#unmentioned for a reason but hey maybe he is also pissed off because it was aiku chan isagi kun but he is sae san

[gascon-en-exil]

I Liked Fates Before It Was Cool!: Revelation Part 2

Prologue

Opening Chapters

Revelation Part 1

Chapters 13-19, in which everyone’s going to Valla even though half of them suck.

Chapter 13

Hey look, Hoshidan scum!

Ok, meme comedy done. This is in my opinion the first really strong chapter of Revelation, with satisfying gameplay, escalation of the threat posed by Valla, and some good character development. It’s an utter tragedy that it takes place against the literal backdrop of Cyrkensia’s ruined opera house, but I can (mostly) live with the destruction of my favorite setting in Fates when it’s so effective at getting results. Azura still gets to sing here after a fashion, and although there’s no cutscene to go with it the results of this particular show do a good job of subtly foreshadowing that Azura and Mikoto use similar pacifying magic from the same source.

After Kaden and Keaton are done lampshading why the party always runs into shapeshifters in Cyrkensia, it’s time for Corrin to step between Xander and Ryoma as they left them back in Chapter 6 - at each other’s throats in a conflict ultimately engineered by Anankos. It’s a good demonstration of what the war between the two nations would look like without Corrin’s intervention, and the crown princes’ characters logically follow from their behavior as antagonists in the other routes. Xander is resolved that Corrin is a traitor and merits only death, whereas Ryoma is more hesitant to accept Corrin’s choice and, unlike in Conquest, willing to listen to their stated motivations when he’s not on the verge of death. Ryoma’s mellower outlook may be attributed, oddly enough, to the strong intimation that he’s got something going on with Scarlet, something I completely forgot about until I replayed this chapter. I don’t blame myself for doing so; in an Avatar free-for-all dating game romances between the other playable characters are naturally going to get short shrift in the story, and it doesn’t help that Birthright doesn’t suggest this relationship at all even though it’s the one route where both characters to survive to the end. And...yeah, there’s that part, but that’s for a bit later. It’s interesting to imagine how the different circumstances of Revelation could have encouraged Ryoma and Scarlet to grow closer in Revelation than they do in Birthright, though realistically it probably just boils down to Corrin not being there for most of their time together.

In any case, Ryoma shares what he knows about the Rainbow Sage - odd how the fourth person to visit the Sage is still Xander on this route when in the others it’s unsurprisingly the opposing older brother - and Corrin and co. are off to follow the path of Conquest 10 and 11. At least there’s no sequence-breaking teleport books this time.

Chapter 14

This time I’m not focusing on the cutaway to Garon and co., because his obvious gloating has reached such alarmingly stupid levels that I have nothing more to say about it. The payoff, such as it is, to that plot thread is still a few chapters away anyway...as is the appearance of Iago and Hans, who have yet to do much of anything on this route and yet get to appear as bosses at a plot-critical moment. Boo.

Let’s talk about unit balancing instead. Elise shows up with her she’s-legal-we-swear panty shot, and one look at the stats of her and her retainers showcases another glaring problem with the gameplay of Revelation. From this point onward, there’s really no point in training any of the numerous unpromoted units the game throws at you, because there’s no time to raise them up to par unless you do a lot of grinding. This is one instance where Revelation’s similarities to FE10 are more superficial than they first appear, because 

1) when compared to just one route of Fates Radiant Dawn is a much longer game, and in fact at 43 chapters still holds the record for the longest individual story campaign in the series. Revelation’s pacing and design suffers terribly from the requirement that it cover the same number of chapters as the other routes.

2) Radiant Dawn also has a massive roster (second largest in the series behind New Mystery) with several units who come behind the level curve, but they’re spread across the course of the game rather than lumped into a span of a few chapters. Examples vary from earlygame recruits just a bit behind (Meg) to underwhelming midgame units (Kyza and Lyre) to a bonus run Est type in lategame (Pelleas). 

3) and most notably, units in FE10 are divided into separate armies with different resource pools until lategame. While the balancing between those is infamously unequal, this setup almost requires that you train more units than you’ll ultimately be sending into endgame, giving even the lesser ones a small chance to shine.

I imagine that the design philosophy behind Revelation is that the player would be expected to spend a lot of time grinding on this route to get its numerous unique supports and raise a much larger army. It seems intended for a slower pace, particularly as this also helps with building up the castle base when you’ve got duplicates of most buildings to upgrade. I still don’t care for it though, because I don’t feel like taking that extra time to raise an oversized army and because some of the recruitments continue to be unexplained in story. Why would two border guards join in the invasion of a foreign port? Revelation doesn’t know or care, but it’ll make you run your new underleveled healer to both sides of this large map to recruit them regardless. At least Elise is mounted....

Chapter 15

Seriously, look at this. These two join in the same chapter, what the hell. This isn’t even mentioning that these are also some pretty random recruitments. Shura is awfully nonchalant on hearing that Corrin got his revenge for him, and Nyx has no more reason to be here than she did in Conquest 9. With her it really feels like the writers had a great (if highly fetishistic) concept for a character and came up with a plausible backstory only to find that there was no way to fit her into the plot, so...here she is. On a related note, Nyx is the only first generation character other than Gunter to outright not appear in one route, and at least there’s an explanation for Gunter’s absence in Birthright. Her presence really is just that random.

Before doing the write-up for this chapter I read back over what I’d written for the Sevenfold Sanctuary in the other routes. The gameplay of the Revelation iteration offers nothing really to speak of, lacking either Conquest’s class and skill-themed rooms or Birthright’s power jump. The Rainbow Sage uses an alternate old man sprite initially to make it less obvious that he’s repeating the same trick he pulled in Birthright, but his exposition at the end is worth the trolling for finally confirming that he is indeed a dragon and giving us the obligatory Fire Emblem name drop. Fates’s cosmology reveals itself to borrow mostly from Jugdral of all places, though I’ve never yet seen anyone try to piece together the scattered hints of worldbuilding to link the twelve dragons of the two settings. I’m certainly not going to attempt it, because even with divine weapons and draconic-blooded families in the mix there’s remarkably little to conclude definitively that the First Dragons of Fates are/were the dragons that appeared to Jugdral’s Crusaders. My pet theory aligns it a bit more with Tellius because of certain other observations about Fates’s setting and because something is going to have to connect the dragon laguz to the rest of the series’s lore eventually.

Chapter 16 + 17

I’ve been pretty down on Revelation thus far, and at first I was fully prepared to rip into these two chapters in similar fashion...and then I finished playing through them and changed my mind. If I had to pick one moment from FE14 to represent in miniature the beautiful mess that is this game, with all its inventive concepts and missed potential, its stirring emotional moments and lazy copouts, I would choose these chapters. In spite of everything they nail the very best of what Fates offers on an emotional level, and as a midgame climax they land almost as well as the Branch of Fate lands as an establishing moment.

And yet there’s so much wrong with them! Hans and Iago have never been flatter or more inconsequential antagonists; note that before this point in Revelation they’ve done nothing aside from knock Gunter off a bridge and use an illusion to piss off the Wind Tribe. The Ryoma/Scarlet angle is abruptly dialed back to the friend zone, presumably to make it okay for the Avatar to bone them, while Hinoka abruptly joins in the action after having been forgotten about for eleven(!) chapters bar one throwaway mention in Chapter 13. Xander and Leo’s apparent betrayal of Nohr has little bite to it even from Iago as Garon might as well not exist by this point, and their retainers fail so hard as backup I almost always just send them to a corner to wait out the battle. Speaking of which, the trend of underleveled units reaches its zenith, here where maybe four of the eleven units obtained in these chapters can reasonably be used without grinding after this point. It’s even worse than the torrent of garbage units the Archanea games throw at you, because at least those sometimes come with nice stuff in their inventories (hence the “Free Silvers” tier jokingly used on some of the DS tier lists back when those were popular). And to cap it all off the ticking timer that’s been running from Chapter 7 up until this moment, of the skies over Hoshido and Nohr switching as the moment that the portal to Valla will close, makes no sense either (meteoro)logically or narratively except to add unneeded urgency and entice a few of the characters to the Canyon. For that matter, since Revelation appears to take place in the same time frame as the other two routes it’s baffling that this bizarre bit of worldbuilding goes unmentioned in them. Wouldn’t it be kind of a big deal for Nohr to get a normal sky every few decades, and for Hoshido to get a bad one?

But somehow despite all that when the Nohrian brothers show up in Chapter 17 and the music switches to “A Dark Fall” (quick aside, but one thing I love about Fates as a whole is its soundtrack) I fully got what the developers were going for, and to see all the royals finally interacting with each other - something sorely missing from Chapter 6, if you recall - and calling a truce to face whatever awaits them in Valla together just sealed that feeling. The Hoshidan and Nohrian contrast to these two chapters followed by a scene of Corrin’s families united for the first time really sells the main draw of Revelation, even if for some of them the buildup to that moment was rushed (Takumi, Camilla) or just not there at all (Hinoka). Yeah, it comes with the distinct aroma of Avatar-centered plotting like everything else on this route - as Ryoma actually points out in Chapter 16, funnily enough - but even though some of the particulars are undercooked and most of the circumstances are downright silly I can completely get on board with this group of people in this moment banding together to, uh, jump off a bridge before an interdimensional portal closes because the sky is changing color and...ugh, never mind.

Chapter 18

I will say this for Valla: I really enjoy its visual style, a sort of supernaturally-ruined pastoral idyll that resembles nothing like the world above. It also helps that it’s not tied directly to any real-world cultures like Hoshido and Nohr are, and its nods to Middle Eastern, Indian, and exclusively in localization (I think?) Greek cultures come across in the series’s more typically understated fashion. Of course that otherworldly quality lends itself to more frustrating map mechanics, so it’s not entirely a positive. This one isn’t so bad provided you’re fielding a bunch of royals to activate all the Dragon Veins - and really, it’s not as though the player needs another excuse to use them to the exclusion of almost everyone else.

But of course the big moment of this chapter is Scarlet’s death. The bit with the flower is a painfully obvious hint to recall when it comes time for the reveal of her killer, but nevertheless the sequence does well despite that and some awkward staging with battle models. What doesn’t work quite as well is the reintroduction of the Ryoma/Scarlet angle just to add more punch to her death...completely ignoring the possibility that Corrin might be married to either of them (and Scarlet just undergone what had to have been one of the most hyper-accelerated pregnancies in all of fiction, if you want to be really sadistic). Because of their earlier buildup this may be the most egregious example of Fates needing to ignore its own support mechanics for the sake of the main plot. In any case, if Corrin didn’t shack up with one of them the scene after the chapter is pretty solid. I consider it comparable to Lilith’s death scenes on the other routes, since she also dies taking a hit for Corrin, but as the circumstances are less random and Scarlet actually gets most of her characterization outside DLC it’s much more effective overall.

Chapter 19

Enter the strange child with the oversized forehead. At least it’s not immediately obvious that’s he’s evil, I guess?

It’s interesting to note that the Valla chapters are structured almost as a route unto themselves, having to establish a new set of characters previously unseen in Revelation and not seen at all in the other routes. Although in terms of gameplay they function more like an extended endgame in the vein of Radiant Dawn’s Tower of Guidance, bizarre architecture and all. I’ll be talking more about Anthony and Arete and the others later on, but I wanted to note the setup for when I talk about it in the next post. 

The intro to this chapter also delves into a bit more of Fates’s cosmology, specifically its deified dragons. Xander asks what only Iago thought to question in Conquest, namely why Garon would worship Anankos and not the Dusk Dragon, only to get the obvious but still technically necessary reveal of Garon’s true nature. I do like that the First Dragons are vague enough in their presentation that I could believe either that the Dawn and Dusk Dragons are just different interpretations of Anankos or that they’re all separate entities. As I recall however this is somewhat muted by the knowledge that the emotional payoff re: Garon is going to be rather muted when it finally happens, so this really is just more vague worldbuilding. 

Oh, right, the chapter. It’s Conquest 15 with a bigger party and entirely too many items drops on the optional path. Why the developers think the player needed so many items thrown at them in a game with no durability and a route with no shortage of funds I’ll never know.

Next time: Revelation Chapter 20 - Endgame

[zawazawanightmares]

Trunks Briefs & Boyfriend

You, Trunks Briefs, are connected to Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin] Your partner selected the 18+ server. Your partner has a starter. Type /starter or tap here to see it.

Trunks Briefs: /starter

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: 19M https://imgur.com/a/FIt4odq

Trunks Briefs: Hey.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Beep. Hey.

Trunks Briefs: How's it going?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Ehhh. *Waggles hand slightly.* Nice hair dude, rocking the bluey-violet shade.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Boop, how are you?

Trunks Briefs: Thanks...I get it from my mom, sort of. I'm doing okay, I guess.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Oh, same, I got my blue from my mom, but mine's brighter than my sisters. Psht.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Beep, I've never seen you around here before, but I don't really know where I am in the first place?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: What's your name, B?

Trunks Briefs: I'm Trunks. And you're in West City.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Oh! That's kind of a simple name.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Trunks ...

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Fake name, or?

Trunks Briefs: Nope. It's kind of a family theme...

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Example?

Trunks Briefs: My mom's name is Bulma,

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: No fucking way. That's like the best theme I've ever heard.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Your family rules.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: GIANT cool energies.

Trunks Briefs: Really? First time I heard that.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Oh it fucking ROCKS dude.

Trunks Briefs: Thanks! What's your name?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: My street name is Boyfriend. Most people just call me that, or some Blue nickname. I'm kind of shy, but.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Beep. Since you shared your family name-

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: My name's Kare.

Trunks Briefs: Kare? Oh, that's interesting. Reminds me of a family friend's name.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Does it?

Trunks Briefs: Yeah. I mean, he himself doesn't use it because he already has a family name but his original name sounds kind of close to yours.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Original name .... ohh. Good for him. *He thinks they're transgender*

Trunks Briefs: So, your street name is Boyfriend? Is that because you're a host or something?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: I'm an up and coming rapper! You gotta pick a cool name to get known as, and my nickname in my families always been BF.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Nobody really shares their real name unless they want their business pried into.

Trunks Briefs: I see. That does make a lot of sense.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: It's also why I never talk-- I was almost going to just beep and boop at you until you got annoyed, but I decided your hair was too cool to be left unmentioned.

Trunks Briefs: Oh...that's an interesting way to approach communication, I guess.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Nahhhh I'm just asocial and on a spectrum somewhere, but it sure makes people pissed off and wanna fight me when I beep too much, hahaha!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: And then I can beat them!

Trunks Briefs: I see...you remind me of that same family friend again...and my dad, for some reason.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: ... never been told I remind someone of their dad before.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Oh god, is this it? It's all down hill from here?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Now I gotta start a family.

Trunks Briefs: Uh...maybe?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Haha I'm joking with you dude! You got friends?

Trunks Briefs: Yeah. I got Mai and some other guys I'm hanging out with.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: You gotta cultivate your sense of humour then some more!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Don't worry bro.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: I'm your buddy now, I'll teach you the ways of comedy.

Trunks Briefs: Oh? Then thanks!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Beep! *He gives a thumbs up!*

Trunks Briefs: *gives a thumbs up back* Glad to have you on board.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: What are you out and about for anyways? I don't see no buddies following, errands? I was kind of loitering and roaming.

Trunks Briefs: Oh, I was just walking about, thinking about things.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Well- I did a little.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Beep, do you want to go back to thinking? Pretty hard stuff.

Trunks Briefs: Nah, I need the company. It was going to some weird places...

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: That's why I don't be thinking. Nuh-uh. That shit stays turned off. Hahahahaa!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: You can rant if you want but you don't gotta.

Trunks Briefs: Hm. Maybe I should do that.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Yeah, what's bothering you B?

Trunks Briefs: Just existential stuff. Thinking about what makes something matter...

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Hmmm... like "you" as a person or just anything?

Trunks Briefs: Maybe...everything?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Hmm... well, I'm not really sure. I'd probably say something like "maybe it's important to me", but what if it wasn't?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Maybe it's important to someone out there.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Or maybe it just has an inherent right to exist?

Trunks Briefs: ...Yeah, yeah I guess that makes sense.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Thinking too hard can cause a lotta problems. I'm not no science geek but pretty much every smart dude out there's depressed.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: They just think and think and think.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: You gotta enjoy sometimes too.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: What kind of stuff do you like to do? Have you been doing it lately? Maybe you should do it again.

Trunks Briefs: Hm...I like training. Spending time with Mai. I've also really gotten into video games recently.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Training? Like what?

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Video games are fun! And so are friends.

Trunks Briefs: Oh, like conditioning and sparring. Never know when the next problem will show up.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Oooooooh.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: That makes sense!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Your fight or flight is stuck on! You're waiting for that really slow tiger to attack you! Hahahahaha!

Trunks Briefs: Oh. I guess you're right.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: I dunno what you've been through, probably something awful if you're stuck in tension. I think you have to retrain your brain to like, let go.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: My friend acts like that, his name's Pico.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: He's twitchy and freaked out, if I move too fast he yells at me.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: But he's just scared because he gets attacked a lot, and lost a lot of friends.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: He says that he can't stop training, because he doesn't want to lose more loved ones.

Trunks Briefs: That's sad for Pico. I can relate.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Even if I understand though, it's not healthy for either of you.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: You two look really physically fit, but your brains need some care too.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Hang out with Mai more!

Trunks Briefs: I guess I could...she really wanted to check out this new mall together.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: That's a good idea! It'll force your brain to, uh, like, focus instead of being hyper vigi- vige- uh. Aware.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: You tell me when and I'll bust in that mall and put on a show to distract all the weirdos~! Hahahahahaa!

Trunks Briefs: Alright. I'll take your advice!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: If worse comes to worse just ask your muscle friends to bonk your head until a few IQ points rattle out.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: THEN you'll feel better!!

Trunks Briefs: Um...maybe I can shelve that one until worse comes to worse.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Haha!! Just look at me, everybody likes rattling me around!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: I'm legally considered a shrimp.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: I'm kidding!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: But also not.

Trunks Briefs: But you're very wise.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Ewwwwww I'm losing honeys by the second dude. I'm not a nerd.

Trunks Briefs: I mean, wisdom usually comes from experience, not intelligence.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Oh!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: I'll accept that then.

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: I've got lots of experiences!

Trunks Briefs: I can see that. Hey, I should get going but I hope to see you again!

Boyfriend [Friday Night Funkin]: Say hi if you spot me again, feel better dude!

Trunks Briefs: I will! Thanks again!

You left the chat

[artificialqueens]

if i could have you (Biadore) - dylann

A/N: long time reader, first time poster. pretty sure this one technically fulfills that one request for jealousy that leads to a confession?  (also this is set in some vague present time and in any city that has a hotel and a club, that’s truly unimportant here)

content warning: drinking, a whole bunch of swearing, thinly veiled references to questionable sexual habits

Bianca opens her mouth all the way only to bring her teeth back down onto her bottom lip like a guillotine.

Adore stares. Bianca’s wearing nude lip liner and some sort of glittery gloss at the center of her lips. It’s dark beige, or light brown, or something. Adore is too far gone to care.

She blinks a few times and smiles back as Bianca grins and finishes a joke and laughs with her head thrown back. It’s almost too much.

There are nights when post-performance drinks are a good time and everyone goes back to whatever hotel they’re staying at buzzed and tired and ready to do it all over again in 24 hours. And then, there are nights like this.

Bianca is always funny, always brilliant, always so quick on her feet it’s terrifying and most nights, Adore finds it incredible to watch and be a part of. It’s like a masterclass every time, and Adore always ends up reeling from it. It’s a feeling really close to pride, that sense of Hey this is my friend and she’s so fucking good, look at her go; Adore loves sharing and showing Bianca off to an audience.

But on nights like this, when Bianca’s at the very top of her game, watching her is unbearable. It’s like staring directly into a bright light. Adore can never look away and that’s when her need to be so much closer to Bianca rises to the top and is impossible to ignore.

And Adore’s grown to be so good at ignoring her love for Bianca.

They’re friends. They’re good friends who travel together and work together and share hotel rooms and probably know each other’s worst habits, and it’s really no secret that they share a lot of love. They exchange “I love you”s dozens of times every day. It’s the way Adore means it which has gone unmentioned and unacknowledged for a long, long time now.

It’s okay, most days.

Now, Bianca is still talking, delivering one of her longwinded stories which is basically a stand up bit, and everyone at their table is laughing. The music is too loud for Adore to hear most of what’s being said, so she’s just watching Bianca and her heavy lashes, and her sparkly lips and her impossibly wide grin.

It’s almost the perfect life. It’d be ideal if Adore could get to snake an arm around her waist and maybe steal a few kisses in between laughs. It wouldn’t change much, really, and Adore wants it so much breathing hurts for entirely non-cincher reasons.

This is a bad spiral.

It’s useless and bad when she starts justifying it, when she starts thinking that a few kisses here and there wouldn’t change a thing,

so Adore does what she always does when it starts to happen and excuses herself.

She says something about fresh air, doesn’t wait to see if anyone heard, and heads out of the club.

The smoking area outside isn’t exactly deserted but it’s quieter and Bianca isn’t there, which is all Adore can ask for. It’s much easier to be aware that you’re drunk once you’re away from the booming music and the dim lights inside.

Adore’s watches a group of kids, definitely a few years younger than her, stumble down the sidewalk and thinks she’s lucky she’s great at keeping her balance in heels.

There’s a skinny boy smoking by himself against the side of the building. He has dark skin and ripped jeans, and his tank top is cut in a way which shows off an impressive tattoo covering his ribs. He also looks like the kind of club goer who was definitely there to see the show, and is now trying his hardest to look cool at the sight of Adore by herself, and way from the spotlight.

He even props one of his feet back up agains the wall. He’s a picture of act cool, act cool, act cool and Adore would probably find it annoying if she wasn’t in the mood to engage.

So she walks over, shoots him a bright red grin, and asks,

“Do you have a lighter?”

The pretty boy stares, visibly swallows back a “Hi Adore oh my god I’m a huge fan the show was great can we take a selfie” and reaches into his pocket, saying instead,

“Sure.“

“Fantastic,” Adore draws the word out, and tilts her head to the side. She’s very aware that it looks adorable. “Got a cigarette, too?”

“You really came unprepared, didn’t you?” the guy teases, and Adore laughs. This is fine, he’s treating her like an actual person, and it makes her want to play along more.

“You have no idea,” she quips as she pulls out a cigarette from the half-empty pack of Marlboro reds he extends in her direction.

He lights it for her the second it hits her lips which, okay, wow, the guy really is trying.

Adore tries not to be the kind of person who does groupies. Truly, she does.

It’s just that she travels a lot and ends up pining and drunk at clubs just as often, and there are people who find her attractive and would like to fuck her there. That’s it — people who dig her. Not groupies.

Adore decorates her “Thanks” in an entire cloud of cigarette smoke because she can be dramatic and hot as if the sidewalk is a stage if that’s what it takes to get her away from this place by time she’s finished the cigarette, god damn it.

“Syd,” the guy says, glancing up to catch her eyes. He’d probably be taller than her if she wasn’t wearing heels. His eyes are brown and they catch the orange light of the street lamp beautifully.

“Adore.”

“I know.”

Adore rolls her eyes and Syd laughs, so she lets him believe she’d been joking.

“So, you come here often?” she tries, and can’t keep a straight face long enough to ask. Syd laughs. Adore’s starting to think he’d laugh at anything she has to say.

“When there’s something good to see,” he smirks, and actually moves a few inches closer.

Adore smokes in silence and blinks very slowly in away that’s reserved for the stage and people she wouldn’t mind fucking.

Syd leans with his shoulder against the wall and is now close enough that just one turn would have him directly in front of her and backing her into the wall. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“And do you always go out alone, or—“ Adore starts, and she’s ready to use whatever answer he gives her to her advantage. Her cigarette is almost done and Syd looks pretty kissable.

“Adore.”

Bianca’s voice comes from the door of the club and Adore freezes.

“Sorry, it’s just my mom,” she says to Syd and he laughs again, and god damn it, will he ever stop laughing?

“Adore Delano,” Bianca repeats. “I got an Uber, come on.”

She’s not asking a question.

The only option Adore’s given is to follow her and for some reason, it pisses her off a little. Usually, Bianca would make a joke about making good choices and let her be, and Adore would roll her eyes and tell her to fuck off, and they’d catch up in the morning.

“He’s like, less than a minute away.”

Adore glances at Syd, and then back at Bianca.

Fuck. It was never really a matter of making a choice.

“Sorry. Gotta go,” Adore forces a cutesy smile and leaves a bright red lip print on Syd’s cheek before walking away.

It’ll give him enough to talk about.

The car pulls up and Adore follows Bianca in, crushing the cigarette butt under her heel as she goes.

***

Adore keeps herself collected in the car because the Uber driver is looking at them weird and the last thing she needs is to deal with that. Bianca notices his look too, of course, and only says hello when they get in and thank you, goodnight, as soon as they pull up in front of the hotel.

The elevator ride up is quiet. Then, Bianca opens the door to the room and Adore can’t hold back any longer.

“What the fuck was that?”

“He looked dodgy,” Bianca shrugs. She’s sitting at the edge of her bed, undoing her heels’ straps and she answers in the low, detached tone of someone who really doesn’t want to be talking about this.

For a moment, Adore considers letting it go. She’s not entirely sure why she’s trying to pick a fight with Bianca but something is picking at the back of her mind, and she’s pissed off, and she’s very much pissed off at Bianca.

She spends a minute having a quiet argument with herself as she wriggles out of her dress and it all bubbles up in her chest. Adore can’t not have this conversation so she whips back to look at Bianca (now eyelash-less and methodically pulling pins out of her wig).

“No, fuck, hold on. What the fuck was that— I was in the middle of something,” Bianca doesn’t answer. “I mean, fuck, Bianca you didn’t even ask if I wanted to go. Which. I didn’t.”

“He didn’t look safe.”

“What do you mean he didn’t— he’s just some kid who came to the show. Jesus!”

Bianca mumbles a reply under her breath in away which seems pointed.

“What was that?” Adore feels her stomach drop as she snaps at her. She doesn’t want to be doing this but it’s already set in motion and it feels oddly cinematic, like she’s somewhere else, watching herself fight. She’s not in control.

“I said,” Bianca bites, “that maybe this isn’t about this guy.”

Her eyes look bigger now that she’s taken her lashes off and Adore wishes she wasn’t glaring at her so she could appreciate them.

“What the fuck.”

“I mean, it was cute at first but you’ve got to stop fucking fans. You know it’d only take one person to start talking on Reddit and—“

“Jesus. Christ. Bianca, fuck, are you kidding me right now?” Adore snaps. She shouldn’t be raising her voice, she really shouldn’t, but damn it, she’s drunk and she’s hurt and she wants to scream. “It’s only happened like, once. Two times—“

“That’s two too many.”

Bianca’s never sounded that harsh. She raises her voice to match Adore and it makes Adore’s head spin. She’d never thought Bianca could genuinely get that angry.

Adore is standing in the middle of the room in all of her undergarments and she feels bare and embarrassed and her cheeks burn. It must be visible through the layers of makeup still on her face.

“I’m sorry I’m such a whore,” she says, and she’d meant it to come out rude and biting but her voice wavers even though she’s still basically yelling. “I’m sorry I don’t live up to your ridiculous standards, I was just having fun, fuck.”

“That whole live fast die young schtick gets real old real quick, Adore,” Bianca says, not missing a beat.

“I do not understand how that’s any of your goddamn business.”

“I don’t want you to end up—“

“I know how to take care of myself.”

“Honestly, right now, I fucking doubt that.” Bianca practically yells at her and it shuts her up. Adore breaks the eye contact, looking down at the floor as she begins to unlace her cincher. Her hands are shaking. She’s chipped a nail.

“I just can’t deal with my alternative being coming back to a goddamn hotel room with you every night.”

Adore starts speaking way before she knows what she’s saying. Her vision goes dark around the edges. Shutupshutupshutup.

Bianca, now down to her wig cap, stares at her and it’s angry and sad and Adore wants to throw up, and cry, and never see this conversation through.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means—fuck, Bea. It means some nights I can’t come home and, and, watch you do this,”

(Bianca is rubbing her makeup off.)

“and then go to sleep, while I’m here fucking…wide awake thinking about shit I’m never gonna fucking have ‘cause I’m too fucking scared to even consider… I mean. Fuck.”

(Adore pauses for a shaky breath. Bianca doesn’t say anything.)

“I need something else, sometimes, okay? Of course it’s about fucking. And when it’s someone who doesn’t know me but thinks he does and treats me like a fucking celebrity? It’s good. But— Jesus, Bea, I like falling asleep with someone, like… I wanna smoke a fucking joint with someone and crash and wake up in his arms and pretend I’m not flying away in twelve hours, like, just once.

I want—“

(Adore’s rapid-firing. There are tears down her cheeks and they’re 90% anger.)

“I fucking wanna be with someone and if I can’t get that in our fucking hotel room, then I will fucking go out and get it somewhere else.”

(FUCK.)

Adore stops dead in her tracks. She draws in a very sharp breath and sways a little.

Wigless and bare faced, Roy is staring at her like she’s a disgusting car wreck and he can’t look away.

“I lost you halfway through that whole speech,” the fight is gone from his voice. Under the makeup, he’s grown very, very pale. “At least, I think I did.”

“It doesn’t f— doesn’t matter anyway,” Adore wipes her face with the back of her hand. “Whatever. It’s late. Go to bed. I’ll be quiet.“

“Adore.”

It’s so much softer this time.

Roy walks over to her. He’s barefoot and so much shorter but Adore feels tiny next to him even as she looks down to catch his eyes.

“I really need to know,” Roy says, and his voice is perfectly level and controlled, and for some reason that makes Adore start sobbing again. There’s definitely mascara streaking down her face and it isn’t pretty. She’s an embarrassing goddamn mess and this is pointless and,

“I need to know. What are you trying to say?”

“Just that—“ she sniffles and reaches up to pull off an eyelash that’s completely unglued. “I wouldn’t be going out to do that shit if I could—“

have you, she doesn’t say, because Roy has closed the distance between her, and he has a hand resting at the curve of her jaw, and is kissing her.

Adore kisses back because her ears are ringing and the world is ending and she might as well kiss back if it’s the last damn thing she does.

Except then the kiss ends and she’s still there, shaking and breathless and her mascara’s on Roy’s cheeks and he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

“Fuck,” she whispers, and reaches a shaky hand to pull her wig off. A bunch of hair pins hit the floor.

“Yeah. Fuck,” Roy nods. He doesn’t quite smile but she sees it in the slightest curve of his lips, in the way his laughter lines deepen when he looks at her.

“Come on,” he adds quietly, and his hand is around her wrist, and he’s guiding her to his bed, and all Adore can do is follow. Her head is swimming. Her chest is too tight. She’s pretty sure she’s still crying, and not quite sure why anymore.

Then she finds herself seated at the edge of his bed, and Roy’s hand is tilting her chin up, and he’s cleaning her make up with one of his cucumber-scented wipes. Adore breathes, and breathes, and quiets down by the time his hand runs over her lips to wipe off her lipstick.

Danny has never felt this vulnerable.

His eyes are burning and his entire world has gone tunnel vision, focused entirely on Roy who’s so terrifyingly close. Danny’s mouth tastes vaguely like vodka and borrowed cigarettes and cucumber make up wipes, and it’s not pleasant.

“I must be horrible to kiss right now,” he jokes weakly.

“Yeah, I’m not about to lie to you and tell you it’s like strawberries and champagne ‘cause I’ve wanted it for awhile,” Roy quips back, perfectly deadpan, and Danny is so fucking in love.

“But I have,” Roy adds.

Danny wants to say that could listen to nothing but his voice saying I’ve wanted this for a while for the rest of his life and he’d be okay with that.

“I should brush my teeth,” he says instead.

“Yeah. Do that. You’re a fucking mess.”

** Danny stares at himself in the bathroom mirror as he spits toothpaste into the sink.

In the morning, when they’re sober, they’re gonna have to talk about this.

He’s gonna have to apologize for blowing up.

Now, though, he feels cleaner but his head is still swimming and he doesn’t want to talk at all.

“I made myself look all pretty for you,” he announces as he steps out of the bathroom, because being cute is much easier than being vulnerable. And he’s so damn good at being cute.

He’s down to his boxers and entirely too aware of Roy’s eyes on him as he pads back into the room.

“You’re always pretty,” Roy shoots back. Then, because he’s truly a saint, he adds a much gentler, “But we shouldn’t do this right now. You’re drunk. Shit, I’m drunk. And emotions are clearly heightened— We should go to bed.”

And he’s right, of course. Anyone else would be steering Danny towards a series of horrible choices. But Roy is actually a goddamn angel sent from heaven.

As Roy flips the lights off, Danny walks over to his bed, and then he hears a laugh in the dark.

“What the fuck are you doing? Don’t be an idiot. Come over here.”

Realizing what Roy meant takes a second.

Danny’s not used to having a middle ground between reckless, raw lust and absolute rejection, and it makes his heart sting in a way he’s definitely not about to acknowledge. Instead, he walks over to Roy’s bed and climbs in, and it’s so simple and so fucking overwhelming.

“I should’ve picked a fight fucking—“ years “—a while ago.”

“God, do you ever shut up?” Roy exhales a laugh and pulls him into his side.

“I talk when I’m nervous.”

“Shut up.”

Roy kisses the top of his head, and Danny shuts up.

He’s so tired. His body is so heavy.

They’re gonna have to figure this out and talk, really talk, and he knows this whole conversation isn’t over at all yet. But now Roy’s arm is around his shoulders, and it’s hard to hold on to thoughts for too long, and it’s all gonna have to wait.

Danny drifts off with his head on Roy’s chest.

There, he can feel Roy’s heart racing even as they lie still and quiet,

and he just thinks to himself,

same.