Chapter Text
July – Three years ago
Post-Fall of Agreste Manor
What a heart-wrenching picture he depicts.
There he is, out on the midnight streets of Paris. Useless angry tears roll down his cheeks in tandem with the depressing rain drenching his clothes, cleansing them from the soot covering his once-clean suit. He stares at his bare-skinned hands collecting water droplets, wondering why his poisonous fingertips look so pristine while he himself oozes the destructive aftermath of what he just caused.
How did he even get to this point?
His life was only going uphill for such a long time. With his age offering him the position of being on the precipice to discovering his purpose, there were so many roads laid out in front of him – and he was eager to travel them all.
He found love. Love that didn’t leave a bitter aftertaste. Love that wasn’t shrouded in a layer of emptiness or vain glitz and glamor. It was soft and trusting and made him feel full.
His world was expanding. For the better, he thought. No longer was his gaze filled with longing, and no more would his poised words be a mask for the truth he wished to speak. He was allowed. He was free. Free to see more of the world, and create one of his own.
But freedom didn’t grant him all-encompassing vision or prepare him for the darkness looming up ahead. His eyes were even more tightly closed than he realized.
So, opening them became the most horrendous experience he’s ever had. He doesn’t even know anymore how he truly felt at the time. If he has to describe it, it was...
A violent whiplash of unspeakable betrayal.
You’d think he would’ve been better at handling it – after lie after disappointment after neglect, but it still stabbed him in the gut, painfully twisting. All that’s left was a heavy rage boiling within him. Swallowing him up.
He didn’t know what to do with it.
Until it spilled over.
Honestly, he shouldn’t be upset – shouldn’t grieve for something that was written in the stars from the very beginning. Deep down, he knew this was bound to happen. He simmered in his desolation, let it cloud his judgment, until it all reached a cataclysmic finale.
He skids down the rain-wetted street, petulantly hops in a puddle to soak his priceless Oxfords and punches a brick wall he passes, for good measure. Pain shoots from his knuckles up his arm, and he wishes it’ll reach his chest to dull the continuous sting.
It doesn’t.
He wants to shout up at the black sky, thinking it unfair that it’s hiding the moon behind thick clouds. The moon always has the answers. At least, ever since he went looking for them from his childhood bedroom window. Now he requires them even more.
His world is brightly guarded by two moons, however. Both equally engulfing him in a brilliant light at his darkest hours. When one is unable to hand him the answers he seeks, he’ll look for some sense of direction from the other. But what to do when both are hidden from view, leaving him in the dark?
He can’t find his way to their guiding light anymore. He’s cast himself into the shadows, much like his partner is prone to do.
His Lady. Emitting the most vivid of lights, but also the best at occluding him from what’s inside.
She is always of the belief that she needs to do it all on her own and he always stubbornly reminds her that he’ll be at her side, whether she likes it or not.
She makes it seem like it’s an impossibility; that there is no way for them to bridge that gap. But really, it doesn’t appear that difficult to him – never has. All she has to do is ask for his help. Share her struggles when she’s at her lowest. Put her trust in him.
Since the beginning of their partnership, he couldn’t understand why he has to convince her of his loyalty so much; that they’re in this together.
The past few months have clearly shifted his perspective. Widened the scope. Taught him that sometimes things go beyond his own understanding of devotion and protection.
He can’t go back anymore. And it forces him to adjust his path – heading for one only he is able to thread.
Fate’s ironic and unusually punishing cruelty might’ve been the most enlightening guide he’s ever had.
He knows what to do.
It can be felt in the form of determination replacing his sorrow. Growing until a hungry beast is roaring internally.
No more tears. No more vindications. No more questions.
No more mercy.
Adrien looks up at the midnight sky again, seeing a peek of the moon shimmering from behind the proudly towering Le Grand Paris hotel. And he yells.
Grand Paris hotel. And he yells.