Luka hadn't been kidding about playing cards and he had quite the collection too. Uno, Cards Against Humanity, something called Exploding Unicorns and all different types of regular decks. Then there were the board games; Monopoly, Scrabble and Cluedo just to name a few.
It was impressive really, but at the same time it filled Chat with a soft sadness. What was an integral part of most childhoods, he had pitiful, little experience with.
Determined not to dwell on the bleaker parts of his life, the blonde turned away, continuing his inspection of Luka's apartment. It was much nicer than what he would expect for a typical… however old Luka was.
It was practically on par with his fathers manor, just smaller. The furnishings were also much simpler and modern, unlike the ridiculous contemporary art style stuff that, in his opinion, cluttered the rooms of the Agreste place.
The apartment was on the top floor of the building, and boasted an impressive view of the Parisian skyline. The living room he currently stood in took full advantage of that fact, with two wall to floor glass doors taking up the majority of the back wall on each side. They opened up onto a balcony that ran the length of the room, a decorative, yet solid looking wrought iron banister fencing it in.
On the grey wall between the two doors hung another impressive collection, this one of guitars. Three of them evenly spaced across the wall, excited Chat moved towards them and ran a clawed finger over the glossy surface of the black guitar in the center.
"Do you play?" He turned to face Luka, an eager smile pulled at his lips. Music was something he knew, hours were spent behind his piano as a teen. One of the few things that he was thankful that his father had insisted he practice… constantly.
Luka stood from where he was shuffling through his assorted games and moved to stand beside the hero."Do I play? Pfft, do cats have whiskers? Of course I do."
He reached up, pulling the guitar from its place on the wall, smiling as he passed it to the blonde man. "What about you?"
Tentatively, Chat took the instrument and held it in position, strumming his fingers across its strings. "No, not really. Well I took a few classes in high school but that's it, I wanted to, but my father was against it, I'm more of a piano man myself."
A longing expression haunted the hero's features, which didn't go unnoticed by Luka, who placed his hand over the top of the hero's one that was mindlessly playing with the strings.
"Well, I can always teach you if you want. It's never too late to learn." He met green feline eyes with his own blue ones, his gaze never wavering. "Unless of course, you plan on disappearing into the night, never to be seen again?"
The smirk on his face almost made Chat take it as a joke, almost. But his crystalline blue eyes were searching, in a nearly panicked way. As if he truly was worried the hero would do just that. Something about the way he said the words made Chat Noir suspect that Luka had a past of people disappearing from his life. It sounded like he was used to it.
The idea pulled at his heart strings, that was another thing the two had in common then, and as much as he hated to admit it, it had more or less been the hero's plan.
Deciding then and there that that wasn't the case anymore the blonde plastered a smile on his face, for Luka's sake. "Furrreal? You'd teach me? I'd definitely stick around for that!"
His reply had the other man beaming, "I'm glad to see your puns are improving, that last one was a cat-astrophe! Now, what card game are we playing? Your choice." Luka had removed his hand and was making his way back to the shelves that contained his collection.
"Hey! Cat puns are my thing! Get your own." Chat Noir placed the guitar back into the hook on the wall before moving to sit cross legged on the floor next to Luka. "Umm, something easy? I haven't really played much."
The blue haired man pursed his lips in thought, "hmm easy, I would suggest Snap…but with those claws and your no-doubt cat like reflexes, I wouldn't stand a chance. How about Go Fish?!"
"Yeah okay, I know that one."
"Great!" Luka grabbed a random packet of cards, tossing them onto the circular coffee table behind Chat Noir. Then got to his feet and began rummaging around in the adjoining open plan kitchen, coming back with two glass tumblers and the bottle of scotch they had been sharing earlier.
Luka placed one glass in front of the hero and the other across the other side of the table. Before sitting down he shrugged off his blue hoodie, to reveal a plain white singlet top, that exposed a lot of skin -and if chat was truthful, quite a lot of muscle too.-
The hero took in the sight of his new friend, the singlet dipped down low on his chest, showing off defined collarbones and sizable trap muscles. Feline eyes roamed downward, taking in the impressive swell of muscular biceps.
"Like what you see there Whiskers?" Luka flashed his -practically, trademark at this point- smirk, at having caught the hero in the midst of his very obvious inspection of Luka's Physique.
The blush that crept over Chat Noir's face was instant, he opened his mouth to reply but nothing coherent came out.
Luka sat down at the coffee table and began to pour the two of them a drink. "Hey relax, on the flip side, you're a superhero. The internet is literally filled with your picture, the whole world has the luxury of ogling you and you would be none the wiser. For all you know, I could have a photo of you as my wallpaper." He shrugged, as if it was no big deal.
If he was trying to make Chat feel better though he had failed miserably, the words only made him blush harder. Now all the hero could do was wonder if Luka was being serious.
In an effort to distract himself, he reached for glass and took a drink, watching the liquid move around as he swirled it. Anything to give him a reason to avoid eye contact, while he waited for Luka to deal the cards.
Luckily it didn't take long, the young man was apparently very well practiced at it. Having deftly shuffled and dealt the cards in a way you would expect to see at a casino, not that Chat had ever actually been to one.
Cards in hand he spent a moment pondering over them, he had played before, it was just such a long time ago. A little nervous he looked up to watch the other man as he expertly moved his cards around, placing some on the coffee and keeping others in his hand.
He must have felt Chat's eyes on him, since he looked up, offering the hero a warm smile. "Do you remember what to do?"
The blonde man looked down at his cards, as he scratched at the back of his neck sheepishly. "Ah, not really. It's been a while."
Luka didn't judge, he placed the cards he held in his hand onto the table and picked up the stack of pairs he already had beside him. "So the first thing you do is go through the cards you have and find any pairs. You just need to match the numbers so like, if you have two nines then that's a pair, it doesn't matter what colour or anything."
Chat Noir nodded along as he shuffled through his cards, searching, but the claws of his suit made it more difficult than he had expected. He
managed to drop more than a few cards before he finished separating the pairs. Not that he had many, but that wasn't a surprise. He was a black cat after all, and they aren't known for their luck.
The hero looked at his pitiful collection of pairs, then over at Lukas and pouted. Luka was left with just three cards in his hand, compared to the Hero's seven.
Luka didn't even try to hide his smirk at the fact he was winning already. "Ahh, why don't you go first? So you ask me if I have a card that you need for a pair, if I have it then I give it to you. If I don't, then I say go fish and you have to pick up a card from the pile. At the end of the game the person with the most pairs wins."
Brows furrowed in concentration, Chat shuffled his cards once more then let out the breath he was holding. "Okay! Let's do this! Got any… umm, ahh threes?" The blonde raised a brow in hopeful question.
"Mm, nope. Go fish, got any fives?"
The hopeful look turned to one of shocked disbelief, "wha- but? Ugh!" The hero tossed his friend his five, then huffing rested his chin in his hand. "That's so unfair, you're cheating." He mumbled his words in a sulk.
Meanwhile Luka snorted, picking up the card from the table. "Pick up a card, Whiskers and how exactly am I cheating? We only just started."
"Well, I guess technically it's not cheating. But you do have an unfair advantage, you know -since I'm practically the incarnation of bad luck-." Chat Noir flicked his messy blonde locks with a clawed hand, a gesture that screamed 'runway'.
Intrigued, the other man leaned forward resting his face in both hands, "the incarnation of bad luck hey? Can't say I've read that one on the Ladyblog, tell me more!"
For all his flashy behaviour, the blonde man became uncharacteristically stoic when Luka bestowed him with his full attention. He honestly wasn't used to it, especially when it came to discussing the source of his powers. People usually looked to Ladybug for all that.
Originally, Chat Noir had been a chance for a stifled teen to let loose and finally be himself, so naturally when it came to anything serious people looked to the quiet but confident lady in red. It wasn't that Chat didn't take his role seriously, it was the most important thing in his life!
Not only because it gave him the chance to prove himself to his lady, it was also the only thing that truly gave him a purpose. With so much pressure on his shoulders in his civilian life he was happy to take a backseat for things like that.
On the flip side though, it did mean it left him fairly speechless when someone did ask him directly, he didn't know how much he could reveal without letting something crucial slip.
Left in a somewhat difficult situation the young man sat up straight, letting out an awkward cough, "ah, yeah something like that." He refused to meet the intense, crystalline blue eyes of the man opposite him as he spoke.
Instead he picked up a card from the deck, making a show of placing it meticulously with the rest he held. "Do you have an ace?"
"Go fish, do you have a ten?" Much to the hero's relief Luka dropped the subject, content to just play the game for the time being."
They had been playing for what Chat thought felt like a lifetime. His enthusiasm slowly dwindled as he watched Luka's stack of pairs grow bigger, while his own hand of cards accumulated growing more and more unmanageable.
The blue haired man watched as the hero struggled to hold all his cards, confused he placed his own down on the table and looked at the hero for a moment. "Umm, Chat Noir. Why do you have so many cards?"
Beyond frustrated, the blonde man threw his hands up into the air, "BECAUSE, you don't have any cards I need! This game is ridiculous!" He dragged his free hand down his face, ever dramatic.
On the other side of the table Luka let out a strangled cough of amusement, "you know you can make pairs with the cards you pick up from the deck too… right?"
At those words Chat Noir dropped his hands to his lap, expression blank as he sat in silence as he contemplated his options. Finally he threw his hand of cards into the air, letting them rain down around the two of them.
Luka fell to his side on the floor laughing hysterically, Chat continued to sit at the table sulking while he waited for the other man to compose himself.
Impatient, the hero crawled around the coffee table and knelt over the top of Luka, pointing a single claw at his nose. "I blame you for being a terrible teacher. In fact I bet you did it on purpose to win!"
In reply Luka reached up and captured the clawed finger in both his hands, still laughing. "I'm sorry! I'll wear that one. I promise I'll make it up to you by being a better guitar teacher."
He didn't want to admit it, but Chat Noir was startled by the touch. How was it that he was able to do things so easily that the majority of people wouldn't dare to? Most people were constantly wary of the black clad hero's hands, they brought destruction of another level with the slightest of contact. A fact all people of Paris were aware of.
Until that night the only other person who ever dared to touch the hero's hands had been Ladybug. But somehow all these things didn't seem to phase Luka in the slightest, he treated him like he was just another regular friend.
The realisation that Luka saw him as a normal person was refreshing, even in his civilian life he rarely had that luxury. Chat Noir made the decision then that he wasn't going to give up this new friendship without a fight.
He gave Luka a fake pout, "you'd better!" He couldn't help himself, before he knew it he had a goofy grin back on his face as he offered Luka his free hand to help him off the ground.
"As much fun as losing spectacularly to you was, I really do need to get going. I'm supposed to be up early tomorrow." As if on cue the hero let out a yawn, showing off his exaggerated canines.
The blue haired man took the offered hand, getting to his feet quickly, a look of disappointment etched across his features. "Oh, when will you be back?"
"Tomorrow maybe? I don't know. Depends on what happens during patrol." Chat Noir ran a hand through his golden hair in thought. "I guess I'll just swing by when I can?"
"Ah, yeah I guess that makes sense." Even though he seemed to understand the hero's responsibilities Luka still looked upset at the uncertainty surrounding Chat's next visit.
No that he could blame Luka, it wasn't an attractive prospect for either of them, Chat had thoroughly enjoyed his night just hanging out and feeling normal for once.
"Hey! I know!" The sudden outburst from the other man startled the hero out of his thoughts. Confused, he watched as Luka hurried to the kitchen and began pulling open draws and shuffling through them.
When he returned the young man held a small square of paper in one of his hands. "Just a thought, if you can't because of hero stuff or whatever I understand. But hopefully you can!"
Not following his train of thought Chat Noir coked his head to the side, his black feline ears twitching uncomfortably at being out of the loop.
Unbothered by Chats confusion, Luka moved towards the blonde until he was almost uncomfortably close. Taking the leather clad hero by surprise -for the umteen time that night- he reached out in a fluid movement and undid one of the gleaming, silver zippers on the side of the hero's suit. With his other hand Luka tucked the slip of paper inside the pocket and slowly did the zipper back up.
Something about the gesture brought a warm blush to Chat's cheeks, suddenly feeling too hot in his hero's garb he looked away. Luka may have no issues maintaining eye contact but it was proving a difficult feat for Chat Noir that night.
Still somewhat flustered, the hero scratched at the back of his neck, "okay well, I really have to get going. I'm sure I'm already going to regret being out this late."
Apparently relishing in the blundering of Chat Noir, Luka let out a short laugh, before he gestured towards the front door. "Let me walk you out?"
"It's cool, I'm more of a window man myself, if you don't mind?" The hero indicated over his shoulder with a thumb, towards the glass doors that lead to the balcony and the dark night outside.
