Chapter 1: Necks

"Ah! For the love of...fuck! Why won't you unzip...oh shit! Oh my God - shit!"

Bonnibel looked up in surprise from the research paper she was writing at the sound of the front door slamming shut. A string of colorful curses followed, ringing out loudly from the other room. Before she had the chance to investigate what was going on, an irritated looking Marceline marched in, rubbing the base of her neck vigorously. With her other hand, she held out her jacket as far away from her as possible as if it strongly repulsed her.

"What on earth happened to you?" Bonnibel asked her frazzled girlfriend.

"This," Marceline huffed as she pulled down the collar of her shirt lower to show Bonnibel something on her neck. Upon her close inspection, Bonnibel could see that there was a small red mark barely larger than a pinprick forming just beneath her throat.

"And what exactly is that?" she prodded further, noting that Marceline had starting shuffling in the way she usually did when she was embarrassed about something.

"Well, the stupid zipper of this stupid jacket..." Marceline mumbled as she waved the said jacket in front of Bonnibel for emphasis, "...got stuck and when I tried to force it down, the damn thing caught on my neck.

I'm definitely never ever wearing this again," she added petulantly, depositing the article of clothing on Bonnibel's desk.

Although her girlfriend looked absolutely pissed, Bonnibel found the whole situation so ridiculous that she couldn't help but snicker at Marceline's expense.

"What kind of adult injures herself on her own jacket zipper?"

"How do I even have control over this?" Marceline exclaimed over Bonnibel's giggles while rolling her eyes in exasperation.

"Why did you even have your jacket zipped so high up your neck? That isn't really very punk rock of you now isn't it?" Bonnibel remarked sweetly with a smirk.

"You take that back right now!" screeched a very insulted Marceline. "It was fricking cold okay. You try walking all the way from the studio in this weather and tell me how you like it. You're lucky I like you or else I would have already ripped that smug grin off your face." Still looking like she wanted to bop Bonnibel's head for her offensive comment, Marceline walked over to the full length mirror Bonnibel kept to inspect her neck injury further.

"It took some of my skin off, Bonnie! Look, it took skin!" she exclaimed with actual panic in her eyes. "Do you think it will leave a scar? I don't want to spend the rest of my life explaining to people that I got it from a dumb jacket zipper out of all things. It'll definitely ruin my cool rep. People are always so annoyingly nosey about those sort of things." Marceline's hand unconsciously moved to touch the two old scars on the right side of her neck she received from an accident years ago.

Bonnibel went over to where Marceline was still staring intently at her reflection and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend. "It's okay, Marcy. See, it barely even broke your skin. Besides, I think scars are sexy." she reassured the other girl who was still in some distress with a wink. "Also, what cool rep are we even talking about? You're the biggest dork I know."

"Ah, shut up." Marceline said, an impish grin slowly spreading across her face as she returned the hug. "We both know I'll always be cooler than you no matter what."

"And I'll always be smarter so we're even," Bonnibel shot back with a fond smile. "You should put some ointment on that though. I think I left a tube on the coffee table over there. Much as I want to stand here and cuddle with you, I really have to write my paper now. It's due in two days and I'm barely even half done."

With a reluctant sigh, Bonnibel untangled herself from their embrace and sat back down in front of her computer. Also looking equally unwilling to have their time cut short, Marceline hunted for the ointment and flopped herself down on the couch once she found it. Bonnibel had just barely finished writing a new sentence when her work was interrupted once more.

"You know if this thing does scar, maybe I could tell people I was attacked by a lion. That would make a really awesome story right?"

Bonnibel looked over to where Marceline was sprawled lazily on the couch and narrowed her eyes at her. This however, only seemed to encourage Marceline further as she started grinning proudly as if she just had the most brilliant idea.

"When people ask, I can tell them that I rescued you from a lion trying to maul you to death," Marceline told her excitedly. "Actually you know what, make that a whole pride of lions! I slaughtered them all to save you - my one true love."

"Just put on the ointment, Marcy," Bonnibel said, an amused smile on her lips. She turned back to finishing her paper. However, barely getting a word in, Bonnibel's progress was interrupted again. This time, by Marceline's dramatic hiss of pain. For someone who always liked pretending to be tough, Marceline can be such a crybaby sometimes. Bonnibel couldn't help but tease her about it.

"How's it going Miss Lion Slayer?"

"Even heroes feel pain, Bonnie," Marceline gamely replied. Her features scrunched up as she applied another layer of the medicine to her neck. "This stuff stings like shit. Why do people even have to have necks?"

Out of all the things to come out of her girlfriend's mouth, Bonnibel definitely wasn't expecting this at all. She burst out laughing at the sheer weirdness of the question.

"Wha...what do you mean?" she gasped out between giggles, trying to catch her breath because honestly, only Marceline could think of something so random.

Marceline however, looked dead serious although there was a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Necks Bonnie. What do we even need them for? Do they even have a purpose aside from getting in the way of jacket zippers and hurting like hell. Honestly, I don't even see the point in having necks," she ranted while absentmindedly stroking her own neck. "I know! I want you to science my neck away."

Despite the general absurdity of the topic, Bonnibel was never one to let a scientific error slide. "As a matter of fact Marceline, our necks do serve a purpose. For one, they allow us to turn our heads without moving the rest of our bodies. Also, you can find a lot of vital structures in our necks like the thyroid gland for example. Not to mention, there are also many nerves that - "

"Blah blah blah sciency sciency stuff," Marceline interrupted her explanation. "I'm zoning out, Bon. Not everyone is a nerd like you. Those other stuff can just relocate to your chest or to other places in your body I dunno."

Bonnibel shot her a dirty look, "Well, if you don't appreciate my 'sciencey stuff' as you put it, give one good reason why you don't think necks are important."

"I can actually give you several good reasons," Marceline began matter-of-factly. "Without necks people will no longer experience sucky things like neck pain and whiplash because those are plain terrible. People won't die by strangulation also. That's good since I think choking to death is a really bad way to die."

"Yes, but -"

"Ssh! Let me finish. Beheadings won't also happen anymore. I'm not really sure though if that's a good thing or bad since they're really cool in movies," Marceline continued. "And I don't know… vampire bites? Ha ha yes! Vampires cannot go around sucking blood from people's necks anymore!"

"Vampires aren't even real, Marceline," Bonnibel chided. "Just imagine how weird you'll look if you don't have a neck."

"Well, if everyone else didn't have a neck not having one will be normal," Marceline said with a surprising amount of insight. "We'll just have new standards for beauty or something."

In a twisted messed up way, Marceline was actually making some sense. However, Bonnibel wasn't someone who liked losing arguments and she certainly wasn't going to let Marceline have the point in this one. She went over to where Marceline was laying on the couch and sat on top of her. Running one hand through her girlfriend's hair, Bonnibel pressed a kiss on Marceline's neck.

"Uh Bonnie, what are you doing?"

"I'm changing your mind," she said, slowly pressing more kisses to Marceline's neck. Her body tensed as Marceline let out a soft sigh.

"Mmmm… that feels good," Marceline purred as Bonnibel continued kissing her. "Oh eew! I think you just hit the spot with the ointment."

"Yuck," Bonnibel grimaced at the medicine's bitter taste, quickly wiping her lips on her sleeve. "Do you want to move this to the bedroom?" Marceline didn't even need to reply.

Needless to say, Bonnibel wasn't able to finish her paper that night.