A/N: Shameless smut. Don't like? Don't read!

Written as a request for someone. =) Yes, I do take them. If you have one, PM it to me! I might write it for ya!

Words: 3,528

EXPERIMENT

She buys them bit by bit at first because she's curious, a magazine here, a pamphlet there. Later she procures them by the armload because she feels like she might actually need to use them and really, when engaged in a grand scientific venture, one can just never have enough books.

She strews the latest heap over the countertop at the store in the Candy Kingdom's central village square, shameless of their titillating titles and lurid covers. Picking up the embossed Lesbian Lovers Gone Wild: Licking Edition between his striped thumb and forefinger, the young candycane clerk squeaks, "Uhm, Princess? These… these are…" He is trying desperately not to ogle the heaving, sweaty bosoms displayed beneath his selected book's heading.

"Female homosexual erotica, yes," Bubblegum answers distractedly. Fiddling through her wallet, she maintains, "A sign near their aisle stated a two-for-one special, so I thought I'd stock up. And"—she finds what she's looking for; victoriously she slaps it down nearby the register—"here. I have a coupon."

Her total comes out to sixty-erk!-nine coins exactly, according to the clerk. She forks over the sum and ferrets her findings back to the privacy of her bedroom. Once there, she adds them to the huge semicircle of reading material already sprawled across the chamber. Medical textbooks, anatomical diagrams, self-pleasure brochures, safe-sex manuals, how-to guides: they litter every flat surface, their pages dog-eared and tagged, their paragraphs highlighted, annotated, footnoted. Settling crosslegged in their midst, Bubblegum takes up a writing pad, palms her pen, and begins to scribble down still more notes, some of them spilling into the margins of the books themselves. Ink eventually stains her pink fingers mauve, but Bubblegum doesn't mind. Preparedness is key prior to engaging in a project, after all, and this particular project is Very Important.

The room simmers silent but for the schwip of flipping pages or the occasional muffled, "How stimulating!" from the princess.

So absorbed is Bubblegum in her research that she fails to notice when her window creaks open.

She can't miss the chilled arms that slide around her like a sequin, though, much less the cold, cutting cheek that nuzzles itself into her neck's sloped hollow. Bubblegum squeaks and jolts and Marceline, a chuckle buzzing deep in the back of her throat, purrs out, "Hey baby. 'Sup?"

The vampire queen's hair floats into view on Bubblegum's either side, hooks and snarls of deepest black at first glance. The light from the desk lamp catches it, though, revealing ripples of oilslick blues and purples and once even an iridescent green shimmer, there and gone again in a blink's blur. Bubblegum's fingers itch. She lifts them and cards them through the nearest tangle of drifting hair, smoothing it into submission. Marceline's purr slips to something nearby a roar.

"I'm studying—conducting research," Bubblegum admits freely. She scoots aside to make room for her friend, not that Marceline really needs it. True to form, the vampire keeps hovering, her long lanky body suspended a few handspans above the floor, her head lolling over Bubblegum's shoulder. It's almost like she's scent-marking the princess, writing mine-mine-mine in the scrape of skin on skin, and the pink monarch smiles and resumes, "Forgive the mess! You see, I got terribly excited."

"Hmph," says Marceline. Her arms loosen and she shrugs, nibbling at the collar of Bubblegum's shirt. The fork of her tongue stirs the flesh beneath it and Bubblegum's belly twangs, deep down, but the vampire pulls back and drifts sidelong again. "I sure do see," she observes, only just now taking in the room's vast spread of books and papers and stuff. "What're you nerding over tonight, Bonnibel?"

"Sexual intercourse," Bubblegum replies, and Marceline drops to the floor with a solid thump.

Loose papers explode and flutter. Post-it notes confetti aloft in a mushroom cloud. An unfortunate pamphlet crinkles down its center under Marceline's knee; the vampire's giant axe-bass guitar whines out a pitiful wonnnng as it smashes into the spine of a book and topples next to the carpet. Jacking herself up immediately on her elbows, Marceline barks, "Sexual who-what?"

"In-ter-course," Bubblegum intones, and giggles. Marceline just looks so funny sprawled over all the books, her hair straggling and her jaws lax enough that her fangs are peeking over her lips, the tips like little white snowcaps. Reaching atop her bureau, the princess finds her reading glasses and pops them onto her nose. She doesn't quite need them, especially because the light in her room is very good, but she knows they look cute on her and she likes looking cute for Marceline.

Marceline must like it too, because her cheeks flush a faint blue and she grates out, "Intercourse, right. Okay. Uh…" Her eyes start a slow crawl over the book nearest her. Her bloody pupils constrict to pinpoints and she jabs a finger at the page. "Bonnibel. This picture. It's a…"

The vampire's throat works. Clinks. It sounds like maybe she's got a bicycle's gears stuck in there, and Bubblegum leans over to see what's made her friend so frazzled. "Oh!" she realizes. "Yes! That's a vagina, Marceline."

"I know a twat when I see one," mutters the not-quite-dead queen. Her tone is equal parts sullen and startled.

"Vagina," corrects the princess gently.

"Yeah, whatever. Why are you looking at a picture of a vagina? A"—and Marceline glances down at the page again; her nose screws up and her brows smush together, and Bubblegum thinks it's just adorably precious—"bad picture of a vagina. Whoa. Really, really bad."

Interest piqued, Bubblegum knee-walks the tiny distance to Marceline and gazes down at the picture. Well, technically the diagram. "It's bad?"

"So bad."

"Why?" Pushing her hands down onto her thighs, Bubblegum alternates between looking at the picture and looking at Marceline. The other girl's face has gone stone gray again, the flush receding from her cheeks. But there's still a stippled curl at the corner of her mouth and, without thinking, Bubblegum leans over to kiss it.

Marceline grumbles. She turns her head and their lips rasp and the vampire's mouth parts a bit, and Bubblegum slides her tongue against that soft, shivery-cold gate once, twice before Marceline truly grants her entry. Their teeth click; Marceline's lashes tickle her brow, frost on a window, and the vampire sighs out night wind and sunsets, oranges and reds and smeared horizons.

Only when her heart is hurling itself sharp against the back of her ribcage does Bubblegum draw back, sucking in whoops of air as her friend smirks at her. "The proportions," Marceline says then, unabashedly watching Bubblegum's chest heave. She taps the diagram. "They're off. Things aren't usually that… well…" For the second time tonight she screws up her face as she looks at the picture, and finally she chooses, "Puffy. Yeah. Things aren't usually that puffy." A pause, and then, "You have one yourself, geez. Haven't you ever looked at it?"

Rolling her eyes, the princess deadpans, "I might be made of gum, Marceline, but even I am not that stretchy. And to be honest"—she really is being honest—"it never crossed my mind to conduct an examination."

"Right, okay. Point taken. But yeah: it's a pretty shitty picture, no contest."

Disappointed—by the book's inaccuracy, not by the fact that apparently "things" aren't usually that puffy—the princess frowns. "How unpleasant."

"You wanted to fool around with a puffy vagina?"

Bubblegum glances furtively over at Marceline, who looks like she's halfway between horrified and amused. "No," denies the princess. "I wanted this book—these books," and she waves to the assembly in question, "to give me precise, reliable information. How am I supposed to come to a satisfactory conclusion if my sources are skewed?"

"Satisfactory conclusion?" Marceline tips her head. Her hair falls down in a lopsided turret over one eye and her gaze softens, tempered by what must be fondness. Bubblegum's belly prickles to notice it. "What conclusion are you wanting to reach exactly, Bonnibel?"

"I intended to use what I learned from my studies to bring you to the pinnacle of sexual pleasure," Bubblegum mutters.

Marceline's eyes widen. Her nostrils flare and it could just be a trick of the light, but it looks like her fangs lengthen too. She clears her throat and replies, "Babe, if you wanted to get into my pants you could've just, you know, asked me."

"I know! I am well aware you are willing to engage in intimate acts with me," Bubblegum professes. She notices that Marceline doesn't look too pleased with her statement, though, and hastily amends, "I don't want to suck at it! That's all. I want to make you"—she thinks about some of the special phrases she's seen whilst perusing the books around the room and settles on—"quiver with desire."

Marceline laughs. It isn't cruel laughter, not quite, but it still stabs a little, and Bubblegum crosses her arms and glares at her friend. "Hey," the vampire manages, choking on her own voice and the mirth in it, "quiver, huh?"

"Yes," the princess insists. The word comes out petulant.

"You can't learn how to give someone an earthshattering orgasm by reading books about it." Marceline rolls onto her back, sits up. There's a post-it note with a squiggly drawing of breasts on it stuck in her hair. "You've gotta get some hands-on experience. Practice. Just… experiment." Her tongue traces her lower lip at this last word, her eyes dark and hot and flushed with red promise as she looks at the princess, and Bubblegum feels her stomach clench, roll, burn in response.

However, "I've never been let down by books before," disagrees Bubblegum.

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh yes."

They survey one another, Bubblegum with her chin thrust out defiantly and Marceline with her brows climbing so high on her forehead they threaten to disappear into her hair. A moment of tension draws taut between them, shivers, snaps, and then Marceline shrugs and leans back against Bubblegum's bed. She sighs, "Fine. Come on."

Confused, the princess blinks. "Pardon?"

With a slender gray hand Marceline gestures to herself, toes to top. Her fingernails gleam pearly for an instant in the lamplight. "Come on," she repeats. "Show me what you've learned. Make me"—she pitches her voice low, all dark throaty purr and pressure—"quiver with desire."

Bubblegum stares at the vampire queen. Staring isn't polite, of course, but sometimes the situation just calls for it. The princess kneads her fingers over her knees, too thoughtful to be nervous, too nervous to be thoughtful, her heart in her mouth and her chest a clench of tight heat. Her eyes rake her friend, starting somewhere near Marceline's sharp cheekbone and trickling down, and Bubblegum is about to say, "I'm sorry, Marceline—I can't conduct an experiment without the proper preparation," when she catches sight of the vampire's navel. It's a divot in a slice of skin, and that slice of skin is maybe two fingers wide between a shirt hem and a jeans zipper. It looks delicious, and Bubblegum realizes even as saliva slicks her teeth, "Aha! Abdominal nerve clusters! I read about those!"

"Yeah, that's right," Marceline chuckles. "Grr. Talk dirty to me, Princess—"

Bubblegum crawls up between her friend's knees. She drops onto her elbows in a movement that's not so much graceful as it is determined and delves her tongue into Marceline's bellybutton, stretching a hand forward to furl it over the vampire's bony hip. It's a good thing, too, because Marceline yelps and curses and bucks beneath Bubblegum, the zipper of her jeans scraping soft down the smaller monarch's throat.

"Tomato paste," blasphemes the vampire. "Bonnibel, geez, that tickles!"

"Oh be still, you big blue pricklebush," Bubblegum mumbles into the slow swell of her friend's innermost hip. She nudges the hem of Marceline's shirt up with her cheek and nibbles at the skin revealed beneath, a swath of simmering cobalt. Marceline shudders and the princess, curious, adds the grate of her teeth strong on the end of one of those nibbles.

The other girl whines this time, hoarse and surprised and pleading. "Bonnibel," she grates again. Maybe it's wrong of Bubblegum to presume such things, but it doesn't sound like her friend is feeling ticklish anymore. Her thighs shiver close about Bubblegum's ribs.

The princess develops the abrupt hypothesis that Marceline's abdominal nerve clusters are particularly receptive to teeth. Hey, vampire—go figure.

Feathering her mouth in a semicircle against Marceline's bare belly, Bubblegum sucks. A hundred times she's kissed the other girl but never here—she's always wanted to, though, and she hums as she samples the smooth skin. It gives a smidge under her lips, pliant and supple—fascinating! She nips it and moves along, ghosting wicked little bite-kisses across the opposing blue torso until Marceline's shirt is rucked up under her arms as high as it can go.

"Let's get this off," she suggests matter-of-factly, and leans back to help with the shirt's removal. Her pulse thuds in her ears, lightning quick and loud too; her mouth is dry and all she can rationally think about is how badly she wants to see Marceline's shoulders, the rounds curving down like the graphs of quadratic equations.

Marceline's gaze drifts to her hazily. Bubblegum has known the vampire queen a long time—since she was a small pink preteen stumbling scared in the woods at night—and she's never seen her look like this, cheeks dark with color a dead heart shouldn't be able to pump. "Uhm," rasps the taller royal. "Hey, you're sorta… doing pretty okay. For—for a bookworm."

Bubblegum beams, tugging free her friend's shirt. She tosses it away. It lands on the desk lamp and the room plunges into tangerine half-darkness, but that's okay. As a scientist Bubblegum is familiar with the laws of probability, and it only takes her a few fumbling guesses to find the clasp of Marceline's bra in the citrusy shadows.

"The books often stated these were tricky," she grouches. "There was never a truer fact." To cement this, her thumbnail skits fruitlessly over the clasp's bitty hooks. After a moment of struggling with it, she squints at the bra as a whole, realizes it's not all that thick anyway, and lowers her head to close her mouth experimentally over the peak of Marceline's covered breast. This is a place she's always wanted to kiss too, and through the fabric Bubblegum feels it tighten. Marceline hisses and suddenly there are fingers in the royal's elastic hair, pulling, desperate.

"Can you just—" begins Marceline, a thick bubbling kind of question. Bubblegum bites gently at her prize and Marceline jerks and they look at each other, they just look at each other, the vampire queen's eyes burning bright like torches in the dark.

To nuts with the clasp, decides Bubblegum. To nuts with it. She doesn't want to wait and neither does Marceline, and every single thing she's read claims breasts are some of the body's most sensitive erogenous zones, so she reaches up and peels down the bra and pulls into her mouth the round of flesh that bobs free. It isn't warm but it isn't cold either, and beneath Marceline's taut skin there is a buzzing beat, a shivering ephemeral electricity Bubblegum has always equated with sundown. With starlight.

"Haah," the vampire whispers. Dropping her hands, she cups the smaller monarch's hips in them. Kneads. "That—yeah, that—"

"You taste good," Bubblegum observes, and scrapes her teeth over Marceline's nipple again. Respond to your partner, the books always insisted. Marceline's fingers clench; a fingernail sears the smaller girl's waistline and Bubblegum shudders. "Really good," she manages. "Like—like—" One word won't work, and one breast isn't enough. She wants both. Another tug at the bra yields it and she attempts to lavish attention on the two of them equally. As a fair and benevolent ruler, it's only proper for her to do so. As a stringent scientist, it's just as proper for her not to neglect one variable in favor of another.

Marceline seems to appreciate her diligence. Soon, though, her palms are twitching at the base of Bubblegum's spine, her chest shuddering with breaths she doesn't actually need to take. Bubblegum surmises that not even a millennium-long life has crushed the queen's instinct to gasp. "C'mere," Marceline insists finally. "Come on. Up here. Bonni—please, now—"

She drags Bubblegum to her. They kiss. Once, twice, three times: after that the princess loses count. Marceline's fangs sing over Bubblegum's lower lip; the vampire soothes away the sting in slow sweeps of her tongue. Hands wander. Fingers rove. Bubblegum doesn't worry about it a single bit. Spontaneity is a good thing: one of the first brochures she ever glanced at said as much.

Articles of clothing are discarded like cards in a game of blitz. Through some miracle of team effort they finally get Marceline's bra off. Bubblegum's shirt joins the vampire's on the desk lamp. In a wink of gold her tiara goes sailing somewhere into the abyss behind her bed; Marceline's boots are unlaced, yanked off, thrown. Bubblegum takes particular pleasure in shimmying down her friend's jeans. Marceline's legs are nice, long and lean and muscular, and Bubblegum just doesn't get to see them enough.

When there is nothing between them but the vampire's pair of purple skull-studded panties, the princess smiles and professes, "I've researched tons about this part."

"Great," Marceline laughs, her tone mixed exasperated and fond. "Perfect. And what did your research tell you?"

"Oral stimulation is most desirous. Coupled with a particular angle of the middle and ring fingers, the result is most often…" She leaves it there.

"Wait." Each of Marceline's eyes is an abrupt hunter's moon. "Wait, you're going to—"

Bubblegum is not a strong person. Physically, anyway. Thankfully it doesn't take strength to skim Marceline's panties down to her knees first and her ankles next—the vampire is surprised, the undergarments are elastic, and that's enough. The band snaps under Bubblegum's thumb. Lowering herself on her belly between Marceline's thighs, the princess folds a hand over one. Cool muscles flex beneath her palm. She urges, "Shift closer. Just a bit."

"Bonnibel—"

"Marceline. I believe your cooperation is essential." A thought occurs to Bubblegum then and she blinks up at her friend, biting her lip. "Unless—you would prefer I didn't? Do you not like this?"

"Haha, yeah—riiiight." Marceline blows out a shaky breath and admits, "No, it's cool. I totally like it. Want it. But, I mean." Fingers shivering over Bubblegum's temple, she murmurs, "Are you sure? It's really intimate and… and stuff." Though a regular bard when it comes to song lyrics, the vampire is kind of crappy at articulate personal conversation.

"Marceline." The princess provides a mild scowl. "I have spent weeks compiling notes on various romantic processes. We are both currently almost naked." Marceline still has on her socks—Bubblegum, her undergarments. "There is a carpet burn on my right buttock," the resident monarch insists. "I think I am fairly okay with intimate."

"Okay, okay, excuse me. In that case, be my guest. Go ahead and lick my oh—"

Marceline tastes like dusk, like violet stormclouds and thunder and lunar eclipses and tree branch shadows scuttering over windowpanes and words, so many words never written down in books, geez no. Nothing Bubblegum read has prepared her for it—for the way the vampire arcs off the carpet and keens and flows into her mouth.

The princess lifts her hand and slides it to her friend, meeting her, cradling her, cupping her, rubbing her thumb where her tongue can't reach. Marceline snarls or maybe she sobs, shuddering throughout, and Bubblegum curves her fingers into a shallow parabola and—

A rush of something then, softly wet and fleetingly warm. Bubblegum brushes her tongue once and again over her friend to glean away what there is of it, and Marceline slumps above her, trembling, curtaining the two of them in a glen of shadowkind hair.

Caught in a whisper of breeze from the open window, a bit of paper in the room rustles quietly.

"That," attempts Marceline at length, voice dredged up from somewhere deep in her chest. "That. That just." Her mouth opens, closes, opens again and she wonders, "You got all that from reading a few books?"

Marceline angles her head down to look at Bubblegum. Their eyes lock; the vampire's thigh twitches against the other girl's cheek. "…and maybe a few pamphlets," confesses Bubblegum. It's the closest she'll ever come to admitting that hey, her reading material didn't teach her squat in the end. Marceline must understand because she smiles, slow and spreading and sly, and nods—just once.

"Here, smarty," she says. Her fingertips tap down the insides of Bubblegum's arms. She coaxes the princess aloft, lifts her, drifts with her up onto the bed. Pulling her near, Marceline insists, "Let me show you something you've never read about."

It's true. There's nothing in literature, Bubblegum agrees later, about the length and flexibility of vampire tongues.

Imagine that.