A/N:

Starting from here, the tone of the story plummets into something else entirely. Here's where the angst stuff comes in. Gets a little violent, both in the physical and emotional sense. Just a fair warning.

Carry on as you wish, friends.

-Reddie


Discreetly, the hater among the two snapped a picture of the smooching pair and made a run for it, but not without a chase from the pair's other follower, Keila.

She caught the malicious photographer, yanking him by the back of his cloak hood to face her. His phone clattered on the ground, revealing the pic of the student president making out with her friend. The lead guitarist shot her hand out to snatch up the phone and delete the picture, but her adversary was too quick for her. He held his phone high, letting it dangle oh so slightly above Keila's reach.

She snarled, baring her plastic fangs, "Ash, you jerk! You better delete that picture or I'll—!"

"Or you'll what, small fry?" He taunted.

She fumed, "I'LL BITE YOUR FLIPPIN' HAIR OFF, BUTTFACE!"

Ash snorted, "Ha! I doubt you can even reach my hair!" Furious, she started clawing at him. Without hesitation, he roughly kneed her in the chest, sending her tumbling backwards. "What's so wrong with a little pic of a couple of dykes kissing anyhow? It'd be a great addition to—" he dropped into a more sinister tone, "the school newspaper." Keila paled. Every student subscribed to the school newspaper would get the memo via blog update if not by snail mail.

"SHUT YOUR FACE!" Keila stomped. "YOU WOULDN'T DARE! YOU KNOW WHAT MAKING THAT PIC PUBLIC WOULD DO!" Those words stung once they came out. As much as she wished it wasn't true, she knew how many ignorant, bigoted families lived on her block, and she knew all too well how this town felt about anyone who didn't identify as cisgender and straight. Sure, the school might've had a day of silence, but everyone seemed to be under the illusion that even if their friends were wearing the tag that day, their buddies couldn't possibly be queer. Not to mention, the school's GSA had mysteriously vanished as of sophomore year.

"Of course." Ash replied flatly, tucking his phone away, making sure to kick Keila down again for good measure. "After all the humiliation, this'll definitely send Marcy out of this dumb phase and right back in to my arms." The lead guitarist was absolutely repulsed.

"Think about Bonnie though!" Keila blurted. "She's student body president. You can't just deface her like that!" She couldn't help but fear for the strawberry blonde. School was one thing, but home was another affair completely. At least Marceline had sanctuary at home. But what if the student president's parents weren't accepting at all? How much more damage would that do to Bonnie?

Ash could only laugh harder.

"Pft! That's her own fault, downing the punch like it's her twenty-first birthday. Pretty irresponsible for someone in her position, if you ask me." He turned away and started for the rec hall, but Keila wasn't going to just leave it at that.

Still down but not out, she called, "You think this blackmail will make Marceline take you back? She'd sooner bite everyone else's butt than kiss yours!" This stopped him dead in his tracks and made him turn straight around to stomp back up to her.

Unimaginable hate twisting up on his face, he grabbed Keila by the shirt collar and threatened in a low voice, "Get away from me right now before I break your fingers." Once he released his grip on her and let her fall back to ground, Keila straggled away in tears.

He hadn't busted her up too bad. Bruises were in places that could easily be covered by clothes. And, in spite of herself, she decided not to tell anyone, let alone Marceline and Bonnie, about what had just happened, for fear how much more damage Ash was capable of.


Not yet aware of what had happened, Marceline and Bonnie sat snuggled together under the tree, tracing constellations in the sky with the ends of their glow sticks and tossing friendly inquiries back and forth.

Bonnie posed, "Favorite animal?"

"Baby fruit bats. They're all fuzzy and tiny and cute, you know. And you?"

"Not sure actually. Condors, I guess." She shrugged. The vampire chuckled.

"And now we come to the dreaded question… your favorite color?"

The princess only giggled, "Pink. And yours?"

"Red." She placed a hand over Bonnie's, who was able to muster up enough punch-given courage to twine their fingers together. "You and I aren't that far apart. Pink's just a lighter tint of red."

"True. And they're Valentine's colors."

"That's cute."

"So are you." Bonnie giggled quietly, causing the vampire's face to turn their favorite color. Her eyes roamed to Marceline's plastic glow-in-the-dark fangs, and her thoughts wandered all the way back to ninth grade, where they first talked to each other over a copy of Twilight. She could barely believe they were seniors now. "Still like vampires, huh?"

"Yeah, totally. I like your costume too."

"…Where are you planning on going to college?"

Marceline retracted her hand ever so slightly at the question. "I dunno. I was gonna go on moratorium for like a year before thinking about that. I might not even go if things work out with the band. I mean, my buds and I have always dreamed of going on tour since we all first got together, you know? Cheesy, but…"

Bonnie nodded, "You guys play really well. I think you'd all have a good shot at making a name for yourselves."

"You really think so?" The bass player's voice perked up.

"Definitely." With this, Marceline's head fell against the princess's shoulder, "How 'bout you? What are your dreams?"

"I've… always wanted to be a marine biologist." She admitted. "Not like for fish or seaweed or anything, but for like… plankton. Like diatoms and dinoflagellates."

"Dinoflagellates?"

"Yeah… they make the ocean glow at night. It's this thing called phosphorescence. It's really cool." Distracted, the pink-skinned teen lifted her glowstick and traced out another pattern in the sky. "Look, a bunny."

They tipsily chattered on into the night until the clock struck twelve (or rather, Bonnie's phone went off close to midnight) and the princess had to return home before her parents discovered she had snuck out.


Luckily for the budding pair, Ash put his conniving plans on hold because he was feeling discouraged and insecure over what the guitarist had said to him the other night.

"She'd sooner bite everyone else's butt than kiss yours!"

Angrily, he grabbed his phone, ready to send a threat with the picture to Marceline. The thought of his number, deleted from her contacts, surged through his head. For a second, he could feel her fear at receiving blackmail from an unknown source. His hand trembled… and he chickened out. He wasn't exactly mentally prepared for the emotional destruction of his ex's social life yet… even if she had stomped all over his heart with her coming out as bi, which led him to (incorrectly) believe that she was cheating on him with some chick at the time.

Then he comforted himself with his own misguided thoughts. He came to the fallacious conclusion that it was just a phase, she was just confused, that people were either gay or straight, period. But reality did not align with his beliefs. Marceline had never cheated on him, and she was most certainly not confused.

Not that he ever bothered to listen to her explanations the second directly after she made the big reveal. He just stormed out of Mr. Petrikov's room in tears, never bothering to return, never bothering to answer her texts, never bothering to just talk when they came in contact at school, until she finally put her foot down and decided he wasn't worth the hassle anymore.

He remembered her last text to him.

((you wanna be that way? FINE. CONSIDER US DONE. IT'S OVER YOU PSYCHO))

If Ash was good at anything, he was good at holding onto shit. He held onto their pictures. He held onto her number. And he held onto both his hatred and his love for her.

Chucking his phone to the side, he huffed, "I'll give 'em 'til Christmas to back off each other."


A few weeks passed, and they hadn't communicated since. Marceline, casually browsing through Oooblr, decided to text Bonnie. Halloween was a blurry, jumbled affair but she did indeed remember what happened. Bonnie hadn't said anything to her since though, so she wanted to make sure that whatever went down wasn't just some trippy dream.

((Hey, Bonnie ;3))

{hey~}

((watchu been upta?))

The strawberry blonde began to reply, but the muffled shouting of her parents jarred her out of her train of thought. She sighed. Whenever Thanksgiving approached, it always came down to this verbal brawl of spending turkey day with Dad's side versus Mom's side.

"This is the fourth year we've spent Thanksgiving with your family! Don't tell me this year makes five!"

"I don't get what your deal is! We spend every Christmas with your parents, after all!"

The pink-skinned teen rolled her eyes. Oh shit, they were bringing Christmas into it now. Plugging in a couple of earphones filled with blaring orchestral melodies, Bonnie resumed her text conversation.

{ignoring my parents' arguments. :P how about you?}

((just sitting home alone, scrolling through Oooblr, eating sushi.))

((boredom central :p))

((sorry bout your situation though :/))

{it's fine :p}

As she tapped this out on her phone, Marceline came across a four-line poem post on her dash.

Admirer, hasten not your falling

Until certain of your heart's true calling

Love that blooms before its time

Does far too often fade and die

Marceline nodded at it, before deeming it worthy of a like and a reblog. She placed a sliver of pink ginger over her tuna roll before stuffing it in her mouth.

{…you wanna hang out at my place? i can pick you up.}

{it'll whisk you away from the clutches of boredom and shut my parents up. :P}

The bass player sighed longingly. She wished.

((as much as i'd love too, i can't. my dad needs me to watch the house while he's gone. sorry, hon.)) Bonnie's head reeled for a second. Had she read that right?

((i mean bon))

((as in bonnie because I meant bonnie))

((but i sent it too early by accidetn))

((lol oops))

{haha, its ok :p}

Marceline was usually haphazard when it came to texting, but suddenly, she felt self-conscious enough to pause for a second. But then, she shook her hesitation out of her head and deemed her text appropriately innocuous for sending.

((how about you come over to my palce?))

((unless your parents have sotpped arguing already or soemthing))

Against her usual nature, Bonnie replied without much forethought.

{i'd love to come over}

"Oh, shit!" She groaned, slapping a hand over her forehead once she realized what she'd just done. She hadn't even asked her parents! Fantastic, simply fantastic, here's to guilty conscience and sneaking out again!

((great!))

((I live close to Dulce park))

((so you can find me by the rec center, ok?))

{sounds good ^_^}

{i'll text you when I get there}

((alright see ya soon))

Before she even got up, the strawberry blonde's mother abruptly called to her, "Bonnibel? Could you go out and get some pumpkin pie? We really, really, need some!"

"Oh! Sure, Mom."


They met up at the park, and the student president escorted her friend to the car and politely opened the door up for her friend. Under Marceline's guidance, she drove them a couple of blocks down to the bass player's house, and there they perused Oooblr posts on Marceline's laptop and finished off the sushi together. After goofing around with the wasabi, they decided ice cream would be a good remedy to their blazing mouths.

Marceline, swiftly switching over from Oooblr to her music library, then got up to procure three spoons, two bowls, a carton of vanilla frozen dairy, a jar of cookie butter, and a bottle of hot fudge… and some whipped cream, maraschino cherries, and peppermint sprinkles. Even with the insistent fire on her burning tongue, she had a serious sweet tooth right now, so she hoped Bonnie didn't mind waiting a moment more.

Upon her return, the pink-skinned teen seemed delighted by all the sweet stuffs in her friend's arms.

Handing her a spoon and a bowl, the raven-haired girl chimed, "Ice cream time." Marceline jammed the biggest spoon into the semi-firm vanilla dessert, then dug out a hunk of the stuff and dropped it her bowl before going back to put some in Bonnie's. Meanwhile, the strawberry blonde was preoccupied reading over the topping labels.

"Choose Goose™ crunchy cookie butter?"

"Oh, that stuff is so good," Marceline said, grabbing the jar from Bonnie and using her guest's unused spoon to scoop out a gritty glob of caramel-colored spread, "you just gotta try some with ice cream. It's so good." The pale-skinned girl gave back Bonnie her spoon, watching as the she smeared the stuff atop her ice cream before sticking the spoon in her mouth with a hum of approval.

"Try it with the ice cream."

Sampling the cookie-buttered ice cream, her eyes went wide, "Mm!"

"Told you."

They sat there quietly for a moment, listening to the music floating through the air between them. The playlist shifted from something called "Fries Song" to a demo called "Dream Log, p. 14 (revised)".

All the things you do, and all the things you say

It drives me so nuts, but in the very best way

And there's no way I'll say it, not something I think I can do

But, baby, you've caught me, so I'll sing it for you

I don't want to leave this place

Without kissing that pretty pink face

Yeah, you and I, we may not match up,

But one chance with you is more than enough

"Oh, hey!" Bonnie perked up, "Isn't that the song you guys played at the talent show?"

"Yeah." Marceline crossed her arms, looking a little proud. "Wrote the lyrics myself."

"It sounds… different."

Marceline laughed, ruffling her friend's hair, "Well, duh! It's a demo!"

Give me just one little chance

To show you my side of romance

Our love story would end up so small

So let's start it now, or there's no story at all

"I really like this song." The student president commented gently, loud enough for the singer to turn to her with an expression of pure delight.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really!" then, shyly, she added, "I like all your songs. The concert at the park was amazing."

Immediately, the raven-haired teen was so ready to say it was written for Bonnie. She was so ready to tell the student president just how hard she fell for her.

But then it occurred to her that she fell too hard too fast.

"Love that blooms before its time

Does far too often fade and die"

Shaking the poetry of her head, she sighed regretfully.

"Something wrong?"

"It's nothing." Looking away from her, Marceline murmured, "Thanks. That means a lot coming from you." Bonnie couldn't help but smile at that.

Before Marceline could say anything more, a chirpy ringtone sounded off and the call it held whisked Bonnie away to her car. And the singer, now all alone her house once again, unwillingly began to drift back a couple of years through her memories.

What was love? In her most recent experience, it was something warm that used to hold the face of Ash. Now, it seemed like something sweltering that held the blurry face of Bonnie. And the want for her ached, almost as bad as it did right after she told Ash she loved him.


It happened at lunch, on a Tuesday.

"Hey, you two." Mr. Petrikov waved the print-out as he nudged a foot in the door, "I need to go run some copies real quick. If someone comes by, I'll be back in a jiffy, alright?"

Ash and Marceline chimed in unison, "'Kay." With a wry little smile, their teacher and good friend then departed from the room to run his errand. As the door clicked shut, the boy sitting next to her on the desk jumped down and clambered over to the window. His girlfriend followed suit, and they stood there together, watching as the clouds closed up the only hole of blue in the sky.

Then, Ash muttered, "I really love you, Marcy." The comment never failed to make her blush, but as much as she appreciated and reciprocated the sentiment, she felt like he'd been overusing that phrase lately. Even so… she thought it was high time she said it back.

"I love you too, Ash. Just as much." And she figured, now was a better time than never to come out to him. "That's why… there's something I think you should know about me." It had been on her mind for a long while. After their make-out session on the day of silence last year, Ash made an intimate reveal about his most cumbersome insecurity: the feeling that someday, someone who was more man than he was would come along and steal her away. And she could only shake her head and run a hand through his hair, hoping that would be enough to convey to him that such a scenario would never occur.

Now she felt it was only right to open up to him too. To her, the sincerely spoken phrase "I love you" was something sweethearts exchanged when they felt they could trust one another profoundly if not completely.

"What is it, babe?"

She meant for it to be confessed gently, yet with a tone of absolute certainty. But his tender gaze made her melt out of her internal balance, and it came out more like a blurted, nervous statement.

"I-I'm bi! I-I… I like girls too, so... so..." She didn't know how to finish her sentence.

"So you've been cheating on me with another girl?" There were tears shaking his voice, and then he exploded, "HOLY SHIT, MARCY! I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME!" All the tenderness in his expression had by then utterly disappeared. The delicate stick-structure of trust and love precariously and so previously completed between them began to tumble down over the pair and bury them alive.

Ash stormed out of the room, sobbing, and before Marceline could call out to him, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.

Marceline groaned, no longer wishing to be pained by the loss of the boy who not only once her boo, but also her buddy, her friend.

She didn't know what was worse: losing someone she used to see a future with or loving someone she knew she had no future with at all.


December snuck up on them.

Approaching finals had everyone frenzied, but somehow, in the midst of all the DBQs, study packets and last-minute worksheets, Bonnie still found the time and the energy to hang out with her friend Lu at the mall the Sunday before.

"Like, gurl, you don't even know! This freshman kid, he like totally has the hots for me. Like seriously!" Lu giggled, "But then again, who doesn't want my lumps?" She gestured suggestively over her body with her hands, mortifying a passing mother with her toddler. Bonnie would've usually chided Lu at that point, but today, she was way too winded from traces of school-related stress. The most she was capable of was an involuntary chuckle, because she was so far beyond the point of caring at the moment.

With a careworn smile, Bonnie shook her head, "But of course, Lu, but of course."

"Like, yeah! You totally get me, Bons! See, this is why I love the fact we're flippin' friends." As she nodded in reply, something suddenly caught her off-guard.

"Bat." The strawberry blonde blurted gently. From the window of some store, a big shiny plastic bat with candy-apple eyes peered at her. It hung around the neck of a mannequin bust off the end of a silver necklace chain. Impulsively, Bonnie darted towards the store door, leaving Lu to chase after her.

"Hey, gurl, wait up! Where are you going all of a sudden?"


After school the following Monday, Bonnie handed the present over to its raven-haired recipient.

Marceline's eyes widened, "Holy cow, is this for me?"

"Yeah! Merry Christmas, Marceline."

"Wow, thanks, Bon!" Too impatient and excited to see what her friend had gotten her, she asked, "Um, can I open it now?"

"Yeah! Knock yourself out!"

When the bass player opened it up, an expression of utter glee set her face aglow, and the warmth of her smile caused Bonnie's eyes to flicker with tenderness and affection.

"Bonnie… I can't even—just, whoa. This is awesome!"

The pink-skinned teen gave her a small smile, "I knew you'd like it."

She pulled the student president into a hug, "Thank you so much! I'll wear it every day."

Tentatively, the embrace was returned, but not briefly. They stood wrapped in one another's arms in the hall longer than considered merely friendly. And Bonnie, with pleading eyes and waiting lips, gazed lovingly up at her friend, tacitly asking if anything more could exist between them.

And with the gentle meeting of their lips, Marceline silently replied a tender, candid "yes".

Tears fell from the eyes of the jealous boy watching them as he sank to the ground against the wall. Ash hadn't meant to see that. He'd just been passing through the hall on the way back to get something from his locker. Now, this was too much for him to bear.

Walking home from school that day, he shakily typed out a threat and sent it with the picture to Marceline. He expected to feel like a weight had been lifted off of him once it was done.

But instead, his chest felt incredibly empty.


"Uh, Marceline… I need to … I just… you know, th-that make-out we had at the Halloween party? Just so it's super clear, i-it… wasn't… just some stupid thing I did while I was drunk. Because I really, really like you."

"…I thought you were straight?"

Bonnie heaved a great sigh, "Well, at the start of this year, so did I. And then the talent show happened and I just… you kinda hooked me in somehow." Then after she cleared her throat, she murmured, "I don't know, I just… I'm kind of wondering if you'd ever consider… us being together?"

Marceline wanted to say yes so bad, but she'd been caught off-guard, disoriented by the sound of words she never thought she'd hear Bonnie say. Her head was spinning so fast that it seemed like such a bad idea to give a ready, overeager answer right away.

So the bass player had said, "I'd have to think about it first."

It wouldn't leave her head as she flew for home down the streets on her bike. She'd been so ready to say yes… but somehow, saying yes right away felt like setting herself up for heartbreak, like saying "I love you" to Ash all over again.

And with a text and a picture, it had been Ash to once again send her heart crashing down to the floor in Marceline's room. It was a Friday winter afternoon, and a raven-haired teen slumped in the corner of her room listening to sweet, happy love songs, her cheeks made warm with tears instead of a blush.

She remembered her place, a small-town musician longing to make it big someday, and reminded herself of Bonnie's, a student body president who upheld her position so damn well. They were both looking skyward with their wings spread, ready to touch the dream clouds of their separate futures. And Marceline realized, the feelings hidden away in her chest were a wildfire that could destroy the wings of their dreams should she have chosen to ignite the bond between them both.


The Monday school resumed, Marceline had been the one to say that it wouldn't work out between them. Bonnie didn't press further. She never asked why. She just took it and they progressed into the year as friends and nothing more. She was fine with it, a little relieved even, that they never got together.

Still, thoughts of what could've been niggled at the student president, and occasionally, they'd impinge upon her at random intervals throughout the years. Some days in college, she'd think of her former infatuation with Marceline. And some days after college, she'd think of it again. And it irked her.

It wasn't as if they weren't in touch, but it wasn't as if they were friends anymore. They were back to the casual acquaintanceship that Bonnie had been so content with in the first place. And the strawberry blonde was perfectly fine with that except... the idea of something more with the bass player kept floating in and out of her subconscious, even though she was long over it.

It was a stupid high school crush, but somehow, though the love had faded, the thought of it never did. And Bonnie couldn't help but feel dumb every time Marceline crossed her mind. This wasn't some star-crossed romance. They weren't fated to be or anything. The reality was that Marceline was a friend who had politely declined the reciprocation of romantic feelings, end of story. For sanity's sake, it was time to put it to rest and just let it go already. One relationship that had never been was nothing to fret over. It wouldn't have worked out anyway, what with the tense social environment surrounding their attractions. The student president's parents were homophobes. So fact of the matter was, even though Bonnie felt it would've been so worth it, maintaining a relationship with Marceline would've been extremely inconvenient.

So the marine microbiologist finally resolved that, if a convenient love had existed anywhere for them, it certainly wasn't in this lifetime.


What happened between the two girls at graduation was what had encumbered Bonnie with romantic hypotheticals for the years that followed.

Their feelings were lifeblood streaming straight from their hearts, desperate to make their escape from Marceline's and Bonnie's lips, desperate to make their existence known in the form of words. But the insistent tourniquet of circumstance had long muffled the girls' mouths and maintained unbearable pressure on their supposed wounds, wounds that threatened to leak loving words. With dreams so close at hand, they shouldn't have possibly even dared to bleed freely.

But Marceline dared, for one second, to let at least one drop of her crimson passion to flutter past her lips onto Bonnie's.

In private, they dared to share a kiss, and Marceline explained herself.

"I really liked you. Hell, loved you even. I-I don't know. I just… you were student body president, this school isn't exactly gay-friendly, and I had hang-ups that I didn't want to talk about, so I'm sorry about that. But if it means anything… I would've said yes in better circumstances."

Bonnie closed her eyes, took a deep breath and nodded, shortly before enclosing her friend in a tender embrace.

"Alright then, Marceline. Thank you for telling me."

They never had a love story. But they liked to believe that their almost at least amounted to a stanza.