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“It'll be okay, dude.”
It's not a lie, or at least not entirely. It's just a truth that's hard to swallow, one that Jake is trying to convince himself of at the same time as Finn.
Seeing his incredible younger brother, normally so reckless and unstoppably brave, frozen in a limp pile of blood and leaves is terrifyingly jarring. Finn has never been the type of kid to slow down, to really sit and reflect on things, but all he can do right now is stare at the empty abyss of the Crystal Citadel. It's a husk of broken dreams buried under wishes for a non-fractured family that Finn was too hesitant to speak into existence.
Neither of them can get the words out to describe what just happened. Finn is achingly, hauntingly still as he sits there looking at nothing, while Jake tries and fails to hide the tremors that are making his whole body shake. If one of them cracks, the other one will too — and as a result, they both have no choice but to keep their mouths shut. That’s how it always works with them. This is a rare moment in which them practically being one mind in two bodies has a disadvantage. Only one of them can feel the pain of a potential life crumbling around him, and it’s not the one with enough magical abilities to stop it.
Red hot fury, blazing brighter than Jake’s ever felt it before, swells up inside of him. It’s muddled together into a confusing mixture with a level of grief he hasn’t felt since their parents died — and he’ll keep calling them “their” parents, because, as of today, Finn officially has no other options. That much is certain, even among the aimless void they’re floating in together.
Out of nowhere, in the blink of an eye, Jake has become intimately familiar with the burning desire to murder someone. It feels much more justified than one would expect, and even a pacifist like Finn wouldn’t disagree with these ideations of violence anymore. Every good person has their limit, and Jake has just discovered that his goes by the name of Martin Mertens.
Compared to Finn’s bold and scrappy nature, Jake has always been more of a lover than a fighter. Apparently, that can all change in an instant during the rare occasions where Finn is unable to defend himself. Jake won’t tell him this, not his fiercely stubborn little brother, but he’s certain that situations where he’s left defenseless are about to get much more common for Finn. That’s to be expected without the shield of his sword-wielding arm.
Their adventures didn't feel quite so serious, not until something truly, irreversibly real happened. The only thing that’s still certain, the one truth they can both still cling to, is that they’re going to be there for each other. It’s a small mercy among all this grief.
Jake may have failed at the number one job of being a big brother — protecting his boy — but there’s a key difference between this loss and the last one they experienced together. Unlike their parents, at least Finn is still alive. In the midst of this waking nightmare, there’s still one thing to be grateful for.
He knows he needs to do better, for both Finn and himself, but there’s going to be a long road ahead of them.
“Do you want some soup or something?” Jake asks, gesturing towards the pot on the stove. Finn looks in his direction, but his gaze seems to go past Jake entirely. They can’t bear to meet each other’s eyes. Not right now.
Finn blinks, slowly and intentionally, like he’s resetting himself back into reality. He’s spent the entire night lying on the couch in some blurry state between being awake and sleeping, and Jake knows better than to push him too hard right now. It’s only been a few hours since they left the Citadel, and he’s already had to pull BMO aside to lecture them on what not to say to someone who’s just endured a horrible tragedy that a robot couldn't possibly hope to understand. Dealing with two kids at once right now is stressful, even for a parent of five. He might not be as good at the job as he thought.
“You don’t need to treat me like a patient, you know,” Finn says. It’s not an answer to his question, not really, but the unusually cold response bites against Jake like a prickling thorn. “I can make my own dinner.”
Jake has good reason to doubt that after the exhausting day they’ve had, but he won’t voice his disagreement. It’ll be better to let Finn figure out his new limitations and needs on his own; that’ll be the way to avoid some unnecessary arguments.
"Suit yourself," Jake says, “But let me know if you need anything.”
Finn normally isn't so stubborn about Jake doing favors for him like this, but nothing is normal right now. If he insists on making his own food to prove some unspoken point, even though he's been fine with Jake doing it just about every other night of their shared life, that's his own prerogative.
His boy has always been wildly independent, but as Jake watches him stumble around the kitchen in a daze, burning food and dropping supplies, he can't help but think Finn might be taking it too far this time. The sight hurts Jake’s heart in a way that Finn never has before.
After several minutes of letting him angrily slam cupboards and drawers while both of them pretend like nothing is wrong, Jake can’t take it anymore. He approaches Finn with a paw outstretched, one of his two hands, and he sheepishly lowers his arm when that arrogant thought crosses his mind. He wants to touch the bandages littering Finn’s body, the scrapes and bruises that the guardian blood from the Citadel couldn’t fully fix, but he resists the urge to treat Finn like the delicate flower he just bloomed into.
“Seriously, do you want some help?” he asks, and he knows it’s the wrong thing to say before the words even finish leaving his mouth. “It’s not that I don’t think you can do it, that’s not what I’m trying to say, you’re just having a hard time carrying stuff because you’re not used to this yet, and-”
Finn slams his one fist on the kitchen counter and lets out a frustrated shout, the loudest noise he’s made since they both watched his arm tear in half. There’s a scary look on his face, the face that’s a distorted mirror image of someone they’ve only just met.
“Getting treated like a stupid baby is the last thing I need right now!” he exclaims, his anguish ripping into the uncomfortable quiet that’s grown between them. “But that’s all you’ve ever done, isn’t it? You’re still seeing me as a dumb little kid!”
They both know it’s not true, but Finn is trembling and heaving with unsteady breaths, his mind lost elsewhere, his shaky voice directed towards someone who’ll never step foot in this home, and Jake needs to bring him back to reality before the brother he loves gets lost forever.
“Finn,” Jake says, just to interrupt him from saying anything worse. “Let’s go sit down, buddy.”
It almost seems like Finn is growling as he follows Jake to the living room, the runt of the litter straggling behind an older puppy who doesn’t feel all too grown up anymore either. In moments like this, Jake really misses their mother. She would know exactly what to say right now, somehow, despite the flaws their real parents had. It’s easy to idealize someone he hasn’t seen in years, and it was even easier to idealize someone Finn had never met.
Finn flops back onto the couch like a walking corpse, and Jake wraps a blanket over him before returning to the kitchen to make him a cup of something warm. The idea comes from some automatic instinct of protection that only Finn can activate in him. The packets of hot chocolate buried at the back of a cupboard are a reminder of an easier time, and the corner of Finn’s lips almost turns up in a smile when the mug makes contact with his palm. The heat is grounding, and Jake curls up with his head on Finn’s lap like a more ordinary dog might. The night could almost be mistaken as peaceful when the pieces are put together as gently as this.
The pressure of Jake’s little body, even warmer than the quilted blanket given to them by some princess or another, brings Finn back to Ooo. After a few sips of the cocoa, he steadies enough to speak again.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” he says, uncharacteristically quiet but just as earnest as he usually is. Some things haven’t changed, even after the hope got beaten out of him. “I kinda didn’t know where I was.”
Jake’s furry head nuzzles against him. “I could tell,” he says. “Your brain’s been stuck in that Citadel for hours, huh?”
Finn nods, and Jake’s heart sinks even lower than it already has. His poor, poor boy.
“I dunno if I’ll ever be able to get myself out of it,” Finn says nervously. “All I see when I close my eyes is him. Well, him and lots of grass, I guess. And the ocean. Always the ocean, like I’m gonna drown in all these cruddy new memories.”
Jake has had to patch up too many of Finn's scratches and injuries to count over the years, but a lack of paternal love is a hole that can’t be filled by anything except for a father. That’s impossible to fix when one of them is already dead — and the world would be better off if the other one was too.
“I bet P.B. would know how to make you some type of cool new robot arm,” he suggests. “A prosthetic, right? Is that the word? We should pay her a visit and talk to her about it tomorrow. Seeing her might make you feel a little better.”
Neither of them know enough to deal with this. A disability, the permanent loss of a limb, is something entirely foreign for a being with the power to shapeshift himself into anything and everything. Today has proven that Finn’s fleshy human body, full of bones to break and blood to spill, is fragile in a way that Jake could never be.
What kind of doctor would know how to help the only human in the world — or, rather, the only one that still deserves to be helped?
“I don’t know if I want one of those yet, or if I ever will,” Finn says. Frankly, he doesn’t want to go out and show this vulnerable side of himself to anyone but Jake. “I don’t know what I want…besides a dad, I guess.”
Jake would say, “You do have one, our dad,” but that hasn’t been true since the day they buried him in the ground.
Instead, Jake looks into Finn’s dull blue eyes, the bags underneath them framing them like dried-up tears, and sighs. The sparkle he used to see in them is long gone, and it might have disappeared even earlier than today. If only Jake had noticed sooner.
“I had a feeling meeting him might go badly, but not like this,” he says, “I knew we couldn’t trust a guy who’d leave his baby all alone in the woods, and I don’t give a crap what his reasons might’ve been. He sucks.”
There’s an unspoken question hanging between them: what about Finn’s mom? Would she have been any better? Since his dad is apparently still alive, does that mean his mom is out there somewhere too? Would it be worth chasing after her next?
But neither of them will dare to ponder these concepts yet. Not while the wound of his dad is still so fresh, fresh enough to make the petals on his stubby arm wilt away. The physical reminder of today, when Finn was torn between two families, one who raised him and one who ran from him, is explosively devastating to look at — and it’ll be a mark on his body forever.
“Do I look like him?” Finn suddenly asks, “You said I did the first time you saw him, but is that still true?”
Jake wishes so desperately, more than anything, that he could say no. But a comfortable lie is still a lie, and Finn has gotten old enough to hear all the truths Jake wouldn’t previously say.
“Yeah,” he admits, “But that doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Finn’s body stiffens at this answer, but he isn’t surprised. He always knew that his messy hair, hanging over his shoulders like a protective golden curtain without his trademark hat, had to come from somewhere.
“When I was really little,” Finn says, slowly and solemnly, “I used to wish I was a dog. For a while, I hated that I was the only one in our family who looked different. Is it stupid that I’m feeling like that again?”
There are times where Jake looks in the mirror and sees the disappointed face of his father, the frustrated glare of Jermaine, the warm gaze of his mother. But usually, he just sees reminders of this wild life he’s created with Finn — the love and the loss and the wrinkled memories scarring his fur. They’ve never needed to share a species to share a heart.
“I like you the way you are,” Jake decides, “Still Finn the human, no matter if you’ve got one arm or two. Things are gonna be different, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna be bad.”
Finn nods like he’s trying to convince himself to believe it, and he probably knows that Jake isn’t certain of what he’s saying either. But hope is all they have left to hold on to, and if his body’s already been growing like a human for years, what’s one more change to add to the pile of his alien type of puberty? At least now they have an idea of what he might look like when he's older.
“Thanks, man,” he says. He scratches the back of his head, a little embarrassed. “And, also…thanks for saving me back there. He didn’t help me, but you did. You always do, and I don’t think I knew how much that mattered until now.”
If Jake is sure of one thing about his brother, it’s that Finn is a hero. That’s a quality that can’t be taught, and there might be some lingering regret over healing the leg Martin used to get away from him, but Finn is accustomed to doing things for people who wouldn’t do the same for him. His dad deserved to feel the same loss as Finn, with their limbs torn from their bodies, but only one of them had to pay the price of being in the Citadel. A real hero would do what Finn did, no matter the cost, even though things ended up being unfair.
Finn had been acting strange recently, yes, but Jake never expected his usual savior complex to end with such severe consequences. Ever since that grass sword sewed itself to him like a tumor, benign and waiting for the chance to twist into something more malignant, things have been different.
It’s a little awkward to be thanked for just doing what any decent person would’ve done, especially after Jake had spent the days prior to this avoiding the manic version of Finn that the grass sword had created. All the tension brewing between them evaporated the second a bigger enemy inserted himself into their lives, but guilt still digs into Jake’s gut. There must’ve been a way to prevent this, if only he had stopped Finn from touching that sword in the first place.
Instead of apologizing, instead of telling Finn that he’s never needed to beg for affection and attention on his hands and knees like he has been with everyone else lately, Jake sighs.
“I wasn’t enough to save you, though,” he says. “Only he could have done that.”
After today, Finn is done chasing after approval. He’s fed up with running after women, running after his father, running after a version of heroic manhood that his real father spent years drilling into him. For once, all he wants is to slow down. Rushing after pointless dreams is what got him into the messes that are ruining him right now: his broken relationships, his cursed sword, his terrible first impression of the man he’s spent a lifetime fantasizing about.
It’s time for both of them, Finn and Jake, to wake up from this game they’ve been playing and face the truth they’ve gotten themselves stuck in. Finn isn’t the only one here who needs to finish growing up.
“But he didn’t help me at all, and you did,” Finn says. “So thank you. I should’ve picked a side, you or him, and I wish I had figured out the right answer before…well, this.”
He gestures at his stub of an arm, the first time he’s properly acknowledged the remnants of what used to be, and the tears finally begin to fall.
Rain will eventually nourish the flower poking out of him, and crying will do the same for his soul. The room is quiet for a minute before the tears get bigger and bigger, and a trapped sob cracks out of his throat. Jake is in over his head, and all he can do is stare helplessly at Finn’s sobbing face. No matter how old he gets, he’ll always go back to being Jake’s baby brother whenever these loud wails flood over him.
“We’re gonna figure this out,” Jake promises, “I love you.”
It might be too optimistic, but someone’s going to need to be the light in the dark now that Finn can’t play that role anymore. Surely somehow, if he stretches himself thin enough, if he transforms into a better brother and friend, if he shifts his body into something stronger, Jake will find a way to save Finn again like he used to. This isn’t going to be the end — it’ll become a new beginning.
Finn is hesitant for a second before he replies, “I love you too, dude.”
When Jake stretches out enough, he can wrap his whole self around Finn like a protective cocoon. He did this all the time when they were kids, but Finn feels smaller than ever in Jake’s arms now that he can’t hug him back with the full force he formerly used.
Finn stares down at the empty space where his arm used to be, like a ghost stuck to his body, but Jake can’t see the vacant look on his face when they’re embracing each other. His dead eyes are hidden away when he buries himself in Jake’s chest, and from the outside, things might even look normal again. Jake’s relieved smile is out of place beside Finn’s distant brain.
The protective vault of Finn’s mind wrenches open, tears the memory of this awful day away from him, and locks it up somewhere too deep to touch.