The following takes place between "Jake the Starchild" and "Temple of Mars."

Huntress Wizard crossed the grasslands toward the treehouse with no small amount of uncertainty. Finn had told her a lot about his home since they'd been hanging out, but this was the first time he'd invited her there. What if there was some horrible secret on the inside? And why had he asked if she owned a pair of scissors?

She did, as it happened. People threw away a lot of crud in the forest, and if something was useful, she kept it. She looked down at the pair swinging from her hand-she'd done her best to scour all the rust off-and remembered that children were often told not to run with these.

Huntress smirked. She could name a hundred more dangerous things she'd had to keep track of as a little girl. The nymphs had carefully taught her each and every one.

Speaking of nymphs: some of her water sisters were splashing in a pond near the front door. They waved to her, then drew close together, whispering and giggling. Huntress rolled her eyes and knocked on the front door.

A loud series of crashes resounded from the other side. The door flew open to reveal a short green cube with arms and legs grinning up at her.

"Welcome!" it said. "I am BMO! Finn tried to answer the door, but he was subdued by my assistant."

Huntress looked up to see Finn lying in a heap at the bottom a ladder, underneath another robot that sat on tank treads. It waved. "Hello, creator's girlfriend!"

"Hey, guys." Huntress smiled. "Finn told me all about you. What's the deal here though?"

"We were afraid we would not get the chance to meet you," BMO said. "Finn is a very private person."

Huntress Wizard glanced around the large room, where gold, jewels, several swords, dozens of keys, a stack of old magazines, and three unfinished secret diaries lay in piles around the walls. "Uh-huh."

"It's true." Finn gently lifted NEPTR onto the floor and dusted himself off. "I am a complex boy of mystery."

BMO's screen flashed. "Would you like to play video games?"

"Sounds fun," Huntress said, "but I think Finn had another idea?"

"Yeah." Finn walked over, took her hand, and before Huntress could register the tingling warmth from his touch, kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks for coming over, H-dubs. It's right upstairs."

As the robots scampered outside to gossip with the water nymphs, Finn gave Huntress the tour: the kitchen, the sub-treehouse, BMO's charging room, and their observation deck. He finished up in the living room, pointing at a ladder inside a branch. "And up there is me and Jake's room."

Huntress noticed the tiniest pause before Finn said Jake's name. Her smile faded. A few weeks ago, when they'd met up to go look for the Jungle Temple, he'd told her Jake was off on a mission, and said he'd BRB. She'd tried to get more out of him, but he'd just deflected, asking her questions instead-Had she been to Wizard City lately? Did she ever get the Owl Council to drop that lawsuit? Was Forest Wizard still doing that weird thing with the bamboo?

Eventually, she'd dropped it. But she could tell he was hurting under the surface. As he and his robots had just made clear, Finn wasn't all that hard to read.

"So this is what I thought we could do today." Finn's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. He was pointing at a chair in the middle of his living room floor, with a blanket spread out underneath it, and some kind of bib folded over the back. A small rake and a pair of hedge clippers lay on the chair.

Huntress tilted her head. "You thought we could murder each other and then dispose of the evidence? How romantic."

"Nah." Finn talked a few miles per minute. "It's gonna seem kinda weird, but hear me out. So I kinda managed to get myself head lice. And usually, Jake and I cut each others' hair, but Jake's off on his mission, but I need to get this done because I'm crazy itchy and Shelby says the lice are jerks. And then I thought, hey, has H-dubs ever actually gotten a haircut before?"

"I actually haven't," Huntress said. "Yeah, let's do it. You sit first."

She felt buoyant as she gathered a comb from the bathroom and helped Finn put on the giant bib. She was new to this whole dating thing-to the whole complicated mushy feelings thing at all. What she felt when she spent time with Finn wasn't like any of the lore she'd thought was all she'd ever need to know. It was wonderful, but bizonkers confusing, and there wasn't a good map through any of it.

Knowing there was something easy she could do to distract him from missing Jake was nice. Plus, she really did want to see what she'd look like with a haircut.

"I hate having to cut this off," she remarked as she clipped the first few locks from Finn's head. "It's beautiful."

Finn turned red up to his ears. "Yeah, but it'll grow back like tomorrow. And maybe you can use it for a potion or something?"

She let that slide and kept shearing away all the hair below Finn's ears. He stayed beet-red as she ran her hands over his shoulders and neck to reach the best angles. Huntress felt a bit of flush herself. They were very close to each other.

And she was pretty good at this. Supernatural precision had its perks.

"How did you even get head lice, anyway?" she asked.

"From Marceline's place," Finn said. "She lets Simon sleep on her couch all the time. She's always like, 'it's too cold where he lives for anything to survive,' and I'm like 'girl, he has an entire civilization in his beard'.' That's true, by the way. I had to go in and save it once. Not one of my better stories."

Huntress was silent for a moment. Then she replied, "OK. What is your better story?"

"Huh?"

"You're Finn the Human. Sworn sword of the Candy Kingdom, the greatest hero in Ooo." She grinned. "So what story are you gonna tell to impress a girl?"

Finn thought for a minute, then his face lit up. "Got one. So it all started when Jake and me went looking for a new swimming hole…"

While Huntress Wizard finished cutting off the rest of his hair, Finn told the story of his encounter with the Mega Frog. He figured a story about hunting something would go over well, and it did. HW was the perfect audience: listening rapt as Finn described following the frog's footprints, laughing herself silly at his and Jake's incompetent attempts to start a fire, gasping when the Mega Frog smashed through the trees. He drew out the story, not wanting it to end, loving the feeling of her hands in his hair and her breath on the back of his neck.

But, eventually, he ran out of hair, and told of kissing Prince Huge and restoring him to normal. As he stood up from the chair, Huntress gave him one more mischievous smile that sent the blood rushing everywhere. "What?" Finn asked.

"Nothing."

"No, what?"

"With all the adventures you could have picked, you went with the one that ends with you making out with a giant frog?"

"It wasn't makeouts. It was more like…"

She laid down the scissors and comb and took a step closer to him. "Like what?"

"Like…like this." He kissed her on the forehead, just below her antlers. In answer, she kissed him on the lips, so briefly Finn couldn't be sure whether it had happened or whether it had been part of the story.

"Your turn," he managed, his voice trembling a little.

Huntress Wizard took off her cloak and hood, vanishing both with a wave of her hand. She sat down in the chair and shifted her weight as Finn put the bib around her neck. He hovered for a minute with the hedge clippers and rake, then dove in, snipping leaves and stems in her hair.

"What's your best story?" he asked. "Tons of stuff goes on in the forest that none of us ever see, right?"

"The forest is so complex," HW said. "It's more than a kingdom, it's a whole world. I navigate through it, protect it from threats, settle disputes when I have to. I love it there."

"I wanna see it all," Finn said before he could stop himself.

He couldn't see Huntress's face, but her antlers bobbed. "Someday, Finn."

Snip, snip. He was getting into a groove. If he just cut a bit there, and there…yeah! Even more beautiful than before.

"Oh, right. My story." Huntress scrunched her nose. "OK, so this one time, one of those walking whales sat in Three Carp Fountain and just refused to leave. So I get woken up by an angry carp, riding a pelican, poking me in the face…"