Chapter Text
“Now, really, dear Simon. You’re making an iceberg out of a snowflake,” said the Winter King, gently, kindly, and subtly straining with the effort of trying to somehow claw his way out of the block of ice that was keeping his hands fused to the wall above his head. “If you would only let me explain... ”
“Explain!? You’ve ex-explained more than enough!” Simon spat over at him, before shoving his shoulder harder against the shelving unit he had almost gotten halfway across the doorway of the backup laboratory in his ongoing barricading efforts. “I’m not, not listening to another word out of y-your lying mouth!”
“Lying? Oh, you wound me.” The Winter King sighed melodramatically. “I will admit that I was… keeping a little detail or two secret, but, I never lied outright.”
“You nev- YOU SAID YOU CONQUERED THE CROWN OUT OF SHEER FORCE OF WILL!” A final shove, and Simon spun around, pointing a shaking finger at the Winter King. “What was that, then!? Well? WELL???”
“A snow-white lie at most. Simon, please.” A mild frown. “You’re being hysterical.”
“And you’re being maniacal, you e-evil little manipulative- yyyyou….”
Trailing off into an exhausted-furious half-sob, Simon fell back against the door barricade and slid down into a crumpled heap of mostly-human, burying his face into his hands.
He really should know better by now than to trust himself in any capacity - especially versions of himself wearing that damn crown on their head. Stupid Winter King with his stupid Winter Wonder World and his stupid well-animated musical number.
And above all, stupid Simon, falling for it. He always was a sucker for a good song, and the artstyle change must have distracted him from the occasional ominously-shaded shadow passing over the Winter King’s face.
(Simon still couldn’t quite tell if it was disappointment or relief that had flooded through him when the Winter King had finally, wrapped in a dozen pretty little embellishments and euphemisms, revealed the cold, hard truth behind the fairytale.
He had wanted, so badly, to believe that the crown could be conquered, that there was still a chance…
And at the same time, the envy and shame at the thought of it being possible, if only he’d tried a bit harder, if only he’d been a bit better, if only he hadn’t been such a failure of a Simon, had eaten him up inside.
Well, this was the worst of both worlds. It was possible. But only for a price too terrible to pay.)
A scraping sound.
Simon looked up, and saw the Winter King contorting himself, stretching his impossibly long legs out towards the crown still laying on the floor between them, where Simon had dropped it, after he’d gotten so angry and so frightened and so heartbroken and the Winter King’s crown had been right there on the pillow and its owner’s beautiful, charming smile had suddenly seemed so terribly, terribly cold…
(One moment his mind had been swirling with horrible realisations dawning on him, oh Glob-and-God no, he pushed it on Princess Bubblegum, how could he, how COULD he, he’s a worse monster than I ever was and I nearly trusted him, I let him smile at me and call me sweet and promise me a world of my own making and bliss everlasting, and I wanted it, I wanted it, I wanted HIM to be what I’m not and show me to be better and kiss my frostbitten fingers that have forgotten how to bear the touch of ice, I wanted the crown and I wanted to be understood and I wanted to be loved AND HE’S A MONSTER HE LIED HE LIED HE LIED WHY DOES THE WORLD TAKE EVERYTHING FROM ME HE DOESN’T EVEN REMEMBER BETTY HE DOESN’T LOVE HER HE DOESN’T CARE FOR ME I HATE HIM LIAR LIAR MONSTER VILLAIN NEED TO STOP HIM STOP HIM NOW MAKE IT RIGHT MAKE IT RIGHT-
And the next moment, the Winter King had been half frozen to the wall, his snow-white wizard eyes wide and at last, at last not looking at Simon like he was a stupid little child anymore. But whatever took the place of that indulgent little half-smile was worse.
For a split second, the Winter King was scared of him.
For a split second, Simon was scared of himself.
For a split second, the Winter King was in awe of him, pupils blown wide and something hungry and wanting in the slant of his slightly open mouth.
For a split second, Simon felt powerful and worthy and desirable and utterly, utterly disgusted with himself.
He’d ripped the crown off of his head again, thrown it to the ground, and set about barricading the laboratory. He needed to fix this, and he needed to do it without anyone else interfering. Without any of the man’s creations getting involved. Even Fionna and Cake might be coaxed into taking the Winter King’s side - they didn’t know or understood the depths of depravity the Winter King had sunk to like only another Petrikov could.
This was a matter between Simons. And he couldn’t trust anyone. Not even himself.)
Simon scrambled to his feet, and slapped the crown out of the way just before the tip of the Winter King’s boot could touch it, making it clatter halfway across the room, rolling into a distant corner.
Just the single touch sent another wave of shivers through him, teeth chattering and shoulders shaking, but he wasn’t cold. He stood in an ice laboratory, and he didn’t feel even the ghost of a chill.
He collapsed on the ground - ice but not cold, not freezing, hard and flat and not even cool to the touch - in a trembling pile, curled into a ball, gasping breaths still more like sobs. Even with his eyes closed so hard that static - like snow, horrible horrible snow - erupted from them, he could still see it. The blue tint creeping up his hands and arms almost up to the elbows, the whitening strands of hair falling into his eyes, the tip of his nose just a hint sharper, a hint longer, such a little change but still making him cross his eyes and stare at the sudden irregularity in his field of vision. He could feel the scrape of white stubble on his chin.
It’d been on his head for maybe a minute at most. Just enough to overpower the Winter King. And it had already changed him again.
(And it had been so sweet. It had felt so right.
It had felt like coming home, like curling up in a nest of sadness and madness and betrayal and fury, and having the power to do something about it. Everything had felt easy, all of a sudden.
It was the moment of clarity right before he’d dropped the crown, and the horror and regret after, that had been painful and difficult. Not what came before.)
A touch to his shoulderblades. The Winter King’s pointed heels prodding at him.
Simon groaned, and rolled away. For a moment, he was tempted to push into the touch instead - he’d liked it, his other self touching him so freely, so easily, so gently. Fionna’s occasional shoulder slaps just weren’t the same, and getting hugs from his friends and loved ones felt like it had been lifetimes ago, too far away to remember.
“You’re not in your right mind, Simon.” The Winter King’s voice was warm and sweet like the honeyed tea from that beautiful samovar. “You did not react well to my crown’s presence, I can see what happened now. It made you paranoid. It made you hurt me, and yourself. Sssh, shh, don’t cry, my sweet Simon. It’s okay. I forgive you. Help me out of these ice bindings, and I will have the Scouts bring you a hot cocoa and a blanket - you’re shivering, you poor thing, look at the state of you-”
“Don’t.” Simon glared. “Don’t p-pretend to care, you old bas-bastard!”
“I do care, Simon. I worry about you. Let me help you.” He sounded earnest, but now, that Simon was listening, really listening, he could hear every word echo in the emptiness beneath it. “It’s all a misunderstanding. We are the same, you and I, and I understand it, the fear, the pain. I don’t blame you for this little, ah, mishap. No harm done. Free me, dear Simon, and we’ll talk it over. Yes?”
Simon pushed himself up on his arms.
The Winter King smiled at him, with his perfect smile in his perfect face, smooth like the unbroken ice on a winter lake.
“Do you think I’m sh-stupid?” Simon said, coldly, around his still-chattering teeth. “Just because I’m human doesn’t mean I’m, what, naive little mid-twenties Simon again!? You can take your stupid manipulations and you can shove them up your stu-stupidly perfect butt!”
The perfect-false smile melted, slowly, off the Winter King’s face.
“I’m so pleased you’ve noticed,” he purred, but there was nothing but fury under his lowered-lid gaze. “I do pride myself on my posterior.”
Simon contemplated snarling a “fuck you!” at him, but the Winter King would just take that as another come-on - and besides, it was one of those words the network executives frowned upon, anyway, and while this recent adventure had been a great deal more TV-14-y than the previous ones, Simon didn’t feel like pushing his luck.
“I’m not letting you go.” He staggered to his feet again. “Instead I’ll. uh.”
A helpless glance around the laboratory.
“...I’ll check your notes. Or something. Find a way to… to reverse, what you’ve done to Princess Bubblegum. Yes.”
“Will you. Really.” The Winter King huffed out a crystalline laugh. “Oh, Simon. This would be adorable, if it weren’t so sad.”
Simon ignored him, pulling out drawers, throwing papers and notebooks into a pile on the floor, trying not to cry at the sight of his blue-tinted hands. This was what he'd wanted, what he set out to achieve, and now that it was starting he felt nothing but gut-churning dread at the first signs.
“You are naive.” The Winter King was twisting again, straining, his fingers curled into claws under the thick layer of ice, sharp nails scratching futilely at it. “Thinking it would be that simple. Undo the displacement spell, and you can rest easy with a squeaky-clean conscience, hm? Is that it, Simon? Is that your big plan?”
Simon flipped open a notebook, and then slammed it shut again, a wave of snow-tinged nausea rising up in his throat. He knew the look of those disorderly scribbles, some remnant of the scientist in him forcing the Ice King’s hand to write and write and write even when his scrambled mind could barely recite the alphabet anymore.
“Even if you manage it- Simon, listen to me- even if you manage it, could you? Could you look me in the eye and condemn me to life as- you know what it is like. Simon, fellow Simon, you are me and I am you, could you curse me again? Could you curse a you again?”
“...shut up.” Simon growled.
“Why? I know the little voice in your head would be telling it to you anyway. We’re both thinking it, Simon. I understand you, and I thought, I hoped you would understand me, too.” A pout. “Clearly, I was wrong.”
“You damn well were!” Pages upon pages of useless scribbles. “You couldn’t possibly think I’d condone this, burdening the poor Princess with the worst of our madness! How could you even come up with the idea of doing that!? I’ve lived like that, and it was horrible, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy!”
“And yet you’d wish it on me.” The Winter King’s voice cut sharp and true, like an ice blade. “Self-hatred much?”
“Shut up!”
“You know what? No. I don’t think I will shut up, actually.” The Winter King’s face cracked around his smile, all that smooth perfection breaking up into horrible distorted creases around a too-wide grin, and eyes that burned with cold, cold anger. “We could have been fantastic together, you and I! This little guilt trip of yours is ridiculous, this is a trolley problem you’re choosing the worst possible solution for, and I’m ashamed to be sharing a multiversal identity with a pathetic excuse for a Petrikov like you!”
(It shouldn’t have hurt.
Simon already thought worse things about himself on the regular, and he knew, rationally, that everything the Winter King had said had merely been to butter him up. All those fond murmurs, the little compliments, the warm gazes, the implication that there was one Simon out there who didn’t hate himself, could even like his other self. All lies, lies, lies.
It shouldn’t have hurt.
It still did.)
“...you’re a monster,” he croaked, around a lump in his throat.
“Of course, darling. I’m a Simon Petrikov.” The Winter King still smiled that horrible cracked-ice smile at him. “We’re all monsters.”
Simon let out a wordless, helpless scream, and threw a useless scribble notebook at him.
He missed, because of course he did. It just bounced off the wall.
The Winter King laughed, high and clear and cruel. He was so beautiful, and so elegant, and if Simon’s ideal type weren’t just “Betty Grof” in whatever form she came in, it would probably be close to this - and Simon couldn’t bear to even look at him anymore.
“I should’ve frozen your mouth shut, too.” He whispered, hoarsely.
“Mh, yes. Probably.” The Winter King made it a point to lick his unfortunately unfrozen lips. “But that’s us all over, isn’t it, fellow me? Making mistakes, having regrets, and then just making everything worse. Look at that! You even sort of kidnapped me! The Petrikov Special, truly.”
Simon wondered if just slapping his hands over his ears and shouting “lalalala” might help. But he was an old, old, old man, and that seemed childish, even for him.
Not all of the notes scattered around the laboratory were unreadable scribbles. But not very many of them were useful, either.
(A lot of it just seemed to be rambles on various weird and increasingly niche topics that, in fairness, Simon could see himself getting obsessed with if he had too much time on his hands and nobody in a giant ice palace to keep him company except creatures of his own making.)
For the first hour or so, the Winter King had cajoled, wheedled, flirted, threatened, raged. For the second hour, he’d sung the Winter Wonder World song on loop, as obnoxiously as a man with the voice of a slightly unhinged angel could possibly make it.
Now, with the third hour on the brink of tipping over into the fourth, he was silent.
“I did not mean to do it to her.” The Winter King finally said.
“Hm?” Simon didn’t even glance up from a list of various monsters ranked by a metric he hadn’t quite figured out yet, but seriously feared had something to do with their sexual appeal.
“The Candy Queen. When the thought first came to my - at the time seriously disturbed - mind, I had no intention of inconveniencing her with it.”
Simon lowered the list. Blinked.
(There was still snow at the edge of his vision, ice under his skin. The temperature didn’t affect him, and yet he was so cold.)
“What?”
“You think yourself soooo morally superior, don’t you.” The Winter King rolled his eyes, and sighed. “Because what I did is entirely unthinkable to you, even in the worst throes of the madness you never stooped so low, bla bla bla. Well. Let me tell you how it started, my dear fool of a Simon, and perhaps you’ll understand then.”
He should not be listening. This was another ploy to get to the crown still ominously glistening in the corner, to tear himself free of the ice bindings. He should not listen.
He couldn’t not.
“An inanimate vessel was my first thought, but that was entirely disastrous. It would just never take. I tried for at least fifty years before accepting my - ugh - failure.” The Winter King’s bright-blank eyes sought out Simon’s. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have jumped at this chance. Locking it all away. The pain, the grief, the slow, creeping sensation of losing yourself in bits and pieces. It was our dream.”
(It had been. It could never have worked, but sometimes, in the closest the Ice King ever got to lucidity, he might’ve yearned for it.)
“I couldn’t give up on it. I knew I was close. Next were semi-creatures of my own creation. Barely sentient little things. The first time it worked - oh, Simon,” the Winter King let out a sound halfway between a sigh and a moan. “You can’t imagine the relief. The pain all went away, just like that. It was like waking up from a terrible nightmare.”
(Now, that was not how Simon remembered it. The nightmare hadn’t been so bad, most of the time. The waking had been where the true pain lay.)
“But it didn’t last. The creature could not endure it for long. Poor thing.” He said it dispassionately, detached, without real remorse or care. “I could scrape together a few days of sanity per vessel, a week once. Some didn’t last out the hour. It was unreliable, and I- I believe now that they were necessary sacrifices, but at the time I was not quite comfortable with the body count I was amassing.”
(Go figure.)
“Then, once, there was a very unfortunate mishap with a messenger of the Candy Kingdom, and- well. A year. A whole year. I could have wept for joy. Made for a diplomatically sensitive matter for a bit there, and I’ll admit it was a hint unethical, but… a year, Simon! I was on the right track!”
“On the right track of killing people by injecting our madness into their brains!” Simon threw the useless list across the room. “Can you even hear yourself!?”
“Well, hence the Candy Queen.” The Winter King shrugged, as best he could. “By all my calculations, she would… not die. It seemed like a more sustainable, long-term solution. You must understand, Simon, at the time it really did seem like the kindest option, and I was desperate to stay sane, I couldn’t… couldn’t bear slipping back into the dark again. I even had some hope that she might be strong enough to partially neutralise the curse, if I kept parts of it - the magic parts - to myself. That was, perhaps, foolish of me.”
(He still didn’t sound entirely earnest, but… it was the closest he’d gotten since the start of this whole damn mess.)
“I made a mistake. I regretted it. And I dared not change anything, lest I make it worse.” A wry half-smirk. “The Petrikov Special strikes again, hm?”
“So now you just thought you’d- what? Throw my madness onto her as well?”
“She can hardly get any more insane, can she?” That flippant, dismissive tone made Simon want to plant his fist straight in that smug blue face, break that perfect pointy nose. “What’s done is done, what’s lost is lost. We cannot undo the past, nor return to it, and you’d be a terrible fool to try.”
Simon stood. Kicked away all the useless papers. Clenched his blue-tinted hands to fists.
“I’d rather be a fool than whatever you’ve become.” He hissed, narrowing his eyes. “You self-obsessed, self-justifying narcissist doing whatever’s best for you with no regard for the lives of others, and losing everyone in the process- I mean, just look at you! You were so desperate for companionship, you wanted to keep me. Me! Where’s your Finn, Winter King? What happened to your Betty? Your Marceline? Your-”
He paused.
Something horrible had flinched over the Winter King’s face at the mention of Marceline, and Simon could feel the blood drain out of him, could feel his heart sink into his knees.
“What,” he repeated, slowly, dread rising in his chest. “Happened to your Marceline.”
The Winter King pulled his endlessly long legs up to his chest, curling in on himself ever so slightly.
“Nothing of note,” he said, quick and dismissive. “And I am perfectly content, as I am. You could be as well, if you only-”
“Marceline. What, what-what, happened to, to her?” Simon stammered.
“You don’t want an answer to that question, Simon.” The Winter King responded, evenly. Perhaps even as close as he could get to kindness. “Leave it be.”
“WHAT-”
And then the door to the laboratory rattled against the shelving unit in front of it.
Simon turned, very slowly.
“Uh, hey? Simon? Considerably hotter blue Simon?” Fionna called from outside. “You two have been in there for a while, there was a multi-hour timeskip and everything, you alright?”
“If you two are having a sloppy make-out sesh,” Cake added, just a hint too eager, “you gotta let me watch!”
“Ah-” Simon croaked - and saw the Winter King’s mouth open, lungs filling with air, clearly about to call for-
Simon threw himself across the room and half on top of the Winter King, slamming his palm over the others mouth. His lips were cold, and not even remotely as cracked as Simon’s own were at all times.
“We’re fine! Just peachy! Hehe!” Simon called back, hoping his voice didn’t waver half as much in reality as it did to his own ears. Under him, the Winter King squirmed and twisted, trying to buck him off. “Experiment’s just at a sensitive stage, we’ll, uh, need a little more quiet science time! Sorry!”
“Aw. Alright. Have fun with that,” Fionna sighed, and “boo, nerds!” Cake scoffed, probably unhappy about her lack of screentime.
Their footsteps continued on down the corridor, fading into the distance.
Simon and the Winter King stared at each other, and for a moment, Simon wondered if he was about to get his hand bitten.
Instead, he felt a movement under his blueish palm that felt almost, almost like a kiss being brushed against it - and suddenly, oh. He felt so tired, and so terribly heartsick.
Slowly, Simon slumped forward in the Winter King’s lap, cheek pressed against a narrow shoulder, face half-buried into a cold neck.
“I just miss her so much,” he whimpered against his other self’s skin, feeling like he might cry just from the sensation of a ribcage expanding in even breaths against his own. “My princess. My Betty. I’m so alone, and so tired, and none of my friends need me anymore, and trying to be part of that new world around me is like trying to force a square peg through a round hole, and I loved Betty, I loved her so much, and I want… I just want… she fixed me. She fixed me, and just once, I wish I could be the one to fix something, too!”
“You’re a Simon.” The Winter King said almost sadly, in his high, clear voice like a brook dancing in a snow-covered forest. It was lovely. Simon hated it. “Fixing has never been in our nature.”
That, Simon supposed, was true. They’d always been the making-it-worse sort.
“I want to fix you,” he still murmured, almost plaintively, into the Winter King’s hair that smelled of hoarfrost and January nights. “And the Candy Queen. You’re both broken, even if you pretend you’re not. And I want to put it right.”
“There’s no fixing us both. You’ll damn me to save her.” If the Winter King’s arms weren’t frozen in position above his head, he might have held Simon in a loose embrace. He would’ve liked that. But they were frozen, so he didn’t. “And you’ll have to live with that. Are you certain this is what you want?”
(No. No, I don’t want this. I want the fairy tale you tried to tell me to be true. I want to go home and listen to Marceline play a song. I want Betty- oh, do I ever want Betty, just for a minute, just for a second, just let me die with her hand in mine- and I want to sleep and never wake up.
I want the crown, and I don’t want it, and I don’t want to feel guilty for either of those things, and I don’t want to decide whether or not I should put it back on.
I want a hug. And even that, I can’t get.)
“Oh. Oh, my dear, sweet Simon.”
He felt the Winter King lean their heads together, cheek touching cheek. For just a moment, he sounded as tired as Simon felt.
“What are we to do with each other…?”
If only Simon had an answer to that.
Instead, he curled himself around the too-perfect facsimile body of a better-worse version of himself, this pristine-but-empty shell, thought of all the people he loved and missed and lost, and categorically failed not to cry.
(He almost thought he felt something ice-cold drip into his hair as well, but it was hard to tell with the shivers still occasionally running up and down his spine.
And the Winter King did not seem like he was still capable of tears.)
Simon didn’t know how long they sat like that. He felt like he was losing time, slumped against the Winter King and at too much of a loss over what to do next to do anything other than crying quietly into the shoulder of his suit.
The Winter King was almost kind about it, too, not whispering either sweetness or poison into his ear, not trying to shove Simon off - only humming softly, little snatches of old songs floating through the cold air of the laboratory.
(Once, the humming had sounded terribly, suspiciously, like the song the Ice King had once sung together with Marceline.
It was in a slightly different key, and barely recognisable without the words - but the almost-Pavlovian feeling of muted helplessness and aimless horror welling up in him was familiar like an old friend.
I need to save you - but who’s going to save me?)
And then, there was a soft knock of ice against ice, and a child’s voice calling something muffled.
There was nothing about the Winter King that was truly soft, even his hair had a sharp, strange texture, like spun ice - but Simon could still feel him suddenly stiffen underneath his own body.
Exhausted and a little dizzy from crying, Simon pushed himself up, glancing over at the door, wondering if he needed to cover the Winter King’s mouth again, and what excuse to give… had it been one of the Ice Scouts, or…
Another knock, from the other side of the room, and a voice, too familiar.
Simon turned.
Oh.
No.
There she was.
Outside the sheer-ice windows, winter magic dancing in the air around her, floated a little girl Simon had forgotten once, and never would again.
No. No, no, no.
He scrambled off the Winter King, horror filling his chest like so much crushed ice.
“No,” he moaned. “Oh, God. No, no, you- is this what-”
“Simon,” all of a sudden, the Winter King’s voice was low and urgent, and without any of his fanciful inflections. “Don’t, don’t-”
Simon ignored him, stumbling over to the window.
She was made of ice. Of ice. His sweet little girl, miraculously grown into a strong young woman full of life and joy and endless love, cast into beautiful, hateful ice, the cold winter sun sparkling where it refracted through her body.
With the shaking of his hands, it took Simon three tries to unlatch the window. If the Winter King was trying to talk him out of it, he couldn’t hear it over the blizzard in his ears.
And then the window was open, and little Ice Marceline tumbled through it.
“Who’re you?” was the first thing she said, her big curious ice-blue eyes looking Simon up and down. “You look funny. Did dad make you to cuddle with?”
Simon couldn’t speak.
There were no words in all the multiverse.
“Did he give you a name?” She floated in a circle around him, tugging curiously at the new white streaks in his hair. “Can I give you one if he didn’t? He calls things Gunther too often. It’s a silly name.”
“He’s called Simon.” The Winter King interrupted, almost sharply, before whatever horrible feelings were welling up in Simon’s chest could burst out and most likely make another little girl cry. “And he’s not a creation, sweetheart. He’s a guest.”
“Ooo! A guest! We never have guests!” Ice Marceline bobbed up and down in excitement, clapping her hands together. “Hi, Mr. Simon! Daddy is also called Simon! What a funny coincidence!”
“Isn’t it just.” The Winter King chuckled - but this time, this time the empty prettiness of his voice had something underneath it. Something almost like panic. “Now, please, Marceline, daddy is very busy with his guest, why don’t you go and-”
“Dad, why’re you iced to the wall?” With Simon doing nothing more interesting than staring at her in abject horror, Marceline’s attention had clearly drifted. “Is it a game? Can I play, too?”
“It’s a grown-up game, you can play it when you’re older,” said the Winter King, and for a split second, his and Simon’s eyes met, and they both knew what a callous thing it was to say to an entity that would never grow up. “And what did we say, about you leaving your room on your own, hm?”
“But I missed you!” Marceline dropped to the floor, and skipped over to the Winter King, to sit in the lap Simon had only just vacated. “And wanted to play a new song with you! It goes like this, listen, listen…”
“Darling, this is not the time-”
“Daddy, it’s just you and me in this palace made of snow,” Ice Marceline sang, in her clear little voice, broad ice-fanged smile on her face, “and it’s so super-duper boring for a little girl like me… so I need you to be there for me, but you’re always so busy and I’m afraid one day you’re just going to forget to even come and see me in my room…”
(Please no, thought Simon. Not that song. Any song but that.)
“The ice magic is why I’m alive, but I’m so lonely! And… and that’s as far as I got.” Marceline dropped her back against the Winter King’s chest, craning her neck to peer up at him. “What do you think? The lyrics are a bit silly, but I like the melody. You hum it sometimes.”
“It’s lovely, my sweet little girl. As are you. What would I do without you.” The Winter King leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, and Simon wondered if the love and affection shining from those blank eyes was genuine with her, or if the Winter King was as dishonest now as he’d been with Simon.
Ice Marceline giggled. She certainly didn’t know the difference.
“...why don’t you go sing it to the Ice Scouts? Right now?” The Winter King’s gaze flickered almost-nervously from her to Simon, and back. “And if you’re a good little girl and stay in your room afterwards until I come visit, maybe we can put on a concert~! How would you like that, hm?”
“Much! Very much!” Marceline beamed, and with a hop and a sparkle of ice magic, she was floating over to the window again. “Should I tell the Scouts to come here and play along with your grown-up game, too? Or move the shelf. I don’t think it’s supposed to be in front of the doors like that.”
“Ah-” Simon croaked, not knowing if he had it in him, stopping Ice Marceline from alerting the rest of the staff - and a little afraid of finding out.
“Nonsense! No need for that!” The Winter King laughed, only a little strained. “Off you go, Marceline, and be careful, yes? Don’t you worry about me and dear Simon here. We’ll be fine!”
(Simon wasn’t fine.
He’d never felt less fine than with this cheap copy of the girl he loved like a daughter of his own waving a “bye-bye, dad! Bye-bye, Guest Simon!” to him, and floating off into the crisp-cool winter air.
But then again, he didn’t think he’d been fine at any point in the last thousand years and change, at this point - and the Winter King hardly was, either, for all that he liked to pretend.
What a pair of Simons they made, huh?)
“You,” he said, shaking with disgust, with horror, with anger, “you made her- you made her- a copy! An ice copy!!!”
“See?” The Winter King’s smile was cold and false again, though perhaps just a little sad, too. “Case in point. What is lost is lost. And any attempts to recover it prove… inadequate.”
Simon wanted to punch him again. Wanted to strangle him. Wanted to slam his skull into the ice wall until one or perhaps both of them cracked. Wanted someone to do it to himself, too, if not for Fionna and Cake’s world being the only thing of worth in his skull.
“You know, I wonder how ‘fixing’ you has been going for your darling Betty.” There was something cruel in the Winter King’s tone, but some part of Simon always and forever covered in ice knew that it was an attempt at lashing out, after having something so raw and vulnerable about himself revealed. That didn’t make it better. “Is she happy with the end result? Or are you ‘an ice copy’ to her, too? How’s living in the past working out for the two of you?”
“Don’t. You do not get to do that.” Simon ran a shaking hand through his hair, gulping in air, feeling his lungs restrict nonetheless. “At least my Marceline- she’s alive, she’s fine, she’s happy with her Princess, with the woman she loves, and that’s better! That’s- whatever happens to me, that makes it all worth it!”
“Hm.” The Winter King frowned. His face cracked around it almost worse than around the smiles, too many creases in his skin. “You go on telling yourself that, dear.”
For a moment, they were both silent.
“Will your- the copy.” Simon swallowed, hard. “If we return-”
“Speak for yourself, if you please.”
“If the curse is returned,” Simon escaped into the passive voice instead, “will she be alright?”
“You know, I honestly have no idea.” The Winter King shrugged. “The magic will hold, I’m sure. Yet it must be so hard for a little girl regardless, seeing her father figure lose herself… but, ah. We both know that all too well, don’t we?”
Simon groaned, pressing his palms over his eyes.
“Oh, does that change things?” The Winter King huffed, amused. “Suddenly, the Candy Queen’s sanity matters less than the feelings of my little ice creation, trapped forever in the sweetest of my memories of her childhood? Oh Simon, I adore you, and your ridiculous hypocrisies. Has the trolley finally switched tracks, then? What’s the state of our little philosophical-ethical-practical conundrum with that little morself of information added?”
“Unchanged!” Simon snapped, glaring. “It’s not- Marceline herself would want me to- she loved Princess Bubblegum, I should- you- I should-”
(Should was such a difficult world.
He should take the Winter King’s crown for himself, and save Fionna and Cake.
He should find a way to return the Winter King’s madness back to him, and save the Candy Queen.
He should leave well enough alone, and let the Winter King play family with his ice daughter and the madwoman kidnapping him once or twice a month.
He should go home, call Marceline again, even just to hear her voice on the answering machine.
He should never give up on his fragile hope of seeing even a tiny little glimpse of Betty again, just one last time, just the once.
He wondered which option could ever possibly save him.
Maybe none of them.
Maybe he’d been a lost cause from the start.)
Simon groaned again, and sat down in the middle of the scattered papers, resting his forehead on his knees. He was getting a headache.
Stupid Winter King, stupid Ice Marceline, stupid endless spiral of yearning for what you lost and bringing it back worse. Stupid narrative themes.
And above all, stupid Simon, unable to let go of the past in any and all universes.
And then, a crack.
Another.
A faint tinkling.
And then, after hours and hours of slow, patient scratching and straining, the Winter King broke out of his bindings, ice shards scattering all over the laboratory floor.
Simon’s head snapped up.
Swivelled around to where the Winter King’s eyes were already fixed on the crown glinting ominously in the corner.
He tried to scramble for it, get to it first, but he slipped on the papers and on the ice floor, while the Winter King’s ice-skate heels propelled him forward, past Simon, at astonishing speed.
“A-HA!” He crowed, long-fingered hands closing around the crown, holding it up in triumph while Simon was scrabbling along on the floor, one hand stretched out uselessly.
The Winter King smiled, radiant and terrible, stroking the crown’s central ruby, and Simon knew he had lost. This egocentric, maniacal, thoughtlessly cruel version of himself did not have it in him to be reasonable while he had the upper hand. Not when he had all the power of the crown at his fingertips.
(And that strange quiet intimacy of the two of them huddled together had been nothing more than an attempt to stall for time.)
“Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon.” The Winter King tutted gently, cracked his stiff fingers, and stalked over to him, moving the shelving unit away from the doors with a flick of his wrist, gathering all the papers up with a gust of cold air and settling them in neat stacks. “Such a fuss, really! That little tantrum of yours did nothing but upset us both. There are far more productive uses of our time, don’t you think?”
Another wave of his hand, and a couch manifested out of the floor under Simon, manoeuvring him up into a sitting position. He let it happen. What else was there to do.
“Like, for instance…”
The Winter King reached out to run a finger from the edge of Simon’s jaw across his cheek and up to his swollen eyes, like retracing the path of a tear, before brushing white-streaked hair back from his face, and leaning down for a kiss.
It was, to Simon’s surprise, chaste, and quiet, and gentle, and placed on the tip of his still-a-little-longer-than-before nose. And almost as affectionate and tender as the one pressed to Ice Marceline’s forehead.
(Simon had rather thought that if the Winter King did end up kissing him, it would be a poisonously-sweet affair, or maybe cold and sharp with too much teeth. Possessive, and overwhelming, and hungry, and selfish.
Not that Simon had thought much about it. Not that Simon had waited for it. Not that Simon had wanted it. Obviously.
But in any case, this almost honest little peck was not what he had expected.)
“Let us find a solution, Simon. Together.” The Winter King made it a point to set the crown onto one of the lab tables, just about out of both their reach, before sitting down at Simon’s side. “I am willing to be reasonable if you are.”
“...what?” Simon blinked.
“My current options are letting you drive me back into madness, or doing something rather unconscionable to another version of me I’ve grown rather attached to, to make sure you won’t continue to try and drive me back into madness. We both know how stubborn we Simons can be.” The Winter King grimaced. “And for rather obvious reasons, neither of them hold much appeal. I thought we might find a better one.”
“You surprise me.” Simon admitted, carefully. Suspiciously.
“Do I?” The Winter King smiled, mostly hollow and just a little sweet, propping his arm up against the back of the ice couch and leaning his head onto it, regarding Simon with a fondness that might still be false, but had much less reason to be. “I’m glad, my dear, sweet Simon. One should always be capable of positively surprising oneself.”
Simon sighed, rolled his eyes… and leaned into the Winter King’s side, tucking himself under his other self’s arm.
He still believed the man to be a monster - but the Winter King had been right. All Simons were monsters, and incapable of fixing things, and only ever making it all worse.
But he could still surprise himself.
He could still feel a spark of something almost like hope in his chest, even now, even after everything.
Maybe, together, they could fix something, after all. Maybe they could find a way to keep both Princess Bubblegum and the Winter King sane. Maybe they could find a way to save Fionna and Cake’s world from the mundane doom Simon had inflicted on it. Maybe they could put on that concert for Ice Marceline. Maybe they could even find some way to get in contact with whatever Betty was now. Maybe.
Maybe Simon could finally figure out what he wanted, and achieve it, and maybe, maybe, maybe, he could be saved, too.
Maybe he could be happy.
(Maybe the Candy Queen would burst through the wall any minute and kidnap them all over again.
Maybe she would sing a musical number, escalate things, and nearly throw them into a blender.
Maybe Fionna would rescue them again, and be rewarded with a kiss, as was a heroine’s due.
Maybe she would glitch out the crown, and in a fraction of a second, it would all be over, and Simon would have definite proof that there was no real way of saving him, any version of him, not ever.
Maybe they would have to journey on, to curse Simon the right way.
And Simon would have to live with the memories of Ice Marceline singing a silly little song in her father-creator’s lap, and of a soft kiss full of love to the very tip of his nose.
Maybe none of this would change anything, because everything always, always stays the same.)
Simon didn’t know. Not yet. He hated the maybes, hated the uncertainty, hated the Winter King, hated the trolley-crown problem.
He hated himself. On so many levels.
But he hoped.
He let the Winter King take one of his hands and lace their blue-tinted fingers together, the two of them so different, yet so alike. Hating each other and themselves, but perhaps capable of loving each other and themselves, too.
And Simon Petrikov hoped.