Mark of Belonging

by HVK

An older Finn, a little twisted up over belonging-ness issues and deciding to make things between him and Marceline more official, has her tattoo her mark on him. Fluff and such ensues.

This took way longer than it probably should have. The premise was simple: "Finn gets tattooed by Marceline, lots of shipping-related fluff all around, and probably some character-related examination because I can't write ANYTHING without some dreadful amounts of thinkery going on." Still, I accomplished the fluff part (more or less) so it's all good! I intended for this to be done in a day, as I was in a hurry to do more Finnceline-y goodness. Took longer than that, fair to say, but I like to think I'm getting a better grasp on the characters.

In part, this fic exists because after rewatching 'Evicted' and 'Memory of A Memory' in rapid succession, I suddenly decided that it seems to make sense for Marceline to put such a mark on the boyfriend's she gotten serious with, and that she likely hasn't done that with any of them until, possibly, Finn in my personal headcanon. (Some of her history seems to imply that she has a history of bad relationships, which is an interesting plot idea.) Also, there may be confusing uses of 'belonging' as a theme that probably go too far.

Note that this takes place in the same mini-continuity established in Left Unspoken, if that works for you. But this one can be considered as a standalone idea, I think, unless there are ideas here that contradict that idea, because I honestly forgot if it does or not. (I have a very strange memory. I can still remember the cover of a book about orcas I read when I was in grade school, but I can't remember the fine details of a fanfic I just finished editing.)

Disclaimer: I continue to have nothing to do with the copyrights to Adventure Time, though I note that I seem to enjoy the creative processes of the people behind it a little too much to be entirely healthy.

...

When Finn is very young and abandoned in a forest, going unhelped and ignored, it sows certain seeds in his mind that flower and take root, and among them, growing years later after he thinks so very hard on why he was left alone and abandoned by whoever birthed him, there's a unhappy and overly angsty surety that it was because they didn't care about their child, and from this flows a need to belong body somewhere.

It matters more than breathing and living do sometimes. The idea of belonging, of going so far past making a place for yourself and knowing with absolute certainty that he could declare 'this is where I must be, because someone wants me to be here' and feeling no second thoughts about it exert a powerful hold on him. It's a powerful fixation when he grows old enough to realize that he doesn't really have the luxury of saying that. The seeds start when he is twelve, and only start to flower when he is in his mid-teens, and then they rapidly become something like a quiet obsession.

It takes that long, because for a time he does belong. It wasn't so long after he was abandoned, after all, that he was taken in by the two dogs he considers his real parents: Joshua and Margaret, the people who took him in, and it is clear that he is their child even if they didn't give birth to him. Abandonment hurts even when he's too young to understand it, but growing on love and affection soothes it until it stops mattering besides the fact itself. The pain fades, and disappears.

For a time, he even thinks that he is a dog. Learning that he is human, and not really one of their own (at least in his head for a time), is troubling for a short time, and it winds up being so short that it stops mattering. It's only a little difference, and he doesn't put much thought at all into it then or later, and he decides that he and his adoptive family are what they are, and it honestly doesn't matter. He learns at a fundamental age that differences of species are totally irrelevant, whether for family or friendship (and, in time, romance) and it's something so close to forming the core of the bundle of ideas that inform his every action that he's hard-pressed to even realize it's even a conscious belief of his.

And then, seemingly so soon that it still hurts even years later when he's almost completely grown-up,, Joshua and Margaret are gone, and it's just him and Jake together, their family broken up and beyond their reach. Then, his idea that he belongs becomes shakier as they see more of Ooo, and it becomes clear that he is almost certainly the last human. Feeling that he's the only of his kind puts cracks in his world-view; he feels alone, even with Jake at his side, and sometimes he feels like he just doesn't really belong anywhere at all. It hurts, sometimes a quiet pain like a faint whispering in the back of his head, and other time's it's like something in him has broken and he can smell it festering.

But Jake is family. His brother. He still has something to define himself by, but it's not quite enough. It becomes...not less, never anything less, but certainly more complicated when he is twelve and Jake finds a girlfriend and Finn has to learn to share Jake with someone else in a way that was never applicable in their old life.

Not so long afterwards, Jake has to learn the same lesson with it comes to how close Marceline becomes to Finn, and learns it in full several years later when she becomes far more important to Finn, and him to her, than either of them had expected or intended, and he takes it more better than Finn would have expected. Finn wishes he could be so easygoing.

Finn and Marceline talk so very much these days, now that they are dating (not that either of them dare to call it that; whatever they have seems too sacred and precious to define with words that seem so casual), and Finn learns that he is not the only one who has issues with belonging. A thousand years is a long time to spend alone, and far too long to watch things crumble and fall apart even before she has a chance to cement herself into them. Even memories fade, and the only things that count are the eternal consequences of actions; every single thing all her friends and loves have done continue to affect the world, and it remembers them that way. The words sound happy enough, coming from her, and she sounds rather upbeat just talking about it than expected, and Finn feels a shift between them, the beginings of something important forming. He does not question it, or bother himself over it.

More time passes, as he grows closer to Marceline, and Finn discovers something so startling and amazingly obvious that he wonders why he hasn't seen it before or felt it in the steady peace when they sit together and watch the stars shine through the clouds; when he hears the sounds of it when he and her dance like maddened things amid their own crazed laughter at their mortifying stupidity as their own recorded songs play from stereoes until the frenzy of their motion is a perpetual motion that they dare not disrupt; when he tastes the feel of his skin brushing up against her with a delicate friction that makes his head dizzy at the wonder of it, a mere precusor to first her lips and then her vampire's-fangs brushing against the back of his neck with a fierceness that is like someone planting a flag or claiming territory.

The obvious thing, he realizes, is that he has come to belong somewhere after all, or more precisely that he belongs to Marceline in all the ways that matter. She doesn't generally tell him so, at least not completely seriously, but it seems clear to him all the same, and the thought of it turns the part of him that yearned to belong into something calm and at peace, like the eye of an eternal storm that has suddenly turned to nothing but gentle winds and cool zephyrs. No more thundering and mad hailstorms with occasional breezy spots; he has found the center of his world and rooted himself down, never to leave again, and it's a tremendous relief to have that off his chest and know precisely where he belongs, and to who.

And with these thoughts comes the possibility that Marceline does not know. He strikes that; she almost certainly knows, probably knew long before he did, but he amends it to her perhaps not knowing that he knows as strongly as anything he's felt in his whole life. And, perhaps more pointedly, not many other people know it, and he wants them to know, if only to banish any illusions others might bear that they could even dare to try and lure them away from another. He wants a way to prove it to her, to them, to show the world, to cement it body and mind forever...

And then he remembers the mark she puts on everything that belongs to her, and both a solution and suitably dramatic gesture become clear, as obvious and bright as if the sun were in front of him. It is not only a thing that can be done, it must be done, and the rightness of it shines through in his mind until there is no doubt of any other course of action.

Forthright as only expected, he straight-up tells her and asks for her help, explaining his intentions and requesting that she be the one to do it. Perhaps there are others who are more qualified, but it is right that she be the one to do it, because there is a difference between doing things efficiently and doing them properly.

She agrees, surprised and gleeful and Finn thinks for a moment that making her as plainly pleased as this means that this ceremonial act is even more right than he thought.

...

"Okay," Marceline said, moving the last of the various tables and stuff into position. "Get on the table."

Finn, standing in the doorway of a fairly small room in the basement of Marceline's that had been a storage room until approximately two and a half days ago when they had pushed enough of the things lying around off to the side to make enough space for them to work with, walked over to a a small narrow table (or chair, Finn wasn't really sure which) that had become the focus of the room and hopped onto it, adjusted himself with his legs dangling slightly off it and feeling vaugely offended that even after his growth spurts and nearing his adult height he was fairly small (at least compared to most of his larger friends and Marceline) and his feet was nearly a foot from reaching the floor properly. The table-chair was pretty high off the ground, though.

He bounced a few times on the table-chair, liking how comfortable it felt and he decided that they should reuse it later for something. It'd be a shame to just throw it away after all hey'd put into modifying it: Marceline and him had attached several cushions to make it easier for him to lie on and a single arm rest set at the front of the table-chair so Finn could lay on his stomach and put his arm in it comfortably, as well as,after some careful consideration and a surprising amount of enthusiasm from Marceline, they had also installed several thick belts that, when looped through each other and the metal rings attached to the table, made fine restraints that would hold him comfortably but firmly in place so he didn't squirm and mess things up. Next to the modified table-chair was a smaller two-shelf table was set up next to it, with a number of objects on it's shelves that they'd put a bit of effort into finding.

"We should put some bouncy stuff in these cushions," Finn said cheerfully, bouncing on the table-chair. "Or turn it into one of those vibrating charis that feels good for your back! My dad used to have one of those until it got posessed and we had to shoot it out of a cannon."

Marceline, floating over to him and getting in on the ideas, said, "Or, we could make it into the piloting seat of a mini-robot for you to fight really big monsters," Marceline said, floating over to him. "Everyone loves giant robots! Except the guys getting hit by them, the weenies."

Finn's eyes glazed over at the thought of himself in a giant robot. He looked down at the table-chair thoughtfully. "You really think so?"

Marceline grinned. "I like going all giant and it is awesome. You don't know badass fighting until you're in a body that's twenty feet tall and putting the smack on!"

Finn once again pictured himself fighting evil in a giant robot, this time with the added image of Marceline in one of her giant monster forms also fighting evil. "That is so math I think my brain shut down a little bit to save itself. Okay, next thing, I'm getting me a giant robot! And painting it red and putting sunglasses on it!"

Marceline raised an eyebrow. "Sunglasses on a robot?"

"I'm not saying they'd be functional," Finn said. "Just it would look cool!"

"The sunglasses should be wearing sunglasses too," Marceline said, and Finn wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or sincere. "If one pair is awesome, another would be totally awesome. Also, you should be laying down now."

"Oh, right, totally forgot." Finn started to lean back and stopped, realizing he wasn't sure which direction he was supposed to lay down. "Wait, do I lie down my face-down or what? I forget."

Marceline snorted. "This was your idea, hero. Don't tell me you forgot how you're supposed to set yourself up already."

"You were the one who designed most of this stuff!"

"And you came up with the table...chair...thing," Marceline retorted. "Or were you not listening when you explained it to me?"

"I try not to listen to myself too much. It spoils the illusion of autonomy."

Marceline nodded sagely. "Deep," She said, with only a minor trace of sarcasm.

"I know." Finn paused, frowning. "What's 'autonomy' mean?"

Marceline shrugged. "How am I supposed to know?" She frowned thoughtfully, and returning to their earlier discussion, said, "I think you're supposed to lay face-down. Otherwise your arm will probably just cramp up and stuff." Finn nodded and started to do just that when something seemed to occur to Marceline and she grabbed his shoulder hard enough to make him freeze. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you're forgetting something. Before we do anything, you have to take your shirt and hat off."

Finn blinked, looking down at himself and frowning slightly, instinctively crossing his arms over himself and wiggling around. After he'd grown up more over the past few years, his strong body was still pretty chubby. It hadn't been a big deal to him when he was younger, but now that he was older, he was increasingly uncomfortable with his body type. (Almost certainly provoked by most of his very best friends being very attractive women and feeling he just couldn't measure up to the proper standards expected of a man who associated with them, at least in his own head.) He shifted around on the table sheepishly, trying not to look directly at her. "Uh...why?"

Marceline floated right up to him, coming face-to-face with him and her nose nearly bumping into his forehead while she gazed patiently into his eyes, so close that Finn could feel the sweet lightness of the breath she took to shape words in her throat. His not-terribly-kind-to-himself thoughts froze in place at her patient stare. She said to him, "It's important. It's very important that you take your shirt and hat off. Trust me." She grinned shamelessly, teeth white and sharp behind her lips. Others would have found it incredibly unnerving to have a vampire that close with fangs extended like that, in a perfect position to go for the throat or some other action that would end with ripping and chewing and general unpleasantness for non-vampires. Finn, never entirely sane in a conventional way, had grown to find her set of fierce fangs and sharp teeth charming, the glinting off their razor edges beautiful in the same way that a really shiny sword could be.

"Uh...okay," he said reluctantly, grimacing. Marceline rolled her eyes and crooked her fingers impatiently at him: hurry up with it already! He swallowed and did as she said, pulling his shirt up and momentarily distracted at how intensely Marceline's attention was drawn to him then, her pupils narrowing to vertical slits as she went unnaturally still and focused, ears twitching at the sound the tough fabric made as it slided over his skin. He stopped just before he started to pull it over his eyes, nervousness freezing him in place.

Death and potential disememberment, he could handle. Danger and darkness were part of his every day schedule. The bone-deep awkwardness he felt at exposing himself around an extremely beautiful woman who was also his girlfriend was a lot scarier than those things. (Jake had told him that he needed to not worry about that kind of thing, espicially not with a girl like Marceline, but Finn still felt bad about himself anyway.)

Marceline stared back at him for a moment that dragged on a little too long with a tension that felt like the crackle of electricity until her gaze shifted from his torso to his eyes, and she smirked, flicking him lightly in the forehead. "Ow!" Finn said, rubbing the spot where she'd flicked him, and that just opened him up for her to give him a light smack to the doughy softness of his stomach; it didn't hurt, but Finn still scooted back, blushing brightly enough to feel the redness and look determinatedly at the ceiling.

Marceline gently put her hand on the back of his head and, less than gently, pulled him a bit forward and forced him to look directly at her again, and no sooner was he staring at her red-faced and bewildered that she let go and rolled her eyes at him, smirking fondly at him. Her hand was raised just to the side of his head and cupped his ear, the tips of her claws touching the base of his ear and scratching lightly enough to tingle pleasantly. "Sometimes, you are such a ditz," she remarked. Her hand started trailing down, following the curve of his neck and feeling his hair, squeezing slightly as she felt up the slight swell of his shoulder. She heisitated there, looking directly down into his eyes and her grip squeezing a little too tightly for comfort, and she reached an internal compromise by suddenly floating away and giving him a few light smacks to the shoulder that felt more like forcefal pats before snickering at him and floated a bit away, just far enough that she could take hold of him.

Feeling better for some reason and smiling faintly at her, Finn mustered the willpower to start pulling his shirt off completely, running in a bit of trouble when his elbow twisted in it's sleeve at the wrong moment when he realized that she was staring at him again and when he tried to get his shirt off as quick as possible to save face he stopped paying attention and it got tangled in a different place, and it escalated from there until he somehow got his shirt turned around, both arms stuck inside a single sleeve and the whole thing was impossibly inside out.

Clawing at the inside of it and struggling to get it off, he managed to get it pulled down and his ego took a hit when he saw Marceline floating unsteadily in place, laughing hysterically at him and occasionally bumping into things without noticing. "Help?" He said lamely, too flustered to do anything else. She didn't even bother to cover her mouth and stop her laughing, just openly laughing at him, but she still extended her arm towards him and made a quick flicking motion with her finger, and through means that were greatly mysterious to Finn but probably involved telekinesis and psionics and other words with too many 'S'-letters, his shirt was pulled right over his head and off him, leaving him red-faced and unwilling to look directly at Marceline, espicially since she was still laughing at him.

"I think my shirt's getting possessive," He said, slumping back on the table-chair. "It's the only theory that makes sense."

Marceline, still quietly chortling at his inability to take his shirt off without causing a minor catastrophe for himself, floated over by him, gently bobbing up and down on air with her hair flowing in strange and enticing ways like a bit of the night torn free and riding with her. "Your shirt's gonna have to get in line," She said, grinning like a wolf. "Being possessive over you is my territory."

Finn sat up, raising an eyebrow. "I thought I was your territory," He said, half-whining, half-questioning.

She slowly turned in mid-air with her attention fixed firmly on him, her eyes blinking briefly. The astonishment gently melted into amusement, and she leaned down to nearly be nose-to-nose with him. "Oh yeah," she said in a low husky voice, after chuckling darkly. "That too." Her hair twitched, the great mane of dark hair shifting sideways as a long bundle of it moved away and thickened into a large tentacle that gave Finn a gentle smack upside the head that happened to knock his hat slightly off-kilter, some of his hair poking out.

Finn rubbed his head absently, trying to think of something clever to say back and his mind settling on nothing good, and paused at the feeling of his hat rustling against hair. He looked at Marceline briefly, and felt suddenly thoughtful as his fingers tightened around the loose folds of his hat. He took hold of it and gently tugged, faintly acknowledging that it always felt like his very favorite good luck charm, and when he was particurily contemplative (which was rare), even a shield that he kept on him all all times and protected him from the world knowing about his nature as a human when he needed it to. He wasn't ashamed of his humanity, and didn't know enough about his species to be ashamed or proud, but he always felt so terribly vulnerable without his hat, like a little abandoned forest-child left alone to his own fate. He hated feeling weak, and with his hat on to hide his hair and ears and humanity, guarding his not-quite-secret from the world, he felt like he had a measure of control over himself.

He bit his lip and looked back at Marceline, who looked back curiously and raising an eyebrow at him. He swallowed loudly, but he still pulled his hat off and dropped it carefully under the table where he could get it later. He thought, briefly, that between the two of them there weren't any boundaries and never any barriers, and something in his head shifted softly at the thought that it was nice knowing when he didn't need any. It felt good, letting go of little concerns like that, espicially around her, and he was irresistably reminded a little bit of when he had been small, coming to know Joshua and Margaret and Jake and Jermaine, when a world that had completely ignored him in his time of need just didn't matter anymore.

He wasn't sure quite what the feeling was or what it felt like, and his mind free-associated it with the idea of belonging. Back then he had known just where he belonged, and it had been good. Now, the circumstances had changed, and he knew where he belonged, and to who, and the answer to both was now looking at his hat curiously while he sat up again.

Her attention shifted to his hair, and her lips quirked before parting into a broad grin. "How do you keep that much hair in that little hat?" She asked, reaching out and the cool surface of her palm coming to rest squarely on the top of his head, fingers sliding through the thick curls of his hair and claws gently examining the sensitive skin of his scalp. Finn tried not to make the contented noises that he was prone to when she touched his head like that and attempted to retain his dignity, with some difficulty as her hand drifted downwards on the back of his head, moving with experienced ease at the curve of his neck, and he couldn't keep a small squeaking noise when she flicked a clawed finger at the base on one of his ears.

Marceline smirked, raising an eyebrow at the flush of color on his face while her fingers slid through the thick tangles where his hair finally terminated, above halfway down the moderate swell of his shoulders, and her hands continued their journey, coming to a rest at the spot where his shoulders met the muscles of his upper arm. They stayed their for a moment, and then pulled away with the punctuating noise of Finn's tiny sputter of disappointment.

Finn squirmed, trying to piece his disjointed thoughts together. "I dunno. My hair just fits in theres." She looked at him with an uncannily piercing stare that made him feel like she was peeling away the distinction between their minds and looking directly into him, seeing everything he had hidden away there, and then suddenly grinned at him, not so much teasing as mildly encouraging.

Marceline gave his hair another brief pat and floated away, just out of reach, and said, "Hair that fits under a hat that shouldn't hold it all. There's probably a decent song in there." She looked thoughtful. "I could do it so that it's totally heavy metal, just to see what it sounds like."

Familiarity had bred being more comfortable. He smiled at her slyly over a persistent sense of deep uncertainty and still said, "Not cool, Marcie. Messing with my head like that is totally uncool."

"Duh," Marceline said airily, floating near him again and brushing up against him. "Messing with heads is what I do for fun and profit." She drifted around so slowly the air currents disturbed by her movements drifted across Finn's skin, raising goosebumps at Marceline's nearness. She drifted just close enough for her arm to lightly brush against his back and rest there for a moment that was too long to be casual.

Her chin hooked over his shoulder, and he felt her breath ghosting over his ear. "Sometimes," She whispered, warm and quiet and fierce. "Just for fun."

Her hair shifted aside and, like it was alive and had a will of it's own, suddenly wrapped around his body, falling over his neck and shoulders and upper arms, and then it spread out, strands snaking around hungrily, exploring his back and shoulders and arm, pressing down and suddenly forcing him down onto the table with a strength that hair shouldn't have, and even as he was registering his change in position her hair was still moving and feeling and slithering over each other and under each other and always against him, powerfully enough to keep him from moving so much as single muscle and pushing him down into the table hard enough to let him now just how helpless he was to stop it but not enough to actually hurt, soon covering his entire body from the neck down like a living cloak and now teasing at the waistline of his pants-

Finn, utterly silent and lightheaded the entire time, face growing steadily redder even though he was getting used to this sort of treatment, squeaked in startled reflex. Marceline flinched, surprised, and her hair paused in it's exploration. There was a moment that stretched on too long, Finn waiting expectantly and his mouth gone dry. Then, Marceline let out a small chuckle, the breath gusting out with a faint whistling noise as the air was sliced by her impossibly sharp teeth and she floated away, hair still clinging to Finn as long as possible until it was pulled away, her entire mass of hair pulling away slowly enough to be plainly reluctant to be apart from him. A thick solitary clump of hair lingered and shifted texture, growing larger and melding together until it was a tentacle of modest size, and Marceline allowed it to slide across Finn's back as she regretfully drifted away from and over him, her feet coming close to the ground.

The tentacle ran along his back as Finn slowly wriggled against the familiar sensation of it's touch (Marceline's nature as a shapeshifter having...interesting applications that he was getting more acquainted with at this point). He arched against her tentacle as it tenderly stroked the strong muscles of his back, inspecting old scars and moving in motions that Finn had become intimately familiar with as the tentacle felt along the contours of his back like Marceline was marking her personal property. He wondered what was making those meek needy noises until he realized it was him, and they came with greater fervor as his face softened into a totally unrestrained expression that was not quite a smile and not quite a grin, broken teeth just barely glimpsed through parted lips. He wasn't precisely aware of this, only feeling all boundaries falling away and fading into a uncomplicated need for connection, for her.

Marceline twisted around where she was floating, an expression of great reluctance quickly disguising itself as amusement before she gave Finn a none-too-gentle knock to the head with her knuckles, snapping him out of it with a shocked look of mingled betrayal and surprise. "Focus, man," Marceline muttered, and Finn took her advice to heart. There was a flush of heat so intense it almost hurt, and he tried to turn the other way on pure embarrased reflex. Marceline put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from moving around too much and squeezed hard, hard enough to make Finn flinch in surprise but still not hard enough to hurt him or raise a bruises, though if he had been made of less stern stuff it certainly would have. Her grip lingered, fingers spreading over the swell of muscle connecting his shoulder to his neck. "Focus," Marceline said again, but with the slightly ragged edge in her voice Finn wasn't sure if she was talking to him or herself.

He thought it was probably the latter, and went still to avoid tempting her. Marceline, Finn had learned, had a lot of of self-control issues and was bad at resisting her impulses. When Marceline had a feeling or an idea, she acted upon it without any regard for the consequences. Finn had seen both the negative and postive aspects of it; negative when he had first met her and she had reacted so badly to having her game with him and Jake spoiled, and positive when-

Well. Finn had learned many things about the postive aspects of Marceline's poor impulse control that he was determined that would remain known to him or Marceline alone. (Unless she told Bubblegum. That happened a lot.) Given the situation, he didn't think it would be a good idea to distract her any more than he couldn't avoid doing.

Marceline took a deep breath, more to steady herself than any strict physical needs, though Finn wasn't sure if she actually needed to breathe or not. Floating upright now, she retracted her tentacle with such reluctance it still stuck to his back in several spots until it finally popped loose and dissolved into hair again and focused her attention on the smaller table beside them.

She stayed there, floating for a moment, breathing hard and steadily until her breathing became calmer and fainter and finally stopped altogether. She shifted slightly in mid-air, shoulders relaxing slightly, and Finn was watching her closely enough to see that her shoulders hadn't just loosened, but that she had been growing larger, bones and muscles swelling into a larger configuration. Marceline glanced back at Finn, her face set in such a iron-clad look of complete stolidness that it was funny. Marceline trying to exercise self-control always looked hilarious, but he didn't comment; she hated it when someone called attention to her moments of weakness, and Finn sometimes worried about her obsession with her self-image. He'd considered asking, once or twice, why she had such a massive need to look like the world's biggest and most indestructible hardcase with absolutely none of those messy mortal weaknesses like heartache or second thoughts, but he knew that would probaby just upset her.

After a moment, Marceline's gaze wandered to Finn's face. She arched an eyebrow at the inquisitive look on his face and made a small amused growl that sounded like snickering. He let out a brief chuckle himself, and the tension between them receded for better or worse. (Both of them privately considered it to be worse, but there was still work for them to be doing here.) He smiled at her, broad and sunny and totally unreserved, and she smiled back in that way particular to her: lips quirked up slightly at the corners, extended fangs dimpling the outward curve of her lower lip enough to show the gleam of her lower set of fangs. Then her smile widened into something genuine and brilliant as the most lovely moments of her long lifetime, sharp teeth glinting prettily at him. Finn, always caught surprised by the simple beauty of her smile as he had been the first time he saw her, wondered how even her smile could be completely sarcastic one moment and sweeter than the entire Candy Kingdom the next.

She raised an eyebrow, as if she could read his thoughts, and Finn had no particular reason to assume that she couldn't. The eyebrow lowered, and then she at last turned her attention to the smaller table off to their side, a two-layered example of a table was normally used to hold surgical equipment. She looked at the higher of the two layers on that surgical table, examining the contents of it. Finn did the same, feeling a bit expectant; he saw her looking at a row of small bottles with colored inks, from black and green and blue and white that had been red until she drained the color from it. A large paper with a complicated tattoo design that prominently featured the letter 'M'. And, a small jar filled with small and almost fussily precise needles floating in a homebrewed liquid Bubblegum had promised them would sterilize the needles perfectly.

That had been an...interesting visit, particularily after Marceline had told Bubblegum, in an uncharacteristic display of flat honesty that the subject matter deserved, what they wanted her help for.

("Finn?" Bubblegum had asked after they had explaiend their intentions and need to find a way of sterilizing needles. "Did you go crazy again and I didn't notice?"

"What?" Finn had said. "No. Why?"

Marceline, floating beside him, had scowled fiercely. "Yeah," she had said darkly. "Why?"

Bubblegum had puffed her cheeks out in the expression of mingled annoyance and frustration she employed when she thought somone was being dense. She stopped when Finn started to frown, giving Marceline a meaningful glance that implied that he was considering leaving. "Please, just review what you have just told me and think clearly about it, because that seems rather...drastic. Alarmingly so." She hadn't said that doing what they intended to do was both potentially painful and, if their relationship went sour, a bad reminder. It was probably a good thing that she didn't say that, as it implied certain expectations about their relationship that she honestly didn't believe but was still afraid of.

Finn had been a little upset. "Wait. You don't want to help?"

"Finn," Bubblegum had said delicately, looking awkward and unhappy. "I...hrm, I'm not altogether certain that I'm the best person to ask about this sort of thing, and...ah, I'm not certain that I would want to be." She bowed her head.

Finn had shrugged, trying not to let the hurt show. He bit his lip, looking beseechingly at her and tried to think of something to say, to make her reconsider her position or at least see his point. Bubblegum looked down at him, not terribly happy herself, and then Marceline, already irritated at the Princess' disapproval, had floating in front of him and put a hand arm on his shoulder. "Later, I guess," She said flatly, glaring at Bubblegum as she forcefully steered Finn away and towards the door. Finn let himself be steered, looking over his shoulder to give Bubblegum an upset look.

Bubblegum had, Finn later figured, been hoping for an explanation and an opening she could use to talk them into doing something less drastic but no less meaningful. Having them genuinely hurt was the furthest thing from what she wanted; realizing she had badly miscalculated, Bubblegum had walked in front of them, waving her hands placatingly and a little desperately. "Wait, wait, hold on a moment!" The two had stopped, Finn already miserably abashed at the look of hurt Bubblegum was projecting. Marceline, less forgiving even dispite Bubblegum's attempts to be as diplomatic as possible, made a 'get on with it' twirling gesture. "I...I am sorry," Bubblegum had said, already grimacing at having to openly state her mistake like that. "I spoke too quickly. I don't..." She sighed, looking from Marceline to Finn quickly with different looks; giving Marceline a sincerely apologetic expression mingled with worry, and when she looked at Finn it was an expression of thoughtfulness (as reassesing the whole thing) and faint surprise that he had suggested this at all. It suggested certain things about what the original intention was. "Why do you want to have that done at all? It seems unusually dramatic, even for you two."

"That's kind of the point, isn't it?" Finn said. Bubblegum had looked curiously at him. "Kind of a big dramatic gesture. I dunno, it's hard to explain, Princess, but-" He wriggled his hands helplessly. "Aw, man, I just don't know what to say. Just, like...it's the right thing to do here, between me and Marcie."

Bubblegum had tilted her head at that, thoughtfully. "This is not something that can easily be reversed, and I do not think it would be a good idea to. This isn't the sort of thing that you should consider lightly."

"And you're saying he's 'considering it lightly'?" Marceline had said hotly, floating up high enough to glare down on Bubblegum, her eyes turning red and lips pulled back into a snarl and revealing the glint of monster's-teeth.

Bubblegum had stared back at her with all the regal sternness she had mastered over her years of rulership, still a bit started under the dispassionate veneer. Marceline faltered a bit under the look, her eyes reverting to bluish-green again and her lips pressing together tightly as she looked uncomfortably exposed. Finn blinked, startled by her unexpectedly ferocious outburst, like Bubblegum's mild opposition to the idea had personally offended her and demanded a counter-attack, and he thought for a moment that maybe Marceline had an deeper investment in the point behind his idea than he had thought. "No," Bubblegum said, eventually, bowing her head and hiding her look of shame. "I suppose I didn't think of that."

Marceline made a frustrated noise and by this point, she had settled into a disapproving glare. "This is important to me, too," Marceline had said, quiet and serious as rarely before, just daring someone to question why and looking espicially unwilling to clarify her position.

She looked embarrased even while she said it, but it was like she was throwing a gauntlet to the ground, daring someone to challenge her. Bubblegum had looked from Finn to Marceline and back again, weighing how they looked together, perhaps thinking of the years the two had spent together. Her frown had softened already, and now became the beginings of a smile as she said, "I think now that you would not have come to me if that was the case." She bowed her head. "I am sorry."

Marceline's glare - the 'You Totally Suck and You Know It' look, Finn thought of it - faltered and died, reincarnating as a look of mild concern. "Ah. Uh...geez, stop springing niceness on me like that," she had muttered half-heartedly, looking faintly hurt.

Bubblegum had looked back at her, smiling faintly, and Finn thought that she had seen to the root of Marceline's feelings: friends mattered more than existing to Marceline, and it was obvious to all her friends that she just couldn't stand really upsetting them. Arguing with her friends - real arguing, not the fun bickering matches that she instigated so often - was like being dosed in sunlight, and she very rarely felt strongly about any possible argument to push it that far. This circumstance was one such thing, and even as he wondered why it mattered so much to Marceline, Finn mouthed 'thank you' to Bubblegum for being far-thinking enough to halt the potential argument in it's tracks.

Bubblegum had smiled a bit wider at that. Finn, having been thinking a bit about the earlier questions, spoke up. "Peebles? I was thinking. You asked me why I really wanted to do this thing?" She looked at him, curious. He bit his lip, not sure how she was going to respond, and just forged ahead. "I'm Marceline's now and I'm always gonna be," he said with perfect honesty, and tried not to straighten up a little at Marceline's look of sudden pride and satisfaction. "So I should have her mark."

Bubblegum had tilted her head at that, soft gum-hair making a noise so faint Finn could barely hear the brushing of it against her shoulders. She was smiling sweetly this time, but the touch of regret there hurt Finn a bit, though Bubblegum surely didn't intend it that way. "Ah. I understand now." She smiled a bit wider, looking intently at him, and Finn thought she understood even more than she let on about the situation. A thought seemed to occur to her and she had glanced at Marceline then, the Vampire Queen staring right back and raising an eyebrow. There had been a moment of what Finn swore had been 'Best Friend Telepathy', a load of information that he wasn't privy to passing between the two women, and then they both had laughed merrily, their brief almost-argument forgotten. And then they both smirked at Finn; Marceline's almost anticipating, Bubblegum's slightly apologetic, and he had felt very worried indeed.)

Here and now, Marceline glanced back at Finn. "Whatcha thinking about?"

"Nothin' much. Just thinking about the things that got said when we got Bubblegum's help with the needle-thing," Finn said honestly, sitting up on the table and gently fidgeting, like a wave in still motion. "Seriously happy we didn't end up getting anyone mad at each other. I hate that."

"...Yeah. Me too," Marceline said with rare honesty that cut to the bone, and she tapped the glass jar with a claw, scratching the glass a bit. The liquid inside the jar rippled, a slow concretic vibration that sluggishly carried the needles with it, two or three of them gradually bumbing into the side of the jar by the viscous fluid they were suspended in. She watched the needles float, her blue-green half-lidded with emotion that Finn couldn't place, and biting her lip, she suddenly had an edge of vulnerable reticence that made her look every last one of her thousand-plus years, too stubborn to quite living and with just a hint of exhaustion so profoundly painful that the full extent of it's aches would turn a mortal into dust. I'm tired of seeing my friends go hating me, or end up dying, she had told him once, bitter enough to bring a thumping red ache in his head and heart.

(It would be some time before Marceline got the nerve to tell him that being around him made her feel happy, and that was as far as she dared, and she couldn't quite muster up the nerve to tell him how his presence was a balm for her, that his just being there was a denial of every death and bad thing she had witnessed, his every continued breath in her presence cut down the thought that she didn't have anywhere that she belonged. He made her want to be good and that was worth all the centuries of feeling like she couldn't see anything but miserably blood-red skies and running on brute stubbornness. She just couldn't feel bad around him, her little sun that didn't burn and made even the worst parts of her life seem good because there was always the thought that they had ultimately led to her meeting him. And even so, she thought he understood anyway; it was just another thing she didn't have to say for him to know.)

Marceline picked up the paper with the design on it and stared at it, and just as mysteriously as the unhappy mood had fallen on her (likely triggered by thoughts of the almost-argument with Bubblegum) it left her, and it was a pleasant surprise for Finn to see her unhappy one moment and grinning cheerfully the next. He wondered half-heartedly about the contrast between her difference emotional states; when she was happy she was a beaming bundle of fierce joy that couldn't restrain herself from making everyone as happy as she was; when she was sad, her entire personality turned inward and lashed herself with bitter memories and twisted half-truths over ancient grief; when she was angry, she was nothing less than a single-minded engine of indiscriminate fury, an untamed one-woman apocalypse tearing through everything in her path and crushing the object of her hate between her claws until it burst. Those differences were so extreme, Finn sometimes thought that her emotional states had neatly sliced themselves into pseudo-personalities, shifting from one to another as her mood turned.

Currently she had slipped into a less extroverted expression of her usual happy mood that was more subdued than usual: she was almost calm if you missed the suggestions of a bubbling current just under the surface, humming faint snatches of nonsense tunes to herself as she kept her eyes fixed on the design that she and Finn had come up with a short time ago after a long day of doing absolutely nothing interesting due to a depressing lack of adventuring opportunities following a lack of interesting danger since their pairing up had apparently frightened all the local evil away for a while. She held it up to the light, looking carefully at it before clicking her tongue (and due to her tongue's shape, making a funny noise) and floating over to Finn again. He sat up a bit straight, watching her intently and not sure what she was going to do.

"It's funny," She said, chuckling and most definitely in a good mood now and not even bothering to stop herself from looking him over and grinning like a total dork. "This is one of those real serious things you see in those dumb movies Jake and Lady like so freaking much, but with us flavor so it's actually awesome. It's almost...ugh, romantic." She blew a raspberry, like 'romance' was a dirty word and she had to get the taste of it out of her mouth. She drifted slightly up in the air so she was horizontal again and came to a stop just aside him, close enough for him to feel the constant movements of her hair, and brought the paper up. "Kind of weird, isn't it?"

Finn looked at the paper. It was a nicely complex design, and Finn privately thought that maybe it was a little too complex; the procedure was going to be tricky even without considering how much trouble their intricate design was going to be, but it still looked cool and Marceline liked it, so no big deal. (He neglected to think about how relieved he was that thanks to Marceline's idea of pain relief, he was going to be completely unable to register pain there. He really didn't need to think about how much it would hurt otherwise.)

The design itself, a result of much debate after staring at cool art styles and asking some decent artists they happened to know, was primarily an abstract and almost tribal style; thick swooping lines and sharp curves that, all put together, managed to blend into a large pattern shaped like a big letter 'M'. Around it was several angular patterns that would call attention to Marceline's mark (and just be there to look cool), a looping spiral-shaped tree that had a meaning that now escaped him but still looked pretty cool, and just over the top of it was a stylized bear's-head. It wasn't there for any particular reason, Marceline just threw it in there because it seemed cool and she associated him with bears for some reason. Possibly it was just his hat.

Finn wasn't concerned about how unreasonably large the tattoo would be, not really caring that it would cover pretty much all of his arm below the shoulder and above the wrist. The bigger it was, the more prominent it would be, displaying his romance to the world and making it clear how intently loyal he was. And the symbolism of the thing was the whole point. 'M' for Marceline, he thought, remembering the first time she had said that and the entirely different context it was in now. Except that it wasn't really that different; the things that belonged to her were still marked with her name, and that was the point of the exercise here.

"Yeah," He said, fully aware of the forever-ness that it symbolized; it had occured to him not so long ago that he ought to declare to the world whom he decided he belonged to, and this seemed the most appropiate way to do it. The fact that he wanted to do something that might impress Marceline was probably part of it too. "But good weird. I think it's good weird, anyway. Which is weird, that it's good weird, and if it's not good weird that'll be really weird." He blinked. "I said weird so many times it sounds weird. Weird. Wee-yar-duh. Wait, that's not how weird is pronounced. I fail at grammer."

Marceline tilted her head, working through the word salad he had thrown around, and then snorted when she realized it came to a slightly romance-y kind of babbling. "You better not be going mushy on me or I'll have to throw you at giant monsters over and over until you get properly badass-ified again."

Finn stuck his tongue out at the thought of turning into a sappy wreck. "You better promise," He said seriously. "'Cause, ugh, I think my hair's standing on end just thinking about it. Is it standing on end? I can't tell."

Marcleine smirked, and she looked at the design in her hand again. Her demeanor changed again, the suggestion manic energy bleeding away and leaving something surprisingly soft behind. She laid a hand on his shoulder and Finn, surprised by it, looked up into her face and saw that she had raised an eyebrow, her lips quirked into the beginings of a smile both tremendously pleased and, unexpectedly, nervous. "You sure about this?" She said, waving the design card enough to get his attention. Her tone was uncharacteristically questioning and even slightly afraid, and clearly not talking about just the design choice but the whole procedure in general.

"Definitely," He said, not even needing to think about it. He woudn't have seen the point anyway; he loved Marceline and he wanted everyone who saw him to know it. Invaribly, in all problems he found himself in, Finn had the same response: he had a problem, he saw the right and proper thing to do, he did the right and proper thing, and he thought no more of it besides the best way to accomplish that thing. And here and now, this procedure felt like the right thing to do between him and Marceline.

Marceline smirked, with a hint of relief under the smugness. "Right then." She looked flustered extremely briefly before it disappeared under a wave of self-satisfaction and she commanded, "Lay down and put your arm out in the thing." She made a brief inscrutable motion. "The...the arm rest thingy, the bit at the front, you know what I mean."

Finn did and laid himself down on the table on his stomach, shifting around until he was comfortable (not hard, on that particular table) and moved his left arm to the side, allowing it to droop lazily off the seat while he stuck his right arm out into the complicated tray right in front of him, gently slinging it against the the loop of belts and metal rings that formed a homemade restraint that would hold his arm in a relaxed pose that wouldn't made his arm go all tingly or get cramps for the procedure.

Marceline floated over and looped the belts tight before clamping the metal ring over them and locking his arm into place, all without pinching his skin or causing any discomfort. Finn tested it, pushing his arm around as much as he could, and found that he couldn't move his arm around at all. He couldn't so much as wriggle or turn it around, which was definitely a good thing since he absolutely needed his arm to stay absolutely still. By the same logic, if he moved wrong with the rest of him free, it could mess things up and spoil everything as well as give him a nasty scars that would make him look stupid instead of impress people, so Marceline floated over to the other restraints and worked them together as well: two large belt held down by clamps directly over his back, one in a straight line just under his shoulder blades and the next in the small of his back, arranged so that they wouldn't make him uncomfortable even though they were so tight that he couldn't move. A smaller such restraint, right over his hips, and two smaller ones that went over each of his legs right around his thighs. (He didn't think it would matter much if his calves were free or not. He also didn't think to ask Marceline if the restraints, which she had insisted on, were really neccesary.)

"How's it feel?" Marceline asked him. The slightly rehearsed air of the phrase suggested she had asked people this before a lot, and Finn wondered briefly what those circumstances were.

Finn thought about her question. "Y'know, it's weird," he said. "The good kind of weird. Weer-duh. It doesn't hurt or anything, I just can't move. Not even a little bit. I guess it should be a little uncomfortable, but it's actually a little bit...I don't know, not relaxing, exactly. Sort of like being wrapped up in a really snug blanket?" Marceline chuckled at that, and hovered over to put a hand on his shoulder, claws lightly tracing old marks that suspiciously matched the same sort of marks her own fangs might make. The tip of a claw dipped into the slight dip of one of those fang-marks and he shivered in a distinctly male way at her touch; Marceline's skin was not cold by any means, but it was noticably cooler than his own body tempature. It was more pleasant than he would have assumed when he was less knowledgable, and was in fact extremely relaxing at times; her touch was like a soothing wind in the middle of the night after a blisteringly hot day. He saw her smirking at him, knowingly, and he hastily added, "Metal's kind of cold, though."

"Sure," she said. Her hand stayed there for a moment before giving him a reassuring squeeze and lifting away, and she turned back to the table with all the neccesary equipment on it. Her hair drifted with her, smoothing itself out in a rippling wave as she reached under the table's upper tray to pick up a device on the lower side and brought out a complicated device that Jake had provided for the occasion (having declared that this was the most romance-iest thing he'd ever heard of and so it absolutely demanded his assistance even though Marceline insisted on doing the thing herself, and led to both Finn and Marceline keeping themselves from gagging at Jake bringing romance into this).

Finn looked at the device and thought, as Marceline brought it over and plugged a thick battery into a slot in it's side, that it looked more than a little like a ancient weapon or a really fancy sewing machine. It was a squat thing roughly the size of his forearm, small and intricate clockwork visible underneath slim patches of copper-colored plating on it's sides and feeding into a mess of wires and metal strings all pulling a mechanism Finn wasn't entirely able to discern. The front of the device was a bulky snub-nosed affair, with several empty vials opened up and feeding into a complicated array that reminded Finn of a sewing machine his mother had liked (and had, in fact, used to make the clothes he had worn when he moved into the old treehouse) and several holes to slide the needles into.

Marceline did that very thing, telekinetically unscrewing the jar and removing all the needles, washing the liquid of them with a towel she had prepared before slotting them into the device. Finn uneasily thought that it looked a little bit like a mechanical monster that sucked blood or other vital fluids, with those needles looking a bit like teeth now. Next she grabbed a few vials of ink, black and blue in even measure, and poured them into the openings near the front of the device, where they would be fed into the needles during the process. (Finn had briefly discussed using red because it seemed appropiate, but Marceline had shot it down; she said she'd probably suck the color right out sooner or later, and colorless white would look pasty against his skin tone, and he was forced to agree after she arm-wrestled him into conceding the point.)

Marceline tilted her head, staring at the device with a faint frown, looking it up and down. "Hey, did Jake say how you're supposed to turn this thing on?"

"Uh oh," Finn said, realizing that he was strapped down and unable to move with a mildly crazy vampire lady holding a device she didn't know how to operate. "Should I, y'know, take that as a bad sign, man?"

"Oh, shut up. Like it's my fault that ancient relics don't come with manuals. That's way inconvinient. Whoever made this thing was a jerk for not putting instructions on the side or something."

"Yeah. People who have been dead for, like, maybe hundreds of years are totally rude for not putting instructions on their stuff for our benefit."

"See? Now you're getting at the problem there. I never met the guys who made this but if I did I'd smack them for lousy customer service." She paused and smirked at him. "Whoa now, are you getting sarcastic on me?"

"Well, you are a totally bad influence," Finn said innocently.

"Stop being adorable!" Marceline ordered him. "Being strapped down there and being completely at my mercy is no excuse to be a tease."

Finn blinked honestly. "What's a tease?"

"Right now? You." Marceline turned back to the device. "Okay. Focus. Turning things on, yes. Let's see here...lousy clicky contraption what goes bang and stuff, Jake said put a battery in or plug it in..." She frowned, shrugged, and pulled an extension cord near the bottom of the device, went over to a plug in the wall and plugged it in. "Okay, that's got both bases covered then. I put the needles in to the bit where you're supposed to put the needles in, guess that's the technical term...and I poured the ink in after that. What after that? Power's in, the needles are in and inked. What else do I do?"

"Maybe you have to appease the Technology Gods," Finn joked.

Marceline grimaced. "Glob, I hope not. Dialing up those dorks and seeing what they want is a pain in the neck. Last time I had to punch the concept of Identity in the face until it agreed to stop messing with their dimensional connections."

Finn blinked. "Wait, what? When did that happen?"

"Three weeks ago. You and Jake were punching an entirely different aspect of reality out then."

"Oh, I remember that! By the by, the anthropomorphic personification of Conflict cries like a total baby."

"Psh, I could have told you that. And you hit them hard enough, everyone cries like a total baby."

"I don't!" Finn said proudly. Marceline raised a fist teasingly. "Whoa, I was just joking, don't test the theory!" Marceline smirked knowingly and lowered her hand, returning her attention to the device that she plainly couldn't figure out. Finn, trying to help, said, "Did you try hitting the 'on' button?"

Marceline snorted. "C'mon, do I look like such a dumbass that I wouldn't see an 'on' button right away?"

"What's that, then?" Finn asked, awkwardly pointing with his free hand.

"What you talking about?" Marceline looked where Finn had pointed and stopped, gaping at a small dial near the power cord with three settings: 'Off', 'On' and 'Smite'. "Oh, come on! Hey, why where there even be a 'Smite' setting? Ooh, looks fun."

"They have one because everything deserves a chance to be weaponized!" Finn declared.

"And it would be awesome," Marceline agreed, turning the dial from 'Off' to 'On'. A few small screens lit up on the sides as the clockwork spun on and vapor gusted out from vents (having been part of the process that jump-started the clockwork), and the needles began slowly working, bits of ink dribbling out. "Whoa, not yet not yet!" She switched the dial back into the off position and it powered back down. "...What kind of a moron designed this thing? It shouldn't start doing that kind of stuff until you press a button or something." She glanced down, already suspecting somethin,g and saw that she had accidentally pressed a small switch near the front of the device, having mistaken the rubber-molded thing for a handgrip. "Okay, two things. One, whoever saw this was some kind of psychic that sees the future, and two, it was a future psychic that went out of his way to mess with me." She clicked the switch the other way and put it back on the table, the device shut off for the moment, and floated over to Finn, looking thoughtful. "Y'know, it's funny."

"What's funny?" Finn asked.

She smiled; it wasn't the usual quirking of a corner of her lips but a broad grin. "None of the others ever went for, uh, this."

"Other what?"

She looked at him and rolled her eyes in a long-suffering gesture, saying to the heavens Glob save me from this idiot's persistent stupidity. "My exes," she said shortly. "Ex-boyfriends. You know. Like Ash." She stopped there, and Finn didn't say anything. Her past relationships rarely came up in discussion, and neither of them felt inclined to press the matter. He thought he knew something of what Marceline was getting at: Bubblegum knew Marceline longer than Finn had, and thanks to her Finn had learned that Marceline was quietly and desperately afraid of her and Finn's relationship turning sour because she was experienced in that sort of thing happening. Finn was determined to prove that no such thing could ever happen, which was part of his reason for them doing this procedure, as it wasn't just a mark of her claim on him but a symbol of how important she was to him. "It's pretty cool," Marceline continued, her mood brightening again as she looked down at him. "You're the first boyfriend I had who wanted to get me to tattoo my mark on them."

He couldn't think of anything to say; all the words that came to mind sounded either cliche, obnoxiously sappy or not as good as the situation merited. He just grinned sheepishly at her, hoping that they didn't need words for this. That seemed to be the case and Marceline grinned back, as upbeat and wildly cheerful as ever, all traces of her occasional glooms erased.

"Doing the anesthetic thing now," Marceline said firmly. She looked directly into his eyes, and her grin got wider, her teeth sharpening to purposeful edges, and he knew what was coming. "Okay?"

He wiggled excitedly against the restraint, his body language broadcasting consent. "Okay," He said, trying not to sound too eager.

Marceline floated over in front of him, her body gently bobbing up and down on whatever force she broadcasted to make hereself fly like that as she went horizontal again while reclining on the air, drifting in front of him and lowering herself enough that she was eye-to-eye with him as though she were lying on a invisible table in front of him. "Sure?" She whispered, raising an eyebrow.

He smiled even wider, a bit surprised that she felt she had to ask. "Yeah."

She floated inward to him, her chin hovering over the tips of his fingers and coming closer. Finn unconsciously swallowed, like a mouse face-to-face with a cat that it knows is friendly but still has instinctive reason to be wary. He realized a instant later of the surge of base fear and shoved those feelings away like he shoved alway all the nasty things that had no right in his head, and even then he felt a little nervous as he often did at these times, mingled with anticipation and it made him slightly dizzy.

Finn remained still (not that he had much choice) as Marceline drifted ever closer, her hair sliding over his immobilized wrists and falling softly against his skin. From her perspective, with the way Finn's arm was set and the deceptively relaxed look of his body, he looked a bit like he was dozing, and she couldn't help but shiver pleasurably. "Mine," She whispered to herself. "All mine." She smiled; not a smirk, but an almost-grin that was as close to girly as she was ever going to come in her life. "At my mercy. And all your idea." He started to say something encouraging and she put a finger to his lips, shushing him with a smirk, and he relaxed, allowing her to do what she wished.

She came to a rest and hovered just over his proffered forearm and turned her attention to that very arm, lightly reaching out and stroking his skin with her claws thoughtfully, Finn's skin tingling under her slow and surprisingly gentle scratching. Claws that could slice through stone and bone with equal faculty only made a faint tickling sensation on his flesh, warm flickers buzzing under them and raising delicious little goosebumps, and she was grinning like a maniac at the effect she had on him. Her touch was a familiar feeling to him, after this long living with her, but he didn't think he'd ever get used to it.

On the arm, they had agreed. It would be the best spot to put the mark they had agreed on, since it was the most prominent place they could think of and while putting it on his back appealed to Marceline, Finn figured it wouldn't be plain to anyone unless he took his shirt off and she really hadn't like the thought of all the people seeing him when she was trying to establish her claim on his being. Finn thought on his shoulder would be good, but again, the point of the mark was for it to be seen by everyone, and he liked wearing sleeves too much for it to work that way. And while there were probably a few other places that might have worked, it just seemed right to put it on his left arm. (Left had slightly sinister thematics even though left was a perfectly okay direction, and the similarity to Marceline pleased Finn's sense of theatrics.)

They'd spent some time, back a few nights ago when this had been idle thought instead of something totally serious, measuring out the right places to put the big M that everything centered around (and they'd had a lot of fun with that) before deciding right on the forearm, a few handspans from his wrist, and now Marceline's fingers were lightly moving over that very spot, delicately examining the imaginary shape of the tattoo-to-be and sliding her claws in complicated patterns over that spot with an experienced flair, doing it in ways that made Finn's heart feel like it was flipping free from his chest. If he had thoughts to spare, he would have thought it a curiously liberating feeling.

Marceline edged forward, just enough for her to lower her mouth to that spot on his arm. Her lips parted, tongue flickering briefly across her teeth without her seeming consciously aware of it, and then her teeth - already long and sharp - lengthened enough to force her mouth open wider and give Finn a glimpse of her teeth. Her teeth, Finn thought in a sweet haze, were pretty, and he was impressed with the edges they all held. In the back they were a bit more serrated and suitable for crushing bone or ripping flesh, while the rest her teeth were steadily more pointed and as good for slicing as a sword (better, in some respects) while her incisors, the upper set long enough to peek over her lips even when she wasn't agitated or feeding, were meant exclusively for piercing and did the job marvelously...and a moment of reflection got Finn sheepish when he realized that he was nerding it up over his girlfriend's teeth.

Her teeth came into contact with his skin, enough for him to feel their moistened sharpness, not deeply enough to pierce him. He felt her breathe in for a moment, exhale shallowly just as quickly, and was drawn by the motion as her eyes flicked back to look into his eyes, locking his thoughts into place. Her expression was suddenly inquisitive, silently asking permission. Finn swallowed, suddenly more aware of her than he had been before, not knowing when his throat had gone dry and nodded slowly at her. Always, he thought. He sometimes wondered why she ever felt the need to ask him permission when she fed from him, as she did every so often when the mood came on them. In his mind, she always had the right to do so whenever she wanted. (It was, after all, the duty of a knight to do as his lady commanded of him, and he embraced that duty with all glee and enthusiasm.) And right before Marceline bit down, Finn had enough time to wonder why none of the vampire stories he'd ever heard had mentioned that the vampire's bite wasn't always painful; in his experience, 'pain' was the very worst word to describe it.

Then her teeth made contact with his skin and went through with a gentle nipping that then went much deeper, and his world dissolved in a shower of fluffy softness with a mild noise from him. It should have hurt, he knew that, she was biting into him after all, and he didn't know if there was some weird thing in vampire saliva that turned the pain into something else or if it was just something vampires could do when they didn't want the biting to hurt: he could feel his arm - yes, very definitely his arm, because nearly everything else was completely obviated from his mind - and it was like a gentle shock, not making his arm go rigid but go the opposite and utterly relax as a pleasant absence of feeling spread in his arm, and at the very center of it was a warm sensation that felt inexplicably pink (or red) that the closest comparision he could summon up was that it felt like being kissed but a thousand times more intensified, pulsing and warm against her cool lips and sharply defined enough to make him woozy.

Gently, she drew her teeth away and pressed her lips to where she had bitten him. She genuinely kissed him there, a trickle of blood seeping from her lips until a quick suckle drew it back, and Finn reflexively sighed deeply as she started to drink deeper, his eyes half-lidded as she indulged herself and his mind drew closer to drifting totally out of it. With one hand, Marceline reached out and gingerly traced her fingers through his hair, clawtips just barely touching his scalp, Finn's eyes flickering as she carressed him and he thought that even the totally sucky parts of his life had been worth every aching moment just to be with her like this. She kissed harder, lips pressing sweetly tight on his arm and drawing his blood into her, and Finn almost lost all conscious awareness in a single shocked instant.

Here, as he alwasy felt at these times, he thought that it didn't feel like an act of predation, even though she was literally feeding on his blood and life. It ran deeper than that, an act of mutual love, something of great significance even if he wasn't sure what it signified exactly. It felt like communion, like he was giving of himself to her, something too sacred and precious to sully with precise words. It was important to Marceline, gravely important even though she didn't need to do it to survive; it had something to do with trust, and he had seen how happy it made her that he trusted her so much that he took it for granted that she wouldn't lose control at these moments. And they were so sacred to him, these moments when he sat on her mercy as she tasted his very life and what he thought were the edges of his soul, and in the back of his mind there was a suggestion of total awe and wonder as his awareness drifted to the distance between their two bodies and felt it completely disappear as he gave of his blood to her, feeling a part of him draining away and being drawn into her, becoming part of her, and sometimes it felt like riding a hurricane, at the powerhead of an expression of absolute might, and other times it felt like fading into the universe and joining with something gloriously grand and indescribably vast.

And, overwhelming the rest of it was the simple power of her presence, domineering and overwhelming as only he properly knew, flooding his awareness of the world around him and blinding him to everything except the fact of Marceline and her alone and he succumbed to it, willingly and lovingly. His breathing quickened so slightly it was nearly imperceptible as she kissed deeper, drawing a touch more of him into her, her hand on his head getting a slightly tighter grip for a moment, almost threateningly strong, and his hand moved up, not getting very far before she let go of his head and gripped his hand tight, fingers mingling together tip-to-knuckle as their palms lay flat against each other, squeezing tight enough to feel like a hug in miniature.

And then, finally, reluctantly, Marceline drew away while kissing his arm again, a faint brushing of her lips before he felt a quick lick across where she had bitten him with a faint tingling sensation, and as she drew away, Finn saw that there was a faint mark matching her teeth there, identical to the other toothmarks scattered across his shoulders and neck. (She seemed to prefer his shoulders for that sort of thing. He wasn't sure why.) She angled her head around and bit him again, going for a spot just below the elbow, drinking so quick and fast Finn barely had time to register it, and again right over his bicep, drinking slightly deeper than before so that a comforting gray fuzziness came over his brain, gently pushing the storm of thoughts into a pleasantly dulled calmness.

And there she stopped, and it was clearly an effort to do it; she was rigid with the strain of it, her hair writing madly and her jaw clenching tightly as her teeth forcibly shrank down to their usual size, the blood that was still on her lips being drawn into her mouth by some process he didn't understand. But Marceline mastered herself (as he knew she would) and she jerked back from him just a little bit, her expression flickering miserably until a pleased smile emerged as she parted from him, her grip on his hand lingering last before she regretfully let go and floated away. He smiled dorkily at her, his arm still abuzz with a strong sensation that translated into his brain as a bone-deep glowing feeling. He understood why Marceline would consider that sensation 'anesthetic'; no matter what happened to his arm in that area, nothing could possibly exceed the sweet glowing warmth left behind by her feeding. Even tattooing wouldn't be much more than a faint prickling while that feeling abided, which would be quite a while if past experience was any indication.

"You," Marceline said while grinning slightly wider than was humanly possible, teeth still faintly red before she licked them clean and clearly savoring every drop. "Are the best boyfriend ever." She laughed wildly, and he couldn't help but smile wider at the sound despite himself.

"Hee," Finn said, too unfocused to articulate words properly. He managed to grin and focus his eyes on somewhere in Marceline's general direction.

She smirked fondly at him, flicking her hair over her shoulder with a small gesture before she floated back to the mini-table. "At least with those things holding you down you won't fall off in the middle of things and ruin everything," she remarked, picking up the tattooing machine Jake had provided them. (At least, Jake had said it was a tattooing machine. Either that or a thing for putting stuff in people that turned them into superhuman monsters. Finn thought both would be kind of cool, but was later unsurprised to find it that it really was just a tattooing machine.)

She hovered back over his arm; they both thought it would be better to do it as quickly as she could reasonably manage. Then and there, there were no more time for delays or heisitation. Between the two of them, there never really seemed to be, espicially not with the important stuff.

Marceline, secretly sensitive under her carefree persona, still asked asked, "You ready?"

It was meant to be a rhetorical question to fill up the silence while Finn was temporarily incapable of speaking properly. Finn managed to get his mouth operational just long enough to say, "Yeah. Def'nitely."

Marceline smiled at him, and for once it was totally uncynical and unreservedly happy and Finn smiled when he saw some of the weariness draining away right in front of him. "Yeah. You are way fun," She said, sounding satisfied with it, and lightly pressed the play button on a recorder just next to where she had put the tattooing machine to provide some nice soft rock music for the ambience (though she acknowledged the possibility of rocking out in the middle of the procedure and possibly causing something serious to happen). She daubed a measure of disinfectant on his arm just in case, turned the tattooing machine on again, brought the machine to his arm, and began the tattooing procedure.

It was curiously painless, Finn thought, not that he was entirely aware of himself during the process. The after-effects of Marceline's bite was a lot more intense then was generally suspected (though most people suspected that there was a lot more horrified screaming and terror involved) and he watched it with a strangely detached air. Having a little over half a dozen needles stabbing bits of ink into your skin, he thought, was a lot less upsetting when your mind was fogged up beyond all recognition by love's true chomp. (He decided to make 'love's true chomp' a meme. He immediately forgot to do it, because his spotty memory was doing worse than usual right then.) He waited, he watched, and he smiled goofily at Marceline as she worked with an unexpectedly serious look, tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth in concerntration as she did her job.

Finn's mind was, at all times, somewhat off-kilter compared to most people. (Even by the standards of Ooo.) Even so, some exceedingly odd things came to his mind as he watched her work, and eventually his attention seized on the machine Marceline was using. Clickky-cliccky-click. It made a noise like that, the sounds of the gears grinding in perpetual motion and the needles in motion and various other mechanical noises Finn couldn't properly identify all mixing together. It wasn't particularily loud, and he wasn't sure why it was suddenly such a big deal, but it did sound kind of cool. He wondered if they could put it on a recorder and use it for a chorus: Marceline had been getting interested in more experimental music lately, and it seemed like a cool experiment to try.

Even if he could have moved, he probably wouldn't have; generally after Marceline fed from him, he was too out of it to do anything except sit back and bask in the euphoria, or groove to interesting patterns of light, or stare at suddenly visible patterns in stuff. As things were, being held down like he was, the sound of the machine in operation, the loud but soothing rock music being played and Marceline's own smooth and strong voice quietly singing along to the good parts led to a strange combination that was surprisingly relaxing. His head drifted slowly from side to side as he tried to headbang to the music (even though it was the wrong genre of music for headbanging) and gave it up, his head feeling too heavy for it.

He blinked heavily, not exactly tired but being lulled to sleep anyway, and stared happily at Marceline, his eyes unconsciously taking in all her details. He watched the shine in her hair drifting around as she worked on his arm, her minute adjustments in hover-height and posture sending soft ripples through her hair and blue gleams shift throughout the resplendently dark mass. It looked so soft from where he was lying, a wavy mass that seemed pulled from the very substance of the primordial originator of all nights, and he faintly wondered how anyone got hair that impossibly shiny, perhaps forgetting how fluffy and shiny his own hair was without him putting any particular effort into maintaining it's health. (In spite of Bubblegum's occasional insistence when she had discovered what epic hair he actually had.)

The shifting and movement of her hair, some of it conforming to her body and the rest of it moving on it's own in alluring patterns. The safety restraints holding him like a stern but snug...thing. The patient noise of the machine's various noises mixed with the recorded guitar riffs and vocals that weren't loud enough to mask Marceline's own take on the song. It all came together and made something surprisingly peaceful that felt like the security he associated with homes and families, and without quite realizing it, Finn quietly drifted off to sleep without him even noticing, and it took Marceline a while to notice, but in several respects it made her job easier.

The last thought he had before he drifted off was something like thinking that he had made a place for himself that he'd belong, and it was all his own doing. It was something that was all his.

It was a pretty cool feeling.

...

The next thing he was aware of was blinking the sleep from his eys and shaking his head, stung into alertness by a persistent ache on his arm.

"Uh..." He mumbled, sitting up and sinking slightly into the cushions before he realized that he wasn't sitting on the rigged table anymore or being restrained (his ability to sit up unimpeded was the first clue); he was sitting in the living room, on the couch Marceline had replaced her old hard couch with after he had moved in, and his arm was both hot with pain and cool with a unfamiliar feeling.

He got up to his feet, his head stinging a bit but not as much as his arm. "Hey," He called out. "Marcie?"

"Oh, hey," Marceline said, floating in from the kitchen with a small strawberry in her hand, drained of all it's color. "You're up. Want one?" She presented the strawberry to Finn, who took it and popped it into his mouth. It was funny, he thought, but the food Marceline had never tasted any different after she drained the color.

"What happened?" Finn asked through a mouthful of strawberry, remembering himself and swallowing it to be heard clearly. "Last thing I remember you were working on my arm, and now I'm in the living room."

"You fell asleep in the middle of things," Marceline said. She smirked. "Typical guy."

Finn's brain made the inevitable connection (based on a few awkward talks that, funnily enough, had been adminstered by Marceline) and he reddened. "You got a dirty mind, Marcie."

"Why would you say that?" Marceline said innocently before snickering at Finn. She reached into her pocket and pulled something white, carefully straightening it out to reveal it to be Finn's hat. "Catch," she said, tossing it at Finn.

He caught it without looking and put it back on, pulling it over head and down to his neck, tucking his hair in and adjusting it until it felt comfortable. "All I did was fall asleep?" He looked up at Marceline, frowning thoughtfully. "I was kind of hoping something more fun had happened." He looked around for his shirt, noticing that it was nowhere in sight. He covered his front reflexively and gave Marceline a suspicious look, and she just smirked back at him. For some reason that made him feel a little less self-conscious and he let his arms drop, and she seemed to approve. Finn continued, "Like maybe evil gnomes had dug up into your basement with an army of giant golems with flamethrowers and super-huge shoulderpads that shoot dragons and hand-held iguanas with paralyzing vision and ran off with me while I was out of it and you had to rescue me in an epic battle with the bad-haircuts-demon they worshipped as a god! An epic battle fought with the power of dance."

"Nah, that already happened last week," Marceline said, giving Finn's bare upper body a further inspection, smugly appreciative. "Repeat performances don't happen too often. Also, you beat up all the gnomes by the time I got there and I had to settle for slaying the demon with a moshpit dance-off."

"Oh, yeah," Finn recalled, still twisting uncomfortably with the way she was looking at him so...intensely. "Your dancing was so metal, it made the demon explode from inadequacy issues and the ground still burns where he died with eternal flames made from concentrated evil set on fire with shame and also a flamethrower I looted and shot him with. We made marshmallows with 'em!"

"But they tasted like lameness," Marceline pointed out archly, amused at how he was reacting. She tilted her head, looking at his arm and looking more smug than ever. "So not really a win-win."

"But it was fun. Except for the part where I got kidnapped. What was up with that?" Finn snorted in disgust, possibly with himself or whatever cosmic force that thought it would be funny for him to get kidnapped; he was the guy who saved people after they got kidnapped, and he felt an instinctive sense of disquiet at the very idea of being kidnapped. "So, uh...did I forget something? I totally feel I forgot something. Except I don't know what I forgot, so I'm trying to remember it. But I can't, because...I forgot it." He noticed something on his arm. "Huh? When did that get there?"

"A few hours ago," Marceline said snidely. "I tattooed my mark on you? There was biting involved? Also you getting on a table and letting me put restraints on you." She raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you already forgot all about that. I'm gonna have to try harder to make it more memorable next time."

Finn stared blankly into space for a moment, both somewhat preoccupied by that mildly ominous statement and trying to get his mind focused. (And yet Marceline had such a talent for breaking his brain-flows.) Eventually he remembered the distant stinging on his arm, a thought absently flicking across his mind that it was a good thing the stinging would fade soon and that he hadn't felt in full, and it all clicked together. "Oh! Duh!" He facepalmed in punishment for his stupidity, which gave him a good opportunity to see how Marceline had done at his arm.

His mouth spread open in an unabashed and delighted grin at her results, the stinging (and the stuff she'd teased him about) not mattering just then. He had already known that Marceline had many hidden talents (including, inexplicably, the secret art of transfering the principles of hat-making into a martial art, as Finn had found out several weeks ago in a complicated and sadly unsucessful scheme to convince the Ice King to take his crown off permanently), and one of them apparently included being a decent tattooist. Which, in retrospect, was probably something he should have checked more thoroughly before he'd had her do it. It was only a fleeting thought before he felt a surge of giddiness over realizing that it was a done deal, that he'd been marked by her.

He turned his arm around, looking at the design fresh on his skin with a great deal of fascination and even a little awe, feeling that he had invisibly moved himself over a threshold that should have been crossed long before. The finished tattoos on his arm were slightly larger than he had expected, as Marceline had embellished it a bit in places where she had felt it looked a bit sparse; several short lines on the curve of his wrist and drawing attention to the elaborate shapes that both defined and formed part of the abstract M that now dominated most of his forearm, the letter that stood for Marceline's name beautifully imprinted on his skin and declaring his allegiance to however looked at his arm for even a moment. For a second his breath caught in his throat as he realized just what he was telling the world using his skin as the message, and he grinned at his own audacity.

The M was bigger than he'd expected; Finn had wanted her mark to be prominent on his arm (that was kind of the point) but it was large enough to cover a good deal of his forearm instead of the area from wrist to mid-arm, and like most of the design it was a delicate mix of blacks and blues, at some places lines the two shaded colors blended together such that it was hard to tell where the different colors began, and in other lines they were sharp contrasts that defined each other. The sides of the lines of the abstract shapings formined the parts of the M that moved along the sides of his arm spread out into a pattern that was almost winglike, sharply defined lines that were almost geometric and startlingly sparse, most of their shape defined by shading and the eyes filling out suggested details. He turned his arm around to see how they continued on the underside of his arm, neatly melding together into another 'M'; that hadn't been part of the design they had come up with, and he thought it looked cool.

The design became a little more intricate (but smaller) the further along his arm they went, and the rest of it was was shaped to lead up to and frame the bear's-head Marceline had tattooed and continued up to just below his shoulder. That part of the tattoos didn't go around his whole arm like the other ones did, just facing out over his shoulder, a bear's-head with narrowed eyes and a squared jaw with tusk-like fangs extending out. He squinted at it, unable to tell if it was supposed to be snarling or grinning, and noticed that one of the eyes was a bit more narrow than the other, making it look like it was squinting or winking. (And, if he looked at the way the tattoo's patterns were shaped just around the eyes, it looked a bit like it was wearing sunglasses.)

Finn turned his arm this way and that way, testing how the light looking against the darkly brilliant colors on his new tattoo, admiring how they contrasting nicely against his skin, and thought that anyone seeing him clearly would see the new mark on him just fine and suit it's purpose perfectly. "That is math," He breathed, and tried to think of something better to say. He thought hard, and then gave up, unable to find better words. "So massively algebraic, it's gone quantum and coming back the other direction as something anti-awesome. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Um. I really like it. Does that work better? Also, how did you get that color effect?"

"I ran out of ink halfway through," Marceline said, shrugging briefly. "Put more in, but I did a different concentration of them to see what would happen."

"Awesome," Finn said, grinning wider at the amazing tattoo. "That's just so math." He looked up at her. "You're math."

"Yeah, it's totally obvious," Marceline said, preening in his attention. "But it's nice to have confirmation." She floated over to him, drifting just behind him and throwing an arm over his shoulder before asking, "So what's it like to have officially declared yourself my personal property?"

Finn adjusted his stance to support her weight and thought about it. Looking at his arm, adjusting it so he could see how it looked and fascinated by the way the light played on the dried ink on his skin, he said, "Pretty much...the same." (He thought the words and specific phrasing were strangely familiar.) "But, y'know, official." He smiled awkwardly, shrugging sheepishly at his inability to do better phrasing.

Marceline noded sagely. "Official is good. I can totally go with that." Her arm around Finn tightened and she floated up slightly, enough to pull Finn up until his toes were dangling just above the ground.

Finn found himself wondering about something else, the thought having brushed alongside his brain during his earlier ditzy spell. "Hey, I just realized something."

"Wow. I think I need to get a calender to mark the occasion," Marceline said, raising an eyebrow. "What's up?"

Finn made an expression of great thoughtfulness. "I got tattooed on my arm." Finn gestured awkwardly at his still shirtless torso. "So why did I have to take my shirt and hat off?"

Marceline smirked smugly down at him. "'Cause I said so, that's why."

"Oh, okay then," Finn said, and even though he wasn't completely satisfied in his looks to be totally comfortable around her with his shirt off, he still found her reasoning perfectly reasonable. (Probably for the same reason that he deemed marking himself as her personal property to be a romantic idea.) Marceline let go of him and he dropped the extremely short distance to the ground, noticing that the pain in his arm was becoming less apparent. "So!" He said cheerfully. "You wanna do something else now or...I dunno, hang out?"

Marceline shrugged. "Eh, I've gotten bored just sitting around here all night getting stuff ready, but it's been a busy night." She looked thoughtful, briefly. "I've been hearing things about a pack of Whywolves planning on attacking a library from before the Mushroom War that some brainlord-types dug out of the ground. Might be fun."

Finn puffed himself up with heroic valor and possibly a bit of irritation that he had totally failed to hear about any of that. "Whywolves attacking random guys who were digging up ancient thinking-stuff and learning-books? My hero-heart wails for justice! And possibly to cut down on fatty foods, Peebles has been sending me a lot of stuff about that sort of thing and it's starting to freak me out." He thought a bit and added, "And after we slay them, I can shave them and make stuff to wear the next time I have to go down to the Ice Kingdom!"

"Whywolves make some pretty rocking fur-clothes," Marceline agreed. She floated back, grinning lazily, and cracked her knuckles with a sound like the rumble of distant thunder. "C'mon, we're wasting time. Let's get out there and start making trouble."

Unsurprisingly, Finn was totally cool with that.

Finn was about to shout jubilantly with some sort of agreement, and realized a small flaw. "But it's the middle of the night."

"That's a problem?"

"Nah, not really, but it's cold without a shirt! Hold on a sec, I'm gonna get something else on." Finn turned to the ladder in the middle of the living room, intent on going to their room to fetch a shirt to wear, and started to climb up, a little too much aware of how Marceline watched his ever movement and that she didn't seem too pleased with his decision.

"What, wait? A shirt? C'mon, you can live without one! Get back down here!" Finn didn't answer. "You weenie! A little cold won't kill youm probably! Some brisk weather is good for mortals! Assuming you survive it, but that just proves you're badass enough to take it, and that's a good thing! And if you died I could bring you back as a zombie! I guess. And you'd just smell weird and obey my every whim and command, so in other words you'd be exactly the same!" Finn continued to not indulge her, and Marceline grouchily crossed her arms. "Oh, you suck! Denying me my fanservice? Not cool, Finn!"

"Sorry, but I really need a shirt! Like, uh, like with ways that I'm in too much of a hurry to find a word-book to tell me something clever to say!" Finn said. "I really don't want lots of people to be seeing me without a shirt, and besides, a Great Hero never goes anywhere without his signature outfit!"

"Blue shirts, shorts and a hat count as an outfit?"

"You forgot the shoes. And they totally do!"

"Meh, just go for a little variety in your outfits," Marceline said as Finn disappeared into the rooms above. "Suppose you get attacked by a clothes-stealing spirit brigade, and then you have outfit back-up."

"Did that actually happen to you once?"

"No, but I fully expect it to. My clothes are so awesome, who wouldn't want to steal them?" Trying to think of something else to say, Marceline added, "But on the other hand, I guess it's kind of cool you're putting a shirt on. Don't think I like the idea of other people seeing you without clothes on, that's my territory!"

"I know," Finn said amiably, rustling through the wardrobe he'd brought with him from the old treehouse. He found a suitable looking shirt (and a matching coat, since it was probably cold outside) and put them both on, feeling a little annoyed as he slid the articles of clothing on because it hid his totally awesome new tattoo from sight. (It was a good thing that it didn't need to dry or anything like that, or he would have had some serious problems.) He weighed the problems of wearing clothing above the waist between potentially getting sick or being really uncomfortable with the benefits of showing his marks off, and, reluctantly, self-consciousness and practicality won out over his desire to show off. Besides, he supposed he could roll up the sleeves when he needed to show stuff off to the right people. He thought that the people they were going to help probably knew all kinds of people and could spread word of Finn's new tattoos pretty quickly, and he brightened at the thought.

He finished dressing (which meant putting shoes on, and that was it) and climbed down the ladder back into the living, where Marceline was patiently waiting with her axe-bass in one hand and one of his longswords in the other. She handed it to him as he passed by, and as soon as he had it in hand she gave him a heartly slap on the back that almost knocked him to the ground. "Right," She said, and that was all that needed to be said.

Finn charged out the door, Marceline soon catching up and flying past him as he made his way to a boat that had been rigged up by Bubblegum to fly (it had been an interesting idea for her, and she was interested in applying the technology on a much wider scale with dreams of flying people all over Ooo), and he soon caught up with Marceline, the two of them racing each other out of the cave and breaking out of it into the cool night air in almost no time, flying from under the broken highway this particular cave of Marceline's was located under.

The cool night air was a brisk experience for Finn, not unlike the way Marceline's skin felt, and his cheeks reddened a little at the totally instinctual comparision. Marceline didn't seem to notice, running on sheer exhilarated adrenaline at the prospect of the fight to come (and she lived to fight, just like he did), and flying so hard she had outpaced him by a considerable distance and Finn punched a button that activated the flying boat's afterburners, rocketing him through the air and just nearly catching up with her, laughing like a maniac the whole time with the thrill of the incredible speed of it, his blood pounding furiously and a slightly manic edge in his voice.

Wild and maniacal and delirious with the simple joy of just doing things, and Finn thought that was so much like the way Marceline did everything that he figured she was rubbing off on him, and that it wasn't a bad thing at all.

He absently rubbed his tattooed arm, the design on it hidden under his clothes but feeling bright and clear in his mind, and he didn't bother to try to keep his grin from getting a little wider. This felt right, and once more he felt that he had gone right over a threshold he hadn't even realized was there, or hit a milestone so important he should have seen it coming and spent months planning around it and celebrating how close he was to it...

He felt free, perhaps all the weirder because he had bound himself to her in a very clear way, and the contradiction didn't seem like an actual contradiction to him. The boundaries had been established, and it felt good, like he had thrown off a stone that had been hanging around his neck and dragging him down. Deeper than that was the sudden impulse to think that he had been standing on his own, surronded by friends and family and still by himself until Marceline had doved down and wrapped her arms tight before he ever noticed she was even there, and with her holding him there was the solid knowing that he had made a place for himself that was explicitly and solidly Finn, not someplace he was good for because he was the right species for it but that the two of them had carved out for each other.

Certainly, there hadn't been much of a space in the world marked Great Hero that is the Vampire Queen's boyfriend until he and she had smashed him into it, and now the world was still adjusting to it. Neither of them had intended anything of the sort, but it had happened all the same, and perhaps it was even better that way.

It was good, he decided, to know precisely where he belonged now, alongside Marceline, bound to her by his own will and intention (and the significance of it was still swelling up, blooming like a flower that had been well-nutured and was only now reaching the beginings of it's proper growth), and it provided a content feeling.

"Okay," He said to the wind, and was sure Marceline could hear it by the way she slowed down a bit on their way to their next adventure, slipping back on the winds and grinning happily at him. He wished he had better words for how...momentus this was, and still he couldn't think of anything else to say. He just smiled the biggest fool-grin he had, and she grinned back, just as crazy-happy as he was.

He breathed in, then out, and felt satisfied with the whole of his life now as he now flew in pace with Marceline; all else (except possibly for the upcoming fight) ceased to really matter, and what was happening right there and now between the two of them was the whole of the present, the two of them subtlely aware that they were feeling something like what they had last felt when they'd had real families, slowly coming closer to one another in spirit if not literally.

The two of them flew on together. Perfect moments are rare, and they rarely last long, but this one felt like it went on for hours, a single moment of perfectly made belonging.