A/N: The first part of… I dunno how many other parts yet. We'll see where the story goes. =)

Written for stardustwitch on Tumblr, who requested… well, you'll see!

Words: 2,656

FOUND – [Part I]

Bubblegum liked to shop.

While not her most obsessive pastime, it was still an event she penciled into her schedule—when kidnappings by the Ice King didn't disrupt it—at least once a month. She took great pleasure in her occasional weekend trips to the markets across Ooo: not especially because she liked to fill her closets, but more so because she found bargain-hunting—heck, bargaining period—a wonderful stress relief. There was something deeply gratifying about procuring a skirt that, while only mere coins in the thrift alleys of the Fire Kingdom, fetched what amounted to an organ's sum elsewhere.

Not to mention the sights, the sounds, the learning experiences! Bubblegum prided herself on her keen sense of cultural awareness, and there was no better way to keep abreast of regional trends and ethnic habits than to wander for hours in foreign spending hotspots. She discovered the nebulous he's-looking-at-your-butt elbow rub from an afternoon spent people-watching in a bazaar in Lumpy Space. Purple was sacred to the Vegetable Folk—scars to the nomads at the fringe of Red Rock Pass. Imps tugged their ears when they lied. Elves didn't. A wizard's power could be divined by the blueness of his skin: sky-colored meant he might pull a rabbit out of a hat at best, and verging toward purple suggested the strength to shift even the weather. Turquoise sorcerers, lastly, were best employed at bar mitzvahs. They conjured excellent cakes.

Of all the things Bubblegum gleaned from her travels through Ooo's malls, pavilions, souks, and street fairs, though, one of the most beneficial was not a cultural tidbit but a honed skill: how to spot the best shops a mile distant. They gave off the same shivery vibe no matter their location, those shops, and they tended to look similar too: dusty front windows cluttered with knickknacks and gewgaws. Signs faded. Silver bells in the doorjambs, tink-tink-tinkling with the entry of the occasional—rare—customers.

Browsing a market at the Ice Kingdom's fringe today, Bubblegum stood before a particularly promising specimen of a place. Grimy display window full of crap: check. A wooden doll missing a mouth glared silently at her from said window. The princess glanced aloft at the establishment's sign, her breath fogging the air over her scarf's ruff, and found its name nothing but a dingy smear there. Double-check.

Pressing her palm flat to the peeling paint on the shop's door, Bubblegum pushed. Waited. And—

Tink-tink-tink.

"Check-check-check," replied Bubblegum cheerily under her breath, and stepped inside.

A gust of warm air ruffled her scarf back against her cheeks. "Close the door!" yelped a voice nearby. "Hurry now—you'll let the fire out of the place and it's a thorncluster to heat!"

Bubblegum hurried to comply, yanking shut the door at her back. The bell above it barked a resounding TING. As its echoes dwindled, the princess pulled free her scarf and sighed, slapping her feet sharp against the shop's mat to rid them of slush. Only when her boots squeaked clean did she turn her attention aright.

The shop was narrow and curved partway like a fallen comma, lit with strategically placed lanterns and populated too, if the swaying clumps on the ceiling were any indication, by a healthy contingent of cobwebs. Shelves stretched to the rafters and as far back as Bubblegum could see. The nearest contained what looked like Ooo's largest array of cigar boxes. Also, toy cars.

"Help you, miss?" asked the voice from before. Bubblegum blinked aside and found a thin-faced, green-skinned man looking at her from between two other shelves (stacked with clocks and baking pans respectively). The man's eyes trailed aloft: saw Bubblegum's tiara. Widened. "Majesty," he corrected. "A pleasure!"

Smiling, the princess gave a pish-pish wave with a mittened hand and said, "No, all mine! I'm just perusing your wares. …er." Glancing at yet another shelf, this one full of what looked suspiciously like turkey basters, Bubblegum chanced, "What exactly are your wares?"

The man emerged from his hollow with a sheepish grin. "Trinkets and sundries, Majesty," he allowed, dusting off his sleeves and adjusting his tie. A closer look at his face revealed fangs: slit pupils too, and pointed ears. An imp. "We are a unique business," he continued. "A specialty shop, if you will."

"Oh?" Bubblegum pursued dubiously.

"Oh!" he agreed. Flinging out an arm in a flourish, he dislodged a cascade of rubber ducks from a box on a ledge and muttered as they squeaked and squacked in all directions, "While this stuff is admittedly what most people would consider junk, everything you see in here once mattered very much to someone. Yes," he insisted as Bubblegum's doubtful gaze fell on a lovingly crafted display of bendy straws, "everything you see."

Bubblegum's fingers were hot inside her mittens. Peeling them away, she looked about again and admitted, "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand. These"—she considered, groped for a word, and settled on—"items mattered to people?"

The shopkeeper nodded. "That ball," he said, and pointed at something behind the princess. She pivoted to see. In a jumble of plastic bowling pins and just beside a bin of painted flowerpots there was a red sphere, melon-sized and unassuming. "That ball," repeated the imp, "once belonged to a boy who loved it more than anything else in the world. Loved the sound it made when he kicked it, actually." Pursing his lips, the shopkeeper sucked in a breath and expelled it again in a clucking whoosh-snk. The noise reverberated through the shop's looming shelves, through its leaning racks. It was simultaneously terrible and wonderful, and Bubblegum shivered despite her layers.

"It rolled too far, once," finished the shopkeeper. "Eventually it ended up here."

For a moment Bubblegum said nothing. She studied the imp's face: waited for the customary ear tug that meant a fib. When none came, she frowned—either he was telling the truth or wholeheartedly believed the butterscotch he was feeding her.

"What about that?" she ventured finally. She gestured to a glitter of green on a hook over his shoulder.

It was the shopkeeper's turn to pivot. Reaching to take in hand the green thing, he flared it for her to see: a sequined coin purse. "A bottomfeeder from a grandmother's pocketbook," he asserted. "She only brought it to light occasionally, but when she did it was to let her grandchildren reach in for a caramel or a coin. Gave her such a thrill, to see their little hands come out with prizes and their faces light up too. Shame"—and he sighed, snapping the purse shut with a horrific clack—"but she misplaced this at some point and it—"

"Ended up here," concluded Bubblegum. There was an unwelcome taste in her mouth, sickly sweet and soft. Caramel, if she dared let herself think it. The shop was very warm. Unzipping her jacket, she told the imp—whose earlobes were still unmolested—with all the politeness she could summon, "Pardon me, sir—you've been very kind explaining, but…"

She left off. But you could be full of it, she wanted to say. You probably are full of it. Only years of diplomatic training kept her comment cloistered.

The shopkeeper smiled. His fangs flickered in the lamplight. "But I could be making it up as I go, right?" he put in for her. "I could be pulling your leg."

"You could be," agreed the princess, and actually meant You are, you are, you are. Her feet were still on the doormat. One step back would free her and she was tempted to take it. Disappointed as she was to find the shop a bust, there was plenty of daylight left and hundreds of blocks as yet unexplored in the market. Surely there were other places better than this one, other businesses that sold actual items without concocted histories—

The shopkeeper held up his hands. His palms were smooth, lineless and unwrinkled, his fingertips rounded. He said, "Skepticism is a common reaction. Not to mention it's an expected one from you. You're a scientist, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. And I'm sorry, but—"

"But you need proof." It wasn't a question. Tipping his head, his smile smoother at the edges now—indulgent—the imp put in simply, "I can provide it."

The claim sent a prickle down Bubblegum's spine. Anticipation—dread? An unhappy marriage of both? Draping her jacket over her arm, she persisted, "How?"

In answer, he stuck out a hand between them and said, "Something of yours. Something important to you. Give it to me and I'll tell you why you treasure it so." He added, "I'll give it back. I promise."

"I don't have anything I feel very strongly about with me at the moment," Bubblegum demurred. She took a half-step back, tired of the shop's heat, its weirdness—its attendant especially.

He made no move to follow her. He only lifted his eyebrows and asked, "Are you sure?"

For a brief, lightning-flash moment, Bubblegum was sure. Just as quickly she wasn't, for curiosity was a hard creature to deny, and reluctantly she dropped her free hand into the pocket of her jeans and felt around for something, for anything. Her fingers closed over a hard plastic triangle a bit larger than a lollipop's head.

Of course.

Stifling a sigh, Bubblegum pulled free the guitar pick and offered it over to the waiting shopkeeper. "I suppose I can't pass up a harmless experiment," she admitted.

"An inquiring mind must always seek answers," concurred the imp. He plucked the pick away and palmed it, worrying it through his odd green fingers. It was black, its edges worn from use and pocket friction—against his flesh it nevertheless gaped like a hole. Like a bloodless wound.

The shopkeeper closed his eyes. Rocked on the balls of his feet: once, twice. "Hm," he said, and followed easily with, "she left it by mistake. Meant to put it in her pocket, probably—it caught on her belt and bounced out again. Neither of you noticed. You were too busy kissing her goodbye to see it, and her fingers were too busy climbing under your shirt to feel its absence."

Bubblegum's breath died in her chest.

Giving no indication he was aware of the princess's shock, the imp went on after the briefest pause, "She got tangled in the curtains. You two laughed forever, or it felt like forever, and you thought your butler was probably getting suspicious and that's when she pulled it down. The curtain," clarified the shopkeeper. "She draped it around the two of you and pulled you close, and she put her hand over your mouth and said—

Shut up Bonnibel, shut up or I'll make you shut up ssssh you are such a loudmouth, geez shut up

"—and when you dared her to—

Make me, Marcy—make me c'mon I'll bet you can't make me

"—she—"

Bubblegum's breath returned in a rush. Bloodthunder pulsing in her ears, she lunged forward and snatched back the pick from the imp, fingers slick with sweat. The shop was jungle-hot now, throbbing and humid; the lanternlight shivered viridian and there were tears in her eyes, dripping unchecked down the sides of her face. "Stop," she commanded. It came out a croak and she furled her hand protectively over the pick, ignoring the sting as it bit into her palm. "Just stop," she begged.

The shopkeeper sighed—not mockingly, but apologetically. Bubblegum got the idea that stopping the pick's story wasn't an option: not for him, not for her either. Maybe skipping parts of it was okay, though, because he persisted in what passed for a gentle murmur, "You found it a few months ago when you were cleaning your room. You have servants to tidy up so you don't really need to do it yourself, and you're not messy anyway, but—"

Bubblegum dropped her jacket, her mittens, her scarf and plunged her freed hand over her ear. Because she refused to release the pick too, however, she could still hear the shopkeeper.

"—you were doing it to distract yourself. You were trying to keep your mind occupied with thoughts that weren't about her, about her hair and her eyes and the shape her shadow made on the wall, and you swept under the bed and the pick came flying out in a cluster of dust with a little clattering sound. Spik-spik-spik-skkkkt." He paused. Bubblegum didn't see why—by now she'd squeezed her eyes shut against the sight of the shop and its attendant.

"You didn't know what it was at first," he whispered, and his voice was kind. Kind. "So you leaned down. You picked it up. The instant it touched your fingers you remembered, and the strength ran out of your legs and you clutched it and cried. Cried like you're crying now. And as much as it hurt then to find it and hold it, every day since you've absently put it into your pocket to carry it with you wherever you go, because it feels a little like she's still with you that way."

He stopped. Chest tangled with sobs, Bubblegum pried open her eyes and blinked away thick, angry tears. The shopkeeper wasn't smiling—wasn't gloating. Instead there were lines around his small, puckered mouth and his gaze glittered with sympathy, which was almost worse than smugness, and Bubblegum hiccupped and said with as much dignity as she could muster, "Yes. Yes, all right. You've proven q-quite enough, thank you."

She knelt, smearing her arm over her face to dry it. Collecting her things, she wadded them into a haphazard bundle and stood again. She wanted out of this wretched shop—wanted to put as much distance between herself and the kind-eyed imp as possible. She had no intention of lingering—she'd shrug on her winter gear outside.

"Majesty?" The shopkeeper flared his cursed hands. "Majesty, you must know I didn't say those things to hurt you. My talent binds me to telling an item's story once it's been asked for—that's all. I am terribly sorry this particular story was painful for you—"

"I'm not angry with you," Bubblegum said, and it was true. She was furious. Thrusting the pick back into her pocket, she fumbled for the doorknob behind her and managed, "I'm sorry, sir—I should leave. I don't see how any of your items would be beneficial to me at all. I mean, I haven't lost anything you can give back, so—"

She found the doorknob. Unable to mask a hiss of relief, she spun it and stepped to leave the shop.

A touch on her shoulder stopped her. Glancing over said shoulder, Bubblegum found the shopkeeper offering her two things: a raised index finger and a handkerchief. "Maybe I don't have anything you've lost," he admitted. "But what if I told you I had something someone else is missing? Something a little more noticeable," he hedged, "than an absent guitar pick?"

A burst of wind trickled through the crack in the door and chilled the remnant tears on Bubblegum's face. Instinctively she sniffled, and an ember of indignation flared to life low in her belly. "You have something of Marceline's?" she asked. "You have something of hers here?"

The imp didn't bother with teasing maybes. He answered, "Yes," pressed the handkerchief into Bubblegum's hand, and stepped back. A moment later he was gone, fast disappearing into the shop's maze of shelves.

For a moment Bubblegum stood at the door. A knife of cool daylight spilled in through its opening. The arm nearest it was knotted and purple, all gooseflesh.

She felt the press of the pick through her jeans, insistent. Almost tender. Almost like the whisper of a fang over—

"Twizzlers," she muttered. Pulling the door closed again, Bubblegum turned and followed the shopkeeper.