I'm sure this chapter won't come as a surprise to anyone. But, well, it's a theory I love soooo yeah.
Song at the end is Wild Mountain Thyme. It's a beautiful folk tune. To be honest, this story is just becoming an excuse to randomly reference Scottish folk songs. Heheh...
Thank you as ever for all of your support!
Day Twenty: Comfort
"Luka Couffaine, this is the Miraculous of the snake. You'll use it for good, and return it when the job's finished. Do you accept?"
Luka stared wide-eyed at the little box. Darkish red, hexagonal, topped with a sort of lined pattern. Miraculous of the snake? Use it for good? Become a hero?
Because this day clearly hadn't been crazy enough already.
It had started normal enough. With summer under way, Kitty Section were able to get back into more regular rehearsals. Marinette, along with a few of her friends, had decided to join on this particular occasion. They had been taking a short break, and Luka had used the opportunity to have a cuddle under the guise of teaching her guitar, when they heard screaming from the top deck.
And thus, the craziness began. Anarka stood by the railings, shouting at none other than Jagged Stone—the Jagged Stone!—who was nonchalantly playing piano on top of his tour bus as if this happened every day.
It transpired that Anarka—Nanarchy?—used to play guitar with Jagged Stone—the Jagged Stone! And he wanted her back after firing his current guitarist.
Then, Jagged spotted Marinette and greeted her like an old friend. She'd made glasses for Jagged Stone—the Jagged Stone!—and now he wanted her opinion on a replacement guitarist?
Immediately, she had pushed Luka forward, proclaiming he was the man for the job, but just as Jagged Stone—the Jagged Stone!—was asking him to show what he had, an akuma showed up, all skull make-up and dark clothes. With a trumped extracted from her guitar case, the akuma attacked, vanishing people in clouds of yellow smoke. And in the rush to escape, he'd lost sight of Marinette.
Luka had managed to hide with Adrien for a while, with Ladybug leading them to the sewers after taking his guitar. Then Adrien had disappeared, and now…
"Well?" said Chat Noir, crooked grin slipping. "Do you want to be a hero?"
"Why are you choosing me?" he asked. He knew, of course, that the crime-fighting duo had been known to take on other heroes from time to time, but he couldn't understand why they'd want him: he'd never really spoken to either hero. And yet, Chat Noir was in front of him, holding out a box of superpowers.
"Because you're exactly who we need on this mission," he replied. "Ladybug chose this Miraculous, but we ran into Desperada and got separated and, well, long story short, I ended up with the box but with no idea who Ladybug wanted to give it to, so...I'm giving it to you. I'm sure she'd agree. Besides, it's about time I got to pick a user. She always picks them and never tells me who they are. This time, I get to know the secret and she doesn't."
Luka decided not to comment on Chat's focus on having and knowing secrets—it sounded like an issue between Chat Noir and Ladybug. Instead, he accepted the little box and opened up. In a flash of glittering, blue-green light, a little snake emerged and floated in front of him.
"Greetingssssss," said the snake. "I am Sassssss, the snake kwami."
"Hi," Luka said. "I'm Luka."
"Pleasure to meet you, Luka." Sass bowed, but didn't lower his vivid yellow gaze. "I grant the power of Ssssecond Chance, which allowssss you to reset time by five minutesssss to correct missstakesssss. Once you usssse your power, you have until the sssssnake head reachesss the end of itssss tongue to do what you have to do. To transssform, you have to ssssay, Ssscales Sssslither!"
"Did you get all that?" Chat Noir asked. "Sorry, Ladybug's usually better at explaining all this. After all, she does have more experience…"
"I think I got it," Luka replied. He took the bangle out of the box and slipped it on his wrist, and with it came a sudden surge of pure energy. "Sass," he said. "Scales Slither."
His body was engulfed in more turquoise light which seemed to seep into his skin, into his flesh, flooding him with power. His clothes melted away into an armoured suit, patterned like a snake, and a small lyre appeared in his hand.
As soon as Luka—though perhaps he ought to pick an alias—had transformed, Chat Noir began climbing the ladder out of the sewer. But Luka reached out and touched his ankle. "Shouldn't we wait for Ladybug? That akuma was pretty dangerous; she could catch us unaware."
Chat Noir paused, and for a moment Luka—Snake Boy? Cobra? Python?—thought he was going to fight back, but instead he nodded and dropped back down. "She's better with the plans than me anyway...Let's see where she is…" He pulled out his baton and slid part of it open like an old phone, then held it up to his ear. "Ladybug? Where are you?...We're in the sewer...Yeah, I found the perfect person for the snake...Umm, there's a plaque with 33B?...Okay, see you soon, Buggaboo!" Chat Noir finished the call with a kissy noise then slid his baton shut and stowed it on his back.
Not long later, Ladybug came running down the sewer to meet them, her red costume stark against the dark walls. When she reached them, Ladybug propped her fist on her hip and looked Luka up and down. "So, Chat picked you for the snake?" she said.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm Viperion."
"Viperion, huh?" Ladybug tilted her head and scrunched her eyes slightly, and for a moment Viperion was worried she was going to turf him out of the team. But then she smiled and nodded. "Good to meet you. Has Chat Noir filled you in on everything?"
"Yep."
"Good. This akuma is a tough one, so we'll definitely need your Second Chance. And a little extra help, I think." She grinned and tossed her yo-yo in the air with a cry of, "Lucky Charm!"
A pink glimmer gave way to a horse saddle, red with black spots. Ladybug caught it, bemused. "What are you going to do with that?" Chat Noir asked.
"Hmm, not sure yet… Could you hold on to this for a moment?" She handed the saddle to Viperion then began climbing the ladder. "Just going to scope out where Desperada is…"
"Perhaps you would have preferred a lucky horseshoe for your first mission, huh?" Chat Noir grinned.
Maybe, but Viperion had faith it would turn out okay with Ladybug at the helm. "No need," he replied. "Ladybug brings enough luck for all of us."
Ladybug smiled at him as she jumped back down and took the saddle back. "She's in the Eiffel Tower, so we'll use a different exit. But first…Follow me."
There was a familiar glint in her eye, but Viperion didn't have time to dwell on it as Ladybug and Chat Noir had already taken off running. He followed, finding it easier than it should have been to keep up. The suit, he decided, must have enhanced his physical abilities.
Ladybug came to an abrupt stop and looked at Chat Noir. "Chat, if you would…"
"With pleasure, Milady." Chat Noir summoned his Cataclysm and touched the bubbling, black energy to the wall. Immediately, it turned brown, and the decay spread up. A deep rumbling sounded, then the ceiling cracked, at which point Ladybug pushed Viperion towards the nearest ladder.
"Come on, before we get crushed," she said.
They quickly climbed up into the street, which was thick with dust and debris. The Eiffel Tower was leaning to one side owing to the fact that one of its legs had sunk into the crumbling ground.
Beside him, Ladybug was staring intently at the figure of Desperada. When she turned back, she had a look of fierce determination. "We need to stop her using her weapons, then destroy the case. Ready, Viperion?"
Ready? Oh, of course. He nodded and lifted his wrist then murmured, "Second Chance," and twisted his bracelet. If he had understood correctly, for the next five minutes he could reset time to this moment as many times as needed.
Hopefully, he wouldn't need to go it too many times; how many days, weeks, months could he live in the same five minutes without going insane?
Nevertheless, with that moment in time fixed, they ran into the fray.
The akuma battles always looked intense on TV, but it was nothing compared to the reality of physically being there. The punches, the powers, the speed, none of it looked real through a screen. But now, Viperion could feel the way the air whipped from Ladybug's spinning yo-yo and Chat Noir's twirling baton, the power in their attacks. The fear when Desperada pulled on Ladybug's string and slammed her into Chat Noir, the heart-in-throat panic when the two heroes disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Viperion nodded, committing the scene to memory, and twisted his bracelet.
In an instant, they were back in the cloud of smoke, and Ladybug was about to charge into battle, but Viperion stopped her with a hand to her arm. "No, we need to get rid of those trumpets before we charge in."
"Leave that to me," said Chat Noir. He flung his baton as Desperada turned to them, effectively knocking both instruments out of her hands. However, she noticed Ladybug running up behind her and pulled out a guitar just in time to hit her.
Viperion twisted his bracelet.
Each time they tried, Viperion felt closer to the answer. Removing her first weapons still left her free to pull out more. Incapacitating her hands would only work if they'd first managed to empty them. And, finally, crucially, music distracted her.
He knew what to do.
Instead of charging in, he told Ladybug and Chat Noir to hold back, and climbed up to a low rung on the Eiffel Tower with his lyre. The gentle, lilting tune caught her attention, distracting her long enough for Chat Noir and Ladybug to knock the trumpets out of her hands. Then, before she could pull out her guitar, Ladybug wrapped her yo-yo around Desperada's hand, and Viperion trapped the other with his lyre.
It was over quickly after that. Chat Noir charged in with the saddle and forced Desperada on it, then threw the guitar case into the air. Ladybug smashed the front, releasing a little black butterfly, and snatched it in her yo-yo.
With the akuma purified, and Paris reverted to usual, they went their separate ways. Ladybug took Vivica back, and Viperion followed Chat Noir to a safe place to detransform. And finally, the strangeness of the day had come to an end.
Hadn't it?
"Luka!" Relief bubbled from her as abundant laughter as Marinette ran across the deck. She barrelled into Luka's chest. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer as he hissed her head.
"Are you alright?" he asked, pulling away just enough to smile down at her.
She nodded. "Yeah, I found somewhere to hide."
"Good."
The others gradually gathered on deck, some emerging from inside the boat, others wandering on from the street. And among them, Jagged Stone.
"Ey, Marinette! There's my wonder-niece!" he said in his English drawl, clapping Marinette's shoulder.
"I'm not your niece, Jagged," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Honorary wonder-niece then," he amended. "Why is it, whenever we see each other, there's an akuma? Means we don't get much time to catch up! That reminds me, I'm in need of your artistic abilities once again. Penny'll set up a meeting, alright?"
"Okay." She glanced at Luka lingering awkwardly beside them, staring in awe at Jagged. Marinette nudged him closer to the rock star and grinned. "You didn't get to meet Luka properly. He's amazing at guitar, though I suppose you don't need a guitarist anymore…"
"Not now that I've made up with Vivica," Jagged Stone agreed. "Still, if my Marinette says you're good then I'd love to jam with you, Luka, if that's rock'n'roll with you!"
Luka took a while to respond. He blinked a few times, glanced at Marinette, then nodded rapidly at Jagged. "Yeah, I'd love to! Thank you, M. Stone."
"M. Stone is my father," Jagged Stone said. "Call me Jagged. Any friend of Marinette is a friend of mine!"
Giggling, Marinette grasped Luka's hand and held it up. "He's more than just a friend, Jagged."
"Oh, what!" Jagged Stone yelped, sounding scandalised. "You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend, Marinette!"
"It...didn't come up? Like you said, there's always an akuma when we meet up…"
"Do, uhh, you meet up often?" Luka asked, almost hesitantly. Still star-struck.
"Whenever I'm in Paris! Ever since she made these rock'n'roll shades for me!" he said, adjusting the colourful Eiffel Tower glasses still perched on his nose. "She gets me, you know. And after that album cover, and the poster, I'd be crazy not to commission her for more merchandise!"
Marinette felt Luka's gaze swivel to the side of her head, and with a block of ice rolling down her throat, she realised she'd never told him about the pieces she'd designed for Jagged Stone.
"Album?" he asked. "Poster?"
"Didn't you know?" Jagged said, clasping Marinette's shoulder with a sort of fatherly pride. "My girl here designed the Rock Giant album, and the poster for my Gates of Granite tour. And, hopefully, a rock'n'roll jacket fo—"
"Anyway!" Marinette cut in. "If you want to jam together then you might want to do that sooner rather than later…"
Fortunately, Jagged took the bait and practically dragged Luka to the little stage are where Kitty Section had been practising earlier. Within no time, the other musicians had joined them, breaking out guitars, drums, bass and, of course, Jagged on the keyboard. Marinette, along with the other non-musicians, were quite content to watch and listen, bobbing their heads to the beat and laughing whenever Jagged did something over-the-top—which, being Jagged Stone, he did often.
Anarka, however, was nowhere to be seen.
It eventually came to an end, however. Penny ushered Jagged back to his bus, throwing promises to contact Marinette that week over her shoulder. Ivan left to walk Mylène home; Adrien rushed off to get Kagami back before her mother found out she'd skilled fencing, taking Alya and Alix with them; and Juleka disappeared into the boat with Rose.
Soon, only Luka and Marinette remained. They found a cosy place to sit, tangled in each other's arms, as they watched the sun glimmer on the Seine. Luka rested his chin on her shoulder and pressed his nose to her cheek. "So," he said. She jolted slightly at the breath on her neck. "Rock Giant, huh?"
"I did it for him last year," she said, pushing his head away. "I wasn't keeping it from you or anything, it just never came up…"
Luka shifted to place his chin on top of her head and folded his arms over her stomach. "I'm impressed. I always knew you were talented but to have Jagged Stone commission you. How'd you manage to score a gig like that?"
"It was actually Chloe's fault."
"Chloe? Now this is a story I have to hear."
Before she could launch into the tale of their career day at the hotel, Anarka poked her head up from the deck and called out.
"Luka! Have ye a moment, lad?"
Luka sighed and tightened his grip around Marinette's waist. "What's up, ma?"
Anarka seemed to hesitate before stepping out onto the deck. "There's something I need to tell ye. Uhh—" Her eyes flicked briefly to Marinette then back to her son— "I think it would be best if talked downstairs."
Marinette knew what she meant. Without her. So, she untangled herself from Luka's grip, despite his protests. "Go talk to your maman," she said, jostling his shoulder. "Do you want me to stay?"
Luka pressed his lips together and nodded. "Please."
"Okay." She kissed his cheek, relishing the soft smile he gave her, and let him go.
The sun was beginning to set by the time Luka returned.
He was surlier now, troubled. Just like he had been a couple of months ago when he'd tried to break up with her. She was worried he was going to attempt to again, but then he slumped next to her and let his head fall onto her shoulder.
"Is...is everything okay?" she asked cautiously.
Wordlessly, he shook his head. His hand found hers and he began fiddling with her fingers.
"What happened?"
"My...my father," he croaked.
A horrible chill shivered up Marinette's arms and legs. What could have happened now? What had Anarka told him? She hoped nothing to make him backtrack, but as he sat there, limp as a corpse, he looked broken.
"What about him?" she gently probed.
"He...he isn't who I thought."
"What do you mean?"
"My father is...my father is Jagged Stone."
Marinette opened her mouth to reply, but no words were forthcoming. What could she say? How was she supposed to respond to that? Jagged Stone, being…
"You don't mean Jagged Stone did all those horrible things," she whispered, shocked. She couldn't picture the eccentric rockstar doing anything as deplorable as in the memories that Luka had described once.
But Luka was shaking his head, breathing quickly. "No. Ma, she said...she said…" He gulped another breath, deeper this time, and launched into his tale with a sort of crazed persistence. As though he couldn't keep it in, keep it hidden, if he wanted. "She had a fling with Jagged Stone when she worked with him in Britain. But when she found out she was pregnant, he freaked. So she left, ran away to Calais. That's where she met him. The man I thought was my father but...I mean, you know what happened from then. The divorce and the Liberty and moving to Paris. And…"
His next breath shuddered like a dry leaf scraped across cement. He pressed his face closer to her skin and clung to her, trembling. Marinette pulled him closer, stroked his hair, hummed quietly as gasps tore from his lips.
"S-sorry," he murmured against her neck.
She continued humming, because she knew that's what would help calm him. A Scottish tune he'd played a few times for her before, about heather and mountain thyme. But she didn't know all of the words, so she hummed, then softly sang, "Da da dum, da da da da dum…" when she felt his breathing slow and his grip slacken.
Eventually, he lifted his head and rubbed his red eyes, but his body was still pressed against hers. "I'm sorry," he said again, voice deep and thick. "I just feel...relieved."
"I suppose even Jagged Stone isn't a bad upgrade from that scumbag," Marinette teased, relieved when she received a wet chuckle in response. "At least we know where that insane musical talent comes from."
He laughed again, nuzzling his head into her shoulder. "Thank you," he said, then, "I love you."
"So you keep saying."
"Because it's true," he returned. "Because you deserve to be told that everyday."
"So do you," she said. She reached around him to play with the hair at the back of his head. "I love you."
She could feel his grin against her bare arm.
Luka sat up again and curled his arm around her, drawing her head to his shoulder and chest, and began humming as the sky before them turned orange and yellow, and the clouds were purple like tiny tufts of heather, and when Marinette closed her eyes she imagined they were in a field of long grass, and the wild flowers grew around them like a comforting embrace.
"And we'll all go together,
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the blooming heather
Will ye go, lassie, go?"
