Chapter 66: Unscripted Aftermath
The ride back to his condo was a silent, pressurized thing. The city streamed by Mark’s car windows, a blur of neon and darkness. Alexis stared at it all, seeing nothing. Her body still hummed with the aftershocks of what they’d done, but the high was cratering, replaced by a hollow, shaking chill. The voice actor’s knowing look played on a loop in her mind—a benign witness to their disorder.
The elevator ride to his floor was worse. Muzak and mirrored walls. She watched their reflection, a beautiful, shattered couple in convention lanyards and rumpled clothes. He held her hand, his thumb rubbing circles on her knuckle, but he didn’t speak. He just watched her in the glass, his expression unreadable.
When the doors sighed open, the condo awaited. It was exactly as she’d first seen it: a masterpiece of controlled aesthetics. Polished concrete floors cool underfoot, the vast, silent expanse of downtown Austin glittering beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows like a spilled jewelry box. The ambient LED strips behind the sleek media console cast a shifting, melancholic glow over his framed anime posters—a stoic Gojo Satoru, a determined Midoriya.
It was a set. A beautiful, lonely set. And tonight, she felt like a prop that had been misused.
The heavy door clicked shut behind them, sealing them in the quiet. The only sound was the faint, perpetual whisper of the central air. Mark toeed off his shoes, the sound stark. Alexis just stood there, halfway between the entryway and the living room, holding the plastic bag with her Gunpla model like a lifeline from a world that already felt distant.
“You want something to drink?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral. “Water? Tea?”
She shook her head. The movement felt brittle. She was cracking, and the silence of the condo was the final pressure point. All the performative smiles, the strategic touches, the swallowed proof of their coupling in a public bathroom—it coalesced into a solid, aching mass in her throat.
Her knees gave out. Not a dramatic collapse, but a slow, deflating sink onto the low, black linen sofa. She set the bag down. It toppled over, the model box sliding onto the concrete with a plastic clatter.
Mark was there in an instant, not on the couch, but on the floor in front of her. He knelt, his hands coming up to cradle her face, forcing her gaze to his. “Talk to me.”
The first sob tore out of her, a ragged, ugly thing that had been strangled all day. Then another. She didn’t wail; she fractured quietly, tears streaming hot and silent down her cheeks as her body shuddered. She folded forward, her forehead coming to rest against his shoulder. He gathered her up, shifting them both onto the couch, pulling her fully into his lap, her legs curled beside him. He held her close, one arm banded around her back, the other hand cradling the back of her head, tucking her face into the hollow of his throat.
His hoodie, the same one from the convention, smelled like him and stale convention air. She cried into it, soaking the fabric. Her breaths came in hiccuping gasps against his skin.
“Shhh,” he murmured, his lips against her hair. “Let it out. Just let it go.” His voice was a low rumble in his chest, a vibration she felt through her own. “No cameras here. Just us.”
It was the permission she didn’t know she needed. The dam broke fully. The stress of finals she’d been ignoring, the disorientation of moving here, the terror of her name being forever linked to his in a digital headline, the sheer, dehumanizing weirdness of being a storyline. It all poured out in a hot, helpless rush.
“I just…” she choked out, the words mangled. “I felt like a doll. All day. Smile. Pose. Be the fun, anime girlfriend. And then in that bathroom… I wanted that, I wanted you like that, but it felt like… like I was proving something. To them. To me. I don’t know.”
“I know,” he said, his hand steadily stroking her curls. “I know, Lex. I felt it too.”
“He saw us,” she whispered, the humiliation fresh. “Spike Spiegel fucking saw us slink out of that bathroom.”
Mark actually let out a soft, choked laugh. “Yeah. He did. And based on the stories about that guy, he’s probably seen way worse.” He leaned back, trying to see her face. “Hey. Look at me.”
She did, bleary-eyed. His own eyes were tired, stripped of their usual charismatic gleam. He looked his age, and younger somehow. Vulnerable.
“That thing in the bathroom,” he said, choosing his words slowly. “That was for us. Because I needed to remember you’re mine, not theirs. Because you needed to tear the fucking script up for a minute. That wasn’t for the timeline. That was the antidote to the timeline.”
He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “This… this right here? This is the part they never get to see. This is the only part that actually matters.”
She searched his face. “Does it scare you?” she asked, her voice small. “How messy this is?”
“It terrifies me,” he admitted without hesitation. “Because I want it to work more than I’ve wanted anything. And I’m used to controlling the narrative, Lex. I can edit a skit. I can pivot a stream. I can’t edit this.” He gestured between them, at her tear-streaked face. “This is all live. No second takes.”
She nestled back into him, the storm of crying subsiding into exhausted, shaky breaths. The city lights twinkled, indifferent. They sat in the quiet for a long time, just breathing. The performance was completely over. All that was left was the raw material of two people, trying.
“My mom called today,” she said, later, her voice muffled against his chest.
“Yeah?”
“She asked if we’d set a date. For the wedding.”
He didn’t tense up. He just kept rubbing her back. “What’d you tell her?”
“I told her we were still settling in.” She paused. “She said a public engagement without a plan looks like… a stunt.”
Mark sighed, a long, weary exhale. “Your mom’s an attorney. She thinks in terms of evidence and optics.”
“She’s not wrong.”
“She’s not,” he conceded. “But she’s also not in this condo.”
He shifted, lifting her as he stood up in one smooth motion. She let out a small squeak of surprise, wrapping her arms around his neck. “What are you doing?”
“Changing the channel,” he said, carrying her past the gaming lounge, past the meticulous kitchen, down the hallway to the bedroom. It was as minimalist as the rest of the place—a huge platform bed with plain black sheets, more windows.
He didn’t lay her down and climb on top of her. He set her on the edge of the bed and knelt again, working the laces of her sneakers off, then her socks. His hands were gentle, practical. He stood, went to the bathroom, and came back with a warm, damp washcloth. He sat beside her and carefully wiped the smudged mascara and convention sweat from her face. The gesture was so profoundly simple it made her throat tighten again.
When he was done, he pulled his hoodie over his head, then helped her out of her top. He dug an old, soft RDCWORLD t-shirt from a drawer and slipped it over her head. It swallowed her.
“There,” he said, his voice soft. “No costumes.”
He stripped down to his boxers and pulled back the duvet, urging her under. He climbed in after, turning off the lights. The room was plunged into the deep blue glow of the city. He pulled her back against his chest, spooning her, his nose buried in her hair, his arm a heavy, reassuring weight across her ribs.
“We’ll figure it out,” he whispered into the darkness. “The date. The plan. All of it. We just… we have to build it for real. Not for them.”
“Where do we start?” she asked, her eyes closing, exhaustion finally pulling at her.
“Right here,” he said, his breathing already deepening. “We start right here.”
And for the first time that day, in the quiet dark of his sterile, beautiful condo, it felt like a real promise. Not a plot point. A foundation.