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Tikki's warning not to get too drunk was becoming a fading memory by the time Marinette was on her third cup of punch. She hadn't had that much, yet her blurring thoughts told her that there was way more liquor in it than she had been led to believe. Damn it for tasting so good. "Fate accepted" Mari thought as she downed the cup. She was just going to have to gamble on there not being an akuma attack in the middle of the night.
Most of the din from the party was spilling in from the other room, where they were shouting about The Walking Dead over the blasting music from Nino's personal playlist (a lot of which were American songs Marinette didn't even recognize). The "introvert room" as Alya had announced it, was marginally quieter, where Marinette sank into an armchair and sustained herself on fruit and crackers and discussions about childhood video games.
It was about then when a group of guys from the other room wandered in. "Oh, there's a good size table in here!" someone shouted. Nino comes in with a deck of cards and a large novelty goblet. "Hey, is it okay if we play a game of King's Cup in here?"
Alya bolts upright in her seat. "YES." she demands and turns toward the other people in the room. "WHO WANTS TO PLAY KINGS CUP?" she shouts over the din, loud enough for the adjacent room to hear because a number of voices replied "Fuck yeah!"
Pulling her chair further into the corner to make room for the group gathering around the table Marinette leaned forward to listen in as Nino explained the rules. "Ace is waterfall, two is you, three is me, four is floor..." He went on through the numbers, failing to explain what any of these rules meant until he got to the last one. "And King is cup, and everyone puts some of their drink into the center cup." He banged the goblet into the center of the table to emphasize. "And whoever pulls the last king has to drink the cup."
Alya gave Marinette a nudge. "You'd better go get a refill. Don't worry, I'll watch your spot." she gave a wink and shoo'ed Mari away from the table with her cup.
Since she had been sitting down and drinking for the past fifteen minutes, Marinette was just now realizing as she navigated her way through the crowd and toward the kitchen that she had passed 'tipsy' and was resting solidly in the 'fucking drunk' zone. Why did the layout of Nino's apartment have to be so confusing? Couldn't the kitchen just connect to the living room without this hallway here? Finding her way to the punch bowl, she dipped her cup in for a refill and excused herself back.
Upon returning, the table had all but filled up, leaving little room for her to reach her previous seat in the corner, which already had been taken by-
Oh hell no.
Adrien Motherfucking Agreste was in her seat. Marinette froze, shooting an accusing glance at Alya who was supposed to be saving that spot for her. Alya pointed and winked at her- oh shit she totally did it on purpose that little-
"Hey, you joining or what?" Adrien called Marinette back to the present situation, gesturing for her to join him in the chair. He looked completely relaxed, and definitely tipsy.
Marinette scooted around the back of the chair and perched on the arm. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but option two was sitting on Adrien's lap and that was out of the question. She glanced at him with a tense smile before something caught her eye. The drink in his hand... was a lit candle. Ok, Adrien was not tipsy he was drunk.
"Dude, can you blow that out?" Nino shouted from across the table. "We're playing cards, no open flames."
"Right, right" Adrien blew out the flame and then began to fiddle with the jar, swirling the liquid wax around and putting his nose right into the smoke. "Nino, I'm stealing this." he commented, before grabbing a paper plate off the table, shaking the crumbs off it and pouring the candle wax onto the plate. "Oh my god" he mused to himself, inhaling the scent of the wax and then dipping his fingers into it-
Marinette scratched her previous conclusion. Adrien was not drunk, he was wasted.
By some kind of psychic power, Adrien seemed to notice how confused Marinette was and turned toward her with an enthusiastic grin. "Feel this." he said, lifting the paper plate to her.
Feeling heat rising to her face, Marinette recoiled slightly, glancing back and forth between plate of melted wax and Adrien's expecting grin. She didn't want to turn down a request from him, regardless of how bizarre, and he didn't appear to be in any sort of pain from touching it... Marinette swallowed her doubts and scooped some of the wax onto her fingertip. It was definitely hot, but not burning hot. As she pulled her hand away to inspect it, she noticed the liquid was already beginning to turn opaque and solid as it cooled onto her skin.
"See? Isn't that cool?" Adrien chimed, rubbing the scented wax between his thumb and middle finger. The rest of the table was not as wonderstruck as he was however, as they were now waiting on him to finish his antics and start playing. "Fine, anyways." he grabbed a dirty napkin and worked on rubbing his hand clean.
Right. Marinette had to get this off her hand now. Between wiping on her own shirt, or grabbing a napkin, she somehow had managed to make up a third option on the fly and went with it without so much as a second thought. She smeared the wax off on Adrien's cheek.
Snorts of laughter from a few peers and a "Mari, what the fuck" from Alya brought her back to her drunken senses. Adrien stared wide-eyed at her with a "did you just-" look on his face, just a brief second before putting his hand back into the wax. "Oh, so that's how it's gonna be?" he laughed, and then returned her favor right across her chin.
Oh, it was ON now. Marinette lunged for the plate in his hand, taking fingerfuls of the wax and painting his eyebrows red with apple cinnamon. He retaliated by waxing the front of her shirt. His bangs. The bridge of her nose. The side of his neck. The two of them were erupting with laughter, completely ignoring the teasing quips from Nino, let alone Alya recording the whole "fight" on her phone. It wasn't until Adrien had grabbed Marinette by the waist and pulled her off the arm of the chair and into his lap that she realized how... suddenly intimate she was acting with her crush. And in front of spectators for that matter.
Suddenly she was the only one not laughing. Adrien straightened himself and asked "You're okay right?" thinking he had overstepped some physical boundary with her.
"Gosh, even when shitfaced, such a gentlemen." Marinette thought. "Y-yeah... yeah I'm okay." The burning sensation in her cheeks probably betrayed her response, though she wasn't sure if it was her blushing or the hot wax on her skin. God, she had just had a hot candle wax fight with Adrien Agreste and now she was sitting in his lap. Maybe she ought to try drinking more often if things like this happened.
The two of them laughed again, and for the first time Marinette felt completely at ease in his presence.