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

Jake Is In Space | Five Week Period, Several Months Later

[doooooog]

"Didn't even get a pretzel!"

The sounds of his own voice seemed to echo off the thin atmosphere of the little rock, bouncing towards that black hole. Maybe Warren could hear him? Maybe it would ricochet off the walls of the fourth dimension until he went deaf. Or... blind. Something like that. PB would know, but Jake wasn't really sure when he'd get a chance to ask her.

Better off just imagining him split into a million tiny pieces, each piece catapulting toward their own personalized sun. A heat death so complete there was no chance any part of him might escape to give him or his puppies any trouble ever again.

Jake slumped back, letting his eyes fall shut with a sigh. Now that was a beautiful thought. He reached blindly to the side, hand eventually closing over a cold cocktail hotdog. He popped it in his mouth with out much thought, staring up into the inky blackness of space.

"Guess I'm dying in space after all," Jake tosses another hotdog in the air, stretching his mouth to catch it after it arced off target. "That's pretty chill."

Another hotdog in the air. This time, he misses.

"A-yup. Pre-tty chill."

Week One: Denial

Grass tickled at his ears as he lay back against it, the plushness of the earth feeling nice against his fur. Eyes closed like this, he could practically feel the rays of the sun and wind as they kissed past his nose. Or maybe that was just Lady's mane, cuddled as he was against her. A picnic of cocktail hotdogs and clown cake lay beside them, abandoned in favor of more interesting pursuits.

"오, 제이크. 더 이상 키스하지 않고 목이 아프기 시작합니다."

"Psh, Lady, you're like. All neck." He chuckled against her, obliging. "But you're the boss. Lemme just move down some..."

He begin to do just that, kissing down past her shoulder blades, nuzzling up against her chest, and... licking his own elbow.

Jake opens his eyes, illusion broken. As if he'd sprung a trap, Lady, the grass, the picnic, all of it snapped back into himself. He was alone again (or still), barren planet surface stretching out all around him.

Bitterly, Jake grabs a handful of cocktail hotdogs and shoves them in his mouth. His food supply was running short, but Jake didn't care. Finn was probably hot on the trail at this point, organizing whatever powers he had to to come find him. Sure, they'd jumped in an interdimensional door, but... y'know, how far could he be, really?

Finn was coming. Jake just had to be patient.

He holds up his right arm, shapeshifting it back into Lady and scrutinizing his work. It didn't... not look like her. The Hand-Lady kissed him on the top of the head and Jake sighed, leaning back down against a bed of grass.

"Now where were we..."

Week Two: Anger

Eventually, Jake had to give in to reality. Reality meant rationing, and rationing meant hunger, and hunger meant...

"Warren." Jake spat out, scratching a crude drawing of his bio-dad into the planet surface. He was surrounded by lightning, fire, and pitchfork wielding townsfolk. "What kind of a name is Warren. Joker probably lied about that, too."

Jake scribbled a little more. The townsfolk were on fire too, now.

"Idiot really thought he played me. Well, too bad, sucker. You mess with the JTD, you get bit."

With a growl, Jake scratched a hand across the drawing, sending it spiraling into nothingness. It was a contagious sort of nothingness, unfortunately, and Jake found himself swallowing back hot, angry tears as he stared down at the scratched out mess that was 'Warren Ampersand's final memorial.

"Hope it hurt when I killed you, Dad." He spits. "Yeah that's right, how 'bout a front row seat to all-a this hot teen angst you missed out on!"

Jake stands, letting out a few loud, guttural grunts -- verging on screams -- as he kicked a few more times at the drawing. The rage subsides quickly after that, replaced with its true source: hunger.

"We'll finish this later, Warren." He growls; pointing to his eyes, then back at the scuff marks on the ground. "Don't go nowheres."

Week Three: Bargaining

"This is it, Jakey. Final stretch. Winner brings home the clown's nose."

Jake steps back, scanning the field of play before beginning his wind up. Three quick steps, arm stretched up over his head, elbow stiff as he measured out his distance and...

"Oh, come on!" Jake cried in outrage as his rock sailed over the hand-drawn target, missing it entirely. "Interference from the crowd! Ref!"

A yellow, lumpy Finn in a "striped" shirt walked over the the rock, kicking it with his foot before shouting back -- in a high pitched, distinctly Jake-esque Finn impression: "Sorry, bro! Rules are rules."

"This is a pretty stupid game, man!" Jake called back, picking up another rock from the pile he'd collected, checking it for smoothness and aerodynamics. "How far away are you, anyways? I dunno how many more hours of Rock-Throw I've got in me..."

"Well," Yellow-Finn ponders, hands on his hips, "I gotta be pretty close now. That is, if I'm actually looking for you."

"Ha ha," Jake mocks, fingers tightening over the rock. "You and I both know you're on your way, buddy."

"Let's make a bet! You try to bean me with that rock, I try to dodge it. If you hit me, then I'll be here in... a couple days. Like, four tops."

"Uh huh..." Jake hums, thoughtful, tossing the rock the rock in the air a couple times. It was a good rock. "And if I miss?"

"You rot here for life, sucka!"

"Seems like a pretty dumb bet, bro. I don't know if I--" Without warning, Jake whipped the stone as hard and fast as he could in the direction of Yellow-Finn, voice raising in a delighted cackle at his deception. "Think fast, ya butt!"

The rock made contact and Jake immediately doubled over, wheezing painfully. He was losing mass hand over fist over the last few weeks. Weight didn't really mean much when you could shift your mass however you wanted, but losing too much of it did make rocks to the gut hurt more. Go figure.

"Oof... hah... haha..." He coughs out a few choking laughs, sinking to his knees. Yellow-Finn was long gone, but Jake didn't care. "Pretty funny prank, bro."

From his knees he flopped backwards, staring up at the inky sky intently. A few pained tears blurred his vision. Jake brushes them away quickly, coughs fading to dull laughter.

"Four days it is, pal. See you soon."

Week Four: Depression

Things were getting pretty dire out here on Planet Idiot. His cocktail hotdog supply was down to a measly eight. The clown cake? Only a few bites left. He'd managed to stave off true-blue hallucination for a while now, but those days were about to come to an unpleasant end once he ran out of food.

The scariest part, though, was just how little Jake could bring himself to care.

He lay on his side, flipping through hand photos with what felt like a hundred pound weight on his chest. Since he was a kid, crying never really came naturally to Jake. Their father never let it pass without some derisive comment or another. He'd learned pretty quick that laughing in the face of danger, or sadness, or fear was a fast track to Joshua's good graces.

And Jake was great at that! Better than both his brothers by a country mile. He did whatever he could to amuse himself in scary situations; fart jokes, dumb puns, whatever he had to do to distract himself from dread creeping around the corner. Eventually, it became second nature.

Time, age, and certain life events had softened that instinct. These days, Jake found it challenging to keep it together through any movie with a little kid in danger. One time, Lady told him she loved him -- same was as she'd done a thousand times before --and Jake found himself so full of gratitude at her presence in his life that he'd start to weep. Full on weep, for like, an hour. He never even told Finn about that.

And then there was Finn. Since he was a little baby, Jake felt like he was living with his heart running around outside his chest. Seeing Finn in pain, any kind of pain, had the same automatic response as someone reaching into his chest and squeezing.

Still, moments like this? Alone, scared, defeated? Jake couldn't bring himself to cry if he wanted to. It was like he was back in the house with his Dad, willing himself to laugh off a stubbed toe or bad day.

Jake ran a hand over a picture of his pups and grandpups, feeling each of their little faces. He was never going to see those faces again. Never gonna meet any more of his grandkids. Never gonna get another chance to show them that despite all the ways in which he messed up or wasn't there, loving them was never something he had to work hard at.

His chest felt hot and tight, but not a single tear fell. Jake let out a crackling laugh, feeling his ribs tighten against his skin as he did.

"Maybe Jermaine was onto something about Dad." He manages, wiping at a dry eye. "This sucks."

Week Five: Acceptance

The blackhole was swirling just above him now. It was beautiful in its own way. This whole place had a certain beauty to it. Inky black skies, dotted with millions of stars.

How many dogs had gotten to see something like this in their lifetimes? Not many, Jake bet.

His skin was stretched thin now. Efforts to stretch to a more normal appearance were easy, but took effort to maintain. There was no one here to pretend for, no little brothers to ease the fears of. Just him, alone, on a big rock.

Nobody was coming. And not because they didn't want to, either, Jake had come to terms with that. Where ever Jake was, getting to him just wasn't in the cards. It probably wasn't even in the same dimension. Just his luck, really.

Finn knew he loved him more than life itself, that much Jake was sure of. And he knew Finn would tell his kids how much he loved them too, even if they didn't want to hear it. For the rest of his life, if need be. That's just the kind of guy Finn was.

"Oh hey, check it out." Jake smiles, feeling a tear rundown his face. "There you are, buddy. Took you long enough."

His last hotdog chewed around in his mouth. He'd been savoring it for the better part of an hour, sucking every last molecule of taste from it before swallowing. There were worse last meals than this.

Overhead, a small pinprick of white light appeared. Jake thought it was just another star at first, until it started growing. The white pinprick quickly became a white hole, refracted light spilled out of it like sunshine through a crystal. Rainbows danced all over the planet's surface, filling Jake with a warmth he hadn't felt in weeks.

Wherever he was going next, there were definitely gonna be rainbows there. And if that didn't sound like heaven, Jake didn't know what did.