"Are you excited?" Jake's hand landed on Marceline's shoulder. "We're going to mother fuckin' prom, then we're gonna mother fuckin' graduate, and then we're mother fuckin' done with this place."
Marceline wanted to tell him that, no, actually, she wasn't excited. Prom had always filled her with nerves and anxieties. Still, he and his brother looked good in their suits and Marceline still had to find time to tie her tie and find her damn shoes. She was half thankful that Bonnibel and the girls had gone to get into their dresses at Lady's house; she could hear her girlfriend chastising her for losing her shoes the night of prom.
Finn's voice calling, "They're pulling up," from downstairs was enough to make Marceline want to implode, but then she saw the headlights through the front door of Jake's house and her heart went all the way down to her feet.
"I still can't believe we're basically done with school after tonight." Marceline mumbled to Jake, scanning the floor for her fancy shoes as she idly tied her tie with her free hands. "What's school even good for, anyway? Giving kids mental health issues?"
"It's education," Jake laughed. "So I suppose it's been educational at most." He joked, nudging her ribs with his elbow.
"Absolutely hilarious, Jacob, you crack me up every time." She drawled, eyes landing on her shoes just beside Jake's bed. She grabbed at them and stood upright, shooting Jake a wary look. "How am I looking, chief?"
Jake turned from where he was standing in front of the mirror pruning himself and gave her a onceover. "You look good. Please tell me you're wearing a jacket, though, it's gonna be chilly."
Marceline rolled her eyes, smoothing her hand over her crisp white shirt. "Duh, it's downstairs."
"Where oh where are our handsome princes?" Lady's voice followed the sound of the door opening.
"Ah fuck, I'm not even finished." Marceline grumbled, following Jake out of his bedroom. "D'you think Bonnibel will mind if I put my eyeliner on in the car?"
"I mean, you could always not wear your scary eyeliner." Jake shrugged. "Might save you poking your eye out in the car, too."
Marceline rolled her eyes. "Every time Jake. I'm dying over how hilarious you are."
"You wound me, Abadeer." Jake muttered, turning into the living room. "God, you girls look amazing."
And holy shit they really did. Marceline paid the most attention to Bonnibel, her hair done up in curls that sat on her head and her legs. Marceline's brain had turned to mush. "Wow, Bon."
"Alright, lesbians." Lady interjected. "We're already a tiny bit late because of traffic so we better get going now. Who's going with Marceline?"
Bonnibel's hand shot up first, and then Jake was somehow coerced into joining them too. Marceline just grabbed her keys and tried her hardest not to hastily apply her eye makeup, instead grabbing her suit jacket and the mask she'd bought the day before.
"I don't know what's so great about masquerades." Marceline complained. "Everyone's going to get all itchy and take them off halfway through the night, anyway."
Bonnibel rolled her eyes. "It's the sexiness of it all, according to Ellen."
"Nothing sexy about masks," Jake mumbled. "They look dumb."
"Try telling Ellen that," Bonnibel chuckled. "Anyway, like Lady said, we're going to be late if we don't get a move on now."
Marceline groaned, but followed Jake outside despite her inner complaints.
"Do you know if Bradley is going to be in attendance tonight?" Marceline asked lowly as they entered the building the prom was being hosted in. It was nestled nicely beside the very same woods that the mill was in, which didn't settle nicely with Marceline at all.
"I think so. He was talking to Ash and Ellen about it last week of school." Jake muttered back, linking arms with his girlfriend. The rest of their friends had already made their way inside.
"Alright, tell Bonnie I went to go pee while I look for them, alright?"
"Don't go getting yourself killed on prom night, Abadeer. That'd be a front page travesty."
"Har har," Marceline drawled, sliding away from the two. "Seriously, Jake, have you ever considered doing stand up?"
The last thing she saw was Jake glaring at her before she entered the crowd of students all dressed in black masks and nice fancy dress. It fit perfectly that Braco had made Ellen choose a masquerade, actually; it made it harder to decipher people's identities. Marceline tugged her own mask on too.
It was surprisingly difficult to even find her friends after Mareline had split off from them, even more so when the building was foreign to her and the music was too loud to hear anyone over if they weren't directly next to you. So the, "You clean up nicely, Abadeer." in her ear was a little disconcerting, as was the hand that clasped around her elbow.
"Come dance with me."
Marceline turned to find herself face to face with Braco, his eyes half lidded in a glare behind a mask that covered half his face. Marceline swallowed. "If you tell me where Brad is I'll even give you a twirl." Marceline ground out through clenched teeth, tugging her arm free. "What are you even doing here, Braco?"
"Dance with me and find out." He smiled. Marceline's skin crawled at the very notion of what he was asking, but found herself unable to really do anything else; he knew where they'd be. Braco was her only lead right now.
"I know what happened at the mill," Marceline said, allowing him to pull her further into the crowd of bodies. "Where are they?"
"Ash hasn't arrived yet." Braco replied, almost bored of the conversation. "Bradley is... indisposed in the boys toilets right now."
Marceline frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Ah, that's now how this conversation is going to work. You asked me a question and I answered it, now it's my turn. Why tear down the mill?"
"Because I'm an Abadeer." Marceline said seriously. "My dad's business is kinda known for tearing down failed opportunities and getting rich off of it. No one was going to use it, anyway, not with its history. Where's Ellen?"
"Probably distracting your girlfriend." Braco replied. "Can't have her ruining tonight, can we?"
Marceline wanted to say something else, but Braco roughly shoved her backwards into a crowd of people and disappeared behind dancing bodies.
Marceline supposed she should've known that what he'd said was a ploy to distract her from what he'd said about Brad, but made her way to where the tables were lining one side of the room and found her girlfriend sitting by herself, watching as other couples made idle conversation on the dance floor.
"Has Ellen talked to you?" Marceline spluttered. "Have you seen Brad at all?"
"What? No, Marceline. I've only just sat down. Where are the others?"
Marceline glanced back over her shoulder. "I don't know. I just ran into Braco and he said Brad was indisposed in the toilets, babe. I- I gotta go find him."
"Marceline, just promise me I'll see you again tonight? I kinda want prom to be special."
"I'll be super quick, don't worry about it." Marceline promised, leaning down to press one last kiss to Bonnibel's lips before she spun on her heel to cross the room.
The boys toilets were down one of the halls that split off from the main room, Marceline was surprised to find that there were no couples using the privacy of the hall to make out sneakily away from the eyes of the teachers, but didn't put too much thought into it as she barged into the boys toilets.
Red.
Marceline felt herself fall backwards, back slamming against the door that had closed behind her. The nausea hit her first like a brick wall, and then the realisation that the pool of blood in the corner of the room trailed off towards the fire exit door, and then the fact that Brad was probably at the end of that trail.
Marceline inhaled sharply and stepped over the pool of blood, opening the fire exit door to find that in the time that she'd spent indoors it had begun raining. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called out for Brad, stepping further into the field beside the community hall.
With no response, Marceline turned to where the woods was across the street, to where the mill sat half torn down by her father's company, to where she could barely make out a figure entering the wooded area.
The sound of the music was muffled as she took one step into the woods, her heart beating in her ears after she had ran across the street as fast as she could. She could just turn back around and have a normal prom night.
Her only real option was to walk further and further into the wooded area, listening out for footsteps or someone's voice or anything. The only thing she could hear was the beating of her own heart, hammering away in her chest. God, why'd she have to be scared.
"Fuck,"
Marceline stopped, halfway into considering if she should just turn around and head home for the night, the word had been quiet, hissed, and nearby.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Marceline moved towards the voice, eyes darting about in case it was Ash or Braco, and was surprised when she found Brad on the floor, leaning against the base of a tree, clutching a bloodied hand against his side.
"Brad?" Marceline hissed, hurriedly crouching down beside him. "What the fuck happened?"
"You gotta go," Braco groaned. "God, please, you gotta fucking leave. Braco- he- he's cleaning up after the mill, he's-,"
"Shh, it's gonna be ok, I have my phone on me." Marceline hushed him, panic setting in as she pulled her phone out of her pocket, dialling 999. "Yeah, hey-,"
Brad knocked her phone out of her hand, bloodied hand reaching out to tug at her arm and pull her down onto the ground beside him. "You gotta-"
Bang.
Marceline jerked instinctively away from the sound of the gunshot, pressing herself against Brad's side as silence fell over them. "Please get out of here." Brad hissed. "I'll be fine, I promise, you just gotta-"
Bang.
The second gunshot sounded impossibly louder and Marceline cursed under her breath. "You're coming with me, idiot." She hissed, scrambling to pocket her phone before she tugged Brad's good arm around her shoulders, standing them both up despite his complaints.
"Marceline I'm just gonna slow you down," He hissed around the pain. "I'll be fine."
"You've been stabbed." Marceline shot back, turning them around to where she assumed she came from.
"Abadeer,"
"Abadeer!" Ash's voice yelled out from the darkness. Marceline frowned, look back over her shoulder to see Braco with a gun pointed directly at her in the mist that had begun to settle. Marceline watched as Ash appeared out of nowhere, firing his own gun and seemingly hitting Braco in the arm. "You're a fucking idiot." Ash growled. "Take this, I can carry Brad."
Marceline found herself being handed Ash's gun as Ash slung Brad over his shoulder, hurrying their pace away from Braco.
"What the fuck is his problem?"
"You don't even know?" Marceline asked. "I've been trying to figure everything out myself, I thought you knew."
"The only thing I know is what you know about the mill." Ash spat back. "You're covered in blood. You can't go back to the dance."
Bang. Marceline yelped, falling down to the floor as Ash looked back over his shoulder. Bang. Marceline groaned at the pain in her arm, pulling it out from under her as she made a grab for the gun in front of her, only for it to be kicked out of her reach. She glanced up just before Braco kicked her over onto her back. Bang.
The searing heat in her torso was almost numb in sensation, she brought a hand to where her blood was now pooling out of the hole now in her stomach. That surely wasnt healthy.
"You're such a stupid bitch." Braco growled, crouching down in front of her. "Trying to play Louis Lane, trying to figure out the big fucking mystery, huh? Well newsflash, Abadeer, there is no mystery. What happened at the mill was a mess. A mess I've now cleaned up."
Marceline felt an awful pain in the side of her face as Braco stood and kicked the side of her jaw, most likely breaking it if the awful pain and amount of blood was anything to go by. She couldn't move her head to look over at Ash, but she could no longer hear Brad's awful pained groaning.
"God, you really thought everything that's happened since you arrived was all planned. I've been trying so hard not to kill you, Abadeer. But you've been making it hard."
Bang.
Marceline winced at the sound of the next gunshot, expecting the pain in her stomach to double or for everything to go black. Instead, all she heard was a wheezing, and then coughing.
"Abadeer?" Ash called out, clutching at his neck, blood pouring down his shoulder and smeared at his jaw, the rain doing nothing but make a mess instead of cleaning it up. "Abadeer, you're still alive, right? Marceline, please god Elle will never let me live this down if you die."
"'M 'ine." Marceline managed to get out around her broken jaw. At Ash's relieved sigh she assumed he'd heard it. "Wh'bout 'ad."
"He's okay, still breathing." Ash wheezed. "D'you have your phone?"
Marceline gestured to her pocket with her free hand.
Ash crawled over to her, fishing out her phone from her pocket. "He did what I've always wanted to do to you, Abadeer." He chuckled.
"'Ill 'e?"
"No, idiot," Ash groaned. "Break your fucking jaw. I'm not a fucking killer."
"'Orry, an you'ex 'onnie an 'ell'er m 'onna e''ine?"
"Not a problem," Ash grimaced.
After that, Marceline's vision faded to black.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Marceline came to consciousness to a stiffness in her body and an almost numb pain in her torso and jaw. Her eyelids were too heavy to open, but she instinctively flexed her fingers to make sure she was definitely awake and had control over her body.
"Marcy?" Bonnibel's voice came from somewhere beyond Marceline's closed eyes. Her voice sounded weak, but the fingers that tangled with hers kept a firm grip. "Are you awake?" Marceline could only hum around the pain in her jaw. It still earned her a soft kiss against her knuckles, which oddly stung too. "Do you know where you are?"
Marceline gave a grunt which she hoped would convey 'no', and frowned when Bonnibel's hand left hers, only to relax when the hand came up to brush away hair from her face. "You're in the hospital, sweetie. Would you like a rundown of your injuries, in case you want to move something?"
Another hum. Marceline was getting good at this.
Bonnibel inhaled. "Alright, well, you got shot, you broke your wrist and your jaw, your ankle got twisted, your hands are all grazed and cut up from the ground and your lip is busted and unkissable right now."
Marceline, stupidly, tried to pout, only for the pain to tell her that maybe pouting was her best choice right now. So instead she forced her eyes open and squinted angrily at the bright lighting. Then her eyes landed on Bonnibel. She was no longer in her prom dress, clad in her pyjamas instead. "You've been here a few days." Bonnibel explained when she saw Marceline scan her outfit. And then, "Please never do anything like that again. I love you, you fucking idiot." Marceline couldn't really control the tears that started falling down her cheeks, but Bonnibel stood and brushed them away all the same, leaning down to gingerly kiss the good side of her face. "You scared me." She whispered into her skin. "I thought you were dead."
"'M sorry," Marceline managed to mumble out through her swollen face. "Love you too."
The pain was sort of worth it when Bonnibel brought her chair up close and rested her head on her chest to cry. In fact, it was all a little bit worth it when she was eventually let out of the hospital, whisked back home into the arms of her loving girlfriend.
She kind of hoped the recovery was slow; having the pain as a reminder of what had happened was double the chastising Bonnibel could ever give her for doing something so stupid.
But at the same time, Marceline had always been a little nosy.