Sequel Time! Did you miss me? I missed you! This is a sequel to Foundlings, if you haven't read that yet go read it first or this won't make sense!
Like Foundlings this is gonna be a little OC heavy and contain some moderately graphic lady-sexing. You know the drill; not down with that? Then this isn't the sequel for you. This fic is also gonna cover a larger time frame than Foundlings did and may not be completely Stakes compliant, I'm currently wrestling with various bits of plot. But luckily Stakes didn't establish anything I can't sorta retcon around. Also it was absolutely bloody amazing! Ahhhhhh I loved it!
So anyway, Content Warning: ummm not a lot. Some jealousy, an OC, penguins.
There was something wrong, something so terribly wrong, with that day.
The weather was perfect, almost mocking him with its natural beauty. It had been clear and sunny all day despite the first chill hint of the fast approaching winter in the air. And now the western sky was a blaze of sunset colours, golds riotously streaked against the reds and pinks and oranges that blended to lavenders and blues and eventually indigoes and finally into the soft twinkle of distant stars if you looked far enough away to the east. Looking to the east was easy from this high up. Looking anywhere was easy. Especially the ground, that was just a matter of tilting your head downwards from your hiding place.
Perhaps the wrongness came from the unusual amounts of activity that the locals had been engaging in lately, buying pretty hats and new suits and dresses, haircuts and facials and their Sunday best all carefully pressed and hung out to air like they were trying to dress the town square itself in preparation for some enormous party. It was wrong, they were joyful and celebrating and it was all so very very wrong.
The wrongness, he decided after a few minutes of thought, came from him. He was not in the right place, he was up here surveying it all like some glorious eagle lord and not down there accepting everyone's praise and congratulations. Someone else was doing that, it felt unreal. It made his brain ache to think of it, to see that stupid lazy smile on those unworthy lips. It hurt more than anything he'd ever known when the stray sunbeam caught the matching light blue stone on that undeserving hand and glinted it back up to wink spitefully at him. It shouldn't be only him that was hurt by the sunbeam but somehow that charlatan even managed to evade that weakness today and it was all so unnatural and gut wrenchingly wrong-
He stopped thinking about it as the deep fury caused a wave of nausea to roll across his stomach. Breathed deep in the clean air until his lungs felt fresh and cold, squeezed his eyes shut just like Dad had taught him for these exact situations. Ripping his eyes away from the crowd below he hunched down again behind a parapet and waited. Won't be long now.
His eyes slid to the beautiful new crossbow he'd bought. Lacquered layers of horn and wood, a poundage so high he'd struggled to wind it back even with the winch attachment. Cross-hairs, arm rests, it was a thing of beauty. No way it would miss his mark, not when he was on a mission of love. He petted it fondly, crooning softly to it. When this was all finished he'd keep it on display above his throne. Probably great heroes would want to touch it for luck before leaving on dangerous missions. But they couldn't use it, it was his and he kept his property close. The bow was going to prove that point for him on other matters of property too.
One shot, because if he missed he was dead. One shot would be all it took.
He closed his eyes for a moment, resting his head back against the rough frosting of the battlements and letting his mind's eye see the future. Royal balls, coronations, decrees, and such lovely soft beauty smiling adoringly into his eyes each night as he lead her to bed and-
"Hullo. Sorry to interrupt just before you get to the really filthy bit. But I'm gonna have to either arrest you or break your neck, ok?"
There was a muscular bear of man swathed in an enormous dark cloak floating in the air in front of him and twirling his beautiful new crossbow between gigantic gloved fingers. Beneath his hood he had a broad face framed by a fuzzy close-trimmed beard and dirty blonde hair falling to his bulky shoulders. He appeared to be wearing a fancy suit under the cloak, it sat oddly on his large frame.
Vampire Guard! Dammit!
He barely had time to think it before one dark gloved hand was clamped like cold iron across his mouth and the other was hefting him like a grocery bag under the big vampire's arm, his beautiful crossbow was lying in splinters on the ground and he wanted to scream. He tried to bite the big man and felt his teeth crack against the stone hard muscle of the enormous hand that held his face like a vice.
"Don't try that again unless you really like sucking all your meals through straws." the vampire told him conversationally, drifting down slowly from the back of the tower towards the still distant ground. "What's your name, son? Nah just think it, I can hear you. Telepath." he added, showing a wide pale grin from the gloom under his hood that was nothing but needle sharp teeth and the promise of pain.
I'm Braco the Hero and going to hurt you for this!
"Braco, huh? Can't say I've heard of you."
I'm supposed to marry the princess! I was born for it!
"Is that a fact? Well see my boss, the Vampire Queen, she disagrees. She's gonna marry the princess, ooh any minute now I'd imagine. And you're gonna sit in a dungeon for a good long time and think about what a naughty lad you've been. Yeah? Yeah, good. Assassinating the queen is something that hundreds of the very best vampires tried. They're all dead from the trying. You really think some pipsqueak like you had a chance? How old are you anyway?"
I'm almost fifteen! Your queen is a dirty thief and she stole my bride!
"So, fourteen then. Yeah, I'll level with you. I don't know her very well but even if the princess wasn't marrying the most awesome lady I've ever met I highly doubt she'd be interested in the contents of some spotty fourteen year old's stanky pants. No man don't even, I can smell your nasties from here. Lucky there's plenty of soap in the dungeon. Well, let's get you handed over, I can't be late. I'm the best man." he added with a conspiratorial wink.
They touched down in front of a crowd of waiting Banana Guards and Braco was swiftly handcuffed. As he was led away the vampire streaked off, back over the palace walls and into the waiting courtyard. A moment later the music of a wedding march swelled and the crowd let out a collective sigh, quite possibly at their first glance of the princess in her beautiful dress. Braco was led away with bitter tears staining his pimply cheeks.
...
And then the vows were exchanged and the rings and finally the kiss and they were married. Just like that. Afterwards Marceline would swear she didn't shed a tiny tear but Stefan who was standing by her elbow and saw the whole thing and heard her thoughts, he knew differently.
"And where the hell did you get to just before everything kicked off? Stefan man, you had my heart in my mouth! Figuratively y'know."
Stefan grinned broadly and turned to face his queen. Queens, actually. There were technically two of them now. And what a sight they were.
He'd never in a thousand years have pinned Marceline for a flowers in her hair and glittery wedding dress type; he thought he'd have died and his ashes blown off in the breeze centuries before the world would see her voluntarily wearing white. But there she was, looking impossibly lovely in a simple and very white dress, fitted lace with tiny diamonds sewn in swirls along the trim. Almost but not quite the same as her new wife's, a higher neckline in the same fabric with a shorter skirt designed for dancing and showing off shapely pink legs. Shame about the smell of sunscreen that rolled off them both, but it couldn't be helped. For some reason Marceline didn't want to get married under a giant parasol and had opted instead to slather herself in super strong UV block, despite holding the ceremony at sunset.
"Had a bit of trouble up on one of the towers. Some kid with a weird hero complex seemed to think that the way to win your lady for himself is by sticking a crossbow bolt through her new wife's heart right after the 'I do's are finished. Anyway he's the Banana Morons' problem now, little punk tried to bite me and shattered his teeth. Imbecile." Stefan snorted remembering the shock and horror that had coursed through the scruffy boy's mind when his bite had cracked against the big vampire's fist, it was the funniest thing he'd seen in decades. Living alone on a desert island would do that, though.
"Huh, well so long as he's out of harm's way. Well done you for not killing him though. And thanks for your excellent best-manning! We're looking forward to your speech."
Stefan's grin slackened. He hadn't had long to plan it since he'd only been summoned from his self-imposed exile a week ago, but his speech was a source of deep stress for him. What to say to a room mostly full of snooty royal mortals? About Marceline and her bride who was lovely but that he'd only just met a few days before? It was daunting. And so much he couldn't say, so much he wanted to but didn't have words for because his issues with seeing people be happy were the exact reasons he'd exiled himself in the first place. He felt the shape of Bubblegum's thoughts half a second before she opened her mouth, looking around from waving to guests and noticing his discomfort. Wow that woman thought fast.
"You don't have to give a speech if you feel uncomfortable with it. It's not like you're the only best man today. I know for a fact that Peppermint Butler can speak more than enough for two if that's what you need."
"No, it's fine. I don't think it'll be a long one though." he replied carefully, letting his hand slip into his pocket to gently brush against the cool links of an old silver chain coiled there. Stefan was glad he was the only telepath in the room.
"Right then, let's get to it!" Marceline grinned at them, totally missing the slightly wistful twist of Stefan's voice. So like his queen, wrapped up in her own joy. It was hard not to be wrapped up in it too though when she exuded happiness so intoxicating that he couldn't let his mind stay on regrets for long. Another good reason to be exiled, really.
"Sure, lead the way then." he agreed amicably, executing a sharp little bow and letting a dapper smile slide back into place.
Guests were already taking their seats as they entered the palace's grand dining hall. The ceiling was hung with glittering decorations and lanterns, lighting up the gloom at the top of the building like a false sky of huge stars. It had been built to accommodate the greater part of Ooo's royalty and that was pretty much who was there now, dressed up in their finery and more than just a few experiencing greater or lesser amounts of jealousy towards one or both brides. Stefan could also feel the shifting pulse of their less than charitable thoughts about him too but he bounced them off his mental shields and away. One thing to lower his guard specifically to threats against the newlyweds, another entirely to let every stray negative that flickered his way kill his flow.
He was trying so damn hard to stay happy for his queen. He took his seat and nodded down the table to Peppermint Butler. That guy was mostly alright but his thoughts were so shady. No threat to the queen though, which was the only reason he was still alive after Stefan had sampled the darkness swirling in the back of the little candy man's subconscious. Shady, definitely one to watch. But loyal to a fault where Marceline and Bubblegum were concerned.
Hunson's father-of-the-bride speech was... interesting. Despite being pre-approved by both brides and heavily edited by Marceline she still ended up blushing furiously and glaring cold death at her father, not that he paid her embarrassment any attention. The outline of her thoughts was entirely murderous, furious that he was telling his hilarious story about the time she'd mangled her tongue trying to chew gum. Pretty funny, Stefan thought. Ironic too given she'd married a woman made entirely from sugar and gum and there was more than likely going to be a little chewing later on when the guests had left. Stefan appreciated Hunson's sense of humour, even if his daughter didn't. And he'd kindly agreed not to eat any souls today either so that was a bonus too. Hunson seemed an alright guy, once you got past him basically being Satan. But that was an old world concern, a word with no meaning or significance anymore.
Once the Lord of Evil had finished and regained his seat Stefan let his fingers slip into his pocket and brush the heavy chain again for luck before he floated up, drawing every eye in the room. Time to give his speech.
"So most of you don't know me, I'm Stefan Hallvard. I am the third and last surviving member of the Royal Vampire Guard," he tipped a smile to Zoe and Matilda, who were waving furiously from their corner of the table, "and obviously I'm pretty annoyed about being left out of all the action earlier in the year. I hear you had quite the adventure without me." he paused politely for the ripple of laughter to die down. Only the royals could think that almost being killed by the ancient embodiment of evil destruction was a polite joke. "Anyway, Marceline asked me to be her best man because let's face it, I'm the best man she knows." another ripple of laughter and a couple of annoyed glances from some of her other male guests, "but I'm also one of the people she's known longest. We go way back, we've had a lot of adventures together."
Stefan paused, trying to squash back down the memory of some of those 'adventures'. Adventures that ended in blood, in cut off gurgling screams, in the hot ashes of dead vampires. Adventures that had ended in nightmares. The silver chain felt heavy against his hip, a warm weight that shifted restlessly in time with him.
"A thousand years is a long time. Plenty of time to find people, lose people again. Plenty of time to know exactly what and who you want. I'm so glad for my queen that she has finally gotten exactly that. And now we are honoured to have two queens. So raise your glasses, to the queens!" he raised his own glass high and the assembled guests chorused "The queens!" back to him, most less enthusiastically than Zoe and Matilda.
"Like I said, a thousand years is a long time. And there are plenty of long lost faces I would love to see staring back at me right now, plenty of eyes that will never open again whose presence we sorely miss today. So while I will ask you all to raise your glasses to the happy couple," he continued, holding his own glass up, "I would also like to propose another toast. To absent friends."
"Absent friends." the guests murmured in loose unison.
Perhaps it wouldn't make sense to anyone else but the other vampires in the room. That didn't matter, so long as his queen and comrades understood, that was all Stefan wanted. He nodded and smiled and took his seat again, only half listening to the rest of the speeches and sucking perfunctorily at the plate of ruby red apple slices he was served in lieu of a wedding breakfast.
As soon as the food was finished he excused himself with a laugh and a grin that didn't meet his grey eyes and slid off unseen outside, drifting up almost unconsciously under the stars and pulling the chain out of his pocket.
Before he'd been Turned, less than a century before the bombs fell and the world ended, Stefan had been a deeply a religious man. He couldn't say that even a shred of faith remained after all he'd seen but he did still miss the ritual of praying with the rosary beads he'd been gifted from a travelling priest more than a thousand years before. Now he had the silver chain instead and it was somehow both better and worse, it sat comfortingly and heavy in his palm as he slowly threaded the links one by one through his big fingers. For a while the only noise was the soft clink clink of metal on metal, then he spoke in a low voice.
"Miss you, buddy. You should've seen the queen today, she looked so beautiful. Wore white and everything. You'd have been all over her, making dirty jokes and trying to catch a glimpse of cleavage. I told you, she just doesn't see you that way. Always told you that and you never did believe me, did you? Always thought you'd have a chance one day. Well sorry old friend, she's married now. To a lady and everything, a real nice lady. I'd be jealous but you knew that was never how I rolled, right? You knew, I always knew you knew."
He paused, looking up at the stars and pushing his heart to give a couple of painful, cathartic squeezes just because he could. His throat felt tight. Even after all those centuries it still hurt to talk to Marco.
Beautiful, violent, terrifying Marco with his wolf's smile and so much blood soaking his strong hands. The way his bronze coloured eyelashes fluttered as he slept, the way his delicious aquamarine eyes had widened in terror as Stefan's big hands closed around his skull and pulled-
The chain slipped from his fumbling fingers and fell into darkness, but there was no distant clink of it hitting the ground. A moment later Zoe was drifting in front of him, periwinkle cocktail dress turned a greying silver in the starlight.
"Be more careful with that, man. Marco would've been heartbroken to know you'd thrown it away." she murmured as she handed it back, cold pale fingers closing around his bigger ones.
Stefan closed off his telepathy to her thoughts, the sympathy was too hard to take. But Zoe's calming effect was instant if somewhat unwelcome because dammit he wanted to be alone and miserable. He'd always taken some comfort from knowing that Marceline at least was someone who understood his pain, but now she was dancing cheek to cheek with her beautiful new wife and any kindred misery she'd felt was in the long distant past.
Zoe gazed at him with sad and troubled eyes. She didn't speak again, it was easier for them both. Marco had been close to her too, like a little brother. And then Tilda was there beside them. She was never far from her lover anyway. She scooted up to Stefan's other side and let her little hands wind around his waist as far as she could reach then pull him into a hug. The three of them would forever and always be missing Marco. Because there'd been four Vampire Guards, one for each compass point around their queen, watching for danger in any direction. And now there were three.
"We miss him too." Tilda murmured, squeezing him hard. Stefan just nodded in reply, unable to speak.
...
Stefan was not the only person to finish the night in a less than festive mood. After the cake was cut and his obligatory piece eaten Ice King took himself home. He was not in any mood to stay for the dancing and nobody would miss him anyway. Off he flew into the night, heading for the cold comfort of his own kingdom and the crippling loneliness of his empty cave and empty bed. Oh sure Marceline had seemed really happy to see him, he wasn't entirely certain why but it lifted his heart to see her toothy grin when he congratulated her after the lovely ceremony. But once the greetings had been concluded he'd been under strict orders not to come anywhere near any of the assembled princesses, he'd been assigned some young Rainicorn nephew of Emerald the Hero to ensure he kept his promise.
Not that any of the women in the room held his attention anyway. Not when he was so dejected.
"Well, that's it." he told Gunther as the little penguin waddled happily towards him. "She's married. Joined forever to someone else. Off the market. Unavailable. Espoused. Paired off. She didn't even look at me once during the ceremony."
"Wenk." Gunther agreed, nuzzling under his arm as he sat down and letting a loud warm and incredibly fishy fart loose against his master's armpit. Ice King reached up and scratched the little penguin's head contemplatively. He supposed if he hadn't have felt so depressed he might have been rather annoyed about getting fishy penguin fart on his best robes but honestly he just didn't care.
"You know what though? I can't even find it in myself to hate Marceline. She's a great gal, excellent musician too. Nearly as good as I am. If Bubblegum can't be mine then at least she's got the next best thing, right? And they have those beautiful orphans they adopted together, a real little family. Those are some lucky orphans."
For some reason his beard was wet. Oh, that thing was happening again where his eyes leaked water without his consent. That often happened when he thought about families or weddings, or for some reason about Marceline and how she was so happy now. It perplexed him but he'd long ago given up on wondering about it. Something his eyes knew that they didn't want to tell the rest of him, he guessed.
"Oh Gunther! If only you were a beautiful lady!" he moaned, blowing his long dribbly nose into his beard and slumping down in the seat.
"Wenk?" Gunther replied, sounding as disturbed as a penguin could.
"Oh stop worrying, Gunther. I couldn't make you into a lady even if I wanted to. I don't have that kind of magic. You know the ice creatures I make don't really have their own minds the way real people do, even if I somehow gave you a woman's body you'd still be a penguin underneath. No Gunther, it's kind of you to offer but you're never going to be my wife."
Gunther let out a relieved fart, a quiet warm one that nevertheless smelled strongly of decaying herring.
Still there was some part of Ice King's brain that wouldn't quite let that thought go. Make a wife for himself instead of stealing one? He'd thought of it in the past but his magic just wasn't the right kind. If he could hoodwink some other wizard into doing it for him then perhaps it might just work, but magic was a tricky thing and there was no guarantee he'd actually get what he'd been aiming for. Then he'd end up stuck with some malformed lump that he didn't want and quite possibly the enmity of whichever wizard he'd tricked into creating her in the first place. Lose/lose situation, desperate as he was that still didn't seem like a good gamble.
His gaze drifted to the empty ice prison on the opposite wall. How many babes had he locked in there? And none of them had stayed. Not one of them had looked at him the way Bubblegum and Marceline had looked at each other today, like they were the only two people in the world. It made his heart ache and his beard grow damp again.
"I'd be a good husband though, wouldn't I?" he asked Gunther morosely. "I'd bring her flowers and cook her dinner, take her to movies and give her foot rubs after a long day. I'm so sick of not knowing what I'm doing wrong."
"Wenk." Gunther agreed softly. "Wenk wenk."
He petted the penguin again and let his mind continue to wander. Maybe he'd play some video games before he went to bed, it wasn't so late and he wasn't really tired yet. He had a new one, a racing game where you could design you dream car and watch a little pixelated mechanic build it right in front of you before you raced it. If only I could get a mechanic to build me a wife instead of relying on tricky magic.
Something clicked with something else deep within Ice King's head and a light bulb flickered on in his brain. A mechanic for people was a doctor. Or a scientist. A scientist could build people to a specification, no magic required.
The heavy weight of his depression lifted as he thought through his new plans.
"Gunther," he told the little penguin, "get some rest. Tomorrow we've got to build a laboratory!"
"Wenk." Gunther sighed resignedly.