"You're going to have to tell her." PG warned as he put away his analysis kit. Marshall sat on the examination table, shaking with fever, and shaking his head furiously.
"No, I can't." He said, voice quivering.
"You can die from this, you know." His friend said softly, although to an immortal being, death didn't seem too bad of an option.
"It comes and goes in waves. I will be okay, I just need some time. I need to isolate." Marshall hopped off of the table to land on unsteady feet. "Just give me some of those red rope things."
PG plopped a heavily red tinged licorice rope in Marshall's outstretched hand. He sucked greedily at the end of it, the color draining from it like fire burning a fuse.
"You can't sustain yourself like this." His friend chastised. "Just ask Fionna, I'm sure she will be more than happy to help out a friend."
Marshall shook his head violently at the suggestion. "No! I can't let her see that I am- that I'm-"
"A vampire who needs human blood to survive?" PG said mockingly. "How shocking!"
"She thinks I drink the red from things. She feels safe around me." Marshall pleaded at PG with his eyes. "Please…?"
PG scoffed and opened a small mini fridge, taking out a vial of blood.
"This is the last of it." He warned. "I can't just keep swiping vials every time she comes in with an adventure boo boo." PG placed the vial on the table with a clink. Marshall slipped the vial into his pocket, his fingers rubbing against the glass vial dotingly.
"Thank you." He said, already backing into the threshold of the door.
"When she dies, you die too, you know!" PG said seriously. "I'm running out of safe 'adventures' to send her on…" He said privately, mockingly quoting the word 'adventures' with his fingers. Marshall laughed, his usual coquettish humor returning to him.
"I can always create more dungeons." Marshall replied. "Just keep working on that vampire cure, Gumbutt!" He said, finally, disappearing into the hallway.
"I'm a scientist not a magician!" PG screamed after him.
Feeling renewed, Marshall forgot completely about his troubles. He wanted to see Fionna, as she had become his most important friend (and we will say he was his best with her right after a good feed), but his fever had yet to break, and he was sweating profusely. This caused him to have to go home to shower.
He touched down onto his porch, and noticed the lights were on at his place. Someone was here. He chuckled to himself, already aware of who would be waiting for him on his horrible sofa. He opened the door, and Fionna stood from the sofa.
"I heard that you were sick." She explained. "I made you soup. It's tomato." Fionna held out a tupperware container full of red liquid, and Marshall smiled.
"Thanks, Fionna." He said reaching for the container. Her face fell when she saw his pallor, and she brought her hand to feel his forehead like Cake did when she was sick, feeling the cold sweat that covered his skin.
Her hand felt hot on his skin, and he swatted it away.
"I'm feeling better, now." He said, smiling. Fionna wiped her sweaty hand on her skirt.
"Well, I better get going, then." She said, her face reddening slightly. Was she blushing, Marshall thought?
"Thanks again, Fi." He said, before offering her a hug. She took the invitation, regardless if he was sweaty, and they held each other there for a couple seconds too long. She broke off the embrace, laughing nervously.
"Gross, you're sweaty." She teased.
"Yeah, I'm gonna go take a shower and then I'll be back to myself." He explained.
"Well… I'm playing video games tonight, if you want to join…" She said hesitantly. Marshall smiled endearingly.
"Heck yeah, I'll be there, Bunny head."
Fionna smiled shyly before turning around to walk out the door.
"Enjoy the soup." She said awkwardly.
"Bye." Marshall replied to her silhouette walking away from him. He smiled to himself as he made his way to his bedroom, peeling his sodden t-shirt off, and tossing it haphazardly onto the floor. His reflection caught his attention and he looked back at himself. He was still sheet white, his lithe body teetering on the edge of famine. He should be horrified by what he saw, but instead he smiled at himself, thinking only of the soup Fionna had brought him. She had thought of him, and dared he say he had picked up on a couple of signals that perhaps she thought of him often.
Fionna: his dear friend, his natural prey, his incorrigible crush.
It was easy to forget how cursed one was when infatuated.
After a good, long hot shower, Marshall felt again like himself. He fell back onto his bed, feeling the rush of deep comfort only a healthy dose of human blood could give him, and slept.
And everything was as it always was. Marshall had blotted out the scourge of his disease for another month. He had another month of feeling like himself again before he had to suffer the old song and dance with PG to get him some blood from Fionna.
For years PG had warned Marshall, chastised him into finding a solution for his disease, but Marshall always managed to manipulate PG into getting him just one more vial, just one more hit. He really wasn't worried that for the tenth time, PG had threatened that this was his last vial.
Most importantly to Marshall, Fionna felt safe around him. So important this was to him that he promised suicide should she find out his dark, bloody secret. And so, no one mentioned to Fionna the very real danger she was in his company, even Cake kept her mouth shut (relatively) despite her deep dislike for the Vampire King.
The weeks when he was satiated always went by too quickly, but this month, they seemed quicker. Too many times he had been deprived of a proper feed, suckling desperately at the small supply PG could offer. Only three weeks into the month, Marshall started to feel the unwelcome pangs of hunger. With it came the uncontrolled rage, the violent outbursts and tears. He could not socialize with anyone in this condition. They would be at risk. Marshall desperately tried to suck the red from things to hold him over, too ashamed to beg at PG's feet so early in the month.
It didn't work. Nothing worked, and Marshall was running on empty. Desperately, he went to Candy Kingdom to beg relief.
"I'm sorry, Marshall. I'm cutting you off." PG whispered to Marshall as the Vampire King itched at his skin uncomfortably. Marshall stood, slumped against the threshold of PG's bedroom door. He was beginning to mutate into a bat, he was losing control.
"Please! I'm desperate. You've got to have something in your lab…" He begged. PG looked around to make sure that no one was listening in, and pushed Marshall into a dark corner of the room.
"I can't keep endangering her life just to sustain yours. She is the last human and she's barely reached adulthood! The charade stops now. You either tell her, or you die. Your choice Marshall."
Marshall clenched his teeth.
"I can't even see her in my condition, I'd lose all control." He replied shakily. His eyes were wide, and reddened; his ears pointed and grotesque. Marshall was losing all semblance of the human he resembled.
PG sighed and slapped some red-colored gummies into Marshall's hand. Marshall looked into his hand, then back at PG imploringly.
"That's it? Some red gummies?!" He slithered through his teeth.
"Use them to get some control over yourself, then do what you have to do. Ask Fionna."
"And if I don't?"
PG shook his head mournfully. Marshall was his dear, dear friend. His companion in immortality, but he had taken this thing too far. If Marshall could not come to reason, he had to set boundaries.
"If you don't, you will suffer the consequences."
Marshall felt a deep sense of betrayal, his hands turning to claws around the gummies and he hissed at PG before he skirted out of the door.
PG's heart was in his throat. For years he had avoided this situation, for years he had protected him, but Candy Kingdom could no longer be a victim to Marshall's stubbornness. Fionna could no longer be a victim, and so it had to be done.
Marshall had gone too far this time. He was too far gone. PG felt a stab to the heart. In a short few hours, his friend would lose all semblance of sanity. Marshall would succumb to the delirium of vampirism, starve, and be killed by the rising sun. Unless he managed to get his hands on some blood, but already he was losing control of himself.
Tonight, all of Candy Kingdom would be in danger. Especially Fionna. He would give Marshall until sundown, he reasoned. If after sundown Marshall had not spoken to Fionna, he would take her into his custody himself to safeguard her life and the last of the human race.
"Secure the castle gates." PG cried to the guards. "Call for an emergency evacuation. We need everyone inside before sundown."
He would go fetch Fionna himself. With a heavy heart and heavy feet, Prince Gumball made his way to the treehouse. The sun sank lower and lower in the horizon. PG feeling more and more hopeless for his friend.
As he approached the treehouse, the sun just disappeared behind the hills. PG rapped on the door, and Fionna answered eagerly.
"Hey PG!"
"Hey!" He said with feigned excitement. "Have you seen Marshall?"
"Eh, no. Why?"
A cold feeling filled PG as he silently wished his dear friend farewell. By morning, Marshall would be dead. It would be all over.
The crowd rushed into the double doors of the Castle, Fionna and Cake were pushed roughly through as the citizens of Aaa fought to enter the safety of the castle. It was mass hysteria.
"Don't fall down!" Cake warned, "You'll be trampled alive!"
Fionna felt Cake's paws slide under her shoulder to keep her upright, the bodies of the crowd knocking into her mercilessly. The Great Hall was filled with voices and bodies. Finally, the doors creaked closed, Peppermint Butler waving a tally counter and clicking in the last few citizens.
"One million, three hundred and four thousand, two hundred twenty seven!" He cried. "All accounted for!"
"I thought there were one million, three hundred and four thousand, two hundred twenty eight Aaa citizens?" Fionna screamed over to Cake. Cake didn't answer, or maybe she didn't hear. Fionna felt uneasy. She was sure someone was missing.
Cake and Fionna waited inside the Great Hall of the castle, confusion and panic in the air. The chatter of the crowd was deafening, no one knowing why or what was happening.
"Cake, what's going on?" Fionna screamed to her sister as the crowd grew restless. Cake stretched to look above the crowd, suspicious of the reasoning behind the emergency lockdown.
"Nothing, baby. Everything will be okay." She whispered back, but Fionna knew well when she was being appeased.
Prince Gumball made his way to a podium in the center of the Great Hall, and gradually, the crowd quieted to hear him speak.
"Thank you, everyone, for gathering here on such short notice." He began, speaking through a candy-striped megaphone. "We have a dangerous killer in the forests tonight and need everyone to remain here for their safety."
A rush of anxious and panicked voices rang from the crowd and a slew of shushing followed.
"Please remain calm!" PG cried into the crowd. "I am certain that my Candy Guards can ward them off, but nobody leaves this room tonight! The killer is possibly delusional, rabid, and out of their mind. I have sent special forces to take them down and put them out of their misery, but until I give the all clear, we will all be having a big sleepover."
The volume of the room raised again as the citizens began to shout questions at PG that would not be answered.
"We have snacks! It will all be okay." PG said soothingly.
"Special forces?" Fionna said to Cake. "Why didn't PG send us to hunt them down? That's literally our job."
Cake was only listening with one ear, the rest of her attention was in scanning the crowd. Cake's long arms came to embrace Fionna protectively as her suspicions of the situation began to solidify. Fionna was right, there was one person missing.
"PG knows what he's doing, honey. He probably just didn't want you to get hurt." She said reassuringly.
Fionna harumphed. "We could have taken them down."
Cake continued to scan the crowd, paying little attention to Fionna, and Fionna followed the eyes of her sister.
"Where's Marshall Lee?" Fionna asked after a minute of scanning and not seeing her friend.
"He's fine." Cake snapped. Her voice shook in the slightest as the cat began to understand the gravity of the situation.
"But he doesn't know. He could be in danger."
"I said he's fine!" Cake said finally, voice breaking. Fionna was taken aback at her sister. "He can handle his own…" Cake finished with a softened tone. Her little paw was rubbing Fionna reassuringly, and Fionna felt the more she was reassured, the less so she felt.
Where was Marshall Lee?
The Great Hall quieted after a couple of hours. Cotton candy blankets were laid on the floor and the Citizens of Aaa began to wind down for the night. Candy was for dinner (naturally) despite the slightly cannibalistic undertone of feeding Candyfolks candy.
As the lights went out, Fionna could not stop thinking about Marshall. Something felt strange, and she wasn't comfortable sitting in the safety of the Castle while her friend, her very best friend, was all alone and possibly in danger. Snoring filled the air, Cake's included, as night fell into deeper darkness.
Fionna could not sleep. Her heart was filled with worry for Marshall Lee. She couldn't admit to herself why he was so important to her but his absence filled her with a dark and lonely feeling.
She had to go see him. If only to crash at his place and keep him company until the crisis was over, she had to go see him. And perhaps, if she stayed overnight, they could have a sleepover all by themselves. The thought made her nervous, but she smiled nonetheless. Time alone with Marshall was precious to Fionna, and going to his house in the guise of concern was the perfect way to spend some with him. And if by some chance she ran into the killer, she could defeat it. In fact, it would be pretty darn cool to save Candy Kingdom all by herself, and maybe Marshall would join her.
Resolutely, Fionna sat up in her cotton candy sleeping bag, and plotted an exit from the guarded castle.