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"DON'T take me there. I'm warning you."
"Can't do, honey bo."
Marceline tried to flee from Jake's grasp, as she found out was incredibly difficult due to her chest pain, and his giant hand carrying her around like a toddler.
"Don't squiggle around, Marcy! You're gonna get hurt! >:["
Finn was sitting atop Jake's shoulder, just bickering with Marceline to keep her distracted from the strike.
"You guys don't understand, you can't leave me there... with her.."
Jake took Marceline in front of him, standing face to face.
"Is this because of y'all's weird relationship?"
Finn quickly whispered "Don't...!" to his ear but it was already a tad too late.
Marceline looked him dead in the eye, interrupting her efforts to break free for once.
"There is no relationship, shithead."
"Sigh mannn..."
Finn buried his head in his palm, sighing heavily.
"What?! What did I say??"
Jake stood quiet for a moment, just looking at Finn for an explanation, ignoring Marceline boiling right in front of him.
Finn talked casually, as if said Marcy wasn't right there.
"Didn't I tell you to not talk about Marcy and PB's stuff? Especially to any of 'em? Are you dense, bro?"
"I don't remember you saying anything, man. What's the issue with them anyway? Weren't they fine like ... months ago?"
"...Guys..."
"Jake! How can you- sigh. This has been going on for way longer than just a couple months."
"Man, how should I know?!"
"This is why people don't tell you stuff and you have to hear it from me!"
"Guys."
"Well Finn... If there's something up, why do we even have to take her there? Isn't there any other medical place nearby?"
"...No."
"..."
"Besides, Peebs said she was worried when I called her, so..."
"GUYS- wait she did?..."
"..."
"..."
"... W-WELL IT DOESN'T MATTER, I'm gonna fly away once we're there, so you might as well let me go NOW."
In unison: "NO!"
"YES, YOU WILL-"
Jake stretched his legs bigger to reach the Candy Kingdom.
There, candy people avoid their way in the street in an attempt to divert from the chaos, while Marceline is now being properly dragged by Jake.
Finn kicked open the door to the hospital.
"We came as fast as we could!"
Princess Bubblegum was previously sitting at her table, surrounded by medical gadgets.
She got up swiftly, as for the startle reflex from the noise.
She had dark sunken bags under her eyes.
The gray hue along with her flushed complexion, didn't suit her at all.
In the past, she'd believe it did.
She went in closer to them, yet something pulled her back before she even got to feel something.
Marceline, once complainant and loudly inconvenient, seemed to have completely shut down her system.
Her irises hovered throughout Bonnibel's body circling too fast, even unable to process as much information as she could probably gather from all those pinpoints.
As of a prey eying the futile hopes of an escape, instead of reasonably panicking.
Though the remaining bitterness and fear in her certainly avoided the core.
She made herself look down before her eyes could meet hers, abstinence pulling a trick on her, whispering lies she had to evict.
The while, Bonnie stood quietly, steadily, her eyes wandering around the blackness of Marcy's hair instead.
Swimming down her shoulders and shielding her in a way that her face couldn't be seen, at least by Bonnibel.
She didn't even bother searching a bit more, restraining herself, her hands just slightly twitching.
"Guys... Thank you for passing by."
-------------------------------------------
What a brilliant idea.
To leave these two wreckages in the same room.
Door locked. Alone.
Magnificent.
Bonnie blatantly hid behind her folder, her pen swinging in not properly writable directions, indicating she was probably not even depicting words.
Marcy stared at her from the stretcher, on opposite sides of the room.
The silence was so empty and so sharp at the same time.
Like all the sensational noise could fill it, but also pulled the spikes closer, not enough.
It could not be put down.
She could hear the vibrating pulse of her struggling heart and the croaking in her throat.
She could hear Bonnie's unnatural motion pattern, trying to make it natural in such an abrupt void, but failing miserably.
Her chest tightened at each shallow breath, reminding her of said physical situation...
...
Both of them.
"...Did you get into a fight?"
She hears the professional, sugary voice of a doctor asking a question she most certainly knows the answer to.
--------------------------------------------
"Ugh, I can't stand this... Why do I have to act all syrupy when I know they'll spit my words back at me? "
Marceline sips a bit of the pigment of her apple juice, leaving the glass with a sort of milky liquid instead.
Listening as Pb's complaints filled her brain with insoluble possibilities of resolution, in between them a vacation that she could take...
"Like, I'm sorry I don't have the solution for the pain you don't even know where is situated. There's NO need to bitch at me for that.
"OH, and I'm sorry for not having the medicine to fix your and your offspring's broken relationship?! I'm a fucking doctor, not a therapist."
"That must suck."
"I'm almost pulling out my fucking hair because of this, I'll be fucking bald and then I'll blame my patients for making me lose my hair. And my mind."
"You're using 'fuck' a lot, are you manifesting?"
"..."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Bonnie drops on the bed almost hitting her head against Marcy's knees.
"I... just feel as if I need to be nice and sweet to these people, and keep it all buried to myself. Like, get a backbone, you know? Ain't I a person too?"
"It's okay... if you feel like you have more consideration for people than they do with you."
"It's not that, you got me wrong. I don't-"
"?"
"Sigh, forget it... I don't even want to think about work anymore. Not today, at least."
"U sure there isn't anything else you want to tell me?"
"I'm not sure I could put it into words anyway, so..."
--------------------------------------
"So?"
Marceline guided her focus to the cheap plastic-like fabric of the stretcher, poking a hole with her sharp fingernail and peeling off the edges alongside.
Of course, it had to be blue, it is already expected for it to be blue.
A sick, muted version of blue, that gravitates towards heavily washed-out denim and plain concrete.
The yellowish sponge peeking through was pretty crumbly too.
She undocked a chunk, glued to each other, but not quite:
The tissue had been detached from itself, in its smooth way of untouched, apart from the tensed ends.
But the sponge was ripped apart and just like it seemed like it would, it crumbled underneath the pull.
She worked on it like it mattered.
Like the slow destruction of something useless and defenseless could count as control.
It didn't matter what was happening.
What did matter was that pull, that whole digging.
The tiny blue flakes stuck to her fingers, to the curve of her nail beds, static-clinging like they didn’t wanna let go.
Bonnie's gaze shifted towards Marcy, unconsciously hoping it could alone prod something out of her.
She could wish the twist of her knuckles could somehow correct the way her presence folded in on itself.
Bubblegum knew it was foolish: The way she was trying to fill in the doused with those words devoid of meaning, and lukewarm tone.
The silence felt too suffocating, too straightforward.
If her questions weren't filling it out, then what would be left of her in it?
Defeat?
She took a deep breath.
"You really shouldn't still be doing this."
Her own voice tasted rehearsed.
And pathetically desperate.
"Risking yourself, getting into fights..."
Some ridiculous, whipped part of her still dearly hoped Marceline might acknowledge her existence if she just kept pushing.
"Tell me. How many times do I have to hit my head against the wall to forget stuff the way you do?"
Bonnie's heart shivered.
Marceline kept looking down, warm tears effortlessly incising their way down her cheeks as her lips kept parting.
"Is it taking you an ungodly amount of force to even look at me or is it just that meaningless to you?.."
Bonnie fidgeted with the sheath of her sleeve, unsure of whether to answer or to await more questions.
Meanwhile, she could stare at Marcy's boots and pretend that's exactly where she wanted to look, knowing that looking up meant that her lashes would shield her no more.
The boots were the same as they've ever been, of course.
She recognized them.
She gifted them to her.
It surprised her how boldly Marceline could wear the past on her body, even if it meant she had to grieve it every day.
One of the first things going through her mind since the breakup was to cover it all up with the medical coat and non-skippable clogs.
She couldn't bear to think too much, it hurt to think.
"... I didn't forget."
"Right."
Marceline took a look under her nails.
There was a stain from the melting
fabric dye.
"You used to tell funnier jokes."
"..."
"I don't even recall what I'm still doing here. I could just walk out the door, I know you wouldn't stop me.."
Maybe she was waiting for something to go differently, like a twist of fate.
Was her brain still deceiving her with empty promises?
Even then, the past would stay the same.
«Past» would've sounded so distant in the past.
Bonnie bit back the words trying to escape her mouth, trembling fingers against her lips.
The words dissipated from her mind, and even if they stayed they'd probably not be the right ones.
She didn't want her to walk out the door.
She didn't want to let her slip right through her fingers again.
If she just acted like a normal person
for once.
"I can feel you staring, you know."
----------------------
"Uuuhh I wasn't?..."
"It's okay, I'm hot and we both know it so I think it's understandable."
Bonnie playfully rolled her eyes from behind the desk, making zero to no effort at pretending she wanted to hide it.
She tried harder to weigh down the grin threading its way up her cheeks.
Her index kicked the pen so that it would roll and end in between the pages of her appointment book.
"You're so fuuuull of yourself, ain't you?"
"You liiiike it."
"I do not."
Marceline undocked her back from the stretcher and sat upright.
She turned down the lyrics she was writing and gently placed them on top of the mattress.
"You doooo.."
"Marceline!"
"Bonnibel."
"...Stop that."
"Make me."
PB let out a genuine, nervous laugh, incredulous that Marceline's teasing was actually getting through to her.
"You're so overwhelming..."
"You're so adorable."
Pause.
"... Golbdamn you scare me to death."
Marceline stopped her rage-baiting for a moment, tilting her head.
"Uuuhhh what?"
“Because... you make everything feel so... so bright. But it’s too blinding- sometimes..."
"Uuh... Wait are we still playing?"
Marceline kept the same playfulness in her voice, though her eyes dipped enough to show she wasn't sure.
Pb realized mid-sentence that they were in this weird-teasing moment still, she hadn't noticed when it shifted to whining but it seemed she was the only one there.
How overwhelming it must be.
Being around someone who just bursts open anywhere, anytime with no previous warning, how insensitive of her.
Such dramatic, weak people.
Always filled and spilling, like they can't hold anything else but water.
"I mean, sometimes I don't have any idea what I get myself into until after I'm already..."
“Wha... What did you get yourself into?"
"Uhh... Sorry..- chuckle I don't even know how the conversation went this way...."
She swiftly got up and headed towards Marcy.
She leaned in and forced her lips closed, really tight.
Firmly.
Please. Don't make me answer that.
Then, a kiss on the cheek to seal it all up.
----------------------
Who even is this fucker?
This quiet thing standing in the corner, trying so hard to just open her mouth and spill something out of it- for golbness sake.
It felt as if she bled herself dry and stuffed the cavity with siliconized polyester fiber.
She was washed out.
Her skin was tightly,
and blindly,
stretched up with chronic threads.
Her eyes are plastic and her irises don't move away from the center.
Is this a doll?
This... thing standing across from her wasn't gonna say a word.
Not a sound.
Marceline's eyes flinched down to her boots.
The same weighted soles and lopsided laces.
How fucking heavy they were.
At least they'd keep her down to earth.
She buried her feet in deeper.
"...I don't know what I was expecting."
She shifted her body weight up-front, the stretcher groaning from beneath her as she dragged up slowly.
Started moving her feet towards the door.
Bonnie could witness her kicking the ground from how low her eyes pressured her.
She could already predict the door slamming, it would not even surprise her.
One last act of rage and loudness, devoid of consequence.
Which is why, when Marcy closed the door slowly, every creak of wood charged down her spine like a ladder.
The door latch didn't click smoothly, rather it grated and dragged across the rust.
It screeched harder inside Bonnie's skull than any slam ever could.
A pitiful fold of limbs kept together by a fine thread of bubblegum.
Pulsating against the corner.
Like poorly functioning veins trying to pump out blood to nowhere close to where it might be needed.
The frantic squeeze of her ribcage trying to slither out.
She let herself turn her head over, and squinch into the keyhole filled with more sterile light, outlined with a curvy shape.
The exact same lightbulbs screaming inside her own office screamed out there too.
As if to say:
It doesn't matter where you run to.
Bonnibel sat straight up with her back against the wall, smoothing down the wrinkles in her coat.
She hunched over too much that night already.
"Ok. Get up."
She clinged to the wall, sliding down right after.
Get up.
All she wanted was to dissolve into the ground, but for what?
No one was coming back.
To no one.
No use.
Might as well just get up, instead of licking the fucking floor.
She forced her legs beneath her, wobbly and paresthetic, as she held on to nothing but her own weight for support.
Might as well.
----------------------
"Honestly, any by Mitski will do the job."
"Mitsuki?..."
Bonnie tightly wrapped her braid in itself, her knee against her chest in front of the vanity.
"I mean, her name is Mitsuki so I can't bash you on that one. What a shame."
Marceline's back faced the bed headboard as she peeled the blue shimmer from her nails.
Bonnie's room reeked of cinnamon and citrus, it would be strange if it didn't, because every single space in it was filled with candles and dried fruit inside little lace bags.
A salt lamp was on, giving complexion to the warm scent paired with an equally warm lightning.
The extinguished cigarettes on top of the glass plate pierced the air sharply with bitter, acrid smoke, one a bit overwhelming but easily accustomable.
"Well, I'm not the kind to listen to artists like her."
"I thank the universe every day for not handing me a second-hand radio music taste. That must be tough for you."
"Ok, ouch? Stop that. I listen to some sad music, ok?"
"Like?"
"Uuuh.."
"See? I told you."
"...Lorde. I like Lorde."
Marceline looked up for a second, staring down the reflection of Bonnibel, who was now picking at her split ends furiously.
She noticed her looking in, back through the mirror.
"Hum, I... What? I listen to Lorde sometimes. Surprised?"
“Well, now I’m picturing you crying to Ribs in that stupid clinical chair with a blanket over your knees like a lil grandma.”
Bonnie rummaged through the drawer for a bit, just enough so that Marcy could let the guard down to pick at her nails again.
Until she felt a painful thud to her head.
"Ouch! Did- Did you shoot a hair clip at me?!"
Marcy rubbed the back of her head dramatically, flopping sideways onto the pillows.
“You’re literally violent. This is domestic abuse.”
"Oh, can it. You called me a grandma."
"Would you prefer it if I called you a nerd instead??"
"..."
"Nerd."