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Marinette dropped her bottom on the balcony’s floor, planted her hands by her sides, and, with her feet, pushed the wooden boxes out of the way. Tiny buds specked out of the wide grass blades, curiously peeking into the spring air. The colors were still pale and if one didn’t recognize the stems, grass blades, or hadn’t read their seeds packet names, they wouldn’t know what they’d be once they blossomed.
Marinette hadn’t read their seeds’ packets and willfully chose not to think about the telling leaves. They’d bloom into whatever they wanted to bloom into and Marinette would love and be awestruck by their beauty however they decided to manifest it.
She slipped headfirst through the opening on the attic’s wall, sprawling on the floor, and turned to her back as she kicked the entrance’s rim.
A confused hum sounded from further into the attic, followed by an oh upon recognizing the ragdoll thrown carelessly onto the Burrow’s floor, and quiet footsteps brought Félix’s face onto her field of view.
“Need help?”
The groan that scraped through Marinette’s throat and exited her mouth wasn’t exactly a confirmation as much as it was a warning she wasn’t in shape to turn thoughts into comprehensible words. And, Félix, being the arsehole of a sweetheart that he was, bit his knuckle to muffle his laughter and shook his head as he stepped over to close the entrance before helping her up.
The same groan scraped out again as she slumped over Félix’s back on the bean bag, burying her face in his hair—how was it always so soft? She needed to ask about his shampoo. She needed to stop forgetting about asking about his shampoo—as she slung her arms around his neck. And this time, he asked if she was sad.
“No,” she said to his incredibly soft hair as he shifted to rest more comfortably on the bean bag—half his torso on it, half on Marinette’s chest. “Frustrated, I think.”
He hummed questioningly, sliding down to face up at her, lowering his book to his lap.
Marinette pursed her lips, averting her eyes as she pressed her cheek on his hair. “I sent a job application today. The identity file had a gender question. ‘Male’, ‘female’, or ‘other’ with a blank line to fill with whatever. I marked the other but didn’t fill in anything.”
She tightened her hold on Félix, turning her nose to the carameled strands—a caramel-scented shampoo?
“Is my gender nothing?” she murmured, taking in his sweetness to calm her body’s trembles.
Félix shrugged, shuffling around on the bean bag as he snaked his arm around her back and to her hair, pulling her head to the crook of his neck as he stroked a thumb under her braids knots on her scalp. Marinette curled up on his side, an arm flattened under his lower back—kinda losing feeling, but whatever—as she fiddled with the hem in his collar shirt.
“I don’t want it to be ‘nothing,’ if– if I can even choose things like that,” she said, eyeing the closed book leaned on his thigh, a yarn peeking out from between its pages. “But it doesn’t feel like nothing, I know there’s something in there, and I like having things to be called. Not only ‘she’, ‘her’, or ‘girl’. Things like– like an artist, an engineer’s apprentice, an amateur inventor, your girlfriend…” She smiled up at him, giggling at the pink rising up his neck and tinting his ears as he snapped his head to the side. Then she downcasted her eyes, her hand falling to his chest as her smile fell a bit. “But those are roles, they can’t be gender, right?”
“I mean…” Félix cleared his throat, putting his book on the box by the bean bag before turning to hug Marinette. “…gender is a part of identity, right? And roles are other parts of identity. Maybe you like replacing, or mixing, them up?”
“Maybe,” she murmured, closing her eyes as the soft caramel embraced her, filling all her senses.
It was comfortable, nice, sweet, but the gears in her mind didn’t stop whirring and heating up her brain with the incessant attempts at connecting dots it didn’t have the lines to. She wanted to topple the table just so that all the pieces would scatter over and she wouldn’t be able to ever worry about piecing them together.
But she wanted something to attach her self to. Even if it was just a malleable concept. Especially if it was a malleable concept.
“Hey, Félix,” she murmured, opening an eye, “what is my name?”
He placed his chin on the top of her head as he promptly provided, “‘Marinette’ is a diminutive of ‘Marine’; ‘of the sea’, ‘one who rises’–”
“One who rises from the sea.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” Muted laugh vibrated his chest, then it went back to his speech’s rumbles, “I know ‘Mar’ is Spanish, Portuguese, and maybe some other Latin language name for sea, so I guess the ‘ine’ would be what makes it someone of the sea, while the ‘nette’–”
He pulled back to press his forehead to Marinette’s, her face tilting up to his. She narrowed her eyes as he grinned.
“–is what makes it someone small of the sea.”
“Félix!” She pushed his chest, getting up as scant laughter burst out of him.
He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and dropped his back on the cushion, both of them falling on their sides on it, Félix spooning her back as they shook with giggles.
“Then what Mar alone would be?” she asked when it subsided. Like it was the first time she wondered it out loud.
“Is simply the sea,” he answered like he hadn’t heard this before, “the body of water that surrounds the landmasses. Alone it’s a significant portion of the planet and the suffixes make it an individual.”
Marinette let out a breath that loosened her whole body, sinking into her caramel boyfriend as she slipped her hands into the palms strapped around her, a smile slowly cracking her warm face up.
“Thanks, Félix.”
“Don’t know what I did,” he said, squeezing her frame even closer to him, “but you’re welcome.”