"Are we going to talk about this?"
You watch as 'your demon' strides across his room, sitting down roughly on his couch and staring straight ahead, unable to look in your direction.
'Your demon". Did you even have the right to call him that? After you've been away for so long?
It's been a week since you and Solomon returned unannounced from your journey to the past, much to the shock and surprise of everyone. That night was filled with joy and tears and laughter from everyone. Everyone, except the second born. The person you absolutely missed the most for months and months, the person you thought of during sleepless nights and difficult times. The person you cried over more than anyone else was standing right there, just a few feet away -
And absolutely giving you the cold shoulder.
He's silent for a moment, before his voice comes out like vitriol, scalding and snide, yet somehow so hollow, like his words had no real emphasis behind them. Like he felt almost nothing.
"What's there left to talk about?"
"Mammon-", you try to get a word in before he cuts you off with the same version of the monologue you've heard from him even since you made your way back to this timeline.
Your timeline.
"Ya left me here. Ya left us here. You didn't leave a note or a sign or even shoot me a text that you were goin'. Nothin'. Nada."
"You know I didn't exactly choose to get taken to the past against my will, Mammon."
He stands to face you now, tone filled with pain but his face looking so, so emotionless.
It could scare you, when he gets like this. The second born should never look that serious.
"And how would I know that? Huh? How would I know where you went? How the hell would I know what ya'd gotten up to, huh? How would I know if you were runnin' off with Solomon? How would I know that ya didn't just get sick of us?"
His voice raises his voice as he walks towards you.
"How would I know if ya were alive, or dead, or somewhere in between, huh!?"
You're jostled as the second born grabs your shoulders and shoves you, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to have you cornered between the surface and himself.
"I never stopped trying, okay? Not a day went by that Solomon and I didn't look for a way home, a way out, a way to you, anything!" you exclaim, defending yourself from his tirade.
"How would I know that you were gonna come back!? How would- H-how could ya, I couldn't...I-I-I- can't...."
His voice shakes as he balls up his fists into the fabric of your shirt, his true emotions finally shining through after a week of trying to get through to him.
How quickly his indifference turns to fear.
Tears begin silently falling from his lash line, streaking his cheeks.
"Oh, Mammon...", you wrap your arms around him, following his lead as his body begins to crumple, both of you sitting on the floor.
"I thought you were gone. I-I didn't know if ya were still breathin', or just vanished, but I thought-"
He gulps down a few tears and lets out a shaky breath before finishing.
"I thought you were never coming back."
You respond to him in kind, holding him tighter as he increases his grasp on you.
You can't help but let out a small giggle as you wipe away his tears (and a few of your own).
"Babe, it's me we're talking about. I came back to the Devildom how many times now?"
"Yeah," he sighs, looking off to the side, remembering all the times you somehow managed to extend your stays within the exchange program with Diavolo's blessing.
"I can't believe you gave up on me that fast", you tease, poking his cheek.
"Never did", he mumbles. "Looked for ya every day until I realized.. ya just weren't here. And not like here like in the Devildom, okay? I mean like here here."
He's quiet for a moment before he grumbles again, "Didn't stop lookin' until Lucifer made me, that bastard."
You bust out laughing, "I missed you, and your cute little complaints"
"Hey! My complaints ain't little! I'd burn down all three realms if it meant I coulda found you again!"
You place a quick kiss to his cheek, giggling at the way he goes rigid.
"Well, you don't have to worry. I'll always find my way back to you."
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What I personally love about the kiss is that it manifested through Marichat in an organic way, but it’s obviously more than a division of the square:
It’s Ladybug kissing her chaton – the one she kissed after dreaming a whole fantasy world of their deepest desires, knowing fully well of that fact, and agreeing that it was true. The one she put a brave façade on for at the end of Jubilation, telling him that Monarch must have manipulated the dream. She did that for their sake. Previous to Jubilation, Chat was wracked with guilt over his cataclysm being used against his will – and in Jubilation, in a flash of emotions, he was ready to misuse it, which he would have ultimately been disgusted over. A case of being blinded by love (obviously, there’s more nuance to the scene) – he tried ripping her alarm clock Lucky Charm from her grasp, which could have led to a defeat if she lost it.
The mirror to Chat’s cataclysm scenes is Marinette almost being akumatized – showing us in no uncertain terms that it’s still not the right time for these two to be together. She is so terrified of being “blinded by love” again that it’s interfering with her love for Adrien. And yet, she was hurt by a culmination of things that came to a head when Chat said it wasn’t right of him to do that. As always, Adrichat is a complete gentleman and was trying to do the right thing.
Marinette has been trying to tell her Alya and Tikki for episodes now that how she feels is real and true, and they haven’t taken her seriously (rightfully, if you think of it from their POV). Monarch controls her life as a superhero and is practically winning at every turn. She has barely had any personal agency in this season except for gathering the courage to kiss his cheeks and nose, which would have felt fantastic in her shoes. Finally, she’s getting what she wants.
It’s Adrien kissing Marinette – the close friend who understands him like no one else. She’s been so avoidant this season, more so than her clumsy, stuttering usual self, and he doesn’t know how to break that wall between them. On top of this, his whole family is falling ill and his fathering is dangling affection like a carrot on a stick – but what’s tragic is that Adrien is so used to that by now. He can switch between père and papa on a dime to fit his mood. His image is being sold and copies of copies of him are everywhere he looks. He is free but lonelier than ever. He’s just as sequestered in his room as in previous seasons.
So she initiates the kissing, tenderly on his cheeks and nose. Tells him she’s a super, super, super fan – but not like the ones who chase him and demand from him things he can’t give. She tells him she would love even the guy under the mask – but that’s Adrien, who she just admitted to moving on from. But they could kiss now, couldn’t they? He wants to hold her like Luka did, to spend time with her, to kiss her and have her know he loves her completely. So he takes that step to kiss her lips. He could explain everything later, as Adrien…
Except, he can’t! We all know this. Also, does she really mean that, or is he taking advantage of her? She’s just a fan, and he’s using this opportunity to kiss Marinette, one of his best friends, because he isn’t able to as Adrien. Marinette deserves better, to be treated fairly and with someone who can be with her all the time and has the right to know them fully – not with the barrier of secret identities.
They both know they should not be doing this. Marinette isn’t thinking far enough ahead about her feelings for Chat being misused when she’s Ladybug. Something could happen to them if Marinette and Chat had been successful this episode, and it would have interfered majorly in her relationship with him as Ladybug. It would throw everything out of balance. Chat has this (in my opinion, really unexpected and noble) set of standards – he can’t be in a relationship with her like that, it’s taking advantage of her. But they kiss anyway because they love each other so goddamn much and I live for forbidden kissing.
To top it all off, it was a well written, tension-building, compassionate, tender, slow burn kiss that I will be thinking about forever.
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