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This was a good night, Marceline thought, as she and Finn backflipped off the wolves. Their laughter echoed long after the beast’s howls carried off into the night. The soft grass of the field underneath, the stars overhead… And a friend to goof off with right next to her. Yeah. This was nice.
“Man, Jake is gonna be so mad at me,” Finn laughed, still stuck in a laughing fit.
Marceline looked over at Finn with a mischievous smile. “What for, dude?”
Finn tilted his head. “Uh, for totally thrashing couples’ night?”
“Nahh, dude,” she waved it off. “Trust me. You scared Rainicorn right into Jake’s arms, better than some cheesy movie ever could.”
“Weird.”
“You’re telling me. There’s a reason I don’t do the couple thing.” Anymore. And there were a lot of reasons for that, but heck if she was telling Finn any of those.
“Thanks for coming with me tonight as a not-couple thing, then.”
“Better than going with Bonnibel?~” she trilled teasingly. It was just a joke. And, you know, maaaybe she’d get a cheap petty thrill from one of Bonnie’s friends having a better time with her. But that was funny too.
But instead of joining in on the joke, his smile fell. “Heh, the princess is def mad at me.”
She rolled her eyes at his morose tone and tried to ignore the weird feeling in her stomach. “Psh. For what? The noise and the wrestling and the wolves and the lute suit?” she counted off her fingers.
After a beat he answered, “Uh, yeah?” like it was obvious, only to add, “Well, besides the lute suit. She thought that was funny.”
“Dude!” she emphasized with a shake of her hand. “It’s not your fault she doesn’t know how to have fun anymore!”
“It was fun for us, but I dunno, she seemed pretty POAF’d…” he trailed off, worry in his eyes.
Marceline blew some hair out of her face. “She did seem pretty Peeved Out And Freak’d,” she conceded, even though she didn’t want to.
“She banished me from the kingdom till I ‘stop acting like a psycho’!” He quoted with his fingers. “How do I do that? Not stab and cut junk? That’s my thing!” He flailed his arms around and Marceline sighed.
“Look. How many times have you saved her pink princess posteri again? She’ll get over it.”
He exhaled. “You’re probably right.”
“Always am,” she said, all confident, like she could manifest it.
“You were tonight,” he said with a soft smile. “It was a really algebraic night.” She couldn’t help but smile back in the face of such a geniune… well, face. Been a long time since anyone looked at her like that- no expectation, no pedestal, nothing they wanted. And no disappointment, no judgement, no… fear. Even when she scared Jake, all Finn did was laugh.
Give it time, the old thoughts said, you’ll scare him off too, and yeah, maybe. Probably.
But not tonight.
“Yeah, well, I thought it was an additional time too,” she drawled, nudging him playfully with her elbow.
“Additional!” He snickered and snorted. Glob, what a dork. “I gotta use that! Oh…” He wiped at his eyes. “I should head back home ‘fore Jake freaks his gourd. See you later, I guess, Marceline.” The smile was still there, but so were the lines of worry, and her darn gut twisted into a gut knot. He was already headed off- miracle he stayed still so long, really- when her voice got ahead of her brain.
“Finn?” He stopped and tilted his head again. Crud. She had to finish now. “Don’t…” she swallowed past the embarrassment, the vulnerability caught in her throat. She started it, she had to finish it. “Don’t worry about Bonnibel. It’ll be cool, okay?”
There was a grateful quirk to his lip, but the anxiety in his gaze only dimmed. “Thanks, Marceline.” He turned back, pumping his fist. “Post-Adventure Time!” he exclaimed, before taking off down the field. She shook her head with a chuckle. But the gut knot didn’t unwind. Why not?
She thought about the look on his face.
“It’ll be fine,” she told herself. “Not like Bonnibel ever actually cuts people out of her life.” A glare sharp as knives and words cold and furious played through her head on repeat. “…Okay provably wrong, but it’s so not my problem!” Sure she might’ve kinda sorta egged it on and caused it, but so? “What do I care? I don’t. Vampire Queen, baby!” she shot up to her feet and declared to the night sky, daring it to tell her different. “And heck, he should learn that nobody stays anyway! Eventually you’re too much, eventually you scare them off, doesn’t matter if you’re just…”
Mom? Am I… a scary monster?
“A kid…” Her voice caught on the word, and she wrapped an arm around herself. The instinctual squeeze she gave herself jolted her awake and her face shifted into an angry snarling bat. “Stupid Finn, for caring like a stupid loser! Fine!” she roared to the moon. “I’ll do it once! But he better not get used to me fixing his stupid messes!” It was just one time to make things square, that was all, she still didn’t care.
She took off flying towards the palace, stewing and grumbling under her breath all the way there. She noticed the gate still down and scoffed. Didn’t mean a thing to her. She flew right over it and around the place, surveying the palace windows to find them closed one after another. She could try to finesse one open, or shift small enough to go through a crack or hole or something.
Or she was already annoyed enough at having to do this and could do it quick and easy and fun- break a window in. Yeah. She liked that one.
Shifting into a giant bat, she effortlessly crashed through the window with a cackle as she landed. “Vampire Queen, baby!”
The princess’ ‘finest’ swarmed her right away. Guess their response time was alright. Their dopey cries of ‘Intruder!’ were kinda funny, really.
“Halt, intruder!” one cried as a group of them pointed their silly spears at her.
“HaLT inTrudER!” she imitated, nailing the doofy intonation. Like, seriously. Why did Bonnibel make them sound like that?
“Hey! I don’t sound like that!” He protested.
“We all kinda sound like that,” another pointed out, clearly the smartest of the bunch. Heh. Banana bunch. She shifted back to her normal self, and the same one waved. “Oh hey, Marceline!” Clearly the smart one, if he knew he was cool. Wait, wait. If he got her… appeel. Heh. Nice.
She flashed him a peace sign. “Yo.”
“Wait!” Another one nudged him. “Marceline doesn’t come around these days! The princess doesn’t like her anymore!”
“Oh! Right!” He pointed his spear again. “Grrr.” Then, under his breath, “signmypeel…”
And then the voice of the woman of every hour as royally decreed called out, “What’s going on?” as she shuffled through them. “I’ve almost nailed my whistling routi-“ But as soon as their eyes met, the look of wary and prepared irritance on Bonnibel’s face shifted to… well, it was still irritated, but it was more just. Done. Flat. Just like before, outside her window, when she smiled at Finn and didn’t give Marceline the time of night. “Marceline. I should’ve known.” Bubblegum sighed, gesturing to her guards to lower their weapons. “Everybody chill. I can handle…” She looked over Marceline with an unimpressed gaze, and Marceline huffed. “This.” Her guards exclaimed their assent and left the room as the princess sighed and leaned against the wall. “What do you want, Marceline?” Ugh. It’s not like she wanted to talk to Bonnibel either.
“Well, gee!” Marceline started, flippantly saccharine, more than happy to live up to the annoyance the princess saw her as. “Can’t a gal want to see her old pal-“
“Marceline,” Bonnibel cut in. “I have things to do. And I’ve had a long night. So can we skip the…” She waved a hand around. “You. And get to what you want?”
Marceline glowered, hackles successfully raised. Skip her. Yeah, Bonnibel was good at that. She gave a sarcastic bow and trilled in a voice of disdainful veneration, “Apologies, oh pink princess, for wasting your valuable time! Forgive my transgressions!”
“If I were, I’d have no idea where to start,” she deadpanned, and Marceline scoffed, straightening back up. Like she said. All the fun left Bonnie for a cooler spot a long time ago.
“Look,” she started, as serious as she could get. “Finn…” She took a breath and looked away. “He was really guilty about upsetting you. Glob knows why, cause anything and everything does. But it wasn’t his fault, alright? He was taking my advice.” And Jake’s, but she figured Bonnibel would be more upset about the wolves and the wrestling than the lute suit. Though she should’ve been upset by that thing.
“This is about Finn?” Bubblegum asked after a beat, voice quieter in a way that got under Marceline’s skin and made it shiver from exposure. She let out a breath of irritation as she met the princess’ gaze, posturing up all tough.
“I just don’t want him taking credit for some pretty hilarious pranks. So don’t be mad at him, okay? Be mad at me.” That was never too hard for Bonnibel, and she seemed to agree as she rolled her eyes.
“Believe me, I don’t need your permission for that. Somehow,” she drawled, “I already pieced together it was your fault.”
Marceline blinked, caught off guard. “You did?”
“Finn’s a good kid. He starts doing not good things and you just happen to be around? Not hard to connect those dots, Marceline.”
A familiar sting went through her chest. Hur- Anger. “That’s what you think of me?” she glowered.
“It’s what you think of yourself!” Bubblegum shot back, obviously in no mood to indulge her. “You just said you wanted credit for trying to sabotage me and Finn’s friendship!”
“That’s not what it was!” Sure, Finn and PB would neeeever work out for so many reasons. Better to get that out of the way ASAP. But it wasn’t supposed to ruin their friendship. “I don’t care about your friendship! It was just funny!”
“Ohhhh, well!” Bonnibel explained in that oh so annoying fake agreeing voice she did when she thought Marceline was being obviously wrong and mean and thus stupid and trash for not getting it. “All better then!”
She scoffed. “Oh, like you’re suuuuch a good friend? Least I make time for him! You couldn’t spare a night for the kid always saving your royal rump!”
Bubblegum gasped in offense. “Excuse me for not having the ability to drop everything when he asked the night of! Some of us have responsibilities!” she sniped back.
Marceline laughed cruelly, throwing her head back. “Right, right! Responsibilities like whistling?”
She gasped again even longer and even more deeply offended this time. “The Whistling Choir Death Match Championship," Bonnibel enunciated each syllable like Marceline was the idiot for not getting it inherently, “Is a time honored tradition and a way to bring prestige to one’s kingdom and build relations with others! Which you’d know if you had an actual kingdom.” She seemed proud of that line, when really, it was pretty metal to not have a kingdom cause you killed your would-be subjects for the world if you asked Marceline. But of course the princess of candy didn’t get that.
Marceline groaned, running a hand through her hair and stomping the ground. “Ugh! Forget it! I don’t know why I bother!”
She turned back to the window, ready to bail and write some killer songs about how someone puts herself on a pedestal of sweets only to be stopped by a quiet, “Wait,” at the window sill. She didn’t turn back. Easier that way. But she stopped mid flight. “I knew you were behind the wolves. Probably the wrestling. But I didn’t think you’d come to… not apologize.” She chuckled, wryly, like the very thought was silly to think. “But to own it. You… really care about him, don’t you?” she asked, softly. A softness Marceline hadn’t heard in a long time. Her breath caught, her chest tightened. Words were suddenly so hard to get out.
“He’s cool,” she said, weak and with a forced nonchalance after way too long a moment.
Bonnibel sighed. “I care about him too, you know. And he clearly cares about you. I don’t… want to thrust him between all our drama, that’s not fair to him. I don’t want him to feel awkward or like he has to take sides. And it’s not exactly fun for me either. So can we just…”
Marceline wasn’t sure what she thought Bonnibel was going to say. Even less what she hoped she was going to, not that she’d admit that. But the next words out of her mouth were a new low, even for Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum.
“Pretend it never happened?” Marceline’s eyes widened at how Bonnie could even think of that, let alone say it. Her breath caught. She could hear the polite but satisfied smile in the princess’ voice, like she was nailing a diplomatic talk, like she was extending an olive branch.
Marceline wanted to burn that branch to a crisp.
‘Pretend it never happened.’ The meanest thing Bonnibel could’ve ever said. Pretend like it was nothing. Like she was nothing. Like they were nothing. Just forget about it. It didn’t matter. It never mattered. It was just an inconvenience now, for Finn, for Bubblegum.
“For his sake,” Bonnibel continued, oblivious as ever. “If he invites us to a group hang, or whatever. We can just… keep it cool!”
“Whatever,” Marceline echoed. She exhaled through her nose. “Way ahead of the curve on the pretending thing, aren’t you?”
“Marceline.“ That tired, defeated tone again. Like she had to try, not cause she wanted to comfort. If she wanted to comfort it’d be Marcy or Marce, but she never said that all night, not once. After all. Those days never happened. “I just don’t want it to be a problem-“
“You got it, Princess,” Marceline said in a forced calm, bout as dead as she was. She was used to it. She’s been a problem since… as long as she could remember, and one everyone got tired of attempting. She just had to avoid Bonnibel anytime it wasn’t a group thing. Don’t talk to her when it was. Easy. Not like Bonnie mattered either. She didn’t. The more Marceline told herself that, the sooner she’d start to believe it, like Bonnibel did. “Problem solved,” she said as she flew out the window to anywhere but there.
This night freaking sucked.