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 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.