Chapter Text
By day, Victoria Chase was Blackwell’s very own snow queen. Designer heels clicked like punctuation marks across the linoleum floors, pearl necklaces gleamed under fluorescent lights, and her lip gloss probably cost more than most students’ rent. She was the definition of untouchable. If you asked her, she’d insist she was straight. Straight as an arrow. Straight as a geometry line. Straight as a ruler pressed under a textbook in the middle of finals week. Straight as… well, you get the picture. Everyone believed her because of course they did. Who would doubt Victoria Chase? She was polished, perfect, the kind of girl who made teachers beam with approval and classmates mutter resentfully under their breath. If she wasn’t queen bee, she was at least the queen’s publicist. She cultivated that image carefully, and the whole school bought it—because she made sure they did. No one questioned it, because she gave them nothing to question.
But by night? The pearls came off, the pomade came out, and suddenly Victoria was gone. Enter Victor: drag king, 1940s suit connoisseur, and part-time heartbreaker at a queer cabaret two towns over. The transformation wasn’t just physical; it was an exhale, a release, a shedding of every expectation her daytime self carried like a burden. Victor didn’t simply walk into a room—he prowled. He smoldered. He owned every square inch of it like the floorboards existed solely to carry his weight. And when he sang, his voice curled like smoke around every ear in the room, daring anyone to look away.
Victor wasn’t just confident. He was obnoxiously confident. He flirted like he was getting paid by the wink. He could croon a ballad and have half the audience ready to toss room keys onto the stage. He strutted, leaned against pianos, tipped hats at strangers who had absolutely not asked for it. He teased with a raised brow, an undone button, a lingering hand. And honestly? He thrived on it. He lived for the cheers, the glitter, the spotlight, and that strange sensation of stepping into someone else’s skin—only to realize maybe it wasn’t someone else’s at all. Maybe Victor was the part of Victoria that had been locked away too long, waiting for the right key. In Victor’s grin, in his swagger, she felt more herself than she ever did as Victoria. At Blackwell, she was restrained. Here, she was alive.
None of this would’ve happened without Juliane. Juliane was… well, imagine if a disco ball became sentient, learned how to strut in six-inch heels, and never shut up. That was Juliane. Sequins, feathers, and the kind of laugh that could shatter glass. He’d been a drag queen since before Victor had figured out eyeliner, and he took one look at Victoria’s tightly wound, pearl-strangled life and said, “Nope. We’re fixing this.” Then he snatched her by the wrist, shoved her into a suit, and never let go. He called himself her fairy drag-mother, and honestly, it fit.
And fix it he did. Now they were inseparable. Mentor and protégé. Mother hen and disaster child. Queer Yoda and chaotic Luke Skywalker. They weren’t just friends—they were a comedy act waiting to happen, even when the curtains were closed. Juliane had the glitter, Victor had the charm, and together they could turn a grocery store run into a Vegas revue. A trip for milk ended with Juliane voguing in the frozen aisle and Victor serenading a box of Cheerios, and somehow they always got away with it. In fact, they thrived on it. The world was their stage, and no aisle was safe from their antics.
Backstage at the cabaret, Victor adjusted his tie in the mirror while Juliane sipped something neon green from a martini glass. The dressing room was a chaotic shrine: feather boas tangled on the vanity, wigs abandoned like casualties of war, and enough glitter dusting every surface to suffocate a small country. From beyond the walls, a muffled bassline rattled the floorboards, the crowd already buzzing, anticipation thick in the air. Victor could feel his pulse syncing to it, nerves flipping into adrenaline.
“Darling, your tie looks like you let a toddler dress you,” Juliane declared, strutting over in rhinestones that caught every bit of light. He set his martini down without spilling a drop, a feat that deserved its own standing ovation. “Honestly, do you want to seduce or do you want to look like an accountant?”
Victor smirked, tilting his fedora just so. “Some people are into accountants.”
“Not in this club, sweetheart.” Juliane tugged the tie straight, tutting dramatically. “There. Now you look like you might actually steal someone’s girlfriend instead of filing their taxes.”
Victor grinned, tugging at the lapels of his pinstripe jacket. “Jealous?”
Juliane gasped like he’d been shot. “Jealous? Of you? Darling, please. I am the original recipe. You’re just the spicy knockoff.”
Victor laughed, leaning back in his chair. “Spicy’s what gets me phone numbers.”
“Touché,” Juliane muttered, swirling his glowing drink. “But don’t forget, I still taught you everything you know.”
“Yeah, but not everything I do,” Victor shot back with a wink.
Juliane groaned, fanning himself dramatically. “God help me, I’ve created a monster.”
Victor leaned forward, lowering his voice with a smirk. “Correction: you’ve created competition.”
The lights flickered as a stagehand knocked, signaling their cue. Victor drew a long breath, the nerves burning away into the familiar fire of performance. Juliane slapped Victor’s shoulder, leaving behind a faint trail of glitter. “Go break their hearts, darling. And save one or two for me.”
The two shared a quick, dramatic bow to each other, as though stepping into the spotlight was an Olympic event. Then Victor squared his shoulders and headed out, heart pounding.
The show was electric. Victor strode under the spotlight, voice smooth as smoke, every lyric dipped in suggestion. He prowled across the stage, flirting with anyone reckless enough to make eye contact, tipping his hat, leaning too close, basking in the roars of laughter and applause. He crooned, he swaggered, he stretched every note like honey over glass. Juliane hovered at the wings, heckling like an over-invested stage mom. “Don’t believe him, he’s a liar!” he’d call, and the audience howled, eating it all up. Their chemistry blurred the line between script and improvisation; Juliane’s interjections turned the whole thing into a two-person act, part vaudeville, part love letter to chaos.
Victor leaned against the piano at one point, smirking at a woman in the front row. “Careful, darling,” he drawled, “if you keep staring at me like that, I’ll start thinking you’re planning our honeymoon.” The audience shrieked with laughter, and Juliane immediately cut in from the side: “Don’t flatter yourself, darling. She’s only after your suit.” The volley was seamless, and together they spun the room into stitches.
When the curtain finally fell, the applause echoed long after. Victor staggered back into the wings, chest heaving, hat tipped rakishly despite the sweat slicking his hair. Juliane wrapped him in a glittery half-hug, then shoved him toward the stage door. “Breathe it in, baby,” he whispered. “This is your kingdom.” Sweaty, exhilarated, Victor and Juliane stumbled out into the cool night air, where the real party often began.
On the street, they were a walking spectacle. Victor in his fedora and pinstripes, Juliane in feathers and heels, both bickering loudly about who looked hotter as if anyone within three blocks could possibly miss them. Cars honked, people stared, and they thrived on it, feeding off every glance like it was applause.
“Darling, I had three numbers thrown at me tonight,” Juliane bragged as they strutted down the wet pavement, his coat trailing dramatically like a cape.
Victor smirked, waving a folded napkin. “Cute. I had six.”
Juliane froze mid-stride, clutching his chest like a Victorian widow. “Six?! You’re stealing my thunder.”
Victor slung an arm around his shoulders, steering them forward. “Correction: I am thunder.”
Juliane side-eyed him. “Thunder doesn’t wear suspenders.”
Victor winked. “This thunder does.”
They collapsed into laughter so loud that apartment windows cracked open with shouts of “Keep it down!” But that was the point. They weren’t subtle. They were a spectacle, and they liked it that way. Life was too short not to make a scene. They lived louder than the world told them to, and every honk, every glare, every second of attention was fuel.
Their nights often ended in diners with sticky tabletops and greasy fries. Victor would reenact the worst pickup lines he’d heard—“Are you a magician? Because you made my pants disappear”—with such melodrama that Juliane nearly choked on milkshakes. Other nights, they wandered until dawn, Victor carrying Juliane’s heels when the cobblestones grew cruel. Sometimes they crashed at Juliane’s apartment, half in drag, half out, glitter embedded in the sofa cushions, eyeliner streaked across pillows. On rare mornings, they’d end up on the rooftop, eating cold pizza out of the box and watching the sun creep up, laughing at nothing at all. And then, when the city quieted, they’d whisper about dreams—Victor about escape, Juliane about bigger stages, and both of them about never losing this bond. Wherever they ended up, they always ended together, laughter echoing long after the music stopped.
Monday morning brought the mask again. Pearls. Lip gloss. Perfect hair. Victoria Chase glided through Blackwell’s halls as though none of it had happened. The queen bee mask was snug, flawless, untouchable. No one would’ve guessed that forty-eight hours earlier she’d been leaning against a piano with a phone number in her pocket and Juliane shrieking “WORK IT, KING!” from the wings.
The contrast was whiplash. Victor lived loud, brash, untamed. Victoria lived polished, precise, suffocating. But maybe that was the fun of it. Victor got to breathe. Victoria got to pretend. And somewhere in between, maybe they’d figure out who they really were. Maybe the truth was less about choosing one mask or the other, and more about finding the person underneath both. Maybe it was messy and complicated, but maybe it was worth it.
If not? Well. At least they looked fabulous doing it. And as Juliane always
said: Fabulous is half the battle.