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

[doooooog]

Tail wagging at the smell of tea, Jake hops up to fetch himself a cup as well. The mugs here were dainty and didn't hold all that much liquid; not really his speed, but when in Rome...

"Oh right, Bryce. He set all this up, right?" Seizing on a fresh distraction from the Finn situation, Jake tosses a sly glance over his shoulder as he rips open the teabag. "What's that like?"

[heroooic]

“What’s what like?” Jermaine feigns a little indignant ignorance. “Bryce’s beef with dad is just that…dad’s. I don’t believe in holding onto that kinda stuff. Bad for your kidneys.”

He takes another sip of the tea, savoring the calming warmth of it.

[doooooog]

"Whoa, hey there defensive." Jake laughs, keeping his infuriating chill intact as he sits down opposite Jermaine. "I'm just saying, demons gonna demon."

[heroooic]

“I’m just saying. Demons are mostly just…like us, you know?” He shrugs, not really in the mood to get into a whole philosophical tangle with his brother about the nature of the individual. “All I know is if you’re not stealing or antagonizing them actively, some demons are just…really good art dealers.”

[doooooog]

Jake blinks. He wasn't really looking to get into it with his brother either, they'd had enough drama for one day (for the whole week, really), but something about that hit his ear wrong.

"Stealing and antagonizing?" He cocks his head to the side, not sounding offended so much as deeply confused. "Are you talking about Dad right now?"

[heroooic]

Jermaine blinks, hiding behind another sip of his tea. Sometimes it was easy to forget how differently the two them saw their dad…or at least how differently they processed their views of him. Neither position lacked in love, but Jake hadn’t spent the past ten years holding the shards of their father’s legacy together either.

“Come on, bro, let’s not get into this right now,” Jermaine says a little wearily. “I just meant…I’ve spent a lot of time around demons. They’re not so bad. I’m sure you guy have met some monsters or whatever who aren’t all that bad, am I right?”

[doooooog]

Let's not get into this right now -- it was the same thing Jake's own mind was screaming. They had plenty on their plate with Finn, the guy they had literally come together like this for.

Still, Jake couldn't help himself. Jermaine was technically his little brother, too. The lion's share of his protectiveness may have been reserved for their youngest bro, but there was a sliver of it saved for Jermaine. Only to be used for special occasions, such as a demon totally manipulating him into thinking their awesome Dad wasn't the greatest hero ever.

"Okay, well, I was joking before but now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't have been." He stands, hand on his hip. "You didn't sign any contracts with this guy, didja?"

[heroooic]

“Contracts?” Jermaine laughs with an incredulous bark. “You need to take it easy, brother. Not everything you don’t like is nefarious. Maybe people just actually, really like my paintings.”

If you asked Jermaine, that was their dad talking. Suspicious, ready for a fight. Glob love him, Joshua was a protective dog, but he taught his kids to see shadows and dangers in almost everyone corner. Like the world was one big dungeon crawl.

[doooooog]

"That's not--!" Jake huffs, gesturing in frustration (and spilling some tea in the process). "Anybody with taste would love your paintings, I'm just saying, you don't know what kinda side biz this guy's into. I don't want you getting taken advantage of, or worse!"

Pacing a little between their chairs, Jake felt his own energy key up a little as he thought back. It wasn't often that he got his dander up like this, but maybe the events of the day had a little more effect on him than he had let on.

"I mean, I was there at the house last year, I literally heard him threaten to eat you. So don't tell me I'm bein' crazy!"

[heroooic]

“You’re not being crazy.” Jermaine closes his eyes, rubbing his temple in a mix of frustration and stress. “You’re just…way off base. Can’t you just trust me on this?”

[doooooog]

The pleading in Jermaine's voice does manage to get through to Jake, hitting the pause button on his jittery pacing. His face softens, staring at (or maybe through) Jermaine for a long moment of thought.

"... Okay. Okay." Jake sighs, sitting down heavily in the same chair he'd started in. "I'm backing off. It's just that last time I counted on you being fine, you seriously weren't. For like... a really long time."

He runs a finger along the rim of his now-empty cup, staring a hole through Jermaine's stack of in-progress canvases.

"Just promise me you'll keep your guard up around that creep."

[heroooic]

Jermaine let’s out an uneasy breath, sinking just a little lower into the chair.

“This time I really am fine. I’m…I’m good, even.” His own expression softens a little, his defensiveness receding. Jake’s concern actually was touching, even if it was (in this case) pretty misplaced. He almost wanted to explain everything to him, just rip that bandaid off, maybe give him a little peace in the process. But it wasn’t the right time. Everything with dad would probably come boiling up, they’d really have to talk about it. It wasn’t what he’d come here for.

Jermaine turns the hot cup in his hands, looking thoughtfully at his last dregs of tea.

“I promise. And I promise we’ll really talk soon. You and me. Okay?”

[doooooog]

"Okay." Jake agrees, tone suggesting that he was still quite suspicious but determined to keep his word and let things lie. For now, at least. "But it better not be in a dream, got it?"

Distantly, both dogs hear the sound of the shower shutting off quickly followed by a hair dryer. Jake stretches a hand over to the tea kettle, moving to pour both he and Jermaine another cup.

"And, listen..." Busying himself with growing a third arm to grab a third cup for Finn, Jake seems unable to make direct eye contact with Jermaine as he speaks. Another relic of Joshua, truthfully. "It feels really great, to hear you're good."

[heroooic]

“Thanks, man. It feels good to be able to say it.” He gratefully takes the fresh cup that one of Jake’s arms offers him. “We should try and talk like this more. It’s pretty cool.”

A smile passes briefly his face before he frowns again, suddenly remembering something. Glancing at the bathroom door, and leaning a little closer to his brother.

“Uh, speaking of talking, I was gonna ask you about…what happened out there today. Are you really worried?”

[doooooog]

It was cool. And new, too. Their relationship had never been one defined by closeness the way Jake and Finn's had been. Lately, it felt like that might be changing. Unlike some of the other changes aging brought him, this was one Jake was actually pretty grateful for.

Not least of which because he didn't have to face what Finn was going through alone.

"I mean..." Jake sighs, rubbing the side of his face. There was naked honesty in the marriage of gesture and expression. Maybe more honesty than his words gave away. "I dunno. I've never seen him freeze up like that before. Not once."

[heroooic]

Jermaine hadn’t either. Not that he spent a tenth as much time with his kid brother, but the Finn he knew didn’t hesitate in the face of something dangerous. He’d seen him jump off the roof of their house on a dare when he was barely more than a baby. The kids was nuts, and caution never once came into it.

“I mean, did something happen?” Jermaine hadn’t felt very much a part of Finn’s life after their parents died, and was so aware of it in this moment. He was vaguely ashamed to admit to himself that he really didn’t know all that much about what was going on with Finn in general. He grew up so slowly it was kind of easy to just pretend things were always the same with him. But clearly they weren’t. Jermaine rubs the back of his head uncomfortably. “Is it just, like, teen stuff? He’s at a pretty weird age.”

[doooooog]

Jermaine's palpable discomfort earns a sympathetic look from Jake. It was clear that his unease came from lack of certainty, not lack of care. Hell, Jake wasn't too far off from that himself.

"Well, I told you about Fern. That all went down a couple weeks ago." He starts, voice halting. "They fought, he hasn't told me why, and it took a turn. The details are really fuzzy. It felt kinda... Cruel to ask for a play by play, y'know what I mean?"

Without waiting for an answer (or even making eye contact), Jake slams another carob chew. His jaw worked uneasily, trying to think through what increasingly felt like an impossible problem.

"Him having a hand in Fern dying really messed him up. He kept saying how Fern was him, and how much Fern loved me..." Oof, there it was. The guilt, tightening around his heart again. The thorns pricked him from the inside. "I dunno, Jermaine, the more I talk it out the more I think maybe this is all my fault somehow."

[heroooic]

“How could it be your fault? You weren’t even there”, Jermaine says incredulously, but there’s a note of understanding too. “And the whole thing? It’s crazy…like, it’s really crazy. I don’t don’t know if you should beat yourself up about handling-“

The sound of a creaking door makes Jermaine halt, closing his mouth. He casts Jake a ‘later’ look, their conversation as Finn comes out of the bathroom.

[heroooic]

While Jermaine and Jake are talking, Finn is finishing up a long, hot shower. The shower was twice as big as theirs, easily, with three different knobs controlling the water and a shelf lined with tiny, expensive looking shampoos and soaps (half of them in script he couldn’t even read). It was a little overwhelming, and Finn wasn’t really in the mental space to actually have fun with it.

It takes a long time to rinse away all the salt and sand, especially from his hair. He tries not to let his mind wander too much while he scrubs his face clean, not think about what had happened. It was just one bad day after all.

More like a couple bad weeks. Things would swing around soon…he would swing around soon.

Drying his hair, Finn avoids looking at himself in the mirror. It felt too weird. He looked sad and tired in a way he didn’t recognize in himself. No wonder Jake was so worried about him. He needed to get it together.

Washed, dried, teeth brushed and freshly pajama’ed (with a brief internal debate about whether you were supposed to wear pajamas in a hotel), Finn finally exits the bathroom. The room was startling lavish, by far the nicest place they’d ever stayed, even if you included the palaces and kingdoms they’d visited. His eyes go straight to his brothers, who were sitting and drinking something hot at the coffee table together. There was a quiet, slightly awkward moment, a distinct impression you’d walked into a room where people had recently been talking about you.

“Uhm. Hey, guys. Shower’s free…”

[doooooog]

Both dogs smile at him, though Jake's smile is by far the widest. Finn can even see his tail wagging with nervous energy, as if compensating for something. Jermaine saw it too.

"Hey, there ya are! Thought you were gonna use all the hot water, donkus." A fist stretched out, socking Finn lightly on the shoulder. "There's tea if you want some. I didn't make it, but it's pretty good."

"Gee, thanks, bro."

[heroooic]

"Heh, don't worry, I left you just enough," He smiles, seeing how desperate Jake was for things to be normal. "Try not to clog up the drain like you do at home."

He walks over and sinks into one of the impossibly soft chairs. Picking up a cup of hot liquid and looking at his brothers.

"Tea sounds good, thanks guys."

[doooooog]

"Oh, uh..." Jake laughs, uneasily looking between the bathroom and Jermaine. Something about leaving Jermaine and Finn alone together made him feel a little strange, like he was shirking or something. Then again, he hadn't had any answers for a while. That or he'd made things actively worse.

Maybe removing himself from the equation for a bit really was the best thing he could do for Finn.

"I make no promises!" He jokes, voice cheerful as he stretches up out of the chair towards the bathroom. "Sorry Jermaine, ya snooze ya lose!"

Jermaine leaned over the back of his chair, sharing a brief look with Jake. His brother was hard to read sometimes, but there was a quality in his eyes now that seemed more guilty than anything else.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You smell worse than me anyway."

"Aheh..." Jake trailed off, staring at both of them for a beat longer. It seemed for a moment like he might not go at all, only to close the door at the last moment. The shower spray kicked in a few moments later, blanketing any other sounds from the bathroom in what sounded like heavy rain.

Jermaine settles back in his chair, eyes scanning Finn with mild concern.

"You're looking cozy, Finny. Feeling better?"

[heroooic]

“A lot better, yeah.”

It was mostly true…he did feel better. Clean and warm, and everything that had happened on the beach felt well far away. Finn takes a sip of the tea; it was strong and herby, different than the tea that Jake made at home but still comforting.

He looks around the room, bewildered by the richness of the decor. It was like being in someone’s house. Someone’s big, impossibly lavish house. It felt as alien as some of the stranger kingdoms they’d been to.

“Do you stay in places like this a lot?”

[doooooog]

Jermaine chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. If he'd known Bryce's choice in accommodations would earn so much speculation, he'd have told him to play it a little less opulent.

"Nah, not really... Bryce set this all up. I think he figured it was important and wanted us as comfortable as possible." Setting down his tea, Jermaine sat up a little. "I know it's a little fancy for what you're used to. Just try to think of it as a vacation, okay?"

[heroooic]

"Hey yeah, I mean it's super cool..." Finn sips his tea again, noisily. "I'm just not sure what to do with myself in a place like this. I feel like I'm gonna break a crystal...dolphin....or something."

He pulls his legs up onto the chair, holding the steaming cup close to his chest.

"I thought Bryce was your art dealer, is he like your personal assistant or something?"