Dabble in Drabbles 30: Chloé by Nathanaël
Heyy, we're now in the thirties of the DiD series! Wow, this is long! Sorry for being MIA for a few days. I was busy (I went to a comic con! It was awesome!)
This was supposed to be an Adrienette fic. But then I noticed a lack of Chloe/Nathanaël fics so I was like, heck why not?
So my third favorite ship in the ml fandom!
Summary: When Chloe Bourgeois finds Nathanaël hidden at a corner of the ballroom, sketchbook in hand, she practically forces him out of the shadows and into the light; All totally because she wouldn't want any of her classmates to show that they were bored in daddy's party of course.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
"What are you doing here?" A snappish voice interrupts his drawing.
Nathanaël looks up from his sketchbook and grimaces. Ugh. Chloé.
She looks disapprovingly down at him, her hands on her slender hips, her heels giving her an extra three inch height advantage. The small crown around her ponytail catches the light and irritates his eyes, making him look away.
"None of your business." Nathanaël grumbles and resumes to what he is sketching beforehand.
"Well, you're destroying my image as a kind classmate-" - he snorts at this – "- so stop being gloomy and get out of this place."
Nathanaël blatantly ignores her and continues his activity before Chloé interrupts him. She clicks her tongue and snatches his sketchbook away from his hands. "Hey! Give that back!"
"A guest of mine shouldn't stay here, even if they're someone like you." Chloé hands his sketchbook to her butler before grabbing his thin wrist and drags him from the shadows of the corner of the ballroom and into the light. Stopping abruptly at the center of the dance floor, she throws him in front of her, making him stumble for a bit until he regains his footing.
"What was that for?" He angrily snaps at her. She holds out her hand. He looks back and forth from her slender, perfectly manicured nails and back at her face. "What?"
Chloé raises an eyebrow at his ridiculous reaction as she says, "Well, aren't you going to ask me to dance?"
Nathanaël looks at her in disgust. "Never in my life."
Chloé narrows her eyebrows and curls her hand into a fist. "Fine."
And with that, she twirls around, her ponytail hitting him square on the face before stomping away. Nathanaël could do nothing but glare at her retreating back, infuriated as to why she even bothers with him.
With a defeated sigh, he walks back to the corner he has previously occupied, but as he gets there, he remembers her butler has his sketchbook. Damn you, Chloé.
Nathanaël walks through the hallways of the grand hotel, wondering where the butler who has his sketchbook could be. Just as he is about to give up, he hears a flip of a paper and a disgusted grunt. He peeks at a hidden balcony and sees the telltale golden hair of Chloé Bourgeois. She flips through his sketchbook and mumbles incoherent words.
"What are you doing?"
Chloé jumps and whirls around, hiding the sketchbook behind her back. But as she sees its Nathanaël, she rolls her eyes and says, "Nothing. What are you doing here?"
"I want my sketchbook back." Nathanaël says as he holds out his hand. Chloé looks at him and the sketchbook and laughs nervously.
"This? What do you mean it's yours? This could be mine." Chloé says.
Nathanaël gives her a deadpan look. "My name is there."
Chloé checks and of course, his name is neatly signed at the corner of the page. With a huff and another roll of her eyes, she tosses the sketchbook at him. "Hey! Watch it!"
Cradling the book in his arms, Nathanaël glares at her, but she just scoffs and looks away. He looks inside and is surprised that she hasn't messed with any of his sketches. Dusting off his pants, he gets up and proceeds to leave, but what she says catches his attention. He whirls around and stares at her.
She matches his stare and raises an eyebrow. "What are you looking at, weirdo?"
"You still remember that?" Nathanaël asks.
Chloé says, "So what? At least you had good taste back then. Now all you draw is that Marinette. Honestly, I don't see what you find attractive about her. She's a walking disaster. The only thing that doesn't make you a terrible artist is Ladybug."
Nathanaël stares at her again. He pushes down the urge to laugh. Oh if she only knew the truth.
Just as he is about to leave, screams pierces out from the ballroom, indicating another akuma attack. Suddenly, all the doors and windows of the hotel are slammed close, leaving Nathanaël and Chloé trapped in a small balcony.
He tries to open the glass door, but to no avail, it remains shut. He grumbles. "Great. Just great."
"Excuse me? You should feel honored to be stuck with me." Chloé says in an offended voice. "Although I should be the one saying that instead."
Nathanaël ignores her and walks to the end of the balcony away from Chloé (or as far away as he can get from the small space) and sits down. She watches as he opens his sketchbook to a new page and begins to draw. She abruptly turns her head away as Nathanaël glances at her. But her eyes trail back to his swift strokes on paper, intrigued.
"Aren't you going to sit down?" He suddenly asks her.
"And get this dress dirty? No thanks."
He looks up from his bangs, seeing her cross her arms as she leans on the railings of the balcony, and shrugs before going back to his art. It lasts for a few minutes as the battle down below rages on, before Chloé finally gives up on standing in her high heels and sits down on the opposite of Nathanaël, arms under her skirt as she tucks her knees under her chin.
She plays with her phone as Nathanaël sketches on. He breaks their silence once more by asking, "Why are you so calm? Don't you usually freak out and call your daddy?"
"Please," Chloé says, "What's the use of acting in front of you? It'd just be a waste of energy. You're not worth it."
"I feel flattered, thanks." Nathanaël says indifferently, although there is an uncomfortable feeling inside him. Another span of silence (usually interrupted by the screams of people outside) ensures between them as Nathanaël strokes down curves on the paper and meticulously adds the small details in between.
"What are you drawing?" Chloé interrupts. Before he could answer, she snatches his sketchbook from him without his permission once more. He does not take it back, however. He watches her reaction as she looks over the unfinished sketch. Her mouth parts open at a loss for words.
"This is me?" She softly says. But then she remembers whose company she was in and she abruptly puts up her façade once more, thrusting the book back on his lap. "You're such a creep, sketching people without their permission. And my nose isn't that sharp."
"Says the one who can't even draw an apple to save her life." He mutters as he continued where he left off. But he corrects the nose and moves on, blowing stray bangs away from his eye.
"Isn't your hair blocking your view?"
"It's fine."
Chloé frowns. She reaches up to the top of her head and takes off her hair tie. He watches, mesmerized, as her golden hair falls down around her shoulder in soft waves. He has never noticed that her hair is not straight, but curled at the ends. She gives him her white hair tie. "Here. You need both eyes to draw me properly."
He begrudgingly accepts it and pushes up his bangs and ties his hair into a half ponytail before going back to his sketch of Chloé. Surprisingly, she does not talk to him, opting to scrolling back though instagram as he outlines her slender arms and shades the shadows of her features.
Just then, a wave of pink traveled throughout the hotel, setting things back to its former state, and he knows it is over. Ladybug and Chat Noir has won once again. With a sigh, he shuts his sketchbook close and gets up. He holds out his hand at Chloé, who gives him a skeptical look before accepting it, and helps her up to her feet.
"Chloé? Chloé, where are you?" The mayor's voice calls out in the hallway. Nathanaël and Chloé's eyes meet before she pulls her hand away from his and runs out to her daddy, wailing about how scary it was to be stuck during the akuma attack. Nathanaël stands there for a while, still unable to let go of the sensation of her small hands in his, before sighing once more and walks out of the hotel.
The next day, Nathanaël sees a box on the table where he sits. Setting down his bag beside him, he opens the box. Inside is a new set of expensive watercolor materials that he has been saving up for a few months, and a new Canson sketchbook. He opens the sketchbook and sees Chloe's fancy handwriting on the front page.
You better make a beautiful picture of me.
A week later, Chloé receives an envelope addressed to her. Putting her bag on the couch, she flops on her bed and opens it.
Inside are multiple sketches of her from different angles, three watercolor paintings, and a mini portrait of Ladybug. But what she frames and hangs up in her secret corner is Nathanaël's sketch of her from 'that night'. But what she takes a picture of and puts on her phone's screen is a clumsy portrait of her from when she is 8 and smiling as a 9 year old Nathanaël drew her with crayons.
Chloé by Nathanaël
Okay, this was really challenging to write. I hope you guys liked it though!
Sorry for being absent for a while! Thanks for reading!
See ya'll next time!