Disclaimer: I don't own the characters presented in this story
Warning: romance between two boys in case you're not into that
Missing Piece
He is poetry.
But not the poetry he can write. It's like the words worthy of describing him doesn't exist yet. But he tries to capture him in a poem of his own. God knows he tries. Everyday, every night, every moment, he'll get lost in the search for the right dance of words. He'll look down at his work and feel only dissatisfaction.
Then he realized - the best moments are when he muse and ponder about him, when he'd allow the field of his imagination linger with thoughts of him. Those moments were bliss.
He stopped writing, and started to just simply think about him.
Just thinking.
He frowns, ducking his head deeper in his shoulder, afraid someone will catch him staring at Nathaniel. Again.
Nathaniel is a poem he can never right.
He is art.
But not the artistry he can impress on canvass. He has accepted this, but it didn't stop him from attempting.
Those eyes are shaded with the type of green that seems to shine, that seems to speak without words and sing without voice. Those lips, hidden under gloss pink, shape like tulips and tempting like candy. That raven hair, a split between black and brown, waxed into a subtle style that can bring a smile.
He groans at his work. Another failure.
Yet for a brief moment, he allows himself the illusion that it is accurate, that it is perfect. Like HE is perfect. He trails a finger on his lips, apparently the only consolation in what he considers a disgraceful drawing. He wonders if they are as soft as they look.
"Marc." he whispers the name of the boy in the picture, gently and with hidden affection.
"Why don't you just tell him?" Marinette asks.
Marc scoots a bit to the right, away from her. Not that she's going beyond personal space. One of the nicest things life has ever given him is this girl beside him, and her eager, warm and honest personality that makes him feel like she's constantly hugging him, other than the actual instances when she'd randomly embrace the slender boy from behind just as a form of greeting.
Lately, however, Marc has felt gazes being thrown his way from all sorts of directions. It made sense that other boys will want to be on the receiving end of her affections, despite such affections not being of the romantic type. Marinette is just this amazing and attractive girl, and being clueless to that fact just adds to her charm. Marc would've thought that having Paris's idol for her boyfriend would actually deter interested parties. Then he remembered no one outside their little circle of friends knew of the relationship.
Adrien - another God-sent. Marc didn't understand how someone who grew up in the same world as Chloe - unlimited supply of anything and everything - would grow up with a completely different character. Adrien was like any other fifteen year old - playful, curious, energetic and with great taste for all that is in. But Adrien wasn't like anyone else when it comes to dealing with his friends. He treats each of them as if he or she is his only one.
He's a crusader, Marc thought, and he found his admiration for the blonde model almost as great as his admiration for Marinette.
Marinette scoots a bit closer, frowning at the meager distance Marc made between them.
"I can't just do that." Marc whispers, pulling his hoddie over his head and blushing. He hears her giggle before reaching out, pulling the hoddie back.
"Why not?"
"I wouldn't know what to say. And I don't know what I'll lose if he doesn't feel the same way." green eyes fall downcast, and Marinette sighs and sits back.
Months of hanging with this adorably awkward young boy have taught her that the more she pushes him to do something, the harder it'll be for him to do it. Something about being a creative thinker, she supposed.
Marinette places himself a good distance from him.
Marc glances at her, and frowns. He still feels like so many eyes are watching him. But he takes a deep breath, remembering how much Marinette means to him, and decides to just suck it up. Looks don't kill people anyway.
He makes one clumsy motion and ends up seating shoulder to shoulder with the young fashion designer.
Marinette feels the gentle impact, and grins at Marc. The boy returns the smile with a sweet one of his own. Marinette leans on him, humming to herself and thinking that next time they'll find a different spot to hang out. One with less prying eyes.
"That sounded really catchy." Marinette tells him. "What you just said."
"It's a sad statement." Marc counters with a slightly deflated tone.
Marinette just shrugs.
"Still catchy."
"You're silly." Marc tells her, laughing slightly. Marinette giggles, and their posture gets a little off-balanced as she leans towards him. Marc lets himself be pushed to the side, joining her in the fit. He's grateful that Marinette chose to stick by him, and not give up on social ineptitude. What's more, Marinette is the reason he's got something to look forward to everyday, because everyday he gets to do what he likes, and do it with the boy that he loves.
"You should join them."
Nathaniel looks up and sees Adrien walking towards him. He smiles at the blonde, pleased that the beloved prince of Paris finally gets the freedom to be where he wants to be, doing what he wants to do, without having a strict schedule determine his every move.
"Hey." Nate greets him.
Adrien reaches out to ruffle the silken red locks on his friend's head. The disarray causes the young artist to groan in annoyance.
"You should join them."
"Yeah, I heard you the first time." Nathaniel tells him while still running his fingers through his hair to put them in place.
"So?"
"So what?"
"Don't just stand there, walk over there and mingle. You've been staring at them for a while, you clearly want to."
Nathaniel allows himself to ponder his suggestion. Mingling had never been his thing. At least he never initiated it. His classmates had dragged him along with them in more than one occasion. And while part of him scoffs at the concept of genuine friendship, he's still grateful to be part of their activities. He can't be so cynical when he could feel genuinely sought after every time, despite all the misgivings of his social skills.
Adrien had told him once he found him interesting, and that he brings a lot to the table. Nathaniel didn't believe him. He thought that the pretty face with a golden heart was just being nice. Until the blonde took it upon himself to frequent his little every lunch time, preferring Nathaniel's company over the sugary moments brought by the couple that is Nino and Alya. The two cuddle more and talk less nowadays.
"What about you - are you sure it's fine to have Marinette being too comfortable with another boy?" Nathaniel tells him, hoping to turn the tables.
"Marinette's always comfortable around friends, including boys." Adrien says. "Besides, I know her, and I know Marc. And I dare say I know you too."
Nathaniel put his head on the table after finally setting his stubborn hair in place. He huffs, and looks up at the taller boy who's smiling at him.
"Do you?"
"Yep. So go out there already."
"We don't usually talk outside writing our comic book."
"There's a first time in everything." Adriens slips a fork with rolled pasta strands into his mouth. Nathaniel sees this and finds himself being mildly annoyed that Adrien could look so graceful and perfect even while eating something that usually makes a mess for normal people.
He eyes Adrien's features closely, finding the details of the blonde's face simply sublime. An idea sparks light in his mind, and he springs open his notebook to immediately put it on paper.
His model on the other hand was too engrossed with his food to give notice. Adrien had a fairly simple palate, thanks to a structured and bland diet. The common food tastes flavorful to him, which makes the dishes of one Marinette Dupain-Cheng mindblowingly good. And while that's not the gist of why he fell in love with the girl, it means he can eat almost anything with deep appreciation. Including cafeteria food.
He frowns when sees his plate empty of today's bolognese. But the thought of tomorrow's selection revitalizes his expression and he happily concludes with subtle dabs of a clean napkin to rid his lips of the red sauce.
"Man, I don't know why you like that stuff." Nathaniel says, puzzled, "It's too spicy and oily and you could hardly taste anything else."
"Is it? I think it tastes great." Adrien tells him, "Better than what I have at home, anyway."
"Yeah, I bet." Nathaniel says. Adrien rolls his eyes at his sarcasm, and that's when he noticed the boy he's having lunch with wasn't actually eating.
Nathaniel has put his hair up in a pony tail, most of the bangs on his face tucked neatly while others flutter like translucent crimson veil over his eyes, exposing features that are usually hidden. Adrien stares at the rare sight, and smiles. The painter has a really pretty face, he tells himself quietly. Nathaniel's nose leads a thin bridge from his narrow forehead, and his eyes are dagger blue crystals, beautiful yet sharp. He sketches with apparent focus, and with a tongue poking out of his mouth.
Nathaniel concludes the piece of work by scrapping the paper with the side of his hand to remove unwanted residue. He gives a quick look at the final piece, and then wrinkles his nose. A deep dimple forms on his right cheek as he moves his lips.
"Did you just draw me while I was eating?" Adrien asks.
"I was just trying something." Nathaniel sighs, and immediately closes his work. "It didn't work."
"Oh? Well, let me see."
"No way."
The boys start wrestling for the sketchbook, launching at and pushing back one another. Being the bigger and more devious of the two, Adrien easily overpowers the redhead by digging his fingers on his side, making him vulnerable under a fit of laughter.
"Not... fair..." Nathaniel wheezes in between chuckles.
"Hah!"
Adrien quickly skims through to the last page. As suspected, Nathaniel has drawn a portrait of him, but instead of the school in the background, he found his surroundings and his clothes in victorian royalty style. The image captures a princely Adrien, seating nobly, surrounded by waiting subjects, an empty plate on the table before him. Adrien stares utterly impressed at the details. His own face, perfectly and vividly drawn. Nathaniel even managed to draw the tiny mole by his ear.
"Whoah - this is - I mean, whoah!"
"Yeah, I know, it's a disaster."
Nathaniel picks himself up from the floor and pulls the sketchbook from Adrien's grasp. He makes a clean tear across the edge of the page and hands the picture to HIS model.
"Are you kidding? You drew me perfectly! And well over 10 minutes too."
"7, actually." Nathaniel releases another sigh like he just said the most uninteresting fact. "You can keep it."
"Really? Thanks! Uh..."
Nathaniel rolls his eyes to look at him from his forlorn posture on the table. "What?" he asks in mild annoyance.
"You don't happen to have pictures of Cat Noir and Ladybug, do you?" Adrien asks with unusual timidness.
Nathaniel raises his eyebrow, a bit suspicious of the behavior. Adrien, a fan of Cat Noir and Lady Bug? Eventually, he decides to just humor his friend.
"Sure I do."
He opens his sketchbook again, and starts going through some rough drafts. While Nathaniel skims the pages, Adrien can't help but notice the dominant theme appearing across all the pictures. It includes a certain raven-haired writer who, up until a few months ago, was merely a ball of awkwardness hunched under the stairwell. Now, he's as famous as Nathaniel in their comic book series, and has proven himself to be just as talented. Adrien catches different scenarios in which Nathaniel has drawn Marc, but there's something unusual about those pictures.
"So you like drawing Marc, huh?"
The boy stops, and looks at Adrien from the side, cheeks turning pink. "I... I draw things that I like."
"Pretty things, from what I've seen."
Nathaniel nods and continues turning. He moves the sketchbook away from Adrien.
"And Marc's a very pretty boy."
"Whatever."
"Does he know?"
"Know what?" Nathaniel's skimming became rough, like a tantrum.
"That you like him."
"I don't..."
He shots Adrien a threatening glare, one he usually gives when he's cornered. But the young Agreste has no hint of teasing in his eyes, nor any intent to demean him. Nathaniel holds his gaze for a moment, hoping it'll protect him from the truth that Adrien just blurted out.
"Your drawings of him," he pries the sketchbook gently from Nathaniel's hands, and opens a certain page where Marc is shown stooping down a field of flowers, and while a large leaf from a nearby plot is covering a good portion of the boy's face, the style of the black hair is indicative enough. "It's not complete?"
The redhead suddenly bears a disgruntled expression, one of disappointment, and shame. That's the look his father makes when he does something below standard, Adrien thinks to himself. Nathaniel looks at the picture, and then ever so slightly his expression softens.
"I can't draw him." Nathaniel tells Adrien with almost gritted teeth, the frustration seeping from his words, "I've tried many times, studied different styles and even put myself in different moods - I just can't draw him."
Adrien looks at the other pages, and begins to compare his sketches of other students - him, Marinette, Alix, even Chloe. He draws each of them with precision and elegance, and in various settings, just like he did the Victorian Style Adrien. But then he looks at Nathaniel's sketches of Marc, lines faded in various directions, limbs drawn without the same vivid details, and the face - all of the images of Marc are shown with something or other covering his lips, as if the one who drew him kept finding an excuse not to complete his features.
Adrien turns the pages back again, and again, and again - all he sees are incomplete drawings of Marc. Perhaps going back as far as a few months.
"Why can't I draw him, Adrien?" Nathaniel asks suddenly. "If I really like him, how come I can draw you guys better than I can draw him? What the heck is wrong with me?"
"Maybe... because you keep drawing him from a distance?" Adrien offers, seeing another similarity amongst all the sketches.
"Doesn't matter where I draw him from. I have him in my mind." Nathaniel closes his eyes, and starts describing his project-partner, "I see him - sitting on a bench with Marinette. He has a sandwich on his lap, but he's not eating. He's writing. Marinette pokes his chubby cheeks, and tell him to eat. He doesn't listen, and takes a nibble at Marinette's finger. She starts tickling him, and he laughs. His laughter sounds like soft rain."
Adrien can't help but smile at how serene Nathaniel's face look right now.
"Here. It's my favorite, but you can have it."
Nathaniel hands Adrien a piece of paper neatly torn from his sketchbook. The paper has a sketch of Cat Noir holding Ladybug by the waist, both suspended with the help of the heroine's yoyo, the Eiffel Tower and the full moon behind them. The masked heroes have their faces close to one another, only a piece of macaroon held by Ladybug separating their lips. Cat Noir has his hands on Ladybug's back, a coy smirk plastered on his feline face, while Ladybug looks at him with the same positively wistful expression.
"Cool." Adrien says, then his eyes travel down to the more sensitive side of the picture. He realizes Nathaniel even got his lady's finely curved buttocks correctly.
"Say, do you have any..." Adrien scans his surroundings to make sure no one will hear what he is about to say, "...less conservative pictures."
The puzzled boy looks at him with a cocked head."Less conservative? What do you mean?"
Adrien leans towards him and begins whispering things in his ear. Barely a second lapses after the new information registers to him and Nathaniel's face ignites a full-blown blush. He pushes Adrien back and reaches for his ear like it has been defiled.
"What the hell!" he says almost in a yell, "Of course I don't! Why would you even ask that?"
"We're 15, aren't we supposed to be interested in those things?" Adrien asks innocently.
Nathaniel slams his sketchbook closed, the description of Adrien's requested picture still clearly bothering in so many ways. He returns to his chair with a big huff and decides to forego speaking to the blonde.
"Ask him to model for you." Adrien suggests all of a sudden.
"Huh?"
"Ask him. Tell him to sit still, and just, I don't know, look at you or something?"
Nathaniel nearly chokes on his sandwich.
Marc had never been the deceptive type. He knows deception, and secrets, and covert operations and plots twists in some of the spy stories he read, and some he had written himself, but he wouldn't actually know how to do any of that in real life.
Nathaniel sees him fidgeting more than usual. The blank page of the writer's notebook is staring at him in the face. Nathaniel looks at his own notebook, and sees an equally empty slate. Are they both in a slump?
"One of those days, huh?" Nathaniel tells him, rather awkwardly.
"Y-yeah - one of those days." Marc responds with an even more awkward laugh.
"Something on your mind?"
You! his inner voice screamed.
"Just - considering stuff."
"What kind?"
Marc hesitates, letting this important offer sink in first, and wonders if he should simulate multiple scenarios in his head before he blurts it out.
"A change of venue maybe? The art room's great and all, but..."
Before he could finish, Nathaniel's face turns a hundred watts brighter with a large smile, as if he's been waiting for Marc to put the idea on the table.
"Great idea! How about in my place?"
Marc blinks at the sudden enthusiasm. He initially intended to offer HIS place for the next brainstorming. In fact there's an entire preparation at the back of his mind, and while he was certain he'll mess it all up, he wanted to at least try it out now that he's been given the opportunity to set things into motion. The bright smile Nate was throwing at him was overpowering, though. And he reminds himself it doesn't really matter so long he's with him.
"O-okay."
End of Chapter 1