"Marceline! If you don't get your ass out of bed, you're going to be late!" her older brother yelled, slamming his hand against the door before walking back into the living room.

Marceline groaned to herself, throwing her hand over her eyes as the light filtered in through the window beside her bed. Her eyes were still thick with sleep, and her muscles felt nailed to the bed. She rolled to her side and then off the bed. Her chest made an impact with the discarded textbook left after a long night of studying.

"MARCELINE!" Evan yelled, away from the door this time, likely in the kitchen.

"I'm up, I'm up!" Marceline yelled back, standing to her feet and stretching her arms above her head.

Marceline cracked her eyes open to see her sister's bed, a blue hand-me-down comforter already tucked in nice and neat. She was already long gone from their shared room, her clothes set out the night before removed from the dresser.

Marceline walked to the dresser and put on her cheerleading uniform. The pep rally was that morning, eating up the time they would be spending in first period. Marceline wasn't sure if she was happy about that since she still had to be there early. She put her braids into pigtails on the top of her head, held up by dark green scrunchies. Then, she rushed around her room, shoving notebooks and her textbook into her backpack before running out of her room.

In the hallway, Marceline nearly ran into three out of the five people in her house darting around to prepare for school. She made it out alive with a lot of annoying shouting behind her and stood in the middle of the living room. Evan, Marceline's older brother, stood at the stove cooking breakfast for everyone while Jesse, Evan's friend, sat in front of the TV.

Marceline slammed her backpack on the couch, and her brother turned to look at her over his shoulder.

"Sleeping Beauty's finally awake," Evan said sarcastically, thinning his lips.

"Sorry, sorry," Marceline muttered, leaning over the counter to snatch a piece of bacon.

"Late night?" Jesse asked, his eyes glued to the TV.

"Studying," Marceline answered.

Jesse turned to Marceline, his crystalline blue eyes sunken into his head with dark bags underneath from the hours he sat hunched in front of the TV. He was as thin as bones and looked nearly dead if it weren't for the ease he put life into his emotions. His eyes rolled dramatically at Marceline's claim, then turned back to his screen to return to his statuesque position.

"You're always studying," Jesse claimed.

"Can't overdo it," Marceline told him, turning back to her brother. "Has my leet come in?"

Evan was four years older than Marceline and six years older than Stephanie, but he looked nearly forty standing over the oven. The past year had put ten on him with everything he had to pick up. Dropped out of college, gave up a good scholarship, and gave up his life for his sisters. After their parents died, it was all on Evan to keep the family together.

"No," Evan told her, a frown slipping onto his face and his eyes held to the pan. "I double-checked last night when I got home."

Marceline slumped in her chair at the news, disappointed that she still had to wait to know if her future was solidified.

"Still nothing from that prissy school?" Nate asked, slipping out of the bathroom. He was Evan's other friend who always seemed to be at their house. He lived just down the street, but his parents weren't the best. So, he often came in the middle of the night and crashed on the couch. "Y'know your sister and that boyfriend of hers?" he asked Evan, throwing his finger down his throat, disgusted by whatever the two were doing.

"STEPHANIE!" Evan yelled.

"Coming!" she called back, giggling as she and her boyfriend, Scottie Zapata, tumbled out of the bathroom, all flying limbs and bright smiles, until they were positioned right in front of Evan.

Stephanie was the beauty, while Marceline was the brain. She had brown doe eyes that lured any unsuspecting person into doing her bidding. Her lips were permanently curled into a smile to keep people unassuming with thick gloss to stick them like a fly to honey. She knew how to charm a person and keep them tied around her finger while letting them think they were in control.

Her boyfriend was all of those things. He saw Stephanie as this innocent thing, whereas she knew precisely what she was doing. Every move she made was strategic and planned months ahead. If she wanted Scottie to propose to her when they graduated, she would start planting the seeds now to make him think it was his idea two years later.

"What have I said about the bathroom?" Evan asked, spinning on his heel with a severe expression, flinging his spatula at the two pointedly.

"No, Scottie, because Marceline's not in there to rat us out," Stephanie sighed, letting her expression fall into an annoyed glare as she stared at her sister.

"I wasn't even the one who did this time!" Marceline exclaimed, raising her hands above her head.

Stephanie turned her glare to Nate, who cowered behind Evan.

"It doesn't matter who did it!" Evan exclaimed, turning back to the eggs. "I already have you two kids to take care of. I don't need a third."

Stephanie let out a frustrated sigh but didn't argue with him. Instead, she took the first plate of eggs and then scooped up the second to hand to her boyfriend. They sat on the couch, hip to hip, behind Jesse.

"Game tonight?" Evan asked Marceline, set her plate in front of her, and leaned against the counter with his arms crossed.

"Yeah," Marceline agreed.

"Got it," Evan nodded, looking past her to Scottie on the couch. "Scott, you're driving them home, right?"

"Right!" Scottie called back, raising his thumbs up in the air.

Evan smiled, a moment of relaxation on his lips as everything seemed to be lining up just right. He raised his wrist, glancing at the watch before his face fell.

"God, y'all are gonna be late! Get out of here!" Evan exclaimed fretfully, picking up Marceline's dishes before shooing her out of the room.

Marceline stood up and headed for her backpack. Scottie picked it up and tossed it to her making her huff at the sudden weight. She threw it over her shoulder as they rushed out of the door with Jesse and Nate yelling mockingly affectionate goodbyes after them.

Author's Note

Season 4, Episode 1: The Hellfire Club

Hello, this is a whole new chapter because I wanted to establish Marceline's home life before getting into the main part of the show! Sorry for the confusion but it's really helped me out of my writer's block.

Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you'd like. However, this is an all kind of reader safe space. So even if you ghost read or comment every chapter, I hope you know it means the world to me that you've come into this fic I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and until the next one.