Disclaimer: Nopeee.

Notes: So I dunno where this one came from. Normally I don't really go for this sort of thing, but I got the idea while I was working on my Fiolee story. So it's not a chapter update, but it is something! Please review/comment/critique!

"Marshall," Gumball said.

Marshall looked up from the guitar. His eyes were dark and cold, and his mouth was twisted. Even his fingers appeared irritated – they moved angrily over the strings, near violently, and the song that clawed its way out of the instrument was heavy and harsh.

"What?" he retorted.

"She'll be fine."

"Of course she will. Fionna is always–" he picked out a painfully sharp note and winced, "fine."

"Then why are you worried?" Gumball wondered. They were sitting on the floor of the Candy throne room, or rather, Marshall was hovering above it and Gumball was spreading out pages and pages of scientific notes upon it. His legs were folded beneath him, his eyes focused thoughtfully on the miniscule, precise writing, pink fingers resting on a fresh stack of paper.

Marshall scowled down at the magenta hair. "Who's worried?"

Gumball didn't look up, simply shrugged. "You don't normally do that with your teeth."

Marshall brushed a hand over his face, and realized with a pinch of surprise that his fangs were digging into his lower lip. In fact, at the corner of his mouth, a tiny drop of blood was welling. He wiped it off, staring at the smear of red on his fingers.

"Huh," he said.

"Huh indeed," the prince responded, reaching for a pen and jotting down a few indecipherable, symbol-scattered lines.

Marshall rolled his eyes at the rosy ceiling. Why was everything in this damned castle some shade of pink? It got old. "What am I doing here?" he asked, bitter and very rhetorical.

"Fionna said she'd come here first, remember? You wanted to be here."

The vampire growled quietly. He had always hated how reasonable Gumball was. It was a horribly unlikable quality. "I know. But why am I here, when I could be there, with her–"

"She asked you not to."

"Like she could stop me–"

"She didn't have to. You listened anyways."

Marshall's long fingers were curled into a determined, anxious fist, and he had a sudden craving to spit on the top of Gumball's head. "You're a real prick, Bubba."

"Don't be nasty," Gumball said absently, frowning at an equation. He crossed it out and wrote another in its place.

The pale, flowery pink wall loomed in Marshall's vision. Why was everything so freaking pink? A sharp, unnecessary breath rushed through his lungs, and he slammed his shoe against the candied wall.

"Marshall!"

"What?"

"Do not kick my walls! They've been in the family for generations!"

Marshall laughed cruelly, and rearranged his guitar so the axe blade faced outwards. "No kicking? What if I just slice a hole through–"

But, in a surprisingly swift movement, Gumball reached up and grabbed his shoe-clad foot. "Absolutely not," he said sharply, pulling Marshall down with a quick tug. The vampire thudded into the floor, and a ferocious snarl escaped from his morphing face – the fangs extended, his eyes widened, the red spread, and something dark and terrible began to emerge from his youthful features–

"Oh, stop it," Gumball snapped. "Sit here like a sensible person or get out."

Marshall let loose a fearsome sound. It was part roar, but the other half might have been a laugh.

A tight glare engulfed the prince's face. "I'm serious!"

The patches of fur and streaks of leathery skin rising from Marshall's arms started to fade away. His long body settled onto the floor, completely sprawled over Gumball's carefully laid out notes, and he shook with laughter.

Gumball sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and leaning an elbow on his knee. "Sometimes you are simply unbearable, Marshall Lee," he declared dourly.

Marshall's snickers ceased. "Sometimes you're not so hot yourself," he replied honestly.

Gumball shook his head, chin in hand, looking down at the vampire's face. "No one's perfect."

A simple shrug was his response. Their eyes, amethyst purple and solid black, met. After a moment Gumball blinked.

"Marshall," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Do you love Fionna?"

It was a frighteningly bare question, and Marshall swallowed. There was a pause, then he brushed his hair out of his face and grinned up at Gumball. "Everyone loves Fionna," he answered flippantly.

Gumball stared down at him, his eyes large and solemn. "That isn't what I asked."

Marshall looked away. He swallowed again, and Gumball's gaze followed the movement of his throat.

When he glanced up once more, his eyes were bleak. "I guess," he muttered.

"You guess?"

"I love her," Marshall said flatly.

Gumball let out a breath. His smile was sad. "Then she's lucky."

For a moment longer they simply looked at each other, and then Gumball pushed a few papers aside and flopped down next to Marshall. "Play something," he said, flicking the guitar.

"No science?" Marshall asked softly.

Gumball shook his head, scrutinizing the faint pink of the ceiling. "Science doesn't fix everything."

There was silence for a second, and then Marshall began to play, fingers gentle on the cool metal strings. It was quiet and sweet, swirling hushed and soothing from the body of the guitar. After a while, Gumball closed his eyes.

When Fionna and Cake returned hours later, bloodied from the mission they had demanded to go on alone, they found the Vampire King and the Candy Prince sleeping on the floor in a pile of papers and equations, the guitar between them.