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ohthehypocrisy · 7 years

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In a Moment

Drabble idea by @atfubblegum. If you have a fubblegum drabble idea, I’d love to hear it.

“What would you define a ‘moment of weakness’ as, Finn?”

That question had caught him off guard.

Here he was, staring at a simulated sunset that seemed ageless, sitting next to one of his best friends, when she suddenly asked him a strange question. He turned to her, her focus still on the virtual sun, expecting clarification but receiving none as she sat silently.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

She tilted her head upward in thought, “Well, it’s not exactly a well defined concept, but I...”

She turns to face him, her posture leaning back and the virtual sun illuminating half of her face.

“I’d like to know what you think it means,” she says to him, “You are a hero, my knight, my champion, so what does it mean to you?”

Finn and Princess Bubblegum had spent the past half hour or so simply enjoying each other’s company, touring through the Candy Kingdom castle halls, indulging themselves in the secret gardens and labs and resident pet giant cat named Timmy. It was all fun and games until it came upon them the introspection and reflection of their lives and, consequently, their friendship.

Princess Bubblegum had gone through some major changes in the past month, the weight of which was greater than the past hundred years she had been alive for. Her confrontation with Flame Princess had forced her to reexamine her methods and her trust issues, finally coming to face the centuries of paranoia and tyranny she had installed in her brain for the sake of protecting her people. She had always told herself it was worth it, a means to an end, but after eight hundred years of self sacrifice, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

But it hardly compared to the tribulations Finn was going through. He could’ve talked about anything, from breaking up with Flame Princess, the death of Billy, losing an arm, his crippling depression, but he chose to offload his father issues to her. She wasn’t fond of the idea of Finn accepting his father’s denial of his role as a parent, but Timmy the cat had quashed any potential conversation on that subject.

All had slowed to a gentle stillness now. Timmy had retired to his undersized cat bed, they were exhausted from walking around so much, and they had returned to the secret virtual reality room to unwind.

Finn was on his back, staring at the candy stone ceiling, mulling over her question, trying to find an answer that would satisfy her, as well as himself.

“A moment of weakness is...” he started, but trailed off as his words failed him, “I dunno, doing something bad?”

The princess hummed, “It’s not like surrendering yourself to the intrusive suggestions you lock away in your thoughts and immorally acting despite yourself?”

Finn tilted his head, “Huh?”

She turned to lock eyes with him, “Giving in to evil.”

“Oh,” he looked away back to the ceiling, “No, I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

He heard the princess huff, “No, you do.”

He straightened himself up and leaned up slightly off of the treadmill they were sitting on, “Wait, what do you mean?”

Princess Bubblegum leaned forward as a futile means of distancing herself from Finn, “Remember how you and Flame Princess broke up?”

Finn reflexively looked away, “Uh, yeah.”

“That was your moment of weakness,” she explained, Finn looking back to her, the princess staring into the virtual sun, “You defied common sense and tricked two people into fighting each other for your own amusement.”

He leaned back onto the floor, unable to look at the princess as she recounted his shameful memory.

“That’s not just wrong, Finn,” she looks over to him, seeing him more focused on the ceiling than listening to her. It was the expected response, she knew, “It was evil.”

“I said I was sorry,” he muttered just loud enough to be heard, a hint of defiance in his tone.

“And I understand that,” she said, placing an assuring hand on his knee, “And I’m not saying that makes you evil, it was a moment of weakness for you.”

Finn patted his stomach and wiggled his feet, as if he was physically processing her words. He tightened his lips and flexed his cheeks, unsure of how he was supposed to respond.

“Well, how about,” he leans up slightly to look at her, “What was your moment of weakness?”

She sighs in frustration, the feeling of which was aimed not at him but herself, “You can’t even begin to fathom how many of those I have had.”

There was a pause, a moment of processing the magnitude of the many years she had been alive for and the countless things she had done for her kingdom, before Finn responded, “How about something recent?”

She leaned back, supporting herself with her skinny arms, head craned in thought, “How about...” she started, looking above the setting virtual sun, “That time Ice King infected the Candy Kingdom with his freezer burn, and I had you and Jake take him hostage?”

It was years ago, but Finn remembered it clearly, particularly because it was the first instance of many that he realized the princess was capable of doing wrong, in contrast to the perfect image she and his mind had painted her in.

“Yeah, you wanted us to beat up an innocent old man,” he simplified, resting his head back on the floor, “Yeah, I get’cha. ‘Cuz, like, it didn’t matter if he got hurt, as long as your peeps were okay, right?”

“But it was still wrong and you knew it,” Bubblegum had taken to leaning and laying down beside him, staring at the ceiling as well, “It didn’t matter if he deserved it, or if he even knew what he did. It was below me to treat him as such, but I thought saving my people justified the means.”

Finn patted his chest to quell the distraction of the ensuing silence, remembering how he had told the princess of her wrongdoing, even after seeing for himself the horrifying disease the Ice King had unleashed onto her people. It was pitiful and deplorable but, most importantly, it could be cured, and the princess was prepared to extract it through any means necessary.

But even he had to put his foot down, unable to bring himself to mistreat the Ice King so, and he made sure she knew all about it. It surprised him, however, that she knew what she was doing was wrong, that she would be reviled for it afterwards, and if it weren’t for Finn, who knows where that path would’ve led her to?

“You’ve changed a lot since then,” Finn brought himself to comment.

He felt her hand on his shoulder, “So have you.”

Finn chuckled a bit forcefully despite himself, looking over to see the princess’s soft, understanding face.

“So, I guess,” he fiddled with his words as Bubblegum retracted her hand, “A moment of weakness would be, like, being too weak to stop yourself from doing something bad.”

“That’s a flawed definition, contextually speaking,” she brought up, turning to face the ceiling again, “Because, like, what if I eat one cupcake too many, even though I’m on a diet?”

“Wouldn’t that still be bad?” Finn asked, looking back up, “I mean, not following your diet is bad for you.”

She giggled, “Okay, that was a dumb example, but you know what I mean,” she leaned up until she was on her side, arm propping up her head as she faced him, “A moment of weakness by definition isn’t exclusive to morality.”

“Not even a little?” he speaks up, leaning slightly to face her, “I mean, if you do the opposite of the right thing, and you can’t stop yourself, isn’t that rooted in moral basis leaning on the bad side of the scale?”

The princess smiled. She couldn’t help but find his poor string of words endearing and admired the fact that he was trying to make sense with them.

“Okay, you have a point,” she turned to lay on her back again, “The magnitude of morality widens the further down the spectrum you go, and the same goes for succumbing to moments of weakness, I suppose.”

“That should be true of the opposite, right?”

“Huh?” she turned to face him, watching him lean upwards until he was sitting straight.

“You know, the opposite of a moment of weakness?” he asked with a gesture of a hand.

“Like...a moment of strength?” she asked, slowly lifting herself up.

“Yeah. What is a moment of strength?” he asked, looking at his two hands as if they were the plates of a scale, “Is it just being strong for a moment, or something deeper?”

Princess Bubblegum had righted herself and had taken to mulling over the philosophy of the principal of morality.

“If the opposite of a moment of weakness follows a polarized definition word for word,” she said, almost muttering to herself, “Then yeah, a moment of strength is the acting of the best interest despite yourself.”

“Like fighting a strong monster trying to save some peeps,” Finn pointed out, feeling brief pride at his professional definition, “Even though it might be too strong for you.”

“Or shutting down your entire security system,” she said nonchalantly, looking back up to the virtual sunset they had been neglecting.

“Yeah, something like that,” Finn tapped his fingers on his knees, finding the courage to say to her, “Why d’you ask?”

“Huh?” she had been snapped out of her train of thought as she looked to Finn.

“Why’d you get all metaphorical on me, Peebs?” he had taken to subconsciously patting his legs with his hands, “I mean, philosophylis, I mean, soul searchy?”

Princess Bubblegum couldn’t help but giggle, brushing aside her hair over her shoulder, “Well, I thought about having a moment of weakness right now.”

“Say what now?” he looked to her, finding that she had scooted a bit too close.

“You know, acting despite myself in this very moment,” she briefly looked away, “But, I suppose if I’m aware of it, would choosing to act on it be a moment of strength instead?”

Finn had two whole years to get over this feeling. He had quashed it time and time again whenever he looked at her, thought about her, cementing the respect he had for her as a close friend. And yet, something in him decided that she would look so enchanting if there was a strong breeze to swat at her hair as the virtual sun was setting.

Finn had fought himself from acting on the suggestions intruding on his mind, a moment of weakness.

But in a moment of strength, he disregarded those childish notions and acted on his own.

“It depends...” he said calmly, quietly as he inched a little closer, “Is it a good thought or a bad thought?”

Bubblegum turned to face him, surprised but pleased that he was so close to her now.

“I don’t know...but I wanna find out,” she said, staring into his eyes as her own widened.

Their hands moved into each other as they closed in.

Finn and Bubblegum were surprised to come back to the slumber party with half of the invited guests having been chucked into a pit of bath water that was definitely NOT there before they left. The candy people were rescued, their bodies dried off, and order was restored before everyone had to be tucked in for the night.

“You guys were gone for a while,” Jake said to Finn as they unfurled their sleeping bags, “What were you two doing?”

“We were just hangin’ out, man,” Finn answered, climbing into his bag.

“You didn’t do anything, did’ya?” Jake said skeptically, his face baring an expression of wile.

“Nah, man. We just had a moment, that’s it,” he zipped up his bag.

“What kind of moment? You can tell me, bro,” the dog nudged him with his long arms.

Finn giggled, then said with a happy breath, “A moment of strength.”

#adventure time #fubblegum #finn #princess bubblegum

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