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******
She thought: 'I want to get exactly there. And I want to meet him.'
What Britney's fractured, sixteen-year-old mind did not yet know was that the universe was already bending to make that happen.
She didn't know that Marvin had already recognized the tragic trajectory of her life.
Then Brittany realized she cannot remember the last time someone asked her a question without wanting something from her. This only made her resent her life even more.
…
..
.
When the broadcast finally ended and the screen went black, she sat in the quiet, humid Louisiana night. She didn't feel quite as empty as before. She reached out, pressing the rewind button on her cassette player, letting the tape hiss back to the beginning, anchored by the gravity of a boy she fully intended to understand. She kept herself busy as she didn't want to be alone with her thoughts.
---
The post-ceremony activities in New York on Grammy night occupied an entirely different, more corporate geography from their relaxed, sun-drenched Los Angeles equivalents.
The sprawling hotels and five-star restaurants of midtown Manhattan conducted the music industry's post-ceremony processing with the specific, cutthroat quality of New York professional gatherings. It was an atmosphere of suffocating density, and a significantly higher ambient noise level than the equivalent, schmoozing Beverly Hills events.
Marvin moved through the evening's mandatory after-obligations with the efficiency of a predator who inherently understood that the hushed conversations available in this specific context were significant. And significant conversations deserved genuine engagement, rather than cheap social management.
Tommy Mottola—the head of Sony Music and Columbia Records, whose massive, controversial decision to sign Marvin in the preceding year had been a matter of considerable, screaming internal boardroom debate—finally found him at the exclusive Columbia Records VIP celebration event at the Plaza Hotel.
Mottola had been expressing his vindication to absolutely anyone who would listen since approximately nine o'clock.
"Three wins, Marvin," Mottola breathed, approaching the boy, shaking his head in sheer disbelief.
"Three," Marvin confirmed smoothly, sipping a glass of sparkling water, completely unbothered by the thumping bass of the party around them.
"From a wordless debut." Mottola possessed the quality of a powerful man who had been operating in the brutal music industry for long enough to have seen everything, and was currently in the shocking process of adding something to that mental list that would remain there permanently. "The second album—"
"The second," Marvin corrected gently, his voice a velvet blade. "I am working on it."
"The second album," Mottola amended quickly, accepting the sharp correction with the practiced ease of an executive who had quickly learned to accept Marvin's arrogant corrections as vital corporate information rather than childish pedantry. "When?"
"The lead single officially goes to the radio syndicates in the next few months," Marvin said, his blue eyes locking onto the label boss.
Mottola looked at him with the slightly terrified expression of a man who had been swimming with industry sharks for three decades, and was currently encountering, in a twelve-year-old boy in a charcoal tuxedo, a level of cold awareness that exceeded most of the adult billionaires he worked with.
"The Academy Awards are in exactly three weeks," Mottola stated, shifting gears.
"March twenty-third," Marvin provided.
"Best Original Song for *Titanic*."
"Yes."
"Are you performing it live?"
A pause. "The Academy has extended a frantic invitation," Marvin purred, swirling the ice in his glass. "The logistics are currently being negotiated by my team."
"What are the logistics?" Mottola asked, leaning in closer.
"My parents naturally have deep concerns about the proposed format," Marvin explained smoothly. "A live global broadcast, an unprecedented solo performance, an orchestra, and a twelve-year-old boy—the technical oversight requirements are significant. We are currently in conversation with the Academy producers about exactly how to structure the staging appropriately to my specifications."
Mottola nodded slowly, his mind racing with the promotional possibilities. "And the song itself... if you perform..."
"The performance will be exactly what the song deserves," Marvin said, his Incubus aura flaring, making the air around them suddenly feel incredibly thin and electric. "Which is everything my soul can give it. The staging conversation is entirely separate from the musical dominance."
Mottola looked down at the boy for another long, silent moment.
"Three major wins," Mottola repeated, speaking with the quality of someone returning to a staggering fact because it continued to produce a physical effect on his brain that more distance from it had absolutely not diminished.
"Three wins, Tommy," Marvin agreed softly.
"From a twelve-year-old."
"From the *music*," Marvin corrected firmly, a demon edge bleeding into his tone. "The biological age is entirely incidental. It is merely a vessel."
Mottola was quiet for a moment, absorbing the terrifying reality of his greatest asset.
"The second EP," Mottola whispered. "If it's actually better than the first..."
"It is," Marvin stated, with absolute, terrifying finality.
"Then what does the cynical industry say next?" Mottola asked, genuinely curious.
"When will you beat them again?"
Marvin looked at the powerful executive with the still directness that was his primary mode when the answer to a question was something he had already fully calculated long ago, and was now simply delivering as prophecy.
"They will say the exact same thing they always say when they are conquered," Marvin purred, a wicked, beautiful smirk spreading across his face. "They will say that they surrendered willingly. And they will claim that they always knew I was a god."
Mottola burst into a loud, genuine, barking laugh—the surprised, delighted laugh of a corporate titan whose thick professional armor has been unexpectedly breached by a true thing.
"Yeah, kid," Mottola grinned, raising his glass in a salute to Wonder Boy. "They really, really will."
---
The Meyers family's sprawling, luxury suite at the Waldorf Astoria was quiet after midnight.
The freezing New York evening was pressing its cold wind and its distant, muffled traffic sounds against the glass windows. Inside, the three golden Grammy awards sat lined up on the suite's writing desk in a perfect, gleaming row. Their historical weight had been established; their gold plating caught the warm, amber light of the desk lamp perfectly.
Grant Meyers was sitting in one of the suite's plush armchairs. He was in his crisp white shirt sleeves, his charcoal tuxedo jacket draped carelessly over the chair's back. He radiated the quality of a strong man who has finally reached the end of a significant day, and is quietly taking its full measure before allowing himself the luxury of sleep.
Linda Meyers was sitting in the adjacent chair. Her expensive heels were off, her feet resting comfortably on the velvet ottoman. She was staring silently at the three golden trophies on the desk.
Marvin was standing at the window, his hands clasped behind his back, looking down at the glittering city below.
New York at midnight on a freezing February evening possessed the relentless quality of a city that fundamentally does not stop. The concrete streets below were still pulsing with yellow taxis; the light from other skyscrapers and the distant, glowing network of the city's infrastructure produced the electric hum of a place that had made a permanent, manic commitment to being awake.
"Come sit down, honey," his mother said softly into the quiet room.
He turned away from the glass window, walked over, and sat on the velvet sofa directly across from his parents. He looked at the three awards on the desk.
"How do you actually feel?" his father asked, his voice rough with exhaustion and immense pride.
Marvin considered this with the genuine, deep attention that his father's direct, honest questions always commanded.
"Satisfied," Marvin said finally. "Not finished. But deeply satisfied."
"There is a difference," Grant noted quietly.
"Yes," Marvin agreed. "Satisfied is when what you have executed matches exactly what you intended to do. Finished would imply that there is nothing more for me to intend." He looked directly into his father's eyes. "I am absolutely not finished."
"No," Grant chuckled softly, a tired, proud smile touching his lips. "I certainly didn't think so."
They sat in the suite quietly for a long moment. The sprawling city continued to burn outside. The golden awards rested on the desk. The three of them existed in the intimate configuration of a family at the end of a day that would be permanently etched into the global historical record.
"Thank you," Marvin said softly.
Both of his parents looked up at him, surprised.
"For coming," Marvin continued, his voice dropping its aristocratic edge, softening into something genuinely vulnerable. "For... simply being here. For the last twelve years of being exactly what you have been."
He held their gaze with the intense directness that was his mode in profoundly important moments.
"I know that what I am is... highly complicated," Marvin said carefully, navigating the alien emotional terrain. "I know that the chaotic life you've been forced to lead because of what I am is not the quiet, normal life you originally planned for when I was born. I want you to know that I am acutely aware of that sacrifice. And I am profoundly grateful for it. Every single day."
His mother made a soft, broken sound that was not quite a word, tears instantly brimming in her eyes. She covered her mouth with her hand.
His father looked at him for a long moment. He looked at him with the incredibly pure quality of a father looking at his son—in all the agonizing complexity and simplicity of that relationship. He looked at him with all the things the relationship contained that could never be adequately spoken, but were present in the room anyway.
"Marvin, you do not owe us gratitude," Grant said, his voice thick with emotion, leaning forward in his chair. "You owe us..." He stopped searching for the exact right word. "...You only owe us *you*, being exactly who you are. Which you bravely are. Every single day." A pause. "And that is more than enough."
Marvin looked at the man.
The Incubus—an entity constitutionally set apart from the fragile human systems of love it operated within, a demon of lust and conquest—sat completely still in a hotel suite in New York City at midnight. He looked at the three Grammy awards. He looked at the two weeping mortals across from him.
And the demon felt something strike his chest that the accumulated, bloody centuries of his existence had provided fundamentally zero preparation for. It was a brilliant warmth that had nothing to do with magic, and everything to do with humanity.
He filed it incredibly carefully in the deepest vault of his soul.
For later consideration.
"The Oscars are in exactly three weeks," Marvin stated smoothly, breaking the emotional tension with a flawless pivot back to business.
His mother laughed out loud, wiping her eyes. His father shook his head with the resigned, exasperated warmth of a man who has fully accepted the nature of the son he loves.
"Sleep first, kiddo," his father ordered gently.
"And then, the Oscars," Marvin purred, a wicked smile returning to his face.
"And then the Oscars," his father agreed.
Outside, New York continued its permanent, indifferent, magnificent wakefulness.
Inside, the golden Grammy awards sat in a gleaming row on the writing desk.
Four of them.
The Sixth massive trophy—the Academy Award—was exactly three weeks away.
Marvin Meyers was not impatient.
He was, as he had been since the dawn of time, simply ready.
---
A month later, the calendar officially turned to March, and the entire global entertainment industry was in a state of catatonic shock.
People, from cynical Wall Street analysts to casual weekend moviegoers, were absolutely astonished to find that *Titanic* was still anchored at the absolute top of the daily box office. Its two former, holiday competitors, *Tomorrow Never Dies* and *Scream 2*, had long since finished their theatrical runs, quietly fading into the secondary home-video market. *Titanic*, meanwhile, was still expanding its theater hunt.
At this point, the initial trickle of positive re-evaluations had turned into a deafening, global roar. Voices across every major publication began to passionately sing praises not just to the film, but to the impossible boy who had seen it coming.
Marvin's infamous December prediction was brought up again across the media landscape. But this time, it was not mocked. It was worshipped.
*"That boy is a terrifying genius,"* a leading box-office analyst declared on CNBC. *"When the opening day box office figures for Titanic came out at a mere eight million, who on earth could have imagined it would reach this staggering level of $510 million domestic by March? Although it's still a few weeks off from Marvin Meyers' impossible prediction of $600 million, the trajectory is locked. Theaters are practically fighting each other for print reels; they will definitely not pull Titanic from their premier screens at this point, given that its daily box office performance is still stable. The kid called the greatest shot in Hollywood history."*
*"Titanic has completely shattered everyone's conventional, rigid thinking about movie box office decay,"* read a massive spread in *The Hollywood Reporter*. *"Absolutely no one in this town could have imagined that a massive, three-hour movie could still effortlessly maintain a daily box office of over five million dollars after more than ninety days in theaters. It is simply incredible. But equally incredible is our little Los Angeles prophet, Marvin Meyers. He was the only major figure who made a bold, unwavering prediction after the dismal opening day results came out. He was more confident in the film than James Cameron himself..."*
*"Marvin's tongue must literally be blessed by God,"* an anchor on *Entertainment Tonight* joked reverently. *"James Cameron should probably send him a blank check and a thank-you note every single morning..."*
*"Marvin Meyers, the genius prophet of Laurel Canyon, has succeeded again. Perhaps his terrifyingly accurate vision should be taken seriously by the big corporate studios..."*
*"Marvin Meyers and James Cameron. This is the ultimate 'handshake' between two distinct, uncompromising geniuses separated by over 30 years of age, who together completely shocked the world..."*
*****
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