#i’m either so tired i’m hallucinating again or the tiny bugs are back

[1roentgen]

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[lexosaurus]

EctoberWeek19: Shattered

Read on [AO3] / [FFN]

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Specks of water dripped down the ceramic plate, falling off its edges and colliding with the pools of water below. An old towel, held upright by shaking fingers, swept the surface of the plate in circular motions capturing the remaining water droplets, the ones too slow to escape the cotton prison before. The plate turned, and the towel continued.

Finally, the plate stopped moving. Fingers traveled along its surface, testing it for any damp impurities, before placing it off to the side among the other dried dishes.

Another plate was grabbed from the sink. This one too was sponged, rinsed, and dried in the same circular motions. Routine motions. All done by shaky, pale fingers.

Without warning, the plate slipped, tumbling into the sink and rattling hard against the metal surface. The sound echoed around the room, chiming like church bells on a winter night.

The shaky fingers froze. They flickered in and out of transparency. A pair of blue eyes squeezed shut as the fingers were forced back into their previous opaque state. An arm reached down into the sink and the fingers slowly picked the plate back up again, as if afraid it would fall through it. 

But that was impossible. Nothing can fall through a solid object.

Impossible.

The fingers raised the plate higher, and blue eyes scanned the plate for any dents or chips. Any imperfections.

Other than its own.

There was nothing there. Nothing new, anyway. 

Pale lips let out a shaky breath, and a pair of ears listened closely for signs of any shouts or movement from the stairs. Signs that any other bodies might invade this space, inquiring about the loud noise.

But no footsteps sounded from the stairs. No voices travelled from the hall.

Good.

Fingers gripped the plate with a newfound tightness before resuming their circular motions. Cloth against ceramic. Round and round again until the plate was dry enough to join its brethren on the countertop.

Pale fingers, now trembling even more, brought the plate out of the safety net of the sink. The fingers could do this. If they just gripped tight, they could do this.

A cold feeling sparked in his chest, dancing down his arm like fireworks.

No...don’t...

CRASH

“Danny?”

The fingers had betrayed the body. They were supposed to put the plate on the counter but now they weren’t there anymore.

They weren’t there anymore.

“Danny? What happened?” 

Footsteps sounded from the stairs. 

No, he couldn’t let his family see. They couldn’t see what had happened. The fingers had disappeared and he didn’t know where they were and his body was betraying him where did the fingers go? 

“I—I’m fine, Jazz! Don’t come—Just give me a—”

“Danny honey?”

More footsteps.

He looked down at the wreckage. The plate had shattered, dusting the floor with dozens of tiny pieces. 

It wasn’t salvageable. No amount of glue could fix this. 

His fingers had ruined it. He had ruined it. It was broken. 

“Are you okay?”

“What happened?”

“Danny?”

There were too many footsteps. Too many people. Too many voices. Everything was too loud. 

Something twinged in his chest, and he shuddered. His body was cold. He was so cold. There wasn’t a time in his life that his body had ever felt so cold, so alien. 

It was like it wasn’t even his body.

“Oh honey, what happened?”

He felt his head turn up, and suddenly he was looking at the faces of his parents and sister. Worry coated their features, their eyebrows drawn in and lips curved into a slight frown.

“I...I don’t…” 

Danny looked down at his fingers—those traitors—but to his shock, they were still there. They were attached to his palms like they had been there all along.

He curled them in, if only to make sure that they were really his. But they were. They responded to his mental command, just like they always had.

“The plate...I don’t…”

He tried to gesture at it, but his arms felt cold and sweeping them through the air just made them feel colder. 

What was he supposed to do? How could he explain this?

Especially when he didn’t understand what was happening himself?

His mother threw up her (normal, human) hand. “Danny—wait! Don’t move yet. There’s shards all over the floor. You don’t have shoes on.”

“I—oh…”

“I’ll get the broom,” he heard Jazz say.

“Oh…”

“Danno, it’s no big deal!” came his father’s boisterous voice from above him. “It’s just a plate! We have a whole bunch of those!”

“Oh.”

“Here—broom.”

“Okay, honey,” his mother said. “Do me a favor and don’t move until I tell you to, okay?”

His body didn’t move because his human brain didn’t tell it to. But the body was cold and foreign and not his. 

“Danny? What’s wrong?”

His head raised, and he was met with the soft eyes of his sister. Her red hair was tucked behind its usual teal headband, and her face, though touched with uncertainty, was all but glowing with life.

“What’s wrong?” she repeated.

His head shook. “I’m fine.”

“It’s just a plate, sweetie! Nothing to be nervous about.” His mother gave him a warm smile. “It happens!”

“Yeah…”

“You sure you’re okay?” Jazz asked.

Danny tried to nod, but his chest constricted. His body felt as if it were plunged into the depths of the ocean, and he could almost see the sparks of electricity dancing throughout his veins. His body shuddered, and a cold breath escaped his lips.

What was that? He didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense. What was happening to him?

The lights were suddenly too blinding, and the ambient sounds of the room—the fridge, the buzzing from the lights, the gentle humming that always permeated the house from the various inventions lying around—were too much. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be here. 

Nothing was right anymore.

“Danny?”

His throat felt tight.

“I’m tired. I’m just tired.”

“Why don’t you go to bed then. You father and I will finish the dishes tonight, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

He felt his body propel forward in the path that his mother had created for him. An escape route. One out of the kitchen.

Out of the cold.

But the cold kept following him as he ascended the stairs. As he entered his room. And as he fell onto his bed.

He fell because his body tripped on the ground. The solid ground. Because his foot couldn’t go through the ground. That was impossible.

Either way, his body was on the bed now. He was safe here. He could pull the covers over his now-body, because it was different than the one before, and he was safe. Maybe the cold would leave him alone now. Maybe that pressure in his chest would go away now that he was safely under his blankets.

Maybe he would wake up and this nightmare would finally end.

The cold didn’t leave. The pressure on his chest didn’t lesson. It still pulsed to and fro, emitting sparks of chilling electricity into his limbs.

Another frosted breath escaped his lips, and he gasped.

He was just getting sick, is all. Nothing was wrong with him. Maybe he was getting a fever.

That had to be it. That had to be the explanation.

His eyes opened—they had been closed?—and he looked up. The room was dark, but if he looked around he could still see the model rockets and old movie posters decorating his body’s room.

No, his room. This was still his.

Then why did everything feel so wrong?

He looked at the ceiling, and a glowing green figure stared back at him. It was shaped like a teardrop, and it seemed to have two small gray eyes and a little hole for a mouth.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. 

What was that thing?

It stared at him with unblinking eyes—those were eyes, right?

“Hello?” he whispered. 

It tilted its head curiously at him.

“Um…” 

He shook his head. He was going insane. Was he really about to talk to this clear hallucination? This glowing orb? 

It was probably just an ecto-contaminated bug anyway. Sometimes his parents contaminated food, so it would glow. Who’s to say a mosquito hadn’t gotten caught in one of their strange experiments as well?

It opened its...mouth...and cooed at him.

Ghost? It seemed like it was saying. Ghost? 

But that was insane. Ecto-contaminated mosquitos couldn’t talk. 

It was fake. Ghosts weren’t real. Whatever it was saying was all in his head.

“Go away,” he muttered as he shifted to his side. Because if he wasn’t looking at it, it didn’t exist, right?

It was just a hallucination. He was normal, a human. He just had a fever. He was a normal teenage boy with a fever and that’s why he kept dropping things and tripping over things and that’s why he felt cold and that’s why his body felt like it wasn’t his anymore because he was sick he probably needed to see a doctor.

So why couldn’t he?

Why couldn’t he tell his parents what was going on?

How come he had been so quiet since he came home from the hospital?

He glanced over his shoulder, back up to the ceiling, but the glowing figure was gone. Of course. Because it was only a figment of his imagination. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly not any otherworldly creature.

He closed his eyes once again and tried to block it all out. Tried so hard to shut his ears off from all the sounds humming from his room or the wind scraping against his window. He tried to ignore the cold pressure from his chest.

He was human. This was his body.

A chill swept through his skin and the blankets were no longer on top of him, shielding him from the cool chill of his room.

Maybe he just forgot to get under them. Maybe that was the reason they weren’t covering his body. It couldn’t be that they had just passed through his torso, through his skin and muscles and bones. No, no way.

He was normal.

He was in a lab accident four days ago. His body was electrocuted. He felt his skin burn and his bones rip from his flesh.

But he was alive. He was okay.

He electrocuted with thousands of volts of ecto-energy but he was okay. He was still a human.

He had gone to the hospital, and the doctors had done scans of his body to make sure his organs were all functioning. Which they were. The MRIs and X-rays showed nothing wrong with his body. His heart rate was healthy. His blood pressure was healthy and normal. 

They had given him a clean bill of health. He was fine. 

He told himself he was fine.

Even if the green light behind his eyelids tried to tell him otherwise.

---

(read more of my fics here!)

[fantasyfandommaiden]

ML Counsellor AU: Plagg’s session

When it seems like Mlle Carmine Regal has figured out the identity’s of Paris’s super hero’s, the ladybug and black cat kwami do what they believe is best. They don’t tell their chosen their suspensions, and decide they wait to see what the red haired woman does with the information... at least Tikki does. At first. When Plagg is impatient, and finally gets to have a conversation for once without being interrupted or told that he needs to ‘move on’.

(Inspired by an ask by @nerdasaurus1200 )

It was rare for normal humans to see through the glamour of the Miraculous, heck, even wielder had a hard time unless blatantly told who was behind the mask and given proof. But than again, in Plagg and Tikki’s option, there was little normal about Mlle Carmine Regal.

Both Kwami’s had a suspicion that the Counsellor knew Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s identities, she left tiny hints. Like knowing both were in school, or the puns that Chat used, or that one time she caught Ladybug speaking Yueh instead of French. The normal course of action would be to wait and see what the woman does with that information, and deal with her as necessary... that was what Tikki did, but Plagg couldn’t.

She was too close to Adrien with her working in the school, AND apparently she was close friends with Adrien’s schedule maker, or whatever title Nathalie had. One word, and Adrien would lose all of what little freedom he had! Plagg maybe lazy, and like to goof around and enjoys his chaos, but what few knew is that he was extremely protective of his kittens, and sometimes his over protectiveness forgot that his entire existence needed to be kept a secret.

Which was how he found himself, at two o’clock in the morning, phasing through the woman’s apartment walls to give her th scare of her life, and threaten her to never even think to reveal what she thinks she knows because she is so wrong and Chat Noir is not Adrien Agreste, and... she wasn’t in bed.

Plagg blinked, looking around. Humans were usually asleep at this time... right? Unless she was a super hero, or Hawkmoth, possibly Mayura- nope, she was in the living room, reading a book.

Plagg frowned, well he couldn’t exactly scare her with her being awake, his whole plan was ruined! He could try another night, he glanced back and saw that the woman was looking straight at him with a curious look on her face and Plagg freezes.

“... okay, clearly I’ve been awake too long and am hallucinating.” She said rubbing her eyes as she stood up, however instead of walking to the bedroom to sleep, like Plagg thought she would, she walks to the kitchen. Plagg, curious because he is a cat, follows, floating roughly five feet away.

“How long have you been awake?” He asked, eyebrow raised as the woman begins to fill a kettle with some water.

“Now? Roughly..... 19 hours.” She said softly, seeming to not mind talking to something that is suppose to be a ��hallucinations’. She turns back around, leaning back against to look at Plagg “... however I don’t usually start hallucinating until roughly 30 hours of no sleep, so I’m guessing your actually here.”

Plagg blinked, and than glared, remember why he was here. “Your damn right I’m here human!” He zoomed up close so he ways within inches of her face “You. Listen. Here.” He let out a hiss, trying to make himself look as intimidating as possible “I am an all powerful being of chaos and destruction, and I hear whispers that you think you know the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir, and I am here to tell you-“

Carmine perked up slightly, smiling widely “Oh! Are you the ‘kwami’ Chat was talking about?” She looked at him slightly confused “... your a lot cuter than I thought you would be.”

“Don’t interrupt!” He growled “I maybe small, but I’m the reason the dinosaurs no longer walk this earth and Atlantis is no longer on the map! Imagine what I could do with a tiny, weak human like you!”

Carmine continued to look at the small god, an unreadable expression on her face as Plagg continued. “NOW YOU LISTEN HERE! Yes, my kitten has a lot of faults! And yes, he sometimes gets a little over zealous when it comes to his pursuits of the bug! And maybe he’s a little entitled, and self absorbed, and... and... I had a point, what was my point?”

Carmine looked at Plagg, before very slowly asking “Um... Mr. Kwami, May I offer you something to eat?” She asked “I have a meat and cheese platt3 I’ve been meaning to finish off.”

“DONT TRY TO DISTRACT ME-... does it have Camembert?” Their had been an akuma fight earlier that evening and Adrien hadn’t given him nearly enough cheese to satisfy his hunger.

~~~~~~

She did, in fact, have Camembert on her meat and cheese platter. Plagg happily sat down on the table on top of the cushion that the red haired woman provided as he all but inhaled the cheese. She sat down in a chair at the table with a hot cup of tea in hand.

“I love cheese! It’s gooey, and yummy and smells so good!”

Carmine simply smiled “I’m more of a marble cheese person myself.”

Plagg rolled his eyes “Uncultured swine! Camembert is best cheese! I would know! A lot of my previous chosen’s were cheese makers!” He said happily, bitting into another piece.

“... other chosen’s?”

Plagg looked at the woman with a raised brow “What? You don’t think Chat Noir is the first black cat do you? I’ve had many! Who would go on to do amazing things!” He insisted.

“Like what?” She asked curiously.

“Make cheese.” Plagg said smugly, swallowing a whole piece in one go.

Carmine smiled “What kind of cheese did they make?” She asked with a sincere tone.

Plagg blinked, looking at the woman cautiously. Usually whenever he said they made cheese, they would insist on knowing other things, heaven knows that Adrien did that. He liked talking about the cheese maker, she was one of his happiest chosen’s.

“All kinds! My kitten Brielle was possibly one of the best cheese makers in the WHOLE village, her name even proved it!” He said excitedly, floating up “Back in those times, it was the men’s duty to do the outside labor well the girls were inside doing the child rearing, food prep and all that junk, but my girl Brielle? Ooh she was a spit fire! She hated being indoors, hated the fact she couldn’t go out at night without one of her brothers, always tried to rebel. She loved being one of my black cat! I loved her cheese!” He said, closing his eyes as he faintly remembered the small village girl. Where Tikki remembered faces better, Plagg remembered smells and voices, Brielle always smiled like freshly made cheese and her voice was a bit high pitched, but she was a beautiful singer.

“She sounds wonderful... what happened to her?” Carmine asked innocently.

Plagg’s whole demeanour dropped, he looked down at the table as he slowly floated down. “... she got sick.” He said softly, talking over to the cheese platter “She was 42, which was old considering she survived the bubonic plague, but she still got sick with what would now be considered small pox’s.... I was the only one able to stay with her in her final days because no one else could afford to get sick, I stayed with her in her last moments... I always do with my kittens if I had the choice to.” he said softly, nibbling on another piece of cheese without much gusto. It didn’t taste as good as Brielle’s did, but than again, none of the cheese he ever had afterwards did.

“... your very old, aren’t you?” Carmine asked softly, Plagg only nodded.

“... I don’t get to talk about my past kitten’s too much... I mean, humans don’t live long, and I can’t complain, I have Ladybug’s kwami, so I’m never alone.”

“I have close friends too, but I still miss the ones that pass on.” Carmine said softly, looking at the tiny god “... Did any of your other chosen’s make cheese?

Plagg’s ear twitched slightly “... none as good as her, but I had one who was a pretty decent writer, he also didn’t understand the wonders of cheese either and could only really afford to give me mushrooms, which I hate but he was trying his best, even if he was head over heels for the Ladybug of that time too, he was a nice enough fellow, could see why Tikki would work with him.”

~~~~~

Plagg didn’t realize how late it had gotten until Carmine’s phone began to ring, the alarm clock showing that it was 6:30 AM. Plagg had spent the whole time talking about his past chosen’s, their talents, what he missed about them.

, and than how they passed.

Plagg looked at the phone as Carmine turned it off, than up at the human woman, noticing the large dark circles under her eyes “Geeze, if you were tired you should have just kicked me out instead of letting me run my yap.”

Carmine looked at him with a raised brow, an amused smirk on her face “I have a feeling I would have seventy years of bad luck if I attempted that.” She said in an amused tone.

“True.” He inhaled his last piece of cheese and floated up “So, like I said-“

“I do not know who Chat Noir or Ladybug are, and even if I did, I will not tell anyone.” The woman stated as if reading from a script, before looking at him smiling “... shouldn’t you get back to your charge? I imagine he has some sort of appointment, or such to attend to.” She said knowingly.

Plagg scowled slightly, although there was no heat behind it “Watch it. Oh, thanks for the cheese” he said smiling “... and the talk... it’s... nice, talking about my kittens.”

He glanced at the her phone again, doing some quick math to figure out how long it would take for him to get back to Adrien when he noticed the date...

‘... in two weeks huh?’ He though, thinking of his counter parts more well known Ladybug, who had possibly one of the most tragic passings, and that as saying something coming from him.

“... you doing anything two weeks from now?” He asked, looking at Carmine, who blinked.

“... are you... booking an appointment?” She asked slowly, clearly confused.

“Yeah, But not for me, and they may not come, but... just two weeks from now, try to be here, if you can.... they..., they could use someone to talk to too.” He said softly.

Carmine looked at the tiny god before nodding “... and who is the person I’ll be talking to?”

“Not a person. A Tikki.”