Prince Bubba Gumball, royal leader of the Candy Kingdom of the Land of Aaa, chewed absently on his pencil as he contemplated a matter of the most grave importance.
"The first attempt should've been successful," he commented aloud.
"The temperature was measured to the five-twentieth degree, the ingredients sorted by state of matter, and I even added extra sugar." He frowned, "Who knew Blurry Berry Cake would be such a challenge? Hm...maybe it depends on the base order the ingredients are alchemized..."
He scribbled in a few more alterations to the recipe, and paid only brief mind when a cold breeze blew in, and something snarled in his ear.
"Yes, yes, good evening to you, Marshall Lee. Do shut the window behind you." he muttered, and the intruder stuck out his tongue to the occupied prince before doing so.
He floated to look over the younger man's shoulder, "Whatcha doin' there?"
". . . Editing."
Marshall Lee frowned as he looked at the papers.
"Pfft, c'mon, who's gonna care that much about some old cake recipe?"
"I'll have you know this is a matter of political importance. Blurry Berry Cake is highly revered as a milestone to a chef's skill, and to serve it at the royalty meeting will be a great show of respect and talent as a dignitary," he smiled proudly, "As well as passively intimidating and becoming the honorable albeit humble envy of those met with said chef's skill."
"Yeah, yeah, 'ooh, fear me, for I can bake without setting off the smoke alarm!'" the vampire chuckled.
Gumball rolled his eyes, "Look, I realize that the nuances of this endeavor are lost on you, but I really can't get away from this right now. If you have nothing important to discuss with me, please let me work."
"Aw, Your Majesty-y-y, do I really need to make an appointment to see you?" the vampire drawled, blowing suggestively into his ear...and scowled when this didn't achieve the desired effect. He was being ignored.
His face twisted, fangs glistening as his eyes glowed, and the prince scribbled on.
He settled for scowling again.
". . . C'mon, Blowpop."
"Hmm."
The vampire crossed his legs in midair, strumming on his guitar idly, before he hissed again at the annoying, nothing-was-happening silence.
"GB? Gummy Bear? Oh Most Royal Pain In The Behind?"
-scratch, scribble, scrape-
Marshall Lee waited patiently, or at least as patiently as he felt was necessary.
"Really, I've been thinking on something, Bubba."
". . . Oh, dear, it seems the Ice Queen's Fortress hath melted. . ." the prince rolled his eyes. "Fine, what is this thought?"
The vampire only smirked, and waited until the prince was taking a drink from his cup.
"I was thinking...that we should totally seduce Fionna."
Ahh, there it was. Such a spit-take was never more worthy to go on tape! Glob, he lived for this stuff, in a manner of speaking.
"I - guh, my lungs! - I sincerely hope I misheard that," Gumball choked, putting a pink hand to his diaphragm, "I could've sworn that you said..."
"You heard me loud and clear, Gummy." the Vampire King smirked.
The prince's face flushed as he stood, "What is that in your cranial cavity? Have your years finally caught up with you? Truly, you've had many 'thoughts' that would be good or ill, and in most cases generally just ill, but this-this just isn't...!"
Marshall watched with amusement as his friend had his hilarious little freakout.
That flushing of red in his pink face just made him look even more freaking tasty...
It confused him a bit when the prince just suddenly stopped and crossed his arms.
". . . What?"
"I'm waiting for you to say 'ha, ha, this is another one of my most quaint, hilarious pranks' and proceed to make your hideous faces at me as usual." the prince said flatly.
He laughed, "No, I'm not kidding. I've done the math. You, me, and Fionna makes three."
"Oh, stuff you!" the prince finally snapped again, shock unhinging his language.
"Yes, please!" Marshall laughed even harder, clutching his stomach. He quickly struggled to calm himself down, sitting in the air, "No, no, seriously GB, I've been thinking about this for a while. It really feels to me like something we should do something about."
". . . There're two little things called a 'moral compass' and 'ethical protocol', and I'm pretty sure that you've never had the latter, and that the former is horribly disfigured, stunted in growth, and maladjusted." Gumball pinched the bridge of his nose, "Alright, alright. Let's presume that for the moment, and at the stake of my sanity, mind you, that I take your proposal under consideration. Where did this thought come from and how on Aaa do you possibly think it would work? And for the love of fudge, why?!"
"Wha-at, son? Do you think I'm blind?" the vampire grinned, and floated closer to purr in the younger man's ear, "I see how you've been lookin' at her." He chuckled as this made him splutter with indignity, "Oh, please, don't try denying it. I look at her too. I just hide it better. Oh, don't look at me like that!"
He shook his head when the prince's indignity turned its force on him, "Fio's not a kid anymore, I think we've both noticed that. Don't think that I didn't notice the way you acted after she'd done one of her little 'awesome-awesome I-kick-sauce' dances after that one mission!"
He grinned, "That's become such a nice dance now, hasn't it?"
Oh, hah, there was that disgustingly sweet face-flush again.
"Anyway, I know you like her," he continued, "And now you know I like her too. So if we both like her, and each other, where's the issue?"
"The issue is that for one thing, she doesn't know about us liking each other.
For the second thing, the dynamics of such a relationship would in all likelihood become corrupt."
Marshall blew a raspberry, slinging an arm across his shoulders, "Nah, she's cool. True, she can be a bit of an airhead about some junk, but she's very adaptable." He wiggled his eyebrows and laughed, "Plus, the whole 'dynamic' shtick? I have a plan for that, too. She can marry you and stuff, and hey, that'll make you a King and no longer Ice Queen hostage-fodder, and I can be your guys' official royal mistress or something like that. Wait, no, no, consort. Right. That's the word . . .
What do you call a dude mistress, anyway?"
"I wouldn't know." the prince replied strangely, sounding strangled.
"Right, anyhow, that takes care of any problems in Aaa, and in the Nightosphere I am the freaking Vampire King. Having a couple of consorts who are another king-dude and an epic hero-chick to boot will be a major boost to my status. It'd be freaking badawesome!" Then Marshall thought about it, "Y'know, maybe Fionna and I can be alternately married in the Nightosphere with you as our consort-mistress. Or you and me with her as the consort-mistress. That'd be pretty hot, too."
He grinned, "See? It works for both our worlds."
Gumball stared, then went back to sit at his desk and plant his face onto his notes.
"What makes you think Fionna herself would even consider this? She thinks of us as her 'bros'." he asked, muffled, and Marshall Lee shrugged.
"I dunno. She kinda has a thing for you, but you were being your usual dumbskull self, and she has a thing for me too, even if she beat me up when I tried to get her to admit it. But that's the deal with 'things', they tend to hang around and can be picked up again, y'know?"
"Still, it's not as if either of us would be...asking her out..." Gumball mumbled, "We'd be asking her to be with us, and you know how she is about relationships. Besides," Gumball finally faced Marshall, "What...what does that mean for us?"
Marshall stared, then smiled, showing a fang, "Aw, is widdle Bubby-wubby jeawous?"
". . . You know not to joke about that." the prince replied flatly.
He then picked up his pencil to continue with his work, but his intellect wasn't with it now.
"Nah, nah, hey, now. I don't mean it like that." the vampire slumped on him from behind, crossing his arms around the pink prince's chest, "It's not gonna be some sort of skewy, heart-gut stompin' drama junk. That's not gonna happen." Gumball grudgingly leaned back into the embrace, and Marshall's grin turned goofy, "You know I love ya, Gummy, and you love me. But you're also in love with her, aren't you? The blood's a terrible liar."
He couldn't help a chuckle as the young royal shrugged, "But that's okay, 'cause I'm in love with her too. She's a pretty awesome chick, so it'd be hard not to."
The prince sighed, "Yes. But there's no guarantee she'd love us back. . . Not that I'm considering such a thing!"
"That's the nice thing, then," Marshall rubbed his face into the guy's candy-floss, stupidly silky-sticky pink hair, humming. "We'll get over it together like the awesome bros we are. Now, flip with this mushy scrap. You wanna get the girl, right? Think about it... Imagine a-a-all of the possibilities..."
He made his voice go low into that singer's raspy croon that he knew made the guy crazy.
Gumball shivered, and seemed to think, and then he sighed, as if he bore the world on his shoulders.
". . . We'll need to plan a strategy through all of this first. These sorts of things can't be rushed."
Win! Point to the Vampire King!
"Righteous! We all get to be consort/mistresses!" Marshall crowed, fist-pumping.
Gumball's desk met his face again with a thud, "We won't be anything if you dare use that term."
"Fine, fine, how about constresses? Mistorts? Monstors? Oh, now that's a keeper!"
"Glob help me." Why hello, desk, thou art my new best friend and confidant.
Marshall Lee strummed out a sick tune from his guitar, grinning like the demon he was.
"We're gonna be freakin' monstors!"