It's a nice club.
6,000 feet square footage, live music, exquisite catering, and not to mention impeccable management. The club was built sometime after the country nearly split, left to ruin when everyone else was preoccupied with redefining a nation and keeping themselves fed; the same could be said for much of Candy City. Even long after the war ended, and another began, people were reluctant to rebuild what had once been a lively, prospering City, and Bonnie should know. Her mother died trying to return Candy City to its golden days, and her father, an ornery, bitter old man, spent more time looking for work out of the City than he did actually living there; he was never fond of his wife's goal of taking the City back to its heyday, and he only grew worse after her death, when he realized she'd planted the seeds of her dream in her daughter's head.
In the end, he, too, never lived to see the beauty of the Cotton Candy Club, but Bonnie likes to pretend he had. If for nothing else, then to rub it in his face because it really is a fine establishment.
Much of her youth was spent learning numbers and business and saving up to buy the joint. With her mother's savings that, luckily, her father was never able to find, Bonnie bought the building, fixed it up, and, in just a few years, was able to turn it into one of the biggest clubs in all of Candy City. It's her greatest accomplishment, and nothing short of death will ever make her relinquish her hold of it.
It's why, whenever, on the off chance that she gets asked out, she always turns the offer down. It's why, when the lights go dim and the staff and crowd go home, she always stays behind to make sure everything's in its place. It's why, whenever she gets asked about settling down, she always replies with, "I already have" and a confused head tilt.
It's why, when Marceline Abadeer returns to the City and starts eyeing the Club, she doesn't make like everyone else and write her off as another odd broad. Instead, she takes action.
She arranges a meeting.
"I still think you're making too big a deal out of this", Gumball, her business partner, says the night of the meeting. He's sat at his desk, feet propped up against the edge and a lollipop dangling from his mouth. "This is Marcy we're talking about, right? Little Marcy? The girl with the pigtails? The girl that used to carry that stupid stuffed doll around with her?" He pulls his sucker from his mouth, popping his lips as it pulls free, and raises an eyebrow at her. "The girl we grew up with?"
Bonnie scoffs; she pulls her hair back into a taut ponytail, then reaches into her makeup box for a tube of lipstick. "Make no mistake, partner", she says, giving him the side-eye as she rolls up the tube. She presses it to her lips and colors them a light pink until the cracks disappear. "Little Marcy and the Marceline that's coming in tonight are two different people. This woman." She shakes her head. "She's trouble. You know the kind of tomfoolery she was getting up to before she hit the road."
Gumball rolls his eyes. He pulls up the sleeves of his shirt, leans back in his seat, and gives her a tilt of the head. "Okay, she was getting kind of intense. But it's nothing we haven't seen dozens of times before. Most of our old pals are either crimelords or cracklords, and we've handled them all." His eyes take on a suspicious glint. "What makes Marcy so special?"
Bonnie's hand trembles. She turns her back to him so that she can look in the mirror perched along the back of the door. There, she takes the time to fuss with her hair, patting and retying it until she's pleased with its appearance. Then, and only then, does she turn around, give him a hard look, and say, "She's not. I just know she's been watching us. And if she's watching us, then that means she's plotting." She folds her arms and juts out a hip. "I won't have the likes of her polluting my club."
Gumball snorts. "And to think you guys used to be friends."
"She's trouble, Gummy", Bonnie continues on a sigh. "And trouble is never good for business."
For a good, long second, Gumball doesn't say anything. He just stares at her, eyeing her in that way that he always does whenever a sore topic broaches the conversation. Bonnie's never told him what exactly lead to her falling out with Marceline, but he's always been a smart kid. And he knows her better than anyone else.
Well. Almost anyone.
"I'm not gonna let her get the best of me", Bonnie murmurs as she starts towards the door. "Not this time."
Before she can slam the door behind her, Gumball's stepped between the doorway and taken hold of her forearm. He's still watching her, watching her like something's amiss, like something's off. "Is there more going on here that I should know about?", he says with a pointed look.
"No." Marceline's smile, soft and free of malice, as it had been that summer just after she bought the club, comes to her then. Butterflies blossom in her belly, and Bonnie swallows, averting her eyes to the club before her. "No. Of course not." Then she yanks her hand free of his grasp and makes her way through the club.
The crowd's in full swing, with the gals up on their men's shoulders, and the men jumping and spinning about. In the back, past the twirling limbs and shrieking girls, there sits the appointed table. And at the table, there sits Marceline Abadeer.
From the way she's sitting, her leg draped over the other, cigarette hanging from her lips, arm tossed over the back of her chair, it's clear that she's been here a while. One look at the grandfather clock in the corner confirms Bonnie's suspicions; she's late. She may have been the one to grow into a businesswoman, but Marceline has always, always been the one with better timing.
Something in Bonnie's chest lurches. She pushes it down, shakes the tremors out of her hands, then makes her way over to Marceline.
"Hey, doll", Marceline says, her voice low and sultry; she's got on a black, shimmering dress that trickles all the way down to the floor. When she lifts her leg to cross it over the other, the fabric pulls back to reveal nothing but miles of soft, brown skin. Marceline grins, and Bonnie scowls, sinking into the seat in front of her as red crawls across her cheeks.
"Oh, Bonnibel", she tuts. "Still rocking the blush, I see."
Bonnie hums. She takes in Marceline's elbows, which are resting squarely on the table, and her hair, a wild, free expanse of curls, as unkempt as it's ever been. "I see you haven't changed much either."
Marceline flashes another wicked grin, and something warm and fuzzy disperses within Bonnie's stomach because it's a lot less jagged than the one she'd used to greet her with. Marceline tips back the glass in her hand and takes a sip of her wine like it's the finest in town.
Although, to be fair-
"I know you didn't call me here to play catch up." Marceline tips her glass back and forward, watching as the dark liquid threatens to spill over the rim of the cup. "So what's the occasion?"
"Don't play coy, Marceline. I've seen you lookin' in before you get any ideas, I'm telling you this right here, right now. Whatever shit you're looking to stir up, the Cotton Candy Club is off-limits; take your business elsewhere because it is not welcome here."
She looks at Bonnie like it's a challenge. It might be because it is a challenge.
"Why such a tart", Marceline asks with a faux pout. "I'm just trying to do business, and these days, word is you're quite the businesswoman."
"I thought I already told you, I don't want your business. So whomever-whatever- you're associating yourself with these days, you can just run right on back to them and tell them the game's over. I don't want any part of this shit."
Marceline raises her eyebrows and makes a face like she's been wounded. "Oof, such language for a lady."
For a moment, all Bonnie does is glare. She glares because, in the past, that was all it took to get Marcy to stop her nonsense. But Marceline hasn't been Marcy in a long time; Bonnie's glares don't scare her anymore than Marceline's escapades do for Bonnie. They aren't kids anymore; it takes a lot more than a mean face and the possibility of danger to put them off.
Bonnie reaches across the table and takes Marceline's glass from her. She's aware of the surrounding eyes, of the whispers, of the rumors that are sure to be rampant by tomorrow morning. But there comes a time when reputation and actions collide. When that occurs, a decision is to be made, and if Bonnie's good at nothing else, it's making decisions.
And Bonnie's decided to drink from Marceline's glass.
Marceline gives her a look. It's been years since Bonnie's seen it, but she knows it upon sight, and she knows what it means. She knows trouble's a'brewing.
"Boys", Marceline says, with a vague jerk to the tuxedoed-men standing beside her. "Give us a minute."
The men nod, give Bonnie two steely-eyed looks, then turn to Marceline. Marceline nods, and the men turn around and begin to walk away.
"While you're at it", she calls out over her shoulder. "Get us some drinks. I'm feeling a little...parched."
Bonnie's eye twitches. "You could stand to be a little more discreet", she says into Marceline's glass.
Marceline just smiles. "Only finishing what you couldn't", she sneers. She lights herself another cigarette, sighing heavenly as she releases three fat puffs of smoke. When she opens her eyes, they're a foggy red, like her allergies are getting the run of her.
Allergies, Bonnie finds herself thinking. She's allergic to pollen, dog fur, and strawberries. I shouldn't still know that.
I shouldn't have ever known that.
"Now, let's get something straight, sweetness", Marceline's saying, her lips curving up upon the second-to-last word. Then they fall, regaining all manner of seriousness as she stares out at Bonnie. "I don't know what the rumor mill's pumping out these days, but I ain't working for nobody but myself." She huffs, gives Bonnie a deep, intrusive look-down. "And I certainly don't take orders from anybody neither."
When Bonnie goes to speak, she finds her throat dry and cracking. She takes three, deep gulps of Marceline's drink, swallows, then clears her throat. "Well, I don't know what to tell you", she starts, hands going to fumble with her tie. "But those are my terms, and they're non-negotiable."
Silence falls between again. In in it, there lingers half-spoken truths, knowledge of envelopes returned unread, and simmering memories of drunken confessions. What lies between them could fill a cavern and wither a soul, with the latter having obviously happened. Bonnie looks at Marceline and sees a husk of the lively, eccentric woman she used to know, embittered and driven half-mad by whatever life she's gotten herself into. And she knows that Marceline's probably seeing the same.
"And here I was thinking that you had changed", Marceline says; with the silence, she's begun to sound like herself again, nothing at all like that balmy showgirl flair she'd been aiming for. No. Now, she sounds...not quite like little Marcy, but not this hardened, jagged Marceline that she's become. She sounds like the woman Bonnie spent the night in a barn with, staring up through the cracks in the ceiling, because that was as close to the city they could be to see the stars. That was the fall after she bought the club, when she worried about not being able to earn back her loans; Marceline was quiet a lot that fall, as she was that night, lying shoulder to shoulder with Bonnibel as they watched the sky blossom with little, white dots of life.
It hurts. It hurts in a way Bonnie hasn't known in a long time, so she pushes it down, looks up at Marceline, and steels herself.
"Well. What you see is what you get." Bonnie says, and it's the first lie she's told in years. She sets her, Marceline's, glass down on the table, and sits there; uncertain, as she always had been with Marceline, of where to go from here. "I don't want this to get hairy."
Marceline nods. Her eyes are still red, and there's a bit of a glossy sheen to them. "You should have thought of that at Grand Central."
Bonnie closes her eyes. She clenches her fist in the tablecloth beneath her hands, and she bites at her lip because damn it. Just
damn it.
"I'm taking this, Bonnie." Whatever tenderness had begun to permeate her voice, it's all gone now. With one breathe, one proper-noun, Marceline's summoned all the anger, all the bitterness from her being and sent it Bonnie's way. She might as well as launched an arrow at her heart. "I'm taking all of it", Marceline continues, her voice steady despite the wobbles afflicting her words. "And when it's all gone, and you're standing in the middle of it, wondering how it got so bad, I do so hope you don't forget to look in the mirror."
Bonnie opens her eyes. She lifts her eyes from the table to give Marceline a sober, somber look. "You're mad, Marceline."
Marceline just looks right on back. "You're goddamn right I am."
It's then that the men from before return. Marceline takes a glass from the both of them, downs each, and tosses a dollar and some change onto the table. "Boys", she says, all emotion and instability gone out of her voice. "I think we're done here." She winks, then turns and begins to sashay away, her heels clacking as she goes. "It was so nice seeing you again, Bonnibel."
Bonnie just sits there. Around her, the music continues swinging, and the people continue dancing. Life goes on, as it always has.
After a while, Gumball walks over to Bonnie, pauses, and looks at her. "We still in business", he asks, eyes flicking between her and the door.
Bonnie purses her lips; she reaches into her pocket for her tube of lipstick and takes to reapplying it until her hands stop shaking. Then she looks up at Gumball, nods, and folds her hands beneath her chin. "Even if it kills me."