#and I was definitely slipping into an artblock before I started working on them

[sadrien]

prince of cats

chapter six: good pilgrim

on ao3 || on ffnet 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

kind of forgot it was an update day because i have something i need to finish for a friend and i'm stressed

enjoy!!!

“It wasn’t a date,” Marinette says, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she unfolds fabric. “We sat on the couch and watched a bad Hallmark movie.”

Nino scoffs on the other end. “Mari, I hate to break it to you, but that’s basically what mine and Alya’s last date was.”

Marinette rolls her eyes. “This is the difference: you two are dating. Adrien and I are not.”

“Sure, sure,” Nino drawls.

“The intention is different,” she insists. “Anything can be a date if there are romantic intentions.”

“How do you know there weren’t any?”

Marinette puts down the fabric. “Why are we friends again?”

“Because you love me,” Nino says with a smile in his voice. “And because I gave you crackers on our first day of school.”

She hums and goes back to her fabric. “I’m still pretty sure you’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

“And I think you aren’t letting yourself consider the possibility that Adrien likes you back because you like him so much.”

She scoffs. “If you say that I’m afraid of getting hurt—”

“Isn’t everyone a little afraid of getting hurt?” Nino asks. “I feel like that’s a very human thing to be afraid of, you know?”

Marinette raises her eyebrows. “That’s very deep, Mr. Lahiffe.”

“I can be deep if I try.”

“Yeah I remember our three in the morning sleepover talks.”

Nino laughs. “Aw man, yeah those were great. We should do that again.”

“We’re grown adults,” she reminds him.

“And? Who cares. Let’s have a sleepover, Mar. Just like old times. You, me, Alya— hell, we can even invite Adrien to the fun.”

“Oh god no.” Marinette steps away from her kitchen table. “If you really loved me, you would never do that. I do not want Adrien witnessing the disaster that is me after one it the morning.”

“But after one in the morning Mari is the best Mari!” Nino protests.

Marinette collapses onto the couch. “Hard no.”

“We could play spin the bottle. Seven minutes in heaven.”

She snorts. “Okay, are we in uni again? I remind you that you have a very serious girlfriend who you love very much. Spin the bottle is very hard to rig.”

She can almost see Nino shrugging. “If some of the kisses don’t match up exactly it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like we’ve never kissed before.”

“True,” Marinette murmurs, checking her nails.

“Same with Alya. So really…to complete the square, we all have to kiss Adrien.”

“Is that what counts as initiation into our friend group?” Marinette asks. “Kissing?”

“Yes.”

She shakes her head. “If you didn’t scare him away before, you’d definitely scare him away now.”

“We were plenty nice!” Nino says. “It’s been two weeks since we exchanged names, you sure we can’t get his number or something? Alya is going to have a cow.”

Marinette huffs. “Don’t tell, Al but… I don’t even have his number.” She makes a face at the long silence.  

“Goddamn, Mari. Why not?”

She shrugs. “We live next to each other. I’ve never…needed it? I mean, would it be nice to have? Sure. But I don’t want to push him and he’s never offered so…”

“Do you need me to take on the Alya role because she’s working?”

Marinette sighs. “Is saying no going to stop you?”

“Get his number, girl!”

She clicks her tongue. “So many demands. Last names, universities, phone numbers— do you need his blood type too?”

“I’m sure Alya could find some use for that.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. We’re lucky she didn’t go into like, espionage or something. She’d be scary.”

“Are you saying she isn’t scary now?”

“No,” Marinette admits. “Alya is still very scary now. She’d just be way more terrifying in covert operations.”   

“She really would be,” Nino muses.

Marinette smiles to herself. “You love her a lot.”

Nino sighs happily. “Yeah I do. It’s a good thing I’m such a dumbass. Probably wouldn’t have gotten her attention otherwise.”

Marinette raises her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, weren’t Alya and I friends before you two started dating?”

“Yeah, but nothing really gets someone’s attention like chugging a Monster-coffee combo ten minutes before class.”

“Hm, I suppose that’s true. How did you survive lycée again?”

“A good question, my dude. A really good one.”

Marinette looks up as there’s a knock at her door.

“Is that the boyfriend?” Nino asks.

“Shut up,” she mutters. “I’m not sure, but I’ll call you back later, okay?”

“Sure thing, man. Remember all the details for, Al.”

“I always do. Bye.”

“Peace, dude.”

Marinette pulls open the door and Adrien holds out a book. She stares at it — the book, not the hand holding it out to her, definitely not — for a long moment before looking up at him. “Hi?”

“I totally stole this from you the other day,” he apologizes.

Marinette takes the book and flips it over to skim the summary on the back. “Honestly, I didn’t even know I had this book. I’m not sure if I ever read it. Was it good?”

Adrien shrugs. “It was okay. Kind of predictable ending, but it passed the time.”

“Hm. Not sure if I’ll ever read it, but I’ll keep your indepth review in mind.”

He smiles. “Thanks for letting me borrow it, even if you didn’t notice.”

“Of course, what’s mine is yours,” Marinette says before realizing that may be a little too revealing. “I really like your ring by the way.” She gestures to the silver ring on his right hand. She’s noticed him wearing it before, but she’s never really gotten a good look at it before. Plus she needs to change the subject as fast as humanly possible.

“This old thing?” Adrien asks, holding up his hand. “Thanks, it’s an old family heirloom. It’s sentimental, but it’s not really worth anything.”

Marinette shrugs. “Sometimes sentimentality is all that you need.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, examining the ring. He shakes his head. “Anyway, I have to get back to work, but I’ll see you later?”

She nods and tries not to smile too widely. “Yeah, that sounds great. Have fun at your kitchen table.”

“Always do,” he says with a crooked smile as he turns to his door.

Marinette closes the door and cleans against it, clutching her book to her chest.

She’s so gone.

✦ ✦ ✦

Marinette skips dinner.

She’s been working on an idea for a new line all afternoon and her mind feels like jello. It’d probably be a good idea to take a break and let her mind rest, but she’s kind of in the zone, and she doesn’t want to risk losing it.

It takes Alya sending thirty two texts about something that happened at work for Marinette to finally put down the pencil and grab a quick sandwich and a drink while she reads through Alya’s rant.

And then she goes right back to work.

Page after page of failed design and scribbled out notes. She resists the urge to scratch things out and rip pages out of her sketchbook so she can crumple them up and throw them away. She tries to keep everything she designs, even things that she doesn’t like that much. It’s good for learning.

But when she’s low on patience, she scribbles them out anyway.

She almost breaks her pencil crossing out a pantsuit that makes her want to quit her job and return her degree.

“I hate this,” she grumbles to herself, hitting her sketchbook against her forehead.

She stands up with a sigh, doing a quick stretch and pacing around the apartment for a few minutes. Then she turns on her laptop and finds some music to listen to it and plugs in her headphones because it’s too late to blast music aloud.

She starts a dress and gets halfway through the skirt before she realizes she’s already designed this dress.

Back to the drawing board.

✦ ✦ ✦

Marinette drags her hands down her face and glances over at the clock. Half an hour after midnight.

Time to give up.

She packs up her laptop and tablet and puts them into her bag by the door. She thinks about her plan for tomorrow before adding her current sketchbook and some markers to it as well.

She wanders around the apartment for a few minutes, drinking a glass of water and trying to calm her anxiety. A little bit of artblock never killed anyone. She’ll get past this hurdle and be back to designing things she’s proud of in no time.

She’s looking forward to work in the morning. She’s looking forward to having some direction. Any direction.

Marinette flops on her bed and stares at the ceiling for a long time.

Tomorrow will be better. It has to be.

✦ ✦ ✦

Marinette jerks awake as a loud beeping pierces through her dreams. She didn’t know what it was in her dream, she just knew it was annoying, but now her heart is pounding and she feels like she’s about to be sick.

Fire alarm.

For a moment, she wonders if it’s a drill (do they even have those anywhere other than school?) or was pulled on accident, before the alarms in her mind start going off because that doesn’t matter.  

She snatches her phone from her charger as she runs out the door, nearly tripping as she slips on a pair of flip flops she always has by the door and grabbing her work bag because her entire life is in that bag and she knows you’re not supposed to take anything in an emergency but it’s right there.

As soon as she throws open the door, she can smell the smoke and she doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it before now. She blames the adrenaline.

People are rushing out of their apartments. Someone’s child is crying and heavy footsteps echo through the stairway.

This is actually happening.

Marinette can’t move.

She gasps as someone grabs her arm and drags her along. She finds herself looking at Adrien with terrified eyes.

“We have to go,” Adrien says, running a hand through his hair. He has his phone in his hand and his long black trench coat on, but he’s barefoot and each time he drags a hand over his hair it gets messier.

She probably shouldn’t be focusing so much on him as they follow the crowd out of the building, but he’s strangely grounding. Him, his face, the pressure of his hand on his arm.

They always say to be calm and quiet if there’s a fire in school, but everyone is running and pushing. People are screaming and crying and yelling out to others.

The smoke gets thinner as they go down, but it’s still starting to burn Marinette’s eyes. A mother next to her covers her child’s mouth with her sleeve.

Marinette gasps as they step out into the humid night air. She feels like she’s about to start crying; there’s a lump in her throat and a pressure in the back of her head.

Adrien freezes next to her. He lets go of her arm and shoves her forward. “Go!”

“A-Adrien?” she asks, twisting around to look at him.

“Just go!” he shouts.

He turns and pushes back inside of the building.

Back into the smoke.

Back into the fire.

“Adrien!” Marinette screams, her voice breaking.

The crowd drags her forward. Someone crashes into her. She can hear sirens down the street above the screaming.

Adrien is gone.

#adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #my fics #proc ml #prince of cats ml #im so stressed my guys #do me a solid adn check this out thanks