Chapter Text
Chloé bourgeois has had an entirely normal week. An entirely normal month. An entirely normal year. There has been nothing amiss, nothing out of line, everything perfect and pretty and in superbly arranged segments just as she likes it- with the only exception being the everlasting, infinitely inconsistent hurricane that is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, in which Chloé has long since accepted cannot be controlled. well, there is also the fact that Sabrina has started hanging out with Rose and Juleka after school, meaning less time shopping and hanging out in Chloé’s room gossiping. And the fact that Adrien has been far more distant than usual. And the fact that Akumas have been becoming more frequent and intense as of late…
All of these facts are giving Chloé a headache. Who cares about any of that anyways? It doesn’t matter. She’s Chloé bourgeois after all, she can make anything orderly and perfect again. She can make anything bend to her. It always works out in the end for people like her.
Other than those annoying little blips, the world has spun as it always has for Chloé: around her.
“Chloé dear, this is your sister, Zoé. I hope to see you two get along supremely.”
That is until the entire world ended. It had to have ended. A black hole has finally come and swallowed up the earth. Because there’s no possible way, in one million years, that Chloé’s mother, who never has time for visits, or birthdays, or calls, or even fucking texts- has another daughter. Another daughter, smiling cheerfully like some sick freak, under the warmth of her mother’s arm. Disgusting; that warmth like Icy Hot. So fragile and quick to be ripped away. So suffocating, like tendrils around her throat. And though there’s nothing motherly about it- how addicting it is, to be under the arm of your mother, like a duckling sleeping soundly beneath a pair of wings. Chloé has long since told herself there is nothing desirable about such a thing. She gets hugs from her daddy, she snuggles against Adrien, she sits and lets Sabrina brush and braid her hair. Her mother doesn’t want her, and so Chloé won’t want her either. But now, standing face to face with this pathetic knock-off of herself, pinker and happier and radiating sunshine, all too similar to another cheery girl she hates, Chloé becomes heatedly, violently jealous. She decides that very moment that she hates this girl, and she will die before she ever lets- this girl- touch her with those feverishly warm hands.
“I apologize for never getting the chance to tell you about her. It’s been such a busy few years with all of the traveling and runway shows and red carpet interviews, as you can imagine. She’s from New York City, isn’t that histrionic? Why don’t you take her up to your room? She will be staying in the hotel for the next few months. Help her get comfortable, won’t you dear?” Audrey Bourgeois smiles at her, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and her tone is sugary fake like factory made sweets.
The girl swings her arm out in front of her, clumsily offering a handshake, “uh, hello Chloé, It’s so great to finally meet you. You know, I had been wanting to meet you for a while now, I’ve- I’ve sort of always wanted a sister,” she giggles, rambling nervously. Chloé feels nausea swim in her stomach and crawl its way up her throat. Her eye twitches. She breathes a little too forcefully out of her nose.
Chloé thinks she has done very well so far. She hasn’t screamed, or ripped out her hair, or spat on the girl in front of her. But as Chloé’s silence draws on a few seconds too long, and the girl drops her hand awkwardly, looking like a kicked puppy, she finds it increasingly difficult to control her features. Her face contorts into a deep, dark scowl. She looks at the girl , then at her mother, then at the girl again, and turns quickly on her heel, speed walking out of the hotel lobby and into the nearest elevator. She is turned away, she does not look back at the mother and daughter , and the girl does not follow her.
The elevator dings
And like a wooden beam giving out under the weight of a bridge
Chloé’s face breaks just slightly.
“Ugh, what a dramatic girl.”
Chloé does not see them for the rest of the day. Her bout of anger quickly falls into a depressive, emotionless daze. She barely sleeps that night. She lays in bed, feeling nothing and feeling like nothing. The world has ended- what is there to do? Sabrina calls her that night, as she always does on Saturdays, though she’s been forgetting occasionally for the last two months- Chloé has counted.
She lets the phone ring to voicemail. It’s the only call she gets that night.
The next morning she wakes up- disappointing . She moves on autopilot; gets dressed, brushes her hair, puts on her morning make up, the routine of every Sunday. When she leaves her room to grab coffee in the dining hall as she always does on Sundays (Jean cannot bring coffee up to her room as he has Sunday mornings off. How irritating), she sees her, coming out of the door across the hall at the same moment as Chloé. Chloé glares, like a hunter with freshly sharpened arrows, and the other girl scurries to the elevator like a frightened doe.
Coffee can wait.
Chloé does well at avoiding her family for the majority of the day. She spends the time scrolling on her phone in a pathetic attempt to distract herself, though it only works for so long. She reads a bit of the novel they had been assigned in English, Catcher in The Rye , apparently an American classic.
“ After I shut the door and started back to the living room, he yelled something at me, but I couldn't exactly hear him. I’m pretty sure he yelled “Good luck!” at me. I hope not. I hope to hell not. I’d never yell “Good luck!” at anybody. It sounds terrible, when you think about it. ”
Chloe decides she has done enough reading for today. It will strain her perfect eyes, or morph her into one of those thick-glasses, pimple nosed, lisping nerds at school.
Or something else.
She feels more empty than ever, staring at the baby powder-white ceiling of her bedroom. She picks out a speck of dust and begins counting every one she can see. She gets to twenty-one specks. She thinks about telling Jean to dust her ceiling. She gets to twenty-five specks before she loses the ability to care about dust.
Her chest gets this feeling of caving in- just a bit. Like another part of her, another organ, another bit of her soul gave up. It almost feels like dying, which scares her, just a bit.
She thinks about finding a hotel employee and making up a problem just so she has someone to scream at. She thinks about going through the girl's closet and cutting up all of her most expensive pieces. She thinks about going to Adrien’s house and weeping in his arms. She thinks about inviting Sabrina to the hotel and venting to her over a palette of makeup. She realizes she only has two friends, and both of them are family friend’s of her father’s. She thinks about journaling, like the therapist she was school-mandated to visit in third grade suggested she do when she feels like blowing up the world with her rage. She does not do any of these things.
She does not even count dust.
It's the evening when the knocking comes.
Knock knock knock knock.
Chloé does not move from her place on the bed.
Knock knock knock.
Chloé twitches. A seething feeling creeps up her spine. The first feeling she has had all day.
Knock knock.
The sudden irritation- it is mercy from the nothingness. It is euphoric to feel at all, even if it is the worst of feelings.
Knock.
Chloé’s heart jumps. she stomps to the door and rips it open.
She is standing there, wringing her hands nervously, shifting her feet in hideous vintage converse and adjusting a grotesque baby pink beanie on her stupid little head.
“Sorry to bother you Chloé, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I don't really know what I…did? But obviously you’re mad. And I really don’t want you to be mad at me. Maybe we could talk? Mom’s at the charity dinner so-”
“Mom?” Chloé’s grip on the edge of the door makes the wood creak. The girl's eyebrows shift as if she’s confused- the nerve .
“Uh, yeah, mom.” Mom. How fucking sickening. With the instantaneousness and violence of a lightning strike, Chloé is feeling everything. It almost gives her whiplash, almost makes her sway and stumble. The intense bursting of it all makes her dizzy.
Chloé laughs, hollowly, disbelieving, “Don’t EVER come knocking at my door again you brat. Get on the next flight and go back to fucking New York with mom, before I make you WISH you were gone. You think you can come here, to MY city, to MY hotel, clinging onto MY mother. Jesus, what a pitiful fucking sight. Did a bird shit on your head? Is that why you’re wearing that eye bleeding beanie? Did you forget your makeup in New York, is that why I can see bags under your eyes and frown lines on your face? Are you sad? Am I hurting your fragile little feelings? I hope I AM, you fucking accident, you baby . I don’t EVER want to SEE YOUR PATHETIC FACE AGAIN”.
Chloé only see’s the split second the girl’s face falls from shock to despair before slamming the door in it. She listens to that insufferable girl walk away, making sure she’s gone. Maybe she hears a few sniffles, too, but she could care less.
Chloé feels it build inside of her. Something that has always been there, but never this big, never this naked, never this consuming. Its rage, and anguish, and hopelessness. It's a temper tantrum, the size of the Eiffel Tower. It’s a black hole of loneliness making her chest cave in and her soul wither painfully. It’s a deep ache in her heart and stomach. Its heat prickling painfully on the surface of her skin and driving her mad, making her want to scratch it all off until she is nothing but an unfeeling skeleton. Its sweat on her palms, on her temple, in her armpits, on her back, making her clothes sticky and tight. Its numbness in her fingertips and dizziness fogging up her head from the way her breath shortens and stutters. It’s a tantrum. A tantrum. How childish, how utterly ridiculous, how pitiful and miserable of her. She doesn’t recognize herself when she paws furiously at her face in an attempt to rid the feeling. Or, maybe she recognizes herself too much, as she hurls a vase of flowers formally sitting prettily on a stand by the door and watches as it shatters and makes a big mess just as she is shattering and making a big mess. The carnage, it pets the rabid wolf inside her, makes her feel a bit more vindicated, a bit closer to satisfying this awful feeling, a bit more comfortable in this version of herself that is exploding at the seams.
And so Chloé Bourgeois grabs everything fragile. Vases, lamps, framed photos, glass animals, diamond necklaces, gold rings, gifted tiaras, luxury perfumes, auctioned paintings, silk sheets, fur coats, lace dresses, empty journals, jars of honey, bottled feelings, her own carefully crafted exterior- and destroys it all. She smashes, stomps, crushes, rips, tears, bites, and claws. She knows she’s already made enough noise to attract attention, and so she yells and screams with inhibition. She cries hot and stinging angry tears. She cuts her hands and feet on broken glass. She becomes a creature of mal contempt. A yellowjacket- furious, cannibalistic, unwavering in its lust for stinging.
she glances at her vanity; it has an oval mirror, circular bulbs lining the edges of it, illuminating warm white light, makeup up bottles neatly lined along the surface. there's some color splashed across it, she thinks she threw a couple nail polish bottles in that direction. there- on the vanity, are a pair of round white sunglasses. sunglasses she has worn on her head every single day for the past five years. Despite her disgust for out of season fashion, how she gags at the thought of repeating outfits, the sunglasses have never left.
The day of Chloé's thirteenth birthday had been a comedic and tragic affair. She had thrown something of a fit during the party when her mother failed to arrive. Everyone; the staff, her father, her father’s friends, her own friends; had seen her humiliated and unwanted in such a horrendous way. It had turned impossibly sour, spoiled like milk and spilled all over the ballroom floor. Chloé had stomped out of the venue and cried in the limousine, demanding to be taken home and lavished with additional gifts to make up for such a misstep in her perfectly arranged life. It had been her least favorite birthday yet- probably of her entire life, too.
SCENE I
Within CHLOÉ BOURGEOIS’ bedroom. Enter BUTLER ARMAND.
CHLOÉ Doth thee knoweth,
which hour my own moth’r may beest?
ARMAND oh!
lief Chloé, I am s’rry. I knoweth not.
Though thy fath’r shouldst beest!
Any minute anon.
CHLOÉ Doth thee knoweth,
Armand, hast mine own moth’r…
…
ARMAND lief Chloé,
doth not stumble on thy word?
Doth bid - to I?
CHLOÉ Hast my own moth’r hath sent a gift?
If’t be true aught, but one?
ARMAND aye, mine loveth,
if’t be true thee requesteth,
th’re is forsooth but the one iv’ry boxeth.
CHLOÉ Giveth t to me anon!
Betimes, Armand!
ARMAND of course mine own lief,
betimes.
CHLOÉ Armand, if’t be true
I am to ope such,
shall t beest the lasteth?
ARMAND I doth not knoweth,
mine own lief.
Thy moth’r loves thee,
Coequal in h’r absence.
Prithee, trusteth me in yond, Chloé.
Ope thy gift.
SCENE II
Enter ANDRE BOURGEOIS.
ANDRE Joyous birthday,
mine own quite lovely daught’r!
Didst thee moth’rs gift findeth thee well?
CHLOÉ In c’ertainty fath’r.
How doth those gents behold on me?
ANDRE Aye, what a p’rfect
pair of white spectacles.
Thou art moth’r knoweth thee well!
The lady sayeth deepeth apologies.
H’r absence is well reason’d. Trusteth, daught’r.
CHLOÉ aye, of course t is,
as t at each moment is
and at each moment shall beest, to dawn of the endeth.
ANDRE Im s'rry. the party,
t is starting anon.
thy copesmates shall beest th're
exciting, nay? beest eft by then, lief
F’r many more marchpanes and presents await thee.
this day, proper to the quaint mistress
CHLOÉ Mine own day, aye, such t is.
SCENE III
Within.
CHLOÉ how foolish of mine own to bethink
t is mine own day, and f’r mine one moth’r
To holdeth me, at mine own birth.
Chloé observes the glasses in her hand. A security blanket she had desperately held onto as the last birthday gift her mother had ever given her. How much of a bother, is it? To even send her a store bought card? How much time had Audrey spent picking out a pair of generic, mildly stylish sunglasses? Did she even pick them out at all? Did her assistant buy them and ship them to Chloé in a cold white gift box? Did Audrey even know these glasses existed, and that they meant the world to her? Did Audrey even know her birth date at all?
Chloé clenches her fist as hard as she possibly can. She wraps her carefully clipped and manicured fingers around the pearly glasses and crushes them. They creak, break and bend beneath her fists. The frames warp, and then the lenses begin to crack. But it's not enough, she can’t destroy them this way. So Chloé throws them down on the vanity and smashes them with her fist. She smashes and smashes and smashes and the vanity is shaking with every slam and the lenses are shattering and splintering into Chloe’s skin and the plastic is becoming a flattened little disk and breaking apart at the hinges and Chloe’s hand stings and and her chest hurts from all the heaving and growling and sobbing and she thinks- I might as well- and punches the oval mirror in front of her too. It makes a great big shattering sound, the glass making pretty spider web patterns as it breaks under her knuckles. she see's her own reflection- sweaty and red and unkept and unrecognizable- fractured.
Chloé bourgeois stands completely out of breath, in a white collard sleep shirt and yellow pajama pants, dripping blood in the ruin of her bedroom. she can barely even feel the glass burrowed in her hand, or the potentially broken knuckle bones. it's nothing but a dull ache compared to the pumping and rumbling of blood throughout her veins, and the buzzing of adrenaline throughout her nerves. here she is, in her top floor suite, in the greatest hotel in Paris, in the greatest city in the world, with a father, and a mother, and all the money anyone could want. And still, Chloé wants to watch it all burn. And still, Chloé yearns to die as much as she yearns for a deep breath of air into her lungs right now.
Yes, air, air sounds good. Cold fresh air.
Chloé’s head is pounding so loudly between her ears she almost doesn’t notice the silence. There is no one banging on the door. No one is calling for her. No hotel staff asking about the ruckus, no father yelling her name in concern.
Right. The charity event is tonight. Everyone is on the first floor, having a banquet and chatting up wealthy donors. The staff is catering and serving cocktails on silver platters. There’s supposed to be a band there too, no one can hear her up here.
She isn’t sure if that is a comfort or another reason for despair. How quiet is she, compared to the noise of the city? How insignificant is she, in a city with superheroes and villains, wealth and fame, romance and world wonders? Can anyone hear her? Does anyone know she exists at all?
This is how bugs must feel.
Suddenly Chloé no longer feels real. She steps on broken frames and scattered jewels and leaves her room.
When she arrives on the roof, she thinks, oh, it's so cold out here. How relieving. And realizes she doesn’t remember how she got here. She doesn’t remember much of anything at all.
Because none of it is real , that must be why. None of it matters, she doesn't exist. How relieving.
The bug approaches the edge of the roof. It's exposed and windy and dark, but she isn’t afraid. She looks at Paris in its entirety. The warm lights, the rich architecture, the garbage on the streets, the eiffel tower and its bounding fields of cigarette butts. She thinks she’ll miss it. She thinks she’ll look prettier as a splotch on the sidewalk. She will finally show everyone the expanse of her feelings. She will explode and everyone will know and everyone will hear it and everyone will see it. All of her most intimate, ugly parts bore witness to the world. She will be something, even if it's only a squished little bug on the pavement.
She thinks of Ladybug catching her. She hopes she doesn’t.
The bug lifts her leg, takes one last look at the night sky, and the fading stars and the light pollution, and decides she won’t miss it at all.
When Chloé falls, for a brief moment she is thrust back into her body and completely aware of what is happening. It is a heart stopping feeling, falling and knowing you will die. Maybe it gives her a heart attack, because one second later she is completely detached from her body again, barely feeling, barely a part of the world. She wonders if she’s already dead, if this is what it feels like to be a ghost.
at a moment that cannot be pinpointed, it all becomes nothingness.
She doesn’t remember going to sleep.
Chloé Bourgeois wakes up, not at all feeling dead.