The only thing that Finn could see was green.

There was nothing around for thousands of miles except for empty, greenish brown space. There was no ground beneath his bare feet, no walls closing him in; just an odd void full of ominous, ghoulish green lights and swirling tendrils of golden fog.

Finn'd be lying if he said he wasn't confused. His hat and all of his clothes save his shorts were missing, for one. Plus, he was almost uncomfortably warm despite the fact that cool air was blowing steadily against him, splaying his golden-blonde hair across his face and twisting locks of it behind his ears. The void also appeared to be empty of life other than himself.

"Hello?" Finn called out, barely able to hear himself over the rushing of the wind around him. He tried to swivel around but he found that his feet were seemingly welded to the air he was suspended in. "Is there anyone here!? Where am I?" he yelled.

"Finn," an awful, demonic sounding voice spoke his name. It was booming and greatly distorted, sounding like too many drastically different people were trying to talk over one another. The horrid sound sent a shiver of fear through Finn.

"Who's there?" Finn demanded, eyes sweeping across the emptiness. He felt a little defenseless since he couldn't move and didn't seem to have any of his weapons with him. "I'll fight you!" he screamed with bravado.

"Finn…" the corrupted voice called again. He was slightly unnerved that he couldn't pinpoint the voice to an exact place in the void. It seemed to be everywhere; above him, below him …inside him.

"Who are you?!"

The voice laughed loudly and the harsh screech of it irritated Finn's overly-sensitized ears. The different dialects and pitches of the voice began to melt away, leaving one flowering laugh that Finn was all too familiar with.

"Princess Bubblegum?" he asked in confusion.

A soft pink fog swirled in front of his face before the nineteen-year-old princess materialized in front of him. She was standing upside down (or maybe Finn was upside down since gravity didn't seem to be effecting the cozy-looking sundress she was wearing) and looking up into Finn's baffled blue eyes.

"Hey Finn," she said coolly, her voice strange and echoy as if she was speaking to him through a tunnel or a telephone. "Why are you up there, silly boy?" she asked him.

"Well…why are you down there?" Finn shot back, aiming for something casual.

Bubblegum threw her head back and laughed as if that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard anyone say. The sound, which Finn usually found adorable and endearing, sounded sort of mechanical and edged onto scary. "Oh Finn," she sighed, wiping actual tears from her sparkling purple eyes. "You're so funny!"

Finn chuckled nervously, his whole body tense and uneasy. "Yea…Um, where are we?" he asked hesitantly.

The princess giggled girlishly and shrugged minutely, the motion slightly dislodging one of the candy-fabric straps that looped over her shoulder. She twisted her fingers through one of the perfectly curled spirals framing her face and grinned dopily at the fourteen-year-old "I dunno," she said airily, voice taking on the tone of the other, less intelligent princesses he usually saved.

She smiled stupidly at him as she untangled her hands from her own hair and reached towards Finn to loop a few strands of his hair around her pale pink fingers. "Your hair is so nice!" she complemented. "I absolutely adore it when you wear it down!"

Her smile was scarily bright and her eyes were scrunched up as she gazed at Finn as if he'd hung the moon. "You're wonderful."

Finn just blinked at her for a few seconds. "Are you okay?" he asked. She was acting sort of… for lack of better word, stupid.

"I'm fine," Bubblegum answered with an overly large smile.

Finn raised an eyebrow at her. "You sure?" he asked, because it was his duty, his honor, to make sure the princesses were okay, and Bubblegum was definitely not okay right now.

Bubblegum waved off his concern. "You're so cute when you're being a hero," she tittered as she tugged lightly on his hair. "I love you soooo much!"

Warmth spread over Finn's face. "Uh, thanks…" he answered awkwardly.

The royal began to laugh again, loud and slightly obnoxious and a lot mechanical and definitely not herself, and Finn kind of wanted to shake her and tell her to stop acting bonkers.

"Finn, I love you!" she repeated, untangling her fingers from Finn's hair and grabbing at his face instead.

White-hot pain shot through Finn's body in steady waves originating from where Bubblegum's small palms were pressed against his cheeks. Finn shrieked in shock, then in pain seconds later as he tried to jerk his head away from her. The same unnatural force that had earlier glued his feet in place held his head steady so he couldn't do anything to dislodge her hands.

"Bubblegum!" Finn exclaimed.

"See what happens, Finn?" Bubblegum's voice had dropped an octave into a sort of demonic growl, but her bright smile didn't waver. "See what happens when you play with fire?"

"What?" Finn bit out. "What are you doing?!"

His hands flew to the nineteen-year-old's wrists in attempt to pull her hands away. He groaned in distress as his flesh instantly began to burn. He yanked his hands away from her and they were red and blistered as if he'd picked up hot coals.

Bubblegum laughed, the other voices starting to re-mingle with hers, turning her speech into a terrifying, wicked sounding chorus.

"See what happens?" the voice that wasn't just Bubblegum's anymore repeated. This time there was no mirth in it.

Bubblegum pushed herself up onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips against Finn's in a sticky kiss.

Finn moaned in agony against her mouth. It felt as if someone was pouring boiling sugar down his throat.

"If you play with fire, you're going to get burnt."

She leaned in close and pressed another wet kiss to the underside of his jaw, which immediately burned straight through his skin.

Finn cursed loudly, the pain becoming overpowering, as the princess stepped back with a satisfied smirk. She blew one last kiss at him, which physically hit him like a tiny flaming dagger, before she disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

The fire from his jaw spread out over Finn's body, eating away at his flesh like acid until he couldn't feel anything anymore except for the harsh burn. It felt as if someone were repeatedly ripping his skin from his muscles, sewing it back on with a needle fresh from the fireplace, and tearing it off again.

"Please," he begged to whoever was listening as the wicked flames lapped hungrily at his melting flesh. "Please make it stop!"

"Fire burns, Finn," the same terrifying choir of mismatched voices whispered into the boy's ear before a terrible, high-pitched coo sliced through the air and everything dissolved into a blissful nothingness.

-x-

Finn's eyes shot open. His body instinctively tried to bold upward with them but was stopped by a warm weight against his chest. His eyes flicked down and he noticed that Fionna was curled into him, snoring almost inaudibly.

He felt a surge of calmness melt over his limbs despite the fact that he could still feel his heart beating a mile a minute against his ribcage, could still feel a phantom burn on his lips.

Something about the comforting embrace of the Human girl charmed his anxiety so he curled himself tighter around her. He couldn't help the fond little smile that took over his face when she sighed contentedly in her sleep and pressed her cheek firmer into his chest.

His eyes began to droop and he sleepily pressed a soft kiss into Fionna's hair without thinking. All of the resonating pain from his dream faded away when Fionna turned softly in her sleep and brushed her lips against his neck.

When you play with fire, you get burned. When you play with the sun, you get creation.

The ominous voice in Finn's head fell on deaf ears, as the 14-year-old was already well on his way back to sleep.

-x-

When Finn woke up for the second time, his vision was obscured by gold.

He panicked slightly, thinking he was back in that awful void, until he felt the weight on his torso shift. Blonde hair (that wasn't his own) was swept back and suddenly he was looking up into wide blue eyes that were scarily similar to his own.

Fionna was hovering over him, forearms bracketing his head, and her cheeks were stained by a pretty, muted rose blush. "Hey," she whispered, a little breathless at their proximity.

One of the high arched windows that were set into the walls of the Candy Castle's foyer was positioned directly behind the pair of Humans and the early morning sunlight that was being filtered through it made Fionna's whole body (but especially her smooth, honey-colored hair) appear to glow.

"Hey," Finn finally breathed.

The two stared at each other for a few minutes, stuck in some sort of celestial trance before someone to Finn's left cleared their throat awkwardly.

Finn and Fionna jumped apart at the sound, the latter landing half on her cat (who had been curled up at their feet for most of the night). Cake let out a strangled sort of half-yowl and shrank up to the size of Finn's palm at the contact and Fionna squeaked in surprise as she looked up through her bangs to see none other than Prince Gumball staring at the Humans with stony expressions.

"Hey, guy," Fionna chirped, aiming for casual but missing by a mile. And a half.

Her porcelain cheeks were still dusted with a glorious pink blush that seemed almost natural against her otherwise pale skin.

"Good morning, Fi," Gumball said tersely. "Finn," he added, nodding at the Human boy.

Finn offered a small awkward wave and the Candy Prince clicked his tongue distastefully.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" the monarch demanded of Fionna.

The Human girl threw a questioning glance over at Cake, who shrugged her miniaturized shoulders, before looking over at Finn as if asking his permission to leave. Finn nodded, wondering slightly why she thought she'd need his authorization to talk to her friend.

"Uh, sure?" Fionna answered Gumball's previous question unsurely as she took the hand he offered and hoisted herself to her feet. The Prince slung an arm possessively around Fionna's shoulders as they walked and Finn felt a sharp twinge behind his left eye.

"Well, on that note, I'm off to eavesdrop!" Cake trilled before scampering off.

"Okay, I guess," Finn said, mostly to himself as he watched the feline wind herself in between the legs of a few of the princes and princesses who were already up and milling about. He sighed and thunked his head back down onto the pillow he'd shared. It smelt like a mixture of his tree house, his mom's old lotion, and a splash of vanilla something; it smelt like home and Fionna and Finn didn't want to stop to think about what that meant.

He sighed and yanked the sleeping bag up over his face, trying to block out the world so he could stew over the last couple of hours.

He was impressed when he was allowed to actually stew in peace for a full three minutes before 250 pounds of magic bulldog dropped onto his stomach, exclaiming that it was "time to get up" and that "The Breakfast Prince and Princess had brought 'breaky'" and that he would "eat it all before you even get up!"

Finn grumbled half-heartedly as he shoved Jake off of him and onto the candy-stone floor. He quickly pinned him down with a faux deranged smile and whispered with (fake) malice, "I will defend my honor. The breakfast will be mine."