Chapter Two

"This place isn't half bad," Jake says with a half-smile as he nudges at the green mold developing on the rotting ceiling. The place is obviously made of old, spoiling chocolate and some spearmint sprinkled through; but apparently the old owners just weren't taking care of it, so they must've split. I groan and slump back on a pretzel chair before it crashes under my weight. "It's—uh—cozy?"

"No, Jake. This place sucks some real buns," I moan, picking myself up off the ground, a blotch of chocolate soaking into my pants. "Plus, I don't wanna live in the bad side of town, Dude. This place gets a whopping 'no' from me." I cross my arms to form an 'x.'

"Fine… But there aren't many more places to choose from, Finn," Jake crosses his arms, leading me to the door where the sales-cookie is waiting for us patiently. "You gotta pick the lesser of the evils."

The cookie, swaying on the balls of his feet, grins at our arrival and asks, "So, what did you boys think? Is it wonderful or is it wonderful?"

"This place is the grossest place I've ever let my shoes touch," I respond without a hint of sarcasm before getting a piercing nudge in the ribs from Jake. "Ow! —I mean, this place is nice and all… But we're gonna keep looking. Thanks, Guy."

The cookie smiles and sees us out of the home and back into the sticky streets. Just being in the bad side of the Candy Kingdom makes my spine shiver all the way from top to bottom. I can feel every pair of eyes on me, studying me up and down. I'm always sure to keep my swords hidden when I'm over here—I'm just too paranoid they're gonna get stolen.

"Where are we headed next, Buddy?" I ask after we finally get back into the familiar, well-kept streets of the Candy Kingdom I actually like. Jake is tapping various buttons of his flip-device before he stops—his fingers stop as well as his feet, causing me to bump into him with my knees.

"You know what we haven't tried yet?" I peer down at Jake's face to see his eyebrows raising my general direction. Whatever he's about to say, I'm probably not gonna like much. After a full three seconds of silence, he finally finishes, "The Fire Kingdom?"

My knees turn to jelly, and I shake my head violently, "Dude, no! Phoebe and I are just friends. She'll think I'm trying to get back with her if I move into her kingdom. I don't want her to think I can't move on."

Furrowing his eyebrows, my brother sighs, "Fine, Dude; but there are lots of affordable places there right now."

"I don't care how affordable those dope flame houses are," I jab his wet nose with my fingernail, "it'll have to just be a last resort."

As we're getting ready to exit the kingdom, I feel a recognizable vibrating in my front pocket. Drawing out the pink crystal gifted to me by Princess Bubblegum, I see her face appear in front of me in a glowing, pink square suspended in the air. Her hair is pulled back into Dutch braid, allowing her gummy bangs to hang in front of her forehead. Her face lights up when she sees us.

"Finn! Happy late birthday!" She claps a pink hand to her cheek. "You're getting so big! Sorry that I didn't call on your actual birthday—I had a lot of princess junk. You know how it is."

I feel the familiar heat of a blush creep into my cheeks. I feel like she's treating me like I just turned thirteen. I hate it when PB treats me like a little boy—but I'm not a boy anymore! I'm a man!

"I've been this tall for a while, Princess," I roll my eyes to look at Jake. "I'm not a baby…"

With a hint of bewilderment on her face, Bubblegum pushes forward a smile and says, "Well, I just heard you two were house shopping. I was wondering if you'd like to spend a night in the castle, so you have a place to sleep tonight. I can't let Ooo's greatest heroes be homeless, right? It'll be like my birthday present to you, Finn."

Before I can reply, I feel Jake cover my mouth with his paw. His face stretches in front of mine, responding, "Sure thing, Princess! We'll head over right now."

"Wonderful!" She claps her hands together. "See you in a bit, Guys."

"What the hey-hey, Dude," I sternly turn to Jake. "What I was gonna say is that we're fine—we got a camp set up like an hour away from here."

Gonna be honest—I don't feel like staying at PB's castle right now. She immediately rubbed me the wrong way when she treated me like a kid. I honestly thought she'd treat me differently once I turn eighteen, but as always, my idea falls on its face. It feels like that's happening a lot lately.

"Dude, I could tell you were getting a little sour talking to Bonnie," Jake said, looking a little downcast. "It's not like you to be that way towards her—she's like your duty to protect and all. What's got you so down?"

"W-Well—It's just—! Ugh!" Slapping my cheek until it's stained red, I say, "She's still treating me like a little kid even once I've become an adult. I guess I'm just annoyed—I go out almost every day to save people and go one potentially life-threatening adventures, and she still sees me as the annoying baby I was ten years ago. I just don't know what to do anymore."

After staring at my short outburst, Jake responds, "Have you just tried telling her how you feel?" I stare blankly. No, no I haven't thought of that. "It's just that I know you've always felt kind of annoyed being treated like a kid, but now that you're not anymore, why don't you just go up to her and… ask her to stop."

"Jake…" I start, "you're a genius."

Author's Note!

Hey! What's up? How's life? Great? Awesome! Anyways... I'm just here to talk about a review I received in the last chapter. I cannot respond, because it was submitted by somebody anonymous so I will just answer it here! It was so, so sweet. I love whoever made it. But I will be answering why I chose to age Finn up to eighteen in this story. It's because I was very disappointed that they never gave him his long-awaited eighteenth birthday in the show. I was so looking forward to seeing my boy breach adulthood, but alas he never did. So I thought, "Fuck it! Can't trust actual story boarders and professionals to do an fanfiction writer's job." So, voila! Finn is eighteen and ready to drink, curse, and get with the ladies if ya know what I mean. ;) Anyways, thanks for reading.

(Also, sorry this chapter is so short... I've never considered myself that great of a writer... And writing something this short literally took me three days. Don't ask me how long it took me to writer the first chapter... It's just embarrassing.)

-Shelingale3