Marshall came home in a rage. It hadn't taken too long for his sadness to turn to anger and bitterness. He had been ready to persist to the end, but found that he had been wrung dry. He'd had it with loving somebody who just wouldn't love him back. He was done with chasing Fionna.
That kiss would be their first, and their last. Safe inside his home, he let the tears fall hot on his cheek. He picked up his guitar, and fed his pain to it.
Marshall didn't leave the house much after that. He didn't want to get sucked into Gumball's experiments, Fionna didn't want him, and the rest of the world really didn't matter. So what, if it was all about to end? To him, it might as well have already been over.
The weather turned warmer as his heart grew colder. LSP and the other Aaa citizens came to visit him far too frequently for his liking. He'd hissed at them to leave him alone, but couldn't reject an invitation to a couple of LSP's summer parties.
Gumball wouldn't come unless Marshall came, LSP had said, and Marshall wanted to go if only to encourage Gumball to get out of his goddamn lab for once. He hadn't even been able to entice Gumball to breakfast at midnight, his favorite.
"Just grab some twilight eggs and bacon with me, Gumball. I'm dying of boredom, and I can't stop literally counting down the hours."
Gumball ignored the request for food and instead swiveled around in his chair to face Marshall.
"Which reminds me, doomsday is in a week. The day before, the comet will be close enough to initiate the plan, so make sure you're available then. And…" Gumball said wagging a finger. Marshall knew when a favor was going to be asked of him, and tried to back out of the threshold, scrambling his brain for an excuse to not partake in experiments today.
"I just have a thing to…" Marshall began mumbling.
"Oh, no. Marshall you just said you were bored, come on, run a few tests with me!"
Already Gumball was running to grab the space suit and Marshall sighed, annoyed. It was terribly uncomfortable to be shot into space only to come crashing back down. At least the spacecraft was much more comfortable, now, and most of the experiments focused on breaking apart any small rocks that wouldn't burn away in the atmosphere with laser guns, so it was like target practice. Still, every second he spent working to forgo the apocalypse felt like an eternity. How did Gumball do it?
He had to get him out of his lab before the end of the world, or the last bit of fun they would've had would be too far forgotten.
LSP's party would be the very last opportunity Marshall would have to enjoy his time on Earth.
Marshall floated above the amp, fiddling with the gain control. Something just wasn't right, and he feared he'd have to go acoustic for the party. Considering this was probably the last time he'd ever play with his friends, playing acoustic was far from ideal. And the fact that some scientific bullshit was the reason why his gain was probably not working doubly pissed him off. Screw science, screw feelings, screw everything.
He was in the last mood for low and slow.
That was until Fionna showed up with Cake. One look at her and his anger had turned to sadness again. She got two cups of whatever the heck LSP had mixed into a bowl, literal poison from the way she scrunched her nose at it, and began chatting it up with Gumball.
Good. At least Gumball was having fun, and all the pink guy had to do was even hint that he liked her for her to fall head over heels. Marshall began plucking a couple of chords, trying to deafen his thoughts. The only acoustic songs he'd written lately had been kind of bummers, but he wasn't the one who had given him a bum amp.
At the sound of a minor scale, the crowd began to watch him, and Marshall felt kind of naked when he began to sing. He'd much rather ooze confidence and hardcore than this sissy crap.
At least if it went badly, he'd just die in a few days anyways.
'Feel like no one's there to catch me when I'm fallin'
He began, and he hated that at that moment, Fionna was looking straight at him. He shouldn't look at her, he was done with her, but he couldn't help it. It had been written for her, and a small part of him wanted her to hear it.
He wanted the sound it of to destroy her like she had destroyed him.
'Time ain't been kind to me, I'm slowly drifting in space
There's no use pointing fingers, I know I'm to blame
Let me down, let you down, know I pushed you away
What's love worth anymore when it's tainted with hate?'
Fionna began to cry. Not like scream crying as if she's stubbed her toe or something but the silent slow kind where tears leak from the eyes.
And at that moment, he wished he could have taken all of those words away.
Marshall ended the song with a confused mix of clapping from the crowd.
"The gain on the amp is broken, so…" He said, explaining himself. "We're going acoustic or whatever."
LSP scoffed and dropped the punch spoon in the bowl in a show of dramatic disapproval.
"Boo, Marshall! You're ruining my vibes!"
"You provided the equipment, Chunky."
"I'm lumpy! Don't you dare call me chunky, blood breath!"
Marshall was much too quick to anger to deal with this shit.
"You want me to play or not?" He threatened, eyes bulging in a show of impatience. LSP groaned loudly, but protested no further.
Marshall played a few random chords to cool off his head before going into another song.
This time he closed his eyes. He couldn't stand to see the horrible reaction Fionna would have to this one, and he'd rather not deal with the shame. It'd be his only chance to ever sing this song live anyways, so why not?
He began to sing, hearing the voices of the crowd speaking dismissively around him. No one paid the entertainment any mind, and it bolstered his confidence in taking this moment for himself, and not for the applause.
'And here it is, our final night alive
And as the earth runs to the ground
Oh girl, it's you that I lie with
As the atom bomb locks in
Oh, it's you I watch TV with
As the world, as the world caves in'
The amp died after the first chorus, and he opened his eyes to see Gumball with the plug in his hand. It was a damn good thing the microphone had also been unplugged as Marshall cursed loudly at the interjection. Gumball, magenta in the face, raced up to the stage in a royal rage.
"Are you crazy, Marshall?" He hissed.
"No, you must be because I'm about to beat you with this guitar and choke you with the chord." Marshall hissed back.
"Shut up! Get yourself together. Don't you know everyone already knows something's been up? Do you want to cause a panic?"
Marshall stared at his friend through a veil of red.
"You think my shitty songs are going to cause a panic? I'm flattered."
"Meteors have been falling from space. People are freaking out, talking about the sky falling. There have been more and more meteor showers. Hot Dog Kingdom is a crater, right now, don't freaking add to it." Gumball whispered through his teeth, barely managing to bite back a curse.
Marshall had had it. There wouldn't be one last party with his friends. Everything had already been ruined, and he pulled the guitar over his head, dropping it angrily to the ground and floating off the stage.
"Show's over." He said pointedly at the widened eyes of the crowd as he floated from the party. Marshall saw Fionna's blonde head trying to push through the crowd in an attempt to follow him.
"Wait!" She cried. "I have something to tell you."
He rolled his eyes and forced himself to look back at her.
"What is it?" He floated back down to linger in the outskirts of the party where no one was gathered. She followed him, with the cups of punch in her hands.
"You didn't even say hi." She said, handing him a cup. Marshall just stared at it, refusing to take it. Accepting the offer of punch would be like accepting an apology, and he certainly wasn't up to hashing things out with anybody right now.
"You didn't even say hi." He shot back. "Why do I have to always be the one to initiate things?"
"I got you punch, I was waiting for you-"
"Well don't wait for me. I'm done waiting for you so… just don't."
Marshall made to turn away and go home, but she continued to follow him.
"You're being such a jerk!"
"This is how I always am, human princess, you just don't know it."
"I do know you! You're acting like… acting like…"
"Like I don't want you? Like you're just like everybody else? Shocker, Fionna. It's almost as if I'm not letting you string me around anymore."
She turned red. With anger, with embarrassment, he didn't know. He didn't care.
"Will you just listen to me, Marshall? I know you're mad at me but I've missed you so much. Please, can we just talk it out?"
Marshall shook his head slowly, her words softening him. She'd missed him. He'd missed her too, but things could never be the same between them. How in the world would they hang out when Fionna knew about his feelings, and didn't' return them.
"I'm not interested in friendship, if that's what you want to talk about." He said.
"You didn't give me a chance! You left before I could even think about… about what happened."
The kiss, she meant. It was the last thing he wanted to think about. He just kept shaking his head, trying to rid himself of the memory. Fionna continued the conversation relentlessly.
"That song you sang- I need to know if you still feel that way."
"Shut up!" He cried. "That song had nothing to do with you. You don't affect me at all. I'm over it, so just forget about it, okay?" His face had mutated with emotion, and Fionna seemed afraid of him for the first time.
"Okay." She said, her eyes quivering with tears. The punch which she had gotten him, had been forgotten in her hand, and it spilled, just a little, on the floor.
She'd come to make things better with him, and he'd let the bitterness of being rejected take over him. Marshall took the cup from her hands.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." He said, calming himself. "I'm just… I don't really think I'm ready to be friends with you right now. I don't even know that I ever will be."
"That's fine." She replied, her bravado shattering, "As long as y-you don't hate me." Fionna was fully crying, and trying to swallow her sobs, causing her to hiccup and sniffle.
He couldn't help but close the distance between them to hold her.
"I don't hate you," he said, but he was still trying not to like her, and it would have been so much easier to just hate her.
"I want to hear the rest of the song." She said between sniffles.
"I'll show it to you later, I ju-"
"Marshall!" Gumball cried, pulling him by the arm and out of Fionna's. "Everyone's freaking out! There's another meteor shower tonight, and the sky is full of fire! We have to go- Oh, hi Fionna." He finished, noticing Fionna for the first time.
Both Fionna and Marshall looked up, to see the sky alight with streaks of red and blue.
"We have to go play astronaut?" Marshall asked. Gumball turned magenta with anger.
"Don't make this into a joke-" He pulled Marshall in closer to whisper, as he had just noticed her very curious ears tilted in his direction. "We've got to blast some of the larger ones so we don't have another disaster like Hot Dog Kingdom.
Who cares? Marshall thought, this was only the beginning of the end. But his friend still believed otherwise, so Marshall waved Fionna goodbye, mouthing an apology.