Gumball
He… he kissed me! What do I do? Do I push him off? No, that would aggravate his wounds. Do I kiss him back? What message would that send?
But then, why was I thinking so hard about it?
What do you want, Gumball?
I want… I want to kiss him back… like in the old days, when we would play those games, and when he would find me, he would get a kiss. Or those times when the thunder frightened me, and he would be there, in my bed, holding me and kissing me. It made me feel better, safer. He was the only thing I knew of love, at one point.
Now it's all happening again.
And… and I want it to. This rivalry, this fight we've kept up… I didn't want that any more. I wanted to things to go back to where they were, but with Fionna, too.
I kissed him back, molding my soft lips to his rough ones, letting him take the lead like Fionna does. He always loved the control, and I always loved being led. I set my hand gently on his face, letting his tongue explore my mouth for the first time in years. He laid his hand on mine, pressing my hand onto his face with his own. I tried to lean into the kiss, to get closer to him, but when I did, he broke away from me, pain gripping his face.
I set my hands on his shoulders and laid him down gently onto the mat. Without a word, I pushed the hair out of his face and smiled down at him. It was strange, looking down at him like this. Back then, before the sun rose, he would lay me down in my bed, cup my face, and kiss me one last time before leaving out the window.
I didn't want to admit it, but he was right before, on our anniversary. He was my dirty little secret.
"Are you all right, Marshall?" I asked, looking into his eyes so I would know if he was lying.
"Yeah, yeah… I'm fine. I just… I missed you, Gummy." He gave me a weak smile and picked up the hand that pushed his hair back, pressing it against his face again.
"I… missed you, too, Marshy." I smiled back, letting my hand warm his cool cheek.
"Why did we grow so far apart?" he asked, looking fuzzy-brained from the pain.
I just smiled at him, then leaned down to kiss his lips lightly. "For a lot of reasons, Marshy. And not one of them worth it."
I stroked his cheek and watched his eyes close, letting him drift to sleep in the dead of night. I never really had the chance to see him sleep, but it was good to know that at least in his dreams, that darkness leaves him for a little while. I laid down next to him and curled up, exhausted in my own way.
What were we getting ourselves into? I had accepted sharing Fionna with him, out of love and respect to Fionna. But this? These feelings? I thought I had locked those away a long time ago. I thought I was over our little fling. How ironic that, in the midst of saving the woman we both loved, we found love between each other, as well.
Yes… how…
Ironic…
The sunlight broke my sleep almost instantaneously. The bright rays shone right into my eyes, burning them and forcing me to move. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, stretching and yawning as I looked around me. Yesterday I had carried Marshall, my pack, and nearly all of our supplies for what I assume to be over a mile, to this little clearing by a pond. It was quiet and serene, and I thought that if I was going to bandage up Marshall, I would need to be near water.
Marshall.
I looked around in the morning sunlight for the vampire, but I couldn't find him anywhere. I stood up and began searching, being careful to keep my noise level down so as not to have a repeat of yesterday.
"Marshall? Marshall!" I whispered into the trees. I was getting worried. Last night he was so riddled with pain that he was only awake for a total of 15 minutes before he passed out again. He couldn't possibly have—
"Morning, Gummy! Look what I found!" He came out of the trees, the leg of some sort of now-deceased beast across his shoulders. "Pretty cool, huh? I caught it myself! I haven't been hunting in years!"
I stared at him in disbelief. Wait, this was the guy that couldn't sit up last night without help? "M—Marshall, are you—are you feeling all right?"
"Who, me? Yeah! I'm feeling great this morning! Look, the bandages are off and everything!" He was right, I didn't even notice his bare torso when he walked into the clearing. My glob, he was just as magnificent as he was 7 years ago… "Hey, are you alright? You're looking poo-brained over there, Gummy."
I broke my trance and shook my head, smiling at him. "Oh! Yeah, yeah I'm great. I'm just… how are you that much better?"
He set the leg down by the fire and started trying to rekindle the flames. "Well, I am a vampire. The color red is great and all, but that's just nourishment. Drinking blood, well, that's a whole other story. It's like if you eat regular meals all the time, but then you have a terrible night of sleep, so you let yourself have that one super sugary thing, or that crazy energy fruit that you grow in your garden. Except, for me, blood perks me up and heals me."
I gazed at his side for a moment, the credibility of his story sinking in. "I… didn't know you still drank blood."
"I wasn't drinking it for a while. I didn't need it. My music and my friends were all I needed. I make it a point to drink it when it's absolutely necessary, and believe me, when I woke up this morning, it was necessary. So here, I brought you some meat from my hunt. I thought, 'Hey, Gumbutt is probably hungry. Why not bring him breakfast?'"
Gumbutt? He only called me that when we were enemies. Does… does he remember last night?
"Uh, thanks. Hey Marshall?" He didn't look at me, he just shot me a hm? and continued to roast the leg over the fire he managed to rekindle. "Do you… remember last night?"
"No, not at all! I remember I got chomped by the beastie, I ran until my body gave out, there was tons of pain, and then this morning I woke up feeling like I got hit by the Candy Express."
"And… nothing else?" I watched him carefully. Was he lying? Was he trying to hide from me?
"Hmmm, nope! But hey! The leg is done! Come and eat." He turned to me, his red eyes bright in the shade of the trees, smiling triumphantly. How… odd.
So, he doesn't remember the kiss, but he's acting as though he does remember the kiss. What exactly was going on?
I just smiled a smile that I'm sure looked to be nervous and shaky, but even so, he just waved me over and motioned me to sit next to him. With his hand he tore out a chunk of the meat and handed it to me as I sat down.
"So what happened that I needed to remember, Gummy?" There was that name again, the one that he used only when we were getting along. Were we getting along? I really couldn't tell.
"I suppose, if you don't remember, it's not important." I gazed down into the dirt as I took a bite out of the meat. I felt his eyes on me, searching me for answers, but it didn't last long. He was off in his own little world again.
"Well I did some thinking. I probably can't fly us both there today in this condition, but we do need to keep going. I don't think Fionna's dead yet, but we can't be wasting any more time. So, from here on, we walk." He sounded so sure and chipper. I've never seen him this way.
"I can't argue with that. But…" I stopped for a moment, thinking about what he said. "But… how do you know that Fionna's still alive?"
He seemed to grow very serious at that moment, looking out into the distance. "I just know. If she were to leave this world, I think I would feel it. No, not just feel it, really. I think I would cease to function. That's what happens when you lose someone you love, right? You just stop working. Even if you keep living, you can't live the right way anymore. You just don't work."
I didn't answer him. Instead, I thought long and hard on what he had said. Is that what happened with him and I? Did we stop working right when we left each other? Then I thought about Fionna, and how happy she made me. I couldn't possibly work right if she were gone. I just couldn't. I would fall apart, and when I was pieced back together, I would be incomplete. Broken.
I sighed and ate the last piece of the meat, deciding to myself that I was going to pretend like last night didn't happen, like he was doing. It was easier that way, because then, I only had to love Fionna. And she was enough for me.
I smiled and stood up, throwing a fist gently into Marshall's shoulder. "Well, let's get going, fang face. Fionna's waiting for us, and we have a queen to take down."
He smiled up at me and darted into the air, flying around the camp to collect our things. I don't know what happened, if it was just the blood or something else, but something in him changed. I just hoped it stayed this way, because not even he deserved to be in that dark place again.
