A Marshmallow's Guide to Loving a Complete Idiot (Inanimate Insanity)(Marshple)

20. Have High Standards

As long as she stuck with Bow by her side as a best friend and Dough by her side as an enigmatic acquaintance, she'd be fine. Obviously, they wouldn't leave the mansion.

As for Apple...

'Hmm, I guess she could leave if she wanted to. There's a chance she could date someone, and... she wouldn't stick around here.'

Somehow the thought filled her with dread in the pit of her stomach. 'Geez, how would I cope? It's great to have Bow, and Dough's nice too, but I need someone to relate to about living things, like getting sick, or having to eat, or having legs. Heck, she can relate to getting stuff off the top shelves the old-fashioned way: by getting all the ottomans in the house and stacking them on top of one another.' A giggle burst out of her at the thought.

Oh, and that smile... she could imagine it perfectly in her mind right then. Slightly confused, but altogether still very genuine. Rather toothy and awkward-looking.

Would that be the same smile her (possibly nonexistent) significant other would fall for? Was it a smile she gave anyone else in the first place?

'Living here would be pretty lame without someone great to keep me company...'

She eventually dozed into a light sleep.

XXX

A bright, life-filled field, with birdsong and insect noises and the rest, surrounded Marsh in the dream. The sunshine was bright on her back, not even remotely close to a cloud the way it tended to be in the mansion's sky.

...And, Marsh didn't bother looking at more, because she was concentrating hard. She drew in loose, relaxed curves on a sheet of paper in front of her, in a purple crayon, depicting her and Apple, a red and white heart over their heads.

Marsh was dimly surprised (the art wasn't exactly in her style), but her dream didn't let her dwell on it, as Apple ('oh, she's here') stopped her own drawing: a very familiar one, with them holding hands. "Okay, Marshy, time for a break."

Marsh looked up, noticing the way that the light glanced off of Apple's surface in a beautiful way, as if was making her shine even more than ever. She grinned a bit awkwardly. "Okay. What're we gonna do?"

"Hmm... I know! Let's talk about love!"

"O-okay. Well, I don't have a boyfriend or anything like that-"

"I don't have a boyfriend either; what a coincidence!" Somehow the word 'boyfriend' sounded all wrong coming from Apple's mouth. "What'd your ideal partner be like? C'mon, you can tell me." She pulled out her box of crayons and dumped them into the lush grass. "Okay, describe him."

The fact that she'd used a four-syllable word without asking what it meant basically guaranteed it was a dream, so Marsh found it easy to be totally honest: "Dependable. Kind. Full of color, because I'm not. Maybe tall...? But definitely sweet. Someone who's at my level. Someone who doesn't cause drama. Someone who isn't nearly as edgy as I am. Oh, and finally, their humor would need to be in good taste."

"Hmm, I think I have the right idea. How's that look?"

Marsh hadn't noticed, but Apple had drawn as she'd spoken. She grinned and got a closer look.

The drawing was of a round, bright red object just a bit taller than Marsh. A sweet, tasteful fruit.

Marsh blushed vividly, butterflies suddenly fluttering around in her stomach. "T-that's-"

"Who I think your partner should be. Your boyfriend... or would it be a girlfriend?" Apple's warm hand enclosed hers; somehow her pulse was measured and slow, as if she wasn't even remotely nervous.

Marsh's pulse began to race as as she slowly, slowly, leaned closer. Apple did the same. They leaned closer to the point their breaths ghosted one another's lips before...

XXX

Marsh woke up with the stomach-lurching sensation of falling; she was rolling off the side of the roof fast. She barely caught herself before going right over the edge, and panted for a moment, regaining her bearings.

Then she sat up with a gasp and clutched her heart.

"What the heck?!"

Even the single bird went silent; it was just the sound of her own breath, her own pulse. '...Either that was the strangest dream ever, or... I'm falling literally and figuratively... I need to write all this stuff down.'

Marsh scrabbled up the shingled roof and crawled back in her window. She quickly found a sheet of paper and some crayons, and scribbled everything she could remember about the dream in hardly-legible handwriting. Then she added more info with carets and different colors.

Then she rewrote over her first text in semi-legible handwriting in a different color, because, holy crap. Holy. Marsh. Then she crumbled it into a little ball and stuffed it behind her dresser.

'...This can't be happening. She was such a jerk before. She was dumb and spiteful and clingy, and she still is, kind of. She can't possibly be my type!'

The paper behind the dresser clearly said otherwise, though. And the fact that memories with Apple of all kinds were running through her head, with just a bit of that glow on them. Someone who wasn't just metaphorically sweet, but probably literally sweet, too.

'Shoot. She's totally my type.'

Marsh looked over at the bulletin boards' worth of artwork Apple had drawn for her, most of which of the two of them. One drawing, the very same misspelled, hand-holding mess from her dream, stood out above the rest. It was the first drawing posted, on the top-left corner of the far-left bulletin board.

A glance in a wall mirror proved that she was blushing.

'Oh no. Oh NO.'

"Marshmallow froze, uncertain. Her feelings were realized by her with alarming clarity now...

The question was of what to do next."