Chapter Text
This morning was a weird one for Chloé Bourgeois, not as weird as it could get in the akuma filled city of Paris but still weird, the teenage girl as had woke up while hugging a plush that she had no recollection owning. It was a Ladybug plush, its face looked slightly wonky, so she was sure she didn't buy this thing, she would only buy the best of the best and this doll seemed to be of those badly made counterfeit product that she saw on the internet. Now that she had assessed that it wasn't hers the heiress could begin to wonder how it had ended up in her room and what would be even more worrying: in her bed.
Which didn't take a long time nor did it actually worry her in the slightest as she noted that the plush had some pretty big bite mark on it.
She was the one to bring it in or more accurately herself in her wolf form had, which was even more evident when the morning breeze hit her, it seemed that despite locking her window the previous evening, she had underestimated her canine self, she had escaped her suite, roamed the streets of Paris and probably stolen some kid's Ladybug plush. Deciding not to worry about some random kid in Paris that was probably crying that the big bad wolf stole their plush, the blonde threw the plush in the far back of her closet, where her old dolls laid and went about her day.
She easily forgot about this event until days later she woke with yet another plush in her arms and repeated what she had done the last time this had happened but it happened again, and again, and again, and again. She now had an entire collection of plushies in her closet and could now tell that they were all handmade and very probably were all made by the same person since their stitching was quite similar. Chloé was unsure of if she had stolen all the plushies, which seemed dumb to her because who would let a wolf stole this many dolls but she knew how Parisians could be, or if their maker had made some them for the wolf that kept coming to them, maybe in an attempt to calm or tame the beast.
Her pondering was answered after she woke up one morning with the feeling of hair in her mouth, she spat out she was biting in her sleep and uttered a few remark about how disgusting it was before she looked at what was no longer in her mouth but on her bed. Next to her laid a wolf plush, one with blonde fur and blue eyes. One that she recolonized what made to be in the image of her canine form. She knew what she looked like in when she didn't have control of herself, she had semi-recently learned of her wolf appearance thanks to Pollen who she had tasked to take a picture or a video of her if she ever was to turn while she had the miraculous. And so this plush was an extremely flattering copy of the wolf she was.
Whoever was this mystery doll maker was Chloé wanted to give them a statue to thank them for their work.
She gave the plush a crushing hug and fell back on her bed while giggling and kick her feet. She was once again reminded once again that the emotions of her other self affected her usual left, she had been feeling more calm and little bit less “bitchy”, as her classmates said, since she brought back the first plush but right now she felt ecstatic, she hadn't felt this good about something or someone in a long long time and so her mood was soaring.
In the weeks that followed Chloé hid the doll in her school bag any day that felt like her mood was sour, it was her own emotional support doll and she loved it.
During all this time another young girl was having a weird time but she wasn't having weird mornings, she had weird nights, ones that had started on a cold night.
Ladybug was patrolling the street of Paris, thinking to herself that would freeze to death if she stayed too long out there, dear kwamis did she missed the warmth of her bed, thankfully as she was about to curse the weather she saw her partner on the distance which mean that he had completed his part of the patrolling and that they were free to go back to their homes and fall into the embrace of Hypnos.
After wishing Chat Noir a good night Ladybug swung toward the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie before she heard a soft and broken bark. Or was it a howl ? She didn't let the question stay in her mind before heading toward the sound. There she found a big blue eyed blonde dog licking one of its paws. It seemed to have walked on pieces of broken glass. She approach the animal expecting it to be startled and growl at her but when she walked out of the shadow the look in the dog's eyes seemed to be one of recognition and relief, as if it knew that Ladybug would help it. And it was correct, but she couldn't do anything in the middle of a street so the heroine carefully lifted the dog, again expecting some resistance from the animal but it let her do whatever she wanted. Now that she had it in her arms she realized that it wasn't just big, it was huge, it could have easily been taller than her if it stood on its hind legs. She then shifted in on her back and began swinging toward her house again.
After landing on her balcony she let the blonde dog down before opening her skylight and entered her bedroom. As she detransformed she made signs for the dog to follow her and as she did she caught it staring at her with a look of confusion, intrigue, and astonishment. If she wasn't sure before that it was not a normal animal now she was certain, its facial expressions were too sapient, too knowing, too human. But Marinette was now used to deal abnormal things happening around her so a huge blonde dog that is potentially magical was not as surprising as it would have been in the past.
Even more in said moment since said dog needed her help. And so after making sure that Tikki was resting she went to grab the medical kit that her parent kept for her, what she needed were tweezers and bandages.
Once she came back up she saw that the dog had took the Ladybug plush that she had made a few day prior and was holding it in it's jaw, at first she tried to get her creation back from the beast but the fight that it gave her and the dramatic look it had on its face once she succeeded only made her feel guilty and so she gave the plush to the drama dog. Absolutely gleeful to have won the dog did not pay attention to Marinette taking the pieces of glasses out of its paws and softly bandaging them. Having finished the pig-tailed girl felt the exhaustion hit her like truck, she pushed the dog a little bit to side, which caused it to look at her with the most fake hurt look that a dog could give before it gave her a more gentle look, licked her face and snuggled close to her.
Marinette was startled awake by her alarm and almost felled from her bed, while she was starting to emerge from the realm of dream she realized that the dog was gone and wondered if she had dreamed the beast but after checking around the Ladybug plush and not finding it it was clear that what happened the last night wasn't a dream and that the mysterious dog had stolen the doll. She pondered on the beast origin but seeing as Tikki had not mention it since she woke up she decided that the lack of reaction of kwami must mean that it was not something to dawdle on, its wasn't like she was expecting meet the beast again.
Her expectations were broken a few days later once she heard scratching noises coming from her window and looking up she saw the blonde dog, she was now a hundred percent sure that it was magical in some way because there was no way that it could have shown up at her balcony if it was a normal animal. Immediately after she open her skylight it jump onto her lap, licked her face and jump out of her lap to grab another plush that Marinette had made. This time she made no fight to try and get it back letting the dog bite it in piece. They stayed like this, Marinette working on her projects while the dog rested on her bed before she went to bed and repeated what she had done the last time the beast was here, pushing a bit to the side, laying down and then snuggling with said beast. And at the morning it was gone again, with her plush.
This routine kept on happening for a few week, thought after the fourth stolen doll the young designer started making dolls for the dog. It even stopped taking them after she made it a plush in its image, it seemed like the beast had finally been tamed by the power of excellent craftsmanship. Marinette was sure that it was the dog favorite doll since it often bring it with it to Marinette when it was even slightly torn. She was starting to feel bad for calling it “the dog” but she really didn't know what to call it so one night she started calling it random names to see what would fit and if it liked any of them when she had an idea that she deemed both brilliant and stupid, the dog was dramatic, acted bratty with her and was blonde with blue eyes so she tried called “Chloé”, which to her surprise was a name that Chloé seemed to enjoy a lot.
It was the day after she had named “Chloé The Dog”, Marinette was discussing the situation with Alya who had been kept updated on it all since the second appearance of the beast on Marinette's balcony. Her best friend was laughing unrestrainedly at her, of course it would have picked the name of her rival since it seemed to like to spite Marinette from time to time which made them both remember that Chloé, the human, had not been at bitchy as she used to be in the recent weeks. But they quickly cut that discussion short, not wanting to waste the rest of their break talking about the blonde and her change in attitude.
During the rest of the day Marinette felt a pair of eyes on her, she kept on turning around trying to catch whoever was staring at her but she failed to do so. Until the end of the day, she was taking her school book out of her locker when she felt stared at again, sharply turned her head around and caught Chloé glaring at her, the blonde face quickly turned red before she closed her own locker and ran to her limo.
In her haste something fell out of her bag, Marinette when to pick it up. In her hand was the dog doll she had made for Chloé, the dog. Her first instinct was to accuse Chloé, the human, to have stolen the plush but thinking a bit more about it it made no sense for her to do so, the doll was worn, had bite marks and was stitched up here and there, definitely not the sort of stuff that the blonde would have chosen to take from someone.
Suddenly dots started to connect in her brain, she was panicking and started to walk back home. Once in her room she tried to rationalize her thoughts, surely the dog couldn't be her classmate, surely Chloé couldn't be a werewolf if they even existed. Tikki was watching her holder panic and asked her what was happening before the ravenette explain her what was going on in her mind, to which the kwami only answered by asking if Chloé had truly kept the doll Marinette had made her before continuing with a delighted voice how adorable that was. And now the floodgates of questions were open and Tikki was drowning in sound.
The same day that Marinette had had her revelation, a certain blonde had one of her own. It was their break and Chloé was absolutely bored out of her mind, she would have usually found someone to make fun of to pass time but she knew that her doll would have gave her a disappointed stare if she did, not that she cared, she just didn't felt like it this day. And so she walked around trying to listen to pieces of gossip when she heard Dupain-Cheng and Cesaire talking about some dog, maybe it was her animal brain but this picked her curiosity and so she began to listen but as their conversation continued Chloé couldn't help but note the similarity to the dog they were talking about and her wolf form which could have been a simple coincidence until the baker girl described a plush that sounded exactly like the plush that was sitting in the heiress bag.
Completely stunned by the revelation Chloé only started to regain her thought when the bell rang and made her way to her class but she was very distracted, the mysterious plush maker was the baker girl, the person that had made her life feel lighter than ever before was Dupain-Cheng, the one she want to thank for the rest of her life was Marinette and she didn't feel bad about it, she even felt... something, she wasn't sure what to call it and so she kept staring at Marinette for the rest of the day, every single time the other girl turned around to find who was staring at her Chloé face started to grow hot and she looked away trying to look as uninterested in the class as ever.
It wasn't until the end of the day that Chloé understood what she was feeling. She was staring at Marinette once again, at how the light hit her face, how pretty her side profile was until she sharply turned her head toward Chloé and dear kwamis did she was gorgeous, she was light hitting her from behind made her look like an angel, she was in love. At the realization of her feeling the heiress felt her spine tingling and her face grow hotter than ever before, she quickly turned around and ran toward her limo.
The entire ride back to the hotel only left her with her thought, she really didn't want to be alone with them as it only made her redder and redder. She only started calming down after she threw herself on her bed and screamed into her pillow. Following her screaming session Chloé went for her back to take the doll out of it but what she found was nothing, her doll wasn't here. She began to search her suite, then the hotel but it was to no avail, her doll was gone and she had probably lost it at school.
Demoralized by the loss of her plush Chloé was starting to feel her eyelids grow heavy while Marinette own tiredness was caused by her exhaustion following all her question to Tikki. And so both girls went to sleep unaware that they had both learn who the other was.
It was around midnight when Marinette was woken up by a sad whimper coming from above her, as she opened her eyes she saw through her skylight Chloé looking at her with the saddest puppy eyes she had ever seen, feeling heartbroken at the sight the girl opened the window letting Chloé come inside but this time the wolf didn't greet how it usually did, sitting in her lap and licking her face. Marinette guessed that she must be sad to have lost her doll and so went down her bed to grab it from her bag before climbing up her bed and showing the doll to the heiress who immediately jump on her licked her face as a sort of thanks and bite her doll. The dark haired girl yawned, feeling her body begging her to go back to sleep and so she tugged Chloé toward her before putting her head on her fur, snuggled close to her and mumbling about how she should stay this time and that she would walk her back to the hotel tomorrow and how she promise not to talk to anybody about her secret before her breathing started to slow down hand her grip on the blonde wolf soften.
Chloé was looking at the human that has taken of her with bewilderment, she was unsure of what to do, she knew she should get out, her instinct were to go back to were she “fell asleep” as to not confuse her human self but she wanted to stay and she knew that it was both side of her that wanted it even if the other was unconscious. She looked around, searching for anything that could help make a decision before she stopped her gaze on the kwami that lived in this room. Tikki was looking at her with acknowledgment in her eye and a somewhat menacing grin on her face. Not wanting to potentially anger a god like being, Chloé decided to stay, she rested her head on the girl and with a small huff thought that the next morning would be a human her problem as all morning have been before she fell asleep.