Alex left an hour later, carrying Adrien's letter enthusiastically. He greeted with his usual polite goodbye, adding the energetic 'Mr. Marais' at the end.
Adrien sighed, rereading the letter again, smiling to himself once more. He was interrupted by the doorbell. He just sighed and ignored it. Alex will have to get to used to entering himself. Although, after a couple of moments, the doorbell rang already. Adrien furrowed his brows as he thought to himself. Alex wouldn't defy him in such a stupid way, then who...?
He packed the latter in the pocket of his pants, just in case. He tried to look through the peep hole, but it was covered by something. Someone must've really wanted a surprise visit, he thought.
He opened the door slowly, getting surprised at the surprise visitors. The surprise of the visitors was so high that he couldn't even process being punched straight in the face. He fell down, holding his nose in confusion, not really caring about that as much as the two people in front of him.
"Ruben, I told you we were going to be civil." The young looking girl stated, almost sounding a bit annoyed, but only almost.
"Civilians can be a bit rude, can't they?" Ruben rubbed his knuckles a bit as he grinned down at Adrien, completely ignoring Lovisa's slight annoyance.
"No use arguing with you." She said in a tone that made it hard to tell if she was serious or just mocking him, however he didn't register it anyway.
Adrien, momentarily fazing from shock, decided to stand up, wiping the blood from his nose, finally noticing he was in fact in pain. In lots of it, actually.
"Lovisa? Ruben?" He questioned, almost looking like he was dreaming.
"The one and only. Is your nose broken?" Ruben questioned, looking very satisfied with his wide mouthed grin.
"That would explain the pain." Adrien deadpanned, regaining his composure, looking at them with a suspicious gaze.
"Good old fashion payback, Marais." He growled.
"You attacked him first that time, Ruben." Lovisa corrected him, her face looking like she got so used to him doing stupid shit that she just let go of his intelligence.
"Are you on my side or what?" He asked in annoyance, but she ignored him completely.
"May we go inside, Adrien?" Lovisa asked sweetly.
"We'll let ourselves in." Ruben stomped inside, sitting on the couch and putting his feet up on the table.
"Ignore him, he's in a faze where he thinks he's hot stuff." She rolled her lilac eyes with a heavy sigh.
"Come inside, Lovisa... Uh, make yourself at home." Adrien answered as he went into his kitchen, bringing them tea he always had premade.
As Adrien handed Ruben the hot tea, he slapped his hand on Adrien's, making him shake and spill the tea. Nothing broke, luckily Adrien had a firm grip.
"Do you want me to kick you out before you even state your business?" Adrien lowered his voice, sounding genuinely threatening.
"Excuse him, you know what he's like." Lovisa apologized in his name, feeling like she was taking care of a kid instead of handling a problem with a comrade.
"Why are you here?" Adrien spoke up, not in the mood for this, especially after this with the tea.
"I wanted this to be a reunion, but I guess that can't really work out, huh? Still angry about the thing with Elle?" She spoke with her high pitched, yet calming voice.
"I know your tactics, Lovisa. You'd talk to me before if you cared, so stop trying to small talk me into something deeper, tell me why you're here directly."
Lovisa throughout all of this kept smiling warmly. It's like she was always just calm and collected, never breaking a sweat over anything.
"We came to see Elle, Adrien." She told him, her voice more serious.
Adrien knew this was the case. She always found everything out. He never knew what happened to Lovisa after her attempt to rebel against the higher ups, but it was said she was taken care of. Somehow, even if he still considered her a good person, he hoped she was taken care of. She couldn't live here, she couldn't cope. And now she's just giving herself false hopes. He wanted to stop them, but they never would listen. They'll probably die an agonizing death on Earth, pulling hundreds of people with them from Hell, spreading some false sense of hope.
"She's not here." He crossed his arms, sipping his tea calmly.
"Where is she then?" Lovisa continued the conversation politely.
"I don't know. Find her." Adrien told them coldly, pulling out his phone to message Alex to get Eleonore anywhere but there.
"You shouldn't lie to her, Adrien." She spoke warmly, her eyes full of sympathy.
"How am I lying?" He questioned, texting him as fast as possible, trying to look like he wasn't doing anything serious.
"There's a fucking reason she didn't come back to us, you lying bastard!" Ruben exploded suddenly, almost tackling Adrien but stopped himself the last second.
Adrien gulped slightly, not in a noticable way. He forgot he wasn't dumb, just full of himself. For the first time in a while, he felt genuinely threatened. These weren't circumstances, these were intelligent people with a group of believers working for them. What did he have? Alex and Eleonore. Eleonore could turn on him if she remembered... This was what he got for isolating himself so much. He just kept quiet.
"Adrien, they know you're keeping her somewhere. She can never return to you safely, you know? You'll never live here freely. You'll always be on edge and Elle can always get killed at any moment. Why do you still choose to be on their side? We're your friends..." She spoke to him, voice full of empathy.
"I can make it work here. Earth is unsure, we can easily die as soon as we breathe in the air. I'm not willing to risk mine or her life for this. I'm keeping her away from you guys." Adrien stated firmly, getting furious at her trying to manipulate him to obey.
"I'm not manipulating you. I remember when all of us were friends, but you kept getting higher and higher. You changed. But we want something better, and I know you want it too. We'd make it work on Earth, if you just gave us a chance." She tried harder, wanting him to be on their side.
He kept quiet as both of them looked at him. Lovisa with a bit of a begging look and Ruben with contempt and anger. He scoffed when he saw Adrien was quiet for too long.
"Hmph, told you this would happen. He's too far up his own ass." Ruben spoke, grinning as if he was satisfied that Adrien didn't want to join the team.
"I just want you to know something. Even after everything that happened, after betraying us, I never got mad at you once. You're still my friend, Adrien. But so is Elle. I need to save what I can, and I need to do what's necessary to save her." Lovisa explained thoroughly, making Adrien suddenly very nervous.
"You can't do anything, Lovisa." Adrien stated firmly, more than he should have, since he was very scared currently.
"I already did, Adrien. Keeping her at your disciples place was a good idea. Luckily, it was also a good idea to recruit people he trusts, wasn't it?" Lovisa was still smiling her same warm smile, no matter how terrifying the things she said was.
He got terrified. Mia and Unako. This was going to end badly. He got up, running to the door, not thinking about anything else but to stop anything from happening. Ruben grabbed him. He was much stronger than Adrien ever was, brute force was his strong side. He tried squirming away, just wanting to save Eleonore from this stupid rebellion, but he couldn't. He started feeling helpless.
"You're not leaving until we're done with the job. No harsh feelings." Lovisa kept smiling as she waved with her childish hands, exiting the room.
Now the only two people in the room were Ruben and Adrien, which wasn't a good idea to begin with.
