After the talk with Félix, Marinette's mind was spiralling with new questions that had inevitably arisen. To sort her thoughts and to give her hands something to do except for flailing wildly, she decided on the relaxing task of taking her clothes out of the duffel bag and folding them properly. Not that they weren't already folded, but she still liked to make sure that creases hadn't snuck in somewhere. With a content sigh, she got to work.
Out of everything, the first thing that came to mind was the indisputable familiarity of the entire conversation. As it turned out, talking to Sabrina and talking to Félix were two such radically different experiences that they were practically worlds apart. She had briefly feared that now, with all secrets out in the open, her friend would have entirely changed and suddenly become just as eerie as the selkie, but that hadn't been the case. It was a huge relief that, regardless of the new revelations and everything else, Félix stayed Félix, no matter if he hid his fae side from her or not. Though while it had been a breath of fresh air to see that not everything had changed as drastically as she feared, she was still consumed by a plethora of mysteries. With every question answered, three more had taken its place and Félix had been right when he'd said that she needed to talk to Adrien if she wanted to see improvement there. Otherwise the string of questions might never end.
Marinette straightened out the fabric of a shirt more harshly with her hands than necessary when she thought about Adrien. She…she'd need to come back to that. Later. There were other things to sort through first! She had no doubt that if Tikki were here, she would chide her for running away from the topic, and she'd be right to. There wasn't really a reason to be a coward about it…
Well, my brain doesn't seem to like rationality lately anyway, she thought bitterly when another thought struck her.
What Félix had said about flashbacks scared her more than she liked to admit. There had been quite a few in the last couple of days and she definitely related to the endless loop of them he had described. Today she was finally feeling a little better and more grounded, so risking a flashback wasn't really something she wanted to do.
Better not think about that now either, she thought before moving on.
Mindlessly, she went through one piece of clothing after another while processing the rest of the conversation, not really paying attention to the garments in question. At least not until Marinette picked up a shirt that made her pause—a dark blue one with lighter blue accents that mimicked light falling through water in what had been a rather complicated dye-job. Its sketch came to mind, something she had once obliviously worked on while sitting under fairy lights on a veranda with no idea how significant it would become. It had been the very sketch Adrien had commented on before she had put her sketchbook away and they had moved on to a heartfelt conversation that had eventually led to love confessions and their first kiss. Their first real kiss, in any case. After that, there had been no doubt about which design from the Camargue trip she'd make.
Marinette sighed fondly at the memories when she carefully flattened the fabric with her hands.
"Why would you be selfish?"
"Because, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I'm in love with you."
"I fail to see how that's selfish."
"It's not, but asking you to be my girlfriend is."
"Well, aren't you lucky? Because I love you too."
A smile spread on her lips when she thought about that night. It was one of her happiest memories and not even the most recent revelations could taint it.
"The most important thing is that I love you. Please remember that."
Nothing could ever make her forget it.
And so much for putting that topic off for later, she thought, her resistance towards that particular string of thoughts wavering.
While putting the folded clothes away into the wardrobe, their homely smell of the bakery surfaced yet another fond memory of hers.
"Hey! That was my cookie!" Adrien whined while Marinette chewed her stolen prize.
She couldn't help the smug look and cheekily stuck her tongue out at him once she had swallowed.
"Should have been faster then, KitKat."
He pouted, making her want to kiss that adorable face of his, but the sudden sly grin stretching across it stopped her from following through with that idea.
"My cookie shall be avenged!"
Marinette shrieked and almost fell off the chaise longue when he started tickling her mercilessly. She tried her best to push him away or to at least retaliate but Adrien was somehow keeping his most ticklish spots out of her reach. Not even kicking him—lightly—was effective.
"I relent! Mercy, please!" She screeched out between laughs. "I promise to get you more cookies!"
His assault stopped, making her slump back on the chaise and catch her breath.
"More cookies sound nice," he said with a faux thoughtful expression, only for it to morph back into that infuriatingly sexy grin of his. "But I wanted that cookie."
Before she could retort that he probably didn't want it back now, he effectively silenced her with a kiss. Talking was a thing instantly forgotten at the soft sensation of his lips on hers. He tasted like the chocolate almond cookies they had just eaten a whole plate of, though all of a sudden, a wholly new type of hunger gripped her. Her fingers snaked their way into his hair as she tentatively bit his lower lip and was rewarded with an almost feral noise from him that she definitely wanted to hear again.
Too bad that breathing was a life-sustaining necessity.
Breathless giggles escaped her when he peppered her face with light kisses.
"You're not gonna get your cookie back this way, you know?"
"Who cares," he murmured as he went on to kiss her neck.
"You care, dork."
His face suddenly was in her field of vision again with his soft green eyes gazing at her.
"I care about you," he whispered before claiming her lips once more.
Marinette hummed pleasantly into the kiss as her hands automatically found their place in his hair again to pull him closer. Maybe it was the sudden hunger she felt or the knowledge that they had silently agreed to let her be the instigator of anything new. Either way, she felt daring today, so she licked his lips and used his surprised gasp as an opportunity to slip her tongue inside his mouth. Just a little, to see if he was alright with it. What she hadn't expected was the sudden pain and they sprang apart.
"I'm sorry!"
"You bit my tongue!"
They said at the same time. Adrien looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole while Marinette was much faster to recover from the shock.
"It's okay, I should've given you more of a warning," she said sheepishly, only for Adrien's expression to shift into one of horror.
"Shit, you're bleeding," he said and immediately jumped up to frantically search for tissues.
Marinette got up as well, though with much less haste, and walked over to her vanity to observe the damage in the mirror. She really was bleeding, though it barely hurt and it was just a little scratch on the side of her tongue. Nothing dramatic.
A tissue was shoved into her face by an absolutely distraught-looking Adrien. He acted as if he had just given her a grave injury and she couldn't help but snort at his overdramatic antics. A snort that very quickly turned into full-on laughter.
"I can't believe you bit my tongue!" She wheezed and actually had to grab the side of her vanity for support to not fall over.
When she looked up, she could see him hesitantly smiling.
"Way to kill the mood, huh?" he said, which sent her into a new wave of laughter.
Soon enough, both of them were laying on the floor laughing, though neither knew exactly why it was so funny.
The memory unwittingly made her chuckle as she pulled herself back onto the bed. She loved her dork of a boyfriend and that he wasn't entirely human didn't change that fact one bit. It didn't change things and yet…
She threw a look at the slightly ajar door.
Oh, to hell with it!
"Adrien?" She called in a moment of bravery, as all hesitance she had previously held vanished.
At first, nothing happened. Then she heard shuffling from the next room over, followed by the distinct sound of soft, limping steps. They stopped in front of the door as he quietly lingered there. While she might be just a human and not very magical, she still had always been able to pick up on his anxiety, both as Adrien and as Chat Noir, so that's what she also did now. It lay in his silence, in the sound of quiet scuffling and even though she couldn't see him right now, she would bet that he was in a hunched, almost cowering position.
My poor Chaton.
And even though Marinette really didn't want to procrastinate this conversation any further, her nerves, that only fuelled her cowardice from earlier, didn't seem to have gotten the memo yet. With her hands digging into the blanket, she forced her mouth to open and her tongue to form words, only to realise that she still didn't know what to say. Or rather, where to start. Forcefully swallowing down her nervousness, she decided to just pick up where they had left off the day before.
"I wanted to talk," she finally said. "But only if you're up for it."
Her words were met with silence at first, before a meek, quiet voice hesitantly answered.
"Are you sure?"
Adrien sounded so small and fragile, as if the slightest thing could break him. He was obviously scared, much like a hurt animal, but it was still an improvement from the heart-rending hopelessness of the day before.
"Yes, very sure. We're both driving ourselves crazy like this."
There was a pause and she could have sworn to have also heard a quiet whimper.
"I…I don't want you to force yourself to do this only because it's the next point on the to do list…or something like that. B-but if you're sure, then I want you to know that everything from now on is completely on your terms and your time. I'll accept whatever you choose to do. No tricks, no lies, no magic."
She smiled sadly. "Thank you, Adrien," she said and honestly meant it. "I really needed these last few days to sort my thoughts and…well…I guess it'll still take a while until I'll really come to terms with everything, but I think I'm good enough now to at least have this conversation. Talking to Félix went fine too after all."
"That's different. Fé is still the same while I'm…" he sighed. "Well, I'm not very human right now, and not just from looks."
"I know," Marinette said patiently. "You could use a glamour, I'm fine with that."
"But…what if you can see through it? I'm not sure how good I am with glamouring myself like this yet and I…I don't want to hurt you again."
He said the last part so quietly that she almost didn't catch it.
"If it feels like I get triggered, I'll just close my eyes and try to ground myself. Your voice is fine, so talking shouldn't be an issue."
"But what if that doesn't work?"
"Then that's today's setback and we'll deal with it."
Another short silence befell them. When it became clear that he wasn't going to answer any time soon, she sighed.
"Chaton," she said, putting emphasis on the nickname she had only ever called him from behind a mask. "We never won by walking on eggshells, did we?"
A sigh. "I guess we didn't, my lady."
Hearing him call her that already made her feel lighter, as if yet another worry had been lifted from her. One little step back to home. They might not have their Miraculouses anymore, but they were still Ladybug and Chat Noir. Perhaps now even more than ever.
"Alright, we're gonna do this one thing at a time," she said and took a deep breath to steel herself.
"Step One all over again?" Adrien asked and she could hear a lighter note in his voice. Not quite a smile, but intrigue and even a little bit of hope.
"Exactly, though this Step One won't be as easy as checking for a fear of heights. We'll need to find out if your glamour works on me. If it does, we'll move on to whatever Step Two will be. If it doesn't, I'll close my eyes and we'll move on to Step Two anyway. The triggers are something we'll need to work on, but not today."
"Again, are you sure you want to do this right now? Because…err…fair warning, I've been very emotional lately. Inhumanly emotional that is, with mood swings. I'll try my best to stay…uh…stable, but if I can't, then the sporadic back and forth might be a lot for you to deal with."
She thought back to how Sabrina had jumped from sinister to friendly and smoothly back to gleefully malicious. It had been unsettling, sure, but now that she knew what to expect, she'd probably be able to deal with it to some extent. In any case, she didn't believe that Adrien would mean any of it maliciously and it wasn't like she was a stranger to his mood swings and heavy emotions in the first place.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. And yes, I'm absolutely sure," Marinette said, her resolve not wavering.
"Can you promise to tell me when it becomes too much for you?"
"I promise."
She heard a shuddering sigh. "Alright then, count to three?"
She nodded, only to remember that he couldn't see it.
"One," she said and clutched the bed sheets tighter.
"Two," Adrien said after a few seconds of silence.
The final count was up to her, just like he had said.
Her terms, her time.
She took a deep breath, trying to shoo the nerves away once more and to mentally prepare herself for finally seeing him again.
"Three."
The number escaped her lips in a whisper and with more uncertainty than she would have liked.
Marinette involuntarily tensed at the sound of silent pawfalls and then just stared. Some part of her must have really expected to see a cat, or that she'd see through his glamour right away. Therefore, she was disproportionately surprised when Adrien, looking just as she had always known him—blonde hair, green eyes and definitely human—walked into the room. And still, she could tell there was something off and fake about him. His movements were too smooth, his expression lacking just a tiny edge that would have made it look genuine and just…just this feeling of utter wrongness, like an instinct she hadn't been aware she possessed told her to not trust what she saw. It was only when he shrunk into himself and looked like he wanted to bolt from the room that there was a slight flicker and a shadow she couldn't quite make out. That was also the moment when she realised that she still hadn't said anything.
Marinette smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry, I didn't know what to expect. But the glamour works, so that's good," she said and then patted the free side of the bed next to her. "Do you want to lie down? Félix said you have a broken arm so standing might be a little uncomfortable since you're not really bipedal right now, right?"
Adrien stared at her in disbelief.
"You…you're really okay with this?" He breathed, as if he couldn't believe his ears.
Her smile deepened. "Yep. As long as I don't concentrate on it, I can't see through your glamour, so all I see is a silly, blond dork standing in the middle of the room." She patted the empty bedside again. "Come on, don't make it weird."
She probably should have been screaming internally, but for some reason a sense of peace completely enveloped her. The same sense of peace and safety she always felt when he was near—no matter in which form—making the rest of her nerves slowly dissipate. To be honest, she felt more like crying in joy to finally see him again after what felt like the longest week of her life.
He stopped at the side of the bed. "So, this'll probably sound weird to you, but I don't have much practice with making my glamour look human while I'm a cat. So…uh…climbing on the bed could turn out wonky or glitchy or whatever. Maybe you should look away…just in case?"
Marinette nodded. "Thanks for the heads up," she said while looking to the side, suddenly very glad to have had the conversation with Félix before this so that she was slightly desensitised to all the oddity for the moment. "Or are you just afraid I'll make fun of you?"
Adrien snorted, a sound that was half humorous and half nervous. "No, I'm genuinely concerned about my glamour failing. I can't even reduce my size enough to look like a real cat right now, so a glamour is a little bit of a stretch actually. I'm glad it works at all."
There was a loud creak coming from the bed and a dip in the mattress beside hers. A silent feline hiss caught her attention but she didn't turn around yet.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, just more difficult to get on here without bumping my stupid leg into anything. The splint isn't really helping my case either."
"I relate," Marinette sighed. "I keep bumping my legs into things too. Broken bones suck, don't they?"
Adrien didn't reply—unless the quiet whine was his answer—instead, there was the sound of shuffling.
"Can I look now?"
"Uh…yeah, I think it should be alright like this. I probably look weird though."
Marinette was about to reassure Adrien that it was okay, but the words died on her tongue when she looked at him. There he lay on his stomach in a very cat-like posture, the likes she had seen him lounge around in as Chat Noir with his arms stretched out in front of him and his head craned up to look at her, like a sphinx. What was odd about it wasn't his posture though, but rather the unnaturally deep dip of the mattress below him, as if he suddenly weighed twice as much as he looked.
She couldn't help but snort.
"Sorry," she said at his offended look. "It just looks funny, like you doubled your weight while also trying to look as feline as possible."
"I knew it'd look weird," he muttered.
"It's not bad, I swear," she giggled and reached out to ruffle his hair, an instinctive reaction.
Adrien leaned away though. "Better not try that," he warned, which immediately sobered her.
"Why not?"
"Glamours are supposed to be solid, but this is really more of a convincing illusion. I don't know how physical I managed to make it. Besides, I, without the glamour, am still pretty solid and bigger than I would be as a human, so I'm appearing smaller to you than I really am right now."
"In other words, you're scared I'm gonna poke you in the eye on accident," she couldn't help but joke.
It felt like on one of their regular patrol nights or like during a very easy or silly Akuma attack. She was used to joking with him about their weird tendencies, including his cat-like mannerisms that had always been much stronger than her ladybug ones—now it made sense. If she just pretended that an Akuma had turned him into an actual cat, it wasn't any different than back then. Weird, but the normal kind of weird she had gotten used to over the years. A weird that was somehow predictable and therefore manageable. Of course, she'd have to come to terms with the reality of the situation eventually, but for now she could at least try to fool herself a little bit. He deserved her support more than anything right now after all and if a little game of 'what if' could put her more at ease to give him that, then that's what she was going to do!
Adrien sent her another disbelieving stare. "How are you so calm about this?!"
Marinette shrugged. "Honestly? I don't know. I had a few days to think about a lot of things but I'm still struggling with most of the concepts. Like I said: one thing at a time. For the moment I'm just trying to deal with the fact that you currently look different than what I'm seeing and pushed everything else to the side. I'd go crazy if I'd think about all these things at once."
Adrien nodded sadly and looked at the pillow in front of him.
"I'm sorry. It's all my fault that you have to deal with this crap, injuries included."
Now it was her turn to stare at him in disbelief.
"No, it's not!" She argued. "I might not know a lot about the fae, but I know for certain that you didn't break my legs, nor kept all those secrets from me because you wanted to hurt me. The opposite actually! You tried to save me and you did save me! So, please, don't apologize for it."
"But—"
"Nope! I'm not accepting 'no' for an answer, KitKat."
"It's not like I'm a saint, Marinette!"
She flinched back at the sudden exclamation. He so rarely yelled at her that she could count the times when he had on one hand. There was no anger or even malice in his expression though, just desperation and anguish with shimmering eyes that promised tears. This expression quickly dropped to make room for exhaustion. A different kind of exhaustion than the one Félix had and one that couldn't be fixed with just a nap.
"I went way beyond any sort of lines I set for myself at the beginning to keep all of this a secret from you, because it turns out that glamours, trinkets, faebane and wards were by far not enough when faced with the most brilliant person I have ever met. I yelled at you when you started digging. I lied and tricked you to get out of a situation more times than I can count. Heck, I even erased your memory of one event! A-and even though I really am deeply sorry for doing all those things, it's still inexcusable that I violated your trust like that."
The tears had started to fall halfway through his confession and Marinette had never wanted to hug him more in her life.
"I forgive you for the lies and the yelling and the tricking, you were desperate after all," she said calmly and mourned the fact that she couldn't run her hands through his hair. "We'll have to talk about you erasing my memories though."
"It was Valentine's Day," he sniffed and she heard the silent sound of tears dropping down on the pillow.
This was it then. She was finally going to find out the reason for his odd behaviour during the last few months. While she had always loved to get to the root of a problem and to solve mysteries, she couldn't help but feel wary and even a little trepidant about this particular one. Desperation to keep her safe or not, erasing her memories felt like it had been a step too far. At least it left a sour taste in her mouth.
"Everything went so well at first. We were in your room after a wonderful date, you were radiantly beautiful and I just couldn't resist kissing you."
So far, she remembered those events as well.
"But then there was this rowan wand hidden on your chaise. No idea how it got there, but it was a glamour breaker and you touched it. You asked me why I have cat ears and I…I panicked."
Marinette blinked and held up a hand.
"Wait a second," she said quietly, as the events seemed to become more and more familiar.
"You're starting to remember, don't you?" Adrien asked, his voice even more quiet than hers now.
She was still uncertain if she could call these short flashes memories, but nodded.
"That was the catch. Memories can't be erased, just hidden. If there was only the slightest trigger, you'd remember. With how often we were in your room, on your chaise or kissing, I knew it was just a question of time before it would happen, so I tried to prepare myself to tell you everything. But I waited for too long…"
Everything made so much sense all of a sudden. His emotional distancing during the last few months, the few times she caught him looking at her like someone was about to die, the avoidance of her room as well as a lack of makeout sessions or even just deep kisses. All of those things had been possible triggers and he had been terrified of the moment she'd remember and then inevitably find out about his secret. No wonder he had been plagued with nightmares.
The sudden onslaught of pictures and feelings and sensations made it difficult to discern what was now and what was a memory. In a way similar to a flashback—though much less violent and less distressing—the memories of what had really happened on Valentine's day played before her mind's eye like a very immersive movie. A small, sad smile formed on her lips and there was no way to prevent the tears from rolling down her cheeks.
"I figured you out, Chaton," she said quietly.
He let out a sad chuckle. "Because you're the smartest. I was sure Tikki was going to murder me on the spot."
"You did the best thing you could do at that moment," she continued. "And you were so torn up about it…and so brave."
Images—memories—of her boyfriend breaking down and crying uncontrollably rent her heart like someone was violently chopping away at it with a blunt axe. Even though it lay several months in the past by now, she couldn't help but feel an almost physical ache inside her at the sight. Words from back in February ghosted through her mind like broken echoes while Adrien was still crying in the here and now. Two different situations and yet the same sorrow, the same tears.
Marinette couldn't help to start sobbing too but quickly wiped her eyes. If she could be strong back then, she could be strong right now as well. He had carried this horrible guilt around with him for almost three months now after all.
"I forgive you for it. You hear that? I forgive you, so please don't feel guilty about it anymore."
Adrien's crying, that had continuously gone on for the past few minutes already, was worsening now and she couldn't for the life of her tell if they were still tears of sorrow, or, as she hoped, of relief. She reached out to him but then, remembering what he had said about touching him earlier, paused with her hand in mid-air.
"Where's your head? I was serious about accidentally poking you in the eye."
"Please don't. You'll trigger yourself if my glamour breaks."
"I'll close my eyes then," she said as calmly and softly as she could. Now blindly, she held her hand in the air. "Come on, meet me halfway. It's okay, I promise."
Even though she said that, she wasn't completely sure. As far as she could tell from blurry flashbacks, the feeling of fur had never been involved, only the sight of it. Therefore, she reasoned, it mustn't be a trigger. She desperately hoped to be right in that assumption.
And then, all of a sudden, there was the sensation of soft, velvety fur lightly nudging the palm of her hand. The touch was so light that she had to move her hand towards the sensation to make sure she hadn't just imagined it. What she felt was her kitty's fur, the fur of Chat's ears and tail. Adrien's fur. She smiled as she carefully ran her hand over what she realised was his head until she reached the ears. No matter if it was her kitty or her Chaton, she knew one thing for certain: he loved ear scratches. And even if she hadn't known, the purr he let out was answer enough.
"There we go," she said quietly with a smile. "This isn't so bad, is it?"
"What cruelty is the universe planning that it lets me have this moment?" He whimpered, barely audible.
"The universe?" Marinette asked.
She felt Adrien nod.
"It hates us. It hates every Unseelie, but Fé and me most especially. We walk around during the day, we stay in the mortal realm, we don't commit any mischief with humans and we don't do things maliciously. It punishes us for those things, as it goes against what's supposed to be our nature. Everything nice has to be weighed out with something horrible."
He dissolved into heavy sobs once more and Marinette carefully leaned over until she could wrap her arms around what she assumed was his neck and shoulder—he really hadn't been kidding when he'd said that he was bigger like this. She tried to make soothing shushing noises while she kept scratching him behind the ears with one hand, and stroked over his left shoulder with the other, all while resting her head in his soft fur. She also made a mental note to find out if the universe was something corporeal in some way so that she could kick its butt!
"Everyone keeps saying how human I am for a halfling, especially as an Unseelie," he half-whispered, half-sniffed after a few minutes, his voice hoarse. "But if I'm that human, wouldn't that mean that I deserve to be happy? If I don't deserve happiness, then why was I even born?"
Her heart broke at the words.
"To live," Marinette said without hesitation and ceased petting Adrien in order to hug him tightly. "Life always has its ups and downs and sometimes…sometimes it just really sucks," she really wished she could have phrased that better, "but it's worth it for the nice things in the end. You were born to live, Adrien, and I'm so lucky that you were. You make me happy and while I might not be the universe, I still think that you do deserve to be happy because you have the most beautiful smile when you are."
Adrien made a noise that sounded like an amalgamation of a sob and a laugh.
"I don't deserve someone as kind as you."
"Yes, you absolutely do," she said quietly, reassuringly, and ran her hands through his fur again.
It was soft and warm. And safe, because no place would be safer than right by his side. Was it irrational to feel that way during this current crisis? Maybe. She couldn't bring herself to care though. Fae, cat or human, he was still hers in all names she had ever known him as, and it just felt right.
They stayed like that for a while, not talking, with the only sound being Adrien's soothing purr. It was chaotic. It was peaceful. It was them. It was home.
"Marinette?" He eventually whispered hesitantly.
She hummed inquisitively and scratched him behind the ears.
"What…what am I to you now?"
Her eyes flew open at the sudden question and she immediately shut them again when she saw black fur from the corner of her eye. She took a deep breath.
Calm down, you thought this through. You know what to say.
That was a lie. She still hadn't found the words.
"I…I don't know," she therefore admitted eventually. "You're still extremely important to me…I love you…"
"But?" Adrien winced, making it sound more like a hurt noise than a word.
"But it's just a lot to deal with right now. I don't think we can handle a relationship while we're both broken like this. So, at least while we're recovering, let's not put a label on what we are and just do what feels right. Until we're better, we're just Marinette and Adrien, nothing more, nothing less." She thought about what Félix had said earlier and then added: "For the record: You never lost me."
She felt shivers run through his body, but he was worryingly quiet. At least until she heard silent sniffles.
"Kitty?" Marinette asked and sat up, her hands never leaving him, trying to find his head again to…to what? Wipe away his tears? Comfort him? Before she got there, however, he spoke again, broken and anxiously.
"Are…are we…I know you said no labels, but…c-can I still…call us f-friends?"
"Oh Adrien," she sighed, her heart hurting that he even had to ask that question. "Of course we're still friends, more than that if you ask me."
Marinette squeaked when she was suddenly thrown on her back with a loudly purring cat half on top of her, rubbing his head against hers.
"From crying to this? I think I'm starting to understand what you meant with mood swings," she chuckled breathlessly.
Adrien meowed happily, a thoroughly inhuman sound that still didn't fail to make her smile.
"Silly kitty," she whispered, as her hands finally found his head again and she scratched him under the chin, another favourite spot of his.
"I'm so happy," he sighed, his voice heavy with his purr as he smeared happy tears across her face.
Right then, in that moment, with him so overjoyed and her so endlessly relieved, it was hard to remember what hurtful times still lay ahead of them. That, as early as tomorrow or even tonight, she would have to face her trauma again, with Adrien as nothing but a helpless bystander, hurt to see her hurting. She also didn't think about all the other things they still needed to talk about, possible misunderstandings to clear up and maybe even accusations to throw. All of this was a worry for the future. Right now, at least for this short moment of bliss, they were just two people in their own little world full of happiness, because they were finally reunited at long last.
Adrien's feline affections in the form of lots of nuzzling eventually died down a little as he laid down his head on her stomach. She still had her fingers in his fur with his purr rumbling through the room like an engine. When her hands carefully wandered down his neck and over his shoulder again, she paused. There was something wrong with his fur there. Not like a healing injury but rather…
"Does your fur normally have these thin patches on the shoulder?"
She felt Adrien stiffen and then wiggle awkwardly. Even if she couldn't see him, she knew his mannerisms well enough to tell that he was uncomfortable.
"No, I usually don't have those. It's from stress grooming," he eventually admitted.
"Stress grooming?"
She really needed to do more research about cats.
"I…usually I'd pace when I'm stressed out, but I can't really do that with a broken leg. So, grooming it is. Downside of being stuck as a cat is that it makes me cough up hairballs. That never happened before."
Marinette couldn't help but snort at that last comment.
"Sorry," she quickly said when she could tell that he was offended. "I'm not making fun of you, I swear. It's just that you're more of a cat than I thought you'd be."
Adrien let out an embarrassed whine.
"There, there," she said, a giggle still in her voice. "What can we do about the stress grooming?"
"This helps," he said quietly with a purr and leaned into her hand.
"Cuddling?"
He hummed and nuzzled her again.
"Kitty cuddles it is then."
And Marinette was anything but opposed to it. His purr, like always, had a calming effect on her and just being near him again put her at ease. It was different from those lazy afternoon cuddle sessions they had always had, especially on rainy days, but they were equally, if not more, comforting. Petting him, even though it had been over a year since he had last visited her as a cat, had always been therapeutic for her and seeing how he had visited her for what seemed to be pets alone, the feeling was probably mutual.
Marinette turned her head to the right and chanced opening her eyes again for a bit. The setting sun had decided to peek through the clouds and the branches of a tree, letting faint golden light fall into the room and painting shadows of dancing leaves on the walls. It almost looked like a picture of a calendar or a desktop wallpaper about rural life. Silent and peaceful. Maybe this sleepy village wasn't so bad after all. She sighed blissfully and closed her eyes again, never ceasing to pet Adrien.
"Tell me something," she whispered after a long silence that might have been fifteen minutes or more.
Adrien made an inquisitive mrow and tilted his head.
"Just…anything. You could go on about some anime or rattle down random space facts I probably don't know or forgot. You can even describe the pattern of the duvet cover to me, I don't care. I just want to hear you talk, that's all."
"Uh…okay then? Well, the duvet cover has a lot of swirls and it's purple, pink and blue with some white lines separating the colours."
"Violet, plum and navy," Marinette corrected with a grin.
"Of course, mademoiselle designer, how dare I!" Adrien said sarcastically and she could basically hear his eye roll.
"You're horrible with colours," she giggled.
"Oh, I know that. That's why I let you pick my outfits so that I'm not a total disaster." He sighed. "By the way, Fé brought you some of your stuff, right?"
Marinette nodded. "He did. Mostly clothes but also homework, your old phone and my sketchbook."
She felt a louder purr rumble through him and smiled.
"I love to watch you sketch," he said softly. "It's amazing to see your ideas come to life and to get a glimpse of your beautiful, creative mind. I always wanted to watch father work on his sketches when I was a kid, but he never let Fé and me close to them because he was afraid we'd destroy something by accident. So we mostly stuck to mother reading us stories, like Harry Potter. Hey, I still plan on ordering those wands for Halloween by the way and I'll pay you double for scarves! If you have time, you could make some for Nino and Alya as well and we could all dress up together, since Nino is a Hufflepuff too." She both felt and heard him falter at that. "Though…that might not be a good idea after all. Halloween is dangerous and-"
Marinetter interrupted him.
"Nope! Normal stuff, Adrien. We can talk about dangers later. Dressing up for fun is a good start. What else do you want to do?"
"O-okay, so maybe we could go to a convention someday? I've always wanted to try out cosplaying and I think it would be fun to dress up as a character. Maybe we could even do a partner or group cosplay! It would take some time to prepare the costumes though—I'll pay for the materials of course, don't worry! But I heard conventions are very tiring, so we'd probably need to take a lot of food with us and plan lots of snack breaks. Maybe when we're eighteen we could even go to one of the big conventions outside of France and rent hotel rooms. Then we could throw a party after the day is over!"
"That sounds nice," she said with a smile. "Let's do that after we finish school, to celebrate."
"How did we get here from talking about your duvet cover?" Adrien chuckled.
"The same way we always get to these topics: by you being a total dork," Marinette said fondly. "Despite all the confusing new things I learned about you, you're still you, Adrien. That's all that's important to me."
His reply consisted of nuzzling her stomach. She shot up with a breathless shriek.
"That tickles!" She immediately complained with a laugh, still keeping her eyes closed.
Adrien, who had frozen the moment she had reacted, slowly relaxed again, and Marinette used her upright position to wrap her arms around his head and pull him closer to her for a semblance of a hug.
"How can you still see me as me when I'm…this?" The last word was emphasized with a twitch of his ears and, when she interpreted the tickling sensation correctly, also of his whiskers.
"You've always been like this, Adrien. You wouldn't be you without it, and I'm happy to finally find out what this other side of your life is like. At the end of the day, you're you, fur and all."
Though, she had to admit, she was a little scared too. Not of him, but about everything that would change between them now that she knew. Change didn't necessarily mean something bad but…it could be scary.
"I…I could try to tell you a little about it if you want," he said slowly, as if testing the idea out on his tongue. "Only the good parts though! For now," he then quickly added.
Adrien let out a squeak when she let herself fall back onto the bed again and took him with her.
"I'd love to hear about the good parts," she said.
"So," Adrien said, his voice vibrating through her from where his head now rested on her stomach once more, "do you really want to know what it's like for me to live between two worlds?"
Marinette nodded, knowing he was watching her intently.
"Let me think," he said thoughtfully and about a minute passed before he spoke again. "Have you ever been in a forest at night?"
"No, can't say I have. Unless a park at night counts."
Adrien snorted. "It definitely doesn't. So, when Fé and I were five, mother took us on a walk through a forest at dusk and…"
Marinette listened with closed eyes as Adrien painted the picture of a twilight forest into her mind. A story about completely ordinary magical woods seen from the eyes of an excitable small kitten, about chasing dragonflies through summer woods and jumping around circles of mushrooms—never into them—told after years of taking the harsh edges off it, only leaving a fond, blurry memory behind. That story was quickly followed by others, all of them coming to life through his words while she kept running her fingers through his fur. Stories about meadows full of magical flowers, of lights in a forest, of people in feathered dresses, of songs in the wind. They were fairy tales—in the most literal sense of the word—that really happened, fantastical stories come to life and bleeding into normalcy. Her normalcy, that was, because this magical world full of wonders, dangers and songs was his normal. Marinette knew that it would never completely become her normal as well, but she still wanted to try to meet him halfway and understand this confusing, dangerous and wondrous life he was leading. And she found that, with every story and every hour he told them—way into the night—she was getting that much closer to really understanding him and loving him that much more for it.
