#tmfh

Gabriel turns and faces the painting. Emilie, and yet not quite. Her hair is darker, her eyes are bluer. Did she always wear those glasses?

You don’t even know yourself, she continues. You always need a goal. Something to dedicate yourself to. A woman.

“I have Emilie now,” he tells the painting. “My goal has been achieved.”

Has it? 

“She’s back, isn’t she? Everything is as it should be.”

The woman in the painting laughs again. His tired ears playing tricks on him; the sound echoes in the room, in his head. Almost too well, she agrees. Your house, it was nearly destroyed in the fight, wasn’t it? Not anymore.

Gabriel blinks. He’d forgotten, somehow. Let it slip from his mind, along with everything unimportant — replaced it all with Emilie’s return. With her her her. 

Did the Wish fix it? Was that what your heart said?

“Nathalie,” he growls — doesn’t mean to, the name slips out easily, too easily — “if you have something to say, then say it.”

"The Wish, I used it to bring you back," says Gabriel, "but... those heroes, the ones I told you about... they may not be entirely gone."

The words hang in the air for a few seconds. Emilie sips her coffee. Her hand is motionless in his. He is not breathing. 

Finally, she says, "I figured as much."

He, the statue now, has to remind himself how to move once again.

"You told me that the Wish you made was a life for a life," Emilie continues. "But I wasn't dead, was I? So that can't quite have been it. Drink your coffee, my love, before it gets cold."

Gabriel does as told. It is the perfect temperature now. "So, you think... they're alive?"

"Most likely." Her eyes on him now, as though probing for any weaknesses they can find. "Alive, but suffering."

"Suffering? How?"

Chapters: 1/8 Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Emilie Agreste/Gabriel Agreste, Gabriel Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Characters: Gabriel Agreste, Emilie Agreste, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gabriel Agreste Uses the Ultimate Power Wish | Unified Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous Superpower, Minor Emilie Agreste/Nathalie Sancoeur, One-Sided Attraction, Obsessive Behavior, Relationship Study, Complicated Relationships, Jealousy Summary:

In the rules of the universe—an eye for an eye, a life for a life—Gabriel Agreste’s new world is simple. His wife is alive. Ladybug is dead. All is as it should be.

But why, sometimes, does he hear whispers of her name? See red and black out of the corner of his eye? Why does he awaken with marks, thin as a yo-yo string, around his neck? Why does Adrien look at him like he knows what he’s done—and why does Emilie look at him like his sacrifice means nothing at all?

The door of Gabriel’s atelier is open. Something he’s not used to, but as Emilie said, he’s no longer alone. The two of them, partners once again. And if the door is open, then his worry—not fear, never fear—no longer exists: that if he closes the door, closes off the rest of the world, then the painting will speak to him again. And that now, more than last time, he won’t like what it says. 

The Miraculouses, Alliance rings that they are, Gabriel spreads them out on his desk. Beside them, the Ladybug, the Black Cat. One at a time, he picks them up, turns them over, puts them back down. Compares them to the Grimoire pages on his computer. 

So long since he’s last immersed himself in the creative process—since he’s had the privilege of doing so. 2003, the beach. Adrien and Emilie off gallivanting around, and him, doing research. Sifting a handful of sand between his fingers, standing shin-deep in the water and resisting the urge to shiver. Afterward, sunburned and windswept, skin rubbed raw, he ate pineapple by the bowlful until there were tears on his cheeks and his tongue was stinging. And he’d done it all with his sketchbook by his side. Capturing every last bit. 

Spectacular, the reviews had said about the collection. You can almost feel the flow of the fabric, woven from the ocean itself. As though if you reach out and touch it, you’ll be transported. Feel what he felt. 

“M. Agreste!” one of the reporters calls. He shoulders his way to the front, face painted with a layer of curiosity. Beneath that, poison. “Does your wife’s recovery have anything to do with Monarch’s defeat?”

Several things happen at once: Gabriel’s hand slips out of Emilie’s. He steps forward, raising that same hand — to do what, he does not know. He will never find out. Because before he can do anything, Adrien is there. Anticipating his reaction. Catching him, stopping him. Fingers wrapping around his forearm. Experienced with pain as he is, Gabriel flinches away. 

Silence.

His outburst has not gone unnoticed, captured by no less than fifty cameras. There is no escape. Not in the last world and not in this one. Monarch. He thought he’d left the crown behind, that he would be the only one who knew that name. It would fade away to time, as would his actions — though his rule would remain, always and forever. 

“Forgive us,” Emilie says with a smile, because things have flipped now and it’s her saving him. Adrien saving him. Everyone coming to Gabriel’s rescue. “We’ve, well, we’ve had our hands full lately, in more ways than one. Learning to be a family again doesn’t leave much time for following the news.”

“Oh, of course!” the man replies. “Mme. Graham de Vanily, if you knew what France has been like in the last year, you would hardly believe it. Magic, superheroes, it’s all so—“

“Her name,” Gabriel grits out, “is Agreste.”

“—and remarkable, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s another result of Chat Noir’s victory. Monarch has been defeated and here you are, healed!”

whoa... dagger pushing a microphone into my hands... okay... if you insist...

Chapter Seven of the Night.. (which i will edit the next chapter of soon, i swear!) the title comes from Jay Chou's 夜的第七章! the translations of the lyrics kind of vary, from what i could see <- girl who does not speak chinese. but i looove this song, and the first time i read the lyrics, i literally was like "gabriel". it was the chorus, in particular:

If evil is a glorious, ruthless movement (Footsteps, the soft leather heels I anticipated) (He pushes the door open) (The oil lamp flickers in the night wind) I will write its final act myself (The typewriter stops at the killer's name) (I turn around)

something about this guy, thinking he's writing his own story, not knowing that it's coming to life - and more than that, coming for him. say it with me: post-wish gabriel!! this, in a nutshell, was what i wanted the relationship between gabriel and ladybug to be. chapter titles also come from this song hehe

Six Inches Taller... my hate letter to shane </3 soo much of the backstory in this fic came from me reading through shane's wikipage for quotes and literally going D: it's fascinating to me that his whole like..relationship progression is about him quitting drinking and taking the steps to heal, but after marriage if things are bad, he'll just.. start drinking again. and there's not really anything you can do about it. he tells you he hates farm life. he tells you that you remind him of marnie on her bad days. the title, specifically, comes from this line of dialogue in the game:

"I wish I was six inches taller and a whole lot smarter... You like me for who I am? I still have a hard time understanding that...”

Could one of these models be Ladybug?

Someone he's spoken to, someone he's dressed. Touched. A hand around her waist, the other around her wrist. Those models are all delicate. Fragile. Imagine that, he thinks - and then he cannot stop doing so. Ladybug, dressed in his clothes. So small, so breakable. He could have easily snapped her bones. He calls the models by name -- has he said her name before? Tasted it on his tongue? The glossy sheen of her lips, his fingers adjusting a stray strand of hair.

His nails dig into his thighs.

"--riel? Gabriel? Did you hear me?"

Gabriel breathes out very slowly. Once, twice. "Yes, Emilie," he says. "I heard you."

She's stirring sugar into a new cup of tea. The spoon clinks against the china, again and again and again. Steady, measured. Like a hammer through his skull.

"What do you think, then?" she asks him. Her eyes are bright. Dangerous. I know you weren't listening, they say. Go on. Ask me. Admit defeat.

But he - he who has felt Emilie's wrist in his hand so many times, he who is so much bigger than her, stronger - spares her only a single glance.

"It sounds perfect," he says. "You know how I always value your suggestions."