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The past few weeks had been a nightmare. As if all the school work wasn’t enough, everyone was constantly grumpy, which resulted in someone from the class getting akumatized almost every single day. That meant more time running around trying to avoid getting crushed and killed and less time actually doing school work and that made everyone even grumpier. It got to a point where people would hide under a desk instead of running during a fight, so they can finish their tests because they didn’t want to do them again. Both Ladybug and Chat Noir looked like they had hardly slept lately and it was taking them longer and longer to defeat each akuma. Even Chloé was so tired she stopped making mean comments about everyone. All she wanted was to finally have some fun again.
“Okay, listen up, everyone.” She received a few annoyed looks for interrupting everyone’s last-minute cramming session. “It’s Halloween this Saturday and I’m having a party.” The looks got softer all of a sudden. “The rules are simple: no superhero costumes and no bad feelings. We’re all tired and I really want to have some fun, but I can’t do that if someone gets butthurt about something and Hawkmoth decides to have a blast, so! The deadline for all projects and essays and whatever is Friday, you can take the rest of the day to chill and I’ll be waiting for you at the Le Grand Paris hotel on Saturday. At sunset, of course, we want to be edgy and spooky. Everyone is invited, bring whoever you want, I don’t care, just please don’t get upset about anything and let me get high on sugar.”
Her announcement was met with more joy than she anticipated. Having something to look forward to at the end of the week seemed to help everyone. Even Marinette gave Chloé a thankful smile. They could do this.
Chloé’s idea to have a Halloween party was actually a good one and Adrien fully realized that. After she had announced it there had been less akuma attacks and everyone seemed to be more determined to get through the seemingly endless week. The problem was that Gabriel Agreste didn’t really care that his son needed to spend some much-deserved time with his friends, have fun and eat so much candy his stomach hurt. If it was after sunset, it was out of the question.
“But, father, the whole point is that everyone is there so they can have fun together and avoid getting akumatized. If I stay at home feeling gloomy, that makes me the perfect victim for Hawkmoth.” Adrien tended to avoid talking about superheroes and supervillains with his dad. Gabriel always looked angry when Ladybug or Chat Noir were mentioned. Now his light blue eyes turned darker Adrien said Hawkmoth’s name.
“Enough, Adrien. My decision is final.” Adrien felt like crying. What was next? Chat Noir himself getting akumatized? He sighed and went back to his room looking disappointed.
“Why the moping?” Plagg looked like he’d just woken up from a nap.
“My father didn’t let me go to Chloé’s party.”
“So what? You’re Chat Noir, you can do whatever you want. Plus, it’s not like you haven’t sneaked out before.”
“Yeah, I know.” Adrien suddenly grinned. “Did I really look that heart-broken? Do you think my father bought it as well?”
Plagg looked confused.
“I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to let me anyway, that’s why I wanted to have a reason to act mad at him and stay in my room the whole evening.” Adrien looked really proud of himself.
“I…can’t say I’m not impressed. What are you going to go as then?”
“A dead model.” Adrien opened his closet and took one of his shirts, then grabbed some red paint. “…which is exactly what I’ll be turned into if my father finds out I went to the party.”
Marinette would usually sew her own Halloween costume. She’d spend hours and even days working on it and every small detail because even though she didn’t care about Halloween as a whole, she loved working on different costume designs. This year, though, she had no time or energy to do that and neither did anyone else. The whole class had agreed on only wearing free (if possible) costumes that would take no more than half an hour to make. They even decided to have a “worst costume” competition, since they were all going to be bad.
As an aspiring designer, Marinette obviously didn’t want to win a competition like that, but then again, after those past few weeks, she truly didn’t care. She went to the supermarket to buy a small pack of toilet paper rolls, then headed to Alya’s place, where the three of them with Nino were planning to get ready together. Adrien was supposed to come as well, but he said he’ll meet them at the party, since his dad didn’t technically let him go.
For some reason, Alya’s family didn’t have the habit of locking the door, so Marinette just let herself in without bothering to ring the bell.
“Hey, guys, I’m here!”
“We’re in the living room.” Marinette followed Alya’s voice only to find Alya and Nino in almost full-costume. They were sitting on the couch, wearing partly shredded and dirty-looking clothes. The interesting part was that Alya’s little sisters Ella and Etta were putting make-up on their faces.
“Hey, sugar buns. How do we look?” Alya surely hadn’t seen herself in the mirror since Ella had started working on her face or she wouldn’t have had such a wide smile on her face.
“Like someone beat you up and threw you in a ditch three weeks ago?”
Alya was beaming. “Perfect!! We’re a couple of zombies that met while tormenting a group of annoying middle-schoolers and fell in love.”
“Ugh, could you two get more adorable? Why the make-up though?” Marinette left her toilet paper on the floor and bended over Alya to see her face better.
“We thought that the white person make-up would help us look paler, hence – more dead, but we also let Ella and Etta have fun with the details, as long as they added more zombie vibes.” After Etta looked like she’s done with Nino’s face, he got up and grabbed a toilet paper roll. “I see you’re going to be a toilet mummy?”
“Yeah, I couldn’t be bothered to think of anything else.” She sat in Nino’s place with a grunt. “Do you guys want to wrap me in toilet paper? I wouldn’t be able to do it myself even if I wasn’t so exhausted.”
“Of course! Just let Ella finish with my make-up and me and Nino will wrap you up.” Alya gave Marinette a heartfelt smile. “Oh, Etta, could you find some tape? I think we’re going to need to make the mummy clumsy-proof.”
Half an hour later Marinette was covered in toilet paper and she and her friends left Nora to handle the twins, hoping that no one set anything on fire while they were home alone. Since “at sunset” was relatively vague, they took their time going to the Le Grand Paris hotel.
When they finally arrived, most of their friends were already there. The lights in the salon were dimmed, but there were orange neon lamps in the form of pumpkins all around. And there was. So. Much. Candy. Everywhere. Near the door, on the tables, on the bar, next to the bar, next to the bathroom, everywhere. Chloé had obviously already had a good amount of sugar, given the fact that she sprang up to greet the newcomers.
“Well, hello, hello, hi!! I’m not giving anyone any kisses, since flu season is starting, but I’m glad you made it! I hope you have fun! You better have fun. Grab as much candy as you want to and have fun! Oh, I already said that. Sabrina, I think I’m feeling a little dizzy.” Sabrina wasn’t even there yet, though she had left the place she was standing at the second she saw Chloé make sudden movements.
“Hey, guys.” Sabrina smiled apologetically. “Sorry about that, she was excited about the party and had a little too much candy.” She was holding Chloé’s shoulders. They were vibrating. “Let’s find you a place to sit.”
Despite Chloé obviously being able to walk (or at least skip) on her own, Sabrina refused to let go of her. She took the scepter Chloé was holding, because of course she’d be dressed as a queen, and held her waist until they reached a chair behind the bar, conveniently placed where there were no bowls of candy within arm reach.
Alya and Marinette were still standing at the entrance, crying and struggling to breathe from laughing too hard. Nino had gone to get some candy, but he couldn’t seem to close his mouth after witnessing Chloé in that condition.
“Well that was…something.” He mumbled, then grabbed Alya’s hand and went to dance to some weird remix of Spooky Scary Skeletons.
After finally regaining her ability to breathe properly, Marinette took a piece of candy and looked around. She realized that a large amount of people had just decided to sacrifice a white bedsheet, so the room was full of ghosts. Chloé was a queen, of course, with a cape and a crown and everything. Sabrina was wearing an orange sweater, red skirt and orange stockings. She was basically a cartoon pumpkin lesbian, which made Mari give her the nickname “Velma” for the night. She noticed two ghosts with paint and ink stains on them. After wondering about it for a minute, she figured those were Nathaniel and his boyfriend Marc, probably being the ghosts of an artist and a writer. Marinette’s gaze finally stopped on Juleka, who was wearing her normal clothes and didn’t even need a costume. Rose was next to her, but she was wearing some of (presumably) Juleka’s old clothes and she had fitting make-up on. They were surrounded by a bunch of ghosts, who Marinette had a harder time figuring out. One of them was pretty short – Alix, and another was…big – Ivan. He was anxiously holding a third ghost’s hand, which meant that was Mylène. That left just one anonymous bedsheet. Could it be…it had to be Adrien, right?
Marinette tried to make her way to him as gracefully as possible, but it was easier said than done, given that all of the ghosts were moving around and dancing with each other. When she had finally reached Adrien, she tripped on her own toilet paper and was on her way to the floor when she felt someone grab her before she could fall. It was him! Adrien had caught her and now she was staring at his beautiful blue eyes…wait. Blue??
“Hi, Marinette. That was one way to make your entrance to the dancefloor.” Luka laughed and carefully let her go. “Are you okay?”
Mari was really, really red and she was sure that it was visible despite how dark it was. “H-hi, Luka. I didn’t know you were coming. And yes. I’m fokay. I mean okine. Okay. I’m okay, yes. Thank you! For catching me.” She could tell by Luka’s eyes that he was still smiling.
“No problem, Marinette. Juleka told me she’s coming and I didn’t have anything better to do tonight, so I decided to come see you guys. Is Adrien here? I wanted to say hi to him as well.”
“Oh, I was actually looking for him too. He said his dad didn’t let him come, so he’s going to have to sneak out. I hope he’s gets here soon though.”
Marinette went to the bar to get something to drink, but couldn’t bring herself to go back to the dancefloor. There was something about all those white ghosts moving together that was just…mesmerizing. She couldn’t stop looking at them.
“Chloé, I have an idea.” She was still a little dizzy, but she couldn’t stay on that chair for too long. She wanted to dance and have fun, so she did. The hallucinations of Dupain-Cheng coming to her with ideas were a new side effect of the sugar though.
“Do you think we can get some bedsheets from the hotel?” The hallucination was really persistent.
“What? Why?”
“So we can all be ghosts.” Maybe it was the real Dupain-Cheng after all. She’s been known to have random ideas like that.
“Uh, sure. But why?”
“Just stop and look around for a second. It just looks really cool. A bunch of bedsheets dancing together. I thought it would be even better if we were all ghosts! That way no one else would know who’s who.”
Chloé stopped to think for a second. She had to admit, as random and ridiculous as it sounded, it also seemed like a lot of fun. The part of her that was high on sugar really liked Marinette’s idea. The part of her who would have to explain the missing bedsheets later didn’t, but she wasn’t in charge at that moment.
Just as Adrien was about to start working on his costume, he heard a knock on the door. It was his father, which he didn’t expect. Gabriel didn’t usually care when he made his son upset. They had a long and a little boring discussion that they’d already had many times before and Adrien’s lines mainly consisted of “I understand, father”. He had to play nice and say he gets why he has to stay at home like he always does instead of going out like every normal person his age.
“It’s okay, father, I understand. I was tired after all the school work I had to do the past few weeks. I think I’m just going to watch ‘The Corpse Bride’ and go to bed.” He didn’t even have to fake being tired – in fact, he couldn’t wait to go to bed. But he also really wanted to finally spend some time with his friends without having to battle an akuma.
After his father finally left, an hour and a half later, he quickly made a few red stains on his clothes, hands and arms, then transformed into Chat Noir so he can sneak out of his room without breaking a bone or two.
His trip to the Le Grand Paris hotel was relatively short, since he was jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He detransformed in a dark alley nearby and was really pleased to find out that his Halloween costume had remained untouched.
Adrien hurried inside. He knew he was extremely late and he didn’t want to miss anything else. He saw a bedsheet ghost standing right next to a bowl of candy by the entrance.
“Well, hello there, handsome.” Adrien stopped and looked around. Was the ghost talking to him?
“Yes, I’m talking to you. Would you care for a dance?” Before Adrien could reply, the ghost grabbed his hand and dragged to the dance floor.
Only then Adrien realized that everyone but him was wearing a bedsheet. Nearly fifteen people looked almost exactly the same and they were all dancing in pairs to a spooky-but-romantic-sounding song. It was one of the weirdest and also coolest things Adrien had ever seen.
“Wh-what’s happening?” He turned back to his partner and tried to figure out who it is. His voice was probably a boy’s and he had the bluest eyes he had ever seen. Luka? “Why are you all ghosts?”
Luka shrugged. “Marinette thought it would be fun. Oh, there she is.” Everyone was changing their dancing partners and Luka made it so he switched places with Marinette. Or at least what Adrien assumed to be her.
“Adrien! Hi! I’m so glad you finally came. We really need to get you a bedsheet as well.” She dragged him towards one of the tables, where a pair of scissors and some bedsheet remains were waiting for them.
“I thought we were having a ‘shittiest costume’ competition, what happened?”
“Well,” Marinette was trying to find a whole bedsheet for Adrien, “half of the people here were already dressed as ghosts when I arrived, so I thought it would be fun if we all were white blobs dancing around, trying to figure out who’s who.” She gave up and just took the tablecloth. “Just look at them! It looks truly magical, doesn’t it?”
She was right. Chloé (or maybe her butler) had done an amazing job decorating the place. There were fake spiderwebs, plastic spiders and fake bloodstains everywhere and even the bathroom had a spooky sign. The room was lit up by really cool pumpkin lanterns. They were fake too, which was good, given that they didn’t want to accidentally set the hotel on fire. The ghosts in the middle were really the best part though. The way they were all moving (almost) in sync made Adrien feel like he was witnessing something out of this world.
“Yeah. I suppose it does.” There was a soft smile on his face.
Marinette was done transforming the tablecloth into Adrien’s new costume and put it on top of him. She nervously took his hand again. “Come on, don’t you want to join them?”
Adrien looked at her. He could only see her eyes, but they were enough for him to tell that she was really tired as well. He shook his head and pulled Marinette back towards him, so they can sit on the table together.
“I think watching the others would be enough for me tonight. I really wanted to come and have fun with everyone else, but…now that I’m here, I can’t help but realize just how tired I am.” He was still holding Marinette’s hand and didn’t want to let go.
“Yeah, I get that. I really do.” She carefully put her head on Adrien’s shoulder. “These past few weeks have been terrible. I can’t wait to go home and get some sleep.”
Adrien let out a soft laugh. “I know, right! Me too.” He realized he’s been playing with Marinette’s hand. “Do you want me to walk you home?”
Her whole body tensed up for a second, but then Adrien felt her nod. “Yeah, I’d really like that. In a bit though? I like watching the ghosts.” He smiled.
“Me too. In a bit then.”