Work Text:
It's… creepy, Finn decides, in the midst of Marceline's past memories. Not the smoking towers and ground covered in all manners of ruin and junk, that he could chill with. The weird electrical rot smell that made the air feel staticy, he could also get used to if given the time. Even Marceline being only what, like seven? He could also get used to it with a little attitude tweaking.
That's not what's creepy for him, though. Not as surprising either.
It's the stranger that frightens him.
"And this!" Little Marcy exclaims, "is Hambo!" She lifts the raggedy plushie up high. "Simon got it for me!" She says proudly, and Finn's head perks up in interest, while Jake scratches the back of his hind leg.
Before either of them can ask who Simon is, as if Marceline's memory has summoned him somehow, the man himself comes around the corner from behind little Marcy. Finn feels himself freeze. The second he makes eye contact with the tall, pale man, it's like something clicks together in his mind's eye. This guy, this Simon, he's… there's something about it, something about him. He knows him, he doesn't know how, but he does.
There's a beat of heavy silence. Simon's eyes, pale blue as glacier ice and intelligent in a wise old owl sorta way, flicker over seemingly every part of Finn and Jake. This makes both boys feel threatened, and at the same time, like they are the one that poses the threat. It's intimidating. The old man's eyes narrow, just a little, when he sees the handle of Finn's sword protruding from his backpack flap. One periwinkle hand comes down to Marcy's tiny shoulder, and scoots her behind him, just a fraction. Finn knows what he's doing. He admires it. It's what he does when he's fighting a monster, or a golem, or a dragon attacking a village. He's protecting her.
It's a wash of confusion when Simon speaks. "Marceline, who are these two? Do you know them?" The man asks her gently, though he doesn't take his spectacled eyes off the intruders for a second. His voice makes Finn's skin prickle. He's heard him before, where has he heard him before?
Marceline, childishly, tries to push past him, but fails when the adult's arm just holds her in place, like a prisoner that can't possibly escape their iron bars. "They're my new buddies, Simon! They're my buds!" Simon still doesn't tear his gaze away from them, but he does tilt his head towards her.
"Your… new friends?" He asks her, his face clearly confused, but more than that, cautious. It makes Finn's skin crawl. He feels like prey, strangely enough. Like he's stumbled into the cave of some great beast, toyed with its young for just a minute too long, and now the monster stares at him with unsaid threats, sizing him up for a fight. Marceline takes the man's hand off her shoulder, and instead brings it to her own, holding it. Only three of his fingers can fit in her tiny palms. "Yeah, they're my bud-buds!" She smiles innocently. "They're like you, Simon, they're, uh— looking for stuff!"
The man doesn't respond immediately. Simon almost glares at them, steely and warning. Finn swallows, and Jake rings his hands out over and over, sweat coating the poor dog's back. After a brief staring contest, one in which both boys lose, the scruffy man lets out a tired sounding huff. Simon closes his eyes, for a moment, before opening them again, kind but exhausted behind his cracked glasses. He looks Finn in the eye, frosty blue to bright cobalt, heavy dark blue bags contrasted with the teen's smooth skin. Finn wonders how long it's been since this man has slept. He seems skinny too, and he wonders how long it's been since he'd eaten anything. A shudder goes down his back. He knows those eyes, he knows that skinny frame, and he doesn't. The look on his face is too lucid, too aware for Ice King. But it's unmistakable. The mane of white hair, the blue skin, the eyes, even his voice. He's softer around the edges, but Finn knows deep in his guts it's Ice King.
"What's your name, son?" Simon says. Finn blinks himself out of his trance, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. Simon raises an eyebrow at his stalling. Finn stumbles over his own tongue. "Uh—" he points at himself, "I'm Finn, and that's Jake." He points at Jake, who has his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
He looks to the boy, then to the dog, and allows himself to smile, it is kind and warm, though it doesn't reach his eyes. That makes Finn feel super weird, too. Ice King never smiles like that. The wizard's smiles are always crazy, a little too wide, desperate. Childishly eager to please. "I'm Simon, and, well I'm sure little Marcy's told you her name." He chuckles, ruffling the little girl's dark hair. "Ain't that right, sugarcube?" He teases in a dad-like way.
Marceline's chubby baby cheeks turn bright pink. "Simon! I'm not a baby!" She slaps his shin.
Simon laughs, it sounds nothing like Ice King, but just like him in the same breath. Ice King's laughs are almost always loud, overbearing, like he's trying too hard to sound maniacal. Simon's sound more cushion-y, more tender, he sounds so deeply and unmistakably human that it makes Finn's head do circles. Simon looks at Marcy adoringly, he moves like he might even try to pinch Marceline's cheek, but relents. "Sure you aren't, kiddo." The man looks back to Finn, before his brow furrows, his mouth making a thin line on his drawn-out face. "How old are you? If you don't mind me asking."
Finn sputters again. Why is it so hard talking to this guy? Why is he so polite? "Uhm— I'm thirteen?"
Simon's eyebrows shoot up through his forehead, his mouth agape. "You're only thirteen?!" He nearly shouts, then brings himself down while darting his eyes this way and that, scanning the treeline for anything that might've heard. "Where— I mean, how are you alone? With just your dog? Where's your group, your family, a kid can't be out here all by himself!"
Jake cuts in, "We're here to get to the memory core. You know where that might be?" He sounds impatient, and a little rude even to Finn's ears. Simon looks perturbed, still looking all too worryingly at Finn, before he blurts out a response.
"Well… Marcy, would you know where that could be, sweetie?" He asks the little girl, voice light and gentle as cotton. It makes Finn feel dizzy with whiplash. She considers it for a moment or two, holding onto hambo by a threadbare arm, before her face lights up with realisation.
She points her tiny finger at a cellar door, "that could be the way to my memory core, and it rhymes with cellar door!"
Jake gives Finn a playful punch to the thigh, "Ah yes, finally, I thought we'd be here forever! C'mon Finn, I think I smell ice cream." The dog immediately rushed to the cellar, throwing the rusted doors apart. He looked at his brother expectantly. "Finn, get your butt over here, memory core time!" He pointed an inflated, humongous finger down the doorway.
"Yeah, I'm coming." The boy said, voice a touch more sombre than usual. He was upon the doorway down, ready to jump through what looked like the inside of a giant refrigerator, before a hand meekly touched his shoulder. His head turned, and it was the pale stranger, looking at him with that same worry, comforting and familiar.
"Hey… Finn, was it?" Finn nodded. Simon took his hand off the boy's shoulder, as if he'd apologised for touching him without words. He looked the kid right in the eye, and it made Finn's heart pick up speed, but not in a bad way. It was like when his mom used to tell him something important, she'd look him right in the eye to let him know how crucial it was, like when she told him how long dinner had left in the oven, or all the things she would do to make sure the monsters under his bed wouldn't get him. "You seem like a good kid, Finn." The old man gave the boy a kind smile that made his eyes crinkle, and the boy's chest felt tight. "Just—" Simon patted Finn's shoulder, his hands felt cool as the shade under a tree, "be careful, alright? Don't get yourself hurt out there."
Finn felt his face go pink. "Yeah, uh, you too." He was hanging off the doorframe by one hand now, a black abyss underneath him, with only a small circle of light at the very bottom. Little Marcy waved at him, a smile full of baby teeth as hambo hung like a lifeline on one of her arms. Finn waved, and gave Simon a goodbye wave, too. He sheepishly waved back. He let go, and dropped out of Marceline's fridge.
"Took you long enough. Hey, look at what I found!" Jake held up a bowl of cherry ice cream, scooping it into his mouth with a ladle formed from his own hand. Finn massaged his forehead, which was glowing a dim white hue. They must be getting closer to the core.
"Hey Jake?"
"Yuh-huh?"
Finn thought about the look on the old man's face, the way his eyes reflected so much awareness, care, even worry, and all over someone he'd just met nonetheless. It left a weird taste in Finn's mouth to think that this person was the same guy who kidnapped princesses on a daily basis. The same guy that not a single person in Ooo liked, but then, that wasn't true, was it? The memory just proved him entirely wrong. Marceline liked him, and Ice King… Simon? Must've loved her back, given how they were together, so close Simon felt the need to potentially shield her from Finn. His chest got that strange, tense, tight sensation again. It didn't seem fair. "I think I'm gonna start hanging out with Ice King more."
"YOU WHAT?!"