The closing paragraph summed everything up, as his mother had said it should when they’d spent endless hours crafting essays that were never, ever good enough.
I love you both. Nevertheless, if you can’t respect me or my work, I don’t want to visit you anymore. I’ve been successful because I’ve been lucky, yes, but also because I’ve worked hard and because I’m good at my job. I’m proud of what I do and what I’ve accomplished. I’m especially proud to have achieved so much despite the complication of my dyslexia. If you can’t feel the same, I’ll understand, but I won’t subject myself to your disapproval any longer. If you truly love me in return, accept me as I am. If you can’t accept me as I am, maybe you need to rethink your definition of love.
He signed off as their loving son, possibly for the last time.
He proofread the dictated message as best he could.
With a shaking finger, he pressed send.
Then, his phone in his sweaty palm, he tapped the number he’d stored in his contacts weeks ago, just in case he ever found enough courage.
Maybe he still hadn’t. But at least he’d found sufficient inspiration and motivation. Enough to do what he should have done years before.
Vika Andrich answered on the second ring, ambient conversation almost drowning out her greeting. She was down in one of the hallways below, no doubt, surrounded by crowds of Gates fans and gathering information for her next blog posts.
“Vika speaking.” She sounded distracted. “How may I help you?”
“This is Marcus Caster-Rupp,” he told her, his voice hoarse. “I have a few misconceptions I’d like to correct. How would you feel about an exclusive interview this evening?”
There was a long, long pause.
“Hold on a moment.” When she spoke again, her surroundings were quieter. “May I be frank?”
He swallowed hard. “Certainly.”
“I’d feel like it was about time,” she said.
Rating: Mature
Fandoms: Gods of the Gates – E. Wade, Gods of the Gates (TV)
Relationships: Aeneas/Lavinia
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Angst and Fluff, Guilt
Aeneas teaches his wife swordplay—and waits for the day she draws blood.
Notes:
Thanks to my beta. He knows who he is.
* * *
Lavinia was growing more comfortable with a sword in her hand.
That was true in bed, of course, and he was a selfish enough man to appreciate her increased skill there. But the bed wasn’t where she was growing to trust him, thrust by thrust.
At night, she permitted his caresses and ventured her own, willing but awkward still. That wide-eyed look of shock each time she shuddered and came apart in his arms hadn’t yet disappeared. Her lingering hesitance charmed him, even as her pleasure prompted his.
Under the blazing sun, in the dust, she was a different woman. Clothed and confident, she swung back at him. She parried. She engaged.
You must learn, lest I and the other guards of the Latium gate fail, he’d told her.
It was true enough. It was also an excuse, one he refused to relinquish after sparring with her the first time.
Her endearing, lopsided smile bright, she moved her elegant, angular body without hesitation, certain he wouldn’t wound her. Some swords, it seemed, she considered more dangerous than others.
One day, she wounded him instead.
“Tell me about Carthage, husband,” she said as she knocked aside his blade and made an advance. “How did you spend your time there?”
His concentration slipped, with predictable results. The gash on his thigh welled with blood, and she gasped and found a clean corner of her stola to press to the injury.
She choked out apologies, and he consoled her, and he wondered.
If she knew—if she knew—how he’d left behind the last woman he’d loved, abandoning her without a word; if she’d stood on the deck of his ship, at his side, and watched a queen light herself afire in desolation at his cruelty; if she understood him for what he was and what he’d been and what he’d done—
Maybe she wouldn’t accept his sword in bed, and maybe she wouldn’t laugh and use one to parry his thrusts in the dusty yard they shared.
Maybe she’d turn it on him instead.
29
“—SO CYPRIAN AND CASSIA WILL NEED TO MAKE SOME hard decisions about what they mean to each other, and what they’re willing to sacrifice for one another and for humanity,” Maria said in response to the moderator’s question, before turning to Peter. “Anything you want to add?”