Stay Low
Viridicus
A/N: A few things: one, this is kinda PWP, emphasis on the plot because I've never really done the porn side before, so cut me some slack on that end (plus I kept having to take I'LL BE IN MY BUNK breaks). Takes place from both Marceline's and PB's perspective; it switches over partway through. Addresses my headcanon of the history between them, and the darker side of Ooo you might see when you're not an eleven-year-old boy with older and wiser guardians looking out for you. Lyrics are all from songs by Ryn Weaver on her EP Promises, from both "Stay Low" and "Sail On." I've been listening to the four-song EP all week on repeat because it's my Bubbline soundtrack, but it's also really good – well worth five bucks, if you've got them. And just to get this out of the way: everything but the story © Adventure Time and Pen Ward; lyrics © Ryn Weaver. (Although if the show wants to appropriate this plot I wouldn't mind hehehehehe…)
xxx
The plan does not unfold without a hitch. For starters, Bonnibel wants to mess around with numbers and vectors and angles of attack, and there isn't time for that. The Lich is moving inexorably towards the cache of Oldworld weaponry that they've known about for years but haven't wanted to talk about because of what it could mean for Ooo. This is the strongest he's been in centuries, and he's making a run for it, and if he gets to it this is the end, and they don't have fucking time to make sure everything is perfect!
Marceline swings an open hand at the tangle of calculations and diagrams in Bonnibel's sweating fingers, scattering them to the evil-smelling breeze. The princess shrieks and Marci seizes her and shakes her. "We. Don't. Have. Time. Either it works or it doesn't and we're all dead, Bonnie, but if we don't try now we're dead anyway. And I can't let that happen." All of a sudden she realizes how close they are - the faint sheen of Bonnibel's hair, the familiar spun-sugar scent, a little bit burnt-smelling in her anxiety, and her eyes, larger and closer than they've been in a long time, and the impulse to reach down and kiss her is harder to resist than it has been in five hundred years. She settles for pushing herself backwards through the air. "Shit."
Something in Bonnibel's face says that they'll talk about this later and Marceline feels her stomach twist familiarly - Glob does she know that look, and fear it - but there's the Lich to deal with. Finn and Jake have already swung into action, the boy hacking at the demon king with his special demon-killing blade and the dog wrapping itself around and around the monster as many times as he can. But Marceline is the linchpin of this phase - they won't last five minutes without her - so she kicks off into the air, away from Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum for maybe the last time, and dares herself not to look back as the change overtakes her, fur sprouting and fangs erupting.
She beats the Lich back with everything she has, pummeling him and biting him and scratching him, coming back for more even when he backhands her out of the air effortlessly, and his glowing blood burns her mouth. But by the time she's scraped and bruised and torn enough that the next time he hits her she might not get up, Flame Princess and Simon are in position. They channel dual waves of ice and fire directly at the Lich, powerfully enough that they make him pause, hold up what's left of his arms in front of his face and let loose a rattling snarl. For one brief moment she allows herself to hope that that'll be enough – that they won't get to the last part of their plan, that Bonnie won't have to face this danger – but the Lich recovers and swats first Simon, then Fire Princess, into two nearby snow banks. Marci lets out a wordless shriek. Neither stirs.
And then it's just Bonnibel, brave and determined and shaking like a leaf, facing down the ancient evil. She finishes turning a dial, punches in an access code – and the repurposed bomb shreds right through the Lich. Through some alchemy that Bonnie explained longwindedly and that Marceline understood none of (she was too busy watching the way the light played across the skin of the princess's neck) she's managed to turn one of the Oldtime weapons into the very thing that can, if not destroy the Lich for good, at least set him back several centuries.
But it's dangerous – she'll have to engage the bomb at exactly the right second or the Lich will figure out their trick, and she'll have to trust that they can hold his attention long enough for her to get into position and set it off. As it is the Lich is reaching for her, to suck out her soul or rip out her heart, when she finishes the final ignition sequence – Marceline calls up reserves of strength she thought she'd already tapped and flies directly in front of him, to get herself snagged by one of his skeletal claws. She is abruptly let go as the weapon explodes in a bright hot wave and the Lich's current body – what had once been the hero Billy – turns to ash.
When she can see again she's on the ground, back to her usual form, and Bonnibel is leaning over her, hands warm against her cool skin, pushing the hair back from her forehead and talking fast. She can't make out what the princess is saying but manages to choke out, "Bonnie, it's cool. Go make sure Simon and Flame Princess are okay. They got hit pretty hard." Something like relief flickers in the princess's eyes, making something twist oddly in Marceline's gut. Cursing herself twenty ways for stupid, she reaches up, grabs the back of Bonnibel's neck, and pulls her down for a swift, hard kiss. Then she floats out from under the astonished princess and, refusing to let herself look back, goes to check on Finn and Jake.
It's fully night by the time they've gotten everyone squared away, either back in their respective homes for recovery naps or into the Candy Kingdom's infirmary for extended convalescence. They talk, but it's strictly shop: nothing about kisses or history or stupid decisions is mentioned, and certainly nothing about months and years of heat rekindled. But it's the only thing Marceline can think of as they set about repairing the worst of the damage the Lich has done: never should have come back. Never. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid…
But at last there's nothing left to do, no urgent tasks to hide behind, and it's just her and Bonnie alone in a room like it had been the last time, five hundred years ago, and Bonnie had been giving her some longwinded excuse but what it all boiled down to was that they were through. Bonnibel Bubblegum was a grownup now, a monarch besides, and she didn't have time to play all day and fuck all night with a shiftless vampire like Marceline Abadeer. She had a kingdom to rule.
"Fucking – fine. You know what, Bonnie? Fine," she'd spat with all the venom she could muster. "You're right. You should stay here and take care of the kingdom. I'm going to the Ocean Kingdom to ride Goldfish Whales and I'm going to have a lot more fun without you. And I'm going to look up the Mermaid Princess, and I'm going to fuck her, and her hot brother, and every one of their courtiers, and I want you to think about that, Bonnie, while you're here getting your ass kissed by your servants and Peppermint Butler. I want you to think about that for the rest of forever or however long you're going to live, because you're never going to see me again."
She managed to keep her word for five hundred years. She did look up the Mermaid Princess and her hot brother, and went through quite a few of their court before she'd caused enough drama to plunge them into civil war. Then she went to the Flame Kingdom and performed on the nightclub circuit for a while. She even visited with her dad for nearly a century, but left when he ate her fries.
Five hundred years after they'd had their last fight she hadn't managed to stop thinking about Bonnibel Fucking Bubblegum, but the pain had worn off enough that she thought she might be able to manage a return to Ooo, as long as she kept herself far away from the Candy Kingdom. Besides, she was tired. She was getting on a thousand years old, she'd seen and done a lot, and she just wanted to sleep over a real bed, the same bed, more than a few years in a row. She felt the urge, which she'd rarely felt before, to put down roots – not deep ones, but roots nonetheless. Far from Bonnibel, but she didn't rule all of Ooo – there was nothing that said she had to live anywhere near the Candy Kingdom.
She'd found Finn and Jake squatting in her treehouse and they were just as good as servants to Bonnie – they talked about her with such fervor, and Finn clearly had a crush on her. Yet she'd liked them anyhow and had agreed to let them stay – the cave was better suited to privacy anyway, and didn't remind her of Ash, that fucking loser. Somehow, through the two of them, she'd gotten tangled up in Bonnie again. That stupid laugh, that stupid hair, that stupid smell – and then to learn that she'd kept her shirt… Marceline had wanted to kill her when the Door Lord had thrown them together. "I'm just your problem…" That had been the fucking truth. Bonnie had said nothing to contradict it.
Yet they'd grown steadily closer in the months and years since then, watching Finn grow and Jake have puppies and averting crisis after crisis, and she'd begun to think, begun to hope, that maybe this could be it for them – they could be friends, best friends even, in ways old lovers rarely got to. But the Sky Witch had shattered all of that: friends they might be, but the old heat had flared up in Marceline, and afterwards she had flown up and far as she could go and screamed to the stars as loud as she could – it wasn't over. Maybe for Bonnie it was – she had her kingdom and her people, and seemed content enough in that – but for her it wasn't, and it probably wouldn't ever be.
All of this flies through Marceline's head at light speed as she finds herself forced to confront Bonnibel in the corridor, both of them sagging against one another and grey with exhaustion. Bonnibel opens her mouth to speak but all of a sudden Marceline can't do it, she just can't, it's too terrifying. "Don't," she blurts out. "I – gotta go, Bonnie, I'm super hungry, you know how I get when I –" She finds the first open window and squeezes herself out of it, pelts for home. She drains three cartons of strawberries and two apples and drops into bed, too exhausted even to float.
When she wakes it's dusk again – she's been asleep for nearly a day. She feels the old tingle that she once used to feel every time she woke – she's going to see Bonnibel, to find the princess waiting at her balcony, dressed in something tight or not at all. The feeling is bitter now. And yet – and yet! When she'd kissed her after the battle with the Lich, relief that Bonnie wasn't hurt, that she wasn't hurt, that nobody was seriously dead or maimed thrilling through her entire body, Bonnie had kissed her back. She had kissed her back. She had kept her shirt – the one Marceline had stolen for her at the Flaming Marshmallows concert in the Badlands just because she'd said it was cute, right after they'd acknowledged they were more than just friends – and she had kissed Marceline back.
You fucking coward, she says to herself now. You globdamned creepy ghost. Because Marceline's first instinct is to run – to run and keep running until Ooo is literally just a distant memory. To find the deepest cave in the furthest land away from Bonnibel, and to hide herself there until she doesn't even remember language. Because to hear Bonnibel reject her one more time would be tantamount to seeing how close she can get to the sun at noon.
"Coward," she says again out loud. "Idiot." Because she's a coward if she doesn't at least try to talk things out with Bonnie, to reach an equitable solution that resolves in minimal pain for both of them, and yet she's an idiot if she goes over there and tries, because she knows that all she'll want to do is strip Bonnie out of every shred of clothing and run her tongue over every inch of spun-sugar skin. Run it numerous times over several seriously delicious inches. Marceline clenches her fists. "Idiot." The decision's been made. She floats out of the cave mouth and, dodging the sun's last dying rays, makes her way over the green hills towards the spires and spindles of the Candy Kingdom.
Bonnie's wearing a barely-there number that is just opaque enough to be considered decent, but just sheer enough to make Marceline's mouth water. She lands deliberately just behind the princess, who's standing on the balcony with her chin on her hand, and makes herself visible. "Boo."
Bonnibel lets out a little squeak and jumps around, making Marceline loose a low, throaty laugh. She'd almost forgotten how much fun that was. Even more fun is the pout that Bonnibel gets when she does it. She wants to kiss that pout into a moan. She clenches her fists again. "Bonnie, I've gotta talk to you about – " Bonnibel is staring at her expectantly, mouth partially open, and all of a sudden Marceline's nerve fails her. "Um, the Lich. I think there's a few things we might have forgotten to –"
A hard fist thumps against her chest, right over her left pec. "A few things? Like what, Marceline?" She says her name like it's a curse. "What could we fucking have to talk about?" More thumps punctuate her words, beating like a bass drum, like the inert heart in Marceline's chest. She swears she feels it flutter, though.
"Bonnie, jeez, what the – hey, lay off, come on!" When the princess continues the vampire catches her wrists in iron-hard fists and all of a sudden is brought up close, so close she can feel the heat off Bonnibel's skin. Her scent catches in Marceline's nose, and all of her words vacate the premises. This is…not going well. "Bonnie, I just wanted…"
"What? What could you possibly want, Marceline, after…after everything? Everything you've said, everything you've done – after you've been away for five hundred years? What do you want from me?"
To talk, she intends to say, but her traitorous mouth blurts out, "I want you," and her traitorous lips make their way to Bonnibel's, and her traitorous tongue tangles with the princess's. She almost doesn't notice it when, having dropped Bonnie's hands to settle her own on the princess's hips, those same hands make their way into her hair, pulling her closer, pulling their bodies flush.
The kiss starts slow, the burn reigniting between the two of them. It's so good – it's like the feeling she gets when she leaves the house just before sunset, with the knowledge that the whole night is ahead of her, is hers to seize – and she might almost be content to stay this way, kissing until the dawn. Almost.
The kiss begins to increase in heat and vigor, hands to move away from their nearly chaste positions, to roam across the topography of bodies at once familiar and strange. Marceline finds that Bonnibel's curves have filled out, filling her hands pleasantly; Bonnie finds that Marceline has grown leaner, harder, in a way that makes her toes curl. Both of them have new scars.
They stumble backwards into Bonnibel's bedchamber, shut the doors that separate it from the balcony, nearly rip the curtains down in their haste to close them. They break apart for a few breathless minutes for Bonnibel to light some candles – "Not all of us have night vision, Marci –" and then they're locked together again, hands roaming faster, tugging at the waists of shirts and the fastenings on trousers and dresses. All at once the enormity of what they're about to do hits them together and they pause, breath coming harsh and fast in the sudden stillness.
"Marci…"
The vampire sighs, runs a hand through her disheveled hair in frustration. "And to think I came here to talk. I just didn't expect you to be so…into this, I guess." In the dark, she senses the princess's blush.
"We should talk."
"Yeah, we really should."
They stare at each other for a few more seconds, like those seconds are precious, like they aren't two immortals whose lives will be full of countless seconds. And then Marceline's mouth is cool against Bonnie's neck, and she gasps, and clutches at the vampire's shoulders. The faintest hint of fang rests gently against the kisses she presses to the princess's hot skin, and her hands are busy with the front of Bonnibel's dress, slowly drawing it down to expose more of her shoulders, her collarbones. Bonnibel considers demurring and decides against it, decides instead to run her hands up the untucked tail of the vampire's shirt and squeeze what she finds within. She feels Marceline's body buck against hers, and the vampire resumes her ministrations with increased urgency. Bonnie grins into the darkness; she still knows just how to goad her lover into picking up the pace. The night air – or maybe just Marceline – is chill against her skin, not unpleasantly so, as her dress finally falls away. She's just as quick with the vampire's shirt – almost rips it in her haste to get it off, and Marceline's unwillingness to stop suckling at her throat – and pants. Only underthings are left.
Bonnie feels a wicked impulse. "But I guess we should talk."
"Mmm – naked now. Talk later."
Eventually they make it to the bed, and hands find their familiar places, mouths draw noises out of one another that are at once familiar and yet new, timbres changed with centuries of use. At first they fumble, awkward in their haste, their unwillingness to lose contact with one another for even a second, like they're the last survivors on a boat through the seas of eternity – which, despite being overdramatic, is not such a terrible metaphor, Bonnie thinks, before the power of thought is taken from her by a talented tongue – but soon they find their rhythm, moving together, hands and fingers and tongues and teeth exactly where they should be, drawing forth gasps and moans and then final, triumphant cries of release, before they both sink into sleep, wrapped firmly in one another's arms.
And yet when Marceline blasts awake at about two AM out of some nightmare or another, she finds that she wants to talk, has to talk. Turning to Bonnibel and seeing the familiar yet new again curve of her back, the suggestion of her breasts under her arms on which her head is pillowed, the sweet sleep on her face makes Marceline almost determine to wait it out. But your ex-girlfriend sleeping the sleep of the well fucked doesn't drive out five hundred years of simmering anger, even if you're the one who put her there. She shakes Bonnie's shoulder almost gently.
"Geez, Marci, what the f – what time is it?" Bonnie feigns sleepiness well, but Marceline can see the glint in the heavy-lidded eyes and knows that keen mind is already churning into overdrive.
"Time to talk," she says, and feels the burn starting, all of the things she's wanted to say and bitten back over the past few weeks and centuries rising to her lips. She's not sure if there's a right way to do this, but if there's a wrong way she'll definitely find it. History has that effect on her.
History – they are full of it. From the moment she'd first found Bonnie sobbing in the ruins of the exploded palace lab, and had considered swooping down to make a meal of her – she was just starting to come into her own with regards to her vampiric powers, and flight was especially taxing, yet she couldn't resist the pull of the wind at her face, the rush of the night sky. It was a grey sort of dawn, so she was still okay to be outside, though it dragged at her to know the sun was up, deepening her exhaustion. She had considered the sobbing pink thing below her and eventually decided against it – it was only pink, after all, and who knew whether it would kill her or not? It wouldn't be the first thing Marceline had tried to eat that had revealed some hidden reserve of strength and tried to eat her instead.
Yet she'd felt curiously drawn to the odd pink girl, who looked only a bit younger than Marceline herself – the same lanky tangle of awkward teenage limbs, the same hardness of face that spoke of loss (Simon had lost control of himself for the last time some years back, his final lucid wish to Marceline being that she was no longer allowed to follow him) – and instead of yanking her head back to sink her fangs into her neck, she'd drawn her into a hug. The smaller girl's head fit perfectly just below Marceline's chin.
They'd become fast friends, Marceline helping Bonnibel survive in the harsh world that is Ooo without parents, showing her the ropes of the surrounding kingdoms. She'd watched as Bonnie slowly took the reins of the Candy Kingdom from where her parents had dropped them and made little improvements here and there, seen the light of scientific inquiry ignite in her eyes as she read her parents' lab notes and tried some of the same experiments herself, to the same or greater effect. By day she was the princess, beloved of the Candy Kingdom, but every night Marceline came for her, and they went exploring or just rode the wind, the best of friends.
Then Marceline's father had come for her and dragged her kicking and screaming into the Nightosphere, declaring that it was time for her to learn his craft so she could take the reins one day. She rebelled with everything she had, even going so far as to turn the family axe into a rocking bass, and missed Bonnie with every fiber of her being. She had eventually escaped, but the Nightosphere had done its work. It had shown her what she was capable of. For the first time she wondered if Bonnibel would want to see her again, now that she knew – truly knew – what she was.
So she had roamed the Dusklands for a while, the shady in-between waste between the rolling green hills of Ooo and the blackened chaos of the Nightosphere. She made unsavory friends, talked to unsavory people, made powerful and lasting and unsavory bonds. She had sex for the first time, with Ash. He was the most unsavory of all.
But through it all her thoughts of Bonnibel remained, so she returned, at last, to Ooo one night. When she saw the girl waiting at her balcony again, like she had for all of those years, and saw that she was really no longer a girl, she realized all of a sudden why she couldn't forget Bonnie, no matter what happened. Why she had been unable to fully give herself to Ash, even though she'd convinced herself she wanted to. Why she absolutely couldn't stay in the Nightosphere for good. She'd greeted Bonnibel with a kiss, and felt the princess's lips open willingly beneath hers.
They'd roamed the land for centuries after that, the happiest times Marceline could remember herself having. Every night was an adventure, filled with danger and promise and wicked, wild sex. Feeling Bonnie squirming under her or against her was all she could ever remember wanting in life. Feeling her breathing rise and fall against her own inert chest as they held each other in drowsiness was the closest she'd ever felt to the concept of home, at least since Simon had lapsed into madness.
But then had come the fight – and those fucking words Bonnie had said to her – "I need to be a grownup, Marci, and no matter how many centuries you live you'll always be a child – " and everything had burst apart. She had left, and Bonnibel had stayed, and now here they are, and they're going to talk about it.
"So, let's talk. Let's fucking talk, Marceline."
So Bonnie's been spoiling for a fight too. They stare at each other, breathing roughly, Bonnibel's hands clutched in the sheets. Marceline successfully curtails the impulse to reach out and kiss her, push her back down onto the bed and ravish her for the rest of eternity so they don't ever have to fucking talk about this.
"Um. So. You…" The words won't come. She snarls, high in her throat, thumps one fist against the bed, gets out of bed and strides to the wall, thumps her fist harder against it and feels the hard candy crack. When she turns around again, the princess's eyes are wide, but not scared. "You didn't want me here, I guess. I was an inconvenience to you. Am I still that, Bonnie? Am I still your problem?"
Outrage shows plainly in Bonnibel's eyes. "You left, Marceline! I was just telling you that we couldn't be together as girlfriends, not at least until I'd gotten control over the Candy Kingdom, whipped it into shape, but I didn't mean you needed to leave for five hundred years and then come back and expect it to be just like it was yesterday! Glob, Marci, you were still supposed to be my friend!"
Marceline hadn't known that. It hits her like a punch in the gut, but she covers up her shock by snarling, "You don't get it, do you? You can't just pick and choose the parts of me you want – you get all of me, Bonnie, or nothing. And you clearly can't handle all of me, so…" She throws her head back, grips at her hair and pulls. "Ugh, I can't do this with you!"
"That's right," Bonnie snaps, "just go! Run away again!" Marceline is pulling on clothes. Bonnibel feels her control of the situation slipping, her foundations eroding. "You can't handle me either! You can't handle the fact that I have responsibilities, that I'm not just following you around doe-eyed anymore, that you might have to work for something!" The vampire throws open the doors to the balcony with excessive force; something cracks. Desperation makes Bonnibel furious. The sky is grey; dawn is coming. "You know what? Fine! Marceline, run!"
The vampire is gone.
Throughout the day Bonnibel curses herself five hundred times for stupid. When she looks in on Flame Princess and the Ice King, makes notes in their charts on their progress and confers with Doctor Princess on their prognosis and treatment, she's chanting stupid stupid stupid in her head. When she dodges the odd looks of her courtiers and attendants as she tries to put the Candy Kingdom back into some semblance of order, she's thinking about how ridiculous and old that argument was, and yet she can't disentangle it from the memory of her hands clutching at Marceline's back, the burning feeling as the vampire's fingers moved lower, deeper, the wordless cry that tore itself from her throat as she reached her peak… Bonnibel has to slump against a wall and calm her breathing before she can continue her duties. Her eyes turn inexorably towards the sun throughout the day, urging its passage to move faster.
For the first time in five hundred years Bonnibel feels that familiar catch in her chest at the sight of the sun lowering, bleeding red over the Candy Kindgdom's green lawns. Before it's even finished setting she knows where she's going to go. She pulls clothes out of her wardrobe that have lain untouched in the back for centuries, when she put them aside for gowns and frocks more befitting her station. She tries on a few outfits and discards them before settling for a sheer tank and indecently tight jeans that she and Marceline had fished out of the ruins of a shopping mall, back when they still went shopping. Marceline had had to explain to her what shopping was, but had been delighted when the princess had shown so much keenness for it.
She makes her way via locomotive snake to a nightclub on the outskirts of the Candy Kingdom, a place she hasn't been to in two hundred years but that's pretty much the same as she remembers it: a warehouse at the end of a weed-choked street, where lights blast out of chipped, cracked emitters and low, throbbing music pulses from repurposed sound systems. The DJ is different, but pretty much everything else is the same: the beer smell, the stickiness of the floor, the walls, the bodies that clash and part and cling to one another. Gladly she accepts a drink from the bartender who remembers her, and another, and then even more gladly she allows herself to slip into the flow of bodies, to become, for a few minutes or hours, nameless and faceless, just yet another worshipper of the throbbing bass.
She doesn't know how she knows that Marceline's going to be here – she doesn't have the vampire's sixth sense (or seventh, or eighth – Bonnibel has yet to quantify how many extra senses undeath grants you) but she knows when she hears raised and swiftly lowered voices, notices the stir at the door. Marceline was the one who first took her to this club – when the bouncer, some hard candy, had moved to stop her she'd said, "Hey, Jolly, she's cool," and walked right in – and that had seemed impossibly cool to Bonnie, with her new hardcore vampire girlfriend. As she watches the crowd parts like a school of fish for a shark, arrowing directly towards her. She continues dancing and remembers how it had first felt to have their bodies graze and then lock together, pulsing like the beat controlled their hearts and the music was the blood flowing in their veins. She remembers the times Marci left her to play, hooking her axe into the crackling amps she can see humped up against the back of the stage, her voice filling the room and enthralling the crowd and yet somehow managing to be for Bonnibel alone.
This time there are no words, just the familiar pressure of hands on hips and a sudden coolness at her back, and the fit – the fit she's found nowhere else, with no one else since, though Glob knows she's tried – and then they're moving together to the music, their bodies undulating, approximating something else. Bonnibel knows how this evening is going to go just as surely as she knew Marceline would be here, just as surely as she knows the vampire's breath will hitch in a gasp she doesn't need to take as Bonnie presses her ass into the curve of Marceline's hips. At the sound she turns, grabs her face and pulls it down to meet hers, never mind the teeth. A pulse of light shows her Marceline's eyes and how dark they've gone, a bloody red. The vampire manages to choke out "Come on," or at least her mouth makes those shapes, and a hand, iron-hard, is towing her towards the edge of the crowd, up the stairs, towards the bathrooms. She knows as sure as the sun that no one will follow them so she lets Marceline push her up against the wall, slide one hand up under her shirt and one hand down, into her jeans. Or tries to – "Shit, Bonnie, these are tight –" so they both struggle with the clasp and the zipper for a sec but soon there's relief, release.
At first the danger and the potential for discovery is enough to get her off, but soon she pushes Marceline off her and they go back down to the dance floor. The DJ's changed – it's something old and sad making noises on a keyboard, while someone whose shape would approximate a girl if girls had horns and tails is crooning throatily, "Let the night come, dim the lights some, whiskey lemon, let the time go way slow. Let the records play low, like the sun goes way low. Lay me down now lay low, oh. Stay low." And they fade into each other, and into the music, again as the beat starts up. They are no one, just the two of them, one thing, everything.
But the song ends, the words change, and suddenly they hit home a little too hard: "And now you're spewing out those lonely lies, you say you changed it all around, but you'll be gone again when the winds blow, oh sailor, another state to claim with your flag upon the ground. Well sail on, sail on till you're gone and then some, with all your broken pieces…" They can't seem to get the beat right – their hips clash, hands clutch too tight, their synchronicity is broken. Bonnibel sneaks one glance up at Marceline and sees her teeth clenched, glinting in the light. She can't do this anymore, can't keep pretending and wait for a better song to come on – she breaks free of the vampire's hold and forces herself through the crowd. She feels Marceline's eyes boring into her back but doesn't turn around to see if she'll follow – she feels like all the air has gone out of the place at once, and she needs to breathe.
She crashes through a side door into a brick alley, littered with trash and silvered with moonlight. She puts her hands on her knees for a moment, feels how sticky she is with sweat and various other bodily fluids, concentrates on counting the beats of her heart until it slows to a manageable speed. The moment it has, however, the door slams open behind her and starts it up again into overdrive.
"Hey."
The word's harsh, almost a curse, the way she says it. Bonnie turns, straightens, squares her shoulders, faces her ex-lover. "What?"
"So is this how this is now? We fuck, we fight, one of us runs away? Is this how it's gonna be?"
Bonnie's mouth goes dry. She doesn't have an answer, but she is spoiling for a fight, remembering some of the jabs Marceline got in the previous night. "Maybe," she says, just as harshly.
"What if that's not good enough for me?"
The bottom drops out of Bonnibel's stomach, and history flashes before her eyes. Before she can stop herself she blurts out, "I can't do this," and turns to go. She'll catch the last locomotive snake back to the palace – there's gotta be one still running, and the way she's feeling, even if there isn't she'll probably run the whole way home – but Marceline blows by her in a breath of wind and brings her to a stop, arms spread wide, loose limbs blocking out the moon.
"Oh no. No no no, you don't get to run away from this one, princess."
"Oh, so you're the only one who gets to run?" The pale heat her words bring to the vampire's cheeks and the pale fury in her eyes suggest that was a bad idea, but instead of lashing out she turns away. When she speaks again her voice is low, pained.
"I get that things are different now, that you have a kingdom to run, that you can't just leave to go riding Goldfish Whales in the Ocean Kingdom or dancing in Fire Kingdom nightclubs whenever I ask you to. I get that. And I didn't get it, back then – I admit it, and I understand it now, Bonnie – but Glob, you just think nobody can change, do you? You think I'm the same person I was back then, five hundred years ago!"
She turns, spits angrily. "You think nobody can change, but that's just because you're the one who can't change, Bonnie. It's you."
Something twists dangerously in Bonnibel's chest and she opens her mouth to say something, she's not sure what, but Marceline's not done. She whirls on Bonnie, fangs flashing against her lips as she speaks, harsh and low. "You always have to be right, don't you." It's not a question. "You always do. I can't have changed, because you say I can't. Finn can't be right on how to defeat the Lich, because your calculations say he's not. Everything has to be The World According to Bonnibel, no exceptions, and you'll fight me and him and all of your friends until we're too exhausted to say otherwise. You ride roughshod over people, Bonnie. You always have."
Bonnie can't help the anger that flares up inside her at Marceline's words, and before she can stop herself she bites back, "Oh, I'm the one who rides roughshod over people? For two hundred years it was 'Bonnie come on, let's fight ghosts in the Amber Forest even though I know they can kill me! Bonnie, let's go see this demon I know and take some hallucinogenic potion he brews up that makes me lose three weeks of my life! Bonnie, forget your people, forget your home, forget your job and come flying with me, because I'm Marceline, and I can do anything I want because my daddy takes care of it! Because I have a daddy!"
The vampire takes one step that approximates five and has Bonnibel by the arms, and one more step brings them up against the alley wall. The brick is rough against the princess's bare shoulders, and Marceline's eyes burn. Bonnibel forces her own to harden, even though fear is warring with that same old stupid heat she always feels when the vampire queen is close, heat that accompanies her skin's chill. All at once she pulls away, leaving Bonnibel to slump a bit in relief. When she finds her voice again, she says gently, "I'm sorry, Marceline. I know better than to talk about your father." She lays a hand on the vampire's shoulder, half expecting it to be shaken off, but while the skin beneath it twitches her hand is allowed to stay.
"I'm…sorry too. For losing my temper, and. For the other thing." Bonnie's not entirely certain which thing she means, but she knows the feeling behind it is real, and so she nods in acceptance.
When the vampire's eyes meet hers again, they're full of moonlight and beseeching. "Bonnie, I want to try…to make this work. To be who you need. To be here when you need me. To respect who you are and not try to change you, because you're not going to change. I want you to give me a chance. Just the one. I know this'll be like my eighth, or my tenth – I've lost count – and I know I don't have any real right to it, but stupid as it is I'm still asking." She doesn't say please, but Bonnibel hears it anyway.
In answer she reaches up, tangles her hands in the thick black mane, and pulls her down into a kiss. Again, fangs be damned – she feels one slice her lip and she doesn't care. She feels the long, demonically talented tongue reach out to tentatively swipe the bead of blood away, and she doesn't care. She only cares about the coolness of the body against hers, the way they fit – the way they've always fit, since the start, since a young vampire once tentatively held a young princess sobbing at the loss of the world she'd known – and it's enough. For the moment, it's enough.
When they break apart, Marceline cocks her head, a tentative smile pulling at her lips. "Is that a…maybe?"
"It's an…I have to think about it, Marceline. I have to think about how you fit into my life now." Yet she can feel the stirrings of the old flame in her chest, flaring white-hot into life again, and knows that getting lost in the blackness of those eyes means she will move heaven and earth to make Marceline fit. She rebuilt a kingdom with her bare hands, after all. Integrating one stupid, sexy vampire queen into it shouldn't be that hard, especially with said vampire's cooperation.
The smile widens. "I'll accept that." They kiss again – their noses bump, and they both laugh – and then Marceline raises her head to peruse the lightening sky. "Sun'll be up soon. Let me walk you to your train."
Bonnie smiles at her. "I'd like that."
Hand in hand, they leave the alley, heading towards the station, where the last locomotive snake out of town is puffing steadily, waiting for them.
xxx