Chapter 28: Made Earlier

"Marceline…tell me about your childhood."

The vampire's heart sank at the request. Not only had it not really been a request in the first place, her early days (heck, her first few hundred years) were not something she really cared to remember. So, instead of addressing the issue with a twenty-one year old Bonnibel Bubblegum, she flippantly avoided the topic, as was her usual candor. "What do you mean, Bonnibel?" she evaded.

"Well…like…I don't know…" The candy princess murmured, losing all her nerve from asking the question in the first place. Her voice fell into embarrassed whispers. "I just…I know you weren't always a vampire and I know you didn't always drink red and I know your father hasn't been around a lot and I know you are really a good person despite your protests and I just…I don't know…and I want to." Bubblegum glanced up from her place on the bed to look at a floating Marceline in earnest.

Now came the internal battle that Marceline always fought whenever something personal was to be told about her. She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow in concentration. Bubblegum waited patiently, expectantly, as Marceline figured out whether or not to divulge this information.

Still, the vampire struggled. Should I tell her? I mean…I suppose she has a right to know who I was…I've known her for her whole life, so it would only be in the interest of fairness. But glob knows that girl is going to ask a million questions about things I'd probably wish I couldn't remember. And that's another thing! Who's to say I remember everything she wants to know anyway? I mean…I was created during a time of ultimate destruction and war and honestly, that is not such a nice thing to remember. Would she even want to know about that? But then again she does love history…and I do love her…

Marceline looked at Bubblegum for a moment before turning away, her mind made up. "Honestly, Bubblegum, it isn't something I'm too keen on remembering." She said quietly, a silent sigh of painful times past escaping her. "My childhood was…unfortunate. I don't remember my birth parents in the slightest and to say my father was a good man would be a gross exaggeration. To say he was a bad man would be a gross understatement." Bubblegum sat criss-crossed on the bed, eyeing Marceline with intense focus. The vampire had not caught her gaze. "When I first met Hunson Abadeer he told me his name was Maddox. He later told me it was a name the humans had bestowed upon him. Either way…" she sighed, "either way he was–is– a monster. He killed three people before my eyes at the age of five. And I told him I wasn't scared. Thinking back…I don't think I knew anything but fear, so this new thing was just another terror.

"He tried so hard to scare me but I…I told him I wasn't and that he should…that I wanted to…" Marceline blinked back tears, casting her head down and away from Bubblegum so she couldn't see. Five-year-old Marceline was not a pleasant memory. "I didn't know. I was so young, so young. All I knew was that if he bit me, I'd still live. That's all I knew…I didn't know…I didn't think that…" she choked on her words, the stupidity of her actions overwhelming her. "If I could do it again, I'd have him kill me." She whispered with angry conviction.

Bubblegum began crying at the revelation, but remained silent, allowing the girl to continue. "Now I know that I wouldn't have met you if things weren't that way but…I've been nothing but trouble for you besides and…and it hasn't been so great for me either. Still, I had him change me, even if he told me I'd turn into a thoughtless killing machine. I don't' know why I didn't, don't ask. But…but when he bit me…it was…disgusting. The pain coursing through my body froze my blood in its tracks. It burned me and…" she took a breath, "It felt like I was being consumed by the inside out by some evil thing and he just stood there, laughing with his buddies." She spat.

"When I came too…he was walking away and I told him goodbye. I didn't see him again for twenty years. In the first ten years, I generally went about killing things and drinking blood. It wasn't pleasant, but it was nowhere near as…animal as what my dad was doing. It wasn't until I was resorting to killing children that I realized I was a monster. I spent the next ten years learning how to eat red. By that time, the human population was next to zero. I was having a hard time finding colors as it was and then I'm going back to the diner I was living in to eat the last of my ketchup and fries and there sits my dad, chomping on my fries and cavorting about like no time has passed." Angry tears were streaming down her face.

It wasn't about the fries, it was about the sheer neglect that her father had subjected her to. Leaving a five year old freshly born demon to fend for herself in a world filled with terror, destruction, nuclear holocaust, and murderers was entirely unacceptable. I mean…for shit's sake people tried to kill me just as soon as they laid eyes on me! It's not like the other vampires gave us a good name! I was five…five! Marceline shook her head of the thought, deciding it better to keep the attempts on her five-year-old self from the princess.

"Anyway he played it off and…I kind-of…well I kind-of rampaged. Which is how all the demons ended up back in the Night-O-Sphere and why I contracted the 'You Cannot Leave the Night-O-Sphere' law with the Cosmic Owl. Granted it took a lot of blood, guts, and a couple hundred years or so but…but it got done." She breathed heavily, wiping away at the age in her eyes. The age she hides so well, the experiences she keeps so wonderfully hidden. No one really needed to know all the gory details of what a young Marceline went through. Honestly, they were so horrendous and scarring, she surprised she survived a decent being at all.

Bubblegum, who had kept her silence very well, couldn't help but blurt, "What about the Lich though?"

Marceline's eyes darkened and her mind ran away from her again. She shook. "The lich is a story for another time…" she replied ominously.

Bubblegum looked at her and scowled slightly. "Marci you…you told me what happened but…I mean to ask…how…how did you feel about it all?" she asked, cringing away slightly from the vampire, who was not fond of sharing emotions.

"How did it feel?" She scoffed, and before she knew it, confessions were flying out the door. "Well…to have the only father figure you've ever known neglect you felt like…like he had ripped a piece of me out. I didn't even know what I had done wrong," She hiccoughed sobs from her body, "and when I figured out that my very existence was what was wrong it was like this burning, heat wave wrapped over my brain. I was so angry and I just…killed…everything. And then he comes back all hunky-dory as though I'm fine and we're fine and…I just wanted to kill him." She gasped out. "I wanted to kill him."

"Instead, I sent him and all his kind back where they came from, so I could avoid him for eternity. But at that point I had responsibilities and duties and…it just felt so…feels so…" She searched for words. "Have you ever loved someone who hasn't loved you back? It feels like you are doing everything, everything right and better than you do it for anyone else and working for their approval and love but no matter what you do, you can't make them love you. It's like falling into a pit, and reaching for them, and them not even noticing you're falling. It this happy-sad blackness. You love them so, so much but they just…cant or wont or don't love you back. That is how I felt, feel, and will always feel, I think, about Hunson Abadeer." Marceline confessed.

As much as she hated to admit it, carrying around junk like that for over a thousand years can really have its toll on you, and getting it off her chest was like taking a breath of fresh air after being buried alive. So she cried quietly to herself as warm pink arms encased her in a hug and soft eyes cried with her.

"Did you mean what you said, Marceline? That…that you would have him kill you if you could do it all again?" Bubblegum whispered, scared that Marceline was so unhappy with the way her life had gone that she wished it never to have happened at all.

"I do. And I'm sorry that I do but…over a thousand years I've been alive and it hasn't been easy, not for one second. I don't…I can't…" She sighed, having a hard time trying to explain her feelings. "I would not wish my life upon any other living being. So why would I ever wish it upon myself?" she said quietly.

Bubblegum cried and clung to Marceline with desperation. "But if you…I wouldn't have ever known you! I can't imagine…I don't want to think about that…"

Marceline wrapped her arms around bubblegum and laid them both down on the bed. "No matter what I wish could have happened, I have no doubts that what did happen, was what should have happened." She said softly.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

Marceline tilted a pink chin away from her neck so she could look the princess in the eyes. "Bubblegum, I have never been so sure in a thousand years, that here, with you, is where I am meant to be and meant to stay. If I hadn't been bitten, I would have never known you, and I am so sure that that would have been entirely against the universe's plans because I was made this way for you and you were made your way for me. I was just made a little bit earlier. After all, what's a thousand years in the grand scheme of things?" she said lightly, hoping to life the princess spirits.

"But…you'd change it if you could…"

Marceline exhaled and scowled. "But I can't. And ideally? I would have been born the same year as you with the same mortality as you. I'm not saying I wouldn't want to meet you, I couldn't imagine a worse fate. But if I could go back to my five-year-old self, a person with no knowledge of the amazing and lovely Princess Bubblegum, I would change my choice. And demons would have run amuck and the world would have been worse off than it was but…I can't wish this life upon myself twice…I just…I don't think I could."

Bubblegum, tears still staining her eyes looked at the reflectivity in Marceline, who was looking out at the moon like an old friend. "You're the greatest hero the world has ever known, and no one knows two shakes about it. There wouldn't be an Ooo or a candy kingdom or anything without you and no one even knows it. And for the record…I think you would save the world over and over again and make the same choice."

The vampire looked at her. "The greatest hero, huh?" she asked playfully. She's probably right about the same choice thing anyway…

Bubblegum nodded once with conviction, fire in her eyes. "Yes."

Marceline looked at her in faux skepticism. "Better than Finn and Jake?"

Bubblegum giggled, the damper of their previous conversation melting away at Marceline's playfulness as she cuddled into the older girl. "So much better."

It was promised to be so with a kiss.

A/N

So I haven't been feeling too math lately so all my sadstuffs went into this chapter from BlueLarva who wanted Marci discussing how she became a vampire with Bubblegum.

PLEASE REVIEW AND SUGGEST!

Next one will be severely less depressing, I promise. ALSO...if 'Burning Low' is PB confessing her love for Finn and not some whacked-out freaky-deaky thing involving FP being too whatever for Finn or some other junk, I'm completely ignoring it. I think PB should just be scared she'll lose Finn saving her kingdom from all the chizz that happens there. She is TOTALLY not in love with him. Seriously. Seriously.

-JD