#distractiondrabbles

“You’re so fluffy!”

Chat felt a growl stumble out of his throat as the ground was abruptly displaced from under his paws. “Mrrrowr?”

Ladybug had exactly zero shame in bringing her newly beastified partner to her chest and cuddling him. “This is my new favorite akuma.”

And then she kissed the top of his head.

A strange noise strangled out of Chat’s throat as he felt Ladybug bury her face in his fur. On one hand, it was a comfortingly large hug. On the other, this was absolutely not how he’d expected to get a kiss from his longtime crush, and he’d run through a hell of a lot of possible scenarios.

Ladybug’s fingers found the sensitive hollows behind his ears, and it took exactly three gentle rubs for Chat to go boneless in her embrace, a purr rumbling in his chest out of his control.

Adrien wasn’t quite sure where Nino had come by the concept that Adrien’s childhood was lacking, but seeing as Nino’s solution was an excess of pillow forts and ice cream, Adrien couldn’t complain.

However, the lack of complaint didn’t extend to being used as Nino’s personal body-pillow.

“Bro. Bro, you’re squishing me.”

“Nuh-uh,” Nino mumbled into his hair, mashing buttons on his 3DS above Adrien’s head.

“Uh-huh,” said Adrien into the pillow his face was being smushed into, “Squished, bro. So squished.”

It wasn’t a bad feeling, precisely, but more of a baffling one. Adrien would have thought that Nino was trying to give him cuddles in a Bro Code accepted way, except that one, Nino was one of the honestly cuddliest people he knew, and two, these weren’t much like cuddles at all—Nino was just straight-up using him as a mattress pad.

“You’re co-o-omfortable,” Nino yawned, and went right back to button-mashing.

Patently ridiculous. Adrien was barely more than skin and bones no matter how much he ate. “My metabolism says no.”

“Your metabolism’s lying,” said Adrien’s long and gangling friend, who was long and who gangled.

“Mmmrgh,” Adrien grumbled and subsided. It was kinda boring, but Nino’s long, gangling limbs were warm, and he didn’t have any better place to be, really.

When Marinette made it back to her classroom after today’s akuma, Nino was sitting outside of it.

It wasn’t really an odd thing to find him there, headphones clamped tight over his ears and blaring music loud enough to hear all the way across the hall, but it was still somewhat concerning.

Marinette waved a hand in front of his face, wincing when he blinked hollowly at the gesture, and then brought his eyes up to meet hers in slow motion.

He set down his music player (she noticed belatedly that he’d been fiddling with it), and politely removed his headphones. “Yeah bro?”

“Bad day?” she asked softly, knowing he’d be the one wincing if she raised her voice.

He waved a hand, smiling reassuringly. “Just a long one.”

It wasn’t even noon yet.

Asking, “Anything I can do?” got her the requisite headshake.

“Nah,” he murmured roughly, blinking again in that movie slow-mo’ way he did sometimes. “Just need a minute.”

“Okay,” said Marinette, making a mental note to tell Ms. Bustier that Nino was in the bathroom—he hated letting people know about this stuff.

“Where were you?” he asked, idly curious.

Urk.

A nervous laugh leaped out of Marinette’s throat, about three decibels above Nino-approved volumes. “O-oh, you know! J-just… around.”

He blinked at her again, nonplussed smile floating around his mouth. “Okay, dude.”

“Ahaha…”

Marinette resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. Thank god for Nino and his don’t-ask-don’t-tell policies.

“I’m gonna.” She gestured at the door. “School.”

Nino nodded, and picked up his headphones again.

“I roll to seduce the barmaid.”

Nino rubbed his temples, staring at the skyward-facing ‘18′ and not at his wayward friend, who was leaning forward eagerly in a way that made Nino’s eyes want to go ungentlemanly places.

“The barmaid is seduced,” he said dryly, not for the first time since this campaign started, and pointedly reshuffled the papers in front of him. “She falls into your arms, sighing, ‘Oh, Adventurer...’”

Alya beamed brighter, looking directly at him as she said, “Oh miss, you have the prettiest brown eyes, just like the sweetest honey—”

“Her eyes are blue,” Nino corrected, stomach curling and face flushing. “Not brown.”

“‘Space’ is just a word made up by someone who’s afraid to get to close,” Chat said wisely, ducking over Ladybug with an expression too gentle to be called a leer.

“Yeah,” she agreed, remembering to push him away just a second too late, “or someone who needs it.”

He chuckled, and Ladybug found that there was a weird sort of resentment that came with knowing her suit was keeping her from feeling his breath brush her fingers.

“And if you quote song lyrics at me again, I’m the one who’s gonna need it,” she threatened without heat, trying not to smile. “Permanently.”

“Meowch,” said Chat. “Can’t Handel it, bugaboo? I guess that means all these great puns are on the Chopin block.”

Ladybug allowed herself three seconds of horrified staring, and then: “I’m gonna Offenbach you.”

Marinette was a joy to just... watch, sometimes. It wasn’t that she was exceptionally beautiful (although she was, sometimes, if you caught those eyes in just the right light) or animated (though she was that too, always), but rather that she had a spark in her that was hypnotic. Her little gestures and expressions were fascinating.

Her gleeful laugh of victory echoed in Nathanael’s ears from across the library, where they’d set up the video game tournament auditions again, and Nathanael looked up to find Max scowling at the screen as Marinette performed her little dance beside him.

The tea party was a very nice tea party, Marinette thought. She and Alya were in the nicest dresses moon-currency could buy, the tableware was all iced, and the birds were serenading them with all the vigor their little trumpet hearts could muster.

“Isn’t it lovely today?” she asked at her very prim-est. She picked up a teacup, last two fingers out in true moon style. “Look at all the clouds!”

“Uh-huh,” Alya agreed, leaning over to fetch more sugar, the ample swell of her bosom spilling over the neckline of her dress. “It’s so warm! Looks like Earth was nice to us today.”

“Yeah,” Marinette said — or might not have said, because the strap of Alya’s dress had just slipped off her shoulder and everything was now much warmer than it should have been. “It’s sweet.”

“Sweet like me?” Alya wanted to know, wearing a dress Marinette had designed and lingerie Marinette had designed underneath it, and Marinette was very sure that if she tasted Alya now, she’d taste like the sugar she was spooning into her drink my the cupful.

“Not nearly as sweet as you,” she corrected, because it was true, and Alya smiled with plush, maraschino cherry-red lips.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but she was cut off by a—

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP—

Marinette’s hand shot out from under her comforter, palm smacking down on the snooze button, and her head followed it out.

“Now, to end the interview: watch the fluff,” Alya said, dangling the a toy in front of an unimpressed Chat’s nose.

It bumped him in the nose, and he sneezed. “Is this really necess—”

“Very necessary,” Alya insisted, leaning in with a bright gleam in her eye. “Count with me now...”

Chat rolled his eyes and muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath, but watched the fluff and counted along with her, “One, two, three, four...”

He got as far as, “Fi—” before the toy disappeared and something warm and soft and damp was pressing against the side of his face.

He spluttered in shock.

Alya drew back, grinning.

“Thanks for the interview, Chat!”

“Wha—...?”