this is not a story about love or healing,
but a tale of survival, feeling every breath in your lungs
on the nights you thought you wouldn't live through.
this is about a heart, a soul, a gentle rain
and everything i wish i said.
Chloe doesn't sleep. Her heart beats a steady rhythm that fades into the background under the quiet of the night. The stars are bright over the city of love, streetlights glowing golden, but all Chloe can see is the moon, half in shadow and barely visible behind the clouds.
For once, she doesn't avoid sleep the keep away the nightmares and aching hollowness in her chest when she wakes.
For once, she just can't sleep.
Idle fingers trail of the still drying ink of her words, brushing over the smooth notebook paper and wondering how she could untangle the knot in her soul and spill it out into poetry.
The ache in her heart never fades, or the exhaustion in the slump of her shoulders, but Chloe's mind is full of flowers and sunshine and the wish to create something beautiful.
It's a quiet night. The world has long since fallen asleep. Chloe avoids looking at the time. She stares at the moon, feeling so small but so painfully alive, and wishes she could fly.
"I love my father, even if I wish I didn't."
The words shouldn't resonate with her so much. She hasn't had a father for years.
Chloe closes her eyes, and runs the tip of the pen over her fingers.
She wakes up slowly, squinting against the golden light in her eyes. Her neck is sore from sleeping on the window seat, her notebook fallen to the floor when her ink stained hands went slack.
Chloe squeezes her eyes shut and turns her head away from the window. "Ugh," she mumbles, running her tongue over her teeth with a grimace. It tastes like something died in her mouth. She stumbles over to her bed and collapses against the sheets, eyes burning and barely open from how tired she is.
Despite the soreness in her neck and how it clicks when she moves it to the left too much, she wakes up without any dreams or tears. It's one of the best nights of sleep she's ever gotten, and it was only a few hours.
She's tired, so tired, but it's something she's gotten used to and Chloe has never been one to easily fall asleep again once she's woken up, so she spends a few minutes shoving her face against the soft of her comforter before properly getting up.
Her body feels unusually heavy, as though she had been turned to stone during the night and never noticed. The weight presses down on her chest, holds down her limbs and makes every step feel like a mile. Still, Chloe stumbles over to her bathroom to wash her face and rinse her mouth.
There are knots in her stomach, and the thought of food makes her feel sick. So she just retreats back to her window seat and forgets about breakfast.
Flowers blossom in the back of her eyelids, colorful and growing, and her arms are sore from the weight of the watering can. In the back of her mind, Takahogi speaks of surviving war, and Adrien speaks of love.
In the depths of her heart, Sabrina laughs, bright and clear and free, and Chloe can't catch her breath.
From her desk, her phone vibrates, screen lighting up for a few seconds. Then again and again until Chloe sighs and pushes herself up to make the distance to the desk and see what wanted to bother her.
From Adrien: Hey Chloe! I have a shoot down by the Seine if you want to hang out!
From Adrien: We can grab breakfast again too if you haven't eaten yet!
From Adrien: Chloe? You doing okay after yesterday?
From Adrien: You're going back to the flower shop right? I hope you have fun! Tell me about it when you're done!
From Adrien: Chloe?
There's ringing in her ears as she scrolls through the messages she got from Adrien over the past hour. He cares about her, and she's so grateful for that, but every one of his messages adds a weight to her shoulders and sets off something in her that makes her want to claw off her skin.
She doesn't reply. Just silences her phone and throws it down.
Adrien just does it because he cares, she reminds herself, but the guilt of making him worry and the suffocation of his care gnaw at her and she wishes everything was as easy as the day before, but Chloe woke up with every part of her being just slightly out of place and she can't comfortably exist inside her own body, much less the world.
The day has only just begun, but Chloe's ready for it to end.
Idly, she looks out the window, gaze drawn to the busy street below, and wondering how much it would hurt to jump. How much would feel like flying? How much would feel like death?
One good day isn't a permanent cure for her endless heap of problems.
One good day just makes the bad days worse.
And then comes the shadow, dropping out of the sky. Chloe blinks, rubs her eyes and looks again. Sure enough, the shadow approaches. Not a figment of her tired imagination, but a figure clad in black leaping through the sky.
Chat Noir.
He drops onto her balcony, then takes a moment to straighten himself up and tuck away his baton before he knocks on the glass of the door.
She doesn't open it; Chloe stares at him, confused to the point of feeling nothing, and narrows her eyes when he smiles and waves at her.
The last thing she had said to him was done in an act of selfish cruelty: You have no place trying to act like a hero.
What could he possibly want from her? It couldn't be about an akuma; she hasn't upset anyone to the point of danger. Hawkmoth never had an akuma appear immediately after the last one. He couldn't be here for a social call either; Chloe had made sure they weren't friends, that he should have nothing to do with her (though not for the reasons he probably thought).
"What?" she snaps, fed up with the world. Chat Noir winces.
"Hi?" he tries, voice muffled by the glass. "Can I come in? I- uh, brought gifts?"
Chloe opens the door slowly and ignores the beaming smile on his face in favor of the paper bag he holds.
"Why?" she asks. "Why are you here? What do you want from me?"
Chat puts the bag down on her desk and pulls out a strawberry donut and a small cup of sliced fruit. The usual energy makes him seem bigger than life, bouncing around rooftops with a smile, is gone. In its place are slumped shoulders and an air of defeat.
He looks just as tired as she is.
"I wanted to check up on you," he says, "I've been worried about you since Black Swan, but you were really upset that day so I decided to wait a while so you had some time to yourself."
Chloe stiffens, fixing a snarl on her face. "I thought I made it perfectly clear that I didn't want you anywhere near me. I'm fine so get out of my life."
"You know we both don't believe that."
Chat steps closer. Chloe steps back. Something flashes in his eyes, unnaturally green and with a slit pupil, like a cat's. the brief flash of sadness, of guilt, of helplessness is so familiar it hurts to see.
"I don't want you to hurt," he whispers like a confession, and Chloe feels tears well up in her eyes. She blinks them away stubbornly and sets her jaw.
"It's none of your business," she bites out.
Chat looks away and backs off, turning back to the desk instead to run his fingers over the edge. He's silent for a moment, thinking over his words rather than blurting out his thoughts with no tact, as he does when he fights akuma.
He takes a deep breath and lets it out; it's a mirror image of when Chloe tries to breathe around the weight on her chest.
She feels like she's seen this before. Like she knows Chat, knows more than what the mask shows.
"Why are you here?" she asks again.
"I met Adrien at the park and stopped by to say hi. He mentioned being worried about you, since you weren't responding to his texts, and he asked me to check up on you."
"And the food?"
"He also told me to bring you some."
It seems a little too convenient for Chat to run into Adrien and for Adrien to so readily admit what's on his mind. It doesn't sound like the Adrien she knows.
But the way he worries enough to bring in a superhero is perfectly him.
Chloe pushes past Chat to grab the phone on her desk and open her chat with Adrien.
To Adrien: I'm fine you mother hen. Just tired.
Chat's offering a tentative smile when she looks at him, and Chloe feels awful at how she's treated him.
"Thanks," she mumbles, grabbing the fruit cup and retreating to the safety of her window seat.
Chat brightens up and bounces over to her. "I'm glad I could help! Just my job as a hero, you know?" He winks at her with a laugh and plops down besides her.
"You're very different from who I expected to be," Chloe says, "More thoughtful and considerate. Less of a loud asshole who swings a metal stick."
"Well, I'm glad I could improve your opinion of me! Though, I'll admit, the louder side of me is just as real as the thoughtful side."
"So why only show one side of you to Paris?"
The question, so innocently asked, makes Chat look away, worrying his lip between his teeth. "I can't really be that loud and silly in my civilian life," he admits, "The suit is freeing. Though it does make people think I'm invincible. I'm not though. I'm just as human as everyone else and get hurt all the time."
This side of him really is different; Chloe looks him over, from his straight posture to how he avoids her gaze. He's so familiar something in her aches but she just can't put her finger on it.
"You get hurt a lot?" she asks instead of dwelling on the feeling.
Chat laughs, but it's bitter and forced. "Oh yeah. All the time. That last fight with Heart Breaker? Pretty sure I bruised my ribs, though Ladybug's cure fixed most of it. It's still really sore and a little hard to breathe. Always hurting emotionally though!" Chat finger-guns with a grin and then deflates, embarrassed.
Chloe's no stranger to regret (Sabrina flashes into her mind but she shuts that train of thought down before it can fully develop) so she just says, "Join the club."
They don't say anything else. Chat fidgets and Chloe slowly eats the fruit he brought until he stands and says goodbye, wishing her a good day, then leaps off.
He flies through the air and Chloe wishes she had wings so she can fly too.
It's all she thinks about, even in that little flower shop twirling flower stems between her fingers as Takahogi accepts her quietness and carefully arranges flowers.
The flowers become art, and Chloe takes her own empty vase and her mind quiets until all that's left is the blue of the sky.