This story is based on the episode "Bad Little Boy." It picks up right after Marceline's story ends and Fionna goes of screen

I do not own "Adventure Time".

*SMACK*

"GAH! You got my eye that time!" Marshall Lee rubbed his eye in pain, at the same time fending off another attack from the petite yet surprisingly strong girl in a white bunny hat. Fionna loomed over him, eyes still a little misty from before, but instead of sadness he was met with an intense glare that he was all too familiar with whenever his jokes went a little too far.

"Glob, Marshall, do you always have to pull stunts like that?! You really had me going that time!" She tried hitting him again, this time the vampire king caught her fist before it made another welt on his already swelling face.

"I'm sorry, girl, I couldn't resist! I didn't even plan it, that spear got me completely by accident. I had to roll with it, it was the perfect opportunity!" She looked at him for a few seconds, then with a tired sigh she flopped down on the ground next to him.

Fionna's reaction was much different than he had expected. He tried to remember a time he ever saw his blonde companion so worked up over any of his past pranks. Not even when he hid poison ivy in her sleeping bag. Granted, he hadn't faked anyone's death that time.

They laid their motionless, watching the sky turn pinker and lighter with the rising sun. Puzzled and a bit uncomfortable, the vampire king said nothing, letting the stillness linger as time passed. Finally he felt her stir. Acting as if he hadn't noticed, Marshall continued to fix his gaze on the sky, resisting the urge to look at his best friend.

"I'm just glad you're alive." She let out slowly.

A pang of guilt went through his chest. Or at least what he imagined guilt must feel like. In the time that Marshall became the most feared being in all of Aaa no one had ever made him feel much of anything, let alone the amount of contempt for himself that those few words caused. He gave up his act and turned to face her. Several emotions flickered across her features that he couldn't recognize because as soon as his body was fully turned the little adventuress buried her face into Marshall's chest, locking her arms tightly around his waist. The feeling of her warm body against his cold frame sent shivers up his spine, stunning him momentarily. He had never been so close to Fionna in all the years that they've known each other. He noticed the way her gold hair caught the morning light. With no space between them he could feel how soft and round her body was, and how small she really was compared to him. It was oddly comfortable. He breathed in the grassy, earthy scent of her tree fort home coming off her blonde hair, a smell he never imagined himself finding so pleasant. As if some invisible force had grabbed a hold of him, Marshall's arms found their way around her body, completing the embrace. Currents surged through his interior, moving and swirling back and forth through places that had been empty for a long time.

Something happened in the vampire. Something he would fiercely regret in the future. Something he wouldn't be aware of until that time. But in that moment Marshall Lee was as oblivious as he was mischievous as a smirk pulled up the corners of his mouth.

"I'm not really 'alive' you know. I wasn't even 'dying' really. More like re-dying." As fast as a switch flip Fionna found her head out of Marshall's shirt and met his smiling eyes, and narrowed her still shining blue ones as her friend let out a long chuckle. The vampire floated up to his feet, taking the blonde with him and setting her down on the ground. She gave him a slight push, fighting to keep a scowl as a smile tried to work its way onto her features. Marshall Lee flashed his signature lopsided grin, placing his hands in his pocket and shrugging his shoulders, as if gesturing with his body that it couldn't be helped.

"C'mon," she wiped her eyes and said, "It's past your bedtime." The adventuress turned a bit so her back faced him, lifting off the flap of her green backpack. On command Marshall shifted his body into its bat form and climbed in just as he felt the back of his neck begin to sizzle in the daylight.

"You know, one of these days I'm gonna get tired of all the pranks and stop hanging out with you" she said as she mounted Cakes back.

"Suuuure, says the girl who made a lumpin' pranking robot. You know you love me" said Marshall from the inside of her bag. He could almost hear Fionna's eyes roll.

Cake expanded her body and limbs and propelled the trio high into the air. In no time they were well on their way to Marshall's cave bachelor pad. The vampire king could faintly hear an excited Cake go on about her performance the night before, catching the words "potato" and "genius" before he began to drift off in thought.

What a girl he commented to himself, she might be able to take on an entire goblin hoard, but she can be such a cry baby. Teasing her is too easy. Still, that guilty feeling from before continued to linger. The whole situation escalated so quickly on its own. What else was he supposed to do, let that golden opportunity get away? If anything, Marshall Lee never missed a chance to show off his brilliantly clever, and more often than not, obnoxious personality. Especially when it came to Fionna, who always provided him with an excuse. Just by being her. Always energetic and spunky, plus the naivety that came with her age.

She was asking for it! Who is she to tell me 'nobody messes with Cake'. I do as I please; I am the Vampire King! He felt his chest begin to swell and teeth sharpen in pride. It took him a second to realize he was slowly morphing into his monster form. His eyes widened in realization and he immediately pushed it down and shrunk back to normal.

Gob, am I always like this? Lighten up, dude. He said to himself. What's wrong with me today? I'm turning into a chick, I'm so moody. Maybe worse. A certain gummy pink face came to memory and a shudder went through his body. Marshall shook his head and leaned back against what appeared to be the Enchiridion, a staple item the adventuress always had on her. He looked around and took in his surroundings. He recognized a few items right away; a magnifying glass, compass, a few shurikens, some paper scraps, and the dulcimer Cake loved to play. Something else caught his eye, so insignificant he probably wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't so familiar. Sticking out from behind Cake's instrument was a small shiny but fading piece of photo paper. Marshall leaned over and pulled it from behind the wood, carefully keeping the aging scrap from tearing. When he finally got it loose, it took him a few seconds to realize what he was looking at. Two small familiar eyes gazed back at him, shining and bright with youth. He looked lower and saw a small button nose, and two lips turned up exposing a toothy grin. Black wavy hair framed slightly pudgy cheeks, with a rosy olive complexion. His mouth opened in shock.

"That's…me." Though it was torn and yellow, there was no denying the uncanny resemblance. He had almost forgotten about this picture. Its memory had been completely put out of his mind until it resurfaced a couple months ago. He went back into his memory, when the leaves started to change and the weather got increasingly chilly. They had just gotten back from going on an adventure in the East Woods. Marshall Lee and Fionna had decided they were done messing with pixies and went back to Marshall's place for a jam session. The blonde was busy setting up the tape recorder while Marshall went hunting for some choice lyrics.

"I know they're here somewhere" he said as he went through the pile of journals and assorted papers on his writing desk.

"Maybe you would find them sooner if you weren't such a slob" the girl retorted.

"Oh whatever," he said with a role of his eyes, "have you seen your room lately? Aren't chicks supposed to be the tidy ones?" He felt something bounce off his back and snickered in victory. At that time he had resorted to looking through the drawers, giving up the search on the desktop. After a minute he heard footsteps approach from behind and saw Fionna's head peak up over his shoulder.

"Here, let me help." She proceeded to go through a different set of drawers and pull out a few sheets of paper.

"Is this it?" She held out a piece scribbled with Marshall's distinctive handwriting. Without looking up he continued to rummage through the bottom of another drawer.

"No, wait, it's in this book right…here! Ye-heah." With a flourish the vampire held up the leather-bound journal in triumph. He hovered over to where the blonde was standing and briefly looked over the page in her hand.

"But we'll use this too." He took it from her and floated over to their set up. Fionna started to push all the open drawers back in one by one. It took her awhile to get the last one to close, probably because it was so old and filled with too much of Marshall's junk. With one final push she got the thing to budge, having to use a little extra force. In the corner of her eye she saw something come popping out right before the drawer closed shut, jarred loose from the extra air her efforts had produced.

"Hey, Marshie, what's this?"

"Hu-what?" He was in the middle of tuning his axe base when he heard Fionna call to him. He raised his head slightly, not wanting to look away from what he was doing.

"Is this…you?!" She was holding the picture up to her face, trying to make out the details through the cloudy film the years had coated it in. It was incredibly small, probably just a piece from a larger picture. She was able to make out a younger version of Marshall, probably only about four or five years old. He still had a few missing teeth giving gaps in his smile, which he certainly didn't seem to be ashamed to show. He was wearing a pair of blue, or at least she thought it was blue, overalls and an oversized tee shirt. His arms were to his sides, to make space for the two other figures flanking him. Fionna wasn't able to see their faces or even the outer edges of their bodies, probably a part of the other piece out there somewhere. She could tell that both figures wrapped their arms behind the little boy, one probably male and female now that she looked closer. She could see a section of flowing raven colored hair on the figure to the left, reaching chest length. The adventuress wasn't sure what to make of it. She had never seen a picture so noticeably old first of all, let alone a picture of Marshall Lee.

"What do you-" he looked up and finally realized what exactly his friend was holding. He was next to her in an instant, grabbing the scrap out of her hand.

"Oh…yeah. That's me." Just like that, the vampire king flung the photo over his shoulder as if it were a gum wrapper and went back to what he was doing before. Fionna grabbed it out of the air and continued to stand there staring at it, shocked by his nonchalant reaction. Had that been a picture of her, the human girl would have gone crazy trying to look for the missing piece and finding anything else like it. But not him, not Marshall.

"That's it? Just, 'oh,yeah.'?"

"I said, 'that's me', too."

"You know what I mean!" She crossed her arms puffed out her cheeks in frustration. His attitude was starting to get irritating.

"I don't see why you're making such a big deal about it. It's just me and my parents. Big whoop." He started to test out different chords and sing lyrics to them quietly under his breath. Fionna's mouth opened wider, not believing what she just heard.

"Are you kidding me?! Parents? What, wh-"

"Just drop it, ok?!" The sharp edge in his voice took the girl aback. He looked straight at her. His eyes, cold and unreadable, were starting to get a red tint around the irises. She knew him well enough to know that meant he was genuinely getting angry. When he saw her take a half step back Marshall's face changed immediately, reverting back to his normal non-serious expression.

"C'mon, let's just forget about it, ok? I was meaning to throw out all the junk in those drawers anyway, so you can toss that out too. Let's just do the song, cool?"

He thought she had listened to him that time because the photo was never brought up again and they acted like it never happened. Seeing it now Marshall realized she probably stuffed it away at the first opportunity.

Shoulda figured. She's always getting into people's biz trying to help and stuff. She never learns. He flung the picture somewhere deep into the bag. He made a point of not bringing up his past, especially about her. He couldn't even bring it up to himself let alone other people. Let alone Fionna, the girl who tries to save everything and everyone.

Why would she even want this anyway? Why does she care so much? The question bothered him, but the vampire king couldn't bring himself to think about it further. Suddenly he felt extremely exhausted, tired down to his bones. Marshall felt his eyes begin to get heavy and droop. He probably would have fallen asleep if his ride didn't abruptly stop. He felt Cake shrink and Fionna dismount, swing her bag over her shoulder and pop the flap open. The vampire flew out and morphed back into his normal body hovering slightly over the ground in front of the two sisters.

"Thanks for taking me out tonight, dude. I had fun, even if the last part was a little intense." He gave her a tired half smile and ruffled up her bangs.

"Anytime, kiddo. You too, kitty." He tried to do the same to Cake but she shrunk back before he could touch her, narrowing her eyes at him. He laughed slightly and turned towards his door, floating into the threshold and was about to close it when Fionna's voice called out to him.

"Be careful, ok? I don't want to lose you forreal." He stopped for a second, then closed the door all the way without another word. Hardly able to keep his feet off the ground the vampire went through the living room up the stairs, barely able to keep his eyes open. He flopped on his queen size bed fully clothed, ready to just forget about everything and leave the day behind. He blinked for the final time and let his exhaustion over take him, but not before he got a final whiff of a familiar lingering grassy scent.