Gabriel had started stealing cigarettes again at the age of sixteen.
It had not been about cancer. It had not been about health concerns at all, or about the rigidity of his family life, or about emotional distress. It had been entirely meant to piss Anne-Laure off.
Dating Alice came with perks. You got an exceptionally pretty girlfriend who would model for free. You got the companionship of someone who, while she loved to be showered in romance until she swooned, was happy enough to simply be in the same room as you. You got to kiss Ladybug. Unfortunately, with those perks also came her ever present best friend.
It said a lot about Alice that the most important relationships in her life always seemed to involve absolute jerks. Gabriel was one of them. Anne-Laure was the closest contender. Alice liked everyone. Everyone . But being liked by Alice was not nearly the same as being loved by her. You could not understand her until she loved you.
Well meaning classmates and 'friends' would flock to her and worry about how close she was to Anne-Laure, how naive she was to trust Gabriel. They would tell her she was too forgiving. And she would chuckle and give them her kindest, brightest smile.
"I'm not forgiving," she would tell them.
They would sigh and give up, and watch her from afar with concern, wondering how she could be convinced that her friendships were toxic, and her boyfriend abusive.
She smiled to that too.
"If I minded the way you act," she had once told Gabriel, "I would tell you."
Of course, he knew that. As Ladybug, she never minced her words. Alice was more patient, however. As Ladybug, she had a persona to maintain, different expectations, and harsher standards. As herself, she rolled with the punches. She didn't mind insults. She was well aware that her optimism and kindness were painted as idiocy, but… that rolled off like water off a duck's back.
If you really, really messed up, she would give you a piece of her mind. And then the world would tremble. As Gabriel did not go out of his way to treat people like dirt (as a matter of fact, he went out of his way not to have to treat people like anything), he mostly avoided those fits of righteous anger. Anne-Laure took the brunt of them.
He had seen Alice unleash hell upon her best friend, and it had been a scary sight.
"And If you think for a second I will tolerate your bullying that girl…"
Anne-Laure deserved it.
"... you have another thing coming…"
She really did.
"... in no universe is this acceptable…"
She was a nightmare.
"... haven't considered it at all? Well let me clarify things for you, you…"
The stereotypical mean girl, with a sprinkling of juvenile delinquency.
"... catch you doing it again you will wish that…"
She smoked and drank and partied.
"... ARE WE CLEAR?"
Anne-Laure really liked yellow and stripes. She'd been Waspp's chosen, too. Queen Bee.
Alice's outbursts always corrected Anne-Laure's natural disposition for at least two months. After that one, the girl had been wide-eyed and gaping, as she watched Alice cross her arms and glare.
"Okay, okayyy, chill! I'll apologize. Wow. Holy hell."
That was what fear looked like. Fear and, to a lesser extent, remorse.
The next day, they were best friends again, and Bee's behaviour had distinctly improved.
Gabriel and Anne-Laure had despised each other, being rivals for Alice's affection. So he had stolen her cigarettes and watched her flip out. It never failed to amuse him.
There was nothing quite as satisfying as hearing a "Gabriel, you ass, those things cost money, give it back!", especially when Alice was right next to them and secretly approved of his stealing. Cigarettes did cause cancer.
###
One week.
That awkward conversation with Adrien set aside, Nathalie had spent her days tending to her usual duties, her concern turning to worry and then to frank anxiety. She was unused to feeling disquiet that was not directly related to her being in trouble. It was new and unpleasant.
Over those seven days, Gabriel had gone from tiredness to exhaustion. If the timestamps on the emails he sent were anything to go by, he was not sleeping. One am, two, three, four, five AM, with sometimes a gap between six and seven, and not even every night. He was restless and irritable, and growing paler from day to day.
Nathalie, being Nathalie, had googled the legal consequences of slipping someone sleeping pills. They were dire. She had discarded the idea.
By day six, she was considering dragging him to bed.
Maybe he would not take kindly to the suggestion, let alone to a more direct and bodily approach of it. He needed to rest, however, and if she had to get down on her knees to convince him, it would not trouble her much.
Being a coward, and a lazy one on top of that, she stopped at mulling about the idea, and playing minesweeper instead.
On day seven, Laser Tag attacked Paris, and Gabriel vanished until the next morning.
"Where does he go?" Nathalie asked their driver, discovering that anxiety about loved ones came with an unhealthy amount of curiosity.
"I have no idea. He just takes the car, brings it back hours later. I'm paid not to question it. You told me I was paid not to question it."
That was true.
Thankfully, for situations where one had to remotely stalk one's employer, engineers had invented GPS tracking. While Gabriel was off for "R&D", she spent her afternoon and evening in front of her tablet, following a little red dot on a map of Paris. From the looks of it, the car was not going anywhere specific, just spiraling around an area. It was not hard to guess Gabriel was circling the location his butterfly watch pointed to.
Nathalie had no idea what he was looking for, but at least it was not the possessed villain of the day.
The car ended up changing directions entirely and parking in a business area halfway across town. It stayed there. Nathalie waited, and waited, and wrote the address down, and went home to sleep. Her willingness to investigate Gabriel's fishy behavior did not extend to actually confronting him. Not yet.
She woke up at half past six, checked her emails, and discovered Gabriel had been steadily answering his business correspondence for the best part of two hours. The notifications kept arriving as she showered, dressed herself, applied her makeup, drove herself to the mansion, and made sure Adrien was alive and fed (he was not, as a matter of fact, fed, but picking at his food while fawning over a video of Ladybug on his phone).
At some point, she figured out Gabriel was working from home. More precisely, when he asked for coffee over the intercom.
She sent Adrien on his way (Dutch lessons, that poor boy), and made her way to her boss' office with a platter that included coffee, breakfast, and orange juice.
Unsurprisingly, Gabriel, who was sitting at his desk and drawing, looked like death warmed over. Which she noticed with a pang of worry. Which she definitely would have prefered not to feel.
"Good morning," he greeted her. "Have you had a chance to catch up on the emails I sent to Aria Rossignol and Melodie Chanteclair?"
"Not yet, sir," Nathalie replied, putting the platter down on his desk, between a perfectly arranged notepad, stapler and pencil box. "I'll read them right now."
"Good. Aria is asking for a new dress for the Cannes festival. Plenty of time, but you know the woman. She wants sketches 'yesterday'. See if you can fit a meeting with her over lunch next week, and make sure she understands actual work won't start until October."
"Very well, sir," she said, staring at him.
She took in his paleness, the dark circles under his eyes, the gauntness of his cheeks, and reached out, running a hand through his hair. She only realized what she had done afterwards, and froze. For all of her worrying and plans to get him to sleep, she had not meant to ever act . She had not intended to show concern.
Gabriel, focused on his work, proved similarly slow on the uptake.
"Also-" he started, before the touch registered.
He looked up in disbelief.
She swallowed.
As mistakes went, this one was fairly horrendous. For a start, she would have to scrub her hand clean with industrial detergent to get rid of all that wax. On top of that, her touch had been unwelcome. He wanted distance. She had known he wanted distance. And he liked his instructions followed to the letter.
She hid her hand behind her back, like a little girl caught stealing candy.
Gabriel frowned - and Nathalie knew fury when she saw it - then turned back to his art, scowling, but willing to pretend nothing had happened. That was fantastic. She could pretend too.
"I'll be getting in touch with Aria," she announced, turning away. "Anything else?"
"That will be all."
She nodded, walking to the door. She heard his chair creak and roll and, an instant later, he was wrapping an arm around her.
###
The ribbons had been an endless source of entertainment. For Gabriel. For Alice… not so much.
Wandering around him with knee-length, flowing ribbons was - as far as he was concerned - inviting trouble. He had managed to refrain from snatching the things for the entire time his Ladybug had been unaware of his identity. He had some boundaries. After they had figured each other's secrets out, however, the ribbons had been fair game. Alice was his girlfriend. He had snatched a lot more from her than hair accessories.
More often than not, their patrols ended with a yelp from her, or a yell, or an aggravated protest.
"Chat! Those are not leashes!" she would snap (again).
Gabriel grinned and played with the silly things, whether she liked it or not. As far as impulse control was concerned, he had too much or none at all, and four feet long ribbons twirling within his reach were too much of a temptation. He'd grab one and roll it around his wrist once then, depending on Ladybug's reaction, let it go or wrap it around his wrist over and over again as he pulled her closer.
She would sulk or tease him or flick her fingers at his forehead, rolling her eyes at his playfulness.
"I'm buying a laser pointer," she'd swear.
"Still waiting," he'd retort, grinning, his hand so tangled in her ribbons that it was easier for her to surrender them than to free herself. They vanished when she untransformed, anyway.
"Or, better, I'm buying a big cardboard box."
It wasn't an uncommon threat.
"You can try. I like boxes," he would reply, trying to undo her pigtails.
"Aouch!" the invulnerable girl would exclaim as soon as he pulled on a hair. "Aow! Ouch! I swear I will end you."
He had to dance away from playful kicks.
###
Nathalie tried to locate her vest's button. It had fallen off and rolled away earlier, and she would need to find it at some point. She spotted it on the left of a shelf, nearly hidden under a potted plant. She took good note of its location.
Then she focused on Gabriel, who was lying under her and wrapped around her and did not seem to mind how hard the floor was. She was willing to believe he had terrible impulse control, after all. Maybe just a little. Or maybe he just bottled things up so compulsively that he was bound to implode every now and then. She knew nothing forced him to keep his emotions to himself. It was just how he liked to be, who he strove to be. Perfect composure at all times. Feelings undiscussed, unmentionable. If there was more underneath - a restlessness, a playfulness, a heart - he kept it well hidden. He hated losing control. Still, everyone had their limits.
His fingers ran up and down her back as his thoughts traveled through darker and darker territories.
"This can't happen a-" he tried to say.
"Shut up."
His hand stilled.
"With all due respect," Nathalie added.
Gabriel's fingers resumed their motion, up and down, up and down.
"I guess I can stop saying it. I clearly cannot stick to my own decisions," he commented.
"You would have an easier time if your 'decisions' did not involve torturing yourself," his assistant muttered. "You might as well accept that you are just human and that you do need a modicum of warmth."
He had an opinion about that, and she could see it on his face, but there was a time and place to express it. A different time and place. Instead, he turned away, wrapping an arm around her waist.
He was dozing off.
Nathalie studied his face.
"When did you last sleep, Gabriel?"
"Three hours ago?"
"You mean when you were emailing every single one of your business contacts?"
There was a pause.
"Fours hours ago?" he tried, sounding as unconvinced as she felt.
She sighed, sitting up and stretching her neck.
"Let's get you to bed."
The look in his face as he heard those words looked distinctly like fear. It vanished in a split-second, replaced by mild annoyance, but there was no unseeing it. She looked down, spotting yellowish bruises on his chest and arms, scratches on his hands. Once again, she wondered what the hell was going on. She cared to the point that plausible deniability was no longer such a concern. It had been, all jokes aside. She had never wanted to get involved.
They rolled away from each other, collecting their clothes.
"The house is empty, isn't it?" he asked moments later, buttoning his shirt, his back turned to her.
"It is," she replied, adjusting her vest, though there was not much she could do to keep it closed without the first button.
He relaxed a little.
"Sleep, then," he said, his voice entirely too cheerful.
It did not sound like him.
Nathalie frowned, joining him, trying to get a look at his face. He had no shadows to hide behind here, so he just turned away, as casually as he could. She put a hand on his shoulder. He straightened up and nodded, letting her look at him. Whatever expression he had been trying to conceal was gone. All she got was a polite smile. That, and a kiss.
And then two. And then three.
"I said sleep," she mumbled as he led her to his bedroom.
She could recognize diversionary tactics when she saw them.
They stopped by the door, for a few inviting kisses and some fooling around, then Gabriel pushed the door open. He wrapped his arms around Nathalie and took a step back, leaning against the doorframe. That was as far as they got.
While Gabriel's intentions were unmistakable, he quickly faltered. It did not take long for Nathalie to notice his hesitation, then that said hesitation was not just that . She felt him shudder, she felt him pause. His kisses felt forced. His hands left her - left, then right - to clutch the door frame. His knees buckled a little, and he slipped down by a few inches. His breathing was too controlled, unnatural.
Nathalie pulled back.
"I can't," he told her, staring through her. "I'm sorry. I can't."
She peeked inside the room. She had seen it often. It was not unusual for her to supervise furniture deliveries or repairs. That being said, being allowed in as staff was different from being invited in as a lover. While, in appearance, Gabriel's bedroom was just as impersonal as the rest of the mansion, it was still the one he had shared with his wife.
"I understand," Nathalie replied.
Then she noticed how his hands, still clenched on the door frame, were shaking. He was fighting to keep his breathing in check.
She bit her tongue not to swear.
This was why, when you went through traumatic events, like the disappearance of your partner of twenty years, you got professional help.
What am I supposed to do now?
She took a step to the side to return to the corridor, then pressed a hand to Gabriel's. Softly, carefully, she pried his fingers off the door's frame.
"Let's find a quieter place," she suggested.
A room without ghosts would do.
###