The Boy In The Coffin

Unbecoming

Notes: Hey, thanks for joining me here ^^ as stated in the description, this is a story that comes from ao3 (ryn735) that I decided to post here as well. I hope you all enjoy and please support the original work on ao3!

I lost myself into the night

And I flew higher

Than I had ever, but I still felt small

I clipped my wings and fell from flight

To open water

And floated farther away from myself

And I swam in the wakes of imposters

Just to feel what it's like to pretend

There's no dreams in the waves, only monsters

And the monsters are my only friends

They're all that I was

And never could be

Eyes in the dead still water

Tried but it pushed back harder

Cauterized and atrophied

This is my unbecoming

—Unbecoming- Starset

"Marinette?" Sabine's airy voice drifts up the stairs to the young woman's attic bedroom. It sounds cautious, as per usual this past week, as if she were to speak any more firmly, she might risk shattering her poor daughter into pieces.

Her room is dark to ward off the splitting headaches, so when Marinette peels open her eyes, she's welcomed by a comforting gloom that enwraps itself to her. Across the room where her window sits, amber rays slice through the tiny gaps in the curtains, creating a dull light. "I'm awake," she calls back with gravel in her throat. She can't hear it, but Marinette just knows her mom has sighed in relief to hear her response.

"Oh, good," her mother replies. "I made some breakfast for you if you'd like. Oatmeal."

That's pretty much all it's been lately. Oatmeal, toast with butter on it, anything light that won't upset her stomach. It's getting a little old, Marinette thinks, there's almost no point in even eating it. But through her despair, there's still a desire within her to keep her mother happy and assured.

"I'll be down, Mom. Thank you."

The young woman lets her eyes slip shut again when she hears her mother's footsteps tapping farther from the stairway. She lets herself marinate in the darkness as she prepares to get up, she could let herself go back to sleep like this. Her eyelids feel so heavy, and her bed has finally begun to comfort her body without making her feel like she's lying on a bed of nails, those nails being the pricks of anxiety keeping her up at night. With a sigh, she forces herself from her blanket's beckoning warmth. As soon as her skin leaves the covers, a chill goes down her neck, making her want to curl back up. Still, Marinette pulls her body from her loft bed and heads down the ladder, walking past her Miraculous that's been sitting on her desk for about a week now. As she arrives downstairs, Marinette finds her way to the steaming bowl of oatmeal that her mother mentioned and then sits down in front of it.

"Hey, honey," Marinette's burly yet soft-spoken father greets from the kitchen. "How'd you sleep?" he asks.

"Good." The one-word responses always hurt hearing them from his little chatterbox. It's hard to maintain conversation with her now, and even a bit awkward to attempt to start it after her abrupt replies always made her seem like she just didn't want to speak at all.