Cuddling In A Cave

by HVK

A Marceline/Bubblegum/Finn one-shot; stuck in a cave with a blizzard during bonding time, Marceline cuddles up with Finn and Bubblegum and has some thoughts about their odd romance. But mostly cuddling.

Because Fubbleline, as a OT3 shipping, needs more love. Big time.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything I don't own. Very comprehensive as a disclaimer, that, though it almost certainly relies on circular logic.

...

Marceline remembered, distantly, what it was like to be cold, well and truly cold until the absence of heat wound into your bones and sapped the will to move from your legs and tore you into little bits from the inside out, and even though it had been a long long time ago when it was an actual physical danger for her, it was still unpleasant and the reason she had dressed as warmly as Finn and Bubblegum had for their little friendship-slash-romance bonding trip into the mountains for whatever obscure reason Finn had for thinking that would have been a good idea.

The bonding, yes, that was something Marceline approved of so intently that she would have likely dragged them somewhere remote if their schedules had otherwise conflicted. But going into the mountains when it was ordinarily cold and having such horrible timing that they had to seek shelter from a blizzard would have been a mood killer if the current mood wasn't already shaping up to be a pretty nice one anyway.

And even so, it still took her a while of watching Finn and Bubblegum preparing the little circular cave they had found on the mountain-side to shelter themselves in while a blizzard stormed outside like it had a grudge against them (and proving that the next time they had a hankering to do something exciting and bond and stuff, that while Finn had the best ideas he shouldn't be the one to plan them because they kept ending up going the wrong way around a mountain in the middle of winter during the annual migration of storm-sneezing yeti-trolls), to realize that that it was cold enough to make them that painful degree of coldness if they hadn't already had a decent fire going in the cave, been wrapped up or barricaded the cavemouth with all the available things they could locate (including, inexplicably, a crate of fold-out insulation barriers right in the back of the cave; this was either the biggest contrived coincidence Marceline had seen in a while or...no, it was clearly a contrived coincidence and that bugged Bubblegum a lot for some reason). By then, they had already done most of the work themselves, and Marceline saw no reason to stop her glorious routine of being lazy when they were doing all the work for her.

But she was so distracted by the absurdly cute sight of Finn and Bubblegum wrapped themselves up in big poofy cold-weather-proof sleeping bag that made them look like big adorable caterpillars, and the very powerful thought that making Finn or Bubblegum look more adorable than usual was pretty impressive and her heart started to beat, warming her skin and putting a faint flush to her skin that turned the blue into a marginally healthier gray, and lost complete track of what she had been thinking about earlier. Their cuteness had a profound effect on her mind.

So, as a result of her forgetting what she had been thinking about and therefore forgetting that they were getting cold, she noticed them sitting over by the fire and shivering and making Marceline feel vaugely that she ought to be shivering too to make the whole 'doing everything as a trio' thing a complete experience, and realized that she probably should have been paying more attention. (That would have only led to more blatant ogling the other two, which she felt was a pleasant thought.) "What was that all about?"

Bubblegum glanced curiously at her, crouching near to the fire. "What was what about?" She asked, seemingly oblivous to Finn sitting a respectful distance from her and plainly wanting to move closer even with his attention fixed on Marceline, and Marceline found that interesting. Postioned near Bubblegum, his princess-crush and at the same time he was watching Marceline like she was a riddle that he was trying so hard to know, his attention divided with equal and enormous energy on the two girls in such a way that she just knew there was no preference or favoritism, and even with a degree of bemused happiness. (He really knew how to multitask, Marceline thought with a faint smirk.)

With that in mind, Marceline tilted her head and started thoughtfully at Finn, the younger boy (but not that much younger, at least physically, she thought; his last birthday six months ago had been his...what? Fifteenth? Sixteeth? She felt a faint sense that she really ought to know) squirming a bit at being the focus of her intensity (not the least because of their recent surge in...familiarity, and him learning how intense her focus really could be) and being close to Bubblegum but not as close to either girl as he wanted, and Marceline didn't realize that Bubblegum was saying something until the pink demi-human leaned in near Finn with such suddeness that Finn toppled over in suprise. Bubblegum poked an arm out of her sleeping bag and pulled him back into a sitting position without ever needing to look at him, so precise and experienced that Marceline amused herself with the thought that Bubblegum knew him so well that she didn't have to see him to know his precise condition. And anyway, Bubblegum spent the whole time giving her an indignant look. "Marceline?" Bubblegum said, almost irritably. "Are you listening?"

"Yo," Marceline said, waving at her. "I am now, that you're in the way of the eye candy. No offense. What's up?"

"I was asking you what you were talking about. Asking something and then drifting out is symptomatic of poor attention spans!"

"What was that about attention spans?" Finn said. Before Bubblegum could answer, his attention switched to a multifacted rock at the top of the ceiling, breaking through the rock and refracting the light from the campfire in a muted but pretty awesome lightshow if you happened to stare at it. "OH MY GLOB, SOMETHING SHINY."

"Finn, focus please?" Bubblegum said. "On the other hand, you did help prove my point."

"Cool," Finn said. He frowned, thinking about it. "...Hey!"

"Oh," Marceline said. "Yeah, I remember now. You guys were all like..." She made a vauge gesture at the blankets they had laid down around the campfire, the barricade at the cavemouth and the various other measures the two of them had made. "Yeah, doing all that stuff. You had a whole thing with doing that stuff. I forget what's up with that."

"Seriously?" Finn looked bemused. "Marcie, it's cold! Had to make it warm and junk or we'd get all frozen and dead and stuff." He tilted his head, thinking about it, and added, "Uh, I'd get frozen and dead and stuff. You'd, I dunno, probably just be a little uncomfortable, and Peebles...uh, yeah, I dunno about her either. She'd probably freeze but I don't think it'd be dangerous or anything." He looked down at himself and frowned. "Lousy squishy humanity! What'd you ever do for me, huh? Nothin', that's what."

"We're plenty squishy too," Marceline said dryly, raising an eyebrow and smirking at Finn. "Or haven't you gotten a good look at us girls yet?" She added, hoping he'd realize the innuendo in her statement.

Finn straightened up, and Marceline had enough time staring at his face before he turned away to see the faint blue in his face was supplemented by a fresh influx of red. It gave him a pretty interesting look complexion for a little bit. Unfortunately (or not) he chose to look in Bubblegum's direction, and while he had grown a fair bit since his preteen years, he was still fairly short. Sitting down, he was at a good height to be looking straight at the outer swell of Bubblegum's insulated jacket. It was hardly revealing or flattering (which only made sense), but it was the principle of the matter, and he had a few blinkered moments of self-reflection before he turned around in a hurry, and Marceline had a good look at his face before he turned to see that he was blushing even redder, expression set into a humbled grimace that suggested he was totally convinced that the universe had way too much fun messing with him.

Bubblegum favored him with a gentle smile. "I think that counts as a 'yes' to Marceline's question," she said helpfully. Finn straighted up and looked straight at the ceiling, quite deliberately not making eye contact with anyone. Bubblegum chuckled good-naturedly and muttered something about silly boys and sillier women.

Marceline considered pushing it further and see just how outrageously embarassed she could push Finn until he did something even funnier or significant (like, say, accidentally declaring his love and loyalty for both Marceline and Bubblegum in the middle of a rambling defensive speech, which was a mental image that proved incredibly persistent when Marceline was dozing off to sleep nowadays in spite of how mushy it was) and decided that she ought to shelf the whole thing until she could think of something really funny to do with it. Teasing had it's perks, but she treasured the really memorable things that came from proper planning.

Marceline had a rare self-reflective moment, studying that last inner sentence in the confines of her own head from every angle and concluded that she could apply that to a few other things, espicially where the two others in the cave were concerned.

So she turned her attention to her mistake in forgetting about the finer details of the whole 'cold kills mortals' deal, and a stubborn shred of socially imposed responsibility (no doubt continually encouraged by Finn's example) suggested that she ought to have helped them make themselves comfortable even if she didn't get any apparent benefit from it. The idea that she was entitled to do anything because she had to grated at her, but the full implications of forgetting how vulnerable they really were was more compelling. Dispite her misgivings, a faint trace of displeasure wound it's way into her guts and she squirmed in place, at least a little chatised. "Uh, yeah, cold. Not good for mortals. Yeah." She looked away. "Kind of, uh, forgot." She grimaced, shaping her lips around the words with difficulty and managing to bite out, "Sorry."

She sat back, her regenerating conscience moderately satisfied. Bubblegum's mild annoyance with Marceline's self-centered ignorance visibly subsided and she said, "That's all right," both assuring Marceline and making her conscience smugly satisfied.

Finn looked concerned and intrigued. "You don't get cold, Marcie?" He asked, and at the mention of 'cold' he wrapped himself up tighter in his sleeping bag without realizing it.

Marceline shrugged self-consciously. "Not really," she said. She thought for a moment, putting together the scattered thoughts she'd had about the whole thing and carefully arranged them into the appropiate words. "I mean, I feel cold and stuff, like I know when it's there, but I just don't react to it unless I'm really noticing it; probably just one of those lame mind over matter junk." She rubbed her fingers together thoughtfully, feeling the slightly cool (almost always a touch cooler than when she had just been a half-human hybrid, but warmer now, maybe for the same reasons those two could set her heart to beating almost like she was properly alive again) skin rubbing against itself and sending up a pulse that had become a electric buzz, almost too faint for even her hearing to sense and the untrained probably wouldn't even register it.

"So does that mean, what, you don't need to get warm?" Finn asked, looking concerned. Clearly, not needing to warm up inexplicably alarmed him.

"I didn't say that," Marceline remarked. "It's nice being warm, y'know?" She perked up at that thought, and already floating a few inches above the ground, glided over to where Finn and Bubblegum had sat in front of the fire and hovered over the invitingly empty space between them, and right in front of that lovely campfire, still floating a little bit over the ground, her hips brushing against the sides of Bubblegum's arm and Finn's shoulder. The two froze in place, not moving any closer...but they didn't try to make her give them some space either, which she took as an encouraging thought. "Toasty," She commented. It didn't feel quite complete, though, and she quickly spotted the unoccupied sleeping bag. In a single quick move she grabbed it off the ground and slid herself into it, turning it around so it was more of an open cocoon in order to keep her arms free, and she gently floated back down onto the ground. "That's better. I guess."

Her sleeping bag-insulated bottom touched the ground, her sides safely bordered on both sides by Bubblegum and Finn, and she happily wiggled around. A flush of warmth flashed through her, and the fire and sleeping bag had a very small part in that warmth.

Finn and Bubblegum were just so much better at making her feel good and warm and happy; she knew it, they knew it, she knew they knew it and she tried her best not to let it on that she knew. She also knew she was doing a poor job of that.

Finn remained perfectly frozen in place and staring up at Marceline with a look as longing as it was uncertain; Marceline recognized that look from when the two of them were alone, when she knew that he knew that she knew what she expected to happen and he was still too inexperienced, too delightfully timid, to do anything besides letting her take the lead. (But she liked having the lead anyway; letting the boy maintain his pitiful illusion of being in charge had never ended well, in her experience, and to be fair Finn seemed to prefer things her way.)

Bubblegum, more worldy and astute than she let on, cleared her throat to dispell the tension, glancing at Marceline and smiling all too briefly before turning away. She wasn't timid like Finn was like in these manners (and maintaiend an absurdly quiet assertiveness, contradictory though it was) but she was so thickheadedly analytical that she had to have absolutely everything sorted out and understood and she absolutely never ever took what she thought were risks, which still ended up looking like timidness to Marceline to annoy her. What was cute and lovable with Finn often would up being ill-suitable for Bubblegum, in Marceline's estimation. And even so, Bubblegum could still surprise her. "An ulterior motive, I suspect," Bubblegum said loftly, and summoned the nerve to edge very slightly nearer to Marceline.

"Yeah," Marceline confirmed. She glanced at Finn, makign sure she still had his full attention, and added, "Know what I'm getting at?"

"...Nope," Finn said, clearly surprised. He frowned faintly, thinking more closely about what she'd said. "Oh!" He said, raising an eyebrow and smiling faintly, enthusiasm threatening to overwhelm the uneasiness he generally felt in these situations with these two girls. (Marceline and Bubblegum were confident that they could pull him out of that in due time, though.) The perpetual dynamo of hot-blooded impulse won out and he scooted over into Marceline's side, their sleeping bags smooshing together with a plushy noise. Appropiate, she thought, because he looked so much like a teddy bear.

(More and more, she was starting to think of Finn as 'new Hambo'. It was an appropiate thought; he was the most huggable guy she'd had around in a long time.)

Hesitantly, slowly, but with more familiarity that he probably would have ever shown in earlier years, Finn drew himself up next to her, setting his body against her side and while the acceptable notion was to wriggle around until he got comfortable, he just wedged himself up close and rested his head against her shoulder. Comfort was all a matter of just being close, and the poofy sleeping bags certainly helped. "Mm, bonding," he mumbled cheerfully, the rim of his sleeping bag's head-opening riding up over his face and muffling his voice.

"Is that what we're calling it now?" Marceline joked, throwing an arm around Finn's shoulder to pull him even even tighter and removing the minimal amount of physical distance that his sense of propriety thought was needed. For Marceline, not having either of them right there with her was absolutely intolerable, completely unacceptable; she wanted them both so close to her that her experience of the world would be primarily expressed in her awareness of Finn and Bubblegum, that her thoughts would be focused on them so much that she wouldn't be able to think of anything but them and burn away the coldness that went deeper than weather conditions and it hurt, remembering what it was like to be alone when her friends and lovers died, and she was so tired of being alone even more than she was afraid that these precious two would slip away before she even blinked-

She reached out, banishing such thoughts and burying them under the greater weight of the affection that remained impossibly stronger than pain and slipped her arm around his shoulder and pulled him even closer, vastly superhuman might pinning him and he wriggled a little bit from surprise, quickly stilling himself and settling into place. He nuzzled up against her, her boldness evidentally rubbing off on him (presumably since she was spending some effort on rubbing against him), nestling his head on the puffy bit of poofy insulation between her shoulder and chest, his entire body turned inward towards her and totally reliant on her for support. With a bit of ironic amusement, Marceline thought it was a bit like how a sunflower turned towards the sun at all times.

Looking a little left out, Bubblegum puffed her cheeks out in mild annoyance and slid closer to Marceline just as Finn had; a bit hesitant to be sure, wary of crossing any unexpected boundaries (and in matters like this, Bubblegum was just so unbelievably afraid of looking foolish, upsetting Finn or Marceline, and it was just so ridiculously hard for Marceline to get it into Bubblegum's head that Finn was just so head-over-heels in awe of her that practically nothing she ever did to him would upset him and Marceline's own boundaries were never a concern to begin with) and Marceline considered for a second of letting Bubblegum take her time, edge up into Marceline's side with the steadiness her comfort zone required and snuggle up all properly like they all wanted.

Then she decided that they needed closeness right the hell now and grabbed Bubblegum around the shoulder with her other hand, pulling in the slightly smaller woman to her, and Bubblegum curled herself against Marceline's side out of sheer reflexive compulsion, and there was a brief moment of shocked stiffness from the other woman before she let go of it and softened into Marceline, letting the proffered arm curl more posessively around her shoulder while Bubblegum herself set her hip smoothly against Marceline's, the sleeping bags cushioning them (but still so insufferably far apart) and lending a gentle softness that was still surpassed by the softness Bubblegum (and Finn too) already had in abundance.

Bubblegum rested her head against Marceline's shoulder and cushioned by her hair, so soft that it was a collection of self-contained goo and not individual strands of hair. She wiggled a bit, adjusting herself by minute degrees until she was comfortable, and Marceline couldn't help but say, "Bet I'm not the only one that wanted to get all super-warm."

Bubblegum sniffed disdainfully. "Oh, shut up," she grumbled, her usual grasp of flowery langauge deserting her in the face of Marceline's singular talent to irritate her.

Marceline raised the hand around Bubblegum to give her a gentle smack to the shoulder. "Ah, don't you wish." Bubblegum made a faint 'hrmph!' noise but maintained the dignity to bite down on whatever comeback she had thought of.

Marceline was a bit disappointed; arguging with Bubblegum was fun. Fully intent on prolonging it, she opened her mouth with a vitrolic comment about how denying your impulses and overthinking everything was one of the symptoms of skipping over the line of weird science into full-blown burning-on-the-inside mad science and that any day now Bubblegum was going to start shoving batteries into people's brain and mistake orphanages for spare parts depos and force people to go through a labyrinth controlled by a passive-aggresive thinking engine with a cake fixation in order to test a portaling device; Finn, with absolutely uncanny timing, nuzzled impossibly closer into Marceline, peacefully bumping his head up against the modest swell where her shoulder met her upper arm and tilted his head up so that he could press his lips to the slim curve of her jawline, and that totally threw off Marceline's train of thought, derailed it and sent it spinning away into that nowhere-land where it would never be heard from again.

Marceline blinked, just once, and did it so hard she swore the faint whisper of her facial muscles moving. "What was I thinking about?" She said, honestly bewildered. "You little sneak, you did that on purpose!"

"I did what on purpose?" He asked innocently. She turned her head to look at him and saw him peeking up at her, smiling in that huge way that he did when he had just pulled off a plan and he knew that it had worked perfectly. "But if I messed up your think-moves, I'm sure you were just thinking about nice stuff. Right?" His smile twitched slightly into a knowing smirk.

She chuckled, a little proud of him in spite of herself. Bubblegum hoisted herself slightly up, looking across Marceline's chest to give Finn a look that was the entirely non-physical version of a high-five. "I swear," Marceline muttered. "It's a conspiracy." She bowed her head, whipcrack-fast, and kissed Finn very lightly on the forehead, his hair soft and brushing past her descending mouth and it felt so right, before she twisted around to brush her lips against Bubblegum's cute little nose before finally settling back, content and pleased to find that Finn and Bubblegum were sufficiently emboldened to cuddle as close as they were physically capable of doing with the sleeping bags on them, their fronts matching up so nicely against the slight curves where her sides flared out into her hips. They were warm and deliciously alive and it made her feel as though she had never been cold and alone-

Marceline breathed in deeply, lips slightly dimpled by her long fangs and curling into a big happy smile. She didn't care to think too much about this latest and greatest source of happiness in her long life (extended as it was by vampirism), soft and wonderful enough to lull her darker impulses and most inhuman qualities to slumber. It was perfect and good as so very little else in her life unquestionably was, and in her more superstitious moments she was certain that if she thought too much about then she would see something that would doom it or something even worse.

Holding Bubblegum and Finn close to her, though, banished such thoughts, and she was free to acknowledge the strangeness of it. The odd thing about their relationship wasn't just that it was unconventional; compared to the standards she vaugely remembered from her faint memories as a young girl shortly before the Great Mushroom War, just about all of Ooo was unconventional to an extreme. And it wasn't the fact that multiple partners were involved, which was hardly unheard of in Ooo's exceedingly easy-going attitudes.

If anything, the only real unconventional part of it was their vastly different social statuses. Marceline was the queen of the vampire's and their highly decentralized but very real kingdom; Bubblegum was the princess of what was arguably the most successful and advanced kingdom in all of Ooo; and Finn was the Great Hero who many people claimed was going to outdo Billy so badly that it might hurt the older warrior's feelings. (Also, Finn was supposedly the last of his kind, but that was less interesting to people than the awesomeness he did on a daily basis for fun and justice.)

On their own, just two of them pairing up was a little strange; Bubblegum and Marceline's personalities were perpetually at odds with each other, to say nothing of the potential differences between their respective kingdoms (though they both had the benefit of having some of the most amiable people in the world, for different reasons; candy-people were too harmless to upset anyone or try to, and the vampires took Marceline's mischievious but ultimately friendly example to heart), and while Finn was a hero and adventurer of enormous repute and increasingly greater importance to the safety of Ooo, that was still different from being a ruler, and any relationship between him and the two authorities was bound to be marked by his essentially subordinate position. In theory, at least, there ought to be problems somewhere.

(That was the theory, anyway. The reality was that the three of them were totally cool with it. This never failed to astonish some people, to the trio's mutual and contined irritation.)

No, what Marceline considered to be the really odd thing about their relationship was that it had just...happened. She wasn't sure when the relationship between the three of them had changed from the most important friendships in their lives and the romantic undertones that had been steadily building more brightly as the years had gone by transmuted into genuine fuzzy feelings until the three of them were thicker than water or blood, thicker than stone.

Looking back, it was pretty obvious that it had been a gradual process that they still should have seen coming, what with all the time they spent together, how being around each other was the most absolutely important parts of their lives and the thought of a single one of them drifting away had been terrifying beyond any rational ability to articulate it. (And that each one of them had been privately terrified of the other two coming together and leaving that one out of something special until they just drifted away had been a fear that the three of them had confessed to a short time ago, to much amusement.)

Marceline rolled their names - their important names, closer to her heart than her own chaos-touched ichor - around in her head, lips silently moving around the shapes of these precious two's names. Finn and Bubblegum, she thought, and added her own to the mix. Finn and Bubblegum and Marceline, she thought, as giddy and wound-up inside as the teenager she still acted like, still a little surprised at how right and good putting those names together felt. Like they were supposed to be together like that, that it was the only reasonable and rational conclusion, and it was obvious how they were supposed to work: Bubblegum to be all rational and responsible and boring (but they all knew they needed her like that) and fun when she let the barriers drop; Marceline to be Marceline, the whirling dervish to spin them into action and break up anything that could be so horribly static and make them start freezing up or get bored; and Finn to bind them together, cracking tension and pushing them to abandon old hurts and fights and keeping them together. All put together, they worked as they might have not with just a particular pairing.

She had enough self-awareness to know that she was perhaps the last person in all of Ooo to be staking any claims on knowing if something was reasonable or rational. She didn't care; having those two in her arms, cuddling close to her with mutual love and affection as easily expressed with each other as with her, felt as good and right as nothing in her memory was.

Maybe she could remember something as good as this if she tried hard enough; she didn't really want to try. This was happening right here and now and that was good enough for her.

All concerns fell away. She listened to the sounds of their breathing, soft and almost musical in their patterns, investing as much importance in the sounds of their continued living as a true believer would in the most heartfelt and jubilant hymns. Her hands squeezed unconsciously around them, Finn and Bubblegum adjusting themselves slightly and apparently simultaneously deciding that Marceline was the most ideal pillow, resting their heads more firmly on her in a way that indicated they were both prepared to stay there for a very long time.

She felt rather than saw the slight motions of them moving enough to look straight at each other, and their sleeping bags rustled faintly as their arms moved, reaching across to each other, their hands meeting with Bubblegum's hand over Finn's, her fingers sliding into the spaces between his fingers and their hands coming to a rest over Marceline's stomach, and sent lovely quivers through their vampire lady when their clasped hands gently placed themselves down on her. Marceline trembled, their body heat so warm even through the thick sleeping back.

Marceline grinned widely, as lazily peaceful as any dominant predator in it's den with it's mate. (Or in this case, mates.)

"What's got you so happy?" Finn asked, resting his head in such a way that he was looking at Bubblegum and Marcelien simultaneously. He smiled at the two of them, so clearly delighted to have this something that was so much like a real family, of beings that were so very much like him and that needed him. He was a hero at heart, and the need for him compelled him to do what he was wanted for.

Marceline was still grinning. "Just thinkin', that's all."

"Actual sequential thought?" Bubblegum joked. "From you? Are you certain you didn't hurt yourself?"

Marceline rolled her eyes. "I still got you in my clutches. I could totally pop your head off or something. It might stretch or something, but be a little mindful of how this food-chain works?"

"But then who would do the thinking for us?" Finn said seriously.

Another roll of the eyes, even though she hated to admit that Finn had a bit of a point. "You're lucky you guys are so cute," Marceline said dryly, and squeezed them in a way that counted as a hug. They made small squeaking noises in their surprise, and she just had to laugh at that.

The night wore in. The blizzard wore itself out. And Marceline was intensely grateful for the excuse to cuddle.

Even so, for their next outing, she was going to make quite sure that they didn't end up in another blizzard. Being cold sucked.