Just stories/oneshots/etc so I can vent, really what the title says
Most will probably focus on Adrien/Chat Noir, but maybe others.
"Chaton, are you alright?" Ladybug asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her bluebell eyes were filled with worry and concern; she'd noticed Chat had been displaying signs of distress the past few weeks. He'd become snappy and dull, his once fun-filled jokes and laughter now filled with a blank, empty stare every time she called his name. Pain was the only thing she'd seen in his eyes; the shine was all but gone and it'd been replaced with an odd concoction of whatever this was.
He turned towards her, his dull, lifeless expression only becoming more pronounced, before he found the strength to mumble out a few words of assurance. "I'm alright," he murmured, "just going through a bit of a rough spot. You know how civilian life can be."
Chat tried to flash a smile, but it was so incredibly painful for him to fake it that it faltered within moments. His stomach churned sickly, anxiety of something building up within him even though he was perfectly safe.
Never feeling safe, always on edge, this is no way to live...!
"Are you sure?" she said, pressing further. "I'm always here, you know that, right?" Ladybug brushed his bangs out of his eyes, probing deeper to try to get him to talk to her. She noticed that before, whenever he was the most unhappy, he'd joke the most, sort of as a coping mechanism. However, recently, he was always shut down to a minimum, which led her to believe that he'd gotten a new coping mechanism. She didn't think of the new one to be healthy in the slightest-after all, wasn't the reason that she always wore long pants because she also had that same twisted way to cope?
People who don't understand could call it masochistic, torturous, and psychotic, but really it was more depressing and sad above all-if your emotions on the inside were so horrid that you had to injure your own body physically in order to feel even the slightest shred of happiness, wasn't it more of the opposite of masochism? Masochism would intend that you bathed in your own pain, but with self-harm, you were actively trying to avoid that pain the best you could.
"Of course," he replied, withdrawing out of his empty bank account of positivity to try to make her feel better. Chat couldn't bear to see her upset, even a little bit, it just went to show for how much he absolutely adored her. He'd do anything to keep her happy, even if that meant sacrificing himself.
Because after all, wasn't he worth nothing? Wasn't he just a tool for monetary gain and profit, maybe a bit of an emotional crutch, but nothing else? Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste seemed to be two sides of one coin-one was louder, funnier, and more carefree, while the other was a quieter, perfectionistic person-but they would always share the fact that they were worth absolutely nothing.
The voice inside his head seemed to seethe with this idea all the time, screaming and torturing him for hours upon hours while listing out each and every one of his faults. Worthless, useless, helpless, hopeless, disgusting, everything was fair game for it and nothing seemed to be off-limits.
How could Chat explain to Ladybug that the reason he preferred not to eat was because The Voice forced him not to? Would she even understand that The Voice existed? Probably not-she was always looking on the bright side of things. Obviously, her Miraculous was the power of creation, hope, light, joy, and his was the power of destruction, dread, darkness, and sorrow. "Same goes for me, milady-if you ever want to talk, I'm your guy."
"Okay, well...it's getting late, and I think we should stop patrol here. See you tomorrow?" Ladybug said, still not convinced that her dear Chaton was alright. In fact, she was more convinced that he wasn't, and he was trying to pretend for her sake.
"Agreed," Chat replied, waving goodbye before extending his stick and popping back into his bedroom window. He watched Ladybug's red and black figure dance off in the other direction, she'd taken care not to look where he had gone to insure that their identities would be kept a secret. What he didn't see was her cautious eyes, the ones which had taken everything in and had started to come up with a plan to get him to spill.
The most painful, horrid thing about all of the agony in his head was the fact that every time he stood near Ladybug, someone he adored so much and wanted to be with more than he could ever know, the pure torture of it stabbed his heart with a million knives at once. Standing next to someone he cared about so much and just wanting it all to end, just wanting to backflip off the Eiffel Tower and let the ground do the work as his body went splat, hurt him more than anything ever could. The guilt was unbearable, he was trapped between a Scylla and a Charybdis, he was caught in a sadistic fantasy he'd never wanted to be a part of, and he couldn't even get out of it by committing suicide, because all he'd be doing was passing the pain onto Ladybug.
Adrien was worried that one day, he'd lose control and suddenly 'split' on Ladybug; that he'd take his own life out of rage. He'd known he had Borderline Personality Disorder from the very moment he studied it in class, but his father couldn't afford for his model son to have a mental illness. Oh no, Adrien had to maintain this perfect image of perfect perfection. Everything was so difficult, so unfair, and it just fucking hurt.
It was so pathetic for him when he admitted one day that the only fleeting joy he had in his life was when he was patrolling or fighting akumas with Ladybug. His only source of joy was someone whose real identity he didn't even know, someone who would never be seen again if Hawk Moth stopped spitting out akumas, and it was so fucking pathetic. So fucking useless, hopeless, helpless, disgusti-
Adrien crushed his own heart time and time again when she didn't show up right on time; he'd had so many fake scenarios of them two falling in love and finding out each other's identities together that it just hurt when she rejected him.
He noticed a text from her-they'd exchanged numbers before at his begging, and she made him promise to not write her name in there. Phones could hold two numbers of the same people with different names, which was the only reason she accepted.
"How was your day :)" it read.
God, that hurt.
It hurt, so much, so much, so much so much somuchsomuchso-
At least she texted me, he sighed. Adrien's person of fleeting joy had texted him, and he realized again how pathetic he was. Tears dropped onto his phone as he realized how unbearably lonely he felt. It was like a knife had been thrust all the way through his stomach, and he finally realized how truly alone he was. He sobbed quietly, and Plagg sat on his shoulder, trying to comfort him the best way he could.
"Hey..." he said, not really knowing what to say.
"I-I'm sorry, Plagg-I'm so pathetic, worthless, I-I-" he choked out, unable to stop himself any longer. He hissed and burned at the pain, it felt like the Demogorgon had entrapped itself in his bloodstream and was barely escaping through his tears. It was better than cutting himself, he reasoned, but God did it hurt.
He took a moment to reply to the message- "Kinda shit but everything's all good rn"