Meep
Chapter Three: To be Treated Like a Queen
Two weeks later.
Marceline was sleeping, hovering over her bed seeing as there was no need to lye down, not that she would want to anyway, on that infested, uncomfortable bed. She shivered and twitched, sweating profusely all over, it dripped down, soaking in the bed below, yet another nightmare she had to endure. Her figure was thinned down to the bone, her brittle body had scattered, deep purple bruises in various locations, mostly along her arms. There was a set of bite marks in her right wrist above the artery, were she desperately attempted to get a small fix of redness in her system only to spit out the lifeless essence in disgust.
When she wasn't sure she was in a dream or reality, she scratched her sharp claws, deep into her skin to know. The nuisance sink didn't last long in her presence, it was torn from the hinges and thrown up against the wall opposite the bed, she turned to her new source of drinking water, the rain water that made its way down from the surface through the cracks in the wall. She could feel her sanity on the tipping point, on the verge of going feral, though she fought it, having more dignity in herself to not allow her being to turn into a mindless nocturnal creature.
The echoing slam shut from the cell block door awoke Marceline, jumping out of her skin, though she was grateful to have left the nightmare. Loud footsteps marched their way over with haste; had to be two maybe three people, this was it, the end of the line. She shivered over the bed in the corner, pressed up against the wall and chains; she tried oh-so desperately to transform into a werewolf or her tentacle form, this was the last opportunity to fight. The attempts only exerted her last remnants of energy, now even more vulnerable, so-much-so, she was now even struggling to sustain hovering, and even clung to the wall to help hold herself from falling. She panted as her heart began to race again, she always thought she'd never fear death, but was clearly expressing mortal terror.
Until she heard a woman with a high pitch voice command the doors to be opened. "Open it." Princess Bubblegum ordered. A banana guard jingled the keys in his hand trying to find the right one for the lock as Bubblegum and Jake waited patiently outside the cell looking in at the frightful vampire. Marceline pressed up further in the corner, clinging to the chains, still nervous like a stray cat. Her jaw hanged from the sight of Bubblegum, she may have been pink but that was still an edible shade, her eyes flared hungry red, from the need to feed. Bubblegum could see Marceline staring, not moving her eyes to no one else but the princess, she could see her hunger, unnerving, even with iron bars between them.
"Uh, Jake," Bubblegum whispered, nudging his side, also slyly signalling the guard to stop with a brief hand gesture. Still remaining her eye contact back at Marceline.
"Hmm?" took his focus of the vampire, looking up at PB.
"I think we may have to go through with the sedation plan. She won't stop gawking at me like a piece of food." She tried not moving her mouth, whispering through her teeth, so the vampire couldn't read her lips and catch wind of what she planned on doing.
"Whatever you say." She opened up a rectangular box behind her back, Jake took out a syringe filled with blue liquid. "Uh, do you want me to shrink down and go in?" Still whispering.
"Yes." She simply replied.
"But-uh, won't she see me?" He asked, not fully in favour of this approach, especially since he was the one who had to do it.
"I think she is a bit too focused on me right now to care Jake." Bubblegum said, looking back into the vampires deep red glare, almost hypnotising.
"Hmmm..." He grumbled nervously before shrinking down slightly bigger than the syringe, hauling it over his shoulder. He approached the bed, realising this plan wasn't solidly thought through, she was securely pressed in the corner. She'd definitely see him climb the bed and try to stab her. He signalled the princess, hopping up and down in an S.O.S type manner, she could see the problem.
Bubblegum gulped thinking of an idea, she stepped up to the cell leaning her elbows on a horizontal bar sticking the most part of both her arms inside to ensnare the hungry, timid vampire.
Marceline's heart now pumped with anticipation with so much red so close, its been too long, and the tease was too much to resist. With tunnel vision on the prize, her instincts obscured, impotent to sense the obvious ploy to get her out of the corner. Unable to resist, she floated down on the bed, getting off, placing her bare feet onto the cobble, almost squishing Jake before he rolled the syringe and himself out of the way, underneath the bed.
The cell wasn't that long, Marceline was about five steps away from the bares, she staggered over, holding one arm over her stomach, the other half-reached out for Bubblegum. Jake grew behind her, quietly, otherwise the stealth aspect would be ruined, with about two steps away Bubblegum pulled her arms through out of the cell. Marceline scowled as she could see her prey retreating back; she closed the gap with a freakishly fast dash, escaping Jakes preparation to subdue her. Marceline quickly pulled Bubblegum back in, before she could get out of reach, and without a moment to spare, sunk her teeth into the arm she grabbed.
PB's eyes widened with disbelief, in shock and awe of how the feeble vampire became a blur and managed to close the gap within a microsecond, everything was happening so fast, she only just noticed she was being fed upon, "JAAAAAKE!" She squealed out, watching her colour drain down her arm into Marceline's fangs. Her arm was growing limp as the grey climbed up replacing the pink coloured flesh, the banana guard tried to pull her away but to no avail.
Marceline clenched her eyes shut in the bliss of the feed, with moans of pleasure escaping the sides of her mouth, after so long, she could feel her veins flow again with fresh essence. Feeling her body surge with life again she reeled Bubblegum in further, getting a much more solid grip, straining the princess's shoulder and chest against the bars.
Jake ran up behind Marceline injecting the needle in her neck. Feeling the pinch disconnecting her from the moment, Marceline opened and looked, seeing a syringe hanging from the side of her neck. Feeling Jakes presence behind her, and fuelled with new life flowing through her body, she felt an old score had to be settled. Detaching from Bubblegum, Marceline turned her attention to the dog locked in with her.
"I'm going to squish and smear you over these wall you mutt!" Prepering to annihilate Jake, she felt a sudden hiccup in her senses, the adrenalin rush was crashing, the room started to blur and sway.
Yanking the syringe dug in her neck, "What the fuck - did you... I'm gonna... gon... tear you... guuuuh..." She passed out, falling face on the floor.
Jake swiped his brow with a sigh of relief, any longer and he would have been minced meat. Hopping over her flat-out unconscious body, Jake squeezed his reshapable body back on the other side of the bar's, attending to Bubblegum. Her arm was limp and grey halfway up, colour replenished, flowing back down through it, slowly, it was just like waking to a dead arm after sleeping on it all night. The pins and needles tingled along the current, as the nerves in her arm awoken again. The bumps of her swelled bite-marks throbbed with bruising ache, pressuring her other available hand over them, a build up of hurt swelled inside, she wanted to jerk a tear. On the contrary, Bubblegum was a strong woman, many people seemed to forget when looking at her structure, though it hurt, she would not cry to drown her damage.
"Peebles, you okay? Oh glob your not going to turn are you?" Jake asked apprehensively, unsure on the know-how of vampirism.
Bubblegum wasn't too educated in that area herself, but she reassured him, "I'm fine Jake, she was just... um-feeding?" 'Is that what she calls it?' She asked herself. "I don't think I can contract her condition through those means." She hoped.
Seeing that he didn't know much about it, and Bubblegum is fare more intellectual than him, Jake took her word for it. "Errm, well now what?" He asked, looking into the cell. "Do you still want to release her, I mean..."
Bubblegum interrupted, his attempts trying to stir up her thoughts was unneeded; she knew the morally correct thing to do, and planned to stick with it. "Jake, we are still going through with it, okay. It's our fault she is like this; this whole mess could have been avoided if we just listened."
Jake gritted his teeth, while looking at the slumped girl. He didn't dare question Bubblegum, but he wasn't willingly following her decisions.
The guard unlocked the cell, walking in, flipping Marceline onto her back, grabbing her ankles, waiting on Jake to lift her upper body. Jake followed in behind, adjusting his height so when he lifted Marceline, she wouldn't be grazing her backside along the floor. He leaned down, sliding up to his antecubital, below her armpits, hoisting her with his upper arm strength, though she was much lighter than he anticipated, loosing allot of body weight since the last time he had to carry her somewhere.
"Okay guys, you know where to take her, right?" Bubblegum quizzed, still rubbing her aching wrist.
"Yeah, we know. What should we do if she starts to wake up again?" Jake thought to ask.
"If she shows any signs of gaining consciousness before I'm there, call me immediately. If she is about to wake up and I'm still not there in time, strap her down." Bubblegum walked off, ahead of the two carrying the limp girl. Spinning around on spot, adding extra information. "I won't be too long, I just have to prepare some equipment and make some arrangements." The two nodded, and she continued to walked down the narrow, one way hall that lead along the many dungeon cells, to the exit of the cell block.
Head swirling, muscles slightly spasmed to the feeling of regaining consciousness. Sickly inhaling a breath to waken her, feeding her brain more oxygen, Marceline blinked open her eyes, still remaining them half shut; the anesthetic still hadn't fully worn off, keeping her remained in a sleepy stasis. Her mind was working slow, trying to piece together where she was, what was happening, and what was strapped to her face, soon to make out what it was, a breathing mask. The pipes and tubes led her sight to an ECG machine (electrocardiodiagram, basically the giant heart monitors), she was hooked up to, noticing she really had little to no pulse at all, the line was close to flat, only to bump up slightly every-so often. On the other side of the bed she found herself in, a blood-bag feeding her arm small doses of blood; presumable the reason why she looked much healthier than before.
Her skin was still pale, but turned back to its usual state, just a few shades darker, hair too regained a bit of colour oddly, it appeared much more conditioned and was its natural midnight black, with few dark mauve streaks cutting through it, all the dead and some grey roots had gone. And her physic had restructured from her anorectic appearance back to slim after being fed the right and necessary amount of her vital life fluids.
Hoisting herself up with abdominal muscles, she took the mask off, looking around the room. She was certain she was in hospital, or could it be a testing lab? A bit panicked, wondering what they were planning to do with her, wondering why they are trying to keep her alive and bring her here; for experiments, for torture? Unable to figure the answer, and frankly, not wanting to find it, she started the pluck the stickers and wires that attached her to the ECG off her torso, beneath her hospital gown.
The machine begun to perform its unmistakeable, bland, constant beeeeep, as it registered her as flat-lined. Once all the stickers were off, she was too, taking the drip from her arm, grabbing the bag, finishing off, the ripe blood inside. She felt great; drinking red was one thing, but blood was almost the vampire equivalent of a meal and energy drink in one. The last time she fed on blood, a mortals blood was on Finn in the cave, that moment wasn't the greatest to admire and enjoy the sensations of its full effect. Now though was perfect, she felt renewed, and planned on using that energy to escape.
Her amazing feeling was crashed upon, with Jake slamming his way through the double-doors into the room, shouting, "Oh Grod! Oh Grod! Oh Grod!" He had the banana guards at his side. The vampire queen smirked, with all that fear inside vanquished, all that was left was a anger, and the hunger for revenge. "You brought all these guys to put down a lonesome, captive, hospitalised girl? Haha, you are so gonna need allot more than that..."
"FIRE!" It was that voice again, the same squeaky, high pitched one that when it spoke something bad followed.
The front-line of guards all equipped filtration masks, including Jake; bringing out small launchers. They all fired a single round, launching a small silver cannister that landed and rolled up to her feet. She shielded her face, expecting something to happen, but no. The guards remained in position, looking over at her; she uncovered her eyes to examine what they did exactly.
"Uhhhh-wha?" She picked one up, only to hear a faint hissing from gas releasing from the inside. Feeling dizzy again, she felt herself slowly going under like before, "Uh... not this again... why – why don't.. you just... fight me...? Guh"
"Erm, so Peebles why didn't we do that before?" Jake asked, wondering why he had to put himself at risk earlier.
"Its still a prototype Jake, I didn't know if they would work." She said casually, not really taking in what she just told him. He looked at her with worry in his eyes, realising that if these gadgets didn't work...
Flopping down to her knees, then over on her back, her head circled, trying to keep her eyes open and fight the sleeping gas that invaded he body. The last sight she saw was Bubblegum leaning over her with a gas mask on, saying something to Jake, she couldn't understand what was being said, everything was one big blob of sound; unable to fight it any longer, Marceline succumbed to the gas, and slept.
"Marceline... Marceline..." She heard her name being whispered through her drowsy ears, her head was in waves; the sleep gas still holding a small effect even hours after she inhaled it. Letting out a small disappointing grunt, wanting to drift back for more sleep, she opened up her eyes to see who it was that called her. She frowned, slightly puzzled when she saw the princess leaned over Marceline from the bedside, looking down on vampire, with her arms crossed behind her back.
Marceline was attempting to form a question, her sleepy state didn't allow such action, it only came out as a couple more grunts, um's and uh's. Bubblegum helped her fixed some of the unspoken questions Marceline hoped on asking before her twisted tongue betrayed her speech.
"Good, you're awake. Don't panic, you are in one of my guest rooms in the castle..." She assured her.
'Don't panic, what does that mean?' She wondered, worrying what Bubblegum has done to her while she slept or what she planned on doing. She scared her body awake, vigorous enough to shoot her arm forth, grabbing the princess by the collar, pulling her face down to her own. "What have you done to me?" She demanded.
Bubblegum was still startled from the hands snapping at her, she hardly heard the question. Marceline repeated, now snarling at her, tightening her grip, "What did you do to ME!" Bubblegum could feel her breathing with their faces so closely together. "I.. I didn't do anything to you... Marceline please let go, don't make me do something you will regret later..." She whimpered.
"You're in no position to make threats Bonnie." She remained hold of the princess, not letting up on the grip.
"Y-you're panicked – which I understand, but p-please let go, I haven't done anything to you while you slept. You are safe in one of my guest rooms in the castle. I'm not going to hurt you, no one is." Her heart raced waiting in anticipation to see if her words got through to Marceline.
Marceline took a second to think. She loosened her grip, only slightly and took a look around the room.
It was situated quite high up in the castle, a floor below Bubblegums. The room was expansive, it had white, smooth stone walls and a pink fluffy carpet that looked like candy floss. The bed was opposite side of the room from the door, it was queen size bed, slightly smaller then Bubblegums upstairs, it had clean white sheets over it and was made of the high standard, polished, maple candy wood with a dresser at the end of it.
There was an ensuite bathroom, on the left and the rest of the room was pretty much filled with: two wardrobes, a make-up table with a stool, a single giant mirror, a table with a vase of flowers on top and a chair pulled up to it, a large chandelier, and lastly, two bedside tables. The window behind the bed had the shutters locked to keep out the sun; there was a silver platter with a lid over it and a glass red wine on the same table as the vase.
Able to calm herself, she let out a sigh and freed Bubblegum. Marceline rubbed the sleep from her eyes, freshening them up to see better, looking around the room, "So basically.. you put me in a prettier prison?" She went back to remarkable calm, the fact that she didn't jump up and drain Bubblegum there and then was amazing; the restraint was likely not on her part however. The large doses of anesthetic and sleeping agents were still present and operating in her body, keeping her in a tranquil state, for now.
"What? No. I... nuh... sigh, We're freeing you due to false charges" Bubblegum held her head down with shame as she said it.
"Y-you're freeing me? I thought I was the big-bad traitor to the kingdom?" She was overjoyed to hear such news, and though she thought not to push it, she couldn't help rub it in a little.
"I... was wrong..." Dropping her head bellow her shoulders as she uttered the words.
Unable to help herself, Marceline took a dig at her, even after all she had been through, and still at the current moment not feeling to great, she still found her inner cheekiness, "Say again please Bonnie, I didn't quite hear that?" She showed a smug toothed grin towards Bubblegum, raising her eyebrows at the princess.
"Sigh, I was wrong and you were right... about everything. I'm sorry." Bubblegum complied with Marceline's request, knowing why she was doing it, but what Bubblegum admitted was the truth and tried not to shy away from the fact. She took in her mistakes upfront, and if she had to endure a load of cheap digs from Marceline, then so be it.
"Yeah, well sorry doesn't change the past, it just chucking a cover over it. I don't like apologies. You think that those few petty words make up a life time of mistakes. It's a lie you tell yourself to help you sleep at night." Marceline was grungy, though she had every right to be.
Aggravated by Marceline's attitude, "Well-w-what else do you want me to do? I can't rewrite time. trust me I've tried." She murmured, trailing off a bit on past projects.
"I want you to believe me next time. I want you to give me a chance to prove myself, instead of throwing me in a cage to starve. I want you to treat me as an equal, you have no power over me, you're not better than me because your royal; what does your power get you when I could drain you dry or snap you in-half right now, hmm?"
Bubblegum remained silent, not retaliating to Marceline, allowing the tension tie die down. Instead she walked to the short dresser at the end of the bed, also concealing a taser she hid behind her back the entire time as a precaution; grabbing a robe off the top she walked back over to Marceline's side of the bed.
Marceline paid little attention when Bubblegum walked off, she chose to inspect her body, looking for any cut or bruises she gained, also seeing if her nails were dirty; clearly they gave her a small clean up while she was out in hospital or maybe before they brought her to this room, her nails were black before now.
Bubblegum threw the fluffy blue robe over Marceline's shoulders as she sat up in bed, still in the hospital gown. She hissed in response, pressing her back against the headboard; still very fragile and frightened, adjusting to life outside her cell again, she thought Bubblegum was attempting to put a bag over her head; though she realised quickly it was merely a robe. It felt very soft and comfortable, especially to Marceline, she had not experienced such luxuries for weeks or months even.
"Is that warm enough for now? I can go get an even thicker robe if you want." She asked watching the vampire try and get the bottom of it underneath her as she sat in the bed. Upon doing so she tied it firmly around her thin waist, replying, "Uh, no-no, this is – this is okay... thanks..." She didn't know how to act, this was the woman who sentenced her to death and locked her away from the world, now she was treating her as an honoured guest, in fact she was caring for her above herself, Marceline had never seen such treatment from Bubblegum before.
"We made a breakfast for you. Its to my knowledge that you 'feed' off colours or shades associated with red; so I got the chefs to make you a special meal, I hope its to your liking." Bubblegum nervously smiled, still trying to please the vampire and gain her trust. She uncovered the lid from the platter to reveal a large meal of two highly rare steaks (Almost raw) to retain their redness along with some beetroot bulbs, chopped red peppers and the glass of red wine.
Marceline's eyes widened, almost foaming from the mouth once she saw the fresh red food, she somersaulted out of bed a practically sprinted over to the meal. Gulping down the wine in one swig and chomping her fangs into the steak, completely different to the way she showed Finn, draining it grey. She looked over at the princess inspecting her eat, still with the drained steak in her mouth.
"Did the chefs get it to your liking? They are not too experienced with those ingredients." She nervously chuckled, awaiting a verdict. Marceline gave a thumbs up, hunched over, slicing her fangs through the steak in her mouth as it turned grey. She pulled the hanging relinquished steak piece from her fangs, tossing it back on the platter. "Damn that was SO good."
Bubblegum noticed her wine glass was empty. "I'll have Peppermint bring you a bottle up. Some new clothes are in the wardrobe, we tried getting something that suited you on such short notice." Marceline pulled a slight frown, knowing Bubblegums taste in clothing, it would probably be something bright pink and frilly, but she said nothing of it and let the princess continue. "You should freshen up a little and relax. Go take a bath and enjoy, if you need anything just holla at me and I'll see what I can do. Right well I'll leave you to it."
Bubblegum left the room pulling the door shut behind her, leaving a gap large enough to poke her head through, "And we will discuss the matters at hand, once you are ready of course." She left, and Marceline was yet again alone in solitude.
She listened to hear if Bubblegum locked the door, but there was no sound of it; even though she wasn't locked in and was being treated like a respected guest she still felt prisoner. She had been put to sleep twice for an uncertain number of hours, she was still tired and wanted to fall back onto the bed, especially after that meal filling her stomach. But she wanted a bath first, Marceline forgotten the last time she even had one, the only for of hygiene in that cell was when the rain pelted down enough to form a decent stream of water to clean herself in, the water itself was already dirty by the time it made its way down through the earth, down the little cracks and into her cell.
Walking into the bathroom she turned on the taps to fill the tub. Untying fluffy belt she freed herself from her robe, everything was chilly again. She used her long sharp nail to cut down the strings that tied her hospital gown together, down her back. As she did, the thought slipped into mind about how they got her rags off and her gown on, she had nothing on underneath. Whoever did it must have seen... everything. She went red in the cheeks, embarrassed - and shivered with goosebumps, creeped out from the thought of the many people it could have been.
Opening the door, still with her gown now hanging off the sleeves, she was greeted with the pre-filled bathtub, it was still steaming hot. Marceline went to step inside, pulling one of her arms through the sleeve, until she heard a thump drop behind her. Turning around she noticed Peppermint Butler staring at the door, eyes and jaw wide open, the wine bottle slipped from his hands when he walked in the room hitting against the soft cushioned carpet, noticing the half-naked vampire.
"I.. I-I-um, eh..." Was all he managed to stammer.
The two awkwardly stared at each other, Marceline covered, semi-tried to get the sleeve back on, but after quickly flapping about unsuccessfully, she resorted in crossing it over her chest to cover her breasts. Peppermint just stood there unmoved. Marceline wasn't sure if he was staring in shock or awe, but needless to say it was making her incredible uncomfortable. She hissed at him to leave and Peppermint slowly backed out of the room shutting the door as he left. Marceline was freaked out by the whole ordeal and decided to go pull the latch over the door so no more unexpected visitors entered; while she was there she picked up the delivered bottle of wine and took it in the bathroom with her, finally dropping the the gown that still hung from one arm.
She finished her wash and emerged from the bathroom, feeling properly refreshed, she needed that for ages, her hair was visually straightened out, felt so soft and velvety as it would sometimes brush against her brows and cheeks. With a towel wrapped around her torso, tucking under the armpits, and another swirled on her head, containing (most of) her hair, she walked over to the wardrobes. She was a bit tipsy in her steps, some of the wine she actually drank rather than drained, and she felt like getting a bit pissed, even though it was just wine.
Opening the wardrobes, she burped out a disappointed moan, "Guh, 'that suits me?' Bo-hiccup Bonnie, really?" She opened to find a bunch of pink shirts, vests, sweaters and so on, until she actually bothered to filter through them, "Oh, ah better... not bad Bonnibel..." Hung up was a grey tank top, almost identical to the one she always used to wear, inspecting it, the material felt way to new for it to actually be hers, but made her wonder how they got it to look so exact. Next to it was something new that didn't look copied from her traditional wardrobe, a dark grey hoodie with thin red stripes going down the arms, yet again looked new, had to be specially made for her, 'there's no way Bubblegum would wear this', she thought. And at the bottom of the wardrobe, on top of a pile of spare bedsheets were folded blue, stonewashed jeans. Oh and of course: leather, crimson red boots with button straps; 'Okay those are definitely mine, wait..Grrrr! that means she's been in my house! And what's this... really?' Picking up the only underwear to be found was a set of stripped pink and white, frilly panties and bra, 'Glob she is testing me...'
Marceline put everything on other than the boots and hoodie seeing as she wasn't going anywhere yet. Walking over to the bed, picking up a beetroot bulb on the way, sucking it dry. She didn't comb or dry her hair, a couple of shakes and it found its way back to its normal state; walking down the side of the comfy bed, she plummeted her face into the rolls of covers and blankets and pillows. Tonight she was going to sleep like a mortal would, actually utilizing the bed; she was fed up of hovering, she had been doing it for the past six weeks over that sad excuse for a bed in the prison.
Burrowing her head deep in the stacks of pillows, for that moment it was blissful, not a care in the world, forgetting not only the past six weeks, but the whole four years; allowing the vampire to slowly drift off to a good night sleep; she needed the rest for the things to come.
Yay, a slightly less dark that didn't leave on a cliffhanger or anything, its been awhile...