Marceline's Closet

A/N: This is basically a revamp (heh heh) of the episode "Marceline's Closet", but with Bubbline. Finn and Jake accidently get trapped in Marceline's closet and see some things that weren't exactly meant for them to see, if you catch my drift. Enjoy, and as always, Adventure Time belongs to Pen Ward and Cartoon Network.

Dedicated to my friend McKenzie, who in my opinion needs a little bit of Sugarless Gum in her life.

"Hey, man. Have Marcy and Peebles been acting weird lately, or is it just me?" Finn absentmindedly squeaked his balloon as they walked into Marceline's cave. The setting sun reflected off of the balloon and cast growing shadows at their feet.

"I dunno, man. I've been pickin' up some weird vibes, like my head's been all twisted up." Jake corkscrewed his head into a spiral, and then untwisted it rapidly. "But I dunno what's going on."

"Wait for me!" BMO clambered over a few rocks and ran to cover the ground that they, with their long legs, had covered in a few steps. "Why am I here, Finn?" the tiny robot asked plaintively.

Finn sat down on a nearby rock and began batting the balloon up and down. "Marceline invited us and PB for a jam session and Peebs asked us to bring you." BMO shuddered, squinching its face. "I don't like it when she takes off my face."

Jake was bored. He announced it. "Man, I'm bored." Finn stood up, squeaking his balloon decisively. "Me too." BMO tugged at one of his socks. "Who wants to play . . . video games?" Finn scooped the robot up and placed it on top of his backpack. "Not now, BMO. Maybe Marcy left a note on the door or something." Jake stretched over to the door of her house. Squinting his eyes, he read, "Gone to grab some stuff for dinner. Feel free to chill inside, but don't go in my room."

Jake stretched the rest of his body over to where his head was. Turning, he waved the rest of the group over. "C'mon guys, let's go in."

Cautiously, Finn opened the door. The door creaked like the tortured groans of lost souls from the fiery depths of the Nightosphere. A gust of chill air blew into his face, making him squint his eyes. Hesitating only a little, Finn walked in.

Marceline's house, normally a cheerful, benign atmosphere, took on an ominous, mysterious tone with the vampire gone. BMO tapped Finn's head with its tiny fist. "Finn, turn on the light!" After a brief fumble on the wall, Finn hit the light switch and they blinked as the light shocked their eyes. Immediately, the room recovered its cheerful tone.

Finn flopped down on the couch. Jake stretched out beside him. "What now?" asked the last living human in Ooo.

BMO climbed on top of the table. "Who wants to play . . . video games?"

Even with a game system as entertaining as BMO, one could only play video games for so long. After dying for what seemed like the hundredth time, Finn threw down his controller. "I'm borrrred," the boy complained. Jake laughed, still pressing the buttons frantically. "Yeah? Or you're just bummed 'cause I won for the tenth time!"

Finn stood up. "Let's go check out Marceline's room!" he declared. Jake set down the controller, for once tearing his eyes away from the screen. "Didn't that note say not to go in her room? In like, dripping red letters?"

"Aw, c'mon," Finn cajoled. "This is Marcy. She won't mind."

BMO's protests of "I think this idea is bad, Finn" was drowned out by the sound of guys doing what they did best‒ doing something they were explicitly told not to do.

Overdoing it as usual, they crawled up the stairs in stealth mode as quietly as possible. Imitating the voice of someone speaking into a walkie-talkie, Finn held a hand-phone to his mouth. "Hat Hero to Yellow Shadow. Come in, Yellow Shadow, come in. Over."

Jake, who had elongated his body so that his head lay at the top of the stairs and his feet at the foot of the staircase, shaped his hand into a phone. "Yellow Shadow to Hat Hero. Situation all clear, I repeat, all clear. Yellow Shadow over and out."

By this time, BMO had clambered to the top of the stairs. It frowned. "I still think this idea is stupid." Finn climbed up next to it. "C'mon, BMO, it's cool. This is Marceline; she won't mind." The boy was already moving down the hall, heading for the tantalizingly shut door.

Opening the door, Finn and Jake rushed in, trailing a disapproving BMO behind them. Hitting the lights, Jake walked to the center of the room. He grinned. "Check out all the junk she has!"

Just by looking at the bric-a-brac scattered around Marceline's room, one could tell that she was a musician. Leaning casually against the wall was a guitar, and in one corner of the room stood a recording set and a notebook labeled "Songs". Plastered all over the walls were pictures of her and her band, the Scream Queens. Joining those photos were more recent ones of her and Princess Bubblegum.

Effervescent, Finn jumped up and down on the bed. He flipped over in midair and landed on his feet. "Hey!" he laughed. "Doing forbidden things is fun!"

Jake picked up the guitar. "Whoa, is this an axe?" He plucked a string gently and it quivered, sending a vibrating note rolling into the air. Jake's eyes bugged. "Mathematical!" he breathed.

Meanwhile, BMO had found some headphones and a music player. The tiny robot had clipped the headphone over its sound receptors and was jamming out to one of the Scream Queens' hit singles. Jake looked over, mildly curious. "Whatcha got there, BMO?" he asked.

"'Boys for Breakfast'!" BMO cheered, gleefully dancing in place.

"Hey, lemme hear!" Finn catapulted himself off of the bed and landed next to BMO. He wrested the headphones away from it and put them on.

"Nooo!" The tiny little MO jumped frantically around the boy, trying to get the music back. "My headphones!"

The door slammed downstairs. The trio froze, except for BMO, who had gotten its headphones back and was dancing on the creaky wood floor.

"In the closet!" Jake stage-whispered. As one, the two dove into Marceline's closet. A stretched yellow arm reached out and grabbed BMO. The headphones fell to the floor and BMO was deposited in the closet. The trio hid in the vampire's closet, waiting with bated breath to be discovered.

Marceline floated through the front door, haphazardly balancing a heap of bags in her arms. She glanced over her shoulder. "Hey, Bonnie, you wanna help me unload?"

Behind her, Princess Bubblegum took a bulging bag from off of her arms. "Do you really need all of this stuff?" she asked.

Marceline huffed as she dropped the rest of the bags on the ground. "Of course I do! Clothes, food, and music! It's a girl's essentials! Although," she added under her breath, "Choose Goose is getting pricier by the day."

She checked the clock on the wall. "Hey, Finn and Jake should be here." She crossed the room to look out of the window. "I wonder where those two nutbags are."

"Probably off doing glob-knows-what." Bubblegum started restocking the fridge with apples, strawberries, and other assorted red foods. Unexpectedly, a pair of arms encircled her from behind. She yelped in surprise. "Marceline! What‒"

"If they're not here," the vampire whispered, "you know what that means."

Bonnibel put away the last of the food and turned into Marceline's embrace, face to face with her. "I don't, actually," she murmured. "Why don't you enlighten me?"

Marceline playfully kissed her cheek and an infectious grin spread over her face. "Home alone!"

Giddy, they jockeyed for room on the ladder, Marceline consenting to touch the ground for once. They careened down the short hallway, and laughed as they raced each other to her room. simultaneously, they burst into the room, Bubblegum stumbling over a set of headphones left in the middle of the room. Instinctively, Marceline reached out to steady her, wrapping a pale arm around her shoulders. The unthinking gesture brought them closer together, and Bubblegum blushed as she kissed her forehead.

The vampire's keen ears didn't catch it, but an almost-silent chorus of gasps emanated from behind the closed closet doors.

Still wrapped in her embrace, Marceline let out a sigh, dipping her head down to rest her forehead against the other woman's. "I've waited so long for this," she barely whispered, her words ghosting across her lips. Bubblegum reached up and gently caressed her face. "I love you," she whispered. Marceline gently kissed her on the lips. "I love you too."

Marceline sat back on the bed, gently pulling Bubblegum down into her lap. The princess wrapped her arms around her neck and her legs around her waist. Slowly, Marceline slumped lower onto the bed, until she was lying on her back. Bubblegum leaned over and kissed her neck gently, right on the two bite marks. Marceline moaned, burying her hands in her vibrantly pink hair. She kissed the Vampire Queen fiercely on the lips and began working her hands underneath her pale grey tank top. Marceline gasped, surprised, then smirked. Skewing her legs, she flipped Bubblegum underneath her, so that she was on top. She kissed Bubblegum's collarbone and began working her way down into distinctly different territory. Bubblegum moaned, inadvertently bucking her hips.

In the closet, Jake frantically covered Finn's and BMO's eyes. "Tier 15! Tier 15!" he hissed, making sure their eyes securely covered before covering his own. "But I do not know what that is!" BMO protested. "Shh! Trust me, you don't wanna know!" Jake whispered. They sat blindfolded in the closet in an incredibly awkward silence, trying not to listen to the assorted moans and sighs coming from the bedroom.

Finally, there came a lull in the sexy soundtrack outside the closet doors. Cautiously, Jake uncovered an eye and snuck a look outside. Two still forms lay together under a rumpled mound of sheets, half-shrouded in darkness. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and uncovered the eyes of the other two. He looked at Finn and almost blew their cover by laughing. His friend's eyes were bugging like Lemongrab's did when he blew his top (which happened way too often, in Jake's point of view). "What just happened?" the boy asked, shell-shocked.

Artfully, Jake steered him away from that topic. "I think they're asleep," he whispered, peering between the slats. "Should we try to get out?"

On the bed, Marceline hovered in some halfway land between sleep and wakefulness. Seeing as they were such an odd pair that even their sleep cycles were opposites, the only time they would actually asleep at the same time would be either at dawn or dusk. Seeing as now was neither time, she was content enough with holding her lover softly against her chest, breathing in sync. The soft rhythm had almost lulled her to sleep (despite her nocturnal tendencies) when her keen ears caught whispers. From her closet.

Going with her instinct, she snapped on the lamp. "Who's there?" she challenged. Next to her, Bubblegum stirred, throwing an arm over her eyes sleepily. "Marcy. . . whaa?" Distracted for a moment, Marceline kissed her gently on the forehead. "It's nothing. Go back to sleep, Bonnie."

Out of consideration for her night-sensitive eyes, Marceline switched the lamp off. Her night vision was passable anyway. "Who's there?" she hissed again. Slowly, the closet doors opened. She snarled, ready to pulverize the perverts that dared to spy on her and Bonnie. The trio that emerged was the least likely people she'd expect to see in her closet.

"What are you guys doing here?" she whispered in surprise. Finn and Jake groaned as their cramped muscles adapted to moving again. She shook her head, completely baffled, as BMO trundled out of her closet and immediately ran to put on her headphones. Finn began trying to explain, fumbling for words with a voice rusty from disuse. "I was‒ We were‒ You weren't here yet, so‒ We're really sorry‒" She cut him off, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I. Don't. Care. Just get out of my house and go home. You can grovel to me tomorrow."

Cringing like scolded dogs (in one case, quite literally), they slunk out of the room. Almost like an afterthought, a stretched yellow arm snaked back through the door and tugged BMO away. The headphones fell to the floor and the tiny robot frowned as it was dragged away.

Beside her, Bubblegum rolled over on her side. "What was that?" she asked sleepily. Marceline flopped back down beside her. She silently vowed not to think about what had just happened until the next day. She buried her face in the pillow, muffling her voice. "Oh, Finn, Jake, and BMO just watched us do the frick-frack, that's all."

Way too tired to comprehend anything complicated like that, Bubblegum shrugged and curled up against Marceline, falling asleep again in seconds.

Even with her heartbeat singing softly in her ear, it was a while before Marceline could fall asleep.

The red glow of sunlight hitting her eyelids told her it was day long before she opened them. Grumbling, she squinted her eyes at the harsh sunlight and stretched lazily. She glanced down at herself‒ no shirt‒ and remembered, with a jolt, where she was. With a muffled curse, she clutched the sheets to her neck again and heard a soft laugh.

"Your hair's a mess," Bubblegum teased, already dressed and sitting by the bed. Marceline glared fondly at her and ran a hand through the shaggy black mass, combing it back rakishly. With the hair somewhat straightened out, Marceline swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, yawning. "Pass me a shirt," she ordered.

In response to her imperious tone, Bubblegum threw a band T-shirt at her face. The vampire deftly caught it and began dressing.

Bubblegum caught her eyes roving over her naked torso and averted her gaze, flushing. It was a silly reaction. She had pretty much seen everything last night. Casting about for a different topic, she asked, "What was going on last night?"

Marceline huffed, annoyed. "Oh, Finn, Jake, and BMO were creeping out in my closet."

Bubblegum forgot her embarrassment and stared at her, shocked. "They were‒ How much did they see?"

Marceline, now fully clothed, looked at her with a quirked eyebrow. "By the looks of it? Everything."

Bubblegum groaned and covered her face, mortified. "Oh my glob. What are we going to tell them?"

Marceline came over and wrapped a bolstering arm around her shoulders. "Just do what you always do." She pecked her cheek. Bubblegum smiled in spite of herself. "And what's that?" she asked.

"Make up some weird, algebraic, completely made up explanation like you always do!" Marceline laughed and pulled her up. "Help me find my hat and we'll go and straighten this mess out."

Bubblegum disentangled her arms from around Marceline's neck as the vampire gently lowered her to the ground. They‒ well, Marceline‒ had flown the distance from her house to the Tree Fort and her hair had somehow contrived to stick up in every conceivable direction. She did her best to straighten out the tangled mess before turning to knock on the weathered wooden door.

The door creaked open and Finn waved them in. "Hey, guys. Come on in." He seemed a little more subdued than usual. Bubblegum frowned. She hoped he wasn't hurt or anything.

She sat on one of the couches in the living room. Marceline stretched out casually beside her. Finn and Jake sat in front of them, awkwardly fidgeting. Finn scratched his neck uncomfortably. "Soo…"

"Soo… why were you guys in my room?" asked Marceline, jumping right into the topic. Immediately, the two began an intricate duet of excuses. "You weren't home yet, so we thought‒"

"We came over for the jam sess but we got bored‒"

"‒so we decided to check out your house, then you came home‒"

Marceline held up a hand, stopping Jake mid-explanation. "Lemme see if I got this straight. You guys came over for the jam session, found that we weren't there, and went inside. Then you completely disregarded my note and snooped in my room. Then we came home and instead of 'fessing up like good people, you creeped out in my closet."

The two nodded miserably, looking down. Just to make things even more surreal, BMO entered the conversation. With childlike bluntness, the little robot asked, "Marceline, what were you and Princess Bubblegum doing?" Finn nodded and sat forward, a weird look on his face.

Marceline reddened slightly and turned to Bubblegum with a look on her face that clearly said, You're up.

She cleared her throat and sat forward, hoping to Glob that the explanation she had cobbled together wasn't as transparent to them as it seemed to her. "Well," she started, mentally running through what she was going to say, "sometimes when the body and mind is tired, the mind experiences vivid, realistic hallucinations and impaired mental processes, like understanding and reacting. This is caused by a lack of sleep or adequate rest, which neutralizes the normal visual and thought processes a well-rested body and mind conducts as a matter of course." She took a breath. "Seeing as both of you obviously lead a highly erratic lifestyle and almost always don't get enough rest, it would only be logical that your neural processes malfunctioned, making you see and hear things that didn't actually happen." She bit her lip, thinking that her explanation sounded shoddy even to her.

Finn quirked an eyebrow sardonically at her. "You have a huge hickey on your neck," he informed her. Bubblegum gasped, her hand flying instantly to the side of her neck. She glared at Marceline. "Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded.

"I figured you already knew," came the nonchalant reply. Marceline threw her hands up. "Well, seeing as Bonnie here can't lie worth lumps‒" The liar in question frowned. "‒ we might as well tell you." Spontaneously, the vampire threw an arm around her shoulders.

"I love Bonnie," she said simply. "And she loves me." The blush deepening the pink on the princess's face spoke more eloquently for her than words ever could. Marceline winked. "Sorry, Finn. She's spoken for."

To his credit, Finn took the news fairly well‒ he nodded, still a little confused, and leaned back against the sofa again. Jake, on the other hand, was flabbergasted. "Whaaat?" He stretched his mouth out in surprise. "I did not see that coming!"

BMO sat down on the arm of the sofa matter-of-factly. "I did." Four pairs of eyes turned to the robot, surprised. "It was obvious. They were always sneaking off somewhere together."

Marceline elbowed Bubblegum. "I thought we were being subtle," she hissed. Bonnie shrugged, equally as baffled.

The five sat in silence, each working through all of the things that had just been said and done. It was BMO who finally broke the silence with that which eases all awkward silences. "Who wants to play… video games?"

They spent the rest of the day in friendly competition, racing to crush each other's pixelated avatars. Bubblegum groaned as Marceline, fingers madly toggling the game controls, killed her avatar for the sixth time. "Again?" she protested. "Why me?"

Marceline tore her eyes away from the game and kissed her once on the cheek. She grinned mischievously. "Looks like I'm just your problem."