Grass Finn Bullshit

[doooooog]

"Finn!" Jake cupped a hand beside his mouth, the other six or seven busy putting away their haul from the Bargain Kingdom (a store, not a government, for once). A ninth hand sprouted to gently retrieve the vuvuzela from where BMO was absconding with it. "You hungry, buddy? They had a huge special on boar meat, I'm thinkin' sloppy joes!"

"THEY LEFT!" Neptr chimed in, sullenly, from his perch on the stair. "FATHER AND GRASS FATHER. NOT NEPTR."

"Oh yeah. Well, don't sweat it Neptr, that chicken coop is the kinda thing that changes a man. Better to skip it."

"NOT A CHICKEN COOP, A DUNGEON ADVENTURE."

Jake's coordinated dance of arms flagged for a moment, doubt curling in his gut. The prickle of concern was followed immediately by guilt. What the hell was he worried about? Two Finns were better than one. He could stand to cut Fern a break, even in his own thoughts.

"Welp, you can help me on a culinary adventure if you want." Jake's gaze dances from the meat to Neptr. "Whaddya think about Sloppy Joe Pies? Has a nice ring to it..."

---

The sun was slung low in the sky by the time Jake heard the familiar sound of Finn's return up the treehouse steps. Alongside the involuntary prick of his ears, the dog feels a smile start to spread. No matter how capable the kid (teenager) had become over the last decade, Jake was pretty sure he'd never lose the sense of relief that came over him when Finn came home safe.

Lately, lingering misgivings aside, those feelings were starting to blossom towards Fern as well.

"Hey boys!" Jake lets the smile grow to a grin, craning his neck over the arm of the couch. "Y'all have fun out there?"

Jake felt suddenly cold, as if some cosmic entity had reached its hand down and pinched out the contented flame and safety of home. His voice lost its usual buoyancy, standing up from the couch.

"Wait, what happened?"

Finn said nothing, standing there looking as if he'd been through a woodchipper. Blades of grass clung to his hair, his clothes, even stuck to the razor sharp line of blood at his exposed stomach.

"I know that look!" BMO chimed in, sounding pleased to be the one with the answer to Jake's question. Neither the boy or the dog seemed to hear him in that moment. "You just killed someone."

Comments

[heroooic]

Finn could see it. He could almost feel it. The strange, unnatural glow just below a shifting curtain of sand. The demonic artifact that was the creature’s heart, pulsating with magic, constricted and made vulnerable by whatever invocation Jermaine has scrawled in the sand.

At his shout, Finn raised the sword high above his head, gritting his teeth in determination. He just had to bring it down. Like he’d done a hundred, other times. Just, stab it in the heart. Slay it. Kill it.

Like you killed me?

Finn swallowed, body tensing. His arm was starting to ache, the hilt unsteady in his sweating hand. He didn’t have time for imagined voices, Jake needed him. He just needed to destroy this one monster, a task that was a natural as breathing.

Was that what I was to you too? A monster?

Finn could feel his grip slipping, a terrible tight feeling in his chest. He couldn’t make his arm move. He could move anything. It felt like he was…trapped in quicksand.

“No, I…”

[doooooog]

The water lapped at the runes while Jermaine shouted up at Finn, unable to parse what he was looking at at first. Had Finn not heard him?

"Now, Finn! We're running out of time!"

The shout had no effect. Finn remain still, sword arm poised to strike... then flagging. Jermaine could feel his own heart thumping in his throat, hands shaking. No, no, no...

"Finn!" He cried, less a prompt or instruction and more a wail. Something plaintive and scared. "Jake!"

What came next was an unearthly crack, echoing across the beach just as the ocean washed out Jermaine's runes. Sand exploded outwards, golem losing all organized form in the space of an instant. For that one still moment, all three brothers seemed to float in stasis. Jermaine, watching a huge wave crest high above where he stood. Finn, in mid air with sword still raised. Jake, twisted into an unrecognizable mass, holding a cracked sand pail.

Time restarts with three splashes -- Finn and Jake crashing into the sea, and the wave swell crashing onto Jermaine.

[heroooic]

The suddenness of all of it was numbing. He was stuck (inside and outside), and then he was free…no, he was falling. Crashing into the water with a shock that snapped him out of his own frozen state. He

He takes a gulp of air, half of it seawater, reaching out blindly at the wet, lumpy yellow form in front of him. Coughing and choking out, “Jake?”

[doooooog]

"I gotcha buddy," Jake gasps, voice coming from somewhere close by. Stretched yellow arms loop around Finn's middle, anchoring them together as the artificial tide took them in.

All three brothers washed up on shore together, tethered to Jake. Jermaine was face down, legs tangled with kelp. Sandpaper burns left angry red marks all over both Finn and Jake, scratching away fur and skin. Jermaine was the first to wobble up, only to immediately vomit a mix of seawater and that morning's breakfast.

[heroooic]

Finn turns onto his side, coughing up the last bit of seawater from his lungs, and taking a few deep breaths. Rolling onto his back, he lay blinking up at the clear blue sky while Jermaine retched, and Jake said something he didn’t hear. Everything felt so far away and strange. His chest ached and his mouth tasted like salt. His sword was still, miraculously, held tight in his left hand. He relaxes his grip, letting it roll to the sand silently.

Maybe nobody noticed that he’d totally choked.

[doooooog]

"--whatever you did loosened him up enough so I could stretch again, so I just, y'know. Crrk, broken bucket."

"Don't let it touch the sand, ya dingus! Just give it to me."

"This is how you talk to the guy who just totally saved the day? Your own bro-bro? I could've totally died up there."

"Like I'd be so lucky..."

The disembodied conversation happening out of Finn's eyeline goes silent for a moment.

"...That wasn't funny, I didn't mean it--"

"Don't worry, I know. I heard your big baby crying all the way from inside that monster. Jaaaaaake."

"Oh, shaddap--"

"Jaaaake, don't die, you're so much cooler than the rest of us, how're we gonna carry onnnnn!"

"I'm gonna go get a bag for this demonic item. And then maybe throw up again."

"Heehee, more like cry again."

"Whatever!" Jermaine's voice was further away now. There was still a tremor in it, same with Jake. The joking between them colored with the stress and tension of any near death experience, and then colored again with a love only brothers could share. A love only brothers could lose, too.

Finn feels a gentle fist cuff his shoulder.

"You alright, bro?"

[heroooic]

Their bickering and needling was a background sound that was as familiar and expected as the sound the waves made on the shore. It was almost comforting in its own way…they were both alive and well if they were giving each other grief. A noisy dog household had always been a good one. Better than when things were quiet.

But they almost weren’t alive, Finn thinks absently to himself. They could have died because I hesitated.

Jake’s cuff on his shoulder stops that train of thought abruptly.

“Sure, I’m okay, man,” He props himself up on his elbows. He looks in Jermaine’s direction. “Is he gonna be okay? He sounded pretty scared.”

[doooooog]

Jake looks worn out, body a little squishier to the touch than normal. Scratched patches of bald dog skin peppered his torso, stinging like nettles as he gestured.

"Him? Oh yeah, he'll be okay. We just gotta be there for him." Jake waves a hand at the ocean, indicating the remains of the fight they so narrowly won. "He's not used to the whole jaws of death sitch like you n' me."

[heroooic]

“No kidding,” he dusts some sand off his hat. Despite the cascade, he could feel there was at least three times as much inside the hat. “Guess he just needs some of that outdoor experience, like we’ve got.”

Finn smiles a little thinly. Usually a good monster fight had him laughing and grinning, the whole “jaws of death” situation was like candy to him. A different time this might have been the perfect cherry on an otherwise boring, regular trip to the beach.

But Finn didn’t seem energized. He looked scuffed up and wet, and tired. Small.

“You really saved our butts back there…”

[doooooog]

The little performance earns an audience, Jake watching Finn go through the motions expertly. He even smiles at all the right spots. It makes Jake's heart ache in a new and different way from the screams of exertion his body was punishing him for.

"Hey..." Jake catches Finn's gesturing hand by the wrist, holding it with the sort of carefree expectation that came with being family. "What's going on, what's with the everything's gravy biz?"

"What's this about gravy?" Jermaine asks, voice still undeniably rattled as he approaches them. He reads the writing on the wall quickly, sinking down on Finn's other side.

[heroooic]

Finn's mouth presses into a thin line, feeling suddenly cornered.

"What?" He glances at both of them in turn. "Everything is gravy! We beat the cheese out of that golem!"

Finn was trying very hard to put on a bravado act, but the uncertain tremor to his voice betrayed him. He could feel the tightness in his chest again, the sting behind his eyes.

[doooooog]

Ever since they were small, Jake was always the first one to sense when Finn was in trouble or needed help -- even gross help, like a diaper change or teething ring. He was even quicker than their parents, able to read the inscrutable little baby faces on the edge of tears as if they were fully formed words. There were nights when Margaret woke to check on the human babe, only to find a 5-year old Jake cradling him in her big chair and chatting him through to the other side of a nightmare.

It was remarkable, honestly. Even more remarkable was how it never went away, even as Finn grew (so, so slowly) and those needs became more and more complicated. Their father like to say that they were cut from the same cloth, their mother thought maybe they'd known each other in another life. Jermaine used to say it was just luck, even if only to himself.

The few times he tried to sneak into Finn's room and mimic those encounters universally ended in disaster -- tantrums, scolding from his parents, fat human baby tears. Whatever instincts Jake seemed to have inherently, Jermaine never got them. So while Jake stays silent and squeezes the hand he'd taken, already fully anticipating what was coming, Jermaine barrels forward blindly.

"Uh, barely!" He reminds them both, jutting a hand out towards the ocean where the golem once stood. "Please tell me that's not how close it is every time y'all fight a beastie, 'cuz I'm never gonna sleep again. Like, Finn, what happened man!? If Jake hadn't heard me through all-a that sand, both of you would've been toast!"

[heroooic]

The words hit Finn hard, making real so many of the things he'd been thinking. He shrinks into himself, looking deflated.

"I don't know what happened!" He hunches so he can hide his face, and the big, frustrated tears welling up in his eyes. He still held Jake's hand tightly, even if he wondered if that meant he was being a baby too. He loved his brothers more than anything, and Jake in particular had never made him feel bad about needing him, but...he was so aware sometimes of how much faster they had grown up. Maybe things would be different if he'd grown up faster too.

He sniffles wetly, voice muffled, "I'm sorry guys. I messed up..."

He used to be so good at saving people...but lately it felt like all he could do was hurt them.

[doooooog]

Both dogs exchanged a look at Finn's outburst, eyes meeting overtop their little brother's folded up body. An entire conversation passed wordlessly between them in the space of a moment; Jermaine's bafflement and immediate guilt at Finn's reaction, Jake's mixture of irritation and sympathy. Jermaine could never see the signs as clearly as he could, Jake didn't blame him for that. Besides, he truly believed this breakdown was coming no matter what, but also... Well, he wished Jermaine had said it differently, that's all.

"You didn't mess up, it was loud as heck and like, impossible to navigate up there." Jake rubs his back, small circles. "Coulda happened to anyone."

[heroooic]

The words hung there, a safety rope. Finn knew Jermaine had seen him falter but he couldn't be sure if the same were true of Jake. He could be offering him a convenient excuse, or maybe he genuinely believed that's what had happened...

Finn turns his head, peeking at him from behind his arm, unsure if he wanted to take the excuse and run.

"I had him though...it should have been easy," he admits.

[doooooog]

"I was up there too, that sand weighed a ton. You can't stretch your muscles like I can, that's why it's good we're a team." He glanced up at their third brother, still staring miserably at Finn. "And, uh, Jermaine came in with the clutch rune biz! All Joshua's boys got a hand on the ball, he'd be stoked! Loop closed!"

Jake's voice had a declarative note to it, as if he was announcing the matter over. Jermaine, still watching how Finn seemed to be avoiding everyone's gaze, wasn't so sure.

"Did something happen?" He finally asks, tone as apologetic as it was curious. "You can tell us. I promise I won't be a jerk, it just... Freaked me out, that's all. Seeing the kind of stuff you two do up close. I'm not mad."

Jake looked irritated at first, flashing Jermaine a look (one he didn't even see, thanks to his laser focus on Finn). But as he continued, Jake felt his expression soften. It was a different approach from Jake's typical one, direct as opposed to distract.

A large part of him was pretty sure picking at the wound was a bad idea, but... Well, he'd been coming up empty with Finn more and more lately. Maybe a change of tactic wouldn't be so bad.

[heroooic]

Finn bites his lip, looking down, not wanting to meet his brothers' eyes. Jermaine seemed unwilling to just let the whole thing slide by unremarked upon, putting the spotlight firmly back on his younger brother. It was so direct it was almost clumsy. But in the moment, part of him felt relieved. Hiding your secrets and thoughts could be so exhausting...especially from people who knew you so well.

"I dunno, I just...everything that just happened...with Fern?" he glances at Jake, a wordless understanding passing between them. "It just really shook me up. And I couldn't do it. Finish the golem. I heard you yelling, Jermaine, and I wanted to do it...but I just, got in my own head, I guess."

Finn looks unhappily at his feet. He'd wanted badly for this to be the perfect trip for the three of them. Something for them to build new memories together with. Memories that were separate from everything that had come before. Mom, and Dad. Fern. Their own thing.

But things didn't work like that. You couldn't just divide up the pieces of your life how you wanted and keep them from touching like peas and carrots on a plate. It all spilled over.

[doooooog]

The admission was almost unthinkable, at least to Jake.

Death was all around them in their line of work -- the line of work Finn had been entrenched in since he was an infant. Handling monsters was practically their family business. Not everyone got crossbow lessons from their mothers by the age of four. Not all parents had frank conversations with their young children about what to do with their corpses, should they fall in battle. Jake wasn't even ten when his father first turned to them, all business, and asked him to make sure he collected all the pieces of his body for burial in the event of a messy death. Can't leave any bits behind, boys, I know plenty of dark wizards aching to get their hands on this puppydog tail. Don't let your poppy become black magic, kids.

Killing monsters and avoiding death yourself, that was just their lives. It had always been their lives and, Jake was confident, always would be. It wasn't a fact Jake always necessarily loved, particularly as he aged and priorities changed, but he knew that Finn did love it.

The slow circles on Finn's back didn't stop, even as Jake stumbled car to car down his long train of thought. Jermaine sat in closer, sandwiching Finn tight between them, with a looped an arm around Finn's shoulders. He was without question the least physically affectionate of the three of them -- the intimacy and lack of escape never appealed to Jermaine -- but Finn's misery was a powerful motivator. So he leans in heavily against him, a little puppypile like the old days.

"Sometimes when something bad happens, you can't always fix it by going back to normal," Jermaine offers, voice reassuring. It wasn't quite as good as Jake's, but there was still significant power there. "That's okay, y'know? Stuff doesn't have to be normal right away."

"Normal's boring, anyway," Jake chimes in finally, squeezing closer. Finn was smack dab in the middle of a full-on brother hug. "Figuring this out'll just be a new kind of adventure, right?"

Both Jermaine and Jake hug him tighter, a damp trio of miserable pups stabbing towards hopeful.

[heroooic]

"Yeah, normal's boring," Finn echoes with a faint smile.

It felt nice being sandwiched there in a big, admittedly cold and wet hug. Covered in salt and sand, scraps and bruises, and exhausted from their brush with death. It made Finn feel like they were little again, that relatively brief time when they were all small together and would cuddle up for naps or comfort, or any reason at all. It was something that had mostly gone away when mom and dad had.

He holds tightly to them both, wanting it to last.

[doooooog]

They sat like that for a while. Jermaine and Jake would intermittently offer observations about the fight, talking largely to and about each other's performance. That line of conversation pivoted to other times had on this beach. Something always happened -- a monster attack, a dark artifact, some tasty booty. Jermaine was confident their dad had salted the field with monster encounters, certain the sand golem must've been one Joshua set here himself. They had a good chuckle over the memory of their dad scolding Jake for his sword stance from within the jaws of an anglerbeast.

"Stances are for nonstretchy guys," Jake concludes, still petting Finn's back, "And I barely done use swords anyway."

"Yeah, 'cuz your stance stinks."

"You stink, Jermaine. Like, forreal."

Jermaine sniffed the air and pulled a face. All this time he thought the pervasive stink had been low tide, but upon closer examination... it was definitely the three of them. Wet dog smell comingling with sweaty human stink, all with a side of brine.

"Ick. Let's get back to the hotel. I'm cold, anyway." He looks to Finn, poorly trying to emulate Jake's effortless chill. Jermaine's nerves were always a little closer to the surface, and right now? Finn was one giant nerve for both his brothers. "You cold?"

[heroooic]

"N-no way," Finn says, teeth practically chattering, fooling no one. He was always the first of them to get cold...no fur. And it was almost tradition for him to deny it.

[doooooog]

"C'mere you," Jake grins, wrapping Finn up in his ear and hefting him up onto his back. "Hot shower time!"

A set of stairs sprouts from his side, extending towards Jermaine.

"All aboard, brother."

Compared to Finn, Jermaine wasn't quite as comfortable being manipulated by Jake's flesh. Still, he rides the Jakescalator without protest, settling in behind Finn. The ear was actually pretty warm.

With a lurch upwards and away, Dog Beach recedes behind them like a fading memory.