Archive of Our Own

After much scrutiny and internal debate, Felix has decided that he does not, in fact, enjoy the fashion industry. 

Adrien is different though. Whereas he himself would sink, Adrien’s swimming around like a duck in a lake.  Felix watches him bemusedly from the corner where he’s been perched for the better part of the Saturday afternoon. 

Adrien is surrounded by people, preening and poking and prodding.  Felix twists his ring around his finger, his hands resting, folded, in his lap.  There’s a box of something or another, stacked up here in his corner, and he’s made it his home, perched precariously on top, out of the way of everyone else. 

It’s better than being in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the shoot, with nervous people running back and forth.  All the noise makes his shoulders tighten, makes him want to become immensely irritated, but he tries his best to fight it, to push down the annoyance. 

Adrien isn’t nervous, shows no sign of being fazed in the slightest by all the noise and movement.  People have done his makeup at least three times in the past three hours, constantly touching, then retouching. 

Just watching it makes him anxious, makes his skin crawl. 

But then, he was a strange child, an odd thing, as his grandmother put it.  He leaned out of hugs, away from the touches of others.  The only person that he never minded was his mother, and even then he could get enough. 

But Adrien, Adrien loved (loves) hugs, touching. 

The word evokes the sensation, and he resists the urge to shudder. 

He had brought a book with him in the hopes that he might be able to read and therefore get something productive out of the afternoon, but the noise has proved too much, and so he has just sat, and looked at his hands, and fiddled with his ring, while people have preened and fussed his sparkling, perfect, golden cousin into an even shinier, sparklier version of himself.  

They fuss with Adrien, patting his hair, dabbing his cheeks with blush or something, and then take pictures on the draped set background, and then Adrien goes and changes outfits, and then they do the same thing all over again. 

Felix is disappointed at how long it's taking them. 

He’s already pinpointed several places in the cycle where the whole system isn’t operating at optimal efficiency, but when he went over to inform the camera operator of the many flaws in his working method, the man appeared to be quite annoyed with him. 

Although Felix could tell that the man knew who he was and was trying to hide it, so he wearily decided to let it go, and left him be. It wasn’t worth picking a fight over, not this, surely. 

So he had sat himself back down in his corner and resumed his watching of the people.  And, every so often, he would glance inside his jacket to check on Dusuu, who was in the middle of one of her Very Serious naps. 

The last time he had woken her up during a deep sleep she had actually pecked him.  He had then decided to never do it again. 

Her tiny shining tail feathers splayed against his shirt, as she shifted slightly, breathing softly.  He patted her gently and then let her be. 

Felix twists his ring, looking back over at his cousin.  Adrien must have seen him looking in the mirror, because he turns in his chair and waves. Felix waves back with one hand.  He looks down at his hands, the lined palms. 

And wonders, just what is different, in Adrien’s head, than in his. 

He doesn’t want to be Adrien, exactly.  But watching him…it’s easy to be reminded of his own failings. His lack of kindness.  His struggles to be empathetic. 

Felix knows that he doesn’t look like Adrien, that he can’t smile quite like Adrien. 

He’s tried. In the mirror, at night. 

Somehow it’s fake, it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

People like Adrien better. 

Adrien’s funnier, nicer, more pleasant. 

He’s not jealous. 

These are all just facts. 

Felix doesn’t really want to be loved by all.  He doesn’t need that, deep in his soul.  He knows who it is that he loves, and he knows that he is loved back in return.  He does what he can.  And he tries to be empathetic, he really does. 

He hopes that his mother knows that he loves her.  He can’t love her the way that Adrien loved his own mother. 

Because he isn’t Adrien. 

For the very least of reasons being that, he could never ever stand having people touch his face for the entire afternoon. 

Adrien calls out his name.  “Fe?” 

He blinks, looking up.  Adrien is hanging over the back of his chair.  “Hey.” he says, waving him over.  Felix rolls his eyes, but gets up anyway. 

Adrien looks up at him from the chair.  There’s something purple on his eyelids.  Felix sniffs. 

“Your eyes are purple.” he says flatly.  Adrien blinks, then grins. “Oh, yeah. It’s eyeshadow, I think.” He starts picking up random tubes of things off the dressing table.  Finally he finds what he’s looking for, holding it up so Felix can see. 

Sure enough, it’s a tube of purple something or another.   Felix glances at it. “Hm.” 

Something passes through his mind, like a cold hand, and it must show on his face, because Adrien looks vaguely concerned.  “You okay?” He asks. 

Felix blinks, and forces what he hopes looks like a real smile.  Knowing him, it probably looks more like a grimace. 

“Yeah.”  he says lightly, shrugging. 

Adrien looks at him for another minute, before he gives up.  “It’s getting close.  Probably another half hour or so.”  He looks over again.  “You can go.  If you’re tired.” 

Felix looks at him flatly.  “Do I look tired?” he asks, annoyed. Adrien shrugs.  “Yeah, kinda.”

“It was a rhetorical question, Adrien.” he snaps back irritably.

 He doesn’t exactly know what’s happened to him, something about all of this today has triggered something in his brain, irritated an old itch, stirred up an old ghost.  It feels like a hand is closing around his throat. 

But there’s no way that it’s going to keep him from being there for his cousin. Nothing’s going to stop him, now that he’s got the opportunity, for the first time in his life, to actually be there, for Adrien. 

He can just deal with it. 

But he doesn’t appreciate Adrien calling him out on it.  Felix wishes that he would shut up. 

Adrien apparently takes note of his darkened mood, and drops the subject. 

“So, would you ever like to be a fashion model for a day?” he asks him, a hint of teasing in his voice.  Felix crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the edge of the dressing table, and mock shudders.  Adrien laughs. 

“I’d rather stab myself with a fork.” Felix tells him.  Adrien rolls his eyes. “C’mon.  You really wouldn’t ever give the glamour world a chance?” 

Felix sniffs, and looks away. 

“I could never stand all those people. Touching me.” he mutters under his breath.  When he looks back over, Adrien's looking at him thoughtfully.  “Yeah. I remember you never liked being touched when we were little.  You didn’t outgrow that?” 

Felix frowns, looking away again.   “I didn’t.” he says quietly. 

Adrien rustles the makeup around, and Felix wonders how much of this stuff actually belongs to him. 

Again the same skin crawling sensation passes over him, but this time it comes with nausea.  He clenches his fingers tighter into his arms, gripping down. 

He wishes Dusuu would wake up, and titter in his ear, and drive the ghosts away.  He wishes he was out of this hot room, that he was anywhere but here. 

He wishes he could run away, run, flee, till his legs give out. 

He remembers doing that, in the dead of night, nothing but a shout behind him, running, hiding in the woods with the wild things.  But he was a wild thing, a wide eyed creature who didn’t really have parents. 

A creeping, lurking thing, hiding behind dead trees, in the whispering wind. 

His grandad was always the one who found him. 

He would come out looking for him, a quiet, thin, whisper of a man.  And they’d walk back to the house. He’d take Felix’s hand in his own thin, old one. 

“Felix.” Adrien says. 

Felix blinks.  “Huh?” 

Adrien laughs, covering up the nervousness in his eyes.  “You, ah spaced out there for a second.  Are you sure you’re okay?”  Adrien asks worriedly.  Felix smiles and this time he knows for certain that it looks fake. 

“Oh, yeah. Maybe I am a bit tired.” he says and shrugs. 

Adrien nods.  The shoot passes, they take the next to last set of photographs.  Felix can’t imagine what they could possibly do with all of these pictures of Adrien. 

Adrien’s changing into the very last outfit, and he comes out from behind the screen, fiddling with something in his ear.  Felix watches him, confused.  “What’s that?” 

Adrien straightens up from the mirror, brushing a hand over his hair.  “What?” 

Felix frowns.  “That. In your ear.”  Adrien blinks.  “You mean…earrings?” Felix nods, still frowning.  “Yes Adrien.” 

They look at each other. 

Felix looks at him irritably, while Adrien just looks baffled.  “What?”  Adrien asks finally.  “Since when do you have holes in your ears , Adrien.” he snaps.

Adrien shrugs. “Um, since I was…eleven, I think? It was for some fashion thing, I think.” 

Felix blinks, processing.  “But you’re a boy.” 

Now the confusion has spread to the both of them.  “What does that have to do with it?” Adrien asks, his eyebrows knotting up.  Felix fights the urge to roll his eyes at his cousin.  He opens his mouth, and then closes it. 

There’s no hope of explaining something like this to his cousin.  If he even could.  He doesn’t even know what he would say, except that he feels sick.  Adrien looks at him.  “Oh my god.” 

Felix shuts his eyes. “I know.”  

Adrien’s stylist is able to do it after the shoot finishes.  He’s bemused by the pair of them, Felix can tell. 

“You know, you really don’t have to.” Adrien tells him.  Felix just looks at him. 

“As if I’d be worried about something that you could stand.” he says.  Only later does he realize that that was a bit mean, but he didn’t intend it to be cruel, not really. 

And it doesn’t hurt any.  But there’s a crawling under his skin, like there’s someone else in his body, like he’s not himself. 

“Are you happy?” Adrien asks.  Felix nods slowly. 

They walk home. 

The air is cold, and the feeling diminishes, although it doesn’t fade completely.  Adrien falls into step beside him, humming under his breath.

They both have on their coats, and the sky is filled with stars.

Paris is dark and cold, and the streets are quiet. The stars are coming out in the Paris sky.  Felix can’t help but think that there would be more stars in England, away from the metropolitan light pollution. 

Adrien bumps his shoulder.  “You okay up in there buddy?” he says lightly. 

Felix sighs out through his nose.  “I don’t know.” he finally admits quietly, putting his hands in his pockets.   

“You wanna talk about it?” Adrien offers.  Felix shakes his head.  “No.” he mumbles. 

Adrien glances along the riverside, sparking in the dark lights of the night.  “You seemed kinda down today.” he says after a while. 

“Sorry.” Felix says.  “I didn’t mean-” he exhales. 

“I really wanted to go with you.” he says finally.  There’s something that he can’t understand in Adrien’s eyes. 

“I know. And I was really glad you came.  Usually I’m always by myself.  It was way more fun with you there.” He pauses.  “Sometimes, it just seems like- you’re not okay.  You can tell me, you know, if you're not.”

Felix rolls his eyes.  “I’m fine, Adrien.” 

Adrien sighs.  They walk another bit.  Only one more block till they’re home. 

Home. Their home.

Mum will be inside, waiting on them to get back.  Felix exhales. 

“I don’t know.  I-just watching all those people…touch you, it stresses me out, I think.  And all the noise. I just…didn’t realize.”  He shrugs halfheartedly.  Felix glances up, realizing Adrien’s eyes are resting on him gently. 

“What?” he asks, for once the one in the dark. 

Adrien’s smile is gentle, kind. 

“Nothing.  It’s just…you really haven’t changed any.”

Felix feels his brow furrow.  “What?” 

“Since we were little.  I thought, for a while, that you had changed.  But you haven’t.” Adrien smiles broadly up at the sky. Felix feels hesitant somehow. 

“And that’s not…bad?” he asks, hesitant.  Adrien looks over at him, grinning in the dark. 

“No. You’re- exactly how I wanted you to be.”

Felix feels himself smile. 

“Awww. Now that made you happy.” Adrien says, grinning even more, throwing an arm around his shoulders in a grasping, one-armed hug.  Felix halfheartedly attempts to shove him away. 

“No it didn’t, shut up.” he says, still smiling.  Adrien just laughs. 

They make it home and go inside to the warm bright lights.  

Kagami is fascinated by the metal posts stuck through his ears.

Her fingers toy, nearly brushing his cheeks, and while it does, in fact, hurt sometimes, secretly he’s enjoying the attention too much to ask her to stop. 

They’re together on a Sunday afternoon, in the living room of the Paris apartment, golden sunlight pouring through the window.  It’s a cold day, but the sunlight is warm, casting shadows across the floor. 

Kagami had to sneak out to come over.  Her awful mother had hated him immediately. 

He had been afraid for a bit that it would matter to Kagami, that it might affect her option of him, but she merely shrugged and rolled her eyes. 

“Well, I don’t care.”  she had said about it, taking him firmly by the arm, and so that had been that. 

So they snuck. 

Her out, him into her house. 

He deeply didn’t like it. 

It made him feel rotten, yet again.  A monster, lurking in the dark.  She was fine with Kagami dating Adrien.  Yet something was wrong with him. 

It was fine.  He knew Kagami wasn’t ready to stand up to her mother, now, or maybe ever.  And he loved her. He didn’t want her to hurt herself on his behalf. 

And he had had long, complaining conversations with his mum, and they always arrived at the same dismal conclusion; that Kagami was best where she was. Not perfect, but best.  As long as Kagami followed the rules,(or, at least, appeared to) her mother treated her…fine. 

Her leaving, living with them, would just bring unnecessary scandal. 

“All on her.” his mum had reminded him. 

So they snuck. 

But today was a nice day and he deeply didn’t want to taint it with dark, dismal thoughts.  So he did his best to bury him down, deep, in his brain. 

Adrien was out with his friends, and Felix, having had quite enough of Adrien’s friends of late, had declined to go with him.  Mum was also out, doing something or another.  So the house was quiet, filled up with the cold golden sunlight, and just them. 

They had wound up sitting on the sofa,  Kagami sitting beside him, her shoulder leaning, pressed, against his own.

Her fingers twist his earlobe in a particular way and that time he wasn’t able to keep himself from wincing. 

Her head tilts slightly to the side.  “Do they hurt?” she asks.  He looks at her sideways. 

“They do when you do that.” he tells her, gently poking her in the side, causing a quiet laugh to escape her mouth. 

“Mine hurt a little.” she says absently.  Felix looks at her flatly.  “Did they get infected?” he asks her dryly. 

Kagami shrugs, still smiling.  “Possibly.” she says, her eyes filled with amusement. 

She flops back down beside him, skirt pooling around her thighs, fingers fiddling with the fluttery fabric.  His eyes follow the action before he notices what he's doing.  Abruptly he looks away. Felix does his best to try to think about something else. 

He coughs, leaning back against the sofa, before turning to look over at the window ledge across the living room. 

Dusuu was busy taking her “sunshine nap” on the ledge of the window frame.  He had protested when he had learned of the kwami's plans, certain that the tiny kwami would roll straight off such a narrow space, but Dusuu had only laughed at him, (he thought, though he never was totally sure, with kwamis).

They had ended their somewhat of a quarrel with Dusuu agreeing to nap in an empty matchbox that Felix had found lying about, filled with a tissue and several cotton balls.  It must have been satisfactory, because the kwami had been completely quiet for  the past couple of hours. 

If he twists his neck slightly he could just see the plume of Dusuu’s tail feathers peeking out of the box.

It was sort of like making doll house furniture, he thinks, except that in this case, the tiny things were actually going to be used.  Living, but in miniature form. And lord knows Dusuu was quite an…honest critic.   

Thank god Marinette had been willing to try and make Dusuu that hat that she had wanted, instead of him.  He would’ve tried, but he had very little confidence in the results that he’d get. 

A finger pokes him gently on the shoulder, and he turned back around.  “What?”

Kagami smiles at him, a layer of amusement covering her eyes.  Her shoulder presses into his as she leans towards him. “You okay?” she asks him, voice soft. 

He frowns.  “Yes. Why does everyone keep asking me that.” he mutters. 

“Because they care about you.” Kagami tells him. 

He frowns, looking down at his folded fingers.

“And..I don’t know. You seem kinda down lately.” Kagami says, continuing.  He doesn't answer her, keeping his gaze on his hands.  “Why- what makes you say that?” he says, careful to keep his voice even. 

Kagami shrugs, but her eyes still rest on him.  “You’re wearing a sweatshirt.” she says, fingers tugging at the fabric sleeve. 

“It’s cold.” he defends meekly.  Kagami gives him a look. 

He shuts his eyes, tipping his head back.  “I don’t know.” he says finally, defeated.  Kagami leans against him, hands wrapping around his arm.

Kagami loves touching stuff.  Particularly if that stuff is him, or attached to his person.  His hand, his sleeve, his hair.  Whatever it is, Kagami is generally messing with it. Vaguely he wonders if it's a symptom of some kind of repressed anxiety, or something else entirely. 

Whatever its root cause, the fact is, is that Kagami constantly needs to be messing with something, and as her boyfriend, he is most often the thing that she chooses. 

He...doesn't hate it.   

She leans over a bit and her chin presses into the curve of his shoulder. Something about it is strangely comforting though. He looks at her a little bit desperately. 

“I really don’t think…” He begins, leaning towards her slightly. 

Her eyes glint.  Without warning, she darts upwards, pressing a chaste kiss against his mouth. She pulls back, a vaguely triumphant look in her eyes at the gaping look on his face. 

She also loves winning.  Somehow she always does, too. 

He sighs.  “It’s like my skin doesn’t fit right, now.” he says quietly, looking over at her.  Kagami, thankfully, rather than looking horrified or appalled, merely nods. 

“I don’t think I understand.” she admits.  Felix exhales. 

“It started…when I went to that fashion show with Adrien a couple weeks ago.”

“With this.” she says, nodding towards him.  He looks away.  “Yeah.”

He toys with his fingers.  “I-It just.” he stops, throat filling with a familiar panic.  He never could talk when things began falling apart.  Her fingers tighten in his arm.  He shakes his head. 

When he speaks again, his eyes are filled.

“It’s just, I think. My dad would’ve killed me for doing this.” he says, nearly almost laughing, despite it really not being funny at all, blinking several times rapidly.  Kagami, bless her heart, looks mystified.  “Why?” she asks, genuinely clueless. 

Felix pauses, twisting his thumb against his index finger, struggling to find the words.  To explain how Paris was different, to explain the ways that different people saw things differently. 

The way his dad’s voice had drawled out, long as a snake, as he went on and on. When he talked about stuff he didn’t like.  People he didn’t like. 

Felix swallows, his throat tightening.  Kagami’s cool fingers dig into his elbow. 

“I-don’t understand.” she says hesitantly.  “Please, tell me.” 

Felix exhales slowly.  He clenches his hands and then slowly unclenches them.  “When I was at the show…just watching.  Adrien…had on makeup. Like, out on a table. And some of it was his.” he bit his lip. 

Kagami listens, her face expressionless.  “And I just…it just made me feel…sick.” he says quietly. 

“Why?” Kagami asky, eyes like dark amber.  He shut his eyes. 

“I don’t know.  I love Adrien. But I watched him, and there was a voice in my head that just started saying…terrible things.  About him.” He paused, something in his chest wavering.  “I love him.  And I don’t believe those things.  But- they’re- in my head. And now, I just.”  he stops, looking down at the floor. 

“I don’t like who my dad was.  He made it his problem to hate people.  But I- I can hear him in my head.  I know what he’d say.  What he said about Adrien, what he’d say now, about me-and him.”  Felix frowns, looking away, knowing what he was saying didn’t make any sense. 

Felix twists his fingers, watching the joints bend.  He exhales slowly through his nose.  

"He wanted me to be like him.  To think and act like him.  And he...made me.  Everything about me, he touched.  And now..." he trails off, the thought too horrible to continue.  But Kagami's still watching, and he knows that she won't except a non answer.  

So he takes a deep breath.  "Thinking these thoughts.  I thought I could escape him.  When my dad died. I thought then, that meant that I was free, that I had finally escaped from his grasp.  But now...my brain, my head."  He pauses, his throat tightening painfully.  "It's like-he has a fist around my throat.  Like he's still controlling me, even though he's gone."

His voice cracks, and he knows he must sound like a maniac, but Kagami's ice cold fingers only tighten their grip on his sleeve.  

"But you know, that's not possible." she says carefully.  He nods, looking away, thumb against his ring, his metal lifeline.  All he can think is that it touched his skin for fourteen years, and now it has to touch his own for the rest of his life.  

Kagami sighs.  "But you don't agree, with these thoughts, do you?" she asks of him.  He looks over at her.  "No. No, I don't." he says quietly.  She smiles at him, like they've figured it out, like the answer has revealed itself.  

 “I think that the second voice, the second thought, the rejection of the idea, I think that’s the real one.”  she says, fixing her dark eyes onto him.  She takes things very seriously, nearly as seriously as he takes them. 

 It's too serious for fifteen year olds to be.  Like he's up on a mountain, all alone.  But it's not wrong. 

And now, he's not alone.  

It's hard. His whole universe, his entire life, has been spun onto its side, for the second time.  Only this time, it's a good revelation. 

He swallows, throat hurting.  "I-ah.  I always felt. Um. Like." he pauses, thinking if he should say it.  "An alien, I guess.  Except-I came here alone."  

Kagami watches him silently.  

He looks over meaningfully, knowing full well his face is probably red.  "Thanks." he says quietly.  She smiles a tiny smile, a tiny bright thing, like a bird alighting on a window sill.  

Without thinking about it he bends over and kisses her.  Her hand presses against his cheek.  And it's gone, the aching gap, the pain from the emotional wound inside his chest, it's suddenly well. He doesn't know what the feeling is, how he's whole.  He never believed in love.   

They pull apart.  Kagami grins.  

"You know, you and Adrien are only one twin away from being your own boy band."  

She cackles at the horrified face he makes.  

She only laughs harder when his fingers brush her shoulder lightly.  

Kagami laughs a lot now.  He really likes it.  He really likes her.

He tells her that.  Her cheeks darken. 

The sun sinks lower in the winter sky.  Felix remembers that he promised Adrien and Mum that he would make pasta for dinner tonight.  Kagami pokes him in the side again. 

Her eyes are gentle when he looks over.   "You're not as evil as you think." she tells him. 

He looks over at her, partially touched, but also- "You think I'm evil?" he says, slightly offended but also kind of intrigued.  Kagami shrugs.  "Yeah, kind of." 

He groans, leaning his head back against the sofa, arms crossed over his chest.  "You make a deal with a supervillian one time."  he says dryly, but he can't keep the laughter out of his voice.  

Kagami eyes glint, and her cheeks flush darker, and he can tell she's toying with whether she should say whatever it is that she's thinking.  "It's actually kind of hot." she tells him quite seriously and a bit red faced.  He feels his own face darken, his stomach almost rolling over in his torso.  He coughs slightly.   

"Wow, thanks." he tells her, voice kind of breaking.  She nods, leaning closer, the golden light reflected in her eyes.  

He thinks, about something else, maybe about just how hypnotizingly pretty she is, but not for very long, because that thought turns into him leaning over and kissing her. 

He can feel the sunlight on his skin.  Kissing her is always breathless, vulnerable in a way that he's never been in his entire life.  

They pull apart, red faced. 

Kagami bites her lip, flushed.  His eyes follow the action.

“Can I ask you something else?”  she asks him.  He shrugs.  "Yeah, sure." She pauses, fingers twisting with his shirt collar. “Why- do you think it’s so important that, you and Adrien, are exactly the same.”  He stills under her touch. 

He can feel her dark eyes resting on him, watching. 

The nice thing about Kagami, (one of many) is that she knows when to pause, that she doesn’t have to fill every silence with more chatter. 

He doesn’t loathe chatterers (his mum and Adrien both fall into that category and he loves them, more than words (not to even begin to mention Dusuu, who floats around his room sometimes, just singing at the top of their little lungs)) but it’s nice sometimes, for the silence.  Something for when it’s just them. 

Her fingers fiddle with his sweatshirt sleeve, prompting. 

“It’s-power. Freedom.” he says, struggling. 

He knows that’s not the reason. In actuality it’s nothing so grand. It’s small and embarrassing. 

Kagami tilts her head, and pokes him on the arm.  “You’re lying.” she says, rolling her eyes in mock offense. 

He smirks.  “You knew I was a lier.”

Kagami sighs.  “You’re being difficult.  On purpose.” 

He presses his hands against his face, knowing well that he’s hiding from her now.  “Yeah, maybe.” he mumbles.  Her arms fold around his shoulders.  He leans over, against her.  He can feel her fingers, cold as always, in his hair.  

He exhales, and peels his hands away from his face.  Kagami hums under her breath.  He can hear the clock, somewhere, ticking on the wall. 

“It’s just- if Adrien and I don’t have this, then…what do we have?” he says softly, feeling incredibly childish saying it aloud. His hands grip onto her arm.  He presses his thumb against his index finger. 

“We couldn’t spend all that much time together as children, or while our parents were sick. And Adrien has Marinette, and all of his friends now.  And I just…” he stops, and sighs. 

Kagami hums under her breath, lets him press his face into the curve of her neck, and kindly pretends not to see the wetness in his eyes.  Her arms hold onto his shoulders, a hand resting in the nape of his neck.

They stay like that for a while. 

This is something he’s never had.  Comfort, safety.  Someone to go to. 

Finally he pulls back, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.  Kagami’s hands follow, cupping his neck. 

He exhales, his breath wavering, trembling its way into his chest.    Slowly he laughs, almost to himself.  “You must think I’m pretty stupid, don’t you.” he says, hating the way his voice wavers. 

Kagami rolls her eyes.  “I don’t think anybody would ever call you stupid.”

She leans closer, into his space. With delicate, pretty, grace, she slips over him, sitting with one leg on either side of him, straddling his waist.  It would, in fact, look really bad if someone were to come in at this particular moment, but Kagami’s just like this.  Forceful, and also touchy. 

He never actually really minds it, honestly. 

She opens her mouth, but hesitates, like she isn’t sure what to say.  Finally she speaks. 

“Adrien loves you, you know that, right?” She begins quietly.  Kagami pauses, thinking.  “All this. It’s going to get better.” she says, looking at him. 

She smiles faintly, and he wonders what she could be thinking, what she could’ve ever possibly been thinking.

“You’re so kind, and so compassionate.  And you’re so brave. I think a lot of you, for being to survive, everything that you have. Your father- all of it.”

Her hand winds its way into his own, letting their rings press together in a way that he knows is on purpose, that is a way to make him understand what she’s trying to say.  “You. You gave me my freedom.” she says quietly. 

The words are stuck like glue in his throat.  “I-just-” he stops, looking away. 

She smiles vaguely.  Her hands lace together behind his neck. 

“You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met. You were able to reject all of that anger and hate.  It would’ve been easier to be just like him.”

He blinks. “Who?”

“Your father.  If you had walked and talked and thought like him, then he would’ve liked you more.” she tells him, matter-of-factly.  Felix blinks up at her. 

“No. He hated me, because he knew that I was stealing his life.” Felix says slowly, all the time wondering.  Kagami shakes her head. 

“No Fe. He hated you because you’re kind.” She shifts her weight slightly.  “Because you’re smart, and delicate, and beautiful, and wonderful.  If you had been some big stupid brute, some jackass, then he would’ve been happy with you.” she says, looking at him. 

He stares up at her, like the universe might be in her eyes.  He lets her words wash over him, and he can’t help but wonder. 

Because all his life, he thought that he was his father’s perfect son.  That he walked the earth, the living embodiment of everything Colt Fathom wanted.  The thought that his father hated everything about him is oddly- intoxicating. 

He looks down at his hands, at thin, long fingers. His father’s hands had been huge, big enough to break bones. Kagami is still watching him, a soft look on her face. 

This revelation will take hours, weeks, maybe a lifetime to consider. 

“How-how do you know this?” he asks her.  She shrugs. 

“I know everything.” she says cheerfully. 

“Yeah.” he says, voice cracking slightly with emotion. 

She smiles, hands cupping his face, slipping to the curve of his neck.  She bends over, moving to kiss him.  It’s a deep kiss, one that makes his brain melt, like he’s slipping, like he’s on the edge of life.  Her hands curl into his hair, cold to the touch.  

It’s like his body is on fire at her touch.   In some faraway part of his brain he wonders, how he managed to live fourteen years without her.  He doesn't think he could make it even a day now.

She kisses him deeper, pressing against him.  Her mouth flattens against his in a way that makes it extremely difficult to form a single coherent thought.   All he's able to think is that it is somehow impossible that his life could be this good.    

Her arms tighten around his shoulders, hands slipping into the hair at the nape of his neck, her fingernails digging into his skin.  A quite involuntary noise comes up from the back of his throat, something close to a muffled groan, but it's swallowed up into the kiss, lost. 

There's something that happens that makes him sort of limp and boneless when Kagami kisses him, like for the first time ever he doesn't know what to do.  Kagami sighs, and then moves back, breathless and flushed.  He can't breathe, he's not sure if he remembers his own name.    

She shifts, pressing closer, kissing him intensely.  And somewhere, back in the far corner of his melted brain, he realizes that they really probably shouldn't do this right here, right now. 

He nudges Kagami away slightly.  She pulls back just far enough to look him in the eye, her nose bumping his slightly.  Her eyes are foggy, not paying attention. 

“Kagami.” he mutters, glancing at the door, hoping she’ll take the hint.  “Hm.” she says, not listening. 

“My-Mum’s going to be home soon-” he pauses in that train of thought, as Kagami choses that moment to press her mouth against the hollow curve of his jaw, and all thoughts, protests or otherwise, fall out of his head.

Her hands clench into his shirt, her lips moving down his neck, and he genuinely thinks that he might pass out, his eyes pressing shut, only for a moment.  But he knows, he knows, they can’t be doing this here, this now.  So he summons up all his willpower, and swallows up his breath. 

“Kagami.” he says again.  When she ignores him, he gently pushes her off of him.  She starts, her eyes widening, her face red. 

She pauses, trembling slightly, and then rather awkwardly crawls off of him, flopping down beside him.  Her hands are shaking, and she looks away.  He swallows around the lump in his throat, and he can only imagine how red his own face is. 

The room is silent and heavy with embarrassment. 

“Sorry.” she mumbles after a while.  “Got…carried away.” she says, even quieter, still not looking at him. 

He pauses, hesitating, his own hands still shaking from the adrenaline.  Then, very gently, he leans over, cupping a hand to her cheek, turning her back towards him.  He kisses her surprised face gently, in a chaste kiss. 

When he pulls back her face is flushed, but less in an ugly, sick, ashamed way, and more so in a rosy, blushy way. He smiles faintly at her, rubbing the edge of his thumb against the curve of her cheek, hoping that her feelings have not been hurt too much.  She returns it faintly. 

“It’s the only rule.” he mutters half annoyed and half apologetic.  Kagami laughs faintly. 

In the move to Paris, his mum had happily gone along with anything and everything that he wanted to do.  He could stay out as late as he wanted, go out with whoever he wanted, whenever.  Pretty much he was free to do just as he pleased, without rules.  Excepting, of course, one small thing. 

His mum had taken one look at him and Kagami and very firmly decreed that Kagami was not allowed anywhere in, or near, his room. 

He coughed, even the thought turning his face red.  Or, redder, rather. 

Kagami had thought the whole thing was hilarious when he had told her about it.   

Right now she just looks over at him. 

"I-ah just feel bad about breaking the only rule my mum gave me." he says, glancing over at her, vaguely apologetic about the whole thing.

“But we’re not in your room.” she reminds him.  He shrugs.  “I-think if my mum came in when we were-, she might just-ah ban you from our house.” 

Kagami lets out a choking, sputtering laugh.  He smiles wryly, knowing his face is surely burning red. 

“Who knew that I’d be the bad influence on you ?” Kagami says when she manages to stop laughing, glancing over at him.  He rolls his eyes good-naturedly, arms folded across his chest. 

“Haha.” 

Kagami laughs again. 

She brushes her fingers over her ruffled hair, smoothing it back into place. Her fingers brush his arm on the way down, absently, thoughtlessly.  The featherlight touch makes his heart ache, even though he isn't certain why.

The clock ticks by on the wall. 

Her fingers twist idly into his shirt sleeve, absently tracing circles there. 

They look at each other at almost the exact same moment. 

“Do you wanna go to my house?” she asks him, eyes bright.  He nods, almost instantly.

“Yes.” 

They get their coats, and are out the door in less than thirty seconds.