Hi all, it's a-me again! Back to some good ol'fashioned fluff. I was hoping to be closer to catching up at this point, but alas. No. Still... Hope you enjoy this evening's meagre offerings!
As always, thank you for your support and reviews.
Day Twenty-Four: Spring and Winter
A week into Lycée saw the next akuma, unsurprisingly a school-based one. It was fairly weak, and Luka wasn't even sure Viperion had needed to be there. However, it had prompted him to take on a more combative role in the battle, which if anything helped defeat it more quickly so they could return to their lessons.
At the three week mark, Ladybug finally had a word with Chat Noir about the flirting. She didn't mention the boyfriend, but she had been firmer when she said, "You have to stop this, Chat Noir. It's getting totally inappropriate."
Chat Noir had laughed at the time, wiggled his eyebrows and made a comment about her making him work too hard, but the next akuma attack a few days later saw him rein in his flirtatious banter.
Luka still felt a little bad for Ladybug's boyfriend, even if the poor guy didn't know one of Paris' superheroes was flirting with his girlfriend, but at least she was making headway into getting Chat Noir to stop. As Viperion, he had taken to trying to stand in between the other two as a sort of barrier to reduce Chat Noir's opportunities, and Ladybug later relayed her thanks.
Still, as rewarding as being a hero was, the emotional drama and time-consuming aspect was beginning to drain him, so Luka was glad when, one Saturday, he had an entire afternoon with nothing to do but sprawl out in Marinette's room and noodle on his guitar whilst Sass snoozed in the soft leather case.
The first time he'd called it 'noodling', Marinette had found it so funny she began using the word for everything, and even joked about calling her future hamster 'Noodle'. Blissfully unaware that he was now debating the possibility of actually having a hamster called 'Noodle' with her, she was currently at her desk editing a few designs.
Laying down his guitar, Luka stood up and wandered over to peer over Marinette's shoulder. Her drawing was of a stylised female body wearing a full-length dress, but before he could look closely she slammed her hands over it.
"I'm not done yet!"
"Sorry!" He grinned, stumbling back to the chaise-lounge. He picked up his guitar again and played a quick snippet from a Jagged Stone tune—as cool as it was knowing the rock star was his real father, it did make listening to and playing his music a little disconcerting. "You haven't told me what your designs are for," Luka said. "One of your classes?"
"Yeah, it's an assignment for my design class," she replied with a sigh. She turned around, tip of one foot twiddling on the floor. "We're looking at finding and using inspiration, so we've got to design something based on the seasons. Winter's giving me some trouble."
"Anything I can help with?"
Marinette shrugged. "Unless you have an idea for a winter-themed dress that isn't just white and blue with snowflakes…"
"No…"
She released a short puff of breath, something between a huff and a sigh, then swivelled back to her desk.
"Does that mean you're done with the others? Can I have a look?"
"You can look at spring and autumn," she said, leafing through her papers and drawing one out. "Summer still need some refining."
Luka accepted the pieces of paper she held out to him and twisted around to illuminate the pictures. A similar female shape, but this time the dress was mid-thigh. Bold shades of red, yellow and orange coloured the dress in wide stripes, inter-spaced with white panels. Next to the dress, she'd sketched a beach hut.
It was bright and bold, and he could imagine someone—namely Marinette—wearing it on the beach with a floppy hat and large sunglasses.
"I like this one," he said, holding the paper up. "Summer, I assume?"
"Yeah." She nodded. I wanted something that wasn't just summer flowers, you know?"
"It's good." Smiling at her grin, he turned his attention to the second page. Another female shape wearing a knee-length dress. There were dabs of sky-blue watercolour down one side of the page, and shades of soft pink down the other. Tangles of branches in black ink stretched across the skirt, and petals scattered across the top. The neckline, redrawn bigger underneath, was scalloped like a cartoon cloud. It looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't place why.
"This one's great," he commented, raising it. "It would really suit you."
"Thanks," Marinette said. She stretched forward to take the two designs from him and put them to one side of her desk. Then, as Luka leaned back into the chaise-lounge to pick out a few more tunes on his guitar, Marinette returned to glaring at her current work. After a while, she sighed melodramatically and let her head fall onto the desk with a thump.
"You alright?" he asked.
She grumbled something unintelligible against her desk, then lifted her head to repeat it. "I don't know what to do... Everything's either too boring or too complicated. I was hoping to actually make this dress for the Christmas party Marie promised to throw us…"
"Maybe make a different dress for the party?" he suggested. "I still think the spring one would suit you."
"I can't wear a spring dress to a Christmas party! It would be weird."
"But you're not winter," he said. "You're, well, you're spring. Who cares if it's Christmas, melt the winter snow yourself."
Marinette gave a half-hearted laugh and shook her head. "I still need need to design something for my class though."
"Oh right." Luka frowned slightly and sat up straighter, his guitar's neck falling into his elbow. He wished he was more visual sometimes, even if it was just to help bounce ideas with her. But creating physical art had never been his strong point, let alone designing.
All winter made him think of was snowflakes and ice, but as Marinette had pointed out already they would make for an uninspired design. He tried to imagine some way of incorporating winter lights into a dress, lamps glistening on frosted puddles, or string lights twinkling along someone's roof. Christmas trees sparkling through a window.
Christmas, he thought, might have been an interesting avenue.
And then he remembered why the second dress had seemed so familiar.
"Your spring design," he said, nodding at the paper next to her. "It reminds me of the dress you wore to that Christmas dance. You remember?"
Marinette's face twisted into something Luka couldn't quite read. Not quite sad, not quite embarrassed, not quite wistful. "I remember," she mumbled. "Ugh, it still makes me cringe though."
"How come?" he asked. "Because of the punch accident?"
"No. Well, yeah, but also…" She pursed her lips and averted her gaze. Her hands were in her lap, thumbs twiddling. "I can't believe I—I kissed you and then just ran away like that!"
Luka laughed. Was she still that embarrassed about that? He stood up and walked over to her, hands folded behind her back, smirk playing on his lips. "Oh yeah… But at least you can laugh about it now, right?"
"Right."
He stopped next to her and placed his hand on the back of her chair as he leaned down. "If I kiss you now, will you run away?"
Her face flared his favourite shade of pink, but she still managed to quirk a small smirk. "I can hardly run away with you blocking me in like that."
"Good," he said and bent down kiss her.
She giggled against his lips and pushed his chest. "I need to work," she moaned. "Stop distracting me!"
"You're no fun."
"Lukaaaa…" she whined as he kissed her again. "I don't do this when you're practising!"
"Maybe you should."
She giggled again and turned his face before he could go in for a third. "Maybe I should. Now let me get on with this."
Luka screwed his mouth to one side and pretended to think about this for a while. "Fine," he eventually relented, taking his hand off the chair. "For now," he added ominously. Then, flopping back on the chaise-lounge, he asked, "Whatever happened to that dress? The one from the Christmas dance?"
"I still have it somewhere around… Hmm." With her mouth pressed into a frown, Marinette stood up and stalked over to her wardrobe. She flung the doors open and began rooting through the bulge of clothes, so tightly packed Luka was surprised they hadn't simply burst out.
Finally, she pulled out the dress. It was as he remembered: pale pink with dark, delicate embroidering across the waist. But when she twisted the hanger around, silvery fabric fluttering out like a sail, he could see the angry red stain lingering on the back like a scar. Or a burn.
Or—his eyes flicked to the window, where the Paris gleamed beneath the crisp, autumn clouds—like a bleeding sky.
"I tried to sponge the worst of it out, but I couldn't shift it," Marinette said, running a finger down the stain. "We looked into getting it professionally cleaned, but it wasn't worth it. I don't really know why I kept it, to be honest. It looks like a mess."
"It looks like a sunset," he said. "Like a midwinter sunset."
She blinked and tilted her head as she turned to stare at him. "Why midwinter?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Apparently you get better sunsets in winter. I can't remember why...a friend of mine from Lycée likes photography and said something about dust in the atmosphere. Don't know how much of that is actually true though…"
She hummed quietly and looked back at the dress. He could practically hear the whirring of her brain as an idea formed, see the little cogs and wheels begin to turn, taste a strange anticipation as her eyes gleamed like the evening's first star and her mouth twitched.
"I have an idea," she said.
Marinette hadn't told him what her idea was. Whenever he asked her about it over the following fortnight, she would mime zipping her lips shut and then smirk.
"You'll see when I'm finished," she'd tease. "Patience."
Luka knew all about patience. Their courtship, after all, would never have left his daydreams and guitar strings had he not had the patience to wait out Marinette's crush on Adrien. Would never have blossomed into their easy romance had she not had the patience to pull him through his emotional breakdown.
But he didn't want to be patient this time. He wanted to see the dress again, see it fixed, see it reborn like winter's blaze after summer's burnout.
Part of him wondered if he only wanted it finished because he might get the chance to see her wear it again, and fix the mistakes of that Christmas dance.
Finally—finally—one lunchtime, he received an excited text.
M: i finished it! can you come over today? id like you to see it
L: I've got a guitar lesson after class but I can come over after that?
M: ok!
M: mama asks if you want dinner
L: How could I say no?
M: :D xxx
And so, cursing his guitar teacher for overrunning, Luka found himself mere hours later jogging down the street towards the Dupain-Cheng bakery. The door was shut, and the sign in the window displayed the message: Sorry—closed. Please come back another time! But he spotted Sabine in the shop, clearing up the counter.
She smiled when she noticed him and quickly came to unlock the door. "Hello, dear," she greeted, ushering him inside. "So good to see you again. Marinette's up in her room, but she wants you to wait in the living room."
"Oh?"
"She's getting changed; I imagine she's concerned about you walking in and seeing something you shouldn't…"
Luka hoped his face wasn't as flushed as it felt. "I'll wait in the living room," he said. "Thank you, Sabine."
"Dinner's at six thirty. Now, go on up!" Patting his shoulder in a motherly fashion, Sabine smiled and motioned for him to go through to the flat.
Luka walked the familiar path through to the back of the bakery, where Tom, cleaning the worktops, grinned and waved, then up a few flights of stairs to the living room.
It had been a little strange the first few times at Marinette's. He was so used to his houseboat, with only a few stairs to the cramped rooms below the deck, that having proper flights and large spaces with furniture that wasn't bolted down was a bit odd. But it was nice, and the height seemed to suit Marinette. He wasn't surprised her room was at the top with its own little balcony; something inside her seemed to yearn for the sky, like there were clouds in her heart that longed for a home beyond her body's reach.
Marinette's room was directly above the living room. Luka tip-toed up the narrow staircase and knocked on the trapdoor, chuckling when she he heard a faint squeak of surprise.
"It's me," he called through wood. "I've been told to wait down here."
"What?" she yelled back. "No, I said...never mind. Come up!"
Luka cautiously pushed at the trapdoor; her voice had been emanating from above him and he didn't want to accidentally slam the door into her. But he found that she'd already moved back, so he opened it the rest of the way and ascended into her room.
The first thing he noticed were the buckets, lined up beneath the window next to a selection of bottles. Then the smell—something chemical which stung his nose when he breathed. Then he heard footsteps behind him and turned around to find Marinette standing on the other side of the trapdoor.
She was wearing the dress from the dance, and even though her hair was still in its pigtails, and she wore no make-up or jewellery, she looked just as beautiful as she had that evening.
"Wow," he breathed, stepping around the opening in the floor towards her. "You look great. You managed to fix it then?"
"Well, not quite." She was grinning as she pointed to the bottles behind him. "I had to use a lot of bleach to get the stain out, which obviously made the back white instead of this pinkish colour. Then, well…" Her grin widened as her teeth emerged to nibble gently on her bottom lip. She turned around, and Luka nearly fell down the trapdoor in surprise.
Where there had once been an expanse of silver-pink stained red, there was now an entire sunset: scarlet and orange and purple and gold. The sky on fire, each colour blurring into the next, the edges fading softly back into the cloudy hues of the original dress.
And, on top of the colourful backdrop, following on from the branches around the waist, she had embroidered more twigs stretching out across her back. But no leaves, no flower buds, just the dark branches like strokes of ink.
"Midwinter sunset," he murmured.
She turned back around; the sunset was in her cheeks. "Midwinter sunset," she said.
