#swishandflickwit ff

"Should you…" is there a delicate way to phrase such a question? No, judging by the dirty look he throws her way, guessing at her thoughts, no there is not. She stifles the giggles bubbling at her throat with herculean effort, before remarking rather bluntly, "Are you qualified to handle that?"

He maintains his glare a second more before bowing his head and releasing a hot huff of air towards the ground in resignation. He places the mirror—from which the whole of their interactions had been exchanged thus far—atop the low table in front of him, then shifts so the entirety of his figure faces her. When he lifts his gaze, the veil of gloom that so frequents his visage has dissipated enough to allow a brittle smile to peek through.

"Probably not," he concedes with an amiability uncommon to his appearance. "Will you help me?"

But she likes the way the expression settles on him. It quells the ragged contours of his scar, somehow—his eyes seemingly unburdened by the sorrow he often declines to share, for once. As if in putting breath and voice to the request, he's quieted the ghosts of his troubled past for the moment to be fully present, here. 

With her.

So when his metal-ladden hand falls almost shyly towards her, his stare gentle but no less piercing in its signature, sun-blessed intensity—obscured as they are by his unruly, ebony tendrils—she smiles. It is a fragile thing, muscles straining as they pull from the recesses of memories she also staunchly refuses to be tainted by war, but there—its sweetness shaped after her mother's loving lullabies, built in her father's effervescent embrace, and fashioned from each of her friends' unconquerable spirits. 

She catches him, fingers winding into the shears in his grasp, and there is nothing for her than to accept.

"So what do you wanna do," she starts, eager to dispel the solemn atmosphere. "Some more layers? A buzz cut? Oh!" she nicks at the air experimentally, gleefully. "How about we just cut everything off?"

"You look way too happy to have an excuse to point that thing at me. That very sharp, very death-inducing thing."

"Shut up!" This time she lets her laughter loose, shoving at him playfully so that he's once again turned to the wooden chabudai. "Seriously," she cajoles until he picks up the mirror and through it, she glimpses his sedate mien. The levity in her demeanor fades, pitch dipping instead to match his contemplative stare. "What do you want?"

"I've been asked that a lot this past year," he sighs, bending his legs into a lotus position before slumping in on himself. "Yet I don't think I've ever really given a straight answer."

Task temporarily forgotten, she abandons the scissors at her feet to squeeze both his shoulders in reassurance. "Well whatever it is, I won't judge, if that's what you're worried about."

"I know. You're a great friend," he leans into her touch, and she beams at both the declaration and the rare show of guileless affection. "Fortune rarely sees fit to favor me but I'm really lucky I get to call you so."

The gravity of his proclamation has distress roiling like a tsunami underneath her skin, tempered only by the tinge of whimsy that weaves itself into his articulation. More curious than concerned now (although the stale taste of it lingers on her tongue), she lets her alarm abate at his unexpected resonance. She folds into a seiza at his left, fingers trailing the stalwart line of his back as she goes before placing them serenely on her lap, in absolute symmetry to their figures from last night. And just like she did then, she does so again now, ears at the ready and heart wide open so she can be the friend he needs, someone deserving of his reverence.

(Someone, she thinks as flickers of retrospection—of fighting against him slowly evolving into fighting with him—burst into brilliant clarity, worthy to be at his side.)

"You asked what I wanted," he rasps, low and tenuous.

He meets her stare and she hopes the encouragement in her chest burns soft like an ember through her eyes, enough to fuel the feeling of safety that ignites all too easily the more they orbit each other's presence. He inhales deep in a way that is familiar from his meditations then releases, a surrender in the exhalation—as if his apprehensions could drift away in the warm gale.

"Peace," he whispers, breaking their connection to look down at his fidgeting hands. The revelation is wrapped in such unfettered fear, as if in admitting the longing he has secured its impossibility instead of the inevitability she knows it to be, and she aches for him. "I want to put a stop to the bloodshed, an end to the suffering of both my people and yours and the rest of the nation. I want there to be a place for my soldiers to come home to. I want my mom," he sighs shakily, "and for no child to ever feel what it's like to lose a parent and for no parent to have to fear for the lives of their children as they're forced to this—this—needless slaughter. I want Toph's parents to see her for the capable woman that she is and for Suki's fellow warriors, her family, to be okay. I wish Sokka's plan succeeds, whatever it may be, and that I could guarantee your father's safety and that of your tribe. I wish my sister wasn't so messed up and that I didn't have to keep relying on my uncle to clean up after me when he's already lost so much to this fight. I wish the Spirits weren't so cruel as to put the fate of the world on the shoulders of a twelve-year old. I wish—I wish I could take back the past year, the past hundred years. I wish I could make up for all of it. I wish…" his gaze darts to her neck, digits hovering just shy of the luminescent pendant there, but not touching. 

"I wish I could bring her back for you." He drops his fingers before he can make contact. His whole body wilts with the motion before he tightens his hand to a fist at his thigh. He shakes his head, craning it towards the ceiling where he directs his smile, devoid of any humor when he adds, "But yeah, a trim should do it."

Her heartbeat is loud in her ears in the wake of the silence his confession inflicts. The weight of his monumental aspirations sits heavy on her chest yet strangely enough, it doesn't leave her shaky. If anything, it strengthens her, grounds her, lends fire to the ice in her veins so when she moves, it's with the lofty grace she knows she possesses but doesn't always feel—the skill of a master and the experience of a hardened soldier encased in her fourteen-year-old bones.

But she is grateful for it anyway, when she positions herself at his back and the scissors don't tremble in her grasp when she loops her fingers around it.

"Yeah," she murmurs right back, smoothing her digits through surprisingly silky locks. "Yeah, I can do that."

She doesn't deign to push her skill given how dim it is—both inside and out, the sun sequestered by its billowing companions like it's taken refuge because it knows the blazing, celestial wildfire to come—and that there isn't much to cut in the first place. His tresses are at that awkward length of too long to be considered short but too short to be tied up into a bun or tail. So she merely evens out what she can, tidying stray tufts and snipping at scraggily ends, grappling at any excuse to keep her hands on him. And when that same excuse runs thin—because there's only so much she can cleave before she makes good on her drollery and indeed hacks it all off—she summons the dew drops hugging the blades of grass from outside the former general's tent. She glides the ribbon of water where her hands cannot reach, siphoning the severed hairs from his person and his clothes, before discarding the soiled glob completely.

"Thank you, Katara," he mumbles, though his focus remains on the distortion his image projects on the once cast-aside mirror, particularly on his marred skin. She wants to do something about the melancholy etching his warped effigy—a stark contrast to the hue of near-tranquility that had painted itself beautifully across his pale, elegant features—so she resumes her place at his left, sitting side-saddle with her left hand propping her up and her legs curved comfortably behind him. She narrows her vision onto his profile—the pucker of his mouth, the acuate bridge of his nose, and the graceful sweep of his jaw—then lays down her query with dogged finality.

"Will you do something for me?"

"Name it," he vows in that inordinately earnest manner of his, his countenance brightening enough to keep the deceitful umbrages at bay, that she feels almost bad for asking. "Name it and it's done."

She tuts. "I can't promise it will make up for everything, and it certainly won't be easy."

"I'm used to the fight." There is no arrogance in his enunciation, only a steeliness and determination that is uniquely Zuko. "I'll do whatever it takes."

"You promise?"

"I swear it, on my uncle's life—my mother's, wherever she may be—my nation—"

"Your honor?"

He chuckles—a little broken, a little watery and not enough amusement—but does accede. "Especially on that."

"Then forgive yourself, Zuko." He drops the looking glass in shock, head abruptly swiveling towards her in a dazzling collision of blue and amber, though she does not cower—her own renowned stubbornness stoking her fortitude when she simply holds his scrutiny. "And live. Live to see your soldiers come home. Live to reunite families, to find your mother. Live long enough to create the peace you seek, and to revel in this new world you will help rebuild, help heal. Because Aang's going to save the world. But you? You're going to change it."

I hope I'm there with you when you do, she wants to say, for he may not be able to alter the past but the future—

The future will be his to shape.

So she blinks back the mysterious haze in her eyes and swallows against the lump in her throat, and teases him instead, "I mean, you're not half as useless as I thought you were after all, so you could definitely do it."

"Your vote of confidence is astounding," his inflection is wry, but she is an excellent student and he had fast become her favorite subject. She knows him, and sees the carefully cultivated rancor for the barrier that it is, hoarding all the anguish and the grief but all that overwhelming love, too, that he is so hesitant to give. And who could blame him? When he's been shunned to darkness for every moment he's attempted to part with his vulnerability. All that radiance too afraid to shine, and she wants to tell him to let the light in.

(If Aang won't kill Ozai then she will convince—not that it would take much—Toph to dig the deepest, murkiest, most rodent-infested hole for the monster who dared to smother his own son's flame.)

"And I guess," she toys with rescinding, then thinks better of it, trading banter for sincerity when she unfurls his still-clenched fist and slides her fingers in the spaces between his. "Maybe I like having you around."

And, oh, but there it is—the soaring of the dawn, and all the exaltation of new beginnings it brings with it, in the exquisite harmony of his golden gaze.

"So," he hums, twirling the tawny ringlet right by her collarbone round his pointer before tucking it behind her ear. She reels with the gesture, tilting into his space. "Forgive myself, huh?"

"And live, of course," she miffs, albeit wetly. "If not for yourself, then for your uncle who loves you dearly." She tips her chin up defiantly, daring him to contradict her. "For all of us, who love you dearly."

"Is that all?" He rolls his eyes but that elusive, frolic quirk toils with his lips. He inclines his head until their noses are but a scant few millimeters apart, buzzing impishly, "Anything else I can do?"

"Actually," she hems, stroking at a badly-hewn strand by his cheek with just a pinch of regret before resolving not to volunteer for the act of cutting his hair again in the foreseeable future. "There is." 

She bites her lip, wondering if she should request it at all before ultimately throwing caution to the wind. "We still have some time. Can we just pretend for a little while…" but no, the thought of ignoring the war even for a few minutes reeks too much of Lake Laogai so she amends. "Just stay here with me, please? Just—" 

She brings their joined hands to his chest where she can sense his heartbeat, as strong and as steady as the soul it vivifies. With the tip of her finger from her other hand, she traces the frame of his too-tense lips until it is slack with repose, trails a featherlight pathway to the outer ridges that make up the border of his scar. 

"Be quiet with me."

Those scorching orbs dance about her visage like the flickers of a candle—except he is more wax than flame when she cups his scabrous flesh, and he melts into her caress.

"I would do it just because you asked," he utters in the most dulcet of notes, and she is honored, for she recognizes the tenderness for the offering that it is. "Whatever happens out there, I'm glad it's you," he sighs, just once more. "I'm glad it's you with me."

"Together," she agrees, chin slumping onto his shoulder for purchase at the alluring giddiness his words incite. She is whirling, unmoored, until the digits of his own free hand anchor at the downy arch of her waist. He nudges, and she ebbs into a pool of untouchable calm on his lap, awash as she is in the current of him.

She closes her eyes, and when he follows suit, content to flow at her pace like he always does in return, a piece of her she hadn't even realized was aslant slots right into place.

They are hours away from the most important battle of their lives, one in which its outcome could very well destine the course of the next hundred years. Katara will not know the caliber of her entreaty, the importance of his promise, until the comet is at its zenith and her life is a paroxysmal brand seared across his middle like a supernova.

But for now, foreheads touching and their fingers seamlessly twined right above his vibrantly thrumming heart, she stows this moment beneath her ribcage, right in that war-untouched trove that pulses to the rhythm of his heart.

They are steeped in stillness, disrupted only by the din of the busy camp, and even that fades away as their breathing syncs.

Somewhere outside, the sun coasts along the heavens, beams of brilliance wrestling against its adumbrate prison. 

The clouds part, feeble rays snagging at the canvas archway of their shelter.

The light pours in.

The shadows recoil.

And together, they shine.

-//////-

AN: okay this was supposed to be an exercise in brevity and restraint but uh, i don't think i succeeded?? but given that my goal was less than 2k and we're clocking this in at 2.8k, all things considered, i see this as an absolute win lmao so if you would be so kind as to let me know if you liked it, that would be stupendous!

Thanks, she snarked upwards. You’re hilarious, a real class act.

But even that was half-hearted, for she knew that at the end of the day—

She had no one to blame but herself.

Lucifer executed his promise to give her space, and she internally vowed not to let the gap between them yawn to a chasm too discordant to bridge.

Except days turned into weeks turned into a month; as the hours stretched—so did her fears.

Not of him… never him.

No, Chloe was afraid of herself—of the magnitude with which his revelation did nothing to alter her truth.

She loved him.

With every beat of her battered, human heart—she loved him.

And therein lay the problem.

What could she, a mere mortal, offer him? This divine creature of—loathed he was to believe it—inimitable goodness and light.

That she could admit to herself just how fucked she made the situation only proved how weak she was.

Because more than anything, she was afraid to lose him.

Now thanks to that weakness, the causatum of her worst nightmares was unfolding.

Unless she made it in time.

“Lucifer!” she called just as his wings flared behind him, the feathered appendages soaked but gleaming against the gloom of the twilight deluge.

“Detective?”

She hardly registered the angry pelt of cloudburst against her skin as she stepped onto the balcony and into his gravity.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I shouldn’t have avoided you for so long and you—” she clutched desperately at the lapels of his jacket. “You don’t have to hide, not from me. And I should’ve told you sooner and now I’m too late because you’re leaving—”

“But I’m…” he shook his head bewilderingly. “not… going… anywhere…?”

She gaped. “You’re not?”

“Goodness, no. For better or for worse, Earth is my home. And there are—” he gave her a pointed look to which she blushed, “—those I would rather endure the trials of humanity for than to ever be without.”

He sniffed disdainfully.

“Whatever gave you that impression anyway?”

“Maze—”

And there it was.

Her erstwhile roommate had been relentless in her pursuit of a forgiveness Chloe hadn’t been so forthcoming in bestowing. Yet she had to credit her perceptiveness despite the deceit, that the ultimate catalyst for reconciliation would be the threat of his permanent exodus.

“That little demon,” she murmured.

Though perhaps she was forgiven, after all.

“But what are you doing out in the rain?”

“Oh,” the euphoric shine christening his dark orbs and tinting his expression with effulgence was infectious. “But I just love it! It was so dry in Hell that I can’t resist basking in it every time. Besides,” he stretched his wings, “roomy as my bathroom is, it’s still ill-equipped for any proper grooming so I took advantage of the torrent. If I ever forget how inconvenient these blasted things are—”

And so she remembers—down to the infinitesimal fibers of her soul—how to love him.

Because it was Lucifer, and he had never been anything but who he was—enough.

And even after her aberration, his gaze upon her—scaturient with a four-letter emotion she was sure they were well on their way to acknowledging—remained unchanged, and this is how she knows.

She, too, was enough.

“So, you’re staying?” her grip on his jacket loosened, only to graze the strong slope of his shoulders.

He grinned crookedly, arms snaking around her waist.

“Till you desire otherwise.”

“Not possible.”

“Suppose,” he hummed, breath a cold mist before him but his body deliciously warm pressed against her shivering figure, “I’ll just have to live with that.”

“How awful,” she teased hoarsely, knees weak with relief. “To be stuck with me.”

“And yet,” he sighed, sealing what little abysm remained between them.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

AN: I have... mixed feelings about this lmao. This was a whopping 1k in its genesis. Not for any plot reasons really, but just cause I love my flowery language XD So if the pacing is that tiny bit off, you know why.

Tbh, I'm more excited for the installment after this but that's for another day hahaha.

But how did you guys find it, is the better question. Let me know! And if you have any requests, don't hesitate to hit me up here!

See you guys in the next one ;)

At least not when he’s with him.

Dejection has made a home of his friend’s shoulders, so Frank does what he can to, if not extinguish—then alleviate the insidious homesickness that plagues him by providing his more human company.

Little good it does.

Frank sighs. “Something one of the newer, younger residents of the Silver City keeps blasting on repeat through the courtyard speakers. Apparently he’s having a bit of trouble accepting his newfound… state and so the angels have permitted the coping mechanism, however repetitive,” he grumbles. “The other residents have given the kid a wide berth, but I actually like staying in the courtyard and it’s been weeks,” he feels his face pinch in shame, even as he cannot hold back the admission. “Now the song’s always stuck in my head. I can’t catch a break, not even here!”

(And if he, too, benefits just as greatly from their arrangement then no one else need ever be the wiser)

Lucifer snorts. “It’s always nice to be sought, not for the scintillating conversation but, for your ability to provide refuge from angsty teenagers and shrieking, mainstream bops,” he says, drily. “You sure know how to make a Devil feel wanted, Padre.”

Frank chuckles. “Don’t forget the refreshments,” he quips, raising a goblet of demon-brewed ale to his lips and taking a dainty sip because—as he learned the hard way—the beverage was not for the faint of heart, dead or alive.

He rolls his eyes, but there’s the tiniest hint of a curl to the corner of his lips that exposes his amusement, “Oh, of course,” it widens in mischief. “That is, when you’re not puking your guts out after having partaken a little too much of the libations…”

“That was one time!”

“And my hellions are still wiping your vile, regurgitations from the side of my castle, you little weakling!”

The pair of them dissolve into giggles as they recall the events that currently fuel their mirth; Lucifer challenging the priest and he, against his better judgement, indulging him in some petty motivation to prove him wrong. Suffice to say—they both lost that night.

Much, much later, when their nostalgia trails off and their chortles fade, Frank plays the piece in its entirety, complete with its lyrics because he’s heard it so many times it’s that embedded into his mind. Lucifer doesn’t do anything as innocuous as applaud, but Frank can sense his appreciation—recognizes it in the easiness of his breaths and the slackening of his shoulders (however minuscule, tension never truly leaving him, not even in his slumber, in the few times Frank has caught him unaware).

“Sounds like something dear Ella would have listened to.”

It’s mumbled out of the corner of his mouth in evident mockery, a derisive tilt to his articulations. Except it’s lost in the soft lines about his mouth and the brightening of his eyes as he becomes swept in the current of his memories.

So he waits, always waits… happy to let Lucifer dictate the pace of their interactions, the weight of their conversations. He learned early on when they’d reunited that Lucifer suffered through good days and bad days like the best of them, that the good days were often outweighed by the bad, and the one method to temper them that didn’t involve isolating himself on his throne for days at a time, or going on a manic bender, or some crazed combination of both, was when he reminisced of his time on Earth. Or more specifically—

The people that made his time there all the more meaningful.

Though he’d been witness to the Devil’s subtle but present humanity in the all too abrupt time they spent together topside, it is never more apparent than when he speaks of the Earthly family he’d found himself, reluctant maybe but ultimately, belonging to.

Sure, the bulk of his tales involve complaining about the notorious righteousness oozing from Amenadiel’s brawny form (“Never fails to bring up he’s the Favorite Son like, alright! We get it, yeesh!”), and the deviousness with which his newborn nephew commands the adults around him with a mere sniffle… ranting about Maze's betrayal (“Twice, Father. Twice! The audacity of that little demon!”) by teaming up with Cain (“I’m going to need a drink for this, aren’t I?” Lucifer cackles. “Or ten!”), and Linda's maddening advice during his therapy sessions (“She can never just give me the answers, honestly, what else am I paying her for?”), before recounting the whole debacle with Eve—after which he upchucked the contents of his stomach over the side of Lucifer’s balcony.

Yet even amidst the palpable, if thinly veiled, vexation of his intonation, there is that undercurrent of affection that one would have to be blind not to notice... but Frank does, and he is happy. Truly. And everyone he knows, and wouldn’t have known if not for Lucifer’s divulging moods, who is significant to Lucifer has made an appearance in all his, sometimes hurtful but mostly fond, chronicles… save for one.

Arguably, the most important one.

Yes, it doesn’t escape his notice that Lucifer hardly ever speaks of the detective that spearheaded Frank’s investigation when he had been alive. His friend is in the middle of narrating his experience in a nudist sanctuary, when he cuts himself off in that manner that tells him Chloe is a part of the story.

This is what he does, every time, and it happens so often that it becomes impossible to not discern that she—his partner in every sense of the word—is so deeply interwoven within his past, his present. One need only be in their presence for more than a second to confirm, there was no mistaking the connection between them, whether it is platonic or otherwise. And so Frank is of the firm belief that it would take more than a couple of short-lived dalliances with third parties to crack, what more break, their relationship.

So, he prods. Not hard. Not pressing enough to warrant his anger or, worse, aggravate his sadness. But a little hint here, a nudge there. He can see the strain in Lucifer's muscles and the melancholy that darkens his all ready too dark orbs… and he's aching.

He can sense the fight brewing in his soul—to speak of her, to bury her memory deep inside himself, to feel her, to wrap her in his darkness, to bring her to the light, to forget her, to remember her. So Frank tells him as much as he can without actually saying the necessary confabulations that he's here, that it's okay. Lucifer can cast his burdens onto him because this is what friends (for this is what they are and yes, his celestial best friend, for all intents and purposes, is the Devil and strange as it is, he wouldn’t have it any other way) do, they listen and they protect and they share the load of your despair as well as they can ‘til finally.

Finally, it spills out of Lucifer like a break in a dam and he is crashing, crashing and all Frank can do is hold him through the tidal wave so he doesn’t drown.

“She loves me,” Lucifer admits openly, softly, even as rivulets stream silently into the collar of his ever-impeccable suit. “She wanted me to stay, and I could not give her even that. I couldn't give her what she desired.”

“Why?”

“That damned prophecy,” he snarls, and his eyes flash red before altogether receding to their natural umber as he further expands on this foretelling, Frank's grimace deepening as a new, priestly, player is introduced and revealed to have preyed on both Lucifer and Chloe’s insecurities through his dastardly manipulations, which resulted in the deaths of a hefty number of innocents.

“And Hell must always have a ruler—a celestial one at that,” Lucifer concludes in muted, hopeless tones.

“Forget the prophecy!” Frank roars, an unexpected heat that tastes of indignation at the awful circumstances that seem to follow Lucifer no matter how undeserving he is of them, coursing through his veins. “Do you love her?”

And the despondency lifts for even just a fraction, replaced by a familiar exasperation.

“Haven't you been listening? First love equals destruction upon humanity? I don't really know how much clearer than the risk of an apocalyptic threat I can get.”

Frank raises an eyebrow. “I've yet to hear you actually declare your love in relation to her name, Lucifer.”

“Ah,” he breathes, and fiddles with a cufflink, which only gives away his unease. “Funny, that—I've also yet to say them to her. Really say them. I just keep calling her my First Love, which, not a lie! Still,” he shrugs but the nonchalance is misplaced in the tremble of his hands, as he lifts his own goblet to his lips for a particularly long gulp before he, mingled with an uncharacteristic sheepishness, huffily continues, “I do adore you, Frank, but if it’s all the same to you, I would much prefer that the first time I say them, properly, it would be to her, yeah? We both know how awful I am at communication and at this point in the game, I wouldn't want any wires getting crossed and all...”

Frank takes pity on the poor creature and halts his rambling with a steady hand to his shoulder. “So, tell her.”

Lucifer gapes. "Sure, because it's as easy as fluffing my wings out and landing at the foot of her bed. Silly me, why hadn't I thought of this before? Oh, that's right! Something to do with Evil being unleashed upon the whole of humankind? Ring any bells? We were literally just talking about this. Am I doing something wrong? Wait, what am I saying. I'm perfect.” Lucifer shoots him a look so pitying, Frank must restrain himself from cuffing him in the back of his head out of annoyance.

“Heaven really does make the lot of you dull, doesn't it?”

The things he puts up with…

“There's always gonna be something, Lucifer,” he entreats (ignoring his last statement). “In any relationship. Sometimes it's fear of commitment, other times it’s disagreements on expenses or the number of kids you want. In your case, it just so happens to be the possibility of the end of the world.”

“Is that all?” he growls, voice dripping with disdain.

“The point is—would you rather face it alone? Or take the risk together? Come on, Lucifer,” he wants to weep.

Frank doesn’t understand where this vehemence stems from, but it seizes his body with an urgency that feels as natural as his phantom heartbeat. Because he’s caught tendrils of this peculiarity before, but never so glaring as now—this fire in his chest and a carillon in his brain that blares, Lucifer does not belong here. Lucifer ruling Hell reeks of all kinds of wrong. But what he’s coaxing him to do… it feels right. Because Chloe and Lucifer feel right.

They are true.

So he asks him, though he can surmise the answer, “Are you willing to fight for that love?”

And Lucifer doesn't hesitate, not for a second. Not for a heartbeat. He doesn't even take a breath before his assent spills forth from his mouth.

“Yes,” he whispers. Then, firmer—louder, “Yes. I want to fight. For her. For us.”

Because of course he would, the rebel son of God. He would.

“Then what are you standing around here talking to me for? Go!”

“And what of Hell? What's to stop the demons from coming after me again. It would really help against whatever's coming if I wasn’t worrying about a possession epidemic on top of the apocalypse.”

And Frank thinks about those scant seconds before he died. How fleeting but impactful his last words had been. “Maybe he put me in yours,” he had said. “Your Father has a plan.” He thinks about how easily the words had slipped out, almost of their own volition.

He thought dying meant the cold. But—in that transitory precipice of life and death, the sanguine fluid that fueled his essence leaking from his body and staining his cassock, and Lucifer’s hands, red—held in the arms of the Devil, all he felt was warmth… a glowing fireplace after a day in the snow, the fiery embers of a bonfire, the comforting flame of an inimitable presence scoring across his heart, engulfing his soul. It was magnificent.

One might even say divine.

And in that moment, he knew.

“I'll do it,” he says. “I will rule Hell in your stead.”

And he can see Lucifer gunning for a laugh ‘til he notices the steely glint in Frank's eyes, the resolve firming the lines of his figure, making him seem taller. Stately. Royal.

“Have I ever told you,” he starts, a smirk burgeoning on his lips, “that my full name is Frankiel?”

“Spear of God,” Lucifer translates, slowly.

“Your Father has a plan,” he repeats.

Understanding dawns in Lucifer's eyes.

“Doesn't mean it's always a good one,” he ripostes, weakly.

“And yet,” Frank chuckles, surety making him bold, excited even, as he gathers him into his arms. “I’m certain that in this, we can both agree—it is. It works.” He nods onto the taller man’s stiff shoulder. “It has to.”

Because this is what he endured the pain of living for—so that in death, he could give another a chance to be reborn, to return the love which had been so lost to him before. Because God may work in mysterious ways, but He used him as a vessel and revealed the truth of Lucifer to him, so that he could use his final breaths to bestow a glimmer of hope into His son.

He would accept no other explanation apart from this miracle unfolding before him—all the cogs and wheels that made up his life, and afterlife, shifting into perfect gear.

He says as much to Lucifer, and though he shakes his head as if in denial, he gradually returns the embrace. Frank closes his eyes—and knows that same hope that tethered him in those final, critical, beautiful moments of his life, is now a living, breathing entity in Lucifer’s own soul because—when he opens them, the Devil is gone.

There is much to work out—the insurgence of the demons that will surely reignite at Lucifer’s once more, and final, departure, arranging visits with his daughter, how to get up on that damned throne, perhaps begin forging a new one in its stead, figure out whatever his freshly-anointed status truly entails. There will be time for all of that, eons of it, even. But for now…

The priest walks out onto the edge of the balcony that overlooks his newfound domain—Hell is a sprawling, ebony terrain before him.

And this, quite naturally, is how Father Frank ends up ruling it.

AN: Honestly, I wrote this because I just really miss Father Frank. Even after S4 'A Priest Walks into a Bar' is still hands down one of my most favorite episodes in all four seasons.

And, just as Father Frank, I too would sacrifice my spot in Heaven if it meant Deckerstar could be together. LET THEM BE HAPPY!!!

And Jude hasn't thrown up since her early attempts at mithridatism, and two years it's been since she was taken to the Undersea as prisoner and forced to miss her daily dosage. While the withdrawal had been brutal on her body, her second endeavor at immunization had been met with much success. So she could not possibly be throwing up because of it, and that which ails the Folk rarely affect humans. And symptoms for the same… conditions that both Folk and humans are privy to may manifest differently within her kind. So really, this could only mean one thing.

She is pregnant.

she is pregnant she is pregnant she is pregnant she is about to have a meltdown and oh god she is pregnant

She does not tell Cardan because of course she does not tell Cardan.

There is no point, she tells herself. They are only reigning for five more years. It is Oak who needs successors, not them. And would she really subject another person to this world? Or the better question being could this world—or any world for that matter—be ready for a child made of her and Cardan, born of murder and manipulation and strife and hatred?

(Beyond it being her exclusive power as a human, Jude is simply a professional at telling lies—)

Which leads her to this conclusion: she is not keeping the baby.

There is no point, she repeats. Cardan will not want this baby.

(—especially when she tells lies to herself)

She informs no one and so she procures a poison all on her own. She knows she could have asked the Bomb to do it, but it wasn't exactly a difficult task for Jude.

But really, she just doesn't want anyone to know.

It isn't until a week after this revelation, as she’s staring down a cup filled a quarter of the way with the crushed petals of deathsweet, is she hit with waves of wrongness in the form of a seemingly unending bout of nausea, her heart screaming—no! No, I can't I can't I will not do this!

Because it is becoming all too real—there is a living thing growing inside her. A living thing that never did her any harm. A living thing created by her and Cardan with odds of (at minimum) fifty percent it could be made of the best parts of the both of them. Because Jude may be selfish and blinded by ambition and a murderer, but contrary to popular belief… she isn't heartless.

If anything, Jude is full of heart. You have to be, to be able to love the creature who murdered your parents in cold blood. You have to at least have the capacity for such a love, and Jude is brimming with it. She is an ocean of it, an immeasurable well that overflows despite itself. She cares too damn much, and it has always been her strength weakness.

And Cardan—she remembers the day she found Eldred's jewels, and how he chose to immortalize the memory of Cardan's mother turning him away only for her to pay that little bit of attention to his cruelty. Then Jude remembers the first time she kissed him, the first time she touched him, the way he looked when she uttered her vows.

How in those moments, this King of Darkness had been filled with unfettered radiance and pure light.

That same light that now grows inside her. A part of Cardan that now lives inside her.

So can she do this to him? Could she deny him the selfless and unadulterated love that which only a child untouched by the horrors of the world could provide? Can she refuse him this, like so many—herself she, shamefully, includes—have done before?

She drops the goblet, blood red whorls cascading the length of the ground like blood, deep and thick and red. But so, so alive, that beautiful color of life.

(No, no she cannot)

She storms out of her ensuite, intent on tracking her husband down, only to discover him on her bed. He is seated calmly, blithely, head bowed and eyes averted to the ground, his feet spread on the floor, fingers steepled before him and his elbows resting on his knees—as if the intensity of her thoughts and actions conjured him before her very eyes.

“Cardan,” she breathes, his name falling from her quivering lips like both an anathema and a benediction, and she wishes she could just find a modicum of calm so she can do this properly, so she can do this ri—

“I'm pregnant,” she blurts.

ungracefully, calamitously, deploringly

He peers up at her. His stare is barren and unflinching when he says, “I know.”

She bites her lip, struggling against the surprised gasp that yearns to escape her because of course. Of course he knew. He is the High King of Elfhame. If he can raise islands from the sea, then to sense life is, no doubt, child's play to him—perhaps borderline insulting in its simplicity. Which is what makes her subterfuge all the more repugnant.

“I was going to abort it,” she murmurs, barely above a whisper, as if it would soften the blow. As if it could cushion the rough edges that line her crime.

As if she could lay down a veneer over the ugly heinousness of her sin, absolution waiting to be found in his eyes.

“I know.”

But again, all she is met with is that blank stare and that equally blank tone and that equally blank reply.

“I changed my mind, though.”

A pause, before a quiet, “I know.”

She picks at his carefully crafted inflection and fancies that if she listens hard enough, she is able to discern an emotion behind his voice besides that of the auditory demonstration of the word ‘void’.

But she is no Fae, and even if she was, she probably would not hear anyway because Cardan is just that good. He is good.

So, though she knows the answer, she asks him. She asks him because she needs him to feel something say something else.

“Are you angry?” she mutters, all warbled syllables and watery articulations. And she hates that.

She hates the tremble in her limbs and the cowardly part of her that urges her to curl herself into a protective ball—a part she thought she had long ago killed. She hates how small her voice is when the words escape her traitorous mouth. She hates the way her eyes are resolute in defying her orders by refusing to meet his stare. She is not herself, or at least, it's been an age since she was last this way.

But she no longer entirely belongs to herself, does she? However temporary this may be. She lives and she lives for another. The knowledge that she is responsible for yet another life leaves her feeling utterly vulnerable and incapable, though she knows this is irrational. She is a warrior. She is a murderer who has killed in the name of the crown, her family and herself. She is a queen, and there is power in that. She need not be afraid. But as she faces the consequences of her omission in the form of Cardan's wrath, she is still crippled by the need to know. She needs to hear him say it.

(As if the confirmation would pardon her of her guilt when it would only anchor her to the pain of her actions further, as strained and suffocating as a noose around her neck)

Cardan rises, and shadows seem to gather around him as he prowls gracefully towards her. Her heated skin meets his cold fingers, firm and austere, because it is her and it is Cardan and they are never quite as soft as they should be when it comes to each other. There is a scarcity of kindness in their partnership.

They are not gentle. No, this is her High King, demanding her attention now.

So their eyes meet, a clash of mud and ink and there. There it is. There is that look in his eyes—that hungry rage, that depthless fury for which he had been branded a cruel prince… a wicked king.

Yet beneath it, that aching, turbulent despair too. Barely noticeable and easily overlooked, unless he permits you to see.

Oh, how he desires for her to see.How he thirsts for her suffering.

And she can't even rail against it, against him, because she deserves it.

By god, she deserves it.

And moreso, she hates how everything about being human betrays her—from her moiling, racing heart to the sweat now beading her back and her temples.

(Impetuously, she wonders if their baby will inherit the easy flush of her skin or will it be as pale and ethereal as its father? Will it accede her more human fallibilities or be unquestionably, indomitably Fae in supernatural abilities? Will it be as aloof and cunning as she or as charming and deceptive as he?

Or will their baby be a messy, disastrous, beautiful combination of them both?)

(Their baby, oh god)

Cardan's voice is as low and enticing as a prurient lover when he whispers, "Yes."

She nods. For once, she is resigned. Accepting. And because of it, she strives for some imitation of levity with an arch but ultimately paltry quip of, "Are you going to exile me again?"

But the High King does not laugh.

A stupid joke to begin with, for even if he does exile her, they both know she would find her way back.

(Only she could ever find a way back to him)

Instead, his grip on her chin tightens as his other hand finds her hip.

"Infuriating woman," he coos, even when his touch feels like a howling winter within his palms. "When are you going to realize that you are not alone? That you never have to do anything alone, ever again?"

And that winter penetrates her bones till she is frozen with shock and breathing out a harsh and frigid,"What?"

His hold is hard—bruising—even as his breath remains a cool mist against her ear that makes her shudder, despite herself.

"My personal Atlas," he sighs, "always the weight of the world on her shoulders."

When he pulls back, his eyes remain angry torches within the midnight darkness of the room. But a relieved breath escapes her anyway when he brings their bodies flush against each other and he is receptive to the way she locks her arms around his neck and shackles him to her.

"Make no mistake, Jude. I am angry. But not for the reasons you might think.”

He shakes his head and she is assaulted by the emotion conquering his beautiful visage, the barrage of his disappointment piercing her heart in twisting, deadly ways. Not even his anger has the ability to penetrate the protective barrier she has erected around her emotions the way his disappointment can.

(Because anger is easy. His anger is steam and easily dissipated. But his disappointment is a parasite—infecting first his mind, body and soul then hers, as it burgeons and festers)

“I’m not angry that you didn't want to keep the child. I'm angry that once again, you chose to keep me in the dark. You chose not to trust me enough to share in this with you, that we might decide on a course of action together.”

Another sigh. Another embittered shake of his head. “I thought we were past this.”

“We are—”

“It does not appear that way,” he growls, anger momentarily rousing and taking precedence, before altogether, deflating. “Not where I'm standing.”

(But most of all she hates that too, hates that she is the reason for the anguish that paints his eyebrows into a marred frown, his eyes into a lament and his mouth in defeated angles)

So though it pains her to say it, say it she does because she does trust him. It took forever and a day but yes yes yes she trusts him.

And he needs to know it.

"I was scared," she croaks, barely holding back a sob. "I'm still scared."

Because what the hell did she know about being a mother? About being a parent? She is Madoc’s daughter, and she is every bit the monster he made her and then some. Because if there is anything she's learned from living in Faerie, it's that Monsters maketh Monsters.

So yes, she is scared. She is terrified to bring this child into the world, to bear responsibility for raising this child to not only survive but to live, the best life that she can bestow.

But she is not Atlas. She doesn't have to do this alone, nor does she want to. And... she could know better, right? No, she does know better. She did it for Vivi, and she did it for Oak and for Taryn. She did it for Cardan, and Cardan has done it for her. They are what their Masters made them, true, but their child does not have to be the same. They could forge it anew. They could mold it into something else. Something better—born of Monsters but made of goodness and kindness and effulgence.

(Because yet another thing she's learned from Faerie—has discovered within herselfis even monsters learn to love their misdeeds)

She would give this babe what her mother was unable to give her and she would provide it tenfold. Because she knows better. They know better.

And she has to believe it.

She has to believe in him, too.

“And you think I'm not?” he starts haltingly, before resolution cements his glare.

“I made you a vow, wife. You are to be my queen and my bride, in every sense of the word. Even this,” he rasps, as he lets go of her chin and shifts his touch to her stomach.

“Especially this.”

She's crying in earnest now. Not the pretty and delicate way that most of the Folk do, but a deluge of salt and snot that drowns her face.

“Anything I've ever done right, all that is good in my life… it has been because of you. You are madness personified and Leannán Sídhe incarnate.” She sucks in a sharp breath at his acrid timbre. “But,” he hums after a leaden period of silence—a susurrous proclamation that is made all the more potent for its tenderness.

“You are the rhyme and the reason, the chaos and the utopia. A symptom of my most fevered dreams and a cure from my bedeviled reality. Were I a minstrel or a bard, my every beginning, middle and end would be composed of you. And were I a fool,” and here his breath hitches, “then may I only be a fool in love with you.”

She has forgotten how to speak, at this point. She has forgotten how to breathe.She has forgotten everything—everything except for the way Cardan looks and thinks and speaks and feels. For he may have once written her name repeatedly across a piece of paper, but she's got him written extensively across her heart.

“Whatever happens, whoever this becomes,” trepid fingers mark a shaky path beneath her chemise till he is cosseting the currently imperceptible bump of her stomach, “this is not a mistake. We are not a mistake.”

(She believes in him. She believes in them. She believes, she believes, she believes)

"I am still angry.”

It is her turn to say, ruefully, “I know.”

“But I made you a vow, Jude Duarte,” he recurs in deceptively smooth intonations. “And I intend to keep it.” His stare is intent with mockery and his voice pointed and goading as he issues his challenge.

“Do you?”

She's hurt him. She knows she has.

So she doesn't take his bait. No, she rather tempers his ire by joining his hand resting lightly over her stomach with her own, the one where the ruby ring he once stole now makes a home of her ring finger, digits entwining in a physical manifestation of their matrimonial pronouncements.

“I do,” she promises, so very soft and fragile and achingly, heart-wrenchingly human.But devout and sincere and wholly free of deceit all the same. “Till the crown has passed from our hands,” she avows.

(Again and again and again, she will swear by it)

For the first time in this entire conversation, he smiles. Brittle and vascillant and crooked, too—a fragment in the perfect symmetry of his face.

But it is a smile. And there is a certain serenity to the curl of his mouth, the curve of one upturned cheek... and so she takes it. She takes the small and broken smile because it is still his smile, and it is better than anger and disappointment. It is better than nothing.

He presses his forehead to hers, breathing her in—tears, sweat, desperation and all.

“And maybe even then.”

She traces his lips before cupping his cheek. He leans into her touch like someone starved of food and drink instead of the revered monarch that he truly is, one who has yet to be denied anything.

(Not this—not affection and not love. Never again, she affirms, if only to herself this time. Because Jude is an ocean of love, an immeasurable well that overflows despite itself. Because she cares too damn much, and it has always been her weakness strength)

“And maybe even then,” she echoes, quietly hoping for maybe to mean definitely.

And so it does. Slowly, gradually. Like the constantly shifting plates beneath her feet or the everlasting revolution of the earth. But earthquakes erupt and new years come and go as the planet completes its circuit around the sun and along with it—

They prevail.

Till even then becomes nine months later and the birth of a new line of Greenbriars in the form of their first son, who is strong and healthy and beautiful and every bit the refulgent soul his parents dare hoped he would be.

Till even then turns into thirteen prosperous years of rule in what many will call "The Amber Age of Elfhame", so named for its silver king and its golden queen, and the clever and competent way they maintained peace throughout the kingdom as if it were an insect trapped in amber.

Till even then morphs into the birth of five more children, Greenbriar in name only, for unlike their ancestors, they all loved each other with a fierce passion and an unyielding loyalty that to turn on each other felt to them, like a keen death in itself.

Till even then dissolves them of their previous vows so they form new ones, vows that go beyond their desire to wed, beyond the passing of the crown, beyond life and death and everything in between.

Till even then blossoms into forevermore.

AN: This is my first ever FOTA fic. It was originally in headcanon format so I'm sorry if the pacing is off but, I hope you enjoyed it anyway!

Feedback is appreciated lovelies :)

He halts his amusement in favor of flexing an arm in front of her.

“Not with these muscles, you couldn’t—Eep! ”

It is her turn to laugh something fierce and relentless as he squeals his surprise—a tinny, high-pitched and utterly girlish sound that tickles her to no end—and scrambles for the metal balustrade, though it remains stationary beneath him.

“You were saying?” she inquires sweetly, guilelessly, even as her hold on his bicep remains his only salvation from slipping off his precarious perch on her railing.

(As if he couldn’t catch himself! And not that she would let him fall, of course.

...maybe)

“Marinette,” he whines. She does not capitulate, seeking retribution for herself with another cackle.

“Say the words,” she coos. He narrows his eyes at her. “What words?”

She sticks out her tongue before huffing. “You know…”

Another mewl from Chat, before he sighs. Marinette crows her victory and delight.

“I’m sorry,” he yips through gritted teeth. She tuts.

“I’m sure you can do better than that,” she comments, leaning into his space in feigned flirtation as she drops her voice and teases him airily. Something shifts just then. It drains the mirth from his face, slips the smile from his mouth—but not the light from his eyes. No, that is ever glowing… ever present. But there is something serious about the way he looks at her every time he does it, and he has done it more often than not in the past week since they played the piano together at midnight, her falling asleep on his shoulder, him taking her home and then tucking her in.

Internally, she groans as the memory of the morning after comes to her and she saw she was no longer in the school but in her room. In her bed. There was only one way she could have gotten there, considering her last recollection was of Chat Noir’s elegant fingers flying over the keys, the stark contrast of his ebony gloves against the white scales enticing her designer’s eye as remnants of the music he played swirled within her mind and lulled her to slumber.

Thinking about it still makes her blush like mad, though nothing salacious happened. Yet no one but her parents, Alya and Tikki had ever seen her asleep. So for Chat Noir to, it was a moment of vulnerability, and it was… private. It felt intensely intimate. It was sacred. She doesn’t know where they stand because of it, and now it's as though they are not in the same place in their companionship—is it a parallel plane or has it ascended? Or maybe they hadn’t moved at all and she was building it in her head? And it isn’t as if she’s uncomfortable with this new stance they are taking with each other. If anything, their friendship feels stronger than ever despite the masks they continue to wear, both the literal and figurative kind. But even that armor is slowly chipping away, chink by little chink, so that she has to be careful around him lest she give herself away. And she wants to. Bon dieu, does she ever want to.

(To the point that she begins to ask herself, in the nights when Tikki falls asleep before her and she has only her thoughts for company, so what am I waiting for? Why don’t I just tell him? )

(She knows why)

But she doesn’t tell him the truth of her identity, and here they are. And it’s moments like these, when he looks at her and it’s as if everything apart from the two of them fades, she just, she does. not. know. She does not know anything except everything is changed. Somewhere between him saving her and promise me and a forehead kiss. Between sunsets and macaron snacks and late night rooftop conversations. Between the smiles and the laughter and the music and his arms around her… things are different.

They are different.

“Marinette,” he murmurs, hands easing so that one finally grabs hold of the bannister while the other… the other one inches ever so gently up the length of her arm. She's never been more grateful for her blazer, as it conceals the goosebumps that trail in his wake, his fingers dancing up her porcelain skin so it feels more like the ivory of a piano than flesh.

“Marinette,” he trills once more, her gaze ripping from the path he makes so she meets his eyes. He bites his lip, as if to contain his smile. She pouts, and that's when his hand meets its journey's end at her chin, his thumb tracing the bow of her bottom lip.

“I am sorry, princess.”

She groans at the nickname he can't seem to let go of. He chuckles at her obvious ire, though it doesn't dim the sincerity from his apology.

“Ok, not a princess then,” he yields, albeit with a hint of that omnipresent mischief. “But do be an angel and save me from this perilous height.”

She rolls her eyes, all the while she ducks her head to hide her own grin.

Angel, he called her. She likes that.

She steps back so he has room to put his feet down but she doesn't stray far, not that she could even if she wanted to.

(She doesn’t want to)

The hand that had been holding the railing now nestles comfortably on the curve of her waist, as he lands on both feet in front of her. When he straightens, she finds their bodies have aligned in—what she is increasingly finding to be—addicting ways. He is pleasantly firm in all the places she finds herself to be doughy, and from all the times they’ve been tangled up in each other in their superhero personas, she is entirely too aware of how he is lean beneath the leather of his suit. He is grounded, stable, which her all too clumsy self finds reassurance in.

His hand moves lazily, sensually, from her waist to the dip of her spine, just shy of her derrière. The wind feels crisp despite the heat bearing down on them from the sun’s unhindered radiance and she feels taught with it, her muscles alternatively coiling and relaxing so that her hand twitches against his biceps. He lets out a soft breath as she (reflexively, she tells herself, it’s a reflex) cossets the leather where she holds him, wishing with all her might she was touching skin instead.

Yes, the shift in them from that fateful night is never more evident than it is now—the air around them filling with a strange yet not unwelcome charge that makes the hairs on her arms stand on end, her belly tingle with an inexplicable excitement and her heart cry out for more of his touch. It feels as if there is a thread around her that binds them and all it would take is a slight pull from him for her to unravel right before him.

There is a look in his eyes, hungry and desperate but oh so fragile too—as if he would just as easily come undone if she so much as tugged at that string. He hums Angel of Music under his breath when he takes a step closer, drawing her to him with the hand low at her back. Hope tinges his dark gaze when she doesn’t protest at his proximity.

Pull, pull, pull.

It makes her wonder if he would unwind if she plucked at that invisible connection, only to twine himself around her. She tilts her head upwards just as he cants his forehead against hers. He closes his eyes, his droning of Angel of Music fading into something unfamiliar yet calming all the same.

Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull—

“Marinette!”

She sucks in a sharp breath and reels back, opening eyes she hadn't realized had shut in the first place until they meet orbs shrouded in rueful, tourmaline hues.

The thread stiffens for another second, just as loathe as the two of them to let go, before finally falling limp and taking all the static electricity of the moment with it.

“I think,” he rasps, voice low and gravelly that he has to clear his throat twice before continuing. It flatters her, especially as she remains feeling weak at the knees. “I think,” he tries again, “that's my cue to leave.”

She knows this. Agrees, even.

If only her hand would cooperate and surrender him.

She curls her digits just a bit tighter, a shudder going through her when she feels his muscles bunching powerfully beneath the suit as he treads impossibly nearer, accommodating her clutch.

You could stay, she wants to utter.

“My dad baked macarons for dessert. It's his specialty…” she says in lieu of such ridiculous pronouncements or a more appropriate goodbye.

(And there goes her mouth too, oh will nothing of hers ever follow her command?)

He grins lopsidedly though his eyes insist on narrowing. “Oh, you don't fight fair,” he returns though she gleans that what he really means is, I wish I didn't have to leave.

Her name pierces the now stale air once more.

“Your mother calls,” he says, rather unnecessarily, a grimace set upon his mouth. That he didn’t want to go as much as she herself wished he wouldn’t gave her the strength to withdraw her hand.

“À bientôt, minou,”  she bids in strained articulations, with an even more strained smile, before swiveling on her heel towards her trap door and trying in vain to disperse the bereavement she gains when his gloved hand slips from her back.

She has not taken two steps when she senses the touch of leather on her own hand. He drags her back into his atmosphere and she endeavors to tamper the flutter that arises in her stomach by pasting a faux frown upon her lips.

“Yes?”

His answer falls from his mouth, though not in words. He raises their clasped hands to his chin so that his every measured inhales, his slow exhales, bathe her skin. She expects a kiss upon her fingers, as he is so fond of them whether she is Ladybug or Marinette. And though he does this indeed, she is jolted when he retreats only to wrap warm lips around another knuckle, and the next, and the next, till the entirety of her is ablaze and his kisses seem scored into the very marrow of her bones.

“Till we meet again.”

With the sun sinking low in the horizon behind him, Chat Noir’s face is a study in shadows. But if his visage was the night sky then those eyes, oh always his eyes… they were the glistening diamond stars of the eventide.

“Mon ange.”

And then he is gone, taking all the oxygen with him.

She almost sinks to her knees, having not apprehended how much she was leaning on him till he had disappeared. She braces herself against her metal balustrade to catch her breath, the hand he had marked clutched close to her chest as it continues to buzz with the feel of him.

From her purse erupts a giggle, then Tikki is floating serenely in front of her.

“What was that about?”

Marinette huffs, albeit still in a bit of a daze.

“I hardly know anymore, Tikki.”

The Kwami, never missing a thing, narrows her gaze pointedly onto her hands—the same one still cradled delicately close to her chest while the other fans her overheated face. At her observation, she stills.

“Are you okay?” Tikki inquires, not bothering to hide the teasing glimmer to her tone.

Marinette bites her lip before she rolls her eyes.

“Shut up.”

Tikki's laugh is so hard Marinette is certain it echoes all the way up into the galaxy.

Her mother summons her for dinner one final time and with seemingly Herculean fortitude, she follows. But ensconced as she is within the comforts of her own home—her parents laughing jovially before her, her belly full with a hot and delicious meal prepared lovingly by her father—try as she might she cannot escape Chat Noir. How every time he looked at her his gaze crept along her skin like a living touch, how his actual touch felt branded onto her soul, the manner with which he kissed her or held her—as if she was invaluable treasure—and the effect with which he breathed her name, so softly but with so much gravity, like her name was both too precious to be uttered in anything but humble inflections yet it held so much power, too, because he believed her to be strong and fierce that to say her name any other way would be a fault (and it was only her name! Who knew one could divulge so much meaning onto a name? Of course, only Chat Noir could)—it all drove her wild with wanting.

Though she refuses to answer Tikki's question aloud, it is how she knows—without a shadow of a doubt—that no, she is not okay. So long as he is around her, stealing her breath and making her go weak in the knees, she would never be the same again.

Strangely enough, she is just fine with that.

And even stranger though, is Adrien.

He is different around her, a change she traces all the way back to Con Rubato as well. He is more engaging with her, more conscientious. He would stand when she entered a room then sit only once she had, like a modern day Mr. Darcy. He takes her words in with an air of devout seriousness, as if everything she says has the power to change the world, even if she were just rattling off the afternoon specials in her parents’ bakery. Not three years ago, she would have squealed then died at his attentions. But now it merely confuses her. It is as if she has entered an alternate dimension where Adrien is the one who scrambles for any excuse to talk to her only to stutter his way through their conversations, whether to borrow a pen or copy her notes or set up study groups that she finds herself declining more and more.

The part of her that is still 14-years old rejoices at every look he sends her way, every genuine praise or bolstering shoulder graze. But Marinette has always been an all or nothing sort of girl. No, as Alya would put it, she is a “Ride or Die, Bitch” which would appall her were it not so true. She doesn't know how to do lukewarm or in-betweens, and so the Marinette of now would merely receive such affections with a befuddled slant of her head and a small, appreciative smile. That being said, her head is entirely too filled with thoughts of an overgrown, leather-clad, ridiculous yet charming cat. She should be embarrassed, or she would have been, if said cat was not showing up on her rooftop on an almost nightly basis under the guise of her house being on his “patrol route” when they both recognize it for the lie it is, a rose in his hand and a Phantom of the Opera tune purring low in his throat. Though, more often than not these days, each time he is around her he hums that same indistinct harmony—one he resolutely refuses to name with such stubbornness that she doesn't know whether to hate it for the vagueness or love it for its soothing quality.

(Who is she kidding? It's the latter. Definitely the latter)

Still, it is refreshing, for once, to not be part of a story wherein her love is one-sided. Because though they skirt around the topic, both grown yet still too awkward and shy to broach their feelings, it is there. She feels it, that heady tension… that ever-present pull in her navel that magnetizes her to him. It conquers her so keenly it is nearly impossible now to concentrate when they don their superhero personas; when every part of her is abuzz with his nearness—always close enough to touch but never quite able to bridge that gap. Never the right time, never brave enough.

But she knows he feels it too, even if he does give her funny looks when she's Ladybug and she's a little too late to throw her yo-yo or too slow to move despite the tapering of his flirtations because she's too busy being distracted by his, um, assets (she has become that girl now, bon dieu), and that's all that matters.

At least… at least, for now.

Because it's unthinkable to be anything but deliriously content during periods like this, where he arrives onto her rooftop and settles onto the chaise—right across from her—as if there's nowhere he'd rather be, as if he belongs there. Him and the smell of clean boy sweat and leather and that mysterious melody spilling from his lips like chimes hung out on a beachfront porch, light but resonant too. It ripples down to her sinew, till she is teeming with quiet satisfaction and unexpected fondness for the song.

“What is that?”

“What is what?” he replies coyly, though he knows that she knows that he knows he is perfectly cognizant of exactly what it is she's asking for.

“Dumb is not a good look on you, Chat Noir,” she grumbles.

“Everything's a good look on me, Marinette.”

She blinks, deliberately. He, too, is stunned into silence—his mouth intermittently falling agape and clicking shut, as if wanting to take the words back for the unintentional self-degradation but perceiving the futility of it. Wisely, he swallows the protest that no doubt wants to extricate itself from his mouth, clearing his throat instead before continuing as if he never said the quip at all.

She wants to laugh but recognizes the fragility of the moment, and allows him this one free pass.

“Right,” he says, and she picks up where they left off.

“You were about to tell me what it is you're always singing underneath your breath?”

He smiles archly before tutting. “Not so fast.” He wags a finger right between her eyes.

“Such impatience.”

She swats his hand away.

“Hard not to be, when I don't know exactly what it is I'm impatient for?”

He sighs, as if the confession requires a gargantuan effort on his part.

“If you really want to know,” he straightens from the sprawl he has settled himself upon his arrival, repositioning his arms which had been behind his head so that they are folded between his criss-crossed legs. She mirrors his stance, figuring that she ought to put some seriousness into her mien for all the pomp and circumstance he is displaying for her.

“It's a song I'm composing. On the piano.”

She gasps.

“That's wonderful! What's it called?”

His eyes widen, as if it hadn't occurred to him to give it a name.

“You know… I'm not quite sure, yet.” He stares at her for a beat, and his voice is rough when he declares, “I do have an idea, though.”

For reasons unbeknownst to her, she blushes. To hide this, she stands then, her hand outstretched towards him. His brows are furrowed but he accepts it all the same and follows when she pulls him to his feet.

“Well?”

This time, his dumbfoundedness is sincere.

“Well, what?”

“Let's go!”

“Go where?”

She rolls her eyes heavenward and fixes him with a look of utmost disappointment.

“What?” he exclaims again, arms crossing defensively across his chest before muttering, “Sometimes, I don't understand you.”

“Believe me,” she retorts, haughtily. “I know. ”

But excitement colors her countenance once more, till she is bouncing on the tips of her toes.

“I don't have a piano but there's one in the school! Take me there so you can play me the rest of the song. I've only heard bits and pieces and, mon dieu, I've never had a friend who could compose before. I know an actual composer! Can you believe it?”

She'd been talking a mile a minute and would have gone on, but she really does want to hear his original and with the school closed for the day, it means they would have to sneak in (not that it would be their first time). She couldn't exactly transform in front of him so she would need him to break the both of them in. Except he hasn't moved from his place in front of her. There is only that enigmatic smile and his bright eyes, gazing upon her like she is made of moonshine and starlight.

The ardor of his stare has her feeling all the blood in her body has rushed to her cheeks.

“What?” she retorts. “Is there something on my face?”

“Besides your beauty?”

She groans. He is such a cheeseball but damn if it doesn't get her. It gets her so bad that her blood redoubles its efforts of turning her face into a permanent tomato.

He laughs at her obvious modesty, amusement making him bold when he frames her hips between careful claws and gathers her in his arms.

“It's not entirely finished, you know.”

She pouts. “Oh.”

He chuckles again, thumb tracing the plump camber of her bottom lip before resting it on her chin.

“But when it is, I promise you mon ange,” (cue her breath hitch. Blushing intensifies) “you will be the first to know.”

He lets go of her chin so his hand can join the vine the rest of his limbs have made around her waist. And because he is a good head taller than her now, she steeples her fingers on his chest so she can rest her chin upon it as she murmurs, “Deal.”

“Deal,” he parrots.

Then, he adds, “Besides,” he shrugs. “I don't think you're ready to hear it.”

She scoffs. “What is that supposed to mean!”

Rather than answer her, he giggles a final time then nuzzles his cheek atop her hair. She grunts but obliges him by tangling herself around him as well, partly because it's not as if she can force him to (nor does she want to!) speak. But mostly, she likes this—the unconscious ease with which they fall into each other's arms, the subliminal fashion that compels them to gravitate towards each other's orbits and just stay there, like it was always where they were meant to be.

She likes him.

She wants to smack herself when the thought hits her. She likes him, like, really likes him! She might go so far as to say she…

Well, ironies upon ironies that after years of rejection, she now finds herself in the unique placement of desiring to return his affections, granted under a different skin.

And as if somehow linked to her thoughts, he shatters the silence (and her world) when he finally answers her.

“It means,” he starts in a solemn and susurrous murmur, “that I like you, Marinette.”

Her heart beating a tango and a salsa in her throat that her voice comes out hoarse, she replies, “I like you too, Chat Noir.” And because she is an idiot and a fool and afraid, she remarks, “As a friend.”

For a brief moment, he tenses beneath her hands. Then, with a steady sigh, he loosens, his arms travelling from her waist to grasp her biceps.

“And that is exactly what I mean when I say you're not ready.”

There's something broken there, when he says the words and she meets his eyes. It is with growing horror that she realizes she is the one who put it there—that ache and the hurt and the unabashed longing and she wants to eat up her words or not have said anything at all, just held him, tighter and tighter instead, till she was losing herself in him. She wants to take the last 30 seconds back, just anything, anything to erase the sadness that paints his face in the kind of darkness that swallows you rather than emphasize the points of you that are filled with light.

“Chat,” she cries, but he is all ready turning away from her.

And she lets him, because she knows. She knows that even with her powers, even with all the knowledge she claims of the Miraculous and the magic of this world, she cannot turn back time.

“It's getting late.”

“Wait—” she tries a final time, pleading with an invisible force, yanking with all her might at their unspoken tie, to get him to stay.

Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull!

But all the warmth and color is leached from her universe—

He is gone.

Later, much, much later, after begging off dinner from her parents under the pretense of fatigue, when the house is quiet and the bustling sounds of the Parisian streets fade as slumber wraps its lethargic arms around the city, Tikki comes to her and asks, “Marinette…” in that sweet, tinkling tone of hers, so free of judgment and eyes wide with concern, “why did you say that?”

She cannot help but begin to cry.

“I—I don't know.”

How could it have gone so wrong, so quickly?

Tikki touches a paw to her cheek, halting one of the tracks of her tears.

“Try, dear heart.”

Suddenly angry, she turns from her Kwami in such brusque movements that Tikki is forced to float away from her to avoid being crushed. A pang of guilt goes through her. It isn't fair to lash out at Tikki when truly, she's mad at herself. But she holds on to her anger because it grounds her and it feels so much better than the cloud of despair that looms over her, threatening to engulf her and whisk her away to where she feels empty.

“What is the point, Tikki?” she bellows, a bundle of limbs and blankets as she moves from her chaise to stare out her round window.

Waiting, always waiting—for a shadow, a flash of flaxen locks or a pair of sparkling emerald orbs

“It's done. A week has gone and he hasn't visited, not once. There's no point going over what could have been. It's better to move on.” She scoffs. “What am I even saying? There's nothing to move on from, we hardly started. ”

“I wouldn't call a three-year partnership ‘nothing', Marinette,” Tikki reminds her gently.

“It's done,” she snaps again with watery convictions, refusing to hear her Kwami out. But her voice still breaks when she emphasizes, “We're done.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Does it matter what I want? It's over.”

“But don't you see? It doesn't have to be!”

She whirls towards her and snarls, “You're such a hypocrite, you know that?”

Tikki doesn't deign her with an equal accusation or denial. She does not speak at all. She just stares at her with that unwavering comfort and understanding. The quiet brims Marinette with blind justification and the fortitude to hurl more vitriol, because if she doesn't fill the silence with words then she would surely fill it with sobs and she is so tired of crying over nothing.

So tired.

“First you tell me we have to hide our identities from everyone, even each other, and now you want me to run into his arms, shouting to all and sundry who I am. Make up your goddamn mind Tikki!”

“I won’t deny that. Yes, it was necessary in the beginning,” Marinette grins, something sharp and sarcastic and devoid of all humor. Though she confesses, the ease with which Tikki accepts blame takes away most of the exhilaration of her supposed victory.

“But you have to remember, Marinette, I have been here before. I have seen countless Ladybugs and Chat Noir incarnates for more than a thousand years. While we and the Guardians always hope for the best, a peaceful partnership, that is not always the outcome.”

It is odd, she thinks. She has always known Tikki was as old as time itself. But when her Kwami moves and speaks and thinks and views the world with such childlike wonder, it is simply too easy to forget. Now though, it becomes difficult to deny, not when the adumbrations that obscure her expression add years to her countenance so that she lists to the side with the weight of her age, her all too palpable grief.

“For every harmonious union there has been an equal and terrible clash. Even with all this power, we are not perfect. Humans are such…” a struggle crosses her eyes then, “well. I suppose that's the beauty of your species, isn't it? That even with so many things binding you together, each one of you is still made so differently, so inimitable, that your actions can never be one hundred percent predicted. It's wonderful,” she smiles briefly, before her sadness ultimately wins out. “But it also makes our jobs difficult, and not all Ladybugs and Chat Noirs are what we desire them to be. Every contretemps has led to any human-mitigated disaster you know—famine, plague, conflict, war. ”

Tikki's eyes transform to a haunted, bottomless well that is awash with misfortunes and loss that Marinette will never fathom in her lifetime. It depletes the anger from her sinews till only the despondency she had been fighting unremittingly to avoid, is all that endures.

“Tikki,” she snivels, sinking to her knees in absolution. “Tikki, I'm sorry. I didn't—I didn't know— ”

“It's alright, Marinette,” the Kwami coos, and it is with slack-jawed awe that Marinette regards Tikki's reformation from ancient, weary god to artless and optimistic Tikki, the Tikki she is more accustomed to. “You couldn’t have known.”

She drifts back to her cheek, pecking serenely at the curve before nestling there. “But what's not alright is this evident denial of your feelings.”

Marinette groans, bringing a hand to her face to swipe futilely at her tears.

“What are you afraid of? Don't you see how lucky you are, that Chat Noir has fallen in love with all sides of you?”

At the word love, her heart rattles beneath her ribcage.

“Is he though?”

“Is he what?”

“In love with me?”

Marinette detects a hint of mirth when Tikki replies with, “would that be a problem if he was?”

“Could I really be that lucky? For him to fall in love with me, twice over?”

Marinette yelps just then, when Tikki bites at her skin.

“Ow!”

“Only you could find some fault in a situation that would benefit both parties.”

Nursing her cheek, Marinette grumbles, “I just think it's too easy, is all. If something's too good to be true, it usually is.”

Tikki stares at her in horror. “Look at you, Marinette! Exactly what part of this has been ‘easy'? No,” she shakes her head. “You're afraid, and it's about high time you admit it to yourself!”

“Alright!” she bursts. “Maybe I am scared! But can you blame me? If we're to start a relationship, I want there to be no more lies. I want us to be together, like Alya and Nino are together or like my parents, properly together—not sneaking out, always waiting for the sun to set. That means no more lies, no more hiding, no more masks. It means, revealing our identities.”

Tikki's brows furrow in confusion.

“Well, we both know Chat Noir has no objections to that. And I've all ready said that I'm fine with that, too.”

“But I'm not!”

And there it is.

“Hawkmoth is still out there. If we know each other's identities and one of us gets Akumatized,” she shudders—real, quaking, anxious tremors rocking her body at just the idea, “I couldn't bear the thought of hurting him, if it were me. And if it were him, Tikki, I don't think I would be strong enough to fight him. No, I know I couldn't fight him. And I can't let Paris suffer because of my emotions… because of my weakness.”

It is a long time before either of them speak. And when the pregnant pause is broken, it is Tikki who offers a final piece of advice.

“You are worrying about something that hasn't even happened yet.”

It is a reproach, but Tikki manages to deliver it with such gentle sibilance, it merely makes Marinette weep harder despite her want to protest.

“Say you don't confess or reveal your identities to each other, or he confesses before you and you reject him, again, ” (she winces) “because of your fear. Who's to say that won't be the act that tips him over the edge to being Akumatized? Don't you see, Marinette? Either way, confess or not, the misery would be inevitable.”

“There must be some way to stop it? To control it?” she wails, desperately.

Tikki sighs, lovingly ruffling her hair.

“That's the thing about life, isn't it? There can be no peace without chaos, no joy without anger… no love without suffering—for how can we know happiness, true happiness, if we don't first know what it feels to be dispossessed?

“When we open our hearts, Marinette, we expose it to everything. Yes there will be pain, but there will be such pleasure, too. Such merriment behind the agony, such sweetness alongside the sourness of humanity. Wouldn't you rather have someone experiencing it with you, always by your side, than carry it all on your own?”

Softer, Tikki adds, “And wouldn't you rather that someone be Chat Noir?”

Marinette remains silent for a couple more heartbeats, before she breathes, “Yes.”

Tikki smiles.

“It's okay to be afraid, Marinette,” she affirms. “Just don't let it hold you back. In fact, if you're going to be afraid,” she pats her head and presses on even as she darts to her bed.

“At least let him hold your hand. Then you can conquer your fears, together. ”

Marinette thinks that's the end of this emotionally draining conversation when Tikki dispenses a final valuation.

“And if I could just counter one more of your arguments?”

She cocks her head in acquiescence because why not? She has nothing to lose.

“You don't reach my age and not learn a thing or two about humankind, particularly when it comes to love. There is a great deal of things, too great a deal of stupid things even, that one does for love.” At this, she shoots Marinette a playfully insinuating look, having been witness to all her teenage antics over Adrien. She blushes, scarcely stifling an embarrassed squeak.

“But they are great. From sweeping, romantic gestures to a simple birthday card from one child to a parent—each act of love possesses their own power, from the ability to launch a thousand ships to war or the persistence to find one's way home when lost or merely putting a smile on a friend's face. I suppose what I'm trying to convey is, love isn't a weakness. It never has been. Love has always been magic. Dare I say, it's more than that, even.”

Tikki smiles.

“It's strength. ”

She mulls over her Kwami's words for two more days which turns to a week before she gathers any semblance of a backbone. But then an Akuma attacks and there he is.

How has she never noticed how handsome he is? How dashing and strong and courageous?

The Akuma, Bridezilla, as she aptly names herself, was jilted from the aisle (“thanks for the encouragement, Universe,” she mutters upon finding out). Though her real beef is with men in general, and her runner of a fiancé specifically, she aims her weapon—a bouquet that shoots wedding rings that cut off the victim's movements—at Ladybug, as they've reached the portion of the battle where the Akuma gets desperate for their Miraculous.

In her distraction, having not seen Chat Noir for so long and now getting a sensory overload of him, his touch and his voice and his scent, she hadn't seen Bridezilla till she was upon her. Lucky for her (and this she muses in barbed resonance), Chat Noir jumped to the line of fire so that he bore the brunt of the attack, which meant that he fell in a heap on the floor. He was bound in rings that tightened further the more he moved, ensuring he couldn't use his Cataclysm to free himself.

“Chat!” she bawls, dropping to her knees in front of him and trying in vain to free him. She gasps when an inadvertent squeeze from her efforts causes his leg to twitch and consequently, the metal to contract.

“Looks like she really wants to tie the knot with me, eh?”

She laughs, even as tears spring to her eyes.

“Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now.”

Floating above them, Bridezilla cackles.

“With her?" his frown deepens. "I can see why anyone would run.”

“Give up your Miraculous!” she snarls, having heard the tail end of their conversation.

“Mon dieu, shut up!”

Chat Noir spews a shocked chortle while Bridezilla flusters at the unexpected burst of her temper. Ladybug is known for her grace under pressure, after all, this is hardly becoming. But with Chat's oxygen depleting with every minute movement, her patience runs thin and her cool begins to simmer.

“I've just about had it with these putain de Akumas!”

Chat's eyes widen and she should be embarrassed but she is literally beyond caring at this point. She calls on her Lucky Charm in a most uncharming way that her ladybugs don't even bother to show up, the charm just lands in her hands. A stiletto. Personally, she would have poked the Akuma's eye and called it a day, but her Spots Vision urge her to use Chat's baton and a fire hydrant, from which she vaults herself and throws the heel like a boomerang, knocking it from the ex-bride's hands.

Ladybug extends her yo-yo to a lamp post and swings just in time to catch the Akuma victim before she falls hard on the ground. She lands them on her feet before sprinting for the bouquet, which she breaks to purify the butterfly, all in quick succession. Grabbing the shoe, she throws it in the air and cries out, almost hysterically when she sees Chat turning an alarming shade of white that is made even more deathly prominent against the blackness of his suit, “Miraculous Ladybug!”

The moment her ladybugs clear Chat to his feet, she bypasses his outstretched fist and launches herself at him at such top speed, they fall back to the ground.

“I'm sorry!” she wails even as she doesn't let up.

“Err—Ladybug? I kinda just got free from one bind but I'm pretty sure you're cutting off my oxygen this time.”

She squeals, apologies spilling from her lips as she springs from him. She propels herself to her feet, holding a hand up to him. She has to refrain from crumpling her face when she discovers they had been in a similar position not two weeks ago, her helping him to his feet so that he might take her to the music room in their school and play her his composition.

(A composition which she has rewound what little of it she knows in a merciless loop in her head in his absence, just to feel close to him again)

“So, you're good? Nothing hurts?”

He bevels his head quizzically. “Your ladybugs took care of it, like they always do.” He gives her a searching look. “Are you? Okay, that is?”

“Yeah,” she gulps.

This is it, she thinks. This is my chance.

“Actually—” she starts lowly just as he asks, “Are we near the Dupain-Cheng Bakery?”

She blinks her surprise.

“Um… yes. Why?”

He startles, having been focused on the direction of her home, as if he had forgotten she was there despite asking her a question. As if he were all ready somewhere else.

“N-nothing. Listen, I gotta go. Unless there's something else you need me to do?”

Upon her transformation, Bridezilla's bridesmaids had taken care of her, so there truly was no need to linger. Seeing this, he doesn't wait for her instruction. He nods his goodbye and leaps off in the direction of her street.

Her Miraculous trills, and Marinette races to the back door of her building just as Tikki releases her glamour. Her footsteps thunder up the stairs, her clumsiness nowhere to be seen for once, as she zooms past her parents and straight to her room in record time.

“Marinette?” Tikki inquires bewilderingly.

“He's here, Tikki,” she whispers in breathless timbres. “He left me, Ladybug me, just as I was about to confess because he's coming here. To me, Marinette me!”

She can hardly hear Tikki's excited chirps over the roaring of her blood in her ears. He's come back. He's come back to her!

“Chat!” she shrills, as she opens her trapdoor.

But when she pops her head to the roof, he is not there.

She waits, thinking she might have arrived before him. She waits for the sun to set. She waits, even as the cold seeps to her bones with a piercing quiver. Still, he does not come.

No, he has not come back after all.

“Did you and Adrien have a fight?”

Only nibbling on her sandwich lunch and half paying attention to her surroundings, she absentmindedly replies to Alya, “What?”

“You—Adrien—fight?”

The sound of Adrien's name stirs something in her, like wading through really thick mud before reaching the safety of the bank.

“Adrien and I?” she frowns. “I've hardly spoken to him these past few weeks.”

“Yeah?” Alya mirrors her downtrodden mouth. “Maybe that's the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something's been up with the kid, but you know how Adrien is. You ask him if something's wrong, he'll just deny it with his stupid, phony smile. Although, Nino and I have caught him off guard a couple of times. It obviously has something to do with you though, because we ask him how he is and he'll say he's fine, it's just stuff with his dad or fencing or Chinese, blah blah blah. But,” she fixes Marinette with a suspicious glare over the rim of her glasses, “he thinks we don't see, but he gets this look in his eyes after, it's like, really sad—as if he's lost something? Then he stares at you.”

“Me?” she squawks.

“You really haven't noticed?” she returns, distrustful of her plain obliviousness.

“N-no,” she stutters.

“Hey,” Alya's attention becomes a blade, right through to her soul. It makes her sit up taller. “I know something's up with you, too, girl.”

“What?” she says, dragging the vowel out. “No way,” she denies, feebly. Alya does not buy it, it is written on her face, clear as day, just how much she doesn't believe her.

“Okay… then explain how you and Adrien just happen to get into this weird funk right around the same time. That's why I thought you might have had a row or something.”

Marinette shakes her head. Alya sighs.

“Be that as it may, Nino and I aren't making any headway. So,” she nudges her shoulder. “We were hoping you could talk to him. Now that you can speak more than two words to the guy without stammering up a storm,” she pouts at the reminder (will no one ever let her live that down?) “Who knows? He might actually open up to you.”

It is all too clear that her forlornness at, what she deems as, losing her chance with Chat Noir has made her selfish and blind to her other friend's apparent distress. She colors with contrition. So though she is hardly an authority in dealing with emotions healthily, she stows away her lunch and scrambles to her feet in a show of obedience. But a quick perusal of the courtyard shows no sign of Adrien, not even with Nino, who is conversing with Kim and Max.

“Where is he?”

“Nino says Adrien is practically glued to a piano, nowadays. You might wanna try the music room?”

Merde, she wants to shout. Of course, he is in the music room.

Her feet feels leaden but she forges on, walking an all too familiar path, all the while chanting, I am a good friend, I am a good friend, I am a good friend, in her head to bolster herself. She's operating under the adventitiousness that if she thinks it enough, she will become it. Power of attraction and all.

Besides, she does want to be a good friend, so there is that.

(But did it have to be the music room, bon sang! )

When she reaches the door of the place, she can hear All I Ask of You wafting through the wood. It steals her breath and seizes her limbs so that it takes her a better part of a minute to regain control of her faculties.

She will not cry. She will not be one of those girls who associates songs with people, thereby removing the joy from listening to said songs if the memories are not… optimal, when they hear it.

(Oh god, she has become that girl now, too)

He doesn't turn his head to her when she enters, doesn't acknowledge her when she sits beside him on the bench, doesn't even miss a beat when she joins him and plays the melody to his lower register.

When the final note is played to fruition, they sit there in silence—neither willing to break it, lost as they are in events brought on by the song.

Finally, when the quiet becomes too stifling, Marinette opens her mouth to say something reassuring except the connection between her brain and aforementioned body part seems to have fried somewhere along the way.

“He must have come to you, in your dreams.”

He startles, the movement oddly familiar, though she dispels the recognition that it pothers within her.

“Who?”

“You know,” she wiggles her eyebrows then abruptly stops. She wants to slap a hand to her forehead. How dare they! How dare her eyebrows betray her!

(Is she channeling Chat Noir now? Seriously? Is that where she is? Putain)

Adrien shakes his head, a perfect picture of puzzlement.

Shut up, Marinette, she implores herself. Don't say it.

But nope, her wires are still cut, as her lips form, no—it levels up and sings the words without her consent.

“The Phantom of the Opera!”

She cringes the moment she stops then pivots so that her back is to the keys of the piano, and Adrien is away from her line of sight. She is going to barf. She can string complete sentences around the guy now sure, but apparently she has traded the spluttering for... she shudders, singing. She crosses her arms, as if it could stop her from embarrassing herself further. She almost wishes for the stutter back.

What even is my life right now?

She expects him to leave, but Adrien has always been a kind soul. He chuckles, albeit a subdued sound, as if he's forgotten how, his sadness (so obvious, now that she is here and seeing, truly seeing, him) chasing any associations he might have had with happiness. When was the last time she had even seen him smile?

Too long, she concludes.

“Well, he is there,” he taps his temple then croons, in an exaggerated baritone, “inside my mind…”

It is her turn to be shocked and for a beat, they stare at each other, disbelief adorning the air between them at what they had each done.

And then, they are laughing.

They are laughing and it is as loud and as forthcoming and as fun as it had been that day in the rain, when he offered her an umbrella. For a moment, she allows herself to fall back into that girl. She dusts her old feelings off from the shelf she had placed them in and she allows them to come rushing back. She remembers then, why it is Adrien who occupied her thoughts for so long. She can see how easy it would be, too easy, to fall in love with him again.

But his blond hair and his green eyes invoke the wrong memories. She feels her heart whinge with longing for another man and she just can't. It wouldn't be fair to compare Adrien, to keep comparing anyone, to a shadow.

Drowning as she is in her thoughts, she doesn't notice Adrien has all ready turned away, fingers back to the piano as he plays Music of the Night, which then fades to Think of Me, till eventually he settles onto Angel of Music.

Mon ange.

She can hear Chat Noir’s voice forming the words, almost as if he were here in the room and she is taken back to that first night he played for her so that he is sitting beside her—his beautiful digits deftly serenading her, her head on his shoulder, their breathing syncopated.

She isn't aware she is crying till warm fingers touch the skin of her cheek.

Adrien has stopped playing.

“I didn't mean to make you cry.”

She didn't think it possible, but he looked even more upset than when she first entered.

So much for being a good friend.

“Ignore me,” she laughs awkwardly, his hand falling as she reaches into her bag, meeting Tikki's big, round eyes when she surreptitiously gives her a tissue. “Oh, I'm such a mess. I'm so sorry, Adrien. Ugh,” she sighs, wiping at her glistening cheeks. “This is not how this was supposed to go.”

“And how was this supposed to go?”

“Truthfully? I don't know. Alya and Nino were worried about you and honestly, I can see why. I came in here to try to cheer you up, which is stupid, I know now. I can hardly console myself. What can I possibly do for you?”

At that, she meets his eyes and all of a sudden, she understands what Alya means. There is something soft in his green gaze when he looks at her and something fond when he directs his endearingly crooked smile at her. It brightens his face and again, there is something so distinct about the twinkle in his orbs that it arrests her, stops the babble of her mouth and calms the restlessness of her wrung heart. A thought brews in her mind then, something big and something reckless and something dangerous, to be sure.

But the way her soul calls out to him, the thread of recognition in her belly going taut after so long without its other half, the look of him, his knowledge of Phantom of the Opera. It had taken her so long but now that it is here, it is like waking from a really deep sleep or rising from the pull of a frigid ocean tide—it is too difficult to ignore.

If she was right, bon dieu, if she was right...

“What troubles you, Marinette?”

Could it be this easy? she wonders, for the umpteenth time. If something's too good to be true, it usually is.

It's okay to be afraid, Tikki's sage voice floods her head then, overriding her doubts and lending her strength. Love is magic. Love is strength.

“What else?”

“I wonder if it might be the same thing that ails me.”

She gasps mockingly, “A boy?”

Marinette internally rejoices at the laugh she manages to wrangle from him. God, even his laugh!

Then, at the same time they utter, “Love?”

He nods, as if satisfied with their synchronization. She can hardly contain her beam. But the solemnity returns to his countenance and he asks her, “Are you in love, then?”

She nods, emphatically. “To the best guy I know. Next to you, of course.”

He looks so taken aback, she almost laughs. “Me?”

“Don't pretend you didn't know!” she points an accusing finger at him.

“Know? Know what? ”

“Oh my god,” it sinks in and she raises an incredulous brow. “You really didn't know?”

He throws his hands up in the air in frustration. “What are you talking about?”

“Adrien,” she starts slowly, as if he were a skittish animal she didn't want to scare into bolting from her. “Up until two years ago, I was madly in love with you.”

He blinks.

“What—what— ”

“I'm not anymore, obviously,” she continues flippantly, biting her lip to hide her amused grin. He is turning a peculiar shade of red, the hues of which had only ever been displayed by her before.

“I'm in love with this guy, but,” she sobers when she returns to the heart of the matter. “I don't know,” she sighs, jerking frustratedly at one end of her right pigtail. “I think I blew it.”

For a while, he doesn't answer. The silence becomes so oppressively awkward, she contemplates leaving when he, at long last, replies.

“What makes you say that?”

It is a quiet thing, the way he phrases the question. But it is made all the more compelling for its lambency, when there is an overabundance of hope lining every letter and syllable. She senses her own hope rocketing straight to the heavens.

“He told me his feelings, and instead of reciprocating I,” she gulps, the shame of her actions threatening to pull her down to her demons as she recalls that dreadful day. “I turned him away.”

He seems lost in his thoughts too, but rises just enough to mumble, “Why?”

She closes her eyes.

This is it, she psyches herself again. This is really it.

“Because I was afraid. I had loved you for so long, you see, that I had grown so comfortable with the thought that whatever love I gave could never be returned. But then he did, god, he did and suddenly I was afraid that I would mess things up so badly and then eventually, I just wouldn't be enough. There were… other factors, I was afraid of,” she glosses over this, just in case she is wrong. But if she is right, then it seemed prudent he be aware of it, too. “But it's not an excuse. The point is, I'm tired of being afraid, you know?”

She turns back so that she is facing the keys and then she is looking him in the eye, dauntless and ready.

“I'm tired of being afraid,” she reiterates, before altogether deflating. “I want to tell him, really, I do. But how?

“How do I tell someone that he is the first person I think about the moment I wake for the day and the one who fills my dreams at night? How do I tell him that his arms around me bring me the sort of warmth no blanket, jacket or heater could ever replicate? That for me the sun rises and sets in his eyes? That if I were a moon then he was the planet with which I choose to gravitate around? That my whole world is centered around him? That his soul seems bound to mine? His name scrawled across my heart because it belongs to him?

“How do you tell someone you love them? ”

The words had been building for so long, she gasps the moment they are out, like she had been holding her breath for just as long as she had been holding them in.

When she sneaks a glance at Adrien, there is an air of serenity about him that she hopes, hopes, hopes, is born from the baring of her mind, heart and soul. She feels naked, but invigorated too, a certain potency in the vulnerability—especially when he looks at her like this, with commensurate admiration, her words playing in his mind's eye to echo to his very actions.

“I imagine it goes something like this.”

His fingers poise gracefully over the keys, and then they are flying, singing, painting— a captivating scenery of a boy cloaked in shadows and a girl with midnight hair, the moonlight as their surface and the open air their dome and how they find sanctuary in each other. It pierces their heady atmosphere, that beautiful and mysterious tune that had kept her going on the days when loneliness comminated to cripple her.

—that same melody Chat Noir would hum to her, in the exposure of her rooftop and the moonshine pooling at their feet.

It starts soft, tinkling... excited, before climaxing to something sorrowful and dejected. But then, the tone shifts, and it is enchanting, bringing with it hope and passion and the happy chimes of church bells and an infant's laughter and above all else… love.

The last note fades from the room though it reverberates all throughout her body, leaving a pleasant tingle in its wake. She is crying again but she doesn't bother to hide it, doesn't bother to reach for a tissue. Not when he is there, cradling her cheeks like she is a most cherished gem, and catching her tears before they can journey the length of her face.

“Mon Ange,”  he whispers, breath lingering like a zephyr on her lips as he answers a question asked long ago. “It's called Mon Ange. ”

Only one person in the entire world would know to call her that.

But she dare not let herself believe, not until she too is cupping his face, her fingers splitting into diamonds around the sides of his eyes in a facsimile of a mask.

Those eyes, oh always his eyes…

(It should have been her first clue)

She gasps.

(She should have known better)

“Chat… you… you— ”

His hands retreat from her face only to deluge her own, hold her to him.

“Yes,” he sighs. “Yes, it's me.”

(She really, really should have known)

He rests his forehead on hers, and then she is laughing as she is crying, gazing at him in uninhibited astonishment.

“It's you,” she breathes, “it's always been you.”

His smile stretches the breadth of his face, it's any wonder it doesn't hurt his cheeks or fly right off his visage. It is then she remembers, with another laugh.

“I suppose…” he pouts when she withdraws but she, too, cannot contain her smiles when she opens her bag and reveals, “now is as good a time as any to tell you.”

Tikki floats placidly up to Adrien's blatantly jarred exterior and touches his nose in greeting.

“Hello, Adrien. I'm Tikki,” she giggles, tipping his jaw up with a paw before resuming her introductions. “It's nice to finally meet you.”

But before he can formulate a reply, something or rather, someone, is shouting, “Sugarcube!” and whizzing between them to collide right into her Kwami.

Plagg.

Tikki squeals, waving apologetically as Plagg whisks her away to the vents without so much as a by your leave.

Adrien has yet to say anything, and she grows worried at his lack of response.

“Adrien?” she waves a hand across his face. He captures it and holds on, tight. And she has a sneaking suspicion he thinks what he says next might be unpleasant to her and his grip is so she won't float away in the aftermath.

(She harrumphs. This is three years in the making, nothing could possibly make her leave now)

“So close,” are his first words.

“Okay…?”

“So close, I could have figured it out and we might have been together sooner!”

His eyes are dilated with regret, bordering on hysteria.

“The Valentine's day card, the one shaped in a heart with a poem written inside.”

She blushes. “Oh yeah,” she coughs to hide her embarrassment. “That.”

“It wasn't signed but I knew, I knew it was from Ladybug because it directly answered my poem for her—word per word. Then you! You left me a note with that assignment and I thought your handwriting looked a lot like the one of the poem's but I brushed it off because I could hardly believe it. I couldn't possibly be that lucky? I'm so used to disappointment, otherwise, it just became easier to accept that I couldn't deserve you… both of you.”

He trails off.

“And are you?”

“What?”

He seems feverish now at all the little hints she might have left that spoke of her admiration for him. She remembers Papa Garou and feels a little bad.

“Disappointed?”

He hugs her then, his arms around her a habitual balm that feels like coming home.

He feels like home.

“I couldn't be farther, Marinette. I've fallen in love with you, twice now. Once is coincidence but twice?” He hums. “Twice is a pattern.” He runs his nose along the arch of her neck, before rubbing it against the bridge of her own. “One I hope to make again,” he kisses her forehead, “and again,” her eyelid, “and again,” one cheek, “and again, ” then the other.

Pull, pull, pull.

There is that force again, the one that links them together, in a nature so insistent, she is a slave to its command. She finds herself clambering to his lap and anchoring her hands in his golden tendrils. He receives her weight with nary a blink of an eye, like they have done this countless times before.

Pull, pull, pull.

Like it is right.

“Well then,” she says, her lips hovering exhilaratingly close to his. “What do you suppose happens now?”

With her towering over him, his answer comes in the form of the crane of his head as he gives chase to the succulent curve of her smiling mouth.

But the day has other plans when the alarm rings and an announcement blares from the school speakers.

“AKUMA ALERT, AKUMA ALERT!”

They simultaneously turn their heads to the windows and it is there Adrien walks, carrying her all the while as he surveys whatever damage the Akuma might have all ready caused. It's an inappropriate thought given the circumstances but the way he doesn't even think about letting her go, his muscles flexing beneath his shirt as he hauls her to him with ease—it makes her quite dizzy.

(She's in love, okay? Sue her)

“Duty calls?”

He sighs. “Duty calls.”

She gets down on her feet, her body sliding in delicious thrills along his on the way to the ground. They let go of each other at the same time, calling for their Kwamis, suddenly shy.

“I'm gonna—”

“I'll be—”

He waves to one corner of the room while she gestures to the other.

“Right,” they trill jointly before laughing.

They move to their respectfully claimed parts of the room, Tikki giving her a wink before she calls out her magic words and hearing the tail end of Adrien's too.

When the magic settles, she turns. Seeing Chat Noir standing before her and knowing it is Adrien beneath the mask makes all the air leave her body while also breathing so much energy into her core.

It's real, she says to herself. He's real.

It restores her confidence and she is leaping into his arms for a hug, one that takes no time at all for him to reciprocate so deeply, she is lifted onto the tips of her toes.

Pull. 

“I've waited for you my whole life," he sighs. "It’s reassuring somehow, to know. You were always with me.” He cups her head. “My lady,” he whispers into the corner of her mouth. “Mon ange.”

“Mon minou,” she murmurs in kind before conceding, “I'm scared.” It's a hard thing to admit but with him, it is as effortless as a heartbeat.

Pull.

He holds out his hand.

“I won't let go if you won't.”

Pull. 

She grasps his hand, before twining their fingers, loving the weight of him in her palm like that of a steady promise.

Pull.

“Never.”

Because it is one, she understand now. And like all promises made by lovers, they seal it in the only way they know how.

Pull. 

With a kiss.

AN: Hope you had fun! Tell me what you think! :)

They’re at work when it happens again.

She doesn’t need to look to confirm that his dark gaze is intent on her face. She blushes even as she asks, with admirable nonchalance, “Something on my face?”

This time, when she does risk a glance, it’s his cheeks that are red.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

She smirks.

“Uh huh.”

To conceal his embarrassment, he testily retorts, “Actually, now that you’ve mentioned it, you do have something on your teeth—” he lifts a pinkie to point at his own pearly whites to indicate the approximate location of her presumed gunk, “garishly brown, and utterly unattractive for a woman of your caliber. You better lay off those quesadillas, detective—”

“Asshole,” she grunts, assailing him with a handful of his cool ranch puffs—hypocrite.

She covertly consults her compact, anyway.

Just in case.

“Lucifer’s staring at us,” Ella comments.

“Correction,” Dan flits in, passing her a case file. “He’s staring at Chloe. Been doing it all week, actually.”

The women throw him a startled glance.

“What?” he squawks, affronted. “I pay attention!”

“Something you’re not telling us, Dan?” Chloe ribs.

“Oh, you’re not getting out of this by turning it on me. Besides, he—” he lifts a subtle but pointed thumb in Lucifer’s direction, “—is too far gone for you to pay anyone else any attention.”

“Yeah, Decker. What gives?” Ella hugs her. “You guys okay?”

Chloe pats reassuringly at her back.

“We’re good. Better than, even. We’re great.”

And they really are—so much that there are days when even she can’t believe their luck.

“Then… why does he keep looking at you like he’s both a kicked puppy and a wolf out for revenge?” Dan places his hands on his hips, head tilted in genuine perplexity. Ella withdraws her embrace, only to perfectly mirror his stance so she’s confronted by two bloodhounds ever relentless in their quest for the truth, or rather—all the sordid details of her, admittedly exciting, love life.

“I imagine he’s just psyching himself up.”

“For what?”

They practically salivate.

(Honestly, they’re worse than a couple of suburban soccer moms)

But Chloe just smiles.

In the end, it happens quite by accident.

It’s a school night, and at this point it isn’t uncommon for Lucifer to follow her to her apartment an hour or so after they part ways at the precinct—lugging a bag of groceries to her kitchen, his jacket and waistcoat abandoned, but neatly hung, in her coat closet.

At Trixie’s request, they are making pizza from scratch when an argument evolves on the merits of pineapple on a pizza, in which Lucifer is for it and the Deckers, neutral—until they see how much it riles him up. The better part of the waiting is spent loudly arguing (Lucifer), dissolving into giggles (Trixie) and playing Devil’s advocate (Chloe).

Suffice to say, dinner is burnt.

“Pineapple—not a veritable topping?” he scoffs. “You’re lucky I love you both.”

It’s a quiet mutter. Innocuous and without thought—as if it is simply truth.

His truth.

Trixie’s eyes widen. “Did you just—?”

“Order enough pineapple-topped pizzas to feed an army?”

Lucifer fiddles with his phone, no doubt cashing in a favor as Trixie stares up at him with stunned—albeit amused—awe, and unparalleled affection.

Chloe winks at her while Lucifer protests their conspiring chortles for reasons they refuse to divulge.

It’s when he falls asleep before her, a kiss to his forehead, that she whispers to him.

“I love you, too.”

She’s never needed Lucifer to say it aloud, yet he seems hinged on its importance. But, until he’s ready, his presence is enough. After all—

She all ready knows.

AN: One more fic—and day—to go...

“Oh! We use that quite frequently in Hell,” he grinned. “Such delightful torments you humans come up with, I—”

She glared, and he had the sense to affect chagrin. In lieu of an apology, he slid a steaming stack of pancakes in her direction, and all was forgiven—even if she did sigh again.

He rolled his eyes.

“It can’t be that bad,” he teased. “You certainly have no qualms talking my ear off!”

“This is different,” she whined. “It’s forced humiliation!”

“It’s three minutes of your life.”

“It’s so stupid!” she wailed, and when her eyes rose to meet his, he was alarmed to find them welled with droplets. “Why do I have to talk about how rainbows are made? No one cares! And if they’re so curious they should just Google it!”

Beatrice rarely cried, and the sight of her tear-stained face settled ill in his gut and sent unpleasant twangs through his chest.

This simply wouldn’t do.

“How’s about I pick you up later?” he asked softly. “Would you like that?”

It had become a tradition for them, on such days, to drive to the Santa Monica Pier and gorge on sweets before he deposited her onto her doorstep.

(Unbeknownst to her mother, of course)

He breathed a sigh of relief when the waterworks stopped, a fetching grin replacing them as she jumped from her stool, cheering, “Thanks Lucifer!” before running to her room, passing a confused detective along the way.

“Do I want to know?” she asked.

Lucifer only smiled.

“I didn’t bring you here just for ice cream, you know,” he said once they finished said treat. “I’ve something for you.”

“Did you scare my teacher into stopping my speech?”

His laugh was loud enough to startle them both.

“I like your style,” he smirked appreciatively. “But I don’t think the detective would approve of that method. No, I wanted to give you this.”

He held out his hand wherein lay a grey rock. A tad bigger than a marble—it was rough, ugly and wholly unremarkable.

Baffled, but ever polite, she ventured, “Thanks?”

He chuckled again and curled her palm over it. “Close your eyes.”

She acquiesced easily.

“Picture a light, the brightest that ever was conjured. Brighter than all the suns, moons and stars combined. Do you see it?”

“Yeah.”

“Now imagine it covering you, as a shield or beloved coat would—a protection against the harshest of elements. Now,” he unfurled her palm. “Open your eyes.”

She did, and the sight that greeted her made her gasp.

“I know the saying goes, ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ but,” he grinned. “I’ve always been rather partial to, ‘a star for a star’.”

The rock’s ugliness faded to something rather too resplendent for mere words to describe. Beatrice looked at it in wonder, her own gaze shining when she asked, “Is it really—?”

He nodded.

“My stars have always given me the greatest comfort,” he shrugged. “I thought it might aid you in your endeavor tomorrow, in the hopes that it will offer you the same.”

She threw her arms around him, and like all the times before, Lucifer froze.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and her sincerity bled into his chest and calmed the raucous of his heart so that he found himself melting into the embrace.

“You’re most welcome,” he murmured, and thought, without quite meaning to, that though most of his stars were lost to him—

They paled in comparison to the one he held in his arms.

“Why is she suddenly so excited for her speech? What did you do?” Chloe shook her head, mystified. “Give her a pet rock? She won’t leave anywhere without it!”

Lucifer only smiled.

AN: I know I overwork this storyline but like, we don't have enough Trixie & Lucifer stories, and that's a damn shame!  

Speaking of—YA'LL, come over now (and talk me down) just reached the 400 kudos mark. That's! fucking! insane!!! to me right now because that's the most I've ever received in any fandom like smfh YOU GUYS ARE THE LITERAL BEST AND I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. I love you Lucifam, it's a damn good honor to be a part of this community. I hope to continue generating content just as much as ya'll continually bless me with your appreciation. You guys are amazing. Lucifer is amazing. I'm so happy to have found this tv series seriously. Blessed.

But, in her defense, Lucifer isn’t in the habit of texting—much less texting without emojis. Plus, she’s right and proper invested now (as if she wasn’t all ready before). She takes his truth like a champ because what’s new, right? If anything, it explains A Lot. But in essence, he’s still the same old Lucifer—with his selective hearing, his tendency to ignore protocol and his inability to ever leave her alone. Not that she wants him to, to her mounting mortification.

Suppose she should have seen this coming, but the joke’s on her because annoying as he is, she’s tits over belly in love with him, anyway. She’s in love with the Devil like, the actual Devil from the Bible—the Bible she not too long ago classified as fiction. There’s a cosmic joke that’s being played on her but, the truth of the matter is, she’s so in love with him, it’s not even funny anymore. Or, if it is, you won’t find her laughing.

So when she receives his message—Urgent. Come to the penthouse—you bet your ass the rest of the world fades for Chloe, and nothing is going to stop her from rushing to his side.

Of course, this is all for nothing, when she reaches his place to find him in a condition that is oh so very the opposite of dangerous.

“Detective!” he greets from the living room, spread out on a massage bed in nothing but his boxers. “You certainly took your time, didn’t you? No matter, let’s begin.”

“Lucifer,” she cries, baffled as she digests the scene before her. “I got here as fast as I could. What—”

“Meet Gabriel,” he waves towards the hallway next to the bar where a tall, weedy, dark-skinned man with black, shoulder-length hair, glasses, gloves and an apron over a denim button-up and jeans, emerges.

“Call me Gab.”

She does not.

“Ironic, I know,” Lucifer rolls his eyes. “But rest assured he’s not my brother. Just an old friend of mine who—”

“Let me guess, owes you a favor?”

He beams. “You know me so well!”

“Not enough to guess at—” she gesticulates at his almost-nakedness. “We seriously need to redefine your definition of urgent. What madness have you roped me into now? I was worried about you, you idiot!”

“My apologies,” he returns in a completely unapologetic tone. “I just couldn’t pass up this opportunity, you know. I’ve only been wanting this for eons!”

She shakes her head, uncomprehending. He flails a hand at the set of tools laid out on a small table next to the bed. She hadn’t even noticed, her focus shuffling between not clobbering him over the head with one of his horrifically expensive bottles of scotch and preventing herself from having a coronary. Thankfully, she isn’t so incapacitated as to not recognize the apparatus for what they are.

“A tattoo? This is what was so urgent?”

“Gab’s only available for the day, I’m afraid,” he pouts and turns wide eyes at her, as if expecting her to sympathize. Like hell, she scorns inwardly. “And with you in the know and everything, I can finally get one!”

She cannot believe this is her life. Wait, scratch that. Her partner—in both livelihood and love—is the Devil, who is apparently only ever mortal in her presence, even mortal enough for an ink-stained needle to pierce his skin. This type of shit should be par for the course by now.

She sighs. Then settles down by his hip.

“What tattoo are you getting?”

His grin widens.

“You are disgustingly cliché,” she snarls later that night, as she slides her bare flesh down his body so her lips hover tantalizingly over the line of his left oblique, her tongue flirting the edges of his freshly marked skin.

“I’m going to make you regret getting this stupid tat.”

Somehow, she doubts she succeeds.

AN:  I'm having a lot of fun with these 666 drabbles but not enough ideas lmao so if you're having as much fun as I am and have any requests, hit me up please! The ask is open to all ;)