Day One. Morning.
Emeryville, California, USA.

Lobu Herevard was not a fan of chaos.

Which, frankly, made dating Alex Marx the Spot feel like hugging a thunderstorm and pretending things didn’t get loud and flashy all the time.

He’d known this from the beginning—when she crash-landed into his life with a backstage pass, a stolen pastry, and exactly zero respect for calendar invites. What he hadn’t expected was how quickly the chaos became familiar. How it softened when it wasn’t performing. How it lingered in his apartment after gigs, bare-pawed and humming under her breath. How it fit into his preferred silence without constantly trying to break it.

And now that chaos had dragged him to Emeryville Station at ten fifty-six in the morning on a Thursday, under a sky that couldn’t decide what it wanted. Rain or shine or both.

The platform was quiet, muted in that way coastal mornings sometimes are, when the marine layer hangs low over the water and the clouds smear together like someone tried to watercolor the sky with their thumb. The station itself wasn’t grand—just a squat, low-slung building tucked beside a strip of warehouses and the distant glint of the Bay. Its sign was sun-bleached. Its benches were metal and apocalyptically cold for California. A few pigeons strutted along the platform edge like they were trainspotting enthusiasts and not garbage eating machines built to shit on every car they see.

There was a bite in the air—not sharp enough to shiver, but just cold enough to remind them that it was winter. The kind of chill that slipped under collars and flirted with the back of your knees. Every few seconds, a breeze curled in from the water, salt-tinged and restless, dragging the smell of diesel and old seaweed along with it.

The concrete beneath their feet bore that faint, damp sheen of brine. The kind that never quite dried. Painted numbers marked the length of the platform, their edges faded from years of soles and suitcases. Above them, the digital departure board blinked almost in slow motion:

CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR – ON TIME

Lobu stood at the edge of the platform, dressed like someone who had plans: a navy wool coat, crisply ironed shirt, leather gloves tucked into his pocket just in case. His suitcase—matte graphite, wheels aligned—stood at a polite distance like it didn’t want to embarrass him. His fur had been brushed that morning with enough care to qualify as penance.

He looked ready for a business trip.

He looked ridiculous next to her.

Alex Marx—the Alex Marx the Spot, diamond-selling chaos goblin of the stage and internet alike—was leaning against a pillar, sipping an iced matcha the size of a toddler’s torso and wearing what could generously be called “sleepwear.” Her hoodie slouched off one shoulder. Her joggers were cuffed at the ankle and dotted with tiny embroidered skulls. Her sunglasses, which surely cost more than most cars, covered half her face.

Her tail looped lazily behind her like a question mark.

“I thought you didn’t own anything casual,” Lobu muttered, eyeing her hoodie with suspicion.

Alex didn’t even look up from her drink. “I don’t. This is loungewear couture.”

He gave her a once-over. The hoodie read “CHAOS” in hot pink capital letters. Her boots were unlaced, a fashion choice, but to Lobu, a safety hazard he had warned her about more than once.

“How fitting.”

She grinned slowly, without showing teeth. “I dress for the vibe.”

“What vibe is this, exactly?” Lobu’s French accent slipped out a little more than usual.

“Railcore,” she said with smug satisfaction. “It’s the next aesthetic. Mad Max meets train travel. Think grunge, but with a snack cart link in Harry Potter.”

Lobu exhaled through his nose, adjusting the strap of her duffel that he carried on his shoulder. The zipper had peeled open again. A red bra strap dangled just visibly, like it was trying to escape.

He’d tried to zip it twice already. It refused. Much like her with her boots as they left the house that morning.

“You look like someone about to deliver a TED Talk on filing systems,” she added.

“And you look like someone who just robbed a Hot Topic.”

Her sunglasses slid down the bridge of her nose just slightly, revealing a sliver of emerald green eyes ringed with gold.

“Hot Topic begs me to shop there. BEGS, I tell you.” She didn’t blink, but her lips pursed into a little smirk as she recalled the phone call she had with her manager Logan about Hot Topic’s ridiculous offer to have her be associated with the brand.

Lobu didn’t respond to her, but he also didn’t look away.

During that half-second of silence, something passed between them. A hint of a smile on Lobu’s lips as his curled canine tail wiggled just a little bit.

Then the silence broke. Alex sipped her drink with a slurp just obnoxious enough to reset the mood.

‘Qqqrrrrrrrrrrrkkkk.’

“You’ve looked at that board five times,” she said.

“I like being on time.”

“No—you like pretending you can control time.”

“I can control mine.”

“Well, you aren’t traveling on your own, so it’s our time. And you can’t control that.”

The words weren’t heavy. But they landed with a softness that made Lobu’s chest feel too tight inside his coat. He didn’t like it when he couldn’t control time.

Alex turned away before he could respond, squinting toward the end of the tracks.

Somewhere in the distance, a foghorn groaned—a long, mournful sound that curled over the water like a cello.

And then the station buzzed.

The overhead speaker crackled: “California Zephyr to Chicago, inbound. Boarding in five.”

Alex looked up.

Then the horn came, louder this time.

‘Chooooooo!’

The sound waslow and long—a single mournful cry that rolled through the station like a tornado warning. It turned heads. It made the birds scatter. It vibrated in Lobu’s chest like a tuning fork, and for just a moment, the rest of the world seemed to hush.

Then the train appeared.

First just a glint of steel beyond the trees. Then the full body, sliding into view with the presense of something that didn’t need to hurry to be impressive. The California Zephyr moved like a leviathan—two stories tall, sleek and muscled with chrome, its sides reflecting the smudgey cloud sky in blurred streaks of white and blue.

The Genesis locomotive at the front wore its paint proud: deep navy across the flanks, bold red slashing through the corners, the Amtrak logo clean and confident like it hadn’t aged a day since 1998. Behind it came the line of Superliners—sleeper cars, coaches, a dining car, an observation deck with panoramic glass catching flecks of sky.

The train seemed to sigh as it arrived. A hiss of brakes. A soft thunder underfoot. The smell of hot metal and oil and long distances.

‘Kchhhhhh!’

Lobu’s breath caught.

He tried to pretend it was just the wind.

Alex pushed herself off the pillar she was leaned against and walked up to Lobu’s side. She watched as he gawked at the train like a kid in a candy store and nudged him with an elbow. “You’re staring.”

The wusky let out a slightly annoyed scoff at her nudge, but did not take his eyes off the train that came to a stop with a slight metallic whine. “I’m admiring.”

“Same thing,” the tigress rolled her eyes.

The doors opened with a hiss, and people began to move. A dalmatian couple in matching fleece vests stepped forward. A munchkin woman in a trench coat juggled a wheeled suitcase and a pet parrot in a carrier. A young falcon man with earbuds didn’t look up from his phone as he climbed on board.

Lobu stood still for a beat too long.

Not because he was overwhelmed. Not exactly. Just… pausing.

There was something about slow trains. About the idea of motion without ridiculous speed. Of leaving things behind with ceremony. Of traveling not as escape, but as transition.

Alex stepped into his view, her boot landing right at the edge of the yellow safety line. She was smiling, but there was a softness to it now. Like she wasn’t going to tease him for his love of trains.

“C’mon,” she said, voice low. “We’ve got a foldy table with our names on it.”

---

Alex let Lobu lead the way onto the train, watching as his face lit up the further onto the locomotive they got. The wusky wasted no time in beelining it to their onboard cabin, which was located on the second floor of the sleeper car.

Bedroom A.

Their room smelled faintly of plastic and lemon cleaner, like something newly scrubbed but never quite fresh. The walls were pale gray with navy trim. Two upholstered seats faced each other on either side of a narrow fold-down table. A long window stretched the length of the cabin—just wide enough to catch the passing world and just high enough to feel like you could fall out of it.

On the wall of the left side of the room: a full-sized bed, folded and stowed. Beneath the seats: a shallow storage cubby that smelled faintly of dust and stale coffee. On the wall: a tiny hook that probably thought it was helpful.

Alex flopped onto one seat with a satisfied grunt and stretched like a feline that had decided the sunbeam belonged to her. Her hoodie bunched up around her hips. One leg tucked under the other. Her tail curled around the seatback like it was claiming territory.

“This is adorable,” she said, looking around. “I feel like I’m in a Wes Anderson movie.”

Lobu did not sit.

He unpacked.

“Wes Anderson is a bit tacky.” he muttered.

From his bag came a travel satchel, neatly arranged: wireless speaker, pocket-sized planner (color-coded by hour and timezone), a magnetic chess set in a velvet pouch, a travel-sized tin of jasmine silver needle tea. Every motion was calm, practiced. Ritual more than necessity.

Alex watched him from her seat, chin on her palm. Her smile had changed again—less amused, more curious. Like she was watching a bird build a nest.

“You’re very hot when you act like you hate me,” she murmured.

“I don’t hate you,” he said, placing a folded hoodie—hers, of course—on the top shelf. “I hate being unprepared.”

“You’re never unprepared. You probably packed extra socks for me.”

“I did.”

She giggled.

Outside, the train lurched gently. Then began to move.

The motion was almost imperceptible at first—just a gentle tug through the soles of their feet, a soft shift in gravity. Then it became clearer: the click-clack rhythm beneath them, the slow drift of the platform slipping past the window.

Once everything had been unpacked and placed neatly in the storage cubbies, small closet, and tiny bathroom they had in their room, Lobu finally sat across from her.

Alex didn’t say anything at first. She just reached out, fingers curling around the wusky’s hands. Her claws brushed the back of his wrists—not a scratch. A touch you could ignore if you wanted. A touch he didn’t.

They sat like that. Quiet. No music. No talking.

Just watching the world blur as they left Emeryville.

Alex couldn’t let it be quiet for long and was about to say something, but to her surprise, Lobu was the one to break the silence.

“This is nice.” He smiled in the corner of his mouth as he flipped his hands over to intertwine his fingers with Alex’s.

When Alex felt her boyfriend’s fingers curl around her fingers, she sat up so frantically that she almost fell out of the seat. She then placed her other hand over their tangled hands and smiled extra wide once she saw the teeny tiny smile that had managed to fight hell and high water to appear on Lobu’s resting bitch face.

Her tail flickered and thumped against the fabric of the seat loudly and she gave his hand that was stacked under hers a firm squeeze. “I’m glad you like it.”

---

Day Two. Morning.
A few hours out of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

The dining car smelled like syrup and sunshine—burnt coffee, powdered creamer, and a hint of toast. It was quiet, mostly. A few murmured conversations. The clink of metal on ceramic. The low, steady hum of the train’s movement underneath everything, like soothing white noise that some people liked to sleep to.

Outside, the view had widened: wind-bent trees, pale golden fields, water glinting in the distance where the land broke open. Everything looked softer through the train’s slightly smudged windows.

Alex and Lobu had taken a booth along the sunlit side. Lobu sat first, back straight, the fur at his jawline catching the amber light in soft strokes. He folded his hands in front of him like someone waiting to be called upon.

Alex slid in across from him a lot more lazily. Her hoodie was slouched off one shoulder. Her tail flicked once. Her sunglasses were perched on her head like a tiara.

“Feels like we’re in a movie,” she said, glancing out the window. “The kind where someone monologues about fate and nobody ever puts their phone on silent.”

“Like a Wes Anderson movie, you said that yesterday.” Lobu replied through a scoff. “You’d be the one who’s late for her own show and ends up on the roof of the train singing into a spoon,” Lobu replied.

“With perfect eyeliner,” she added. “I thought you said Wes Anderson movies were tacky? How do you know the character archetype I would be if you haven’t watched his movies?”

“I said his movies were tacky, not that I hadn’t watched them. How would I know they are tacky if I didn’t watch them?” Lobu’s resting grump-face slowly and subtly morphed into a smirk as he did his best to waggle his eyebrows the way he saw the tigress do so often. He wasn’t sure if he should waggle them in or out of sync, so he alternated between the two.

Her wusky boyfriend’s eyebrow choreography got a snort out of her and a teenager-to-her-dad eyeroll. “Alright, since you have seen them, let’s both say what we think is his best work. On three.”

“One… Two… Three…” the tigress started counting, waiting for her boyfriend to give into the pressure and admit that he hadn’t seen any of them. But as a single inquisitive brow raised into her forehead, Lobu’s smirk only became more smirky.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

“The Grand Budapest Hotel. Also, his tackiest, but it works well in its favor.”

Alex rolled her eyes again and shrugged her shoulders in defeat. “Alright, that’s my fault, everyone knows The Grand Budapest Hotel, I set the bar too low.” She then reached for one of the paper menus that were neatly stacked to her right, by the window, and began reading through the options that they had for breakfast. Lobu took one, too.

“What are you gonna have? I really want the French toast; I’ve smelled it ever since we got in here and it smells sooooooooo good.” Alex licked her lips out of instinct just at the mention of it.

Lobu, didn’t answer yet, he still needed to look through the entire menu before he could make his informed decision.

Then—

From across the aisle, a hushed voice.

“Don’t look. Don’t—oh my god, Maya, you looked—”

Alex’s ears twitched.

She turned in her seat, slow and smooth. One brow raised.

Two teens had frozen in the aisle toward the back of the dining car, just a few footsteps out from the door that led to coach. One—a hare with long legs, wide eyes, and bright purple streaks dyed into her long floppy ears—stood with both hands wrapped tightly around a biodegradable iced coffee cup. She wore a black hoodie emblazoned with Alex’s 2022 tour art—THE MARX EFFECT in bold silver type over a stylized tiger claw graphic. It looked worn, broken in, loved.

Beside her was a red panda, shorter and round-faced, wearing layered flannel and a crossbody bag covered in enamel pins. Their nails were painted black with glitter. One said “MARX ME” in hand-drawn letters.

Alex grinned.

“You looked!” she said, matter-of-fact.

Maya—the hare—let out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a squeak before she and the red panda approached the tigress who was now looking back at them with a smile so warm it could melt back-of-the-freezer chocolate from 2007.

“Are you—” she tried, breath catching. “Alex Marx the Spot?”

Alex slid out of the booth in one easy motion and walked toward them, meeting them halfway. She wasn’t hurrying. But she wasn’t making them wait either.

“Only on weekdays,” she said, voice playful but warm.

The red panda went rigid. Their digits trembled around their phone.

“Oh my god,” Maya said. “We—we were at the Oracle show! You flew out over the crowd during Striped Supremacy and I screamed so hard I almost puked.”

Alex’s eyes lit with mischief and a smug grin spread across her face. “Did you see me almost take out a drone mid-air? That wasn’t part of the choreography.”

The panda laughed. “We thought it was part of the show!”

Alex winked. “That’s the trick—always pretend it is.”

They giggled helplessly.

“You wanna take a picture?” Alex offered.

Maya’s whole body jolted. “YES—wait—I mean—are you sure?”

Alex smiled wider. “C’mon. Let’s make your friends jealous.”

She stepped between them like they were old friends, arms sliding around their shoulders, her cheek pressed to Maya’s temple, her tail curling behind them with practiced ease.

“Say it with me,” she said. “Three… two…”

“I’VE BEEN MARXED!”

Click. Boomerang. Burst.

Alex snapped a second shot on her own phone, tagged it on her Story with speed and flair, almost as if she were on autopilot:
🚨 CAUGHT: best-dressed fans on the Zephyr 💋 #IveBeenMarxed #AlexMarxTheSpot

Then, from her hoodie pocket, she pulled a small roll of glittery stickers.
“I’ve Been Marxed”, they read, in bold pink foil beneath a tiny golden crown.

She peeled two and pressed one onto Maya’s tour hoodie. The other she stuck to the panda’s flannel with delicate care.

“These are not part of any merch drop; I only give them out to fans I meet in person.” she said. “If I see them on eBay—I will kill you.” she laughed, leaving it ambiguous as to whether she was joking or not.

The panda beamed and the hare almost screamed but kept it to an internal one.

“And you—” Alex pointed to the panda’s pin-covered bag “—have excellent taste in merch. That one’s from the 2021 Valentine drop. Limited run.”

The panda blinked and looked down at her bag, before she looked back up at the tigress. “You noticed? And you remember the merch drop too?”

“Mhmm, I’m hands-on with all the merch!” Alex said. A lie, Logan had her minions handle all of that, but she did force Alex to recite some specific details about merch drops specifically for situations like these.

“And yeah, I notice everything!” Alex scoffed. “It’s a problem sometimes. I can tell the venue I am playing in blindfolded, from purely the acoustics.” She winked.

Maya pulled out a Sharpie. “Would you—could you sign—?”

Alex took it without hesitation, scribbled on the gatefold of one of her vinyl records, drew a tiger pawprint next to it. “Do you carry this around everywhere? Just in case you bump into me?”

“Yes.” Maya and the panda both squeaked.

“That’s adorable.” Alex laughed, kissed Maya on the cheek, and gave them both a final hug.

“Take care of each other,” she said. “It was very very nice to meet you both! DM me those pics or I’ll cry.”

She turned back toward the booth, tail swaying behind her.

She slid in beside Lobu this time, her hip brushing his, a breath of motion and citrus-scented warmth settling beside him.

“Sorry,” she murmured, a little flushed. “They were lovely.”

Lobu turned his head, just slightly, to look at her.

“Why are you apologizing?”

She blinked. “I don’t know. I guess… I know you don’t really like this.. stuff.” The tigress gestured toward the two girls as they slid into their booth, smiles so wide on their faces she wondered how long it would be until their jaws started hurting.

Lobu then slid over a cup of hot coffee that he had ordered for her while she was in pop star mode.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “You gave them a moment they’ll remember forever.”

Alex cupped the drink in both hands, the warmth soaking into her paws.

“You’re good at that,” he added.

She tilted her head toward him.

“At what?”

“Making people feel seen.”

She didn’t answer at first.

Then, softly—

“I try to see them. Because someone saw me once. And that changed everything.”

The moment didn’t need more than that.

Until Alex pressed her nose into Lobu’s shoulder, sniffed, and asked; “What did you order?”

“The French toast for you, and the big breakfast platter for me.” Lobu said, almost monotone, save for the slight inflection in his voice caused by the slight smile spread across his lips from the tigress’s cute nose pressed up against him.

“Thank you. I love French toast.”

“Pain perdu.” Lobu said under his breath.

“What?” Alex furrowed her brows at him.

“It’s what it’s called in French. Pain perdu. It means lost bread. Bread that has gone stale, revitalized with egg, milk, cinnamon.”

“Pain perdu.” Alex repeated, in a surprisingly convincing French accent.

---

Day Two. Afternoon. After Lunch.
Somewhere in Colorado, USA.

The Sightseer Lounge felt like it belonged to a different train.

It rose taller than the other cars, its ceiling a wide curve of glass that reached overhead in a single unbroken sweep. The walls were windows, too, floor to ceiling, as if the train had been hollowed out and filled with light. Everything was touched by sun, open, and strangely still—like the moment you step into an art gallery and realize you are the only one who doesn’t know what any of the pieces mean.

Alex stopped just inside the doorway and whispered, “Holy shit.”

The space wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t crowded either.

Near the back, a pair of older huskies shared a thermos and a crossword puzzle, whispering answers with the sort of ease that came from thirty years of finishing each other’s sentences. A bear cub lay sprawled across two seats with a tablet on his chest, one paw idly fishing trail mix from a crinkling bag. His dad—tired, flannel-clad—sipped coffee and watched both the view and his kid with the same quiet attention.

A coyote sat across the aisle, one earbud in, book open on her lap. She blinked slowly, rhythmically, like she’d been reading the same paragraph for fifteen minutes. A doe two rows forward sketched in a notebook, her pencil pausing every few seconds so she could look up, squint, and try to capture the shifting light.

Alex flopped into a west-facing seat with her usual lazy grace, throwing her hoodie behind her head like a makeshift pillow and sliding her boots off with two practiced heel-kicks. Her feet landed on the armrest across from her, socks already pilled at the heel, toes flexing slightly in the warm light.

Lobu stepped inside behind her—and froze.

His breath caught.

He’d seen pictures of the sightseer car. Videos. Brochures. Travel vlogs. He knew what it was supposed to look like.

But that had done nothing to prepare him for this.

He moved almost cautiously down the aisle, his eyes sweeping from the curve of the ceiling to the horizon visible through the far window.

He didn’t sit right away.

He just stood there, paw resting on the back of a seat, watching the world roll by with an expression Alex had only seen a few times before.

It was awe.

The quiet kind. The kind that made you feel small and lucky.

Alex tilted her head.

“You good?” she asked, softly.

Lobu nodded. Just once.

“I’ve wanted to ride the Zephyr since I was a kid,” he said. “I used to print the route maps off the website and tape them to my bedroom wall.”

She blinked. “Seriously?”

He gave a small, almost sheepish smile. “I memorized all the station stops. Emeryville to Chicago. I used to daydream about where I’d sit in this exact car.”

Alex’s expression shifted—not to teasing. To something warmer. Something closer to the ones you get from watching videos of soldiers coming home to surprise their family members after a long deployment.

“Well,” she said, patting the seat beside her, “I hope this seat is close enough to the one you daydreamed about.”

He sat down beside her.

Not dramatically. Not ceremoniously. He just lowered himself into the seat and let the view take him. After a few seconds, he said softly, “It’s perfect.”

Outside, the Colorado Rockies had fully arrived.

Jagged ridgelines rose on either side of the train, their faces brushed in snow that clung like powdered sugar, soft and untouched. Pines crowded the lower slopes—dark green and tightly packed—but as the train climbed, the trees thinned, giving way to open stretches of snow-covered rock, glinting in the sun like cracked porcelain.

The snow wasn’t harsh here.

It curled around boulders, softened the edges of cliffs, settled on the arms of trees like someone had painted it there with a slow, loving hand. In the distance, the wind swept across an open field, lifting a fine veil of powder into the air that sparkled like glitter in the sun before drifting back down again.

A frozen creek snaked along the base of the canyon, its ice clear and blue-gray, fractured with white lines like veins. Steam rose in soft curls where the sun had started to melt the edges. Further up, a hawk wheeled through the air, riding a current without a single flap, casting a long shadow that drifted across the snow like a moving compass needle.

Alex leaned into the window.

“I feel like we’re not supposed to be here,” she said. “Like we snuck into something.”

“We did,” Lobu murmured. “We’re in the middle of the continent and it’s letting us look at its bones.”

She turned to him. “That’s poetic.”

“It’s geographical.”

“Okay, nerd.”

The train curved again, slowly, and the world rearranged itself. A wide glacial valley opened ahead—snowfields edged with wind-worn brush, tiny trees stunted by altitude, wildlife tracks winding in long chaotic curves toward the edge of a frozen lake.

Neither of them said anything for a long time.

There was no need.

The sun dipped lower in the sky, shifting the light across the seats. The mountains changed colors by the minute—pale gold at the tips, rust-colored along the faces, then cooler blues and purples in the shadows. The snow mirrored it all, glowing, reflecting, deepening. The sky stretched overhead like the inside of a bowl—wide and empty and cloudless.

Alex’s tail flicked once, then settled.

She sighed.

“Okay,” she said eventually. “Here’s the deal. I’m not going to fall asleep. But I am going to borrow your shoulder.”

Lobu didn’t look away from the view.

“I’ll allow it.”

“Generous.”

She stood and crossed to his side, slipping into the seat beside him in one fluid motion. She curled sideways, tucked one leg beneath her, then leaned in until her shoulder pressed to his and her head found the soft space beneath his jaw.

“Just temporary,” she mumbled. “I’ll be extremely conscious the whole time.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Alert. Engaged. Ready to answer any questions you have about American geography.”

He kept his eyes out the window at the view that kept defying the laws of beauty—getting prettier and prettier the longer the time went on.

“Obviously.”

Her paw curled around his forearm.

And then—

Quiet.

Just the train. Just the view. Just the low hum of other people caught in their own moments of awe.

Outside, the snow fields widened. The mountains opened up to reveal layered foothills, shadows creeping slowly across the land like hands pulling a blanket. The world turned rose-gold. Then lilac. Then dark blue.

Alex’s breathing slowed.