Marshall jerked awake to the sound of a scream and the feeling of the blankets on his legs slipping away from him. He remained disoriented for a few seconds until his eyes focused and a vague shaking blob next to him turned into a panting, trembling Fionna.
' Fi? Are- are you alright? What's wrong, baby?' He stuttered sleepily after a few seconds, pushing himself up with his elbows and touching her arm. There was a sheen of sweat coating her goose-bumped skin. She jumped slightly and turned to look at him, eyes wide with pin-point pupils and tears threatening to spill as she took a staggered breath.
Marshall felt his way back to alertness when Fionna crushed herself into him with an incoherent sob that might've been his name. Her arms wound tightly around his waist, fingers clutching at his shoulder blades and her face buried in his chest, soaking the front of his tank top with a warm wetness.
'... H-hey, it's okay. You're okay, you're safe, Shh. You're okay.' He rubbed her back with one hand and wove the fingers of the other into her hair. He figured it was probably another bad dream, which was kind of a worry. She had said they had stopped when he was there, but perhaps that had just been luck. Nothing had happened today which could've upset her though, she had just revelled in the prescence of Beemo and run around after the kittens, like she had for most of the three days they had been here. She had tired herself out so thoughly with the furballs he had eventually carried her to bed a little while after them, joining her later after scouting himself out some food. Shit, maybe that's why, because he hadn't been there when she fell asleep.

Fionna swallowed down her tears for a moment and pushed herself back, looking up at Marshall and grabbing his face with both hands, her fingers constantly moving like they were trying to make sure he wouldn't disappear.
' I-I, I was playing with the kittens in the f-forest, and then they wanted Cloud Hunt a-and I couldn't find any of them, and then I realised you weren't there either, I didn't know where you were, where any of you were and then s-somebody came out of nowhere from behind me and they pushed me down onto the ground and they were on top of me and I was screaming but you weren't there, I couldn't move and I was s-screaming-' Fionna's breathing had become frantic and shallow as she talked and Marshall could hear her heart thumping in her chest even from this distance.
He cut her off short by pulling her in against him and wrapping her up in his arms, trying to surround her in a protective cage of his body as best he could. His thin frame wasn't much to his advantage there but his height was. Fionna had a chokehold on his neck and listening to her cry was so hard to do, but Marshall only whispered sweet nothings and rocked her, continuing the slow rhythm of one hand up and down her spine.
Fionna slowly began to calm down, the occasional broken breathing and heavy sighs becoming less and less frequent.
' Are-' She swallowed.' Are the babies awake?' Marshall shushed her and concentrated very hard on listening to the noises around them. He could hear their breathing down below, and it remained steady and strong.
' No, they're still asleep, don't worry.' Fionna nodded, her hair tickling his cheek and then she leant back and sighed heavily, releasing her death grip on him and shifting to crossed legs, wiping at her eyes.
' I've had nightmares before, but they didn't use to be this often.' Marshall watched her carefully, feeling a strong sense of empathy for her which was as unusual as it was unwarranted. Empathy was an emotion he had not expected to feel for anyone at all, much less a rape victim, but nightmares were something he understood. He had them sometimes, and he probably caused a couple in his day too.
' I know, baby.' Fionna looked up at him, her eyebrows pulled up and inwards, her lips pressed together unhappily.
' I don't remember going to bed.'

' You were falling asleep on your feet, I took you to bed.'
' But you didn't stay with me?' Marshall blinked at her, a slight pang of guilt travelling through him.
' No, I needed to eat, I... I came back after like, ten minutes though. How do you know that?'
' I wasn't holding you when I woke up.' Fionna answered honestly, then blushed deeply when she realised what she had said. Marshall smiled at her gently, feeling an increasingly-familiar sense of satisfaction settle into his stomach, much the same as it had when she first allowed him to hold her again. It reappeared whenever she said something like that, and it just made him forget that sadness was a thing that existed, even if only for a moment before reality returned. Considering his whole life story, even just for a moment was a pretty enormous achievement.
' Yeah, you do tend to cling on like a leech.'
' Shut up, so do you. I need to be as close as possible or it- I don't feel as- I need to know you're right there.' She muttered reluctantly. Marshall just processed that for a second. High as a kite...
' Well, I'm here now.' He replied a few seconds later, holding his arms open again and giving her a small, understanding smile that made just one of his fangs poke out. He looked so cute that Fionna couldn't help but give a single watery chuckle before she crawled into his embrace. He smelt different, weird because of the filter of tears in her nose and down her throat, and Fionna suddenly realise as she encircled his waist with her arms that she had now memorised what Marshall-lee smelt like. The feeling of his apathetically temperatured body against hers and around hers was becoming familiar too, much more so than it had been about a week ago. She was starting to realise that as much as she was leaning on him for support and comfort, she was also leaning on him because she liked to. Because she liked him.
She didn't like him like that though, did she?
Fionna thought to herself, as she tucked her legs in and Marshall obligingly shifted his so she fit into the space between them, that perhaps trying to figure out whether you liked someone romantically when you were in the middle of a serious cuddle sesh with said someone probably wasn't a good idea.
She did like him, though. And he made her feel safe. Plus she had never found reason to question whether he genuinely enjoyed her company too. A guy like Marshall wouldn't tolerate someone he didn't actually want to be around. Combine that with the fact he was a vampire and well, if he didn't actually want to be there for her then he sure as shit didn't have to be.
So if she did like him like that, would it really be such a bad thing, at least on her end?

' Are you asleep again?' Marshall murmured into her hair, breaking her train of thought.
' No, just thinking.' She shook her head slightly, and Marshall-lee resisted the urge to scratch his chin at the feeling of her hair brushing against it.
' 'Bout what?' He questioned easily, then raised his eyebrows slightly and waited with interest when he felt a flash of heat appear against his chest, where her face was hidden.
' Stuff.' Marshall laughed, reminded of a TV show he had enjoyed before he found out what apocalypses were really like.
' Stuff 'n thaaaaaangs?' He asked with a western drawl. Fionna giggled at the way he had said it and nodded, squeezing his waist.
' Yep.'

They settled easily into a companionable silence, Fionna's thoughts drifting to how weird it was that Marshall could be such an insensitive jackass but also be so caring, Marshall circularly contemplating how much he wanted to kiss her right then but that he shouldn't (he seemed to be following that circle a lot nowdays). Sex would have been great too, but he also shouldn't and probably couldn't anyways.
Oh gob, he just thought that.
He had been doing a complicated dance with his brain on the relations between that particular subject and Fionna, sort of acknowledging that he wanted the two to be connected but not really confirming that directly. This was the first time he had come close to saying to himself ' I want to have sex with Fionna.' He knew that he did, but it was subconscious knowledge that he hadn't really wanted to bring to the forefront of his mind.
However, the rude awakening and subsequent physical intimacy had caught him with his guard down and he suddenly became much less tired as he tried to think about something disgusting and upsetting. Decapitated pig's head filled with maggots. Snapped neck on his bass guitar. Needles. Carrots.
Ugh, fuckin' carrots. Gross.

Sufficiently distracted by his loathing for the orange vegetable, it took Marshall-lee a little while to notice that Fionna had shifted to look at him, staring curiously at the vague expression of distaste on his features. When he did notice however, his expression blanked and he returned the inquisitive stare, wondering why she was looking at him like that. After several seconds of mutual silent questioning, Fionna took one of her hands away from his back and lifted it up towards his face. Marshall remained still, extremely glad that his heart was dead and couldn't thump embarrassingly as the tips of her index and middle finger traced down the side of his forehead and around his eyesocket along his cheekbone, then down the bridge of his nose and over his lips. He parted them slightly as she brushed past, Fionna feeling a ghostly wisp of cool air blow over her hand.

' You have really long eyelashes for a boy.' Fionna said after a moment, moving to the opposite side of his face from where she had started and stroking the backs of her fingers down the line of his jaw to the point of his chin.
' Do I?'
' Yes.' She said, running her middle finger along his bottom lip. Marshall felt as if she was unfairly testing his self control. He wanted to bite. He wanted to bite her finger, her lips, her neck, her collarbones, any part of her he could reach. He wanted to leave a mark on her that would let anyone who came sniffing around know that she was spoken for, even if she really wasn't and that if he had his way no-one would ever so much as look at her again without knowing he had his eye on them and oh Gob what was this situation and why was he letting her touch him like this when he knew he couldn't do anything-
' Well, I wouldn't know.' He replied, his tone much calmer than his head was. Fionna frowned slightly as she traced his cupid's bow and Marshall tried not to freak out about how much she was concentrating on his mouth. He honestly had no idea what was happening.
' So you have no idea what your face looks like?'
' Not no idea, but not much of one.' Marshall swallowed and failed in his attempt not to inhale jaggedly when Fionna ran her thumb up his cheek bone and threaded the tips of her fingers into the hair on the back of his neck.
' Your face is... You look like you're young until you look at your eyes and then there's just so much in there. So many feelings and stories and ideas that I can't tell which is the most important one, which one is the one you feel or think right now. It's like I could look and look and look but I'd never be able to see all the way through to what's in your head. There's just too much.' She said quietly, and Marshall's stunned mind randomly wondered if lack of sleep or some sort of fear-afterglow somehow made her less inhibited. No way Fionna would usually tell him that she thought something like this.
' I guess that's why you can seem like a totally different person sometimes. There's just so much of you that one side can get so far from the other you're like someone else entirely.' Her head tilted to the side and her expression became slightly sad.
' I guess that's also why you like being alone. There's enough of you already to sort out that you don't need someone else to keep you occupied.'

Marshall remained in shocked silence for a short time, frozen by the piercing clarity of her observations. He'd never really thought about it that deeply before, or at least not recently enough that he remembered. That was exactly her point though. Because he'd lived for such a long time, there were so many of his own thoughts and sensations and feelings to consider, so many memories and so much past experience he could draw on if he wished before finding conclusions. If he wanted to, he could justify years of contemplation before coming to a decision on anything.
He could probably stay in a pleasant state of narcissitic examination for a very long time if he really wanted to figure himself out.
He actually kind of didn't though. He wasn't quite sure if he would like understanding himself any more than he did already. Besides, no one else did (though Fionna had come as close as any) and he enjoyed the role of an enigma. A true mystery shouldn't be solvable by anyone, not even itself.
' You're right, I do like being alone,' he answered slowly, Fionna looking up at him with an openess that she always had but that was rarely quite so frank.
' But I don't like being occupied with myself. There's too much for me, as well. I'd rather figure out someone else.' Fionna blinked at him for a second.
' You're sort of beautiful.' She told him matter-of-factly, like she'd just informed him that she liked ice cream. Marshall felt himself blush dramatically, in a way that was very, very hard to make undead creatures do. No pump meant the blood moved extremely slowly, so the emotions had to be pretty strong in order for any real colour to show through.

' Uhm. Thanks.' He replied awkwardly after a moment, so completely out of his depth that he had given up on floundering and had decided just to take Fionna's crazy night train wherever she wanted. Fionna kept her eyes on his face for just a second more then turned herself back against his chest with a small purr of contentment, her arm falling back around his waist as she nuzzled against his breast bone. Marshall stiffened for a tenth of a second when he felt a small kiss through his tank top on his solar plexis, then relaxed back down into the hay. Fionna remained curled on top of him as she drifted into dreamlessness and he waited, repeatedly shaking his head in disbelief of what had just happened, for the night to end.

Fionna awoke, alone, to the sound of distressed mewling and two masculine voices arguing heatedly, though quietly. She sat up and rubbed her eyes groggily, vaguely remembering what seemed to be a rather odd dream that consisted of her explaining to Marshall-lee the various things she sometimes conjectured when she looked at him. But her thoughts were fragmented, and when a loud yowl sounded from below her she dismissed them. She grumbled as she dragged herself to her feet then bent over and touched her toes, wincing when one of her knees gave a loud pop in protest. Sleepily stumbling over to the ladder and peeking over the side, Fionna sighed and reluctantly began her descent towards the stand-offish males in the middle of the room.

' For the billionth freaking time, no. Fionna made you guys pancakes yesterday, and it's not good for you to have that two days in a row.'
' But there's nothing else good to eat for breakfast when mum's away!' James Deer whined, ( Even his whine was deeper than the vampire's regular voice, and he had this insatiable urge to try and speak as low as possible when conversing with the kitten, but he knew he couldn't keep it up for the time he'd need.) to the frantic approval of his siblings. Marshall-lee shook his head, one arm wrapped tightly around his waist and the other raised towards JD2 expectantly.
' Well, what did your mum give you?'
' Her boobs, that's what.' JD2 sassed, to the scandalised delight of the others who chorused and giggled behind him. Marshall's lip pulled up in distaste, and he opened his mouth angrily, but stopped and turned around when he heard the fridge open behind him.

'... Fionna, what're you doing?' He asked curiously, and she gave him a tired deadpan face before taking out the eggs to go with the milk she was already holding then bumping the door closed with her hip.
' Making breakfast, so shuddup already.' James Deer yelled excitedly and bounded past Marshall and over to Fionna, wrapping his paws around her calf and rubbing his soft cheek on her knee. Fionna put down the stuff she was holding on the bench and gave him a warm smile, reaching down and gripping his furry armpits. James Deer burbled happily as she lifted him up and tossed him once in the air, making airplane noises and then an explosion when she caught him. Marshall couldn't help but think as he watched her, that if the fates didn't align and she did end up pregnant, she would be a damn good mother if she chose to be.
James Deer II grinned a huge, toothy grin at her as she held him, then his eyes fixated speculatively on her chest, which was free and un-tethered by a bra beneath her t-shirt for sleeping.
' Is there anything in your boobs?' He asked innocently, reaching out and pawing at both of them as Fionna laughed and Marshall's eyes bulged, his eyebrows disappearing beneath his hair.
' I don't think so, bub.' She said good-naturedly as she moved him to the side and balanced him on her hip, one arm remaining slung around his lower back to keep him in place against her as she began shucking eggs into the bowl one-handed (it was a neat technique that Marshall would've noted if he wasn't so distracted)

Marshall-lee watched frozen in the middle of the room, unable to contain the explosive surge of jealousy as JD2 continued to prod and play with the breast nearest to him, Fionna ignoring him entirely apart from a short laugh and a 'that tickles,' when his soft paw brushed by her armpit.
As much as he told himself that JD2 was just a baby, and a feline-cervidae hybrid to boot and therefore couldn't find Fionna attractive... By Gob, that pint-sized bastard got on his nerves. Annoying little bugger only got to get all up in that because he was young. He could've sworn that JD2 gave him a sly little grin over Fionna's shoulder while he was kneading at her chest, and since he also knew that the kitten grew much faster than the average baby cat Marshall was ninety percent sure that he was doing it just to fuck with him.
That dick.

' 'M takin' a shower.' Marshall grunted to Fionna as he sulkily floated to the back of the barn and shut the door rather too firmly behind himself. Fionna raised an eyebrow at the closed door then went back to whisking eggs, JD2 watching with interest.
' What's that?'
' I'm making eggs on toast. You guys ever had that before?'
' Nope.' Fionna smiled as she popped a squat to retrieve the bread from beneath the sink.
' I think you'll like it. You and everyone else go find plates and stuff, okay?' She told him, letting him down and shooing him over towards where his siblings were slowly unraveling themselves from their basket.

Marshall didn't reappear from the bathroom until the kittens were all happily munching on their breakfast and talking with their mouths full, forgetting even as Fionna chided them. Fionna looked up from her empty plate as he ghosted up the ladder, barely glancing over to where they were all eating.
She hadn't really considered what she was doing when she climbed up the ladder to talk to him, so was met with a glimpse of a pale ass as Marshall retied the towel around his hips after drying off his soaking hair into a damp nest. Fionna blushed, but nevertheless got up onto the platform, though now Marshall-lee being nearly naked was a fact she was intensely aware of. But as she approached him she noticed that his back was riddled with scar tissue, large patches that could've been bullet or stab wounds, longer lines that varied hugely in thickness and extension that could've come from anything between tree branches or claws.

' Everything okay?' She questioned hesitantly, and she saw Marshall-lee jump slightly before he turned to look at her. Fionna couldn't help but quickly assess the front of his body too, and while there was defined musculature, but kind of thin and long rather than bulky (she actually kind of liked that better), what caught her attention more was that the scarring wasn't limited to his back. His made her body seem as if it had lived a sheltered life.
Marshall felt strangely uncomfortable as he noticed her checking him out. He was usually quite okay with, very used to women staring at him, but Fionna's gaze wasn't lascivious. More inquisitive.
' It- I uh, yeah. Why?' He replied, and Fionna shrugged, fiddling with the hem of her shorts. She hadn't gotten around to getting changed yet.
' You seemed um, kinda pissed just before, honestly.' She admitted sheepishly, and Marshall's mouth twisted up oddly, a mixture of distaste and guilt.
' Nah, not really.'
' Is it 'cause you were fighting with James?' She said, completely ignoring his assertion that he hadn't been angry. She knew him better than that, he wasn't usually so curt with her.
' No, it's nothing you gotta worry 'bout, kay?' He shut her down, unwilling to have her probing into his thought process. He didn't want her to know that he was jealous of a kid. He didn't want to be jealous of a kid, but there wasn't any other word for the sickening sense of possessiveness and envy.
Fionna's eyebrows pulled together and she looked a little hurt for a second, but then she put her hands on her hips and glared at him.
Yeah, she'd be a great mum.
' Dude, seriously, what's wrong?' She demanded, stepping in closer to him. Marshall worked very hard to keep his eyes fixed on her face as she folded her arms, raising an eyebrow at him expectantly.

' Uncle Vampy's annoyed because I got to play with your boobies and he didn't!' James Deer suddenly yelled at the pair, scaring the crap out of both Fionna and poor Marshall, who instantly felt the blood begin to move into his face and cursed mentally. The kitten had somehow managed to partially worm his way up the ladder and was peeking over the edge of it as best he could, grinning smugly.
' James, get down, you'll fall!' Fionna told him firmly once she had recovered from the shock, her words mingling with a hissed promise of being skinned from Marshall.
' No, I won't. Carmen and Jack-jack have got me.'
' Get down, James. This is a private conversation.' She growled, and the kitten pouted at her before sulkily disappearing from sight. Marshall could hear conversation between him and the other kittens begin after a few moments, and he bared his fangs in annoyance at the spot where JD2 had been before looking back at Fionna and wincing at the small confused smile gracing her lips.
'... Were you jealous of him?' Her tone was disbelieving, and Marshall honestly wondered if it was possible to die from embarrassment. The little brat.
' Maybe,' he replied reluctantly, unable to hold her eyes. Fionna gave a small shocked giggle, shaking her head slightly.
' Even though I 'cling on like a leech?' She quoted him, and Marshall suddenly felt less humiliated as he quickly considered their conversation earlier, the way she had traced the planes of his face and the outline of his lips and told him he was beautiful. Not the best compliment for a man, but from her it was kind of... well.
' Maybe the fact that you cling on so tight helps keep all of me focused. There's too much otherwise, right?' He said carefully, then blinked in surprise when Fionna's mouth dropped open in horror and she instantly flushed bright red.
' I-I, I thought that w-was a dream!' She stammered, mortified. Marshall-lee grinned at her and pulled her into a hug, his state of undress dismissed, and he patted her head in a friendly manner.
' Not quite, baby girl. I saw you staring.' He snickered when she squirmed uncomfortably, her fingers twitchy and hesitant on the very bare skin of his back. Fionna squeaked in protest until he let her go, and he laughed as she scurried over to her bag and grabbed some clothing before practically jumping off the platform, almost entirely forgoing the ladder.
' You'll hurt your ankle again.' Marshall called after her, only to be met with the sound of the bathroom door closing rather quickly.
' Whoa, Uncle. What did you do?' Marshall-lee heard JD2 yell up at him from the ground. Marshall hissed quietly as he tugged on some pants and picked up a shirt, striding purposefully over to the edge of the platform as he pulled it over his head.
' You shut your face, JD. Prepare for a butt-kicking.' The kittens all squealed with a mixture of excitement and mild terror as the vampire pulled a face at them before floating down.

When Fionna had finally calmed down and found the courage to, she tentatively opened the bathroom door and peeked out into the interior of the barn. Marshall was keeping a watchful eye on the babies down on the ground as they scurried around on the planks above him ( The vampire knew those would be a bitch, but he just had to deal with it. He couldn't hold all four at once, not like Fionna could.) It looked like they were playing tag, yelling and screaming excitedly as they ran erratically across the beams. Fionna stayed where she was, just watching happily, but then both she and Marshall noticed a little too late as Toffee attempted to scrabble down one of the supports to the ground and lost her purchase halfway through, doing a somersault in mid-air and landing hard on her stomach.
Only JackRabbit seemed to have any concern for his twin sister, as the shocked baby started to make the funny, desperate wheezing noise that one makes when winded, but he was quickly distracted when Carmen came up and tagged him from behind.

Fionna had begun to run out of the bathroom towards Toffee but before she could take more than a few steps, Marshall beat her there, scooping the kitten up into his arms as she suddenly found her lungs and the tears streaming down her face were paired with extremely distressed yowls. Fionna could only stare in surprise as Marshall adjusted her position until she was draped over his shoulder and he was cradling her backside with one hand, the other stroking down her back and keeping her pressed against the side of his neck. He began bouncing her up and down slightly, making soothing noises all the while.
' Hey, shh, shh it's okay. You're alright, don't worry. Shh, you're okay.' He murmured, pressing his mouth behind one of her ears and continuing to bounce her a little. The way he was comforting her reminded Fionna of how he had treated her after she had woken up from the terrifying nightmare. Apart from that odd little bouncing motion, which was also childcare one-oh-one when a baby was upset, and she had no idea where he had picked it up from.
Toffee slowly quietened down as he took care of her, and Fionna realised she had been caught staring (again, though for a different reason) when Marshall turned towards her and they made slightly unexpected eye contact. Marshall's face remained blank, as if he wasn't sure how he should react to her watching him act like a dad, until Fionna cracked a small smile at him. Marshall then grinned at her and focused his attention back on Toffee, playing with her until she started laughing at which point he put her down and she ran back to her siblings.

Fionna was in the kitchen drinking a glass of milk by this point in time, and she looked at him sideways as he floated over next to her, smiling a little smugly to himself. She finished taking a drink and they stood/floated respectively in companionable silence for a minute. Then Fionna nudged him with her shoulder, jerking her eyebrows.
' Told ya you'd be a good dad.'

Author's note. Long chappie this time. Dear lord, this story has become rather sugar sweet in parts, hasn't it? Ick. Candyfloss fluff in all directions. However, I think that things may be getting a little more serious again soon, so prepare yourselves.

-WRA