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“Are you sure about this?” Marinette glanced sidelong at the boy holding her hand, before returning her gaze to the goulish entrance of the funfair ride.
She’d seen Adrien literally hide under a blanket during their last scary movie, skittishly wincing with every jump scare and blurry shot of the monster-du-jour. So she was understandably confused at the wide grin on his face, the palpable glee with which he regarded the haunted house, fashioned to look like a gaping toothy maw.
“Don’t you see the resemblance?” He looked down at her, eyes sparkling. She snorted and squeezed his hand, enjoying the way she fit so smoothly between the knuckles of his fingers.
“Well you both have big mouths, but you’re more handsome.” She’d have expected him to roll his eyes at that but he just bit his lip in that frustratingly cute way of his and began tugging he towards the turnstile.
“I meant to the one in that movie? The one you showed me last week.”
Marinette let out a bemused sigh at that. Of course Adrien would still be smitten with Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain. A story about a shy, lonely dreamer who donned a mask to win her true love? It was a match made in heaven.
She’d watched his face the entire time, amusement giving way to wonder, sliding into recognition, and finely unfolding into a kind of starry-eyed adoration.
It hadn’t come as a surprise then, when she asked how he liked the film, that he had tilted her head up and softly pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, the hollow of her eye, the smooth stretch of skin behind her ear, and had motioned for her to do the same in kind.
That had always been her favorite scene, when Amelie finally was able to kiss her beloved Nino Quincampoix after chasing him for so long.
“Wow it’s just like the one in the movie!” Adrien marveled in a hushed voice, taking in the gaudy interior covered in fake skeletons and gargoyles, all bathed in greenish light and roiling dry ice fog.
“I’d thought they’d stopped using these in the 90’s,” Marinette mused. She was far from impressed, but Adrien’s excitement had always been infectious, and she drew closer to him as the hallway narrowed.
A bored-looking attendant saw them to their places in the cart that ran along the ride’s track. The seat, obviously intended for children, proved a tight fit for two gangly teenagers. Marinette wasn’t complaining though, enjoying the way Adrien’s arm wrapped around her shoulders to accommodate her. She wondered dreamily if he could feel her fluttering pulse where their thighs pressed together.
The ride shuddered to life, sending them through two large double doors with DEATH TO ALL WHO ENTER printed on them in what was supposed to resemble blood. Adrien’s leg bounced up and down against her own, his grin only growing wider as he took in the faux candelabras, the piped-in organ music, the barely concealed bats that would swing down on wires every time they stopped along the rails.
She felt his grip on her shoulders tighten in delight as they approached the next leg of the ride, a murky cavern that might as well have been a replica of the set from the film.
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” Marinette said, laying her head comfortably on his shoulder, “But can you please tell me why you’re so thrilled by all this?” She gestured pointedly at a googly-eyed vampire puppet that had just sprung out of a coffin to their right.
Adrien let out a throaty laugh at that, earning them a shush from an irate passenger somewhere behind them. He muffled his giggles into her hair before pulling away to tap at his chin in mock contemplation.
“Well,” he said, glancing down with a warm smile on his face, “I suppose it’s because I think that scene in the haunted house is the most romantic!”
“You’re joking,” Marinette deadpanned, lowering her voice when another shush echoed through the room, “What about the scene where they finally meet each other? Or the scene where she sends him on the chase around the Sacre Coeur?”
“Those are great too!” he replied quietly as the ride suddenly halted, presumably to allow for people further along to disembark. “But think about it, that’s the first time he ever touches her, on the funfair ride. He’s so close to her and he doesn’t even know how much she loves him, it makes the scene so intimate!”
Even in the gloom Marinette could see the way Adrien was blushing, glancing away from her eyes only to catch them again a moment later. She pursed her lips, replaying the scene in question in her head, and for the life of her couldn’t see what Adrien was talking about.
“Hmmm, I’m not convinced,” she finally said as the ride began to lurch forward again, sitting back into her seat, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
“Oh really?” Adrien said and shifted his arm away from her, a challenge dangling at the edge of his voice. Marinette didn’t turn to look at him, refusing to indulge him and get into a film debate while stuck in a children’s haunted house.
Suddenly, with barely a noise, a pair of warm dry fingers ghosted across the skin of her jaw. She didn’t need to see him to know that Adrien was craned down towards her, face close enough to her for his breath to fan out along the back of her neck and raise the hairs on end.
“Ooooooh,” he breathed, a low growl deep in his throat. His fingers trailed down to the curve of her neck. Marinette’s mouth snapped shut, heart skipping a beat.
“ooOOOOooh,” he let out again, the ghostly sound undulating into a kind of moan. He reached up to trace her cheekbone with only his index finger, and she felt more than saw him lean in even closer, his mouth just level with her ear.
“Hoooooo.” He blew a cool gust of air along her skin, which had grown hot and red under his attention. Her eyes drifted shut, a warm sigh bubbling up from her lungs and sitting unvoiced on her tongue.
Just as she was tilting her head into the delirious sensation, Adrien pulled away and sat upright again, arm coming back to rest along her shoulders in a friendly, completely unassuming manner.
Marinette’s eyes fluttered open, her mouth screwing up in a pout. When she finally caught sight of Adrien, he was gazing merrily ahead, a smug look of triumph on his face.
“So?” he shrugged his shoulders and cleared his throat, quite obviously pleased with himself. Marinette was torn between smacking him and dragging him down into her lap so she could remove that smirk from his lips forcibly with her own.
“O-okay,” she conceded, sulkily tucking some hair behind her ear, “M-maybe that scene is kind of romantic.”
“So glad we could reach an agreement,” he squeezed her closer to him and she acquiesced, snuggling into his side.
“I could use more convincing though,” she murmured into his chest, finger tracing idle patterns into his shirt. She glanced up through her lashes at him, the picture of innocence, “Since you’re the expert on the movie, Chaton.”
The wide-eyed combination of devotion, eagerness, and utter panic on his face more than made up for his earlier teasing. One of his hands found its way to her waist while the other skimmed her bare knee. Marinette bit back a delighted snicker as she rose up towards him.
“I can definitely think of a few talking points,” he said with a small shake of his head, leaning in to meet her.
In the end they were asked quite urgently to leave the ride for disrupting the enjoyment of the other passengers. Raucous laughter preceded their exit as they sprinted down the hallway, over the turnstile, and out onto the brightly lit grounds of the funfair, Marinette hoisted giddily onto Adrien’s back.
As he mused over where they ought to go next, Marinette took a moment to turn her face into his neck, nose running along the crux of his jaw. She inhaled deeply, a smile on her lips, and offered up a silent thank you to whoever had made times a little easier for dreamers like them.