"Hey, Fionna, we're out!" He said shaking her, but she wouldn't rouse. Was it the moonlight, or was the girl super pale right now? Marshall brushed the hair away from her forehead and saw that she was sweating. Fionna was sick. It figured. Marshall sighed. He would have to take her to Dr. Gumbutt himself.
The flight was longer than it should have been, mostly because Marshall had little idea where the cave had actually led them, but finally, before sunrise, he made it to the Candy Kingdom. The Gumball Guards were all in a tizzy when he flew by but couldn't swat him away as he slipped through the window of Prince Gumball himself, Fionna in arms. Gumball was already awake, apparently pulling another all-nighter with his beakers and vials, and he looked towards Marshall, shocked.
"What the Blip?" He exclaimed. "Marshall! What have you done to Fionna?"
"Weird dark water dungeon. She puked, and black stuff came out. I think she swallowed some." Marshall said, looking down at her, and for the first time, was a little scared she would die. At a clap of Gumball's hands, Candy nurses and doctors came to pluck Fionna from Marshall's arms, and Marshall felt all too suddenly that he was not OK with that.
"So… What do you think is the matter with her?" He asked, trying not to show too much concern.
"Well, that dark water stuff really attacks the brain. If she ingested any of it, she is in for some serious lucid dreaming."
"But she'll be okay?"
"Physically, yes. Mentally, I can't say. She may hallucinate IRL for a while after she wakes up, I don't know. It's all hypothetical." Gumball said turning back to his beakers. "In fact, I'd like to study it. Let's go get a sample!"
Gumball's interest in the affliction over the condition of Fionna concerned Marshall greatly. It was no secret to anyone, least of all Gumball, that Fionna had been crushing on him real hard for a long time. And yet, Gumbutt felt completely unobligated to do anything about it. Well, Marshall wouldn't let that happen to Fionna with him.
With a beaker in hand, Gumball and Marshall made their way to the medical lab, passing strange doors emitting ominous sound from inside.
"Don't mind those." Gumball said sheepishly. "I'm working on a different race of taffy folk. Still in the works…"
They wound through more hallways and finally through a door that looked like an inviting hospital wing, decorated with pictures of chocolate waterfalls and cotton candy clouds. A hall meant to appease the masses.
Gumball opened a door decorated in lollipops and gestured Marshall inside. Fionna was on the bed, apparently sleeping. The nurses surrounded an exam table with something black and sludgy trapped in a jar.
"Prince G, the subject just bleughed this up a minute ago." The nurses said, parting to let the Prince observe the specimen.
"Yikes." Said PG, shaking the jar as it wobbled angrily. "Looks like your typical viscous darkness. Originates from the Nightosphere, used in the torment and coercion of subjects. Unpleasant, but otherwise non-toxic." He handed the vial to Marshall. "Yeah, she'll be fine, but she won't be happy. Anyways, this serum might prove very efficient in raising the overall intelligence of the candy folk. I might ask you for the whereabouts of the creature before you leave."
Marshall looked to Fionna and watched her eyeballs twitch beneath her eyelids. Her brows were tight and furrowed. Whatever she was experiencing was definitely not sunshine and rainbows.
"Shouldn't we try to wake her?" Marshall asked.
"No, better to let her experience the hallucinations unconscious than conscious, don't you think? Now, let's get some breakfast and discuss how Fionna got into such a mess in the first place…"
Marshall despised breakfasts with PG. It was too formal and fancy for his tastes, but PG always described them as 'pleasant' and 'quaint'. There were always 50 different kinds of teas available and Marshall pensively dipped a bag of red oolong in a hot cup of water while he thought about Fionna. Gumball eyed his long-time friend, and sometimes enemy from the across the rim of his cup of OJ.
"Something troubling you, oh great Vampire King?" Gumball said.
"No, I'm fine." Marshall lied.
"You are? Well you shouldn't be. Your friend got really scronked up back there. I'd expect you to be upset."
"Well, I'm fine. I'm a thousand years old." Marshall retorted. Gumball put his cup down firmly on the table.
"You know, I've had it with this tough guy act of yours. Lately you've been messing with Fionna, and I've been too nice to do something about it. But not now she's gotten real messed up and I want to know the deal."
"There is no deal, we're just friends!"
"Just friends? Marshall you smooched her right in front of my whole kingdom. That was messed up, and it probably messed her up too! And I wasn't even talking about romantic deals I was asking about-"
"Oh, and what about you? You know she's had it out for you for forever, and you do nothing but ignore it!"
"I do not! I shower that girl with platonic love. Everyone knows that I don't have room in my gummy heart for romantic love. You know that, don't you?"
Marshall winced.
"Whatever…" He said slumping in the little pink chair, slurping away the red from the tea.
"Anyways…" Gumball resumed. "I was asking about you. What is the deal with you? You've been in and out, hot and cold all year. Are you having some sort of vampiric puberty?"
Marshall chuckled.
"No, I'm just having conflicting feelings with my eternal yet meaningless existence. Can't a guy have a crisis in peace?" Marshall retorted. Gumball reached over to put a comforting hand on Marshall's shoulder.
"No, you can't. We're buddies in immortality, remember? We have a support group, though you never show up. It's been a strange few months of slam poetry from the Ice Queen."
"You're not making this support group sound any more fun…" Marshall teased.
"Stop, Marshall. Just stop being so crass all the time! I'm serious, guy. If you build a wall around yourself, you will miss the wonderful things happening right now. The people happening right now. Fionna, Cake, LSP or whoever…" He snapped. "That's their existence in our lives. We have to cherish that, no?"
Marshall had no words. He was beginning to like the cold and calculating image of the Gumball Prince he had created in his mind, and did not like at all the perspective the it was Marshall who was in fact the distant one.
"I mean Fionna and I… have fun all the time." Marshall defended. "I'm cherishing her little life." Gumball shot him an analyzing gaze.
"Yes… Fionna. And does she know how you feel?" PG took a long, slow sip of his OJ, watching Marshall's gaze as he stared back, dumbfounded with a teacup in hand.
"Yeah, okay. I'm leaving." He said with as much calmness he could muster. Silently anger rose within him, and stupidly he asked himself why he was feeling angry. Glob it, Gumball had gotten to him!
"That's the crap I'm talking about Marshall. You said it yourself, she's no kid anymore. Pretty soon she won't be young, either..."
"Shut up!" Marshall screamed, throwing his teacup to the floor. This was it; his limit had been reached, and his perpetual adolescent heart couldn't take it. He stood, borrowed an umbrella from the candy cane portmanteau, and floated away home. Gumball watched him go in silence.
"That's what you get for turning my castle that awful grey…" PG muttered, packing away snacks to take back to the lab for maybe another twelve of so hours of research.