A/N: Written for mokou on Tumblr. =) This will be a four-part story.

IMPORTANT: This is pre-Finn.

Words: 2,235

RESCUE ME – [Part I]

"Marceline! You look terrible!"

So says Bubblegum as Marceline comes crawling through her window a little past nine o'clock in the morning. The vampire queen grimaces at the princess but doesn't argue—her skin is a ruin of boils and charred bits, and her hair is giving off copious clouds of foul-smelling white smoke. "Close 'em," she croaks, beckoning to the blinds. She reaches for them herself and must instantly jerk back her hand—the sun is pouring in through their slats in great golden ribbons. "Close 'em, geez," she pleads again, and abandons all pretense of staying in sight. She slithers beneath Bubblegum's bed.

Half-dressed and hampered by a tangled sock, the princess nevertheless hurries to comply. She yanks the cord nearby the window. The blinds fall with a metallic shhhhrup and the room plunges into bronze half-light. As Bubblegum draws the curtains too the bronze deepens to a sullen, shimmery russet, steeped and reminiscent of tea. Wisps of the smoke from Marceline's hair drift midair, like fog. Waving through them, the princess kneels at her own bedside and peers into the darkness beneath it.

"Marceline?" she asks. "Marceline, are you all right? Come out where I can see you." She adds, "The window's blocked now."

There's a faint stirring in the shadows behind the bedskirt, then nothing. Concerned, Bubblegum delves her hand into the gloom. Her fingers brush something and come away powdery and gray, covered in what looks like ash but is probably dead, sun-seared skin. Bubblegum's heart lurches.

"Marceline!"

"Gimme a minute." Hoarse, Marceline's voice issues forth from the darkness in a growl. "One minute. It's fine." There comes the sound of scuffling and the vampire mutters, hacking out a cough, "Do you ever dust under here? Sheesh."

With a flash of shame, Bubblegum realizes she can't remember the last time she actually did dust beneath the bed. Rather than admit this, she lowers her head, pressing her cheek to the floor, and urges, "Marceline, please come out."

Seconds pass. A minute, probably. At last a quivering blue hand comes questing out from beyond the wrinkles in the bedskirt. Fisting in the carpet, it is followed closely by the remainder of the vampire queen.

Marceline's skin is mostly normal again, no longer a horrific scape of seeping burn wounds. Smudges of black char still linger across her torso and face, though, and she scrubs at them with her knuckles and wheezes weakly, "Whew. 'Sup, Bonnibel?"

She smiles. Her lips tremble and her eyelids droop, lashes fluttering soft over her cheeks. Bubblegum, who has known Marceline since childhood, has never seen the vampire look this exhausted. "What happened to you?" she demands. "Are you okay?" Anxiety stabs its dagger into her breast. Rocking forward on her knees, the princess folds her hand over Marceline's thin jaw and rubs her thumb in the divot just alongside the queen's puckered mouth. Marceline's rightmost fang rasps into her palm's crease.

Instantly the vampire's eyes snap open again. She blinks wide-eyed up at Bubblegum. Against her fingertips the princess can feel Marceline's lashes quiver—can feel the slow twitch in her cheek. "Rival vampire," she manages, and coughs. A final puff of smoke passes her lips. "Dude was all up in my space, challenging me and stuff. So"—Marceline's face tightens like a towel drawn tight over a rod—"I grilled him."

"Literally?"

"Yeah." Something flashes over Marceline's features: regret? Satisfaction? Pity? Before Bubblegum can decide on one it's gone, melting back into nothing but fatigue, and Marceline turns her nose into the other monarch's palm. She sighs, her useless breath a whisper through the slots of Bubblegum's fingers. "You smell good," she observes, and chases that with, "hey, yeah, so. I'm about to pass out. You got a drawer or something I can chill in for the day?"

"A drawer? Marceline, you couldn't possibly fit in a dra—"

Marceline shrivels. There's really no other word for it. One second she's a soot-covered person sprawled akimbo on the carpet—the next she's a bat, wings unfurled and tattered, coarse bellyfur spotted with grime. "Someplace soft," she insists. Against Bubblegum's hand she shudders: her tiny eyes roll back in her head. She goes limp but for a bitty footclaw that folds stubbornly over the webbing between Bubblegum's thumb and forefinger.

"Smuckers," blasphemes the princess. She nevertheless carefully gathers up her unconscious friend—Marceline is barely big enough like this to cover her hand lengthwise—and cradles her to her collar. For a moment she is terrified to feel no breath or pulse in the little body—but then she remembers duh, vampire, and sets about grumbling to herself as she looks around for a place that's safe for Marceline to rest.

"Well," she allows, glancing aside at her bureau, "a drawer really would be best." Because the bed's out of the question, so nearby the window and the deadly shafts of sunlight eeking occasionally through the curtains. The closet is full of dresses and various princess-y junk. Putting Marceline in the desk, while an option, might result in the vampire getting poked by a protractor or something.

A moment later, Bubblegum pulls open the bureau's topmost drawer. She gently ladles the comatose bat in amongst her socks and underthings and whispers, "Don't shed on my stuff." She gives Marceline a fretful caress with her knuckles before detaching the vampire's footclaw and closing the drawer. She stands watching the little brass knocker of said drawer swing until Peppermint Butler's call summons her downstairs for breakfast.

The day passes.

It's almost eight in the evening when Bubblegum returns to her bedchamber. She is weary, having spent the majority of the hours between breakfast and dinner meeting with disgruntled diplomats—worried too, because her schedule permitted her no time to check on Marceline during the day. She flings open the door to her room just in time to see her bureau's top drawer skitter out of its slot. In a flurry of limbs and an explosion of socks Marceline appears, humanoid again. She climbs to her feet, yawning and stretching.

Relief courses through the princess. "Marceline," she sighs as the vampire turns to face her, "I'm so glad—"

A pair of Bubblegum's underwear is dangling from Marceline's lips. The princess chokes into inarticulate silence.

They lock eyes, Bubblegum and the queen. Marceline grins. She slurps at her mouthful—it's a horrible noise, a long, lingering shllllllllp—until the garment, which was once a beautiful rose, is a dull, dingy gray. Only then does she spit it out. It joins a collection of other color-leeched things on the carpet: two pairs of socks, at least five other sets of panties, a nightshirt, and a bra. Reaching down to rifle through the drawer Bubblegum left her in hours before, Marceline professes, "Bonnibel, your clothes are delicious. Oooh! What's this?" She pulls free a particularly skimpy bit of fabric. "Not a thong—"

Bubblegum's voice returns in a yelp: "Give me that!" Scandalized, she strides forward and snatches away the garment. "You—you heathen! What are you doing to my wardrobe?"

"Feeding," Marceline replies shamelessly. "I'm famished, and this whole thing is a freaking smorgasbord. Great choice, man." She plunges a hand into the drawer again. Before Bubblegum can vocalize a protest, she has unearthed and driven her fangs into one cup of a brilliant crimson bra.

"That was expensive!" Bubblegum cries. She grabs for it. Marceline growls playfully and they engage in an impromptu game of tug-o-war, the straps of the bra stretching taut between them. All the smaller monarch's strength isn't enough to prize the bra from the vampire's jaws, but eventually Marceline lets go anyway and Bubblegum, with a screech, stumbles backward into the edge of her bed.

She sits down hard on the aforementioned bed once she's regained some semblance of balance. Shaking the colorless—and now shapeless—bra at Marceline, she seethes, "I could have gotten you real food!"

Marceline shrugs and drifts aloft, hovering above the fuming princess. "Those were fine, thanks." Bubblegum sucks in a breath to splutter out another indignant retort and the vampire admits, rubbing her belly, "Made me feel better."

Bubblegum huffs. She rises and, after picking up and replacing the bureau's drawer, begins to collect her undergarments from the carpet. She tries to ignore the fact that the fangmarks on every pair of panties are positioned directly above the crotch. "So you're okay now?" she ventures, shoving the garments back into the bureau.

Marceline smirks and provides a thumbs up. "Mmmyep. Thanks for letting me stay—"

"You scared me!" Bubblegum interrupts the vampire furiously, spinning on her heel. She jabs her finger into Marceline's startled face. "Coming here all burned and crispy! And then just—just passing out like oh yeah, don't mind me but you won't even be able to tell if I'm sleeping or dead—"

"Dead," Marceline cuts in, voice gentle. She wraps her hand about Bubblegum's finger and leans down to kiss the manicured pink tip, a motion that sends all the sugary blood in the smaller monarch's body shooting straight for her cheeks. "The answer to that one's always gonna be dead, Bonnibel."

Bubblegum's throat seems to have shrunken shut. She struggles a moment and manages at last, weak, "You know what I mean, you buttface." Yanking her hand away, she stalks over to her closet, begins to peel off her ceremonial garb, and mutters, "I was worried." It comes out soft, this statement. "I have no idea about the extent of your regenerative abilities, much less what to do if they're ever not enough…"

She leaves the rest and shimmies free of her dress, throwing the thing into her hamper. Midway to reaching for a nightshirt Marceline's arms furl around her bare shoulders, and the princess must bite down into her cheek's inside to keep from shivering.

Whether because she's just had a meal or because she's spent the entire day in a sock drawer, Marceline is unusually warm. She presses her brow to Bubblegum's neck and allows, "Sorry, Bonni. I didn't mean to scare ya."

"Yes, well." Bubblegum's fingers find a nightshirt. She seizes it, snaps it. "Fine." And then, because she can't help it, she turns in Marceline's grip to enfold the other girl in her arms. Her face goes into the vampire's belly and Marceline's shirt still smells a little like burned hair, but Bubblegum doesn't care and she hisses, "Try not to do it again, okay?"

"Yeah." Marceline's ribs shiver as she chuckles, and she gives Bubblegum a squeeze, driving the smaller monarch's nose almost into her navel. "Yeah, okay."

"Good."

They linger for a moment in the shared embrace, each reluctant to pull away from the other, but then the vents beneath the desk provide a stir of cold air and Bubblegum does shiver. She slips backward to shrug into her nightshirt. "Why were you out in the morning without your daywalking clothes anyway?" she asks.

Marceline leans back into a cloud of her own hair, kicking her feet out parallel to the carpet. "Didn't mean to be out," she answers. "Dude jumped me just before dawn. Asshole," she mutters, and continues, "but I had to deal with him. The sun seemed like the best way, since he wanted to fight more than he wanted to talk."

"And you ended up here because…?"

"Because this place was closer than any of mine."

"Mmhm." Hopping into a set of cupcake-print pajama pants next, Bubblegum frowns and murmurs, "Does that happen often?"

"What? Me frying other vampires?"

"No. Challengers to your crown wanting to fight more than talk."

She turns to look at Marceline, who rubs ponderously at her chin. "Huh," the vampire allows after a moment. "It's not a weekly thing, but it does happen occasionally, yeah. Why?"

Bubblegum fiddles with the drawstring of her pajamas. "I am ill-prepared for such circumstances," she realizes suddenly. "For—for someone who would desire to engage in combat versus diplomacy."

"Huh?" Marceline blinks. "Haven't you got, I dunno, a candycorn militia or something to do your fighting for you? A butterscotch general to head your"—and she smirks—"cavity-causing forces?"

Marceline's smirk fades at Bubblegum's alarmed expression. "No," the princess denies. "No, I don't have anything—anyone like that."

"Well, who'd want to invade a kingdom made of candy anyway? No offense," Marceline hurries to assure her friend.

"Marceline." Bubblegum's face has gone creamy and pale. "I control all the chocolate deposits in Ooo. All it would take is one angry, bloated female dictator to realize that and…"

They consider this together.

"So take some martial arts or something," Marceline suggests at length. "Some kung fu, you know. And then when—if—someone tries to attack you personally, you just, you know. Beat out their jelly filling. Or whatever."

Slowly, Bubblegum nods. "Training," she agrees. "Yes. That is an appropriate avenue. A fantastic idea."

"I'm full of 'em," Marceline replies. "Stuffed, actually."

"And I'll bet you win all your challenges too, huh?" pursues Bubblegum keenly.

Marceline grins. "Win? I don't just win them, Bonnibel. I own—hey. Hey, why are you looking at me like that?"

The princess smiles. Closing her closet door with a bump of her hip, she points to her fellow monarch and proclaims gleefully, "Marceline, you are the perfect person to teach me how to fight bad guys!"