A/N: Ok bois, fanfic hiatus is officially over! Here we go!

Chapter Warnings:

- Dark themes
- Descriptive spiral to unstable mentality
- Triggers (somewhat implied suicidal thoughts)

His breath shook as he exhaled. His heart was pounding, he could feel the beads of sweat clinging to his forehead, as Plagg sat right in front of him with wide, worried green eyes. The kwami's mouth was moving frantically, he must've been speaking, as he occasionally moved around or made exaggerated movements only to end up back in front of his owner again.

Adrien registered none of it, only the ringing in his ears.

It had been a minute or two, at least he thought. He was sitting upright in his bed, the covers now tangled around his legs and his hair unkempt. Adrien felt as if his senses were blocking out everything else in the world, he could feel every sting from his healing bullet wound whenever he moved, he felt the way his stomach flipped with nausea and his eyes were weighted like bowling balls. He could only grab any sort of focus onto himself, nothing else.

But he didn't care. He didn't care how sick he felt, all he did was stare straight ahead as he drew raspy breaths to try and calm the memories of his latest horror.

It was another one of his lucid dreams, he realized that what he was seeing around him was not real. Both a blessing, and another piece of this curse. He knew that he was having a nightmare which helped his mentality, but whatever power that seemed to control these dreams seemingly hated whenever Adrien did that, and only made everything worse until he was forcefully thrown back to the waking world.

It had been months since the initial blast. As much as he hated admitting it, the gruesomely repeated death of his favourite girl in the whole world wasn't the piece that affected him as much anymore among all of this. The worst part of all, and most likely the source of the spark that ignited Adrien's anxiety, was the terrible shadow of failure constantly hanging over his head. A cruel reminder, every time he fell asleep.

You failed to save her again, his inner voice reminds him. You've always failed to save her life. If you can't rescue Marinette in a dream, what's preventing her from dying in real life? Nothing. Nothing holds her from being hurt, because you've never been able to protect her. If you, someone right by her side, can't save her when she needs someone, then who can?

Some partner you are.

With hesitance, Plagg's voice broke into the space that was filled with nothing but Adrien's labouring breaths. "Adrien? Please, you've got to calm down. Can you hear me?"

He wanted to answer yes, yes he could hear his pleading kwami, but no words were able to come out. It felt like… like some invisible force had a choke hold on his throat.

Adrien was scared- no, he felt terrified. Something was happening to him, like slowly but surely the strings of his very being were being tugged by a different puppeteer, every layer that made up him being stripped away like a decorative sticker.

Was he going crazy? Is this what it felt like to lose your sanity? Was Fatal Dreaming getting a hold on him so badly that he couldn't hold onto his own mind anymore? He dug his fingernails into his scalp and his teeth grinded together in agitation.

The curse was going to kill him, Adrien was sure of it. Whether he went crazy, or the scar drained his remaining life energy from his body, or whatever else Hawkmoth's freaky powers had triggered this spell to do to him, he could feel himself spiraling downward at an alarming rate. He was going to die, and nothing could be done.

This is it, I can barely think straight anymore, I'm just going to be found dead for no reason by my father and Plagg. I'll never get to see mom again, I'll never get to thank Nino for what an amazing friend he is, I'll never get to tell Marinette how much I love her…

And when I'm gone, what will she do? I won't be there to protect her, no one will! Marinette's going to die just like I am, and leave Paris without its Ladybug… it's all my fault. All of this is my fault.

Adrien's chest heaved with a dry sob. It felt more like a quiet scream.

I don't want Ladybug to die… I don't want Marinette to die... I never wanted to watch her die, even if it's a dream I don't want to watch her getting hurt anymore! I can't watch it anymore!

Would it hurt less if Gunslinger had just killed me?

If the bullet had just gone through my heart-

"Adrien? Adrien, please answer me! It's Marinette!"

He blinked. The fog lifted.

In an instant, the world came back to Adrien, and he still sat on his messy bed in tangled covers as he did before. The morning sun shimmered through his tall windows and the room was quiet, helping him relax a little more as he regained his senses.

A different trembling voice spoke. "A-Adrien?"

Looking to his right, he saw the source of the second voice, holding up Adrien's cellphone to his ear, with tiny kwami tears slipping from his eyes.

"Plagg…"

Marinette's voice came from his phone again, "Adrien?! Is that you, please answer!"

Frantically, he accepted the phone out of Plagg's hands and tried to console him by patting his head between his ears. The kwami silently flew over and sat on Adrien's shoulder.

"Y-Yeah… yeah Mari, it's me. Are you okay?"

"Am I okay?! Look who's talking! Do you- do you have any idea how scared I just was?"

He bit his lip. Had he really been that far gone?

"What do you mean?"

"Just a minute ago I thought you were calling me, but it was Plagg who had your phone, and I've never heard him so… so scared before!" Marinette explained, "He said that you- that you were frozen in panic, you wouldn't respond to him and k-kept jumping between breathing heavily, to crying, to not breathing at all! He was afraid you were going to pass out!"

Oh.

Oh.

Adrien felt like he had received a punch to the gut. He was a really terrible owner.

When he was silent for a few moments after Marinette's explanation, she asked him, "Was it… another nightmare?"

He sucked in a breath, pushing the graphic images out of his mind.

"Yeah… I'm alright now though."

"Are you sure? Do you need me to come over?"

Adrien nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see him.

"I'm sure. You and Plagg helped to bring me back to my senses, I don't want to take up any more of your time," he replied.

Marinette sighed over the phone, "Adrien, you should know by now that I want to help you through this, and that you can come to me anytime when you're in need. Please remember that, okay?"

A smile formed on his lips, and that usual flutter of warm butterflies tickled him.

"Of course Bugaboo."

The two teenagers exchanged quick farewells before Adrien lowered his phone from his ear, and turned his attention to the distressed kwami at his side.

Plagg had stopped crying, much to Adrien's relief, but his weary gaze was still soaking with worry and frustration. He slowly lifted himself from his owner's shoulder, and inhaled a deep breath before speaking in order to not lash out.

"Adrien, what was that? What the heck just happened?!" he said with a crack in his voice.

The blond swung his legs over the side of his bed and lowered his head, while Plagg came and sat on his lap so the two could have a quiet talk.

"Honestly Plagg… I don't know. I-I woke up, and almost instantly I just felt so…" he searched for a moment to find the right word. "Broken. It felt like something greater than another anxiety attack, I could barely think straight or control my body, and it just felt like my mind was beginning to spin in circles and plummet into chaos."

Adrien ran his fingers through his hair with a huff.

"Or, well… something along those lines, maybe less dramatic. Does that make any sense?"

"No, not really," Plagg answered bluntly. "But it definitely sounds like something to do with your nightmares. Now that you've recovered more from the battle against Gunslinger, not only do you and your blushy girlfriend seriously have to track him down, but you've gotta keep working on finding some way to cure yourself. You can't go on like this forever you know."

Those last words made Adrien think. There was an idea that he had been silently contemplating for some time now, seeing as how all he's really had to deal with so far was bad dreams and a few chest sores. It's not like the bullet wound was caused from the curse, and everything else aside from that he felt as if he could deal with.

So, he asked Plagg about his idea with a heavy shrug.

"Well what if I did?"

"Huh?"

"What if I just went on like this for the rest of my life, Plagg? If I just told everyone closest to me that I have this curse that makes me dream about my darkest fear, and because of it I have this scar on my body. End of story, everyone will know and I can just keep dealing with these nightmares every night. I can take it, and we won't have to keep so many secrets anymore."

Plagg was staring at him as if the teenager just grew another eyeball, his body trembling with the urge to hold back his anger, but then failing a moment later.

" Adrien do you even hear yourself right now?! " he cried. "Going on like this for the rest of your life?! Do that and you won't have much of a life left! You know everything you need to know about this curse, I'm not going to let you just give up and decide to live your life like this! You'll have to endure pain and sadness every single day, and even if you choose to deal with it it's still going to kill you!"

The teenager shrugged again. So maybe he was giving up, maybe he'd have to deal with a lot, but it felt like the more that he fought against it, the more painful it all became.

He felt numb.

"I haven't died yet," Adrien responded halfheartedly.

"But you're going to! Don't you get it? Are you even listening to yourself?" Plagg silently fumed in the air as he waited for a response, but when Adrien didn't answer he got even more frustrated.

"Don't you understand why me and Marinette want to help you so damn much? We're scared for you, Adrien! We're just as scared as you are about the nightmares you have and the stuff on your chest that you have to deal with, but it's sounding like we care about it a lot more than you do! We're working hard at this, and yet you aren't even lifting a finger to actually help yourself!"

Adrien sighed, lifting himself to his feet from the bedside while his kwami flew in front of him with angered eyes.

"Just stop worrying about it Plagg, and quit yelling before you give me a headache. This curse hasn't taken me down yet, so if I just keep going like this then I'm bound to be alright," he said. The thought of not having to fight back anymore made Adrien feel relaxed, almost eager to just tell everyone the truth and go back to living a normal life. He couldn't see the problems with his idea.

For the little black cat, however, that was the nail in the coffin.

"Adrien Agreste!"

Plagg's voice was practically as jarring as being struck by a Cataclysm, and the sheer intensity of his emotions drove Adrien to silence. He could see the glistening of tears building up in his eyes again.

His heart sank. The numbness turned back into fear.

Wait…. wh-what was I even saying just now? Am I really that prepared to just… give up?

Plagg flew to the tip of his nose and hissed, "Soon enough, if you fight it or not, this curse is going to kill you. Whether you sleep until you never wake up or it drives you to insanity, it could happen any day now. I've watched it happen with my own two eyes! For all we know you could be dead by tomorrow, and I hate it! I hate having to watch another best friend suffer and slowly stop caring about their own state! I'm supposed to be the careless one, and yet all it ever does is make me feel hopeless and frustrated and… a-and…."

His breath hitched in the middle of his yelling until he couldn't speak anymore, and Plagg's head tucked down as he quietly cried.

"Don't you see that I don't want you to die Adrien?"

The final sentence that flew another fist into Adrien's churning stomach, before the bedroom fell silent once more. Plagg just sat in the air, still, and quietly crying with both sorrow and anger.

He knew something had been changing inside of him, but it had never been to this degree before. No- this wasn't the curse to blame. This was his own foolishness, growing further blind to the opportunity to recover if he would just take action, and so prepared to give up. Adrien knew it was all him, all he had done was avoid the fight that he didn't want a part in, even though it was supposedly a fight for his life that he was beginning to believe more and more.

However, in reality, giving up hope would only lead him to further pain, and an inevitable death. If he could just endure the pain for a while longer, take a stand and continue to fight, then it would be the only way for him to find his way back to peace of mind.

Like Chat Noir.

Chat Noir never gives up on a fight. That hero is supposed to be me, and while he never backs down his confidence and spirit, here I am seeing one upsetting and painful situation and just completely giving in, He realized.

Adrien cupped one hand underneath his devastated kwami, and murmured, "Plagg… I'm sorry, I… I don't know what I was-"

"I hate you."

The words struck him harder than any akuma's blow.

"Plagg-"

Before he could say anything more, the small cat turned and made a beeline for the window, soaring right through it and flying away into the depths of the Paris streets.

Adrien could only sit and watch wide-eyed. He never would have guessed that Plagg, his nonchalant and endearing kwami, could stun him in such a harsh way, but the next moment he gripped his golden hair with two fists and let out a grinding, exasperated cry.

"Grrr-AAAAGGHHH!"

His world now spinning in an angry circle, and the teen slapped a sharp palm across his own cheek before storming into the bathroom, pressing both of his hands against the counter and staring at himself in the mirror.

Adrien's hair was disheveled, fittingly accompanied by wild eyes, shadowed by dark bags, a now red and stinging cheek, and the black cracking inching its way up his neck from his chest. He looked - quite simply - like an utter mess.

"What am I doing?! This is ridiculous, I-I don't want to die… what in my mind made me so prepared to give up? Now I've only made everything worse, and Plagg flew off, nice going Agreste!" he scowled to himself. "He was right, I need to stop wallowing in this and actually do something. Find a way to fix all of this so that Marinette and I can finally go back to our normal lives."

Not that anything will ever be normal again after all of this…

Adrien gripped the counter until his knuckles bled white, and he gave himself a stern gaze in the mirror.

"I've got to do something. Anything. "

He inadvertently grazed his fingers over the growing scar poking out from the top of his shirt, somehow sending a cold shiver through his hand at the feeling of it. Curiously, he tugged the fabric of his sleep shirt farther down to get a better look at his horrible condition.

Sure enough, the imprint was continuing to spread by the day, with every passing nightmare or hallucination, stretching out from the initial point of impact across his body like a shockwave. Soon, he would have to find a way to cover it up.

"I've let this get too bad," Adrien murmured. "Maybe I should go back to Master Fu's, talk to him and see what I should do, how I can actually work toward getting this spell out of me."

His thoughts briefly drifted to that of his missing kwami, feeling a sharp twinge of guilt in his chest. While wondering where he may have gone after running off, Adrien heard knocking from his bedroom door before it swung open. He swiftly pulled his shirt collar up over the jagged marks, ensuring that it would stay in place to cover up the evidence, before he emerged from his bathroom.

Much to his surprise, the first figure that Adrien laid eyes on, that stepped into his bedroom with his assistant close behind, was none other than his father. Gabriel rarely came to visit him in his spare time, if ever at all, but considering the turn of events that had taken place in recent weeks and the older man having been overwhelmed with guilt, his amplified concern was justifiable.

"Hello Adrien. I hope I am not interrupting anything," he greeted.

"No father, I was just starting to get ready for the day," he lied. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Father looked skeptical. He narrowed his eyes and began to silently examine him as if he could tell of his secrets. His blue eyes darted around at the details on Adrien's body, and the teenager was just starting to sense the awkward silence when his father spoke again.

"You didn't sleep well last night, did you Adrien?"

Well, that certainly hadn't been the topic of discussion that he was expecting.

"What makes you say that, father?" Adrien challenged.

Father's eyes narrowed in an all too familiar disapproval, before sliding a hand into his pocket and pulling out a small container that made the blond's eyes go wide.

He immediately recognized the bottle of the nightmare-quelling medicine that the Master had given him and he kept hidden, but he supposed at some point during his recovery process Gabriel must have come into his bedroom and found it.

And now, he would have to discover a way to survive his own father.

"You're going to tell me what this medication is for and where you got it without my permission!" he demanded. "You should know that I was rather surprised when I found such a thing hidden in your drawer Adrien, so I do hope you have a good explanation."

Thankfully, Adrien had put a lot of thought into this moment; the moment when his father or Nathalie may grow one step closer to discovering the truth of his ailments. The chance of getting his hero identity blown was too big of a risk that he didn't particularly feel like taking.

So, he let out a sigh and explained the story that he had crafted for himself. A story that, while not entirely false, should convince his only parent enough to avoid any suspicions or punishment.

At least, he hoped so.

"I'm sorry father, I shouldn't have hidden it from you. The truth… the truth is I've been having some problems recently, for the last few months there have been many nights when I have been unable to get to sleep. Insomnia, I suppose," he lied again. "I know how important schedules are to you, and that all of my lessons and practices cannot be cancelled on such short notice, so I bought medicine for myself that helps me sleep easier, the day that I was in the city after Chasseur attacked. Please forgive me, father."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, as if processing the story and determining whether or not he should comply and return Master Fu's medicine to him, or punish him for not telling the truth sooner. That was the moment when Adrien lowered his head and brought out his "get out of jail free" card.

"I would have told you earlier, it's just that I've been struggling to sleep because of how much I've been thinking of mom recently. It's been nearly a year since she left, and I just… miss her so much," he said.

It wasn't a lie either. Despite all that had been happening in the recent weeks and the violent imagery that Adrien constantly had to fight out of his mind, never did he go a day without thinking about his mom. And it definitely seemed to work on his father, as his narrowed eyes flashed with sorrow as Adrien spoke. His gaze then lowered, he appeared to be contemplating a decision.

The two men stood facing each other, heads slightly lowered somberly, for what felt to be many minutes before the elder Agreste lifted his head again and used a finger to adjust his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"I see," Gabriel stated. "I wish that you had told me this sooner, Adrien, as your health is important in order to do well in your studies and your lessons. I will be cancelling all of your extracurricular activities for the rest of this school week, but in return you are not to leave the house or have any friends over, and I am getting rid of this untrustworthy medication to replace it with a more proper one."

"You are to get plenty of rest in order to recover, and if you are still showing signs of this sleeplessness by the end of the week then I will have the Gorilla watch over you during all hours of the day that you are at home, to ensure that you are resting. Now that you have recovered from the worst of your wounds, you will be in your room when you are not at school, studying and getting lots of rest to recover from this sleeping issue that you chose to hide from me. Is that understood?"

Adrien silently cringed. His father stated exactly what he wanted, rather strictly, as always, and really didn't seem to understand the concept of actual insomnia very well. Nonetheless, he was able to brush it off because:

Adrien didn't really have insomnia, making it easy to fake a quick recovery so long as the real problem didn't get in the way.

The extra free time would let him spend more time finding a cure for his curse or spending time with Marinette, knowing that she could easily sneak in through the window as she had done in the past.

Having his lessons cancelled would mean plenty more time to go out as Chat Noir, meaning he and Ladybug might even get the chance to catch Gunslinger and save the people of Paris!

Although, that still left one big problem hanging over him.

Right… Adrien realized. I have to go after Plagg. But he could be just about anywhere in the city by now…

Pushing aside his wave of guilt at the thought of never seeing his kwami again because of how foolish he acted, the teenager did his best to put on a rested and relaxed smile when he nodded to his father.

"Yes sir, I understand."

Father was quiet for a moment, his stoic stare never backing down, before returning the nod.

"Very well. These new rules go into effect now. You are to tell me immediately if you experience any other problems, Adrien, are we clear?" he instructed.

"Of course father."

Alongside a silent Nathalie, the two adults turned and began to make their way to the door of the giant bedroom, when Adrien reminded himself of one more thing he needed to say.

"Father?"

The man's head turned to his son.

"Thank you…" he said. "For taking such good care of me."

Gabriel was silent for a moment, before giving a nod and leaving the room.

And with that, Adrien found himself alone once again. A sting on his cheek that matched the lingering one against his chest, eyes heavy with the exhaustion of constantly waking in the night, and a mind plagued by the nightmares of which he never would have imagined, and now will never forget.

Adrien felt completely awful in every sense of the word, yet the day had barely begun.

From the moment he opened his eyes that day, Adrien had lost his ability to think clearly and the strange curse from Hawkmoth had only gotten worse than it was before. This was followed by contemplating death and losing his desires to fight back anymore, and now his kwami had left him and his father confiscated the only thing that had a chance at protecting him from night terrors.

Adrien took a breath to gather himself, blinking the sleep from his eyes and turning to his closet to find clothes to wear.

He knew this would be a long day, and he had a lot of work to do.

A/N: Chapter 18 should be finished and posted tomorrow if I'm able to get my act together, if not tomorrow then within the next few days!

Reviews are always very appreciated! As always, I love y'all very much and I appreciate your patience with me!