Sixty-Eight: Daymare
Chat finds himself oddly enthralled by the recently discovered Miracle Box Master Fu is protecting, and isn't entirely sure why – until Plagg supplies him with an explanation.
This time, I managed to go through the portal the Miracle Box had initially shown me that evening I'd accidentally dozed off in Master Fu's apartment. To my surprise, the field was wider and more beautiful than it had appeared before my feline body slipped through the opening that had been created; for some reason, I was completely unconcerned with the way the case snapped shut behind me, or with the finality of the bolts on the exterior lock engaging with a solid clunk. I was more than absorbed in the amazing scents my feline nose was picking up, the vibrant colors of flowers that dotted every square meter of the grassy field and the overarching sense of well being unlike anything I had ever know.
And that was saying something, considering how many times I'd been dosed with catnip or those damn pheromones Marinette had obtained.
Laying on my back, I snagged a rose-like flower in a paw and held it to my nose, taking a deep breath of the sweet but light fragrance. The sun was warm against my masked face, and I closed my masked eyes and began to purr contentedly. With the dual weddings, it had been a long weekend; a few minutes to relax and recharge seemed justified. Somewhere in the distance was a soft tinkling sound, almost like a windchime being gently ruffled by a breeze; slowly, I felt myself falling into a deep, contended slumber-
"Adrien? Kitty?"
I felt feline ears pivoting toward the sound of my fiancé. That sounds like Marinette, I thought dreamily. Though she sounds like she's kinda far away. Odd. But life is so purrfect…
"Adrien!"
My eyes snapped open to see the concerned expression on Mari's face. "Princess?" I asked groggily as I pushed myself up from the pillow of our bed. It took a moment for me to sort through my fuzzy feline brain; as the sheet slid off my bare chest, I realized something was wrong.
Oh, I thought. I'm not Chat.
Crouched by my side, Marinette frowned. "What field?" she asked.
"Field?" I yawned, which was odd, since I'd just been asleep. Was I dreaming about sleeping?
"You were talking in your sleep," she said. "Something about a field in a suitcase. And," she added, worry creasing her beautiful face, "it's taken me twenty minutes to wake you up."
Twenty minutes! I blinked a couple of times while I digested that, for just the gentlest of touches from Marinette generally had me wide awake in an instant. It was one of many feline characteristics that had become handier once we'd become more intimate with each other. "Field?" I repeated.
"Yeah," she said as she slid onto the bed to sit next to me. I saw she was fully dressed for the day and felt a wave of guilt that I'd not made her breakfast, as was my habit. "I thought you could use the extra sleep, so I let you be for a bit. But if I'm not mistaken, you have a photoshoot this morning."
I swore as I pushed the sheets off and grabbed my phone from the side table, then groaned as I confirmed my calendar. "I've got just enough time to shower."
"I know," Marinette chuckled. "Hence why I woke you."
I leaned over and kissed her before slipping off the bed. "Bless you."
"Wouldn't do for the co-CEO to miss his appointment," she laughed, "but I have to go."
"No Chat's Air Express today, Milady," I sighed as I followed her out into the kitchen.
Turning, Marinette pulled me close with a well-placed hand at the small of my back; the other hand went behind my out-of-control hair and pulled my face closer. As she planted her soft cherry-flavored lips on mine, my eyes widened in surprise as I felt the hand at my waist begin to tug at the band of my boxer briefs. "You could make it up to me," she said softly as her sultry eyes looked deeply into mine.
"Right… now?" I asked huskily as my body instantly reacted to Marinette's movements. "I thought we were going to be late?"
"Only one of us," she teased with a quick kiss before pulling away. "See you at dinner?"
My eyes bugged out. "You can't leave me all hot and bothered," I found myself pleading.
"But you're fully awake now, right?" she asked, her eyes dancing with mirth.
"You could say that," I breathed. "And I should warn you, leaving your cat in such a state of frenzy could have unpredictable consequences."
"I'm counting on it," she chuckled as she swiftly exited the space.
I stared at the closed door and found a crafty Chat smile appearing. "Be careful what you wish for, Milady…"
Clearly, the frustration Marinette had induced became a bubbling undercurrent for the day, resulting in one of the most smoldering photoshoots I'd ever done. The photographer had been beyond overjoyed, given how I'd been modelling first our new line of Gabriel workout gear (whose compression fabric left nearly nothing to the imagination) and then the latest iteration of the very boxer briefs Marinette had turned to her purposes that morning. By the lunch break, though, the hormones weren't enough to sustain me, especially since I'd skipped breakfast in order to get to the set.
As amazing as the craft services table was, I found the small couch in my trailer was far more attractive. Setting my plate down on the makeup table, I curled up against one of the pillows with the intent of taking a quick catnap before being called back to the set. Unsurprisingly, I quickly dropped off once more, falling deeply into the same dream Marinette had awoken me from that very morning. Much as earlier, I found myself transformed and crouched in a massive room of white; my feline eyes were trained on the strange suitcase that was the Miracle Box we'd found some weeks earlier, watching as the locks clicked open and the case revealed once more that field that had so caught my imagination.
Moving to all fours, tail kinked, I stalked toward the opening and pushed through, feeling the field beyond welcome me like a long-lost relative. The sense of belonging was far more palpable than before – the very rightness of where I was soaked into every fiber of my feline being. Again the case snapped shut behind me, the locks engaged, and again I paid no heed to either as I stretched out luxuriously among the flowers and tall grass. Closing my eyes to the warmth of the unseen sun above me, I smiled as I lazily became one with the moment.
So peaceful, I sighed to myself. So peaceful—
"Adrien!"
My feline ears pivoted. "Plagg?" I asked without opening my masked eyes. "How can I hear you?"
"Adrien – wake up!"
"Plagg?" I replied quizzically, opening a masked eye. My kwami was hovering in front of me, and I started. "How can I see you?"
To my surprise, the Kwami of Destruction moved to my face and slapped me with his paw. It didn't hurt, particularly, but the shock of his action jolted me enough to realize I was in my trailer and not transformed. Shaking my head again to clear more cobwebs, two things occurred to me. First, it was quite dark in the trailer, telling me it was nowhere near lunch time; a quick look at my phone confirmed it was well past seven (and that I had ten missed calls from Marinette).
As I quickly redialed her, the second thing I realized was Plagg looked concerned. It was not an expression he used frequently. My eyes widened. "What is it?" I asked as my call went to voicemail. "How long have I been out?"
"All afternoon," he replied succinctly. "When I couldn't wake you after lunch, I locked the door and turned out the lights. Now, tell me exactly what you were dreaming," he demanded.
"Couldn't wake…?" I replied a bit fuzzy. "Like this morning?"
"Exactly like this morning. Chat, this is important," Plagg said, his inadvertent slip clueing me in that he was, in fact, worried about something. "What were you dreaming?"
I started to reply when I heard a soft thump on the roof of my trailer, and smiled for a moment before frowning; I feared I was in deep, deep trouble with my partner. A moment later, the skylight opened and Ladybug swiftly dropped to the floor in a smooth movement. Her eyes were wild with genuine panic. "Goddamnit, Adrien. What the Hell-"
"Milady—"
"When you didn't appear for dinner, I called your office and they said you'd left the photoshoot early!" she fairly yelled. "But you were nowhere to be found – not home, not roaming Paris as Chat. And no message – not even a text!"
"Milady, I fell asleep at lunch—" I started.
"Don't you 'Milady' me, alley cat. You had me worried sick—"
"Before you completely go off on him," Plagg interjected as he flew between my fiancé and me. "I think I need to talk to both of you. This may not be his fault."
Both of us turned to the small kwami. "Say what?" Ladybug said tersely.
Plagg looked grave – again, another expression I rarely saw. "He's being called home," he said softly. "Or, more correctly I suppose, I'm being called home and Adrien is experiencing the aftereffects of it."
"Say what?" I found myself inadvertently repeating Ladybug.
"The Miracle Box," Ladybug said.
Plagg nodded. "The one you found?" he asked as we both nodded. "There was a short period when I was forced to be part of that Box; it's something of a magpie, actually, trapping kwami it comes into contact with."
My eyes widened. "How is that even possible?" I asked. "And why didn't you mention this when we found it?"
Looking chagrined – another expression we didn't see from him often - Plagg sighed. "The guardian at the time was very powerful and found a way to weave a spell around the box that would make it seem attractive to kwami," he said softly. "I've spent a century trying to forget the siren call of that box, kid. When it popped up here in Paris, I'll be honest – I wanted to be anywhere but close to it."
I nodded. "I thought it was me feeling that way," I replied. "It was you, though, wasn't it?
"Yes," Plagg replied. "I don't say this often, but that thing…" he paused. "It scares me. Deeply. It took everything Tikki had to rescue me and a number of other kwami from our own Box that had become trapped."
"You mean Tikki's holder, right?" Ladybug asked.
"No," Plagg said softly. "It was Tikki herself. The guardian of that rogue box was something of a collector; Tikki never did tell me how she pulled it off, but I got the impression she quite literally turned the tables on her."
My eyes widened. "They are in the box?"
"It was a form of penance for what she put us through," Plagg said. "Tikki is not by nature vindictive, but she made an exception. And now I think that guardian is using the power of the box to call out to out to you." He paused. "To help free her. We can't allow that."
I thought back to the night we'd located the box in the abandoned penthouse, and how I'd felt like it had connected with me on an intrinsic level. "Is that why it wants me to return to it? With you?"
"We'd have to ask Tikki, but I think so," Plagg replied honestly.
A thought struck me. "That penthouse – was it owned by that Guardian?"
"And still is," Plagg answered.
Ladybug turned to me. "You said Master Fu didn't have it the last time you were at his place?"
"Oh, it was there," Plagg interrupted. "It wasn't until this afternoon that I realized how badly it is affecting Adrien, Ladybug. And he's not a Guardian."
"With a full box of kwami!" I exclaimed. "Milady, we've got to check on him."
"Agreed," she said. "But only if you think you can withstand this attraction you seem to feel to that box."
I swallowed. "I'm not sure I can," I replied honestly, thinking back to how it felt to be in that field I'd been dreaming about.
Ladybug looked to Plagg. "I can help there," the tiny feline said. "With his augmented adult powers, I should be able to fortify him, but it will only last for a few hours. After that…"
"Hopefully it will be enough," Ladybug replied, looking grim. "Plagg, what have you gotten us into?"
He frowned. "Something I thought I had buried a lifetime ago, pigtails."
