#I suppose it goes without saying it's good to right-click and examine some enemies for resistances and immunities and talents

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

DOS2 combat gets easier once you realise that it's not just about getting enemies' HP to 0, but you need to do everything in your power so that enemy NPCs don't get to do anything when it's their turn.

When they have no armour at all, neither physical nor magic, they're an easy target, because there's a wide variety of ways to stop them - knockdown, stun, charm, freeze, sleep, petrification, etc.

I've learned that there's often no point spreading the damage between physical and magic if you can help it, because it just makes chewing through both kinds of armour take longer (unless you have to, of course).

When they have much less physical armour than magic, then you wear them down with physical attacks, until they have no physical armour left, then knock them down or turn them into a chicken. Atrophy can be helpful against melee combatants, but not 100% reliable.

When they have much less magic armour than physical, you zap them with magic until there's no magic armour left, then freeze them, or stun, or petrify, or charm, or put them to sleep, etc. Plenty of options there.

And when they also have the Perseverance talent (the most annoying one ever), so you don't want to stun them or knock them down, because the talent makes their physical and magic armour regenerate after most disabling statuses, guess what - IT'S CHICKEN TIME! THE CHICKEN CLAW SPELL STILL WORKS! Oh, the chicken form has timed out? MORE CHICKEN TIME! Learn Chicken Claw. And always carry some back up Chicken Claw scrolls. Not even the biggest dragon or the meanest demon can hurt you when it's a chicken. 👍🐔

[hanaasbananas]

let's get covered in flames and play some games with the smoke

@apopcornkernel made this post about enemies AND lovers a few months ago and it IMMEDIATELY gave me MANY ideas. And then what was supposed to be just Vibes ended up being over 8k and historical. Sorrynotsorry

AO3

He finds his soulmate on his birthday.

Having finished a disastrous family dinner, Adrien rises from the table, ignoring father yelling after him and escapes out into the pouring rain.

In seconds, he’s soaked to the bone, and he hesitates on the front steps, wondering if it’s worth going back for his jacket but then he hears the lock click into place and the decision is made for him. Father won’t let him back in until morning.

Not that he had any plans to come home before then anyway.

His hair is plastered to his forehead by the time he  reaches one of his regular haunts on the other side—the wrong side—of town, his teeth chattering in earnest, stopped only by something appearing in his mouth.

Swallowing in surprise, Adrien feels the item slide to the back of his tongue, almost going down his throat and choking him before he coughs, forcing it back up. A group of people skirt around him as they leave the bar, giving him bemused looks while he continues to cough, until he finally hacks out the item into his hand.

A pendant.

Eyes watering a little, he holds it up in front of his face, taking in the colour of the gemstone—the only clue he has to his soulmate's identity.

Not for the first time, he wonders at the practicality of soulmate jewelry appearing in one's mouth, but then, who is he to judge the universe?

The chain glints in the dim light before Adrien curls his fist around it and shoves his hand deep inside his pocket. He knows that shade of blue. He’d have known it was her even without the pendant burning his skin, telling him she’s near.

Lighting up a cigarette, Adrien leans back against the wall, scanning the room for her and finding her sitting at the bar. He’s never met her as a civilian before, though he certainly knows of her. But if she’s his soulmate, why hadn’t he received the jewelry when he’d first become Chat Noir and fought her?

Unless it isn’t Ladybug, but no—she turns to the side slightly and he’d recognise that profile anywhere.

Well. The universe works in mysterious ways. Adrien will certainly never claim to understand them. Taking a long drag from his cigarette, he stubs it out with a sigh before making his way across the room.

“Ladybug,” he greets, sliding onto the stool beside her.

Her shoulders stiffen, though her voice is sugary sweet as she flips her hair and turns to him. “I’m sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong— you !” A scowl twists her lips—coloured a shade of red almost as bright as her suit—and she drops the act.

“Me,” he confirms, bowing his head mockingly. She recognises him of course. He’d expected nothing less.

There isn’t a single girl in this city who hasn’t been warned to stay away from him—and with good reason. After all, Gabriel Agreste may be one of the biggest names in the alcohol trade—and he’s filthy rich to boot— but he’s still Hawkmoth, still has every cop around here on his payroll, can make people disappear with just a snap of his fingers.

Even the most opportunistic man thinks twice before dealing with the Agrestes. Not to mention the fact that everyone knows that one of his sons is Chat Noir, though nobody is quite sure who.

Adrien prefers it that way.

Nobody wants to get caught up in that bullshit. Nobody wants their daughters caught up in it either.

Least of all Tom Dupain—his father’s main competitor in the business. But Marinette Dupain is not the shrinking violet her father thinks she is. He’s seen her swear like a sailor whenever she arrives to fight an akuma, even teaching him a few new words. If they hadn’t been fighting at the time, he’d have proposed on the spot.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Adrien asks.

“What is this?” She's not defensive, but her eyes meet his calculatingly, darting past him to make sure that he’s alone, that she isn’t in any danger she can’t get out of, so he relaxes, feigns nonchalance, making himself as non threatening as possible.

Lifting his shoulder in a shrug, he says “it’s a peace offering, a show of good faith—whatever the hell you want to call it.” He flags down the bartender, raising a brow. “So? Whaddya say?”

He won’t tell her about the soulmate thing. Not yet. But none of their people are here—they’re practically anonymous, just two young people getting a drink together. It’s as close to neutral ground as they're ever gonna get and the night stretches out ahead of them, brimming with endless possibilities.

Eventually, she nods. “Make it a good one.”

***

Green eyes meet blue over the rim of the glass, an invisible tug of war going on between them as they drink from the same glass, lips touching where the others have been. Her presence is intoxicating, more so than the whiskey, and every time her fingers brush his, a thrill runs down his spine, electricity dancing along his nerve endings and he wonders why the bar hasn’t caught fire yet, wonders how the building is still standing around them, hasn’t been reduced to rubble at their feet.

Soon enough, it becomes too much to ignore, and he rises. He’s been to this speakeasy before, knows all about the rooms in the back, and it’s not long before he’s sliding a few notes across to the bartender who hands them a key.

The door barely shuts behind them and he’s already grabbing her dress, tugging at the hem and bunching it up around her thighs. Marinette pushes his suit jacket off his shoulders, fumbles with the buttons on his shirt before giving up and ripping the fabric instead, sending buttons skittering across the floor, deafening in the quiet room.

“That was an expensive shirt, doll,” he breathes over her neck and she laughs, throaty and dark, pinning him with her gaze.

“That’s too bad.”

He goes to kiss her then, to cup her face but she swats him away, taking his hands and planting them on her waist instead. “Keep your hands down here, mister,” her lips curve in a wicked smile “those lips too.”

Rising on her tiptoes, she presses a kiss to his jaw, continuing higher and higher, her breath tickling his skin as she whispers in his ear: “we wouldn’t want you getting any ideas about stealing my miraculous, now, would we?” She bites his earlobe gently, tugging at it with her teeth and dragging a groan out from the back of his throat before leaning back, regarding him with hazy, lust filled eyes.

“Of course not,” he says, tempering his disappointment.

Adrien’s never wanted something as much as he wants her lips right now. He wants to kiss the lipstick from her lips, taste her mouth and feel her tongue against his own, and she knows it. She can see what she’s doing to him, but he sees through her, sees that she wants it just as much and if she wants to play games, well...he’s never been one to turn down a challenge.

Instead, he dips his head, nipping and sucking at the column of her throat, tasting the salt on her skin, letting the scent of her perfume wash over him as he noses the strap of her dress down her shoulder.

Pressing kisses against the exposed flesh, he grins when she clutches at his shoulder, her legs wrapping around his waist, and he stumbles backwards towards the couch, Marinette’s gasps filling his ears like the best kind of music.

Afterwards, he watches her leave in her rumpled dress, gloves clutched in one hand, purse in the other. She pauses in the doorway, looking back at him.

“I’ll be seeing you again, Agreste,” she says, and it sounds like a promise.

He stays, long after she’s gone, pouring himself another glass of whiskey, examining the lipstick print she’d left on the rim of the glass, and he thinks:

Happy fucking birthday to me.

***

They do meet again.

He doesn’t seek her out, but they run in the same circles, frequent the same bars, and once he notices, it becomes impossible to ignore. They gravitate towards each other, neither able to stay away for long.

Soon enough, it’s not enough to spend a single night here and there whenever their orbits happen to collide, but consciously making plans to see each other. It’s lying sated in bed together, limbs draped over each other as they share a cigarette instead of hastily getting dressed and leaving with her scent still clinging to his hair, her lipstick marking his skin.

He learns the planes of her body, memorises the taste of her skin and what makes her come undone beneath his fingers. Still, Marinette never lets him kiss her. He hasn’t tried again since that first time, though the craving for it keeps him awake at night, a sweet ache deep in his bones that never goes away; a thirst he cannot quench no matter what he tries.

He learns the planes of her body, but does not yet know the taste of her lips.

***

“Where’s this one from?”

Propped up on one elbow, Adrien gently traces one of the scars on Marinette’s exposed back, feeling the raised skin underneath his fingertips.

“No idea,” lying on her stomach beside him, Marinette watches him lazily. “I stopped counting after that first week of akuma battles. Does it matter?”

“I thought the cure—” he breaks off, suddenly distracted when Marinette sits up, the sheets pooling around her waist.

Rolling her eyes, she reaches out to grab his chin between her fingers, pulling his attention away from her breasts. “Doesn’t work on me,” she shrugs, “it never has.”

He’d thought the miraculous cure only left him scarred as punishment, reminding him that he was doing the wrong thing. His scars are well deserved, but Marinette’s are not

Is this his fault too? Adrien thinks of the soulmate necklace that he always keeps in his trouser pocket, holding onto it like a talisman whenever Marinette isn’t near.

He still hasn’t told her, but now he wonders. If someone else was her soulmate, would her skin be unblemished, all damage reversed at the end of each battle? Is it her connection to him that gives her these scars?

Adrien doesn’t have an answer.

Maybe it's selfish—who is he kidding, it’s definitely selfish—but as he pushes Marinette back down onto the mattress; as he explores her body, kissing her scars and committing each one to memory, he can't help but be glad that they match.

***

In the meantime, they still fight as though nothing has changed. And nothing has, not really.

Father still sends out akumas, Adrien is still his fathers lackey, and Marinette still comes to fight them both.

If there’s a new synchronicity to their movements, a new, more intimate knowledge of how the other moves, they don’t mention it. And if he’s more careful about where he lets his staff land, about the power behind his blows, he doesn’t mention that either.

Nothing has changed. And yet nothing will ever be the same again.

***

Marinette doesn’t figure it out for another month, but when she does, she’s spitting mad-angrier than he’s ever seen her.

She collides with him as soon as he enters the bar, before he can so much as shrug off his jacket, grabbing his hand and dragging him into the back room. The door only just shuts behind them and she’s whirling on him, eyes blazing.

“Why are you going easy on me?” She hisses, poking him in the chest “I haven’t been injured in weeks.”

He raises a brow “and that’s a bad thing now?”

“Yes!”

“Well I’m sorry, but I prefer when a fight is evenly matched.”

That, and every time she stands against him in that red suit, radiating power, seeming for all the world to be invincible...all he can think about is what lies beneath. Of her skin, pliant and soft beneath his fingertips, of the scars that litter her body.

He knows them all now. Knows which ones took the longest to heal and which still hurt her sometimes. What he doesn’t know—what keeps him awake at night, guilt gnawing away at his stomach—is which ones he gave her.

So many years. So many battles. How many of those injuries were inflicted by him?

Adrien will not be the one to add to them, lengthening his list of crimes. He won’t stop the akumas from hurting her—father would get suspicious after all—but that doesn’t mean he has to take part.

And there are other things that distract him

“ Evenly ma—” Marinette almost shrieks in outrage, stamping her foot. “ They always have been!”

“They were,” he corrects her. “Not anymore though.” Stepping forward, he leans in close to whisper in her ear, his breath ghosting along her skin, “it’s not a fair fight when I’m distracted. When all I can think about is your legs around me.” Marinette’s breath hitches and he grins, circling her “when the entire time I’m imagining what your lips might taste like, and all I want to do is stop fighting so that I may kiss you instead.”

Marinette’s cheeks are flushed, her breathing unsteady when he pulls back, but she’s quick to recover and meets his gaze defiantly. “Then kiss me.”

Adrien blinks, his turn now to be taken aback. “What?”

She shrugs, examining her nails nonchalantly. “Kiss me then. Or was that all talk?”

He doesn’t have to be told again.

Surging forward, Adrien cups her face for the first time but he doesn’t take the time to savour it, his fingers already sliding to the back of her head, burying in her hair as her hands fly to his shoulders and capturing her lips with his own.

Kissing Marinette is nothing like he imagined. It’s better.

As her lips move against his, Adrien thinks in a distant part of his mind that it was probably a good thing they waited this long to kiss, because already he is addicted to the taste of her. His tongue swipes against hers and her arms circle his neck, pulling him even closer. Her mouth is intoxicating and he could get drunk off the taste of it, like caramel, like expensive chocolate and strawberries—a forbidden fruit, acquired at last.

***

“You know, I wouldn’t have to keep doing this if-sit still” —Adrien presses down on her hips, holding her in place as he makes the final stitch through her skin and cuts the thread, reaching for a clean rag— “if you didn’t keep taking hits that aren’t meant for you in the first place.”

Marinette rolls her eyes, leveraging herself into a sitting position so that he can bandage her wound more easily. They’d struck an agreement, Adrien promising not to hold back during akuma battles as long as she meets with him afterwards to get patched up. So far, it’s been working a great deal better than doing it herself , especially on days like today.

This injury had been one of the more nasty ones—the akuma’s blade slicing through her side. The only reason it hadn’t gone straight through her belly was because she’d been pushing a civilian out of the way and it had caught her side instead, but the jagged blade had still done a fair amount of damage.

“I’m Ladybug , that’s kind of my whole job. Now if your father’s akumas would stop sending those hits…” Marinette trails off, staring down at him with an arched brow, though the effect is diminished by the hiss of pain that escapes her as he wraps the bandage tightly around her torso.

Adrien’s grin is sharp when he looks up at her through his eyelashes, and once again, she is taken aback by just how beautiful this man is—the sharp angles of his face, his thick messy hair, and piercing green eyes. Beautiful, yes—and dangerous.

He winks at her then, teeth glinting in the low light of the hotel room, “now where’s the fun in that?”

***

Adrien isn’t sure when it shifts.

He’s noticed the change of course. Noticed how they laugh between kisses more often than not, how their interactions are gentler—a fire simmering under the surface instead of consuming them whole.

It’s dangerous, what they’re doing, and yet they can’t seem to kick the habit. What started out as strictly physical, as a way to blow off steam is turning into something else, something he can’t—or won’t —put a name to.

***

There’s no akuma tonight, and Adrien is enjoying the rare moment of peace. In the distance, someone is having a party, the music spilling out onto the street and he finds himself nodding along to the tune when a flash of red—Ladybug—crosses his eye.

Curious, he follows her from a distance, watching as she stops at the docks. His eyebrows rise. The only thing people come here for is alcohol shipments. Carefully, she sets down a large crate atop a pile that was already there.

“Why, Ladybug,” he drawls, stepping out from the shadows. “I didn’t take you for a bootlegger. What will the papers say? Aren’t you supposed to be a model citizen?”

She snorts. “Model citizens can still drink .” Gesturing over her shoulder at the crates, she shrugs. “Papa asked me to drop these wine bricks off during the day and then I forgot. Now’s as good a time as any.”

“Under cover of darkness?”

“ Obviously . Ladybug might drink, but I’d rather not find out what would happen if people saw her contributing to the trade of alcohol.” She reaches behind one of the crates and pulls out a bottle of wine “want some?”

“Drinking debauches mankind, you know,” he remarks and she wrinkles her nose, popping the cork and taking a swig. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“Well then it’s a good thing I’m a woman isn’t it?” She smiles coyly darting out of his reach when he tries to grab the bottle. Taking to the rooftops with him hot on her trail, her laughter echoes around them, a happy joyful thing that makes his heart sing.

Ah, he thinks, catching her round the waist and holding her close. So this is love.

***

Some nights, she’ll sneak Adrien into her bedroom instead of getting a hotel room. It’s a thrill, having to keep quiet, especially when Adrien takes great pleasure in drawing noise from her lips, forcing her to bite her tongue until she tastes blood, lest her papa come investigating.

Marinette is fairly certain maman knows what she’s up to, but she turns a blind eye and Adrien is usually out just as the first rays of sunlight bleed across the sky, his hair like molten gold.

Not this time though.

This time, she wakes to his arm lying heavy across her middle, his head buried into the crook of her neck but it is not a slow awakening.

“Marinette?” Papa knocks loudly on her bedroom door and she jerks up, heart pounding wildly in her chest as she scrambles to put on her nightgown.

“I’m up, papa!”

“Shitshitshit —” Adrien is still only half awake but there’s no time—she shoves him onto the floor. Casting her eyes desperately around for his clothes, she pushes them into his hands and shoos him under the bed before practically launching herself across the room to her vanity, grabbing her hairbrush just as papa walks in.

“Good morning, pumpkin!” papa booms, crossing the room and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I just wanted to see you before I go.”

“Go…?”

Papa nods. “We’re running a raid on one of Agreste’s warehouses and I’ll be on the floor with my men when it happens.”

“Oh,” Marinette’s voice is faint as he continues to talk about the raid. She forces a bland smile, acutely aware of Adrien underneath her bed, listening to their conversation.

After what seems like an eternity, papa leaves, ruffling her hair as he goes, laughing at her attempts to swat him away.

“Goodbye, papa! Good luck!”

Hardly daring to breathe, she listens carefully, waiting for papas footsteps to recede, going further and further down the hall until she hears the low murmur of conversation between her parents in the kitchen.

Only then does she relax, dropping her hairbrush onto the floor with a thunk. “You can come out now.”

Adrien emerges from beneath her bed, but she can’t meet his eyes and he doesn’t say anything either. Still, he pecks her briefly before leaving, fingers brushing against her jaw and she leans into the touch, pretending that she does not see the conflict brewing in his green eyes.

Not for the first time, she wonders what she is doing with her enemy. Wonders at the risk she is taking, not just with her own life, but her papas as well, and all those in the city who she protects.

She’s playing with fire as if she’ll never get burnt, but even if she did, she thinks she’d probably dust herself off and jump right back into the flames, as long as Adrien was there to greet her.

***

Adrien mulls over the information on his way home, trying to decide what to do. Is it not his duty to protect the business he will one day inherit? It’s in the family's best interest. It’s in his best interest.

He could tell father. He should do it.

But he won’t.

***

The raid goes off without a hitch. Her papa is unharmed—though bewildered at her sudden affection, but it is Adrien who receives the majority of it after a week of staying away from him, too worried about the raid to do anything but stay home all week.

“You didn’t tell your father,” she says afterwards, pouring out their drinks and passing him a glass. They’re naked, the sheets tangled around them and her mouth is red and swollen from his kisses, but the way his fingers close over hers, lingering for a second before drawing away seems somehow more intimate, and she feels a flush rising on her cheeks, looking away and throwing back her drink in one gulp. “About the raid. Why?”

Adrien shrugs. “I could hardly warn them about something I’d never heard about,” his voice is laced with nonchalance and she rests her head on his shoulder, letting him toy with her hair as he speaks. “I wasn’t there now, was I?”

He doesn’t elaborate, but there’s no need to. The implication is clear and Marinette feels the last of her doubts slip away. He will not betray her.

It is this thought, the absolute certainty with which she believes it that brings the  final defences around her heart crashing down, and finally, finally , she lets herself define what it is that makes her heart beat faster whenever Adrien is near, that has her laughing so hard at his stupid jokes that she snorts wine out of her nose. that has her searching a room for him as soon as she steps through the door, restless until she finds him.

She laughs then, twisting around to kiss him full on the lips, burying her hands in his hair and pressing herself closer to him, so close she can almost feel his quickening heartbeat underneath his chest

Love, she thinks. It’s love.

***

“What would you do,” Marinette asks conversationally, drawing circles round and round on Adriens chest. Though she feigns nonchalance, there’s a slight tremble to her voice that she hopes he doesn’t notice. “What would you do if I said I love you right now?”

Adrien stills.

“Are you saying that now?”

She avoids his eyes “maybe.” She’s wanted to say it for a while now, the words simmering below the surface, always on the tip of her tongue whenever she sees him,  but she can’t help but be afraid. Afraid of what might come after.

“Well,” Adrien sounds amused, putting a finger gently under her chin and tilting her face up to meet his. “I’d say I love you too.”

***

“Keep your eyes closed,” Adrien says, one hand on the small of her back, leading her up the final flight of stairs.

There’s only one door on the landing—precisely why he chose this place—and he fumbles in his pocket for the key, almost dropping it in the dark.

“Adrien,” she whines, stomping her foot adorably and he laughs under his breath, pressing a quick kiss to her brow before unlocking the door.

“C’mon doll, just through here,” he guides her to the middle of the room, moving to stand in front of her, “go on then, you can look now.”

Marinette opens her eyes slowly, hand flying to her mouth as she turns on her heel, taking in the apartment they’re standing in.

“Adrien…” she meets his gaze, eyes wide “what is this place?”

“It’s ours,” he says, taking her hand. “I uh...I bought this place for us. No more hotel rooms.”

It’s small. A little cramped too, and the wallpaper is too dark, which they’ll have to change, but moonlight filters in through the large window and she looks at him like he’s bought her a mansion, like it’s the most beautiful place she’s ever seen.

“No more hotel rooms,” she repeats, a smile playing about her lips. “I like that.”

***

In the weeks that follow, they practically move in together. Instead of frequenting the bars in the city, and partying all night, she’ll make her way to the apartment where more often than not, Adrien is waiting for her.

They start to bring things in, a few books here, some records there. One night, rather than tumbling into bed, they get drunk and rip off all the hideous wallpaper. The next night, Adrien brings paint with him and they make the place their own.

It’s almost enough to make her forget everything. Almost, but not quite. After all, they never meet out in the open-the risk of either of their father’s men seeing is too great-can never be seen together

There are nights when she will stay up, running her fingers through Adrien’s hair as he sleeps beside her, and wishes that they could run away. When she sees the dark circles under his eyes, and he tells her of his father’s latest cruelty, of his frustration at being run ragged every day, she worries that their story will not have a happy ending.

Sometimes, she looks at her friends, at Alya and Nino—the open affection they share—and feels jealousy rise up inside of her like a raging monster crying out that it’s not fair!

On those nights, when she feels with such certainty that they will not have a happy ending, she settles for holding him tightly; for loving him in these secret moments in the darkness, and hopes that it will be enough.

***

Adrien gets the stone from the soulmate necklace set into a platinum band, gets their initials engraved on the inside.

He gives it to her on the anniversary of that first night, so long ago—almost a lifetime—finally letting go of his secret, and anxiety churns in his gut as he leads Marinette over to the mirror in their bedroom.

Standing behind her, he wraps his arms around her waist, burying his face in her neck. Marinette giggles, reaching back to tangle her fingers in his hair. “We didn’t have to come all the way over here to cuddle you know.”

“No, I—” Adrien swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. “I wanted to show you something.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the small box, noticing distantly that his fingers are trembling as he opens it, showing her the ring inside.

“Is that…”

“Look,” he turns her to face the mirror again, holding the box up next to her eyes. “It matches. I didn’t tell you before, but…”

“We’re soulmates,” Marinette breathes, eyes sparkling brightly. Carefully, he slides the ring onto her finger and watches as she admires it, turning her hand this way and that, watching the stone catch the light.

He still can’t quite believe that she’d accepted it so readily. After the way he’d agonised all week, with the ring weighing heavy in his pocket with every day that passed, the sheer joy on Marinette’s face makes the breath catch in his throat.

To keep that look on her face, he’d do anything. He’d throw a lasso around the moon and pull it down for her, if only she’d ask.

She’s his soulmate . Adrien’s lived with the knowledge for a year now, but he still struggles to comprehend it sometimes. That she is his, that the universe chose them for each other.

It’s far more than he deserves, and he has to resist the urge to kiss her, to sweep her off her feet, hold her in his arms and never let go.

Marinette has no such reservations however, and she throws her arms around him, kissing him, slow and deep. “Let’s go away,” she says. “Just for a weekend. Somewhere that nobody knows us.”

How could he say no?

***

It’s exhilarating, being out in broad daylight.

She’s used to spending her nights with Adrien. Meeting him in dingy bars and dark alleys, hotel rooms with the curtains pulled closed, and though she’s seen him in the early mornings, when the sunrise spills through the window and tells them that their time together has finished, but it is an entirely different thing to see him outside.

Outside, where the sun glints off his blonde hair, transforming it into spun gold; where she discovers new shades of green in his eyes and is blinded by his smile, cheerful and bright in the daylight.

He’s never been more beautiful to her than he is now.

Adrien seems to be similarly affected, if the way he looks at her is any indication, and Marinette feels as though she is glowing from the inside out, basking in the heat of his attention.

In two days, they do everything that they couldn’t do in a year. They go to the park, and to the beach, holding hands—the action feeling somehow more scandalous than any of the other things they’ve done together—without fear of being seen.

She wears the ring he gave her and they pretend to be newlyweds and go to the fanciest restaurant in town. They go to a dance hall and dance the night away, then stumble back to their hotel in the early hours of the morning, hands fumbling with each other’s clothing, as he captures her mouth with his, their kiss a hurried clash of lips and tongues and teeth as they tumble into bed together and he makes her come undone beneath his fingers.

It’s the lightest she’s ever felt, and Marinette knows that she will cherish these two days forever—the glimpse that she got into the life of normality they might lead, if only things were different.

She never wants it to end.

But it does end, and thing’s aren’t different. In fact, things are worse.

Because when they return, the city is on fire.

***

It’s easy to follow the trail of destruction behind the akuma. Easier still to get the corrupted object and purify it, but as the miraculous cure sweeps over the city, putting out flames, restoring levelled buildings and knitting everything back together, Marinette feels the weight of her responsibility settle on her shoulders.

She’d felt so much lighter with Adrien, when they were away, but that could never last. Not when she has a duty to the people, when she is the only person who can set things to rights.

As she looks out over the healed city, Marinette turns away, frustrated tears slipping down her cheeks.

She can never leave again.

***

“And where have you been?”

Adrien pauses in the entryway, meeting father’s thunderous gaze. Félix stands beside him, though for once his brother doesn’t look smug at Adrien being in trouble.

And he’s definitely in trouble.

Father could hardly care less about one of his akumas nearly burning the city to the ground, but he does care about what his sons are doing. Or not doing, in this case.

That’s what he doesn’t yet understand. Father has a pattern and he sticks to it, never once deviating, no matter what. It was why Adrien had chosen this particular weekend to go away, knowing there was no possibility of an akuma attack, knowing that he would not be missed.

Squaring his shoulders, Adrien drops his bag by his feet. “Out.”

In three quick steps, father strides across the hall, his hand cracking across Adrien’s face, making black spots dance across his vision. “Did you have permission?”

Adrien remains silent.

“Answer me!”

“No,” he bites out. “I did not.” His cheek stings, but he resists the urge to touch it, clenching his hands into fists.

Abruptly, father’s expression clears, and he turns on his heel, motioning for Adrien to follow behind him. Silently, he does, ignoring the spike of worry in his gut in response to the troubled look Félix sends him.

Once they get to his office, father settles behind his desk, lighting a cigarette for himself before speaking again.

“Did you know,” he starts, almost conversationally “that Tom Dupain has a daughter? She’s around your age, I’d say.” Father pauses, shaking his head with a smile and the sight makes Adrien’s skin crawl. “Oh, what am I saying—of course you know her. Quite well too, from what I’ve heard.”

Adrien’s blood runs cold.

“I didn’t want to believe it of course,” he continues “but I did a little digging, and you know what I found?”

Numbly, Adrien shakes his head.

Opening his desk drawer, father pulls out an envelope, shaking out the photographs inside. They spill out across the desk, incriminating him. Incriminating Marinette.

Hadn’t they been so careful about being seen? Taken every precaution they could? But no, Adrien realises. Once he’d gotten the apartment, they’d grown lax. He’d gotten cocky, thinking that nobody would see them there.

Except someone had.

The photographs are of the two of them, exiting the apartment building. Marinette’s head is tilted up to meet his and he is cupping her cheek in his palm. In any other circumstances, he’d think it was a beautiful photo, but all he feels right now is horror, churning away in his stomach and robbing his ability to speak.

“You thought you were being very clever weren’t you? With that little apartment you got together.” Father is watching him carefully as he speaks, and Adrien struggles to school his expression, to seem unaffected. From the slight tilt of fathers lips, he is unsuccessful.

“I’ll admit, I wasn’t entirely convinced that this wasn’t something simply...carnal. Something I could turn a blind eye to. Until this past weekend.”

Bile rises in his throat as suddenly, Adrien understands. The akuma attack hadn’t been a spur of the moment thing. It was a test. A test that he had failed.

“She’s distracting you. From your duties to this family, to our cause .” Reaching for the nearest photograph, father looks him directly in the eye, stubbing out his cigarette on Marinette’s face, the paper smouldering and blackening underneath the cigarette.

“Break her heart,” he says “or you’ll be picking up the pieces of her broken body instead.”

***

Adrien kisses her as soon as she arrives, his hands warming her face, drawing her closer and deepening the kiss. Giggling against his mouth, Marinette wraps her arms around his neck, pressing herself flush against him.

“Hello to you too,” Marinette murmurs, pulling away slightly. Her brow furrows when she sees the expression on his face, her smile dropping. “Adrien…?”

His face is shuttered, the shadow of a bruise on his cheek but when she lifts a hand, reaches up to touch it, he flinches away from her. “Adrien?” she asks again, swallowing down her unease “are you alright?”

“I am now that I have these.” Avoiding her gaze, he steps out of her embrace, holding up a hand and opening it to reveal something small in his palm.

Marinette blinks.

Something round. Two somethings—a pair— round and dark.

Something familiar .

Hands flying to her ears to confirm what she already knows, she laughs shakily. “Very funny, Adrien. Give them back.”

“No, I don’t think I will.”

“N —” her voice rises with panic “Adrien this isn’t a game!”

“It is, actually,” she stands, frozen to the spot as he circles her, his lip curling with contempt. “Did you really think that I meant any of this?” He laughs mockingly, leaning in to whisper in her ear “it was all just a game , so that I could get these silly little earrings from you.”

“No…No you’re lying.” Marinette stammers, even as her heart sinks, as she feels it crack in her chest. And still, she doesn’t want to believe it, can’t believe it. “Adrien, stop this, it isn’t funny anymore.”

He doesn’t respond, simply shakes his head and clicks his tongue in disapproval, walking slowly past her to the door.

Marinette doesn’t think, just acts, launching herself at his back and wrestling the earrings from his grasp. She doesn’t notice how easily he relinquishes them, aware only of the blood rushing in her ears, adrenaline coursing through her veins and she runs .

She doesn’t look back, doesn’t stop, not until she gets home, locking herself inside her room. Hands shaking uncontrollably, she struggles to put the earrings back on before giving up, throwing them across the room with a frustrated yell.

Stupidstupid she’d been so stupid to let herself fall for his tricks so easily. Had he laughed at her? When she had swooned into her pillow, recounting his affections, his words, had he gone home and mocked her with his father and brother, laughing at how quickly she had fallen into his lap?

The shattered pieces of her heart cut and slice at her insides until she can hardly breathe, agony unlike anything she’s ever felt before spiking through her; and as tears blur her vision, falling faster than she can wipe them away, Marinette half expects her eyes to be leaking blood.

***

He doesn’t see her for an entire month.

Adrien doesn’t particularly remember that first week after he breaks Marinette’s heart, the days blurring together in a constant haze of drunkenness and grief, but he does remember that he never saw her, even from a distance.

It’s better this way, he knows. Now Marinette is safe and at least father doesn’t know she is Ladybug, but he cannot forget the betrayal in her eyes, how he saw her heart shatter as he destroyed them in the worst possible way.

And yet, he can’t stay away.

“You’re not wearing your ring.”

It’s the first thing he notices, his eyes alighting on her hand as she exits the bar. The second thing he notices is how tired she looks. Her eyes are ringed with dark circles and her mouth a scarlet slash standing out in stark relief against her sallow cheeks.

And still she is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

Marinette falters at the sight of him and then she freezes, squaring her shoulders and levelling him with a glare. “Why would I wear it?”

“Look, I just—” he doesn’t know what to say, and he watches helplessly, unable to reach out to her, acutely aware of the people father has watching him, following his every move.

“Save it,” she snarls, “I don’t believe a single word out of your mouth anyway.”

He sighs. “I deserve that.”

“You deserve worse.” Marinette starts off down the street, barely sparing him a second glance as she passes by him, her arm brushing against his slightly, sending a frisson of electricity running down his spine. “Actually, no—” she spins on her heel, eyes blazing. “I need to know—why did you do it?”

“I loved you. So so much,” her voice breaks and he yearns to reach out to her, to pull her into his embrace, hold her close and never let go. “With all my heart.” Marinette continues “and you...did you never love me at all?”

If I answer that question, then your love will pale in comparison , Adrien wants to say. He opens his mouth to speak, to say yes! Yes I loved you! I still do, but no words come out.

Marinette’s eyes fill with tears. “I guess that’s my answer then.”

This time when she leaves, she doesn’t look back.

***

Breathing heavily, Marinette spins her yo-yo as a shield, ducking out of the way of the akuma’s fist and circling around him. Stepping back slightly, she watches him warily, waiting for her next opening.

A quick movement catches her eye, a dark blur just behind the akuma and she struggles to maintain her focus, keeping the yo-yo aloft.

The fight has been going on for over three hours now, and her strength is flagging, the sight of Chat Noir enough to sap the last of her energy. She can’t fight him as well. Not now.

Maybe she could face Adrien—in fact, it would be preferable—but ever since that night, his brother had taken over Chat Noir’s duties, and Marinette doesn’t know his movements, his fighting style like she does Adriens.

She doesn’t have time to learn either. Not when the akuma—a butcher with an unlimited arsenal of deadly tools at his disposal—throws several sharp knives one after another in her direction.

Cursing Hawkmoth under her breath, she dodges the knives, leaping backwards and propelling herself onto the closest rooftop, narrowly avoiding the baton Adrien’s brother swings at her as she passes by him.

Struggling to catch her breath, she wipes the blood from her forehead, crawling over to the edge of the roof and surveying the street below. They’ve  emptied now, most people having retreated into their homes after the first few injuries. Some still linger, accidentally wandering into the battlefield and she has to keep an eye out, making sure to shepherd them away quickly before they get hurt.

She’s never seen so many civilian casualties in an attack before, and as she watches the akuma throw a giant cleaver, she is suddenly fiercely glad for her miraculous cure, even though she can feel her ribs throbbing in pain, knows that she will be bruised black and blue later.

Unbidden, Marinette remembers the reverent way that Adrien would trace her scars, would kiss them and ask about each one and she bites back a sob at the memory. She has new scars now—ones he can’t see, ones his brother gave her, and he will never know about them.

Part of her is glad. But every time she bandages herself after a fight, when she lies awake at night, in too much pain to sleep, she finds herself pretending-just for a moment-that it was real, that Adrien had meant it all, that the warmth he had provided her with-the safety- wasn’t just a farce.

She cries herself to sleep those nights.

Shaking her head, Marinette brings her attention back to the street below, her mind racing as she tries to figure out a plan of attack. Her thoughts are too jumbled though, and below her, the akuma roars once more, growing more agitated by the second.

There’s no time for a plan. Not if she wants to end this fast.

Swallowing hard, she gathers her courage and jumps down from the roof.

***

Adrien watches, his heart in his throat as Marinette narrowly avoids being thrown backwards like a ragdoll, getting out of the way just in time to only be knocked off her feet instead.

She stands, wobbling slightly and he knows it is only a matter of time until she is completely unable to fight. Not that it is much of a fight anyway-it’s been going terribly almost from the get go.

Father certainly knows what he’s doing. For the past week, each akuma has been more deadly than the last, and Adrien has watched from the sidelines as Marinette fights on two fronts—the akuma, and Félix.

He thinks of her scars, of how the cure cannot save her, how she is so close to losing now, growing weaker by the second. She won’t be healed, she can’t come back from this, I have to —

His brother vaults past where Adrien is standing. “Félix!” he hisses, reaching out and yanking on his baton.

Félix jerks back with a glare, his voice irritable. “What?”

“Give me the ring. We need to swap.”

“Are you mad?” Félix snorts. “Father’s angry at you. I’m not letting you get me in trouble too.”

“To hell with what father thinks!” Adrien yells “give it to me!”

Félix hesitates, sensing the seriousness of Adrien’s demand. Behind them, a sharp cry rings out and his head snaps back, seeing a young woman fallen on the street, her leg twisted at a sharp angle, clearly broken. Marinette’s seen her too. So has the akuma, reaching into it’s arsenal of weapons ready to take advantage of her distraction. Nonono —

Whipping back around, Adrien glares at his brother.

“Now!”

***

Looking around wildly, Marinette pulls the civilian's arm over her shoulder, half dragging, half carrying her off the street, searching for a safe place to leave her.

“Ladybug! Over here!” A voice calls out and she sees someone step out from the building in front of her, taking the young woman from her arms and hurrying back to safety.

Turning back around, she misses the look of horror that crosses his face.

And then she sees it.

Hurtling towards her—so fast that she can hear it whistling shrilly—is a giant honing steel moving so fast that she knows, even as she ducks, that it will hit her.

The whistling grows louder, a deafening scream filling her ears and she squeezes her eyes shut, bracing for the impact.

It never comes.

Instead, there is a sickening squelch , a muffled grunt turning into a guttural, pained yell. Opening her eyes,  she stares up at Chat Noir—not Félix but Adrien —standing with his back to her.

Standing impaled on the honing steel in front of her. Protecting her.

Scrabbling backwards, she watches as he falls—almost in slow motion—to his knees, a shocked gasp escaping from his lips when she reaches for him, lowering him carefully onto the ground.

Green eyes meet blue and a relieved smile breaks out across Adrien’s face, transforming his pained grimace.

“A -Adrien —” she stammers, clutching at him, careful not to jostle the steel embedded in his gut. “Why—what—”

“You deserve worse,” her own words echo in her mind, taunting her, and she lets out a sob, almost a scream, “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t—I didn’t mean—” She can’t hear anything over the blood thundering in her ears, isn’t aware of the battle raging around her as the entire world fades away to nothing, narrowing down until they are the only two people left.

“I know,” Adrien says, as if reading her mind. “It’s okay, I know. But know that...” He coughs, ignoring the blood that splatters his chin “that I didn’t mean it either. What I did.”

Marinette’s breath freezes in her lungs. “You—”

“Lied,” he nods, but the movement causes him to hiss in pain. “Sorry...I’m so sorry,” he wheezes, “I had to protect you. From my father. I had to—I had—”

“Shh, Adrien, no it’s okay,” she shushes him, falling silent as he grasps her hand, moving it so that it lays flat over his heart, where she can feel the faltering thump of it beneath her palm.

“ I love you,” he breathes, “I always have. I didn’t say it enough, but...” his fingers tighten almost painfully around hers, voice turning plaintive “you do believe me?”

“Yesyesyes—” Marinette nods madly, and with a flash she drops her transformation, uncaring of who might see her, desperate only for him to hold on, to show him—

Her fingers are slick with his blood, and it takes her several tries before she successfully pulls the chain out from under her dress, yanking it over her head. “See?” she shows him the ring, threaded through the chain “I never stopped wearing it, see?”

“I’m...I’m glad. Keep it for me, won’t you?”

The gemstone glints in the dying sunlight before dimming suddenly and she stifles a sob, knowing what comes next.

“Hey...hey—” breathing heavily, he moves with great difficulty, lifting his hand to cup her face “come here, doll,” she lets him guide her down until their faces are barely an inch apart. For a long moment, he simply stares at her, his green eyes roving over her face as though trying to memorise it.

Impulsively, she moves to kiss him then, one last time. It is meant to be a chaste kiss, but Adrien’s lips move against hers with a fervour that surprises her, his fingers tightening in her hair and she clutches at him, desperate to imprint every sensation of this last kiss into memory.

Pulling away, she sees the ghost of his signature smirk tugging at his lips, even as his breathing becomes more laboured “a kiss to remember me by, eh?”

Surprised, she laughs through her tears, stilling as carefully, he wipes them away, his thumb stroking her cheek. “No more tears, okay? No more tears.”

Pressing her lips together, Marinette nods jerkily, laying beside him and resting her head on his chest. With great effort, Adrien brings his arm around her shoulder, holding her close as he is able to and she closes her eyes, imagining they are back in their apartment, lying together in bed, the sheets tangled around their waists, the sun creeping along the floor through a crack in the curtains.

Marinette doesn’t hear the battle end. She doesn’t see his transformation fall, or his kwami drift to sit beside his head. She sees nothing, hears nothing as her tears mingle with his blood and she lies still, counting every last beat of his heart until finally, there is nothing left to count.

[lets-talk-appella]

They’re Us

Ch 4/5

Summary: When the enemy looks like your friends, how do you know who to trust? For PP Horror Week 2019 - Doppelgangers.

Word Count: 4.3k

Rating: M for horror themes and some violence, not smut.

AO3 and FFN

“What was that?” Cynthia Rose asks loudly, looking toward the ceiling. “What the hell was—”

“They’re in the house,” Emily breathes, knuckles white as she clenches her hands around her bag.

Chloe locks eyes with Beca. She knows they’re thinking the same thing. After a moment, Beca’s throat bobs as she swallows and she gives a single nod.

“Uh, no way,” Stacie says suddenly. “I saw that. No way.”

Chloe glances over, ready to argue, but Stacie beats her to it.

“I saw what you two just did,” she repeats, eyes flicking between Chloe and Beca. “There’s no way.”

“No… what?” Ashley asks.

Beca opens her mouth, but Stacie cuts her off. “They’re thinking of going upstairs to see what the breaking glass was.”

Chloe has to refrain from rolling her eyes. “I mean, someone has to, and since Beca and I are co-captains, then—”

“We’re not splitting up,” Stacie counters firmly. “Not now.”

Cynthia Rose nods emphatically. “That’s how it goes down in movies. They split up and die horribly.”

Beca does roll her eyes at that. “Okay, this isn’t a movie, and we do really need to—”

The sound of heavy footfalls upstairs interrupts her, and they all look toward the ceiling. Chloe finds herself holding her breath, ears straining as she tries to count how many of the clones have infiltrated the house.

“What do we do?” Flo whispers. “We can’t just wait here.”

“Yes, we can,” Amy counters.

“No way,” Beca argues. “They’ll be expecting us to just stay here. We have to counterattack. It’s what Aubrey would tell us to do, right?”

“We’d surprise them,” Chloe agrees. “Look, we should really just go and—”

“Then we all go,” Stacie says, an edge in her voice.

Chloe hesitates, knowing Stacie isn’t going to like her answer. “There are just as many of them as there are of us.”

“Not quite,” Jessica mutters.

“So they could surround us easily if they have different points of entry,” Chloe continues, following Beca’s lead in channeling Aubrey. “The best way to do this is to split up and try to corner them.”

“Before they corner us,” Amy mutters.

“Unless anyone else has a better plan?” Chloe asks, becoming impatient.

Stacie hesitates. No one else says anything.

“Right,” Beca sighs, stepping forward to stand next to Chloe. “We’ll divide. Chloe and I will check out that noise upstairs, Jessica and Ashley if you want to take the attic, Stacie, Flo, and Emily check the basement, and Amy, Cynthia Rose, and Lilly stay on this floor?”

Flo raises her hand. “Why are we checking the haunted basement for clones?”

“And... break,” Beca says, making shooing motions with her hands. “Let’s just… um, be careful,” she finishes, looking suddenly nervous.

“On three or after three?” Stacie asks, albeit unhappily, and to Chloe’s relief, it makes Beca smile a little.

“Be safe, everyone,” Chloe says, not allowing herself to think about any alternative. “We’ve got this.”

Flo crosses herself. Lilly whispers something that makes Amy look at her in horror and sidestep away.

“Let’s go,” Beca says firmly. If she’s faking her confidence, it doesn’t show.

Chloe leads the way, hoping she seems as brave as Beca does in front of the others. She forces herself to start up the stairs without looking back or pausing, even though she’s quaking so badly inside that it’s a miracle her legs don’t give out going up the steps. She feels Beca’s reassuring presence behind her and tries to think of Beca and only Beca rather than what might lie ahead of them.

She and Beca stop on the landing, but Jessica and Ashley continue, heading to the attic. Chloe notices they’re holding hands, and she briefly thinks of grabbing Beca’s hand, but doesn’t want to betray her fear.

She shivers; cold air streams over them and across the landing, and she knows it must be coming from the broken window. It takes her another second to realize the source has to be in her bedroom; hers is the only door left open on the landing.

“My room?” she whispers to Beca.

Beside her, Beca stiffens. “Gotta be.”

Chloe takes a deep breath. Then another. “I suppose we should…”

“Yeah,” Beca agrees quietly. “We should check it out.”

Neither of them makes a move. It’s much harder to act brave upstairs, separated from the other Bellas.

“Okay,” Chloe mutters. “Let’s…” she starts forward, again leading the way as Beca falls behind her. She imagines Beca’s head swiveling, watching their backs as they creep forward. They pass Cynthia Rose and Lilly’s closed bedroom door, along with Stacie’s. With each door they pass, Chloe’s anxiety only grows, winding into a tight spring in her chest; she half-expects one of the clones to jump out at them from one of the bedrooms at any second.

They pass the hall closet and creep closer to Chloe’s room, tiptoeing to remain as quiet as possible. A sudden noise makes Chloe lurch forward, startled, and she whirls in time to see Beca pulling on a long-sleeved jacket and shutting the closet door.

“Sorry,” she winces. “I got cold. The breeze.”

“It’s okay,” Chloe says, heart hammering in her chest. “Ready to…”

“Yeah,” Beca says, her eyes shifting beyond Chloe to focus on her bedroom.

This time, Chloe doesn’t stop herself from taking Beca’s hand. Beca doesn’t pull away, but grips Chloe’s hand in return just as tightly, her touch warm, steady, and familiar. It gives Chloe the strength to take the final few steps, never before having been so frightened to enter her own bedroom.

They enter slowly, Chloe’s eyes jumping to the corners of the room, looking for any sign of a clone. The room is empty, however, which both calms and confuses Chloe. She’d thought it would be some kind of trap, so to find no one waiting for them is almost more disconcerting than if the clones had been there.

Chloe drops Beca’s hand to cross the room and examine the window, just for something to do. It’s completely shattered, the glittering, deadly-sharp shards sprinkling the carpet below it. Chloe sighs, knowing it’ll be a pain to fix. The clones seem long gone from the room, but for good measure, Chloe makes herself kneel to the floor to check under her bed. She’d been prepared to see eyes—her own, maybe—staring back at her, but the dark space is empty. She sits back upright just as Beca closes the door behind them with a muffled click of the latch.

“Bec?” Chloe asks, thrown by the uncertain look on Beca’s face.

“Yeah, I just…” Beca huffs, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Don’t want the others to hear.”

“Hear what?”

Beca takes a deep breath, pursing her lips. She moves her hand from her neck to instead rake through her hair; Chloe can see it shaking from across the room. Concerned, she stands from her kneel.

“Beca?” she asks again. “What—”

“I’m scared,” Beca finally says in a puff of air. “What’s gonna happen?” she asks, her voice quivering. “To us, to the others, I’m just—this is some freaky shit, and I can’t—” she breaks off, biting her lip and glaring at the wall.

“Woah, hey,” Chloe tries to calm her, moving closer slowly. “I know this is—it’s insane,” she laughs humorlessly, “but, I mean, we outnumber them, you know? And, well, now that we know what’s happening, I think we can—”

“We don’t know, though,” Beca interrupts, becoming agitated. “We have no idea where they came from or what they want.”

“We can deal with that stuff after all this is done,” Chloe says, now close enough to Beca to take both her hands into her own. Through the closed door, she can hear muffled noises and maybe some shouting from the others, but she tunes them out; all that matters is making Beca feel better.

“We’ve got this Bec,” Chloe continues, moving still closer, keeping her voice soft. “I’m scared too. But we can do this. We have the Bellas and we have—we have each other.”

Beca’s eyes flick down to her lips and back up.

Chloe’s stomach flips and her breath catches; without intending to, she’s created a little bubble around herself and Beca. She moves forward automatically, until she’s so close to Beca that she can feel the puff of Beca’s breath against her lips.

This time when Beca’s eyes dart down to her mouth, they stay there.

Chloe’s pretty sure her heart has stopped beating. Still, it’s the easiest thing in the world to lean forward until their noses bump together. She feels more than hears Beca’s breath catch; all it would take is the smallest tilt of either of their heads for their lips to connect.

Chloe’s hands rise from Beca’s hands, up the sleeves of her jacket, her fingertips tracing over the soft, delicate skin there.

Skin that is completely devoid of a yarn bracelet. Chloe’s eyes flick up and find the outlines of lenses around Beca’s irises.

Chloe feels as if she’s been hit by a train. Even as Beca’s clone starts to close the gap between their lips, Chloe shoves her away with all her strength, and stumbles backward, a scream caught in her throat.

Clone Beca’s back hits the door with a heavy thud, but barely a second later she surges forward, pulling a long knife from within the jacket. Instinctively, Chloe knows that if she had kissed Clone Beca, that knife would have appeared between her shoulder blades.

Clone Beca slashes with the knife, darting forward and aiming it at Chloe’s face. Chloe dodges to the side but Clone Beca is just as fast. She turns, swiping again with the knife. Chloe moves, but this time, the knife passes so close that it catches her yarn bracelet, slicing it off her wrist so it lands on the floor.

Adrenaline pours into her veins. She knows she has to end this or sooner or later, Clone Beca won’t miss. The next time the knife comes sailing at her, pointed at her stomach, Chloe jumps backward instead of to the side. The unexpected movement throws the clone off balance and she stumbles; Chloe takes her chance and grabs for the heaviest object in reach, which happens to be her desk lamp. She swings it at Clone Beca blindly, ripping the cord from the outlet. It connects with the side of Clone Beca’s face solidly and she drops.

When she goes down, the knife falls from her hand to land on the carpet. There’s an instant—a flash of a second—where Chloe knows she should grab the knife and end the fight permanently. Clone Beca is disoriented and in pain; it would be easy to stab her.

But even the thought makes Chloe’s stomach roll. The person on the floor looks far too much like Beca, the real Beca, even down to her clothing apart from the jacket. She can’t do it. So instead, she picks up the knife and throws it, aiming for the already-broken window. It sails outside, presumably landing somewhere far below, but Chloe doesn’t wait around to find out. She whirls and flings open her bedroom door, escaping, calling out desperately for the real Beca even as Beca’s clone struggles to get up.

***************

Being grabbed and shoved unceremoniously into the coat closet was not the highlight of Beca’s day. At the very least, it was ironic.

She’d only had time to register the sound of the door opening next to her before rough hands gripped her upper arm and dragged her into the closet. Long brown hair whipped past her face and just like that, the door closed on her and she was plunged into darkness.

She immediately tries the handle of the closet, unsurprised to find it locked. Her first impulse is to shout and pound on the door to get Chloe’s attention—a brick slides into her stomach as she realizes Chloe’s outside now with some clone—but she stops herself. Making any amount of noise might alert the other clones, drawing them to her like a shark to blood in the water. Beca shudders; she really wishes Jesse hadn’t made her watch Jaws.

Indecision paralyzes her. She’s desperate to break out of the closet but equally as terrified by the idea of getting the attention of any clones. A small whine tears free of her throat as she realizes she’s low on options.

“BECA!”

Beca jumps so violently she almost falls into the closet door; she manages to catch her balance just as another of Chloe’s screams pierces the closet door and echoes around her mind. “Beca, where are you? Help!”

“No, no, no, no,” Beca mutters frantically, torn. Should she stay hidden or burst free? What if it’s not even Chloe, but Chloe’s double?

“Beca! Please, help!”

The sound of Chloe’s desperate cry stabs through Beca’s chest like a knife, and her decision is made. She spins, scanning the dark closet for anything she could use to get out. For a wild moment, she debates using a wire coat hanger to pick the lock, but figures she’d probably end up breaking it off in the handle. Her eyes drop to the floor, finding several pairs of heels and some boots.

“Beca!” Chloe screams again, somehow sounding more agonized than ever.

Beca reaches for a boot. She raises it above the door handle and brings it down with all her strength. She bashes the heel of the boot against the handle, then again, and again, each swing more hurried than the last as Chloe’s voice starts to fade. Finally, she feels it give; with one more hard swing, the handle breaks off the inside of the closet, falling to the floor. Beca drops the boot to shove her entire weight against the door and it flies open, depositing her into the empty hallway.

She pauses, disoriented, taking in the closed doors surrounding her; even Chloe’s bedroom door is closed, though she thinks she hears some kind of scuffle behind it. She takes a step toward the door, thinking Chloe might be inside, only for Chloe’s voice to sound from behind her, down the stairs.

Beca’s mind goes blank and she hurls herself in that direction, pounding down the steps, unable to think about anything but Chloe and whatever could draw those horrible sounds from her. She trips on the last steps and stumbles down the stairs, managing to land shakily on her feet. Around her, chaos ensues; she glimpses Flo with her back braced against the basement door as if struggling to keep something down there, sees Emily wearing a blue bracelet grappling a Stacie without a bracelet, sees Cynthia Rose running to help. Beca only has a moment to take this in, because Chloe’s screaming again from the direction of the kitchen, her voice full of terror.

Beca moves as quickly as she can, rounding the corner and vaulting the end of the couch, desperate to get to Chloe. “Chloe!” she shouts, “hang on!”

As she goes, she sprints past Amy struggling with her own clone; as soon as the Amy with the bracelet sees her, she fires a punch into Clone Amy’s face, sending her down. She whirls and lunges for Beca; Beca tries to dodge with a yelp, but Amy’s arms encircle her legs and they both drop in a tangle of limbs.

“It’s not her!” Amy yells directly into Beca’s ear, panicked. “I know what she’s doing and it’s not her!”

“Amy get off me!” Beca shouts, not registering Amy’s words. “I have to—”

“No! It isn’t her!” Amy grips Beca’s arms, holding her down. Beca struggles against her, trying to wriggle away; Chloe’s cries have faded again.

Something impacts them both, and Amy cries out. Beca glances around her to see Amy’s clone having latched onto Amy’s feet. She starts pulling, and Amy is slowly dragged backward, and in her distraction, Beca tears herself free and picks herself up from the ground.

“Beca, don’t!” Amy pleads once more, something blue caught in her fist; Beca glances down at her own wrist to see her bracelet had come off in Amy’s hand in the struggle.

Beca hesitates; she’s pretty sure Amy can handle it, but her instinct is to help Amy fight. But then Chloe screams again, this time from deeper within the house, and Beca’s every cell urges her to run to her.

“I—sorry,” Beca gasps, turning back toward the kitchen. She bursts inside, ready to fight, but finds it empty and swears violently. It would be a lot easier to find Chloe if she stayed in one place.

At that moment Chloe calls out again, sounding more confused than scared. “Beca? Where are you?”

It’s coming from the sitting room this time; Chloe must have doubled back. With a huff, Beca sprints back the way she came, past Amy and her clone again. Amy now has her clone in a headlock, too preoccupied to notice Beca this time.

When Beca gets to the sitting room, Chloe’s already there, head turning in every direction, apparently looking for her. As soon as Chloe sees her, her shoulders relax. “Beca, thank God,” she sighs.

Relief crashes over Beca and, without thinking, she pulls Chloe into a crushing hug, holding her tight. “There you are,” she says, and then pulls away quickly, flustered. “I was so—I’m glad,” Beca manages lamely.

Chloe smiles haggardly. “Yeah, you’ll never believe—”

“Beca!” Chloe’s voice screams from upstairs. “Beca!”

Beca’s mouth goes dry. She and the Chloe in front of her lock eyes for a second before Beca looks down at her wrists. Chloe isn’t wearing a bracelet.

When she looks back up, Chloe’s already watching her, eyes wide and earnest. “No, Bec, it’s—”

“Beca, I need you! Help!” the voice from upstairs cries.

Beca breaks out in a cold sweat; she can feel a drop of it trickle down her spine. “I—”

The Chloe in front of her swallows. “Beca, ignore her! It’s me.”

“Beca!” Chloe’s voice shouts from upstairs, full of anguish.

“You—you’re not wearing a bracelet,” Beca manages.

The Chloe she’s with shakes her head. “I was fighting y—it got torn off in a fight. You’re not wearing yours,” she points out. “It’s me, I promise.”

“I—I can’t—”

“Please!” the Chloe upstairs cries out again, her voice taking on a new pitch and turning hoarse from the strain.

Beca can’t take any more; she turns away from the Chloe in front of her and starts for the stairs. She bounds up them, two at a time, her thighs burning. The Chloe she’d left is shouting and chasing after her, but Beca’s got a head start.

At the landing, she pauses only a second. The sound of sobbing reaches her ears and she throws herself toward Chloe’s room. She ignores the Chloe behind her and, flinging the door open, rushes inside and—is immediately grabbed from behind in a bear hug, her arms pinned to her side.

“No, what—”

“Got ya,” Chloe breathes in her ear. Only this is Clone Chloe, Beca can tell immediately. “Knew you’d be stupid enough to fall for that one.”

“The fake crying at the end really sold it,” another voice says, and Beca’s blood runs cold. She looks over to see herself—her clone—grinning at her, though also from an armlock; for some reason, Aubrey’s clone has the other Beca held fast.

Beca hesitates, confused, only for horrible realization to hit as soon as the Chloe that had been chasing after her—the real Chloe—arrives in the room, expression terrified. The terror on her face turns to uncertainty, her eyes flicking between the real Beca and her clone.

***************

Chloe gasps, trying to catch her breath. In front of her, Aubrey holds fast to one Beca and her own replica holds another. Both Becas look scared out of their minds, and both are staring at her as if trying to send the message that they’re the real one. Neither of them has their bracelets.

Chloe isn’t angry at Beca for falling for the trick. If she’d been in Beca’s place, hearing her scream out for help like that, she’d have done the same. She had no way of knowing that Chloe had lost her bracelet earlier, too.

It had terrified her enough to hear her own voice call out in such pain. She can’t imagine what hearing Beca sound like that would have done to her.

Aubrey’s clone shifts her hold on the Beca she’s restraining, putting her in a one-armed chokehold. She pulls out a long knife, identical to the one Clone Beca had threatened Chloe with earlier. Aubrey smiles, bringing the blade to Beca’s face and tracing the flat of it along Beca’s cheek, even as that Beca flinches and struggles to pull away. “Which one?” Aubrey asks sweetly.

“This one!” the Beca in Aubrey’s hold gasps. “I’m me! Chloe, it’s me.”

“Don’t listen to her!” the other Beca cuts in. Chloe’s clone has pulled out a knife as well and holds it close to that Beca’s face. “Chlo, think about it, you know it’s me.”

“Your choice, Chloe,” her clone smiles at her, making Chloe’s skin crawl. “Aubrey and I don’t have all day. You say the word, and we’ll kill whichever one you decide.”

“Your decision,” Aubrey purrs. “You can help the Bellas by having us kill one of our own. We’ll do it. Just give the word.”

“Don’t!” the Beca being held by Chloe spits. “They’ll kill me either way because I’m me!”

“That’s what they want you to think,” the other Beca manages, her face reddening as Aubrey’s chokehold tightens around her throat. “She’s lying, Chlo, come on.”

Chloe stares between them, unable to spot any difference. She’s scanning them, trying to see their clothes, their hair, anything, but they’re too similar, Beca’s clone apparently having shed her jacket. They’re identical.

“Pick, Chloe,” Aubrey whispers.

Chloe’s chest aches and spots dance in front of her eyes. “I won’t,” she says, hearing the quiver in her own voice.

“Then we’ll choose for you,” Aubrey says. “You won’t like our decision.”

“Five seconds, Chloe,” her clone breathes. “Your call.”

“Chloe, think about it,” the Beca in Clone Chloe’s grip says desperately. “Who was I running to save? Who would I have gone to when I got here, you or Aubrey?”

“Four seconds,” Aubrey says.

“Would you shut up?” the Beca in her grasp says, glaring at the other Beca. “Aubrey grabbed me as soon as I got here because they knew I’d have gone to you. She’s trying to trick you, Chloe, it’s me!”

“Three,” Aubrey counts down, her knife moving to rest under Beca’s chin.

“I—I pick…” Chloe doesn’t even know what she’s saying; how can she possibly choose?

“Two,” her clone says, knife poised and ready.

Chloe’s eyes flash between both Becas desperately, no closer to making any decision than she had been when she’d walked into the room. She’s either about to watch Aubrey kill Beca or watch herself do it, and they’ll choose the real one.

“One…” Aubrey says, her eyes dropping to focus on the Beca in her grip.

“Hey!” a new voice shouts, and Lilly flies through the already-broken window, swinging in on a rope. “Back off!” she says, and for a moment, all any of them do is stare at her.

“You’re not supposed to talk,” Aubrey’s clone says with a frown.

“You’re not supposed to exist,” Lilly counters, and lunges at Aubrey with her own knife.

All hell breaks loose. Aubrey shoves her hostage away so she can defend herself; that Beca straightens up immediately and joins the fight. Chloe’s clone is distracted, so the Beca in her arms—the real Beca, Chloe realizes—takes the opportunity to grab at her knife and shove her to the side, directly into the melee. She locks eyes with Chloe and they hesitate, torn over whether they should escape or help Lilly.

Lilly decides for them. “Go!” she shouts, and the still-unexpected volume of her voice startles Chloe into action.

“Come on!” she cries, reaching out her hand; Beca grabs it and together they run from the room, leaving Lilly to battle the three clones.

“I’m sorry!” Chloe gasps as they run over the landing. “I wasn’t sure which—”

“I’m sorry, too!” Beca cuts her off. “Let’s just go!”

They pound down the stairs with no real destination in mind—maybe they should just escape the house altogether—only to collide with Stacie as she rounds the corner at top speed. Stacie raises her arms and shrieks in reflex, and Chloe sees she’s wearing her bracelet.

“It’s us!” Beca says quickly. “We lost our bracelets fighting earlier and—”

“Amy told me,” Stacie cuts her off. “We need a plan, fast.”

“What do we do?” Chloe asks wildly, near hysterics.

Stacie shakes her head, sparing a moment to glance over her shoulder “I think maybe—Cynthia Rose and I talked—there’s gasoline in the garage for the lawnmower. We just have to use it.”

Chloe stares at her, not understanding. She’s sluggish, her brain still trapped in her bedroom with clones and knives at Beca’s throat.

Beside her, Beca makes a noise of surprise in the back of her throat. “You mean—burn it?”

Stacie nods, her mouth in a thin line. “We have to.”

“I…” Beca blinks looking lost for a moment until her expression hardens. “Okay.”

“Great,” Stacie says grimly. “We just need to get them all in one place. Get your valuables.”

It finally clicks, and Chloe gasps in horror. “Woah, wait, you’re not… we can’t just burn the—”

“We have to,” Stacie interrupts. “We’re running out of options. Tell the others, quick, and I’ll get the gas. Meet back here in two minutes.”

[nellie-elizabeth]

Once Upon a Time: Murder Most Foul (6x12)

Oh no! I'm so upset! Gahhhhh.

Cons:

The bulk of this episode was taken up with the main plot between David and Killian, and that was very successful. Regina and AU!Robin had a subplot that was also, for the most part, successful, but... I do have my complaints. First of all, there's this horrible little moment where Zelena shows up out of the blue, yells at Regina that this new Robin has no rights to his daughter, and then leaves again. It felt like an awkward, shoe-horned cameo. I just kept picturing the actress being called onto the set so she could be on screen for about thirty seconds of the episode. It was weird and forced.

Beyond that, there's a more serious problem with what's going on with Regina here. She brings AU!Robin to her vault and tells her about his, or rather original Robin's, children. She also tells him to resist revenge on the Sheriff of Nottingham. He should try to be a better person.

Okay, that's all well and good, but AU!Robin rightfully points out that Regina is a filthy hypocrite. She's surrounded by objects of dark magic and by the hearts of her enemies. Are you telling me Regina still has boxes of hearts lying around? Shouldn't she give those back?! The problem I had here is that Regina is a hypocrite, bar none. And she comes across as a pretty awful person when she goes on and on about how she's changed, when the evidence would suggest she hasn't really learned much of anything at all. I guess this reason this is getting under my skin so much is because the other plot thread of the night does the same sort of thing in examining a redeemed villain, but it's much more successful. By contrast, this part of the episode was doing no favors in making Regina seem sympathetic.

Pros:

There were good things about the Regina/Robin plot, though. Namely the fact that Robin is a more interesting character as this mysterious not-Robin guy than he ever was originally. I love that he and Regina aren't clicking. They actually share a kiss, but as Regina confides to Snow, it didn't feel like anything. Robin is a darker, edgier guy now. He seems utterly uninterested in the fact that he sort of has kids, and seems much more interested in stealing Regina's powerful objects for unknown purposes. I'm actually quite intrigued.

But we should spend the bulk of our time talking about the main plot. It can be stated pretty simply: David asks for Hook's help in discovering the identity of his father's killer. Through flashbacks, and some helpful information from August, David discovers that the king who raised his evil twin brother was responsible for ordering his father's death. Hook tries to stop him from going after revenge, and eventually succeeds in getting David to stop. David is at peace, having discovered the truth about his father - he wasn't a drunken loser, but was rather a brave man trying to get James back.

Hook has spent the whole episode trying to show David that he's changed, that he's a good person now, all because he wants to ask David's blessing to ask Emma for her hand in marriage. In the end, Hook asks, and David says of course he has his blessing. We then get the twist - August finds the pages from Henry's storybook that he had ripped out so long ago, and Hook sees a picture of David's father for the first time. He suddenly realizes, to his horror, that he recognizes this man. Hook was the one to kill David's dad. Dun, dun, dunnnnn...

First of all, David was a fall-down mess for a lot of this episode, and I really enjoyed it. There's been this subtle buildup ever since the sleeping curse, where you can see just how hard it is for David to function without Snow. And here, it comes to a head. He starts seeing his father's ghost, and he becomes maniacally obsessed with revenge. Fantastic acting from Josh Dallas here, particularly in the scene when he finally loses it - he asks Hook, tears in his eyes, what he's supposed to think after learning the truth about his father. He always assumed his dad was just a drunk, but no. His dad did the right thing. He fought for his family. And it still wasn't good enough. He still died. This is a heartbreaking moment, because it undermines a lot of the common fairy tale narratives that we're used to seeing. If you're a good person, good things happen to you. As long as you try your hardest, you will succeed. But that's not the case here!

Meanwhile, poor Hook is trying to be a supportive friend by helping David, but he's also trying to discourage David from his mission of vengeance. If anybody knows what a corrupting influence vengeance can be, it's Hook. He's also trying to gear up to ask David for his blessing to marry Emma, and it doesn't help that he's convinced David only sees him as the same bloody pirate he's always been. I love the scene where Hook goes to Archie and asks for his advice. First of all, Archie is a delightful character, and it was fun to see him. Secondly, the look on his face when Hook shows him the ring he got for Emma is just precious. Thirdly, and most importantly, Hook going to Archie is such a great sign of character growth. He wants to do right by the people he cares for, and he takes it very seriously.

The moment when Hook asks for David's blessing is really sweet. David makes Hook wait a loooong time for an answer, and he's really sweating it. And the way Hook asks is just precious. He basically asks to be a part of David's family, saying that one way for him not to lose his family is for him to let it grow. That's too precious for words.

Before I get to that twist at the end, a brief shout-out to August. I'm so happy he's in another episode! And he was actually helpful! The flashback in Pleasure Island was a lot of fun. That place has a definite sinister vibe to it, and I'd be totally curious to learn more. Seeing wooden Pinocchio was also a special treat.

So, now for the twist. What I think is so fascinating and kind of brilliant about this is that it's sort of the story of redemption but in reverse. Ever since we've met Hook, we've been told he was a villain. But nothing we've ever seen him do seemed to match up to the horror of Regina or Rumple's actions, for example. He was introduced from the very beginning as a guy who was eventually going to be a love interest to our protagonist, so in a way this made sense. But beyond killing random, unnamed people, beyond once hitting Belle - something he's apologized for and been forgiven for - beyond killing his father who was shown to be a total jerk, we haven't actually seen him do anything all that bad. This changes that. This puts a face to the evil of Killian's past. This makes his redemption, his guilt and true repentance, a lot stronger. And they didn't pull any punches with it, either. It's not that Killian was ordered to kill David's father for plotty reasons, or that Killian was forced to kill an innocent man to get something he needed. No. Killian just straight up saw an opportunity to get some gold, and slaughtered a husband and a father for it. That's evil. That's interesting.

And now we have a dilemma. Hook has to tell David and Emma the truth, right? I mean, he just has to. But he's already reformed. He's already gotten better, and fought hard to be a good man. This is going to crush all of that, when there's nothing he can do to fix it or go back and make it right. This is the kind of conflict that invites good growth for our characters, and I'm beyond excited to see how it plays out.

Emma didn't have much to do this week, but she and Hook do share a lovely kiss as Hook shares his feelings with her about her near death. And she takes Henry out on a boat trip, which is adorable. Mother-son bonding time for the win!

I guess I'll stop there. This episode was really, really strong. I love Hook, and this episode only made him more interesting. I love David, and this episode really pulled on the heartstrings. This hasn't been the best season ever of Once Upon a Time, but a few more episodes like this could really help in shaping things up!

9/10