Chapter Text
“You should talk to him.”
Marinette felt her shoulders stiffen – felt her entire body tense – at the tiny voice. Irrational as it was, because she knew no one else could hear it. No one else was able to see or hear Tikki except for her – that’s just how kwamis worked.
…well.
Her, and her soulmate.
But she didn’t have a soulmate. Or…she hadn’t found them. Yet. So it was impossible that anyone else currently aboard the Liberty would have heard Tikki’s horrible suggestion.
Talk to him.
Like she could ever do something as crazy as that.
“Shut up,” she hissed under her breath, her eyes still darting up to make sure the band – to make sure he wasn’t listening. She hunched closer to her legs, bringing her face dangerously close to her sketchbook, and tapped her pencil against the page in irritation. “You know I can’t.”
“But why?” the little bug asked, zipping out from behind her pigtails to stare unabashedly at the him in question.
…Luka.
Juleka’s older brother.
Lead guitar of Kitty Section.
Super cool, super nice, super hot, super out of her league…
Tikki was frowning as she looked back and forth from Luka to Marinette’s sketchbook.
“You like him, don’t you?” she asked, tilting her little head to the side. Marinette flailed, sending her sketchbook flying, as she grabbed at the kwami. Did she have to be so loud?!
“Tikki, shut up!” she cried, her face burning as she pulled her against her chest. She looked up at the sudden silence on the deck, and she gave a nervous laugh as she waved off the concerned stares. “S-sorry, guys! You know how…annoying kwamis are!”
Tikki shouted something rude at her, she was sure, but her hand was covering the little brat’s mouth and it came out a muffled squeak. Marinette groaned as she pulled her knees back up on the crate and pressed her forehead against them. Tikki grew suddenly quiet, and Marinette looked up to find…oh. Oh no.
Luka was standing right in front of her, her discarded sketchbook in hand.
“Your kwami’s a little shit, too, huh?” he chuckled, holding the book out for her. She swallowed and glanced down at her clenched hands, but Luka wasn’t looking at Tikki.
…of course he wouldn’t be.
He couldn’t see her.
Because he wasn’t…
“More than usual lately,” she sighed, letting Tikki go as she took her book back. She offered him a shaky smile as he took a seat on the crate beside her. “Sorry. She…likes to tease me.”
“Oh, mine lives for that,” he chuckled. “I don’t think Sass considers a day complete until he’s made my life a living hell.”
She giggled as he grinned at her, and her feet slipped from the edge of the crate back to the deck as she leaned forward. His smile softened, and that…oh, he had the best smile…
“I’m sure he’s not all that bad,” she said, reaching up to tuck some hair behind her ear. She looked up at him with a shy smile and prayed her face wasn’t as red as it felt. “…he’s your kwami, after all.”
“Well, by that logic…someone as sweet as you? Tikki has to be a saint,” he said. She wanted to roll her eyes, but Luka had just called her sweet, and she ended up mumbling out some nonsense that might have been a thank you or maybe a shut up you’re cute, but either way she ended up looking back at the deck as her face burned hotter. After a moment, he nudged he shoulder with his own and nodded towards the sketchbook. “Sooo…what were you working on? It must be good – you looked pretty intense.”
Her stomach clenched, remember exactly what – or who – she had been doodling, and she prayed he hadn’t actually seen the very detailed sketch of himself when he had picked the book up.
…any of the very detailed studies she’d done of him over the last few weeks, actually. Tikki, kill her now…
“N-no, it was…it was nothing,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “Just…you know. Doodles.”
“I’d love to see them sometime, if you don’t mind sharing,” he said, leaning a little closer. “Juleka says you’re crazy talented.”
“She…she said that?” she asked, looking up in surprise. She hugged her sketchbook to her chest, and his smile…there was something in his eyes, something she couldn’t quite place – something she maybe wasn’t quite ready to place yet – that made her stomach flip pleasantly. That made her want to show him the sketchbook, or anything he asked for, if only he’d keep looking at her like that. He nodded, and she looked away as she bit down on her smile. “That…that was really sweet of her.”
“She can be, sometimes,” he said. She glanced back up at him, and her breath caught when he winked at her. “If you’re not related to her.”
A giggle was startled out of her, and he chuckled as he reached over to squeeze her shoulder. He glanced at something behind her, that strange look passing over his face again, before he stood and waved.
“Th-thanks!” she called as he turned away. He looked back, and she waved her sketchbook at him. “For…bringing it back. Thank you.”
“Anytime, Ma-Ma-Marinette,” he said with a wink. She rolled her eyes at the nickname, but her face didn’t feel as hot as it had the first time he’d teased her with it. It felt…familiar, now. More comfortable.
A tiny giggle by her shoulder had her tensing all over again, and she looked down to find Tikki grinning at her.
“Well,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “at least you talked to him!”
– V –
Later, after the others had headed home for the night and Luka was left ‘cleaning up’ the deck (…which was more of an excuse to sit on the stage, staring up at the stars as he worked on that song that had been stuck in his head since blue, blue eyes and Ma-Ma-Marinettes), Sass decided he apparently hadn’t had enough that day.
…as if seeing that crazy drawing of him in her sketchbook hadn’t been enough. He had almost dropped the book all over again when he’d picked it up and realized she’d been drawing him the entire time she’d been watching their rehearsal. When he’d realized she’d been watching him maybe as much as he’d been trying not to watch her.
“You ssstill have not told her,” the little snake hissed softly, settling on the head of his guitar when his playing tapered out. Luka’s grip tightened on the neck as his eyes narrowed at his kwami. His long tail was dangling, swishing almost like a cat – and the smirk on his face was definitely too feline for something that was supposed to be a snake.
“Sass…” he said in warning, but Sass just flicked his tongue out at him. He’d say he was scenting the air, but Luka knew better. Sass lived to torment him.
“Why haven’t you told her?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. Luka rolled his eyes and jostled his guitar, just enough to dislodge the little shit.
“You know why,” he sighed, sinking back against the speaker he was using as a backrest. “She’s not ready yet, buddy.”
“How do you know if you don’t tell her?” Sass pressed. “Shhhe deserves to know, Luka. Wouldn’t you both be happier if she did?”
“…she’s not ready yet,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Her song’s still too…I don’t think she knows what she really wants yet, Sass. And when I tell her…I want her to want it. I want her to want me. Is that too much to ask?”
The kwami’s brow furrowed, as if he didn’t understand – or didn’t believe – him, and Luka sighed as he started picking the familiar notes out again. Marinette’s song. The one that had utterly bewitched him from the moment he had first heard it – that had only intensified when she’d waved goodbye that first night and he’d seen the large, violet eyes peeking out from behind her collar.
Sass heaved a longsuffering sigh as he settled on his human’s head. He flicked his tail against him as he settled in, a clear sign of his annoyance.
“I ssstill sssay you shhhould tell her,” he huffed, and Luka smiled sadly.
“I know, buddy,” he said. “I will. Soon.”
– V –
Except it wasn’t just that the kwamis’ humans were soulmates.
The kwamis needed each other, too.
They were linked, in an ancient, mysterious way no one really understood.
They could never really exist peacefully, in harmony, until they were reunited.
…and soon just wasn’t proving to be soon enough.
After another week went by – and then another two – Sass and Tikki had had just about enough.
“She’s just so shy,” Tikki huffed from their hiding place in the basketball hoop. “She’s so amazing, Sass, but she has no self-confidence! She’ll never make the first move!”
“I fear Luka won’t, either, if shhhe never does,” Sass sighed. “He feels shhhe is…not ready.”
He said it with a roll of his eyes, and Tikki pouted as she stared at the two hopeless soulmates dancing around each other below them.
“She’s more ready than he thinks,” she tutted. “You don’t have to wake up to her kissing her stupid cat pillow and sighing his name.”
Sass snickered, and Tikki tried to pout at him, but it was too easy to return his grin when he looked at her like that. He was more familiar with things like that than she knew, he was afraid.
“Perhapsss it’sss time we ssstopped leaving it up to them, then?” he suggested, tilting his head as he watched Luka bend to help Marinette pick something up – and then crash his head against hers when their hands brushed and she jerked back. “Perhapsss they need a little…pushhh?”
“…what do you have in mind?” Tikki asked, turning to him. He grinned and floated up, winking at her as he made his way below.
“I think it’sss about time I sssee thisss pillow for myssself,” he hummed. It took barely a moment – the briefest of distractions, provided by Ivan calling for Luka to get back to the stage and neither of them watching too closely – and then Sass was phasing through Marinette’s bag, settling into a pocket he was sure would go unchecked until it was too late.
From her place on the hoop, Tikki just…stared.
She…hadn’t known they could do that?
They could do that???
She had thought they were bound to their humans, that they couldn’t travel too far from them, and yet…well.
If Luka was Marinette’s soulmate, perhaps he was a little bit Tikki’s human, too?
Tikki was still hiding up on the hoop a short while later when Marinette received a call asking her to come home, and she watched anxiously as her human waved goodbye to her friends and ran off the boat.
…as Luka watched her go, a look she would call nothing short of longing on his face.
She sank back against the board and wished for a freshly-baked cookie to chew on. Oh, she had a bad feeling about this…