#ml fafic

The frustrated tapping of Marinette's nails against the small table halled through the greenhouse of the Liberty. With every movemet of her pencil and new line appearing on the page of her sketch book before her, with every line she removes with her eraser she felt more and more frustration piling up, until she put the pencil down, ripped the page out and threw it across the room. At this point, she had already given up on counting how many cycles of angrily sketching, erasing and ripping out she went through. Either way, she was pissed. A new, blanc page stared at her almost mockingly and she found herself fighting the urge to take the stupid book and throw it into the seine.

… No, that wouldn't be worth it. It was a good book of high quality. Throwing that anywhere would be foolish. She had payed a lot of money for that. And it wasn't like that would make her feel any less like a disappointment anyway.

These stage costumes had to be done in two weeks, yet she just couldn't find any inspiration. This was much easier the first time she had designed costumes for Kitty section. Cute little kitty masks and stuff. The skeches for those had been done in about 30 minutes. But Kitty section, now that they were older, kinda grew out of the cute kitty phase and were now reinventing their image and a rock and metal band, looking for more rock/metal appropriate designs (while still keeping the cat/unicorn theme because Rose, who never grew out of that phase and probably never will, insisted on it).

And Marinette wasn't able to do that. How should the rock and metal genre fit together with a cute kitty/unicorn aesthetic?

It's not like she didn't believe that was possible, but she had tried a good amount of designs, all of them now lying on the floor, and none of them felt right.

She rested her head on the table with a loud sigh. This was clearly not working.

She stayed like this for a short while when she heard footsteps approaching. She looked up and spotted Luka walking towards her with a glass of orange juice im his hand.

It was a hot summer day, so he was wearing a white tank top, exposing his quite toned arms and a big tattoo on his left shoulder, depicting a viper exposing it's long fangs. It was a great tattoo which suited Luka very well, though it wasn't colored yet. He had his next appointment in a few days to get it done. Until then, the viper remained colorless.

Luka put the glass down and sat next to Marinette.

„You look unhappy,“ he observed, placing a hand on Marinette's shouder and squeezing lightly.

She let out another sigh.

„Do you know that feeling when you're completely useless because you can't get anything done because you suck?“

She stretched out an arm to grab one of the papers she teared out earlier, unfolded it and showed it to him.

„Look at this... this... this disgrace,“ she whined, "it looks so bad, it doesn't do the band justice at all. Like... it makes me want to throw myself in the seine, that's how much I hated! Why am I so goddamn untalented?“

Luka chuckled.

„Watch what you're saying, that's my girlfriend you're talking about,“ he joked. It made Marinette smile.

„Sorry,“ she said. „ I guess I'm just in a really bad mood because none of the designs feel right. I want you guys to have nice stage outfits and none of those would do you justice.“

„It's ok, that happens“, Luka comforted her, „Sometimes the notes are here and you can hear them.“

He leans back on the couch and pulls Marinette along with him.

„But I just don't know how to... combine them. And it sucks, but I know you'll figure it out. You should get a break and I'm sure it'll make you feel better.“

His eyes fell on one of marinette's crayons. He smiled and picked the blue one up.

„You know,“ he said, „maybe you can just try to design something easier.“

Marinette tilted her head in confusion.

„Like what?“

„Like my uncolored tattoo“

He turned his shoulder to her.

„I haven't actually amde up my mind about what color exactly I want him to be. Maybe you could help me with that,“ he explained. „Plus...“

He put on a dorky smile.

„Plus what,“ Marinette asked, also smiling in anticipation what would come next.

„Plus, you'd have a shoulder to... crayon.“

The greenhouse fell silent for a few seconds. Marinette looked at her boyfriend as if he hadn't just made the funniest pun she had heard in a long time while he had the audacity to look back at her with this idiotic and utterly adorable grin.

Then a giggle escaped her which soon turned into loud laughter.

„A shlouder to crayon,“ she repeated in between chuckles,“You've got to be kidding me!“

Luka was laughing, too.

„I'm normally not good with puns. Come on, Medoly, you gotta give me credit for that one.“

„Ok ok,“ Marinette chuckled, „That was pretty funny. Well done.“

She ruffled his hair with her hand. Luka leaned into the touch.

Then he handed her the crayon and she started coloring the viper.

„I don't know if you know this, but I normally hate puns,“ she confessed, „Back in the days Chat noir made puns every time I'd meet him. Bad puns I might add.“

„Mostly about cats I assume,“ Luka asked.

„Yup,“ Marinette answered, „Though admittedly, some of them were funny. I just never laughed because I was focusing on fighting the akuma. And also...“

She put the crayon down and picked another one, „If I'd actually confess that he can be funny, he'd probably be so proud of himself that he'd be insuffarable.“ she laughed.

„Yeah, I can see that,“ said Luka.

„Not that I mean any offense by that though,“ she added.

They sat like this for some time, Marinette coloring Luka's arm while they came up with their own puns. People say laughter is the best medicine. Marinette found that to be true, as she felt her mood getting better with every second.

After some time, Marinette was satisfied with her work. The viper rested big and proud on Luka's shoulder in various shades of blue and green. She also put in some violet highlights to make the creature feel more alive.

„Wow,“ Luka said, „if you weren't on your way to be the worlds greatest designer, you would do great as a tattooist.“

„So you like it?“

„Like it? I love it!“

He wrapped his arm around his girlfriend and planted a kiss on her forhead.

„I will tell the tattooist to make my tattoo look exactly like that.“

Marinette looked up at him and felt really proud to have made her boyfriend this happy. She pressed her lips to his and gave him a little peck.

„Too bad I won't have that tattoo in the future to color.“

Luka chuckled.