She knew that much.
She also knew he traveled a lot for work, something else they’d had in common until now. She got the sense he was a consultant of some sort, although she didn’t know for sure. In recent months, they’d both mentioned evaluating their career paths and their next professional steps. Finally, she knew he was a he, unlike the vast majority of Lavineas fans in their group.
As soon as he’d helped set up the server, in fact, he’d explicitly informed everyone, concerned they’d feel misled or uncomfortable if they found out later.
If my presence here ever makes any of you feel unsafe in any way, please tell me, and I’ll immediately bow out, he’d written. P.S. As a cishet guy, there are certain threads that may not be as applicable to me, so please forgive me for sitting them out.
Via DM, he’d said a bit more to April last year. If you notice me being inadvertently creepy or offensive in any way, please, PLEASE let me know. I might not see it.
She’d agreed, but so far, she hadn’t had to intervene. Not once. Other than the prompt way he bowed out of conversations about the hotness and fuckability of various actors, his maleness didn’t seem to influence his interactions on the server much.
Of course, he didn’t write sex into his fics either, which had made her wonder.
Maybe sex and sexuality in general made him uncomfortable. Maybe writing sex into his fics felt somehow predatorial or boundary-crossing to him, given his status as one of the few men in their group. Or maybe he just didn’t like writing explicit scenes. Some people didn’t.
Not April. She loved including the Bang That Was Promised in her fics. But she’d long ago decided to either steer those particular stories toward other beta readers, rather than BAWN, or redact any explicit sections in the drafts she sent to him, because she absolutely, one hundred percent did not want to cause him any discomfort.
Her latest story, accordingly, had been betaed by TopMeAeneas, not BAWN, even though—for once—she’d delved a bit into canon, or at least canon-compliance.
She shoved her glasses more firmly onto the bridge of her nose.
Okay. No more delays.
She could either sit against her headboard and think about BAWN, or read the man’s actual messages from that morning and respond to him. Tell him what he needed to know and gauge his reaction.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: You went canon-compliant, huh? Bold choice, Ulsie.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Didn’t I say you’d rock canon if you ever tried it? You really captured Lavinia’s resentment at the marriage, the reluctance in her attraction, in a way most can’t. Also, the description of her wielding the sword: A+. Narrating a clear action sequence informed by her character’s history, her personality, and the skills she would and wouldn’t have is damn hard, and you pulled it off.
She smiled at the screen. BAWN was so supportive of her work. Always.
Funny how his praise of her action sequence echoed Marcus’s description of how the Gods of the Gates crew handled the show’s battle scenes. That approach must be more common than she’d realized as a fight sequence newbie.
Later that morning, he’d sent one more message.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: You said you had something to talk to me about this weekend?
Well, she supposed that was her cue. He deserved to know what was happening. In so many ways, for so many reasons.
She wanted to know more about him too. Wanted to meet him in person at the next Con of the Gates, despite his professed shyness. Maybe tonight, once she took that first step and told him who she was on Twitter, showed him what she looked like, they could move toward a relationship that didn’t exist solely online.
And if whatever was happening between her and Marcus would damage her chances with BAWN, she would happily—or at least, not overly unhappily—DM the actor and tell him the second date was off. He could comfort himself with one of his many hair products.
Biting her lip, she winced at her own callousness.
He wasn’t the shallow, uninteresting man she’d once thought him. She knew that now. He could be hurt. Would be hurt, if she changed her mind about their second date. But for BAWN, she’d handle the guilt and forgo the opportunity to dig deeper beneath Marcus’s surface.
For BAWN, she’d expose her heart now.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Thank you for the lovely comments, here and on AO3. I have a feeling I’ll be writing a lot more canon in the near future. Which is related to what I need to tell you, actually.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: So . . . you saw that uproar the other night, when Marcus Caster-Rupp asked out a fan on Twitter?
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: That fan was, uh, me. I use the handle @Lavineas5Ever there. Please don’t tell the rest of the group yet. I will eventually, but I wanted to talk to you about it first.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: We had our date tonight. Dinner at a restaurant. I’m posting pics later tonight on Twitter, although other people in the restaurant probably have their own shots up already.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: When you’re online, please let me know. Let’s chat.
With that information, he could see her at long last. Face. Body.
Caught talking or eating. From the side, the back, the front. In motion. Still.
Oh, God, her heartbeat was echoing in her ears. And when BAWN’s response popped up within seconds, she literally jumped.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m here.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Wow. This is a surprising development.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: It’s wonderful to see your face, Ulsie.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Only my face?
Book!AeneasWouldNever: All of you. I just checked, and there are some very nice shots of your dinner tonight appearing online, as you said.
Wonderful, he’d said. Very nice.
Slowly, her heart rate was calming, the prickle of nervous sweat at her hairline diminishing.
It was okay. It was okay. He’d seen her, and hadn’t turned away.
She should have known. BAWN wasn’t shallow or unkind.
He hadn’t even seemed especially shocked by news that she’d gone on a date with one half of their OTP, weirdly enough. Unable to resist, she did a quick internet search of her own, to discover what version of herself he’d just seen, and . . .
Yes. There she was, on Twitter and Insta and one entertainment blog post already. In some shots, those bastards had caught her midchew. In others, though, she was smiling.
In one, Marcus was leaning across the table, staring at her intently. Touching the back of her wrist in a way that made her shiver to remember, shiver to see from an outsider’s perspective.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You’re right. I just found a few of the pics.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I imagine it must be hard to have your private life suddenly so visible. Does it bother you?
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Well, it’s not my FAVORITE thing in the world, but it’s okay. In general, I don’t give a shit what strangers think. Just the people I care about.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Good.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: So how was the date?
Here be dragons, she thought.
Because she couldn’t really tell him much about her topsy-turvy dinner with the man who played Aeneas, could she? Not without violating Marcus’s privacy and contradicting his chosen public persona, which she refused to do.
Even if that hadn’t been an issue, though, she wouldn’t have described the date in detail. If BAWN cared about her the same way she did him, hearing those details would sting, and she wasn’t about to hurt him. Not for anything.
God, if he’d gone on a date with a famous actress, she couldn’t even imagine how insecure and worried she’d be. So no, she wasn’t sharing specifics. And depending on how he responded to their conversation tonight, there might not be any future specifics to omit.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: It was pleasant. He seems like a genuinely decent man. The food was EXCELLENT too. If you make it to San Francisco for Con of the Gates, maybe we could go there? My treat.