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shwoo · 3 years ago

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I continue to love Reverseworld, even if it’s been a few years since I’ve posted anything about it. It’s also been a few years since I wrote anything about it, but I never posted this last one. Reverseworld was created by fridjitzu and coffee-elemental.

Title: Proxigean Tide Summary: It’s been a month since Betty destroyed the Ice Kingdom, and she’s still not sure how she’s feeling about her and Simon. (Also on AO3)

Lakes were so much grosser to be in than the sea. Rivers weren't great either, though they usually had faster currents that carried the grossness away before it could build up. And they were all so... stale. Without salt, the water barely tasted of anything, except maybe algae. The land dwellers called this stuff freshwater, and that was such a joke.

Sitting at the bottom of this muddy mountain lake was probably not helping Betty's mood. On the other hand, it was distracting her from what she was really upset about, which was how badly she'd lost control in her fight with Finn-Ice. It had been a couple of weeks now, but she still wasn't over it, and she couldn't even talk about it with Simon, because he didn't seem to understand what the big deal was. Or at least he didn't understand why she'd be upset.

Maybe Simon was right, and he was totally to blame for what had happened. Maybe what she decided to do had never mattered, and her dad had been right to put her in prison to keep her from hurting anyone. Maybe she'd been deluding herself by thinking anything else.

She'd been to this lake once before. Simon had taken her here when they'd first met, and she'd hoped coming back would give her some insight. But it was just a boring, gross lake, which had seemed a lot nicer last time she'd been here. Maybe it was because it wasn't winter this time. She could believe that if she tried.

What if things didn't work out with Simon? Betty didn't even know if they were still together. They hadn't spoken since the argument, and other than her dad, he was the only thing keeping her away from the Ocean Kingdom. Well, Simon, her dad, and her research, but she was running out of favours to call in to smuggle her books out of the royal library. The punishments for that were severe.

Someone plunged into the water behind her, and Betty jumped and turned around.

"Whoa, hey! Betty, right?" It was a grey-skinned land dweller that Betty vaguely recognised.

"Queen... Marceline?" She was the queen of the Monster Kingdom, a particularly powerful kingdom in Uuu's north. She was also a good friend of Simon's.

"Weird weather, huh?" said Marceline, who didn't seem bothered by being out of the air. Maybe she was using waterbreathing magic, but she was some variety of undead, so maybe she just didn't breath.

"What?" said Betty. She looked upwards. The sky had darkened since she'd come up here, and it seemed to be raining mud. That was weird. Weather was one of the few surface things she had a pretty instinctive understanding of, and usually it rained water, frozen water, or sharp implements. Not mud. She reached out to it with her powers to confirm. "is that... Ice cream?" It was cold, and it contained milk, cocoa, and sugar. It was definitely chocolate ice cream.

"Yeah, it's like this whole thing," said Marceline. "I'm trying not to think about it."

Betty could understand that.

"Hey, you look like you could use some distracting too," said Marceline. "I'm on my way to a party in the Monster Kingdom. You should totally come along." She held out her hand.

Betty narrowed her eyes at her. She had a hard time believing that Marceline had just happened to be passing when they were halfway up a mountain. Had Simon sent her to check up on her? No, that wasn't his style. Besides, there was no way Marceline didn't know what Betty had done to the Ice Kingdom. Most of Uuu knew by now. She had enough motivation on her own to want to check up on her.

But Marceline was right that she needed to take her mind off things. And even if it was a trap, it was better than staying in this muddy and increasingly sugary lake. "Sure."

Betty rolled her watery covering into another room and leaned against the wall. Being on land was exhausting. Gravity was everywhere, always trying to pull her water into a puddle and suffocate her in the air. She was getting better at fighting it, but she doubted she'd ever be completely comfortable up here.

Having to deal with gravity was sort of distracting her from her problems, but the party itself was a bust. She'd tried networking with Slime Princess, but hadn't got much further than agreeing that they were both princesses before she'd given up. What did it matter if she had good relations with other rulers? She was just going to break stuff and hurt people. What if next time, she hurt someone she liked? What if she hurt Simon?

This room was small, but it seemed nice and empty. It wasn't a huge party, and mostly seemed to be happening in the living room and kitchen. She doubted anyone was going to come looking for her. And there was what appeared to be a cage on the far side of the room, with some sort of bird sitting on a perch. Maybe she could pet it. She'd heard that was a good excuse to be alone at a party.

As she got closer to the cage, the bird resolved itself into a vaguely bird-shaped lump of black wool and white spider silk. It had a piece of plastic stuck into the head part as a beak.

"Whoa," she said. She reached in and petted it tentatively. "Close enough?"

There was a gasp behind her. "You like my pet bird? His name is Gunter, but he's not a penguin. He's a petrel."

Betty jumped, and turned around. If she'd been underwater, she would have known there was someone behind her. But she was on land. She kept forgetting she had to rely on her eyes and ears on land.

The speaker was a giant, fuzzy spider that Betty vaguely remembered being introduced to earlier. His name was Jumping Spider, and he was the party's host.

"I couldn't get a penguin because all the penguins talk," continued Jumping Spider.

Betty wasn't sure what to say. "Uh... So... You like petrels?" She was surprised he knew about them. Petrels were seabirds that rarely travelled to the land, and in Betty's mostly Simon-based experience, land dwellers usually only had the most basic knowledge of the ocean.

"Seabirds are cool," said Jumping Spider. "You don't like parties?" he added. "Me neither."

Betty frowned. "This is your party, dude." She couldn't figure out what this guy's angle was. Maybe he was just an idiot.

"Yeah," said Jumping Spider. "You know who does like parties? Queen Marceline likes parties. Are you friends with Queen Marceline?"

"I don't know," said Betty. "I just met her. She seems... nice?"

"She's nice," Jumping Spider agreed. "She's not very good at being a queen. She always parties instead of solving problems." He laughed, like that was a joke.

Betty frowned again. "What do you mean?" Simon hadn't mentioned that, but now that she thought about it, he'd never really talked about Marceline's queening at all. He always just described good times he'd had with her that Betty hadn't been there for.

"I dunno," said Jumping Spider.

She should have expected that. "Look, sometimes nothing you do matters. Why shouldn't you party?" She knew she wasn't talking about Marceline anymore, but it felt good to finally say it out loud.

"Uh..." said Jumping Spider. "What?"

"If you're just gonna break stuff and hurt people, why shouldn't you party and not do anything?" said Betty.

"Ohhh," said Jumping Spider. "You can't do anything? Wow. That must be really bad for you."

He didn't sound all that sincere, but it was hard to tell with the weird way he spoke. What was more important to Betty was that he hadn't told her that of course what she did mattered, or that what had happened wasn't her fault.

Validation from an idiot was still validation. And he'd picked up that she'd been talking about herself, so maybe he wasn't as much of an idiot as she'd thought. "I mean, I nearly killed Finn-Ice. Simon likes him! I think." As she spoke, she gestured out the window at the Ice Kingdom, which was still melted and flooded. And, for some reason, glowing, although Betty didn't think she could claim responsibility for that. "And Simon thinks it's his fault! Everything I do is someone else's fault. This is just like before. Why did I even bother to leave home? I don't know what I'm gonna do if me and Simon have to break up." Maybe they weren't the mildly star-crossed soulmates she'd always thought they were.

"Simon is nice," volunteered Jumping Spider.

"Yeah," said Betty. "He's nice. But does he have to blame himself for everything? I know, he had a bad childhood, but I had a bad childhood too!" She hesitated. "But I don't really know anyone else on the surface. And I'd do anything for him." She sighed. "I guess I'm just jealous. He's got such a great future, and I... don't."

No, she wasn't jealous. She was... frustrated? She felt like nothing had changed since she'd left home, and nothing was going to change. She was dangerous and isolated, and she was going to stay dangerous and isolated, forever.

"You're a princess," said Jumping Spider. "You can be like Marceline! In the future. Right?"

"Partying and never solving problems?" said Betty.

"Yeah!" said Jumping Spider.

Betty still couldn't really read him. "I can't go home, man. If I went home, dad would definitely make me go back to the tank. I'm too dangerous! I just proved that."

She thought about it for another second, and then said "Actually... It would matter if I... And I'd have more responsibility... and the library..." She couldn't help smiling.

Jumping Spider gasped, and said "You're going to go back and overthrow your dad!"

Betty didn't know how he'd got that from what she'd said, but she said "That's right! Thanks for giving me the idea, Jumping Spider."

Jumping Spider stared at her for a second, then said "We're friends" in a relevatory tone.

Betty opened her mouth to say that they weren't, and that they'd just met, but she found she didn't want to upset him. "Yeah. We're friends." Maybe it was time she met more surface people.

The Ocean Kingdom wasn't as big as the Monster Kingdom, but it was a lot friendlier looking, in Jumping Spider's opinion. And prettier, too. He liked the wavy houses on the city outskirts. You didn't get things like that on land.

Breathing underwater was pretty similar to breathing on land, except he'd needed to create a bubble of air with silk and fit it around his abdomen first. He'd heard about sea spiders, and thought maybe that meant spiders could breathe anything without any problems, but apparently not. Betty, who was very smart, had told him about rivers spiders that made diving abdomen-helmets out of silk, so he'd just done that. It was weird, but it was actually a little easier to breathe like this than normal.

As they entered the centre of the city, a silver-scaled fish swam up to them, looked them over, and yelled "It's the princess! The princess is back! With a horrible monster from the surface!"

Jumping Spider looked around for the horrible monster. Maybe it was that weird wiggly-legged starfish scuttling towards them? But that seemed a bit judgemental.

Betty had covered her ears. She uncovered them. "Hi." She looked around at the small crowd that was developing, and added "If any of you guys even think the word "kidnapping", I'm going back to the surface."

"It's the king!" called the same fish as before. "Alone! With a spoon!"

Everyone turned to look at a long-tailed merman with a crown. He looked pretty angry, and he was holding a small spoon.

Betty smiled, a little nervously, and said "Your majesty, hi. Did I spoil your desert?"

The king looked at the spoon in his hand, and dropped it. It slowly sank down to the seafloor. "Don't give me that snark, young lady. So you finally learned your lesson?"

"No," said Betty.

"I kept your tank the way you left it," the king began, then said "What do you mean, no?"

"I'm not coming back with my tail between my legs," said Betty.

The king looked puzzled. His mouth moved as he looked at Betty, then at Jumping Spider.

"It's a land saying," said Betty. "Never mind. I'm not here to go back to jail."

"It's not jail!" the king protested. "It's a developmental tool endorsed by several child psychologists that allows you to explore your nascent abilities in a safe environment!"

"Whatever," said Betty. "I've "developmental-ed" beyond that. I'm here to challenge you for the throne."

A gasp went up from the crowd. Jumping Spider looked around at them, and gasped as well, a little late.

"No you're not," said the king. "You know the penalty for failure."

"What's the penalty?" said Jumping Spider. Nobody had said anything to him about a penalty.

Betty didn't seem to have heard him. "Yes. I know the penalty."

"What's the penalty?" said Jumping Spider again.

"Exile," said the king. "The penalty for a failed challenge is exile. She has no idea--"

"You're gonna be exiled?" said Jumping Spider. That was pretty harsh. If Betty won, the king would lose his throne, and if she lost, he'd lose his home? Why did they even have a law like that?

"No, not him, me!" said Betty. "If I win, he loses the throne, but if I lose, I can't ever come back here."

"But..." said Jumping Spider. "You're from here. That's a bad law." They didn't have laws like that at home. He thought. He could never remember what was a real law and what people did just because they thought it was a good idea.

"It's meant as a deterrent," said the king. "But it's obviously not working. You're being ridiculous, Betty."

"I know the law, dad," said Betty. "I'm an adult now, and I'm first in the line of succession! You can't refuse a challenge from your primary heir."

"I knew I should have raised the age of majority," the king muttered. "Betty, listen to me. You're my daughter. I don't want to have to exile you. Stop this, and come home."

"I'll see you at the Waters of Proving and Postulating," said Betty, and swam away from the crowd.

Jumping Spider swam after her. "Bye, your majesty!" he called.

After a few silent seconds, Jumping Spider realised that the challenge might not be the intense video game tournament he was envisioning. "What are you gonna do in the challenge?" he asked.

"Oh," said Betty. "Regular ocean stuff. Underwater wrestling."

Jumping Spider's mental image was replaced by ostentatious muscley men hitting each other with folding chairs. "Oh, that's cool."

"Dad is better than me," said Betty. "But I know I'm stronger. I was stronger even before I left." She sighed. "The last person I fought was Simon's heart, and he was a joke."

Jumping Spider assumed that was a metaphor, although he wasn't smart enough to understand what it meant. But it was probably very deep and romantic.

"But, I've been practising," Betty continued. "I know his special moves. They've been the same since I was little. I think I can beat him now."

She didn't sound completely certain.

"What will do if you lose and get exiled away from home forever?" said Jumping Spider. He'd assumed that Betty would definitely win, until she'd said all that.

Betty shrugged. "I guess I'll get really good at partying."

"Oh, okay." He was glad the stakes were so low.

Simon dug some stray ice out from behind his ear. That really could have gone better. But at least the Ice Kingdom was safe. Still melted and flooded, but safe.

"That was algebraic!" said Finn-Ice. "We should hang out more often!" He was walking next to Simon. Gunter was on Simon's other side, and Marceline was floating above and a little ahead.

"Sorry about all that," said Gunter. "I don't know what I was thinking."

"Don't blame yourself, Gunter!" said Finn-Ice cheerfully. "Blame Jake! He's been a very bad boy."

"Maybe we shouldn't have let him keep the crown," said Simon. Gunter had obviously scared Jake when he'd put on the crown, but despite Gunter's apologies, Simon could tell he'd mostly been bluffing. If Jake was smart enough to figure that out, there could be problems.

"It's a good thing Cool Zombie Dog Princess was there," said Finn-Ice.

Marceline gave an embarrassed laugh. "I should have been here from the start. I just-- woah!" A flying, disembodied ice tentacle smacked into her, and she grabbed it in a chokehold.

Simon looked up, and decided it was probably a one-man fight. "Finn-Ice, listen. I know you're homeless right now until Jake finishes rebuilding the Ice Kingdom." He didn't think Jake should have to be the one to rebuild it, but Finn-Ice shouldn't either, and Simon couldn't see any end to that conversation that didn't involve offering to put on the crown and rebuild it himself. Maybe he was a coward, but he couldn't bear to even consider that.

Her dad rushed her from out of the gloom, and she stretched out her hands and turned the current against him. He started to negate it with his own power, but not soon enough to stop him from going flying. He slammed against the opposite side of the arena, and she swam after him, eager to press her advantage.

"I've been sleeping rough," Finn-Ice replied. "Living off the land. Settling down wherever my feet take me."

Simon was pretty sure Finn-Ice had been spending most of his time in seedy Monster Kingdom hotels, but didn't say so. "Well, I feel awful about what happened, and me and Gunter want you to know that you can always stay with us if you need to."

Gunter wasn't as okay with that as Simon pretended, but he'd reluctantly agreed when they'd talked about it earlier.

Finn-Ice gave him a strange look. "Uh... Why?"

Simon pushed down his annoyance, and said "Because you're homeless."

"No, I mean, why do you feel terrible?" said Finn-Ice. "It wasn't your fault. It was, uhh..." He looked up at the sky for a second. "Your crazy ex's fault! Yeah!"

"She's not crazy!" said Simon, louder than he'd intended. "Or my ex! We just had a fight. Okay?" He didn't know how to make things better without apologising, which she didn't seem to want him to do. He wanted to fix things, but he had no idea how.

"Ooh, riiiiight," said Finn-Ice. "It was your sane, current girlfriend's fault."

"The whole thing it was my idea," said Simon. He didn't really want to go into the dreams that had sparked all this. He was beginning to think he shouldn't even have told Gunter. "I tried to tell her I was sorry for messing everything up, but she just got mad at me."

Finn-Ice frowned. "You told her that? No wonder she got mad. Why didn't you tell me, your best friend and closest confidant in the whole of Uuu and also the entire universe and who you think of as, like, a cool uncle," he took a deep breath, "earlier?"

"You were there!" said Simon.

"Man," continued Finn-Ice. "You need to talk someone who knows about this kinda jazz. Maybe Simone."

"Finn, I don't need to talk to a girl version of me that you made up," said Simon. He'd thought being away from the crown made Finn-Ice a little more lucid, but today he was as confused as ever.

"If she was here, she'd say something like..." Finn-Ice frowned, and put on a falsetto. "'Stop calling your girlfriend crazy, she's just messed up in the melon from spending her entire childhood in a tank and she doesn't like it when you take credit for something she did even if it was something bad.'" He took another deep breath, and went back to his normal voice. "Wow! So wise!"

Simon made a face at Gunter.

She struggled in her dad's grip. He'd wrapped his tail around her, and was squeezing the water from her lungs. She couldn't breathe. If she didn't break out soon, she'd pass out, and he'd win by default. She couldn't breathe.

Gunter did not make a face back. He looked thoughtful.

"What?" said Simon.

"She... I mean he... He has a point," said Gunter.

Simon made another face.

"I didn't want to say anything," said Gunter. "I thought it might upset you."

"I'm plenty upset already, Gunter," said Simon.

Gunter looked worried. "The fact is... You do tend to... Make... No, no, I mean, you think... you think everything that goes wrong is your fault."

"It usually is!" Simon protested.

Gunter shook his head. "You can sometimes... put yourself at the centre of events that." He cleared his throat. "Don't involve you."

Simon managed to figure out what Gunter was avoiding saying. "You think I'm selfish too?" First Betty, and now Gunter. Maybe they were right. He really was no hero.

There was a loud shattering noise from above, and small pieces of ice rained down on them. Marceline floated back down to ground level. "Of course we don't think you're selfish. Right, Gunter? And Simon, Betty's gonna be fine. She was still a little messed up this morning, so I invited her to a party. I think she was into it."

Simon didn't think that would help, but didn't say so. He couldn't trust himself to know anything about Betty's reactions anymore.

"Oh, no, I don't mean to say you're selfish," said Gunter. "More like... the opposite of selfish, what's the opposite of selfish?"

"Buybird!" said Finn-Ice immediately.

"No, no, that's not it..." said Gunter. "You... you only do it when it's something bad."

Simon thought for a second. Gunter thought he was... selfish about assuming blame? That he took responsibility for things that weren't really his fault? That did sound like something he'd do. But he couldn't see why that was a bad thing. Nobody liked taking the blame.

Although... Simon suddenly remembered Betty ranting about how she'd never got to do anything herself until she'd moved out. He remembered her burning her hand in an experiment, and excitedly telling him about it afterwards. He remembered her trying to fix some delicate, cursed scientific equipment that had recently come into her possession, destroying it, and shrugging it off. He wouldn't call her crazy, or even "messed up in the melon," but she did seem like having the chance to try more than she minded failing.

She hadn't had to focus her powers like this in so long. She was exhausted, and yet her dad seemed fine, from what she could see of him in the dimness. He was faking. He had to be. She was ready to collapse, and she was stronger than him. If he was as tired as she was, she could use the last of her strength to pin him and win the match. If he wasn't...

What choice did she have? She raised her hands, and lowered them again, bringing the weight of five hundred feet of water directly onto her dad.

He was still pretty sure he was at fault for putting the idea of fighting Finn-Ice in her head, but if Betty wanted to take the blame for the stuff she'd done, maybe Simon should let her. He didn't understand why it would upset her, but maybe he just had to understand that it did. "Guys," he said, "I gotta go apologise to Betty."

"Okay, I'll do it!" said Finn-Ice suddenly. "I'll room with you in your treehouse of wonders!" He jumped into the air like he was trying to fly, fell on his face, got up, and ran away. "Whoosh!"

Marceline watched him go, and said "Doesn't he need a key?"

"He already has one," said Simon distractedly. "Marcy, did you say you saw her today?"

Simon wasn't surprised to find that Betty wasn't at the party anymore. She wasn't a very social person. What was surprising was that she'd apparently left with Jumping Spider, who Simon was pretty sure she'd never even met until today.

But that still wasn't as surprising as where she'd gone, according to the note Jumping Spider had left on his birdcage.

"Why would she go back to the Ocean Kingdom?" said Simon, as he and Marceline stared at the note. Gunter had gone home to remind Finn-Ice he didn't need to keep breaking their windows to get in.

Had Betty given up? If Simon had done that to her by blaming himself... Wait, should he feel bad about that or not? He'd have to ask her when he saw her. If he saw her. When he saw her.

Marceline picked up the note and sniffed it. "Hm. It's still fresh. Maybe we can catch up with them."

Despite the situation, Simon had to laugh. "Marcy, you can't smell that." She had a lot of powers, but enhanced smell was not one of them.

"Hey, you don't know everything about me," said Marceline, with a smile that made it obvious she was joking. "But we better go after them."

As they swam closer to the Ocean Kingdom and there was still no sign of Betty, Simon finally couldn't even pretend to be distracted by the jokes and anecdotes Marceline was trying to distract him with.

"I can't believe Betty went back home. If her dad put her back in the tank..." He clenched his fists. He'd been struggling with his temper a lot lately, but right now, that seemed like a good thing.

"Try not to cause an international incident, dude," said Marceline, smiling.

With an effort, Simon smiled as well. "I'll tell them I'm not a viscount first." He hadn't been back to the Ocean Kingdom since his first visit, and he'd never been clear on whether he was allowed back. It was his fault the library had been destroyed.

Or maybe it was Betty's fault.

They made it through the city outskirts, and into the more solid city centre. Nobody stopped them, or even seemed to care they were there.

"Wow, this place has changed since the last time I was here," said Marceline, looking around. "What happened to the brain coral farms? I swear there used to be brain coral farms." She pointed at a patchwork of green and orange fields of what appeared to be seaweed.

Simon tried to remember what Betty had told him about Ocean Kingdom history as they swam up the side of the palace to the main entrance. She'd said something about ecology and climate change... Something about ocean currents? "Brain coral hasn't grown here for, uh... three hundred years."

"Man," said Marceline. "I've been slacking off."

They reached the top of the palace to find two sharkmen guarding the entrance, just like last time Simon had been here.

"Hey!" said one of them. "How are you here already? We haven't even left yet!" He looked at his partner. "Did we already leave and come back?"

The other guard shook his head.

"Weird," said the first sharkman. He looked at Simon. "You've been summoned. You can just go in. You too, queeny."

Simon and Marceline looked at each other, and went in.

"Do you think she's in jail again?" said Simon, as they floated down the main shaft to the throne room. "Why would her dad summon me?"

"Whatever happens, I got your back, Simon," said Marceline.

Simon smiled. Obviously she wasn't that worried about international incidents.

Simon was prepared for a fight when he entered the throne room. He wasn't prepared to see Betty on the throne, and the king floating behind her, looking disgruntled.

"Simon!" said Betty. "You came! Oh, hi, Marceline."

The Ocean King coughed. Or was he just Betty's dad now? He and Betty both had crowns, but only Betty was on the throne. Had she actually usurped him? How? Why?

Betty rolled her eyes. "Queen Marceline."

"Hey," said Marceline. "Looks like you ranked up last time I saw you."

Betty shrugged and said "I won a wrestling match."

"I let her win," said Betty's dad.

"No you didn't," said Betty, almost before he'd finished talking.

Simon had spent a lot of time thinking about what he'd say to Betty the next time he saw her, but he'd never expected her to overthrow her father and become the queen of the ocean. That made every one of his ideas obsolete. Maybe he should just be direct. "Betty, I'm sorry."

"What for?" said Betty carefully.

Simon sighed. "I'm sorry for trying to apologise for things I didn't do. It was wrong of me."

Betty sat up straighter. "Wait, really? Simon..." She cleared her throat. "You're not mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you?" said Simon. She had much more right to be upset at him.

Betty started to say something, then seemed to change her mind. "Listen, Simon, I'm gonna be really busy from now on and I have to know. Are we still together?"

"Y... Yeah!" said Simon. "Yeah, of course!" This was so much less painful than he'd thought it was going to be. But he didn't know what to think about her becoming queen. He'd been a king once, and it hadn't agreed with him. Would Betty still be allowed to do all the things she wanted to do? What if she changed her mind? Would abdicating put her dad back on the throne?

A silk-clad Jumping Spider entered the room in a panic. "Betty! I forgot! Who was I supposed to summon?"

"It's okay," said Betty. She pointed at Simon. "He's here already."

"Hey, Jumping Spider," said Marceline. "You defecting to the Ocean Kingdom?"

Betty's dad stared her down. "Is that a question or a threat?"

"Glob, you Ocean Kingdom guys are so official," Marceline complained. "Jumping Spider can do what he wants."

"Simon," said Betty. "I... have a question for you. I know what you do is important... I can get any book you want from the library... Queening is gonna be hard..."

"Yeah?" said Simon, who had no idea what she was getting at. She couldn't be breaking up with him, could she? After she'd just asked if they were still together? She couldn't be that cruel.

"Do you wanna move in with me?" Betty said it all in one breath, like she wanted to get it over with.

"What?!" said her dad.

Betty was going to keep Simon permanently off-balance if she kept this up. He stammered for a bit before managing to say "I-I can't yet. Sorry, Betty." He couldn't articulate his exact reasons, but part of it was that he didn't want to get so serious right after making up from their first real fight.

Betty looked disappointed, but didn't seem that surprised. "Are you sure? I think I've figured out how to set up a permanent water breathing situation. How attached are you to breathing air...?"

"There's too much I gotta do on land," said Simon, although right now he couldn't think of a single thing. "And Finn-Ice-- I just invited him to stay at my place." He was about to add that it was his fault Finn-Ice lost his home, but stopped himself just in time. "Maybe in a couple years." The idea was tempting, but in a potential future way, not in a right now way.

Betty took a deep breath. "It's okay. We're not much further apart than we were before."

"Good," said her dad. "You might be queen now, but you're still my daughter, and you're not throwing your life away for some fickle, land-dwelling human."

Betty snorted. "Simon would never abandon me. I told you before, I love him, and this time it's true."

Simon was touched. "I... I love you too, Betty."

#Adventure Time #atimers #Reverseworld #fanfiction #Simon Petrikov #Betty Grof #Shwoo's Writing #Scientific terms: For when titling it after the common term is a bit too on the nose #I had to put in the fight scene so there was at least some action going on #Not that there's much action going on in the episode it's based on #Oh mein Gott zees is eine Story full of Itäliktypen

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