"I blame you for this." Marinette was saying.

"What?" Adrien asked, propping his phone between his ear and shoulder.

It was Plagg's bath time, but Adrien never turned down a call from Marinette.

Besides, if he hadn't answered, Marinette would have shown up at his front door and tried to kick his ass. She would only lose because Adrien was so much taller than her.

"The very downhill path my life is taking." Marinette said.

"Me? But I'm such a good influence!" Adrien said, smiling. "If anything, you should blame Alya."

"I do. But also blame you. A lot." Marinette said.

There was a drilling noise in the background. "What's that noise? And do I get to know how I, specifically, am derailing your life?" Adrien asked.

"My sewing machine. And no." Marinette replied.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to tell you. If I do, my life will no longer be downhill. Just straight down into the sewers."

"Okay. So why did you call me?" Adrien asked.

He hadn't spoken to Marinette since the new about his mother, nearly four weeks prior, during which he had be touring for photo shoots. "Because I haven't talked with you in a while. And to let you now that you're sending my life downhill." Marinette explained.

"Alright. So what do you want to talk about?" Adrien asked, and he regretted the words as soon as they were out, because now Marinette was going to bring up his earlier question.

"I don't know. Let's start with the shit you pulled last time we hung out." Marinette said, sewing machine ceasing.

She wasn't saying it harshly, just saying it in a way that made it clear it had had some effect on her.

"Goddammit." Adrien mumbled under his breath.

"Adrien..." Marinette started in a warning tone. "You can't just say stuff like that. I mean, you can, but then you gotta explain." Marinette said.

Adrien didn't know that she was more nervous than he was. "Well, you can't just give that response if the question was that surprising." Adrien retorted, still confused that Marinette had said yes.

"What was I gonna do, leave you hanging?" Marinette asked, starting up her machine again.

"Yes. No." Adrien sighed.

Plagg slipped out of his fingers and landed in the sink, dousing himself with warm, soapy water. He struggled to escape. Adrien stuck his tongue out at the cat. "Now you're leaving me hanging." Marinette said.

"I suppose you're right. I asked it 'cause... well, I don't know. I mean, it has to have crossed your mind, right? Dating? One another? I mean after the challenge thing." Adrien said, drying Plagg.

"Well, of course. After all, you were my first kiss and oh God this is pathetic." Marinette said, dropping her face into her hand.

"It's not. I mean, it was the same for me. You know, first kiss and all that." Adrien said, blushing even though the only one to see it was Plagg.

But he was also smiling, because he wouldn't have wanted it have been anyone else. His first kiss, that is.

"You never told me that." Marinette said after a brief silence.

"Ditto." Adrien said, draining his sink.

"Well... I'm glad..." Marinette trailed off.

"Me, too." Adrien agreed.

"So... see you at school?" Marinette asked, trying to end the awkward exchange.

"Yeah. See you then." Adrien said, waiting for Marinette to hang up.

Once she did, he followed suit and began to clean up his mess of a bathroom. Plagg may have been small, but he shed a lot. Once the area was clean, Adrien flicked off the light and went to change into his pajamas. It had gotten a lot later than he had thought. Sighing yet again, he paused in front of one of his windows and watched the people on the streets thin out.

And then he let himself think of the phone conversation in depth.

The first thing that he thought of was that he had been Marinette's first kiss. For a second, Adrien let himself to egotistical thoughts: I've set the bar so high, no one will ever come near that performance!

And then he turned to more realistic prospects: compared to his performance, Marinette had surely moved onto better things. In Adrien's defense, he had been extremely inexperienced.

But what he didn't realize was that his "performance" was one of the reasons Marinette's life was going downhill.

Letting out the biggest sigh yet, Adrien dropped onto his bed, not bothering with the comforter, and fell into a fitful slumber, nightmares consuming his better judgement.

He was lying among faceless, murdered people, covered in blood that wasn't his own. He could hear the scraping of the murderer as they dragged corpses into rows. Adrien felt sure he needed to play dead.

The murderer released a beautiful tinkling laugh. "Oh, stupid cat! You can't hide from me!" She said, voice like chimes in the wind.

Adrien felt her presence near. He hadn't realized it, but his body had begun to shake violently as he panted, struggling to catch his breath. A knife glinted above him as a shadowed face came into view. "Oh, stupid kitty, I can't stop there, can I?" The killer cried, giggles interrupting her speech and shaking her dark hair.

"No... please...!" Adrien choked out, feeling unbearable pain despite the murderer still standing above him.

"But you know what, you stupid cat?" The voice asked, beautiful voice changing to one dripping with venom.

Adrien's entire body was convulsing. "You're redundant!" She yelled, voice concise and echoing.

"This doesn't matter!" She said, a blinding smile coming into the light.

"Your death doesn't matter! Your life doesn't matter!" She laughed, shadow inching up her face to reveal a cute button nose.

"You don't matter!" She screamed, cerulean eyes glinting.

The killer's face emerged completely as her blade sliced through the air and straight into Adrien's skull. The splitting pain elicited a scream from Adrien's throat, and when he finally emerged into reality, his throat hurt and his voice was hoarse.

Marinette. Adrien thought. She was younger, still a child, like Adrien had been back when they'd done the challenge.

That was the first time she was unmasked in the reoccurring nightmare. This was the first time he'd screamed outside of the dream.

For a minute, Adrien thought someone had heard him, that perhaps someone was coming to ask if he was alright.

No one showed up.

As per usual.

---

AN

===

If you ask me to update and I give a bitchy reply, I'm not at fault.

Now if you do it to spite me, you're wasting your time; I don't get as bothered by most people by that sort of thing.

So. If you say anything that implies "update", I will say "no". Welcome to the real world, princess. You don't get your way here.

With that being said, Dolly loves those of you who don't heckle authors to update (and if you stopped heckling authors recently, then I also love you)!

<3

and also sad Adrien breaks me hert </3

BUT IT HURST SO GOOD, BABY