A/N: I do not own Miraculous Ladybug
Adrien drops the hammer on his foot. He yelps out in pain, lifting his knee as he clutches onto the toe of his shoe.
"Ow, ow, ow ow ow," he whines, hopping up and down. Finally he falls to the dirt on his butt, gingerly holding his foot as he looks down at it disgustedly. His eyes then move to the hammer laying in the grass, its handle was once in his hands.
But quickly he stands up, again holding the hammer and hammering nails into fence posts to hold barbed wire. The jobs is tedious. A bright sun burning his exposed shoulders, sweat beading on his forehead, fingers reddening as the wooden handle of the hammer wares them down. His blond hair annoyingly keeps sticking to his forehead and his muscle tee seems to constantly rub uncomfortably at his neck.
Just ten more posts.
Now only seven.
Then four.
The skin breaks open on the inside of his index finger, blood stains the hammer.
Two more.
The last nail drives into the wood and one more swing curls the nails end around the wire. Adrien drops the hammer to the grass and he rubs his hands together before wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He squints into the sun, realizing that it is low enough to be casting a orange glow to the sky.
Just below him, down the hill, a herd of cattle whines in their low and drowned out moans. Their tails swat at the brown coat of the their rumps, chasing away the pestering flies.
Adrien sighs, and he picks up the hammer and begins striding over to the gate of the pasture. If only he was working on the outside. If only he had realized that he was trapping himself in the pasture with the cows.
He climbs over the metal gate. The chains holding it closed rattles as his weight disrupts them. His boots thud on the dirt as he jumps down from the top bar.
The walk down to his house is long. He finds the worn path, the grass gone due to the constant tear of trucks, quads and tractors that have driven down it. Another barbed fence on one side, an open field on the other. That's what it's like around here. Flat land and more flat land, then some cows and if you're lucky a valley and some hills.
Adrien walks down a curve of the path and it cuts through an opening in a small bunch of trees, right beside an old red shed. The paint is more than less peeling off, revealing the grey wood underneath. As he walks passed, he checks briefly to see if the crappy door, that makes the loudest groan when opened, is closed.
The door's open, and there's nothing inside.
Eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed, Adrien again peers at the inside. Four wooden walls, a bare cement floor. Just this morning the shed had been full of buckets, gardening tools, a mower and sleds that he would bring out in winter. It's all gone.
"What the," Adrien murmurs, a hand poised on the door framed. His eyes refuse to leave the empty space, as if he isn't looking hard enough and everything would reappear if he did.
Abruptly he turns and sets out through the yard. Half jogging along more sheds and shops toward his house. The small beige house sits outside it all, a cluster of trees hiding it from the driveway just on the other side.
His dad's truck, the old beaten up blue chevy, is gone.
Adrien dashes up the front porch of the house and he swings open the flimsy screen door, then the thicker wooden door after. A blast of air conditioning hits him as he enters the house.
"Dad?" he yells. Adrien voice echoes through the house unanswered. With a grunt he moves to the telephone on the wall and he punches in his father's number.
It frustrates him how much this happens, his father never telling him anything. All his father does is send him off doing a chore after school, not telling him why, not thanking him when he's done, not caring if Adrien has homework or studying he needs to do.
Ever since Adrien's mother left them it has been hard on his father. Adrien hasn't had a decent conversation with him in, well, months.
As the cold metal of the phone presses against his ear, ringing, Adrien realizes he should've looked for the other farm hand, Gorilla. Gorilla's a quiet dude, but surely he would tell something to Adrien if he asked.
"Hello?" his father voice says as it comes through the phone.
"Dad? Where are you? Your truck's gone," Adrien asks. He can hear his dad's sigh through the phone.
"I'll be back in five, we'll talk then," he replies.
"Hey dad?" Adrien says before his dad can hang up, "why was the small shed by the path empty? Where's everything that was in it?"
"I'll talk when I'm home," his father says before hanging up the phone. Adrien groans, shoving the phone back into its socket on the wall then pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. Quickly recovering, he walks to a window, pulling back the thin yellow curtains. He searches the yard with his eyes, expecting to see the Gorilla's bulky form lumbering from or toward one of the buildings. Last he remembered, Gorilla was trimming one of the horses hooves in the barn. But that was hours ago.
Adrien opens the front doors once again. "Gorilla?" he calls out. His voice seems to fall silent quickly in the vastness of the yard. No one replies. Instead Adrien hears the low rumble of a truck, and he hears the squeal of the tires of the old chevy as they brake. Soon enough the rusty vehicle comes growling into the yard from behind the trees, and an old trailer follows behind it. The truck stops in front of the house, and the engine falls silent. Both his dad and Gorilla come out from the doors on either side.
His dad stops at the base of the porch steps. Adrien nearly lets himself glare down at his father's unkempt figure. Wire like short blonde hair, like his own, but with thick grey eyebrows. Thin black glasses sit on his nose, almost enough to hide the dirt smudges on his cheeks. His dad wears a tattered grey t-shirt, the material so worn it's almost see through and blue jeans worn white at the knees and dirt and grease stains all up the sides.
Adrien knows he probably doesn't look much different.
"Did you get the fence done?" his dad asks, simply as if the phone call had never happened.
"Yah!" Adrien shakes his head, closing his eyes, "yah." He says it quieter that time, afraid his father might yell at him for raising his voice. "I hadn't realized you took Gorilla with you, I didn't know I was alone." His dad shrugs his shoulders, and Gorilla scratches the back of his neck, the sound of his fingernails on his skin drowned out by the distant buzz of bugs in the air.
"I needed his help," his father replies simply. Adrien cocks his head to the side, studying him.
"What's going on? Why is that shed empty?" he asks. Adrien's dad looks down at his boots then back up again. Absently his hand smacks at a mosquito on his arm.
"Let's talk inside shall we?" he says. Immediately Adrien becomes terrified of the situation. His dad never issues these conversations. Something's happening alright.
They all walk through the door, and none of them care to take off there boots as they walk to the kitchen table. The table is never usually used, other then by his father when he bends over bills scattered across its surface. It's old and wooden, and the only meals it sees rarely are on holidays. Four chairs sit around the sides, and each of them occupy one, leaving a single chair empty.
Adrien's mother used to sit in that chair, the next two would be by him and his father, and the last by the farm hands. Sometimes there's six chairs, or maybe just five, depending on how lucky they got with job applications. But Gorilla's always been here. Adrien can't remember a time in his life that Gorilla wasn't.
Adrien's father places his clasped hands on the table and Adrien watches him expectantly. The questions gnaw at his insides.
"You're moving Adrien," his father states, simply, as if it meant nothing at all, "with your mother, in the big city." Adrien's mouth gapes and his heart beat thuds loudly in his chest.
"What? I - I'm moving? Why?" he stutters.
"I can't afford the farm anymore. Crops are sparse, the cattle aren't being fed enough because of the drought, and I've been losing battles for more acres. A buyer's coming in the morning for the horses, and I have two loads of cattle for separate farmers. All the machinery is going on auction and Gorilla already has a job at the feedlot a mile away." The situation seems surreal, impossible... fake. Adrien feels frozen in time.
"And you?" he manages to ask.
"I've bought a small place in town. But it's not a good place for you Adrien. Your mother has a nice home in the city, you can go to a good school, maybe get a job. It'll be good," his father explains.
"I... I haven't seen mom in months," Adrien murmurs. A shiver runs down his spine. The city. Busy streets, stores, buildings, streetlights. It's everything he's ever dreamed about. He'd give anything to go somewhere where he can have friends he'd see often, doesn't have an exhausting chore to do everyday, and endure the harsh environments of the farm.
"There's a ride to pick you up in the morning," his dad says. Immediately Adrien tenses.
"TOMORROW morning? What about the farm? And transferring schools? Why am I just hearing this now!" Adrien lets his voice raise slightly. Just a little higher than normal.
"Gorilla has offered to stay and assist me with the transition and sales. And for your school? That has been taken care of completely. The reason I haven't said anything is... it's been hard to tell you. This is not something I expected," his father explains.
Adrien hangs his head, releasing a long held in breath. He never noticed any of this. The farm never seemed to be in any peril. But, slowly, he stands up. "I guess I'll start packing," he murmurs, avoiding the gaze of his dad.
Quickly Adrien walks to his room, his boots still making the wooden floor boards creak. He walks into his bedroom and immediately he smells the paper and ink. His bed sits in the far corner of the square room, surrounded by small shelves filled with books. The books are old and all the covers are either torn, or so faded that you can't read the titles. But the content inside? Forever timeless.
A wooden desk is pressed up against one of the white walls, the surface clear of nothing. He doesn't use it much, but it's a nice place to write in his journals, making up worlds he sees in his dreams. Because that's what his room is, a dreamer's den.
Adrien quickly packs the few pairs of shirts, underwear, and jeans into a dusty suitcase, and he throws his books into boxes he finds in the basement of the house. The room looks naked without it all.
He showers quickly, and in little time Adrien is in a loose pair of grey sweat pants and a black shirt. The sweat pants are the only pair of pants he owns that aren't jeans.
Adrien finally gives himself to moment to think. He sits on the side of his bed, the springy mattress sagging from his weight. Blankly he stares at the opposite wall, staring at an empty desk and shelf.
He's LEAVING tomorrow, and he may never see the farm again. His whole life he has been around the cows, horses and machinery. The dirt under his nails feels like it belongs there, and he wouldn't feel right at the end of the day if there wasn't sweat and dirt to wash off.
Adrien can still remember the day his parents told them they were separating. He never noticed anything wrong, they never fought, they always seemed happy in each other's company, and it felt like a marriage that was going to last for forever. But one evening, they sat him down, and his mother told him her and his father were filing a divorce, and that she'd be living in the city by the end of the year.
He never cried when they told him. He didn't yell or shout for answers. But he asked why. And they never told him. That night he stayed awake, staring at the ceiling in shock. His seemingly perfect family was falling apart.
The night after that he couldn't open his eyes in the morning from the dried up tears from the night. More tears, more yelling. Both him and his father became short tempered men.
It wasn't until one day, the last day before his mother left, that he watched as his father screamed in her face. He begged her not to leave, yelling at her that she was an idiot for it. Adrien had never seen his father yell like that before, and that's when he realized that he had been starting to act the same way. From that day forward Adrien vowed to himself to never become the angry and closed off person that his father had become to be.
He stopped crying that day. The reason for the that is still unknown to him, but he wasn't complaining about finally being able to sleep without wet eyes.
But now, after sneaking a quick meal from the fridge in the kitchen, Adrien covers himself with the thin blankets and cries for the first time in two years.
He wakes to a fist pounding on his door. Adrien wipes the crust from his eyes, and scrambles from the covers.
"Come in!" he says, his voice tight with sleep. The door is opened by Gorilla, who holds up the watch on his wrist and jerks him thumb, pointing to behind his back. He sends the message without having to say a word.
"I'll be ready in a sec," Adrien ensures. As Gorilla closes the door Adrien tugs on a pair of jeans and slips a shirt over his head. Heading to the bathroom he brushes his teeth far to quickly to be effective and splashes water over his face. His hands fuss at the gold locks on his head, parting the majority of the hair off to the side.
Adrien rushes back to his room and begins transferring the boxes of books to the mud room of the house, along with his suitcase. Finally Adrien is waiting in the kitchen when his father walks through the front door.
Immediately his father's gaze is a glare at the three boxes, bending and stretched from the weight of the books.
"Are those necessary?" he grumbles. Adrien hugs himself with his arm uncomfortably.
"Can I take them please? So I can at least bring a bit of the farm with me," he asks. His father sighs, a hand rubbing absently at a kink in his neck.
"I suppose. There's a car waiting outside, hurry and load up your stuff." Adrien takes no time stalling and picks up a box, carrying it to a black sedan. A woman with short black hair, one streak dyed red, sits in the driver seat, frameless glasses sitting on the bridge of her nose. Her hand rests of the wheel, her fingers tapping the leather.
Adrien walks over to the open trunk and he drops the box down inside. He can see the back of her head as she jumps from the weight of the box bouncing the vehicle.
"Sorry!" he says, suddenly guilty for scaring her. She looks back at him through the open trunk and sighs as she sees him.
"Oh it's okay, I wasn't paying attention, that's all," she says. Her voice is monotone, like one of those voices on a phone telling someone the person on the other end isn't available and that they can leave a message after the beep. He smiles at her, before leaving to grab another box.
The boxes fit perfectly, but Adrien is forced to put his suitcase in the back seat of the car.
At last he finds himself standing in front of his father and Gorilla. His dad doesn't smile, nor frown, but a look unrecognizable of any emotion. It's not a look Adrien will miss.
"I'll come visit," he says to his dad. The man nods once, closing his eyes while doing so.
"I'm sure you will. Tell your mother I said hello." The second part surprises Adrien, even though it makes sense seeing how it was his mother who wanted the divorce, not his father.
"Of course," Adrien replied, then he turned to Gorilla. "Gorilla I-." The man brings him into a hug, squeezing his shoulders so tightly it's almost suffocating. Once Gorilla lets Adrien go, Adrien sees the sad smile on the Gorilla's face.
Slowly Adrien backs away toward the car. He only exchanges a glance at his father, anything more would've been obscured. Adrien opens the door to the back seat of the car and he slides down into the seat, its cushion far more fitting then their truck's.
Once he closes the door, he clips on his seatbelt.
"I'm ready," he says to the woman in the driver's seat. He's not sure if he needed to say that, but he says it anyways. The woman nods.
"Very well then, I'm Nathalie by the way," she says. He nods and his eyes meet her pale blue eyes in the rear view mirror.
"I'm Adrien," he says.
"Oh I know." With that she pulls the gear into drive and turns out of the yard. Adrien stretches his neck to see his father and Gorilla one last time. But only Gorilla stands there, and his father slams the door behind him as he walks into the house.
Tears well at Adrien's eyes, but he wipes them away quickly as he watches his home leave his life forever.
Hey readers! Thank you for clicking on the story and reading it! Just a couple things to tell you about my story
- The character POV switches throughout the story, but is based off of Marinette and Adrien.
- I will be using season one and two references from the show for some of the chapters, but not everything will be the same.
I thought it'd be appropriate to make Adrien a lover of stories and books since his video games and anime are unavailable to him. I hope you guys enjoy this AU!