"Hey Gumball…" Fionna asked meekly as she watched him tighten and untighten screws in an experimental machine of some kind.
"Yeah?" He responded, distracted.
"Have you ever been in love?"
The question paused Gumball in his thoughts, and he tapped the wrench to his chin.
"No, I guess I haven't. But I've read books on it, so in theory I think I'm pretty versed. Why, what's up?"
Fionna drew her knees up to her chest and contemplated the strange feelings she'd had lately. When Marshall would tackle her to the ground, or carry her in his arms she'd get an urge…
That was as much as she could describe it, but it had gotten worse. When she went swimming with him, the sight of him without a shirt on made her weak at the knees. At night she'd started having weird dreams about him holding her or taking her away places. It wasn't the same feeling she'd had with Gumball or Flame Prince, she just wanted them to like her back, and maybe kiss her. The Vampire King made her feel altogether different.
"I- I've been getting strange feelings for someone lately… but it's not like the feelings I've had before. I didn't know if I was in love or something."
"Do you want to spend the rest of your life with them? Kiss them all the time? Build a home with them?" Gumball asked.
"No!" Fionna said, chuckling. "I just get a strange feeling when they take off their shirt… or when they touch me or-" She hid her face in embarrassment. "Never mind, forget it!" She said.
Gumball's face lit with intrigue, and forgot all about his work on the machine.
"Fionna… I think it's time you have The Talk."
"The Talk?"
"Yes! I've been preparing for this ever since you reached sexual maturity… Hold on." Gumball got up to scour his bookshelf in search of a particular book, and pulled one out, flipping to a certain chapter. "There, Human Life Science, let's see… last we covered menstruation- you remember that, right? With the womb and egg?"
Fionna still never had laid an egg like Gumball had described, but she had bled. She nodded, skeptical of this lesson. When she'd learn about menstruation, Gumball had used her own body with a pointer describing and naming all the little bits of skin she had. She'd held a mirror in her hand, and gazed uncomfortably at herself while Gumball read off highlighted cliffnotes on the subject.
Oh Glob, this was going to be similar, wasn't it?
"Nowadays, we call it tier 15, but humans called it 'sex' and it was the main way they reproduced, although I've heard they could also do so synthetically in a lab; fascinating!"
Already Gumball was reading the chapter with apt attention, and scribbling down notes in the margin.
"You know, never mind…" Fionna said, backing from the door. "I'll figure it out, it's fine. Cake knows all about it, too."
"No, no! Cake is a cat! This is human life science, don't you want to know? This information pertains to you, and only you… well perhaps a couple of humanlike people in Aaa… Ah!" Gumball said snapping his fingers. "I have an idea! Meet me here tomorrow and I will have prepared a lesson for you."
"As- as long as I get to keep my pants on." She said.
"Oh, no worries. We already covered your body. You will just be a spectator this time."
"Oh, okay…" She said, unsure, and Gumball resumed his distraction of scribbling inside of the book.
The next day, she knocked on Gumball's door, to find he had equipped his pointer again. She'd worn two pairs of underwear in preparation. The room was dark, and a projector illuminated the back wall.
"Come on in!" Gumball sang, flipping through notecards in preparation. There was only one chair which faced the illuminated wall, and she sat in it. "Don't worry, Fionna, every human gets The Talk once they're old enough. I dare say, though, you're a bit of a late bloomer. You're barely in your teens anymore."
The thought of Fionna growing up brought a fatherly tear to Gumball's eye, and he sniffed it away before clicking to the first slide of the presentation.
SEX was all it said.
The next slide had a picture of a baby.
"Sex is how humans reproduce- I think we covered this yesterday- but it is also an urge which should be repressed."
Guilt flooded her. She'd been seeking out that feeling ever since she'd experienced it. She had even dared Marshall to take off his shirt just so she could see him again. She shrank in her chair.
"If you do not suppress it, you will bear a child."
Fionna blinked. "That's it?"
"What do you mean?" Gumball asked, annoyed that she questioned his bullet points. "If you have sex you will get pregnant and have a child." He circled the picture of a baby with the laser pointer. "You want a child, Fionna?"
"I-I never thought I could have one." She said, smiling. So far, sex had only brought happy surprises.
"Hmm… well… that's what the book- anyways." He flipped to the next slide, a picture of a long worm cut in half with some sort of… cocoon?
"Ew." She whispered.
"The male reproductive organ of the human." He stated. "We already covered yours, remember?" She nodded, not being able to stop herself from staring at Gumball's groin. Is that what he had under there?
"Oh, no." Gumball said chuckling, as he followed her gaze. "I'm made out of gum. I reproduce asexually by splitting myself into little pieces. But don't worry, I've brought in a-"
A knock happened at the door, and Gumball jumped up to answer it.
"Hey, you asked me to-" Marshall entered, seeing the anatomical drawing of a very intimate body part displayed on the wall. "Uh… what is going on?"
"Marshall! Right on time, Fionna is getting The Talk, isn't that exciting?"
Fionna shrank further in the chair. Why was Marshall here?
"Am I getting The Talk, too?" Marshall chuckled, in his usual teasing demeanor.
"No. You're experienced, aren't you? I'm just going to use you as a model." Gumball said, elongating his pointer.
"Like… to answer questions?"
"No… like to show Fionna the physical workings of the human male. You are half human, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I'm out."
Marshall began to back out of the door, but Gumball seized him by the elbow to stand in front of the projector. Fionna covered her hand with her mouth, heat rising to her cheeks. Was Marshall going to strip right here and now?
Marshall couldn't see Fionna with the harsh light of the projector in his eyes, and when he moved his hand to shield his eyes, Gumball took the opportunity to try to pull Marshall's pants down.
"Hey! No! Fionna and I are pals, there's no way I'm showing her that!" He cried.
"For science, Marshall!" Gumball argued, annoyed. "I don't have any other examples of human-like males, and for all I know we may never encounter any."
"He doesn't have to, Gumball… just let it be, the pictures are fine…" Fionna tried to say, but Gumball would have none of it.
He kept pulling at Marshall's pants, and finally, they fell to his feet. Marshall quickly covered his bits, turning darker with embarrassment.
Fionna gasped, and almost covered her eyes, but for some reason, couldn't look away.
"As I was saying, the male reproductive organ- Marshall, move your hands." Gumball said, prodding his hands with the pointer.
"If it makes you feel better…" Fionna mumbled. "He did the same thing with me when I was 14."
"Seriously?" Marshall cried, trying to pull his pants back up, this offered Fionna finally a view of what laid hidden behind his hands. It didn't look at all like the picture. Instead, it looked like a fat mushroom sitting on some rocks.
"So that's it?" She mumbled.
Marshall was affronted. "What do you mean 'that's it'? It's plenty, isn't it?" Marshall looked down at himself, feeling insecure. Gumball prodded his bits with the pointer.
"The penis… I think. Is the slide upside down? It's pointing up in the book…" Gumball went off to open the book, flipping it this way and that, and reading quickly out loud.
"The male reproductive organ when aroused becomes-ah. Erect. I see. Marshall!" Gumball called out. "Get erect."
"Excuse me?" Marshall asked, putting his hands on his hips, he'd almost forgotten his nakedness in the ridiculousness of the situation.
"I don't know, what arouses you? Isn't erect and arouse the same thing? I don't understand." Gumball closed the book over to look at the back index.
"Dudes don't get hard just by asking, you have to have- foreplay."
"That's not in the book." Gumball said, in rising concern. He hated not knowing something. "What is foreplay?"
"What kind of sex ed book doesn't have foreplay?" Marshall asked, finally moving to cover himself again.
"A scientific one. Literally this guy's last name is 'Science'." Gumball held up the book proudly, Marshall, finally picking his pants back up, went to inspect it.
"Christian Science? Are you serious? You're not going to learn anything valuable from this garbage!"
"Well, it was very useful when Fionna began menstruation."
"I still haven't laid an egg, though." She said in a small voice. Marshall scoffed.
"You want to know about this stuff, Fionna? I can show you, but we won't learn it from presentations and slides. It's just a part of life as much as breathing and eating are, except you won't die lack of it."
"How will we learn?" She asked, growing more interested.
"R- rated films." He said. "Don't worry, I know where all the good stuff is."
She could learn all this stuff just from watching a movie? That sounded much more preferable than this!
"Can I bring popcorn?" She asked.
"Sure, whatever, Bunny." He said, laughing.
"Alright, let's go!" Fionna stood, and Gumball groaned in protest.
"I put together like 15 more slides!"
"Well, come with us maybe you will learn something too." Fionna offered.
"No, no." Marshall said to Fionna. "This is a me and you activity. No Gumball."
"Oh…" She said in a small voice. "Sorry Gumball."
"You think you know so much…" Gumball complained. "I actually studied this stuff!"
"Yeah, and I've actually practiced it. It's okay for me to know more about one thing than you isn't it? You know more about everything else."
The compliment did very little to assuage Gumball's pride, but it did enough to make Gumball give up on the lesson and shoo them out of the lab in annoyance.
"Go watch your movies, then. See what I care? I can watch Good Will Hunting by myself, I don't need you."
Fionna and Marshall looked at each other as the door was slammed on their face.
"Well, that was just awful." Marshall said.
"I've never been more embarrassed in my life." Fionna mumbled, the memory of Marshall's bits burned into her brain.
"So far." Whispered Marshall teasingly in her ear. "See you tonight, then?"
"Uh, I guess." She said. "But maybe- maybe we should just forget the whole thing?"
"Oh, no. I insist you come over. You saw mine, now you've got to show me yours."
Fionna looked at him in alarm. She'd have to wear three pairs of underwear tonight just for safety.
