Chapter 2:
"I didn't want this for my son," Finn murmured.
Doctor Brulee's expression never wavered from his usual serenity. He might have been a statue if not for the fact that he was taking notes on what his famous patient told him. "Why does this bother you," the doctor asked? "You lead a life that most men would envy. You sleep with over a dozen beautiful women. You have unmatched power. You have a name famous across the world. Why would you wish for your son to live in obscurity?" Calmly, Finn replied, "fame is a curse, when envy is in men's hearts, and the world sees you not as the man you are but as a wallet with legs." All he'd ever wanted for his children was for them to be happy. He'd never seen happiness come out of money or power.
"You're a wise man, if you can see the problems with your situation," the doctor opined. "Not many men would see wealth and power as something to avoid. For the rest, I believe your companion is right. I think you're having trouble learning to accept that your life has changed. Perhaps you should start seeing the other aspects of your life in a more positive light." Finn nodded. It appeared they were done for the day.
The King of Ooo climbed to his feet. He wasn't really sure if he was getting anything out of this. Drew was pretty insistent that he continue, but he was starting to wonder if this wasn't a big waste of time. Mostly he was going along to get along. He knew it was helping Hurletta. She was coming to accept the way things were, when she'd struggled with everything from her new body to the brutal assault she'd been subjected to. She was becoming better even than she had been, showing a willingness to work that had been alien to her in the past. Honestly, he liked the new Hurletta better than the old.
Striding across the doctor's office, Finn opened the door and stepped into the hall, his mind going in a dozen different directions at once. That was becoming a common-place now. There was sooo much going on in his life, he found himself struggling to keep track of all the threads. He was having trouble of his own. He was having trouble letting go and trusting other people to handle things that needed to get done. Bonnie's carping about his new castle and the other decisions he'd made wasn't helping that very much, as in at all.
"Finn," Hurletta greeted him?
The King glanced up into the Princess's eyes, and he found his breath catching. He was having a little trouble getting used to the new Hurletta too. She was as tall as he was now, and she was built with broad hips, a big, round ass, heavy knockers, and long, thick legs. Just now she'd come out of her doctor's office wearing a severe, grey dress that was designed to conceal her heavy knobs and translucent greenish skin. That was a symptom of the awkwardness she was dealing with.
'Letta had gone from being a squishy blob to a sexy humanoid shape that got her attention literally everywhere she went in the Candy Kingdom and beyond. After what Blargetha's thugs had done to her, she was having trouble with the staring, and on Finn's side, he was doing all he could to help her with that. Of course, if she was having trouble with the 'new' Hurletta, he was just as conflicted because, honestly, he would have done 'Letta. From being a little grossed out by her body and habits, he'd come to a point where he would have screwed the shit out of her, just for the experience.
At the same time, 'Letta was a bit of a mess, and he was worried about her and terrified of hurting her–of making things worse. There was still something there. She was still into him. She made little secret of that, never missing a chance to touch him or to be close to him. She loved these joint visits to the therapist's office because they got to bond. It was something personal instead of the impersonal of the King and his Treasurer.
"Hey," he responded. "How was it?" Taking his hand, Hurletta stepped off, announcing, "had a little bit of a breakthrough..." "Oh," he replied? Smiling, she said, "I found out today that maybe being bad at my job doesn't justify having my sister's dogs pile on me." Finn gave her hand a squeeze. Staring straight ahead, she admitted, "I've... been having a lot of trouble with that." He'd been saying the same thing almost since he'd gotten her back. They'd all been trying to tell her that. He was glad she'd come to the realization that beating herself wasn't going to change anything.
With a humorless chuckle, the princess opined, "I also realized that having a little fun isn't awful..." Stopping in the hallway, she turned to look up at him and said, "as long as I get my work done." She gave him a bright smile, aided by the teeth that she now sported. "I've got a proposal," she said. "I'm listening," he replied. Nodding in acknowledgment of that, the plush princess said, "I've... kind of been grinding for a fair bit now. My boss is kind of a slave-driver." Finn flushed. He'd been pushing her to get the Bank of Ooo working properly, among other things. When it wasn't the bank, it was the business of putting together an expedition to put the Peanuts in their place, and she was just getting started on fixing the emerald mines.
Reaching up, the princess stroked his face, examining the grey hairs of his beard. "My King needs a break," she said. "Why don't we go dancing...? We haven't danced in ages, Finn." He knew he shouldn't. There was still a lot going on, and he still had the Bandit Princess floating around out there... somewhere. At the same time, he owed 'Letta. "Ok," he said. Straightening his tie, she said, "seven-sharp. Right after dinner." After dinner was usually when he played with the kids. He thought he could make an exception tonight. He owed 'Letta quite a bit.
Arriving out front, the duo separated, with 'Letta strolling over to the car that would take her back to her hotel. Spacing out a moment, he stood there watching the plush-princess as she crossed the courtyard. Finn had business at the army headquarters. He had some decisions to make. None of them were pleasant decisions, and the options he had were varying degrees of bad. It helped not at all that the person who might be called upon to risk her neck in all of this was knocked-up high as a kite and really needed to be at home. He only realized he'd been watching Hurletta's gently swaying ass when she glanced back at him. Blushing to his hair, the big man waved, as her bodyguard tucked her away in the car before jumping in the passenger seat.
Elsewhere, the twin sources of much of his current angst were at each other's throats as a result of the fallout from business in the Emerald Kingdom. For the Bandit Princess, the whole episode had been nothing short of disastrous. She'd lost everything. She'd lost one of her lairs. She'd lost many of her henchmen. She'd even lost her brother. And what did she have to show for it? On her side, the Wax-Hustler knew she was close to the limit with her partner. It was one of the reasons she'd chosen to disappear for a bit.
She'd been so certain. She'd had everything lined up. She'd had no idea that fucking Finn the Human would come into the picture like that. As far as she'd known, he'd been on the far side of the world–closer to Peihong than to her. More to the point, with Peihong's fiendish henchman there, she'd felt like there was no way they could lose. She would never have guessed that the half-demon's powers would fail so disastrously against Finn.
They were, collectively, back where they started. Almost they were. "I'm more vulnerable than you," muttered the wax-person. "That bitch saw my face!" The ogress shot back, "it's not like she's going to be around to ID you. She's a prisoner, Chelse. I'd expect her sister to demand she lose her head now. I burned half a dozen assets snatching her..." Rolling her eyes, Chelsea replied, "I have her notes and drawings, Peihong. We can at least halfway build the rockets..." "...with nothing to put on the end," growled the ogress! "You owe me those books..." That set the pair to bickering again, snapping at each other.
"It's not like I didn't take a hit too," Chelsea shouted! "I lost my top dude. I lost two dozen soldiers, and I still have that bitch out there able to finger me. Say he doesn't kill her... Then what?" "Then you better be careful," Peihong retorted. The Wax-Hustler inhaled deeply, sounding for a moment as if she'd get to threats, but somehow she kept her cool. "We have the rockets," she reminded her partner. "Maybe not as long-range as the ones we wanted, but that fucking thing went a couple-hundred miles. That gives us lots of empty space to hide one. We need a weapon. Something small and portable. That was your piece, remember?"
With a heavy sigh, the ogress burbled, "there's possibly another weapon in Baba Yaga's domain. The Lich was hunting for it. That's our fallback if we can't get the death-metal and we fail at getting the Black Scrawl virus. You need to focus on getting the books we need. I'll work on getting us somebody else to build us a bomb." They were making progress. In spite of the disastrous failure, they were still making progress. "Lay low," the ogress advised. "Get me those books..."
It was clear from her tone that Peihong was at the end of her patience. Chelsea well knew she'd fucked up in Emerald Kingdom. She'd been angling for the quick score–killing Finn's kid. She'd cost them their influence in the Emerald Kingdom and lost Blargetha and Maja too, to say nothing of costing the ogress her greatest asset. "Ok," she muttered. "Turtle Kingdom..." The wax-woman swore she would focus on stealing the antiquities they needed to find knowledge of the mushroom bombs, promising to redouble her efforts, but the ogress knew she was lieing. It was getting to be time to shed the insane little bitch.
Back in the Candy Kingdom, Finn the King came walking up the stairs of Bonnie's Botanical Garden. There was already a row of vehicles parked out front in what had been the parking lot for visitors. It was another source of friction with Bonnie. The Candy Monarch was irritated that her people no longer got to visit the gardens because Billy's family was staying there. It was one of those idiotic dichotomies that made him want to wring her neck sometimes. She was constantly bitching that he ought not to spend money on a castle of his own in the west. At the same time, she was constantly whining and griping about sharing her castle with the other members of their extended family. Like everything else with Bonnie, she couldn't fucking make up her mind, and it was driving him to distraction.
And Finn? What was he going to do? Tell Abeiuwa to go live in a hotel? He was delighted to have her back to normal and contributing to their shared world in a healthy, productive manner. The idea that he would actually get some troops to help with their problems–taking the load off Ingrid and Hurletta–was the best news he'd heard in a long, long while. He'd had to force himself not to start bugging Nadia about getting the Tesla machine built faster. Now his wife wanted to throw Abeiuwa out of the gardens at the risk of offending her. Finn thought Bonnie missed the point. Her peeps had paid for the gardens, sure enough, but they had far more to do trying to piece their lives back together than to go rioting over a bunch of trees and flowers.
The Muscle Guard had a small presence here at the entry, confirming what Finn had guessed from the cars out front. Odessa was here. He'd invited her here to meet with him. He was selling his son. He was selling his kid, and it hurt about as much as if you'd asked him to sell Fionna or Star or even Marshall. His mind went back to Maja's words. Maja, who'd been surviving–and thriving–in the face of very powerful people who wanted her dead, had been doing this dick-dance with princesses for literal centuries. Business, Finn, he reminded himself. He could lose his soul in his business. That was something he'd have to remember.
The Dowager Princess was waiting on him in the Great Atrium of the Conservatory, standing among the hot-house flowers there, taking in the scents. His mind went to Sarah, who'd whiled away her time here creating new flowers. She'd made a stink-weed plant so nasty, even she couldn't handle the smell. It was a funny memory from a time that seemed forever ago. Today the space was full of people, soldiers and functionaries all.
"Greetings, King of Ooo," said Odessa, as she rose and offered him a bow. Finn greeted her with a nod and a soft, "Your Highness." As he approached, Ragnhild, Abeiuwa, and Noemi stepped out of the alcove on his right, striding down the aisle. Odessa's face whipped around. It was clear from her expression that this wasn't something she'd anticipated when he'd sent word asking her to meet him. "Princess Ragnhild is both Privy Secretary. Princess Abeiuwa has been recently made responsible for production of weaponry and guards my southern border. Princess Noemi guards our eastern border with the wild-lands. I think it essential, given their positions in the government and their marriages to William, that they be involved in this decision, as this will greatly matter to their lives."
Odessa's face was unreadable. Still, when he offered her a seat at the table that had been placed there, she didn't balk. Instead, she sat herself. Moving to the far end of the table, Finn drew chairs for Billy's wives before seating himself. He'd been very careful to leave a fourth chair there, and he couldn't help noticing that Odessa noticed. Her face flushed, and her mouth opened to comment. And then she shut her mouth and glanced to his face. Finn could almost hear the gears turning.
It was flattery.
He had power and wealth to offer her family. Ragnhild, Abeiuwa and Noemi were sharing in the power he had in the world. By being married to Billy, they were part of the power that governed the Empire of Ooo. He was quite literally offering Nieve a seat at the table. "Terms," Ragnhild announced, drawing Odessa's face to hers. "This is our family," Abeiuwa agreed. "Our laws." It wasn't quite what the older woman was expecting, but it was the deal she was going to be offered. Finn sat back, resting his hands on the arms of his chair. Let the bargaining begin, he thought.
As Odessa worked to convince her neighbors that her grand-daughter should be allowed to become one of their number, Fionna the Human was putting together a bag in the quarters she shared with her husband, while Patrick watched her from the doorway. She was going. Seven months pregnant, and she was heading off into danger. He was supposed to be taking up the slack. He was supposed to be managing these little problems so his pregnant wife could stay home and rest. He'd been struggling with feelings of failure before he fucked up in the bandit kingdoms. Seeing Fi having to go out and put in work for the family again/still, he felt worthless. What did this powerful, capable woman need with a loser like him?
Fionna had felt him come in. She was attuned to him now. The crystals in her body would tell her when he was near. Lately they'd been telling her of his distress. Really, she'd felt that distress for a while, but she'd been at a loss as to how to even talk about it. Guys weren't supposed to talk about how they were feeling. Girls weren't built to understand the problems guys had. Girls, she well knew, were built to love the big, hunky guy who didn't seem to have a worry in the world. Men like that were easy for a girl to love. They took care of everything, and they let you live as if you hadn't a care in the world.
In real life, though...
"Tell me what's hurting you," Fionna burbled. It was half a command. Patrick glanced away. "Is it that I'm going," she asked? She hadn't chosen this, and he knew it. That wasn't bothering him. Fionna was the only person who could move the Tesla Barrier in the time they had to get it done. With the Peanuts' army marching through the former Wildberry Kingdom and doing a little ernest looting in Cocoa City, the border with the bad-lands was wide open. The horde that had hit at Lizard Kingdom could show up there any day. They simply didn't have time for Nadia's peeps to build their carefully manufactured nodes and carefully install them in the ground at carefully measured intervals. That could take weeks, and that was time they didn't really have. The border would be open the whole time Fi was working on this.
"Patrick," Fionna murmured. "Patrick, talk to me..." The young wizard flinched. Sitting down on their bed, Fionna said, "I want to talk, Patrick. We have to talk about this." Patrick nodded, but he didn't open his mouth. With a sigh, Fionna murmured, "when mom and dad were having problems, daddy kept trying to talk, but mom was so ashamed of what she was doing, she wouldn't talk... It... They almost split up. We have to talk, Patrick." "I fucked up," he muttered. "You needed sex," Fionna retorted.
Patrick's head whipped around. His face was red-hot, and he kept opening his mouth and closing it again, as if he couldn't muster the words. "You needed sex," she repeated. "You're a guy, and you're still young. You need it, and I haven't been able to give you anything but the occasional titty-fuck. You were vulnerable." "I-I'm ashamed," he muttered. "I... part of me... I'm mad at myself, Fi... Part of me... I... It was like I had something that I don't get with you..."
He found her frowning at him. "Not that, babe," he said. "You're pretty good in bed... more than pretty good. You could probably fuck me to death..." Blushing, she said, "that's sort of the thing, Patrick... I'm... I'm a nymphomaniac." His head whipped around. "I heard your mom and mine talking about... girl stuff," Fionna murmured. "Your mom said that she had it real bad... My mom... has the same problem. They kinda' always want it... When daddy's not home, mom has this electric gadget..."
Patrick blushed to his hair. His mind was blown as he realized just how much of his mom was really in Simone. They shared more than a face. He'd known about his mom's sex-toy collection for years. It was one of the things that he'd sort-of been embarrassed about. She'd done her best not to be seen using a vibrator on herself, but Patrick had heard it a couple of times when she thought he was outside or busy with homework.
Flushing, Fionna glanced at the floor and admitted, "I've been tempted to jump some dude a couple times, Patrick. A lot of the time. I'm... I didn't understand it... I guess I thought I'd settled on you, and I didn't understand why I felt that way... Sometimes even after we get done, I still kinda' want some more." Patrick swallowed hard. This was going all kinds of places he hadn't expected, and some of those places made him very uncomfortable. "It sometimes feels like you don't really need me," he admitted. Her head snapped up in shock. Nodding, he said, "Cerelia made me feel like she needed protection... from a guy."
Fionna blushed. She'd honestly never thought of that. "I'm my father's daughter, Patrick," murmured New Fionna. "I can't help what I am. Know that I need you. You ground me. You support me, when I sometimes feel like I'm losing who I am." They were going down deep, but she knew these things had to get said. When she was heading into danger and risking never seeing her family again, she especially needed to say these things.
"I sometimes feel like I'm responsible for that," he admitted. "I... feel like I shouldn't..." "You did it out of love," Fionna reminded him. "You did it because you love me and our daughter both. We're flawed people, and I... I'm a tomboy. That's a part of me, and I can't have the kind of relationship with you where I'm dependent like that. But I depend on you for other things that matter just as much. You've got a lot of grampa in you. You're wiser than I am, and you've always been that way. I can't be angry about Cerelia because you were needy, and I wasn't giving you a lot of the things you needed. I want to take the lesson here, and move on."
Rising, Fionna strode towards him. Patrick met her halfway across the room and embraced her. Laying her head on his shoulder, she said, "we're still going to have a great life together. We'll... We'll do this one more time. Hopefully, we'll get a boy. I'd like to have one. Kinda' like Billy, Star, and me..." "Fi," he said, "stop dumbing yourself down around me. That's... that's my wisdom for today. I have to come around and accept that this is what you've had to become. We're both old enough to accept it." "Yes, honey," she agreed.
Kissing his cheek, she said, "you should go to that club daddy used to go to, Patrick. When moms weren't giving him anything, he could go down there and get some relief. I've heard they'll let you tug it in the back rooms if you ask nicely and pay them well." Patrick stammered, "y-you..." "You're a man, Patrick," she said. "I'd be selfish to try to keep you from relieving yourself while I'm... occupied. If more girls recognized that–accepted that–guys wouldn't be getting in trouble, creeping around." "Ok," he said, as he hugged his beautiful, wise wife. "Be careful, Fi. Mona and I need you." Promising that she would, the pretty blonde turned, grabbed her bag, and headed for the door.
Penny is taking a long, long time to die in a space outside of time, but the hell she unleashed is still plaguing the world. With the Bad-Bunny headed into danger, Patrick and Fionna have reconciled at last. And Finn? Well, he's rolling the dice on an untrustworthy ally. Let's see if Nieve can behave herself now.