BREATHE | bubbline ✓

" girls are confusing "

GIRLS ARE CONFUSING, Marceline surmises, biting a nail as she dangles upside down from a tree. Ash is watching her from below — judgementally. She has been ignoring him for fifteen minutes now, but it's getting harder when his face looks perfect for punching.

"How long are you going to stay up there?" Ash finally moves to lean against the trunk of the tree Marceline was hanging from, making sure to avoid the reach of her claws. "Your shift's almost starting."

"Be there in a sec'." Marceline breathes out heavily, spacing out.

"Did you get laid by a human—finally—at that weirdass party yesterday?"

Marceline jerks up rapidly, with so much force that she almost vaults into the tree's higher branches. "No."

She glares at him.

Ash smirks. "Then explain the blush."

Ah, she can't hide anything from a centuries-long companion, so she tells him the story, about the forehead kiss, about that look in Bonnibel's eyes. It had made Marceline feel like...kissing her, tasting those cherry red lips for her own.

Ash listens raptly, not interrupting for a change, but as she progresses through her tale, though, his expression grows sterner. His arms tense over his chest.

"This might be bad," he finally says, once Marceline was done flailing around.

She knows what he's referring to: the ever-present threat of her father returning to Earth to look for her once he's recharged the power to do so. "I have to get stronger."

Ash hums. "I've already told you—"

"—Ash," Marceline cuts him off, and she drops from her swing of a branch to meet him at eye-level. "I have an opportunity—a chance to live the life I've always wanted. I've waited literal centuries for this, and I'm not giving it up for his petty...wishes."

Especially not when he had been the one to ruin it in the first place.

"I'm beating him." Marceline eases away and slips the flip-flops she had left by the tree roots on. She throws a thumbs-up over her shoulder. "I'll do it."

She had to.

Bonnibel...she might not feel exactly what Marceline felt for her, but last night — last night showed her that there was something there, and, potentially, something new.

Bonnibel, with her straightforwardness and smarts, Bonnibel with her grace, ruthlessness and empathy, Bonnibel with her fading pink hair and open, blue-eyed gaze.

Bonnibel, whose soul Marceline loved so deeply.

There was no doubt about it. Phoebe, she had loved and lost, and Bonnibel, who she loves and wants to protect. Her old life was to be shed, and she was to lead a new one.

Marceline will do whatever it takes to ensure Bonnibel would be safe. She already loves her; she's already fallen.

_________________________

Bonnibel slept terribly. Her books were heavier than usual, and so were her eyelids. Oh, why did she have to do what she did...it was bound to make things awkward, now. She still remembers Marceline's flustered face as she dashed out of the porch, not staying for the remainder of the party. It had been a rather odd thing to explain to LSP, who hadn't been amused that Marceline had left before the truth-or-dare game she had been scheming—planning.

"You look like crap." Finn offers, and Bonnibel glares at him through her lashes from where she was sitting at her table during lunch period. Well, at least they had separate lunchtimes...till she remembered that Marceline didn't care about things like that.