Heartbeat

As Adrien returned to the land of the conscious he was pleasantly surprised to discover that he felt blissfully warm. It still seemed dark through his closed eyelids though, so he was sure it couldn't be the morning sunlight shining through his large windows and creating a delicious sun-trap. Confused, he frowned as he blinked open his heavy eyes slowly and found himself looking directly at the underside of a very pink duvet cover. Adrien knew he didn't own a single pink piece of bedding, so the only logical conclusion was that he had fallen asleep at Marinette's. Realising this, his mind took the next logical step. And panicked.

He flailed under the cover for a moment as he tried to determine whether or not he was still masked (he was) and if he had any idea what time it was (he didn't). Quickly calming himself, he popped his head up from the covers slowly, allowing only his eyes to peek out at first. The sight of Marinette waving was what greeted him, an awkward yet amused smile on her face as she sat against her cat pillow, the room around her basked in the twilight from outside.

"Uh h-hi," he said, starting to emerge slowly, mind furiously trying to determine when sunset had been due today, "How long have I been asleep? Is it late?"

Marinette now felt her heart beating quicker now than when he had first fallen asleep, although she kept her face strictly neutral. She decided to glance at her phone before answering to try to stall for time. While Chat had slept, she had had a proper -albeit whispered- conversation with Tikki and although she was now confident in how she felt on the matter at hand, that didn't stop her being unsure of how exactly to approach this. God she was so nervous and he didn't even seem to remember anything. She took a breath to steady herself and fought down the immediate and irrational urge to burst out laughing. Realising only moments had passed, she checked the time on the phone screen. "You've only been out for about an hour or so," she said, "Feeling better now?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, closing his eyes and sighing with relief at the relatively small amount of misplaced time. He wouldn't have been missed yet. While father wouldn't have checked on him, Nathalie sometimes popped her head in a couple of hours after she expected him to go to sleep. He had gotten a few professional but firm tongue lashings in the past when she discovered he was still up. To find him gone would have caused all manner of problems, so it was a good thing it wasn't late yet. It didn't explain the current situation though. Why had he fallen asleep here? He opened his eyes again and looked at Marinette. "I'm a bit disorientated," he told her, "but I think I'm good."

He gave her a toothy grin for a moment until she glimpsed down his face suddenly, trying to suppress another small giggle when she glanced at his jaw. "You've been drooling again," she said, pointing at the dampness on his chin he hadn't even noticed until now.

"Again?" he asked, rubbing at his face with the back of his hand, "When did-" He stopped.

He had been planning to follow up with more but his hand suddenly hung dead against his chin and fell from his face in slow motion. His mouth dropped open as he realised and there was a very sudden roaring in his ears. The room in front of him blurred, but he could still make out the colours and shapes that were Marinette. She appeared to be calling him but he didn't seem to be able to hear her, his own erratic heartbeat the only physical tie he had to the present moment as his mind flashed back to earlier. Because he now remembered that he had been drooling before – when he'd found her new catnip plants, nose first. And that's when he remembered everything that had come after as well.

"Chat!" Marinette whisper shouted, climbing to her knees at the lack of response. This wasn't right. He had said he felt disorientated, did cats sometimes zone out after a catnip high? She didn't think so but she didn't really know and he was starting to worry her by not responding like this, her earlier unease subsiding to make way for a different, stronger form of panic instead. She shook him gently, another not-quite-shout coming from her throat as tears started to threaten at the edges of her eyes. When gently didn't work, she shook far harder than what she would normally consider safe.

And then, slowly she could see that his eyes were focused on her again. His erratic pupils stopped moving around and narrowed in on her own eyes, dilating further in the darkness of her room. She was barely beginning to relax again before he let out a high-pitched squeal, her hands flying away from his arms where she had been shaking him in fright. She was forced to watch as he wholeheartedly flung himself down onto her bed, arms crossed against his forehead and claws grabbing her pillow as his face tried to burrow into it. Okay. That was a bit weird. But then she had certainly acted weirder around people before so she really shouldn't judge.

Chat could feel the heat from his face warm the pillow beneath it and his closeness to Marinette's scent from the very same pillow wasn't helping matters any as it made him blush even harder than before. He was pressing his nose and mouth into the surface harshly, and he knew it wouldn't be long before he started to struggle to breathe, so he turned his head ever so slightly (towards the wall and away from Marinette, of course) and then readjusted his arm to allow a little air to flow. After all, he couldn't go suffocating himself before the embarrassment got to do him in.

"Chat?"

He whined internally. How dare Marinette's voice penetrate his pillow sanctuary? Was nothing sacred anymore? "What's wrong?" she asked, "Come on, you're going to give me a heart attack if you don't answer." This time the whine was audible to them both. He wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to worry her, but...but he was so not ready to talk to her yet. Couldn't he take five minutes for himself? Ten? A year? Instead, he sighed.

"Chat's not here anymore," he said, voice muffled by the pillow, "He died of embarrassment. This is his ghost's voicemail. Beeep."

She snickered a little at that, flushed and awkward as she was feeling. At least now she knew that he actually remembered. It avoided the delicate part where she'd have to ask and possibly explain to him what he'd done.

"Come on out Kitty," she told him, adopting a soft voice but using a tone which ensured there was no room for debate, "We need to talk."

From the MariChat May prompt Day 17: Heartbeat