Chapter Text
“Princess Bubblegum?” The intercom in the office buzzed.
“Go ahead, Pep.”
“There’s a boy and his dog here to see you.”
Bonnie sighs, pressing the call button again, “You can send them in.”
“On their way.” The intercom shuts off.
Taking off her goggles, Bonnie begins to put away some of her experiments. Her visitors would not be great witnesses to the projects she had in mind, nor would they be helpful. In fact, the biggest thing they would probably do is make it worse.
The lab was full of tubes, prototypes with gears and gadgets, samples of chemicals, and the most important items in Bonnie’s collection: fossils of creatures pre-Mushroom War. Incredible things that she had discovered herself, and gotten identified by ancient books and the eye of an old friend. The walls were littered with it, memories both of Ooo’s past and her own.
“Princeeeeeesss!” Finn announces himself as he enters the door of the lab, Jake not far behind him. Speckles of dirt dotted the little white hat he always wears, and a little tuft of blonde hair was hanging loose from his neck.
“Hello Finn. Hello Jake.” Bonnie strips the gloves off of her hands before heading to the sink.
“We have the craziest story for you!” Finn gestures wildly, the sword strapped to his back clattering against a table.
“Be careful Finn—“ Bonnie starts before his sword knocks carelessly into a stool. Jake’s arm stretches all the way out to catch it, placing it gently back right-side-up. He gives it a little pat.
“We have the tube thingie you asked for!” Finn announces. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the final piece that Bonnie needed for her three dimensional ‘periodic table’, a tube full of manganese, ground up.
“Thank you, Finn.” Bonnie smiles as she takes the tube. It’s a little scratched up, but she can put it in a new, shinier vessel with ease.
She’s placing it on a high shelf for safekeeping when the boys start making a ruckus again.
“You’ll never believe where we found it, P-Bubs. It was mathematical.” Finn says, “Jake grew huuuuuge legs and walked me out to the outskirts of the woods!”
Jake demonstrated this by making himself into what Bonnie could only assume was a 1:10 scale of the Jake from earlier. She watches on as he pretends to march over trees and terrain.
“And we found this ruin of a dock! Marcy said it was for old time ships called yaks!”
“It’s Yachts, bro.” Jake called out from his spot on the floor, where he was now turning into a tiny paper boat.
Finn waves him away, “Yaks, yachts, whatever.”
Marcy. Bonnie blinks, hard. “Marc— You were hanging out with Marceline?”
“Well, duh! How else do ya think we found the old human isles?” Jake wags his finger, “Ol’ vamps took us there herself on the back of a giant bat!”
Bonnie is definitively distracted. Marceline isn’t a name that she has heard in more than just a few years. To be fair, it was her intention not to hear it anyways.
“How do you know Marceline, PB?” Finn asks. Of course, it’s the one time ever in his life that he is observant at all, the one time he is perceiving a change in Bonnie’s body language. The look he is leveling at her is almost accusatory.
“I’ve been alive a long time, Finn.” Bonnie dismisses him, pretending to organize a few slides next to her microscope, “You get to meet everyone around.”
“I see.” Finn is unconvinced, but not quite sure enough to challenge the statement. “Anyways, after bat Marcy flew us over to an isle, she had me parachute down! With Jake as the chute!”
“Your skin gets thin enough for that?” Bonnie asks, eyebrows narrowed. Jake just shrugs. “I guess. We kinda were just hoping it would work.”
“You guys could’ve died.” Bonnie scolds, but her heart isn’t in it. They would just wave her off anyway.
“Nah, Marcy would’ve caught us.” Jake states confidently. “She’s awesome.”
“While we were there, we saw this ancient— what was it called again Jake?”
“Carrying. Pigeon.” Jake twists a finger gun for emphasis.
“Yes! A carrying pigeon! Marceline said they used to help send messages, centuries before she was even born! But apparently, they stopped existing and came back?” Finn is counting something on his fingers.
“Carrier pigeons. They used them during the Mushroom War to help send untraceable messages.” Bonnie says absentmindedly. She organizes some of the papers on her desk and tries not to think too much about any of it.
“Exactly! We followed them and for some reason they took us right to the lab where they had that!” Finn pointed at the shelf with the manganese. “Then Marcy flew us back after fighting some slimy muck monsters. It was so cool!”
“We found another tube and brought you some of the muck. Just in case.” Jake reaches into a pocket that seemed to be made of his own skin and pulls out a tube filled with green slime. Bonnie grimaces, but takes it and rolls it between her hands, watching it move.
“Thank you boys. I’m not all sure what this is made of but it’ll be a good specimen.” She opens a small cabinet, placing the tube on a rack inside.
Jake says “Anytime, Princess.” At the same time Finn says, “Not a problem.”
“You guys be careful hanging around Marceline, though. She can be bad news.” Bonnie sits down in a stool near Jake.
“PB, you’ve got her all wrong. Marcy’s our friend.” Finn frowns, “Vamps ain’t gonna hurt us! She’s the queen! She’s gotta be like, diplomatic and set a good example and bunk.”
“She’s the only vampire left, Finn. There’s no need to set an example.” It’s a throwaway line. One that she only presented to prove a point, but the second Bonnie says it, she wishes she hadn’t.
Jake’s eyebrows flew up comically, “Wait, she calls herself the queen, but she’s the only vampire?”
Bonnie frowns, “The title itself is more complicated than that. She is deserving of it.”
Finn frowns, “Why don’t you like Marceline?”
Flinching, Bonnie attempts to dodge, “Don’t you guys have some other adventuring to do? Ooo isn’t going to save itself.”
Finn stares, hands on his hips. Bonnie can only grimace. There has to be some way to make him back off, a strategy that could make Finn give up on this questioning. That way she could get back to her studies.
“I don’t dislike her, Finn. We’ve been alive for centuries, all at the same time. We just don’t— we don’t match up.”
“I think you guys would be great friends.” Finn says, crossing his arms, “I think you just don’t like vampires.”
“Her being a vampire has nothing to do with it.” Bonnie stands up, “I have top secret research to do in here, you two go run along.”
Finn makes an odd face, but he complies, Jake trailing out behind him. The lab door closes and Bonnie begins to set the experiment from before back up onto the counter.
The goal was a newer, stronger sugar alloy. Something that wouldn’t crumble as easily when it rained, something sturdy. That’s the cover story, anyway. If it got out that Bonnie was trying to make her Gumball Guardians even stronger, well, it wouldn’t go over too well.
If she buries herself in her studies, she can forget about the whole interaction. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to think about, or worse, interact with Ooo’s resident vampire for another dozen years. More likely though, she would never be that lucky.
——
“What d’ya think PB’s issue with Marceline is?” Finn wonders out loud, trekking back to the treehouse with Jake. The landscape of the Candy Kingdom makes it a clear shot, as they walk absentmindedly in the general direction. At some point, they’ll see the top of the tree poking over one of the hilltops and know when to turn.
“I dunno man.” Jake says, interested in something else entirely that he was looking at on his little flip phone.
“It’s just— Marcy’s great! She’s so much fun! What beef does PB have with her?” Finn clutches a fist around his heart dramatically.
“Nah man, I’m not getting hatred from them.” Jake snaps the phone closed, “I’m getting jilted ex-lovers. Apart for centurieeees!” He morphs himself into an old man with a walker.
“Dude, seriously? As if Bubs would go for someone as mysterious and rule-breaking as Marceline. I think it’s something crazier. Like on separate sides of a war!” Finn mimes an epic, one-sided sword fight.
They keep trudging through the trees and grass on the hillside. Finn remembers what Bonnie told him once, about why she works so hard. “The kingdom is so far out in the open,” She had said, “It makes it so vulnerable to attack. It won’t happen again.”
Finn wasn’t sure that he liked the look in her eye when she said it, but he was just happy to be included at that point.
“There haven’t been any wars, Finn. Not since the olden days that Marcy remembers.” Jake points out, “Besides, PB wasn’t born until way after the last one.”
They walk along a bit in silence. The sky lights with a beautiful orange color as the sun starts to set, when Jake extends his legs at least twenty feet into the air. He scoops Finn up, and walks them back to the tree fort with six giant strides, each one longer than the last.
“I just want my friends to be friends.” Finn says sadly, holding the door to the tree fort open for Jake.
“I know, man, but sometimes it’s just not meant to be.” Jake heads straight for the fridge.
“That’s a sucky reality, dude.” Finn sighs, draping himself over the couch. “Everyone should just get along and hang out for my sake.”
“You’re a great kid. It’s why they all hang around you in the first place.” Jake placates, extending a hand across the room to give him a swift pat, right between the ears of his hat. He reaches over to the table. “Hey, BMO.”
“Hello, Jake!”
Finn just grumbles. He closes his eyes and listens to the sound of BMO’s buttons clicking, the gentle chirps of whatever video game Jake has pulled up.
——
Perhaps it's the impending full moon, or the fact that Finn and Jake have been poking around the kingdom, but the candy citizens are much needier than usual. The amount of people that have been knocking on Bonnie’s bright pink doorstep is far more than she has ever been equipped with.
They all have concerns. Fear of their neighbor, complaints that the taxes are too high. There’s one man made of taffy that bothers the banana guards for an audience with the esteemed Princess Bubblegum just to complain about his wife. He would rather dissolve into the southern sea than divorce her.
That’s honestly who she’s expecting when the banana guards let her know that there is a very urgent audience needed with her this morning.
Instead, it’s just Starchy. Standing there with dark circles under his eyes, disheveled clothes. His overalls are covered in dirt, probably still on from last night’s shift.
“Oh, Starchy? Is everything okay?” Bonnie asks, genuine concern leaking into her voice.
“No Princess, absolutely not!” He yelps. “There is someone stalking me! I need us to invoke the anti-vampire emergency measures!” Starchy’s hands twitch as he twiddles his thumbs. His eyes darted from corner to corner of the room.
“Anti-vampire— what are you talking about, Starchy?” Bonnie’s eyes narrow suspiciously, “Take a breath and tell me what’s going on!”
“I saw a vampire! Outside my home!” Starchy exclaims.
Glob, not this again. Starchy is a legend amongst the Candy Kingdom staff for panicking and blaming vampires for things. Things that are easily solved by other methods. Like clockwork, he would come out and make a claim about once a decade.
“That’s impossible,” Bonnie says calmly, slowly. “There’s only one vampire. And she hasn’t been to the Candy Kingdom in years.”
“It was not Marceline, I can tell you that.” Starchy isn’t yelling anymore, but the wild gestures don’t stop, “She must’ve turned someone else, she must be—“
“Starchy. Tell me what happened.” Bonnie wouldn’t entertain that thought. She gestured to a seat at a table at the edge of the room, and joined him.
“I was coming home from my graveyard graveyard shift,” Bonnie tries not to roll her eyes, “When this— this creature jumped out at me! From the bushes! It had sharp teeth and red eyes.”
“And you just assumed it was a vampire?” She asks calmly.
“Of course! The fangs, it— you have to arrest Marceline!” Starchy insists.
“Okay. Deep breaths. What else did this creature do?”
“It chased me! It followed me all the way home from the yard and then it just stopped. Right outside my front door. I went to turn on the porch lights but it was already gone.” Starchy shivers at the memory.
This piqued Bonnie’s interest, if only slightly. The stories that Starchy usually told were just figures in the dark, easily solved by adding lights or trimming shrubbery. They didn’t follow him home, never once in so many encounters.
To tell the truth, this was more of a burden than it was a mystery anyway. It just meant that she would have actual work to do.
“Okay. So stalking charges for sure, if we catch this guy. I mean, when.” Bonnie clarifies as she watches Starchy stiffen up at the word ‘if’.
“Yes, absolutely. I want to press charges.” He nods vigorously.
“I’ll be asking Marceline for any leads and then I’ll follow up with you, Starchy. Keep me updated on if anything like this happens to you again.”
“No! No, no, no!” He leaps up from his seat in protest, “You cannot simply give her a friendly questioning! She must be detained!”
“Starchy, under due process I cannot—“
“No! I will see to it that she gets arrested if you do not take action!” Starchy wags his little finger through the air, “She has a part in this! I don’t have to prove it to you.”
Nevermind due process, obviously. Bonnie sighs deeply, considering for a moment. She relents, “Okay. Let’s compromise. I’ll get a neutral subject to interrogate her, and we’ll find the answers.
“Fine. But you have to promise me that you’ll figure this out, Princess. I am terrified to leave my home.”
Bonnie nods, “Of course, Starchy. I’ll have some banana guards patrolling your neighborhood and stationed at the graveyard.”
Starchy’s shoulders finally release all of the tension held within them, “Thank you, Princess.”
“I’ll call a guard to walk you home, just stop at Pep’s desk and he will assign one to you. Let me know of any further developments.”
Starchy thanks her again profusely before he leaves, with all of the sinister energy and fear gone from his posture. Once the door closes behind him, Bonnie slumps down into her chair. There was no way that she could do this without making an enemy out of Marceline once again.
——
“--and then, Jake did this awesome kick flip! You should’ve been there, it was so cool.” Finn gushes.
BMO blinks his eyes, one at a time. “I too, wish I could be there with you. My kick flip would have been better than Jake’s.”
Jake reached a hand down from the top floor, one long spaghetti noodle. He used it to bonk BMO gently on the top of his head. “Not true!” echoed through all of the rooms as loud as possible.
Finn’s phone vibrates in his pocket, but he can’t help but look at BMO’s devastated face. “Hey man, don’t listen to him. He’s just all bummed out because his girl cancelled their date tonight.” Jake groaned in agony through the attic door.
“Yo, it’s Finn.” He answers.
“Hey, Finn. Can I ask a favor of you? Meet me at the gates to the kingdom?” Princess Bubblegum’s voice fills the receiver.
“Probably, yeah, just hang on-- Jake!” Finn calls out, “Do you want to go on an adventure?”
“Is it a fun one?” He calls back down, pained.
“Uh, he wants to know if it’s gonna be fun?”
Bubblegum sighs, “Not really, if I’m honest.”
Finn grimaces, “She says it’s a lame mission, man.”
“Good. I don’t need to be having fun tonight without her.”
Finn’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, “Dude, what the fuck?”
“Pardon me?” Bubblegum says with amusement.
Nearly dropping the phone, Finn tries to recover with a, “Ah, nothing. Jake and I are down.”
----
“You want us to do what?” Finn exclaims.
“Shhh, Finn. I don’t want anyone to overhear it.” Bonnie scans for possible bystanders. Luckily for them, there were only banana guards out at the gates tonight. The moon hung high in the sky, a perfect croissant crescent. The light made Finn’s face look a bit older than he really was.
“Bubs, I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t feel comfortable accusing my friend of a crime.” Finn says honestly, “I think you should take point on this one.”
“Look, Finn. You and I, and even Jake, we know she didn’t do this.” Jake’s ears perked up at the sound of his name, paying attention to the conversation for the first time. “This is purely a formality. Once we rule her out to Starchy, then the actual investigation can begin.”
“I guess.” Finn scratches his head, “But, why can’t you do the interview and we go look for clues?”
Bonnie grits her teeth, “It’s not a good idea, Finn. Besides, I wouldn’t send you out if I thought she was dangerous. Believe me.” She prays to whatever god is out there tonight that he doesn’t ask questions.
“Okay.” Finn agrees, “We will interrogate Marceline. But tomorrow.” Jake yawns for emphasis.
“Thank you, boys. I owe you one.”
“How about a big party? With lots of sandwiches?” Jake finally speaks, if only half-heartedly.
“Whatever you want.”
As they walk away whispering, Bonnie begins to think that she should not have promised them anything at all.
----
“Just feels like this is a bad idea, man.” Jake almost whines. He’s shrunken down to half of his own size.
“It’ll be fine, dude. Marcy is our friend. And you heard PB, she’s innocent. We can just go in, ask her some standard questions, and get out.”
“Have you ever done an interrogation before?”
Finn thinks for a moment. “Not officially.”
Jake shrinks another few inches as they get closer and closer to Marcy’s house. The sun is setting, casting a wonderful pink and orange glow over the sky. All Finn can think about is how they should have done this interview during the day, when Marceline wouldn’t be able to chase them all the way back to the Candy Kingdom.
He scans the surroundings as they enter the cave. If they get this done right away, they might have time to get out of the lip of it and back into the sunlight, unscathed. Marcy’s house is small, and it’s only about a stone’s throw away from the entrance to the giant dripping cavern.
Sometimes, Finn thinks to himself, sometimes it feels like Marceline proves the vampire stories right. Not exactly the fanciful ones, the ones with their stories told in the pages of old books that PB recovered. The tales that Joshua used to tell them, used to sit them around the fire and tell the tall tales of icky, slimy vampires who hid in the shadows and preyed on the weak.
Not the best thought to have while they were trying to gauge what Marceline’s reaction would be.
By the time Finn had stepped to the top step of Marceline’s front stoop, Jake was the size of a stuffed animal. Finn rolled his eyes and scooped him up, before knocking on the door.
The door opens to Marceline, floating in the doorway in an oversized tee and boxer shorts, rubbing her eyes. “Hey guys, what’s up?”
“Sorry to wake you, Marcy. We’re here on official business.”
“Nah, it’s cool. I slept in anyway. Come in.” She opens the door a little wider, allowing Finn and Jake to step into the living room.
“So, what’s this official business?” Marceline floats down into a chair at the edge of the room, to the right of the couch Finn and Jake settled onto. Finn was sitting awkwardly, hands on his kneecaps as if he’d never been here before.
“So, listen. We have a report in the Candy Kingdom that there's been a— vampire-like creature? Spotted stalking a citizen. And we’ve been asked to follow up.” Finn’s voice comes out awkward, jerky. Jake tries not to shiver from his place next to him.
“I’m sorry, what?” Marceline’s voice is calm, but her eyes betray her. They’re nearly glowing red with anger.
“We tried telling this citizen, ‘No way, man. Marcy would never!’ but he didn’t listen.” Finn tries to explain, “He said if we didn’t investigate then he would come to your house and do it himself.”
Marceline pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “And the princess sent you, I presume.”
Finn hangs his head, “Yeah.”
Her posture changes instantly. “I’m sure she did.” Marceline growls, “I’m sure she believed whatever that idiot Starchy told her this time, and that she’s going to take all those anti-vampire measures, and—“
Jake yelps and shrinks down to the size of an apple. He runs underneath the couch.
“Marcy, we believe you! All of us!” Finn cries out, “Just give me a minute to explain!”
The hackles on the back of her neck die down and she shrinks, floating back towards the floor.
“Bubblegum said she knew it wasn’t you! It’s to save face.” Finn reaches under the couch and scoops Jake back up. “She knows it’s not you, and that you wouldn’t make another vampire, but— wait, how did you know it was Starchy?”
Marceline rolls her eyes, “Please, it’s always Starchy. Every time something weird happens to him he jumps to ‘vampire’. It’s happened twice a decade for the past century. That dude is completely bonkers.”
“So you’re not mad at us?”
“No. I guess not.” Marceline grumbles half-heartedly. “I didn’t do anything, though. And if the princess sent you to come find me, it must have been more serious than the other times.”
“Yeah, the dude was straight up bananas.” Finn agrees, “But P-Bubs made us come down here to just knock you off the list so the real investigation could start.”
Marceline tilts her head, “Is that it? Were those her exact words?”
Jake perks up, “I believe her exact words were: This is purely a formality.”
She slumps back down onto the chair. “Well, if that’s all.” Her face was unreadable.
“You can join us if you don’t have anything left to do, Marce.” Finn offers. “We could always use a floating, super strong vampire!”
Marceline runs a hand through her hair, “I’ll catch up with you guys later on, okay? Just shoot me a text.”
“Alright Marce, if you say so. Thanks for helping with the investigation.” The boys wave goodbye as they leave out the front porch door.
——
“I simply don’t think I should have to pay the tax on something so frivolous!”
Bonnie tries not to roll her eyes, “Is that all?”
“Humph.” Ms. Rich stomped her foot, “I don’t feel as though you are listening to me.”
“I am listening to you. The taxes you pay go towards not only your amenities, but those of your fellow Candy Kingdom citizens. Therefore, everyone will have to participate in taxation.” Bonnie says tiredly. “I apologize that you don’t want to be taxed on apple juice, but that’s just how it goes.”
“One day you will understand.” Ms. Rich stomps out of the castle, as Bonnie presses the heel of her palm to her forehead.
The castle isn’t even quiet for more than a second before the phone rings. Bonnie sighs and picks it up, “Hello, Finn.”
“Hey, Princess. Marcy’s clean.”
An odd wave of relief flows over her, “Good. As I thought. Have any leads?”
“See, Bubs, that’s what we’re calling to ask you about.” Jake’s voice takes over, “I don’t see how we can investigate without interviewing Starchy.”
“Then you’ll have to interview Starchy. Hopefully questioning Marceline was enough. He should trust you now.” She can’t pretend that she wants to be a part of the investigation, or listen to Starchy blame every kind of mystical creature under the sun.
“Well, could you meet us at Starchy’s? In case this whole thing goes freaky-deaky?” Finn pleads.
“Fine. Give me ten.”
Starchy’s house was right next to the graveyard. Lucky guy, with no commute. All he had to do at the end of the night was walk his happy thirty feet to his front door.
And what a nice front door it was. His house was styled like an old mansion, the one that those old history books Marceline had donated to the library used to call ‘haunted’. The inside had luxurious red wallpaper, and beautifully spun carpeting.
Bonnie’s staring at a painting of Death, the literal bone demon, on the wall of Starchy’s house when Finn’s voice jolts her back to reality.
“Now, Mr. Starchy,” He starts, “When you say this ‘figure’ stalked you, about how far are we talking?”
Starchy opened his curtain to reveal an enormous ceiling-to-floor window that pissed Bonnie off at the simple sight of it. Impossible to fully clean.
“About there, in that far corner. Over by the Crumble’s mausoleum.” Starchy gestures to what is probably the furthest point of the yard, “All the way back to my front stoop.”
Jake pretends to rub his beard, deep in thought. Sometime along the way, he’d morphed the top of his head into an old-timey constable helmet. “And what did this creature look like?” He asks, in a horrible accent.
“Oh it was terrifying. It looked like a shadow, it had these horrifying red eyes. It was like they glowed in the dark. And it just floated towards me. Menacingly.” Starchy shivers as he speaks.
“And have you had any visions of this guy since?” Finn asks.
“No, I think the banana guards are driving it away.”
“Is there anyone with a motive to scare you or hurt you?” Jake asks, scribbling in a notebook. From behind him, Bonnie can see that he’s drawing a picture of Finn with his tongue sticking out.
“I don’t think so.” Starchy ponders for a moment, “I mean, Crunchy owes me money. And I owe Peppermint Butler some money.”
As if Pep doesn’t mention it every day of his life. When Bonnie left the castle this morning, Pep asked her to charge for the detective services in hopes to get part of his money back.
“Okay.” Finn says. Jake snaps his notebook shut. “We’re gonna follow up on Crunchy and Peppermint Butler. In the meantime, let us know if weird junk keeps happening to you.”
Starchy nods, “And you guys will prepare the anti-vampire measures?”
Bonnie stiffens, “Starchy, we’re not certain that it’s a vampire.”
“You told me you would take this seriously!” He wags a finger in front of Bonnie’s face, but Jake steps in-between them.
“Starch, bud. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this.” The horrible accent is back, “You gotta let the pros do their jobs.”
This seems to placate him, “Fine. But I want to hear the developments in the case.”
Bonnie moves to protest but Finn nods his head, “Of course, Starchy. It’s the least we could do.”
As the door to Starchy’s miniature mansion shuts, Bonnie throws her hands up in the air, “Glob, you guys. We have to solve this so he can stop being so far up my ass.”
Jake snorts.
“He’s really scared, PB.” Finn defends. Jake straightens next to him.
“He’s throwing around dangerous accusations.” Bonnie says, “If he tries to take on Marceline, we can’t defend his safety. Not to mention,” she waits until they’ve successfully walked out of earshot before nearly yelling, “She didn’t do it!”
“You’re awfully defensive of someone you barely know.” Jake gives her a strange look.
“I never said that I barely know her.” It slips out, but Bonnie is quick to change the subject, “We just have to figure this out.”
“Wait—“
“You guys tackle the Crunchy interview. I’ll handle Pep.” Bonnie interrupts Finn. “Then we’ll reconvene about what to do next.”
Finn opens his mouth, as if to interject, but Jake wraps an arm around him, “Aye-aye Princess.” He salutes.
——
Crunchy’s house is the exact opposite of Starchy’s. It’s small, single-storied. Most of the land is taken up by a fenced-in yard. A small dog made of candy corn barks at them through the wooden slats, chasing them down the length of the yard until they get to the front door.
“Dude, I don't know how to interrogate Crunchy.” Finn confesses as they make their way to the door. He stares at the rusty doorknob.
“Don’t even worry about it, man.” Jake waves him off, “I’ll take point. We can ‘good cop bad cop’ this.”
Jake shifts into a mimicry of a human cop, like in that crazy movie LSP showed them. He reached out and rang the doorbell.
The candy corn dog behind the fence barked even louder as a voice rang out from behind the door, “Coming!”
Crunchy practically bursts through the door, chocolate chips in disarray. “Oh! Finn and Jake. What brings you guys here?”
“Official business.” Jake smacks a fake baton against his hand, “Can we come in and ask you a few questions?”
“Ah, of course. Come on in.” Crunchy opens the door and allows the two guests to step inside.
“Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?” Crunchy asks innocently.
“No, this won’t take long.” Jake slips his pretend baton into his pretend belt loop.
Finn’s eyes dart around the house, looking for any kind of clues or evidence out in the open. The house was mostly tidy, just some things like empty glasses and a few dog leashes scattered around. Nothing that would say that Crunchy is the culprit.
“We’ve heard that you’ve taken up an issue with Starchy.” Jake clasps his hands together, “Where were you the night before last?”
“I was just here, with Cob.” Crunchy says, confused, pointing over towards his dog. “Did something happen to Starchy? Is he okay?”
“We’ll ask the questions here.” Jake interjects, “Are there any witnesses that can back up your story?”
“Well, I have lawn cameras. One for the front and one for the back.” He gestures out towards them. “They can show you that we never left the house or yard. I can deliver you guys the footage.”
Finn shrugs, “Yeah sure, we’ll comb the footage. In the meantime, take care of yourself and report any weird sightings to the banana guards. Finn and Jake are on this case.”
Jake turns to shoot Finn a look. In his expertise, the look said ‘Already? But we just got here.’
Finn glares back, ‘Dude, we can tell if he’s lying or not by the cameras. No need for good bad cop.’
Jake huffed, but complied. “That’s all the questions we have, Crunchy. For now.”
They exit with a flash drive of footage. Crunchy helps them exit, but not without asking, “What exactly was the crime?”
Finn turns around, looking at Crunchy’s face, which was intensely confused. “Don’t worry about it, loyal citizen. Just keep us updated on weird sightings and creatures and all that junk.”
“What about Starchy?” Finn couldn’t quite read faces as well as Bubblegum could, but there was no malice in Crunchy’s face. Just concern for a fellow Candy citizen. Finn felt certain that Crunchy wasn’t a suspect even before watching the cameras.
“He’s alright. Shaken up, but okay.” Finn reassures, “Just trust us. We’ll get to the bottom of this!”
——
Bonnie sighs. The likelihood of Peppermint Butler stalking Starchy was honestly along the 50-50 probability line. And it would be so exhausting to have to arrest him again, right when he was doing so well. Almost ten whole years outside of prison.
Sometimes she wondered why she even kept him around in the first place.
She twists back and forth in her swiveling chair in the office. Her finger hovers over the call button as it rotates.
How would she even approach it in the first place? ‘Oh hey, Starchy owes you money. You didn’t stalk him, did you?’
Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well.
The phone rings as she swivels. “Yes?”
“Seems like Crunchy’s clean.” Finn’s voice crackles through a metric crap ton of background noise.
“Damn. Well, I’m gathering the courage to ask Pep about it.” Bonnie continues her little chair stim.
“Yikes. That guy is mad nuts, PB.” Something crashes loudly on the other end of the line, “Aw, man. We gotta go. The Jake-bus just crashed.”
“The what?” Bonnie squints, but the line is already dead. She lets the phone clatter onto the desk.
One last swivel before she plops a finger down onto the call button. Better get this over with.
“Yes, Princess?” Peppermint Butler’s voice filled the room.
“Pep, are you fucking with Starchy?”
Coughing from the other line is louder than any thought she could have about rephrasing it.
“I’m sorry?”
“Did you conjure something freaky to mess with Starchy? Yes or no?”
Pep huffs behind the intercom, “Princess, you think the absolute lowest of me.”
Bonnie rolls her eyes, “Please. You and I both know it’s not below you to do something like this.”
He clears his throat, “No. If you must know, I am using the angle of blackmail towards him in other ways. If he pays me back now, I don’t get any of the satisfaction from that.”
“Ah, yes, because blackmail isn’t a crime at all. A crime that you just admitted to the sitting Princess, on her own intercom.” She rolls her eyes, “C’mon Pep. Just give it up.”
A pause on the line. And then, “I never said what kind of blackmail I am doing. You have no proof.”
Bonnie sighs, “You know this means you’re still on the hook, right?”
“That’s not fair!” He protests, “I answered every question honestly!”
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“Touché.”
Bonnie laughs, only a little bit amused. It feels as though they’re back at square one, with nothing to tell Starchy. “Dismissed.”
The intercom goes dead.
The breeze outside was nice, nicer than the heat from the day that permeated every building. No matter how hard the air conditioning worked, it always seemed to linger.
“You’re believing a vampire over your beloved peppermint?” A voice sounded from behind Bonnibel. She jolts, spilling a cup of pens all over the table. They rattle towards the floor.
“What the— What the hell are you doing here?” Bonnie exclaims. She jumps up from her chair, sending it skittering backwards into the wall.
“Haunting Starchy, apparently.” Marceline makes herself visible at the end of her sentence, floating through the air effortlessly. She dangles upside-down, long hair brushing the floor ever so slightly.
It’s hard to make eye contact with her. Bonnie hadn’t seen her in probably ten, maybe twenty years. They all blend together.
“No you’re not.” Is all she can say in response.
“Obviously not now.” Marceline drifts right side up, slowly. She sits criss-crossed in the air.
Bonnie just snorts, “Not ever.”
“I could’ve done it. At some point.”
“As much as I believe you’d terrorize innocent citizens for fun, I never quite believe that you’d be in the Candy Kingdom just for that.”
“Good point. I guess that explains why I’m off the hook and PB jr. isn’t.”
“Why are you here, Marceline?” Bonnie asks, hands on her hips.
“Maybe I want to help with the investigation.”
Bonnie glares at her, but she isn’t backing down. “So I’m supposed to believe that you’re down here for the first time in a decade, because of what? FOMO?”
“Oof. When you put it like that—“
“Marceline. Why are you here?”
The air of confidence dies down in the vampire’s expression. “Why did you defend me to Finn and Jake?”
Bonnie just shrugged, "Because you didn’t do it, Marceline. Did you?”
A pause. “No.”
“Then why do you care?”
The hackles seem to raise on Marceline’s neck, “I don’t need you to ‘protect my honor’, or whatever it is you think you’re doing. I’m doing just fine without you.”
Bonnie throws her hands up, “That’s fine! You can do just fine without me! You always have!”
“Oh, like that’s fair.”
Bonnie pinches the bridge of her nose. It’s the same argument again, decade after century. “Why are you being like this? I didn’t ask for you to come here.”
Her head is spinning. Bonnie almost feels the violation of someone entering her private chamber without permission. Almost. But it’s Marceline. So she can’t even be that angry, no matter how hard she tries to be.
And to make matters worse, Marceline seems like she doesn’t even have a comeback. No reasoning whatsoever. She probably won’t even have time to think of one, because the second that Bonnie opens her mouth to tell her to leave, the buzzer rings again.
“Bubblegum,” Pep’s voice fills the room, “You’re gonna want to answer this one. Someone’s attacked Chet.”
Marceline’s eyebrows could’ve reached the ceiling. “Is he alright?” Bonnie asks.
“It’s pretty serious. You’ll need to take him to the lab. One of the guards witnessed it though, and-- and it sounds like what happened to Starchy.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.” Bonnie starts to gather items from her chambers to help piece Chet together.
“This thing can do more than haunt your citizens?” Marceline floats around the room, following Bonnie and absentmindedly taking and holding each supply that she’s handed. Beakers, hammers, bags of sugar. Her arms pile almost too high with it all.
“I don’t know. I just have to save Chet.” Bonnie picks up a bag and opens it. Marceline drops everything from her arms into it. “Marce, can you call Finn and Jake? I need them here.”
“Okay.” Marceline freezes, stiff as a board. Bonnie ignores it, pretends she didn’t notice, that she didn’t use the nickname. There is absolutely no time to come to terms with that, not now.
Bonnie leaves the vampire in her chambers, still floating and staring through the doorway.