fake dating is my favourite trope in romantic stories, it has so much potential because releases great dynamics between (fake) couple, so i was super excited when i was drawing this one ♥
i have much more ideas for this AU, but im a little tired of drawing all day for a week, so i’ve decided to finish at 8 pages, but i think i’ll back to this project someday.
thanks for organising chlonath week, i’m glad i was part of it! ♥
Hi! I’m late to the @chlonathweek party! But I’m gonna make it! I was on a vacation last week so I was able to draw but not really upload anything so I got a few days I gotta upload and catch up on!
Day 1 was Enemies/Friends so I went with a small moment of friendship. Its gotta take a lot of trust for Chloe to let someone touch her hair.
hm its prom season and ive always wanted to do a prom story ((so lets just pretend this is an AU where proms are a thing in france)) the full story will be told across all 7 days of chlonath week (if i can make it in time) so i hope you enjoy... @chlonathweek
“Wow,” Marinette whispered. She flipped back to the beginning of the latest issue of Nathaniel’s comic book and started looking at the pictures again. “This is...wow.”
Chloe worried her bottom lip. “It doesn’t mean anything though, right? It’s just a comic. I mean, it’s just the characters, it’s not really us.”
“As someone who keeps up with Alternate Universe, there have been...signs this was coming,” Alya said, keeping her voice even. “Did it really surprise you?”
“I don’t know.” Chloe reached for the comic and slid it away from Marinette so she could look over it again. She ended her flip through on the last page with Nathaniel’s alter ego down on one knee as he vowed his eternal love for his partner and told her his life was infinitely better with her in it. “I mean, I know that Mighty Illustrator and Queen Bee are kind of fan favorites as a couple but I didn’t know he was going to actually make a storyline like this with them.”
“This might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever read,” Marinette admitted. “And I married Mr. Romance.”
“I’m telling Adrien.”
“Please don’t. He won’t like to know he has competition for his title,” she laughed. “Seriously though, Chlo, this is beautiful.”
“But if he didn’t say anything about it, I think that means the ball’s in your court,” Alya added. “You can either acknowledge it and have a serious talk about your friendship or relationship or whatever you want to call it.”
“Or?” Chloe prodded.
“Or you can not bring it up and he may never say anything about it and things will stay the way they are.”
“And you’ve got some time to think about it,” Marinette said. “Nath isn’t getting back from the convention until Tuesday, right?”
“Right,” she answered distractedly. She stared down at the artwork and something caught her attention she’d missed every other time she’d looked at it. On the ledge behind the main characters sat a potted gerbera daisy, a few rays of sunshine touching down on it. To anyone else, it would’ve seemed like an inconsequential background filler but Chloe knew exactly what it represented.
Once her friends left, she pulled out every piece of artwork Nathaniel had ever done for her and spread them out on the floor. She started with the picture of the gerbera daisy with his name and number hastily scribbled on it from their first meeting at the airport after her disastrous wedding. She moved on to the various box tops and receipt backs that he’d doodled on when he was still just her delivery guy. Then there were canvases and loose sketchbook pages and Post-it Notes covered in art of flowers and bees and her. She set the open comic issue in the middle of all of it to the spread of Nathaniel essentially proposing to her and her breath caught in her throat.
She knew what she wanted, what she needed.
___
Chloe shifted the large bouquet of daisies as she checked her phone again for the time. She’d arrived at the airport way too early due to nerves but now that Nathaniel’s plane had officially landed, time seemed to have stopped all together. Everytime the doors opened to reveal new passengers entering the baggage claim area, her heart rate went up a few notches. After three false alarms, she finally spotted familiar orangish red hair done up in a messy bun.
Nathaniel looked tired as he stepped onto the escalator to come down into the lower area. Chloe watched him take out his phone and then hers was ringing in her hand.
“Hi,” she answered breathlessly. She saw him smile when he heard her voice.
“Hey, Queenie. Just wanted to let you know I made it back. I’m about to pick up my bag and then I’m going to head home. I don’t think I slept at all this past week. I might not be cut out for the convention circuit.”
“Do you want to come to my place?” He was getting closer now and Chloe took a few steps back so she could stay hidden in the crowd. “I can have us some food delivered in.”
He made a little breathy sound that landed somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. “That would be great. I’ve really missed you. I don’t know how much fun I’ll be though.”
“I just want to see you.” Chloe took in a shaky breath when she saw the fond expression wash over his face.
“I want to see you too,” he answered quietly. “I’ll get my bag and be there as soon as I can.”
“Want a ride?”
“I was just going to call an Uber.”
Chloe couldn’t stop her big smile as she finally closed the distance between them and tapped his shoulder. He turned around in surprise. “I’m really close,” she said into the phone.
He laughed and pulled her into a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Surprising you, dum-dum.” She held out the semi-smashed flowers shyly. “Well, these did look a lot better before that hug.”
“They’re for me?”
“Or any other redhead artist who wants them,” she shrugged.
He laughed and pulled his messenger bag to the front and unzipped it. “Great minds because...” He produced his sketchbook and opened it to a page filled with daisies. “I kinda got you the same thing. But don’t worry, there are real gifts in here too.”
“I love you.”
Nathaniel blinked and looked at her. “I love you too.”
Chloe shook her head. “No, I mean...I mean that I’m in love with you. I have been for a long time but I was scared.”
“Chloe...”
“And I saw the comic,” she continued. “And I saw the daisy in the background and you’ve always let me call the shots with us and I just need you to know that I love you so much and you’re the only one I want too.”
He dropped his sketchbook and bag and pulled her to him again, cupping her face as they kissed. Chloe let the flowers fall to the floor beside his things and wrapped her arms around him, bringing him as close as she could. They stayed that way for a while before they both reluctantly pulled away with embarrassed smiles.
“I think I need to grab my luggage,” Nathaniel chuckled even as he ran his thumb along her cheek.
Chloe looked down at the fallen sketchbook and bouquet. “I’ll wait here with our airport flowers,” she laughed.
He leaned in and took another quick kiss. “Maybe that can be the name of our next comic.”
She felt happy and giddy and like she was floating on air as she let him pull her in again. “Sounds perfect.”
Presenting this year’s prompts! Thank you for providing your feedback and help in organizing the event!! In order to accommodate as many prompts as we could, and to mirror 2017′s prompt list, there are 2 prompts for each day! (Except for Day 7!) Feel free to be inspired by them in whatever way moves you!
🍅 🐝 🍅 Here are the prompts! 🐝 🍅 🐝
Day 1: Enemies/Friends
Day 2: Akuma/Hero
Day 3: First Date/First Fight
Day 4: Dream/Nightmare
Day 5: Artist/Muse
Day 6: Future/Family
Day 7: AU
Please tag your work #chlonathweek2k19 and/or tag us @chlonathweek and we’ll be sure to reblog all the content we can!
In the meantime we’ll start queuing up some good old fashioned chlonath content, followed by chlonathweek2k17 posts leading up to our week in June!!!
Feel free to message/send asks with any question/concerns!
And without further ado, here is the final chapter of This Is It, my fic for @chlonathweek 2k19. Enjoy <3
***
Chloé watched as water washed over her feet, briefly clearing sand away from her white nail polish only to rush back out and sink her down to her ankles in mud. The ocean mist was cool and refreshing on her skin with the summer sun blazing overhead. It really had been far too long since she’d visited the coast.
She’d known she was going to visit it again this summer; she just hadn’t predicted the exact circumstances that would take her there. Before this, she had been entertaining thoughts of planning a trip to Spain to spend a week or two on the beaches there. She had been entertaining thoughts of bringing Nathaniel with her. Now, though, she was reconsidering that plan.
“So if there are entire cities of merfolk underwater,” she said as the water rushed over her feet once more, “and your family has to go back to the water all the time anyway,” she twisted to look at him over her shoulder, “why do you live on land at all?”
Nathaniel stood barefoot in the dry sand behind her, having just finished taking off his shoes (because he wore his Vans instead of sandals, like an idiot). His hair shined a brighter red than usual under light like this—closer to that ginger orange color than the darker tones he had under clouds. She might have been imagining it, but she was pretty sure a scattering of freckles was starting to pop up on the bridge of his nose. And his eyes—that deep teal that had reminded her of ocean waters long before she had even learned the truth—were bright and clear as they rose from his phone to meet her.
He smiled in that way that always preceded something snarky. “Have you ever tried to use a pencil and paper underwater?” She gave him a look. “I’m not kidding!” he laughed. “From drawing to writing to music, just about everyone in my family is an artist in some regard.” He looked down at his phone to keep typing as he continued. “There are underwater arts for sure, but why limit ourselves when we don’t have to?”
She supposed that made sense. Even before they started talking, Chloé had known by observation alone that Nathaniel couldn’t go anywhere without his sketch book. She had never seen him so distressed as those rare days when he forgot it at home—not even his stress over telling her the truth could compare. And everyone and their mother knew Nino always had a pair of headphones on him; she hadn’t even seen him without music. Their house was full of arts and crafts varying from pottery to papier mâché, there was always music of some sort playing from somewhere in the house, and Chloé couldn’t even picture Nathaniel’s mother without a pen tucked behind her ear; it seemed just as attached as her red hair.
“Do you have any family that don’t live on land?”
He shrugged, still typing. “Probably some distant family, but no one we keep in contact with.”
“Who are you texting?”
He looked up again and smiled upon seeing her confused expression. “Just Marinette.”
“Why?” Was it wrong of her to feel a slight pang of jealousy? Would the topic of Marinette ever stop being a sore spot for her?
Two more seconds to finish typing, then he closed his phone and tossed it off to the side with the rest of their stuff. “There’s a friend of hers that I want you to meet.”
“What? Why? Who is it?”
“Don’t worry about it.” She gave him another look. He just smiled in that way that was absolutely unfair. “You’ll see.”
“But—,”
“You’re welcome to keep watching,” he interrupted, voice muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head, “but I am going to fully undress.” He turned around and knelt down by his backpack, stuffing the shirt inside. Long strands of tangled red hair lay across his back that fell down by his face as he leaned forward, baring his shoulder.
Baring the flowers.
They were perfect, down to every little detail. The shape, the design, even the tiny little errors she had nitpicked long ago. All those years, she couldn’t understand how he could think she was his soulmate; not when her own tattoo was so clear. But looking at the flowers in that moment, she couldn’t conceive of anyone not reaching that conclusion.
It was so very specifically Marinette’s design on his shoulder.
“Chloé?”
She looked up again, realizing that while she had been scrutinizing the tattoo, he had stood up, half turned to her, and maybe even said something. Now with his hands paused at the button of his jeans, he was looking at her with that snarky smile again.
“This is your last chance if you want to turn around.”
“...Right,” she eventually said. Her feet still stuck in the mud, she simply faced forward so she was staring out at the horizon again. “Sorry.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” she lied.
“Let me rephrase.” His voice was getting closer. With a gentle hand on her back, he came around to her side to look at her face. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t meet his eyes, intent on watching a piece of seaweed float along the surface of the water out past the break. “Nothing. It’s stupid.”
“I don’t care.”
She rolled her head back with a pout. “No, Nathaniel, that’s where you’re supposed to say, ‘don’t be silly, Chloé, whatever’s bothering you can’t be stupid.’”
“I’m not going to lie to you.” She backhanded his stomach and he laughed, catching her hand to hold it in both of his. “Come on,” he said gently. He lifted her hand and she finally looked to watch as he pressed a soft kiss to her wrist—to her tattoo. There may be nothing technically different about it as compared to his lips anywhere else on her skin, but that specific kiss had her weak. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She stared at him—stared at the tender, welcoming, reassuring way that he looked at her. That way that made her feel safe speaking her feelings for once in her life.
She sighed. “I don’t like that it’s Marinette’s design on your shoulder,” she finally admitted, her eyes focused on the tattoo she couldn’t see, but knew all too well would always be there on the other side of his back.
Seeing those flowers was seeing two whole years of watching her soulmate happy with someone else. Two long years of convincing herself to give up on ever being with her soulmate because she had managed to lose him before he was even hers. Two bleak years of knowing that she was one of those people who didn’t end up with their soulmate, and wondering if she would be lucky enough to ever find love with someone else. Two years, culminated in three pink flowers and a vine of twelve leaves etched into her soulmate’s skin.
Nathaniel moved to stand directly in front of her, warm palms cupping the sides of her face to make sure she looked at him as he spoke the words she may never stop needing to hear. “I’m your soulmate.”
She rolled her eyes as if hearing him say it didn’t mean everything to her. “I know; that’s why I said it was stupid.”
Even if it had only been a few months, he already apparently knew not to trust her nonchalance. His thumbs stroked gently across her cheeks. “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”
She leaned her cheek into the warmth of his hold. “I know.” Her hands came to settle on his hips and she leveled her gaze with his, meeting those genuine apologetic, remorseful eyes. “Promise you’ll spend the rest of your life making it up to me.”
A soft smile on soft lips. His fingers weaved up into her hair, thumbs settling on the edges of her jaw as he moved in. “I promise.”
By now she had lost count of how many times they had kissed. That didn’t mean that she was used to it. Nathaniel liked to cradle her head when he kissed her—whether that was her cheek nestled safely in the warmth of his palm or her head held with care in the strength of his fingers. He poured his everything into every kiss, always kissing her with the utmost passion and feeling and warmth. Like she was his whole world when they kissed; like nothing else existed but the two of them in those brief moments that their lips touch.
She was never kissed in such a way that she didn’t feel absolutely cherished with him. Secure.
“I’m yours, Chloé Bourgeois,” he whispered, putting the perfect words to a kiss like that. She wondered if she would ever get to a point where hearing him affirm that didn’t strike her to her core.
“You’re so overdramatic,” she whispered back. “Using my full name, kissing me like it’s the end of the world.”
Her eyes weren’t open, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “Maybe I’m still afraid it’ll be the last.”
“Keep doubting me like that and it will be.”
He chuckled and the sound was warmer than the sun above. “Or maybe I’m just still savoring the fact that a kiss can feel like that.”
“Whatever the reason,” she opened her eyes and found his right there waiting for her, “never stop.”
Would she ever get used to that bright, beautiful, beaming smile?
Another kiss—just one more slow, perfect, calming, centering, breathtaking, mind clearing, soul completing kiss. Nathaniel’s kiss.
As if to remind them where they were and why they were there, a particularly large wave washed up on shore, pushing water further up on her legs than before and no doubt soaking the cuffs of Nathaniel’s jeans. “Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, a nervous and excited flutter in her chest.
