Gumball jolted up from dozing off, a small piece of paper stuck to his face. The light of his office made him cringe. He quickly pulled the small velvet paper off his forehead and set it back on the desk. His weak off was over with, and it was back to work. It's the middle of the day, and the castle was swarming with busy candy people, including Gumball. He already had breakfast with Wild Berry Prince to discuss important matters, and visited all the candy people that needed advice, or any other kind of help. They literally were like his children, and he loved every single one of them, just as much as they do him, but they really are time consuming. He even had a candy meeting to tell everyone that they were soon going to have two rulers instead of just a prince. He was usually this busy every day, but his break made him realize how much he was 'slaving away.'

He looked down at the papers he was looking through from the Fire Kingdom, and some rather disturbing love letters from Ice Queen. He groans, reading through it, until he saw that the Fire kingdom finally wanted to make peace. He does an impressed expression, and signed the paper, before pulling out a clean piece from his purple candy desk drawer to write them a kind letter, telling them how much he appreciated the offer. Maybe Flame Prince will finally forgive him, and will stop being so jealous.

The last time the Vampire king, and the candy prince saw each other, it was at a bar in the Lumpy space kingdom. Apparently, there was a party going on that the prince didn't know about there, and it was all part of Marshall Lee's plan. Marshall talked Gumball into getting on the dance floor with him, and he got to show off his moves nobody knew he had. He wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for drinking as much as he did. He didn't really remember much after that. He just remembered waking up in his own pink, empty bed with another shirt of Marshall's on.

His thoughts were interrupted by his door smoothly opening, revealing the little peppermint maid with a clip board held delicately in her gloved hands. "Hello sir, sorry for interrupting you," She smoothly apologized.

Gumball sat up in his chair, standing the papers up to pat them into a nice, even stack. "Oh Pep, you apologize too much. You weren't interrupting." He warmly smiles at her. She smiles back, and pulls some papers off of the clip board to give to him.

"Alright your Majesty, I just wanted to tell you that you need to plan the cleanup around AAA," She says sweetly. Gumball took the papers and looked over them. He forgot about the idea he had that dealt with cleaning up the remains of the terrible Mushroom War. Damage, and rubbish has been scattered around the land of AAA for ages, and he thought it was finally time to do something about it so he could make it a nicer place to live, and can leave the terrible memories behind. There will always be the mutants in caves, and other dark places, but they couldn't really do anything about that.

"Thank you, Peppermint, I'll have this to you in an hour," he replied, giving her the papers he already been through. She nods, taking them sweetly into her hands.

"Thank you your highness, call for me if you need anything." She walked out, leaving Gumball alone with his work. He started making invitations for the cleanup. The first ones were going out to Fiona and Cake. He made sure to give them the most dangerous places so they won't complain about the task being boring, and not a challenge. The rest were to some 'happy to help' candy people. After that he wrote to the other kingdoms to see if anyone was willing to help with this big deed.

An hour later, he gave the invitations to Peppermint maid, and headed upstairs to his room so he could change into his lab clothes. When he strode into the big, pink decorated bedroom, the only light tinting his room was through the balcony windows, but the curtains were slightly over one side of the doors. He switched on the light, seeing that there were more people than just him in the room. He rolled his eyes, shutting the door behind him, and crossed his arms.

Marshall was lying on the bed with his furry little white zombie cat in his arms, gently stroking its head. He was wearing his usual plaid shirt, and blue skinny jeans. The cat's black eyes looked over at Gumball and gave a pleasant sounding meow before jumping off of his owner to rub her body around PG's pant leg. The thought of the cat being a zombie, freaked Gumball out a little, but he learned that she's harmless.

He gave up trying to look upset and looked down at the cat. "Hey Schwable haven't seen you in a while," he cooed, scooping her up in his arms. Marshall's crooked smile widened as he floated over to Gumball, placing a soft kiss to his forehead.

"She missed you so I took her with me," the vampire says, petting under her chin.

"You know you could use the front door, Marshall. What if Peppermint found you in here?"

"I memorized your daily schedule," he admitted, sounding rather accomplished. Gumball just rolled his eyes. "Plus I like to surprise you~"

"Whatever you say, I need to get back to work. I need to do some business in my lab."

"Aren't you forgetting something Gumball?" Marshall placed a hand on the prince's hip.

"Not that I know of," Gumball murmurs, looking down at the vibrating creature in his arms.

"What about this? Your answer," He bluntly replied, sounding rather insulting. Gumball looked up in realization.

"Oh! Yes, I remember now. Well I need to teach you some things about the kingdom before we say yes anything."

"Yeah sure, how hard could it be?" Marshall shrugged, crossing his arms while pushing his hip out a bit. Gumball grunts.

"You better take this seriously," The bubblegum prince warned.

"I'm going to I promise, and Marshall Lee the vampire king doesn't break his promises," He proudly remarked.

"mhm… You didn't do the bet."

"I haven't seen you since you were drunk! You started getting super seductive, and I had to take you home before you got gang banged! Then you threw up on your shirt, so I changed you, and left. Then you slept for what seemed like two days." Gumball's face turned hot and he put down the cat to rub his neck awkwardly.

"Yeah, I'm terribly sorry about that…"

"Yeah, you should be," Marshall joked. "Besides I'm working for you now, soooo," he trails off.

"Alright, alright I said I'm sorry. I'm also letting you live in the candy kingdom, and you have maids, and junk. Plus you get to sleep in the same room with me," He points out while looking through his closet for his old lab coat.

"Yeah, that would be nice. I'll be surrounded by edible little people." Gumball paused, setting his lab coat down.

"Okay, step one of ruling this kingdom. You must be kind to the candy people. You have to learn their nature, and understand them so you can help with their problems, and protect them in the best and most safe way possible," Gumball strictly informs through gritted teeth, standing up straight.

"Ugh, I won't be able to fucking learn every little thing about them!" Marshall groans.

"Step two, you will not cuss in this kingdom, and you must have a 'can do' attitude. You must be a good role model," Gumball adds, ignoring Marshall's sour remarks.

"What is this, pre-school?" Marshall grunts, sitting in the air with his arms crossed while gently chewing on his lip.

"Step three, you must dress formally like a royal, sense you are in fact going to be a second king."

"Do I have to wear girly pink shi-… stuff," Marshall sarcastically hissed. "I'll just suck the color out of it, along with that pretty pink face of yours~"

Gumball's face turned into an annoyed smile, his nose twitching a little. "No, colors don't matter." He gave him a cold stare, Making Marshall actually flinch. It was hard not to look away, even though Gumball sort of reminded him of an adorable angry pink rabbit. "If you're not going to take this seriously, I'll simply ban you from the kingdom, and not give you the opportunity. I can just create someone else. I'm almost there, so don't think I'm afraid to go to plan B."

"Jeez, okay! Whatever, you just started throwing rules at me! I don't have to do this; I have better things to do! I can just go hang out with Fi instead, that's way more fun than looking after full grown candy people who can barely tie their shoes!" Marshall hissed at the angry prince. Gumball was taken aback, and he just stared at him, his mouth forming a line, but his eyes looked upset. He didn't say anything for a long time. An awkward silence swooshed over the room until he finally sighs.

"You don't understand how important this is to me…" Gumball whispered, looking down at the dark pink floor. Marshall sighs, walking up to him so he could wrap his arms around him, but Gumball viciously nudged them off. Marshall could see a tear roll down the candy prince's pink cheek, and he felt awful for what he said. He understood the candy people were different, and it was in their nature to be like children. He felt like he was being racist toward them, and he needed to control himself, especially if it affects his sweet Gumball. He might've been over reacting, but he just figured it was to get his point across.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean any of that. I love the candy people, and I would never harm them. They can be annoying sometimes, but I understand that the way they act is in their nature. I'll stop joking in that way, I didn't know that would hurt your feelings," Marshall sighs, keeping a fair distance away from Gumball. The apology made him cringe from all the niceness. How will he survive talking like this all the time?

The candy prince huffed, looking up at him with unshed tears flooding his eyes. "Do you really mean it?" he sniffs.

"Of course I mean it," He smiles faintly. Gumball blushes, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve so he didn't look like he was crying anymore. He didn't know why he turned so emotional, even though he always got offended when someone insulted his people, but he usually just got pissed. Maybe it was because he said that he had better things to do. It sort of sounded like he didn't need Gumball, which hurt, even though that's what he said to Marshall with the whole 'plan B' thing.

"We can do this later…" He murmured, turning around to grab his jacket, and glasses off his desk. He slid off his princely jacket, throwing it to the ground so he could slip on his lab coat. He placed the glasses on his head, and head out the door. Marshall's slender fingers gripped around the candy prince's bicep, pulling him back into a tight embrace. Gumball huffs, his face pressed against the vampire's chest.

"Marshall Lee, I need to get back to work," He grunts, his glasses slowly making their way down his face.

"And I need a hug," he softly replies, his head resting on his. Gumball rolls his eyes, trying to snake out of his hold. Marshall finally let go.

"Fine, but I'm coming with you. Schwable can stay here for now."

"Whatever, just don't mess up my work." He heads out the door, Marshall floating behind him. On the way there, a little candy person ran up to them, looking at Marshall in amazement.

"Mr. Lee! I love you!" she cheered, jumping up and down while her bow flopped on top of her blue candy head. Marshall smirks, bending down to pat her head.

"I'm guessing you're a fan of my music~" he smoothly replies. She quickly nods her head.

"Next time I see you, can you sign my album?" she plays with her skirt, looking away from him. He could tell she was excited.

"Sure baby, I'll be here~" he gave her a wink before floating back up, seeing that Gumball already left. His eyes narrow and he heads to the lab.

Gumball was already at one of his desks, working away. Marshall stops floating and walks up to him, sitting at the edge of the table. There were strange, pastel colored crystals all over the desk with different shapes and sizes. He had a magnifying glass to a small green one in his hand, studying it. He looked so cute in his lab glasses. He placed the magnifying glass aside to jot down some things before wheeling his chair to the desk next to him to get a small hammer, and a container. He rolled back over to the crystals, and started smashing the one that he had in his hand. He brushed the remains into the container, and went back over to another desk with a bunch of beakers, and stuff. He poured the powder into one of them that had a clear, sizzling liquid in it. He put his hand over top of it to shake it. It started to glow, and the sizzling calmed down. He looked at it, and nodded, setting it down to go back over to his main desk to write more stuff down.

Marshall had no idea what the glob he was doing, so he decided to watch Gumball's rat science instead. "Do you just run around doing science stuff all day in here? Just watching you makes my brain hurt."

Gumball nods, glancing over at him. "It's part of my duties. But you'll mainly be keeping up to date on what's going on, set up meetings, and help the candy people. You can also help me with this kind of stuff by fetching materials, or just being my assistant. When you're used to how things go, and know what's good for the kingdom, you can do a lot more. The only reason you can't run your own meetings, is because people from outside the candy kingdom will see you, and it could start a whole war," Gumball keeps rambling on about what Marshall could and could not do, and the vampire's eyes widen on how much the pink prince can talk without even taking a breath. Like holy shit, how does he have this much energy?

"Okay Gummy, I get the idea. I know what it's like to run a kingdom, this one can't be that hard," he explains, tossing a test tube back in forth in his hands. Gumball sighs.

"Sorry," he says, placing his hands on the desk with test tubes. "I'm just nervous when it comes to stuff like this. I sort of have trust issues."

"Who can blame you? You've been through a lot of betrayal in your life."

"I don't remember telling you any of this junk." Gumball looks over at Marshall, still tossing the tube around.

"Fiona tells me everything she finds out about you," he admits, looking back at him with his famous smirk. "She had a thing for you, and I think she still does, so when she wants to talk about you, she came to me. Cake got annoyed with her, but I found some stuff rather interesting that you've been hiding from me through the years." Prince Gumball blushes, and looks away.

"I can't trust that girl with any secrets," he grunts. "She's usually part of my missions, or search, so it's hard to hide information from her. So I gave up, and now she knows a whole bunch about my secret life. But! I still have a lot more secrets that nobody knows about." He put his finger to his lips smiling lips. The king frowns.

"Will you ever tell me?" Marshall pushes, feeling disappointed.

"No silly, my life is my biss. But, when I die, you can have my adventure journal, and read all that your heart desire."

"Gumball, don't say shit like 'when I die.' I'm probably dying before you," Marshall hissed.

"Okay, lets change the subject then," Gumball quirks up, going back to his crushing, and pouring. He can sure change his emotions fast. Marshall just rolls his eyes, floating off the chair to sit in the air instead, still fiddling with the test tube.

Gumball eventually crushes all the crystals, and mixed them with the clear substance he mixed the other one with. He pours all the liquid into a medal pan, walking it over to the pink oven in the corner of the room, placing it in it, and turned it on.

"Alright, it will be done by tomorrow," The prince finally says, breaking the silence while walking back over to Marshall, who felt like jumping with glee, knowing he didn't have to sit there no longer.

"Alright, well I'm going to run my cat back to the house and I'll be back over here, okay?"

"Can I just come with you? Maybe have some fun tonight?" Gumball shyly suggested. Marshall laughs a little, thinking Gumball acted so adorable when nervous.

"Of course, Gummy~" Marshall purrs, swiftly floating over to him to place a soft kiss to his head, and headed out of the room to get his cat. Gumball warmly smiles, following far behind him.