Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

That night, Simon Petrikov prepared his death. 

He arranged how it was going to happen. He decided that bleeding out would be painful, but if he sliced his arms like he was preparing a salad, it wouldn’t be that bad. He’d be unconscious from blood loss before dying. He deserved the pain, anyways. He arranged his will. It wasn’t like he had many items to his name. But what he did went to either Marceline or Finn. Mostly little relics or items. His Cheers tapes. Some photographs. Some cool weapons he’d picked up during his time in Ooo. His books and research all went to Bonnibel - he figured she would do the most with it. Lastly, he’d written three notes. Marcy, Finn, and Betty. 

They went as follows:

To my daughter and best friend Marcy,
By the time you get this letter, I will be dead. Don’t come over and try to stop me, because I know you’re getting ready to bolt right now. I don’t want to be saved, and I know that’s hard for you to hear, and I know it sounds selfish. But I don’t want to burden you with all of my problems like I did when I first came back. And I can hear you right now - ‘you aren’t a burden, Simon, you dumb-dumb.’ I won’t go on about how I feel about that. I don’t want that to be what you have left of me. 
So instead, I’m going to tell you how much I love you. In my darkest days right after the Mushroom War, you kept me sane. You stuck with me, even as I became more and more dangerous. I know I left you, and I regret it every day, but you still managed to survive and thrive into an amazing young woman. 1000 years later, when I was a weird, freaky, ice wizard, you still hung around me. We made some pretty good music, didn’t we? You’re absolutely wonderful, Marcy. And I know you’re going to keep being wonderful without me there - after all, you did that for nearly 1000 years! Keep being you, my beautiful, amazing, talented girl. Even though we aren’t related by blood, I’m so happy to have been the dad that you chose. Make sure your real dad never reads this letter, haha. 
Tell Bonnibel that she’s amazing as well. I know I’ve apologized profusely to her about everything he did, but tell her I’m sorry again. The two of you are so wonderful (a ‘power couple,’ as they said in my day), together and apart. Both of you are going to rule the world one day, I know it (although Bonnie is pretty close already, I’d say!) 

With all my love, 
Simon Petrikov

To the ever-great Finn the Human,
Well, Finn. Once you get this letter, I’ll be dead. Sit back down and read the rest of this - I know your hero heart is simply jumping to try to save me once again, as it has many times before. I wanted to die on my own terms, and I especially don’t want you to feel guilty for not ‘saving me’ in time. Because Finn, you’re a good person, almost to a fault. Please don’t ever lose that, okay? I know Jake’s death hit you hard, but you pushed on and continued helping everyone you could. That was your brother, and you went on. I’m the old dude who tried to kill you hundreds of times. Don’t let my death change you. 
You’re great, did you know that? I know Ice King was… unpleasant, to say the least, but you still hung around him. Tried to fix him. Nobody else in all of Ooo tried to do that, save for Marcy. You made Ice King a better person, even if it didn’t seem like it. Hell, I wouldn’t even be here if it hadn’t been for you and your sacrifices in the Gum War. So thank you for playing a major, major, part in my second chance, even if I’m not using it too well. 
Keep being you, making sure that everyone’s safe. Be the best human in all of Ooo (even though you already were!) 

Love,
Simon Petrikov

To my greatest love, Betty,

This letter is purely symbolic, as I know you’ll never read it. But I feel as though I need to give myself some closure on you, so here it is.
Oh Betty… where to start? You’re quite literally my beginning and my end - I don’t think I had lived before we grazed hands in the library. I thought about you that night, and for nights after, at least until I met you at the university. The one person who showed interest in my silly lecture, who seemed excited to talk to me. Do you know what a breath of fresh air that was? And then the expedition - oh, Betty. You were magnificent, wonderful, funny, beautiful, everything . I should’ve told you then and there just how much I loved you, beautiful, beautiful  you. But silly Simon was too overwhelmed, or something (god, it was so long ago I barely remember my logic. Something stupid, likely. I usually was.) and didn’t say anything. I let you go. But yet, but yet, you made an effort to find me again. That day at the bus stop… wow. You had never looked more stunning, with the sunset behind you, your red hair framing your face… god. I’ve never felt more in love then I did in that moment, sweeping you off your feet as our song played in the background. I knew it, right then - I was going to marry you some day. I didn’t know how or when, but I knew. And so, we kept living. We went on so many expeditions together, did so much, and were going to get married. Proposing to you was nerve-wracking, but every time I felt like chickening out, I remembered who I was doing this for. For you. And god, our wedding was going to be wonderful, wasn’t it? I was so excited. 
And then the crown happened. And I won’t dwell much on my side of things, because we all know how that played out. But instead, you. Everything you did for me, Betty, was so insane, and so genius. You lost yourself for me. And that’s why I’m doing this, I suppose. You spent so much on me, and look at where I am now. A sad, sad old man with a fear of ice who’s barely scraping by every day. I hate myself for it. I’m sorry that I’m wasting your sacrifice, my princess, but I have to. Maybe I’ll even see you again.

With all the love in my heart,
Simon Petrikov

Marcy and Finn’s letters were put into sealed envelopes with their addresses on the front. He’d gone and stuck them in the mailbox so they’d be shipped out the next morning. Postal was fast in Ooo. With luck, they’d find him before he rotted. Betty’s was folded up and put in front of his Golb statue. He sighed, looking around his apartment. He wouldn’t miss this, at all. He wouldn’t miss Cheers reruns, he wouldn’t miss Marceline coming over for dinner, he wouldn’t miss his unusually comfortable couch, he wouldn’t miss any of it . He tried to convince himself he was just stating facts, but he knew deep down that wasn’t true. But, nonetheless, he shook his head a few times and headed for the bathroom, trying to ignore everything. His heart and head were pounding, and he was trying not to think. The thoughts that made their way through the drumming of his heart that pulsed through his whole body were a cacophony - yelling at him not to do this, louder ones telling him everyone would be better off this way, and yet others telling him of an unheard-of, third option - to go to sleep, and not be so rash. But he wasn’t being rash if he’d been planning for months. 

His razor was still sitting on the sink, where he’d left it the morning before. He knew that if he didn’t at least look half-decent, Marcy would stomp over and demand to check his wrists. And so, he shaved. He brushed his hair. He kept his place clean (although that was partly because he couldn’t afford to lose his job that Bonnie had gotten him.) He functioned like a robot - doing everything he needed to without a soul. 

He’d decided on a blade because he believed he deserved the suffering. He knew that it was one of the most ineffective ways to kill yourself. Maybe, deep down, he was hoping he wouldn’t die. As a last-ditch effort from his body to make him survive. He knew that his letters would do next to nothing to stop Marcy and Finn, so maybe they’d find him if he lived. They’d likely find him if he died, too, and he couldn’t bear that thought. So he locked the door. No saving for him. No traumatizing the closest people he had to family in his life. 

He pried the blade out of the razor, not bothering to be careful. 

He took a deep breath. Through the chaos in his mind, one thought rang clear. In her voice, her beautiful, beautiful voice. 

“Goodbye, Simon.” 

And he began to cut.

Chapter Text

“BONNIE?” Marceline yelled through their house. Bonnie was in the kitchen, making them lunch.

“YEAH?” She yelled back, flipping the patties she was grilling. 

“We need to go.” Marceline replied, skimming the first couple lines of the letter again. Thank glob for quick postal service in Ooo. “Like, right now."

Bonnie appeared in the doorway, wearing an apron that said ‘I cook as good as I look,’ something Marcy had bought for her as a joke. 

“Why? We haven’t even eaten yet.” 

“Simon. He’s being stupid again, like, really stupid, and-” Marceline sighed agitatedly and thrust the letter towards Bonnie. “He’s killing himself, Bon-bon. If we don’t get there then-” she choked back sobs, “we might lose him.”  

Bonnibel skimmed the letter before looking Marcy in the eye and nodding. She untied the apron and threw it onto a chair. 

“Let’s go. We might still be able to save him.”

~~~

Marceline and PB found Finn banging on Simon’s door. The sound of metal on metal screeched through the whole human city, along with Finn’s yelling.

“SIMON!! OPEN UP!!” He yelled. 

Marceline grimaced at the sound, but floated over to Finn. 

“You got a letter too?” He paused his pounding for a second to look at Marcy, nodding slowly. Even though he appeared put together, his eyes were red, and his voice had a slight quaver in it as he spoke. 

“I’ve been here for, like, twenty minutes. I think he actually did it, Marcy.”

She gritted her teeth and knelt down, putting her hands under the metal. “Not on my watch he didn’t.” 

She used all her strength to lift it up, a task she was capable of doing on her own, but was made much easier by Finn helping out. 

Light filled the apartment. Simon was nowhere to be seen. The bathroom door was shut, with another door next to it slightly ajar. Marcy didn’t even notice the other door, rather making a beeline straight for the bathroom. 

She tried the door handle. Locked, of course.

Tears started to fill her eyes. Everything she’d been holding in on the way over started to fall out. Glob, he was such a dumbass sometimes. To think that they didn’t want him? She knew he’d been struggling, she’d known him long enough to know that those smiles were fake, those laughs forced. But she didn’t think it would escalate to this level. 

She felt an arm on her shoulder and a quick kiss on her cheek. 

Finn and PB had wandered over to the locked door after examining the rest of the space. Bonnie was trying to comfort her, though it was obvious she was also struggling to hold it together. Her and Simon might not have been as close as Simon and Marcy were, but glob-damnit, she was scared for him. 

“Hey,” She said, trying her best to not frown, “He’s going to be alright.”

Marceline wiped the tears from her eyes, and she saw Finn do the same out of the corner of her eye. 

Finn sighed and lightly pushed Marceline aside, his face set. He moved his robotic arm, curled into a fist, back and forth once, twice, three times before punching through the wooden door with ease. 

The first thing Marceline noticed was the blood. There was a lot of it. She knew for a fact that losing that much blood would kill a person. 

The second thing Marceline noticed was him. 

Her first instinct was to slam the door closed, to distance herself and her friends from the dead man in front of her. Her second was to run over to him, to check his pulse, to perform CPR, do everything that she knew would likely be useless. 

She followed neither instinct. Finn got to him first.

“Simon?” He said meekly, kneeling next to him, ignoring all the blood. Marceline hadn’t heard him sound that… scared. Ever. He lifted Simon’s limp arm, covered with cuts. He was still losing blood, although the cuts were bleeding much less than they should’ve been. “Simon, please, just-” Finn dropped his arm, shaking him lightly. That made the bleeding worse, but they still weren’t dripping as much as they should’ve been. “You can’t… you can’t leave us like this, please, dude, just-” 

Marceline dropped down on Simon’s other side. She took two fingers and put them on his other wrist, trying her best to ignore the gooey, warm blood. 

Warm . Blood shouldn’t be warm if he’d been bleeding out since last night. That was when she noticed the cuts were barely bleeding. Hell, they looked like they were starting to scab already. Impossible, absolutely impossible, but she was looking for a miracle at the moment. Marceline’s own pulse sped up, as she hurried to find his radial artery, sitting very still to see if she could feel his heart, beating away. 

“What are yo-” Finn asked, looking over. 

“Shh, give me a second…” Marcy replied, putting the index finger of her free hand over her lips. “I think…” Her eyes lit up as she felt it. A heartbeat . “He’s alive.” 

PB sat down on the edge of the bathtub, next to Marcy. 

“Marcy… there’s physically no way that he could be alive. He’s been bleeding since last night, and that’s… a lot of blood. I’m sorry.” 

Marceline stuttered for a moment before thrusting Simon’s arm at her. “Just.. just feel it, Peebs! There’s a pulse! It’s slow, really, really slow, but it’s there!” 

Bubblegum took the newly not-dead man’s arm, and held two fingers to his wrist. Her eyes lit up as she felt it too. 

“That’s…”

“Amazing?”

PB nodded. “That too. But… impossible.” 

“I know. But Bonnie, that means he’s still alive. We need to- to… argh!” She struggled to think of what you’re supposed to do. Her brain was too filled with adrenaline, simply a running stream of ‘he’s alive, oh my glob he’s alive, oh my glob, he’s alive.’

“Find some… bandages. And stop the bleeding.” Finn replied, numbly. “Jake made me learn what to do in case somethin’ happened while we were adventuring. Can’t have me losing another arm, I only got one left.” He chuckled slightly at the end of his sentence, but was already leaning to look in Simon’s cabinet. 

He found what he was looking for, and took it out with a shaking hand. A roll of bandages, a blindingly pure white. He fumbled with it, trying to unfurl it, but failed miserably. 

“I’ll do it.” Bubblegum said gently, taking the roll from Finn’s hands. She sat down on the ground, her pants soaking through immediately with blood, and started to wrap up his right arm. Marcy moved away, letting her do all the work, her mind still running a mile a minute.

Within five minutes, his arms were entirely wrapped up. They all sat around him, not knowing what to do next. 

“Should we… move him to his bed?” Finn asked, his voice sounding stronger than it did before.   

Marceline nodded. “I… yeah. And we need to…” She struggled to recall what Simon had told her to do if he passed out, all those years ago, when they were running around the ruins of the world, “Lay him down on his… side. Make sure his airways are unblocked. And then we sit with him until he comes to.” 

Finn and Bubblegum both nodded, and stood up. 

“Let’s move him. The quicker he wakes up, the better.” PB said, going to get his legs. Finn and Marceline moved to grab his arms, and in a moment, they all lifted him up and struggled out the bathroom door. They managed to get Simon on the bed, laying flat, still limp. They got him on his side, sort of, before stepping back and taking a good, long look at him. 

He looked horrible. His hair and clothes were all matted with blood, his dressings were staining slightly already, even with the weird scars-already-scabbing-over thing. 

But he was alive. 

Now that they’d stopped the bleeding, they could see his chest rising and falling slightly. His pulse was still too slow, so was his breathing, but he was alive .

And that was the best any of them could ask for.

~~~

The first thing Simon realized was that he was in bed. 

Odd, he hadn’t remembered being in bed. He’d remembered passing out in the bathroom. Plus, he was at least 90% sure he wouldn’t have killed himself in bed. 

That was the second thing he realized. That he shouldn’t be alive right now. 

And then he remembered the dream he’d had - was it a dream if it had been in an after-death haze? Or was that a vision? 

Nonetheless, whatever it was called, he remembered seeing her, for a fleeting moment. Four eyes, staring at him, scolding him. Even though she wasn’t his Betty, he still knew the look on her face. She was disappointed in him. He remembered trying to run to her, trying to say that he was sorry, that he simply couldn’t live without her. But before he could reach her looming, red form, she flicked her arm and he was thrown backwards. And then he woke up, lying in bed, with the lights above him dimmed. And yet, they still felt too bright.

“Simon?” He heard a voice whisper beside him. It took him longer than usual to place who it belonged to, his mind only conjuring up the fuzzy image of a little girl with fangs in overalls. His vision cleared, and he saw the black-haired girl kneeling next to him. Marceline. 

“Marcy?” He asked weakly. His throat felt closed, like he shouldn’t be able to speak. And he shouldn’t. He was supposed to be dead, and dead people do not speak. Although dead people aren’t supposed to wake up, either. 

Marceline almost tackled him with the force of her hug. 

“Oh my glob, Simon, you can’t keep doing this, I - we - thought you were, you were gone , forever, and we just-” She started to sob, but kept talking, “We always will love you, doofus, and don’t you ever think we don’t, okay?” 

Simon tried his best to sit up while still holding on to her. His head hurt. Probably due to the blood loss. But nevertheless, he persisted, sitting up and patting Marceline’s back as she cried into his shoulder. For a moment, a quick, fleeting moment, she was that little girl again, holding on tightly to Simon after he put the crown on again. Simon was hit with how awful he felt then, even though he thought it had been out of necessity, and how awful he felt now. He didn’t even have a good excuse this time around. 

Once Marcy pulled back, wiping tears from her eyes, he was hit with the force of a man he only realized was Finn after feeling the cold metal of his arm. 

“Simon! You’re…” He couldn’t find the words, simply squeezing him tighter. 

“Good to see you, Finn.” He couldn’t find it in his heart to mention how the hug was cutting off his airflow, as Finn’s crushing hugs usually did. “I’m… sorry. For all of this.”

Finn moved back, putting both his hands on Simon’s shoulders. His eyes, too, were puffy and red. 

“Don’t apologize, dude. We’ve all been there.” He gave a wink and a slight smile,  “Just maybe… think a bit more, before you do it. You have a what-cha-ma-call-it, the thing that says you have a brain bouncing around in there.”

“PhD?”

Finn shot finger guns at him. “Bingo.” 

Simon couldn’t help but laugh a bit. That felt like heaven, that small moment of happiness, a beam of sunlight parting the dark clouds that had filled his mind for weeks. That’s all it took, really. A joke. 

Bonnibel gave Simon a hug too. “We were all worried about you.” She said, pulling away to stand next to Marceline. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for a few hours now.” 

“You guys really didn’t have to. I would’ve woken up on my own eventually.” Simon replied, feeling guilty for taking away more of their precious time. 

Marcy floated over and ruffled his hair, trying to hide her grimace at the blood that was still in it.

“Doofus, we were going to wait for you. Sorry, but your being alone privileges have been revoked for at least another couple months.” 

He sighed, and tried to stand up before immediately falling back down onto the bed.

“I suppose I deserve it.” 

“After scaring us like that?” Finn nodded. “We love you dude, but… yeah.” Finn had seen a lot in his admittedly short life, but seeing someone who was one of his closest friends half-dead was not an image he would be getting out of his head any time soon. He was careful to not make Simon feel guilty, though. He’d been there before. It was one of the most awful times in his life. “Don’t worry, though. We all love hanging with you anyways.” 

Simon smiled, ignoring the thoughts running through his head that Finn was lying to him. Finn loved him, he knew that. And so did Marcy. Bonnie liked him enough, though he was still a bit guilty after everything Ice King did to her, and couldn’t believe she want to hang out with him after all that. 

After a moment, Marceline clapped her hands. 

“Well, I’m famished. How about we order in?” 

“That sounds great. Is there any good food up here?” Bubblegum asked, the question directed towards Finn. He shrugged. It wasn’t like he spent much time up in the human city.

“I’ll find something.” Marceline said as she took out her blue, worm-bird phone thing, and wandered away.

The three started to discuss what they could order, as Simon simply watched them, a content smile on his face.

He wasn’t necessarily happy to be alive, but he could deal with it.

~~~

A few weeks later, he had his first time alone. Nobody trusted him to be on his own, and he was perfectly fine with that. Having someone by his side helped ease his mind.

Marceline had run home that night to go deal with some emergency, but said that she’d be back the next morning. She trusted him to be okay, and that was enough for Simon to not do anything rash or stupid.

So, he went to his Golb shrine. 

He wasn’t planning on doing anything - it’s not like he had a power source, anyways - but he wanted to check on how she was doing. 

He’d closed the door as quick as he noticed it was open, on that first night. It hadn’t been disturbed since.

And yet, the letter he’d left for her - sealed in an envelope - was sitting there, open. For a moment he thought that maybe Marcy or Finn had opened it, something like that, but that didn’t explain why the little cat-eye glasses that normally resided on a statue in the main room were resting on top of the letter.

He picked them up, watching as the letter stayed perfectly flat on the ground. Odd. He looked around for a moment, trying to see if anything else was different, before noticing something curled next to one of the unlit candles. He picked it up, trying to ignore the scars that now criss-crossed his arms.  

It was a photo of her. One that he had lost in the wreckage, over 1000 years ago. It was Betty, the night they’d gotten engaged, taken by him. She was mid-laugh, wearing her green turtleneck, hair mussed up from the hugs he’d given her after she’d said yes. She always said that photo was unflattering, but he thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world, with the pure, unpracticed joy on her face. 

She had been watching over him. She’d saved him, healed his wounds, reminded him what she’d sacrificed for. 

He grabbed the photo and held onto it tightly, not bothering to fight the tears that fell on the photo. 

He’d survived, all because of her. Been given a third chance. 

And that somehow made his life worth a little more.