Dispatch (video game); Flambert - Stories

Healing takes work, trust takes time, and the ground beneath them is still desperately thin.

While Chad recovers, basking in the miracle of a relationship finally brought out of the cold, Robert returns to SDN to face the fallout after the battle. The fault lines beneath them are already shifting and Robert is quietly bearing the cost so Chad never has to.

They're finally together, but what you see on the surface level can be deceiving.

In the fragile aftermath of battle, literal and emotional armor comes off, leaving Robert and Chad to navigate a landscape of vulnerability and unspoken truths. Intimidated by the prospect, Robert steps into a sleek corporate promotion, using it as a shield to isolate himself and keep Chad's fire at a distance. But the pressure of the impending Mecha Man relaunch pushes Robert’s stress to a boiling point, fracturing his control. What begins as a desperate, high-friction attempt to use a single night of physical release to burn Chad out of his system instead traps them both in a web of missed connections and mounting, unreciprocated feelings.

(Spoilers if you haven't played the Dispatch video game, specifically Episode 5 and on)

Robert and Flambae (Chad) begin spiraling toward a collision of past and present. Drowning the day in whiskey and smoke, their professional facade crumbles, revealing a dangerous attraction - only further complicated by Robert's hidden identity.