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“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Luka chuckled, nudging Marinette’s shoulder with his arm. She looked up at him with a grin and bumped him back, except she didn’t pull away and ended up leaning into his shoulder. If his heart picked up a few extra beats at the familiarity of her closeness, they both pretended not to notice. Her head rested on his shoulder, and she looked up at him with impossibly blue eyes.
“Of course I do,” she said, reaching over to poke at his stomach. An eyebrow lifted, and her smile grew. “Juleka and Rose are busy. Dingo’s working. Bri’s still stuck in Berlin. The Captain’s God knows where. Someone has to make sure you don’t end up living in a crap hole.”
“…I don’t know if I’m insulted or not at the implication that I wouldn’t be able to tell a good place from a…crap hole,” he said sardonically, laughing a little. Marinette nudged him with her shoulder, or maybe she just snuggled closer. It had been getting harder to tell lately.
“It’s not your fault,” she hummed, closing her eyes. “You’re a guy. You’re genetically predisposed to thinking crap holes are acceptable living conditions.”
“…still not sure if I should be insulted,” he said. She hummed in response, but beyond that she didn’t reply. They passed the rest of the short metro ride from Juleka and Rose’s flat to his potential new home in a comfortable silence (…or at least as comfortable a silence as a semi-packed metro car could be), with him scrolling through his e-mails to check out updates and changes to the coming tour schedule Penny had sent him and her looking through other potential flats on her own. Every now and then she’d nudge him and ask his opinion on a place, but for the most part they sat in a comfortable, companionable silence until the tannoy was announcing they’d reached their destination. She hopped up as soon as the metro car had stopped, but before he could follow after her the older gentleman who had been sitting beside her reached out to touch his hand.
“Keep her happy,” the man said, his words slow and thickly accented. He patted Luka’s hand, and Luka’s eyebrows rose as he noticed the misty look in the man’s eyes as he looked back at Marinette. “She like my Karina. Keep her happy, son.”
“Oh, we’re…she’s not…” Luka’s voice caught in his throat as the man squeezed his hand and let go.
“Luka!” Marinette called from the metro doors, and the man gave him a smile before waving him off.
“Happy,” he said, nodding solemnly, and all Luka could do was smile and nod before catching up with Marinette. She glanced back at the man, her eyebrows raised in question.
“What was that about?” she asked, and Luka shrugged as they stepped onto the platform. He tried to ignore the tingling in his palm when Marinette immediately reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together as they navigated the bustling station.
“No idea,” he hummed, squeezing her hand. She ducked her head against his arm as they reached the main street, hiding her eyes from the bright morning sun. He fought the urge to bend down and kiss her hair.
…except they weren’t like that. He couldn’t do things like that. She wouldn’t want him to.
“Weird,” she hummed, looking back down at her phone as they started walking. “Well, I’ll give this place one thing: it’s not a long ride from Juleka and Rose’s, and the bakery is within walking distance.”
“That could be nice,” he said, tucking his hands into is pockets. She looked up at him, a teasing glint in her eye.
“You sure?” she asked, smirking at him. “Could be dangerous.”
“I love the bakery,” he said, shrugging. “Don’t see what’s so dangerous about living close by. Well. I could get fat, I guess, but that hasn’t happened yet so…”
He almost stumbled when she hopped up to peck a kiss against his cheek.
“Be careful what you wish for, Couffaine,” she teased. “You’ll never get rid of Papa thinking like that. Anyway, I found a few others you might like, just in case. You know. It actually is a crap hole.”
…he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be. The pictures on the listing had been nice, and the reviews on the building’s site had all been positive. And it would be close to Mari…the bakery.
What could be bad about all that?
– V –
Looking back, Luka was ninety percent sure that’s when it happened: when Marinette stood in the center of his brand new, empty flat, her hands on her hips, and declared that it was too bland. He looked up from where he was talking with the landlord, discussing the contract and what paperwork he’d need to bring to the office to finalize everything, and gave her an amused look.
“…I don’t even technically live here yet,” he told her, but she just huffed out a little sigh and gestured at the walls.
“But it’s so…white,” she grumbled disparagingly. She looked over her shoulder at him with a frown. “You’re not white, Luka.”
“As long as you paint it a neutral color before moving out, I don’t care if you paint the walls,” the landlord said with an easy laugh. He grinned at Luka. “There’s a tenant on the second floor with black walls. I’m sure you can’t do anything worse than that. Whatever makes your girlfriend happy.”
It was the second time in less than two hours that someone had confused Marinette for his girlfriend. He glanced nervously at her, but she had moved past them to start inspecting the kitchen again.
“She’s not…Marinette’s just making sure I don’t pick a crap hole,” Luka said. The landlord’s eyebrows rose, and Luka felt his face warm. “I mean…we’re not like that.”
The landlord’s eyes darted towards the kitchen, his expression incredulous.
“I suppose it’ll do,” Marinette sighed, appearing at Luka’s side again. Her arms slipped around his own, hugging him to her side and doing nothing to disprove the landlord’s assumption. “At least you don’t have to share it with your sister.”
The landlord was still giving him that Look – the one that said he didn’t really believe they Weren’t Like That in the slightest – but he said nothing as he handed Luka a stack of papers.
“As you can see, it’s ready to move in,” he said. “Bring the paperwork back Monday along with your security deposit and first month’s rent, and then it’s yours.”
“That gives us just enough time to get you moved in before you leave for tour,” Marinette hummed, squeezing his arm. Her face lit up as she looked back at the walls. “I can paint while you’re gone. We can pick out colors this weekend.”
“You have midterms,” he reminded her, but she scoffed and patted his arm.
“I can study while the paint dries,” she chided him, and what happened to painting after he left? “Now, what do you think about periwinkle? Oooh – or maybe sage?”
The landlord was still smirking at them as he saw them out. Looking back, Luka was pretty sure the landlord had figured it out long before he had: Marinette wasn’t just tagging along to help him pick out his flat. She was tagging along to pick out theirs.
– V –
It started with small things at first, like the paint colors.
(The sage ended up being more of a succulent misty blue-green that he loved, and it ended up in the two bedrooms and paired well with the warm, pale mocha she’d picked for the living room. She’d somehow convinced him the kitchen had to be yellow, but for some reason she’d left the bathroom white, which still baffled him.)
Or the way she’d shown up on moving day, bright and early with two coffees in hand, and blinked at his boxed-up room in horror.
“This…this is it?” she asked, looking around in something akin to horror. He stood beside her, a bowl of half-eaten cereal in his hands, and shrugged.
“Boat Kid,” he said, scooping out another spoonful of somewhat-soggy Lucky Charms. He chewed for a moment, watching her in amusement. “You’ve seen my room before, Mari. You helped move me from the Liberty to here. You know I don’t have a lot of stuff.”
She had – she did – but somehow she had still thought he’d…well. Accumulate more, once he had moved out of his childhood home. She certainly had, and she was still living part-time in the attic bedroom above her parents’ bakery, when school was out of session and she wasn’t in the dorms.
Still. She just hummed, still looking troubled, but let the matter drop – at least for the two trips it took them to load the Captain’s old van and haul his handful of boxes the two blocks to his new place. (The use of the van was generous and mostly for the mattress, anyway.) When they were standing in his new flat, the smell of fresh paint still lingering in the air, Marinette’s horror returned.
“…no,” she said, shaking her head when she opened his box for the kitchen (which had to be unpacked first, according to her) and finding a mug, an old pan with chipped nonstick coating (“You’re cooking cancer, Luka!”), a handful of assorted utensils, and some disposable plates. She looked up at him, and he laughed as he shrugged. “Luka!”
“I eat on the go,” he said. “Most of the kitchen stuff was Rose’s, anyway. I’m not here enough to –”
“You live here now,” she insisted, shoving the box away in disgust. “You will have guests over, and those guests will expect to drink, and eat, and you will have nothing to serve them on!”
He wasn’t so sure about that. His ‘guests’ would most likely constitute Juleka and Rose, and they both probably expected nothing less of him. And Dingo, who would probably be fine eating straight out of the pan (or the floor, not that he’d tell Marinette that). And…and Marinette, who…yes, was probably expecting an actual plate.
…huh.
“Paper’s fine,” he said, and she nearly screamed as she stormed past him. He blinked as he watched her go. She’d made it to the door and had grabbed her purse before he tried to stop her. “Marinette? What…where are you going? I thought we were unpacking?”
“You need dishes, Luka,” she huffed. “I’ll be back!”
He had moved from the kitchen (which was already done, as far as he was concerned – even if he was willing to acknowledge that he’d still probably have to go grocery shopping at some point) to the bedroom by the time she got back. He’d been in the middle of staring at his mostly-empty closet, wondering if he should even bother hanging the clothes up when they were probably going to end up in his tour bag soon enough, when she started kicking on the door and calling for him to open up.
She was on the other side, arms loaded down with bags and boxes, when he got to the door. There were a few more boxes piled by her feet.
“What is all this?” he asked, laughing as he shook his head in wonder.
“The basics,” she said, shouldering her way past him before he could offer to take some of the boxes from her. “Well, most of the basics. I couldn’t find a peeler I liked – I’ll have to bring you one from home. I swear, peelers these days are so impractical. They’re made to look cute and work like crap. And we should probably hit the market before it gets much later, so maybe we could stop on the way and I’ll just grab it then? Anyway, you have a kitchen to break in, monsieur, and I don’t want pizza for dinner. Any takeaway, but especially pizza.”
“You know I can’t cook,” he said, his eyebrows lifting as he took in the box promoting an eleven-piece pan set. He didn’t even know what he could use eleven pans for, but he was sure Marinette had a plan for every last one of them. She paused in her unboxing of a twelve-piece dinnerware set (that quickly had him counting, because when was he expecting twelve guests at one time?), turning to look at him with her own raised eyebrows. The dinnerware was…the plates were blue. Ripply, like river water.
He liked them.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she sighed, putting a mug down on the counter. There was packaging paper sticking out of the top. “Ok. You put this stuff away. It’s your kitchen, anyway – you’re the one who needs to know where it all is. I’ll be back with dinner.”
And then she was gone again, leaving him staring at too many dishes he had no idea what to do with and wondering if it really was his kitchen, anyway, when he was pretty sure she was going to be using it more than him. She was probably going to declare he’d done it wrong, anyway, and reorganize it all for him while he attempted to cook.
…when she got back, the only reorganizing she did was to move the mugs down to the bottom shelf. So she could reach them better.
She taught him how to make omelets that night – the proper kind, that had more than cheese in the center and weren’t half-burnt to boot – and they ended up eating them on paper plates on the living room floor while his new river-water plates dried in the strainer he was ninety percent sure he hadn’t owned moving in that morning.
– V –
The past week or so had been a bit of a blur, between the painting and the moving and the studio time and the preparations that always came with a new tour.
This was going to be a big one, after all. He wasn’t just an opening act anymore – there were a few cities the band was staying a day over for a second show. Where he’d be headlining.
He hadn’t been this nervous since he was eighteen and first striking out with the old man.
His bag was half-packed (or half-unpacked, as he’d never really fully emptied it the last time he came home) on a box that had been sitting untouched by the bed since moving day. He’d been using it as a nightstand until he moved his amp in from the other room, and he still wasn’t entirely sure what was left in it. He figured that would be a problem for Future Luka, once he got back home.
…home.
It was weird, thinking he had a home now. His own home. One that wasn’t the boat or his sister’s.
A familiar rapping on the door drew his attention from the bag on his box, and when he opened his front door he was only slightly surprised to find Marinette on the other side. It wasn’t so much that he was surprised at her being there. What had surprised him was the plant.
“It’s a housewarming gift,” she said when he continued to stand there, staring at the plant and its speckled leaves. He should know what type of plant it was – it was vaguely familiar in a way he was pretty sure meant he had seen it on her balcony before – but all his helpful mind could supply him with was plant. Once her words fully registered, he looked up with a raised eyebrow.
“…you fully stocked my kitchen,” he said. “The entire kitchen. Even the fridge – with food that’s probably going to go bad before I get back.”
“…yeah, that probably wasn’t the smartest move,” she said, laughing. “Oops?”
“You didn’t need to get me anything else, Marinette,” he said, shaking his head with a bemused smile. She frowned at that, her fingers tapping anxiously on the pot.
“You don’t like it?” she asked. He regretted his words when he saw her chewing on her bottom lip. Eejit, his ma scolded in his head.
“I love it,” he said, taking it from her before she could question his sincerity. And he did – he loved everything she gave him. “I’m just questioning how smart it is bringing a plant here. I’m pretty sure plants need people around to care for them, and I leave in the morning for nearly two months.”
“…oh,” she said, frowning. “I…guess I just figured I would take care of it?”
“Really?” he asked, looking up at her. “Even though I won’t be here to annoy you?”
“Shut up, you’re not annoying,” she said, rolling her eyes fondly. “I wanted to ask you about that, anyway. Homes can get pretty dusty if no one’s around to take care of them. I just…I mean. Maybe you already talked to Juleka about it. But…I thought I could stop in, every now and then? To make sure the place doesn’t get stagnant while you’re away?”
“Stagnant?” he chuckled, and she rolled her eyes again as she reached out to shove at his shoulder.
“Stop – it’s totally a thing,” she said, grinning at him. “I can water your plants, and feed your fish, and make sure your faucets still work, and dust your bookcase. You know. Homey things.”
“I don’t have a fish,” he pointed out. She frowned.
“Do you want one?” she asked, and he laughed as he stepped back, tipping his head back to invite her in.
“The plant’s more than enough, Marinette,” he said. “I’m still worried about killing the milk, let alone the plant. Don’t jeopardize a poor fish, too.”
She took the plant back with a smirk, and he watched in amusement as she carried it over to the amp he had set up by the balcony. She frowned as she considered it, seemed to think better of putting it there, and carried it over to the bookcase with a sigh.
“You can’t kill milk, Luka,” she said, fluffing the leaves – fronds? – a little before turning back to him. “Anyway. Do you…what time are you leaving, anyway? Do you have time to hang for a bit?”
“Tomorrow, and always, for you,” he said, holding out his hand for her. He smiled when she took it, squeezing his fingers as she gave him a smile of her own. “I guess I should get you a key, if you’re going to be watering my plant.”
“Of course,” she tutted, grinning as she tugged him back towards the kitchen. “I’m insulted you haven’t given me one already. I know the landlord gave you a spare.”
…he had been planning on giving it to Juleka. It had made sense, at the time. He wasn’t sure why Marinette hadn’t been his first thought.
Because they weren’t like that, the traitorous voice that sounded like Common Sense whispered snidely in his mind. It was getting harder and harder to believe it, though. The flat only felt like home when she was in it.
They spent the rest of the night watching old cartoons with a bowl of popcorn between them. She fell asleep on the couch, and he didn’t have the heart to wake her before he left the next morning. She smiled in her sleep when he pressed a kiss to her forehead, and he left a note asking her to not kill his milk next to her key on the crate he’d been using as a coffee table.
Leaving was harder than it had ever been before, or maybe it was just leaving her.
…coming back was better than it had ever been before, though, when he opened the front door to the sounds of her singing his latest single, oblivious to his presence thanks to the buds in her ears. She was in the process of watering his plants, all five of them, which were now proudly displayed in front of the balcony doors on one of those plant stand tower things. When she turned to take the watering can back to the kitchen, she actually shrieked when she noticed him – and jumped back, knocking into the plant tower and making it wobble.
“You jerk!” she scolded, nearly shouting at him. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the earbuds or because she was angry with him. “You didn’t tell me you were coming home early!”
“Didn’t I?” he chuckled, taking the watering can from her before she could hit him with it. “Would’ve sworn I told you we got an earlier flight.”
“Would’ve sworn you didn’t,” she huffed. “Anyway, you’ll be happy to know I didn’t kill your plants. Or your milk.”
She didn’t bother telling him she’d replenished it a few times in his absence, or that the carton in the fridge had just been purchased that morning. Or that it had only needed replenishing because she’d been using it.
“You didn’t,” he said, nodding. “You multiplied them.”
She stilled at that, her thumbs picking at the lip of the can.
“…what?” she asked, an edge to her voice. “The first one got lonely.”
He pulled her into a hug, picking the watering can from her fingers and dropping it on the crate beside them.
“I missed you, too, Marinette,” he said, tucking his face into the crook of her neck and breathing her in. She didn’t hesitate before wrapping her arms around him in return, and it was easier to believe she wouldn’t really mind if he pressed a kiss to her neck. From the way her arms tightened around him when he did, he was certain she didn’t.
– V –
He travels.
A lot.
It made it easy to miss things.
To the point where, when he’d just come home and was jetlagged from a six-hour layover and too many countries in too little days and was staring blearily at the little plate (“Salad plate,” she sighed wearily in his mind) holding one of the croissants she’d left for him, he thought he was going crazy.
She answered on the first ring, her voice a soothing balm to his weary soul.
Just not soothing enough to dispel the niggling of huh lingering on the edges.
“Did the plates always have flowers on them?” he asked before she could even say welcome home.
“…what?” she asked, her voice muffled. Like there were pins between her teeth or fabric pushed against her mouth.
“The plates,” he said. “The blue ones.” The ones he had said looked like river water and she had rolled her eyes over, even though she was the one who picked them out (he was pretty sure for that exact reason). “There’s flowers on them.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice clearer. “Yeah. I got bored last week.”
…that was so Marinette. Painting his plates because she was bored.
“Do…you not like them?” she asked, and he was quick to shake his head, even if she couldn’t see it.
“No,” he said, then shook his head again when she sucked in a breath. “It’s cool. I love it. Thank you.”
“…get some sleep, you dork,” she chided, and he smiled as he heard the whirr of her sewing machine pick up before she disconnected the call.
The dishes were washed and dried shortly after, and he was opening the cabinets to put them away when he noticed it wasn’t just the salad plates.
She’d painted the entire set.
He pulled down one of the mugs, his finger lazily tracing over the pink blossoms that looked like petals floating in the river around the lip, when he spotted something else he was pretty sure hadn’t been there the last time he’d been home.
Novelty mugs.
Tucked against the flowers-floating-in-the-river mugs.
One shaped like a guitar, a ceramic strap forming its handle, next to one that looked like a…a…what did she call them? A skein of yarn, with fancy cursive on the label that read Knitting Keeps Me From Unravelling.
“I think you left your mug here,” he told her the next morning, when she showed up with homework and a box full of pastries. He gestured with the mug as he pulled it down to make her coffee.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, almost like she actually had forgotten.
It was still drying in his strainer when she left for her shift at the bakery that afternoon.
– V –
They were home for a few weeks before the next leg of the tour, but just because he was home didn’t mean he was home. Penny was keeping him as busy as Jagged, between studio time and rehearsals and fittings and interviews and God knows what else. His schedule was all over the place, and finding any time to spend with his family or friends was proving more difficult than usual.
Marinette had apparently decided she would just have to make time for him, if he couldn’t find it for her. He had lost count of the times he had stumbled through the door at he-wasn’t-sure-when o’clock and found her there, making him a meal or working on a project or studying on the couch. She seemed to be there more than he was these days.
…it was probably why he was starting to find pins in the cushions. Why candles – candles, which weren’t as weird as the plants but still weird enough when he had grown up on a boat and fire was typically bad – had started appearing partially burnt in every room. Why he had absently grabbed a hoodie on his way out the other morning and stopped, confused as to why it wouldn’t fit until he actually looked at it and realized it was hers. He wasn’t sure when she had left the pair of flats by the door, but they had been waiting by his boots the past few times he’d toed them on.
The sun was still out when Jagged let them go that night, which was rare lately. When he got home, a bag of takeaway in hand, he found her on his couch, buried under a mountain of yarn.
“It’s freezing in here,” she huffed without preamble. He dropped the takeaway on the coffee table and looked the yarn over. It looked like…a blanket? She was crocheting a blanket, in pink and white and mint chevron stripes. “How did we not know the building was this drafty when you moved in? Claude said nothing about crappy heating.”
…of course she was on first-name terms with the landlord. M. Gusteau had probably already gained a stone because of her baking.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, shaking his head clear of the thoughts. “It gets stifling in here.”
“…liar,” she said, looking up from her project. “It does not. Do you not feel this? Luka, I’m freezing.”
“I turn the heat down when I’m not home,” he said. She was holding a hand out to him, as if to prove how cold she was, and he took it between his own and blew on it, rubbing to warm her up. “Something about saving energy and lower bills. Melting icecaps and the planet or something.”
She blinked at him, and the next thing he knew she had tossed the half-finished blanket at him in a huff, stood, and stormed over to the thermostat.
“Luka, you ass!” she huffed, folding her arms across her chest as she glared at the screen. She tapped it a few times before turning back to him. He grinned as he heard the heater kick on. “Here I thought you just had crappy heating, not that you were a cold-blooded snake.”
“It’s not my fault you didn’t think to check the setting. You should have said something before now,” he said, chuckling as he held his arms out to her. “C’mere. I stopped by that Greek place you like, if you’re hungry. Want to watch something stupid while you warm up?”
She sat close, snuggling up against his side as he wrapped his arms around her. She picked up her blanket, huffing as she leaned her back against his chest.
“I’m already watching something stupid,” she grumped, but she smiled when he bent and kissed her cheek. She tipped her head back to rest on his shoulder, sighing as she put her project back down. “I always thought the river was just cold. I never realized it was because you were an actual ice man. This may not bode well for our future, Luka.”
…he liked the way she said that. Our future, like it was something she actively thought about. Wanted. Planned.
“You’re just as bad, you know. Your bedroom is suffocating. I always thought it was living above a bakery, but are you telling me it’s just because you’re cold all the time?” he teased. She huffed, and he kissed her shoulder. He paused, his lips lingering against her when she stiffened, but then she was leaning back against him and he couldn’t stop the smile that curled his lips. “We’ll be fine. I’ll cool you down, and you’ll warm me up. Win-win.”
“…you dork,” she giggled, but she turned her head and kissed his neck and he wasn’t aware of much of anything the rest of the night except the warm bundle of Marinette in his arms.
When he came home a few days later, well past midnight and too tired to think of anything beyond bed, he found her back on his couch, the completed blanket wrapped around her and a matching pillow under her head (with another by her feet). There was a definite chill in the air, and when he checked the thermostat he noticed she hadn’t actually turned it back up. He fixed the temperature with a fond shake of his head and climbed onto the couch behind her, slipping under the blanket and holding her close.
They were both nice and toasty by the time they woke up the next morning.
– V –
He’s only in town for the weekend the next time she sees him. He wasn’t even planning on telling anyone he was back, exhausted as he was from the nonstop pace of the tour. The Captain was still travelling, and Juleka was busy with exams. He knew Marinette was busy with a final project, too, so he hadn’t pressed. He’d see them at Christmas, and in the meantime he could rest and they could get their work done.
…he hadn’t expected to find her in his bathroom when he’d tossed his bag by the bedroom door and hurried inside, his bladder ready to burst after two hours in traffic with the bus toilet broken for the last leg of the trip. He stood there, blinking at her stupidly, and watched as she…painted. She was painting again.
“Marinette?” he asked, and she shrieked as she leapt nearly a foot in the air. She dropped her palette and paintbrush as she tipped back off the stool she’d been standing on, and he rushed forward to catch her before she could hurt herself. She was panting as she blinked up at him, and he smiled nervously at her. “What…are you ok? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” she asked, blinking at him. “What are you doing here, you jerk?”
“I live here,” he said, shaking his head with a laugh.
“Well, obviously,” she said, rolling her eyes, “but what are you doing here now? I didn’t think we’d see you until Christmas.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” he said, smiling. “I’m only here for the weekend. And I would love to know what you were doing to the shower, but I kind of have to pee. Desperately.”
Her eyes popped open, and a nervous giggle left her as she reached back and…patted his thigh. He wasn’t sure if she’d meant to do that or was just gesturing blindly, but a moment later she was pushing off of him and standing up.
“I’ll…leave you to it, then,” she said, an embarrassed pitch to her voice, but before she left she pulled him into a quick, tight hug. “…you need to tell me every time you come home, you jerk. I miss you.”
She was gone before he could return the hug, and he was left feeling like he’d just been tossed by a white squall.
With his bladder no longer hating him, he felt his eyes drifting back to the shower as he washed his hands. There was a smear of paint in pink and blue and brown about halfway down – a consequence of his startling her, he was sure (and he should probably wash it off for her before it dried, since that was technically his fault) – but it looked like most her project was designated to the top two rows of tiles.
She’d been painting…cherry blossoms. And music notes. Along stems and branches that looked like staffs. He walked over to the shower, his hands still soapy and the running water forgotten, and lifted a hand to trace along the clear row of tiles beneath them.
They made him think of the dishes, of the flowers she had painted on them. Her flowers floating in his river water – a perfect blend of them. His lips quirked up in a smile, his heart thumping a little harder in his chest, as he followed the notes. He…he knew that song. He’d played it for her countless times, though he couldn’t remember ever writing it down. How had she…?
He glanced down at the smear and raised a soapy hand to wipe it off, but he found he couldn’t bring himself to. That was them, too, a chaotic mess of vibrant colors – a flare of creativity and passion against a stark world. He would think of her, of those startled eyes staring up at him and the way she’d hugged him tight, every time he saw that streak.
He turned and rushed back to the sink, quickly rinsing his hands before turning the water off and rushing out without drying them. He heard her moving in the spare bedroom – the one he intended to turn into a home studio, if he could ever get more than a few days home to rest, but was currently being used as storage more than anything else – and hurried down the hall and through the door.
His questions – his compliments – died on his tongue when he saw the room.
It was…unpacked. Organized. His guitars were in stands in the corner by a cushy brown chair he didn’t recognize, with his pick collection and the poster from his first tour hanging on the wall above them. A desk along the wall sported some of his sound equipment next to a space cleared for his laptop. A set of shelves lined with notebooks – his music books – sat on the other corner.
But then there was the other side of the room, where a desk that was so classically Marinette had been set up. A mess of dark, frothy fabric spilled out from her sewing machine. Her thread box was open and buried under a lighter, crisper fabric, and a basket full of yarn was on the floor beside it, her knitting needles sticking out of one of the balls. Her sketchbook, opened to a page sporting a model that looked suspiciously like his sister, was propped up against the wall in front of the sewing machine. Marinette was standing by a set of cubbies, adding more paint to her palette. She looked up as he entered, and he froze when he saw the paint smeared across her cheeks.
…he wondered how annoyed she would be, if he just…kissed her.
She looked like she needed to be kissed.
“What?” she asked, frowning as she turned towards him. “Are…are you ok? I’m sorry. I know it’s…it’s just it was so much quieter here, and I had so much to get done, and I wasn’t expecting you back yet, and I meant to clear it out before you came home but I didn’t think you’d mind – you don’t mind, do you? Or is it the flowers? You don’t…I can undo it. Do you not like the flowers? Do you – Luka!”
She laughed as he crushed her against his chest, curling around her and tucking his face against her neck. She was so busy laughing he wasn’t even sure she realized when he pressed the kiss above her pulse, but he definitely noticed it flutter beneath his lips.
“I love them,” he said, but what he really meant was… “I love…”
…but he choked on the words, the uncertain certainty they had lived with for so long now causing him to chicken out before he could say it. You, every fiber of him wanted to scream. I love you.
“They’re not quite done yet,” she said, looking back at her cubbies. “Someone made me drop my paint, and I still have another wall to do. I should clean that up before –”
“Leave it,” he said, and he wasn’t nuzzling his face against her skin. He wasn’t. “Leave all of it. I like…it feels more lived-in.”
I love you. I love having your things here. It feels like home.
But he just held he tighter, definitely not doing something weird like nuzzling her, until she was guiding him to his room and his bed with orders to get some sleep, you dork.
She was still there when he woke up hours later, a pot of stew simmering on the stove and a ring of musical cherry blossoms in his shower.
– V –
When he came home a week before Christmas, he was greeted by the scent of cinnamon.
Well.
‘Greeted’ is perhaps a bit kind.
The smell slammed into him as soon as he opened the door to the stairwell, and he didn’t think much of it beyond it’s Christmas and someone must be baking until he reached his door and opened it. He stood in the hall, blinking stupidly at the interior of his flat, as the jaunty tunes of Christmas carols drifted on a cinnamon-scented cloud into the hall. He could see a tree, fully decorated and blinking with cheery lights, by the balcony doors. The plant tower had been moved to the other side of the doors, by the other one, and they were both strung up with fairy lights. Everything smelled like cinnamon.
The beeping of a timer drug him out of his stupor, or at least drug him farther into the flat. He was barely aware of the door closing behind him as he followed the beeping into the kitchen, where Marinette was bent over the oven and pulling out a tray of cookies.
“…Marinette?” he asked, and she almost dropped the tray as she whirled around to face him.
“Luka!” she cried, a smile that took his breath away lighting up her face. She quickly put the tray on top of the stove and rushed over to him, crashing into his chest and causing him to drop his duffel onto the floor. She peeked up at him, and he felt his breath hitch again. “You’re early!”
“Last venue cancelled,” he said. “Something about burst pipes. They’re rescheduling for the new year. What are you doing?”
He didn’t bother adding the here anymore. She seemed to be there more than he was these days, to the point where he was starting to wonder whose flat it actually was.
“I wanted to surprise you,” she said, squeezing him again before moving away. She moved back to the oven, picking the tray off the stove and taking it to the counter where she had a cooling rack set up. She pulled a face when she started removing the cookies from the tray. “Well. And I’ve been hiding out here.”
“…hiding out?” he parroted, and she nodded.
“I hate my roommate,” she said with a cheery smile. He walked over to her, accepting the cookie she handed him with a smile. He moaned when he bit into it: snickerdoodles. She made the best snickerdoodles. They had quickly become his favorite cookie after meeting his grandparents on Jagged’s side their first trip through New York, and he had been floored the next Christmas when Marinette revealed Jagged had given her the number to his Bubbe so she could get the recipe herself. “She’s been…well. I needed somewhere to think to finish some projects, and Gen has always been more interested in university life than she has her classes. Between her friends and her hookups, I can barely hear myself think most days. I swear, I’d move back home until a different room opened up if I could, but Maman’s turned my old room into a yoga studio. Can you believe that? Kicked out of my own home by my mother.”
“…isn’t that how I ended up here?” he asked with a chuckle, and she stuck her tongue out at him. “Jules moved out, Ma decided we were grown enough that she could see the world, and then Jules decided she likes Rose more than she likes me.”
“Of course she likes Rose more than she likes you,” Marinette tutted, turning for another tray. “I like you more than I like Juleka.”
She looked over her shoulder to stick her tongue out at him, and he couldn’t help the stupid grin the familiar banter gave him.
“You know I don’t mind you staying here,” he said, reaching for another cookie. He paused before taking it, waiting for her permission, and she rolled her eyes before handing him another. “And not just so you can keep your plants alive.”
“They’re your plants, Luka,” she said, but he just gave her a look that let her know they both knew whose plants they actually were. She turned back to her cookies, her cheeks pinking. “A-anyway. I was planning on leaving tonight, but I wanted to leave you a little thank you. For letting me crash so much.”
“I’ve been away – I don’t actually know how much you’re staying,” he said, even if he had his suspicions.
“Please,” she huffed. “We both know I should be helping you with rent by this point.”
“We both know I wouldn’t let you even if you offered,” he said. When she looked at him, he was still smiling. “You need to save up for your boutique. Graduation is sooner than you think.”
She hummed, but she said nothing else as she turned away to put another set of trays in the oven. He followed her, reaching out for her shoulder once she had the oven closed.
“Mari, seriously,” he said, squeezing gently. “Stay…stay as long as you want. I don’t mind.”
Stay forever.
Stay with me.
“…you shouldn’t ask that, Luka,” she said, her voice soft and a look he was too scared to name dancing in her eyes. “I might just take you up on it.”
He really wished she would.
– V –
The winter tour season isn’t as crazy as the spring or summer dates, between the unpredictability of the weather potentially cancelling shows and everyone just needing a chance to rest (preferably at home with their families), but Jagged hadn’t gotten where he was by taking things easy. Just because they weren’t on the road didn’t mean they weren’t expected to be in the studio, and while he had been able to get a few nights to spend a lovely Christmas with the Dupain-Chengs and a fun Hogmanay with his sister and friends, Jagged had expected them all back at Rolling Stone Records bright and early once the New Year’s hangovers had worn off.
That particular night couldn’t entirely be blamed on his father, though. Jagged had kept them at the studio long enough, but Luka had still been buzzing when he’d finally let them go. He’d taken his guitar and had holed up in one of the empty recording booths, playing around with the song that had been teasing him for days now, of twinkling blue eyes in star and fairy light and a missed chance at midnight and…
It hadn’t been for lack of trying. But things had just…happened, as they always seemed to when it came to them, and the next thing he had known Dingo was the one smacking his lips against his own in a sloppy joke of a midnight kiss, and by the time he had shoved him off and finished yelling…it had been too late. Midnight had passed, and though she was laughing with the others at Dingo’s antics Luka couldn’t help but feel…disappointed.
He had been hoping…it wasn’t that he thought she’d be opposed to kissing. Him. Kissing him. Him kissing her, and her kissing him back. It was just…there was still that line, that painful line that was blurring more and more every day, and he wasn’t sure. It would be easier, he had thought, to laugh it off as a drunken New Year’s tradition, if she…if she really didn’t want to. Kiss him. It would be easier to take it back, even if he really didn’t want to. If she did.
She had left not long after, having promised her parents she would spend the day with them, but he had felt her eyes on him the rest of the night. It had been enough to make him wonder if she had been as disappointed as he’d been. She hadn’t brought it up in the days since, but…to be fair, he had hardly seen her in the days since. Her nonna was in town, and Gina was keeping her little fairy busier than Jagged was keeping him.
They would talk.
They would.
And he’d…
He shook his head before he could follow that dangerous trail any farther. Those were thoughts for when it wasn’t almost four in the morning and he’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours straight, for when he was more lucid and wasn’t likely to just…run to her parents’ and proclaim his undying love for her. Sneak her out – or sneak in – and do something they’d both probably…no. That wasn’t fair. He would never regret anything he did with Marinette, except maybe that day under the bridge when he had first shot himself in the foot with her.
God, he needed sleep…
He didn’t even bother turning the lights on as he dropped his keys in the dish Marinette had placed by the door. His boots were quickly kicked off, toppling haphazardly over her flats. He left his guitar…somewhere in the living room – he’d get it back to their studio in the morning, when he could think straight. He shambled through the rest of the flat, tossed his shirt towards the hamper that had appeared sometime three months ago in the corner of his room, and debated if he really wanted to fight with his pants before he remembered how uncomfortable jeans were to sleep in, shimmied and hopped his way out of the stupid things, and tossed them in the direction of the hamper as well. He dropped onto his bed a moment later, blindly reaching for the blanket he had left bunched against the wall when a shriek stopped him.
“Luka, you’re squishing me!” Marinette cried, flailing a little as she shoved him towards the edge of the bed. He started flailing a little, too, in his haste to not squish her, and then she yelped again as he smacked her in the forehead – but that was ok, because she had jabbed her knee into his ribs and he was yelping, too. “Owwww…Luka, what the hell?”
“What the hell you, Marinette?” he shot back, rubbing at his side as he reached over for the light on the bedside table she had swapped his old amp out for back in the fall. He knocked over the candle that had popped up there sometime around Christmas before he found the switch. Once it was on and light was spilling over her face, he found any annoyance he might have been feeling disappear.
Everything disappeared, except for Marinette.
Marinette, who had been sleeping in his bed.
In his shirt.
…and from how the blanket had bunched around her knees – revealing pale, creamy skin – little else.
“What?” she asked – grumbled – as she rubbed her eyes. “What are you looking at me like that for?”
“Why…you’re in my bed,” he said, shaking his head. Her hands lowered and she blinked at him, like she couldn’t understand why that would be weird. Like her sleeping in his bed was a common occurrence, like…
“…I got tired,” she said, glancing away as pink dusted her cheeks. She reached for the edge of the blanket, probably to cover herself up, but he reached out and caught her wrist. She looked back at him, her eyebrows lifting. “I didn’t think you were coming home tonight. I tried waiting up for you, but it got so late, and…”
“Sorry,” he said absently, his eyes stuck on the bit of pale leg peeking out between the hem of his shirt and the blanket. “I got…there was a song, and…”
“I figured,” she said with a soft smile – one he couldn’t help but return as his eyes finally raised to meet hers. She learned forward, and he bent his head until their foreheads were pressed together. “I did leave you a note, dummy.”
“…you did?” he asked, and she hummed.
“On the table,” she said. “Reminding you your dinner was in the fridge and I was going to bed. I even texted it to you.”
“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I just…I’m kinda wiped. I didn’t even…I came straight in here. I didn’t even turn a light on, Marinette. I didn’t…”
…he hadn’t expected to find her in his bed. In his shirt. She never had been before.
He liked it more than he was brave enough to admit.
He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. He lifted his hand to her cheek, brushing his thumb beneath her eyes and trying to gather his scattered thoughts. It wasn’t helping: all he could think of were sage walls and petals-in-river-water plates and paint smears in the shower and the sewing corner that had popped up in their studio and honestly, why wouldn’t she be in his bed?
…why wasn’t it their bed?
Why hadn’t he kissed her at Hogmanay?
Why hadn’t he kissed her ages ago, well before…?
“Hey, Marinette?” he asked, his eyes still closed . For the first time since she had stumbled into his life, he was almost afraid to look at her. Afraid of what she would say, if he actually asked… “If I kissed you right now, would you be upset?”
The moment drug out impossibly long between them, and for a moment he wasn’t sure either of them were breathing. His heart felt lodged in his throat, nervous anticipation buzzing beneath his skin, and was it his imagination or was her skin growing warmer beneath his touch?
It felt like forever before she answered.
“…of course I would be,” she said, and her words were enough to startle his eyes back to hers. Despite her words, there was a familiar, teasing glint to her eyes – one that stopped his heart before it had sunk all the way to his heels. She was smiling at him, and he swallowed as she reached up to lay her hand against his own. “I was sleeping, Luka, and if you start kissing me now neither of us will get any rest tonight. I’ll be too inclined to kiss you back, and then we’re just going to be kissing all night and we’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”
That…didn’t sound like a bad thing, actually.
But she just leaned her head into his palm, and she slowly opened her eyes to smile up at him with dark, dark eyes that had his heart stuttering in his chest.
“I’ll be even more upset if you don’t, though,” she said, and that was all it took to break the spell she had him under – or maybe to cement it, because he was pretty sure she’d had him bewitched from the moment she’d stumbled into his bunk looking for the groove. He tilted her face up and closed that scant distance between them, and kissing her…kissing her was everything he had ever hoped it would be. Better than, actually. Kissing her was easily his new favorite thing. When he finally pulled away, more than a few heated kisses later, she had the nerve to giggle at him. “Well, shoot. I guess I’m not getting any more sleep tonight.”
“It’s ok,” he laughed, leaning in to kiss her again. And then again. “I don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow. Do you?”
“Well, actually,” she said, laughing when he groaned. “I still have a few boxes left at the bakery. I promised Maman I’d get them out tomorrow. Today. What time is it, anyway?”
“Not important,” he said, pulling her mouth back to his. “Boxes? Did you get a new dorm for this semester?”
She stilled against him, and he frowned as he pulled back.
“Marinette?” he asked, brushing his thumb beneath her eye. She smiled nervously at him.
“…about that…” she started. She looked down, swallowing as her fingers tapped anxiously against his chest. “It’s just…I wanted to talk to you about…I mean, I’m here all the time anyway, and most of my stuff is already here, and did you know Claude has my name on the lease already? It’s been there since you moved in. He actually told me that.”
That didn’t surprise him, actually. His landlord adored Marinette. He’d also been dropping ‘hints’, if you could call something as subtle as a brick a hint, about his ‘girlfriend’ from day one.
“Marinette,” he started, and he was sure the smile on his face was positively stupid, “are you asking to move in with me?”
“Not exactly, no,” she said. He was surprised enough that his smile slipped for a moment, before she smiled and gave him a hopeless little shrug. “I mean. I kind of already live here, I guess. Right?”
He supposed she kind of did.
Huh.
“I suppose so,” he hummed, brushing his nose against hers. “You did pick out the paint, after all. And the dishes. And the plants.”
“That I did not let you kill,” she teased with a giggle. “And I’ve kept your milk alive for months now!”
“Damn,” he laughed, beaming at her. “I guess you do live here.”
“Good,” she said, and his breathe (and the laugh that was trying to bubble up) escaped him in a whoosh when she tackled him back onto the bed. She kissed him soundly, and when she pulled back she was grinning just as stupidly as he was. “Now that that’s settled. Can we talk about this bedding of yours?”
“…what’s wrong with our bedding?” he asked, his grin growing when her cheeks darkened at the casual way he slipped in that our.
“It’s white, Luka,” she huffed, rolling her eyes. She tapped her chin against his chest, grinning at him. “You know how I feel about white.”
“We’ll go shopping tomorrow,” he said. His arms wrapped around her, and he held her close as he dropped his head back against the pillow. “When we pick up your boxes. And bring them home.” She settled against him, and he could feel her smile warm against his skin. He held her tight and dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “You know.”
She peeked up at him, and he leaned down to steal one last, lingering kiss. He was still grinning when they separated.
“Since you live here now.”