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theyrejustbehindtheveil · 6 years

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ML Secret Santa

Merry (belated) Christmas @nayawata it is I, your gifter for the @mlsecretsanta with a fic about the OTP

Paris, France | July

She graduates. One day, she is at université, and the next, she is not. The morning after her final exam, she slips downstairs for breakfast and instead finds an envelope.

Her parents' latest attempt to stop her from being so easily scared is three months in a city she doesn't know with a language she barely speaks. All expenses paid. She leaves in three months. Merde.

Sydney, Australia | October

It’s a jarringly young city. Everywhere Mylène looks she expects to see historic architecture and instead sees nothing beyond the nineteenth century. Her auntie chatters good-naturedly from the drivers seat which is on the wrong side of the car. Everything is strange and it feels a little like she can’t breathe and she cant make a sound and she is so so glad when the car stops and she can get inside the house and play her song and feel like she is still at home.

The first two weeks she only leaves the house with one of her cousins or aunts, too scared to venture outside without some kind of security net. They take her on outings every few days, doing the tourist shtick at what is probably their attempt to make her feel welcome. The multiple trips to the city aren’t too bad, but when they head anywhere else she feels off kilter. The ocean is too big and the countryside is too foreign. The suburbs are too sprawling and quite frankly she doesn’t even know where to start with the birds.

November

She goes for a walk alone the first week of November. Three pictures of the waterfront reflecting the clear blue sky later and she realises she is lost. Very lost. She isn’t even sure which way is home. She would like to say she was brave enough to find her own way home but the truth is that pedestrian’s hassle her along until she crashes into something large and solid with an eep of surprise.

The large and solid something responds with a grunt that shocks her into leaping back. And looks up. And up a little more to find the something’s face shuffled into a terrifyingly grumpy glare. She shrieks and cowers a little before the glare retreats into something a little closer to concern.

She’s fumbling out an apology as best she can manage and trying desperately not to give in to the urge to flee when the man in front of her guides her gently to a bench. “Are you okay?” he asks and she can’t help but suck in a breath at his accent because it is wonderfully, blessedly French.

“T’es Français?” She hopes he understands what she is trying to say.

He starts in surprise. “Oui.” She can’t help the wave of relief that sweeps over her and switches to French for a more coherent apology.

The guy’s name is Ivan and he doesn’t know how to get back to her aunts’ place, but his english is much better than hers and he is brave enough to ask for help and big enough to hide behind when the strangers get to be too much. Mylène thinks she quite likes this arrangement. It takes a full hour to find home, and she is glad for Ivan’s company.

He slips her his phone number moments before she shuts the door. Merde.

Three days pass before she even has the courage to save the string of numbers to her phone. Two more before she sends through a safe, neutral, hi this is mylene :)

Ivan replies twenty-seven anxious minutes later. hey mylene good to hear frm u glad u hadnt lost my no

sorry, she replies

dw i was jst disappted i might not get to see u again

oh i d like that

me too this wknd?

Deep breath. yeah i d like that

sat 1pm we can try tht walk again?

yes please

He arrives at the front door at five minutes to the hour. She’s been ready for the past ten minutes, but she still jumps at the sound of the doorbell.

This second walk is far better than the first, even if there are more people out on the weekend. They find their way to a market near a library and Mylène can’t help but feel a little nervous but Ivan is quietly reassuring. He buys her a little pin for her bandana and his face when she pins it straight to the fabric is something she really wants so see again.

She learns a lot about Ivan that day. He likes heavy metal, hates the heat, tries to be gruff and intimidating but cares too much to pull it off convincingly.

She tells him about Paris, how scared she is of just about everything because so much of it is just too much a lot of the time, that she likes cats better than dogs, about her dad’s job, and that her deepest desire is to be brave.

Ivan returns her confidences with the slightly ashamed admission that he is really not a cat person and Mylène giggles at his despondency before rushing to reassure him that she doesn't hold it against him.

Later, she texts him. the cat thing is mostly because they re quieter also because of the superhero he was kinda sweet

hte who

chat noir the paris superhero a couple years back in the news a lot both him and his partner total badasses in spandex

oh that superhero

i met him a few times he was at our school on superhero business n stuff he was really kind little dorky

that school that was awlays in the papers was urs?francis dupain or smth i almost went there

francois dupont yeah that was a crazy time scary too wait what dieu we might have been classmates thats so weird i was turned into one of the monsters one time

oh no

there was this mean girl she teased me and i ended up a monster

you could never be a monster mylene

no like an actual monster type creature monstrous from a horror movie pink jelly thing horrificater i scared people and kidnapped them i don t remember what happened much but everyone was really nice to me for a while after

wait the first time that was u in there

yeah that was me

wow working through that must have been hard

i had help chat noir came and talked to me a few times my parents really helped im glad u had that

December

There is no snow for Christmas this year. She gets a second summer instead, of the kind that Paris rarely sees. Ivan texts her every other day to complain about the heat. Her aunt takes her to the beach, and Ivan shows up in a pair of stupidly bright shorts that apparently were a gift from his sister. They make her laugh, and he grins.

you re really easy to talk to ivan um thanyk u no really it s really nice i like it

…

sorry if i made it weird i just mean t like we re friends i like talking to you

mylene its fine im sorry i dont take compliments v well it means a lot that u can say that thank u

He hands her a parcel a few days before Christmas. Inside is a pin she recognises from - oh. Its Ivan’s. From his favourite band. “You’re giving me this? Haven’t you had it since you were a teenager?”

“I… I want you to have it, to remind you that you can be brave.”

“Zombie Skull Crushers is going to remind me to be brave?” She hates the plaintive note that her voice holds.

“Yeah, doesn’t it just sound brave and badass, just like I know you can be?”

She hugs him, tight and grateful.

“Thankyou, Ivan,” she chokes out. “It’s the best present anyone’s ever given me.” He hugs her back, gentle and easy as breathing.

She almost forgets the parcel tucked into her bag but presses it into his hands right before she leaves. “Joyeux Noël, Ivan."

Her parents fly in for Christmas itself. She goes to meet them at the airport and the moment she sees them both she runs for them. Her dad catches her as she leaps and her mum folds into the both of them and she burrows in between both of them and doesn't leave their side if she can help it from that point on.

Paris, France | January

She leaves for home with her parents. The plane lands and she gets off and everything is so wonderfully familiar but she feels strangely untethered. Her home is still much as it was when she left, and her room is identical save for more dust than normal.

And she can’t quite work out what is missing until her phone buzzes insistently and she drops her unpacking to fumble for her phone and check the screen.

They’re all from Ivan, and she realises as she reads through them it’s him she’s missing. He’s worked his way under her skin, going form imposing to reassuring too easily.

miss u already mylene

Oh, merde

i rly had a great time with you when i go back home to chatres in abt a month can i see u on the way thru

What?

Two months and it had never come up how close he lived to Paris. To her. And she want’s to see him again and isn't that incredible. Mylène doesnt know what she ever did to deserve such a gift but there’s only one thing she can do

of course i want to see you too i didn t know you lived so close

His response is almost immediate yeah crazy huh

A month of of texting back and forth follows. Ivan is beautifully poetic when he tries, and Mylène learns ever more about her new friend. When Ivan returns to France, he knocks on her door when she’s the only one home.

“Hey,” he says, like. a month of separation hasn't stood between them like anticipation. She stretches her arms around his waist as far as she can and laughs with joy at the tidal wave of affection swamping her chest. He curls his much longer arms carefully, fondly, around her back.

“I missed you. Please don’t ever stay away that long ever again,” she mutters earnestly into his chest. His arms tighten a fraction, before he shifts one hand to tilt her chin up so he can look her straight in the eye.

“Never. I promise, Mylène, I won’t ever stay away from you for very long anymore. I don’t think I could.”

She believes him when he looks at her like that, like he wants to see right through her eyes into her soul and know it intimately. Three days later he asks her on a date.

She says yes

They go for a walk.

She tucks her hand in his and the world feels a little less terrifying when she does.

#myvan #ml #mylene #ivan #fic #bec writes #secret santa #mlsecretsanta

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