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It hurts, all the time.
Like a wound in his side, a deer with its leg ripped off. He carries it with him through the day, every day. It makes it hard to think, sometimes, to breathe, even. And the worst part, is that it all feels so hollow.
Because there's no answer to the way he feels.
His father was a hero. His father was as cold as marble, as hard and cruel as a statue. None of that answers a single one of Adrien’s questions.
None of it makes him feel any better.
Natalie's eyes are hollow. Marinette's fill with tears when she thinks he isn’t looking. It’s like a monster with the heart cut out. Answers he can’t find, no matter how hard he tries, how much he searches. Sometimes it hurts so bad he thinks he’ll die. Sometimes he cries himself to sleep, in the depths of a house that’s been dead for a very long time.
And there's no answers.
He doesn’t want to talk to his friends; after all, what is there even to say? Nobody has words, and what words they do have are polite condolences, not what he wants to hear. So he doesn’t talk about it. Marinette looks ill when he brings it up, so he doesn’t. The wound festers.
The reflection in the mirror is a stranger. It whispers things, terrible things.
How can you hate your father? How could your father be a good man?
But there’s no answers, only questions. He drifts to the park. The sun is shining. Everything is so beautiful. And he is so unhappy.
“I know how you feel.” Someone says, in a voice so much like his own. He looks over to find felix sitting beside him on the bench.
Felix blinks with his green eyes, a mirror of his own.
“You do.” Adrien says, almost not quite a question. Felix nods, thoughtful. Adrien blinks, clenching his fingers, realizing after a moment that his eyes are wet.
“There’s something that they’re not telling me. I know there is.” Felix nods. “Yeah.”
Adrien wants to scream. “I just- feel like I don’t really have anybody.” Tears do escape then. He looks over at Felix, his mirror, his other half. Felix looks at him, his expression strange and unreadable.
“You don’t.” He says.
Adrien tastes bile in his throat. The sky shimmers like a gleaming river of tears, mixing with the harsh golden sun, and then he opens his eyes. He’s all alone in his bedroom, bright sunshine pouring in through the window panes.
He sobs.
Felix opens the door, blinking once. He looks around Adrien, seeming vaguely surprised. "What are you doing here Adrien?" he asks him, bemused in that mellow way of his.
Adrien swallows. Everyone's eyes are filled with glass, hollow. No one will admit to him the truth. Felix just looks at him.
"Can- we go for a walk?" Adrien asks, instead of saying what he wanted to. Felix blinks again.
"Why are you in London?" he asks him.
"Can we go for a walk?" Adrien asks again. Felix merely arches an eyebrow, before sighing. "Let me tell Mum." is all he says, and he leaves Adrien standing in the doorway of their london penthouse apartment, or "the flat" as they call it.
It's just Felix and Aunt Ameilie, but the space is warm and bright and soft and loving. Life fills all of the corners. Adrien half wants to die. Felix returns after a moment. "All right." he says, accent lilting his words.
Once they reach the ground, it's like something possesses him. Maybe it's the panic, or maybe it's because even though Felix is right beside him, he's never felt further away. It's like his grief (and that's what it is, at least, according to his therapist) has banished him away to his own planet.
Everyone has moved on, left him behind.
Grown up.
Felix doesn't wear a tie anymore.
Today he's wearing just a plain, blueish colored short-sleeve tshirt underneath his grey vest, a favorite of his, Adrien knows.
"What's going on." Felix asks him, with slightly more patience than he's used to. He doesn't even sound annoyed. Adrien wishes he were irritable like he used to be. And then suddenly he's being carried away, breaking into a run.
Felix huffs once from somewhere behind him and then Adrien realizes that he's running after him, and actually matching his pace rather well. Adrien just continues, breathless, like maybe somehow he can outrun all this pain.
Finally they stop, once Adrien has used up all of his manic panic, at a bench in a park in the middle of london. It's such a beautiful day. Children are playing, off, somewhere. He can hear them laughing. He flops down on the bench, and exhales.
After a moment's consideration, Felix sits down beside him.
Silence echoes between them both. Adrien doesn't know what to say. Felix doesn't say anything. If anything, he almost- seems to understand. "Why didn't-" and he stops.
"Am I-" he tries again. He shuts his eyes.
Felix says nothing.
"I don't know if I miss my father or not." he says finally, in a small voice.
Felix doesn't answer, doesn't speak for a long time. Adrien waits, and then he speaks again. "I just. I don't understand. I don't understand why he-" he clenches his fingers together tightly, chest so tight that he cannot breathe.
"I just. I have so many things, so many questions, but I'll never get to say them. It's over. He's."
Dead.
Beside him, Felix breathes.
Slowly it dawns on him that he may have upset Felix, and a part of him immediately feels bad. "I'm sorry." he says softly. He doesn't know the full extent of Felix's relationship to his father. And he doubts it that Felix will want to share.
But then, finally, Felix speaks.
"No. You won't." he says solemnly, looking Adrien directly in the eye.
"Sometimes. I wonder. If he could see me now...if he understood, if he wasn't sick. If he...would've loved me." Felix says in a thoughtful, contemplative, detached voice. Adrien feels ill. Felix pauses, a pale finger tracing the corners of his square ring. Adrien watches, silent.
"But I won't ever know that." Felix says quietly.
"So...what do I do?" Adrien croaks out. Felix shrugs.
"Learn to live with it. One day at a time."
Adrien exhales. "And that works?" he asks.
The side of Felix's mouth tilt ever so slightly upwards.
"I'll let you know when I find out." he says.
And Adrien finds it in him to smile too. Felix smiles, hair golden in the sun, and Adrien thinks he's never seen him so relaxed and happy. And he's glad. "You know, you could take up being a part time gazelle." Felix tells him dryly. Adrien does smile then.
"Can we- do something?" he asks suddenly, and Felix seems surprised. "Like what?" he asks. Adrien shrugs. "Anything. I don't care. I just. wanna hang out. Like we used to." he says. Felix looks at him for a long moment.
"No more running." he says mellowly. Adrien grins.
They go back to Felix's and his aunt's flat, and Ameilie makes him some french toast in a pan, and Felix tells him (more like gushes) about Kagami, and there's very nearly stars in his eyes.
They watch a movie in the afternoon.
The wound is still there. But maybe.
Maybe it's begun to heal.
xxxxxxxxx
If I ever come back down to earth ( I’ll start kissing the ground )