Secret Smile
Marshall Lee floats past Marceline's door.
Or he was going to, but her door is wide open. Marceline stands with her back to him. She's looking at herself in the mirror with both hands holding up her hair and if Marshall Lee had her looks – wait but he does—he'd proclaim himself Queen of Hot Stuff In General. His girlfriend looks a knockout in maroon lingerie; the sheen falls just over her butt and her back is an exposed wonderland. But Marceline's face is hilariously distressed as she examines her reflection in different angles. Marshall Lee snorts derisively.
Marceline turns and drops her hair. She strides towards him on those slender legs and Marshall Lee wants to ask if she can do it again in slow motion but first he has to stop her from slamming the door in his face.
"Why are you home already?!" she pushes the door but he's pushing back.
"Gummy-Bear is busy!"
"Go back over there!"
"But I wanna see."
"You're not supposed to," Marceline snaps. She may have muttered yet. Marshall Lee pouts through the gap between them.
"You dropped something."
"I don't want your jaw," Marceline rolls her eyes, but relents and lets him in. She makes an exaggerated twirl. "What do you think?"
Marshall Lee responds by lifting her off her feet and going for the bed.
"I can't think right now, that's how great you look," he mutters into her neck.
"Shoes," Marceline whispers back. Marshall Lee groans, and sits upright. He makes a show of untying his converse.
"Where do they even sell those?" he asks.
"Some store at the pink-light district," Marceline shrugs. "LSP and Cake took me the other day."
Should he even ask why LSP knows about lingerie stores? Marshall Lee decides not. "I knew those two were freaky."
"Fine, I'll take you there," Marceline wags her brows, grinning. "You don't gotta front."
"Excellent."
Marshall Lee drops the second shoe and pushes her back down. Ironic, really, that lingerie is worn to be taken off. It's intoxicating how Marceline's back arches when he touches her in the right spots. She smells like cherry. But somewhere between the second love bite and Tier 9, Marshall Lee stops. They're been like this before.
"Hey," he says to her flushed face.
"Yeah?"
"Did you get lingerie for when we start having sex?"
She looks at him like he can't spell cat. "Yeah?"
"I love you," Marshall Lee says, and means it.
Then show me is what her hands say when one wanders across his back and the other tugs at the belt over his skinny jeans. Marshall Lee knows it's now or never to be honest because he's incapable of lying to her or putting Tier 15 off indefinitely.
"What's wrong?" Marceline asks quietly. He slumps over to her left side, frustrated. Marshall Lee is a stranger to self-restraint. Fingers run through his hair and they feel as good as anywhere else she's touched him.
"Do you ever notice that we're so alike, Mar?" he turns to her. He slides the sheen hem over her hip and up to her waist. There's a birthmark on her pelvis. He has one too – same spot and shape and color.
"All the time," Marceline wipes his bangs from his face and he knows she sees eyes and nose and lips and face identical to hers. "No one gets me like you do."
"Ditto." For the longest time, he's accepted that significant other doesn't apply to him.
"So what's the problem?" she demands. "Do I have to put a ring on it?"
He snorts. "Nope."
"Pinch me."
Marshall Lee stares.
"'Cause sometimes I just can't believe you love me," she says with a silly grin that makes her eyes crinkle, and Marshall Lee decides for good that there are better ways to convince than pinching.
His shirt is first to go. The belt follows it to the floor, and even if it's been a while he can still pull the pants-off-with-one-hand trick.
"You're perfect," Marceline accuses, hands exploring his chest and abs and downwards.
"You," he lifts her gown off completely. Her breasts are small and round and her stomach is smaller than he remembers; Fantasy Marceline pales like an old memory. Marshall Lee thinks she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen and ever will see and even if it might be impossible to do her body justice he's going to go down trying, literally.
He isn't new to being someone's first. He knows how quickly her breath will turn ragged when he starts using tongue and teeth on naked skin and how tightly she'll grip her bedsheets, writhing. The panties come off – they're lovely, really, but she looks good in anything—and join everything else on the carpet. Marceline's legs are a pleasure to hold.
Marshall Lee makes sure to pay homage to every inch of her skin, head to toes and back.
He doesn't need air, but eventually he's breathing as deeply as she is. It's a painful, gentle kind of torture to want this much and go so slowly.
"Marshall," she whispers into his ear, and her voice begs. Not Marsh or Marshie-boo or hey you or butt-munch.
"Say it again."
"Marshall."
"Say it."
"Marshall."
Entering is just as easy as anything else they've done. Being inside her is unlike any other heaven. Marshall Lee doesn't believe in losing control as an excuse to act like a damn savage, but Holy Grod he just wants to fuck this girl a zillion ways to next year until the earth explodes or they melt into each other or both, Groddamnit. Marceline looks into his eyes and even if she hasn't said it yet he knows what her expression screams out.
She loves him.
He swallows the urge to moan in his throat. There's something innocent about the way they're making love – him of all people. Her nails aren't even that long but his back is in shreds and he can't help it if she's letting him rock back and forth harder and faster. But they have all the time in the world later to fuck this way and that way like they've gone insane. They're a tangle of limbs and touching skin; Marshall Lee paces their bodies until she shudders along with him. They make their way back to that high, over and over.
This afternoon isn't short, but it's sweet.
\/\/\/\/
They didn't break her headboard, but Marceline walks on shaky legs anyway.
Marshall Lee looks out of the window lost in thought when her arms circle his bare waist from behind. He used to jolt long ago when she materializes like a ninja, but now he leans into her touch. Her head rests between his shoulder blades and her breasts feel soft against his back. She sighs.
"I love you," she says. Marshall Lee is soaring over mountain and meadow and glen.
"That's what it takes to get you to tell me?" he grins.
"I thought it was a given," she says innocently.
"Are you wearing my plaid?" Marshall Lee looks down at her arms.
"Trophy."
"I despoiled you."
"I seduced you."
He's already watched her deep in exhausted sleep hours ago. Marshall Lee turns around and she's still as fantastically disheveled awake, hair flowing wild and marks all over. It's only the first time but Marshall Lee thinks she'll always look best the morning, afternoon, or evening after. He tells her so.
"Okay," she smirks, arms still around his waist. "But I want more lingerie."
They are some kind of freak miracle, a series of improbable impossible events that happened anyway and turned into Marshall Lee and Marceline, together.
Marshall Lee thinks nothing is going to touch them if he can help it.
\/\/\/\/
A morning not long after, he finds Marceline standing over his bedroom drawer. The sock drawer is open.
Marceline has one of her socks in hand. Maybe he took it by mistake or something. In the other hand she holds Simon's letter, all ten pages of it. She looks at him with an expression he's never seen on her before. Marshall Lee can feel his heart dropping to the bottom of his ribcage.
"How long have you had this?"
It's the look he thought she'd give him when he tried to dump her in the orphanage years ago. It's so much worse than he imagined, seeing it now.
"Months," Marshall Lee's throat is dry. He floats towards her—
"Don't," Marceline says, and she sounds like she's begging. That tone sounds so out of place when not on a bed.
"Babe, I can explain—" Marshall Lee says. She wipes at her eyes angrily and oh Glob don't let her cry because it's going to be because of him and she never cries at anything.
"You had no right," Marceline says. "Simon saved me, Marsh, He's family. I love him."
"What were you gonna do, paddle back to Ooo and save him?" Words are slipping out of his mouth.
"Why the hell not?!"
"Because it's useless! You're gonna watch her go batshit crazy and there's nothing you can do about it and all you'll do is feel like shit!"
Marceline's eyes are steely. "Me and Simon aren't you and Ice Queen."
Her tone says I'm not you.
"But aren't you?" Marshall Lee says. His words bite more than hers.
"But you had no right to keep this from me," Marceline looks so hurt. He wants to hold her.
"I was going to tell you."
"Why didn't you?
It seems grossly wrong to use that word as his excuse. Marshall Lee realizes there's no way he's going to come out of this fight not looking like a selfish insensitive unsympathetic ass. Those are fairly accurate descriptions at the moment. Marceline shakes her head.
"Do you hate me?" he comes closer, tentatively. "Do you hate how I made you feel?" She's near enough to embrace. "Are you disgusted?"
Marshall Lee takes a gamble and reaches out for her.
"I meant everything, you know," he says into her hair. Her beautiful black hair, exactly like his, just like everything else. Marceline sniffs into his chest and Marshall Lee thanks whatever deity above is letting the two of them start making up with a hug.
But then she says "Let go."
He lets her push herself away even if it's so tempting and just as easy to just say no. Marshall Lee tries one more time. "Marcy—"
"Don't follow me," she says and walks out of his room without looking at him. If he goes after her he's going to beg and make excuses and chain her to the stairs until she forgives him or he finds a good hypnotist. So he lets her go. Their front door slams. For the first time, Marshall Lee thinks he deserves to feel terrible.
Marceline dropped the sock but she took the letters.
\/\/\/\/
A/N: Ta-da.
Not gonna lie, I can't do hardcore lemon so nothing too descriptive up in hurr.
Shout out to Gabriella cole and Emdillyicious for constant support. And BarrenTeeth your review was too kind :] Thanks to everyone keeping up with this fic! Crits appreciated too.
Disclaimer: Ain't nobody got time to make Adventure Time. Except Pen Ward.