Archive of Our Own ^beta

Simon crosses his ankles and leans far back in the porch swing, staring at the label of Finn’s homebrew. “I spent a week with an alternate reality you, last month,” he announces, just barely slurring.

Finn grunts, not quite processing his words as he lays openly on the grass, rolling onto his side and propping his chin up on his hand after putting the sentence together in his mind. He’d slept off his morning whiskey brain while Simon cleared his home of empties after stitching up a long axe gash in his leg with a sewing kit he'd found under his sink. He could at least return the favor by grilling up the man some dinner and breaking open the good stuff. It’s best neither of them be alone today, anyhow. Spending the war aniversary wallowing together is better than doing it alone, at least.

“She made me think that maybe things are, I don’t know— fine, the way they are. Things are what you make of them.” Simon takes a grudging sip, cringing at the taste. “Not fond of the pine needles.”

“Sounds dumb,” Finn gurgles. “She’s dumb, never listen to me’s. Why- why were you with a me?”

“Ah. That is a, mm. A long tale.” He thumbs at a bead of perspiration at the neck of his drink. “Prismo had decided to use my head as a repository for the concealment of an illegal universe. Fionna and Cake weren’t figments of a mad man’s ravings after all, not much comfort to find in that fact, but, well.” He shrugs. “We text sometimes.”

Finn’s brows peak in the middle as the skewer of his kabob falls from between his teeth. “Are you chattin’ up on a chick-me, dude? M’I pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down correctly here?”

“Finn!” He fumes, watching with a pinched up face as Finn smothers a laugh into the weeds, chuckling to himself as his friend turns red. “Although she did kiss an Ice King,” Simon mutters.

“Yuh-huh?” Finn chokes, inhaling a beetle and punching his sternum hard with a fist as he strangles over his shocked coughing.

Simon holds a palm up, shaking his head. “Don’t ask. She was very preoccupied with finding some magic in her life again. I like to think she was just swept up in that pursuit, other implications are better ignored.”

“Finding what? I’m not grokin’ ya.”

Simon takes a swig and lets his head fall back, tracking a spider on the rafters as it spins its web. “Her world normalized when I lost the crown. No magic, no mutants, no Ooo. Forgotten was her time in a much more colorful world, haunted by it through flashes in dreams. I almost put the damn thing back on my ungrateful idiot-dome just to feel useful.” He sighs and takes his phone out to toss it towards Finn. “Here, catch. That’s what the world used to look like, before the bomb.”

Finn’s frown tightens as he sorts through the shots Fionna had sent over, finding very human versions of his friends odd. His pupils dilate seeing a grumpy girl with green hair in a braid slung under her arm companionably. He turns the screen face down on a sharp exhale.

 

Finn jerks awake, gasping “oh! Oh! Oh!”

Fern’s sword deploys as he shoots upwards, narrow eyes blinking the blurriness of sleep away. Finn takes him by the shoulders and shakes him. “Whuh—“

“Fionna!” Finn yelps, stumbling from bed to throw pants on and vanish into the roof in geometric bars of colorful light, leaving his other perplexed and slack jawed.

Bonnie shuffles into the doorway, troubled. “What’s wrong with daddy?”

“You want an itemized list?” The grass blade sinks back into Fern’s wrist and he pats the mattress, curling himself around her as she crawls in next to him. “He’ll be back.” He sighs and pinches the skin between his eyes when Jay starts crying, woken up by Finn’s yells. “I’ll be back, too,” he mutters into her hair before getting up to settle his son.

 

“I put’em in the crown when your world got made, learned my lesson the first time,” Prismo explains through his grogginess. “The hell are you doing here in the middle of the night, man? Don’t you have kids?”

“So you stuck her in Orgalorg?” Finn gestures manically, palms held open in frustration. “Dude!”

“She’s fine! They’re in the crown, Finn! Whoever is wearing it has no bearing on their environment,” Prismo snaps, turning the screen on, “I’m a little insulted you think I’d make a dirty bungle like that.”

Finn watches her sleep, tucked away neatly in her bed on top of her furs. “Our house,” he murmurs sadly under his breath.

“They’re isolated from your garbo conflicts, Gumbald never got changed back because Pim never melted. I got a second chance to make sure they stay like this, why would I screw it up?” Prismo mutes the scene as Cake’s snores grow louder. “Already watched enough Finns turn into wallow holes of self pity,” he mutters to himself. “They’ve got free will!” he offers under Finn’s hard stare, “I just nip some junk in the bud before it can mess the world up too bad.” He waves his hands in a semi-circle. “Fun adventures only zone.”

Finn clears his throat, scratching at his chin. “Is uh, is Fern also…“

Prismo pans the view upwards to her planted on the tree’s canopy, grinding her teeth in her sleep as her restless leg kicks up. “She’s fine. Can I go back to sleep now?”

“… are they not, y’know-“

Prismo rolls his eyes. “That’s kinda nunya, but their universe is years behind yours. Go, Finn, things are coolwhip.”

Finn rubs his palm against his sweatpants. “But—“ he’s cut off as Prismo snaps him back home with shortening patience, broken down and shooting out of the cube as the shadow hunkers back into deep rest, annoyed with the man’s consistent method of spooking him awake.

Finn almost smothers his daughter as he collapses back into bed upside down.

“Dad! Get off!” Bonnie whines, little claws scratching into his sides making him giggle and sink his weight further onto her.

“Aw I dunno, you’re pretty comfy, kid,” Finn teases, “might have to plant ya here permanently.” She squeals when he starts rolling back and forth, working her deeper into the mattress as she kicks him in the ribs.

Fern turns over and shoves his head under a pillow when their son starts up again. “I just got him to pipe down, it’s your turn.”

“Alright grumpy. C’mon,” Finn shushes through a laugh, gathering Bonnie up into the crook of his elbow, “let’s put you sprouts to sleep.”

“More story?” Bonnie barters with a sweet smile, opening all of her eyes widely as she’s carted back to their room. “Please?”

“We don’t beg for what we want, Bon.” Finn settles her under the covers and picks Jay up, bouncing him and petting his blackened hair as his ears droop low and irritated. “Hey bud, you’re okay. Everything’s gravy, c’mon,” he soothes. “You want a squoze little man?”

“Why’s he crying so much?”

“His big boy fangs are coming in. Makes it hard to sleep, he’s in a lotta pain.” Finn offers a metal finger for Jay to bite down on as he holds him tighter. “You had yours when you were born, sweet pea.”

“Why?”

“Cuz you’re like Pusch, and he’s like me.”

“Why?”

Finn shoots her a flat look and she huffs a giggle. “We’re not playing the why game tonight, Bon Bon. Dad’s too tired.”

“From dissa- dissapee-“ she growls, frustrated with the long word, “poofing into the roof?”

“Yeah, from dissapoofing into the roof.” Jay finally calms, cries and whines fading out into low sniffles and Finn sits on the edge of Bonnie’s bed. “I had to check on something, that’s all.” He tucks his kids in tightly, wiggling their noses between his fingers. “Where’d I leave off?”

“Uncle Jake got took to space,” Jay says, pushing against a loose tooth with his tongue as his hair mutes back to blonde.

“Right. BMO, gimme some space music.” Finn thinks back as shoegazey dreampop starts playing softly. “Uncle Jake was in space because his alien dad tricked him!” he whispers, hands snapping up to the sides of his face and their eyes go all big and shocked. “We never knew why he was magic, and suddenly it all made sense: he was the hero of a dying planet! But that was a big fib his drops daddy told him so he could suck the life force from him through a trial of wits…”

Fern listens as he hovers in the doorway with a drowsy smile, watching Finn hunch toward them and gesture with his retelling as he passes by on the way to the kitchen. Finn finds him on the porch once he’s done and the kids are sound asleep. He takes the mug held out to him and takes a heavy seat on the steps.

“Why’re you up?”

“Why’re you up?” Fern returns the question, opening his arm for the man to wedge under.

“Remembered junk,” Finn mumbles over his tea, blowing against the steam. “Simon told me something before I left home that sorta slipped my mind. Reminded me that Fionna didn’t take you with her to the island which means she has the hots for chick-you. I wanted to make sure it all worked out okay before she got too deep into starring in a rerun of my terrible twenties.”

“Mm. Did it?”

“Prismo meddled, they’re fine.”

Fern chews at the inside of his bottom lip idly, asking “… what does ‘having the hots for me’ have to do with not taking me to Founder’s?”

Finn shifts his weight uncomfortably, put in the hot seat finally after so many years. “I was worried I’d meet family and- I dunno. I already felt gross enough but if you decided that we were related I think it woulda slapped my heart into a coffin shaped blender and set it to ‘dice’.”

Fern watches him squirm under low lashes, blowing a laugh from his nose as he shakes his head lightly. “You’re so dumb, Finn.” He earns an elbow to the ribs.

“Man, shut up.”

Fern rests his chin on Finn’s head. “Thanks for making yourself take me this time,” he says. “Probably woulda slit Pim’s throat and that junk wouldn’t have even happened.” He kisses Finn’s temple, cooing into it snidely, “I would have done a much better job than you and kept my arm.”

Finn snorts, exhausted. “Yeah, alright dickbag.”

Fern ducks down to press his nose against Finn’s cheek, grinning. “Also wouldn’t have all this.”

“I woulda found some excuse to talk to you, I’m sure.” Finn cants his body into a kiss. “I was real down bad,” he murmurs against his other’s lips before turning back ahead with a wince. “Pretty sure I’ve got a stress fracture from Bonnie’s hooves.”

“Good for her. Serves you right.”

xxxx

A strong, freezing current from the Ice Queen rattles the window panes, and the loud clattering noise is a momentary distraction from the awkward atmosphere as Fionna and Fern cross paths in the living room, edging past one another in silence with appraising eyes.

Fern looks up at Fionna warily, tight, confused frown in place. “Shouldn’t you—“

“Yeah. I’m gonna, just.” Fi shakes her head, clearing it. She opens a window and hitches her hip onto the ledge. Fern’s hair is up in a loose bun, shears sticking out of the securing laurel and it’s so cute her heart does a little tug under her breastbone. “Uh, you. Your hair. It’s- nice.” She cringes as she scuttles to the treetop to shame spiral in peace and take her discomfort out on the ex-nymph.

Fern blinks and the tips of her ears heat up.

“Your hair is nice? What?” Fionna rasps to herself under her breath. “What the donk is wrong with you, Fionna? Real smooth.” She groans, pained, lifting herself onto their roof and waving IQ down. “What’s your deal, Sinope!? Cake isn’t home!”

The woman pauses, gale force winds calming as her hands lower. “Oh. Well.” She flutters down to eye level and points a long, sharp finger at Fi’s chest. “I’ll be back when she is, just you wait!” Ice Queen announces with a booming voice before whispering “when will she be back?”

Fi rolls her eyes and pushes her hand away. “I dunno, dude. It’s been two weeks. She went looking for something to cure you, ya great big ding dong.”

She sees a flash of recognition take over the woman’s pale face as her lips part before her expression twists up with fury. Fionna yelps at the cold that seeps into her center from whatever spell that had just been cast at her middle.

“I do not need curing!” Sinope yells as she flies away, screeching through clenched teeth as she zaps ice toward the ground in her anger. “You need curing!”

“Bonkers loony,” Fionna mumbles to herself, sliding over the side of the tree fort, breathing labored with how hard it’s become to move. “Fern?” she calls as her feet drop back to the hardwood. “Dude I hate- hate to ask but can uh. Can you cut your pruning short?”

Fern pokes her head through the curtain from the bathroom, looking her up and down. “What’s up?”

“She hit me with some gnarly cold spell, I dunno. I feel mega weird.“ Her voice shakes as she shivers, talking through chittering teeth. She rubs at her upper arms to try and warm up as they dot with gooseflesh, her skin begins to feel oddly similar to sandpaper. “Fuh- fuck. Freezing. Hot water.”

Fern’s eyes widen and she ducks back behind the curtain to throw the faucet on and put her shears away, growing her dress out before hurrying to Fionna and corralling her to the tub.

“Can’t bend,” Fi complains, back stiff and face reddening as thumbs tuck into her shorts. “M’sorry.”

“Nothing I don’t have, don’t worry about it,” Fern mutters as she strips her helpfully, manipulating her rigid limbs. “Like, literally. Same dudes, dude.” She lifts and lowers her double into the water carefully, turning the temperature hotter when her teeth don’t slow their chattering.

“Not. Not the same, don’t say that,” she argues.

Thin, cats eye pupils slide to her as Fern sighs. “… half same.”

“Little better,” Fionna concedes as her other kneels at the side of the bath, watching her place her hands to the water. “What’re you doing?”

“Hunter's been teaching me,” Fern answers, shrugging sheepishly. The smell of ginger, linden flowers and meadowsweet fills the humid air as she produces them from her softly glowing palms. “Might help, I don’t know. Stupid idea.”

“No,” Fi shakes her head, reaching out quickly to pull her hands back into the tub as sage and stinging nettle floats to the surface of the water. “It’s really cool. Thank you.”

Fern clears her throat and stutters an almost silent ‘you’re welcome’ as her hair heats up, eyes snapping to their joined fingers clasped near Fi’s knees. She stands abruptly and backs up to the curtain. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out and she whirls out of the room, antsy and flushed. Fionna watches her go with peaked brows and lays back, holding herself tightly as her muscles ease and relax minutely in the heat and whatever magic the water has been infused with.

“First time we’ve talked all month and I’m naked for it, good going you dumps brained freak…” she grouses to herself. “What’m I gonna do?” Fionna whines, head thunking back against the wood of the tub. “Why can’t I just be normal?” Her palms slap the water and she closes her eyes, sighing deeply. The minty, fresh grass smell that Fern left behind swarms up her nose, and she sniffs at it with some measure of shame in her heart. “Just be stupid over uncomplicated people, startin—g… now.” The feel of Fern’s hands on her thighs remain ghosted over her skin. “Eufh.” She thumps the side of her prosthetic fist against her forehead and growls, sinking into the water until only her eyes remain above the surface.

Fern bursts back into the room half an hour later, deal itching at the back of her brain as Fionna drifts to sleep in the chilled bath, almost drowning before she coughs and sputters, blowing water from her nostrils.

“You’re so dumb, Fi,” she sighs, patting her back as the other woman bangs a fist to her sternum.

xxxx

Fern shifts on her heels, rooting anxiously into the grass just outside of their front door. She watches Fionna practice sword tricks, spinning as she chucks the girly wish-infused blade Gumball gave her on their birthday into the air and catching it between her legs when she does a hand spring. She sucks up her nerves and approaches quietly.

“Hey.”

Fionna squeaks and falls backwards, weapon landing next to her head with a loud slicing noise as it shunts into the earth deeply.

“Oh, grod I am so sorry—“ Fern holds her palms up, backing off with stuttering steps.

Fionna whips around on her hands and knees. “No! No it’s- it’s fine. Uh. What, what did you wanna… did you need something?” She sits back on her haunches and runs a hand through her hair. “Not that you have to need something to talk to me, duh, that’s... that’d be stupid.” She chuckles awkwardly and wishes she could just stop being such a goob, telling herself to get it together.

Fern blinks. “Uh.” She hovers, hesitating, then sinks into a sit, crossing her legs. “Wanted to ask a question.” Fi waves it out of her. “You didn’t want me to move out, but you’ve been— avoiding me. Hunter has an open room at his place, and he’s offered me a job in Wiz City.” She casts a look to the ground and picks at the tufts of her legs for something to do with her hands. “D’you still want me here?”

Fionna swallows her tongue. “Course I do. It’s your house, Fern. What I want shouldn’t mean beef, dude.”

“Yeah, but I dunno. I don’t feel… comfortable hanging around if I'm not wanted.” She assesses her other with an unsure expression and plucks a dandelion that's gone to seed from the ground, tugging fuzzy bits of it free to float off into the air. “You’ve been weird since our fight about dad. And he can teach me stuff about— me.” She holds her palms out front of herself. “What I am.”

Fionna groans and buries her fists into her eye sockets. “M’sorry. I didn’t mean to be an ass. I—“ a defeated breath rushes out of her as she cuts herself off.

“… why didn’t you take me with you, Fi?” Fern’s voice wavers, asking tentatively.

Her hands drop to her knees, clasping them tightly. The silicon skin of her fake arm squeaks against her sweaty skin. “I can’t tell you,” she whispers, miserable expression creeping over her face.

“What was that?”

“I said I can’t tell you,” she raises her chin to look Fern in the eye, frowning, “I’m sorry I didn’t but I just can’t. I can’t tell you that, cuz you’ll definitely leave.”

Fern pauses, gaze dancing over Fi’s body language as it grows tense. “Kinda seems like that’s what you want, though.”

“I don’t!” she yells, immediately regretful when Fern shrinks back. “I—“ Fionna growls and stands, kicking the dirt. “I don’t, I really don’t. I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you, I’m just scared of- of dumbshit dirt-brained Fi-nonsense that you don’t gotta worry about. I’m dealing with it.”

Fern can smell the stress in the air, not quite attuned to her senses to fully understand, but the adrenaline is obvious enough that it starts seeping into her grass. “Dealing with what? What did I do? Besides the obvious?”

“Nothing! I’m just- I’m a moron. I promise I’ll be better, please don’t leave.” Fionna falls back to her knees and clasps Fern’s hands between hers. “And please don’t talk about yourself like that.”

Fern’s hair heats up, eyes flitting back and forth between her other’s. “Okay,” she whispers. “I just want to spend time with you. We used to be real close.” She tucks her chin to her chest and squeezes their hands. “Will you tell me, eventually?”

Fionna’s lower lip vanishes as she bites at it. “If I can ever handle the embarrassment. S’a big ask, man,” she murmurs stiffly.

“I can wait.” Fern brushes her fingers across the back of her human hand before planting her palms to the ground and surrounding her in mimosa pudica. “Some shameplant for your shame troubles?” she jokes with a wobbly laugh.

Fionna snorts tiredly and watches as leaves curl and duck away from her touch. “That really is a neat trick. HW taught you?”

Fern nods, holding her palms upwards and sprouting fluffy Fiona Coghills. “Any requests?”

“… can you make a big Cake on the lawn?”

“Anything for you.” Fern’s tender smile heats the tips of her double’s ears as their eye contact holds. Her shoulders drop. “You want her to have a big butt, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and a huge honker!” Fionna cracks up, blush shaking away as Fern’s eyeroll sweeps light over her upper body.

“You’re so predictable.”

xxxx

Jealousy swims through Fionna’s veins as HW holds Fern’s face in his hands, gentle touches tipping her chin back as their foreheads connect. This is good, she thinks. I need to get over this, get over myself. She pinches her thigh, eyes widening at Fern’s grass lifting in a wave as scales creep over her arms, as her legs become digitigrade.

“You’re incomplete,” Hunter murmurs and his brow furrows. “Should see your mother about that, you may become stuck otherwise.” He pushes off from her, flicking an ear as it shrinks back down to something more human, stubbornly keeping its point. “You should take her, for support,” he tells Fi.

“Uh. Roger,” she sputters awkwardly.

HW nods, crouching and settling glowing hands at Fern’s thighs to ease them back into shape.

Fern yelps and jumps back. “Sorry. Sorry, I just- I don’t like being touched,” she explains, hands clutched close to her chest defensively.

Hunter Wizard holds his arms up in a peacekeeping gesture. “It’s alright, I should have asked. They will return to normal in time and with some coaxing.” He backs off with a wave, feathering out. “I’ll see you next week, we’ll integrate you further then. Perhaps you can handle two hours of meld work if you practice in the meantime.” Hunter takes off, large falcon wings sending Fern’s blossoms into the wind as she tucks her hair behind her ear.

“How d’you feel?” Fionna asks, watching her shoulders drop, frowning at the small tremors that rustle her tufts.

“Can you squizz me?” she asks meekly.

“C’mere,” Fi opens her arms and watches Fern’s face unlax in relief as she eagerly steps into her personal space. “Guess I’m takin’ you to meet’cher maker?” she asks as she’s tucked under her double’s chin and hugged tightly.

“She’s never gonna agree to it,” Fern muffles against her temple, nestling down against Fionna and clinging back. “Not after I lost it on her.”

“I’ll lose it on her with you this time if she gets all uppity. She did try to curse me. I mean- lookit this.” She sways them from side to side. “Not much of a curse.” Fionna ignores the burn climbing through her core at the purr that trills out against her cheek. “That a good or bad sound?” she asks, arms loosening.

“Did I make that?” Fern blinks against her confusion as her body straightens rigidly. “Oh, glob.” Her hair flushes. “I- I didn’t mean to. Sorry.” She takes a step back and holds herself around her middle, thumbs brushing her scales. “This is weird, I’m weird–“

“Hey! Hey hey, naw, come on. Look at these,” Fi takes her hands and shows off the long, predatory owl talons, “they’re like dragon claws, dude!” Fern’s fingers curl over the backs of her wrists slowly, easing them back around herself. “Just wanted to make sure I didn’t hurt you, can’t control the level of oomf I got in my cyborg arm.”

Fern situates herself back into her bubble, nose twitching at the sweet scent of norapinephrine, oxytocin and dopamine riding out of Fionna’s pores. “It scares me, remembering what I am.” She huffs out a frustrated growl and presses her face deeply into her other’s hair before detaching and dropping to sit in the grass. “I remember before, but it’s all,” she gestures around her head, “vague and overlapping from each of your swords.”

Fi tugs gently against the curls looped over her arms. “Little help, dude? I'm gettin' trellis-ed.” Fern’s panicked eyes widen as she unwinds the locks from her limbs. “No big, don’t look so spooked. I just don’t wanna tear your hair out.” She kneels at a safe distance, leaving a few inches of room between them. “You’re gettin’ way cooler than I could ever be. You’ve got magic, you have dope dragon hands, super strength, you can turn into grass.” She counts on her fingers. “I got nothin’ on you.”

Fern massages her legs back into a more human shape nervously. “I used to want that, but. But now I remember I just wanted to impress you, and that got all mixed up with my jealousy I guess.”

“You were jealous of me?”

Fern nods with a little tilt of her chin.

“What, of my chub rub or the gap in my teeth?”

“You’re— shut up.” She presses a weak chortle into her shoulder as Fi whistles through her teeth to demonstrate. “I couldn’t get dirt right compared to you, still can’t.”

“That’s not true, you just need to find your own way of doing things.”

“That’s the hard part, your way was my way. Everything looks so easy when you do it.” She slides the grass blade free from her wrist, twirling it in her hold. “I bungled up that fight with the bandits so bad last week. It’s like I forgot how to use this.”

“So your bod don’t got the same muscle memory.” Fionna shrugs offhandedly and Fern’s eyes widen as she realizes there’s truth to that. “But you bound their feet and hung 'em up like dirty laundry! I could never do that! See?” She flashes her double a quick, toothy grin. “Gotta grok it Fern-style.”

“Thanks for trying to make me feel better. Just hope it doesn’t take another year to figure me out.” Her face lifts at the supportive hand cupped over her shoulder, and her smile falls under the affectionate, soft simpering look she’s shot, lips parting over a short exhale.

“Just means I get helper's high a little longer, I wouldn’t mind.”

They turn at Cake calling ‘dinner, Fionna’, hung halfway out of the second story window and banging a wooden spoon to a cast iron pan. Fern scrutinizes the way her other’s fingers are slow to leave her skin, the way a thumb sneaks a circular pattern into her shoulder blade. She turns her head subtly as Fionna leaves, watching her rub into the palm that was situated over her, how the tips of her ears pink up. She presses a claw into the dead spot of her thigh until it hurts, telling herself to be normal.

xxxx

“Toss me!” Fionna cries enthusiastically, slapping Fern on the back. “Toss me toss me toss me!”

Fern hefts her into her arms and slingshots her, twisting around and throwing the woman like a spear toward the large, jade basilisk-like monster busy harassing Freak City’s inhabitants, slamming its body into homes and attempting to swallow them whole. She crouches and concentrates, covering the ground it slithers over in small cacti, making it slow and writhe in on itself to give Fionna an opening as she spins and sinks her sword into the creature’s gullet.

“Yeah haha!” Fi whoops and green bodily fluids spurt over her, turning her wide grin into a regretful sneer. “Aw, man!” She rides the hilt of her blade down to the earth, releasing a few shaking, slime covered mutants that grumble to themselves about needing baths. “Gross gross gross,” she flaps her wrists, feet lifting from the grass just a few centimeters as the monster collapses heavily.

“Dude, you reek,” Fern complains as she gets close, pinning her sensitive nose shut and leaning back.

A mischievous look overcomes Fi’s face and her arms fly out at her sides. “Campbell victory hug!”

Fern backs up, spinning on her heel and jogging toward the river that cuts through town. “Don’t you dare!” Loud, thudding footsteps close in on her and she melts into the grass as Fionna launches herself, causing her to fall flat on her face and skid across the dirt. “Told you!” Fern simmers as the top of her head peeks out of the tall reeds surrounding the water. A vine breaches the pond scum and drags her double in by an ankle. “Bath time, nasty!”

Fionna lets a few pained chuckles loose as she floats on her back. “You’re so mean!”

“Next time I’m gonna feed you to lightning buzzards, you smell like a dying hog beast.” Fern’s clothes dissolve away as she frees herself from the system, swimming with long, relaxed back strokes.

Fionna’s face burns watching her skin stretch over her ribs. She’s still modestly covered with smatterings of foliage, but not much is left to the imagination. Her high spike of estrogen is lost on the wind that whips through the Yellow Forest as their birthmark draws her widening stare when she catches a peek of it.

“You think if we ride the current it’ll take us to the swamp?” Fern blinks her eyes open when she isn’t answered, turning her head back and spitting a stream of water at her other who has seemingly locked up. “Fi?”

“Uh!” Fionna snaps out of her stupor. “Maybe, you really wanna camp out in that creep-o zone, though?”

Fern shrugs loosely, growing an oversized waterlily, a Victoria amazonica to use as a makeshift raft. She clambers atop it and pats the space next to herself, holding a hand out to help her double climb on. The pad dips under their combined weight but holds them fine, and the gentle current sweeps them north instead. They pass beneath the bridge into Freak City and wave at the onlookers who have rushed to thank them.

“What, are you scared of mudscamps all’a sudden?” Fern elbows her lightly in the ribs before gathering her hair up and wringing it out.

“I’m more scared of the junk that lives in those woods, they’re supes haunted.” Fionna peels her hat off and twists it dry, then does the same with her shirt. She lays them flat on their little plant raft and leans back on her hands. “Ghosts are anger bums squatting the house of eternal angst.”

“Reasonable, I can’t do squat against 'em.”

“What?”

Fern looks at her with a confused tilt of her head. “I’m a demon, dude. It’s the rock paper scissors of species.” She reaches over and snaps a black bra strap. “Cant touch ‘em.”

Fionna makes a small noise of acknowledgement and closes her eyes in the evening sunlight as it breaks the canopy.

“Please don’t call me a Campbell.”

She winks her lashes open. “Huh?”

“Don’t call me a Campbell, I don’t want to be a Campbell,” Fern asserts, trying hard to not sound rude and failing.

“… join the club. I don’t neither.”

“Not what I mean,” she mutters, hands twisting in her lap as she angles herself away.

Fi’s gaze jumps over her carefully neutral face. “Okay, sorry.”

Her hands shoot up and hang lamely in the air. “I don’t- no offense, that’s not what I mean.” She makes a squirmy, awkward noise in the back of her throat. “I don’t mean it that way.”

Fionna’s ears redden. “What kinda way do you mean?” she asks, almost hopeful in her intonation.

Fern’s shoulders dust with pink as small white flowers dot the crown of her flushing hair. “I don’t wanna be you.” She watches as a bonded pair of jays vocalize and play in the branches above them. “And I don’t wanna be family, but- not in, not in a mean way. We are, I just. I don’t wanna be—“ she struggles with her phrasing.

“Related,” Fi finishes for her, edging closer as she nods. “Deal.” She holds her flesh hand out, and Fern takes it to shake, but Fionna keeps hold and places their palms flat between their bodies. “That’s why I didn’t take you,” Fionna utters, turning away.

“What?”

She clears her throat and speaks carefully. “I didn’t take you cuz I thought- if. If we did meet family and you decided we were related…” Fi lets a long breath escape her as she hunches in on herself. “I don’t want us to be related either.”

Fern blinks as her pupils fatten, slowly twisting back toward her double. “Why?” she asks gently.

“We’re close,” Fi pulses the grip on Fern’s hand, “right? But I don’t wanna be ‘related’ close.” She keeps her tone steady as she watches little weasels skitter in and out of their burrows, dragging minnows and smelts down the holes to feed their young. “I wanna be closer,” she says, quieter.

Fern turns forward, thinking, trying to suss out what that even means, but decides that whatever Fi wants is good enough to sate the endless, obsessive well in her heart. It has to be, and so she assures her “me, too.”

Fionna’s skin feels like it’s been set to ‘vibrate’ as her stomach flips. She breathes out a small ‘oh’ noise, blinking with a fast flutter of lashes and her cheeks heat. The river begins to shine a deep ochre as the sun touches its surface, and Fionna’s eyes stay glued to the little ripples that lap against the lily pad. She gives into the urge to run a thumb over her other’s knuckles until the current slows as the channel narrows and breaks into small streams just outside of the crystal eye dungeon.

xxxx

Sinope is finally freed from the sickness of the tiara on the autumnal equinox, when the sun is at the highest point in the sky and Pheobus’ volcanic power will be strongest. They bait the Ice Queen to the border of her kingdom to melt her, continually, and the girls clasp their hands over their ears as she screams, and yells and hollers, caught aflame and extinguishing in a cycle of steam and evaporation. The woman pulls frantically against the exine chains around her ankles Fern has tied her down with, panicked and full of fear. Flame Prince pinches his eyes shut and does as he’s told, promised that this will save an innocent water nymph that has been tortured by a decades old mistake.

Cake watches her friend and owner emerge into a shape she used to know, something more transparent and kind as she softens and rounds out at her edges. She despises herself for needing to do this, she’d been looking for any other way for years. The salt crystal is too strong, the tiara is too volatile, this is the only way.

Pink ice spears pierce Fionna’s skin shallowly, sprouting up from the ground as the Ice Queen wails, and Cake lifts her to safety before they can do real damage, wrapped up in a large arm. Fern is cut clean through, and she cringes as she slides herself off of the pike, wiggling her middle free to close up in the harsh sun. FP cannot touch Sinope for his own safety, Cake is distracted trying to calm Fionna’s weeping, and so Fern catches her as she drops limply to the earth. She heaves in shock, gritting her teeth against the sea water that bubbles at her surface, fumbling her with a hiss. The salt crystal salinated the woman, and Fern’s arms sting as her grass is desiccated, turning dark brown and sloughing off. The nymph reaches out in panic and clings to her arm, blindly begging for help.

“I can’t– I can’t touch her!” Fern’s voice cracks as she yells in pain. “Cake! take her! Take her!” She sheds the skin of her arm repeatedly, trying to keep herself whole, but fluid is leeched from her limb and it begins to crumble away. She sinks into the grass in one last ditch effort.

Cake dashes to her side immediately as the spirit pools and splashes to the earth, hands formed into something scooped and basin-like to catch her runoff and collect her streams. She’s carefully transported back to her castle to get her bearings and calm herself. Fern’s upper body reemerges from the grass and she pants deeply, nearly blacking out from the pain of her nerve endings being seared and sealed, wheezing through her fangs at the dull ache radiating up her shoulder. Phoebus hovers close by, hands held fluttery and useless over her. She roots deeply, trying hard to regrow, but her forearm does not reappear, it does not build itself back.

She groans “not again,” in a pained whimper. “Hey, don’t stare, s’rude Phoebes.” She tries to smile but it looks more like a grimace as she reassures her kind-of ex.

“Dude,” he mutters faintly. “We shoulda put a gutter under her or sumthin’.”

She cracks up with weak laughs, head thudding into the ground. “C’n you pull me free?” She wraps her hand in damp kelp and holds it out as he tugs her from the weeds. “I gotta get Fi home. Thanks for helping, I guess.”

“Yeah don’t. Don’t thank me, I’m gonna have nightmares ‘bout that cheese for months.” He takes off, telling her to feel better awkwardly as a fire lion leaps into his arms, sensing his need for emotional support.

Fern gathers her double into her arm, wrapping her legs up by the knees in ivy that knits into her shoulder so she can carry her the short distance home. “Hey heavy,” she snorts as she’s stared at through narrow lids. “Did that pink garbage do something to you?”

“I think. I think it was just so cold that it sent me into shock, sucked the heat outta my meat. M’real woozy.” She rubs at her face, moaning at the pain along her sides from the puncture wounds. Fionna goes quiet and rigid when she notices Fern’s arm.

“Yeah that bit’a cosmic Campbell nonsense finally got me,” she mutters, “matter of time, I guess.”

“Fern…”

“Lost my upper hand against you,” she grins sharply, but Fi doesn’t crack. “We helped someone, I’m okay with it.” She quickens her pace as the tree fort grows near, wanting to clean the blood from Fionna as soon as possible. The smell is making her antsy, making her skin feel too tight.

Fi watches her pupils thin out, she feels the claws lengthen over her upper arm, notices the way her breathing becomes labored as large gusts of cold sweep over her face. She reaches out and loops her arms around her neck, hooking her chin over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry my garbage got you,” she mumbles sorely. “M’sorry it’s still affecting you.”

Fern’s eyes flash hotly from the long cut on Fionna’s cheek pressing to her own and she stumbles momentarily as her blood enters her system, brain skipping. “It’s okay,” she strangles out, then clears her throat. “I knew it was gonna happen eventually.” She yanks the front door open and reels them to the second floor with roots and thorny stems. She storms into the bathroom to set Fionna down, freeing her to clean herself up, but she remains clung around her, curling deeper into Fern’s chest. “You need to let me go,” she grits through her teeth as they grow lethal, sharpening further as she salivates.

Fionna leans back, blinking up at her hair as it reddens deeply enough to almost blacken, confused. “Sorry,” she offers. “I didn’t mean to—“

“I used to live off your blood, Fi,” Fern interrupts in a tight voice, eyes screwed up against the smell. “I’m tryin’ real hard to not freak you out, but you gotta let me go before I do something dumb cuz I'm real weak and feel- not. not normal.”

Fionna's posture stiffens, and she flusters and blushes deeply down to her neck. “I don’t mind,” she rasps. Fern’s eyes snap to her, sclera white they glow so hot. “I—uh. Sorry. That- that sounded weird, but I don’t know how else to. um,” she stammers, watching her double’s face heat up, and her hormones blare through Fern’s brain, loud and obvious. “You can,” she says softly.

Fern’s pupils bob and weave back and forth over her face, and her hand raises shakily to sneak under Fionna’s shirt, palm sliding over her waist, pressing against her wounds and a cold, shuddering breath stumbles from her lungs as she closes her eyes with the rush that flows through her. She leans down, hesitating and giving Fionna time to move before licking a cold brand over her cheek, purring deep in her throat at the old taste and how it soothes the pain in her nerves. She swallows the noise as the panicked thrumming in her veins calms, human brain finally kicking awake and turning Fern red, nailing her to the floor. Fionna cants her face slowly to press a soft, barely-there kiss to the edge of her lips.

“I—“ she stutters in a tizzy and takes an unsteady step back from her other, wide, glossy blue eyes tracking her.

The sound of a door swinging open and bouncing off of a wall echoes up the trunk. “Fionna! I’m takin’ the water-honey to the grotto to make sure she settles in alright, you’re gonna have to make your own dinner, baby!” Cake’s singsong call floats into the room, breaking a little of the tense atmosphere.

Fi’s eyes don’t leave her face when she yells back “okay!” Her fingers twitch and reach out to circle loosely around Fern’s wrist, high pulse radiating up her prosthesis. “I like you.”

Fern’s mouth fills with sand, her heart hammers away under her ribs. Her grass curls tightly and a pricking at the base of her skull begins to work its way down her spine.

Fionna tries to lighten the thick ambiance between them as she’s stared down, face breaking over a tired huffing noise as she says “I’m confessing to you in our bathroom, dude, please say something. I feel real stupid.”

Fern snaps, expression twisting up in frustration as she blusters. “Why is everything in my life about you?” She rucks a hand into her hair and snarls before turning on her heel and skulking away, shoulders shoved up to her ears as they radiate a bright crimson.

Fionna’s blood runs cold, left slack jawed and dumb as she stands wooden before the sink, feet glued to the floorboards.

xxxx

Fionna becomes withdrawn, and Cake isn’t sure why until she checks the attic and finds it sparse and empty of life. She was hoping that how badly she reacts to getting rejected would be something her kid would age out of, but being twenty is hard, you still feel like a child but the real world crashes down on your back with all the weight it can muster and you’re left bereft of training wheels and with barely developed coping skills. And obviously Fi doesn’t have the coping skills needed to get through this in a healthy way.

She watches her pluck out a tiny little song on Fern’s mountain dulcimer, snappy notes in opposition with the words that croak from her throat through her tight vocal cords, raspy from crying.

“I am pretty bad for you
And you’re really bad for me
And sure it took some time for me to realize the cold reality
I’m gonna stay in bed cuz I just might pass out
There’s no room for me to think in this crowded tree house
And I can’t handle

Oh, my glob, not another awkward encounter
Oh, my glob, my anxieties are in the gutter
Oh, my glob, I think I need another—“

“You wanna have a spa day, baby? I got a pumice stone and I’m not afraid ta use it,” she tempts as Fi sits curled up in her quilt.

“Not now, Cake,” she mumbles through loose, cracked lips.

Cake sighs and sets her hands on her hips. “I was tryn’ta be nice by askin’ but you need a bath and some fresh air, Fionna.”

The woman bundles herself deeper. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

She harrumphs, wandering inconspicuously over to the window and slamming it open before snatching Fionna up quickly. “You’re takin’ a bath!” Cake scolds, tossing her from the tree fort into their lake. “Sinope, honey, make sure she washes her hair! I gotta air out the sad girl funk in here!” she yells through her cupped paws.

The nymph throws her a thumbs up and chains Fionna’s ankles to the bottom of the lake with watery shackles, working her fingers through the girl’s hair as she crosses her arms over herself grumpily.

“Have your heart broken?”

Fionna chokes on a noise that catches in her throat. “I, no what?" she scoffs. "No.”

“I can see matters of the heart clearly. I outwitted a god once because of it, you know.” Sinope sniffs haughtily, arching a brow down at the girl. “You are hardly as opaque as an elder primordial entity, though you do reek like one.”

Fi frumps down into the water and chews at the inside of her cheek, admitting “so what if I did? It happens.”

“But hardly ever with oneself.” The body under the nymph's soothing, cool hands goes stiff. “There’s a story much like yours from my time, if you’d like to hear it.” She watches Fionna nod with a jerk of her chin and smiles. “There was once a beautiful warrior known for his long, blonde hair and perfect fighting form. Many had eyes for him, yet he only ever had eyes for himself. The man fell deeply in love with his reflection, sat lingering over the image of himself day in and out, speaking and singing to it for ages, one-sided days long conversations held as potential suitors were brushed off with hardly a second thought spared. They could only be parted by starvation, and upon his death he turned into a flower, sprouted at the edge of the pond he would lay at and gaze longingly into. He and his mirror self would be kept apart in perpetuity, only existing as one in the short time of twilight as his reflection vanished between the phases of the rising moon and the setting sun.”

“Wazzat s’pose to make me feel better?” Fi grouches under her breath.

“No.” The nymph rinses her head of seafoam, dunking her beneath the pool of water through her sputtering. “It should have knocked free a sense of immediacy, to act true to yourself. You can touch your reflection,” she lowers her voice, “my nephew could not.”

Fionna fumbles, blinking rapidly as her heart burns. “She doesn’t- she left.”

“Did she? I have spied someone lurking at your window sill every night through the past week.” Sinope curls a hand under Fionna’s chin and draws her around to look her in the eye. “She’s you, Fionna. You’d know better, but I’d say she does.”

Her face burns, and she feels the watery hand on her skin change in temperature from how hot she’s become. “Then why is she being such a- a!” She huffs, slapping the surface of the pond uselessly. “A closed off tranch!”

The nymph tracks the corners of her lips as they curl downward. “You’re mortal, this is a significant choice to beings like us.” She pauses, sighing deeply. “My son was a mortal king, it was so hard to outlive him, to outlive even the country and people that bore his name.”

Fionna’s face falls, and her hands snap up to grasp the one holding onto her, eyes seeking out the other woman’s sympathetically. “Oh,” she gasps. “Oh,” she realizes.

The bindings keeping her trapped in the water dissolve away and the nymph nods towards the shore. “Go on,” she urges. “Maybe now you can face yourself.”

Fi dawdles as she kneels on the grass, holding the ex-queen’s hands in hers gently. “Thank you. You didn’t need to tell me any of that but—“

“I have a lot to make up for, sweet girl.” The water spirit pets the side of her face, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m simply returning the kindness you showed me when I hadn’t earned it.” She pulses their grip. “And you’ve kept my kitten very happy.”

Fionna returns the simpering look and climbs to her feet, having found a little courage. She’ll wait, she can be patient… she thinks.

No, yeah, she can definitely be patient.

xxxx

It takes three weeks for Fionna to break, hiding herself away into the attic to sleep in Fern’s old bed even though the cold wind bites at her skin, it's still worth it to be surrounded by the smell of grass and sweetmint. The missing lump in the bed confuses Fern when she drops by to check in, to scratch the itch at the back of her guilty conscience or curiosity, or both. She squats on the sill, animal-like with knees bending unnaturally at her sides and blinks as her eyelight is bounced back at her in the glass, seeing nothing atop the furs of the mattress.

Her presence is there, but no matter how long she waits Fionna does not reappear. Fern sniffs the air and crawls to the canopy, tracking her scent with her nose to the foliage, realizing where she is with a twinge of irritation for her breached privacy. She sinks through the leaves and limbs of the great tree, dropping down into her room. Her heart gets wedged in her throat at the sight of Fi curled up on her makeshift bed of squirreled away blankets and pillows. She creeps closer and sits back on her haunches, lighting her other’s face in bright yellow light as she stares, unblinking.

Fionna shivers in her sleep, holding herself tighter around one of Fern’s sweatshirts and keening out a high noise through chattering teeth.

Fern wants to fight this, or she wanted to. Still kind of does if only because Fionna's stubbornness lingers within her. HW put her through some real mind breaking nastiness, fusing her selves solidly at their roots and now she's a little more confused over what she wants. Though, maybe that's just denial in the face of the truth she'd learned of herself.

‘Why are you so afraid of your own shadow,’ the plant teacher living within the drug he’d fed her taunted.

Fern just wants one thing that isn’t about her doppelgänger, one thing for herself, but even her heart beats for the young woman.

‘Is that so bad?’ It asked. She isn’t sure, yes, no— maybe. ‘Your self flagellation and jealously are ill-placed, you could let yourself be happy.’

That scares her, terrifies her. She wants to possess every inch of Fionna, she wants to wrap her up in a web she’ll never be free from, she wants to take and take, everything her double has to give she wants to hoard. It feels violent, feral.

‘You’re a demon, that’s simply how you love,’ it told her.

Fern sighs and drags her nails over her face. She’s doomed. She’ll only ever love once, but she’s been doomed since before her formation, she’s loved this woman since she lived in her bloodstream and fed off of her like a parasite. She wanted the illusion of choice, at least. She hasn’t been bound to her, not yet, but if they do this she knows it’s going to happen. It’s only a matter of reciprocation and pheromones.

‘It could make you happy. But you’re afraid, because what if you do let yourself have what you want and it still does not fill the bottomless, obsessive hole in your heart?’

She opened her eyes and broke the connection at that point, confronted with prompting that waded too far into the truth of her fears. She doesn’t want to blame Fionna if her edges cannot slot correctly into the missing piece in herself, if she cannot fulfill Fern, she’s only human- only mortal.

A hand brushes hers and her head snaps up, line of doubts and depthless worry broken as her fingers are woven through.

“Y’came back,” Fi murmurs tiredly with a crooked little smile that strangles her.

She doesn’t say anything as a thumb circles into her palm, caught frozen like a spooked animal.

“Fern?” Fionna’s face slowly falls, brows knitting together as she blinks the sleep from her eyes. She tightens the hold she has on her, then drops her hand as her gaze lowers, letting her go.

Fern shoots to her feet and tangles her fingertips between the leaves above herself, casting one last uncertain look at her other before melting into the treetop. A hiccup stops her from zipping off. Fionna’s soft, wobbly sobs make it hard to leave, and she surfaces on the tree to grit her fangs and pinch the skin between her eyes. She lays on her back and watches the stars glow brighter in the dark as midnight grows near.

“I’m scared,” she admits, and the cries below her slow and quiet. “How I feel about you scares me, it isn’t human at all.”

“What,” Fi clears her throat, “what does that mean?”

“…” Fern lets a confused noise rumble out of her. “I want to keep you locked up inside me. It feels like I’m starving.” She twists a hand into her dress. “Half of your soul is in me,” she says to the canopy, “it’s like a magnet. I wanna stick myself to you and not let go.”

Fionna sniffles and coughs, sitting up and speaking to the roof. “I’m sorry my dumbass, impulsive dirt brained come-on made you leave. I’m sorry I didn’t understand what it meant for you.” Her eyes dart over the ceiling, trying to see a dip where Fern could be seated. “Sinope told me my lifespan makes it real heavy.”

“It’s not just that. Demons don’t date,” Fern forces out through her teeth, “we don’t- do that. more than once.”

Fionna’s face reddens, hearing starting to ring. “What does that mean?”

“You can date around. But if we do this and I get attached then I’ll be hung up on you.” Fern’s face darkens and she sighs, eyes closing as she plants a pattern of roses in the treetop. “You could decide I’m needy or too clingy, maybe you’ll realize this is a phase after your brain ripens outta your teens. Demon affection is violent, I could scare you off. Any number of probabilities and I’d be fucked. My dumbass will only ever react romantically to the stink of your soul. Forever.”

The low, fuzzy siren playing in Fi’s ears softens and she fiddles with the leaves next to her, picking one and tearing it between her fingertips nervously. “Do you want to pretend like nothing happened?”

Fern’s eyes widen as her heart heaves painfully. “No.” Her gaze darts around the night sky. “I don’t know?” She holds her breath and rubs at her chest with her palm. “I like how it feels.” Her lashes slide shut and she takes a deep breath through her nose. “I like that you smell sweet when I get close to you.” Fern sits up slowly, adding the finishing touches to her living painting. “But I used to be a part of you,” she mumbles. “Used to be you. S’just— confusing.”

Fionna can feel her heartbeat in her scalp, and the loud thrumming below her skin makes her dizzy as silver lines crawl over her vision. “I know,” she rasps out thinly. “Took months to get all the freak outs outta my system after my brain said ‘hey isn’t that chick covered in syrup hot? Haha wouldn’t it be neat to kiss her? You totally- totally wanna lick the sugar off your own face.’ And I uh. I—“ she kicks herself for being so awkward. “Good thing you stayed with LSP, I guess. Feels better knowing I’m not alone with how spooked this whole thing’s got me.”

Fern’s face burns hot with recognition. Every minute they’d spent together since her formation and– she makes a choked off noise and hiccups.

Fi holds her breath at the tense silence. “Fern? I’m sorry, I said too much. I didn’t mean to make you uncomforta—“

“No. No that’s, uh.” Fern’s throat tightens, making her words go all high and rickety. “I uh. I came here to check on you and now you’re making it real hard to leave.”

Fionna snickers under her breath nervously, rubbing at her upper arms. “I’m sorry, I’m just being honest.” She stands and slides her palm along the foliage above her. “What you want is important, if you wanna drop it I will. I just really… don’t. I don’t want to.” A hand dips through the branches to link their fingers together and squeeze. “Fern?”

“Just gimme a little more time to sort out my issues. I don’t wanna snap on you one day for being so… everywhere.” She tugs Fionna’s hand up through the leaves and brushes her lips against the back of her knuckles. “Good night, Fi.”

Fionna’s hand drops as she’s let go, and she holds it to her chest, rubbing at her own wrist. “Night,” she whispers longingly.

She stands there, flustered, heart knocking around in her chest. She falls asleep with a warm buzz covering her skin as she lays curled up in the scent of mint and grass, unbothered by the draft and frigid night breeze.

Cake calls her outside the next morning, turning her by the shoulders and shaking her in the face of a very flattering Fauvist-esque portrait of herself grown into the roof of their home with a low, knowing chuckle. Fionna pushes her bedhead back from her eyes and grasps herself by the elbows tightly, holding her breath, suddenly very awake.

“Well lookit that, don’t think I’ve seen you swoon that hard before,” Cake titters, nudging her tauntingly. “Course, she’d know how to get results. Does this mean the sulk-fest is over?”

Fi whimpers, eyes sparkling.

xxxx

A chirping alarm sounds off from Prismo’s remote and he gurgles under the tub’s water, turning over and ignoring it.

“Should you not take that?” Scarab prompts him, head poking out of the stairwell.

“Mmf,” he grunts, flapping a wrist. “If you wanna then go for it, Scrabby. M’not clocked in.”

The other shadow sighs and checks it. “It’s the universe you made for the Mertens boys. The ‘Lich Alarm’.”

Prismo’s eyes shatter wide open. “Oh, glob!” he yells, panicking. “Answer it! Answer it!” He scrambles out of the water to catch the video feed jumping alive, face paling as Orgalorg’s new form centers on the screen. “Oh no. Oh donks, this is bad. This is so bad. Uh, okay, delegate. Delegate," he talks to himself as his hands come up to bracket himself.

“Do you ever behave responsibly?”

“Shut it,” Prismo snaps meekly, sliding up his wall, holding himself tall and elbowing Scarab in the ribs. “Don’t make me look bad in front of this one, please.”

“You need no help in that department, I’m afraid.” Scarab rolls his eyes and brushes himself off as two familiar humans collapse with almost matching grunts. “Must you have such little regard for our ruleset?”

Finn groans, shoulders falling at the sight of a yellow floor. “Dude, we were wrangling the kids for bed, could you pick a worse time,” he complains, lifting his chin and freezing. “Uh.” Fionna gawps back at him, eyes darting around his face. Finn stands and offers her a hand awkwardly before drawing back with a wince. “She won’t, like, poof if I touch her, right?”

“No, Finn,” Prismo huffs.

“Okay, okay good.” He helps his copy up as she stares through the back of his skull. “Hi. I uh.” He turns to his friend with a bizarre look in his eye. “Why are we here?”

Prismo holds his breath as he sweats and then breaks out into a fast explanation. “Okay so when the Lich hand broke into other realities I didn’t think it would have gotten into hers but it just took him an extra long time to actually get there from the all the jello he had to wiggle through in the antiverse, so, the Lich is now,” he throws a thumb to the screen, “in your Orgalorg and that is not good. I don’t think I need to tell you how NOT GOOD that is.”

Finn’s face drains. “Prismo,” he chides gruffly under his breath, running a hand down his chin.

“I know!” The deity screams. “So! so! I need you,” he points at Fionna, “to slay the hand and I need you,” he swings his finger to Finn, “to make sure that bearded crown depository doesn’t move a damn inch! If his eyes start glowing scalp him! I don’t care! But the Lich cannot have that zonkers tier power!” He pants, chest rising and falling fast. “This is some bad ham, man! We’re ALL DEAD if this goes poorly!”

“I apologize for my boss, he’s hysterical,” Scarab offers. “And irresponsible, and short sighted.”

“Alright! Thank you!” Prismo fumes.

“Where is it?” Fi asks, clearing her throat of shocked gravel. “The hand, where is it?”

Finn jumps at her voice, having almost forgotten she was there. “It, uh, it’s after Tree Trunks’ kid. You need to find him… her-wait is the Lich a chick in your world?” He asks as his tone pitches high, but Fionna shakes her head at him, put off and puzzled. “Okay, uh. Right, okay, follow Sweet P and you’ll find it.” Fionna doesn’t blink. “Sorry, hi. Finn. I’m you, kinda,” he gets out with a weird smile.

“Yeah I… I got that.” Fionna scratches her cheek uncomfortably, giving Finn a once-over as she shakes his hand. “Did you- did you say kids?” She pauses and tries to suss out what exactly the man in front of her meant, lips thinning into a tiny line when she notices the wedding band on his finger.

Finn gulps and he stares over her shoulder owlishly. “Uh.” He pats down his pockets and snags his phone free. “I did, yes.” She chokes, face flaring red. Finn snorts and sighs as he texts Fern a quick summary of the situation. “Alright man, send me to the castle. I’ll babysit Gunter til this is all settled. And Fionna?” His eyes harden and he addresses her seriously. “Stay away from booze.” His gaze dances over her face, considering. “You got your phone on you?”

Fionna nods slowly and hands it over, brow furrowing as he snaps a photo of his screen with her cell. “What–?” She takes it back and clams up at a male Fern flipping the camera off with a snide, sharp grin and exhausted bags under his eyes as two children sit on his feet, clinging to his legs like weights around his ankles. “You. You—“

“If you decide you want ‘em Fern'll need to know what mine looks like,” he simply says with a small chortle. “She’ll grok what I mean.” Finn cants his face back and signals Prismo.

Fi waves dumbly and watches him shoot through the roof with slack lips. “Prismo, what the hell,” she husks out, eyes tracking back down to the shadow.

His shoulders jump to his ears. “Don’t ask me! You’re the one who keeps ogle eyeing yourself! Just- just do this for me, please. I thought your universe would be safe in that kook but I was obviously-“

“Tragically, glaringly, stunningly, obviously wrong,” Scarab finishes critically with a verbal flourish and making him redden further.

“… I don’t understand,” she mutters deliriously, “my world is in a person?“

“Fionna! Focus!” Prismo claps at her. “I’m not having this conversation again,” he groans under his breath. “You’ve got a Lich remnant to slay, dude. Please.” He begs her with open palms. "Please."

She sucks air through the gap in her teeth and pins him with a withering look. “You’re gonna explain this to me one day.”

“Fine! Deal!” He sends her home, sagging with relief and slumping to the floor.

“You really do just float through life getting by on your charisma, don’t you?” Scarab taunts with a high tip of his chin as he stands over Prismo haughtily. “Not very much going on in that head of yours.”

“Please don’t start.”

xxxx

They crouch, hidden in the bushes of the Candy Forest out of sight as they stake out Tree Trunks’ home.

“Oh goodness, honey,” Cake whispers, whistling as her eyes widen at the photograph, “so this isn’t just a weird Fionna thing. This is like some cosmic red string of fate business.” She squints, assessing the kids. “Their daughter looks just like you at that age, oh, that brings me back.”

Fionna grunts, shrugging sheepishly. “I don't know! They have children! Does that mean— auuugh! I’m so wigged, man. And he was so buff, like beefcake buff, am I gonna be buff?” She grabs her head in her hands and whines “I don’t wanna be buff, Cake!”

“What’s so bad about bein’ a muscle hottie?”

“Please stop making fun of me,” Fi sighs and tilts a flat stare at her guardian. “I’m like, this close,” she pinches her fingers, “to losing it.”

Cake snorts and pats her head. “Alright baby, I’m just sayin’, she might be into it, y’know.”

“Cake!” she hisses, ears flushing.

“Well I think it’s so romantic,” Cake hums, eyes closing. “Fated to be, Fi.”

Fionna rolls her eyes and turns back to her target. “My life isn’t one of your shirt ripper novels,” she grumbles under her breath. “You’ve been strangely supportive, you get that she’s me, right?”

“So she knows you best,” Cake argues. “I’ll always be for whatever will make you happiest, and I like Fern! She’s always been real responsible around the house and she knit me that blanket I like so much with the stretchy wool.” She tsks and tuts and holds her paws to her hips. “Always washes your dishes and takes care of my herb garden.”

Fionna snorts, rolling her eyes into the back of her head. “You just like her for the catnip tea she bribes you with.”

“That, too,” she purrs contentedly.

“Sorta up to her though, isn’t it?” Fi chews at her lip, watching Mrs. Pig tuck their son in with a kiss to his horn. “All I can do is wait.”

Cake considers this with a low noise, tapping her chin. “I dunno, Fionna. She’s always been real insecure, poor thing might just want some reassurance—“

“Shh,” she hushes, watching a shape scuttle towards Sweet P’s bedroom window. “I think this’s it.” She draws her sword and ejects its blade, staying low on her haunches, posture readied to pounce as she creeps to the edge of the clearing. “Get ready to bind it.” Cake wraps herself around her upper body like a scarf, arms open wide. “Muff me,” she says as she flattens herself to the house’s siding below the sill.

A fluffy tail wraps over her ears and Fionna holds her breath, calming herself before turning and peeking into the room. Her eyes narrow in the dark, seeing nothing. She inches upwards and scans the inside before vaulting herself into house as silently as she can muster, holding a hand over her mouth to muffle her breathing. She stands and runs a hand along the child’s mattress.

“Still warm,” she whispers. Her head snaps up at a creaking noise. “D’you smell anything?”

“Pie crust, and… off eggs? Gasoline?” Cake sniffs at the air, concentrating. “Bleach. Lighter fluid. That creep was definitely here.”

Fionna grunts, checking the wardrobe with her sword held defensively and slumping when it reveals nothing. She walks to the center of the room and crosses her arms after sheathing her weapon into her back. “What if—“ she’s cut off as she’s crushed under a great weight, bouncing her skull off of the floor and blacking out.

 

Fern feels a twinge shooting at the back of her brain like it’s been sawed into by razor wire and she freezes, dropping out of meditation. Her hackles raise and she melts into the landscape, with a loud ‘oh shit’ startling HW into a yelp, breaking out of his stump shaped sleep.

“Fern!” he calls as she zips northwest, but she doesn’t stop to explain.

She hasn’t felt this urgent severity since the beach. The burning, searing pain in her marrow flares high at the backs of her eyes demanding she act, demanding she protect. Her humanity slips from the front of her mind and Fern begins to function solely off of demonic instinct, thinking clearly as itself for the first time in close to two years. It takes a moment to relish in the release of worry, the absence of anxiety as it speeds through the system over the grasslands. Dread begins to sink into its stomach the closer it is drawn to Iceberg Lake. Fionna is being taken somewhere deep, and Fern knows that its hunch is correct when its path begins to cut through the earth diagonally towards a pit of malice best left forgotten.

Fionna sluggishly comes to and she winces at the pain radiating through her head. She tries to move but can’t, carried through the air under a very thick elbow, limbs locked up and refusing to answer her. She looks to her left and catches sight of Cake mouthing ‘sorry’. Fionna rolls her eyes up just enough to see the edge of a large yellow talon over Sweet P’s shoulder and her guts drop through her feet. The boy’s sockets are glowing voids, face slack in a blank, vacant expression.

“Let us try this again, child.”

The voice that leaves his mouth is deep, threatening and familiar, and her blood pressure spikes as sweat breaks out over her upper lip despite how much she’d readied herself for facing this monster again. “What’re you doing to Sweet P you evil freak?” she asks through her teeth as her jaw spasms.

“I am showing the boy what he is, what we can accomplish together.” A laugh that curdles her insides rings out. “Triumphs that will be of no concern to you soon.”

“Sweet P, buddy, you gotta wake up. Please, you’re so good. You don’t have to be this relic, you get to decide,” Fionna bargains loudly, pleading with an apparent puppet. “What would your daddy want you to do?” She huffs a hopeful breath as his footsteps stutter. “That’s right, bud, you know this isn’t right. You can still be sweet, you don’t gotta do this.”

“This body is but a vessel. Your efforts are in vain, Fionna. I applaud you for your use of emotional manipulation, but I have never and will never be sweet,” the Lich snarls low in the boy’s throat, “no matter the form, world, or time. I overcome.”

They reach the bottom stair and Fionna holds her breath, scared eyes darting to Cake and they stare at one another in suspense as they’re walked to the edge of a large hole in the ground that broken train tracks delve into, suspended over the entrance to the entity’s lair.

“Sweet P,” her voice cracks over her desperation and fear, “Sweet P, honey, put me down. I know you can, I know you don’t wanna—“

SILENCE

The command seals her lips.

Fionna squints in pain from the dirt and crumbled cement that falls into her eyes as rocks and clods come apart and drop from the ceiling. She notices Cake’s nose twitching, holds her breath when her pupils thin out and her eyelids widen as her gaze darts above them. Her blood feels like it’s being pulled, magnetized against the skin of her back and her hackles raise, peach fuzz standing straight on her shoulders as she breaks out into a cold, terrified sweat. A low, almost indiscernible growling noise echoes into the passageway, something pitched so low that Fionna’s cartilage vibrates with it and she swallows roughly, bracing herself for whatever nightmare creature the Lich has set up to eat them, she assumes. Cake’s eyes swing back to her and the corners of her mouth tip up the slightest bit against the disabling spell that had been placed upon them.

Her muscles seize when an alien snarl rings out and a wispy jade beast slingshots through the ceiling, wrapping itself over Sweet P’s upper half. The boy teeters and plummets to the ground, and as he topples the hand takes the opportunity to leap onto a far wall, sticking to the brick like an odd, overgrown spider.

Fionna grits her teeth at the stinging scrapes worked into her legs and elbows as she’s flung across the floor, and the chains holding her muscles stiff shatter. She draws her sword and ejects its blade swiftly to block the Lich remnant before it can land over top of her, launching itself with impressive speed for what it is. A single talon snags on her skin and it recoils at the spurt of blood that splashes its first knuckle. It almost seems to be in pain as it hisses out a high squealing noise, and her eyes break open at the red sinking into its muscle like acid. The green blur whips around and vaults itself, teeth shredding into ochre skin and tearing it into ribbons as it chitters, scrabbling and clawing into the remnant. The Lich limb bursts into a thick, sickly scented miasma after entering a death curl. The strange animal stills and heaves deep breaths into its bare, halfway visible ribcage before turning to Fionna and approaching her with its head held low, six eyes scanning every inch of her. Its hooves and claws click against the floor as it crawls nearer, long foliage of its back dragging across the ground.

Fionna scrambles to her feet and it mimics her, standing hunched over with reaching talons but before it can make another move she stabs at it, cutting into its shoulder meat and the thing screeches and scitters, shrinking in on itself before it’s surrounded by Cake, enveloping it in her body like a soft, defensive casing.

“Cake!” Fionna demands, sword held above her head offensively. “What the hey! open up!”

“It’s Fern, Fionna!” she yells, voice hard and frustrated. “It’s okay baby, she just didn’t know, you’re okay.” Cake turns inward to pet Fern’s fur back, checking over the wound as it seals and closes up. “Oh, good.” A long sigh of relief leaves her.

Fionna’s grip loosens over the hilt of her weapon and it clatters to the paved, cracked cement with a resounding clang. She holds her palms up and approaches slowly, lowering to her knees next to Cake and asking timidly “is she okay? I didn’t know—I. I wouldn’t have if I knew I swear I swear I didn’t know I didn’t know she could do that— she could barely get her hands to change before–“

Cake shakes her free of her endless nervous chatter by unfurling herself and letting them stare at one another. She slinks off to check over Sweet P, knocked out but otherwise unharmed as he lays prone on the dirt, drugged into a deep sleep.

Fern’s hair bleaches of all color when she inches closer, flinching hand held tentatively just above the snout of its birch bark skull. “I’m sorry,” Fionna croaks over the vice on her throat. “Are you okay? I am so sorry.”

“O—kay,” it copies, voices strangely overlaid, nudging itself into her palm.

Fionna recognizes one of them as her own, but the other is lower, more hushed, creaky and monstrous. She gathers its scaled hands into hers and brushes her thumbs over the pulse points buried in its wrists. “Is this it? Your body.” Fern nods tentatively, nervous gaze flitting up to her. “… I wish you told me you finally got it,” Fionna says, pulling it against her to bury her face into its chest. “Never thought I’d be relieved we’re cursed,” she says on a raspy laugh. “I was so scared,” her words crumble under her stress as it finally boils over.

Fern rests its jaw on the crown of her head, winding its body around its double snugly and the tip of its tail begins to smack against the dirt. “Fi,” it sighs, nosing into her hair and clicking softly. “O kay, you-rre o-kay.”

Fionna feels so stupid as tears begin to well up at her lashes and she wipes them away furiously, apologizing “sorry, I– jeez. Stabbed you and I’m the one blubbering.” Large, smooth palms raise to her cheeks and slender talons pet away the glossy tracks stained over her face. “M’sorry. I. I really miss you, and this whole thing… and I met another me— our world’s in a guy I guess?? Thought I was gonna die and I’m just—“ she coughs out a wet, frustrated noise. “I’m real overwhelmed.” Fern helps her to her feet and she gulps as it combs its claws through her bangs in a comforting motion, stood upright and tall, and she feels her stomach warm confusingly. “Oh. Wow. Okay,” Fionna whispers to herself.

Fern’s pupils thin at the sweet smell of attraction brushing past its nose, sneaking a narrow, analytical glance to its other and its heart knocks noisily against its sternum at her flushed ear tips and soft look of awe.

Cake clears her throat pointedly and starts hiking up the stairs with Sweet P strapped to her back. “I’m takin’ this big boy and puttin’ him back to bed.” She sighs under his weight and shoots Fi an urging glance. “Hopefully the poor dear’ll just think it was a nightmare. I’ll see you at home, baby.”

Fionna grinds her foot into the dirt, squirmy at the subtle nudge to act. She bends over and collects her sword from the earth, sheathing it to her back. “Um. You, uh. You wanna walk a lady home?” she asks, stumbling over herself when a cold, wet swipe ghosts across her upper arm. Fern freezes, eyes asking permission and Fi nods with a tiny dip of her chin. Its tongue sneaks back out and passes over the angry gash in her skin. “Your spit is freezing, dude,” she snorts, ticklish.

Fern makes a high ‘mrr’ing noise and ducks between her knees, gathering her up onto its shoulders and hefting her high as it begins to climb the old subway’s staircase. Fionna’s face flares red at the claws poking into the skin of her inner thighs and she chokes down a strangled noise as the back of her neck prickles.

“Oh—kay,” Fionna stammers, hands hovering over its hair? fur? She watches an ear angle back towards her, watches little vines climb close to her fingers. “I uh. Are you stuck like this?” she asks, lowering her hands into the mass of foliage.

Fern huffs a wuffling laugh out of its nose. “Curse.” It nods, long legs carrying them to the edge of Verdant Plains quickly. “You–“ it sniffs, “sweet?” It lets out a satisfied chittering noise when the scent spikes as it sweeps its talons back and forth over milky, soft skin.

“… it’s still you,” Fi mutters. “I don’t care what you look like, Fern. I just,” she pushes through her fluster, voice wobbling, “I just like you. I can’t help it, s’your fault.” Her shoulders cram up to her ears meekly, feeling the heat of her face radiate into the air. “S’your fault I’m all stupid over a monster.”

It begins to purr as Fionna tweaks the base of a fuzzy ear between her fingers and she smiles, watching tendrils wind over the backs of her hands affectionately as she’s carted through the tall grass. The trees around them thin out and shrink in the wide open fields as they grow closer to the tree fort, stars winking alive in the sky with the moon rising higher lighting their way. She chews on the inside of her cheek, word vomit hurdling out of her throat before she can stop herself.

“I met another version of myself last night.” Fern leaps to a low branch of their house. “He’s married with kids.” It overshoots the limb and kicks off of the trunk to correct itself. Fern snarls under its breath as it continues the ascent, claws poking holes into Fionna’s skin as its grip tightens possessively. Fi pats her pocket down, pulling her phone out and snapping it open. “He, uh, wanted me to show this to you.”

Fionna holds it in front of Fern’s face and it squints at the image, reforming fast with an ‘oh,’ on her breath and tripping over her own feet. “He wore me,” she utters, just quiet enough for Fionna to hear if she strains her senses. She squeezes Fi’s knee and blinks rapidly with a dazed expression, taking the phone from her to stare at. “Holy crud.”

“Fern, um,” Fionna mumbles as she dismounts her, “my blood hurt the Lich.” She leans forward and looks up at Fern’s sheepish face. “Whittling away at a reason here, but if you wanna tell me yourself…”

Fern holds her breath, stare glued to the screen. “If you think you know why do I have to say it out loud?” She bites her lip, chewing at the dry skin there. “Embarrassing.”

“No it’s not,” Fi insists softly, crouching into the treetop and patting the space next to her. Fern sighs and sinks down to her knees, flipping the phone shut and tossing it into Fi’s lap. “I miss you all the time, and” she waves her cell in the air, “now that you’ve seen this… please stay.” Her other glances at her with sad, frustrated eyes, lighting her face dimly. “How much more of my mortal lifespan are you gonna eat up by being a wuss, dude?”

Fern growls, chin dropping to her chest. “I’m not being a wuss, I don’t wanna hurt you, stupid.”

“He had scars 'n real angry marks all over from the neck down.” Fern’s face whips up. “Dude looked like he got dumped in a lake full of pissed off razor fish.” Fionna swallows her shame and steadies herself as she forces out “did you ever stop to think I’d like it?” with a very red neck, chin set defiantly. “It was the first thing that got me all dumb over you.”

Fi brings a hand up to her other’s jaw and drags her thumb over her lower lip as she sits there, nervy and buzzing out of her skin, grass curling, hair reaching for her wrist. Fionna pushes it down, revealing a quick flash of fangs.

“How dangerous you are— it’s, I uh…” she falters, clearing her throat and dropping her arm to pet at the locks weaving between her fingers. “I like you, Fern. I don’t want you to be something you’re not.”

Fern shoves her hand into her bangs and sneers irritably. “I could really mess you up.”

“Okay, and?“ Fionna raises her voice, frustrated.

She finds herself on her back in a flash, pressed into the tree deeply with predatory teeth bared in her face as a cold hiss blows her bangs back with a loud snarl ringing in her ears. White hot eyelight blinds her, and sharpened claws pierce her shoulder making her squint. Fern’s middle lets out a loud, low rumbling noise that curls her toes with equal parts fear and fascination. Her lashes lower, and her hands come up to push Fern’s hair behind her ears and cup around her nape. Thin slit pupils dart over Fionna’s face, never quite landing as her lips close into a confused little frown at the pheromones peaking around her and at the flush that dips below her shirt.

“You,“ Fern breathes out.

“Yowza.” Fionna whimpers, and Fern breaks into a silent, stunned laugh over her chest, forehead dropping to her sternum as she grows too warm, hyper-aware of the live wire of arousal strung through her. “Take a girl out first.” She coughs the vice around her neck free and takes a shuddering breath in. “We should kiss, you should move back in and we can kiss every day. That’d be uh, that would be my next step here, but if you’re still unsure I’mmmmh.”

Fi keens loudly against the soft, cool lips that press to hers and finally the reaching grabby hands of the needy butterflies in her stomach are sated. They watch one another through sliver thin lashes, eyes closing when Fionna tips her head slightly to the side and hooks an ankle around Fern’s shin. She stuffs her hands up into her double’s hair to press closer as it blooms heavily, smell of honeysuckle wafting past her face as they pop open around her fingers. She parts her lips eagerly when their kiss turns heated and a little desperate, tasting mint as she sucks Fern’s lower lip into her mouth, and a loud purring resonates through her bones. The deep breaths rushing into Fionna’s lungs between their mouths meeting and parting grow louder and louder, spurring Fern on as she shakes her neurosis off and snakes her tongue into her mouth, each half coaxing Fi’s into its split so she can twist and wrap hers around it. Her claws drag roughly over Fionna’s thigh and she swallows over the moan that’s let out into her mouth, eyes twisting tighter. They only break apart when Fern feels a tapping at her shoulder.

Fionna jerks away to wheeze, light headed. “Holy wow, oh wow. Oh.” She covers her crimson face with her hands and pants.

Fern snickers unevenly, shuffling and rearranging herself between her legs. “Sorry, forgot humans need to breathe.” The appealing curve of her pale neck draws her eye as Fi tips her head back further into the leaves, and she finds herself easing forward to kiss at the underside of her chin, mouthing down to the dip of her clavicles and trilling happily at the cute sounds that vibrate her lips. “Fionna,” she whines, “I don’t wanna spook you but—“

“Bite me,” Fionna blurts out, arching back further.

A long, relieved sigh leaves her lungs and she brackets the crook of Fi’s neck with her fangs, just barely drawing blood as the body beneath her tenses. A hand whips up to clutch at her hair and hold her closer, encouraging. Fern can distantly hear her other begging ‘please, pleaseplease,’ as her teeth sink deeper and the grip on her waist turns painful as alloy fingers dig into her side. Her hand teases below the hem of her shirt, long talons grazing over the softness of her stomach and dipping into the ridges of her abs as she licks up the dopamine running into her mouth and over her tongue, curse tasting sweet and strong and satisfying. Fern settles on her knees and leans back, staggering at how debauched Fionna looks as her face glows red, hair spread out in a wide blanket beneath herself, her fast panting pushes and pulls leaves close to her and tight little gasps ride out on them. A blue, heavily dilated eye blinks open and slides upwards to watch her timidly.

“Sorry,” Fern whispers.

“For what? Kinda got exactly what I uh, what I wanted.” Fionna grins and huffs a small laugh as she softens. She brushes the bangs back from Fern’s face and pets down the side of her cheek gently as she sits up, asking “will you stay?” She bites her lip, wetting it before saying “I wanna start in on that ‘forever’ now, if that’s cool with you,” not bothering to hide her corny romanticism.

Fern cracks up, snorting and bending forward to chuckle against her other’s forehead. “Gross.”

“My blood hurt the Lich,” Fi says again, voice breathy and low, “d’you know why?” She feels lips move over her skin and asks “what was that?”

“So dumb, ‘power of love’ so stupid,” Fern mutters a little louder as her voice wobbles on her pouty grumbling.

Fionna closes her eyes and savors the way her spine crackles with the rush of affection that rides down her nervous system. A painful, aching tangle of emotions that’s lived suspended between her lungs starts to unwind itself, pulsing and slithering down her arms, spreading tingly heat to her fingertips.

“Yours would‘ve hurt him, too.” She hears Fern inhale sharply and nudges her nose into her cheek, nuzzling their faces together. “Course I love you, dummy,” Fionna confesses as her double backs off to blink at her.

Fern’s whole body screams with the word ‘mine’ as something triggers an instinctual reflex in her brain, and the next time she breathes through her nose she’s knocked off her ass with possessiveness as it rockets through her veins, the smell of Fionna’s signature resonates and solidifies itself as the only romantic bond Fern will experience ever again. She owns this woman, just as she is owned, and she becomes dizzy with the high of mate-recognition as it releases waves and waves of hormones into her phloem fluid. She salivates, suddenly starving, skin jumping as she begins to shiver over the numbing oxytocin and vasopressin release.

“You’re tickling my bones,” Fionna giggles at the loud purring that vibrates her, then yelps as Fern makes the tree limbs shift apart, dumping them into her room. “Whuh?”

“Fionna,” she sighs into the skin behind her ear, “when you die my half of our soul will come back to you, and when we are reborn as one I will find you again,” her voice doubles up, becoming alien and rickety.

Fionna’s hands flit to Fern’s sides, heart kicking into her throat, eyes growing wet. “Oh,” she whimpers as their bodies are pressed flush. “Oh wow.” Her knees raise and her ankles hook over Fern’s back, drawing her closer. “S’this mean you’ll stay?” she asks on a tight breath palms coming up to cup Fern's cheeks.

“Forever,” Fern murmurs against her lips, easing back to blink at her other, lighting the small gap between them softly. "Wherever Life puts us next I will find you. Whoever, whatever she decides for us, nothing will stop me from being by your side. Until the day the cycle of reincarnation is severed and life and death become meaningless and redundant I will love you." Fern lifts a trembling palm, tenderly swiping at the moisture welling at the edge of Fionna's right eye. "No take-backs."