A Red Candle

Chapter 1: Kitty Alone

Prompt: You're injured. Please stay the night. Please.

Adrien was excited – and if he was being honest, nervous – for tonight's dinner.

On this day before his mother's disappearance, they had celebrated his father's birthday by going out to a fancy restaurant. They would always reserve a VIP room for three where they would talk about anything behind closed doors. He remembered his mother laughing, nodding her head back, and keeping the conversation going while his father would chime in with a couple of puns here and there. Adrien and Emilie always laughed at the puns, even if they were completely over-the-top. Gabriel always gave a little smirk. Then his mother would turn back the conversation to Adrien's fencing and Chinese lessons. Then, when conversation moved onto philosophy, Adrien would just sit back and watch as the dynamic flipped. Gabriel would take the lead, having full blown speeches about how a proper person should live, while Emilie danced around the topic. She didn't seem to, in Adrien's eyes, completely take in what Gabriel had to say on the matter as her own, but also saw no reason to change his view. Adrien would question whether all proper men had to own a suit, but he would let his father talk, because it was not usually a common sight that he was talking so much. By the time he was done, the workers had to remind them that the restaurant was closing in ten minutes.

He missed those days. After his mother had disappeared, a lot had changed. She had been the glue, and without the glue, the whole family drifted apart. He didn't know what his relationship with his father was anymore; his father was distant with him, as he had always been, but now it was as if he was actively trying to tell Adrien that his presence did not matter to him. Gabriel was now eating more in his office everyday – the one of two places that Adrien was not allowed in – and he had become even more involved in his son's career. Before, Adrien had done just a few small modeling gigs for his father once a week or so. Now, his face was plastered on every wall of Paris. As Adrien got bigger and bigger professionally, thanks to the help of his father, the more it seemed as if Gabriel only cared about what Adrien could produce instead of what he was.

Not wanting to lose his father as well, Adrien tried his best to please Gabriel, but now more than ever it seemed that Gabriel was never going to be satisfied.

So today was very important – for him and his father. It was the chance to set things right between them, or at least make things better. He hoped that his gift would make his father happy – he had agonized over it for months and dreaded the possibility that he couldn't get anything special for him, until Plagg had found something a week ago that was sure to make his father smile. He was hopeful that things would go right, but there was also an inner tugging in his gut that said this wasn't going to be the case.

He hoped the former was right.

It was now six o'clock. Adrien ran happily from his bed to the door, expecting the car to be just outside. He grabbed the doorknob when –

"You are not going out with your father for dinner tonight, Adrien," Nathalie said from behind.

Adrien felt like the world had collapsed upon him.

"You will be eating with him inside."

The color came back to Adrien's face, and the monochromatic colors of his house never looked warmer.

"Thank you, Nathalie!" Adrien smiled his biggest smile ever. Even if they couldn't go to the restaurant, Adrien would make the most of it. He gripped his present that was just big enough for his hand to hold onto for comfort.

Adrien still had his smile as he now sat with his father at the family dinner table. But the smile was getting harder and harder to maintain; he tried his best to ignore the coldness he felt from the spoon, the hot soup, and the tablecloth, but it wasn't working. Every corner of his body was shaking.