#morso heels | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

carpisuns · 2 years

Text

chapters: 10/21

Summary: Adrien’s favorite color used to be orange. Until Marinette.

An Adrinette fic with short, drabble-y chapters all involving the color pink

previous chapter

10. evening gown

The ballroom is elegant, but Marinette is radiant.

He can’t tear his eyes away from her. He knows his father expects him to mingle with the guests, to represent the brand, but he doesn’t care, because Marinette is standing beside him and her gown is pink and her eyes are blue and he thinks she might be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“That’s Giovanni Bianchi!” she whispers. “He’s—is he pointing at us? Oh—oh no. Did I mess up something on my dress?”

Her arms are bare, and he can’t help but stare at the sprinkling of freckles on her shoulders. Her usual pigtails are gone, replaced by dark curls pinned at the nape of her neck. Two wavy locks frame her face.

“There might be a tear in the chiffon. Or maybe I missed a stitch somewhere, and—”

“Marinette, you did an amazing job,” he says. “He’s probably paying you a compliment right now.”

“No, no, he can’t be!” She frets with the blossoms that spill down her skirt, and he finds himself reaching out to clasp her restless hands in his.

“You look beautiful.” He smiles warmly. “It’s perfect. Trust me.”

She blinks up at him, her mouth hanging open. “Um, thanks. You look beautiful too—er, um, I mean, handsy. Handsome! Not that—I mean, like, you always … you’re always …” She closes her eyes and lets out something halfway between a chuckle and a sigh, like she’s laughing at herself. “What I mean to say is … you always look really good, Adrien.”

Adrien has been told he’s beautiful by lots of people—fans, photographers, designers, talk-show hosts, the café worker who took his lunch order last week. But somehow it’s never meant anything until it’s Marinette Dupain-Cheng who’s saying it. He fights the urge to rub the back of his neck while warmth spreads over his face.

“Thank you,” he says.

Then someone calls out to him and they’re both lost in a sudden flurry of faces and voices. He loops his arm through hers and lets the current carry them through the crowd.

Giovanni Bianchi greets them warmly and immediately praises the design of Marinette’s dress. Then Madame Chapdelaine remarks that they make a lovely couple, which makes both of them blush, even morso when she calls her friend over to introduce her to “Adrien’s pretty new girlfriend.” Adrien isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say at this point, so he just nabs the nearest rich-people snack from a passing waiter and offers some to Marinette. (Unfortunately, it’s liver pâté, but he swallows it down with as much decorum as he can manage.) Through it all, Chloé watches them from across the room with a look of betrayal, apparently too offended by Marinette’s presence to even approach them.

But that’s just fine with Adrien, because he didn’t come here to talk to Chloé, and he doesn’t feel like sharing Marinette with anyone else a minute longer. He tactfully evades his father’s publicist and leads Marinette away so he can finally—finally—ask her to dance.

“Would you do me the honor?” he asks, extending a hand.

She smiles nervously and lets him lead her onto the dance floor.

“I have to warn you,” she says, “I’m not a very good dancer. I’m, like—well, you know how clumsy I am.”

“Don’t worry about that.” He draws her closer by the waist. “We’ve done this before, remember? At Chloé’s party.”

“Except then, I wasn’t wearing heels. Or a full-length gown.” She gasps. “Oh no, why didn’t I think of that? I should’ve gone with tea length. Or knee length. But is that even formal enough for an event like this? I could have at least gotten away with flats, right? Or maybe—”

“Marinette. Everything will be fine.”

She blinks. “W-what if I step on your feet?”

He leans in closer. The sweet, flowery scent of her perfume wafts over him. “Honestly, I don’t care if you step on my feet all night, as long as I get to dance with you.”

Her face goes pink, and she stammers before she can speak. “What if I trip?”

“Then I’ll catch you.”

“What if I make you fall?”

“You won’t,” he says (but he’s lying, because she already has).

He squeezes her hand and pulls her forward gently, stepping backward so she doesn’t have to. If he’s careful, he can make sure she doesn’t have to go backward at all.

“See? This isn’t so bad, right?” he asks.

“No,” she answers, smiling softly. “Not bad at all.”

They weave through the other dancers, and the ballroom fades into nothing more than a candlelit backdrop for Marinette’s face—eyes bright, cheeks glowing. She stumbles once or twice, but they just laugh it off, and for a while they fill the time with talk about school and fashion and hamsters.

But soon it begins to feel a little stifling—the people, the clamor, the lights—and he finds himself wishing he could be with her alone.

“Hey,” he whispers, “wanna get some fresh air? We could walk around the garden for a bit. If you want.”

“That sounds nice.”

He takes her by the hand and pulls her gently off the dance floor, through the side doors, and out into the velvet night. The gravel crunches under his feet as they start down the path between the neatly trimmed hedges. He wonders if he should let go of her hand. (He doesn’t want to, so he doesn’t.)

“It’s beautiful,” Marinette says. The moonlight settles over her like snow, dusting her hair, her shoulders, the bridge of her nose.

“You’re beautiful,” he says softly.

They reach a tiered fountain surrounded by trees. The sound of flowing water mingles with the rustling of leaves and the faint music drifting over the rows of flowers and bushes.

He takes in a lungful of evening air. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“I just—about—I was wondering … um, do you want to sit?” He gestures at a stone bench tucked beneath the shadows of the trees.

“Uh, okay.” She gathers her pink skirts and perches carefully on the edge of the bench. “Is that all you wanted to ask me?”

“No, no.” He sinks down beside her. “Um, about what Madame Chapdelaine said earlier. About you … being a couple. I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay,” she says.

“Okay.”

The trickle of the fountain fills the silence between them. His hand finds the back of his neck before he can remember to stop it. Somewhere behind them, on the other side of the trees, another couple murmurs together as they stroll down the path.

“Was that it?” Marinette asks.

“Yes. No—I don’t—I mean …” Adrien swallows and clenches his hands over his knees, keeping his eyes trained on the hem of her gown.

“The thing is … I like you, Marinette.” He takes a steadying breath. “As … more than a friend.”

He hears her breath catch, feels her stiffen beside him. His head snaps up.

“And you don’t have to say anything! I don’t want to make things weird. I just—I just wanted—”

“I like you too,” she says quickly.

He freezes for the space of a heartbeat, and then he feels his face split into a grin. “Cool! Er, I mean … I—I’m glad.”

Her face breaks into a smile too, and even in the dark, she almost looks like she’s glowing. “I’ve liked you for a long time, actually. Ever since we met.”

“Really? But I thought you hated me the first time we met.”

She lets out a breathless laugh. “Well, I meant after the gum thing. Like, when you gave me your umbrella. That’s when I knew.”

Adrien’s pulse clicks against his ribs. “When you knew what?”

“That I had misunderstood you. That you were gentle, and kind, and generous, and honest. That you were somebody I’d want in my life forever. Somebody worth fighting for. Somebody worth … falling for.”

The answer spills from her easily, like she’s just been waiting for him to ask, like it’s been perched patiently on the tip of her tongue for years. She smiles gently, and his heart stops.

He isn’t sure when exactly he fell for Marinette—sometime after he first laid eyes on her and before tonight—but he thinks it may have been much earlier than he thought before. That maybe that moment in the rain was the start of it all for him too. That somehow, even before his heart was free to be hers, it knew it eventually would be.

She tucks a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “You know, I’ve wanted to say that to you for a while now. ’Cause I’ve liked you for so long, and I made all these elaborate plans to confess. But in the end I always chickened out. Or it just ended in disaster.” She laughs.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m pretty dorky, but I’m not, like, that weird. Not as crazy as I always made myself look in front of you, anyway.”

“You never seemed crazy to me.”

“Really?” Her lips twist into a wry smile. “Not even when I gave you a prescription order for constipation pills and told you it was what I wanted more than anything in the world?”

Adrien stifles a laugh. “Okay, yeah, that was pretty confusing. What was that about?”

She buries her face with a groan. “I gave you the wrong paper. It was supposed to be a letter.”

“Oh? What kind of letter?”

She peeks at him between her fingers. “None of your business.”

“Weeell …” He leans back on his hands, tilting his head at her. “If I was supposed to get this letter, don’t I get to know what it said? I mean, I did hunt for those pills all weekend, so I kind of feel like I deserve to know.”

Marinette’s laugh feels like Ladybug’s cure, sweeping through him like magic. “Shut up! I can’t believe I’m even talking to you about this right now. When I realized what I’d done I was so embarrassed I wanted to die.”

“Well, I’m really glad you didn’t die. Because then I couldn’t dance with you again.”

He stands and offers his hand. She takes it, lifting her other hand to his shoulder, but he pulls her close instead, cradling her against him. She wraps her arms around his neck and rests her head on his shoulder, and they turn in slow circles to the music of the fountain.

“You know, it’s weird,” she murmurs.

“What is?”

“I was always so nervous to even talk to you before. But now, it’s like—it’s not even scary anymore. It just feels … right.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

He holds her tighter, eyes closed, and imagines that the moonlight has turned pink, just for them.

next chapter (to come)

#adrinette #adrienette #miraculous #ml #miraculous ladybug #mine #my fics

81 notes · View notes

khaliasama · 5 years

Text

A Bizarre Bazaar Run by Buzzing Buds

“Now, we’ve been over this a thousand times. You remember how to dock the ship, correct?” Zodvin asked from behind the pilot’s chair. He gripped the back of the once plush chair and dug his blunted talons into the long worn leather. The saggy skin that made up his outrageous frill began to lift and puff to reflex his nervous state as the battered shop came closer into view.

“Has it ever crossed your mind that the more you hover, the more pressure you place upon Possum’s shoulders?” Sobok retorted as he sauntered into the view. He joined his hunched over partner by the pilot’s chair, green eyes glued to their target destination.

“Possum can do it! Possum good pilot!” the ysoki in question piped up from the seat. The old leather chair had numerous, thick books stacked atop the cushion just to allow the rodent the ability to peek over the much-too-tall dashboard.

Without looking away, Sobok reached over and grasped Possum’s skull between his thumb and first two fingers. He gently turned their head back toward the front. “Eyes forward, always,” he reaffirmed with a low hiss.

“Right, right,” Possum replied, nodding enthusiastically the moment his parent had retraced his hand. Their big, black ears flopped up and down by the constant movement.

“Steady now...” Zodvin mumbled from behind the chair.

Their destination was a crafted structure mounted on a cluster of asteroids. Crude looking thrusters jutted out from the sides and beneath the haphazard looking building. They puttered to life once or twice. They weren’t there for movement, morso to keep the structure from drifting away. While the metal building was clearly made to resemble any other generic shop found on other planets, it still held a distinct resemblance to an old insect hive.

Above the entrance hung the structure’s namesake: Buzzar. It was written with neon letters that in no way, shape, or form resembled one another. The logo was a complete mismash of style as if each letter had been scrounged up from a different location.

Possum was able to navigate their home ship that was more built for a hulking vesk opposed to a tiny ysoki like themself straight into the rickety docking port offered by Buzzar. Zodvin flinched upon hearing metal scraping against metal. The ship came to a halt with a jerk, nearly sending the green-scaled Zodvin to the floor had he not been attached already to the pilot’s seat. As the ship powered down, Possum turned to look up at Sobok, eyes bright with excitement.

“Possum did it!” the exclaimed.

“Indeed,” Sobok replied, finally tearing his eyes away. He turned on his heel and walked toward the main exit. “From what I gathered, this area is still relatively untouched from the sudden influx of universe tearings. That doesn’t mean we should let our guards down.”

Possum hopped out of the pilot seat and landed on the metal flooring with a loud thump. They bounded after the cobra-like vesk, hot on his heels. Zodvin followed soon after, scrambling to his feet to chase the other two down.

“You think this place will ever get hit?” Zodvin asked as they descended the ramp. He cringed upon seeing the sides of their ship. It had suffered a few scrapes from the docking.

“Anything’s possible in this climate. I’d say something along the lines of ‘I hope not,’ but it’s hard to be optimistic with the events settling before us thus far,” Sobok responded. He crossed his arms behind his back and walked with purpose toward Buzzar’s entrance.

Possum had taken the lead already, bursting past their parents with little effort. This would mark their third visit to this strange sight out in the middle of space. They paused before the gaping entrance and sat back on their haunches, tilting their head upward until they nearly fell backwards from the sheer height that towered before them.

The building was shaped from long sheets of metal warped and wrapped around one another to produce a conal shape. Some of the material looked fresh while other parts looked like it had been scraped up from the bottom of a barrel. Possum’s ears twitched as it heard the electrical current flicker through the letters that made up the building’s namesake.

Their parents caught up and walked past, dipping underneath the roof of the entrance and coming upon the main doorway - the only nicely crafted part of the whole building. The doors shimmered chrome and looked brand new. Possum jumped onto Sobok’s leg and clamored up his body until they nestled in the the massive hood of their jacket as the two vesks triggered the motion sensor and walked through the metal doors. They opened and closed with a familiar whoosh, whisking the trio into a decompression chamber.

After a few minutes of waiting, they were cleared to enter Buzzar, and as per usual, it was a lackluster sight. The organization of the shelves and stock was questionable at best. Guns, rifles, and other weapons hung on the walls with no particular structure to how they were grouped. Bins of rocks and scraps of metal were left out in the open. It was nothing short of a mess.

Enough of the clutter had been cleared to allow for a large desk to be placed in the center of the main floor, manned by a single shirren. He possessed a long, centipede-like neck and head. The dim lighting reflected off his dark brown exoskeleton. As the trio approached, the shirren’s orange antennae began to twist and twitch.

“Friends!” came a cheerful greeting that projected into the trio’s minds.

Possum sat up in their makeshift nest. “Friend!” they yelled into the stillness of the messy shop. Their voice was the only one to echo off the dark and dusty walls.

“Yes, yes! It’s wonderful to see you again, little fuzzy friend.” The shirren clicked his mandibles and splayed his hands atop the countertop, brushing aside bits of a radio that had been taken apart.

“Possum! My name is Possum!” the ysoki continued, practically barking from Sobok’s jacket hood.

“My apologies, Possum. You chose that name and I should be mindful of that choice!”

“This place looks as rundown as the last time we saw it, Nact,” Zodvin mumbled as he approached the counter. He swiped a green finger along the desks edge and lifted the dusty pad closer to his eyes. His face scrunched with mild disgust upon further inspection. “Have any of you ever thought about cleaning the place up a bit? No wonder you guys hardly see much business out here.”

Nact tilted his head, eyes unblinking as he stared up at the frilled vesk. “We do clean.”

“Not enough! Look at this place...there’s shit everywhere!”

“But of course! It’s a shop!”

Zodvin pinched the bridge of his snout. “That’s not...no proper shop looks like this.”

Nact’s bright orange antenna twitched at the response. “I suppose we can afford to dust a little more,” he admitted.

Sobok cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the other two. “As enthralling as your conversation about excessive dust build up is, that isn’t the sole reason we decided to visit,” he stated. He rummaged about in his pocket before procuring a piece of metal and placing it on the desk. The light caught the chrome sheen of the surface as he slid it forward.

“We pulled apart an old, abandoned freighter. Wondered if you could use the scrap,” Sobok continued as he kept his eyes trained on the shirren before him.

Nact grasped the scrap between his clawed hands and brought it closer to his face. His head tilted to the left than right as his antenna caressed the worn metal. A few moments passed before he pushed it toward his mandibles and chewed on the piece. With a satisfied hum, Nact placed the scrap back upon the desk.

“We can work with this! Not the best condition, but not the worst either,” he hummed in their minds as he dipped out of view.

“We’ll bring the rest in, then,” Sobok replied before tilting his head to glance over his shoulder. “Possum, why don’t you go find the others while we do that? I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you.”

“But Possum want to help!” the ysoki exclaimed, sitting up in protest.

“And we appreciate the help, but Possum is scrawny in comparison,” Zodvin chimed in as he lifted Possum from their perch and set them on the ground.

“K’sen and Thil are upstairs sorting gun parts,” Nact chimed in, though he still hadn’t reappeared from his temporary hiding spot.

“Go on, now. We have boring adult stuff to talk about,” Zodvin said, nuding Possum with his foot.

With a soft grumble, Possum hoped away from the main gathering point and set themselves to scurrying up the nearby stairs. Navigating a building meant for larger folk would have been more difficult if Possum weren’t naturally adept at scaling all sorts of obstacles. Their legs couldn’t comfortably climb the massive set of stairs laid out before them, but Possum cleared this hurdle by hopping up each step with little effort. They sneezed on the way up; the amount of dust present tickled their sensitive nose.

Unused scrap metal seemed to be the biggest commodity the trio of shirren collected in their shop, making it look more like a hoarder’s paradise opposed to a facility used to buy and sell goods. Upon reaching the second floor, Possum paused their movements and lifted their ears. This floor was as flat and open as the last, but far more cluttered. Mismatched armor hung on mannequins of all shapes and sizes. They each lacked any kind of head shape, seemingly torn or eaten away by time.

Toward the far back, Possum’s ears caught movement. They bounded in the direction, hopping over empty ammo cartridges and pass a fuel tank. “Possum here!” the announced, stepping into view and spotting the other two shirren that shared business responsibility within Buzzar.

The two in question looked up, mandibles clicking and antenna feeling the air. The one closest to Possum was the taller of the two. They were beetle-like in nature with a shimmering iridescent carapace that seemed to change color each time they shifted under the dim light.

“Possum!” they called into the ysoki’s mind. “What a pleasant surprise!” They turned toward the other shirren, waving one of their clawed hands in the process. “Look, dear, it’s Possum!”

The final shirren tilted her head. She was the most traditional looking out of the trio of Buzzar with her heavily locust-like appearance. “I see that. Did you bring more scrap for us?” she called into their head.

“Yep! They bring it in while Possum told to come find you,” Possum replied as they pushed a nearby stool over and hopped onto it. Their feet dangled high above the ground as their body only covered maybe half of the stool’s surface. “What keep Thil and K’sen busy?”

“Sorting!” Thil, the iridescent beetle, chirped in Possum’s mind. “We’re a bit behind on shoring this place up.”

“How many others visit?” Possum asked.

“Can’t say it’s a whole lot,” K’sen, the locust-looking shirren, admitted. “If it weren’t for your parents helping us, we’d be gonners.”

“Why no big visits?” Possum continued. They began to kick their legs, watching how the shirren meticulously worked sorting gun parts into all kinds of piles. As they glanced over each small stack, they couldn’t help but wonder what the thought process was as nothing seemed to have a coherent pattern. If they squinted hard enough, they could maybe assume assume the choices were based on color.

K’sen shrugged, eyes focused on the work before her. “Competition for one thing. It could be argued that bigger chains do our job better, but they don’t have the same charm we do.”

“We’ve tried spreading the word, but people seem to be actively avoiding this area lately,” Thil added. “Almost as if something drove them off.”

Possum tilted their head. “What makes Thil say that?”

The long, segmented antenna that Thil sported grew still as the shirren fell into deep thought. “Just a feeling.”

“Not this again,” K’sen sighed in Possum’s mind. She paused her movements as she looked up at her partner. “You’ve been on about this for a while.”

“About what?” Possum interjected.

The somewhat cheery atmosphere had turned more chilly. The shirren glanced at each other before looking to Possum.

“Don’t worry about it, Possum. It’s nothing,” Thil tried to reassure the ysoki.

Possum tilted their head, dark eyes looking over the brightly colored shirren with intense curiosity. The two resumed their work, dropping into a comfortable silence once more. Possum didn’t try to press the issue. They had a feeling if they tried to continue the conversation, it would only end up with their friends becoming irritable. Wanting to avoid that outcome, Possum let themselves embrace the silence.

Twenty minutes passed with sparse conversation before Possum’s ears perked up at the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the nearby flight of stairs. They turned their head toward the source of the noise and spotted Zodvin’s green head poking above the numerous mounds of scraps.

“Possum! It’s time to go!” he called.

Possum hopped off the stool and pushed it back to its original spot. “Bye, bye!” the shouted at the shirren as they hopped off toward their parent. When the frilled vesk came into view, Possum jumped at him and climbed up his body. They found a perch on his shoulders.

“Ready to go?” Zodvin asked as he made his way back down the stairs.

“Uh-huh! Parents bring everything in?” Possum asked.

“Yep. We’re good to go.”

“Have good conversation?”

“Have great conversation.”

“Great!!” Possum chirped as they stepped back onto the first floor.

Nact had resumed his tinkering with the old, taken apart radio. Sobok awaited their return by the entrance. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Upon spotting the two, he pushed himself away and dropped his posture.

“Bye, Nact! See next time!” Possum called to the centipede before disappearing from the shop. They received an equally cheerful response.

As the trio approached their ship, Possum became antsy with energy. “Possum can drive again?” they asked, looking between Zodvin and Sobok.

An immediate reply wasn’t given, causing them to deflate a little. “Sure, Possum. Just be careful,” Zodvin finally said.

Possum tugged on the hanging skin that made up Zodvin’s frill. “Dad okay?”

“What? Yeah, Possum, don’t worry. Just a little tired from hauling a bunch of shit in.”

Something about his response made Possum frown. The entrance to their ship opened up and Possum hopped off of Zodvin’s shoulders. They ran up the ramp, far ahead of their parents, and straight into the ship. The state of their interior was a stark contrast to what lied within Buzzar. While the shirren owned shop had a clear layer of dust inhabiting every corner, the vesk ship was near spotless. Possum hopped into the pilot seat and eagerly awaited their parents’ arrival.

Normally, the two vesk were just as eager to board and blast off, but their movements now seemed sluggish and careful. The shift in mood was noticeable to Possum. “Where we go?” they called to the vesk as they stepped into view.

“Hmm...not sure yet. We’ll figure that out once we get a ways out of here,” Sobok said offhandedly.

Possum tilted their head again, large ears flopping over with the movement. “Dad okay?”

Sobok patted Possum’s head. “Dad fine,” he said with a smile.

The ship ignited to life, engines roaring like a massive beast. They pulled away from the quirky shirren shop attached to a cluster of asteroids and watched it grow smaller and smaller. The horribly mismatched letter signs were the last things to wink out of sight.

#khalia attempts writing #possum #it's starfinder related

5 notes · View notes