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They never really liked the quiet, and they'd always choose the music and the crowd. But now the only voice I hear is whispering: "Slow down".
Felix lived life in a blur after his father was defeated and unmasked to be Papillon. The trial was over in the blink of an eye. He barely even noticed his father’s new absence in his life.
He still patrolled with Ladybug, he still went to school, he still did everything he was supposed to. He felt numb.
Felix hated the quiet. It gave him an opportunity to think, to process, to understand what happened to him and his family. He hated it. He didn’t want the excuses, the apologies, the explanations for anything that happened.
So he started spending more time with other people. He never liked social interactions before, but it served its purpose well enough, the silence was gone. He didn’t even spend quality time with people he deemed friends, he just sat by himself in loud crowds and let the chaos wash over his senses.
He needed to slow down.
The little things you never notice. The comfort in the closeness of a hand. And all the ways we lead each other safely back to land, to understand…
Marinette had never noticed just how quickly things happened. But thinking about it now, while Papillon’s identity loomed over all of Paris and Felix Sphinx was shunned wherever he went, it hit different.
She had been through so much. She had matured, fought villains that she had thought were impossible to defeat time and time again, been through more than she or anyone else could ever imagine.
And Felix.
She’d be lying if she said that she thought Felix was okay. In fact, it as him being okay that made him seem not okay. He went to class, he studied, he took good notes. He went home, he left again, he strolled around town. He seemed totally fine, perhaps even too much so given the circumstances.
But she could also just be imagining things.
Since the defeat, Marinette had noticed more about the world around her. She noticed her mother’s efforts to take care of her, something easily taken for granted. She noticed how nice it felt to snuggle by her mom while they watched a movie at the end of the day. She noticed how everything seemed so much simpler now. So much more stable and grounded.
She had made it. But it was still different.
Oh, that something happens in the inbetween. The distant shows I've never known, the forest for the trees. It's beautiful and strange, as something changes… In the inbetween.
It was as simple as ABC. They were fighting Papillon and his accomplices. Then they weren’t. It was simple.
But it was the in-between of it all, the moments of shock, the emotions and harsh words unleashed to the world, the feeling of being numb that mattered.
It was the in-between.
They could all remember it clear as day.
“Kitty, watch out!” She had screamed at him as he lunged past the Mime towards what he could only assume was the lair of the mastermind they’d been truly battling that whole time.
He landed at the door and kicked it open. And there he found Richard Sphinx.
Ladybug watched in horror as Chat froze, backing away from the man in the stained-glass room.
“You…” Chat managed, eyes wide.
Richard sneered. “Why is it always you two children who always try to get in my way?”
Ladybug charged, pushing down some bad-mannered side thoughts about where she could shove her foot. The Mime had other plans. A swift movement of something invisible later, she cried out, crumpling to the ground with a stinging pain in her side.
Richard walked over to her, stupid white shoes clicking on the ground as he moved. She growled.
“I need this.” He smirked, lifting her chin and pushing her hair away from her ear.
“No.” She spat.
Chat came out of nowhere, pouncing on Richard from above, using a black hole to his advantage. “Leave her alone.”
It was pretty over after that. They didn’t even need to call on reinforcements. After the police took Sphinx away and revealed The Mime to be Fred Savard, father of one of Marinette’s friends, and Monsieur Pigeon to be Xavier Ramier, Marinette’s beloved mentor, Ladybug cried.
Chat disappeared into the night.
After that night, everything was different. Something in them changed. Something in them changed in that lonely in-between.
The world that's right outside the window. Half remembered mornings in the park. And all the tiny messages you listen for… in the dark.
Claude wished he would’ve been there on that night. He wished he would’ve been able to help, he wished he would’ve been better, he wished he had found out any other way than he did.
It was 2 in the morning. He had been drawing in his room. His mom was gone as per usual, and surprisingly, so was his dad. Though he guessed it made sense now.
He heard a knock at the door and rushed downstairs to open it, figuring his dad probably lost his keys again.
It was a police officer. “Son, I’d like to speak to you for a minute, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Claude had nodded, thinking it couldn’t be that bad. What would they want to talk to him about anyway?
“Your father’s in custody, I don’t know how to tell you any better.” The officer said sheepishly, taking his cap off. “He’s The Mime, kid. I’m sorry.”
And then he left. Claude figured he shouldn’t be so surprised, why else would he have identical powers to the man, it made perfect sense. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. That didn’t mean the in-between hearing about it and being okay wouldn’t suck.
Because it did.
It was the kind of sadness that clung to someone like a shroud, the kind of repressed emotion that was finally being let loose, the kind of reality that seemed too good to be true.
It felt good to get enough sleep and not have to rush out of the house in the morning because he just had to get out, to escape.
It felt good to not worry about whose footsteps were coming closer to him.
It felt good to feel safe.
And Claude hated that he felt that.
But he still found himself grinning at the stupid little nothings he and his friends would send back in forth in the group chat just to see who could make the least sense before bed while still being reasonable. He still felt bittersweet emotions he couldn’t name as he listened to the silence in the dark.
He still felt more than he ever had before in the in-between.
I thought that I could be enough (I thought that I could be an island). The things we blame on just too little time. And suddenly, you're starin' down the heart of all you left behind, then you find…
Felix wanted to be everything. He wanted to be the son his father wanted, the good doctor people needed, the perfect partner Ladybug could depend on. He wanted to be everything he needed to be and more. He wanted to be enough.
He wanted to spend time with his father. He wanted to feel okay. He wanted to feel real and validated. He used to dismiss all of that as that he didn’t have enough time for that. He didn’t want to admit that there was anything greater going on.
But now? Looking right at everything he used to have and being able to feel something about it, Felix knew he’d been wrong. He couldn’t be everything. As far as he knew, he couldn’t be anything he was supposed to be.
No, he was supposed to be something else entirely. He was a good student, still young and learning. He was his lady’s kitten, dependable and loyal to a fault. He was the son of Papillon, shunned and dismissed everywhere he went. He was Felix Sphinx.
And he was different after everything that happened. The in-between had changed him.
Oh, that something happens in the inbetween. The distant shows I've never known, the forest for the trees. It's beautiful and strange, as something changes… In the inbetween.
Marinette didn’t think the change was bad. She had a greater love for the little things around her, more compassion for good people making bad choices because of their perspective, the way the were brought up, their feelings, or their motives. She was a more dependable leader.
After the defeat, Ladybug became an icon of the good in the world. Children ran up to her with coloring pages they had filled in for her, things she would cherish as long as she walked the earth. Adults thanked her for her work and dedication and often dropped everything to offer her help with anything they could, from getting cats out of trees to helping a neighbor in need.
Paris was different from it. Paris was better for it.
She never thought she could have such an awestriking impact on the city, but here she was. Sure, it was strange, but it was beautiful too. People aspired to be like the example she put up. They changed because of that day when everything changed.
They changed because of that in between.
And all the fear that rises up inside, the truth it seems impossible to know. The simplest things, we would remind you to take a breath. And let it go.
Claude wasn’t about to deny it, the sudden change from being scared to come home at the end of the day to being able to go wherever he wanted was cool. But he still didn’t like it.
He still flinched when he heard a loud noise that caught him off-guard, he still tensed when he messed something up, he still had repercussions from the way he’d lived his life.
But he was better for it.
He missed his dad. He missed what they could’ve had, even though the logical part of him insisted that it wouldn’t have happened anyway.
So he continued living. Because he had no other choice.
Life came easier after that in-between of feeling numb, helpless, lost, and confused. That in-between was mourning. Something he needed to do so he could move on.
Yes, life changed. Yes, Claude would still go back to the way it had been before in a heartbeat, but he was going to give himself time to heal over it. It was the least he could do.
Oh, that something happens in the inbetween. The distant shows I've never known, the forest for the trees. It's beautiful and strange, as something changes… In the inbetween.
Felix realized something. He saw things for what they were because he was a realist, but the way things were oftentimes weren’t as bad as he had thought they’d be. He never wanted the mess he’d been thrown into. He never wanted his father to be Papillon. But the in-between of it all, where he had lost everything and wasn’t okay and normal yet, that’s where he was. And he was okay with that.
Because without the in-between, no one can grow.