'Ha! I win again!' Cake threw her paws up in exasperation as Fionna pulled a mound of cookies from the center of the table towards her. Cake stared at Fionna's cards then back at her own, then groaned loudly.
'Man, that ain't even possible! How'd you get so good at snap?' Fionna shrugged smugly, her mouth full of cookie.
' It's something you're born with, sis.' She said, spraying crumbs across the table. Cake glared at her sulkily, then jumped up, hissing, as a loud knock sounded on the treehouse door.
' Man, who could that be?' She sighed, before grabbing Fionna and stretching them both down to the lower level. She peeked through the window, then quickly dropped Fionna and wrenched the door open.

' Prugs? Dude, what's wrong?'
' It's Marshall-Lee, we have to hurry. No time to explain.' He turned away from them and vaulted onto Lord Monochromicorn. Lord reared, kicking his legs, before galloping away in the direction of Marshall's house. Cake grimaced and grew in size, squeezing out the door and plopping Fionna onto her back with her tail. Fionna quickly grabbed the fur on the back of Cake's neck as the cat chased after her boyfriend.
' Cake, what d'ya thinks happened to him?'
' I don't know baby, but when I said 'after your man' this is so not what I meant.' Fionna raised an eyebrow, pressing herself down against Cake's back. The cold wind stung.
' Are you talking about Gumball or Marshall?'
' Actually, I was talking about Chrome, but... which man are you after, Fionna?' Fionna blushed and twisted a piece of Cake's fur, and she yowled quietly in protest.

Cake skidded to a stop at the entrance to Marshall's cave and Fionna quickly hopped off of her back as she shrunk back down to normal size. Gumball was waiting on Marshall's porch, and he quickly waved them both inside, closing the door behind them.
' Oh my- Marshall!' Fionna yelled, dropping to her knees beside his prone figure and frantically shaking his shoulder. Marshall-lee was curled into a foetal position on the floor, twitching every so often.
' Gumball, what's happened to him?' Fionna asked, whipping around to look at the candy prince. Gumball met her gaze, the corners of his mouth turned down unhappily.
' Ice Queen was trying to kidnap me again, and for some reason Marshall decided to intervene. She cast a truth spell that was meant for me on him, but she gronked it all up. I knew something was wrong with him when he left, so I came here and found him like this.' Fionna turned back to the vampire, who groaned and mumbled something unintelligible, his face set in a permanent grimace.

' Well, what do we do? Ice Queen's obviously not gonna help.' Prince Gumball reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny sack that Fionna instantly recognised.
' Hey, that's memory sleep powder! How'd you get that?'
' With great difficulty. Fionna, if you can go inside Marshall's mind and find the enchantment, he should wake up and be okay. The spell will probably look like ice, and all you'll need to do is get rid of it.' Fionna nodded and reached for the sack, but Cake jumped between them and grabbed Fionna's wrist before she could get it.
' Wait, what about me?'
' Cake, I only have enough for one person. I'm sorry.' Cake frowned, then reluctantly conceded, as Fionna grabbed the sack and poured a small pile of the glittering yellow powder into the palm of her hand. She sat down on the floor next to Marshall-lee, and sprinkled the powder over her head, then curled up on the carpet as she felt her eyelids become heavy. She faintly heard Gumball warn her of something before drifting off to sleep.
' Please be careful, Fionna.'

Fionna woke up on the floor in Marshall's living room, but she knew that that wasn't the case. Obviously, this should be pretty much like when she had been tricked into stealing his memory, but instead she was looking for a truth spell. She stood up and straightened her skirt, looking around. Everything seemed pretty normal, except Cake, Gumball and Marshall were nowhere in sight. Maybe if she found Marshall-lee, he would be able to tell her where the spell was. Fionna walked over to his front door and pulled it open, and was surprised to see that it opened into complete darkness. She gingerly stepped out, finding that there was indeed a ground, and began to pace into the blackness. She looked behind her after a few steps and realised that the door she had just exited had now disappeared, in a very disorienting fashion.
Fionna turned back around and took a few more steps, then squinted in surprise as rain started pouring down from nowhere, soaking her through in a few seconds flat. Slowly, the darkness around her lightened and she realised she was walking through a forest, a very dank and dreary forest. She could hear laughter that vaguely reminded her of Ice Queen's harsh cackle, and started towards it.
' Marshall? Marshall-lee, are you here?' she called hesitantly, winding her way through the trees. She heard a crack and a thump behind her and she whipped around, startled. A small black haired child that Fionna instantly recognised as Marshall-lee glared up at her for a second, before hissing at her, squishing Homba to his side protectively. Fionna reached for him but he turned and ran off before she could grab him,the boy attempting to float but apparently unable to. Fionna watched him go frustratedly. Dammit.

She continued to walk through the forest until she came across an apparently random door in the side of a tree. Figuring that it was probably her best option, Fionna opened the door and walked inside. The stairway curved downwards following what she assumed was the inside of the trunk. At the bottom she stepped out and blinked, gazing out into the pale night.
She realised she was standing in a street in the Candy Kingdom, though it looked very different from how it was now. Everything looked smaller and newer. Glancing around the unfamiliar surroundings, she quickly spotted a hooded figure peeking around the corner of a building.

Fionna snuck quietly over and observed the figure from behind a pole, who drifted back into the shadows and removed their hood. Marshall-lee looked around about fifteen, slightly younger than her now. As she watched he waited in the dark until a girl appeared out of nowhere right behind him, grabbing his waist and scaring him. Fionna fully expected Marshall to lynch whoever the person happened to be, and was greatly surprised when he turned around and kissed her. She felt a cold sense of envy settle over her as he pushed the girl back against the wall, his mouth moving roughly against hers. Why did that bother her? This was the past and besides, she didn't like, have feelings or any junk for Marshall-lee. Nope, definitely not. I mean after all, the guy was a stone-cold killer even if he was charming in an egotistical way. She had more sense than to fall for someone like him. She just didn't like to see him making out with a skank. Jeez, get a room.
Fionna heard the girl whisper something indistinctly before getting right back to it, Marshall's hand sliding down her back towards her butt. Fionna could feel herself getting more annoyed by the second, then yelped in surprise when the street lamp above her flashed and shattered, plunging her into darkness for mere moments before a softer, orange glow resurfaced above her. Fionna glanced up at it and saw that it had suddenly changed into a massive candle. She looked behind her and saw that nothing remained of the Candy Kingdom streets she had been walking.

Slightly confused, Fionna stepped out from behind the candle and realised she was back in Marshall's house, standing on the table next to his couch. She had shrunk down or so it seemed. Maybe everything had just supersized. She looked across to the couch and saw Marshall, as she knew him now, sitting on the middle cushion, his head in his hands. Fionna watched, bewildered and frightened and Marshall snarled and stood up, twisting around and punching a hole in the wall, before drooping back down onto the cushions. She stared in shock at the hole in the wall, realising that it was in the exact same spot where a picture frame now hung.
' Ugh.. I thought I didn't care.' Marshall-lee murmured quietly, as the candle flame went out, leaving Fionna standing in the darkness once again.

Fionna was utterly and completely bewildered. Was this what was running through Marshall's head? Why was he going through all this stuff, and what connection did they have with each other? Gumball had said that Ice Queen had tried to cast a truth spell, but if that was the case then he wouldn't be practically comatose. She should really focus on what she was doing, look as closely as she could for any tell-tale signs of snow that might betray that bungled enchantment. As she began to walk through the unnatural darkness once again, she heard somebody cry out in pain, and she froze before beginning to run towards the sound.
' Marshall! Marshall-lee!' she screamed as she ran. Snowflakes started to drift through the air around her, and she was reassured by this, knowing she was headed in the right direction. She glanced about herself as she ran then stopped abruptly, slipping slightly on the icy ground. In front of her, blocking her path, there was a large sheet of ice, smooth and reflective. But her reflection.. wasn't her reflection. It stared at her, standing completely straight.

'Why are you here?' It questioned, and Fionna gaped at the surreal image of herself, before gasping as she heard a broken sob ring out from behind the mirror. She ran away from the mirror but it stretched in a cylindrical shape, forming an impenetrable icy wall, which grew upwards into a dome. Fionna banged against it desperately, before jumping back in fright when her not-reflection appeared on the unblemished surface. It glared at her balefully.
'Why are you here?'
'To help Marshall-lee!' Fionna replied before she could stop herself. What was this? She had not time to argue with a spell, it wasn't even possible! It was just trying to stop her from destroying it.
'Why do you wish to save him?' Fionna bit down on the answer that immediately rose in her throat and instead drew her sword, slashing at the ice dome. The reflect-Fionna watched her in annoyance.
'Why do you wish to save the vampire Marshall-lee!' it asked again, and this time Fionna was unable to stop herself from replying. How was the spell affecting her? Making her tell the truth.. to herself?
' Because I care about him!' Ice Fionna narrowed her eyes.
'You lie!' Fionna gritted her teeth and finally succeeded in putting a crack in the dome, but was disheartened to see that it healed over almost immediately.
'See what your lies do to the one you supposedly 'care' for.' Not Fionna snarled, somehow remaining visible as the dome became transparent. Fionna cried out, seeing Marshall on his knees in the center of the dome, his face hidden by the hair that hung limply past his eyes.

' Marshall-lee!' She yelled, pounding desperately against the dome, but he didn't appear to hear her. As she watched, a little black haired boy and a woman in a skirt suit ran across the surface of the dome in front of him, Marshall lee watching them with a hopeless expression on his face. The woman stepped out of the glassy surface of the dome and stood in front of Marshall. Fionna blinked, not quite believing what she had just seen.
'Give me love like her'.
He murmured, reaching out to touch the woman and wincing when she and the child crumbled away into the air.
'Cause lately I've been waking up alone.
Paint splattered teardrops on my shirt,
Told you I'd let them go,'

Fionna watched him sing in silence. This was the truth spell that Marshall was trapped inside, and somehow being this close to it was affecting her too. Maybe it recognised her intentions and it was trying to pull her under before she could kill it. She resumed hacking at the sphere, the blade bouncing off of the smooth surface and causing the glass-like ice to ring as Marshall-lee continued to sing haltingly. Fionna stopped, panting, and stared in shock through the ice as she realised reflect Fionna was pulling the same trick, walking around the dome and stepping out just in front of Marshall. Fionna ran after her and punched the dome, screaming at her to leave him alone. Reflect-Fionna eyed her coldly before turning back to the vampire, who gazed up at her with the most painfully wistful expression Fionna had ever seen.

'And that I'll fight my corner,
Maybe tonight I'll call ya,
After my blood has drowned all my sorrows,
No, I just wanna hold ya.

Give a little time to me or burn this out,
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around,
All I want is the taste that your lips allow,
My, my, my, my, oh give me love,'

Marshall-lee continued to repeat this plaintive cry, begging reflect-Fionna to give him love. She watched him emotionlessly, before crumbling away into nothingness when Marshall reached for her, causing Marshall to emit a noise that tore at Fionna's heart strings. She never thought she could ever make him sound so broken, nor had she ever wanted to. That bitch! She wouldn't just stand by and watch while he was hurting! She would.. She would hold him and comfort him, be there for him. Because she- Because she-

'Do not lie to do you want to save him from learning the truth?' reflect-Fionna demanded, appearing in front of the adventuress. Aware that tears were now pouring down her face, Fionna allowed the instantaneous, undeniable reply to bubble out through her lips in a strangled whisper.
' Because I love him.'
Reflect-Fionna nodded in satisfaction, before shimmering and disappearing, the ice now mirroring the real Fionna's terrified visage.

'Give me love like never before,
Cause lately I've been craving more,
And it's been a while but I still feel the same,
Maybe I should let you go

You know I'll fight my corner,
And that tonight I'll call ya,
After my blood, is draining out across the floor,
Hm-hm, No I just wanna hold ya.

Give a little time to me or burn this out,
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around,
All I want is the taste that your lips allow,
My, my, my, my, oh give me love,'

Her shoulders shaking as she tried to stop the flow of tears cascading down her cheeks and blurring her vision, Fionna struck sharply at the cold globe and it shattered into a million pieces, the ice tinkling down around her. This spell was evil.
She hadn't wanted to believe she could fall in love with a the king of the vampires, with someone that had so much blood and death to account for. She had always believed that she could keep it so they were just friends, but somehow, while she had stupidly believed she had her heart under control, she had gone and started loving him. Because he wasn't a bad guy, no matter what he had done in the past. She didn't know if he had really changed, but he was.. he just made her feel like she didn't have to edit herself in anyway for him. he understood her. What did that say about her that the only guy she felt comfortable was a homicidal vampire? No, that wasn't fair to him. He wasn't a bad guy, he just had some morality issues. And he never ever did anything deliberately to hurt her, not since the time he'd faked his death.
If she hadn't of known, then maybe at some point she could've moved on but now there was no chance. Not when it hurt both of them, because she hadn't wanted to hurt someone who had been through as much pain as he had caused. If he needed love, then he could have hers. He already did.

'Give a little time to me or burn this out,
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around,
All I want is the taste that your lips allow,
My, my, my, my, oh give me love,'

Marshall-lee lapsed into silence, his body wracked with sobs. Fionna tried to run towards him, but the shattered shards of ice suddenly rose up and formed into insubstantial ghostly shapes. They flew around her like a blizzard, forcing her back and away from the vampire. Fionna almost thought she could see faces in the snow, frowning at her as she tried to orient herself.

'M-my my, m-my my, m-my my, give me love, lover.' The faces chanted menacingly at Fionna as she tried to fight her way through them, before abruptly drawing back from her and circling around, continuing to chant eerily. Fionna suddenly realised that her access to Marshall was no longer blocked and tried to get to him, but her path was immediately blocked by one of the snow creatures breaking ranks and bearing down on her.
' Love me!' Marshall-lee screamed desperately as Fionna drew her sword and hacked through the snow creatures, but every time she took a step towards Marshall, another creature broke out from the steadily tightening circle and prevented her from going any further.
'Give me love!' Marshall sobbed brokenly, his hands contorted into claws as his body curled around his cold, dead heart.
' Marshall!' Fionna yelled destroying one of a pair of remaining ice demons. The last fragment of the truth spell took one look at her, and the floating crystals condensed in front of her, forming a perfect ice replica of the adventuress. It drew it's sword and pointed it at Fionna, mimicking her pose.
' Because I care about him.' the ice Fionna echoed. Real Fionna gritted her teeth and decapitated the fake Fionna, watching her ice head roll away into the darkness as the body crumbled to nothingness.
' No, you bitch. Because I love him.'

Fionna dropped her sword and ran to Marshall's side, shaking his shoulder urgently.
He stared off into the darkness blankly, seeming not to notice Fionna right beside him. Fionna had never seen him looked this wrecked. She had seen him upset before but never so utterly and completely... Gone.
' Give me love. I never needed it before. I never needed to care. Now it's all I want.' Marshall-lee whispered, tears still sliding down his face as he looked into the empty distance. Fionna couldn't seem to shake him out of his trance, and was beginning to worry that the misfired truth spell had done some kind of damage to his brain.
' I didn't care whether I lived or died, I didn't care about killing and destroying, I didn't care about any of it. Nothing. I felt.. nothing.'

' Marshall, please...' Fionna said, her voice cracking as she began to cry again. She couldn't deal with him breaking when she had just discovered the depth of her connection with him. The emotion was raw and uncut by time or familiarity. There was no ease of being with him, she wanted him to hold her and kiss her and love her as much as he could. But the confident, flirty guy she normal saw had completely disappeared. She had always known he wasn't as okay as he always made out, But she hadn't known how deep the wound cut.
Suddenly her words seemed to break through the to the vampire and he looked over at Fionna, his eyes locking on to her for the first time.

' Fionna?' He whispered, sounding like a lost child looking for a way back home. Fionna took his face into her hands, running her thumbs along his cheekbones.
' Yes, yes it's me! It's really me, you're okay I swear to glob, you're gonna be okay..' Fionna said, anything at all to make him better, to fix whatever was tearing him apart inside. More tears spilled out of the vampire's eyes and onto Fionna's fingers as he looked at her.
' And then I met you.' He murmured. Fionna could feel a heavy weight pressing down on her, almost like she was starting to drown in the darkness that surrounded them both.

Fionna's eyes snapped open and she blinked uncomprehendingly at the green stripe across one half of her vision, before realising that she was still lying on Marshall's carpet. As her vision came into focus, she noticed her face was mere inches away from that of the vampire, who was staring at the adventuress, his shockingly crimson irises wet with real tears. Fionna could feel something wrapped around the fingers of her right hand and looked down at Marshall's chest, realising that their hands were tightly entwined over his heart. Blushing, Fionna automatically disengaged herself from the vampire and sat up, looking around the room. It appeared that they were alone together, until Fionna noticed a small piece of pink paper attached to the door. As Marshall-lee slowly forced himself into an upright sitting position, Fionna stood up and walked over to the door, picking up the piece of paper.

'Fionna,

Gunter attempted to conquer the Candy Kingdom again, so Cake I had to leave to deal with that. We're hoping that you will stay out of trouble until we get back, but if you're reading this I guess you must've fixed Marshall, so good job.

-Prince B. Gumball'

Fionna stiffened as she heard a muffled sob from behind her and turned around. Marshall-lee had his back to her as he ran his fingers through his hair, and Fionna could tell that he was desperately trying to stop himself from crying. Marshall-lee never, ever cried. Before today, she had never seen him shed a single tear.
' Marshall?' She said worriedly, dropping the note and quickly returning to his side. Marshall-lee refused to look at her, until Fionna grabbed his arm and roughly tugged it away from his face, forcing him to turn towards her as he barely seemed to have any strength left to resist. Within seconds, it was like they were back in the dreamscape, Fionna kneeling by the exhausted vampire, trying to piece him back together.

' Marshall, what's wrong!? What did the spell show you? Whatever it was, it was just the Ice Queen, it was all in your head!'
' I.. I know. I know, but just because it was all in my head doesn't mean it wasn't real.' He replied shakily after a moment, his voice breaking and growling with his inner battle to not break down into tears.
' Fionna, go away.' He muttered, trying to push her away from him, shut her out in the same way he had been doing to every person he'd known all his life. But she wouldn't let him.
' Marshall, let me help you! You're hurt. In here.' She said, taking one hand off of his face and placing it against his chest, where their fingers had been interlocked only minutes before.

' Why do you want to? Why do you care so much Fionna, how can you? How can you care so much about everything when it bloody hurts so much?!' Marshall cried, grabbing the hand that was pressed against his chest like a life line, his fingers trembling against her wrist. Fionna shushed him and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in.
She drew circles on his back as he broke down into tears, a sort of strangled sob escaping before he bit down on his lip, the shaking of his shoulder being the only other physical portrayal of his agony.
The adventuress guessed some sort of truth had also been revealed to him when he was trapped inside his own head. That was how the spell had misfired. All the truths you told were turned inward, revealing everything the person was to themselves. And Marshall obviously had a hard time dealing with the truth.

' How can you care about people when they die and leave you behind and change and stop loving you? How come I didn't want to? Why didn't I want to, and what the fuck is it about you that made me start giving a damn again?' Marshall-lee mumbled into her shirt, and Fionna remained still, feeling his free hand tugging on the fabric at her side.
' I was safe when I didn't care, nothing could hurt me because I didn't feel anything and then you come around and completely fuck me up and now all I want is to- to...' Marshall-lee clung on to Fionna tightly, willing her to understand what he now knew about himself, that he hated and he was so relieved to find at the same time. He was scared, because he had had his heart broken so many times before that he had believed that it was better to stay indifferent, to retreat back inside himself and stop caring so that no-one could ever scar him again. It was easier to be made of stone and ward of everything instead of letting emotions blossom then wither and die over and over again.
Then she had come along and he had thought nothing had changed, that she would drift past his sky like so many other formless clouds in his life. But really, everything had changed. He could be hurt again, by a sixteen year old girl in a bunny hat.
' Fionna, I- I want to care. I need to. I n-need.. you. I want to give a fuck again and it's all your gobdamned fault.'

Fionna stayed silent as Marshall-lee choked on his tears again. Jeez. Did he just say what she thought he had said? What the hell could he possibly want with a girl like her? He was the vampire king. And like he had said, she didn't think he really cared about anything anymore. He had been hurt so many times, Fionna knew this, so she had never thought that she would be able to help him. Not to mention he made it bloody hard to most of the time, as he tried to shut her out to keep him safe. I mean, she had seen him crying for her while he was trapped by the truth spell, but she had though that perhaps she was seeing something different to what he was seeing, the truth spell manipulating both of them with their innermost emotions.
The way he curled up like a hedgehog and only showed his spines wasn't exactly acting, it was more like toning it down, never letting people see how damaged he actually was. But for once, he was letting her in. C'mon Fionna, say something!

' You.. You wanna know how I care about people? Why I try to help people even though it doesn't always do any good?' Marshall-lee was finally silent, still hiding his face in her shirt from embarassment or still needing comfort, she didn't know.
' Because... It's all I can do. And anything that I can do, I want to. When it does help, when it does go right it's the best feeling in the world, and I can take the times it goes wrong because eventually there'll be a time when it goes right. I can take the bruises and the pain if it means someone else doesn't have to, if it means that for someone elses, everything will be okay again. Hurt, grief, sadness... It's the price of love. And for love, I will pay that price, no matter how much it hurts me.'

Marshall-lee kept his face surreptitiously pressed against Fionna's boobs. He liked being here. But not just because of that. He liked that finally, after so many bloody years when he had lived off of cruel indifference and a dark cynicism, there was someone who was willing to forgive him all that and simultaneously give him the well deserved kick up the ass he needed to remember what it was like to be a decent person. Nothing had really changed about him. His personality was still the same. But the sense of detachment from his actions had disappeared, and that was what had torn him up inside. Because he could feel, really feel how much of an arrogant idiot he had been acting for the past six centuries or so, and six hundred years worth of regret all at once was too much to handle calmly.

' Marshall-lee, are you okay?' Fionna finally asked, a tinge of worrying colouring the question. He hadn't moved, but his hold on her had seemed to become a little less desperate, a little more just a matter of wanting to be there.
' No.' He muttered curtly, but Fionna understood. No, he wasn't okay. But he wasn't broken. He had understood or accepted whatever had been hurting him. That didn't make it okay. That just made it easier, knowing that it was okay for it to not be okay.

After a moment's hesitation, where she deliberated on whether it would help or only make matters worse, Fionna kissed the top of Marshall's head, then pressed her cheek against his hair. She wanted him to know that she was there for him, and that she cared about him in the same way it sounded like he cared about her. Though whether adding another emotion on top of everything he was feeling right now was a good idea, she didn't really know.
She felt him stiffen for a second, surprised. Remembering the sweet, melancholic tune of the song he had sung, Fionna rocked him back and forth, adding her own lyrics to the melody

'(to the tune of ' Give Me Love' by Ed Sheeran)

I'll give you love like hers
'Cause you've spent too many years alone
Your pain spatters teardrops on my shirt
I know it's hard to let it go

Don't have to hide in the corner
Trying to hold on for her
When all of your tears
Were cried out so long ago
So I'm just gonna hold ya..'

Fionna trailed off as she felt Marshall-lee take a big, shuddering sigh, having finally completely collected himself. He picked up where she had left off, curling his arms around her waist, and shifting himself slightly higher up so that his temple rested against her collar bone.

' Give a little time to me
Or burn this out
We'll play hide and seek
To turn this around
All I want is the taste that you lips allow
My, my, my, my, Oh give me love.'

Marshall-lee looked up at Fionna as he finished the song, meeting her eyes as his mouth formed the letter 'V'. There was a certain sense of shyness, a reluctant vulnerability in the vampire's eyes that she had never seen before. He knew that she knew how he felt about her, and even now he wasn't sure that she felt the same. And he hated that he didn't have the upper hand. He was holding his heart out to her, everything he had been fighting to protect for gob knows how many centuries, but somehow he still didn't think she would take it.
Fionna leaned down and pressed her lips against his. Marshall craned his neck and open his mouth slightly after a few moments, giving a tiny relieved sigh.

'Fionna, did you fix Marshall? We came back to check on y-' Gumball said as he walked in through the door. His eyes popped wide as he saw the couple, who had taken no notice of the prince as he walked in and were instead entirely occupied with each other's mouths. Gumball blushed and backed out quickly, shutting the door tightly and leaning back against it.

' Whoa, what's wrong with you, Prugs?' Cake questioned, looking up from Lord when she heard the door close. Gumball laughed nervously, pushing his crown back into its proper place on the back of his head.
' Um, n-nothing. Fionna and Marshall are still um, asleep so she must still be fighting the sleep spell.'
' I thought you said it was a truth spell?' Cake said, frowning at the prince.
' Um, yeah. That's what I meant. Truth spell.' Gumball heard a thump and a muffled moan from inside the house and coughed loudly to cover it up, picking at his collar as he felt heat rush up into his face. Oh Glob.
' Sorry, something in my throat. So uh, I guess we should just leave them- I mean her to it right? We can come back and check on her in about uh, an hour or so.' Gumball said, trying to usher the cat and his equine steed out of the cave before either of them noticed Fionna murmuring ' Uh.. Marshall...' right behind the door.
' Well, why do we have to go anywhere? Can't we just wait in the house for them to wake u-'
' No, no! I need you help with uh, th-this thing! Yeah, I completely forgot! Silly me.'
Gumball, you are acting strangely. Is everything okay? Lord questioned, the sentence slightly hard to understand due to the fact that his hooves were scraping along the ground as Gumball pushed both him and Cake out of the cave.
' Yeah, everything's fine! Just fine!' He said, faking a dazzingly smile as he climbed onto Lord's back and pulled Cake up with him.
' Back to the castle, Chrome.' He commanded, desperately trying not to think of what Cake would do to him when she found out he had aided and abetted in what was happening right now down in that cave.

' You think he's thinking what I think he's thinking?' Fionna said, tracing letters on the back of Marshall-lee's hand as the lay curled around each other on the floor. Far from what the Candy Prince had assumed, they had just kissed. Marshall would've gone for more if Fionna had given him the chance, but she didn't want their first time to happen because he needed something to help him forget. Besides, she didn't know if she even wanted to do anything beyond tier 2. After all, she was still a little apprehensive as to whether this could work. But she knew, she had always known that Marshall-lee wasn't a bad guy, and he wasn't evil. So there really wasn't any reason She couldn't give him her all. But not now.

' That was so convoluted I have no clue what you're trying to say.' Marshall-lee replied a moment later, watching her fingers on the back of his hand.
' Well, I um.. said something that could've sounded dirty if he was listening. And we were kinda making out when he walked in.' Marshall-lee shrugged, placing his chin on the top of Fionna's head.
' If he is, I don't care. Man can't be judged for lovin' his lady.' Fionna giggled at how old fashioned the sentence sounded. And at how Marshall it sounded. He obviously felt better now, and that knowledge made her enormously relieved.

' So I'm your lady now, am I?' Marshall-lee glanced at her and Fionna saw a slight hint of nerves that made her want to laugh. Marshall-lee was nervous. That was so weird.
' Uh.. That is, if you want to be.' Fionna rolled her eyes.
' Dude, I just had my tongue in your mouth. You think I do that to just any random guy I know likes me?' Marshall shrugged and Fionna hit him playfully, feigning offense.
The vampire hesitated momentairly, flushing slightly before deciding just to come out with it.
' Uh.. Thanks, Fi. For, y'know being... Well, you I guess.' He ended thoughtfully. The reason he was okay now was because of her. Because she had accepted him and all his problems, and realised that all he needed was for somebody to come along and make him feel like a part of this world again. She had done that, and she had made it so he had a reason to be a part of this world. That was all he had wanted. For somebody to love him, so that he had a reason to care again. Ew, how mushy was that?

Fionna pulled a face, showing how disgustingly romantic she thought that phrase had sounded. Not like him at all. Marshall-lee rolled his eyes at her and kissed her again, knowing that if she thought that was cheesy then she'd probably hit him again if she knew what he was thinking.
' I do have a heart , you know. It's just dead.'
' You lyricist, you.'
' Sassy.'
' Shut up.'

Author's note: So yeah, here's a nice fluffy little oneshot I found in my writing folder and patched up a bit. Little bit of swearing, lots of angsty-ness, but that ending.
SO. MUCH. FLUFF

Anywhore, hope you liked it, I don't own AT, ect.

-WRA