The beautiful carpekl76 requested a cute and fluffy bubbline challenge fic, set post-Stakes and so sweet it could rot your teeth. I genuinely hope this is good enough. I won't be posting again until after Christmas now because I'm down at my parents' place from tomorrow night. But I'll be editing and reviewing so expect new chapters and one shots from Boxing Day night onwards. And I'm always open to challenge or prompt fics, hit me with a PM if you'd like to see anything in particular.
For carpekl76, with compliments of the season.
(Content note for Stakes spoilers)
"Yo, nerd. What's happening?"
Bonnie jumped and accidentally tipped far too much acid into the mixture she'd been carefully titrating; it fizzed and turned vividly purple and the whole experiment was ruined because she'd needed to know the precise amount of acid required to bring the pH down to neutral. Not that she cared at all, not when she was being addressed by that voice. She turned tiredly from her workbench and smiled a greeting to the unannounced visitor.
"Marceline! Look at you being all outside and talking to people again, you look great!"
She meant it; the other woman was just as pale and lovely as ever, almost like nothing at all had happened to her instead of recently having been through some massive and life changing traumas. Marceline smiled a little shyly and rolled her shoulders in modest embarrassment. That was one of those very subtle changes Bonnie had noticed since their misadventure with the Vampire King; before Marcy would have been brash and possibly even a little arrogant when given a compliment like that but she was now slightly shy in the face of praise, a little unsure of herself. It was surprisingly adorable.
"I got a bit lonely. It was good to have time alone to think but... yeah, I missed you. The house was too quiet tonight and I figured you'd still be up sciencing even though it's the middle of the night, because you're crazy and abuse your sleep cycle."
Marceline shrugged and avoided the princess' gaze. Bonnie knew her friend well enough to know when she was holding something back but she also knew that there was absolutely no point trying to rush the vampire. She'd talk about it when she was ready and not a second before even if that meant keeping people in suspense for centuries. But it was nice to be missed and she'd missed Marceline too. Between settling back in at the palace, getting rid of all the crap the stupid King of Ooo had left everywhere, setting her lab back up and reassuring her spooked and skittish subjects Bonnie felt like she hadn't had a second to breathe let alone miss anyone. But still when she finally lay down thoroughly exhausted at the end of each day her thoughts briefly flickered to the cabin and the confusing but unexpectedly serene night she'd fallen asleep with her head on Marcy's shoulder looking out at her garden under starlight together. And then when she did sleep her nightmares showed her something different altogether; they showed pale grey skin lined with a toxic green, breathing that was unaccustomed to being necessary beginning to turn shallow and raspy, mounting terror that things were about to end horribly without her ever getting the chance to say any of the stuff she'd wanted to because she hadn't been able to find the words. And then she woke long before she should have, filled with anxious energy to fix the whole world and throw herself into another frantic day of cleaning and ruling and keeping her brain so busy it couldn't dwell on anything emotional. Bonnie realised with a jolt she'd been staring blankly at Marceline for an unforgivably long time while her thoughts whirled messily.
"Do I have something stuck between my teeth or what?" Marcy asked with a confused frown. Bonnie flushed and looked away. She resolutely blamed the exhaustion for her weird vacant spell, refused to consider it might be due to anything else.
"Sorry. Just didn't sleep well last night. Or the night before. This place is a total mess since that idiot King of Ooo donked all my biz and I'm so stressed trying to get it fixed up."
Technically that was not a lie, except that she'd omitted all of the parts where every time she closed her eyes she could feel the dead weight of her unconscious best friend slumped in her arms, hear the staccato trip of her own panicked pulse in her ears because of all the billions of things that could ever happen during any of their crazy adventures Marceline turning mortal and coming within a few seconds of dying had never even occurred to Bonnie. Marceline was a constant, the only thing in the last eight hundred years that hadn't changed, couldn't change. Except when she did. Except when everything changed all at once and was suddenly terrifyingly unfamiliar. And now it was back to how it had been, except that it wasn't. Not really. Marceline had changed in little ways and Bonnie was struggling to process it along with all the old feelings and insecurities that had bobbed back to the surface when she thought her friend might die. Because Bonnie had thought that they literally had forever to work it all out between them. Discovering that they might not- well she didn't know how to feel about that. She shook her thoughts free again, guiltily realising that she'd been hearing Marceline's voice for a while now without really listening to her.
"...and thought we could go take a closer look, because that's totally something you'd be into right?"
"Huh? Oh, right, yes. That sounds great."
Bonnie wasn't about to admit that she'd spaced out again and missed half of what her friend had said to her. She smiled to cover her confusion; what had she just agreed to?
"Really? That's… Huh. Wow. Awesome! Well come on then, don't wanna miss it."
Marceline swept down from where she'd been bobbing restlessly in the air and wrapped her arms around Bonnie like she had a thousand times before, and just like always the sensation of weightlessness took the princess by surprise and she grabbed hold a little tighter than was strictly necessary.
"Good thing I don't need to breathe or you'd be choking me right now." Marceline told her conversationally as they soared out of the nearest window. "Still scared I'll drop you after all this time?"
"Sorry. I just, it's still a bit surprising when you do that. I wasn't expecting we'd be flying." Bonnie muttered in reply.
Marceline shot her a strange look but didn't argue. They soared off into the air together and despite herself Bonnie felt her limbs relax; hundreds of feet above the darkened ground with the person she knew best in the whole world it was hard to remember to be anxious about all of the worries that plagued her in the palace. And it was surprisingly peaceful, quiet and pleasantly cool. She wasn't even aware of her eyelids sliding closed until she was being gently shaken awake again after an indeterminate amount of time.
"Hey, wake up Sleeping Beauty. You weren't lying about being exhausted, were you? It'll be starting soon."
Bonnie looked around herself in confusion. There was nothing to see but the occasional cloud showing as a dark shadow against the brilliant night sky that shone overhead like so many acres of diamond covered velvet. The indistinct hush of rolling waves far below told her they'd flown quite a distance out over the ocean, Bonnie couldn't even see the distant glimmer of lights on the shore when she peered over Marceline's shoulder.
"Um, why are we out at sea?" she asked, confused.
"Duh, light pollution." Marceline replied with a toothy grin. "Like, you think I don't listen when you talk science? I mean, not all the time, but I figured I get points for thinking about light pollution right?"
"Sure." Bonnie replied bewilderedly. "Light pollution. Stands to reason."
"You have no idea why we're out here, do you Bon?" Marcy asked her quietly after searching her face with intense eyes. Bonnie hung her head guiltily.
"I, um, I missed the bit where you explained why we were going out. Just... yeah, I'm kinda tired. Sorry."
The expression on Marceline's face was all kinds of hurt disappointment and Bonnie opened her mouth to apologise but the vampire shushed her before the words could come.
"It's starting. Look."
Bonnie looked up, turned in the direction Marceline was pointing and sucking in an amazed breath.
It was a meteor shower, almost directly overhead. At first it was just a couple of light trails blazing through the air above them. But as the minutes ticked by and they watched in silent wonder the air overhead grew thick with shooting stars, like they were suspended beneath a giant silent firework. Marceline's voice in her ear made Bonnie jump, she'd been absorbed in watching the meteors.
"You wanna go higher up? Get a closer look?"
She looked around. Marcy's face shone ivory pale in the starlight and she was smiling softly, some kind of warmth in her eyes that Bonnie had thought was long lost. The vampire hadn't looked at her that way in a very long time.
"Um. Yeah. Ok." Bonnie breathed in reply, stunned by the softness on her friend's face. Clearly she'd missed more than just a description of their destination when she'd spaced out in the lab.
They rose slowly through the night together in silence until the thin air grew cold around them and Marcy stopped, returning to a stationary hover. The meteors were close enough now that Bonnie could see when the larger ones fizzled out of existence, burning up to nothingness with the speed of their descent through the atmosphere.
"We're not close enough to get hit by any of the big ones though, right?" Bonnie asked, suddenly concerned. Some of the meteors looked big enough that they might even reach the surface before they burned up and she watched one plummeted past them, almost close enough to reach out and touch.
"Crazy fast vampire reflexes, babe. Nothing's getting close without my say so. You really think I'd let you get hurt?" Marcy replied, voice still soft.
Bonnie didn't reply, just rested her head on Marceline's shoulder and let out a long, quiet sigh. She was pretty certain she knew what it was she'd missed in the lab, now.
They hung there in the air for a long time, watching the silent streaks of light falling thickly through the cold air all around them. Bonnie looked around again when she felt Marceline's arms tighten around her a little.
"Are you cold?" Marcy asked. "You're shivering a little."
"Oh. Yeah, a little. I hadn't noticed."
"We should get back, it's late and I don't wanna be responsible for you getting sick from the cold."
"That's just an old wives' tale." Bonnie told her as they moved off, back towards the distant shore. "I'm no more likely to get sick when I'm cold than any other time."
"Mhm. And I'd want to risk that why?" Marceline asked, still speaking in that unusually soft voice. Bonnie just shrugged in reply, thoughtful and not completely certain how to articulate the question forming slowly in her drowsy brain.
It wasn't as long a flight back as Bonnie had expected but her eyelids were still drooping again by the time she could see the spires of her tower silhouetted against the distant horizon. There was a soft glow to the east warning of sunrise maybe only an hour or two away; she hadn't realised that they'd been out most of the night. A couple of minutes later they touched down on her balcony and Marceline set her carefully down, like she was made of glass and the unnaturally strong vampire was scared of breaking her.
"Listen…" Marcy started, but she just trailed off, fidgeting a little and avoiding the princess' gaze.
"Did you want to say something?" Bonnie prompted gently after a couple of tense moments.
"Can I ask you a question?" Marceline blurted, all in a rush like she was desperate to get the words out before she lost her nerve.
"Sure. I can't promise I'll answer if it's anything distasteful, though." Bonnie replied evenly.
Marceline shuffled her feet awkwardly, a complicated act of discomfort given that she was still hovering a foot above the ground.
"Just… in your cabin. Y'know, before it blew up. Why was my photo the only one you kept?"
Bonnie considered, gazing intently at the other woman. She'd told Jake and Finn that Marceline was her best friend, and she'd meant it. The pale woman was probably the only other person in the whole world who stood any chance of understanding her, keeping up with her, sharing her secrets. Nobody else got her quiet like Marceline did. And when she'd found that picture among the haphazard possessions she'd thrown together when that bastard King of Ooo had usurped the throne it had seemed like a comforting reminder, that no matter what else had changed in her life Marceline was a constant, she never changed. Until she did. Until she nearly died and everything did change. Bonnie felt the crushing weight of all those thoughts and emotions, all those confusions and feelings and half-formed wonderings. They crowded her all at once, and words just… failed her.
She shook her head, completely unsure if the only answer she could really give was going to be enough, trusting that her oldest friend would understand the words she didn't say as well as the ones she did.
"Because I missed you." Bonnie murmured eventually. "Because your photo made me smile, it made me remember all the ways you make me smile. And that was nice when everything else felt so screwed up. So now can I ask you a question, too?"
Marceline nodded. If Bonnie wanted to look very hard she thought she might have been able to make out of the faintest ghost of a blush on those ashen cheeks, only just visible in the weak glow of dawn bruising the eastern horizon.
"Was tonight supposed to be a date?"
Marceline looked up, meeting her eyes with mingled shock and embarrassment.
"Um, I guess you didn't hear when I awkwardly asked if you wanted to go see the meteor shower with me, as like, a date?" she mumbled after a couple of seconds of intense eye contact.
"Sorry. I missed that part." Bonnie replied guiltily.
"Would you have still come if you'd known it was a date from the start?" Marceline asked in a voice that plainly expected the answer to be 'no'.
Bonnie stared at her. Thought. Thought harder, about everything that had happened and everything that might happen and then about how her obsession with analysing every tiny aspect of every tiny thing in her life might be the single biggest threat to her own happiness. How she was her own worst enemy, how she wanted to be happy despite her self destructive habits. How she pushed people away far too much.
"That depends." the princess finally murmured, stepping forwards until there was no more space between them and catching Marceline's cool hands in her own. "Were you planning on finishing the date with a goodnight kiss?"
Shadowed green eyes met dusky rose ones. Cool lips quirked upwards in an answering shy smile.
"I think," Marceline breathed almost too quietly for Bonnie to hear over the nervous pounding of her own heart, "that we should probably stop over thinking it now."
Then she slid her arms around the princess' waist and drew her forwards into a soft kiss, tender and a little cautious like their whole relationship had become. But it was sweet, unhurried and calm, not explosive or fiery but still intense in its way. Loving, Bonnie thought. Perhaps the best word to describe that kiss would be loving.
"I didn't know you still felt that way." Marceline murmured softly when they finally parted. "I thought you'd… I dunno, not forgotten me exactly. But moved on, maybe?"
Bonnie pulled back a little to look the other woman in the eyes. There was plenty of doubt in that shaded gaze as well as an openness that she wasn't accustomed to seeing, a depth of awareness that everything was different this time as well as being so familiar.
"I never stopped caring about you, Marceline. And I'm never going to stop regretting that I pushed you away. But you're different now, we both are. Are you really sure you want to go back to where we used to be?"
The pale woman looked at her, still with that newfound openness on her face. Carefully she raised her hand and rested it against Bonnie's cheek.
"Still so warm." she murmured, almost to herself. "So warm and so soft and just as beautiful as you always were. You're the warmest and softest thing I've known in a thousand years. Do you think I really want to go back to how we used to be? I almost ruined you. No, Bonnibel. I want to find a new way to do this. Like, it could be an adventure. Do you wanna go on an adventure with me?"
Words, Bonnie thought a little dizzily, were difficult. But kissing was easy. She slid forwards again and let their lips connect, let her kiss say all the things she was struggling to find a way to express. And somehow in that kiss she found that she did know exactly what she wanted to say after all.
"Stay. Come inside and come to bed and we'll just... sleep, and rest together. And then let me think, over analyse it. Because I do want to go on an adventure with you. I want to get to know this new Marcy every bit as well as I knew the old one. If you'll stay." Bonnie murmured it against Marceline's lips, eyes closed and foreheads resting gently together.
She felt those same familiar cool arms that she adored so much sweep her up and carry her through the balcony doors, back into her darkened bedroom. They lay together nose to nose, eyes relearning the curves of faces long ago committed to memory.
"My Mom used to tell me that everything stays right where you left it, but it still changes ever so slightly." Marceline murmured, letting her finger tips trail across the arch of Bonnie's collarbone. "She was right. Still so soft and so warm, and right here exactly where you should be. And different in so many tiny ways, but exactly the same, still so perfect."
Bonnie wanted to reply but sleep was tugging insistently at her so instead she just let out a contented sigh and shifted slightly, rolling back into the same familiar position that she'd grown unaccustomed to in the intervening years, feeling cool arms rediscover exactly where they fit around her shoulders and waist. She slipped into her first peaceful sleep in days with the quiet hum of Marceline's voice in her ear.
Everything stays
Right where you left it
Everything stays
But it still changes
Ever so slightly
Daily and nightly
In little ways
When everything stays.