Chapter Text
After everything, Simon wanted to spend a few days alone.
Relief was not something he was used to feeling upon opening the door to his sad, stale apartment, but today that’s how he felt. The dusty, sterile scent filled his nose, tainted slightly by the nagging smell of old dampness. Did Prismo leave the shower on? He couldn’t hear it running. He didn’t care. He lacked the emotional energy to sulk about something as small as that. Smelled like home, anyways. All old books and dust and the faint smell of burnt sage.
He stood in the doorway, if only for a moment to take in the feeling, eyes scanning over the living room, everything in its place just as it should be. He must’ve cleaned up before he got blinked out. His notes were stacked neatly on the desk, cage covered once more with a rather conspicuous cloth. He was glad. He didn’t think he had it in him to clean up today.
It felt good to be home. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt good about being there. Had he ever felt good about being there?
He really needed to move out.
He dragged himself inside with a sigh and moved straight to the coffee maker, getting to work on a fresh pot. When he was young, he always liked to make coffee when he got home from an expedition. Sometimes Betty would even have a pot ready for him when he came back. He missed it when he was gone, one of life’s simple pleasures. Good, hot coffee, free of loose grounds. He really needed a cup right now. Once he’d inserted a clean pot, some water, and fresh grounds, he started the machine. It gave a low hiss of protest before sputtering a weak stream of coffee out into the waiting pot. Music to his ears.
With that taken care of, the next order of business was cleaning himself up. At some point he’d gotten a clean suit, but he still stank to high hell, and his hair had tangled into loose mats. Plus, he was pretty sure the gash he got on Finn’s adventure reopened at some point, if it had ever really closed in the first place. It wouldn't surprise him if was infected. It kinda got put on the back burner during all of the hullabaloo. He should probably get it checked out.
He stood in front of the mirror and inventoried his haggard appearance. Eye bags, stubble, greasy, tangled hair... It had been a long time since he’d seen himself so poorly cared for. He’d always liked to keep himself well groomed, but after he’d lost Betty, he was unable to care for himself for quite a while. It was rather embarrassing in retrospect. Sometimes Marceline would sit him down and force him to let her untangle his hair, just like he’d done for her when she was young. It must have been hard for her. Not just then, but for the years following. All she’d ever wanted was for him to come back, and well… He doesn’t think he was the man she’d wanted, expected, or needed.
He wanted to be better for her. He’d always wanted that, but he’d long settled into a pattern of platitudes and lies which only served to pull them further and further apart. Maybe he should give her a call tomorrow.
He worked the brush through his hair, slowly but surely, as if shaking off the past years’ struggles. The bath rug was damp underneath his feet, though the floor in the bathroom was dry. It was strange, but he didn’t have enough bandwidth to give it thought. He could wash them tomorrow.
Once his hair had been suitably tidied, he started up the shower, stripping down before settling into the hot spray. He was sore from the past days’ activities, his aching muscles and joints a dull reminder of his age. The hot water soothed them, though, and he basked in it like a lizard in the sun. This was exactly what he needed. The hot water compounded his fatigue and overwhelm, dulling his thoughts to nothing, and a light emptiness settled into his chest. He stared blankly down at the shower drain. The flaked blood on his arm mixed with the dirt caked to his body, staining the water a rusty brown.
“Yuck,” he mumbled to no one in particular.
The cut on his arm was long and wide, with an alarming periphery of angry red skin. The scabbing itself had gone a dark, tarry brown, and it stung as the shower water hit it. He took care to give it a good, gentle washing, being mindful to not aggravate it further. The rest of his body, however, was scrubbed down viciously, peeling off the layers of dirt he’d collected from all the universes he had visited.
By the time he was out of the shower, bandaged, shaved, and dressed in an old t-shirt and sweatpants, the coffee pot was full, kept hot by the burner under the dispenser. He helped himself to a cup - with milk and sugar, because you only live once, and he really needed it today. Just as he’d settled on the couch, cup in tow, Fiona’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
‘universe saved!!! yayyyyyy!!!!!!’
He smiled. He had no doubt. ‘Great! I knew you had it in you.’
Another buzz. ‘It was crazy cake went all godzilla and then i got all giant and i smushed the scarab guy and it was awesome.’
‘howd it go with betty???’
He cringed to himself. It was a little too… fresh to talk about. He didn’t care to unpack everything right now. He was tired, all scraped out like a pumpkin ready to be carved. There was a lot he needed to work through after everything Betty had shown him. Thinking about it made him want to curl up and cry for like… a week straight, maybe.
But for now, he sent a message back.
‘I need some time to process. I’ll tell you about it soon, I promise.’
He scratched his head nervously, awaiting Fiona’s response.
‘no prob dude glad she set u straight (^-^)/’
‘u text like an old man lol’
He laughed a quiet, private laugh. ‘I am an old man.’
‘yeah u are!!!! snd me ur number and ill call u when i have a new phone. that should give u enough time to spill the beans >:3’
He sent his number in the next text, and silently thanked Betty for keeping them safe and making sure they could stay in touch. He’d grown quite fond of Fiona and Cake.
It was easy for him to forget that they were just alternate versions of Finn and Jake. Fiona was so different from the man Finn had become. So genuine. Finn was genuine too, but Fiona was… down to earth, he guessed. In her own weird little way. She was open and unmarred by the grief and pain that had stunted Finn, who had once been so emotionally intelligent, just like Fiona was.
Grief changes you in weird ways. Simon too had become a strange funhouse mirror version of the person he used to be. It was hard to be compassionate or emotionally intelligent or open or genuine when you were struggling to do those things with yourself. Maybe he should talk to Finn about it.
As for Fiona, he didn’t realize how desperately he needed to talk to someone who understood his life experience, even if she only understood because she lived in his head. He was looking forward to talking to her again.
Simon turned on the tv. His dvd player was, as always, loaded up with one of the disks from his Cheers box set. Marceline had found it for him centuries ago, and had held on to it, if only as a pleasant reminder of him. He could remember vaguely that she had tried to show it to him at one point. Tried to show it to Ice King, that is, but he couldn’t remember how it went. Probably bad, though he couldn’t imagine a version of himself that didn’t like Cheers. Even after all the years, all the memories and baggage that had attached itself to the series, it was still a great comfort to him. It made him feel less alone, reminded him of all the pre-war comforts he so desperately missed. Made him feel less strange and out of place. It was in remarkably good condition too, worn only by Marceline’s own rare useage. All of the wear and tear had ultimately come from Simon, though he took care to treat the disks with a practiced delicacy he reserved for the ancient artifacts he once sought. It was, after all, likely the last complete set remaining in Oooo.
And it was a gift from his Marcy. He treasured it.
Despite the earliness and the caffeine from the coffee, Simon only made it 15 minutes before falling asleep on the couch. His sleep was blissfully dreamless.
-
He awoke blearily, first to the morning light peering through the open door, and next to whispering in desperate, hushed tones.
“Betty?” he called, still half asleep. There was no answer, as usual. Of course there wouldn’t be. He was alone.
He came back to himself in pieces. Why was the door open? Why was the TV off? Did he get robbed? That would be something, wouldn’t it? Gone for days just to be robbed right after he returned and was fast asleep on the couch. It would be just his luck.
“Simon! You’re awake!” Marceline said, relief heavy in her tone. She flew over to him at a speed that frankly startled him and pulled him into a tight hug, bordering on suffocating. “I’m so happy you’re okay. Glob! Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” Her voice went dark with anger and fear, and Simon was distinctly reminded of a disappointed parent.
He hugged her back, confused and disoriented from waking. “What’d I do?”
She pulled away, incredulous, and he saw Finn and Bonnie standing behind her. “You’ve been missing. For like… a week. We’ve been looking everywhere for you! Where have you been ?”
White hot guilt shot through him like a bolt of fire. “Oh. Oh. Oh god, I’m so sorry Marcy. I didn’t… I didn’t even think… ”
He didn’t even think about her. Not once. Not when he did the ritual, not when he was traveling the multiverse. Didn’t even think to leave a note, or send a text or anything. And here she was, eyes wide and desperate just like that little girl he had left a millennia ago. Worried. For him.
“It’s okay,” she said, but it wasn’t. Her forgiveness was the salt in his wound. “I’m just glad you’re okay. What happened?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, ashamed of the choices he’d made that had put him in this position. “A lot of things. I… haven’t really had time to process,” he mumbled, hoping she’d get the hint.
Bonnie piped in. “Yeah… that’s not gonna cut it. I already got rid of your Golb junk, plus the straight up corpse. So what, you did the ritual, and it backfired just like I told you it would, and then what?”
Simon grimaced. That explained a lot regarding the state of his apartment when he’d returned. They must have gone through his stuff to look for clues.
“Something like that. I feel inclined to let you know first that this story has a happy ending. I… made a lot of choices based on a belief that my life isn’t important, that the only value I could provide was through sacrifice, but the more I saw, the more I realized that wasn’t true. I think… I think I’m finally ready to start living again,” he said, soft and remorseful. “If not for myself, then for Betty. And for you, Marcy.”
Marceline gave a small, sad smile. “That’s great, Simon.”
They stared at him silently as he meandered his way through the events that had transpired in the week he was missing. He considered at several points skirting around the truth of what happened, but the story came out unbidden, as if taking on a life of its own. He needed someone else to know what went down. He needed the lies to stop. And maybe it was kind of selfish, maybe it would hurt Marceline, but he needed something new to happen. He needed something different.
“...Betty saved Fiona’s universe, and she got me home safe. I almost blew my second chance, but she gave me another, and after everything... I just really want to make the most of it.”
By the time he was finished, he was sweaty and out of breath. Marceline’s eyes were glassy and wet, and Bonnie was shocked to silence.
Finn wasn’t though. “Aw man. That sounds awesome! I knew you needed a good quest.” He clapped Simon on the back, which sent a wave of ache through his sore body. He wasn’t really built for quests.
“I suppose I did,” he replied, unsure.
Marceline turned and left without a word, hands bunched tight into fists. Simon stood to follow her, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder pulling him back down onto the couch.
“What are you doing? ” he hissed. He needed to make things right. That was his little girl!
“Chill, dude. Give her some time to cool down. I think she’ll come around.” Bonnie cooed at him softly like she would one of her candy citizens. It was infantilizing, but… strangely calming. He could tell she was used to doing things like this. “I know we haven’t always gotten along, but I’m proud of you, Simon. It seems like this trip was really good for you.”
“It was,” he said distantly, eyes locked on the door. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”
She shrugged. “We all make mistakes. I think this was the best thing that could’ve come out of that half-baked plan of yours. I think Marceline will see that too, with time. She just worries about you, and I think it freaked her out hearing how close she was to losing you again.”
“Especially with the crown stuff. That would’ve been really messed up,” Finn added.
Simon put his head in his hands. “Yeah, it was messed up. It was selfish . I didn’t even think about what that would’ve done to her.”
Marceline had lost enough people far before she met Simon. Her father, her mother, her world , just like he had lost his. She spent over a thousand years haunted by the Ice King’s presence after he lost it, and then once he was back, she spent one more caring for him after he lost it again. He couldn’t imagine how it felt for her to hear that she was about to go through that again.
The two of them were silent as he curled in on himself, wracked with guilt, uselessly blinking back the tears which spilled over anyways. Bonnie and Finn sat next to him, the former wrapping her arm around his shoulders as they shook with the force of his sobbing. It surprised him coming from her.
This was it. This would finally be the thing that made him lose her. After everything they’d been through, he thought it fitting that she would want to be rid of him. Maybe it was for the better.
“It’s gonna be okay, Simon. She’ll come around, I promise,” Finn said, voice low and smooth. “I’ve pissed her off plenty of times, and she always forgives me. She loves you like a father, dude. Even when you were Ice King.”
It was a good ten minutes before anyone spoke again, and he had just about cried himself out by then, his pain replaced by a deep fatigue. His friends sat by him the entire time, offering him their presence as he came apart, if only a little. He was grateful for it, having grown tired of his own rotten company.
“Have you thought about seeing a therapist?” Bonnie asked gently, not for the first time, as if she was afraid of offending him.
Simon flinched as the silence broke. He hadn’t considered therapy, really. She and Marceline had dropped plenty of hints that he should go, but he always brushed them off. He had long surrendered himself to an empty, meaningless life without Betty in it. Subconsciously, maybe he had just wanted to quietly fizzle out while hurting the people around him as little as possible. Look where that got him.
“Yeah! You could see my Mom-bot! She’s great.” Finn perked up at that. He seemed… lost throughout all of this, unable to help. It was outside of his scope. Outside of any of their scopes, really. That was probably why Bonnie had suggested therapy rather than fixing him herself. She already knew this was well beyond her ability to fix.
He cleared his throat and wiped at his face before lifting his head to speak, though he doubted it did anything to improve his appearance. “I’ll talk to her about it. I need to see her anyway. I have a pretty nasty wound from Finn’s adventure that I need to get checked.”
Bonnie raised an eyebrow at that. “Let me see.”
He obliged, carefully unwrapping the bandage on his arm. It definitely looked better than it did yesterday now the dirt was cleaned off, but it definitely wasn’t ideal.
Her response mirrored Simon’s. “Oh jeez. That does not look good. You need to get that stitched up. Like, now.”
With that, Bonnie ran toward the door.
“Wait!”
She paid no mind to Simon’s protest. Finn looked at him and shrugged. “That’s Peebs for ya.”
It took her all of fifteen seconds to wave down a Minerva-bot and pull her inside.
“What’s the problem?”
“Hi Mom!” Finn said, waving excitedly. “Simon got scratched by a bear.”
She smiled. “Hi, Finn. Hello, Simon. Mind if I take a look?”
He stretched out his arm, and she sat down on empty air, as if perched on a stool. Sometimes it was easy to forget she was a robot. Now was not one of those times. She took his arm in her hands, and they were just as cold as every other doctor he’d seen. At least some things haven’t changed.
“How long ago did you get this?”
“About a week ago,” Bonnie supplied much to Simon’s annoyance.
“Have you been cleaning and caring for it?”
He gave her a strained smile. “Not really. I cleaned it last night, but I haven’t really had the chance to care for it over the last week. It’s a long story.”
“It’s definitely infected. I’ll have to prescribe some antibiotics. You can also take some over the counter anti-inflammatory medication to treat the pain, but I’m afraid you’ll also need a few stitches.”
He was rather… accident prone, so he was no stranger to stitches. Still, she walked him through the whole procedure before doing anything, which helped put him at ease. After an injection and a few minutes of staring at the wall and pretending like he wasn’t being sewn together like a broken garment, she had wrapped his arm up once more, much more expertly than he could’ve managed with one hand. She produced a few sheets of paper, seemingly from thin air, which listed his prescriptions along with aftercare instructions.
“Thank you, Minerva.”
“Of course. It’s what helpers do. I’ve been rather concerned about you, Simon. You seem to exhibit a lot of erratic behavior which could be indicative of mental health issues. I would strongly encourage you to see me for therapy and medication management if you’d be willing to do so.”
He felt a little insulted, and then a little embarrassed, and then kind of grateful he didn’t have to bring it up himself. Bonnie and Finn did nothing to refute her statement on his instability, which he supposed was fair enough. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”
“How does tomorrow at 2:00 sound? I’ll meet you here.”
It seemed a bit too soon. A dark, floppy part of him just wanted a few days of moping and wallowing before unpacking everything. A smaller part of him - a scared part - stopped him from saying no. It was a newer one, a healthier one, maybe. He needed something to change. Desperately. He didn’t want to forget, didn’t want to slip into the terrible habits that had made his life so miserable, didn’t want the lessons he’d learned to have been for nothing.
Most importantly, he didn’t want to go back to his life as it was before.
“That sounds great, actually,” he said, after a long pause.
“Nice.” Bonnie sounded pleased.
“You guys aren’t off the hook” Minerva looked at his two companions then. “Please make sure he’s taking care of himself. A would like his could get quite serious if left untreated, especially at his age.”
“That’s all you, big guy,” Bonnie said, giving Finn a pat on the back. She was throwing him a bone.
“Sure thing, princess.”
Simon frowned. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“No, but it’ll make Marceline feel better knowing someone is looking after you, and it’ll be good for you to have someone around for a while. I don’t think you should be left alone after everything that just went down.”
The implication sat heavy with him. He sighed and resigned himself to being the guy on suicide watch for the second time in his life at this point, even if he thought it excessive. If it would make Marceline happy, he would tolerate Finn’s hovering.
“Do you have some time to talk about our session tomorrow? I just have a few questions about your history and what you would like us to address.”
With that, Bonnie grabbed Finn by the shoulder and let him out. “Alright, I think it’s about time we left Simon and Minerva alone. Bye guys! See you soon,” she called.
“Peace out! I’ll come check up on you later,” Finn said. He wasn't looking forward to that.
After saying his goodbyes, he was left blissfully alone with the Minerva bot. He cleared his throat. “So what do you need to know?” he asked flatly.
They went through the arduous process of fielding his symptoms, concerns, and family history, the last of which he struggled to answer. By the time she wrapped things up, he felt drained despite having just woken up. She left him with a reminder slip for their appointment tomorrow and a rehash of the aftercare sheet she had given him, and she left with a courteous goodbye.
He checked his phone, hoping to get in touch with Marcy, but found it flooded with texts and missed calls from when he was missing. He pocketed it as quickly as he had gotten it out, too scared and guilty to do much more with it. Maybe it would be better to wait for her to come to him. Besides, he had work to do. He was probably already in hot water with the museum curator, and he had no desire to make that any worse.
“Door open,” he said, and his need for privacy was once more squashed beneath his duties to his job.