Bones Exposed - Eight
Marshall Lee sits lazily on the couch in Fionna and Cake's treehouse, plucking at the strings of his guitar out of boredom. To his right, the blonde human is talking to him about... something. Someone named Lumpy Space Prince, he thinks? He isn't actually listening to her.
Not until she says his name, that is.
He looks at her to find a slightly confused yet also slightly determined look on her face.
"Prince Gumball was crap-talking you earlier."
The words sting a little, but the vampire plays it cool and laughs. "That sounds like him, all right. What'd he say?"
"That you were a bad person, and a bad influence. Um, he - uh - said that you... ruined his life..?"
Marshall Lee rolls his eyes. "That guy is such a drama queen." Truth is, though, Marshall doesn't really blame him. Not too much, at least.
That day was chaotic, full of anger, screaming, confusion, and bloodshed. And it was all his fault. He didn't do it on purpose - he'd have never done something so largely insane back then - but it still hurt a lot of innocent people, physically and emotionally.
Including Bubba.
"Well, what happened? How do you guys know each other? Why does he hate you so much?"
The vampire takes a moment to think. How truthful should his answer be? This girl obviously has a very understandable thing for the both of them; should he tell her about their past relationship? Or that Marshall would love to rekindle the flame? Does she need to know that he went crazy and practically wiped an entire population clean?
"I met him a couple hundred years ago," Marshall Lee's attempt to explain gets interrupted by two exaggerated gasps.
"Wait, whaaat?" Fionna asks incredulously. "But I thought Prince Gumball was only eighteen?"
Marshall Lee can't help but break out into laughter. "Is that what he told you?"
He supposes that is technically how old Bubba is, but come on. No one actually stays the exact same age for centuries.
Fionna nods. "He did, yeah. That's probably not important, though. Sorry for interrupting."
"Like I said, we met a couple hundred years ago. About... six hundred, I think."
Fionna gasps again. "Six hundred years? How old exactly are you?"
"A thousand, why?"
She gapes at him.
"...Oooookay, anyway. As I was saying. Six hundred years ago. We became friends real easily, got close just as quickly, too. Just like you and I did, baby." he winks playfully at Fionna.
Her cheeks lightly flush as she glares at him.
"He was my best friend for the longest time. We did everything together. Knew everything about each other. Prolly coulda even finished each other's sentences."
"What in the world could break such a strong bond?" Cake asks from the other side of the room. Along with the usual wariness he's used to, Marshall Lee sees a hint of sadness when he looks into her eyes.
Answering that question is going to be difficult. He definitely can't be honest, but he knows he shouldn't lie either in case these two decide to fact-check this information with the other party. Yet, he isn't sure how to phrase it vaguely. There was nothing vague about what happened.
After a moment of thought, he shrugs. "We had a fight. Disagreed on how to handle some things that were going on in the world. It got pretty bad."
"Sooo, politics?" Fionna asks.
"Something like that, yeah."
"I didn't take you as the kind of guy who'd be into that kinda junk, even in the past."
"Never have been. There's a lot I've never cared about," Marshall Lee leans back into the couch cushions and throws his feet onto the table for emphasis, which earns him subtle glares from each of his companions, "That was the problem. Still is."
The ears of Fionna's hat bounce as she nods. "That makes way more sense."
"It's really sad that something like that came between the two of you," Cake says with a frown.
Marshall Lee shrugs again, a single shoulder this time. "Eh, it was building up for a while. He couldn't have been able to stick around me too much longer anyway. I am a villain, after all. Keeping friends is hard when you're evil."
Fionna rolls her eyes. "You're all talk."
A large grin forms on his face. "Oh, yeah?"
He gets kicked out after scaring Cake. Since the sun is conveniently no longer in the sky, Marshall Lee has the next several hours to do whatever the heck he wants.
Most of this time is spent playfully terrorizing the few citizens of Aaa who are still out this late. It's only inevitable that he eventually winds up at the Candy Kingdom. The heart does what it wants, he supposes. Though.. he'd be lying if he said his brain didn't want it, too.
Sneaking past the castle's guardians is easy with his invisibility. Gumwad really needs to tighten his security.
Speaking of Gumwad, Marshall Lee is not at all surprised to find him in his kitchen. It's the only light on in the palace as far as he can tell. The prince is frosting cupcakes with an elegant arch in his back and methodical precision in his movements. Chocolate cream is garnished with a halved strawberry and the confection is set to the side for the next one to get a turn.
Baking has always been therapeutic for Bubba. It's one of his lesser stressful hobbies. He'd do it several times a week, especially as a pick-me-up after failed experiments. Their old cabin would often smell of chemicals and freshly-baked cookies. Marshall Lee preferred the cookies to the chemicals. He doesn't doubt that he still would; these cakes smell pretty darn tasty, while the chemicals Bubba uses probably still smell like death.
After a dozen cupcakes are frosted and another is taken out of the oven to cool, Marshall Lee finally makes the decision to let his presence be known.
"Yo," he says as he reveals himself and hops down from the windowsill.
Bubba flinches at the sudden noise, spilling a tiny splash of batter on his apron. Wide eyes look up at the vampire before narrowing. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm gracing you with my company. You should be grateful. I don't give many people my attention, you know."
Marshall Lee's comment gets ignored.
He doesn't mind, not too much. They can only dance around their tension for so long.
He wants to confront the problem anyway. It's what his body subconsciously led him here for, after all.
But he's reluctant. Obviously neither of them are ready. The deep wounds from their past are still wide open. Any ones that are closed were sewn together so loosely the stitches are bound to break at any moment. Surely they need more time to heal before settling their score.
Marshall Lee leans his elbows on the counter and watches the prince for several moments. Bubba's movements are choppier - angrier - now, but he still operates efficiently. The only noise in the room comes from his whisk clinking against his mixing bowl.
Glob, this silence is deafening.
Fuck it. Marshall Lee's going to tackle the issue head-on. Maybe it's what they actually need.
"Hey, can we talk?"
Author's Note: Hi.. I'm back. Raise your torches and pitchforks, I deserve them. It's so crazy that it's almost been 4 full years since I've updated this. I'm really sorry it took this long. This is unfortunately a result of my spontaneity with starting fics, and my even worse former habit of publishing them before completing them knowing damn well that I lose inspiration and get distracted by other ideas incredibly easily. In this instance, it took me so long to gain my inspiration back that I completely forgot the direction I wanted to take this in. I'm very glad to say that I remembered and have mapped out the remainder of this fic. I plan on working on this during Camp NaNoWriMo in a few days, so hopefully I'll be able to get several more chapters out for you all within that time frame! Or, like, at least one? Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me! I hope you'll continue to enjoy this!
