Archive of Our Own

Being in a relationship with Marceline Abadeer was a bit like raising a dog, if said dog was sole heir to a kingdom of demons and had enough raw destructive power to go one-on-one with ancient deities. It was fortunate, then, that Bonnie had never been afraid of power. Fortunate that she’d built her whole life around it – keeping her surroundings under control, keeping other people under control, and hardest of all, keeping herself under control.

Power was, indeed, Bonnie’s life – up to the day it wasn’t. Up to the day her life was turned on its head, and the most important thing became something else. Someone else. She looked up to the clock on the wall, though she didn’t really need to; her plans were thorough enough that her tasks fell in line one after the other when she was left uninterrupted.

And even Marceline, chaotic as she may seem, had her patterns.

Well, pattern, she thought, carefully removing her gloves and tossing them on a biological risk bin. A sleep pattern, which she keeps to. Sometimes.

Marceline, bless her erratic habits and hundreds of years of somewhat pavlovian education, floated to the lab door and remembered to knock.

“No silver, demon blood or unstable composites today,” she dusted her hands against one another. “You can come in.”

Marceline’s smile was radiant when their eyes met. She always looked like that – like she was seeing Bonnie for the first time. Childlike wonder, she’d learned, was a Marceline thing that pulled on her gut ropes when she wasn’t looking. Those were many and varied.

Bonnie kept a list. She was methodical. She kept a lot of lists.

“Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie!” She hardly ever touched the ground, but when she was excited, she had a subconscious habit of bobbing up and down in the air as if hopping. “I prepared the best-est-est story for tonight. The poor Banana Guards will shiver their timbers. You will shiver your timbers, Bonbon.”

“Is that so?” She hummed under her breath, unbuttoning her whitecoat.

“Yes so, hear this out, it starts at a dark tavern in the Slime Kingdom –” Marceline cut herself short abruptly, and it took a moment for Bonnie to follow her gaze and catch on. When she did figure it out, though, she made a point to remove her whitecoat as slow as logically possible.

Marceline knew she knew, and blushed. Bonnie decided to call her out on it anyway, just to assert dominance.

“Like what you see?” She smiled, threw the coat on top of a chair and resumed talking before Marceline had a chance to recover. “So, a tavern in the Slime Kingdom…”

Bonnie was no fool. She knew the effect she had on people, and though she couldn’t quite pinpoint the mechanism of it, it wasn’t something she was trying to tune down, either. She enjoyed power of all sorts, that one included, illogical to lie to herself.

“Right. Slime Kingdom, um. So, there’s pirates! Arr! That’s why I said shiver me timbers, cause this is a pirate spooky story,” They made their way through the heavy metal door that locked itself automatically behind them.

Bonnie smiled and took her hand, which made Marceline smile in turn. Marceline was good with words, Bonnie with gestures and actions, and though their divergence in love languages would sometimes cause them headaches, they’d had more than enough time to learn how to be comfortable around each other. “I hope you don’t make them explode again, Marcy. Rebuilding them is quite the setback in my schedule.”

“But they love spooky stories!”

“Children tend to love things that are dangerous,” She commented absently, letting Marceline lead their way through a detour. She wasn’t one for straightforward paths, and though the banana guards were meticulous about their bedtime stories, Bonnie had planned for her mate’s fickleness. “Adrenaline stimulates the release of dopamine which in turn induces a state of wellbeing that often outlasts the perceived threat.” 

“What?”

“When you get scared but then feel safe again, the relief makes you happy,” she translated, though she didn’t need to. Marceline was fiendishly smart, and all the time she spent on the lab making Bonnie company was also time she spent picking up knowledge. She knew far more than she let on, but Bonnie supposed they both did.

“Nerd,” Marceline squeezed her hand. “So there’s a treasure, of course, no pirate story without a treasure, and then there’s our heroes. One of them is an awesome Rockstar –”

“I suppose the other is a princess made of… ice cream?”

“Vanilla ice cream, cause she’s, you know, kind of blasé, all stiff about her rules and schedules.”

Bonnie smirked at the banter. “Chocolate flakes on that vanilla. She might surprise you.”

“Chocolate flakes, I’ll give you that.” Marceline let go of her hand and floated down behind her, wrapping her arms around Bonnie’s neck.

It was a protective stance, just like wrapping an arm around her shoulder or making sure Bonnie walked on the inner part of the sidewalk when they held hands. Those seemed to be comfort behaviors that catered to her demonic and vampiric roots, so Bonnie didn’t mind indulging. 

“Thanks for joining me on banana guard bedtime, Marceline, I appreciate your company. And your stories.” Words weren’t her love language, but she tried anyway.

“Of course,” Marceline whispered close to her ear. “I’m just glad we can spend some time together.”

Bonnie took a hand to Marceline’s arm and brushed her thumb against cold skin. “I’ve been meaning to ask, though it keeps slipping my mind – I was wondering whether you’d be willing to give my guards some shape of basic musical and artistic education?”

“Music and art education? You want statues and choirs to your name?”

“Hm. Something to be considered, though not what I first had in mind.”  She turned her head sideways, so she could more-or-less see Marcy’s face resting on her shoulder. “It has come to my attention that my banana guards seem to have inclinations for the arts. Creating art is a sign of independent thought and feeling, the truest manifestation of the soul, and it brings me great joy to learn that. I would have the best for them, and a good mentor goes a long way on bringing out natural aptitude.”

“Doesn’t the Candy Kingdom have proper instructors, though? You guys even have an orchestra.”

“We do, and should you find yourself unavailable, I will call upon them for the task.” She tugged on Marceline’s arms. Marceline released the grip on her and Bonnie pulled her weightless body so that the two faced each other. “However, I have also noticed that the banana guards regard you with great admiration –”

“The banana guards think I’m cool?”

“ – correct.” Bonnie met Marceline’s gaze and smiled. “A most excellent conclusion on their part. And though you and I have been together for as long as the Candy Kingdom has existed, our relationship is still news to most citizens. So this strikes me as an opportunity for them to bond with you.”

“Your kids think I’m cool and you want me to bond with them,” Marceline blinked, as if processing what she’d just heard. It wasn’t the way Bonnie would put things, but she decided Marceline’s comprehension of the matter was fundamentally right. “Wow, that seems – that seems quite serious, doesn’t it?” Marceline chuckled. There was a blush on her cheeks. Bonnie could detect hints of anxiety in the tone. “As if we were a married couple or something.”

“We are a mated pair, which is the closest to marriage in your culture,” Bonnie pointed out, then shrugged. “As for marriage itself, I figured you’d want to do the proposing, since I was the one who proposed the mating ritual. So I’ve been waiting. But if that’s an incorrect assumption, I can do it myself. That is up to you.”

“I – um – uh –” Marceline’s blush deepened. “I’ll do it! Definitely! Um – tutoring the banana guards, I mean. And, uh. The other stuff, I’ll – yes. I’d like to do that too. Absolutely.”

Bonnie nodded, then wrapped an arm around Marceline’s waist and pulled her forward towards the guards’ dormitories. “Then I will make the arrangements.” She considered asking for Marceline’s schedules, but knew she would find none. “I’ll drop the available class hours on your drawer and you can pick the one that better suits –”

“My drawer?”

Bonnie frowned. “The one on your side of the closet?”

“My side –” Marceline shook her head as if to clear it, then rubbed her eyes. “No, Bonnie, that’s – the closet is all yours. I just put things there to annoy you, see? Cause I know how you like your stuff to be orderly.”

“Marceline, I haven’t used that side of the closet in months. You put your things there.” She extended her palm and tapped it with an open hand as if dividing it in half. “I put my things on the other side. Your side, my side. Our closet.”

“Right!” She nodded a little too fast. “Ha ha. Of course. I totally knew you had spaces in your room meant for me. Just pulling your leg.”

“Marcy –”

“Look! We’re here. Banana guards! Let’s spook them with a pirate story, right, Bon?”

Bonnie’s intuition told her that there was more going on than Marceline was letting on, but that same intuition wasn’t able to tell her what exactly that was, and it would take her far too much effort to come up with hypothesis that would probably be all wrong, so she let it go and trusted Marceline would bring it up when she felt ready. “Right. Pirates. So what’s the treasure those pirates are looking for?”

Marceline froze in the air and turned around, her brow furrowed into a frown. She held Bonnie’s gaze for a long moment. “In the end, they find out that the real treasure is the bond they share.” Before Bonnie could even process that statement, Marceline burst out laughing. “Just kidding. It’s a truckload of gold and riches. And a magic ring rumored to make reality the wearer’s deepest wishes. Like the Ice Thing’s crown but without the mad and evil stuff. But enough with the spoilers!”

Bonnie smiled. Marceline’s creative process was scattered and incomprehensible, riddled with cues and messages written between the lines that she would miss more often than not.

Part of her charm, Bonnie supposed. “Then let us get to it before the curiosity kills me.” She said it in a monotone that gave the sentence hints of cynicism, even though she was curious. She was trying to be less mean, but she knew her habitual behavior could be perceived as acidic. “Marcy? One more thing.”

“Mm?”

They stopped walking. Right on schedule, the gates of the banana guard academy began to lower. Bonnie closed the distance between them, yanked Marceline by the collar and planted a kiss on her lips, brief yet firm. “I love you.” A pause. She needed to know her performance status. “Are you feeling it?”

The radiant smile that spread on Marceline’s lips told her that she’d done a good job. “I’m feeling it. I love you too, Bon. Let’s see to those pirates.”

“I gotta say, Jake, my bro, things ain’t looking good for you. I wonder why he doesn’t have any legs?”

To her side, Lady Rainicorn let out a multitude of expletives. Bonnie stared at the dog in question, then shot a glare at her girlfriend and sighed. “Marceline, that’s just plain distasteful. You can’t just ask people why they have no legs. Besides, we can’t jump to conclusions here. Who’s to say all stretchy animals are related?”

“Right! Listen to the brainlord!” Jake gestured with exasperation. “I ain’t some back stabbin’ scum! I’m an honorable dog! I only have one lady. My Lady!”

Bonnie stared at the cow in front of them – the animal stretched out for at least a kilometer, until its body went out of sight on the horizon. Though she wouldn’t voice it, Marceline did have a point – she’d never seen that stretchiness from any creature other than Jake and his children. “Besides, although it does suggest a genetic link, this does not necessarily imply infidelity.”

“What?”

“Could just be your cousin or something,” Marceline translated, floating around the cow. “Maybe we should just ask him, have all of you nerds thought of that?”

Bonnie did think of it, the fundamental problem being that to talk to the cow, they’d need to face it, and they were currently staring at the animal’s rear end. She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand and squinted. “That would be the easiest solution, theoretically, but this cow stretches so far, I reckon by the time you reach the head and get back, I’ll have all my biochemical tests long done.”

She didn’t mean it as a challenge, but of course Marceline took it as one. “You’re on, princess,” she grinned, then without waiting for a reply, bolted forward, following the cow’s body towards the head.

Bonnie smiled. She punctured the cow’s skin with a needle and took a blood sample, then did the same to Jake. Her biochemical proofs and comparisons ran for approximately one hour, after which she had an answer and Jake and Lady went off for a romantic sorry-I-accused-you dinner of sorts.

She waited. She unrolled a picnic towel from her backpack, and then a foldable parasol. She put a selection of red objects on top of it – an apple, a small billiard ball and one big matchstick, specially designed because she knew Marceline liked the sparkly taste of them. She laid down on the towel and stared at the sky, actively thinking of nothing.

It took Marceline exactly two hours and eighteen minutes to return, not that she was particularly keeping track.

“Bonnie!” She flew over, eyes twinkling with excitement. “You won’t believe what I found!”

Bonnie didn’t need to believe it, because she had cracked the mystery already and she knew it, but she smiled regardless, propping herself up on her elbows. Ooo was a strange land, and Marceline was a particularly curious, excitable person.

Like a dog, she figured. “Do tell?”

“It turns out the cow isn’t a cow at all and it’s not even stretchy –” She hopped in the air. Bonnie took the apple and extended it to her.” – thanks, Bon. Anyway, as I was saying, it’s just a very very very long snake. So Jake – wait, where’s Jake?” She frowned, then sucked the red out of the apple and tossed it to the side. “Oh. You figured it out before me, didn’t you?”

She grabbed Marceline’s wrist and pulled her down to the ground, then planted a kiss on her cheek. “It turns out reptile blood and dog-alien blood are easy to tell apart. Jake’s otherworldly traits are actually closer to amphibians.”

“Aw, man,” Marceline whined, reaching out for the billiard ball while nestling herself on Bonnie’s chest. “Well you didn’t get to talk to the long-snake-who-looks-like-a-cow. I did. Your loss. He’s a pretty nice guy. Apologized for the trouble and everything.”

“It took you a while. How long was he, do you think?” Bonnie ran her fingers through Marceline’s hair, and she growled. It was a friendly snarl, she knew, though Marceline sometimes did bite.

“Not that long, to be honest. I took a detour.”

That seemed perfectly in character of her, so Bonnie didn’t think much of it. “Chasing something interesting?”

She hesitated more than she usually did, and that got Bonnie’s attention. “I paid Simon a visit. He’s doing all right, with Betty.” A pause. “Wishes we visited more often. I told him I’ve been busy, managing the whole Candy Kingdom-Nightosphere embassy thing.”

Ever since they officialized their union in demon culture, they had been trying to approach both kingdoms, if only because Marceline was impossibly popular in the Nightosphere, and the news of her bonding with a candy person from Ooo spread like wildfire. The demons wanted to visit Ooo. The demons wanted to meet candy people. The candy people didn’t particularly want to meet the demons, but they were welcoming enough to any outsider.

Bonnie indulged. They had a permanent gate to the Nightosphere in the Candy Kingdom now, complete with a customs office that emitted visas and kept track of where the demons were and whether they were up to no good. They had to deal with a few incidents, mostly mean-spirited pranks and accidental soul sucking, but Marceline was terrifying enough that the demons kept in line.

“We can make time to see him more,” she conceded, lying back down. The sky was bright blue, with a few fluffy clouds that just might have been Cloud Kingdom houses. “I know he’s important to you. Maybe a regular family dinner. I can make it monthly for sure. Biweekly, maybe.”

“I –” Marceline hesitated again. It set Bonnie’s intuition into overdrive. “I’d like that very much, I think. Thanks, Bon.” She didn’t make eye contact. Bonnie had half a mind to ask her what was wrong, but she changed the subject. “You’ve been waiting for me. Thanks, but won’t the Candy Kingdom burn down if you’re away for so long?”

A valid concern. She still wanted to ask Marceline what was up between her and Simon, but she was also a linear thinker who had trouble keeping track of more than one topic of conversation, so she let it go, knowing that choice could backfire. “It might,” she acknowledged with a shrug.

“And… you don’t mind?”

Bonnie sighed and crossed her legs at the ankles. “The Candy Kingdom needs a complete rebuilding secondary to total destruction, on average, between ten and fifteen times a year.” Marceline was kneeling on the towel, looking at her, and Bonnie yanked her down by the waist. “We’re halfway through the year, and I’ve only had to rebuild twice. I appreciate Finn and Jake’s growing efficiency at their hero business, but it’s starting to cause unemployment.”

Marceline let herself be pulled, rolling on top of Bonnie. “So you’re saying… you let it burn down… for the economy?”

Bonnie grinned. “In a way. Though it is also for the engineering, architecture, urbanism and technological-based sciences. A new rebuilding always pushes the kingdom forward in terms of what we can achieve. I’m – ” she chose her next words carefully. “In a way, I’m always looking forward to the next version. And…”

“And?” Marceline pressed, though her hands were on Bonnie’s waist and she was looking at Bonnie’s lips in a way that showed she might have been distracted.

“And I look forward to the next ones more than ever, because they’ll be the ones we build together.” She searched Marceline’s eyes for a reaction, unusually anxious, knowing that she’d just given away important information.

Marceline bit her bottom lip, eyes widening. Bonnie waited. She liked bouncing off ideas with other people, building them even as she shared them, but Marceline’s thought process was much more internal.

“Thank you,” Marceline said finally, after Bonnie had grown comfortable under her near-weightless body. “For making time for me and… and including me in your plans. I – I know I freeze up sometimes, but that’s because I know how much that means to you and it overwhelms me.”

Bonnie found that explanation acceptable, so she nodded. When she did, her forehead bumped against Marceline’s, which brought to her attention once again just how close they were. Bonnie wasn’t one to let emotions cloud her thoughts, ever, but she knew being that close to Marceline made her body react in ways that escaped her control, and so she cut the conversation short. “You didn’t try the matchstick.”

Marceline grinned. “Saving the best for last,” she looked at the stick. It flew in their direction as if of its own will. Bonnie arched an eyebrow. Telekinesis was something Marceline was capable of, but hardly used, because she didn’t like showing all her cards.

Bonnie watched as Marceline drained the matchstick of its color, sparks exploding in her mouth as she did. It should have hurt, but her half-demon nature made her essentially impervious to fire. “Delicious,” Marceline growled, but it wasn’t really her snack she was looking at.

Bonnie felt something crawl up her spine, a delightful shiver of trepidation that made her skin break into goosebumps and her lips curl into a smirk. She trailed her fingers over Marceline’s ribs, bringing out a low, dangerous-sounding snarl.

Bonnie was deliberate in her choices and calculating in her decisions, and she knew Marceline like she knew the back of her hand. She didn’t always understand Marceline, but she understood her body, at least – the likes and dislikes, the nutritional needs, the allergies.

The aphrodisiacs.

Marceline’s lips tasted of phosphorous when they kissed, and maybe it was the matchstick, but her very touch made Bonnie’s skin feel like fire.

“Bonnie –”

It took her less than two seconds to pull off her white coat and throw it on top of Marceline, cursing as she moved. As much as she had pavlovian conditioned Marceline to not walk in without knocking, Bonnie also had plenty practice on shielding her when she didn’t.

She still did not hold back on the lecture, though. “Powdered sunlight! I’m working with powdered sunlight! What did I tell you about knocking!”

Bonnie dragged Marceline to a side, making sure her coat covered all her skin. Once she had sat her girlfriend down on a stool, she turned around and kicked a conveniently placed red button. Immediately an alarm rung through the room, and a second later all her workbenches were swallowed by the ground.

The contents on her desk would be automatically incinerated, her notes included, but at that point her experiments went wrong often enough that she had developed scarily accurate memory of what she’d been doing.

“Honestly! We’ve been over this a thousand times!” she pulled out a couple towels from the emergency cleanup cabinet. She dampened one on the sink and walked back to Marceline, who was still hidden under her lab coat. “You do this so much I have an entire cabinet filled with things to clean you up! And antidotes! And distilled essence of red in case you get maimed!”

Marceline peeked out from under the cloth with a sheepish expression. “You do?”

She uncovered Marceline and passive-aggressively tossed the dry red towel at her while rubbing her exposed arms with the damp one. “I’m Bonnibel Bubblegum and I am always prepared,” she hissed, still fuming. “Look at me!”

Marceline did as she was told, staring at her with big puppy eyes. Bonnie sighed. “Does it hurt anywhere?” She gently wiped Marceline’s face, searching the skin for any signs of burns.

“Not really, I’m all right, thanks.” She blinked. “And, um. I’m sorry. I – I can be inattentive when I get excited.”

“I know,” she muttered, satisfied with her cleaning. She kicked the whitecoat to a corner of the room. “Hence the preventive cabinet. Now, what was it that got you excited enough to make you forgetful?”

And just like that, she was smiling again. “Right!” She slowly floated from her seat. Bonnie pushed her back down. “Candy-demon babies.”

“What?”

“Candy-demon babies!” Marceline covered Bonnie’s hands with her own. “I think the stamp-collector demon had a child with Mr. Cupcake.”

“What?!” Bonnie rubbed her eyes. She squeezed Marceline’s hands, then pressed a kiss to her cheek and walked over to the lab’s automatic coffee machine. She punched three buttons in sequence and waited as it whirred. “Scheiße. Not enough caffeine in my blood for this.”

“I swear, Bon, they were just – just these tiny little cupcake imps. Twins! Running around. One of them spits fire. The other has wings.”

Bonnie took the mug of coffee and tweaked the machine, then set it to work again. “How is that even… biologically possible?” She took a sip. That demons and candy people would form romantic relationships was to be expected, what with the increased interactions between them. But she never expected them to be able to make offspring.

“Demons reproduce by soul binding,” Marceline explained. “When mama demon and – well it can be another mama demon, or a papa demon, or two papa demons, pure-blooded demons get to choose their own sex –”

“I get the idea, sweetheart.” The coffee machine beeped, and Bonnie took a mug of rich-smelling cranberry tea to Marceline. “This is a new development. Unprecedented. The Candy Kingdom will need… a lot of adaptations. I should probably get to work on fire-resistant candy alloys. I’ll shift my research schedule around it. Prioritize.”

“Oh.” Marceline tilted her head and took the cup. “You’re… you’re okay with it? I thought you’d be more, you know. Freaked out. You don’t like it when things escape your control, and candy-demons seem… volatile, to say the least.”

She frowned and stared intently at Marceline. “I would never get in the way of love,” she hesitated, thought of Finn and Phoebe and winced. “Not – not again. I wouldn’t. And how hypocritical would it be of me to… deny my citizens of the joy I’ve found in you?” She trailed her fingers on the back of Marceline’s hand. “I just want you… and your people to feel welcome. So this is good news, really. We’ll have to adapt to it, sure, but all in all, I’m happy with it.”

A pause. Marceline seemed deep in thought, furrowing her brow. She drained the tea of  color, just a little, turning it into a pastel tone. “Is that why you had the candy people put little red flags on their windows? Snacks to make me feel welcome?”

Bonnie’s expression broke into a full grin. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t… want that?”

“I didn’t tell them to do it, silly,” her thumb rubbed circles on cold skin. “They did it of their own accord. They’re…very welcoming people. Very loving.”

“Oh. Oh, um. I – I …” Marceline stuttered when Bonnie let her gaze drift down to her lips, then back to her eyes, knowing she would notice. “I – um. Yeah. It took me a while to… to see where you’re coming from, with how protective you are of them. But they are…sweet. Like you are but, um, not nearly as smart.”

Bonnie hesitated then, something warm stirring inside her chest. It made her breath hitch. She felt on the verge of a realization, could taste it just around the corner, and then the feeling passed and the opportunity to catch it was gone. “They’re important to me, and they’re... very dependent and naïve. I love them, Marceline. I’m glad you understand.” She reached out, brushed her fingertips against Marceline’s cheek, traced her jaw and ears. “But… I love you too, and for the longest while I didn’t know how to manage both things. I’m trying to make up for it now. I’m sorry, Marcy.”

Marceline broke eye contact then, and Bonnie could see the glister of tears run down her cheeks. She wiped them with her thumb and leaned in, slowly, giving Marceline room to back away if she wanted. She didn’t. Marceline pressed her lips against Bonnie’s, hesitant at first and then gradually more demanding, biting, hands sneaking to her nape.

Bonnie let out a whimper, her heart rate picking up. She loved the feeling of heat it brought to her cheeks, how it made the blood flush against her skin. She loved it. She loved –

Marceline pressed her fangs against Bonnie’s neck and bit. The sound that came out of her throat was, quite frankly, undignified. “Fuck,” she whispered when Marceline’s fingers found their way under her shirt. “No – hnn.” Bonnie counted to ten. “You know the rules. No lab sex. It’s unsanitary.”

“We don’t have to touch anything,” Marceline whispered on her ear. “I can float.”

It was so tempting Bonnie actually considered it. But she was known for many things, restraint among them. “Unsanitary,” she repeated, and the effort to push Marceline away took all her willpower. “I need to work on those alloys,” she smirked at Marceline’s groan of protest, “But if you behave, then maybe I’ll be able to finish this by tonight.”

Marceline crossed her arms over her chest and sighed, then her expression changed into something dangerously close to mischief. “What if I help?”

Bonnie considered the question. “If you help-not-help, then it’ll take me longer. But if you… if you help-help, then maybe I’ll be done faster.”

“And do you promise all the leftover time will be dedicated to me and to me entirely?”

“Mm-hm.”

“No other new science projects? No Candy Kingdom emergencies?”

“I will let it burn down,” Bonnie replied with her best poker face, only half joking.

Marceline stopped in the air, tapped her finger against her chin and searched Bonnie’s face for something. Whatever it was, she must have found it, because she grinned. “All right.”

“Oh?” Bonnie arched an eyebrow.

“I said all right.” She floated down and her feet touched the ground. “So are you going for fire-retardant or actual fireproofing here? Because for the former you should think about some sort of candy-silicate combination.  Silica is a good choice because it’s nontoxic everywhere except the lungs, so you’d have to figure out a way to prevent dust and aspiration.”

Bonnie gaped. Marceline had a smug grin on her face as she walked to the closet and picked up a pair of whitecoats.  “Now actual fireproofing, that’s tougher. Asbestos are of course out of question, although to be fair, the mechanisms of toxicity are similar to that of silicosis, so we should either figure out new materials or focus on the lungs.”

“I knew it!” Bonnie put her coat on. “I knew you understood more than you let on!”

Marceline laughed.

She and Marceline were together when the earthquake hit. It took Bonnie little over than a minute to get her emergency protocols into motion. It wasn’t a catastrophe in the sense that it didn’t require immediate military intervention, because they weren’t being invaded, and while stressful, a natural disaster was quite low on the panic scale.

Bonnie had a procedure to follow, a checklist she went through on the event of total or semi-total destruction, and she supposed the need for rebuilding was an opportunity to put to test her new fire-resistant candy alloys. Besides, the new candy-demon diplomacy meant that a lot of demons were residing in the kingdom, and Bonnie was eager to see how they would react in those kinds of situations.

She knew what she had to do – first things first, instruct the Gumball Guardians on clearing debris. Then, mobilizing the banana guards to rescue any victims. Then, making a speech to the public to set their minds at ease, because even though the Candy Kingdom was destroyed on a regular basis, they still needed the reassurance that yes, the Princess noticed, and yes, the Princess would help them rebuild.

All of that took her little over two hours, which was less than usual because Marceline had left without explanation as soon as the earth stopped shaking, and without her well-meaning but badly timed efforts to cheer Bonnie up, the process was much quieter, and much faster, and much more efficient –

And also much gloomier. She found herself missing Marceline’s jokes of dubious taste more than she’d care to admit. It wasn’t like her to go off without warning like that, but her absence didn’t particularly worry Bonnie. Whatever she was up to, very few things could offer her harm.

She went through her mental checklist once again. With the rescue teams already at work, the structural damage assessed and the demons being surprisingly helpful and efficient, there were only two more things left for her to do – bringing back any citizens who might have been lethally wounded, which she would get to in the morning, and checking on her brother Neddy.

Neddy didn’t get hurt easily, not physically at least, but he got distraught with as much as a loud noise, let alone quakes. She made her way up the mountain. The guardians proved to be as useless as ever, but given how few people knew about his existence, she filed that as a future Bonnie problem.

She was halfway down the cave when she heard the humming, and it made her speed up her steps, making her way down the slippery stone staircase, trailing her hand on the wall for balance.

“Let’s go in the garden, you’ll find something waiting –”

Bonnie’s pulse sped up for reasons beyond her understanding. She broke into a run.

“Right there where you left it, lying upside down –”

By the time she reached the end of the path and skidded to a halt, she was panting. She fell to her knees, out of air, and watched Marceline float around her brother, gently plucking the strings of her bass and humming a lullaby, the lullaby Bonnie knew she’d learned from her mother.

“Everything stays, right where you left it –”

It was a good thing Marceline had her eyes closed, because Bonnie hated interrupting her singing, but seeing that caused her to be swept by a feeling so overwhelming she couldn’t stop herself from crying.

“Everything stays –”

Her feelings connected like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. She loved Marceline. She’d always loved Marceline, there had never been anyone but her – not even when they were apart did she look anywhere else, because anyone but Marceline would be settling, anyone but her wouldn’t be right. She loved Marceline and she knew it, and yet –

“Ever so slightly, daily and nightly –”

And yet knowing something and feeling something weren’t always the same, and Bonnie knew things more than she felt things.  She brought her fingers to her chest, clutching it, swallowing down a lump in her throat. It hurt and it felt good and she wasn’t sure what to do about it and so she cried, because when it came down to it, she was about as good at dealing with feelings as Neddy.

“In little ways, when everything stays.”

She loved Marceline and she felt it then, unlike anything she’d ever felt before, shattering her heart in all the right ways and building it anew, banishing any shape of rational thought from her mind until she was reduced – or elevated – to a thing that loved, and she didn’t mind. It terrified her, the strength of that feeling and the realization that it ruled over her more than she ruled over it.

“…Bonnie?”

Bonnie loved, burning, insidious to a mind that was so rational, seeping into the core of her logic itself. She loved without knowing, incorporating that feeling into her actions, letting it sway her plans, oblivious to it even as it put smiles on her lips and set her insides on fire. And perhaps that was the only way it could be, because she loved more than she could possibly understand, and trying to might drive her mad.

“You came for Neddy,” she stated, her mind gripping on the shreds of rationality she had left. “You vanished, and I figured you were off to do something but you – you came for Neddy.”

Marceline floated down, frowning and blushing at the same time. “I – um, yes. I remembered last time. How upset he was. And, and I knew you’d be busy up there, and you calmed him with music, and music is sort of my thing so I figured I could give it a try and – are you crying?”

She wiped the tears with the back of her hand and stood even though her knees felt weak. Oblivious to her emotional turmoil, Neddy suckled on his tree root, earthquake forgotten, calm as he could be, calm as he was when she sat next to him and clicked her tongue. “I’m –”

But she couldn’t quite explain it, how meaningful it was to see Marceline step up and care for her brother and soothe him in a way only Bonnie had ever been able to, except she loved Marceline but sometimes loving wasn’t enough, but this somehow made things right. 

Bonnie took a step forward and grabbed Marceline’s hands and pulled her down until her face was within reach, and then she traced her thumb over the shape of Marceline’s jaw and pressed their foreheads together. “Thank you,” she whispered. Marceline met her gaze and she felt every wall around her heart crumble to dust, until she was raw and vulnerable. “I –”

She stopped. Took a deep breath. Marceline, used as she was to her turmoiled emotional process, knew she was meant to wait. I love you, Bonnie thought, but that wasn’t all she needed to say right then.

“You have a feeling,” Marceline prompted gently, feet touching the ground as she pulled Bonnie into her arms. “Take your time with it.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, and closed her eyes. Her guts felt as if a tornado was spinning them. The feeling that squeezed in her chest was suffocating, and for a moment, she was afraid. “I love you,” she exhaled, and opened her eyes, and Marceline’s gentle smile set her mind at ease and the world was right again. “But – no. Not but. And.”

“And,” Marceline squeezed her hands. “You love me, and…”

Bonnie searched Marceline’s gaze for reassurance and found more patience and affection she thought she ever deserved. “And seeing you care for – for my friends and citizens and my brother made me realize a lot of things. That we’ve both grown a lot. That you’re a good person who deserves good things.” She hesitated, then kicked down her final barriers, feeling as if her heart was being ripped from her chest and offered on a plate. “And that I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

Marceline’s eyes widened and Bonnie saw her sharp inhale, saw the blush creep to her cheeks and her lips curl into a smile. She held her breath still, because the Marceline she used to know was flighty and fickle and while they’d both grown, there was always a twinge of leftover uncertainty –

The kiss made her shiver, and she was sure she would have fallen down had Marceline not wrapped her arms around her waist and pulled her close, squeezing Bonnie so tight she felt the pieces of herself glue together again. Her fingers shook when she brought them up to cup Marceline’s cheek.

“I love you,” Marceline whispered against her lips, and kissed her again. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she punctuated the words with kisses, on the corner of Bonnie’s mouth and on her jaw and neck. “Be with me,” Marceline pulled back, looked her in the eyes. “Marry me, Bonnie.”

She felt as if the world crumbled beneath her feet, but that was all right, because Marceline would hold her and they would float together. “Marcy –”           

“No, no, no, wait!” Marceline shook her head in an apparent panic, then pressed a finger to Bonnie’s lips. “Never mind that. Damn it! This was a lame proposal. Terrible! Keep your answer. I want this to be perfect. I want to set it up and prepare and – just let me ask again properly. Please.”

Bonnie grinned. She considered saying that this – an intimate moment, spontaneous and awkward and unplanned, this was the single most Marceline thing she could think of and because of that, it was already perfect. But then again, so was being extra, and Marceline wanted that, and Bonnie had a hard time saying no to harmless requests made with puppy eyes.

“Okay,” she said, and kissed Marceline again, and she couldn’t tell to whom the tears that dampened her cheeks belonged.

On the corner of her vision, Bonnie could swear she saw Neddy smile.

“Marceline, wait up!” she hissed between labored breaths. Marceline could float, Bonnie could not, and while Bonnie did make a point to keep in shape, she didn’t know a single creature who could run that fast up a hill without getting winded.

Particularly not wearing a stupid costume. The banana guards zoomed past her, giggling, holding cardboard swords and wearing weird hats. Marceline, dressed as Pirate Queen, led a procession to a spot under a tree. Bonnie was supposed to be the other pirate queen, presumably, but if she were to be honest, Marceline was leagues better at playing pretend.

“Oh no!” Marceline exclaimed dramatically when Finn and Jake jumped down from the tree branches. Jake had shifted his shape to mimic that of a parrot and Finn had a fake black beard stuck to his face that completely mismatched the wisps of a blonde moustache he had been cultivating.

Bonnie slowed down the pace, watching the two dramatically exchange blows. Finn had swapped his forearm prosthetics for a simple hook, which made for a bizarre picture, the weapon attached to his stump. “Yah!” Marceline jumped forward, sliding the fake sword under Finn’s armpit.

“Yeesh! My heart!” he put a hand over his chest. The banana guards gasped. Finn rolled down the floor, clutching his side. “Damn you! At least you’ll never find my treasure chest right under that tree’s roots!”

The banana guards gasped again. Bonnie fought back a smile. “I win!” Marceline proclaimed, raising her fist to the sky. “But wherever did that pirate hide all the booty, I can only wonder!”

“We don’t know, other princess!” One of her guards stepped forward. “But we will help you look!”

My sweet stupid children, Bonnie scoffed, then made her way to Marceline. “I think I heard him say something about this tree’s roots.”

“What do you think about this, my scurvy mates?” Marceline’s eyes twinkled.

Silence. One of the banana guards shifted on his feet. “Mom, what’s scurvy?”

Marceline visibly groaned. Bonnie covered her mouth with her hand to muffle a giggle. “It’s a disease that makes your teeth fall out.”

She saw all the banana guards’ mouths change to a ‘o’ shape. “But I need my teeth to eat turnips! And diseases are bad. Other mom, I don’t want a disease.”

Marceline rubbed her face with her palms. “Okay my – my non scurvy pirate crew. Search that tree’s roots for treasure!”

The banana guards grinned, mimicking siren sounds with their mouths as they raced to search the tree. Bonnie and Marceline stood behind, watching them bicker and giggle.

“You could have made them a little smarter,” Marceline shook her head. “Sorry, that was mean. Intellectuality and smartness aren’t always the same thing. They’re brilliant artists and musicians, y’know.”

“Hearing that makes me happy. Truly.” Bonnie smiled, then her face fell. “I’ve never quite been able to produce life that was both intellectual and kind. I’m not sure why. Makes me wonder about – well, about myself, really.” She kicked absently kicked a rock on the ground, then looked around. “This place is where we first met.”

Marceline floated closer and took her hand. Her face was unreadable. Bonnie considered asking whether everything was all right, but they were interrupted by the banana guard’s yelling. They’d found the hidden-in-plain-sight treasure chest. Marceline gave her hand a squeeze, then moved toward them. “Well done, my crew! I shall now open this treasure chest!”

Marceline pulled her axe from her back and sliced clean through the chains that held it shut, making the banana guards clap their hands and cheer. When she kicked the box open, it was filled with turnips. “Treasure, children!” the banana guards crowded around her. “But wait! What is this!” she pulled something from the very bottom. A ring.

Bonnie frowned. “Isn’t that –”

“The magic ring!” Marceline slipped it on her finger, then turned to Bonnie. “Looks like I get to make a wish now.” She floated closer.

Bonnie’s heart picked up pace and she felt a blush creep to her cheeks. On the corner of her vision, she saw a now-beardless Finn sit up and watch, excitement so evident on his face that even Bonnie could discern it.

“And here’s the thing I want the most,” Marceline approached and pulled an identical ring from her pocket. She took Bonnie’s hand. “Bonnie, will you marry me?”

She inspected the ring up close when Marceline slid it in, feeling tears pool in her eyes and a lump form on her throat. “You got Simon’s engagement ring,” she muttered, and Marceline’s lips quirked into the lazy smile she’d give Bonnie on early Saturday mornings, the smile that filled her stomach with moths.

She was still waiting for an answer. Bonnie closed the distance between them and pressed their lips together. “I’d love to,” she whispered, and then, noticing the banana guards’ confused but expectant expression, she took off her hat, brought it to her chest and yelled out, “Yes, milady, it would be an honor.”

“Yes girls!” Finn yelled, jumping to his feet. “You got her, Marceline!”

“Score!” Jake added.

The banana guards erupted into cheers. Bonnie had a split second to think oh no before simultaneously and in perfect synch, the tops of their heads exploded, sending their pirate hats flying in all directions. It was too much. Bonnie stared at their clueless faces, their scalps all spiked up and fuming, and burst out laughing.

“Wait, what,” Marceline blinked. “I thought they exploded when scared.”

“They used to,” Bonnie replied between giggles, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “But you were spooking them every night, so I managed to work around that and reprogram them. Now they explode when really really really overjoyed. I didn’t think – ahahaha,” She held her abdomen. “I’m sorry, that’s – that’s just surreal.”

The banana guards approached her, half running and half hopping. “Mom, I think part of my head is missing.”

Bonnie placed her hat on top of his head, covering the hole. “That’s okay. You can go play with your brothers; I’ll stitch you all up when we get home.”

He grinned at that. Soon enough, they were back to their usual antics, poking one another with their fake swords. Bonnie hugged herself and watched them run around for a moment, the gears in her brain turning, putting together pieces of information that built up to something massive –

“What are you thinking about, brainlord?” Marceline took her hand, startling Bonnie into a jump.

She didn’t answer for a long while. Bonnie had a strong intuition that worked behind the curtains in her brain, an algorithm that linked and combined data, building up ideas and analyzing new possibilities. When that connected with her rationality, and it often did, it made her one of the most terrifying minds in Ooo, able to think hundreds of steps ahead, able to plan for the unplanned, able to predict and solve the most unthinkable problems.

But occasionally, every once in a blue moon, that spiderweb of information would connect with her feelings instead, and that was when she had epiphanies, realizations big enough to shift the core of who she was. “I’ve always wanted this,” she said, frowning, thinking and feeling and putting things together all at once.

“A family?” Marceline guessed, following Bonnie’s gaze.

“Yes,” she replied, then shook her head. “No. Not exactly. Not really. I’ve had a family for a long time, Marcy. The boys, the Candy People, Neddy, you, it’s all family.” She let her brain do its work.

Marceline didn’t ask, instead interlacing their fingers and letting her talk it out.

“When I was a kid, I was alone,” Bonnie began finally. “And it wasn’t – it wasn’t just solitude that I tried to beat. I was scared. The world was a dangerous place. You know that as much as I do. It still is.”

Marceline nodded, but didn’t interrupt. Bonnie stared off to the horizon, following the setting sun with her eyes. “When I first… created life, I didn’t make brothers and sisters. I made an uncle and an aunt and an older cousin, because I wanted more than to feel loved. I wanted to feel safe.” She turned her gaze down, stared at the floor. “And I failed that, you know? I failed that colossally. I ended up creating another threat. And so I made the Candy Kingdom and its people, and then I met you, and…”

Bonnie cut herself short, stopping at an incomplete strand of thought. She waited for things to gather together again before resuming her explanation. “I’m not lonely anymore. I got them. I got you. And – and I know the world is not safe, but I trust myself to handle it.”

One banana guard disarmed the other. The sound of laughter and indignant protest rung in the air when Finn and Jake joined the game. “But Marcy, they – the candy people, they feel safe and loved. And it makes me think… that maybe I didn’t fail after all. I could never create what I needed, not for myself, so I became it instead. And now someone out there has all I wished I had, and they have it because of me, and that’s… a really nice feeling. Cause it was tough, growing up like we did. And I don’t want anyone to go through that.”

“Be the change you want to be in the world, huh,” Marceline wrapped one arm around her waist. She was taller, and though she hardly ever touched the ground, she always made a point to float a little bit higher than Bonnie as if to prove a point. It was one of the quirks Bonnie loved.

“You were what was missing,” Bonnie concluded, making Marceline turn her head. “I could never get it right by myself. I could never create this, be this, without you. I needed your… smug smiles and inconvenient pranks and your voice that turns my insides into goop. I needed your love, erratic and intense, and I needed you to accept my… awkward and blunt love back.  I needed –”

Bonnie paused again, faced Marceline. She was going to cry. She was going to make them both cry. She took a deep breath. “Things can never be perfect, Marcy, but I think… I think together we get pretty close. And that’s enough. I feel like I’m enough when I’m with you. I feel like I’m home. I think little Bonnibel would be pretty proud of where I’m at.”

“Yeah,” Marceline whispered between sniffles. “I think little Marcy would be proud of herself, too.” She sucked in a deep breath. “You can get pretty deep with your feelings, Bon.”

Bonnie smirked. “I can, but it is hardly ever comfortable or pleasant. That I push them to background is a deliberate choice, not unlike you playing dumb on my lab when you know all fourteen diastereomers of glucose by heart.”

Marceline laughed. “Guilty as charged.”

She stared at the ring in her finger. “You know, I figured you were going to be more extra, but this was surprisingly discrete.”

“Are you kidding me?” Marceline let go of her hand and floated high above her. “You think I’m done here? You’ve seen nothing!” She turned around to where the banana guards and the boys played. “Guys, proceed to the next part of the plan!”

Bonnie watched as the banana guards scurried into formation, taking out guitars and flutes and kazoos hidden on clouds and under leaves and behind flowers. Jake pulled out his violin from a fold inside his fur. Finn opened his mouth and emitted a synthetic beat.

Marceline floated back down, let her feet touch the ground and wrapped an arm around Bonnie’s waist. The banana guards played in perfect synch, with Jake using a pair of extra hands to wave a stick and conduct the song.

“You taught them well,” she muttered, pressing her face to Marceline’s shoulder. She always smelled of a strange mixture of red things and cinders.

“They’re talented,” Marceline whispered back, then wrapped an arm around Bonnie’s neck and sung. Her voice felt like liquid moonlight. “Slow dance with you –”

Bonnie closed her eyes and danced.