Bonnibel gives an explanation, and Finn does too.
ii
"But I know you, Finn... And I know, that you know me."
Her entire body snapped into statuesque stillness. Her eyes magnetized to his, wide and unblinking and totally uncomprehending. Who she was, her kingdom, her prior rapid-fire thoughts and all the anxieties within just vanished, like sugar through one's fingers, when he turned his full body around to face her from the other side of the room.
She only saw Finn, the shock in his eyes, and somehow knew, in that moment, that the sudden putty-like twisting inside her bosom must be mutual. She only caught a glimpse of the vampire behind him upon entering, Marceline's presence visible for a second before she faded into nothing.
Not that Bonnie noticed.
Her sharp, analytical gaze darted about her surroundings, puzzled for half a heartbeat before realization settled upon her heart, and mutated into a gross lurch of anxiety: the pinkness of the room before her, the huge bed, vanity, the open balcony which cast the darkened room in a serene while simultaneously eerie calm, with what relatively little light it allotted…
"Right now, I need you to find Finn for me, and bring him to my tower."
This was it, she realized with a drop in her gut. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. The moment where she would apologize to Finn and ease whatever turmoil ravaged his heroic soul.
She grasped and gaped for something, anything, to say, because Finn was right there and she had an apology to make and a friendship to save. She swallowed the breath stuck in her windpipe, audibly gulping amidst the quiet blanketing the two of them.
"Hi Finn," she murmured finally, mild surprise coloring the greeting she'd spoken countless times in the past.
A smile came easily, as if practiced, as did what slipped from her consciousness with as much thought: "I hope you weren't waiting long," she said, disarmingly pleasant even to herself.
Her mask concealed the hurricane within, yet Finn seemingly felt its bluster still as his look turned cockeyed, posture continuously rigid as a gargoyle's. One foot was poised behind the other, his hands close to his chest, fleshy little fingers fidgeting with his robotic ones, clenching them, pulling them, obsessively.
Bonnie didn't look at his face, she didn't want to.
He knew; he could see it in her, the anxiety that pulsed within like a heartbeat, pushed her brows together, made her words sound so incredibly strangled and forced in their effort to sound genuine. All while Bonnie's imaginary heart hammered, hammered, hammered…
Sound genuine. She did not care, then, that Finn could clearly see her face fall. Faking it? This was the last thing she needed to do right now. But her instincts practiced of nigh-half a century's time took over before she could help it, like some sort of defense mechanism, conflicting with her desire to speak to Finn; as in, to genuinely, truly speak to him.
Not as Princess Bubblegum, but Bonnibel – a mask that had seen very little use, and even then her performance was amateurish at best.
And because of that, she was suddenly saying, "I'm sorry," and she didn't know why. For that, she lamented once more, "I-I'm sorry, um…"
Bonnie rubbed her hands over one another, over and over and over...
"Um."
Her face burned, and her eyes couldn't help but dart repeatedly to the open balcony, searching and sifting through her brilliant mind for something to say, anything at all, but coming up hopelessly speechless. I look like a fool.
This was just like yesterday.
A beat passed. Bonnie started.
'This is just like yesterday,' the unseen, unknown drive that sent her to the balcony seemed to say. Finn's eyes followed her as she strode toward it, wide and weary all the while; he must be puzzled by her intentions.
"I feel a draft, let me just close this!" she announced. Bonnie opted to ignore how forced it sounded.
Shadows engulfed the room, dimming it in cool darkness and preventing anybody from making any impromptu escapes.
The development failed to slow the steady, aching beat within her breast. Glob what is wrong with me…
Bonnibel ignored it, twiddled her fingers like Finn, and subtly licked her lips before speaking, all while having little notion of how to begin, and blurted out with a sudden and loud, "Finn I'm…" she noticed him stiffen from her peripherals, "…hoping, that… things are going well in the kingdom."
Bonnie cringed behind the pleasant mask she wore. Stupid, stupid, stupid-
"Um, yeah." Finn replied, his voice faint and far away, "Yeah, been goin' good…"
Relief came naturally, obviously, and joyfully, and Bonnie dove in head-first without a second thought. "Oh, awesome-!"
"I never quit being a hero." Only yours, the edge in his voice seemed to imply. "N-No, I've stuck around, I still do, it's just… the Candy People, you know how they can get. Right?"
"Totally, yes." Bonnie swallowed hard. Suddenly, the floor was incredibly interesting. "You're… a hero." It was a very sturdily constructed wafer mix, after all. "They trust you."
"They have no reason not to," Finn pointed out, and Bonnie wondered if he was aware of just how hard that hit her.
She let her hands busy themselves up her bare thighs, sliding along her smooth, bubblegum skin and focusing on how finely crafted a form she had adopted.
They curved around her hips, almost distracting her had there been a lack of slight perspiration gathering above her brow, beneath her crown.
Why did her mouth feel so dry?
She empathized with Finn, realizing he must be feeling the same, and remembered her little Cola project from earlier.
He would go for something to drink, right?
She could, too.
Plus he's always happy to lend a hand with my experiments, she argued, to no one in particular. I can easily resynthesize the concoction I'd started before Ice King kidnapped me.
"Um, do you want some soda?" she chirped, jutting a thumb behind her, at the door that would lead down to the lab and away from all this. "I've been working on this new formula, it's supposed to be this incredible beverage the ancient Humans drank before they all killed themselves!"
Finn's eyes widened. "U-Uh, cool?"
The sheer gesture got her smiling; an actual, happy smile, oblivious to the sudden heaviness in the room had taken as she dove headfirst into the next distraction.
She slowly maneuvered from the balcony door to her bedroom, pointing to it while telling him, "Park your buns here! I'll run to the lab and grab you a bottle from the—!"
"Bubblegum, what are you doing?"
Finn's sharpness, the hastiness at which he posed the question, as though terrified of something, was lost on Bonnibel.
Just the question itself gave her pause, choking her with whatever words her mile-a-minute brain was prepped to spew forth. Her defenses that so often shielded her from conflict, the walls she never realized being built, even now, came crumbling to the dirt, and Bonnibel realized she was just trying to worm out of confronting her hurting friend, Finn.
What AM I doing? Bonnie wondered. This was Finn, Glob darn it! Her hero, her close companion; the fate of their friendship was in her hands, and she certainly wasn't acting like it.
Curse my eighteen-year-old brain. Be a grownup, PB. Bonnie devoted all of one second, searching for a response to Finn's question. Her eyes were on him, blank and gaping, but not where she truly looked.
There, inside, she felt them: feelings separate from her decision-making, beneath the hard exterior of her bubblegum shell. Specific, confounding feelings that hurt, as much as they confused, as much as they made her so stupidly happy all at once. To what they were for was a mystery. The why of them even more so. They served no purpose, yet she embraced them regardless because of the selfish fact that they made her feel good.
How come people are so complicated? Bonnie often wondered. She could erect a kingdom out of sugar, life from nothing but the elements the Humans didn't blow up along with themselves.
But people? People were confusing and overly complicated, and Bonnie convinced herself such clutter was unnecessary for the future of her kingdom. Some good that sort of thinking got her.
My stupid, stupid hubris, she cursed internally, and for a moment, Bubblegum wished that she spent a little more time learning to be human.
When Bonnibel spoke to Finn then, just five throat-closing seconds after he posed his question, her voice was clear and gentle as it had ever been, and she knew herself to be genuine, for Bonnie actually had to think before uttering her words.
Her hands clutched overtop her breast upon the first. "Finn," the boy straightened, "…I know, that you must be feeling…" she considered her words, "upset, right now."
She watched his lips part, if only slightly, and his brows furrow, as though trying to decipher her words. After taking a tentative step forward without seeing him shy away, Bonnie took it as a good sign.
"Like, you don't want to see me, because you feel… responsible, or ashamed, even."
It's clear that he did - and his lack of voicing a denial emphasized as such. Bonnie smiled, realizing that despite everything, he must still feel obligated to help her for something he inadvertently caused.
Finn was just good like that.
"But I wanted you to know, that regardless of what happened, or what I said, I'm not… angry, with you. Not at all." A bit of force was applied to her soft, maternal voice. "You know I can never stay mad at you, Finn. Especially now, when I don't have any reason to!"
"But…" Finn started.
"No-no," Bonnie spoke softly, tiding any future objections while she made slow, steady strides toward him. "It's okay, Finn. Whatever you feel responsible for, know that I'm not mad in the slightest. I'm not, honest!" She beamed.
Finn watched this, locked in place, entranced by her words and steady gaze, it seemed. Quickly he studied her eyes, her face, then the rest of her, lingering downwards for a little longer than the rest before magnetizing to her eyes once more.
"And… And I'm not just talking about yesterday," she admitted, reluctant still for admitting this, "but… all of it, Finn… Finn, everything that was said between us, and, what wasn't said… Whatever that precisely may be, I know that you're not to blame for it. Because it isn't your fault! It's… mine. It's mine."
Bonnie was confessing to the floor, but holding anyone's gaze while admitting her faults was hard on the soul.
"Patience st. Pim played us both for fools." She was surprised to hear herself, with how soft and rough her voice sounded. "You don't know any better, and it wasn't fair to mess around with your head like that."
The world was just her and Finn. So lost was she, that Bonnibel missed his foot edging backward the closer she'd become, alongside his meek utterance of, "Wait-"
"But I know you, Finn…"
They met a foot apart.
"…And I know, that you know me."
Even after all these years, she still had to look down upon the little guy.
"And I know, that you wouldn't have believed Patience's nonsense had there not been at least a modicum of truth to it."
Finn's hot breath shuddered like a butterfly's wings against her slim, pink throat. Her eyes met his, blue and wet as a crystal clear pond, and the princess knew her words struck true.
"I still don't know what that looks like, exactly, this hypothetical 'truth…'" she glanced aside, only for a second, "but I know now, that everything that's happened between us, I'm the one who's responsible for it. I shoulder full responsibility for what you've gone through, for… f-for…" Her smile faltered, struggling to maintain, but Bonnie held true long enough to tell him:
"I just… don't, want you… feeling like you're to blame for my failings, Finn."
"Princess," he murmured, shakily. Maintaining eye contact, his head steadily shook side to side.
Bonnie plunged herself into Finn's gaze, past its moistened shell, and into the pain stewing deep within, in its home right beside his Hero Heart, which burned as fiercely as the day she met him, six years ago. If eyes were windows to the soul, his must be…
She couldn't finish; Bonnie's eyes wet with sympathy, aware of the pain he endured because of her, but she smiled despite herself.
Her voice was soft but loud against the silence that enclosed them, deep, and motherly.
"Whatever it is you think I've done, I will explain myself to the best of my ability."
Amidst her pleading, Bonnie missed her hero's eyes enlarge with anger.
"But I can't do that unless you tell me what she told you."
She just rose her arms, "I'm sorry..." approached Finn, closing around him, "Whatever it is that I did, Finn, I'm so, so s—"
"DON'T YOU FREAKIN'—!" She was pushed away in a flurry of limbs. "Don't you DARE touch me!"
A jolt of electricity surged through her chest as Bonnie lashed out a choked, "Finn!?" while staggering back a step. Though it was a weak little assault, for even now, Finn wouldn't ever hurt the princess, she still had to process the completely unexpected.
But he pushed me away, h-he… Finn, he didn't want me to hug him and this was supposed to be an easy apology I had to apologize and he would forgive me and, and-
Bonnie couldn't finish, she had to make amends. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I just, I didn't know that—I mean I'm sorry, when really—" she spoke a mile a minute, didn't even know what she was apologizing for, or why it felt like Finn slapped her with his robotic hand—it surely would have hurt far less than how awful she felt right there, "—there was no need to get so close. I, I thought that, or rather, I wasn't thinking-"
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Finn barked. Panting softly, he eyed Bonnie from head to toe, as if trying to see more beyond the trembling mass of gangly, bubblegum limbs before him.
The princess held her hands close to her chest - in all their years together, she had never been scrutinized like this before, by him, no less. "Finn," she fought and succeeded in maintaining a leveled tone, "is there something wrong? Was, Was it something that I'd said?"
"Yeah! You, just so happen to come in here when I am. As if it was just a happy little coe-in-ci-dahnce!" he mocked in a sardonically cheerful tone. "I mean, who do you think you're fooling? Talking like that, trying to, to touch me, to come up to me—the usual tricks, tha-that you always used on me, to, to, to-"
Bonnie tried to follow, but the urgency of his animations overwhelmed her and she could only, as usual, retain the fact of the matter—Finn was upset, and he needed to relax.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," she echoed quickly, just as whisper quiet. "I'm sorry, Finn. I'm sorry."
His head pulled back, eyes narrowed, searching. "You're…"
Bonnie could only hold her breath.
"…sorry."
"If I said and-slash-or did something that upset you," she clarified, low and slow, "then I apologize for it, yes. There's no need to get defensive here, alright? It's just you and me, talking like grownups. So let's just take a chill pill, yeah?" She offered a smile to the boy, but it was as strong as she felt, and neither could endure his scrutiny for long.
"Please, Finn, I don't want this to end like it did yesterday."
Finn offered her a single, seconds-long look before gazing off into the darkened ceiling… snickering—a faint, snorting sound that lasted a full second.
Bonnie pulled back, still unsure of what she'd said wrong, and now was prepared to collect herself for another chance at speaking, until Finn mumbled something she could not hear.
Her eyes flitted left, right, "Err," she leaned in slightly, "what?"
"I said, 'Of course you don't,'" Finn snapped, annoyed. She was just about to question his tone, frowning at it, before he continued. "Of course you wouldn't want that! Yesterday couldn't have gone better for you, couldn't it? Because you got me to stay."
"Um… yes? I suppose I did," the princess nodded, simultaneously aware that stoking the flames may lead her to being burned, but could not help herself either—what was so bad about an unintended success?
Finn just shook his head, smiling, with something foreign twinkling in his eye and his hands clapping together. "Mhm, yeah, you know exactly what you did. Coming in here, knowing exactly how you made me feel? You're so smart, Peebles." He shook his head. "But no, no… No, I'm not believing a word of, of any o' that driz. I'm not twel-ah, an idiot! Anymore - no more. But, good try though! Almost thought you were being sincere, you know?" of which he demonstrated with two pale fingers and a microscopic amount of space between them.
Bonnie's gaping stare danced between that and the hard look in his eye. "Finn, what are you talking about?" She couldn't help but feel more confused than irritated - although she'd felt both all the same. "You sound like a total crazy person - what reason do you have to believe that I'm lying? About any of this? A-And you just admitted that I was correct! That you do feel guilty for what'd happened! So where are these hostilities coming from, dang it!?"
"As if you don't know!" He sputtered into harshly sarcastic laughter. "That's rich, Prubs! You think I don't know how full of it you are? As if you don't know exactly what to say to me after all that? Nah, I know your game now. Instead, howsabout we talk about what you were… talking, about…" Finn's nose scrunched up at his phrasing, but he shook it off. "Like, that you're sorry? About what Patience told me? Do you even know what you're actually 'apologizing' for here?" Finn snorted. "What am I saying? Of course you do - you're PB."
His tone, the accusations, it was too much upon Bonnie, so much she felt herself sinking into the Earth, up to her waist, her armpits. It's become so hard to breath with her breast thrum-thrumming away; to think about something more than the words he threw at her like they were swords poised to strike.
Her face was blank for half a heartbeat before Bonnie erupted forth. "No, I don't!" she hollered, in-part disbelief, primarily frustrated. "I've no idea what you're talking about, at all! Oh, Finn," she choked, thinking and speaking all at once; "where, w-what, why? Where is alll this coming from?" Her hands shot up in front of her, gesturing: "Why this behavior, t-this twisted logic? It-It's totally illogical! Just what the heck did Patience tell you about me?"
Finn's behavior was completely baseless, and not at all what was expected. And Bubblegum was never wrong, so that must mean something was amiss, something more that she couldn't see influencing Finn's behavior, spurring this reaction toward her. Even now, when she just opened up to him—the most she'd ever had to one person— essentially begging Finn to explain her own confusion to her in an ironic twist of fate… And he still regarded her with protected suspicion.
"That's why I'm apologizing about whatever she said," Bonnie continued, while he did not, "so that I could try fixing it, and so we could fix this!" she pointed to the floor, frantic and angry, with both fingers.
"I'm sorry, but, 'this?'" Finn smiled sardonically. "'This.' You're so worried about salvaging 'this,' I mean, do you even know what you're talking about? How you sound?" His face morphed into a scowl, though Bonnie couldn't decipher why before he snapped, "Just what the heck is 'this' to you anyway?"
"You know what this is, darn you! Don't be dense!" she reacted.
Both exchanged glances – Finn's slight in surprise, Bonnie's weary and suddenly, inexplicably tired: the three weeks she'd spent ignoring "this" barreled forth, caught up, and then stampeded past.
"So you're expecting me to buy that heaping mound of stuff," he proceeded, "and then, before I get a chance to even consider it, you try coming in for a hug? Please, I know you, Princess. I see what you were doing, but… you don't know me, and… and was that really your whole plan?" Such a thing seemed genuinely confusing to Finn. "Did you trick Marceline too with-"
Recognition flashed across his eyes.
"Marcy…" he breathed, quiet as a breeze.
Though a little hurt he would think so negatively of her, despite not understanding why, Bonnie found herself concerned still when her friend suddenly became so quiet. "Finn?" she softly approached.
"Marceline! You…" His eyes shot up toward the ceiling, to the wall behind him, Bonnie herself, and then the closed balcony, where a sliver of light passed between the doors. "I know you're in here!" he called out. Finn's voice rang in the emptiness of her bedroom.
Marceline, just what the heck did you do?! Bubblegum took a single step back and stood shock-still, hands out at her sides. "Finn… what, is the matter with you-?"
"MARCELINE YOU LIAR!" Finn erupted, causing Bonnie to wince. His eyes danced about the room, "Come out, Marceline! I know you're in here!" searching.
"I told you not to tell her ANY of that, and you went and did it anyway, you scroob!" A brief spell of silence filled with quiet panting. "…MARCELINE!" he cried out, as if his best friend betrayed him.
Bonnie watched, petrified, unsure of how to proceed or what was even happening for that matter. She didn't know what to think - just that Finn was angry, and at Marceline, for some reason.
She needed him quiet.
"Finn, stop it!"
His eyes snapped to hers, hurt and guarded.
The two stared into one another, searching, abiding by the tune of Finn's slow, labored breathing. The silence urged Bonnie to quell her hero's anger. It's clear that, for whatever reason, Marceline didn't tell Finn what would be happening in this room.
Oh, of course! Anybody in his predicament would be shocked to see the subject of his turmoil just pop in out of nowhere. Startled, even. Considering his earlier comments, then, of course, that explains it!
Bubblegum resisted letting her satisfaction fester. "Finn, I don't know what Marceline said, but she must not have informed you of what was happening." Sympathy seeped into Bonnie's tone. "Am I correct?"
Finn replied surprisingly calm, although he sounded as if he were talking to himself, even looking in a different direction from her. "She… asked me to find something here, I…" red seeped into the boy's cheeks, "I don't actually know what." Finn drilled his fingers into his forehead, muttering curses in between breaths.
Dang it, Marceline. Even if the vampire wasn't still present, garnering some sick satisfaction watching her friends tear each other apart (the uncertainty of this likelihood worrying in of itself), Bonnibel was definitely going to have a few choice words with her later.
Stay cool. Baby steps, Bonnie, she recited, more for her sake than for Finn's. Patience's influence isn't going to break with just a single, brief exchange.
Calm and collected like a princess should, Bubblegum informed him, "I've asked Marceline to bring you here, so that we can talk." She made an easing gesture with her hands. "That's all, m'kay Finn? No one's planning anything here… no one is an enemy-"
Bonnie choked suddenly when Finn's lips had moved, and she heard the word "already" under his breath.
"What was that?"
"I said 'stop!'" Finn whipped his bewildered gaze to a flinching Bonnibel. "Just stop already, okay!? Stop saying stuff, stop… talking! Just… just don't, okay? Stop. You, You're just trying to get me to come back, you freaking liar! You probably-!" His eyes flared, and Finn rammed a synthetic finger in her direction, "You did use her, didn't you? You had to – Marceline wouldn't lie to me unless she was promised something she wanted! Probably something stupid and easy, I bet."
Bonnie hands rose, as if trying to balance herself over the pit of verbal lava she was in the middle of tight-roping. "Finn, that isn't true. I would never lie to Marcy, and I wouldn't lie to you! You know how she can be, she probably just thought to play some mean prank-"
"Oh, bullgunk, Princess!"
"Finn!" she moaned in desperation.
"Come on, Bubblegum! I know that's your M.O! Besides, I'm not falling for your junk anymore, so you can just forget it." There was confidence and conviction, clear as a cloudless sky, evident in his tone.
But Finn didn't even smirk.
She'd heard it, seen this, coming from a Vampire Queen before, far too often in the past, to mistake it for anything other than a pain-concealing front.
Finn is convinced that everything I say and do is a lie.
How Patience got Finn—loyal, caring, silly but sweet Finn—to turn against her, and stand firm with such resolve, was the true problem at heart.
What did Patience reveal about her that she implied that she didn't care? Bonnibel had no reason to think she gave Finn this impression herself, so she must have she tricked him.
"Finn, what on earth is upsetting you about me?" she asked, a hand to her heart. "Did, Did Patience tell you some horrible secret about me? Something even you don't wanna admit, because of a fear that I might lie my way out of it?"
It was truly a conundrum if that were the case - but Bonnie just had to know. Though, she never realized, after today, just how accurate she was.
She should have realized from the way Finn exploded, but her mind was in too much chaos to notice in the moment: "Would you just stop that already!?" he cried.
"What!?" Bonnie shot back, angry. "Stop what!? I don't understand!"
"This! This whole, 'Oh, tell me what happened, Finny, I totes care!' shtick. It's nothing but an old joke at this point!" They locked eyes for a second longer before he broke away, shaking his head. "Glob, you even sound insincere."
"And when have I ever given you the impression that I was lying to you!?" Bubblegum snapped. "I've never lied to you!"
Never had she felt so helpless: armed with only these vague, pathetic pleas, hoping her companion would look past his bias and sense her sincerity.
The silence somehow thumped in her ears, hard, like it itself were a living being. The mechanical hum of Finn's robotic fingers curling into a fist felt awkwardly loud. What was he thinking?
"I don't have to explain myself to you," Finn replied. "You'll just lie about it anyway..."
And Bubblegum heard a thunderous crack - like a glacier breaking apart neath its own, tremendous weight.
"Yes you do!" she cried. "You have to tell me, Finn! You hear me?! You, You have to tell me! It's your job! You're obligated to, remember!?" Bonnie didn't even know what she was saying.
And Finn whirled on her at incredible speeds before she could decipher it all. "Yeah!? And why should's that, Princess!?" he snarled, throwing her title back in her face.
Bonnie didn't even consider what she'd said before saying it: "Because!"
"Because what!?"
"Because you're my friend, Glob dang it!" Only amidst the echo in her bedroom, did Bonnie hear how terribly her words trembled. She sniffled thickly, struggling not to be hurt by Finn's critical eye, if only because the boy never looked at her in such a way before – looked at her with such blatant hostility - and knew at heart this was all a big misunderstanding.
It just had to be.
"I am," he uttered, casually.
She cocked her head, blank in expression. "Hm?" It was hard to tell if Finn was asking for confirmation, or affirming it aloud - that is what she hoped for, at least.
When Finn clarified, "I am your friend," Bonnie still could not tell.
Even so, her heart rose inch by inch, realizing an opportunity to recover. "Finn, of course we're friends. Wha-hat would ever make you think that you weren't?" She resisted the temptation of mentioning Patience St. Pim, wishing not to agitate Finn once more.
Baby steps, Bonnie, she thought to herself. Baby ste-
Finn's grumblings caught her ear.
"What? I didn't catch that."
"No, you didn't. So I'll tell you one more time:" Bonnie felt something heavy drop into her gut at Finn's unexpectedly snarky reply – he jabbed a robotic digit in her direction, jutting upon every pause, "Of course you finally say it! After all this time and dancing around, you just finally admit it! You answered my burning question, Bonnie; and it only took forever and a half! Awesome, cool, I'm so relieved that we're friends now!"
"Now!?" Bonnie echoed, shocked and hurt. "When weren't we!?"
"It doesn't matter anymore, Princess! I meant it when I'd said that I'm done with you! I'm done with you, the games, how you treat me, your mind-twisty biz, all of it! I know how you work now, I know that you know me, and how I work, and… and I'm not an idiot, so there's no way I'll believe you anyway!"
Bonnie willfully forgot all else she heard upon catching the phrase, 'Idiot?' Does he feel lesser than me? Like, insecure? "Finn, in all the years I've known you, I have never thought of you as an idiot."
"Oh puh-lease! You honestly expect me to swallow that boom-boom mountain?"
Bonnie felt herself starting to break through to Finn, or that's what she told herself, so she pressed on. "Finn, everything I said back there, that was all true! There were never any games, I wasn't twisting your mind, never! I meant it, I wanna help you with whatever Patience made you believe! But you have to trust that what I say is the truth!"
"I'm sorry, but, trust you!?" Those very words made him enraged. "How can you even say that with a straight face? When you take, like, a minute to think of that crud-cano instead of answering my question yesterday? And now I'm stuck, just like you wanted!"
"Are you kidding me?" Bubblegum hissed, glaring, hollering, "Are you KIDDING ME!? Excusay-mwah, not everyone has time to process the most out-of-the-blue, nonsense question in all of creation!"
If she weren't so blind with anger, Bonnie would have recoiled in surprise seeing the boy's face turn so cherry-pie-red. He shot back, "It's a stupid yes-or-no answer! Don't get mad that I didn't fall for your tricks!"
"I was being honest!" she cried in defense. Unless, he is referring to something else? Un-Unless, Patience, or-or something, the Lich maybe?! Someone is still messing with him, lying to him! "Come on, Finn, don't be dense."
She winced as soon as those words tumbled from her thoughts.
Finn's eyes went alight. "Aha! See!? And you say you never thought I was an idiot, you big liar!"
"I never said you were an idiot," Bonnie aggressively replied, gesturing in tandem, "I only said, that you should know me better, than to trust in the words, of some clear madwoman."
A roll of the eyes that just screamed, 'Oh, here we go again.'
"As if you even know. The proof's in the pudding, Princess. She didn't need me to trust her."
"WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT!?" Bonnie exploded. "Finn, please, just tell me already-!"
"Tell you what?!" he erupted, although not a shred of anger was to be found in his voice. He stabbed a synthetic thumb into his sternum. "I'm the one with all the questions here, I'm the one who's now stuck, I'm the-!"
Bonnie stamped forth, seething, "You're the one with questions!? Are you freakin' kidding me, Finn!? You show up, just out of the blue, on one of the worst days of my life no less, and leave my service without giving me a chance to know why!"
Finn took a lunging step forward, boasting, "You bet your butt that I did! And it was one of the coolest things I'd ever done, too!"
"No it wasn't! It was sudden and stupid and illogical and, and it hurt me, Finn!" Bonnie clutched her stomach, still feeling it. Even now, it hurt so fiercely that she gasped. "It hurt so much I couldn't even function! I fell behind in my duties to the kingdom! Don't you get it!? You doing that hurt me, Finn! And it sucked!"
So lost in herself was she, wiping her eyes, that Bonnie missed the somewhat stunned look dawning upon Finn's face.
"I've groveled at you Finn, I begged you to stay, I, I," Bonnie gestured wildly, making a fist-in-palm for some indiscernible reason, "threw myself, into a flippin' coma! And now I deserve to know, just, why – why, the flip and flap, was I put through all that in the first place?!"
Bonnibel took a deep, lung-filling breath… before exhaling it all into a sob-hitched sigh.
"What did Patience do to you, Finn?" she murmured. "Brain-wash you?"
"She didn't do nothin'!" he snapped. "And if you think she did you're either a liar, or you're not as smart as you think you are! And I know which one of those is more true."
For a moment, for one, solitary second, Bonnibel looked to Finn, and he to her. She was unsure of what he saw, but it was enough to give him pause, soaking in Bonnie's bewildered, helpless face for a moment before gazing off, shaking his head.
"But you're at least more convincing now, I'll give you that."
Bonnie could, if given time, construct a bulleted, detailed and convincing argument as to why he should believe her.
But she faced two problems: she had no time, and she was Princess Bubblegum - and Princess Bubblegum was a 'feel first, think later' type of person in times like these.
Bonnie had never looked down on Finn for his comparative lack of intelligence, but the enormity of his ignorance right then made her gasp.
"A-Are, Are you… stupid!?" she choked. "How could you, Finn? How could you just believe in Patience's absolute nonsense?" Her volume jumped a notch or two: "After everything you and I'd gone through, how could you think that I've ever lied?! About ANY of it!?"
Bonnie wasn't speaking from a planned mental list anymore – her thoughts came straight from the soul, unedited and unrelenting.
And she hated it.
"Why, Finn!? I thought you were better than that! I…"
I thought we were more than that, but she did not say.
She inhaled hard.
"Lying, about this? How could you think that about me? All the years we've known each other, do they suddenly just mean nothing to you?!" she asked, hurt and angry all at once.
Tears beaded the corner of his eyes as he took a lunging step forth. "Those meant so much to me, Bubblegum!" His voice broke. "Those meant more than you'll EVER UNDERSTAND!"
Bonnibel ignored the lance going through her heart, if only because it would distract her from the real issue at heart:
"Then WHY are you SO INSISTENT on not believing me as if they DON'T!?" she screamed, her distraught drowning her hysteria. "If Patience didn't tell you anything, then why would you WILLFULLY believe them to be some big LIE?!"
"Because that's all you DO, of course!"
