YARN

credits to edorazzi tumblr for sparking this

Bet you thought I was done, eh? There's a reason the title and summary didn't match the story inside (though some of you did follow this regardless). Shout out to serima, Aki, Mak, and Serena. Your reviews fired me up and I stayed up much too late working on this in excitement. To Serena, your one criticism is being rectified now. Marinette will get her turn soon.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts or criticisms. The ML fandom is a lot more vocal than I'd realized.

Warnings: shenanigans, lie? or lay?

As a cat-suit wearing vigilante, there was a certain amount of cat association that could be assumed about Cat Noir - about Adrien Adreste, if anyone managed to figure out it was him donning that cat-suit every emergency. A tolerance (if not love) of cats. Cat puns. Cat features, even out of suit.

Now Adrien Adreste was, of course, not exactly cat-like in every way, shape, and form. He was allergic to feathers (the fight with Pigeon Man had been terrible). He didn't always land on four feet (and when he didn't he had the beautiful, graceful, powerful Ladybug to help him). He most definitely didn't have nine lives (no matter how many times he'd said so to Ladybug).

That didn't mean he wasn't cat-like sometimes.

"No. I'm not doing this today."

He was in his room, foot tapping restlessly against the floor and textbooks open on his desk. There was a History test in a few days, and he'd been trying to study for the last hour. All was quiet in the room for Plagg had fallen into a nap about half an hour ago. Adrien was immensely thankful he hadn't needed to get the cheese. He liked his cheese as much as the next guy, but Plagg liked the stinky stuff to a disgusting degree.

"Nope," Adrien repeated to himself. "Not. Doing. This."

For good measure, he huffed it again very quietly before picking up his pen to try and take notes on Chapter 13.

Scritch. Scritch.

Tap.

Yet…

Once again, Adrien found his eyes being drawn to the side. To that innocent item sitting oh so invitingly by the garbage bin. How had it even gotten into his room? No one in the house should have been using it. Plagg? But Plagg was too small to carry something of that size from outside in. So how?

How had a ball of yarn entered his room!?

Tap. Tap.

Adrien was tapping his feet again. His studies forgotten once more as he tried desperately to forget the ball existed.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He was stronger than this. Yes, he was Cat Noir, but he was Adrien first. Adrien didn't have urges like this.

Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptap.

Adrien didn't.

With a yowl that would have woken anyone else up (Plagg, apart from being a cheese addict and an overall lazy kwami, also slept like the dead), Adrien leapt off his chair. It rolled until it bumped into the wall, as did Adrien's pen which he dropped in his hurried scramble for the ball. He even knocked over his garbage bin. Crumpled paper and several wrappers spilled out onto the floor, but thank goodness the bin had been emptied a while ago. Otherwise, he'd have had a terribly large mess to clean.

"Aha. Ahaha. Hahahah!"

The blond batted at the yarn ball, fingers curled up in a weak semblance of a cat's paws. No matter how many times he'd done this before, there was something mesmerizing about seeing the ball roll. The way it got just a bit smaller every revolution. The way it left a little yarn trail behind.

Adrien gave another giggle and pounced. His hands scrabbled against the yarn ball's surface, but it squeezed free, rolling away quickly before bumping to a stop by his couch.

Fun, fun, fun!

It was cat and yarn for the next few minutes as primal instinct kicked in. Adrien, cheeks flushed with excitement, crawled around his room like a child half his age, batting and pouncing and acting very cat-like. He hadn't noticed, but at some point the yarn had begun winding around him, starting around his legs and tangling more as he moved. Eventually, the teenager was completely ensnared, yarn wrapped around him from head to toe. But! But! His yarn ball was trapped as well.

The ball was squished between his "paws", pressed tight to his chest. It was less than half its original size now, and Adrien held it close contently. The afternoon sun streamed in from his large windows, warming both him and the floor nicely. A hazy bliss had overtaken his senses; he rolled around a bit more (yarn ball still secure against his torso), happy just to lay in the light.

He couldn't help it.

Purrrrrr.

When Plagg woke up fifteen minutes later, the little black kwami took one look at the blond, (hopelessly tangled in yarn, clutching the remainders to his purring chest) and laughed.

Loudly.

Eventually, Adrien awoke from his blissful trance. The happiness from the yarn ball had run its course, so he laid there blinking stupidly at his still laughing kwami as he tried to reorient himself.

"You can stop now." He said after a minute had passed with no signs of the kwami letting up.

"Pwahhaha! Snort. No way! I haven't seen snort you this ridiculous in a while."

Plagg performed a shaky loop in the air (the uncontrollable laughter making it difficult for him to fly well).

Adrien grit his teeth and slowly untangled himself. His ears and face burnt fiercely with embarrassment. If Plagg didn't stop laughing soon, he'd have to take drastic measures. Cheese level measures.

Free from the yarn tangle he'd created Adrien then set about clearing up the mess he'd made in his chase. It was nothing too serious (overturned decorations, loose papers, the garbage bin, chair, and pen), but the teen had to bite back a curse when he glanced at his clock. Darn. He'd wasted too much time with the yarn ball. There was still that History test to study for.

As he swiftly wound up the yarn, Adrien wondered how to dispose of it. Should he just chuck it away? That felt like a waste. Did he even know anyone who knit? Not really. He obviously couldn't keep it...but maybe he could? The real question was if he could stand having Plagg laughing at him again.

"Plagg, I'm going to study. Try not to bother me, and if you need cheese there's a block in the fridge."

"Roger that, Kitty Boy." The kwami smiled, gave one last chuckle, and zoomed out the door. Plagg knew to avoid detection by other humans; Adrien wasn't too worried.

He stuck the ball - now back to its original size - in his desk drawer. He'd figure out what to do with it another day. At least it hadn't been Natalie (or God forbid his father) who'd found him like that. For the time being, he had a test to study for.