Marichat May Day 2 - Purring
Pink
Something was rumbling in her ear.
Marinette woke slowly, the soft rumble reeling her out of a pleasant dream and the unmistakable vibration of her pillow steadily grounding her in reality. But even when she blinked open her eyes it still took a moment to place the sound. At first she thought it was her phone.
But then she remembered what had been happening before she fell asleep.
Root beer floats on the balcony. Video games until well past two in the morning. Giggling at a comic book on her bed untilㅡ no, that was definitely the last thing she remembered. As if in response to this, she became aware of a glossy page plastered to her cheek. Sitting up, she peeled the comic book off and tossed it aside, afraid to look behind her at the other side of her bed. Because if he'd simply left, then what was that suspiciously purr-like sound? Man, they'd fallen asleep on accident again, hadn't they?
In the darkness Marinette peeked over her shoulder at him, then immediately sqeaked in terror when she saw his bare arm and wrenched her pillow up to press it over her eyes.
He isn't transformed. Oh my god, he detransformed in his sleep!
For a long moment Marinette just sat there, stock still, silently screaming into her pillow at the predicament she'd landed herself in.
Once her heart had settled to a reasonable rate, which took a full minute or two, she pried the pillow from her eyes again. He had rolled over in his sleep so that his back was to her. That was good, because the moonlight streaming in from her window above made him very easy to distinguish in the dark and she could have easily seen his face on accident. But she didn't. Good. No, wait a minute. If he wasn't transformed, then what was that purring souㅡ Oh! Marinette's eyes fell on a little black blob, curled up in a blanket fold between she and Chat Noir. Leaning toward it, her ears confirmed that the purring was, in fact, coming from Chat's sleeping kwami and not from Chat himself. Damn, that would have made for some high-value teasing material. Oh well. At any rate, seeing Plagg in person for the very first time offered a happy distraction from the fact that a boy (Chat Noir, of all boys, and a very untransformed civilian Chat Noir at that) was sleeping in her bed. Marinette lowered herself back down onto her side in order to examine the yin to Tikki's yang.
Plagg was a cute little thing. She couldn't imagine he was nearly as insufferable as Chat Noir made him out to be; although, she knew looks could be deceiving. Still, she couldn't help but think that the big-eared, fang-toothed kwami was a cutie pie. Especially with that low, contended purr vibrating the blanket that he'd nested into. Before she could stop herself, she'd reached over and started to scratch the spot behind one of his ears. The purr doubled in volume. Marinette giggled as the kwami began to kick his leg in his sleep, and soon rolled over onto his back with his legs curled into the air.
But, the little fairy-cat could only distract her for so long. Eventually her scratches began to slow, and her eyes gravitated toward Chat Noir's back.
His breaths were long and deep as he slept, but silent. Hmm. She would have pegged him for a snorer, honestly. During his waking hours he was so full of energy and sound and bubbly life that it was just strange to see him so still like this. So quiet. Her eyes dragged down his body without her permission, analyzing the clothes worn by the boy under the mask. A chalky pink (at least, it looked pink in the moonlight) button-up shirt with sleeves that ended in folds at his elbows, dark jeans, and a shockingly expensive pair of brand name bootsㅡunless they were off-brand, of course, but something told her they weren't. That was interesting. Taking a tiny fold of the pink fabric between her thumb and forefinger, she tried to figure out what it was made of. Something surprisingly soft.
Clothes said a lot about people who wore them, which was one of the many reasons Marinette was so taken with fashion, and Chat Noir's clothes seemed to suggest that he was far softer underneath all that black leather than she'd really wanted to believe.
Pink, she thought to herself giddily. It shouldn't have pleased her so much that he was wearing her favorite color, but for some reason it just did. The fact that Chat Noir was one of those guys that had no qualm wearing pink tickled her to death. She loved it. She loved him.
…Not like that.
Well, maybe like that. Definitely as a best friend and definitely as Ladybug's other half, and maybe maybe maybe as something a little more. Was it really such a crime to be unsure?
Lately she was starting to feel like it was.
The warm fluttery feeling that seeing him in his street clothes had unearthed wouldn't dim, no matter how long she showered Plagg with pets and scratches. Maybe the novelty would never wear off, even when they revealed themselves. (She wasn't sure when she had started thinking about that scenario in terms of "when" instead of "if." It was a subtle switch.) Smiling to herself, she inched forward until the only thing between he and her was the sleeping Plagg, and carefully draped one arm around his middle. In his sleep he sighed. So she went a little further, pulling herself close until her knees were tucked into the crook of his bent legs and her forehead resting on the space between his shoulder blades. He'd never have to know she did this, she reasoned with herself. It'd be just for a minute. To know what it'd be like to give in…
.
.
When Adrien awoke, it was all at once.
Pink bedspread. Marinette's arm. My arms. My bareㅡ oh my god, I'm not transformed!
The shock of that was doubled by the confirmation that yes, Marinette was in fact spooning him from behind. They must have fallen asleep reading the latest LB and CN comic book (terrible, hilarious stuff right there).
"Marinette," he whispered, resting one painfully-gloveless hand on the arm wrapped tight around his middle. "Mari. Mari, wake up." Behind him she began to stir, mumbling and yawning as his heart raced until the stratosphere. "I'm… I detransformed in my sleep," he said in reply to her befuddle 'whaa..?' "You didn't… see, did you?"
"No," she said after a moment, then yawned for a third time. "I didn't–I'm–oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" The hand on his chest retracted at mach 5, igniting an embarrassing amount of disappointment in his stomach. "I must haveㅡ uhㅡ d-done that in my sleep, or s-something! I don't know! Ohmygosh don't look at me…"
"It's okay," he murmured, fighting back a laugh at her obvious mortification. "I'm a cuddly person. And my best friend isn't really the cuddly kind of guy, so that was actually… nice. Really nice." It was probably too much to add that awaking to find her snuggled up to him had warmed his heart to a frankly deadly degree, and was also the most human contact he'd had in months outside a battle setting.
"O-oh," she breathed. "In that case… can I…?" In answer to her unfinished question and tentative hand, he lifted his arm up to let her loop hers back around his chest. Hopefully she couldn't feel his heart rate speeding up, but her hand was very close to his sternum so he was pretty sure she could. "Chat?" she asked. "You don't seem worried. Isn't your dad going to be angry that you never came home last night? It's almost…" A brief pause while she leaned away, then came back. "It's six already."
Adrien frowned at Marinette's dark but steadily brightening bedroom, realizing now that the light of morning had begun to creep upon it. "I sincerely doubt that he noticed. It'll be fine. But, just in case… as com-fur-table as I am right now, I really should be going."
"Low effort," Marinette yawned. "C minus."
"That's a passing grade," he shrugged, "so I'll take it. Marinette?"
"Yeah?"
His heart pounded as he came to an impulse decision. "Close your eyes."
"Oh, are you getting up? Don't worry, they're closed. I promise not to look."
"I know," he said, and then rolled over to face her, careful not to disturb Plagg quite yet. "I trust you." Here he'd been detransformed in front of her for hours and she hadn't broken that trust. He wasn't sure even he would have that kind of self-control, if it had been Ladybug who'd been without her mask for that long. Marinette was… He didn't know what she was. A treasure. An enigma. He mirrored her, wrapping his arm around her back to pull her closer and nuzzle his forehead against hers. She was so warm and soft and agh, what was it about her that made him want to just fold her into his arms and refuse to let go?
"Chat?"
Her voice called him to his senses about an inch from her lips. "Um…" Shit, what am I doing? "Yeah?"
"Are you making a pass at me?" Nothing in her voice betrayed her thoughts on the matter. It was steady and unwavering.
"Depends," he said slowly. "Is it working?"
Marinette took her sweet time answering while he suffered in wait. Her eyelashes fluttered, as if she was fighting very hard to keep them closed. "Yes."
"Good," he sighed, and his nose nudged into her cheek and could go no farther. "Because I've been dying to do this for weeks." And he kissed her.
Marinette's lips were tender and soft and warm, just like her. Considering the setting and the fact that his curfew was seven hours ago, he kissed her for far longer than was strictly necessary, or normal for a first kiss. It was probably 6:20 by the time he dragged himself away from her. As he transformed again and reached up to unlatch the window and make the trek home, Marinette sat up in bed, clutching the blanket to her chest and looking up, her face flushed in the morning light and her ponytail nearly unraveled.
For a brief amazing second, he was convinced she was going to tell him she loved him. He had already opened his mouth to blurt out that he loved her too when she said, "Pink is a good color on you."
His mouth snapped shut. Another day, perhaps. "I like it better on your cheeks," he winked, and disappeared into the rising sun.
