With inquietude as the norm for months now, it was surreal how idyllic the scene was. Sunshine, cherry blossoms, picnics and buzzing bees in the air. Then again, no one who didn't know would suspect anything apprehensive about a Friday—the day of the week where fae magic was the strongest. To make things worse, Beltane was only in two days and the universe was already rehearsing for its main concert of temptations and doom. To hold a picnic in these perilous times was lunacy in Félix's humble opinion, which made it unsurprising that the idea for it had neither been his nor Adrien's. Marinette had originally meant it as a date for herself and Adrien, but his brother had understandably panicked. Though instead of cancelling the whole thing, he had invited everyone else. Everyone being Félix, Nino and Alya.
At this point, it had been more than two months since the disastrous Valentine's Day. Details that Adrien hadn't divulged to Félix himself had been supplied by Plagg, so he was in the full picture of what had transpired. While he hadn't been there, it had still been quite a shock to hear about it and the entire occurrence was way too close to a reveal scenario than Félix liked to admit.
His resulting restlessness stood in stark contrast to what was expected from him on this picnic. Instead of enjoying sandwiches and cake like everyone else did, Félix kept a sharp look out for trouble. With the situation getting worse by the day, especially right now, someone had to. Chloé had become such an increasingly persistent problem that it was likely for her to show up randomly and try to doom them. That he felt watched further supported that theory, though he couldn't be sure who exactly it was. Truth be told, he wasn't even sure if this mysterious watcher was fae or not, where exactly they were or if they had an ill intent. Félix felt personally offended by all of that.
It was distressing, to say the least, to have his senses fail him on a day where he should arguably be better at perceiving such things. Then again, if the mysterious watcher was a fae, then the same thing applied to them. Magic was offered to them for free use by the universe and it just so happened that it was more than usual these days. While that made him more capable at finding people, other fae could also hide from him more easily. A quite annoying circumstance that put him at a stalemate.
At least he didn't have to bother with answering suspicious questioning from the others, since keeping a look out for paparazzi was an easily accepted excuse. A small blessing, since he was sick of questions. Especially from Alya. Just why did humans have to be so persistently curious? Why couldn't they let things rest?
Apparently, his wannabe-reporter friend didn't know where to draw the line as soon as Marinette was involved. Alya's resurfaced mentality of 'screw the risks and any possible consequences' was highly infuriating and he therefore had the work cut out for him. He could partially understand her line of thinking since, after all, she thought that the biggest threat in their situation was their father. A not completely ludicrous conclusion. Unfortunately, if Alya was always ready for one thing, then it was for punching Gabriel Agreste in the face.
An endeavour that had almost been crowned with success the previous week when Félix had let her into the mansion. They were about to go on another Ladyblog-related excursion and he hadn't seen any sense in making her wait outside the house while he had made the very short trip to get his bag. Letting Alya wait in the entrance hall had included a low factor of risks in his head. What he had not accounted for was for his father to step out of his office in precisely the short span of minutes in which his friend was present. Needless to say, Félix had gotten the shock of the day when he had gotten out of his room. Some level difficulty had been involved in restraining Alya from committing to physical assault.
A small fleeting smile appeared on his face when he thought about it. It would no doubt have been a quite satisfying spectacle to watch, but he couldn't have his father press charges against Alya. The less troubles piled up on his already large heap of emergencies, the better.
"Don't you think you're being a little too paranoid, dude? It's not like someone is going to jump out of the bushes with a knife," Nino said.
Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that.
"One never knows," Félix replied before going back to trying to pinpoint the spy.
"You'd be surprised by the crazy things that have already happened to us in public," Adrien said behind him, probably trying to deviate the attention from Félix's unusual behaviour. "Like, one time someone tried to climb into our car with us and our bodyguard had to get out and drag them away."
"The woes of a top model," Alya joked.
"Oh, there are also stories from before I started modelling. Like, when Fé and I were eight, we went shopping with mum and someone tried to kidnap us. Mum went absolutely ballistic on the guy."
What Adrien meant was that their mother had cursed the wanna-be kidnapper to the netherworld and back. Not literally. He probably still led a very misfortunate existence though.
"Wow, that's intense," Nino said.
Félix only listened with one ear as he concentrated most of his senses on their surroundings. Whoever their watcher was, they needed to be close, as the trees and bushes otherwise obscured the view of their group. He tasted the sickeningly sweet magic in the air and ignored its silent urging for him to not be out during the daytime. Wasn't the magic in one direction thinner than in the others? A sign that it was being pulled towards someone who used it. Definitely north of them, over by the trees where hiding was easy.
Almost got you.
He was sure to have seen a brief shimmer of black hair when his concentration was broken once more. This time, by a soft touch on his arm.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
Marinette had separated herself from the others and was now sitting next to him, looking worried.
"It's nothing. Just…a bad feeling, that's all," Félix said truthfully.
She nodded and looked over to Adrien who, despite telling yet another story of persistent fans, was throwing glances her way every few seconds. His brother honestly couldn't be more obvious about worrying if he tried. She was sitting two metres away from him for Danu's sake!
"He still hasn't told me," she said so quietly that Nino and Alya didn't hear, yet not quiet enough to escape a cat's range of hearing.
Félix nodded, unsurprised by that bit of information. "I know. Don't be too eager though, since what you're looking for is rather unpleasant."
Marinette let out a frustrated snort.
"It's frustrating," Félix agreed with her non-verbal statement. "All we can do is hope that things will eventually become easier and not completely fall apart."
"Fall apart?" She asked.
Had that been too much? At least it was vague enough to not lead her closer to the truth.
"It's a precarious situation, that's all I'm going to say."
Judging by the badly concealed glare Adrien was throwing him, he had already said more than enough anyway.
The picnic continued in a somewhat tense fashion from that point onward, or at least that was how Félix perceived it. He didn't catch sight of the mysterious watcher again.
Every fae had their own way to deal with liminality. Most embraced it, some went into sídhes to escape it and others just locked themselves in a warded place. To avoid the pull, distraction was key when there was no anchor, but it was also a question of being comfortable in one's own skin. For Félix that meant taking on a feline form and reading a book. He was minding entirely his own business, curled up on the middle of the sofa with his tail giving the occasional intrigued lash as he was reading yet another magic book and wordlessly mouthed its spells. Therefore, the attack from above came out of nowhere.
He hissed furiously when Adrien bit him in the neck—not enough to draw blood, but enough for it to hurt. Before he even knew it, claws were scratching, fur was flying and both of them were hissing and yowling angrily while rolling around on the ground.
"What the everloving hell has gotten into you, kid?!"
Plagg's sudden exclamation made Adrien pause for a fraction of a moment, so Félix pushed him off him with his hind paws and scurried away with bristled fur and flattened ears.
Adrien's posture was still aggressive—dilated pupils, a thrashing tail, flattened ears, arched back, fur standing erect—when he got back up to his paws.
"You almost said too much to her!" he hissed.
It took a moment for Félix to put the words into context.
"I was being careful," he amended and purposefully cowered down into a non-threatening posture.
His brother wasn't so easily pacified. When he attacked this time, Félix was ready to dodge. However, what Adrien lacked in magical abilities, he very much made up for in physical capability. He bit and scratched and hissed, angry out of his mind with some underlying fear. The more Félix tired to dodge and escape, the more aggressive Adrien became. There was no escape from the enraged Cat Sidhe, it seemed.
At least not until they were both thrown to opposite sides of the room by an invisible force.
"You are wound up more tightly than a spring, kid," Plagg said to Adrien like a scolding parent. His brother actually growled at the kwami for the comment. "Don't you dare come at me with an attitude now! Being scared is no reason to attack your brother."
Then Plagg turned around and looked at Félix who had been busy licking his wounds. Literally. "And you, kitten, really have to get your head out of your books and stop driving yourself crazy with paranoia. Catastrophe will strike eventually, and I'll help you when the time comes."
The god rubbed his temples. "I didn't sign up for parenting you two, yet here we are." He sighed. "You both need a time out, and not figuratively. Go outside and be fae or whatever. Get the overflowing energy and emotions out of your systems. Cool your heads." Plagg then fixed both of them with a glare. "And don't you dare fight again! The last thing we need right now is to fight each other."
Adrien's posture had shifted from aggressive to defiant to submissive and guilty during the course of the lecture. He now lay flat on the ground with his tail anxiously wrapped around his body.
Félix, meanwhile, stood up and shook himself, dislodging some further pieces of loose fur. There was no sense in arguing with a god and even though Beltane was close, it wasn't quite that bad yet. They'd be able to resist the calls for a brisk half hour walk.
"It does seem like an adequate idea," Félix agreed while he stretched.
"What about Beltane then?" Adrien asked, his voice still provocative, but now noticeably less than before.
"We'll manage," Félix said with an irritated flick of his tail. "Now come on before it gets too late."
His brother hesitated for a moment, looked at Plagg who had already gone back to his cheese, and followed.
The air outside was neither chilly nor warm. As usual for late April, the weather did whatever it wanted and they were lucky to be graced with no rain for this night and not the worst of temperatures.
When Félix walked along the mansion's wall, he stopped for a moment to take a deep breath. The flowers from down in their garden and the white-blooming rowan tree carried over their floral scents in a breeze and he instantly felt more at peace. He liked spring. There was no telling if that was a personal trait or if it was just his fae nature guiding his preferences. Either way, everything that managed to calm him down but not make him fall into Faerie was welcome.
Adrien didn't seem to share the sentiment.
"Let's get out of here before this becomes too overwhelming," he said as he walked past Félix, his posture tense and fearful.
On the rooftops it wasn't much better, as scents and petals were carried over in the breeze. Some were even lightly glowing, having been enchanted by some fae to be even more beautiful. Félix didn't mind the eeriness, but he could see how Adrien was getting progressively more nervous.
"Relax. Nothing bad will happen."
For some reason, that made Adrien turn around with a lowered tail and flattened ears.
"Don't. Jinx. It!"
"I wasn't talking about…nevermind," Félix said with a sigh and shook his head.
It would probably be best to not say anything and just hope that the brisk walk would actually help Adrien instead of making him even more restless. The two of them fell into silence for a few blocks. A not entirely comfortable silence, Félix thought, but he wasn't about to break it either. He wasn't sure how many minutes passed—ten maybe—but eventually his brother spoke up again.
"Sorry about earlier," Adrien admitted. "I overreacted."
"Happens to the best of us," Félix replied, fully sympathising. After all, both of them were running themselves ragged on nerves lately.
Adrien scoffed. "Yeah, right. As if we're anything good."
Félix sent him an insulted glare. "Hey, talk for yourself, will you?"
"Sorry, I just…I've been thinking lately. What if everyone's right and we really are bad luck? Sure looks like it right now…"
"Don't think like that."
"Easier said than done when everything goes wrong."
"Not everything is going wrong."
Adrien swatted at him and hissed. "Don't. Jinx. It! You can jinx anything else but not this!"
Félix guiltily flattened his ears. If Adrien hadn't said anything, he wouldn't even have noticed. "Guess you're not the only one who has become too human lately."
"Not human enough," Adrien muttered quietly, though there was no telling if he meant himself or Félix.
An uncomfortable silence befell them again. Once more, Félix didn't feel compelled to break it and therefore just silently trudged on. It was better like this anyway. The more cat-like they acted, the less likely it was for a human to catch them doing something way too…well…human—like talking for example.
After a few more minutes, Félix noticed that Adrien wasn't following him anymore. He stopped and turned around to see his brother pausing on the other end of the roof they stood on, one paw still in the air as if he had been frozen mid-step. By the way his eyes became a little glassy, Félix could tell that it was the songs of Faerie he heard. With a sigh he trotted back and nudged him to snap him out of it.
"I know that song," Adrien said quietly and tilted his head with closed eyes and a thoughtful expression on his face.
Félix didn't care and insistently nudged him again.
"It kinda sounds like…Shelter, doesn't it? You know, that AMV with the bittersweet story, remember?" His speech was slow, quiet and dreamlike, sounding like he was in a trance.
Félix sighed deeply. The universe seemed to be testing his patience tonight. "How could I possibly forget?" he grumbled. "You listened to that song for weeks on end after it came out. No wonder the songs sound similar to you if you still like it that much."
His brother smiled somewhat sheepishly. "Yeah, I…the personal part of the temptations slipped my mind, I guess."
Félix decided to just shake his head in exasperation. If he didn't know better, he'd say that his brother was suffering from some sort of early dementia lately with the way certain fae things just inconveniently slipped his mind. But that wasn't it. Adrien was just blessed with the ability to be able to ignore the otherness. How he did it, Félix had no idea, but he highly suspected that his brother's efforts of being human played a part in it. Perhaps it therefore was something he himself would never be able to do. Eating a soul had closed that path for him. Just another regret to put on his long list.
"Let's stop talking," Félix said. "The last thing we need is for people to hear us."
"I don't know if you noticed, but people usually don't make a habit of walking on rooftops around eleven at night."
"What happened to mother's mantra of 'cats don't make human noises'?"
"You started talking!"
"Actually, you did. But that isn't of much consequence as long as—"
Félix was suddenly tackled by Adrien who let out a hiss that suspiciously sounded like 'shh'. Not a moment too late because only a few seconds later, there was the sound of feet touching down on the roof.
Jinxed, indeed, Félix thought and suddenly had the strong urge to tell Adrien 'I told you so.'
Unfortunately, tangled up from the tackle as the two of them were, neither Adrien nor him were swift enough to dodge when she, blind as she was without night vision, headed straight towards them.
"Ack!" she exclaimed as she tripped over them and started flailing wildly to regain her balance.
Félix, meanwhile, let out an offended hiss, which earned him a paw to the face from his brother. He growled. Ladybug—and thus Adrien's girlfriend and Félix's best friend—or not, he was very much allowed to be offended by bodily harm!
Only then did the superheroine turn around to inspect what she had tripped over. Félix untangled himself from Adrien and let out another demonstrative hiss. Just a second later did it occur to him that it might have been smarter to just ignore her and run away. Out of sight, out of mind, after all.
Well, too late now.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Ladybug said as if she was aware that she was talking to two sentient beings instead of the regular cats she most likely thought they were.
Adrien let out a happy chirp and now it was Félix who gave him a paw to the face. The stupid liminality was apparently getting to his brother much more than it did to him. It caused him to act like a lovesick kitten and they couldn't have that. Not while the folk could be watching.
As if to confirm his greatest fears, a childish giggle sounded from nearby. A giggle Ladybug did not turn to and thus didn't hear. Félix turned around to the fae that sat on a chimney and swung her legs back and forth with a shark-toothed grin on her childlike face. She watched the scene with immense interest and an even wider grin when she noticed that she had caught his attention.
It was probably a spriggan who was out to cause small mischief by stealing butter or tripping an unfortunate passerby. Perhaps she was also standing guard for a gathering nearby and had gotten interested in Ladybug's—or rather Danu's—presence in the general area.
To find one on a rooftop, this close to Beltane most of all, therefore didn't come as much of a surprise. It didn't make it any less of a disaster though.
In Félix's moment of inattentiveness, Adrien had gotten up and approached Ladybug. He only noticed it once he turned around and his brother was winding himself around her legs with a purr.
He growled in a clear warning, hoping it would snap those two dorks out of their bonding moment, or whatever else it was. Ladybug either didn't hear though, or she ignored him as she instead crouched down to pet Adrien. His brother, infuriatingly, didn't react either. It was like someone had given him catnip, which, when it came to Faerie's songs, wasn't the most unfitting of comparisons.
"You don't happen to be my kitty, do you?" Ladybug asked and Adrien gave another happy chirp and a meow.
Félix had enough. He jumped forward and bit down hard on Adrien's tail, making his brother whirl around with a pained hiss. He didn't let go though and instead pulled, hoping Adrien would get the now much more obvious hint and get away before even more incriminating details would slip from her oblivious lips.
Ladybug, who had pulled her hand back at the hiss, watched the scene in front of her with confusion.
Don't speak. Don't say more. Just go away, Félix begged internally.
The spriggan laughed, seemingly amused by what she was seeing. "Silly kitty," she said with a voice that sounded like that of a child but held an eerie ancientness to it. Félix also didn't know which of them the comment was referring to. To the fae, it must have no doubt sounded like Danu was trying to claim Adrien as hers, so the comment could very much be meant for him.
At least now Adrien seemed to become aware of the fae's presence. His fur stood up in what was way too obviously fear. How would the spriggan interpret it? Hopefully not in the right way…
"You really do look like my kitty," Ladybug said thoughtfully. She had not moved from her crouched position and watched the two of them, most especially Adrien, with calculating eyes. "You even have a white spot on the chest," she continued.
Adrien's fur bristled even more in response. There was little left until he'd show even more obvious signs of fear, so Félix swatted at him with a paw as a sign to quit it.
"Then again, if it's even you, it's been almost two years since you last visited my balcony. You probably don't remember me."
When the spriggan laughed this time, it sounded like twisted childish delight. "Danu has a balcony!" She exclaimed, as if it would be the funniest thing in the world. Though from one moment to the next, her lips twisted from an innocent smile into a downright nasty grin. "And the Cat Sidhe knows where."
Rotten-mouthed, wicked beast!
Adrien audibly gulped and started shaking.
"Oh, I wonder," the spriggan purred slipping into the eerie fae twang. "Does the Court know?"
The lack of a reply from the two of them was answer enough. She fell into hysterical laughter.
"Delicious!" she exclaimed. "Halfling kittens keeping secrets. Now, we can't have that, can we?"
Ladybug sighed and got up from her crouch once more, still oblivious to the enormous danger she was suddenly in. "See you, kitty," she said, probably to Adrien, and threw out her yo-yo.
"Hmm, I heard you two have been mingling with the mortals lately," the spriggan said at the same time and purposefully looked in the direction Ladybug disappeared into. "Surely this is a coincidence?"
By the way she grinned and licked her lips, she knew that it indeed wasn't.
Félix didn't know how much worse things could get after this. A fae had figured out Ladybug's identity and if they wouldn't do anything, then soon the entire Court would know. He had to do something!
The moment Adrien took off into the direction Ladybug was going, Félix jumped at the spriggan with bared fangs and sharp claws. The fae dodged with a giggle, but didn't account for his tail that could still reach her. Just like all the times he had done it before, one touch was enough. The only difference was that this was a fae and not a human.
"You dare to curse me?!" The spriggan screeched and suddenly didn't sound like a child at all anymore. Instead, her voice was shrill like that of an old hag
From his perch on the top of a chimney, Félix glared murderously at her. It seemed like she had momentarily forgotten why the Court usually avoided Cat Sidhe, even halflings like them. Well, lucky him, he guessed. Cursing an Unseelie with bad luck, while the universe already inflicted misfortune upon them, would turn out so much worse than for a human. Sadly, it wouldn't be enough for her to drop dead on the spot and erase their problem.
"You won't say a word," Félix hissed. It was worth a try.
The spriggan broke out into laughter once more. "Oh, by Danu! You truly believe that, don't you? A droll little halfling and keeping me silent?" More hysterical laughter tore out of her.
He growled and hoped it sounded dangerous.
"You can surely try, little cat. We shall see if the magic will be in your favour," the spriggan said with a much too wide grin and then unfurled black-feathered wings Félix was only noticing now. He leapt after her but it was no use. He couldn't fly and chasing her by running over the rooftops was a lost cause.
"I'm a contemptible creature!"
Félix looked from his lamenting brother over to Plagg before jumping down from where he had perched on the window sill.
"How long has this been going on?" He silently asked the kwami while letting Adrien be for now. A worked-up Adrien could very quickly turn into an aggressive Adrien and Félix didn't want to risk a repeat of earlier.
"For a while now," Plagg sighed. "Damn your bad luck, kittens. Things look pretty bad now."
"No kidding. Did he tell you what happened?"
"Jumbled bits and pieces. Something about a fae and Ladybug."
Félix nodded. That sounded about right.
At the latter word, Adrien's ears perked up and he swivelled around to them…tears in his eyes. It was a mildly distressing sight for Félix, like something unnatural. It was odd how human Adrien had become in the past years but that he still was the much more emotional one out of the two of them—a trait arguably belonging to a fae nature.
"Fé…do I have to tell her?"
The question was more shocking than it should have been at this point. They had both known for a long time that this moment would eventually come, but it had still blindsided them. Félix looked at Plagg who gave a grim nod, having seemingly already thoroughly contemplated what Félix and Adrien were still struggling with.
He didn't want to reply. Saying 'yes' would make it real. Still, he found himself nod, which made the situation neither less scary nor less existent.