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The Star has lost count of how many times she's fought Bonnibel Bubblegum. She's lost count of how many minions she's killed because they asked her why she let Bonnie live.
She used to track time by their encounters, back before. Back when she was weak and pathetic and easily taken in; back before her father showed her what she could truly be. Back when Bonnie hadn't shown all the bitter, hard sides of herself, hadn't lost herself in the dull slog of right and wrong, like that matters in a world that's dying.
Even after, she kept at it, for a while, the passing of time subconsciously marked in her head by the times she and Bonnibel fought. She could track a decade in how Bonnie had changed, not because she aged anymore than The Star did, but because she grew tougher. She started dressing for battle; the wistful way she'd looked at The Star, the first few times, faded from her eyes.
But time faded into time, and tracking it no longer mattered. Bonnie didn't ever really change, not anymore, set in a final form, resolute in hating. The Star didn't change, no use tallying her life in the lives she took when she could no longer count them.
She thinks of Bonnie sometimes, without wanting to, flashes of laughter, of tangled limbs, moments stolen from the harshness of the world. Thinks of her and goes out into the world, drinks till the memory of Bonnie's taste is washed away by the salt and rust of blood.
Once, she dreams of her, wakes half-expecting to see pink hair on the pillow, and that's the day she swears to herself, next time. Next time, Bonnie dies.
And next time comes, the way it always does.
Bonnie's off-balance today, uncoordinated with rage. She's not even well-armed, none of the fancy guns and tanks she likes to bring, like it'll make their fighting less intimate.
“What's wrong, Bonnibel?” The Star asks, sweeping clear of a badly-aimed stake, floating out of Bonnie's reach and laughing. “Did I make you angry?”
Bonnie screams, harsh fury tearing from her throat, and The Star floats back in front of her; tilts her head on one side, considering. “Oh, did I bite one of your little friends? Suck out their soul?”
She swipes at Bonnie lazily and makes to float back, prolong the game; but Bonnie grabs her by the throat before she can pull away, digs her fingers in hard. Her shoulders are heaving, eyes wild and bright. A spark of thrill dances through The Star's blood, and she smiles, despite the bite of Bonnie's nails in her neck.
“I'm right– aren't I?” she chokes. “Someone– special? Ohh, did I kill– your little lover?”
Bonnie's free hand is gripping the stake so hard it looks like her flesh could fuse with it, make her weapon part of her. She brings it forward, presses it up against The Star's chest, the sharp point digging into her ribs. Bonnie's other hand tightens on her throat.
The Star has struck a nerve. Maybe Bonnie really did have a lover. Maybe their fights aren't the only time she feels alive.
“Am I right?” she says, voice a rasp. “Did you think– it'd make you less mine?”
Because Bonnie is hers. Her life, her anger, her plans. All of them, The Star's.
“You're a monster,” Bonnie spits, and the stake digs in harder. Any more and it'll split her skin, dig in deep, and even being who she is won't save her from becoming a puff of smoke.
Enough. Enough of this game. Didn't she promise herself, this time, Bonnibel dies?
The Star doesn't pull away. Instead, she wraps one hand around the stake, drags it sideways. Bonnie fights her all the way, and the point drags a line across The Star's skin, burning, but it doesn't pierce deep, doesn't end her. And when she's gripping Bonnie's wrist at her own side, the stake's point safely in the gap between her body and her arm, The Star lifts her other hand to the back of Bonnie's neck, pulls her in closer.
She can feel the gasp of Bonnie's shock, see the widening of her eyes, as she draws her close like a lover. Flashes flicker through her brain, from back before, back when she was less, of hands that used to be her own pulling Bonnie in the same way. How she tasted sugar sweet, her hands in Marceline's hair.
But she's not Marceline, and Bonnie isn't the Bonnie she was, and The Star drags a girl who once made her weak in closer and closer, till her lips meet Bonnie's face, not the softness of her mouth but the dig of her eye socket, and she pulls. With her teeth, with the force of her mouth; sucks the way she sucks blood, sucks souls, but takes neither. Bonnie doesn't bleed, and The Star could have her soul, but doesn't.
She takes her eye instead, and Bonnie doesn't bleed red, doesn't taste like rust and salt. She's sweet on her tongue, so sweet it almost makes The Star sick, sick on the sugar of memories. Pink weeps from Bonnie's eye socket as she screams, as the stake falls from her shaking hands and she pushes The Star away, falls to her knees in the dust. Bubblegum flesh bubbles up, tries to repair itself, but this is a kind of damage Bonnie can't grow away.
The taste of her still coats The Star's tongue as she moves closer, as she lowers herself down, touches ground for once to knock Bonnie flat on her back in the dirt, pin her wrists to the floor, and stares at her. Into the ruined flesh of her right eye socket, the bright defiance in her left, even still, even now.
Bonnie's chest heaves with sobbing breaths, her hands curl into fists at her sides, nails digging into the ground, but she doesn't cry. She doesn't wail or scream. She looks up at The Star with the eye she has left, and her gaze isn't even afraid.
“Go ahead, then,” she says, her voice rough and cracked and yet still fierce with rebellion. “Kill me.”
The Star hesitates. The Star doesn't hesitate, and yet, and yet. Blood and dominion and ruling in death, those things lose their shine after a while. She thrills to the variation fighting Bonnie brings. The taste of the unexpected, the crackling glory of not knowing for sure that she'll survive this time.
And Bonnie is hers. Not her father's, not their domain's. Hers, The Star's, and– and she was Marceline's, once. The only thing that ever was.
“Kill me,” Bonnie says again, spitting it at her, all challenge. “See if it fixes what's broken inside you. See if it can make you feel alive.”
The Star hisses at her, feels her words strike home and lets it turn her into a vicious, biting thing. “Don't flatter yourself.” She opens her mouth, bares her fangs, curved and sharp. Thinks about it, about sucking out Bonnie's soul, leaving her crumpled and empty. About sinking her teeth into her neck, leaching her dry. Whether she bleeds or not, something runs through her, keeping her alive; something The Star can take away.
She leans closer, again, close enough to kiss, close enough to kill and– can't. She's half-ashamed to find it so, something bitter and aching in her chest, where she thought she couldn't feel anymore. She can't kill her.
The Star smiles like she meant this all along, darts her tongue out to taste the flesh she tore, feels Bonnie move under it. A flinch, or. Or maybe she's catching herself from arching into it, catching the instincts of the girl she was a lifetime ago. She makes a sound, a ragged gasp, almost a whimper, and it could be pain and horror, but it could be pleasure too. Could be the same thrill The Star feels every time they fight.
“You could always join me,” she whispers, unplanned, and for a split second, she thinks there's a flicker of surprise, of doubt, in Bonnie's remaining eye.
Then her face hardens in a glare, her lips curling with derision. “I would never.”
“Your loss,” says The Star, like it doesn't matter, because it doesn't. It's not as if, for the briefest of seconds, she let herself hope. Hope is the kind of thing weaklings feel, support for those not strong enough to break the whole world under their feet. The Star doesn't hope. Marceline might, but Marceline is gone.
She lifts herself from Bonnie, leaves her lying in the dust, one hand going to clutch at her empty eye socket.
“This was fun,” she says, and blows a kiss, bubblegum sweetness still staining her lips. “But next time, I really will kill you.”
Only next time comes, and she doesn't. And she spends her days drinking down the blood of strangers, salty and hot, like it'll drown out the echo of Bonnie on her tongue.