#drunkbug

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Marinaked Archive

AO3

*

Marinette woke up to a dry mouth, a swollen tongue, and a pounding headache.

"Blurgh," she mumbled, rolling over in her bed. Everything hurt, and everything felt weirdly sticky. "Tikki, can you—"

She didn't manage to finish her sentence. Instead, her throat seized shut on her words, her stomach attempting to leap straight into her mouth. "Urp!" She collapsed in on herself, squeezing her lips shut, and pressed her hand over her mouth to hold in her vomit.

She felt hexagon-patterned spandex press against her lips instead of fingerprinted skin, and her stomach flipped all over again. Oh, Tikki—had she fallen asleep as Ladybug? If her parents walked in on her...

She tore open her eyelids, blinked as the light speared through her eyes. "Gah!" she shrieked, covering her eyes with her arm. She rolled in bed, twisting herself in the sheets, turned towards the door—wait. This wasn't her room. Too large, too white, too bright.

"Agh!" a familiar voice yelped from next to the bed.

Ladybug's muscles all contracted at once, launching out of bed with a squeal and dragging all the sheets along for the ride. She squeezed her whole body, braced to hit the floor—but instead she felt herself slam into somebody's knee, tumbling bodily into the chair where the other girl had been sleeping and knocking them both onto the floor, and suddenly the Hero of Paris found herself pinned beneath the frozen—and steadily reddening—Paris Princess, tangled together in a confusing mess of sheets.

"Ch-Chloé?" Ladybug squeaked. Then all the blood rushed to her head at once with the pressure of Stoneheart's fist, and she groaned, squeezing her eyes shut as the light from the Hotel Grand Paris' floor-to-ceiling windows stabbed right through her eyes into the top of her skull all over again.

"I'm sorry!" Chloé gasped, and Ladybug felt a sharp spike of pain as Chloé's palm pressed hard into her shoulder; she was trying to pull away, only for her body to jerk taut against the sheets wrapped around her legs and other arm. "Just... just gimme a sec!"

"Take your time," Ladybug mumbled, turning her face away from the window and pressing it against the carpeting. Ah... sweet soft floor. Felt great against her crushing headache.

"Lemme just... hang on," Chloé said. "I, uh... Pollen? Help?"

The interior of the sheets flashed yellow. "Yes, My Queen!" a tiny voice said, and the sheets began to unravel from within.

Finally, after a minute of Chloé growing increasingly flustered, she pulling her hand loose. "Okay, I think I've got it."

Less than a minute later, the two of them were free of each other. Ladybug had elected to climb back into bed and bury her face into the pillow to block out the light. , while Chloé—who seemed to be steadfastly avoiding looking at her—was sitting on the ground, leaning against the foot of the bed.

"Did you seriously... sleep in the chair?" Ladybug mumbled. "Thought you had too much..." She raised her hand, spun it, trying to force the word through the cotton stuffing that seemed to be filling her skull. "...'Dignity' for that."

"Yeah, well," Chloé said, then huffed. "Someone had to watch your drunk ass to make sure you didn't, I dunno, jump out the window or something."

Ladybug groaned. "Akuma?"

Chloé snorted. "Nope," she said. "Far as I can tell, you got plastered all on your own."

Memories of last night suddenly flashed in Ladybug's head—she'd finally reached a decision to talk to Chat, to tell him everything, except then she'd pretty much gone into meltdown, and Tikki hadn't been able to talk her down. Somehow, in her panic, she'd come to the conclusion (which, she now realized with a squeeze of her sinuses, was definitely the panic talking) that since Drunkinette had been brave enough to tell Chat pretty much whatever she wanted, a little wine to sooth her nerves would be just right. And then somewhere along the line "a little" had turned into "a lot."

She was never trusting Alya's recommendation for "liquid courage" again.

"How bad was I?" Ladybug said, folding the pillow over onto her face. The walls probably wouldn't be able to judge her, since they didn't have brains, but she couldn't be too careful.

"You were fine!" Pollen said.

Chloé snorted. "Well, let's see," she said. "You showed up at patrol unannounced, basically molested Chat, spent most of the flirting with—with me—" Her voice suddenly broke. "And—and you somehow managed to completely forget my identity."

Ladybug stiffened. Oh, Tikki. Poor Chat. She could only imagine how uncomfortable he'd been—he'd stated, repeatedly, that he didn't think he could do what she did during Dark Cupid, not if she wasn't in her right mind. Getting exactly what he wanted in exactly the wrong way? It must've been hell.

"Flirting with Chloé" was another pretty good indicator that she had been utterly smashed. She'd never exactly made a secret of her attraction to girls—it wasn't particularly anyone's business, but she never really denied it—but she'd never found Chloé of all people particularly attractive, and she'd always... well, up until last night at least, she'd tried her best to avoid pushing Chloé out of the closet. Apparently, Ladydrunk either didn't need as much emotional attachment to get physically attracted to someone, or she'd somehow managed to get over the gratingness of Chloé's personality.

"Sorry," Ladybug mumbled. "I didn't... mean to make either of you uncomfortable."

"Well, you did," Chloé snapped. "What the hell was that even about?" She heard Chloé stand up. "You're the most responsible person I know, and you got wasted on a school night?"

Ladybug's muscles seized. "Oh my gods!" she shrieked, bolting out of bed and trying to ignore the excruciating rush of blood to her aching head. "It's Tuesday!" She tried to dash toward the window, only for her foot to slip on the sheets that were still piled on the floor. She barely managed to catch herself on Chloé's overnight chair.

"Relax! Yikes," Chloé said, checking her phone. "It's only... six in the morning. You're fine, you've got like an hour."

Ladybug frowned, grumbling. (Also, hour and 45 minutes, considering when she usually woke up, but Chloé didn't need to know that.)

"Seriously," Chloé said, "what the heck were you doing that needed to be that drunk?"

Ladybug closed her eyes, breathed in through her nose. "I... Um, over the weekend, I..." She pressed her palm agaist her forehead, sinking into the velvet of the chair. "I found out Chat's civilian identity is the boy I have a crush on."

Chloé stared at her.

"Oh my," Pollen said.

"Huh," Chloé added.

"Yyyyyep," Ladybug groaned.

Chloé pursed her lips, then nodded. "Pollen, go get Jean," she said. "We're gonna need a lot of coffee."

Marinaked Archive

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