Chapter Text
“… because the world is full of idiots who don’t know what’s important! And they’ll tear us apart, Morty. But if you stick with me, I’m gonna accomplish great things, Morty. And you’re gonna be part of ‘em!”
.
.
Morty lies on the unforgiving concrete of the garage floor, trying and failing to calm his convulsing limbs. Even with his blurry vision, it's hard to miss his grandfather looming over him, gesturing wildly, words and spittle flying from his mouth in equal measure. Bits and pieces float down to Morty, but he doesn't understand much of it. His brain feels like a pot boiling over, and his body feels like the noodles, even though that really doesn't make sense as a metaphor. Or is it a simile?
Morty supposes he can't expect to be good at English now, since he struggles with it under normal conditions, when he isn’t in agonizing pain. And he expects to keep struggling, because the essay he has due Monday on Call of the Wild won't be getting written if his brain is gonna be shut off for the entire weekend.
It sucks, because this time Morty actually went through the trouble to read the book. Granted, it was a children’s version of the story, with bigger text, grainy black-and-white pictures, and probably some of the more graphic scenes edited out-- but he’d read it, and even liked it. The main character, a dog named Buck, was kidnapped from his comfy California home, removed from everything he’d ever known, and forced to work as a sled dog in the Yukon.
Morty rooted for Buck as he suffered all sorts of trials and fought to adapt to his surroundings; he cheered when the dog was adopted by an outdoorsman who nursed him back to health; but the ending still has him conflicted. By the end of the novel, Buck was completely changed. He chose never to return to his former life and family. It was bittersweet, Morty thinks. It might’ve made an okay book report.
Unfortunately for his grades, Rick has more important things for him to do.
Speaking of Rick, Morty notices that the rant has stopped. That means danger, sometimes, and a wave of fear envelops him. Willing his eyes to focus, Morty spots him hunched over the workbench, absorbed in mixing chemicals. The beaker Rick holds is foaming, glittery purple bubbles reflecting the light, and Morty would be captivated if he wasn’t fighting the sensation of someone tearing out his spine one vertebra at a time.
“Rick,” he says weakly. It's about all he has the strength for, and Rick turns. His gaze isn't as intense, now, but Morty thinks he sees something flickering beneath the surface, a match quickly stubbed out before the flame can burn for real. His hands are solid as he picks Morty up, cradling him. Morty's head settles against Rick's chest like it belongs there. He grabs a handful of lab coat and lets out a pained whine, closes his eyes.
"Calm your tits, Morty, it's not that bad," Rick says. He sounds amused.
Morty hears the telltale sound of a portal opening and finds himself sinking into his mattress. To his surprise, a cool hand sweeps across his forehead, brushing away the sweaty stray curls gathered there. Then there's the pinch of a needle in his arm, and Rick’s voice rasping something unintelligible in his ear, fading away as sleep comes for him.
Morty does not dream.
* * *
When he wakes up on Sunday evening, he goes over what he knows:
His parents think school is important.
His parents barely remember to acknowledge his existence. They couldn't even get him diagnosed for the learning disability he apparently has and still bug him about his grades-- how hypocritical can you get?
Rick thinks school is a waste of time.
Rick actually wants to spend more than ten minutes per day with him.
Rick lets him break his legs. Rick tells him that his one brain cell bounces around his head like the logo on a DVD player’s idle screen and that, not sleep deprivation, is why he gets headaches sometimes.
Rick looks at him, sharp and searching, and it makes him feel dizzy in a way that he can’t put into words.
After being nobody for most of his life, the pressure of being half of Rick and Morty threatens to crush him. But Morty is determined to withstand it, if only for a while, if only to adventure among the stars with his grandpa just a little bit longer.
So he learns to read Rick’s moods in the line of his shoulders and the furrow of his brow, how to phrase questions so he gets mostly real answers, how to find the right tool in Rick’s organized chaos when the thing’s gonna blow if I don’t fix it in the next sixty seconds Morty, you wanna star in Michael Bay’s wet dreams or what, I’ve heard some pretty bad allegations about that guy so HAND ME THE DAMN ALLEN WRENCH MORTY.
Slowly but surely, Morty adapts. Bends to fit Rick's expectations and hopes he won't break.
Hope is stupid, Rick tells him. Hope ain't gonna save your ass, you gotta do that yourself. Better to calculate and make a plan.
Rick is always right.
* * *
It's the third night after his chosen adventure, after his encounter at the Thirsty Step, and Morty is wide awake.
He's tried not to think about it, but it haunts him every time he closes his eyes.
Morty stands in front of Rick's door, fingers brushing the handle, consumed by doubt. If Rick makes fun of him for this, he might just curl up and die on the spot. Five minutes go by, then ten. Finally, he hears a frustrated noise from the other side and footsteps shuffling around.
"Fuck's sake, Morty, shit or get off the pot already," says Rick as he opens the door. Morty yanks his hand away, hugging his arms around himself instead. Rick goes to say something else, but the words die in his throat when he sees Morty, who's now intently studying the hall carpet.
"Can - can I come in?" he asks timidly. Rick gazes down at him, impassive.
"Sure, kid," he finally replies, stepping away, sitting on his bed. With the light from the hall, Morty can see how tired Rick looks, the exhausted curve of his spine as he stares at a spot on the floor. Before Morty can talk himself out of it, he closes the door behind him and sits next to his grandfather in the dark.
Yeah, this is all he needed, to sit with someone else who understood. Rick knows that something happened, Morty is sure of it. The way he acted after Morty came out of the restroom and asked to leave… he was a little too obliging, too cheery. Too willing to give Morty a happy ending, despite all his misgivings about the adventure up to that point.
And similarly, Rick's arm settling around his shoulders, pulling him closer, seems a little too good to be true. Morty isn't used to getting something for nothing, and the gesture startles him even as he leans into it. He doesn't realize he's crying until Rick's shirt dampens under his cheek, and he doesn’t realize he can’t stop until it gets hard to breathe and he starts panicking and Rick is talking, and Morty has to listen to Rick--
“--orty! Morty,” Rick is shaking him a little, looking alarmed. “It’s - it’s okay, Morty, I got you, just, c'mere. Just chill with grandpa for a sec."
It takes a minute, but Morty manages to get his breathing back under control. The tears take longer to stop. He hiccups, his diaphragm spasming so hard it hurts. There’s a soft object being shoved into his hand, and upon further inspection, it’s a microfiber towel. It’s like the ones Rick uses in his workshop; when Morty dries his face with it, the faint scent of motor oil is a comfort to him. Reminds him of spending long afternoons in the garage, listening to the clinking of tools while Rick works. He yawns, impossibly tired all of a sudden. He won't be able to fight off sleep for much longer, even if his life depends on it.
For the moment, it doesn’t seem to.
“You good?” He feels Rick’s question more than he hears it.
“Yeah, just gonna… wanna lie down,” Morty replies, crawling over the tiny mattress to press himself against the wall. The plaster is cool where it touches his skin, and above him, Rick’s various papers are tacked up: the closest he’s ever been to seeing inside the man’s head. Morty finds the original blueprints for the ship there, traces the lines of the garbage can thrusters. He's spent more time in that ship than he has in class in the past six months, his brain reminds him.
Rick's presence at his back is almost a surprise. He leaves as much space between them as he can without falling off the cot, shifting to lie down and get comfortable.
"Go to sleep, Morty," he murmurs. His breath hits the back of Morty's neck and he shivers, even though it's warm in Rick's closet of a room. "I got you," Rick says again, before his breathing evens out and he's sleeping.
"Okay," Morty whispers, and closes his eyes.
Morty dreams, but when he wakes, he doesn’t remember it.
* * *
Man, Rick thinks, shit is just too easy sometimes. Winning Morty over is like taking candy from a baby, if the baby was blind, paralyzed, and asleep.
Tell him "good job" and he looks incredulous. Take him out for ice cream and he acts like Christmas came early. The bar is so low that it’s underground, would probably be in hell if Rick believed in such places, and it’s a good thing he doesn’t-- because as he spends more time taking Morty out on adventures, he’s forming more of an attachment than he thinks is wise. Yeah, Rick gets it now. Gets why this particular song and dance plays out infinitely across the multiverse, aside from the brainwaves factor.
The kid’s not half bad. Sure, he’s annoying as shit, and his morals kick in at the most irritating times, but Morty is entertaining and better yet, he’s occasionally useful for reasons unrelated to his neurology. Rick is the last person any boy should look to as a role model, but with Beth’s minimalist parenting and Jerry being… Jerry, what other choice does Morty have? So when Morty starts picking up on the extraplanetary terminology that Rick uses, and his time running a mile improves significantly, along with his aim, Rick shrugs and figures he’s just giving Morty a better education than any teacher at that godforsaken school ever could.
Unfortunately, that education has consequences that he doesn’t fully foresee.
In the back of his mind, Rick had always known he’d probably have to take Morty and switch dimensions someday. He hadn’t guessed it’d have anything to do with Morty’s insatiable desire to get into his classmate’s pants, but it’s not that shocking, thinking back on it.
They’re on the couch, watching some inane cooking show from a dimension where the potato is a rare and expensive delicacy. A contestant presents a dish of five french fries with a smear of ketchup on the plate, and the judges go wild. Rick sips his beer, turning the day’s events over in his mind, wondering what projects this dimension’s Rick was working on before he became a bloody pulp. He doesn’t miss the hollow expression on Morty’s face as he gets up to go and see. When Rick returns a few hours later, the living room is empty.
He finds Morty in his room, hunched over his desk. Everything’s been pulled out of the drawers and spread across the desktop, a jumble of pencils and old schoolwork that Morty is inspecting closely.
“The hell are you doing?” Rick asks, arching his brow. Morty doesn’t look at him.
“Going through my stuff,” he says, idly twirling a pencil in his hand. “Well, it - it’s not mine, exactly - I mean, I guess it is now.”
“And what’s the point of that?” Rick walks over to look over Morty’s shoulder. There’s a book report lying there, marked with a higher grade than Morty normally gets-- a B-plus, with a sticker of a dog on it. Great analysis, Morty, is written in blue pen at the top, keep it up.
“Well, my schedule changed, w-would you believe that?” says Morty, tapping his finger on a paper with a list of his classes on it. “I have history eighth period now. And this Morty got put in French instead of Spanish, so, guess I’ll--” his face contorts, like he’s not sure how to arrange it, “guess I’ll have to start studying,” he manages, breaking out into hysterical-sounding giggles.
Fucking hell, Rick thinks. Time for a reality check.
“Morty, look at me,” he demands. When he looks at his grandson’s upturned face, he almost loses his nerve, but no. This isn’t a problem that can be solved with hugs and fucking naptime.
“Listen. You already know our world was completely and totally fucked. No question about that, I put that place on the express train to Cronenberg hell, we’ve been over it. But you can’t go around thinking that - acting like you went and killed that other Morty just because you buried his body, alright? Our alternate selves would’ve been exactly the way they were whether we came here or not. Your mom would’ve walked into that bloodbath to call us for dinner and lost her fucking mind.”
Morty looks faintly nauseated, like he hadn’t thought about that before.
“Yeah, now you’re starting to get it. We’re not special, Morty! The multiverse is infinite, and sure-- maybe this Morty paid off some nerd to write his book report, but--”
“He wrote it,” Morty interrupts. “I would’ve written it too, if we hadn’t, hadn’t gone for those megaseeds. It was a good book, Rick.”
“Who gives a shit if the book was good?!” Rick pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I - I’m trying to resolve your existential crisis, here--”
“I care, Rick! Me!”
“That’s beside the point, Morty--”
“No, Rick, it isn’t beside the point! I’m not like you! I-I-I can’t just, just drink vodka and get over it like you can. M-maybe…” Morty drops his gaze back down to his desk, taking a deep breath. “Maybe you’ve done this enough that it’s not upsetting to you, y’know? Or you’re better at not thinking about it than I am. I won’t complain about being given another chance. But you can’t expect me to step into someone else’s life and not feel anything about it, okay?”
Rick sneers at him and takes a spiteful pull from his flask. “Whatever, Morty. I’ll be in the garage. Come get me when you’ve pulled your panties out of your ass.”
He turns away, has his hand on the doorknob when Morty says, “Wait!”
He waits, not giving a reply.
“W-what’s this dimension’s number?”
Rick hesitates, but figures it won’t hurt anything for Morty to know. “C-119.”
And having decided that this conversation will be his last coherent memory for the foreseeable future, Rick heads off to get absolutely plastered. The rest of the night passes in flashes, like changing channels:
Shattering glass on the wall, bottles gone supernova--
Stumbling up the stairs--
Almost tripping over a potted fern that didn’t exist in his last dimension--
Slamming Morty’s door open, lurching towards the bed--
Words tumbling out of his mouth, laced with guilt he can’t express--
Faceful of sheets, warm body under him, grabbing, grabbing--
Rick and Morty, a hundred years, no, a thousand--
Rick and Morty-- Morty-- Morty.