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generalluxun · 1 year

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Record Scratch Chapter 6 -Fanfiction

Nino is contacted out of the blue about a high-end gig, the kind of thing that could spell plenty of work down the line. Alya overhears and speculation leads to a discussion of(some) recent events. Chloé has made herself a ghost, and so Nino is left to speculate further with his friends at the wedding, while they switch off monitoring Marinette's alcohol consumption. Full text after the break

"Hello?"

"Is this Mr. La-hi-ffe?" A nasally voice inquired on the other end of the line.

"Depends on which one you want."

"I am looking for a Mr. Nino Lahiffe."

Nino dropped his bag beside his desk and set his hat on it, then switched ears. "You got him, dude."

There was a hesitation on the other end of the line. "Ah, yes. Excellent. I am calling on behalf of the Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte. We have an upcoming wedding ceremony, and our scheduled Master of Ceremonies has unfortunately been forced to withdraw. Your name was put forward as a replacement. Would you be available next week? The wedding party will be six hundred. They already have a list of preferred music genres prepared."

Nino actually gave his phone a confused look. "Is this a joke?"

"I know it is short notice, sir. I understand completely if you cannot make time in your schedule."

Incredulity warred with earnest professional desire. "No, no! I'm free. I mean, I uh- I can make time. What's your setup? Do I have to bring my own system?" If so, I'll have to rent one for something that big.

The conversation devolved into quick details. The price quoted to him was astronomical, Nino did his best to play it cool. He swapped contact info for details and at the end of it asked one last question.

"Who told you to look me up?"

"I really wouldn't know, sir. I am just a concierge. Your information was in the paperwork I was given. I could put you into contact with someone in management, if you like?"

Nino thought. The list of potentials was short. "No, it's cool. I'll be in touch as soon as you send the reception details."

"Very good, sir."

Nino hung up and stared at his phone again for a moment before putting it down. He realized Alya had sat down beside him and was trying hard to not look like she was curious.

He didn't hesitate to share with her. "I got a gig."

Permission given, she turned to him fully and brightened. "That's awesome, Deej!" She winked. "Or is it Mr. Deejay now?"

Nino laughed, he was fully of bubbly nervous anticipation. "It's a big gig, rich-rich people. They said someone gave them my info. I really don't know how that happened, unless-"

Nino's speculation had run away with him. He cut that thought short, but Alya was sharper than that.

She tilted her head. "A friend in high places?"

She wasn't talking about Adrien. Adrien was always slightly embarrassed by his fortune, and while he would talk you up given an opportunity, he wasn't the kind to pass and trade favors. Nino tried to get a read on Alya's expression. He wasn't sure how this was supposed to work now.

Nino tried to be neutral. "Maybe." It lasted that long, he immediately fell into explanation mode. "Look, Alya, it's not-"

She stopped him with a raised hand. That over-the-glasses look, and a smile he knew better than his own heart, followed. "Deej, you don't have to justify anything to me."

Still caught up in everyone's doubts, including his own, Nino asked, "I don't?"

She sat back, the look changed but the smile remained. "I know you, Deej. You're smart enough to make good choices. I trust you to do what's right for you."

Nino felt sheepish under the praise. He rubbed the back of his head. "It doesn't feel like many people do, right now."

Alya rolled her eyes. "I know, Marinette's a little… worried… and energetic. I avoided being roped into a stake out. It's different though. She's looking at it as something involving Chloé." Alya's eyes came back to Nino. "I look at it as something involving you."

Nino sat stunned. He knew this kind of trust was something they'd built up together, but after she'd decided to break things off he had assumed it all went together.

To his silence she added. "If there was one thing I was going to say worried me, it's that you tend to wear your heart on your sleeve. Just don't forget to protect yourself too, got it hero?"

Nino closed his eyes, that preserved memory glowed with a new addition. He opened them and a smile spread across his lips, to match the warmth in his heart. "Thanks, babe."

She waved him off, turning to organize her desk. "You do have to tell me though, is she the reason you're all dolled up?"

Nino looked down at himself. It was easy to forget. He'd expected high end fashion to be uncomfortable and restrictive, that was the joke right? Instead the tailored shirts and pants fit like a second skin. The pleated dark blue collarless silk shirt and black slacks he was wearing might as well have been a t-shirt and boxers.

He fiddled with one cuff, suddenly self conscious. "My usual clothes weren't up to snuff. It's not like I have to wear this or anything, but if you knew how much it cost- I feel bad."

Alya leaned over and lifted his arm, examining the length of it with the utmost care.

Nino let her at first, but had to ask, "What?"

She grinned. "Just checking for your heart."

Nino took his arm back, but chuckled. "Oh come on, you have to admit it looks good, right?"

To her credit, Alya took the time to look him over head to toe again. She hmmed, tapping her lips with a finger. “I miss your hat,” she concluded.

Nino grinned. “Actually I have that covered.”

Nino reached down and picked up the crisp new charcoal gray fedora from atop his bag. He set it on his head, ran a finger along the brim, and gave Alya his best Detective Lahiffe.

“How do ya like me now, sweetheart?”

Alya buried her face in her hands. “Oh God No, she got you a new one.”

Nino leaned back in his chair, arms folded and head nodding. “Classy dame like that, likes a man in a hat.”

Alya peeked through her fingers. “She does?”

Nino laughed, straightening back up. “No, not really, but I still managed to get one in exchange for putting up with being a dress up doll.”

Alya snorted and shook her head. “Some things never change.”

Nino wasn’t exactly sure which things she was talking about. A sudden thought occurred to him. It’s just so crazy it might work. “Hey, Alya.” Nino took his hat off and held it in his hands. “If this gig pans out, it’s a big enough party I could probably get a few people in as ‘staff’ How’s a fancy party sound? We’ll ask the others too. It’s at a chateau, so you know it’ll be interesting.”

Alya’s eyes lit up as he talked. A vulpine smile curled across her lips and she tapped her fingertips together. “Sounds like fun… and I can drop hints to Adrien and Marinette the whole time we’re there.” Another thought seemed to occur to her. “Are you going to ask Chloé too?”

Busted.

Nino covered his face with the fedora, then peeked around it. “I doubt she’d come, but I can hope, right? Like, she might get along, or want to? It’s been years, right?”

Alya sighed softly, shaking her head. “I’m game, I can’t speak for anyone else. First though, I want you to show me your other sleeve, just in case.”

It turned out, it didn’t matter if anyone else was game. Chloé, someone who you could normally sense a mile away, had turned into a ghost. Nino waited after school, expecting an ambush. He lingered in the halls, looking to spring an ambush himself. All to no avail.

Beebee had gone to ground. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. One thing it did though, was make it plain she had had a hand in my getting the job. Acting had never been her forté. She was blunt force trauma to the head, not a cloak and dagger girl. A part of me wondered, was this it? Had her amusement run its course? I tried not to dwell on it. I’d just gotten over a pain, and just how fast her absence caused a new one was something I didn’t want to face right now.

It helped that I was too busy to have much time for stewing. I had to pull this job off, it was a break that I would have had to fight tooth and nail to get. Sure, weddings weren’t where I really wanted to work, but the kind of money thrown at this party was the kind of money that owned the places I did. Nerves made me an idiot. Things I was confident of any day of the week I had to check and re-check, just to be sure. There was also the strict itinerary for the reception. I had to plot my selections down to the second in order to keep things on track, yet I knew on a job like this unexpected changes were the expectation. I needed backups, and backups for my backups. I burned the midnight oil preparing myself.

I did take one stab at reaching out to my not-so-anonymous patron. I sent a text that Thursday.

Nino: Hey, I haven’t been able to catch you at school. Any chance you would want to get together soon? You still haven’t shown me how to walk in these new threads.

The reply took a while, but it came.

BeeBee: I’m busy. Besides, don’t you have a wedding to plan, or whatever? Just play with your friends or something.

Nice one BeeBee. Now, you might think that sort of thing might get a guy riled up. You just had to know how to talk to a dame like her. There’s claws protecting the purr. Besides, she’d let slip the truth. I hadn’t brought up the job, and none of my friends were on good enough terms with her to blab. So, there was only one way she’d know what I had to be busy with.

Thanks, BeeBee.

The wedding was insane, or maybe that was the wine whispering in the back of his head. Nino had only had a little, but his nerves were working overtime so he wasn’t sure if that was making it worse. He felt heady and detached from reality between brief moments of interaction with friends anchoring him.

He had his list though, three actually and all the same. One he’d taped down to the table, another in his vest pocket, and another in his back pocket. They were all the same list. He checked off the same things from each one as he went. He just didn’t want to risk losing one, or losing his place.

The further along he got, announcements, breaks, songs, dances, more announcements, the more the nature of the anxiety changed. He was getting close! He had almost made it through. People seemed happy, he hadn’t messed a single thing up! Oh God, he hadn’t messed up yet, that had to mean he was more likely to mess up the things that were left, right?

His saving grace was his friends. Alya, Marinette, and Adrien had all come of course. Juleka and Rose were in theory somewhere too, but they had disappeared out into the grounds of the chateau almost immediately and not come back. Marinette was the best entertainment; officially a lightweight, and with self control that had not yet improved with age. She topped herself up quickly, and from that point on it was a running show of Alya or Adrien, or sometimes both, getting Marinette back to a point of functional sobriety for a few minutes before she got her hands on another glass of Champagne and tipped the scales again.

At the moment, it was Alya’s turn. Adrien and Nino had been making up backgrounds for the people milling under the canopies as the night progressed. Each was assigned a position in an ever growing, often conflicting web of relations and debauchery that was slowly collapsing under its own weight. Nino had to stop as the next song queued up. It was automatic in the software, but for this kind of money Nino still watched the changeover every time.

Adrien came back from the nearby buffet with a finger sandwich. “Who’s next?”

Maybe it was because he’d just started a slow song, maybe it was because it was getting late, but Nino responded with a non-answer, “Wonder what the founder of the feast is doing tonight.”

Adrien looked at him for a long moment. This was Adrien with alcohol. He didn’t get tipsy, everything just slowed down. Nino figured it was some latent aspect of his upbringing. Instead of behaving like a drunk, Adrien ran every thought and action through the buffer a dozen or more times, to make sure he was behaving. Adrien took a bite of his appetizer. “I was banking on a last minute show, complete with fanfare and upstaging the bride. I owe Marinette backrubs for a week.”

Nino let the scenario play out in his head. He could see it, maybe. He rubbed a hand over his face, and considered how long it had been since his last glass. He probably wasn’t good for another yet. “What’m I doing, dude?”

Adrien took the remaining two bites of his appetizer, and several bracing breaths before replying. “If -and why couldn’t you ask this at the start of the reception- I was going to guess, I’d say you’re trying to establish some kind of personal space. We’ve all of us been an ‘us’ for so long, everythings intertwined. We don’t really have friends who aren’t friends of our friends. If you’re trying to figure out you, then people who only really know you as part of a whole aren’t always the most helpful.”

Nino let that sink in. “Damn, dude. I don’t remember you getting wine-wise before.”

Adrien was staring at his hand, as if willing another appetizer to appear. He shook his head once. “Nah, not wise, talkative. I end up letting out what I keep in. You’re just not normally asking me deep questions.”

Nino thought back to their previous encounters with alcohol. Yeah, he wasn’t that much of an intellectual himself after a few drinks. It usually just put him to sleep. His eternal lot in life was to be the one to wake up with sharpie on his face. Nino mused, “So, you’re always this deep, you just hide it?”

Adrien brushed nonexistent crumbs off his hands, then stuck his hands in his pockets. “Marinette’s the how, I’m the why.”

Nino wasn’t sure he could follow the thread the conversation had taken. It was time for another song though. He watched the changeover happen. Adrien returned with more food to dilute the drink in his system.

A couple on the dance floor shared a lingering kiss. Nino watched. “We almost hooked up.”

The long pause was agonizing this time. “We’re not talking about Marinette, right?”

“No.”

Adrien let out a low whistle.

“I know, right? Is this normal? Is it okay? I’m not even sure how it happened. I was working on a tune, she took her pants off-”

“-That’s usually how it happens. That’s a big clue, pants come off, That’s how it happens.”

Nino gave Adrien a side eye. There hadn’t been much buffer on that reply. “You know what I mean.”

Adrien shrugged. “I broke up with a girl once, who I had dated for about a week. That’s my whole experience in how it works. I’m also kind of the worst to ask about this. I was pining for another girl while I was dating Kagami.”

Nino pulled out his phone, swiping to the dormant conversation. "I feel like I'm making it up as I go."

No pause at all, Adrien snickered. "Maybe it's why she bolted. Maybe you're just that bad."

Nino bit his tongue on the retort 'Alya never complained.' It didn't feel right putting the two side by side. Instead he snapped a picture of the reception, added a 'wish you were here' and sent it off to Chloé.

He paused to consider the action only after he did it. Definitely nothing more to drink for a while. It wasn't wrong though. How would she act here? What little tells would she let go? What twists and turns would the evening take? He wanted to know.

Nino showed the snapshot to Adrien, it was peanuts to what he'd already admitted.

Adrien noted helpfully, "You just sent her a picture of a wedding."

"Shit!" Nino fumbled with his phone, knowing it was futile, but panic prompting him to try and unsend.

Alya returned with Marinette, hand in hand. The latter was smiling too widely for it to be good. Alya explained, "Someone set a daiquiri down in the garden. Our little scavenger got to it before I saw it."

Marinette beamed proudly.

Alya passed her off to Adrien. "Your turn."

Marinette stuck her tongue out at Alya. "Party pooper." She snuggled up to Adrien's side. "Hey honeeeyyyy… I wanted to go look at the fishes again." She doodled with a fingertip against his chest.

Adrien looked at the others questioningly. Nino filled in. "Wet Bar's by the fish pond."

Adrien took Marinette's hand gently. "Okay honey, but only if you stay close."

The two went off and Alya moved closer to lean on the table beside Nino. The flood lights set off the highlights in her hair. "So, how's Mr. Master of Ceremonies after his first big gig?"

Nino forced himself to consider his reply. Alya was probably the driest out of all of them. She generally had two modes: sober and roaring drunk. The second one was very rare.

"Pretty good, babe."

She leaned in a little closer, a reporter's glint in her eye. "Only 'pretty' good?I thought everything went well. Is this about something else?"

She was too good. She always had been. Nino hmmed and bought himself time by checking sound levels that were already just fine. "Is this the kind of thing we're supposed to talk about?"

Instead of dissuading her his reply seemed to spark her interest even more. Nino cursed himself for not realizing he could have copped to any other number of reasons without giving away the truth. Dishonesty was complicated.

Alya raised a questioning eyebrow. "I don't know, Deej. You tell me. I am a big girl though, and you are still special to me, so I am here."

Nino fumbled for the right words. How to explain what he didn't understand? "I haven't been able to talk to her since before I got the job. I don't know why, or what I did wrong. I just- want to thank her, you know? It might have been fun to try and get her here too. A big event with lots of people would have let all you guys mix or miss each other as much as you wanted. It'd be nice if things changed for the better."

Nino sighed, he wasn't sure he had said everything, but he was sure of what he had said. Alya leaned in even closer, her eyes searching…

Her lips curled in a wan smile. "Well, I'll be damned. I'll admit I'm a little jealous. I thought I would get over the breakup first."

No part of any of those words made sense to Nino. “Get over-? Alya, what- that’s not what this-”

Alya waggled her head, her smile turning sweet if a little smug. “Oh, Deej. It’s not about that. I mean, who knows-” She waved with a hand vaguely. “It’s about making a connection, being ready to make connections again, seeking them out. That’s exactly what I wanted from this, for both of us.” Her hand came down on his shoulder. “No pining, no cutting ourselves off because there’s someone, somewhere, four years away.”

Nino wished he had time to put all this together. Well, don’t I? Time’s the gift I’ve got more than I want of, now. I don’t need to have it all planned out, do I? He let that sink in and took a breath. “Well, if this is how it’s supposed to work, I’m glad I can get some practice before university, because I am so lost.”

They both shared a laugh at that. Nino followed up with a question.

“You’re not okay though? I thought you were the one doing better.”

Alya raised and waggled her hand. “I was? I mean, you were hurting so badly. I was the one who broke us up, so I had more time to really get used to the idea. It still hurts of course, and the uncertainty, it’s so scary. I’m working my way through it, but it seems like you’ve blown past me.” She turned her hand palm up and shrugged. “Know any more moody blonds? Maybe I’ll give it a shot.”

Nino tried to laugh, but worry made the joke that came to mind a little too raw. Instead it came out as a sigh. “Maybe you can have mine. She might be done with me.”

Alya’s voice dropped. “What did she do?”

Nino swept his hands in denial. “Nothing! Nothing! That’s just it, nothing at all. Poof. Maybe this was a parting gift. ‘Thanks for your time, but you’re fired.” He wanted it to be a joke too, but it didn’t sound right to his ears.

“M’hmm.”

Nino knew that tone. He wanted to head it off, but one of his timers chirped from his rig and he was dragged back into work. The end of the reception was fast approaching. Nino had to fire off a list of announcements, give directions for the departing guests, remind people of coat pickup, and a dozen other details that ate up his time. He had to talk with the head of staff, settle details, pack up the equipment that was his -thankfully most of it was the Chateaus- and by the time all was said and done it was creeping into the very late evening.

He found his three friends sitting by the edge of the car park. Marinette was propped up between the other two, gently dozing on Alya’s shoulder. No more deep talks tonight; they were all mostly silent on the way home so as to not disturb their partied-out companion. Alya got out at Marinette’s, and after they’d helped Marinette in, stayed to see she was properly put in bed. Nino dropped Adrien off, starting a dozen conversations in his head but never getting a single one quite to his lips.

The evening ended with a simple. “See you tomorrow at school,” through the car’s window.

Nino drove home, left his dad’s car keys on the counter, and fell asleep wondering who would be in his dreams tonight.

#ml fanfic #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #marinette dupain cheng #chloe bourgeois #DJBling

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