Prompt: Decorated Streets

The sudden silence was deafening; only causing Marinette to replay Adrien's words time and time again. She needed to get him to strike up a conversation once more, or she was going to go insane.

'I could kiss you right now!'

She needed a distraction; something else to focus on. Marinette placed the two sleeping kwamis back into her bag and made sure they were tucked in, Plagg hugging onto Tikki and letting out intermittent purrs.

Happy with the kwamis position, Marinette placed the bag in the footwell once more, sitting up and looking through the windscreen at the build up of snow.

...And there it was again, as soon as she caught him in her peripheral vision her mind was replaying his last words to her.

He'd said he wanted to kiss her. Adrien wanted to kiss her. It's just a shame he had carried on talking after that. The words kicking her hard in the gut and dimming any hope she'd built in her mind.

'on the cheek of course. It would be really weird if we kissed on the lips... again, because it's not like we're a couple or anything, we're just friends.'

Oh, how she wanted to take that 'just friends' and shove it up his ass.

"Have I said something?" Adrien's voice sounded pained, and as angry as she was feeling — and confused — she couldn't take it out on him. Even if he didn't want her the way she wanted him it wouldn't be fair to be angry at him, he didn't owe her anything.

"No, of course not, I was just thinking about the others." The lie rolled off her tongue in a way she wasn't proud of. After so many years of lies and twisted truths, she could give Lila a run for her money.

"Yeah, I hope they're alright. Have you heard from Alya again at all?"

Marinette leaned forward to grab her phone, checking to see if any messages had sneaked through as their signal fluctuated with each kilometre.

"Nope, nothing. I'm going to guess that no news is good news though. Right?"

"Sure." Adrien flicked on the signal, following the path around to the right and, finally, into some sort of civilisation.

The next section of the road seemed to be scattered sporadically with houses. Each displaying sparkling lights ready for Christmas adding to the atmosphere and the snow surrounding them. The lights twisted and twirled around trees and hung from rooftops, the flickering lights the only illumination on the dark, winding road. It was beautiful and suddenly, just from a turn of a corner, Marinette felt like she'd entered some kind of Christmas movie.

The houses down the road leading into, what they suspected, was going to be the Main Street were frosted in the most beautiful and dazzling decorations. From reindeer in front gardens, to twinkling fairy lights in the trees, this place was nothing less than magical.

"Oh wow!"

Marinette looked over at Adrien, his face expressing the exact same elation as she felt. His eyes were wide and his body relaxed as he guided them slowly over the tire tracked roads of the snow covered streets. She understood what it meant now when people said some adults were like a kid at Christmas time, because that was exactly how her partner was behaving right now.

He was glowing, and for someone who was known as sunshine on Earth that was quite the skill. "You look so happy." The words came out without a second thought, her gaze on Adrien causing her to just spew out the words suddenly forming in her head – her Adrien filled head.

"I am," he said, continuing to follow the navigation system and turning down another house lined lane. The lights were gaining brightness, Marinette checking the directions and noticing they were getting closer and closer to the centre of this quiet and quaint little town. The town which, hopefully, housed their sanctuary.

Adrien suddenly let out a startling laugh. "We get into some mischief together don't we?"

"That's a random thought, Kitty."

"I know, it's just... it's always me and you. It's like the world just wants us to be put into positions to try and survive."

"Survive?" Marinette chortled. "Isn't that a little extreme?"

Adrien began to laugh along with her. She had no idea why he was suddenly being so dramatic. "Not really," he began, "I have literally died for you on multiple occasions."

Like she'd been thrown out the vehicle into the snow, her whole body chilled. She did not need this reminder, they were having fun — out on this new adventure — the last thing she wanted was to be reminded about was the fact Adrien usually ceased to exist more often than not when they were on their little adventures.

As though sensing her change in mood, Adrien reached over to take her hand in his. "I'm so sorry, that was an awful joke. Please forgive me."

"It's okay," her voice low and barely heard over the stuttering of the battling wiper-blades. "It's just something I don't like to think about since we revealed. I find it hard to understand that it's you who constantly sacrifices himself for me. It's easy to think Chat Noir does it, he's a hero after all, but you're just Adrien. No offence."

"No offence? Really? I'm only a superhero you know." Adrien said.

"Oh, this is coming out very, very wrong." She pulled her hand from Adrien's and fisted them both, placing them on her forehead. "I just don't like the idea of never seeing Adrien again, where I know I can save Chat Noir... you know what, forget I said anything."

Silence once again encompassed the van, Adrien continuing to drive at a normal speed as Marinette mentally gave herself a 'good talking to'. There's no way he'd understand what she was saying, after all she didn't understand herself; all she knew was losing Adrien was not an option.

"Well, this is awkward." Plagg suddenly appeared from the confines of Marinette's bag, hovering between them.

"Plagg!" Adrien scolded.

"What? It's Christmas and you two are talking about morbid things. Get the music back on, Pigtails, let's try and lighten the mood."

Marinette snickered and grabbed her phone; for once she would fully agree with the little mischief maker.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but he's right, you know." Adrien announced, Marinette nodding in response, only to realise that Adrien couldn't see her.

"I agree." Scrolling through the Christmas playlist she landed on one of her favourites.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

As the opening bars began to play, Adrien made one more turn and brought them onto the Main Street, and she swore she'd never seen anything more wonderful. The music added to the ambiance of the scene as Adrien cruised the van down the middle of the abandoned street. The build up of perfectly festive houses had been incredible but nothing could have prepared them for this.

"Where are we?" she asked.

Moving forward, Marinette began to mess around with the screen, zooming in on the locations and looking for possible names.

"Will you leave that alone?" Adrien muttered, tapping Marinette's hand out the way.

"I'm just trying to find out where we are, it'd be nice to come back here next year." She stretched again, zooming in on the screen to find their location, only to have her hand smacked away from the screen once again.

"Marinette, please leave it alone. I don't know where we're going."

"Kid, there's one road. I'm quite sure it's straight down here, and I agree with Pigtails, I think we should find out where we are. Tikki would love to see this place." Plagg said, flying to sit on the dashboard. It was everything Tikki stood for and Marinette's heart went out to the poor kwami who, at the moment, was fast asleep in her bag.

"How is the little bug?" Adrien asked, once again moving forward to look more closely out of the window, Marinette giving her attention to her bag.

"She's not well, Kid, it's going to take a while to get her back on track."

Marinette steadily picked up her bag, checking in on Tikki. The little red bug was fast asleep in a tightly curled up ball, slight snoring and a strong dithering taking over her body, a clear sign of the poor kwami's condition.

"She'd love this place."

Marinette looked out the window once more, gazing at the garlands wrapping up the street lamps, the snowflake patterns appearing crystal clear as they fell past the yellow glowing lights.

Then there were the shops.

Each vicinity had gone above and beyond in their window displays and door decorations, this really was stunning. The darkness inside some of the shops only added to the feel of the village. Obviously everyone had headed home away from the storm and to be safe with their families. No big corporations demanding them to stay open and milk the holiday tourists of all their hard earned cash.

Resting her elbow on the edge of the doorframe, she fisted a hand underneath her chin, her eyes firmly looking out the window. She was happy to be here and made a mental note to come back at different seasons. The quaint little village looked gorgeous, the old buildings packed together and brightly coloured – unique compared to the high rise jungle of Paris. Her dreams began to run away from her, images of herself and Adrien walking hand in hand down the street as they drank a coffee from one of the small independent cafés.

"Thank you." Adrien's voice broke through her thoughts causing her to turn her head to look at her partner.

"Pardon?"

"I just wanted to say thank you. I know this isn't ideal, but I'm really grateful for you agreeing to this. I've been looking forward to the trip for so long and after the akuma this morning I really thought we'd be missing out again." He sighed and her heart broke. " I always seem to miss out."

Shuffling around in her seat, she stretched out to hold his hand, taking it from the steering wheel and into hers resting them down on his thigh. He slowed the car to a crawl, his hand squeezing hers in response to the action.

"Adrien, anything you feel you've missed out on or want to do, please let me know and I promise we can do it."

"Really?"

"Sure. It can be part of your Christmas present."

Adrien snorted and quickly glanced over in her direction. "Cheap skate! And there's me thinking you'd make me a matching hat for my scarf. What a let down!"

Marinette laughed too, attempting to pull her hand from his when all of a sudden she realised what he had just said.

"S-scarf? I've never... What do you mean? Scarf?"

"When you were asleep the other day, Tikki may have dropped you in it." She tried to pull her hand away again, only for Adrien to lift it to his lips and place a gentle kiss to the back. "You're wonderful, Marinette, do you know that? I'm so lucky to have someone so special in my life."

Marinette opened her mouth to respond, her heart hammering in her chest to question if his words meant more. Oh, she wanted them to. She wanted them to mean so, so much more.

Her mind quickly raced through what she could say to him; a way to ask him if his feelings were the same as hers. Should she tell him she thinks he's special too? Or maybe she should just outright tell him she was head over heels in love with him? Opening her mouth, her decision was made. It was time.

"Adrien, I —"

'Take the next left.'

The navigation system broke the moment like a ball through a pane of glass, shattering the atmosphere and killing off Marinette's declaration.

Once again, her timing was against her and she couldn't help but wonder would she ever be able to tell Adrien how she felt?