Golden Veins
Correct your words, forget my thoughts
- Two Door Cinema Club
After years of hanging out with Finn and Jake, Marceline isn't all that surprised when they get called down to the dungeons to bail out Fionna and friends. Something about foiling the royal guard's attempts to infiltrate a spy ring, and setting a warehouse on fire…
"Marshall Lee I swear, we had nooo idea that dude was a secret agent."
"Yeah man, he was acting super-sketchballs."
"You guys… he's supposed to."
Marshall Lee signs the last of the waivers. The grey-haired guard captain gives him a large crate.
"Their belongings, sire," he says with a scowl at the culprits behind bars, and unlocks the cell with an expression as pained as if letting real criminals loose. Fionna, Cake, Prince Gumball, and Lumpy Space Prince emerge, singed but looking totally satisfied about how their night went down. Marceline would ask LSP how his other arm is in a cast now too, but then Fionna makes an alarmed face.
"Whoa, Marshall Lee is your neck okay that bruise looks heinous."
\/\/\/\/
The flutter of small wings breaks their relative quiet. She hears paper unfolded, small bat dismissed, Marshall Lee sighing. It's a summons.
"You should ask me not to go," Marshall Lee muses, and from over by his shoulder where her head lies in comfortable stillness Marceline quirks a smile. Her fingers slide into a pause over the strings of her bass, her leg stops swinging. They have yet to find a couch on par with the one that perished in the house fire, bless its soul, but this one will do.
"I should?"
"Yeah, all possessive-like. Stay with me I hate when you're gone, hold me in your manly arms instead, yeah just like that~"
She cuts his fantasy short with "2 out of 10, I do not sound like that. Don't you have a report to zone out to?"
He shifts, her head sinks, and his fingers reach for her like he'll prove her sounds wrong but then apparently thinks the better of it. Marshall Lee tilts her cheek to him, just enough to linger on the corner of her mouth.
She could no more interfere with his business any more than he would want to with hers.
"Pipes later?"
Marceline actually low-key likes watching him go.
\/\/\/\/
Just once, she overhears Marshall Lee, Gumball, and LSP in serious discussion on one of the balconies, their voices low and deliberate and just out of hearing, but not quite for keen vampire-demon ears floating casually by.
You don't have to be here. You know that.
We want to, you silly man.
Face it. You need us.
Whatever change in bro-dynamics is going on over there, she leaves them to it.
\/\/\/\/
Just once, Gumball persuades her to come try his first batch of I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-People-Blood™. Marceline discovers why every vampire in the castle is avoiding the royal kitchens today.
\/\/\/\/
"What do you mean the redheaded trollop is still in a coma!"
LSP is so mad, he goes out to patrol the perimeters of the kingdom with Fionna and Cake.
His first broken arm heals but he comes back with a cracked hip.
\/\/\/\/
"Did you just slap that messenger-bat? With a rolled-up contract?"
"What bat?"
Marshall Lee casually shuts one of the windows to his study that definitely nothing soared out of just milliseconds ago. If he wants to make out with her in his downtime rather than read updates Marceline thinks that that's his business too.
\/\/\/\/
"How do you do that?" Cake complains. "How are you two fools so innocent-looking and totally guilty of freaky-nastiness?"
"Whaaat." Marceline continues to browse, here in this modestly-sized Anthropologie in the harlem part of town where she can find clothing that isn't worn ragged from the snowy wilderness, or stolen from the all-black depths of Marshall Lee's closet. "We can't be guilty if we're innocent, cat."
"Girl, these are some serious honeymoon vibes going around," Cake does the neck-roll finger-wag combo that secretly cracks Marceline up immensely. "The air gets pregnant around y'all."
"Who's got what going on? Cake are you pregnant again?" Gumball rejoins them with his own tasteful purchases, because all the quality boutiques have men's sections too.
"I seek training from ninja-PDA queen."
"Ah, yes, the thrill of clandestine hand-holding and unchaperoned glances…"
"Wow ok look this is a total find!" Marceline exclaims as she holds up a blue skirt that may arguably be less likely to flash the masses when worn during vigorous adventuress battle. "Bets on who can get Fionna in this first."
Her ninja-PDA game may be weakening but at least Marceline can still swerve.
\/\/\/\/
For the longest time, parchment shuffles and quills scratch. Marceline does not offer to do paperwork or write orders for just anyone.
She feels the heat of his dumbfounded stare. Marshall Lee looks so surprised at her formal cursive that Marceline is kind of offended. Haughtily, she reminds him "Vampire Queen, remember?"
"You're so fucking sexy."
They continue to go through the ever-growing mountain of dispatches and missives on his desk together, because what are girlfriends for besides doing your work for you.
\/\/\/\/
Just once, he tries to keep something from her.
"What's that, Marsh?"
They're in his study, so often in this study. She peers over his shoulder, and catches the red ink and the signatures of the parchment in his hands.
"Did someone put a hit contract on you?"
Marshall Lee passes off jolting in his chair as a smooth swivel to turn around and face her. "It's for you, actually. But it's cool, the hitman's gonna think I'm you and burn my castle down."
"When? I'll get the mace."
"Nah, I got it."
"Tell me," she insists, hands on either side on his chair.
"I got it," Marshall Lee replies, hands pulling on her waist.
Marshall Lee's swerving habits are deeply ingrained and highly annoying to Marceline. He knows it, she knows it, the challenge has long been accepted.
"It's cool, I don't know how to make you talk anyway."
Marceline finds that, all jokes aside, news of her arrival is becoming known throughout the land, and that the contract was, in fact, meant for her.
\/\/\/\/
Just once, Fionna catches her staring.
"What's wrong? Is it my sick moves?"
"No, nothing, moves on point," Marceline replies quickly, and goes back to strumming on her bass. "I was just thinking… you're really gonna dig Finn. Great guy. All about swords."
The girl's mood deflates alarmingly. "Oh. Okay."
And Fionna just keeps on swinging her borrowed flame-sword, stepping nimbly along the rooftop of the bell tower that they're hiding on. Marceline detects a hint of pubescent angst, the likes of which she hasn't seen since Bubblegum ever-so-gently let down—
"Ow." Cake elbows her side. "What? Something I said?"
"She's still not over Flame Prince," the cat whispers. They watch Fionna slash at invisible enemies just out of earshot, or maybe it's Flame Prince that she's stabbing so moodily at. "Dude just straight-up ignored her after the war started. Said he had to put Fire Kingdom first."
Marceline frowns. She whispers back, "But it's been like a year, right?"
"A maiden's heart is not easily unbroken," Cake shakes her head. "Why do you think she won't get a new skirt? He said it matched her eyes."
"Oh for the love of…"
"Whoa!" Fionna exclaims, teen-girl angst dissipated, and she does a couple of backflips back to the two of them. Everyone crouches down into the shadows where lamplight doesn't reach. "Shh, you guys, I think someone's coming!"
"Ooh, I cannot wait to catch that mystery-villain."
"Yeah, who does something that messed-up?"
"Yeah, why would anyone paint weird elephant heads on rich people's mansions!"
The view from here is excellent for catching the mysterious graffiti artist(s) who spray painted penises on the nobles' manses a few nights back. Marceline can't find it in her to not scapegoat the nearest civilian walking past.
"Hey look that guy totally has mystery-villain vibes…"
\/\/\/\/
Her arms circle around his waist from behind, and even if these he doesn't wear plaid anymore these days, Marshall Lee still smells like hazy red smoke and vintage guitars.
His hand is warm around her wrists.
"Play for me."
This time, it's she who flicks the messenger-bats away.
\/\/\/\/
"I'm gonna go talk to Ashley."
Not the kind of thing she'd want to hear in the early hours of the morning, but Marshall Lee doesn't move and his fingers stay stroking her hair.
"Benson says she locked herself in her room since… y'know. When you met her."
"That's... sad?."
He laughs, softly, and the sound is lost in the stone walls of his chamber and the crackles of the fire. Marceline turns her head, comfortable though that is in his lap, and looks up to tell him forreal this time. She knows he'd never totally abandon Ashley, just like she'd never find it in her to throw Ash to the bloodthirsty vampire-strewn wilderness. It's something about those trainwreck exes…
"But actually, go."
"Hmm. In a little bit."
Marceline supposes she wouldn't care that much, either, not enough to cut a private moment short.
\/\/\/\/
Marceline overhears how the talk went down, not long after that.
"I heard she threw curses at him."
"I heard she stormed out of the castle with a hundred tomes of dark magic and turned into a banshee and flapped away."
Marceline falls into step with these chatting kitchen maids. "I heared she was already one."
"Quite right."
"Horrid woman."
"Vampire Queen my bum."
It takes them a second. The first maid jumps.
"My lady! Apologies."
"We mean no malice."
"Please don't tell the prince our whereabouts."
"Is Bubba shoving fake-blood down people's throats again?"
The maids scurry off looking legitimately afraid to run into said candy-prince and his concoctions. Marceline doesn't know how to feel about being associated with eye-watering force-feedings. Too late, she hears cheery footfalls behind her.
"Marceline!" Gumball calls out. "Just the vampire I was looking for. Have you tried this blend of red hot chili peppers and roses…"
\/\/\/\/
"And… the next?"
"No one, sire. None as of yet."
"Well then."
The captain bows and Marshall Lee takes her hand, and he leads her past sentries under turrets through the battlements until they're as out of sight as they'll ever be, high above stone gates turning bronzed with the coming sun.
Marceline nudges him in the hip. "Look at you, running battle strategy and all that jizz."
"It's that Card Wars flow," Marshall Lee tells her seriously. He holds maps of newly-marked encampments loosely in one hand like he carries those everyday but her hand in the other is another matter. She watches the mountains with him, and bitter wind blows softly through her hair.
It's only been a week since she came to the Vampire Kingdom.
\/\/\/\/
Nothing happens after the Sam incident. No more sieges, no new threats, no nothing. Marshall Lee finds that strange. Fionna and Cake don't care, there are rumors of under-underground blood smuggling to investigate. LSP waits impatiently. Gumball does his research.
Everything on the warfront is so chill that they spend this evening sitting around on a rooftop, sipping Kool-Aid, throwing popcorn at bats.
"You know what we should do, you guys?" Fionna propositions,
Marshall Lee starts to speak but Cake interrupts. "For the last time, ya fool, we are not going home until this is all over. Marceline, tell yo man we ain't going nowhere til his mess is all over."
"This is your mess, nobody's going anywhere," Marceline relays.
"I should think not," Gumball harrumphs. "My recipe for substitute blood is coming along nicely."
"I might go somewhere," LSP confesses. "As soon as the redheaded trollop awakes and gives me my leads. Until then, consider my steely lumps at your service."
Marshall Lee has the closest expression to touched as Marceline has ever seen on him. "I feel the love, you guys."
"Forreals, man." Fionna takes out LSP's flame sword and starts swinging around, her favorite pastime. "When it's time for the thing, we should do the thing where you do your thing, boom we win."
"What thing," LSP says.
"Why does this sound like nuking things," Marceline says.
"She means a vampire Gathering," Marshall Lee tells them. "My spies say one's gonna happen over at the coast, on the next new moon. It's probably the major covens that are left whining about how I'll be the death of vamp-kind, how to end me, the usual thing."
Marceline shakes her head. "New moon. Typical."
"Yeah, seriously. Fionna here says we should fill up on garlic gas and bomb the shit out of them."
"Oh my Grod that's so heinous."
"Seriously."
Fionna doesn't understand the graveness of what she's suggesting, being a silly human and all. "What, it makes sense!"
Cake looks at her a little sadly. "War has jaded you real good, Fionna."
"Seriously."
"Aw c'mon you guys, I'm still super-good!"
"It's cool, Fi," Marshall Lee assures her. "We all changed. LSP got jacked as hell."
"Hear, hear," LSP grunts.
"Bubba finally started using mace."
"These are dark times," Gumball replies.
"I'm all brooding and serious and sexy."
"Shut up," everyone says.
"And Cake's totally the same cuz everybody knows black don't cra—"
"Excuse yo ass I am from the islands!"
"Okay but forreal man," Fionna insists, and bonding time takes a somber turn. "Next new moon is our chance. We can end some major bad guys and their major injustices at the thing."
"A fair point," Gumball nods. "Think of the lives you'll save in the long run."
LSP suggests "What if it's a trap?"
"Nothing can trap all this swag," Marshall Lee deadpans.
Cake says "Reality check Marshall Lee, those guys don't wanna listen to you deal, they wanna take over Aaa."
Marceline has ideas too. "Okay, so, what if you just give everybody a lobotomy. Nobody remembers what blood tastes like, vampirekind goes vegan, bam we win."
Everyone gapes.
"Oh my Grod Marcy you don't just let them off easy like that."
"Seriously that's the worst."
Apparently hearing about war isn't the same as being there for it. Marceline just doesn't understand.
"I'll bring it up again at the next council meeting alright?" Marshall Lee compromises. "We'll figure something out."
"You said that last week," Fionna and Cake grumble, but they let it go.
The belltower rings in the distance yet again, ten times for ten at night. On its cue the Vampire Kingdom before them slowly flickers into lamplit life. Always, automatically, the adventuresses spring to their feet.
Marceline exclaims "Fionna, new skirt?"
Fionna blushes. Marceline suddenly misses Finn.
"Thought I'd get a new one," the girl shrugs. Cake flourishes her cloak out of nowhere and Fionna does the same, and together the heroines declare
"We out, fam!" They parkour down the slopes of rooftop tiles, always without fail. "Ultra-good keep-the-streets-safe justice time!"
"Do those two know that daytime for vampires is actually at night?" Marceline wonders, as the caped figures recede steadily into the kingdom. "So actual crime in the Vampire Kingdom happens in the a.m.?"
Gumball and LSP catch on quickly.
"So you minimize the incidence of them being bitten by criminals who actually roam in the day."
"While their doing hero things for civilians at night improves vampire-mortal relations."
"A practical move."
"Clever propaganda."
Marshall Lee shrugs. "I swear to Grod, I just wanted to keep them busy. Them being bored and stuck down here and all." He glances at LSP, who stays hogging the popcorn bowl. "Not feeling that hero life tonight?"
"I must keep watch on the trollop now." LSP downs all the red Kool-Aid, showing a truly impressive swallow. Just the thought of Sam gets him antsy these days. "Got to be at the infirmary when she wakes. Got all my interrogation tools ready."
"Nobody say the S-word."
"Nobody ask what 'tools' are."
They sit and sip and the Vampire Kingdom with its remaining 12% of pro-life citizens carries on, almost too comfortable too quickly in a world of its own, just ancient gates and a hundred soldiers and a half-demon vampire king away from getting sucked into that raging warring mess aboveground.
Marshall Lee clears his throat.
"So uh… thanks you guys. For coming out here. Seriously, it's gonna be a shitshow."
"My favorite."
"Wouldn't miss it."
"Hear, hear."
And they make to toast to that except Marceline looks down sadly at her empty flagon, and sighs. "Ah, lumps, no juice."
"Oh! I've just the thing," Gumball brightens up. He reaches for his picnic basket. "You absolutely must try my 21st trial batch of I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-People-Blood—"
Marshall Lee locks eyes with her. Mutual mind-reading takes milliseconds. They're outta there in a blur of red axe bass and dropped glasses before Gumball even gets to listing the ingredients, something-something red herring wait where'd you go.
"I'm afraid for my life," Marshall Lee wheezes against torchlit stone walls, at least three stairwells later.
"The trick is not to swallow," Marceline pants back.
"Hey Marcy," he turns to her, the torches flickering behind him, his voice echoing thinly down the halls. "Will you go to the council meeting with me?" Just to be fair, he admits "You already know it's gonna be the biggest drag on earth and you're gonna hate me ten hours into it but I… really want you there. For this next one."
Marshall Lee, who never begs her to come to Card Wars tournaments or to wear only small frilly aprons, has this hopeful look in spite of himself, but she already thinks she'll go with him anywhere anyway. She smiles. "I got you, Marsh."
His grin is everything. "Good, cuz I'm about to drop the most fire idea of the year."
"You have no idea what you're doing, do you."
"Not a clue."
But if anyone knows as well as he does the age-old issue of vampire nature conflicting with people's rights to live, it's Marceline. "Hey… what if we have these blood banks…"
Marshall Lee grins again. "You know, that's like the second thing I tried last year, we…"
They lean away from the stone walls and the torches, and start walking.
\/\/\/\/
Just once, she sees him wistful. Sad, almost, except he still gets that small smile on his face when he looks at her.
"We were gonna go look for your new crib."
"Yeah, it would've been dank."
Marceline hums softly. Marshall Lee polishes her bass. It's hard to catch those old vibes these days, where it feels like just Marshall Lee with no bats no messengers no thousand things to anticipate. But the quiet of this laboratory will do.
It's a little early to plan about these kinds of things, but right now there's time and there's no way they won't make it through.
"Hey Marshall, when we're done here…"
A knock on the door. A second and third. Benson's smooth voice.
"Sir, I've dire news."
Neither of them jolt anymore or even move at all and it's sad how they're growing accustomed.
"Yeah?" Marshall Lee calls out.
"Sir, if you would see to the matter now. Please."
Even the most composed of voices can sound urgent. They rise to their feet. Marshall Lee moves for the door, opens it, reveals Benson in as alarmed a state as he'll probably ever be. The butler bows, a small dip of the head ingrained for so long that Marceline suspects he'd be pained not to. Then she sees the way he looks at Marshall Lee, and changes her mind. He wants to.
"Sir…"
Benson draw in breath. He ponders where to start. Then Marceline sees him settle for what Marshall Lee would care for more.
"… Fionna has been bitten."
\/\/\/\/
"What do you mean you had to put Fionna in the dungeons!"
"What do you mean you had to put her in with the other vampires!"
"Sire—" Marshall Lee rushes through the dark corridors of the royal dungeons. The guard captain trails in after them, torch in hand. They go down, down, into the lowest depths of the strongest cells, and the strange cries that Marceline couldn't quite place at first grow ever stronger, ever louder. "Sire, it was not exactly vampires who did it."
A guardswoman hastily unlocks the last door. Marshall Lee throws it open. Before them lies a whole corridor full of outstretched arms clawing out sluggishly from behind iron bars, the metal so black they merged with the shadows and swallowed the lone light of the captain's torch. A hundred pairs of glowing, inhuman, insensible eyes fix upon them, blankly reflecting the fire. Voices raise in mindless chorus. And in the back of Marceline's mind, like a snide rebuke or a twinge of guilt, those easy words from days ago float to the surface.
Do you think….?
Someone's making…?
Nahh.
It's never as easy as the silly mortals and their stories make it out to be. Changing mortals into vampires is an art—an impossible, indescribable transfiguration, forcing a change of living nature. An honor according to some vampires. Blasphemy to others. Most of all, to those who attempt it, the chance to fail.
The thing about vampires is that they like to erase their failures.
Now here they are, and right in the middle of the Vampire Kingdom right under Marshall Lee's nose, someone has made—completely, heinously on purpose—a hundred failed vampire creations.
Marshall Lee swears, inaudibly and under his breath.
Marceline breathes out, "White walkers."
"They were blood slaves," the captain explains softly. "Unfortunate mortals caught from all across the land, bled like livestock underground and kept hidden from us by smugglers through a series of—"
"The source. Fionna." Marshall Lee says curtly, and captain leads them onwards.
"The captives were changed merely an hour ago, upon which they broke loose from their hidden prison and rioted through the main streets. The adventuresses rushed to the scene to intervene—"
"Cake." Marshall Lee grabs her hand. They rush forwards. Outstretched hands grab at them blindly and groans haunt their wake. At the very end of the corridor, small and unmoving and cradling her knees, is Cake.
"Hey," Marshall Lee says softly, but the cat doesn't move, even if her ear twitches.
Cake stares dully at the bars of the cell before her. She sits forlornly, just inches away from stubby arms that claw out for her.
"Raaargh."
Fionna as a mindless, zombie-like creation is a sad, sick sight.
Marshall Lee whispers "Fi, it's me."
But Fionna does not see, does not hear, and only the scent of warm blood in Cake gets her to growl,
"Raaawr."
The bite mark on Fionna's arm is ugly and red and only an hour old. Her teeth have grown tiny, sharp fangs. Her mouth hangs open, drooling and foaming, much like some unfortunate, rabid creature groaning to be put down. Fionna continues to paw at Cake. Cake continues to sit miserably.
Marceline looks at Marshall Lee beside her and his blank face is quickly mirroring the cat's expression.
They're bored.
I let them do their hero thing.
She thinks about seeing Finn like this and never again hearing that tiresome 'Iiit's Adventure Time!'.
Some things would just be flat-out wrong.
She squeezes Marshall Lee's hand and his grip tightens in response, but his eyes don't—can't?– leave the sad, sick thing that Fionna has become. They stand there in the silence made of a hundred soulless groanings echoing all around them.
"He did it."
Cake's voice sounds as small and dejected as she looks. She jerks her head to the cell behind her. Marceline turns first.
He looks so wretched that she doesn't recognize him at first.
There, in his own small cell, frothing at the mouth and grabbing blindly with white hands that used to be so clever, is Ash.
\/\/\/\/
TL;DR: Fluff fluff fluff bam Fionna got bitten.
I swear I'm setting up for an epic climax you guys just give me another 3 years lmao. Thanks for reading/reviews last chapter!
