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The crash isn’t what wakes up Morty.
He’s a light sleeper, but he’s adjusted to laying through bumps in the night--the smashing of wine bottles, yells from the kitchen as his parents argue into the night, floorboards that groan under the footsteps of Summer’s friends sneaking up to her room. He’s used to constant noise, and though it may jerk him into a half-awake, groggy state, he can quickly fall back asleep if he stuffs his head under his blanket and doesn’t let himself twitch too much.
So, the sudden, deep-rooted crash from downstairs doesn’t bother him. Sure, it’s louder than what’s used to--a rumbling that tears through the house foundation harsher than the typical yells or thrown bottles--but it’s fine. He curls his knees into his stomach and pulls his blanket over his eyes.
The rapid-fire of footsteps is what worries him. They rush through the hall, passing his door and moving downstairs. There’s only two detectable sets--which means at least one of his parents was asleep, previously. He furrows his eyebrows.
Summer rarely gets up during the night. If his parents are the ones moving, then, the crash wasn’t a result of their fighting. Maybe one of Summers friends tripped coming in? But, then Summer would be coming down, too, after hearing their parents. If one of their parents was already downstairs, then Summer would’ve warned her friend, and there wouldn’t have been a crash in the first place.
A sickly feeling curls in Morty’s throat. He pushes his blanket down to his legs, lifting his body up and blinking away the lingering sleep. His room is shrouded in darkness, moonlight absent. He squints to adjust, and swallows, staring at his door.
After a few beats of step-less silence, there’s another more solid burst of noise, too distant to connect as anything specific in Morty’s sleep-hazed mind.
A large, overwhelming part of him wants to go back to sleep--to put on his headphones, curl under a weighted blanket, squeeze his eyes shut and deal with it in the morning. His fingers twitch against his blanket, gaze scrolling to the end table where he knows the headphones sit.
He slides his legs over the bed, instead, moving to the door, mind and body fighting in two separate directions.
He needs to know if his family is okay. He needs to know what’s going on, needs to protect them, in whatever way his undersized, five-foot body is capable.
He’s careful going down the stairs. He braces himself against the wall on the tenth step down, knowing it carries a forever prominent squeak when pressed on in the center. The noise continues to swell as he pads through the entrance room, and on his way past the door, he grabs an umbrella from the holder by the door, fingers curling around the worn handle.
The kitchen light has been flicked on, gold leaking through an open archway. Morty hesitantly crosses onto the tile, unnerved to find the room empty. The noise, which Morty could only process as blank white noise, clears up to words, voices--yelling, arguing. There’s the distinct high-pitched anger of Dad, the occasional murmur of his sister and a slurred drawl of Mom, who sounds weak, shaky in a way she never does, even when drunk.
Hesitant, umbrella drawn closed and up, he slips across the tile and peaks over the archway leading into the hallway. The only light is that of the kitchen, but he can see his sister’s tall form, back facing Morty. She doesn’t have her phone with her--seeing her head up makes his stomach twist uncomfortably.
Morty steps half-behind Summer, umbrella lowered to point at the ground. He peaks into the garage, and his eyebrows lift.
The garage is dark, strains of light leaking from half-burnt embers and what little kitchen glow Morty and Summer don’t take up. His parents stand in the center of it, along with a third man Morty doesn’t recognize. Mom’s face is flushed, body wobbling in the way it does when she’s been drinking, whilst Dad’s arms are crossed, body stiff as he points at the stranger, shouting, voice harsh with an anger bleeding into it.
Oh, and there’s a spaceship crashed through the roof. Morty should’ve noticed that first, he thinks.
Morty rubs the crust from an eye with his free hand, blinking at Summer, who’s noticed his presence, and is watching him with lidded eyes.
“Summer?” Morty murmurs, keeping his voice low as to not draw attention to himself. Summer sends him a look, raising a hand to make a shushing motion against her lips, and then raising her eyebrows, jerking her head to gesture at the scene in front of them. Morty frowns, but when offered no further explanation, he relents, keeping quiet with the umbrella aimed at his feet.
The stranger, the man stuck between his parents, is staring into Morty. Not at him, not towards him; through him, like he can see Morty’s life, his fears and wants. His gaze is steely and disinterested, yet it picks Morty apart with an attentiveness Morty’s never felt aimed at himself. Morty flinches, drawing into himself and looking at the floor, any noise made drowned out by his parents.
“He could’ve burnt the house down!”
“He wasn’ tryin’ to!”
“It was reckless! Are you drunk?!”
“And wha’ if I am, Jerry?!”
They go back and forth, talking over each other--like usual, they probably don’t even hear each other, uncaring for the other’s words. They’re focused entirely on yelling for the sake making noise.
Summer, seemingly, has enough of it, sighing--something Morty can only hear due to their proximity--and reaching for the garage light switch, flicking the light on and off a few times in a repetitive clicking motion. It takes a few beats, but their parents die down, pulling away from where they’d gotten in each other’s faces to stare at Summer, and in turn, Morty, with irriation and mild surprise. It’s as if they’d forgotten anyone else was there.
“This is, like, great, you guys,” Summer raises her voice, “but it’s two in the morning, and I have school tomorrow. What the hell is going on?”
Morty shuffles a bit further behind Summer, gaze flickering up to his parents, who look at Summer, then him, then back at Summer, and then at the stranger standing a bit away from them, who has his hands casually pocketed in his lab coat.
“Um,” Mom starts, voice slurring, “yeah, lets--’s late. Summer, Jerry, can I--can I talk--can I talk to you… two…”
Morty looks at Summer, who’s expression mimics his mood: confused, irritated, tired. He tries to send her a smile, but Summer doesn’t look reassured.
“M--Morty,” Mom calls as Summer slips down the stairs, “c--can you show Dad to the guest room?”
“Dad?” Morty looks at his dad.
His dad rolls his eyes, jerking his head at the third figure. “Your mother means him, Morty.”
“Oh,” Morty says dumbly, swallowing and attempting a nod. “O--Okay. Sh--Sh--Should I come back, o--or…?”
“Y’ can go to bed, Mort--y,” Mom mutters, grabbing Summers arm and pulling her closer. Morty quietly scowls at being left out, but says nothing, having expected the answer. He doesn’t know why he bothered to ask.
No words are shared as Morty and the stranger step through the house, Morty leading, knuckles white against the umbrella handle. He holds it in front of him with both hands, very aware of the fact it won’t help him if the stranger does decide to do anything. He reeks of liquor, the smell drowning out everything else, smoke and oil from the crash nothing but an afterthought. His footsteps are heavy, breaths shallow, little hums and groans following more strenuous motions.
Morty pauses by the guest room door, directly across from his own bedroom, flicking on the hallway light. The stranger hisses in discomfort.
“Sorry,” Morty tries, tiredly, voice dragging with it’s natural squeakiness. “I shou--ould have w--w--warned y--you.”
“‘s alrig’t,” the stranger groans, rubbing at his face. Morty can see him better now that they face each other: his hair is distinctly blue, tangled in unkept directions. His skin sags, his eyes hang with dark bags, and his entire body trembles under the ashy sweater that clings to his chest and neck.
“Um,” Morty focuses on the bridge of his nose, ever-aware of the eyes that latch onto his own, “there’s o--only a cot, right n--now, um, ‘cause w--we don’t have a… a lot of people o--over--”
“That’s fi--” the stranger cuts himself off with a burp, “--ne, kid. Thanks.”
“Y--Yeah,” Morty squeaks, shuffling his hands together, “um, there’s blankets in the closet, if you need, um, m--more blankets, o--o--or, um, my room’s right there,” he points at the door across from them, weakly, “if you need, uh, anything.”
The stranger stares at him with that same assessing gaze held in the garage. He seems disinterested, casual, with his hands in his lab coat and his shoulders slouched. Morty feels like he’s burning, like he’s a rodent in a lab, being fed little bits of context and scrutinized for results, notes jotted down with a sharp pen on scratchy clip-boarded paper, sound drawing unimportant tears to his eyes.
He swallows the thickness growing in his throat. “W--Well, um, goodnight,” his voice breaks as he shuffles into his bedroom door. He goes to close the door, facing the hallway, and the stranger speaks.
“Rick.”
Morty pauses. “W--What?”
“My n--” another burp, “--ame, it’s Rick.”
“Oh,” Morty straightens, “…um, thanks, Rick. I--I’m Morty.”
Rick grunts, locking the door to the guest room as he slips inside. Morty stares at the closed door for a moment, feeling distinctly like an unknown switch has been flipped inside of him. Like something’s been slotted into place somewhere he didn’t realize he needed tending to.
Rick’s relation to the family is explained over a thin breakfast. Mom explains, forehead pressed to the heel of her palm, likely suffering from a hangover, that Rick is her father, making him Summer and Morty’s grandfather.
Morty’s never been given much information about his mom’s side of the family. He knows that his grandma Diane died a month after his birth, when his parents were just turning twenty. He’d never gotten to meet her, but there’s a singular photo of him and her together, framed on a side table in the living room. Platinum hair and a soft face, thick smile lines and glittering eyes. Morty often stills to stare at the glassy frame with knot of emotion whenever they cross paths.
Mom had never liked talking about his grandfather. Morty learned from a young age to avoid the topic, less he become a too-small shoulder to cry on. Now that Rick’s in front of them, hunched next to Morty at their dining room table, Mom is more than happy to string together tales of his science and sing praises of her childhood birthdays.
Morty may not be the most socially adept, but he still notices the disdain his dad has for Rick. He keeps his head down as Mom talks, eyebrows furrowed in the way they do during phase one of their fights, where they’re frozen in fiery spots as they aim passive-aggressive snarks at each other. He doesn’t say anything, to Morty’s silent relief, letting Mom and Rick quietly chat.
Morty tries to avoid the tension, and in turn, Rick, which ends up being a lot easier than he had expected.
He figured it’d be more noticeable, that the grandfather who abandoned his family, who left his grandma a widow and Mom an alcoholic with abandonment issues is finally here, present in their lives, ready to engage in the life he ditched on when Mom was younger than Morty is now.
It’s not. He’s there physically, mainly at breakfast and dinner--always in the same spot at the far right corner, tucked between Mom and Morty--but once he finishes and retreats to the garage, he’s gone.
It’s like Rick’s avoiding them. It doesn’t make sense to Morty: Rick chose to come back, to reenter Mom’s life, reenter their lives. Morty figures he’d be excited to reconnect with them, but, it’s like he’d rather do anything else.
Dad’s spending the Saturday at the office, working overtime, whilst Mom and Summer are at the mall, having a ‘girls day out’--whatever that means--leaving Morty home alone, with Rick.
He’s fine with that. He figures he and Rick will stay out of each others way. Rick’s made it clear he feels no urge to connect with his grandkids, and Morty’s fine with that. It’s what he’s used to, at least, and the familiarity is comforting.
He’s laying stomach-down on his bed, staring blankly at a homework sheet that has nothing but doodles and the occasional memorized formula scribbled on, when his door is slammed open. Morty jumps, wincing at the sound of drywall cracking against the sharp force of the doorknob.
“M--Morty--”
Morty blinks at Rick, who’s standing in the doorway, a focused look on his face with his hand splayed palm-down along the door.
“Grandpa Rick?”
“M--Morty, come on, grandpa’s gotta--” he burps, something Morty’s long noted is a natural part of his speech, “--gotta, he’s gotta show y--you something, Morty.”
“Um,” hesitantly, Morty begins to roll off his bed, “okay.”
Rick grabs his shoulder when Morty’s close enough, pushing him across the hall and into the guest room--Rick’s Room, now, he figures--blindly closing the door behind them. The space looks about the same it did before his arrival, excluding a few trinkets scattered on the shelves and thickly-layered papers strung up on the walls. Some are photos, some are posters, most of them in a foreign language Morty doesn’t recognize, let alone understand.
Rick shoulders past him. He’s drunk. Rick and Mom act similar when drunk--they’re uncoordinated, voices slurred, and smell strongly of whatever they’ve been drinking. Rick still seems sober enough to function on his own, despite the dribble coming down his chin and the the stumble lining his steps.
“M--Morty, I--I wanna… I wanna show you this, Mo--Morty,” Rick grumbles, reaching up to pick some sort of gun-shaped device from a high-up bookshelf. Rick has height on him, at least a foot or so, and he still has to lift himself up on the fronts of his feet to reach the shelf. “This… Mo--” a burp, “--orty, do you like… d--do you like space, Morty?”
Morty perks at that, lacing his fingers together by his chest to keep from fiddling with them. “I d--do, yeah, Rick, I really, y’know, I… I really do, uh, I was just reading about this new planet they discovered a few years a--ago, uh, Gliese 50… something, I think--”
“Don’t care,” Rick interrupts through a burp, fiddling with some settings on the device, “but, listen, Morty, y--you’re gonna love this, Morty.”
Morty quiets, twisting his thumbs around each other as Rick messes with the device. There’s some beeping, and then Rick aims the gun at the ground, pushing back the trigger.
Morty steps back as green leaks onto the ground. He’s confused, at first, face scrunching as he tries to process what he’s seeing. The green spins in a circular shape, white dotting the face of it. Different shades mix into the twisting mess of color, limes and muted navies blurring together.
Morty chews on his lip, knuckles cracking as he fiddles with them, despite his attemps to keep still. “W--What is--”
“It’s a portal, Mo--” a burp, “--orty. Thought that… thought that w--was obvious.”
Morty looks at him, then at the portal, gaze moving back and forth. “W--Well, I just, I didn’t think, uh, stuff like this w--was real, y--y’know? I didn’t, y’know, think w--we had the technology--”
“Y--Y--You can save your praise for later,” Rick grabs Morty’s wrist, panic flying up Morty’s stomach as Rick pulls him forward and towards the portal, the suddenness of the movement the only thing keeping him from digging his heels into the carpet.
It feels like he’s falling, air leaving his chest--but only for a second, a sliver of time so short you can’t properly describe it. When they land, Morty lands on his ass, exhaling sharply to regain air. Rick lands on his feet, legs briefly bending to adjust. He blinks down at Morty with an almost amused look.
Morty jerks his head up, watching the portal shrink in on itself, a few drops of green slipping away like spilt water, only to pop to nothing midair. Morty scrambles to his feet, grabbing Rick’s sleeve, panic making him lightheaded, fingers trembling.
“Rick!” His voice cracks, “the portal, it disappeared, how--ow are w--we gonna--”
“Relax, kid,” Rick grumbles, shrugging out of Morty’s grasp, “i--it’s supposed to--to disappear, okay? I--I can just shoot another one when we leave.”
Morty doesn’t believe him, but forces a shaky nod because Rick’s the one who can make fucking portals, he doesn’t have much of an option. Rick lets go of Morty’s wrist, and Morty returns to twisting his fingers together, head twitching in little movements as he assesses their surroundings.
They aren’t anywhere Morty recognizes. They stand above a cresting valley, the sky hued a deep shade of indigo, hued yellow sketching in from the horizon. The sun dips over a mountain horizon, dying rays leaking past large spikes of rock and casting a bright gold over misty blades of grass, dew droplets adding an almost glitter to the scene. The air is chilled, little puffs of moisture following each of Morty’s exhales--which have started to leak from his lips, due to the sudden awe filling his chest like a balloon.
Morty takes a few steps forward. He’s perched atop a hill, earth looping down in a half-dirt, blended cliffside towards the open valley, tall grasses thickening the further the land stretches. A thinning of trees dots around the sides, looking similiar to regular pine trees except painted purple, with light, birchy wood and little dots of starry light between the needles. Morty’s fingers itch with the urge to slide down and touch them, to feel extraterrestrial beauty on the warm skin of his palms.
He forgets, for a fleeting moment, that anyone’s with him. There’s a rustling of grass that snaps him to reality, air shifting to make room for Rick, who stops to stand next to him, facing out toward the valley. Morty blinks at him through the corner of his vision with a curious look, eyes wide.
“W--What is this?” He breathes, noting with wonder that the condensation from his breath shines in the dying sunset. Despite the strength of the light, Morty doesn’t feel overwhelmed or itchy. He’s comfortable, at ease, in this strange land with a man he barely knows.
“Planet… Planet ZX-920 B,” Rick mutters, voice gravelly, “I--I don’t have much respect for Feds, Morty, b--but one thing they’ve done right, M--Morty, i--i--is bar certain planets from being industrialized--like this one. I--It’s completely untouched b--by living beings smarter than, I--I don’t know, an ape.”
“Like a nature reserve?”
“Sure,” Rick’s shoulders jostle in a poor mockery of a shrug, hands slipping from his pockets to pull a flask from the inner lining of his lab coat. He tilts his head and takes a long swig of whatever’s inside--liquor, Morty guesses. Morty does his best to not show his disgust, turning back to the scene, face flushed with cold.
“How… How can w--w--we breathe?” Morty crosses his arms over his chest, for physical or emotional comfort, he isn’t sure. “You said, you said, uh, ‘Planet Z… Z-something.”
“ZX-920 B.”
“Yeah, uh, and w--we came here, uh, through a… through a portal.”
“Yup.”
“Yeah, um… w--we’re not o--on Earth, are w--we?”
“No, b--but y--” a burp, “--you can breathe on planets that--that aren’t Earth, Morty,” Rick grumbles with a cocky, irritated tone, sliding his flask back into his coat.
“I know that,” Morty snaps, “just… I haven’t heard of a planet like this, befo--ore, y--you know? I mean, mo--most are inhabitable, cause o--of the heat, o--or the gravity, y--y’know? But, uh, I feel fine.”
“Humans have a--a--a very limited view on how large the universe really is, Morty. Last I checked, you’ve only discovered about, uh, p--point-seven of it.”
Morty is unsurprised. He doesn’t feel capable, yet, of properly grasping the full implications of that, but he’s given the feeling that Earth, and humanity in turn, is very, very small in the grand scheme of things. He doesn’t feel as much existentialism at the thought he figures he should. If anything, it’s comforting--like a sudden weight has been pulled off his shoulders.
“…so, is this place, uh--”
“Stop asking questions, M--Morty,” Rick cuts him off with a low growl, “j--just take--take it all in, Morty. Enjoy the moment, o--or something.”
Morty listens. He finds he’s good at that.
Morty doesn’t have friends. That isn’t to say he doesn’t want friends. It just doesn’t work out, ever.
Conversation attempts are met with awkward silence, jokes with stares, pick-up lines with Morty shoved against a locker by a bigger kid--so, he adapts. Rather than being out of the house, or texting classmates from his room, he draws to solo activities he can waste time with whilst not being reminded of his mediocrity.
His dad collects grainy movies from the eighties and ninety's-- E.T., The Goonies. He has every Star Wars movie on DVD, ordered chronologically, stacked on a little shelf in the upper-right corner of the TV stand. He and Morty watched them together when Morty was a toddler. Dad would spend each session rambling about characters and plot, whilst Morty would coo and point excitedly at the big ships and bright lasers.
Morty often finds himself picking through the collection. The Star Wars movies do nothing but bore him, having long memorized it all from Dads obsession half-forced onto him during his formative years, but he likes the other movies. His favorite is Back to the Future. Complex plots about time travel and alternate reality's are wasted on him, not having the capacity to really grasp them, but he likes them anyway--like showing a small child something bright and colorful. They don’t ask questions, giddily enjoying the flashy eye candy.
“Unrealistic,” Rick burps from behind the couch one evening.
“Huh?” Morty looks over his shoulder from where he’s sat on the floor, pushing little tufts of plush carpeting back and forth with his pointer finger in a subconscious, repeating pattern.
“‘s movie,” Rick gestures at the TV. “Time travel’s barely even science.”
“Time travel’s real?” Morty gapes, sitting up and tilting his head over the couch cushions.
“J--Jesus, you’re easy to impress,” Rick rolls his eyes. “It shouldn’t be. It’s real, technically, t--to some people, but, I--I--I don’t, I don’t respect it. I--It’s pseudo-science.”
“Is that w--what pseudo-science means?”
“M--Might as w--well,” Rick shrugs, taking a swig of his drink--some unmarked soda can, rather than his flask.
He then walks around the couch and sits down on the far end. He doesn’t reach for the remote or pull out his phone. He just… watches. His eyes are lidded and he pokes fun of the movie every five minutes, body leant back in a casualness that would make someone question how much he cares about what’s going on, but he’s watching it. With Morty.
Morty doesn’t pay attention to the rest of the movie, focused entirely on not staring at Rick, who doesn’t notice when he runs a wrist over his eyes.
Rick enjoys pointing out the flaws in other things and people. Maybe enjoys is the wrong word, but it’s the only one Morty can think of--a habit he finds mild joy in, however you can describe that.
He doesn’t do it with Mom. Despite referring to Dad as ‘the man of the house’, he treats Mom as the carrier of that role more than he spares Dad a glance. He goes to her when asking to make an adjustment to the garage, to take something from the recycling, to work on a project late into the night. Maybe it’s because he knows Mom won’t deny him.
It never feels like Rick is playing some role, never feels like he’s wearing a different mask around different people. He never feels fake, despite the variety in dispositions he possesses. It’s more that he’s just… a separate entity, depending on the situation. Abnormally so, more than in the way people are changed by emotion or company. He can go from an almost comforting, albeit eccentric, old man, to a harshness of lashing words and clenching fists with one wrong-toned comment.
Rick mocks Dad, chips away at what little confidence he’s built up. Little snarks about his appearance, his young relationship with Mom, Dad’s dependence on Mom the inverse that he encourages and nurtures, however unintentional. Where he praises Mom, he’ll shame Dad, even if the sin is near-identical. Morty doesn’t understand the anger, but he thinks Summer does. She pretends to be uninterested, but even Morty can catch the little glances she sneaks over the top of her phone as Rick and Dad circle each other in the kitchen.
Summer’s next on the ‘pick-on’ list. Rick isn’t as viscous as he is with Dad; he’ll make little remarks about Summer’s stereotypical ‘teen girl’ persona, with her fried drawl and disinterest in anything presented to her. Comments about how little he cares for her opinion, how little he cares for her. Morty doesn’t know if she’s affected by it, but if she is, he’s the last person she’d go crying to, he’s sure. He’s never known how to approach Summer, and if Summer knows how to approach him, she doesn’t care to.
Morty isn’t sure where he falls. Out of everyone in the family, Rick seems to take to him the most--Morty can get the most words exchanged before Rick retreats from conversation, Morty can get little pats on the shoulder or head when they cross paths. Morty’s the only one who knows about Rick’s planet-hopping.
(Based on what he’s picked up from his parents, they think he just makes little trinkets with metal and wire, rotting away in the garage. They aren’t entirely wrong, so Morty doesn’t feel guilty about keeping quiet.)
Rick picks on him, though. A lot. Snide comments when Morty raises his voice in pent-up frustration, mocking coos as he lays on the floor with Snuffles, flicks on the forehead if he bumps Rick’s shoulder too hard. Morty’s stopped attempting homework in the dining room, after he had to turn in an algebra sheet dotted with grey, wrinkled dots on the bottom, following a few snide remarks about Morty’s intelligence--specifically, the lack of--that hit a bit too hard, a twisting sorrow in his throat and chest.
It’s dizzying, the constant uncertainty. He figures he shouldn’t like Rick, follow Dads footsteps. Maybe he should be disinterested, like Summer, or idolize him like Mom--but, that isn’t right, because Morty sees the flaws in Rick--he can see the careful poison laced in his words to keep Mom placid, the intricate ways he weaves the family together in a way that keeps them on the precipice of falling to tension, but not quite there, forever teetering.
Rick is a liar. He’s a manipulator and he’s toxic and Morty should hate him or be disinterested or fall victim to his bullshit or something, but, Rick pays attention to him. Rick gives him the brief moments of physical touch that he’s starved from. Rick took him to a beautiful, untouched planet to let Morty see space, because he somehow picked up on the fact Morty liked it. He lets Morty ask about the gadgets scattering the garage, makes comments--albeit mean-spirited ones--about his interests. For the first time in Morty’s life, there's someone who pays attention to him. Not him and his sister, not the family, but him, Morty Smith .
He sees the bad in Rick, but he sees the good, too. He isn’t sure if the good is genuine, if any of Rick is genuine, but he thinks, maybe, he can let himself be ignorant. It’s what’s expected of him, anyway--Morty’s the special kid, the kid who doesn’t need to be watched out for, the kid who stays out of the way.
“Y--You’re an idiot, Morty,” Rick mutters after a one-sided argument between Morty and his parents over a report card of F’s and D’s. “Y--Y--You’re as dumb as they come.”
The next night, Rick slips into his room and guides him through an algebra packet, then an earth science sheet, and then an overdue page of world history notes. He doesn’t sit down, doesn’t stop sipping from his flask, doesn’t comfort him when he starts shaking in frustration, but Morty gets through the work with enough time leftover to get almost six full hours of sleep.
“I--I wouldn’t want to hang out--hang out with you either, M--Morty,” Rick grumbles from the doorway as Summer brushes Morty off to meet up with her friends. “Y--You’re weird, y--y--you’re a little freak, y’know?”
That afternoon, Rick stands behind him in the bathroom mirror, hands on his shoulders, teaching him how to mimic facial expressions. Morty doesn’t even want to try and be social anymore, distinctly aware of the muscles stretching under the skin of his face, but the newly-taught smile makes Mom sigh in relief. He can appreciate Rick for that.
Every insult is met with a remedy. If Morty’s a stubborn block of clay, then Rick’s a master sculptor, the only one with both a strong enough hand and vision to mold him. Morty doesn’t know why, nor does he know what he’ll be made into, but the sense of purpose, however faux or selfish, is comforting. Like a puzzle finally slotted right, after years of aimlessly shoving pieces together.
“Here, M--Morty,” Rick mutters as he shoves something into Morty’s hands, giving him little time to raise his hands in preperation. “M--My abuelo gave me it w--w--when I was a kid. F--Figured you could get some use out of it.”
It’s a lamp. The base is an African elephant carved of long-dried brown-grey clay, two beady bits of polished stone pushed into the face to make eyes. Little nicks make rolls in the skin along the trunk and torso, faded white marks for toes. The lampshade is red, curled at the far end. A golden chain hangs on the metal looping around the top.
“Yo--Your abuelo?”
“Grandpa,” Rick clears.
“Oh,” Morty perks. “That makes sense, then.”
“Y--Your room’s b--” a burp, “--oring as hell, Morty. Figured… figured this would make it a little less shit.”
Morty puts it on his end table. When Dad sees it, he makes some oddly-placed jab about the 1970s and asks if Morty wants a ‘proper lamp’ instead. Morty declines. He likes the way the red shade warms the light.
“Do y--you go to space a lot?” Morty asks, kicking his legs back-and-forth from the side of the workbench as Rick screws together two thick sheets of metal.
“A--About as much as I get wasted, Mo--” a burp, “--orty. Why?”
“Curious,” Morty chirps with a half-shrug, and it isn’t a lie, really. He hasn’t been able to get the vision of that purple-and-yellow sky out of his head. Birch pine trees with stars in the needles, grass that glittered gold in the dewy sunset. He’d never thought the universe could feel so familiarly beautiful.
“M--Morty, Would…” Rick pauses in his work, staring blankly at the mess of metal and electrical guts scattered on his workbench. His lips open and close, unibrow furrowing and unfurrowing. Morty stifles a snort at the oddity of such a conflicted expression on his no-bullshit, nihilistic grandfather. “I--If, if I had reasons to leave Earth, again--temporarily, y’know, uh, would… would you want to come with me, M--Morty?”
Morty blinks, chewing the inside of his cheek as Rick continues his work, casual despite the previous thought put into his words.
“Why?” Morty asks, knowing he’ll agree no matter the answer.
“H--Having an extra pair of hands could be beneficial to my work,” Rick grunts. “Y--Y’know, you could be, uh, m--my little helper. Collectin’ shit for me, guarding me when my back’s turned, and, uh, you’d get to see the--the wonders of space,” he spits the word out with sarcasm.
“I’d like that a lot.”
Rick blinks at him through the corner of his vision.
“I--It’ll be dangerous, Morty. Not everywhere is as peaceful as ZX-920 B.”
“I kind of figured,” Morty shrugs, the corners of his smile upturning in the way Rick taught him they’re supposed to.
Rick’s expression is a foreign mix of frustration and confusion. “I can’t promise you’ll survive any of it.”
“Rick, I’m o--okay w--w--with all that. Really.”
Morty realizes the lack of care for his life might come off as concerning, but the far ends of Rick’s eyes crinkle upward, and he thinks, maybe, that Rick understands. That, or he just doesn’t care.
The adventures get more dangerous. That’s to be expected. Rick doesn’t try to protect him. That’s also to be expected. He might lead Morty with a loose grip on his wrist, or give him a nudge to ensure he turns the right corner, but Morty finds himself leaning on his own scraped-up instincts to get through every chase, every shooting, every hideout.
Rick’s familiar with the lifestyle. He pushes through the intensity without falter--he shakes less when hiding from a seven-jawed frog monster than he does eating dinner when they return Morty home.
Rick seems more comfortable the more they adventure. There’s less tension in his mannerisms, less moments of angered lashing at the family, less intensity to the stench of alcohol on his breath. He’s returned to his normal, Morty thinks, though he doesn’t have much to compare from. Rick has gone from a cycle of sleeping, drinking, and inventing, to… exactly that, with the additions of world-hopping, and Morty.
Morty, the constant weight drug behind with a firm hand wrapped around his wrist. Morty, the imbecile who forgets his middle name and needs to use his fingers when adding and subtracting. Morty, who doesn’t know how to talk to people and has meltdowns after explosions and needs something to fiddle with slipped into his fingers, less he start punching himself or stripping away the skin around his nails.
He’s a liability. He knows he is. Rick lives a life of adventure and crime and danger and adrenaline. Morty shouldn’t fit into that-- doesn’t fit into that--but Rick makes it work. Rick carves out a hollow in the clay of his life for Morty, somewhere he was never meant to be and it works, however stilted and awkward and distinctly wrong it feels. It’s almost nice, under the horror of it all.
Morty can hear the vibrato of shouting from the garage. He hesitates going up the steps. Rick’s eyes burn into his back.
“I--I can portal you to your room,” his voice is drowned, but Morty grasps onto it. He almost falls down the stairs. Rick pats his shoulder as he passes by in what Morty thinks is intended to be comforting--it is.
Morty loses Rick in the crowd. He was careful to keep a firm grip on the back of Rick’s lab coat, he’s sure, but some arachnid must have announced a once-in-a-three-lifetimes deal on silk--is it offensive to assume a spider would sell silk?--or something, because the crowd suddenly bloats and Morty’s stranded.
He’s already short enough as it is, puberty hesitating on when to get to him, but pair that with the presence of six-to-twelve-foot aliens, and suddenly, he’s left wondering if this is why babies cry so much. He’s terrified after five minutes of being infinitely smaller than everything around him. How he made it through his formative years is beyond him.
He pushes through masses of tentacles and talons and wings and mucus-like slithers of flesh, managing to break through the swollen heart of the crowd and slipping into a quiet, albeit humid, alleyway. He presses his palms against the brick, hanging his head with a thick exhale, lungs scrambling to refill through a sudden humidity that leaves patches of sweat on the hem of his shirt.
Shaking his head left and right, watching little beads of sweat fall from the frayed ends of his hair, his eyes narrow, dazed confusion spinning in his gut. His face burns with a rushing of blood, and his chest fights as if he’d just taken a 10-mile run, legs trembling against the wall. He isn’t out of shape, at least not this much, not after the ten-or-so near-death experiences he’s had to run from the past few weeks. He swallows through the sharp puffs of air lifting through his throat.
Darkness threads the depth of the alleyway, despite the otherwise well-lit surroundings. The shadows are dark to a point of inhuman, though, this is an alien planet. Still, something about the slow-processed energy feels distinctly wrong.
The spinning-coaster in his stomach dips, as eyes peel from the darkness.
Morty’s heart jumps to his mouth, the sharp thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump pattering heavy against the tight roof of his mouth. Blood rushes to his face, making what was once uncomfortable heat a near-impossible sweltering, moisture dripping down his jaw and neck, fingers clammy, sides burning, eyes straining wide.
The eyes move, heat continuing to rise as the feet between them close off, inch by inch. Morty sees a bulging of scales just barely crest the shadow-line and he’s gone, feet pounding against wet concrete.
He’s pushing his way through the crowd, mumbling slurred apologies with the stench of wet ash slowing each movement like cotton in the rain when a hand grabs his slick elbow. He’s pulled forward, hands moving to grip tight on his shoulders, fingers digging into drenched sleeves.
“M--Morty, you fucking idiot, where the hell did you--”
“There it is!” A painfully pitched, licking voice squeals from behind Morty. Rick squints at the space on his forehead, and Morty locks his jaw, noticing the way the crowd’s begun to part a circle around them, leaving the pair stranded in the center. Morty twists in Rick’s tight grasp, looking wide-eyed over his shoulder, sweat-slick neck rolling uncomfortably.
The alien is massive, slug-like, with a looping frame built of thick rolls of shining fat and muscle, pulsing as it moves. It’s face is a twisted mockery, eyes black and beady, drooping bits of fat hanging by two snout-like nostrils in what might be it’s mouth. It doesn’t have arms or legs, torso contorting up and down like a snail as it pushes itself forward, towering at least fifteen feet pushed half-way up.
Morty jostles as Rick pulls him behind his back, guiding his hand to grip tight on the back of his labcoat as he swivels to face the alien. The heat picks up through the wind, and Morty can see sweat dribble down the back of Rick’s neck, despite him looking less than bothered a few seconds ago.
“Can I he--” Rick burps as he bites the words out, and Morty can feel the vibration through his fingers, nose scrunching in a vauge disgust, “--elp you?”
“Yes!” The alien’s voice is slurred with what sounds like a ball of mucus, drilling and shrill, “the brat behind you just ruined my deal with a high-paying customer! I was so close, and he just, he--”
Each syllable of the aliens voice is followed with what Morty can only describe as a squelching, like every word and movement is slowed by the drag of his thick body. Morty tries to peak over the edge of Rick’s back, but Rick shifts so he’s hidden once more, left with a vision of white, face inches from the fabric of Rick’s lab coat.
He’d assumed Rick moved him to get him out of his way. Why is he insisting Morty stay directly behind him? Wouldn’t that keep him in Rick’s way?
“He’s from Earth,” Rick cuts the alien off, hands tucked into his coat pockets. He’s wearing a mask of disinterest. His arms are frozen solid with tension, back straight, an unmovable force staring down a huge, alien horror without hesitation.
He saw a massive, fire-eyed slug-monster chasing Morty, and his first instinct was to tuck Morty behind his back, behind him, neatly out of sight.
“You know how Earth is,” Rick does a half-shrug, ignoring Morty’s silent turmoil. “Humans don’t know left from right. It isn’t worth it, man.”
The situation gets the best of Morty. He hides his face in Rick’s back, hand trembling. Rick’s breath picks up, but the moment ends in a blink.
“Do you realize how close I was--”
“Yes, and I’m sure it was very tragic. But, I thought it’s against the signed-on rules to engage in off-the-grid deals on market property?”
The crowd falls to a murmuring. Rick’s voice lands solidly in a way Morty’s never heard it before--gone is the constant slurring, the burps marking Rick’s drunken insults. Something lingers under the surface, just close enough to warn intruders off but hidden enough to give Rick the benefit of the doubt--which they will. He’s Rick fucking Sanchez.
“It’s not--It wasn’t a deal--”
“You just said, your deal is why you’re angry, though.”
“Not like what you’re assuming!”
“I’d love to see your stall, then,” Rick chirps in fake innocence.
“I’m not going to bring you anywhere after your kid ruined an hour of work!” There’s a sloshing sound as the alien moves. Even in his distress, Morty is keenly aware of how Rick twists to keep Morty away from its line of vision.
“I’m just curious as to what your work is, if it’s something so fragile a lost twelve-year-old with only four limbs could somehow ruin it. Especially to an extent that you see it necessary to give him first-degree burns and chase him around, leaving your stall unattended.”
“He can’t just--”
“I would’ve repaid whatever he cost you, y’know,” Rick drawls, “if you hadn’t hurt him and scared him half-to-death. If you can’t handle a kid accidentally running into you, or whatever else he did, how are you going to handle purposely problematic customers?”
“You shouldn’t be bringing kids here if they don’t know how to behave properly,” the alien hisses through a set of squelches, voice loosing it’s angered edge on the wet of it’s voice.
“And I’m very sorry and I’ll have a talk with him,” Rick speeds with a dismissive tone, clearly bored with the conversation. “Now, kindly fuck off before I blow your brains out for hurting my grandson.”
Rick guides him through a gun-shot portal with a gentle hand on his upper-back. Morty breaks into a fit of trembles and weak whimpers as soon as he’s settled on Rick’s workbench. Rick pops through another portal, returning with Morty’s headphones and a new t-shirt, the latter tossed to the side and the former passed to Morty’s shaking hands. He accepts them eagerly, desperate for any sense of relief, following Rick’s murmur to slip his shirt off before pulling them on, leaving an ear free in case Rick gives him further instruction.
His entire upper-chest is raw and swollen, along with the outer side of his arms and hands. His back and neck stings with a hot pinprick up and down his spine, and his legs and hips tingle, but otherwise seem undamaged. His face hurts the most--raw and wet, a cold burning sensation spreading along his nose, cheeks and eyes like embarrassed flush.
Rick returns through the garage door--Morty hadn’t even noticed he’d left, footsteps silent and swift--hands twisted around a dampened bath towel, quickly wrapping it around Morty’s shoulders. Morty follows his guidance of tucking the far end into his pants hem, shivers beginning to roll through him as the cool dampness presses into his wounds. Rick rolls his eyes, leaning down to pull open various drawers, plastic and glass rolling together as he searches for something.
Morty curls into himself. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs as Rick pulls tubes and bottles onto the worktable. “I w--was lost, and the crowd was loud, and there w--w--was an alley and I just--”
“‘s fine, M--Morty,” Rick mutters, face rising in silent glee as he seems to find what he was looking for. “This… This shit, ‘s an advanced form of petroleum jelly, from Ither C-B9. Y--Y--You don’t know the significance of that, but, uh, they have really advanced medical shit. Th--Those burns will be gone in a minute, tops. J--Just need to let that towel sit.”
Morty hums affirmatively, pulling the towel up to cover his chest.
“W--” Morty’s voice breaks, coughing into a closed fist. Rick pushes a water bottle into his free hand, watching with a concealed expression as Morty practically rips it apart and swallows down large gulps. Rick has to slowly guide him to a stop, less he choke.
He clears his throat and tries again.
“W--What w--w--was that, um, slug-alien, thing?”
“D--Don’t call aliens ‘things’, Morty,” Rick chides with an annoyed tone, sliding the water bottle out of Morty’s reach. “They’re undamians. They usually stick to hot and humid planets, s--sometimes in the volcanos of colder planets. I--I--I fucking hate the heat, s--so we’ll rarely see them.”
“How--ow did it make me so sweaty?”
Rick groans, cracking his knuckles by the bottom row in the way he does when he’s about to explain something elaborate he knows Morty won’t process or remember. It’s mostly lighthearted--Morty knows Rick likes explaining things. He’s self-absorbed like that, someone who enjoys the sound of his own voice, who enjoys feeling smarter than the people he surrounds himself with.
“Th--Their kids need intense heat to survive incubation. The ones in volcanoes are usually fine, b--but for the ones who a--a--aren’t in intense locations like that, th--they have the ability t--to alter the moisture and temperature of the air around them. S--S--Some of them use it t--to tire out other beings--used to be for food, b--but now it’s mostly used by ass--assholes like the guy w--we ran into.”
Rick takes a swig of his flask, tilting his head back over the worn leather of the headrest. Morty goes to pick a his fingers, but when he’s met with the torn fabric of tightly-wound bandaids, he picks at the fibers in the towel instead. He likes the way the rough fabric feels on the tips of his fingers.
“M--Mind-fuck tactics like that aren’t allowed at most markets. I--I wasn’t sure if th--” a burp, “--they were allowed at this one, so I guessed, and I was right.”
“Y--You guessed?”
Rick groans, “ yes , M--Morty, I guessed. Th--That guessing saved your sorry ass, so, hey, your welcome .”
Morty frowns, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought.
I can’t promise you’ll survive any of it, Rick had said. He followed through with that warning, letting Morty get thrown into danger by his own hand. When forced to chose who lives, Rick will chose himself, and he’s never shown discreet over that fact. You have to look out for number one.
Morty’s okay with that. He’d rather die on an alien planet than live with Rick’s blood on his hands--with anyone’s blood on his hands, though, Rick’s taken that latter option away.
Holding that knowledge, that foundation of their dynamic in his hand, Morty can’t understand why Rick stood up for him. Protected him.
It isn’t a matter of convenience. Rick’s admitted he has a plan in place if Morty dies or goes suddenly missing during one of their excursions. He hasn’t said what that plan is, exactly, but Morty knows that Rick’s shelter within the family won’t be jeopardized if something happens to him. Rick saw the burns, saw the fury in the aliens eyes, and still protected him. He focused on his words to the point he didn’t stammer, kept Morty safely tucked behind his back, and dropped every reason he had for being at the market to get Morty home and taken care of.
It doesn’t make sense. Morty isn’t the brightest, he knows, but the way his head throbs as he tries to futily make sense of Rick’s psyche draws frustrated tears to the outer edge of his eyes.
He doesn’t get it. He feels like he’s in algebra class, staring at x’s and roots and exponents with all the pieces laid out in the form of worksheets and guided notes and a teacher with his head bent on the desk in exhaustion but he just doesn’t get it--something inherently broken with him no amount of guidance or encouragement can help him fucking understand.
Hands press the towel deeper into his wounds, resulting in a pained hiss through Morty’s grit teeth. Rick huffs a small sigh, “do the burns still sting?”
When Rick is pushing into them, no, they don’t. He vocalizes this a bit sarcastically, and Rick flicks an uninjured part of his head, pulling the towel away and motioning for him to swivel around. The jelly’s thick on his back, smearing in thick globs and evened out along the wounds by Rick’s fingers, calloused, likely due to years of being torn at by metal and who-knows-what.
“I--It’ll take longer the more you shudder like that,” Rick deadpans when Morty’s body convulses in an attempt to hold back a frustrated shout. He’s so fucking confused, head spinning, chest airy with a lack of grasp on his body. He’d think he’s dying, if he hadn’t almost died days before on some intergalactic adventure and didn’t know how horribly real death is, how tied down you feel to your body, regrets rolling in a slideshow before closed eyes.
The tears that roll down reopen the blisters on his cheeks. He tries desperately to hold them back without rubbing at his eyes, fists clenched in tight fists on the thigh of his pants. His mouth tastes like blood.
Rick murmurs for him to turn back around, so he can treat the wounds on his chest. Morty freezes, curled in on himself, streams of half-bloody tears falling to a darkened splotch on the inside of his calf, legs crossed under himself. Everything’s too loud, he can hear the buzzing of the garage light, the scuttling of the squirrel crossing the driveway, Rick’s breathing, Rick’s sped up heartbeat, Rick’s blood--
“Kid, don’t make me move you myself. Your arms are still burnt.”
Morty remains silent.
Rick hums gravel in his throat, and Morty’s spun around, fingers digging into the irritated burns on his biceps. Rick’s eyes move across his face, across his shaking chin and glossy eyes and bleeding cheeks and he sighs. He takes the towel previously wrapped around Morty and dabs at the bloody spots, presses down until liquid doesn’t spill, rubs at his eyelids until the tears stop hurting. His lips twitch with concern.
“Do you need to go to a hospital?” He asks with that non-stammer he’d picked up at the start of all this.
“W--Why did y--y--you protect me?” Morty replies. “W--What happened to looking… looking out for number o--one?”
Rick’s expression remains neutral, apathetic, the shield he puts up whenever he’s thinking too hard about something. Morty can tell--there’s a blurred difference between a careless, irritated Rick and a protectively apathetic Rick.
“K--Kid, let me, uh, finish fixing your burns--”
“No,” Morty snaps, despite the shiver that runs through him at Rick’s irritated glower. “No, tell me. W--W--Why did y--you protect me?”
“Because, Morty, it’d be a pain in the ass to try and replace you,” Rick bites, and Morty wilts, “n--now let me fix your damn burns.”
“Y--You haven’t ever cared before,” Morty tries, through his shivers, “y--you’ve always risked my life for yours. W--Why d--d--do you care now?”
“Ma--” a burp, “--aybe I’ve suddenly realized how much easier it is to get shit done with someone else around, M--Morty.”
Morty feels the moment of rebellion bleed out as Rick coats his palms in jelly and runs them along his arms, noticeably gentle when treating the biceps, mottled white from the scattered movement of Rick’s fingers.
“Y--You’re valuable, Morty,” Rick mutters through grit teeth as he works. “Y--Y--You’re an asset, a--a tool. I’ll keep you in good condition i--if I can, and I won’t let you get damaged if I can avoid it, but I won’t risk myself to save you. You make things a lot easier, b--but there’s always wrenches, or hammers, or whatever else I need to substitute you with.”
Morty’s shoulders slump as Rick pulls away, feeling the stinging on his skin begin to fade.
“D--Do you understand?” Rick’s gaze is steely, held by a furrowed brow.
Morty sighs, “yeah.”
Morty’s everything Rick is not. Rick is everything Morty is not.
Where Morty is wimpy and submissive, Rick is loud and standoffish. Rick’s scrawny, moreso than Morty, but he carries an intimidation in his stature that makes the beings around him malleable to his will. Morty envies it.
Paths clear in the echo of his footsteps. Haggling stall-keepers relent to a lowball when he gently places the downside of his palm against the head of their stand. Dad cuts a snide remark mid-sentence when Rick sends him an annoyed look. Summer’s rapid thumbs and fingers slow to a drag along her screen when Rick mutters something only she could pick up on from across the room.
The world makes room for Rick. Morty’s drowned out by it. When Rick shoves people out of his way, Morty’s trampled by the shuffling crowd. When Rick shouts, Morty’s left pushing his earlobes up to muffle the noise. When Rick makes the wrong enemy, Morty’s life is left dangling on the line as incentive. Rick lays destruction in his wake, and Morty’s the dust left to settle.
Sometimes he’s led by a palm against his back, or a hand looped tight around his bicep. Sometimes it’s of Morty’s own volition; skipping class during particularly drawn-on days to slip to the garage, silently watching Rick work. Meals missed to trail behind Rick at an alien marketplace, movie nights with Dad forgotten in favor of running from an eldritch horror for berries that’ll be crushed into Rick’s next high, nights of sleep missed to shoot at fly-humanoids with squirting blue blood and beady, netted eyes--it’s all the same. Where Rick goes, Morty follows.
It becomes routine. Rick’s mentions plans to invade an alien ship at noon? Morty rushes upstairs to get changed. Rick’s footsteps are drudging up the stairs at two, three in the morning? He’s already sat up in bed, waiting to see if Rick will drag him out to endanger his life.
It’s a slow shift, the days fading to weeks locked at Rick’s side. He notices the way aliens start to apologize if they brush by him too hard. The way they’ll whisper caution to each other behind curled claws if he’s wandering on his own while Rick’s taking a piss. There’s a sudden wariness surrounding him, as if one too many excursions with Rick suddenly stuck a glowing sign above his head that says, ‘Hey! This kid knows Rick fucking Sanchez!’.
The world makes room for Rick, and Rick’s presence implies Morty’s presence. So the world, slowly, makes room for Morty--scared, dumb, useless Morty.
It’s midnight. The moon is absent, blotted absent by thick clots of darkened cloud and smog. Rick near-collapses by his workbench once the portal pops out, a long exhale drawing from his gut as he leans back on the chair. Morty’s body caves with the weight of exhaustion as he shuffles through the garage. He pulls himself up the stairs, Rick calling in a murmur of what might be a goodnight as he leaves.
He pops two Tylenol capsules as he passes the sink, stopping his shuffle through the dining room at a cast of white light pulled from the living room to stretch across the tile floor. It’s a weekday, he knows--Rick pulled him out of class earlier--and both his parents have jobs that have them leave early in the morning.
Morty wants so badly to ignore it. To trudge up the stairs, kick off his jeans and pass out for the few hours he has until school--but, he should, probably, move whoever's up, he dully thinks with a tired frown. Rick’s going to stay up all night working with the metal they’d harvested, like he does after every big venture, and he’s heard enough complaints from Dad to know how loud that can get from even upstairs--let alone two rooms over. He doesn’t want to deal with that in the morning. The best outcome would be Summer’s bitching, and the worst, Dad starting a fight with Mom over another sleepless night.
He tries to be semi-quiet as he stumbles into the living room, focusing his vision as best he can through the haze of exhaustion. Bottles litter the floor curving around the couch, piled against the cushions--most empty, labels fresh and crisp white. Mom sits on the floor with her back to couch, eyes distant as she stares at some cheap shopping network, an old man with wax skin and a too-wide smile rambling about necklaces and rings.
Morty begins silently debating if he values eating breakfast or avoiding the fight that’ll ignite in the morning when Dad notices the wine stains more when Mom notices him. Her eyes flash in the blue light to stare hollow at him, small motions carried with what he can only describe as sorrow. Hot anger on the edges, a melted, runny hurt in the center--like the core of a crumbling planet, leaking out to nothing in the form of thick magma tears.
Mom lulls her head onto the cushions, eyes fluttering, as if struggling to find a part of his body to focus on. “M’rty?”
“Hi, Mom,” Morty murmurs, gentle despite his exhaustion as he kneels closer to his mom, “come o--on, it’s late--”
He reaches a hand out to guide her up, but she swats it away, her eyebrows pinched in a mix of confusion and irritation. Her eyes remain foggy and dazed.
“Wh’d you… Why’d you take him?”
Morty blanks, drained of air, “W--What?”
Mom shakes as she lifts to her feet. Morty lifts her hands in a weak attempt to steady her, cautious to actually make contact. Her knuckles pop white on the neck of a wine-glass.
“H’s finally come b’ck… ‘nd you… y’re taking him fr’m me!” She gets in Morty’s face, Morty still with a clogged throat as she pushes a finger to his chest. “You… m--m’ dad came back, ‘n th’ momen’ you get th’ chance, you’re gonna--gonna s--swoop in, t--take him away again--”
“Mom, I--I don’t know w--w--what you’re talking about,” Morty tries, unable to make sense of the words. He pulls his hands to curl together by his chest, subtly aware of the way her fists clench by her sides.
“I--I ask him to try ‘n bond with… with you ‘n Summer a little, and suddenly y--you’re his favorite, h--his, his ‘little helper’,” she makes a vague gesture with her hand in what Morty thinks is meant to be a quotation, sarcasm dripping from her voice, “I--I don’ know wha’ you did, b--but--”
“Mom, please,” Morty’s gaze moves wildly around the room, “you’re drunk. Y--You have w--w--work tomorrow, don’t you? Y--Y--You should get to bed.”
His mom looks at him with a clouded look, not meeting any specific part of his body, head shaking in what Morty tells himself is a nod. He helps her up the stairs with an arm around her back, tucking her into bed next to his dad, who would look dead if not for the occasional lift and fall of his shoulders.
A hand lingers on his wrist as he steps from the bedside.
“I l’ve you, M--Morty,” his mom slurs through closed eyes, “y--you’re… you’re a good kid. M’ little boy, m’ baby.”
Summer sends him a concerned look over breakfast. It isn’t until Morty rubs the sleep from his eyes and is met with streaks of wet across the heel of his palm that he realizes he’d fallen asleep crying.
Mom rests her forehead on the table. Dad notices the stained living room and sends her a tense look over the table: one that locks in the subject of their upcoming evening fight. They eat in silence.
Morty leaves for school, passes by Rick’s open garage, and is promptly dragged inside by a hand on his elbow. He shows Morty a gun. White, split at the end with two glowing blue turrets, colorful dots lining the center console.
“I can erase it,” he says. “I--I can make you forget last night.”
Morty doesn’t question how Rick found out, because of course he would, he always finds out. Rick always fucking knows.
Morty thinks about the dying planet in his Mom’s rapid-beating chest, thinks about the near-pitying look on Summer’s face and the red dotting the living room carpet. Rick holds his shoulder with one hand, gun powered on and lifted eye-level to Morty’s skull. His expression is blank.
He doesn’t care. He couldn’t give less of a fuck. He’s only offering because Morty’s distress would be detrimental to his work.
The static swelling in his skull seems insignificant, compared to the rush he gets when Rick tells him he’s going to be late to school and, yes, he can attend a full day today.
He has a nightmare. It’s such a stupid, childish thing.
His feet and brain don’t align. He finds himself stepping across the hallway and raising his hand in a curled fist before he can stop himself. It takes a minute, harsh grumbles and swears bouncing before the door opens.
Rick’s hair is knotted, stripped down to a wife beater and boxers. His eyes barely lid open, little slivers in the darkness, the only light cast from the flashlight on Morty’s phone, aimed down towards their feet.
They stare at each other. Morty fights for words, chest heavy and empty.
“I had a nightmare,” he murmurs, eyes pointedly shot to the floor.
Rick will kick him out. He’ll tell him to grow up, stop being a baby, man up and leave him the hell alone, he’s almost thirteen for christ's sake, and he wouldn’t even be in the wrong, would he?
Morty’s hands hang limp, free one scratching little lines into his shorts. Rick’s hand continues to rest on the doorknob, fingers twitching, ready to close the door and ignore Morty’s distress. Morty can’t see his expression in the darkness, but he doesn’t move, as if pushing Morty to keep going, go on, say more, embarrass yourself more, show me how pathetic you are--
“Y--You died,” Morty breathes, “you died, a--and I couldn’t save you.”
There’s a pause, Rick’s slow breath sharply hitching on an inhale. Morty’s face starts burning and there’s a hand on his shoulder. He’s pushed past Rick, into the darkness, and the door clicks shut as Rick guides him to the cot, pulling the two of them down into a curled position, Rick facing the wall and Morty facing Rick.
“I’m only doing this because I need your help tomorrow,” Rick grunts, pulling the blanket up over their shoulders. Morty watches the way Rick’s chest rises and falls, slowing as he dozes, long, deep snores through his nose.
“Okay,” Morty murmurs into the silence, burying himself into the smell of liquor and ash.
Rick settles on how to treat Morty: cruelly and possessively.
Harsh grips on his bicep or wrist that drag him away from any opportunity to engage with the outside world, conveniently getting tugged away from classmates or girls or his family. Rick’s voice will lash like a laced whip as he rambles off excuses for Morty to do anything but participate in family outings, go to school, spend the afternoon at a classmates house for a school project--anything a normal kid would be doing. He might relent if argued with enough, almost exclusively for family events--in which he’ll come with and make sure the experience is awkward and tense enough that Morty will ask Rick to portal them out half-way through.
He isn’t as bothered as he thinks he should be. There’s always going to be a sense of annoyance when he’s beginning to hit it off with someone at school, only for Rick to slip through a portal and drag him away with a sharp glare pointed at any passersby, but that mild irritation is the full extent of it.
Morty’s never properly fit into the family. It’s always been Mom, Dad, and Summer, and Morty. Morty’s the one whose suggestions go ignored, the one who’s added in as an afterthought in conversation, and then, the one who isn’t considered when making plans, because well, he’ll probably be busy with Rick--and Morty can’t even be that mad, because they’re right, he probably will be.
Rick, however selfish or uncaring, needs Morty. Whether it be a wide-eyed sidekick to make comments about his inventions, a silent weight trailing behind him at a marketplace, a disposable lackey running from an alien horror that Rick’s stealing his next high from, Rick needs Morty. He’s essential in a way he’s never been before. He belongs somewhere, to someone, is needed. He shouldn’t be so content giving up his individuality, his freedom, he knows--but, hey, it wasn’t being put to good use anyway, was it?
Morty goes weeks at a time not attending classes. He’ll leave for school, get through ten to thirty minutes of first period, and then a portal will pop by the front whiteboard and out will come Rick, stringing together slurred-out words of projects and necessity and help and Morty. He’ll come to dinner with bruises on his wrist, result from being dragged around like a ragdoll--discolored patches of skin, a hollow glassiness to his eyes or chunks of hair missing from a violent meltdown after it all became too much, too much ash and copper and heat and movement and explosions noise so much noise so loud too fucking loud loud loudloudloudloud--
His parents will ask him about school, heads downturned. Morty will half-choke the same set of barely-altered words, and they’ll nod with faux-focus, and then his Dad will start rambling about some reality show he watched the other night, and his Mom will cut in when reminded of this hilarious joke her coworker told at the cooler, which will lead to Dad squinting and asking which coworker , have you told me about them, what’s their name, that sounds like a guys name--
“They love me,” Morty says one evening, curled against blankets on the garage floor as the rip splitting his stomach stitches itself together. “They just do--don’t know h--how to show it.”
“R--Runs in the family,” Rick replies.
Rick drags him out of bed in the middle of the night, hand white-knuckled on his ankle. He’s made a flying saucer out of scrapped metal and car parts. “From the garage,” he slurs, but Morty smells the linger of cigarette ash from the junkyard on the torn leather seats.
“A new fresh start,” he says. “I--I had to do it, Morty.”
He’s made a bomb. He made a bomb with the intent of destroying the world, and even in his drunken stupor, took care to make sure Morty was out of the way, and wouldn’t be hurt. Morty isn’t sure how to feel about that.
If he were anyone else, it’d probably make him warm, wouldn’t it? Rick bothered to save him, and not anyone else, not even his daughter--even though Rick is the thing he needs saving from. Rick’s the reason there’s any sort of threat.
It doesn’t make him thankful or warm--just dizzy. The sweat burning his skin doesn’t help, nor does the stinging on his fingers from the bits of skin torn away, or the taste of blood in his mouth and the hot stench of liquor building in the ship.
He asks Rick, the next morning, what happened after he passed out on the side of the road. He remembers the bomb, the beeping increasing in intensity, the sliding of bottles as he scrambled to try to disarm it, and then--
“You shit your pants, I woke up from the smell and disarmed it,” Rick says simply, voice harsh through the hangover that leaves him hunched on his cot, head pushed into his hands. “D--Don’t… don’t think ab--bout it.”
That doesn’t feel right. But, everything seems in order. Summer spends the morning with her feet on the table, typing on her phone, whilst his Dad talks about nothing, flushing red with anger when Morty blacks out from exhaustion and Rick weaves his way out of the line of fire. A typical Wednesday morning in the Smith household. Rick even lets him attend an hour of school.
He doesn’t think about it. He won’t think about it--won’t think about the beeping of the bomb, the panic filling his throat, the static swelling in his skull as he digs into his mind for something, any recollection of what happened next--
He doesn’t think about it.
Rick stashes him in the bunker under the garage when the seeds dissolve. He blinks in and out of consciousness for what feels like a few hours trapped in a half-asleep state, but when he starts processing words again, Rick’s at his bedside--cotside?--catching Morty up on how it’s been days since his parents almost shipped him to a nursing home, since Rick had to sacrifice all their hard work to get them to fuck off.
Days. It’s been days. When Morty asks if his parents were worried, Rick shrugs and says he told them they were out on another adventure. Morty asks, again, if they were worried. Rick says no, they weren’t, Morty, stop asking so many questions, Morty.
“Y--Y’know, I r--” a burp, “--really thought you’d be more stressed over getting put in a coma, M--Morty. N--Not that I give a shit, but, what gives?”
“I try not to think about it,” Morty murmurs into his pillow.
“N--Now you’re getting it,” Rick ruffles his hair, fingers curling into the greasy locks matted around his neck. “G--Get some rest, Morty. W--W--We have to collect more of those seeds tomorrow, since--since I wasted them on your parents.”
Morty rolls over and shuts his eyes, but doesn’t sleep, even after Rick leaves. He lays there, silent, staring at a water stain in the concrete walls.
The stars burn in a scattering above their heads. Summer sits against the far wall, soles digging into chafed roof tiles. Morty lays along a flat edge, the stench of smoke burning his nose. Each exhale draws sting to his eyes.
“It isn’t easier to block everything out, Morty,” Summer drawls through a hot breath full of smoke, “I mean, do what you want, but don’t do it because you think it’ll be easier, ‘cause it won’t be.”
“Isn’t that w--what teenagers are supposed to d--do? Block everything out?”
“You’re barely a teenager,” Summer scoffs, “you just turned--”
“--just turned fourteen, I know.”
Morty draws his knees up, picking at the little strings of fuzz sticking from the innards of his bandaids. He shakes his head when offered a half-smoked cigarette.
“I’m just saying,” she continues, “you’re Morty because you’re, like, Morty . You’re my awkward, creepy little brother who’s still affected by the shit Mom and Dad pull, cause you’re Morty. You wouldn't be Morty if you acted just like me or Grandpa or whatever.”
Morty chews on his cheek, squinting at the dark-swallowed moon. “Thanks, I think. That… that's kind of insightful.”
“I try,” Summer mutters through an inhale.
“Morty,” Rick grunts from the doorway, hallway casting a thick shadow over his front, “g--get your a--” a burp, “--ass up, I--I need you in the garage.”
Morty swallows his complaints, swallows the whines of Rick, we were out all day, I’m fucking tired, Rick, what time even is it?, as he rises to his feet, blinking away the dust that lingers on his eyelids.
“Okay,” he mumbles as Rick guides him down the stairs.