Bittersweet - Bubbline AU

Chapter Twenty Six - Petals/Flowers for Flames

Hello, my loves!

Well, that's the last chapter I had to translate, so it I'll take a bit longer for me to update now. But I think four chapters in two days is pretty enough sksksks

Good reading!
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When the air is quiet and the sky is blue

I can't help be reminded of you

How your eyes are shut

So you cannot see

Just how very close I keep you to me

Marceline's room was often the only place where she really felt safe. The locked door, the disconnection with whatever was outside: the little comforts that provided the perfect illusion that all demons were trapped outside.

And in that dark little place you have made

You'd swear all these pretty clouds are gray

I wonder how you're doing
How you're doing now

It was a necessary exercise in those moments. When Simon was too far within himself to be located. Especially at that time of year. It was always the worst part. A little worse when Simon was in crisis.

In a million years never thought I'd see

The day you would choose your fear over me

'Cause many storms have come

And if not for you

I'd have been struck down, disappeared at sea

I know it's hard for you to take a compliment

But my life began the day which you came in it

I wonder how you view me
How you view me now

It was a bitter mixture of sadness and acceptance. A painful nostalgia. She loved the part of Simon that she could have, and in a way she had learned to love the broken parts of him. If her mood was good enough, she could afford to step into the game a little, let the fantasies in his head become entertainment.  f she concentrated enough, it was like she was 7 again, and it was nothing more than roleplay to cheer her up.

But she was old enough to know. Inevitably, the room was filled with images: a mixture of the past that she wanted back with the future that she longed for, but probably would never have. She could almost see a smaller version of herself running around the room. An older Simon, but more lucid one, laughing in the chair she had made her mother buy out of nostalgia for his old chair. Him asking an older version of herself about her life.

On a night like this

It's just me and the kid

And there's a chair for you

Where you'd always sit

And we would talk for hours about the dumbest shit

And you would always start my cigarette

Ah, the fucking cigarette. She had an erased tip in the ashtray, mocking her. The unhealthy habit stolen from Simon. A 9-year-old Marceline had promised him never to put one of those in her mouth. He had promised to quit. The cigarette and the other heavier shit that came up when Beth was gone. It turned out that, in the end, no one kept their promise.