#and i chose a really understudied topic without thinking

[msburgundy]

why are intro classes so much harder than real ones? i do not have the personality to do fake work

[quicksilversquared]

A Musical Connection Ch. 4

In a world where soulmate bonds can range from a simple matching mark to timers to shared dreams, of course Adrien would get saddled with an inconvenient bond that keeps him from going out and living life- because whenever his soulmate sings, Adrien has to as well.

But the singing, as inconvenient as it is, presents another opportunity. Can Adrien use it to track down his soulmate?

(Ch 1)  (Ch 2)  (Ch 3)

(AO3) (FF.net)

"She's singing new songs. Her old show is over," Adrien told Max as soon as he saw the other boy again, a week after they last talked. It had been a long week, with more singing than usual. His soulmate hadn't stuck to just songs from musicals, but there was a definite pattern that had emerged. "Mary Poppins this time."

"Well, that means I can strike off any new shows," Max said, peering down at his spreadsheet. It was currently at two pages long and was completely confusing, but apparently Max could understand it. "We should be able to figure out which company your soulmate is in- or what university program she's in, I guess- and then we can get to one of their shows. Not all actors sing all songs, so that should help us narrow things down a bit to figure out who your soulmate is."

Adrien frowned as he thought about what songs his soulmate had sung. "Wasn't she singing all of the songs in the last musical, though?"

Max blinked and consulted his notes. He didn't let the new information throw him for long. "She may have been playing multiple parts or have been part of the choir."

"And her singing didn't line up very well with the show times," Adrien noted. His soulmate hadn't sung at all during the Paris university show, and only a couple times during the other show times. It was weird, and it made him question Max's methods just a bit.

He wasn't ever going to tell Max that, though. Adrien needed his help too much to risk offending him.

"Perhaps she's an understudy?" Max suggested. "She would have to know all of the songs but wouldn't be singing during the actual show unless she was needed."

Adrien groaned, barely resisting the urge to bang his head against the desk. He'd assumed that his soulmate was one of the actors out on stage. They had based their entire plan around that assumption, and Adrien wasn't sure how that plan would change if she continued to work as an understudy.

He would just have to hope that she would actually perform during the show in Mary Poppins.

"How are things going otherwise?" Max asked. "I just realized that all we ever talk about is your soulmate and while it's certainly a fascinating subject of conversation, I'm sure you have other things going on."

"Not much, since I can't really go out much, in case I start singing." Adrien thought back to the last time he had managed to get together with Nino and Alya, when his soulmate got on such a singing kick that they got booted out of the cafe they had gone to. Nino and Alya had found it hilarious, even joining Adrien in singing as they headed to Nino's family's apartment to spend the rest of the evening, but for Adrien it had been a reminder why he had to limit his outings. "I've had to start thinking about what classes I want to take next semester, which isn't going too well. There are a few things I'll have to attend in person, and there's no way to get out of them."

Max winced. "So we have a bit of a deadline, then? To find your soulmate by the end of the semester?"

"That would be nice, if it's possible." And yet again they had come right back around to the topic of his soulmate connection. It just showed how completely it was influencing his life. "But I've been paying attention to when I sing. It was mostly to plan when I could most likely do photoshoots without being interrupted, but it'll work for picking out what lab sections I take, too."

"To run the lowest risk of interruption," Max filled in, nodding. "Yes, that is quite smart. So what times-?"

It was Adrien's turn to wince. "Well, she doesn't like getting up early, I think," he admitted. Unfortunately, he also wasn't terribly fond of early morning wake-ups, but it was all he had to work with. "So all of the eight o'clock and nine o'clocks, basically."

Max patted him on the arm sympathetically. "Well, at least you'll be up and ready to go for the day?"

Adrien groaned, burying his face in his arms. "Yeah, sure, that would be fine if that was all I had to do- but if my father catches on that I chose those times because my soulmate won't be singing, then he'll have me up to do photoshoots crazy early nearly every day- and can you say sunrise shoot commercials instead of the sunset ones? I don't want to get up that early!"

"We'll find your soulmate," Max promised seriously. "We'll have to wait until her show runs, of course, but I'd say that the chances of us being successful are very high."

That put a grin on Adrien's face. "Well, I hope you're right," he told Max. "So, do you want to play some Mega Strike while you're here?"

"Sure!"

  Adrien grinned when he spotted Marinette coming in through the front door of Alya's family's apartment. It had been too long since he had seen his friend, and he was eager to hear about how she was doing with her fashion degree.

"Sorry I've missed so many get-togethers," Marinette told them as she headed for the table. She exchanged hugs with Nino and Alya, and Adrien hopped up to get his own hug. Marinette's voice came out muffled as she talked into his chest. "It's just that work was going late recently."

"But it'll be back to normal for a bit now, right?" Nino asked as Adrien released Marinette from the hug. "You won't be working so late?"

"I won't have to, yeah." Marinette grinned, flopping down into an empty chair. "Which is good, since I have my own stuff I have to do for classes. I have three design sketches I have to clean up for one class, plus an outfit to finish sewing, and some studying for an exam, and an essay on the history of fashion in Russia, all to do before the end of next week."

Adrien let out a low whistle. "That's a lot. How close are you to finishing it all?"

"Well, I'm pretty close to done with the rough sketches, so all I have to do is figure out what I want to change," Marinette started out, pulling out her sketchbook. Adrien leaned forward to see the drawings, and- wow. Marinette had just grown more talented over the years, and while the designs were certainly practical, they also had a certain flair that would set them apart on the street.

He hoped that Marinette would get into men's fashion at some point, because he would love to wear something she designed.

Adrien listened as Marinette explained her designs and the things she was still struggling with, and then showed off her progress on her outfit for her techniques class. The draping was nothing short of gorgeous, and Adrien told her so.

"You'll wear that after it's done and graded, right?" Adrien asked, eyes skimming the lines of the top and skirt in the pictures Marinette showed him. "It'll look amazing on you."

Marinette looked pleased. "You think so?"

"I know so. Those lines will really compliment your figure." Not that much anything that was made well and thoughtfully wouldn't, since Marinette was slim and athletic, if maybe a little on the short side. But the draping would be really flattering, as long as Marinette was making it in her size.

"I'll try to wear it next time we meet up," Marinette promised. "Or the time after that, if my professor takes a while to inspect and grade everything. Sometimes she's really speedy at going through things, and other times it takes forever."

"Okay, enough chatter," Nino cut across before Adrien could say anything else. "Marinette, you promised that we would get to make that chocolate swirl bread, and I know that that takes, like, forever to rise. So let's get started!"

They swarmed into the kitchen and, under Marinette's instruction, started stirring up the sweet bread dough. Adrien kneaded the dough, then got it back into the bowl to rise. Across the kitchen, Nino and Alya started on their dinner, chopping spinach and getting rice started, and Adrien grinned.

Maybe a night in didn't sound that exciting to most people their age, but Adrien was glad that Alya and Nino had agreed to his request that they not go out in public again right away. He had told the two of them right after he arrived that he was well and truly exhausted of the soulmate talk- that was all that he ever seemed to discuss with Max, after all, and whenever he went in for a photoshoot, the first thing that the makeup artists and hair people and photographer asked him about was whether or not his soulmate had been active recently. As long as his soulmate didn't sing throughout the evening, maybe he could have a bit of a break from that for a change.

"So besides being busy, how's the job going, Marinette?" Alya asked after Nino finished telling them about some new music mixes he had done recently. "Are you enjoying it?"

"Most of the time, yeah," Marinette said, She had gotten the bread covered for its first rise and had joined Adrien in making a fruit salad for them to eat. "It's a lot of sewing and a lot of making sure everything stays organized, just like with last year. I've gotten the storage closets in much better shape than they were before, so everything is really easy to find."

"Oh, I remember you complaining about those before," Alya said, nodding. "The previous person wasn't very good at their job, were they?"

"The problem was that they just had random people putting things back before," Marinette explained. "And they would just stick stuff wherever there was space. But now it's easier to find stuff. The only problem is that I can't remember what's in there, just because there's so many different outfits."

Adrien listened, wracking his brain to try to remember if he had ever asked where Marinette worked. He really couldn't remember, and that was embarrassing. Even if he only infrequently saw Marinette now that their schedules seemed to conflict so much, she was one of his best friends and where she worked should have been something that he knew off of the top of his head, especially since she had been at the same place for over a year.

He wasn't going to ask her and admit that he had forgotten. Adrien made a mental note to ask Nino later, when the girls were distracted.

Even without knowing where Marinette worked, Adrien could get a pretty good picture of what she was doing. Somehow she must have managed to skip over a typical coffee-carrying internship to get a job in the sewing room and in the archives storage- or maybe she was working on organizing things behind the scenes in photoshoots, and was keeping the props room organized. He knew that his photographer often complained about the state of the Gabriel prop room, saying that it was impossible to find anything among the mountains of stuff that had accumulated over the years.

(Adrien had looked in there once, when a photoshoot in the building had been delayed due to a wardrobe malfunction and he had to kill some time. Younger him had gotten it into his head that maybe, if he did something about that particular problem, he would actually get some praise from his father.

He had taken one look into the room and the towering mountains of stuff and promptly decided that there was no way he was ever going to go anywhere near it. The shelves looked like they were either going to fall over or cause a landslide at any moment, and the other piles of stuff was no better. There had been signs of a recent topple only a few meters in. How anything found anything in there was beyond him.)

If that was indeed what Marinette had been organizing at her job, if it was anywhere as bad as Gabriel's, then Adrien had to hope that there had been someone keeping an eye on Marinette in case anything fell on her.

When their dinner went in the oven, Marinette returned to the bread to punch it back down, divide it, and roll it out. Adrien joined her, spreading the rounds with the chocolate spread that Marinette had brought with her. He was generous with the chocolate, and the small smile dancing around the corners of Marinette's mouth told him that it hadn't going unnoticed.

Adrien liked chocolate, so sue him. He would just go out on a run as Chat Noir tonight and work it all right back off, so it didn't matter what he ate.

"How is your degree going?" Marinette asked as they started to put the layers together. She adjusted a layer so it would line up more evenly, then gestured for Adrien to cover it in chocolate. "I just realized recently that I haven't heard about that in forever."

"It's going," Adrien said ruefully, spreading a generous amount of chocolate over the dough. "Still online, at the moment. I'm learning interesting stuff, but it's a lot of theories to memorize. Theories and biological processes and chemicals with strange names and..." He let out a long breath. "It's a lot. And since I'm doing everything online at the moment, I've been putting off all of my lab classes and whatnot, which is going to be a pain later." It was going to leave him with a huge load of courses in the later part of his degree, and if he didn't find his soulmate, then everything would have to be done right away in the morning. He was considering taking some courses over the summer just to spread them out a little bit more, but that would depend on how well the next semester went. "But I'm not having any trouble with understanding things, which is nice. It was something I worried about when I started taking the courses online."

"Well, you've always been smart." Marinette grinned over at him, and Adrien relished in the praise. "I'm not surprised that you would be able to adapt to other ways of learning."

"It's not as fun," Adrien admitted. "I hear these two talking about the friends they've made in their classes all the time, but it's hard to meet people online. I'll have a few things where I'll have to go in in-person next semester, though."

"Oh, nice!"

Adrien hummed a sort of agreement, wondering if perhaps Marinette hadn't heard how much trouble his soulmate bond had been giving him as of late. Maybe she thought that it was still like it had been at first, with only a few scattered songs now and then. Alya and Nino must not have told her about how their last get-together was interrupted.

He wasn't going to bring it up, not today. Not when he had had to push his lunch break off for three hours because his soulmate's singing had put them behind schedule and the manager for the photoshoot had insisted that everyone else take their break while he was still singing and unable to eat. Not when he had had enough talking about the bond.

"Dude, put in a little chocolate, will you?" Nino exclaimed, peering over Adrien's shoulder. "You know that you don't have to pile it on for us to taste it, right?"

Adrien grinned. "Yeah, but more chocolate is always good. And I need chocolate, with the marathon fittings I have tomorrow."

"I would have thought that you would want to have less chocolate, then, if you have a fitting!"

Adrien finished spreading on the last layer of the chocolate, then licked the knife off while holding eye contact with an amused Nino. Once it was clean, Adrien placed it back down on the counter. "Nope."

"Let the boy have his chocolate, Nino," Alya ordered jokingly. "And I approve of that amount of chocolate, by the way. It looks fabulous. I can't wait to eat it."

Adrien had to agree.

  Despite her worries, Marinette finished her assignments with plenty of time and aced her midterm exam easily. With those out of the way, she threw herself into the second half of the semester and into her work in the theater. She got to meet up with her friends a few times, too, which she enjoyed while she could. She knew that once it got closer to the end of the semester, she would once again find herself with absolutely no free time.

But for now, everything was good, and Marinette could afford to relax a bit as she worked, adding trim to a dress for Mary Poppins. She could hear the rehearsal going on up on the stage from her backstage sewing area, bits of dialogue and the occasional song drifting back.

While the cast definitely weren't ready by any means- after all, the roles had only just been cast and rehearsals had only just started- she could already hear things starting to really improve, lines delivered with more emotion and conviction now that they weren't reading off of the scripts quite as much as they had at the start. Some of the actors were out on stage, while others- the understudies, and the main actors that weren't in the current scene- had split up, working through their scenes out in the hallway and in the nearby classrooms.

The cast weren't the only people there. Several people from other departments had been brought in to work on the special effects that were needed for some of the scenes. They already were hard at work with a projector and a screen, which would replace some of the painted sets for when the scenery had to change faster than the sets could be switched. From what Marinette could tell, they would project from behind the screen and the picture would show up bright so the audience could see it. There were still some bugs, of course- even though they had been brainstorming and working on their special effects even before the show was cast, the timing still had to be perfected and they had to find exactly where the projector had to be for the least distortion and brightest picture.

One of the special effects people had already shown Marinette what they had in store, and it was absolutely amazing, magical and spectacular and enough to entrance any kids that they got in the audience.

Of course, the play was a little less interesting in terms of costumes. There was very little design that Marinette could actually do, since the play took place in a very specific time period and she had to stick to that aesthetic. Marinette had been plagued by visions of having to make endless boring dresses and suits for an entire weekend before she dove into the costume closet and found plenty of outfits that would work perfectly for the play. Some would need altering, others would need mending, and a couple could do with some sprucing up, replacing trim and lace that had faded and discolored over time. She could add a bit of her own flair there, replacing dowdy lace with some that was actually attractive and making some other switches.

Not too much, though. She had to keep in mind how people dressed. This was a play, not a runway show, and most of the characters weren't exactly crazy rich and on the edge of fashion at the time. She could take some liberties with Madam Banks' costume, of course, and with the outfits for the fair scene, but otherwise?

Blah. Good-looking blah, but blah. She was a seamstress for this job more often than she was a designer, but she wasn't going to let that affect her enjoyment of the job.

"Are you already almost done with the outfits, Marinette?" Tikki asked in amazement as she watched Marinette finish attaching the trim and set the dress aside. "Wow! You'll have loads of extra time this time around!"

"Not exactly, Tikki," Marinette said with a laugh. "I need to make Jane and Michael's outfits, and once I assign dresses and suits, I'll have to do little alterations. There might be some drapes for the set, and then I might end up being recruited to help with scenery painting. And there's always other plays going on in the other stages that might need me to do some work on outfits for them."

"Or maybe you'll be doing special effects!" Tikki suggested excitedly. "Because you've made cool stuff like that before, right?"

"I don't even know where I would start with that," Marinette said with a laugh as she hung up the dress and rearranged the rack. "Besides, we have actual engineering students working on those things. No, if I have extra time, then I'll work on getting a good floor map of the storage rooms made so that I won't have to dig through everything in the future to find what I need. But only if other people can't use my help. And if I don't have any schoolwork that needs to get done."

Tikki giggled. "So organization is the last thing on your list?"

"Ugh. I know I did most of the work on that last year, but I'm still sick of it."

The little kwami only giggled harder.

As the director out on stage called for a scene re-start, Marinette returned her attention to the racks of outfits around her and the clipboard that Miss Bella had provided with all of the outfits needed. She started checking outfits off, counting dresses and suits and making notes on those that still needed some work before they could be used. There were enough outfits and then some- enough that in case something happened to one of the outfits, there would be backups.

"And now you label them, right?" Tikki asked as Marinette checked the last of the dresses. "So you know which of the pieces you're going to fit to each performer?"

"Right!" Marinette returned to her desk and started drawing out labels, cross-checking clothing sizes of the actors and actresses with what she had available and starting to scribble names on the labels. "Then I can start pulling people in here for fittings as soon as I get the last of the repairs done. We'll get more permanent labels on later on, ones that won't rip off as easily."

"I can make some!" Tikki volunteered, swooping down and grabbing a short bit of pencil. She paused, looking uncertain. "Uh..."

Marinette giggled. "I think I need to figure all of these out on my own. But could you go grab a few more pieces of paper from the first drawer in my desk? I don't think I have enough here."

While Tikki zipped off to grab more slips of paper, Marinette gathered up the labels she had so far and strapped her pincushion on her wrist, getting up to start putting them on the outfits she had assigned so far. If she could get those set aside, then it would be easier to see what all she had left to work with.

Outside the door, a prerecorded backing track started up and voices floated through the door as the cast started to sing. Marinette perked up and started to sing along as she pinned the labels to dresses and suits hanging on the rack, feeling more cheerful than she had even only moments before.

"Oh, it's a jolly holiday with Mary..."

[omgpercabethadrinette]

Miraculous Salt: Movie Star

Imagine this:

Marinette had just moved schools. After being tormented for the past year and half without her friend’s help (although a lot of it was because of her friends).

So, thanks to her parent’s permission, she moved schools to another one, a few blocks away from Francois DuPont.

Marinette is astonished at the sight of the school. It was basically a Hogwarts without the magic. From the bedazzled chandeliers to the grand staircase, it was sight like no other.

Marinette had made many friends, one of the being Aurore (who had moved there a year ago). And there she met some new friends. Wayhem and some American transfer students, Josh and Eliza.  (no, not Hamilton).

There she finds out about an acting group, where they actually film movies and premiere them in America! Marinette, after losing a bet, joins the group with Aurore and Josh.

She surprises everyone with her acting and her fashion which always goes great with her characters!

The moment she got her first role, she immediately called Adrien to tell him all about it. Sadly, he had to go because he was at a photoshoot and said he would meet her for lunch.

And when lunch time came around, Marinette said bye to her friends and rushed to the cafe where she would meet Adrien.

They reconciled and talked about everything.”How’s the class doing?” Marinette eventually asked. “Still, believing that bitch’s lie,” Adrien replied. Marinette had just finished taking a sip of her drink, when Adrien gasped, surprising her and making her choke on her drink.

When she finally finished her coughing fit, he told her the good news. “I’m moving to your school!” Adrien said. Marinette eyes widened and she hugged Adrien.

“Please don’t be pranking me right now?” Marinette pleaded. Adrien shook his head. “Father said next week, I would be officially joining!” Adrien said.

“God! I could kiss you!” Marinette said, throwing her arms around him. She finally realized what she had just said, she pulled away from the hug.

Adrien stared into her eyes. “Can I? Kiss you that is,” Adrien asked, cupping her chin. Marinette slightly nodded her yes.

Their lips met and it small, yet so passionate. Marinette felt her heart explode. She pulled away but before anyone could say anything, Marinette’s phone got a notification.

“I gotta go before I’m late for class,” Marinette said, getting her bag. She turned around but before she left, she quickly turned around and pecked Adrien’s lips. “I’ll see you later,” Marinette said and left.

Luckily the park was empty so no one saw it. Plagg flew out. “You should see your face, kid,” Plagg teased but Adrien just stared at her lovingly.

*Time Skip to a few months*

Marinette had gotten her new role. A girl who was betrayed by her best friends and moved, to than become famous later.

Wow, this hit close to home. By that time, a lot had changed. Adrien had moved schools and they started dating. And due to Marinette’s clumsiness, they found out each other’s identity.

And Adrien found out about the movie things. And without their knowledge, Francois DuPont had a field trip to their new school to see how other school’s teach and what’s different compared to them.

Well, Marinette and Adrien found out one day during the acting scheme. It was one of the last classes and they were going to stay for an extra hour. So while they working the class got to watch from behind the scene.

Nino, Rose, and Mylene were so impressed. They had real cameras and costumes and backgrounds and green screens, etc, etc.

They saw Marinette come on in the front of the camera. “We’ll start in five,” they heard the director say. The watched as the director came to them. “Hello! Welcome to (insert school name of your choice). I’m Max Mellow. We are happy to have here but we ask that you be quiet during the time of filming,” Max said and the class nodded their heads.

Max made his back to the chair where Marinette fake slapping another girl. “Okay, we’re going to start with the slap scene. Marinette, you are slapping Ally. Anddddd, ACTION!”

They watched as Marinette stared at the other girl and pretended to slap her but before she could say anything, she broke into a fit of laughter, making the other actress laugh to.

“Cut! Marinette!” Max said. “Sorry, sorry,” she took a breath, “Okay, I’m ready now,” she said.

“Anddddd, ACTION!” Max yelled again.

Marinette faked slapped the actor. “You bitch! You have the decency to come up to me and ask to be friends again after what? Your new best friend not cutting it for you? You want money?” she yelled.

“No, it’s not like that. I need-”

“Of course! You need something! You have the audacity to come up to me, ask for something because I have money now! You abused me for months, listened to her. HER! When I was your best friend, you listened to her and did you ever care when I got hurt or had something wrong with me when I told you it was her. No! You were, no are,” by this point the actor had looked to the director questioningly.

“-a scamming bitch, who doesn’t think about anyone but her self and when someone or something new and shiny comes along, you follow and leave everyone. I hope you far, far away enough so I never see you again!” and with that Marinette ran off the set and with tears in her eyes, back to small part in the corner covered by thin fabric.

“Marin-” they looked at the guy who cut off Max. He had blonde hair and was wearing a black leather jacket. “She has to come back to finish the rest of the scene,” they heard Max say.

“I got her,” the familiar voice said. Adrien, the class thought. They watched as he went to where Marinette ran and Max came back to the class.

“I’m sorry, our leading actress gets really emotional about this whole ‘losing friends’ topic. If you want we can have you sit down over there and the other half over there or you can sit there,” Max said, “We’re just going to switch the show. On to M.I.P!”

Lila, Alya, Nino, Kim, Alix, and Max sat beside the side that was closest to Marinette. “Breathe Mari,” they heard Adrien said. They heard Marinette gasping for air.

“Breathe, babe. You’re out of that hell hole,” Adrien said. They heard Marinette slowly calm down.

“You might have to give the role to your understudy,” Adrien said. They couldn’t hear or see what Marinette said or did. “You can’t keep going like this Mari. Every time you have an outbreak,” Adrien said.

“I know. I should’ve never agreed to do this,” Marinette cried, “I just miss them so much,” Marinette said. “Mari, look at me, they chose to believe her and they lost you, I was not going to make the same mistake,” Adrien said.

“Plus you still have Aurore, Marc, Nathaniel, and that girl in Marc’s class, what’s her name, uh,”

“Mia,” they could tell Marinette was smiling. “See, and you see them every Saturday,” Adrien said.

“Yeah but it’s different. I didn’t know them since kindergarten. They’re still perfect in every way but still-”

They could hear Marinette suddenly stop. “I’m not going to stop the movie. I already made a commitment and I plan on sticking to it,” Marinette said.

“You better go then because I’m pretty sure you have to shoot that music video later when your finished,” Adrien said.

They were speaking in language they didn’t understand (which Alya figured was Chinese).

They watched as Marinette walked back to the scene, not even noticing the group of kids.

“I think I can restart this,” Marinette said. “Are you kidding?! That was the best improve I’ve ever seen! And luckily one of the last few scenes we have to shoot.  Now all we have is the beginning few scenes and we will be done with this movie. Now all the actors in scene 5 and 7 of M.I.P are getting ready!” Max yelled.

Marinette left the scene and went back to the blanket filled place. “Princess, back already. I knew you couldn’t keep you hands of me,” they heard Adrien tease.

Lila’s blood boiled. At every photoshoot she had with Adrien, she didn’t know he had a girlfriend! And his girlfriend was MARINETTE!

“Whatever Kitty, you better get going before your late for that photoshoot of your’s,” Marinette said. Adrien chuckled. “Bye, Princess,” Adrien kissed her head goodbye.

“Bye Chaton,” Marinette replied and Adrien exited the room.

Part 2 coming out soon!!!

[graceless-dahlia-blog]

Don’t you know your Queen? || Marluxia & Axel

@flames-of-passion​

Marluxia had always been a glutton for the spotlight. He craved attention at all times and did everything in his power to be the topic of conversation, good, bad, or otherwise, but never like this. 

In the days following his parent’s announcement that they would be getting a divorce, the pinkette recalled just how quickly rumors could spread, even more so when a family as prolific as the Gardenias were at the heart of scandal. 

As it turned out, Marluxia’s soft-spoken father, prior to demanding a divorce, kept a string of mistresses. A fact which he later admitted to his son in a phone call they had not too long ago. While the theater major was far from faithful and the furthest from chaste, the revelation had blind-sided him, but he had suddenly found himself wanting to side with his mother again, until he learned she was already starting to move on. Something he had the pleasure of hearing from the mouth of a nosy reporter trying to chase him down the campus sidewalks.

In the course of these two long months, Marluxia felt as though he was being swept away by the tide and left without a chance to resurface for a breath of air. Phone calls from his mother stopped coming in. She was busy eating up the attentions of others and playing the victim. He hadn’t heard from his father in a while either. He, as the head of the prolific family and a businessman with ties to several companies and organizations, was suffering the consequences of his infidelity, having to give personal statements to rooms filled with reporters and journalists.

Suddenly, the entire country wanted a closer look at the Gardenia family. Everyone wanted to analyze every detail of the shattered fairytale they had spun for so many years and find the exact moment where everything went wrong. People were fascinated by the drama surrounding them and Marluxia really couldn’t say he hadn’t seen it coming. All sorts of dirt and skeletons were coming up as people dug deeper and deeper into his life. Somewhere along the way, the pinkette’s own reckless and carefree lifestyle, his secrets and his habits had been pulled out of what seemed like thin air. Where he once dreamed of appearing on magazines and newspapers praising his talents and looks, he began seeing his name and pictures on cheap, convenience store tabloids with headlines that painted him as a lascivious, drug-addicted deviant who had quickly fallen from grace now that his once virtuous family name could no longer protect him. 

It made him want to throw the rack to the ground.

He was ruined-- life was falling apart at breakneck speed. He stopped going to classes as a last ditch effort to avoid the paparazzi, the whispers and curious stares and even considered dropping out of the musical theater department’s latest production, but his performances were so lack-luster as of late, that it was only a matter of time before the director ordered his understudy to permanently take on the role. It was as if his passion and the joys of pursuing it had been stripped from him.

Even so, he found solace in drag. The makeup, corsets, glitter and heels helped him feel powerful and fierce even when he thought it had all been sapped from his being. At the gay club, no one cared if you were rich, poor, a whore, or a crack-head. They were all there for a good time-- these “deviants” and creatures of the underworld.

It was Marluxia’s first time back in a while, but as Gracie Dahlia took the stage in all her glittering glory, she was welcomed with raucous applause.

Tonight, the performance would not be the same coquettish, theatrical display everyone was so familiar with. 

The lights dimmed, with the exception of a blue-tinted spotlight and Gracie took center stage. 

‘Feeling broken Barely holding on But there's just something so strong Somewhere inside me And I am down but I'll get up again Don't count me out just yet’

Although the vocals were not Gracie’s own, the emotion she put into her gestures and the meaning behind the lyrics were enough to captivate the audience as they sat in silent awe.

As the track played on, the queen’s interactions with the crowd remained minimal to non-existent, compared to her typical performances, but there was something much more raw and impassioned in her lip-syncing tonight than any other night as she came down from the stage on her own and walked along the edge of the crowd.

‘I've been brought down to my knees And I've been pushed way past the point of breaking But I can take it I'll be back, back on my feet This is far from over, I am far from over You haven't seen the last of me No, no, I'm not going nowhere I'm staying right here Oh, no, you won't see me begging I'm not taking my bow, can't stop me It's not the end, you haven't seen the last of me Oh, no, you haven't seen the last of me You haven't seen the last of me.’

Before she knew it, the track had ended and the lights had faded out. There was no choreography, but the performance had come straight from the heart nonetheless. Gracie Dahlia stood in the center of the dance floor, head bowed as her audience displayed their appreciation for the heart-rending performance.

Standing right there, it was so easy to forget how shitty everything in life had become. Here, Marluxia was felt empowered through the persona of Gracie Dahlia. He’d chosen the song for the profound imagery of someone who chose to stand again and although Gracie Dahlia sold the empowering ballad, Marluxia still had a ways to go before he could get back on his own feet.

As the applause began to slow, Gracie took her leave, climbing back up the few steps to the stage and exiting towards her dressing room. 

Once the door shut, Gracie Dahlia melted away, leaving Marluxia standing in her heels. He turned to the vanity. His mascara was running, leaving tracks down his cheeks, but even as he sniffled at the mess displayed in his reflection, he couldn’t remember when he’d started crying.

His immediate move was to sit in front of the vanity and wipe his tears with trembling hands. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. He’d have to reapply his makeup now, but just thinking about the seemingly simple task brought frustrated tears back in his bloodshot eyes.

The sound of his doorknob turning had the pinkette quickly moving to mask the fact that he was on the verge of an emotional breakdown as he sniffled and shuffled around at the vanity, wiping his eyes before he picked up his red lipgloss.

When the door opened, he caught the intruder’s reflection in the mirror.

“Axel...”

The man technically wasn’t supposed to be back here, but when had he ever let little rules like that stop him?