Chloé stared, slack jawed. "What?"
"Are you cheating on me?" Sabrina sked again, this time slower and louder.
"No! Sabrina, what are you talking about?"
Sabrina jammed her hand into her pocket and yanked out a crumpled sheet of paper. She thrust it in Chloé's face.
"Explain this," Sabrina said, her voice cracking.
Chloé's eyes went wide. "Spots off," she said. As soon as she slipped Tikki a cookie, she put her hands in her pockets and turned towards the ledge of the building.
"Well?" Sabrina said. "You want to tell me about this? Were you even going to?"
"It's not what it looks like," Chloé said, her voice small.
"Really?" Sabrina nearly yelled. She turned the paper around. "What I find attractive about the other Ladybug. That's what this says at the top, or am I misreading your chicken scratch?"
Chloé said nothing. Sabrina took that as an invitation to continue. "Well, then! Let's read these off, shall we? She's strong. She can kick my ass. She looks good in a jacket." Sabrina glanced at Chloé. "You and your fucking thing with jackets, I swear to God." She glanced back down at the list. "Her ass looks nice in tights. Pretty eyes. Nice mouth. Smells good. Confident. Looks like Marinette." Sabrina hissed the last point. She looked at Chloé. "Did I miss anything?"
"Look, it's," Chloé sighed. "It was, um, an exercise."
"An exercise?" Sabrina parroted back. "You listing out the reasons you wanna fuck some other girl is an exercise?"
"Yes, it's an exercise!" Chloé snapped back. "I was trying to, um, I…"
"Did you sleep with her?" Sabrina cut her off. "Just tell me right now, I…"
"No!"
"…Need to know if this is done. I'm not…"
"No, I didn't!"
"…Going to be strung along like some fucking side chick!"
"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING, OKAY?" Chloé yelled.
Both girls stopped for a moment to catch their breath.
"Look," Chloé said in a low, level voice. "I felt bad because I found myself attracted to her, and I was just trying to figure out why. I figured if I did that, I could put what I was feeling into perspective. That's all." She looked to Sabrina.
"So, you are attracted to her?" Sabrina asked.
Chloé kept her eyes on Sabrina. "Like, in a superficial way, yeah. It's not… It's nothing. I didn't do anything. I wasn't going to do anything. I just… I was confused by what I was feeling."
"I wasn't," Sabrina said. "I've never been."
Chloé eyed her for a moment. "What about that boy in New York?"
Sabrina blushed and looked away. "That was years ago! And it was nothing. Just…"
"Just what?"
"It was just nice to get some attention."
"I give you plenty of attention!"
"Not back then you didn't," Sabrina countered. "I… Dammit." Sabrina hugged herself and sniffed. "You go out every night with all those amazing powers, getting your adrenaline fix off of risking your life and playing with the other heroes, and I stay home and play with Camille and hang out with Caline, and I'm… I'm okay with that. I am! I just… I need to know this isn't… This…"
Chloé took her hands out of her pockets and moved to hold Sabrina, but she wasn't sure if she was welcome. She stood awkwardly in front of the smaller girl and choked back a flood of emotions that were racing to the surface. "I… Sabrina, please believe me. I love you with all my heart. I just, I was so thrown by how I was feeling that I, I was trying to put it into words so I could write it off."
Sabrina looked at her. "How can I believe you? How do I know that's true?" She closed her eyes. "How do I know you weren't trying to set up some Bug Time with her?"
Chloé stopped cold. "You knew about that?"
Sabrina looked at Chloé. "You and Marinette? Yeah. Yeah, I know now. I found out last night. I figured it didn't matter because we weren't dating when it happened, but I know." She adjusted her glasses. "I would have felt better about it if you had told me, though."
"How'd you find out?" Chloé asked.
Sabrina held up the list again. "She looks like Marinette. It's right there. I slipped Pollen some honey and asked if the two of you had ever been a thing. Bribery goes a long way with kwamis."
Tikki peeked out of Chloé's pocket. "It's true," she said as she munched a cookie. "Sabrina, Chloé hasn't done anything with Faunus. I promise."
Sabrina made a noise, but she didn't say anything back.
Chloé rubbed her face. "Okay. I fucked up, and I need to make this right. Will, um, will you let me?"
"How do you make this right?" Sabrina yelled. "Chloé, you're actively pining for some random girl. Do you even know her real name?"
Chloé looked away.
"Jesus," Sabrina said. "Look, just… Go do whatever you're going to do, would you? I'm done. I can't sit at home and wonder night in and night out if you're even coming back to me. I can't. I've been patient, supportive, understanding, everything. And this is my reward. You want this new girl so damn bad? Fine. Go have fun. I don't care. I'll talk to Ms. Bourgeois about finding a place on my own. I've got some cash saved up."
"Sabrina, no! Wait, dammit!" Chloé nearly tripped over her own feet. She felt her words start to tighten in her throat. "I just… I don't want some random girl, okay? I don't want anyone but you!"
Sabrina glared at her. "Well, you could have fooled me." She turned away from Chloé and took a deep breath. "I knew this was a possibility with us, but I had really, truly believed things were going to work out. I really did."
Chloé felt her stomach go ice cold. She did her absolute best not to throw up right then and there. "Sabrina, nothing happened. I promise. I just… I needed to show myself that everything I was liking was just, just surface stuff, you know? It was nothing more than just… Dammit."
She looked to Sabrina, who had her back to Chloé. She wanted to reach out and turn her around, to hug her, to just hold her, but…
"Hey," Chloé said. Sabrina turned to see Chloé offering her the collar. "Give me one hour, okay? One hour, please, and then meet me on top of the Eiffel Tower. I promise I'll make this right."
Sabrina was about to say something, but she saw the look on Chloé's face and felt herself crumble a bit. She took the collar and let out a long sigh. "Fine. One hour."
Chloé smiled but didn't get close to Sabrina. She could read body language well enough to know that if she tried anything right now, the smaller girl would most likely rip her in half.
"Thank you. I'll make this right."
Sabrina just watched as Chloé transformed and took off like a bat out of Hell.
Notes:
Whelp, now everything is out in the open, isn't it? What will Chloe do to fix this? Can she even fix this?
Also...
Just how did Sabrina get a miraculous?
NEXT TIME!
...We see how Sabrina got a miraculous.
Be here for all the hot flashback action! Same Bug Time...
SABRINA: Seriously? The narrator, too? The fucking narrator?!
CHLOE: NO, dammit! That's just a bit they do!
...Same bug Channel!
