"the moth's apprentice" chat noir x y/n

Forget Me Not

I stop falling. The wind isn't knocked out of my lungs, and my bones are not shattered by the impeding ground below. I am alive. In the span of three seconds, two things happen. 

One: I recognize the face of the person who just caught me midair, and I register his furious expression. 

Two: a blinding light shocks me and I've been evaporated into the void. 

He's staring at me now, with a form of aggravated confusion and fury. His ears are plastered to his head and his hair is messy, water droplets falling onto the white ground of this void that we've both been sent to. 

"I did what you said," I glare. "I trusted you and I jumped." 

His seething, male stupidity only incites me to continue. 

"I did what you said, Chat Noir, Catboy, the Voice that won't leave me alone, whoever the fuck you are." Anger floods through my veins, and I'm yelling before I can even register that I'm yelling. "So, if you've been the one torturing me since I got here, would you just come out and say it? Now that we're trapped here together, you owe me some sort of explanation." 

Chat Noir doesn't ask how I now it's him that's been talking in my head all this time. He doesn't explain how he's been inside my mind. He says absolutely nothing. All he does is stare at me, breathing consuming his entire being. His chest rises and falls and between the ringing in my ears, I think I can hear his heart beating. 

I think...I think I can hear his thoughts too. 

I've been waiting too long, and now this. 

I wish I could say that everything came back to me in a split second, but the only thing I could feel was emptiness. Invisible prodding searches my brain to write his face in a way that I can remember, but I can't see it clearly enough. 

I can't believe you still don't know. 

"Talk to me," I begged. "Please, Chat Noir, just talk to me. I'm so confused." 

He takes a step forward, a slow drag of his feet on the white floor. His eyes find the top of my face, gravitating down, terrifyingly slowly. "You have no idea what it's been like, Y/N." His voice scares me. Nothing like the Chat Noir I first met. "You have no idea how hard it's been here—" his last word breaks. "—waiting. For a minute I thought you'd never come back." 

I blink. "Come back?" 

His hand reaches out to touch my cheek, but I don't pull away. His nails grate my skin gently, as his eyes search mine. He smells familiar. Like rain and cinnamon. Chat Noir tips his head to the side. 

"Hmm, darling? I don't understand why you still don't remember." His words breeze past my ears. "I did everything I was supposed to." 

Chat Noir trails off. "I stopped Hawkmoth's curse...fuck he was supposed to die," his words darken, and it sounds like he's talking to himself now. "He was supposed to die, damn it." The anger comes back again and it's stronger now, like a rush of water under a weak bridge. "You weren't supposed to forget." 

"Forget what?" 

Chat Noir's ear twitched. "You weren't supposed to forget me." 

"But I did," I say, despite his forlorn expression. "I've forgotten something important and it's tearing me apart from the inside. That's why I'm begging you now, to tell me what it is I'm missing here." I move towards him, against my better judgement. "Tell me why it is that I can remember your face and everything about you, but I don't know why." 

I put a hand on his chest, feeling the fabric of his suit and the gentle rise and fall of his breathing underneath my palm. "I remember this." He relaxes into the contact but tenses when I remove my hand. "But I don't remember it up here," I point at my head. "So will you tell me?" 

His eyes cloud over, and I can tell he's fading. Whatever words he wanted to spill are long gone now. The things I want to say have gone sour on my tongue and I can no longer remember what I wanted to as. 

"I can't tell you," Chat Noir says softly. "But—" 

In one motion he closes the gap between us, one hand finding my waist and the other one gently wrapping around my neck to guide me towards him. Chat Noir's lips press against mine, and I can feel the fluttering of his eyelashes on my face. Eyes closed, other senses wide open. His heart is beating faster now. I can feel the muscles in his chest and stomach pressed flush against my body. 

His grip tightens around my neck, but not to an uncomfortable degree, while his other hand slips just underneath the bottom hem of my shirt, resting on the skin of my waist. His gentle breathing lulls me into a state of peace. 

And then, only then, is the world quiet.