#me ringing the bell like um. excuse me. when do i get my wizard powers? or does (XYZ) count as *censored* and thus disqualify me? 😂

[fisheito]

If you want actually good BL reccs, I've been reading Cherry Magic recently and it's v sweet.

I also read this other one a while ago that was wholesome in a weird way: "My quiet best friend's just tongue-tied"

dude do u know what this ask feels like? like... me: *puts down the toxic high school BL midway through* *heavy sigh* *takes a swig of lavender lemonade* why tf all these yaois so damm .. i don't know. sigh. this is a young man's game. maybe i'm not fit for this no mores anon: hey so i heard u like wholesome and probably not teens *slides recs over* me: either i am unbelievably easy to read or you're just a seasoned BL sommelier. thank u dearly, anon

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

Queen Cobra - chapter 4

It’s ya pal back again with that snake Miraculous holder Alix fic! The memes are back with a vengeance

dedicated to @randomestfandoms - happy birthday my amazing awesome friend!!!!

Also on AO3 as usual

Late the next morning, Alix was awoken by Scoot yelling in her ear, “YOUR PHONE IS RINGING!”

She batted the stupid kwami away and turned over, not even bothering to open her eyes. “Yeah, that’s why I put it on silent, so I can be asleep and ignore it. Now go away.”

“But it’s Adrien.”

Oh, well why didn’t he say so first?! That was different! Maybe the poor kid was having a sad moment again and still refused to inconvenience Nino about it. She grabbed her phone off the table next to her and answered. “What’s up?”

“Hey armrest, glad to hear you’re awake for once!”

Pffff, that wasn’t Adrien. She finally opened her eyes and looked at the phone screen to see that the call was from Arch Nemesis #1, and that Scoot was cackling away just out of arm’s reach. She made a throat-cutting motion at him, planning to flush him down the toilet later when she had woken up enough to actually get up, and turned her attention back to the phone call. “What do you want, Kim?”

“Just checking that you haven’t forgotten about the noodle challenge later today.”

“Of course I haven’t,” she lied, quickly glancing at the clock to check how much time she had left before that. One hour? Really? There was no way she was getting out of bed before then, not when Scoot had interrupted her sleep so cruelly. “Actually I was thinking, can we postpone it until–”

“This is the third time we’ve had to reschedule! You’re not scared, are you?”

“Of course not!” she snapped. “The other two times were because of akuma attacks, that wasn’t my fault!”

“Well you can’t use that excuse anymore, so if you don’t turn up then I’ll assume I’ve won. Is that alright, armrest?”

“Ohhh, fine. And stop calling me armrest.”

“Sure. See you later, munchkin.”

He hung up before she could say anything else. The first thing she did was turn to Scoot and stick a finger up at him.

“I’ll kill you in real life, Scoot.”

Scoot just chuckled and floated a little further away. “Maybe have another check of your phone! You got a message, too.”

Stuffing her murderous rage back down, she looked at her phone again. Sure enough, there was a message, and it was indeed from Adrien this time.

Can you please come over? Something weird just happened!

Oh, so he did need something after all. It was probably best to visit him as soon as possible.

But the noodle challenge… only an hour away…

Would she have time to go visit Adrien first? Whatever the issue was, it was probably far more important than some stupid challenge, but then again she had waited so long for the opportunity to legally beat up Kim with a foam pool noodle…

Never mind. Adrien was counting on her. She would just have to be super quick, that was all. And for that, she needed the help of…

“Scoot!” She leapt out of bed and ran over, but the silly kwami flew too high for her to reach. “Get over here, I need to transform.”

“Oh really? Then what about your murderous threats earlier? Do you only keep me around because I’m useful, Alix?”

“No! I’m… I’m sorry for threatening to kill you. There, is that better?”

“Hmm, a little bit.” Scoot floated a tad lower, though still too high to reach. “But in any case I haven’t eaten in at least a week. I’d need food before I can transform.”

Oh come on, Scoot didn’t need to eat! It wasn’t like Queen Cobra ever used her special powers, unlike Ladybug and Rena. “I don’t have time to give you food right now. You eat way too slowly.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to deal with Queen Cobra being woefully underpowered, won’t you?”

“I don’t have time for this.” She sighed. “Okay, look. You can hide in my hat or pocket or something and I’ll take a dead mouse with me and you can eat it along the way. Is that fine?”

He finally came back down to eye level. “Much better.”

“Good. But before we go…” She grabbed him in her hand, causing him to let out a little squeak, and then headed off towards the bathroom with an evil grin on her face. “Revenge.”

“What…? No, no, no! You’re not flushing me down the toilet! NO!”

“Relax, dude, I’m kidding. I’m just gonna brush my teeth.”

Scoot shook himself free. “Oh, thank goodness…”

They were at the front gates of the Agreste mansion around 25 minutes later. Alix had worn her civilian rollerskates to get there fast enough, and Scoot was currently in her pocket munching on the dead corpse of some unfortunate rodent. She rang the bell and was let in by Adrien’s glorified babysitter Nathalie – though on the condition that she took her skates off first.

By the time she actually got past all of the security and into Adrien’s room she only had 30 minutes left before the noodle challenge. Taking travel times into account, it was more like 15 minutes. Hopefully this wasn’t going to take too long.

Adrien leapt to his feet with a piece of paper in hand and ran over. “Alix! I’m so glad you’re here! Uh…” He stared very pointedly at Nathalie until she sighed and left the room, closing the door behind her. “Okay good, she’s gone. Anyway, I just received this letter today, and it’s about the ring again. Take a look.”

Alix took the letter and skimmed over it. It seemed to be a letter from that annoying rich guy again, asking the same things as yesterday, the whole “oh hey can I have my ring back if you find it? Also don’t tell anyone or put it on! This isn’t suspicious!”

“Isn’t this from that guy from yesterday?” she asked.

“No, that was M. Durand. This is Durande, with an E. Another one of the people my father did business with.”

“Really? Another one?” All these boring rich people seemed exactly the same, right down to their surnames, almost like they were just lame palette swaps of one another with no real individual character or personality.

“It’s so strange,” Adrien said. “This man says that the ring belongs to him. But so did M. Durand yesterday. One of them must be lying!”

“Or both,” Alix suggested.

“True! But then why do they want it so much?”

“Because it’s the Cat Miraculous,” Scoot muttered from inside Alix’s pocket.

“Be quiet,” she said, giving him a poke. “Just eat your food.”

“So what do we do?” Adrien asked.

“No idea. Maybe have a look for the ring and then wear it yourself.”

His face lit up. “Imagine if it really is the Cat Miraculous, though. Wouldn’t that be so paw-some?”

Alix resisted the urge to smack him over the head. “If it really is, then it’s probably best to give it back to Fu like a good, responsible child.”

“Oh yes, of course…”

There was a knock at the door, and Nathalie entered again without waiting for a reply. “Adrien, there’s another guest here to see you.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone by the name of M. Durant.”

“Not another one!” He crossed his arms. “Tell him I’m busy. I don’t want to see him.”

“He is very persistent.”

“Tell him I already know what he wants, and other people have already been asking me the same thing so he’s not getting it.”

Nathalie frowned, for a second looking as if she were about to ask what this was all about, but then resumed her usual neutral expression. “Very well.” With that, she turned and left once more.

“This is getting out of hand,” Adrien said, looking worried. “If my father’s ring really is something special, I don’t want to give it to any of these people. But then what will they do? And anyway, I don’t even know where the ring is!”

“We need a metal detector,” Alix suggested.

“Um… but there’s lots of metal things in this house. And the ring might not even be metal.”

“Then we need a wizard.”

He laughed, a very un-Adrien-like laugh that she was still unaccustomed to hearing. “You’re not very good at taking things seriously, are you?”

Of course she wasn’t. And that was why she was also very good at messing up. “Sorry, I’m just–”

“No, I don’t mind! I like it. Without Nino here, everything’s serious again in my life.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I need someone to share my bad puns with.”

Sincere heartfelt affection was also something she was unaccustomed to hearing – at least from people who weren’t Jalil. Probably best to say something equally kind in return.

“Um… cool beans,” she said, finger-gunning at him. And then wanted to punch herself in the face. Luckily she was spared from further embarrassment by the entrance of Nathalie, yet again.

“M. Durant asked me to give you this,” she said, holding out a little envelope at Adrien. “He claims that it is urgent, and extremely confidential.”

“Thank you, Nathalie,” Adrien said, taking the letter, his smile vanishing. “He’s gone now, right?”

“Yes.” Nathalie began to leave, but turned back for a second at the door. “Adrien, if I may ask… what is going on?”

“Um… they all want money. People keep turning up saying they lent some to father and that he never gave it back, and now…”

“I see. Would you like me to double check the balances to make sure that no one is owed any money, and print the receipts for proof in case this happens again?”

He nodded. “Yes please. That would be great. If it’s no trouble.”

“It isn’t.” She walked out of the room and closed the door. Adrien immediately let out a relieved breath.

“I don’t know if she fell for that,” he admitted. “Anyway, I guess I’ll see what’s in this new letter now…”

He tore it open and began reading it. Alix went up on tiptoes to look at it over his shoulder. It was handwritten and a little messy, almost as if the guy had written it on the spot outside the door. And it was not very friendly.

“The ring rightfully belongs to me, and if I hear you’ve given it to any other imposters that claim it, then there will be consequences…” Adrien read aloud, his face blanching. “Everyone wants this ring so much – I think this is a threat! What am I going to do?”

“Um, do you want a silly suggestion or a sensible suggestion?”

Despite his nervousness, he smiled a little. “Silly, please.”

“Alright. You should invite them all over and then lock them in the courtyard and tell them it’s a Hunger Games. Whoever’s alive at the end gets to keep the ring.”

He giggled a little. “How do you even come up with this stuff? Have you got any more silly ideas?”

“Hmm… You could make it into a treasure hunt. Let them scour the house and whoever finds the ring gets to keep it. Also hide little chocolates everywhere to make it more fun. Or it could be a tournament! With like chess and jousting and stuff. And at the end they have to fight me.”

“You just want an excuse to fight them, don’t you?”

“…Maybe.”

“She always wants an excuse to fight people,” Scoot said, still inside Alix’s pocket. “For example, she’s about 10 seconds away from ditching you to go fight her panther friend, so–”

“Shush! Be quiet!” She slammed her hand over the pocket, hoping she was smothering him. “First of all, Kim isn’t my friend. Second of all, I’m not just ditching Adrien. Well, maybe a little bit. But not because I want to!”

“It’s alright, you can ditch me,” Adrien laughed. “I wouldn’t want you to lose a challenge because of me! But um, before you go… what should I do now? Any advice?”

Alix tried to think of something sensible, but her brain was running blank. Ladybug and Rena were the ones who were good at being sensible. Not her.

“Be safe,” she said, internally cringing over how cliché that sounded. “If this ring thing is so serious that people are threatening you over it, you should probably stay inside the house. At least until I think of something better and get back to you.”

His face fell. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. It might be dangerous for you outside and I’m not having you getting kidnapped and ransomed or anything, that’s such a stereotypical rich-kid-thing to happen and it’s also really lame and probably not very fun. So stay here for now.”

“You’re keeping me inside indefinitely?!”

“Not indefinitely! Just…” She glanced at her watch. “Look, I really have to go. Maybe have a look for the ring while you’re here. See you later, okay?”

Seeing the hurt expression on his face was hitting her with a rather annoying sense of guilt, so she quickly turned away and headed out of the door. What was so bad about being stuck inside for a while, anyway? Even as an outdoorsy person, Alix got grounded all the time and she was easily used to it. It wasn’t the end of the world. Being murdered over some stupid ring? Now that would be the end of the world.

Once outside of the mansion and out onto the street, she found an empty spot and let Scoot out of her pocket. “Dude, you’ve finished eating, right?”

“I have indeed,” Scoot replied. “All that remains in your pocket is the skeleton.”

“Ew, that is disgusting, you little traitor. I know perfectly well you can eat the skeleton too. It should be skele-gone.”

Scoot glared at her. “You have been hanging out with Adrien too much lately.”

“Well someone’s gotta. Anyway, there’s no way I can make it in time unless I transform, and I’m not passing up the chance to kill Kim – uh, I mean, defeating him in a way that definitely does not involve death. Scoot, form Voltron!”

With a flash she transformed into Queen Cobra and skated away.

One satisfying victory later, Alix rollerskated into Fu’s room with sunglasses on and her winner’s prize of a can of Red Bull in hand. “Grandpa, you’re not gonna fricking believe this–”

She stopped dead when she saw that Fu was already with someone. And not just anyone.

“Adrien! What the hell are you doing here?! I told you to stay at home!”

He was sitting there opposite Fu, having a cup of tea, listening to Wayzz pattering around on the phonograph. Looking up at her sheepishly, he said, “I, um, really don’t like being kept inside.”

She lifted up her sunglasses to glare at him properly. “But this is for your safety!”

“That’s the exact thing my father told me when he kept me locked inside the house before I was allowed to come to school…”

Oh. Oh. Of course. The years of isolation that Adrien had suffered. How could she have forgotten about that?

“Alright, fair enough,” she said, though still slightly annoyed at the fact that even real threats could not make this boy care for his own safety. “But next time you leave the house alone, take that massive bodyguard of yours with you.”

“I did. He’s waiting in the car down the street.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than nothing…” She skated forwards and sat down with a thump, leaning on the table in front of her. “So, why are you here?”

“I told Master Fu what’s going on.”

Oh, good. That was exactly what Alix had come here to do too. Scoot whizzed out of her pocket and started being annoying, as usual.

“Master, please tell this imbecile what the Cat Miraculous looks like!”

Fu smiled, taking a long sip of his tea, before putting it down and replying. “Black with a green paw print on it.”

“But – but–”

“Of course, that is only when it is actively being used by a hero. Otherwise it takes the appearance of a perfectly ordinary silver ring.”

“AHA!” Scoot flew back and punched Alix’s arm. “I told you so! I told you so!”

“Yeah, well I told you so too,” she said, pushing him away. “I wasn’t wrong about it being black and green, was I?”

“So my father’s ring really is the Cat Miraculous?” Adrien said, his eyes lighting up.

“That seems likely,” Fu answered. “That would explain why so many people want it, and would also explain why Hawk Moth wanted Ladybug’s Miraculous so much. Those two Miraculouses combined give the wearer power like no other.”

“You mean like time travel kinda power?” Alix asked, thinking back to her birthday. If only she could go back in time and just – !

“Possibly, if that is what the wearer wanted. But its power comes with terrible consequences. Adrien, you cannot let anyone get hold of that ring. You must search for it and bring it to me.”

Adrien nodded. “I’ll… I’ll try. But then what do I tell everyone who wanted it? How did they even know about it?”

“I do not know. Perhaps your father was bribing them to keep quiet about it, and now with him in jail, they are taking their revenge. Take care, Adrien.”

He sank down, his shoulders drooping. “So I have to take my bodyguard everywhere I go now? To protect me?”

Alix gave him a poke in the arm. “Nope. You could always take your awesome superpowered friend with you instead.”

He smiled at her. “Thank you, Alix.”

“No problem. If I see Ladybug and Rena again I’ll ask them to keep a lookout for you too, if you want.”

“That would be great.”

The thought of Ladybug and Rena Rouge gave her a pang of, well, something. Was she missing them? Surely not! She hadn’t even known them that well, had she? Not well enough to miss them!

But certainly well enough to trust them. It had always been nice having them around, and now she never knew when she was next going to see them, if at all. If only she knew who they were as civilians – then maybe she could actually hang out with them more often!

Adrien put his empty cup on the table. “Thank you for the tea, Master Fu, it was much needed. I suppose I’ll go back and start searching for that ring now…”

“Good luck,” Fu replied.

“Thanks.” He stood up to leave. “Hey, um, Alix? Do you want to come along?”

“Why?” she asked. “You don’t need a superhero’s powers to help you search for some random ring.”

“No, I meant, it would just be more fun with a friend, I guess… and I’ve got loads of video games, so if we get bored, we could…”

Wait, he actually wanted to hang out with her? In his spare time? When he technically didn’t need to? But that just… that just didn’t happen. Marinette only ever invited her over to participate in her zany over-the-top schemes, same with Alya, Mylène only ever wanted homework help, Kim only challenged her to stupid stuff…

They only ever spoke to her because they needed her for something. She had assumed that was the same with Adrien too. He was only hanging out with her because she was Queen Cobra, and he needed her help.

But this…

He didn’t need her around right now. He just wanted her around. And not as Queen Cobra, but as Alix.

“Heck yeah!” she said, leaping to her feet so fast she almost slipped over in her skates. “Let’s go! Come on Scoot. See you later, ninja turtle!”

“You too, solid snake!” Fu replied, waving at them as they left the room.