*Reviewed 10/18/2014
La-da da-dada….mmhm-hm mmm hm mm hmmmm hmmmm…la da-da- da-daaaa…
Marceline stopped her humming, stabbing a strawberry with her fang, draining the red while tapping the strings on her bass to the rhythm of the song she had been humming. She scrunched her brow in frustration. Just what had her lyrics been when she sang for the door lord a year ago? Marceline had wracked her brains out since then, trying to remember the exact words, but it seemed every time she hummed the song, new lyrics came into her mind.
I know it must be hard to see me
Hey, it's hard for me too…
But I thought that together we'd formed 'we'
Did I ask too much of you?...
Marceline sighed and fell back onto her bed, strumming with both hands now, licking up the juice that had run down her chin with her long tongue. She closed her eyes.
Why do I love you?
Why do I love you…
It's like I can't live without you, can I?
She gave one low, hearty chuckle. "Now I know you're nuts, Marce. Since when do the undead live?" Shaking her head, she put her axe beside her bed, arching off the bed in a mighty stretch. She looked at her ceiling, sighing.
"It has been over a month since I last saw Bonnie…ever since that awkward shizz up in the attic, I thought we'd be able to talk but…" Marceline flipped onto her stomach, blowing hair from her face. "…that Bonnibel. Always out to conferences and banquets and science-y science stuff. She made it that much more difficult to talk…" She sighed. She could be out there. She could be signing treaties and shaking hands and making time, so much time to spend with Bubblegum, just laying in bed, just snuggling, just...
Marceline peeked from under her arm to the small alarm clock on her nightstand. "Nine pm… it's plenty dark out now…maybe I should go check on Prubbs…" She lay on her stomach for a few minutes, breakfast and the energy of the night making it difficult for her to fall back into the comfortable slumber that would mean ignoring Bonnibel for the night. Without another word to herself, Marceline rose and slipped into a pair of jeans and acquired a sweatshirt from her closet. When she raised her arms to put it on, she sniffed once, twice, and stripped down to take a shower.
Forty minutes later, Marceline locked her house and flew out toward the Candy Kingdom, humming the song to herself again because damn it, it was really stuck in her head this time. She looked up, counted the stars, remembered the feeling of a warm, secure weight on her back. Of small knees digging into her hips as their owner strained up closer to the winking lights, calling "Faster, faster! And oh Marcy, higher, PLEASE!" amidst giggled and questions about how far away the stars were and could they ever fall on us and did they have any friends?
Centuries and she sat on a bedroom floor littered with parchments, maps useless on earth but when turned to the heavens, expert storytellers and navigators. The once squirmy piggy-backer sat cross legged before Marceline, pointing out stars, drawing in new ones, exasperated and scolding "No, you may NOT name that one Butts-McFarts and oh, honestly Marcy, that's not funny!
Because of memories like this, usually Marceline reveled in the night and the shimmering diamond stars, but tonight, dizziness pounded in her temple and uneasiness gripped her belly. Those princesses were gone, and in their place stood the firm almost-queen denying her a crown, the delicate flower in a black shirt and underthings curling into her nape, swearing loyalty and devotion through tears and requests for forgiveness. Did their truce still stand? Did Bonnibel truly love her, or was it just the afterglow of sex and sleep deprivation talking? Marceline chewed her lower lip as she mused, awoken only when she pierced it with her fangs, hissing softly as she licked away the slow-flowing blood and forcing the wound to heal itself.
Marceline arrived at the princess's castle when the moon was almost at its brightest in the sky. She looked at it for a minute and huffed, floating up to the well-worn windowsill and perching there. She peered into the darkness within and tried the lock- sure enough, it was unlatched- and slipped into the room like a shadow. Quietly, she kicked off her shoes and floated over to the princess's bedside, crawling under the covers. She reached out to the form beside her- and found a stack of big, frilly, pillows in the place of the girl she sought. A bit surprised, Marceline searched the bed for Bonnibel, lost in a flurry of pink, eyes widening when she finally concluded dimly that the princess was not there. Stepping into her floppy-backed converse, Marceline floated down to the lab next, growling when the princess was not there, either.
Marceline went outside to the roof of the castle, perching next to Goliad as she scanned her surroundings, grinning at the flash of a blue stone on a golden tiara. She made to kick off toward the strolling monarch, to scoop her up and into bed and cuddle because hey, she could always use more sleep, and why not with some company? However, there, in the courtyard with Princess Bubblegum, stood a pale young man with two small crystals on his head. Marceline watched him curiously, and when he handed Bubblegum something her eyes widened, as there were no banana guards around to protect the princess. Peppermint butler was not around either, and had probably been sent off to bed by Bonnibel herself to inspect the thing, to make sure it was safe. She looked closer...it was red. A flower?... This setup was too familiar…the gears in Marceline's head that began to turn wanted badly to jam and run backwards and get Marceline the heck away from there, to the past, to the stars- because Bonnie was on a date, and Marceline had no idea what to do.
Marceline felt as if though her heart burst in her chest, hot waves of pain making their way down her torso to her toes and fingertips. Her head throbbed, her eyes blurring black at the edges and before she could do something stupid she launched herself off of the roof, flying to the one place she knew she'd get answers.
"Finn! Wake up!" Marceline floated over Finn's bed, shaking the sleeping boy's sleeping bag roughly
until his eyes snapped open.
"WHAT?! WHAT?!" Finn pulled a small dagger from the hood of his sleeping bag, slashing at Marceline's arm and stopping to stare at the oozing would when Marceline hissed at him and he realized what he'd done.
"Oh grob! I'm sorry, Marcy!" He threw the dagger away as if though it was evil, and Marceline glared at him, hair spiking behind her like a billowing cape.
"Jerk, what the junk?!" She licked the blood away, snatching the dagger from the ground angrily and tossing it to the wall by the doorway, where it stuck fast, embedded almost to the hilt. Finn laughed nervously.
"Heh heh…sorry?" He shrugged. Marceline shook the red from her eyes, pulling out of a transformation she hadn't even realized she'd started.
"Ugh, whatever. Just work on your ninja skills, you dork, cuz what good is ninja-ing off the heads of your friends?!" Finn nodded dully, and she took a breath, moving her hair from her eyes. "Anyways…why I'm here…"
"Actually yeah, man, why are you here? It's like, morning nighttime and you're in my house, and I'm in my bajayjays…" Finn pulled a blanket over himself, thanking Glob he hadn't decided to sleep au natural tonight. Marceline sat at the foot of the bed, and ran her tongue over her lips once.
"I just had a question…" She said, smiling, because frowning wasn't enough and there was no way she'd let herself cry here to this dunce of a boy, no way.
"It couldn't wait 'til morning?" Finn asked, his eyes suddenly growing heavy. Marceline sighed.
"I forgot you people sleep at night…" she groaned. She shook Finn awake again, pulling his eyelids up, the orbs beneath them resembling the soft outside of boiled eggs.
"I'm awake! I'm awake…"
"Tell me one thing and I'll go away, ok? I just gotta know, who's the weenis hitting it up with PB?" Marceline asked, floating slightly over the bed in case Finn could feel the speed of her undead heart through the flimsy mattress.
"Suitor?...Oh, you must mean Braco. PB must be really into dressing fancy or something, cuz she's been with him a lot lately."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he's a suitor something or other, like his dad was, like, a bajiliion years ago. At first I thought he was a SUITOR-suitor, like PB be dating, but everyone knows the princess don't date, so he's gotta be the other kind."
"Yeah...everyone knows that..." Marceline sighed. If Finn noticed anything was off about her, he said nothing, and the way he prattled on told her the former was the most likely scenario.
"The guy was totally raised in her castle, and he's 21. His dad died waiting to suit up PB for a few lifetimes before he expired. I don't really think they're a very god match to be friends…and they've been spending so much time together, it really is like they're dating or something." Finn yawned, eyes drooping. "By the way, do you wanna know a secret? I think PB is like super ancient…I had a vision, long story...there's no way she's freaking nineteen, dude, just no freaking way!"
Marceline's face blanched.
"So PB has been hanging with…a suitor…"
"That's right." Finn said. "But didn't you hear me? PB's in her hundreds, I think. Or maybe my time-ticker's a little off, I dunno..." He yawned, scrubbing at his eyes with his grubby, once-red thermal underwear. His hat fell lopsided on his head as he fell back on his pillows, half way to snoring already.
Marceline floated slowly to the window, opening the hatch and letting herself out, slowly making her way back to her cave. Sleep suddenly sounded very, very good.
"So, uh, bye?..." Finn whispered, shrugged and shimmied back into his sleeping bag, resuming his slumber quite easily. Nearby, Jake let out a grunt of a snore, the two oblivious to the sob that drifted in from outside their window.
The next morning, Finn and Jake made their usual stop at the Candy Kingdom, letting themselves into the lab to find a tired-looking PB poring over some books and fussing with what appeared to be long metal tubes spouting multi-colored wires like pipe-cleaner hair. Finn smiled at her good-naturedly, setting beside her at her workbench.
"Hey PB. New experiment?" He asked, looking to make conversation. She didn't take the bait, not at all.
"Nope."
"Uhh, project?" He tried again. Nope.
"Yup."
"Need me to go adventuring for anything?" Finn puffed out his chest in an attempt to win her attention and raised his sword, confident in looking knighly. Princess Bubblegum threw the metal pieces into a large cylinder filled with oily-looking liquid, not even speaking him a glance. Defeated, he deflated, grumbling and dropping his chin into his palm.
"Nope." She replied, a little late.
"Oh. Is it like a private thing?" He sighed, taking interest in Jake's meticulous folding of a paper airplane made from a sheet of parchment pulled from the trash. As he was about to let it fly Bubblegum caught his hand, taking the page and unfolding it, reading it to herself before crumbling it and tossing it away again. The boys groaned.
"Not hush hush secret, if that's what you're wondering." She replied, paying their grief no mind at all.
"Oh. Present for Braco?" Finn tried finally, miserably. At this, Princess Bubblegum paused, and nodded thoughtfully.
"I guess you could say that."
"What is it?" He moaned. Princess Bubblegum perked up a bit. Great, now he probably had to listen to some math or science thing. This stuff was getting old..
"Meet the preliminary stages of P-Bot, guys. It's just a bunch of scraps now, but my goal is to make her as realistic and hold as much likeness to me as possible." She said, sparing him the details of how the thing would work. Could she hear his thoughts? While Finn tried thinking things at her, Jake tapped on the glass.
"Why not just use bubblegum?" He asked. "Then she'll be like your twin, Princess." Bubblegum laughed at Jake's comment.
"I don't want another me. I want a like-me. A Me-Bot. A P-Bot!" She tapped the cylinder fondly and walked to a keypad beside it, setting the calibrations so the oily liquid bubbled slowly. Finn jutted out his lips, trying to remember what it was he came to tell the princess. She moved to a shelf and brought down several bolts of fabric.
"Which pink would be good for a dress, Jake? This one, or this one? Personally, I think the latter is a little too red…"
Red. Something about red…Marceline! Finn, you're a genius! I know.
"Ah! Peebles, I just remembered something!"
"Lay it on us, Finn." Bubblegum tapped the tank, giggling softly. "Me and me-bot." Jake rolled his eyes.
"Marcy came over last night, and she acted super mega weird. Maybe it's cuz I accidentally kinda shanked her, I dunno. But she was down when she heard Braco was your suitor. Speaking of which, maybe you should get him to make the dress for P-Bot, PB. I mean, it is his thing. Or is this a surprise for him?..."
Bubblegum walked to Finn and held his shoulders at arm's length, closing and opening her mouth like a fish.
"H-how does she know about Braco? And you WHAT her?!" Her question was between a shriek and a whisper, and the sound made Jake's fur stand on end. Finn rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"I think she musta found out from the citizens. Or maybe she saw you. It was morning-nighttime and you know how Marcy likes to drift around in the dark. And I cut her with my dagger, but she surprised me, Bon! She's ok, though." Bubblegum released Finn, and turned to P-Bot's tank.
"If you boys excuse me, I have a lot to finish today and can't talk anymore. Please see yourselves out, I'll ttyl, or something." Shrugging, Finn and Jake walked out of the lab, talking amongst themselves about a dungeon or a train or something of the sort. Bubblegum worried her lower lip anxiously, working quickly to finish P-Bot.
Oh, Marceline…I didn't want you to know about Braco…you probably assumed we're dating or something… She face-palmed, gritting her teeth together. Dang…I knew I should have gone to see you between conferences, but I was so tired… Returning to her work, she went over her schedule in her mind. I have to see her, I have to see her, I have to...she cut her finger on one of the metal sheets and moved the finger to her mouth, sucking on the blood away. It left a dull, throbbing ache and she wished Marceline would seal it, kiss it better. She applied some ointment, a small Band-Aid. Marcy…I hope you're ok… Bubblegum shifted her thoughts to the task at hand, deciding to worry about her vampire later, when she'd gotten the donkus off her back. There was some serious explaining to do…