14 October 2020

Prompt: Cornered

Character/Pairing: Dingo King (OC), Luka Couffaine

Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen

Notes: Someday I'm actually gonna finish "Ininko Montoya" & y'all will get to meet Inkki & the Atlantean kwamis properly. xD (Inkki is a blue ring octopus kwami. Ininko Montoya's getup is blue and gold, basically a sarong with bangles, and he has dark blonde ("golden") dreadlocks with blue beads woven in. His power is paralyzing ink. I really need to finish that DF. xD)

Bare feet slap against the shingles of the roof. Ininko Montoya takes only a moment to entertain the thought that that should have hurt: his feet weren't protected by boots like the other heroes. Hell, his everything wasn't as protected as the other heroes, and yet somehow he never came out of the akuma battles too scratched up.

…only when Inkki was annoyed with him, and even then he usually wasn't annoyed enough to leave lasting damage. Usually.

He hears a shout behind him, snapping him back to the present, and he's already moving again. He hops off the roof and into an alley, his dreadlocks waving behind him. He has to move. Ladybug had always been adamant about the whole secret identities thing, and even if Inkki never really had anything to say either way on the matter he's pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate him getting caught so easy.

His ring beeps. The last sucker starts flashing. It looks less like a tentacle and more like a smooth piece of gold by this point.

"Ininko!" Viperion calls from somewhere behind him, and he throws himself inside a dumpster before the snake hero can enter the alley. He squirms into the garbage and tries not to think about what's touching his skin (the sarong and jewelry cover nothing, and one of the bags is leaking on his bare chest). He hears Viperion's boots come to a stop somewhere close and wonders if his sense of smell is heightened like Chat Noir's. He prays the stench from the trash is enough to cover him up if it is.

He isn't as experienced as the other heroes. They've been going since he was fifteen – a good five years now – and he only found Inkki last summer. He's a few months into this at best and doesn't have the endurance to outlast his five minute timer. He needs Viperion to move before his transformation drops.

Viperion doesn't seem inclined to.

"Ladybug?" he hears Viperion call. Ladybug's voice echoes an affirmative through the alley. "I lost him. Again."

"Damn it!" Ladybug curses, and Ininko gulps. She sounds pissed. "Why won't he stick around?"

"Well, the first time we met him, he did paralyze Chat," Viperion says. He chuckles a little. Ininko can't even feel guilty about that misunderstanding. He didn't know for sure, but he was pretty confident in his guess on Chat Noir's identity. Ladybug – and Viperion – should've been proud of him. "And he is a bit of a loose cannon. He might not want to join the team."

"That's putting it lightly, if your hunch is right," Ladybug scoffs. "Loose cannon. Tch."

"…darning," Viperion laughs, and Ininko tries not to grin. It's a slip no one else would notice, but Ininko isn't anyone else, and Viperion just practically gift-wrapped their identities for him. Dumbass. "I'll meet you back home. Maybe next time."

"I just want to know more about his Miraculous," Ladybug sighs. "If he's on our side or…"

"You know he is," Viperion says. "Even if he did attack Chat. We'll talk at home. I love you."

Ladybug hums in agreement before telling him to hurry up. There's a click – Viperion's communicator closing? – and the sound of boots retreating. Ininko lets out an exaggerated groan as his Miraculous gives a final, frantic beep and the flash of his detransformation surrounds him. Dingo flops his head back on a softer trash bag behind him as Inkki lands on his chest. He tries not to think about the bag now leaking into his favorite shirt.

"I fucking knew it," a painfully familiar voice laughs above him, and Dingo's eyes snap open to find Viperion grinning down at him. His arms are resting on the lip of the dumpster, a shit-eating grin curling his lips. He reaches in and flicks a gloved finger against his forehead. "Nice job on the dumpster. It was harder to track you with the smell, but did you really think I couldn't hear your Miraculous beeping?"

…shit. He had completely forgotten about that.

"Um…" Dingo gulps, but Viperion doesn't seem mad. He holds his hand out. He's still grinning.

"Come on," Viperion says. "You reek. Let's get you out of there."

"Lu –" Dingo starts, and Viperion's eyebrows lift in a very familiar expression. Dingo sighs and sinks back into the trash. "Just leave me here. I belong in the dumpster. With the rest of the garbage."

"Stop being so dramatic, dumbass," Viperion says with an equally familiar roll of only sorta-familiar eyes. He grabs his hand and hauls him out. Dingo yelps, cupping a hand against his exhausted kwami to hold him to his chest. He overbalances and lands on his ass in a puddle of something leaking from the dumpster. This just wasn't his fucking day. "I knew it was you. Why did you keep running from us?"

"Ladybug's always been super strict about the identities," Dingo sighs. "I just figured…I was trying to follow the rules."

Viperion snorts at that, and Dingo shoves at him. He doesn't try that hard, and it's not that effective. Viperion grabs his arm and pulls him up.

"C'mon," he sighs. "I've got a feeling you already know who I am, so let's get you home and cleaned up. What does your kwami eat?"

"Coffee," Inkki chirps, curling a tentacle along the back of Dingo's neck. Dingo remembers the first time he felt the little guy and how creeped out he'd been. He hardly notices it now. Viperion's eyebrows soar again, and Dingo reaches into one of his cargo pockets and fishes out a collapsible water bottle filled with cool coffee. He holds it up for Inkki, and Viperion laughs.

It's been a weird fucking day, but maybe it wasn't as bad as he was initially thinking.