Without having come to realize it, a smile had crossed Marceline's lips in her sleep—a feeling of peace and comfort that would leave her as she woke. The TV was off. Crona was gone. Only herself in the dark: a kind of quiet many would call lonely. She sat halfway up, immediately noticing the folded note on the other end of the couch.

Work, it said, penned in Crona's bold, black cursive. Her reaction was unamused, tossing it out of her sight the moment she processed it. "...You could've stayed a minute." Or told me. Maybe it was unfair to judge—who knew how long they'd stayed up marathoning movies.

Marceline sat sulking for a moment, before reaching behind the couch and pulling out the neck of her ax bass. She felt like shit, but that was precisely the emotion that channeled best into song ever since she could hold a pick in two fingers.

She shut her eyes, and struck a chord, bringing out a low vibration from the bass. "That's a start." Just beginning to get a feel of what she wanted the song to sound like, Marceline tried to imagine Crona in her mind's eye.

He's standing there, still. Serene might be the word I'm looking for. Fingers overlapping with each other, keeping his look kinda passive. There's a smile crossing his lips, small, but there. And...his back's turned away from me, so I can only really catch the corner of his face. Marceline's nose wrinkled trying to alter the image, but she just couldn't envision it. Why is he looking away? Just turn a little this way... Look at me, Crona!

An exasperated breath came out inadvertently, unable to pinpoint just one emotion and put it to music. The feelings that came with thoughts of Crona were too complex, one idea contradicting the next until Marceline was too frustrated to continue.

Dusk had just barely fallen when Marceline left the house, and by the time she reached the desert, the moon was glistening in the sky. The night was too cold for any bandits to bother going out, but she could give half a damn. Something about it was calming to her—how empty it was for miles, the low, wailing winds, or the grains of sand drifting away at her feet. So she kept walking, following the phone lines that seemingly stretched across the horizon.

All good things had to come to an end eventually, and soon Marceline found herself at the edge of a cliff, a sickly-green river bubbling hundreds of feet below. She sat down, legs dangling. There was a reason she'd come here other than just a walk, after all.

Hand twitching once, she reached for the cell phone in her pocket. She'd only called once or twice, but she knew the number. She'd long since committed it to memory.

Punching in the number wasn't hard, but when it came time for her to press 'call', Marceline hesitated. She pressed a palm over her eyelids. I know what I'm gonna say.

The phone rang at Marceline's ear. Tossing herself in the ravine almost seemed preferable than the agony of waiting for a response.

Then, with a hiss of static, someone picked up. "You've reached Seedy's Establishment, is there any way I can service y—"

"Hey."

The voice at the other end of the receiver went silent, only for a second. "Marceline?"

She hummed in confirmation, watching the toxic river precipitate below. "Crona, do you have a minute to talk?"

"I...Um." She could imagine it herself: the collar-tugging, the hasty glances in both directions, and the eventual unsure gulp. "I can manage. A-Anything urgent?"

"No," her lower lip stung as she bit down ever so slightly, "just wanna talk. Small stuff. If you can't, then—"

"I can." The sharpness of his answer caught Marceline off-guard. "What's on your mind?" He sounded calm, calmer than Marceline when she'd decided to make the call.

Her eyes widened at Crona's prompting of her—it was time to turn an incomprehensible mess of feelings into words. "What are we, Crona?" She asked.

The sound of his lips parting, struggling to process the question, was barely audible over the phone. "...What do you mean?"

"Y'know...I'm trying to talk about..." The end of her palm smacked her forehead, frustrated with her own inability to articulate what she meant. "Us?

Another lapse in conversation came, and Marceline felt the need to elaborate further. "It's just—after, after we kissed, I sort of...assumed we were a thing without ever really asking you." Her knees were trembling, but she dared not let the same unconfidence spread to her voice. "So I wanna br sure that I'm not throwing affection that might not be reciprocated. Do you kinda see what I'm getting at?"

"M-Marceline..."

"A yes or no would be nice, Crona."

The tension in the air is almost crippling, from one corner of Ooo to the other. But Marceline was willing to wait: she'd never be content until she got an answer—heard the answer from Crona himself.

"...I'm not sure. I never really was, Marceline." He said, a certain melancholy in his tone. "That isn't to say I don't know what I'm feeling. The little smiles that occur naturally during conversation, how embarrassingly red my cheeks get around you, how weak I get at your touch... I thought it was almost too obvious."

Marceline was beyond a reply. She fell on her back, stargazing with wide eyes while she listened through the phone.

"But I'm answering a different question altogether, aren't I? 'What do I think of us', you said?" Crona repeated. "T-The reason I said I wasn't sure was because even now, I feel...undeserving, of this."

"Like how?" She was quick to sit back up, eyebrows furrowed in a concerned sort of confusion.

"You've done better." The words came out of his mouth with a clarity and lack of hesitation she didn't expect. "Bonnibel, I t-think her name was? Marceline, you've dated royalty! You're royalty! S-Someone smarter, more refined, more attentive than—"

"Stop." Marceline's voice rose, cutting him off swiftly. "Just...don't. First off, whatever happened between me and Bubblegum has nothing to do with you. Even now, I can't even think about it without setting myself off."

"I—"

"Second, I broke up with her, and for a reason." She clenched the phone in her hand tight, regaining some composure before talking again. "Don't even think about Bonnie, alright? I'm not looking for some half-assed replacement: I want you."

The line went silent, and she grew anxious awaiting his response. "Crona?"

"Sorry, sorry. I'm here." He sputtered out. His voice was plainly choked, on the verge of tears, and she never felt so empty hearing that; oh, how she wished this was a face-to-face conversation."Well?" He asked. "What's so desirable about me, then?"

The question didn't take much thought to answer on Marceline's part. That was where she and Crona differed, she supposed: confidence. "It wasn't a love-at-first-sight thing. No, probably around that time we broke-and-entered into Maja's place, or the day before, or the day after." Nostalgia washed over like waves to the sand, evident in a smile she wasn't conscious of initially. "You're not someone who likes to hurt, Crona. I know that—you've got a gentle personality. But when you've got something, or someone, to protect, it's just crazy to see you drop all hesitation and just...fight. I'm not really ashamed to say I fell for that about you." She began and ended with a breath. She didn't know if she sounded superficial or superficial to him, but in the moment, it was her raw, unfiltered emotion talking through the phone. Whether it'd work for or against her was something Marceline feared.

"Marceline," she tensed at hearing Crona speak her name so slowly. "I've made up my mind."

The skies were blank, stars scattered far from each other. Their gleam reflected in her pupils, feeling distantly hopeful in what was to be said next. "Yeah?"

"I've been kind of averse to romance for a long time. Maybe something that other people experience, but never myself." In between a shaken sigh, he went on. "...It's different, with you. It's more than just feeling safe around you. It's...it's warmth, and protectiveness, and admiration that I've never felt so intimately with anyone else, and if you r-reciprocate that, then...I wouldn't mind pursuing something with you. Not at all."

"I will." Marceline answered right as he finished. There was a tight warmness in her chest that came after his confession, compelling her to speak even if she didn't know what quite to say. "If you're cool with it, then I will. Whatever makes this work between us."

"...'Us'. I don't mind the way it sounds, in the context of you and I. I-In the future, I'd like—" Crona stopped, and Marceline could only pick up faint yelling from the other end of the receiver. "I-I have to go. Talk to you later?"

"Later, for sure." She promised, just before the line went dead.

By the time Marceline got back to the cave, she'd grown weary of soul-searching, and now only longed for a couch, a pen and paper, and a swig of red—the comforts of home.

She hadn't even reached the front steps when someone's silhouette stepped onto the porch. Though her first instinct was aggression, she softened when she recognized their facial features as Crona's, who'd seemed to notice her presence a second after she'd noticed his. Standing under the light, he turned to her, and the dullness lifted from his expression when they made eye contact.

There wasn't a word said when Crona began walking down the porch steps, and Marceline up. The mutual, starstruck look they shared was a conversation in-and-of-itself, expressions gradually becoming more down-to-earth as they drew close.

Crona broke away from the stare first, a bashful smile at his lips, before Marceline gently tilted his chin back up. She stifled a giggle at his embarrassment, and then, while the two were close, they began to drift together like stray magnets, fingers linking between each other, preceding a slow, affectionate kiss that left no confusion as to the feelings they harbored in each other.