Chapter 1 - Vitriol
Dear Diary… Man I sound like a dope doing this as an adult but what the hey, yeah? I haven't written a diary entry in like forever. Not since Betty…
GAAAAAAH! Enough about that, we can explore that another time 'kay Mr Diary? Mr? Mrs? Are you a boy or a girl? Are you a boy who's actually a girl inside? Or Outside? That's cool man… or wo-man. Whatever. I'm avoiding the subject aren't I?
So this last year has been a little hectic and mayhaps I thought subjecting an unspeaking paper medium with my innermost thoughts would help me sort out all the confusion and regret and all these twisting little snake things in my belly-mind. Ah who knows. All I know is that it started with pink…
The shirt went over her head and fell to her knees like a dress. Cool elegant hands wrapped a pink leather belt with an obnoxious Smiley Face buckle around her midriff, pulling the mostly black rock shirt into a pretty close approximation before patting her face in a not quite tender fashion that she really enjoyed. It certainly took the heat out of her plump and permanently rosy cheeks and for that she was quietly grateful. The hands left to pin the over-long sleeves closer to the neckline with some sort of elaborate cloth attachments affixed to a pair of safety pins, then they swooped towards the nearby chair to grab a pair of galaxy print tights. They were held out as she stepped carefully into them and she felt the heat in her cheeks rise as the long pale fingers dragged them up past her already chubby butt, snapping the material lightly to make sure they were a good fit. Then they proceeded to grab her by the waist and turn her towards the mirror.
A blushing strawberry blonde looked back at her, beetle black eyes looking on in slight astonishment. This was her? It was a little unbelievable and she turned from her reflection as those fingers began to tease through her curly mop of hair, attempting to move it into a more fashionable -do. Finally, an uneven bunch was piled at an odd angle near the crown of her head and those alabaster hands clapped together before turning her face to face with the owner of the aforementioned extremities and a sigh of adolescent wonder and admiration was quelled before it came out and embarrassed her even more.
Marceline's face was one that several top class models the world over would probably kill for; all cheekbones and perfectly tapered chin with skin so pale it became whatever colour the light around her decided to turn it, sometimes yellow, sometimes purple or red, most often a white so pale it made real white look like it was blushing. Her just-on-the-right-side-of-bushy eyebrows sat atop a pair of almond-shaped sea-green eyes and her ears - left unhidden by the young woman's strangely boyish but still very feminine haircut, seemed to taper to tiny points. Oddly enough the earrings, nose-piercing and lower lip-spike did nothing to blemish her looks but rather helped to accentuate the cheeky twinkle in her eyes and the almost lewd smile that seemed to be stuck as her default expression. How could she help but stare?
"Lala, da da doowopdedoo," she hummed as her hands became busy with another task - applying something slightly cool and sweet to the lips of her transfixed admirer. Her silky voice transmuting the nonsense syllables into magic… or music as it were. She finished and with a grin turned her back towards the mirror to show off the violent pink and sparkling lip gloss. Her own pudgy hand came to rest beneath her bottom lip in slight wonder, her reflection clearly showing the disbelief at how unconventional and oddly attractive this figure before her was. "Now I just need to find ya a pair of me old hi-tops or maybe some chill little booties and I'll 'ave me own little rock 'n' roll Princess, yeah?" Marceline said, grinning in triumph and giving her a look in the mirror punctuated by the hand not on her young charge's shoulder curling into a 'devil's horns' gesture, complete with overenthusiastic waggling. The girl in the mirror just blushed a little at the subtle praise and the affectionate nickname, looking down to avoid gazing too hard at the other occupant of the small bedroom. Her elder used one tapered finger to poke her in the cheek. "C'mon Bonnie, don't leave me hangin'."
Bonnibel blushed a little harder and responded by baring her teeth at her mirror image and shaking both her hands in an imitation of the raven-haired teenager's gesture, looking up to try and catch a glimpse of approval in those deep shining eyes.
The elegant rocker responded with a melodious laugh and a friendly cuddle, lifting the 12-year old girl off the ground and nuzzling against her face with exaggerated grumbling noises. This elicited a peal of embarrassed giggles from Bonnie as she tried not to be too overt about her feelings - a mixture of pure joy that the object of her first real crush was heaping such affection on her and utter mortification and anger that she be treated like she was still the 10-year old squirt her music tutor had first met. A part of her knew it was nothing but innocent affection on the older woman's part; she was 18 now, a real life adult who was ephemeral and the very definition of beauty, at least in Bonnibel Becker's dictionary. There was no way she could ever return the love of a chubby little ginger who couldn't even make friends and thought that catalytic conversions and calculus were the height of coolness. She squeezed tight on those feelings to stop them from building up and hurting her. Tonight was a good night! She was going to her first ever musical event - an all ages Rock Concert starring The Who as a headline act. She still had little idea who exactly 'The Who' were but Marceline was excited and she was here, wearing her old clothes and wondering if anything else could go more right than this moment. She gave in and hugged her lofty mentor back.
"I love you Marcie!" she pressed a small kiss to one pale cheek.
"Love you too, kiddo."
—
Geh. The taste in her mouth as she awoke was akin to stale chips and expired lollies and she immediately reached for the lukewarm water bottle on her side table. As she sat up and drained half the litre bottle in one gulp a few items of rubbish alerted her to the exact reason her mouth tasted like arse this morning. Oh right, she thought kicking the now empty packet of honey soy chips with one pointed foot while crushing the torn coverings of a few bags of apparently 'natural' confectioneries. Snakes and jelly babies? I don't even remember grabbing them before… Ah. A little late she realised that the scattered textbooks and scribbled-on notebooks indicated she'd been on another insomnia and junk-fuelled science binge. Rubbing the grit out of her eyes and downing the rest of the water she began the slow process of rebooting her brain after one of these late-night exercises.
Her chin fell to her chest and she lifted the shirt she'd been sleeping in to her nostrils as part of her daily morning ritual. It had been more than 4 years since this piece of cloth had actually been worn by anyone else and a little less than that since that fateful day but a tiny romantic part of her soul or psyche or whatever you wanted to call it liked to believe she could still smell the smoke and sweat and the alluring scent of one Marceline Something, Music Tutor Extraordinaire that had made her revisit that memory a thousand and twenty-seven times now in her dreams. Bonnibel stood slowly, adjusting to her brain's decreased capacity after last night's workout and this morning's enrattlement and wondered why there was a nagging sense of urgency in her head today. Am I forgetting something? She scratched at the loose sleeping bun atop her head and decided that whatever it was could wait until after she'd showered and brushed her teeth. Setting off towards the bathroom, stopping only briefly to fish the two apples she'd gone to sleep with last night out of her mussed up duvet and grabbing a longish mauve skirt, a set of mismatched underwear and, it looks kinda sunny today, just a light knit, candy pink sweater with malleable sleeves and a wide collar before closing the open en-suite door behind her. The water hammered into the tub and the brief groans and sounds of struggle as she disrobed could be heard through the door, right before she dashed out again to grab the towel hanging for some reason on the other side of the room.
"Jeez, what did I even do last night?"
—
An hour later she was a little closer to an answer to that question and at least had revealed the cause behind her forgetfulness. Apparently her anxiety about starting at a new school where she knew a grand total of three people her age had forced her into a sort of catatonic state of theoretical experimentation and trying to quash currently popular scientific hypotheses, one of her favourite activities whether awake and sober or half-sleepwalking and hopped up on sugar. Her foot tapped in the back seat of the ancient yellow Kombi, inadvertently nudging her best friend Ladi in the back.
The tall Korean girl turned her head around and gave her a look of concern.
"Sorry Ladi," she said, hiding her probably mostly-terrified expression behind a curtain of bleached and bubblegum pink hair.
"Gwaenchanh-a?" the Hanguk-eo rolling beautifully from the pinched mouth of her exceptionally tall acquaintance. Her boyfriend and their current chauffeur shot a brief look at his partner in the front before glancing back at Bonnie in the rear-view mirror.
"Is something up PB?" Jake asked, mirroring his girlfriend's concern and somehow understanding exactly what she'd said despite not being; a. particularly clever and b. a man who'd dropped out of college halfway through year 11 to pursue a life of delinquency and courier work, sometimes at the same time. His odd skinhead haircut combined with the dark blonde handlebar moustache he'd cultivated over the last two years, his gruff demeanour and voice and his short but incredibly honed physique made him look terrifying to most people in Old Obart but to the two teenagers riding in his van he may as well have been a puppy dog. He was oddly sensitive for the leader of a youth gang and often made for good counsel.
"Not really," she relented. "I guess I'm just a bit more nervous than I thought I'd be." She stopped to twist a lock of her wavy, hip length hair around her fingers. "I mean we had the orientation for the transfers and foreign students yesterday but it was like five of us and Fionna was the only one I could talk to, y'know. It's just a little daunting."
"Naneun dangsin i dangsin-i iyagi neun 'keikeu' gat-assda migug sonyeo ga haessda saeng-gag? Dangsin-eun Bubblegum na-ege geojismal-eul haessda?" her friend admonished her in a rather motherly tone.
"No I wasn't lying to you." Bonnie sighed. "And she wasn't like a 'cake' she said her nickname back in the States was 'Cake'. Although come to think of it she did look vaguely cylindrical and a little dense." She giggled a little at that, attempting to escape the foul mood with inappropriate humour. Jake chuckled a little from the driver's seat at the comparison.
"Mal-eun haji ma!" This was accompanied by narrowed eyes and a tone that both of them knew better than to mess with.
"Yes Ma'am!" They replied in unison. The oriental queen of the van huffed in approval and turned back to her phone, apparently entrusting that any more concerns would be fielded by her older, but not all that much wiser man.
Jake and Bonnie shared a look in the mirror before she sighed and smushed her cheek against the cool window. "I'm just a little lost without Neddy I guess. Ever since we moved here I've been taking care of him and now he's done with school and I'm going somewhere he's not."
"Ah! What are you saying Bubblegum?" he replied, using the same nickname Ladi had, a reference to her penchant for pink clothes and pinker hair. "Your brother's a sensitive guy sure, but he ain't gonna crack up and die without you holding his hand. He's surprisingly tough, heh. He got me good remember?" She did. The first time Neddy had met the delinquent he'd slapped him on the back in greeting, her 'little' twin brother had misunderstood, wailed and knocked the infamous Jake the Dog unconscious with one blow before cowering behind his much tinier older sister. All in front of Jake's gang and cousins, Finn and Fionna.
She let a rather melancholic smile shift her frown away. "I like that you guys don't treat him like some sort of freak."
"The only thing freaky about that guy is his mutant strength man. If I could get him to join our CrossFit team we'd be a shoe-in next year."
"O, imi keuloseu pis tim e daehae dagchyeo." Ladi interjected, apparently sick of what was becoming a tedious subject in their everyday lives together.
"But baby, it's a great way to stay in shape and it's got that sweet sweet element of competition we Mertens just cannot live without." Bonnie couldn't help but giggle a bit at the idea of her socially awkward and very autistic brother lined up in a patented Mertens' animal jumpsuit doing 'dead-lifts' and 'presses' and whatever else they did to quote - "push their body to the max." He'd probably enjoy the actual activity if they could do it in a dark and isolated room where he didn't have to touch or speak to anybody.
"Sorry Jake, I don't think it's gonna happen. But I'll let him know in case he changes his mind. Okay?"
He grumbled a bit but recognised that was the best offer he was ever going to get in this particular instance. "Alright, but I'mma hold you to that and I'm gonna ask him myself next time I meet the big guy."
"Sure."
He nodded and turned his attention back to the road now that they were coming into the city outskirts of Old Obart or Oo Town as most of the locals called it. (Because if you ever get out of your car and take a look around you're sure to go 'Ooooo!')
At the first set of lights he glanced sideways as Ladi swore a little in her native tongue at whatever game she was demolishing this week before he decided to ask something else. "What have you ladies got first today?"
"Eum-ag," was the curt reply from his girlfriend.
"Music, eh?" he chuckled again. "Man, Music was practically the only class I ever showed up for when I went to Pendleton, what 'bout you PB?" This time he switched to the diminutive form of her two combined nicknames, Princess being the other one on account of her 'fancy' accent, her uncle Peter's rather enormous 'farmhouse' and her Rapunzelesque hairstyle. Though she'd been given that nickname once before coming to Tasmania by her first love in the decidedly un-magical city of Bristol, not that she'd ever told her more recent friends about that though.
"I've got my free until 10:15. I was going to go scope out the library and look for all the spots my cousin mentioned, he said there were quite the few little hideaways among the bookshelves where you can get in some real undisturbed study."
"Or nosh on your pale rocker boyfriend…" Jake sarcastically replied.
"Huh?"
"We're talking about Bubba here yeah?"
"Um… yeah?" Bonnie was a little confused. "I didn't know he had a boyfriend though. Huh. I always thought he was straight."
"I was in that guy's classes all the way through 'til my spectacular life-affirming decision to take my fate into my own hands. I'm not sure if he's straight or gay or whatever, but he and Lee were definitely macking on each other whenever and wherever they thought they wouldn't get caught."
"Geu tteugeoun gaji ibnida." The Korean girl sighed from the front seat, raising one hand against her cheek, pushing here bleached blonde hair behind her ear in the process.
"It is kinda cute. Maybe I should ask him about that next time he's home, I'd like to see the look on his face."
"Heh. That's hardcore PB." He accelerated forward abruptly and everything in the rear behind her seat shifted about with a whole lot of noise and a soft 'ow'. She was about to investigate when Jake followed it up with more conversation. "You should just go sit in on Ladi's class. Patrick's a real chill guy and Simon… I dunno if Simon is still alright but he was even chiller so long as you don't get in the way of the actual Music students come exam time. Oh! And the Vampire Queen!"
Bonnie was about to make some comment about not wanting to disturb any students from their studies at any time under the philosophy of 'Treat others how you wanted to be treated' until that last comment grabbed her attention like a triple baited hook. "The Vampire Queen? What's that? Some stupid superstition about the music rooms being haunted?"
"Nah," he shook his head and seemed to shiver a little. "She is super scary if you get on her bad side though. She's the TA for the Arts but she tends to spend most of her time in the Music or Drama classes. I forget her real name, we just called her Mistress Abadeer or the Vampire Queen cos she was pale and seemed one step away from tearing your throat out if you didn't pay attention in class. She was pretty cool when everybody was just off in the sound rooms playing stuff though, really dug music I guess."
"She sounds impressive." Bonnie conceded. Anyone who could put fear into Jake Mertens and his merry band of scallywags was a force to be reckoned with. "Maybe I will do that; I don't know what level all my science subjects are going to be anyway. I mean they say pre-tertiary but if it's all going to be high school grade stuff then I won't even need to bother with the Library except for resources. If I don't already have the textbooks at home…" she put one finger to her lips and pondered whether to forgo exploration for what sounded like a bit of fun with her best friend. Plus, I kind of like reading music, it is always so interesting. "Yeah, I think I will do that. Ladi, please excuse my intrusion into your class."
"Dangsin-eun hangsang hwan-yeonghabnida!" Her friend turned and gave her a brilliant, crinkly-eyed smile.
"Alright, glad that's up then," their driver said. "We're almost here, yo PB you mind smacking Fionna awake? She's in the back I think."
"Huh?!" Bonnie turned in her seat to spy over into the rear cabin of the old Volkswagen and saw that underneath a shaggy rug was indeed a slightly chubby blonde girl stretched out in a very unladylike position and drooling happily. Now that she was listening for it she could even identify the soft snores over the engine and the quiet radio.
"How long has she been back there?" She asked, a little incredulous at not noticing until now.
"Since the farm, she said she was pooped from their morning run and spar and wanted a nap before school. I told her it's a forty-minute drive so she could kip in the back. Didn't even get changed out of her workout gear. Just grabbed a muesli bar and settled in."
"Where's Finn?" Bonnie asked, poking her much more athletic friend in the face in an attempt to rouse her without getting the signature Fionna Mertens 'Washapnin!?' wake-up blindside.
"Little kiddies school doesn't start 'til next week so he's probably back at home punching boards or trying convince the dogs to wrestle." Jake answered with a sneer.
"I'm sure he just loved you calling it that." She responded, well aware that Finn was always to prove his masculinity to the world, especially due to the fact that his older sister regularly kicked his butt in almost any competition they both entered, despite being a lady of the chunkier persuasion. This included charity marathons, semi-national martial arts championships, the annual CrossFit Festival as well as any video game or other hobby tournaments held in the local vicinity. The poor boy only ever won if Fionna wasn't part of the competition.
"Yeah, hehe." The elder Mertens grinned. "He scrunched up his face and then I think he prob'bly went inside and ate all my sandwich meats as payback. Jokes on him though, half of 'em were a bit past their prime."
Fionna finally jerked awake after a finger was nearly inserted into her nostril, "Aah! Fuggit, I'mma wake! Ow!" She woke up so violently she'd banged both sets of fingers on the wall of the van.
"How 'past' their prime?" Bonnie responded to Jake.
"A week, maybe two for the salami. Heh."
"Poor squirt…" the only living female Mertens mooned. Displaying her strange ability to instantly grab hold of any conversation going on regardless of mental state and acuity. She followed it up with a yawn before spotting the mass of pink hair in the seat in front of her. "Peebles!"
Forced to lean back as the blonde teenage dynamo launched herself over the partition and into Bonnie's lap. Jake wasn't wrong about her not bothering to change after her morning workout; she was wearing nothing but black bike shorts on her hindquarters with some blue and white cross-country 'toe-shoes' on her feet, and her top half was just a stark white sports bra underneath a thin blue zip-up hoodie, although in the back her favourite rabbit-eared beanie was present, obviously needed to tame the wild mass that was Fionna's hairdo - which obeyed neither comb nor styling iron nor advanced drying technique.
"Good morning Fi," she replied, forced to chuckle a little at the other girl's unstoppable affection. "You have the first periods free as well don't you? What are you going to do with them?"
"Hmmm," as the other girl thought she reached for the aforementioned hat and began stuffing the wild yellow mop atop her head inside of it, leaving only one long bang on the right side of her face. Sometimes it was the other side, sometimes it was both or neither, but it was always under the hat. "Not sure, what're you doin'?"
"I was going to sit in on Ladi's Music class."
"Ooooh! That sounds like fun, can I come too?" This was directed towards the girl in the passenger seat.
"Mullon, wae?" was her reply, to which she immediately turned back to Bonnie with an expectant look.
With a sigh she translated, "'Sure, why not?' You should really learn some Korean you know."
"I don't see why, I've got you and Jake and it ain't like she can't speak English. She just refuses to so she can say rude things and cuss us normies out without us noticing."
"Tehe, Neomu sasil." Ladi sniggered.
"Even I got that one…"
"Ladi!"
"Hah! That's my girl!"
The first thing Marceline Abadeer did when she woke up was curse the sun. The second thing was curse her bandmate, best friend and bane of existence, Keila for convincing her that the night before first term started was the perfect time to go out on one of their 'eight pub' benders. However, seeing as curses didn't seem to penetrate the ungodly snores her Maori friend was producing she opted for the next best thing and kicked her full force out her own bed. The dark-skinned woman gave a half-hearted 'ouch' before resuming her hideous snarling and grunting.
Oh fucking hell! Marceline thought, because she'd already discovered that swearing out loud only exacerbated the symptoms of a 22-year old woman who'd tried their darnedest to drain three bottles of Irish whiskey older than she was in one night. She managed to make it to an upright position and made a staggering beeline for the kitchen. What she needed was painkillers, water, coffee and weed preferably in that order and at least a litre of each. As none of these seemed particularly inclined to materialise in front of her she went straight for the sink and filled the biggest clean container she could find, a nearby vase, with water and then went searching for the box of assorted meds Keila kept somewhere in this pigsty she called a house. Taking tiny sips so as not to choke when it came time for the big heaving gulp she was definitely planning on washing down whatever headache murdering pill she found first… and what rotten luck it was when she found the clothed wicker basket.
Empty. She thought as she attempted to rattle two little bottles of locally produced paracetamol and ibuprofen, apparently kept purely for aesthetics. She looked hopefully at a box advertising 'period pain' relief and while she was still a good week away from that at least, surely her bestie had enough of a modicum of sense to keep it restocked in the case of unexpected cramping. Empty! She tossed it behind her, not caring if it went on the floor or on the stove or even into the breakfast cereal that had been spilled all over the counter. Another box of 'liquid capsule - fast relief' was lifted from the basket. Empty! 'For children'. EMPTY! 'Dissolve in water', 'osteo pain', 'flu & cold symptoms' and a rather odd one that advertised 'paracetamol and caffeine'. EMPTY! EMPTY! EMPTY! AND…
Marceline put down the vase and braced herself against the refrigerator, grabbing it on both sides. "Fucking fuck fuckers! Fucking empty mother cunt bitch! WHY! DO! YOU! KEEP! FUCKING! PACKETS! OF! FUCK ALL!" The fridge rattled with her rage as she kicked and shook it, the noise of her and the heavy appliance doing nothing to abate the pounding in her skull but the screaming doing wonders for her nerves. Of which she was currently approaching her last. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-*rattle*-AAA-" Wait… rattle? "-Aaaah?"
She lifted her head and decrumpled her almost permanent slouch, allowing her impressive 6'3" frame easy access of vision to the top of the fridge she'd been attempting to destroy. There was another box of drugs, these ones looking a lot more 'prescription-y' than the big basket of empty promises she'd already been through. Hmmm… a part of her was not keen to snoop through her friend's possibly essential medications but a whole lot of her was screaming something along the lines of - PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN! So much paaain!So she grabbed it and rifled through until coming up with a box of paracetamol with a low amount of codeine in them, '500mg to 30mg' it stated on the box. Codeine. She'd had it just last year when her wisdom teeth had come in and decided to hurt like the mother of all fuckers and it had made her a wee bit dopey. Almost too dopey to play her bass and that thing only had three strings at the time. Today she had students to watch on top of that so maybe it wasn't the best option, but the likelihood of there being still quite a lot of whiskey working its evil magic in her bloodstream led to a rather rash decision which involved popping three of them into her fuzzy mouth and downing the vase in a single breath.
Fuck it! She thought. I'll deal with it when it comes.
—
Getting to Pendleton had taken some time, Marceline was at least sane enough not to try and drive there in her state and managed to catch the practically defunct tram to the 24-hour Diner and Pie Shop near the college and wandered out five minutes later with the steam from her fresh, jumbo-sized marble mocha with an extra espresso shot fogging up her vintage red Ray-Bans and a very warm, wrapped slice of apple and cherry pie in the inside pocket of her banged-up leather jacket. Hydrated and riding on the rather blissful feeling of 90mg of opiates doing their best to abate a hangover that she was certain was trying to kill her, she strode across the empty road humming the song that had been playing in Tree Trunks.
"Doodoopdedoop doo doo do," she took a sip, "give eet a leettle bit of vitri-OL! HEY!" then content with whistling as she walked through the wrought-iron gate and nodding to the old war-vet the school seemed content to keep on as a security guard. His shock of white hair, blonde walrusesque moustache and bushy orange beard always greatly amusing the pale teacher's assistant as she'd passed through these last three years.
"Mornin' Miss Abadeer!" He politely half-yelled at her. "Beautiful day ain't it?" She giggled, still locked in the embrace of the fortified painkillers.
"It mos' certainly is that, Colonel," she smiled at him and was treated to a cheerful grin in return. "Any kids shown up yet?"
"Aye, a couple headed through here, most of 'em are goin' round the back though," he shook his head at the impropriety of 'kids these days'.
She laughed, a sound that was melodious and entrancing even to herself, even if only because it reminded her of her mother's laughter. "I'm sure they just can't face up ta the terrifyin' guardsman we 'ave on duty."
The multi-coloured old man gave a rather impressive 'Harrumph' and his cheeks turned the slightest pink. "I'm sure. You have a good day Miss Abadeer."
"You too, Colonel." She gave him a wave and headed for the 'back' he'd just mentioned.
There was a bush reserve that fed into the lower grounds of the school and served as the boundary to the college's lower car parks, facilities and the gigantic sports oval as well as a primo location for skiving off class and smoking where the teachers either couldn't see or weren't paid enough to care. Time for remedy number 4, she thought to herself with a smirk.
Hidden by a mostly unused shed and a thicket of native shrubbery she deftly manoeuvred her tobacco pouch with one hand and extracted the small joint she'd stolen off of Keila's bedside table before leaving earlier in mostly the same clothes she'd worn over there. Excepting her underwear and a fresh shirt. The shirt was about two sizes too short and two sizes two big at the same time and a small pang of jealousy at her Maori friend's natural bustiness coursed through her much smaller chest; as for the underwear. Marceline had worn a bra exactly ten times in her life and all of them had been uncomfortable and unnecessary and she was not the kind of gal who could wear knickers more than once or twice, especially after a night of raunchy dancing and possible 'accidents' caused by being overwhelmingly trashed. Not like it matters anyway, I've got jeans on an' these ain't the pair with the hole in the arse… she stopped a moment and, herbal cigarette still clutched between her fingers, felt around to make sure that these were indeed not the ones with the frayed hole over her right cheek… nope. Phew.
A chug of coffee was consumed before she placed the smoke to her lips and lit up. The taste instantly calming to her even if she knew she'd have to sneak off after class introduction to have a giggle in a soundproof room. It was worth it. All remnants of the tension she had barely been aware of carrying around this morning began to bleed into a soft sigh that left her lips with a tingle. For a moment it was impossible to form coherent thought and she simply floated inside her own drug haze, both eager and terrified of the prospect of exiting it. Coffee helped. The bitter-sweet mixture being something she couldn't help but accept as reality and the aroma drew her back into sanity just in time to hear an old van screech its brakes right next to the shed's campus side.
Curious she poked her head around the corner and saw a rather lovingly maintained old yellow Kombi with a blonde-haired rainbow in the front seat. She blinked twice and adjusted her sunnies a little to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. The rainbow leant across the front and kissed the cheek of the driver, he looks familiar, before jumping out of the van with a string of what was to her ears vaguely Asian gobbledegook.
This was followed by the back driver's side door opening up and ejecting two more blondes, one with a rather cute rabbit beanie and a pair of barely appropriate pants. The other was only just what you'd call blonde, most of her enormous amount of hair, she's got even more than I do, was candy pink and strangely well matched with her pink sweater and the pale purple skirt ensemble. She couldn't see either of their faces clearly but she heard them well enough.
"Thanks Cuz," said the curvy rabbit girl, leaning in the open driver's window to peck him on the other cheek while the exceptionally pink one shut the door before adding in a posher accent. "Yes, thank you Jake."
"No prob girls," the eponymous Jake replied. "Peebs, make sure she behaves herself!" He added pointing at the one who was apparently his cousin as they jogged across the gravel parking lot. Who 'Peebs' was she had no idea but now that she knew his name she certainly knew who he was. A devilish smirk played at her lips and she took one final gigantic drag before dropping into a crouch and skulking along under his line of sight, crushing the butt beneath her ancient red hi-tops as she went. When she got to his door and heard him shuffling for something her smirk grew into a grin and she slowly pushed herself to almost full height, resting her left arm and coffee on the roof of the van and her right hand on the door frame.
"Boo!" she yelled into the open window.
His reaction sent her into a fit of laughter as he turned, already startled by the unexpected noise only to boggle at the tall raven-haired beauty who'd put the fear of Marceline into him and his sketchy mates a couple of years ago. "BARGH! VAMPIRE!"
"Hahahahahahaha," her laughs bounced off the shed and inside his vintage automobile. "How's the happy-haps Jake?"
"Don't scare me like that!" He whined at her, scowling a little when she just chuckled at him again. "I just got done tellin' the girls how terrifying 'Abadeer' was and then you show up and nearly give me a friggin' heart attack."
"Abadeer?" She faked a hurt expression. "Did you forget me name Jake? Or are we doin' a thing? Should I call ya Mertens?"
"Yeah I forgot it." He looked somewhat guilty and she stifled the grin by sipping on her very caffeinated beverage. "It was years ago and we only ever called you-" he shut up, apparently remembering something that might not have been polite to say in front of present company.
"Wot? 'Mistress Abadeer'? Or was it the 'Vampire Queen' one?" She took another sip and giggled. "Pro'lly the 'Bloody Bitch' right?"
"You were scary!" His whining upped a notch. "Especially after Cookie-"
"He punched a frail old man in the face, Jake." Her voice taking on the hard-arse teacher's tone she'd perfected these last few years in Tasmania. "Then he hit Patrick with a guitar and when he shirted me… I gave him the opportunity to see what life was like with a nose three feet wide. Very teachable momen' there."
"Yeah," the short blonde chuckled a little darkly. "Don't try to fight a pissed off woman, 'specially when she's got half a foot and 20 kilos of muscle on ya."
Another sip barely covered up the killer-like grin. "Didn't say it was a nice lesson. Jus' an essential one for that little lunatic." She finished downing her gigantic coffee and sighed. "Marceline."
"Huh?"
"Me name ya idjit," Marceline said with a grin. "If ya really nice, maybe I'll even let ya call me Marcie one day."
"Marcie?" Jake repeated in a softer tone as if tasting the name. This got him a bop in the head with the empty coffee cup.
"I said 'one day' Mertens."
"Ah, sorry." He sniffed as she leaned a little more inside the door, a little curious as to how he had the old vehicle set up. "God damn woman!"
"Wot?"
"You smell like a mixture of burnt weed, shit coffee and an Irishman's first piss o' the mornin'. What'd you fall in on the way here?" He held his nose and reeled back a bit, which hurt a little but she couldn't blame him. That sounds like a fairly accurate description, except for one thing-
"The coffee was fucking excellent you twat!" She pulled out one of her favourite British insults for a show of righteous indignation. "Ivy made it herself and gave me a slice of pie free of charge, bless 'er."
"Well the coffee might've been great but whatever piece of shit you were gnawin' on last night certainly wasn't," her former student searched wildly around the cabin of his van. "Fuck! I thought I had some chewy in here or somethin'. Ah!" He reached over to the back seat, passenger side, and retrieved a little bottle of 'Sugarfree Chewing Gum' which he handed immediately to Marceline. "Chew that rat-breath."
"Ya know," she popped a few pieces in her mouth and was surprised by the sweet taste. Strawberry flavour huh? Inspecting the little cap-bottle while continuing her spoken thought. "Yer being awfully rude to someone ya just admitted scares the tits off ya. This yours?"
"Nah it's PB's." He smiled at her then. "I'm not ya student anymore, you're just scary in like a normal way now, not abject terror."
"Oh." She smiled back, making sure to flash her freakishly long canines in order to make him gulp. Hah, worked. Nice. "You got any deodoriser?"
"Yeah," that was followed by a look. "But it's 'For Men'."
"I don't care if it's for fucking trannies, I pro'lly shouldn't waltz into the bloody classroom smellin' like a drunken pot farmer, yeah?" He guffawed at that and handed her the shower in a can. It smelled vaguely peppermint-y but mostly like stale soap. "Which one was PB? The pink one?"
His eyebrows shot up. "Were you watching us?"
"Yeah, of course." She handed him back the deodorant. "How else would I know when to sneak up an' scare the bejeezus out of ya?"
"Oh yeah," this time his deep voice was laden with sarcasm. "Thanks for that by the way. I love nearly wetting myself before work every mornin'."
"Hey! Me too."
He chuckled. "Yeah the pink one. Her and Fionna are probs gonna hang in your class first period. My girlfriend Ladi's got Music and they're on their free periods."
"They're always free, its why you can never return 'em when you've 'ad enough."
"…" his face showed abject confusion to which she sighed.
"Never mind." She smacked out a beat on his door with the coffee cup and gum bottle before stepping back. "Girl humour. Alrighty, I'll thank her for the gum then. Seeya 'round Jake."
"Yeah," he gave her a big grin, which sent his ridiculous moustache careening across his cheeks. "Seeya Marceline."
She smiled and waved him off before taking the gum out of her mouth and sticking it to the lid of her empty beverage. Then she shoved the bottle of the stuff in her pocket and went for the piece of pie still warming her left boob. It was quickly unwrapped and one sweet fruity bite began to melt in her mouth.
Ya know, I think it really is gonna be a beautiful fucking day.
She held the pie up to salute the sky, dyed purple behind the tint of her glasses.
Cheers world.
Okay so I have no idea how Korean actually works, whether it's vaguely similar to Chinese or Japanese but I decided to include some *gulp* Google Translate phrases here to give the indication that Jake and Bonnie can tell exactly what she's saying regardless of how strange it might sound to us English-speaking plebians. From here on I'm just gonna put her dialogue in these and maybe in italics as well. As for the translations of what's up there (keep in mind these are still vague);
Gwaenchanh-a? – Are you okay? or Is something wrong?
Naneun dangsin i dangsin-i iyagi neun 'keikeu' gat-assda migug sonyeo ga haessda saeng-gag? Dangsin-eun Bubblegum na-ege geojismal-eul haessda? – I thought you said you talked to an American girl who was like a 'cake'? Were you lying to me, Bubblegum?
Mal-eun haji ma! – Don't be mean!
O, imi keuloseu pis tim e daehae dagchyeo. – Oh, shut up about your CrossFit team already.
Eum-ag – Music
Geu tteugeoun gaji ibnida. – That's kind of hot actually.
Dangsin-eun hangsang hwan-yeonghabnida! – Of course, you're always welcome!
Mullon wae? – Sure, why not?
Tehe, Neomu sasil. – Tehe, Too true.
Any other notes? Hmmm, let me see… Oh yeah, I'm basing this in a fictional Tasmania that doesn't really exist so if by some magical coincidence someone from Tassie reads this and thinks, "Where the fuck is Old Obart?" it's meant to be a portmanteau of the two tiny North Tasmanian cities I lived and went to school in during my college days (that's anywhere from 15-19 in Australia with Tasmania's standard being 16-18 [in Oz we call the last two years of 'High School' or Year 11 and 12 College] with some discrepancy due to repeated years or skipped earlier grades) as well as being somewhat inspired by the 'old' city of Hobart, when it still had things like trams, passenger trains and a well-used dock. The school itself is only lightly based on my own colleges (yes I went to two different ones) and the teachers, students and other characters have a lot of what I can translate from the cartoons with a little bit of people I've actually known in my life.
To those wondering whether both Bonnie and Marcie are British, I'll say no, not exactly but I'm not gonna tell you what they are just yet. As for Marceline's height, it's a bit of a stretch (hey-ooooh) but in the 'toon she's a shapeshifter and so doesn't actually have a definite height (yes I know Stakes shows her as a human who's only a little taller than her beloved mad pink scientist) plus I also wanted to give her a bigger touchstone to a character in my own life who, oddly enough has the initials BB (not MA but come on!), is a tall, pale rocking gal who plays the bass and likes ladies to sit on her face, sooooo… yeah. I doubt she'll ever read this but she was and is a really cool chick and so this is a little tiny dedication to her.
Just in case you were wondering, Bubblegum in the start of this fic is 16 and in year 12 as compulsory education in Tasmania is up to year 11 unless you have secured employment, which Neddy (love him though I do) would not be able to get without a great deal of support, she transferred in from a Private College further up the river and… oh I'll put all this in the story later just wanted to bring up the age thing because while this will be M, I am not the kind of person who can write a sex scene between a 16-year old and a 22-year old without wanting to vomit, regardless of gender so no graphic depictions of sex until she's old enough to make the age gap less grody to me. Kay.
Each of the Chapter titles will be songs, of which I'll insert a line or two into the story as well as trying to connect it to the story somewhat. This one was hard as it is Vitriol by Bluejuice (amazing band, check 'em out) and it's a hard concept to visualise. So I had Marceline sing a line while she's wasted, then I hoped her awakening was vitriolic enough to count.
Yosh… Jei out.