Chapter Text
Morty had left his bedroom door open a crack. Rick lurked outside, peering in.
The kid was sitting at his desk, hunched over, pen in hand, writing diligently. Like an innocent gazelle at the waterhole, lapping away, oblivious to his environment…never noticing the grizzled but still powerful jaguar lurking in the grass, about to pounce.
Holding his breath, Rick eased the door open, slow enough that the hinges didn’t squeak, and crept toward Morty. The jaguar moves closer, a well-oiled machine, not a single blade of grass rustling to betray his presence…
His own actions—sneaking into Morty’s room, mentally narrating the whole thing like a nature documentary—suddenly struck Rick as overwhelmingly funny. A maniacal giggle bubbled up in his throat and he had to pause to choke it down. He muffled a burp with one hand—shit, drank too much—swayed a little, and resumed creeping forward again.
Focus.
Eyes narrowed in concentration, arms in T-Rex position with the fingers arched like claws, he leaned slowly, slowly over Morty’s shoulder to peer at the notebook.
A fatal error—the jaguar miscalculated the angle of the sun. Er, lamp. His shadow fell over the desk, alerting the prey.
Morty’s body jerked as though he’d been electrocuted. He quickly snapped the notebook shut and twisted in his chair, driving an elbow into Rick’s sternum. Rick staggered back.
The gazelle is enraged! He kicks out, injuring the predator—
“Jesus, Rick! Knock.”
“Uh, h-h-hey.” He rubbed his sore chest. “Hey there buddy. Just…just checking in. How’s—what’s the weather like in Mortyland?”
“Wh-wh-what’s wrong with you? Sneaking into my room like—w-were you spying on me?!”
“What? No! I don’t care what’s in the stupid mysterious notebook that you write in all the time and won’t let anyone see.”
“You were spying! You asshole!”
“What? Pffft.” Rick crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you high, Morty? H-havin’ some paranoia there? Anyway, I didn’t see anything.”
Mostly. He had only gotten a brief glimpse of the notebook’s contents, but he’d seen his name in there. More than once.
Morty sniffed the air and said, “Y-you smell like whiskey.”
“Bourbon. It’s b-b-buh-bourbon.” He leaned in again, slinging an arm over Morty’s shoulder and breathing in his face so he winced and covered his nose and mouth. “W-we never adventure anymore. Go on an adventure with me.”
Morty fidgeted. “I’ve got to study.”
“You say that every time. Sssstudying is lame. D-do you even think that’s real science, Morty? What they teach you in that—that livestock pen? Real science creates and destroys life. It makes stuff explode. It topples empires and r-r-r-ruh—rends the very fabric of time and space. Filling out worksheets is just d-designed to keep you a shtupid seep. Sheep. S-suh-stu—”
Morty twisted around in his chair again, placed a hand directly on Rick’s face and pushed him backward. “You’re super drunk. You’re s-s-s-slurring like crazy. You couldn’t even pilot a spaceship like this.”
“Please. I pilot drunk all the time.”
“Go sleep it off or something. Stop huffing your drunk-breath in my face.”
“Come on. I’ll even let you pick the adventure. You wanna go to Boob World? R-run through a field of boobs?”
Morty was flushed, plainly agitated. “I said no.”
He huffed. “Fine, whatever. I’ll ask Summer. Since you’re obviously on your period.”
“Sh-sh-sh-shut up!”
Rick smirked. “G-g…got a tampon shoved up your little dick-hole? Is that why you’re grouchy?”
He knew he wasn’t helping his own cause here, but it was hard to resist teasing when the kid reacted in such a predictably over-the-top way.
Morty didn’t disappoint. The flush in his cheeks spread. When he was really embarrassed, he blushed all the way from the roots of his hair down to his collarbones. “Jeez.” The word emerged as a pained whisper. He hunched over and squirmed a little in his chair, his expression scrunching up, as though the mockery caused him physical discomfort. “You—y-you shouldn’t say stuff like that. That’s not even how it works. You don’t p—put a tampon up the pee-hole. It’s—it’s a different—”
“Oh so you know all about periods? I guess you would.” He poked a teasing finger at Morty’s bright red cheek. “What, you—you shove the tampon up your ass instead? Is that where the blood comes out?”
Morty shrunk into himself, rolling up like a pillbug. Small, shuddery breaths escaped him.
Shit. Had he gone too far?
“Oh, come on, Morty, don’t—are you crying? For real? Damn, you really are on the rag.” Silence. Shit. “I’m just—just bustin’ your balls, dude. Relax.”
“I’m not crying.” His voice squeaked, cracking a little over the words.
“You, uh—you want me to help you study? I’ve got this good shit from Xarthral-X. It’s like Adderall but ten times better. Also ten times more addictive.”
Morty was still taking those weird, shuddery little breaths. “Just go. Please.”
Rick’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. Whatever.” He turned and shuffled out of the room, defeated.
Morty called out, “C-close the door behind you.”
Rick did. He paused outside the door, leaning against the wall. “Little piece of shit,” he muttered, without much rancor.
Damn it. Now Morty was all pissed off.
What did you expect?
Well, Rick wouldn’t be so obsessed with the stupid journal if Morty wasn’t acting so fucking weird. So quiet, so secretive. The only time Rick ever saw him anymore was at the breakfast and dinner table, and even then, he barely talked. Wouldn’t make eye contact, not even for a moment. What was going on?
He’s outgrowing you, the mental voice nagged. He’s leaving you behind.
Maybe this was bound to happen sooner or later. They’d been drifting apart for a while, hadn’t they? The kid was getting older. Hell, he barely seemed like a kid anymore. Hanging out with his grandpa wasn’t his idea of a good time. Even if his grandpa happened to be a space-faring, dimension-hopping genius, at the end of the day he was still just another old guy.
But something nagged at Rick. Something felt…off.
Morty spent an hour or more each day just writing, writing, writing. He did it alone in his room, and if he noticed anyone watching him he would quickly shut the door. He always brought it with him to his private therapy sessions. And when he wasn’t writing, he always hid it. Where, Rick didn’t know.
Obviously, there was something inside it that he really didn’t want anyone to see.
* * *
“So wh-what’s going on with Morty?”
He and Beth were doing dishes together in the kitchen. Rick didn’t normally help out with chores, but he figured pitching in might make her more inclined to be open with him.
She blinked at him, all faux-innocence. “What do you mean?”
“C’mon. You’ve noticed it too. You must have.”
She shrugged, her gaze darting away. “He’s been a little moody. But then, he’s a teenager.”
Rick snorted. “Y-y-you telling me you don’t smell anything fishy?”
“I don’t know—”
“You sure he hasn’t picked up a drug habit?”
“Morty? No.”
“Secret lover?”
“I doubt that.”
“M-maybe he killed someone. Seen any mysterious murders on the news lately?”
“Oh, come on.”
“Just spitballing here. Y-you got any alternative theories?”
Beth sighed, swept a dish towel over a wet glass, and placed it on the rack. “I do realize he’s going through…something. I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but he’s been scheduling extra therapy appointments. Going on his own.”
“Yeah, I know. I picked him up from one, remember? So why?”
“He doesn’t tell me anything. When I asked Dr. Wong about it she said she’s ‘monitoring the situation.’”
Something about the phrasing irritated him. Who asked her to monitor any situations?
“You know,” Beth said, “maybe if you joined us in family counseling a little more often—”
“We’re talking about Morty here. D-don’t change the subject.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to scrubbing a pot. After a minute or two of silence, she said, “I can’t force him to open up. Neither can you. Let it be.”
Rick wasn’t satisfied with that. “He never wants to go anywhere or do anything anymore.”
Beth frowned. “Just as well. He’s a fourteen-year-old boy. He needs to be in school, not running around in outer space, doing god-knows-what.”
“What? Now you disapprove? You said it was okay. As long as I got his permission.”
She stared into the sink. “I was willing to overlook my misgivings for a long time, because it’s been so long since Morty has had a friend. I thought…I convinced myself that you were good for him. I mean, at least he was getting out of his room. At least he was doing something other than playing videogames or staring at his laptop like a zombie. And at first…I don’t know.”
He waited, soapy plate in hand.
“A year or so ago...before you showed up and the whole space-adventures thing started...Morty was very, very lonely. He was having all these difficulties at school, his grades were poor, the other kids bullied him, and he was just…sad. All the time. He cried in his room almost every night. And it just kept getting worse. We were thinking about taking him to a doctor. And then you showed up. And for a while, he seemed to sort of—come alive. He smiled more, talked more. Even when crazy things started happening, it was easy to just go along with it, because I didn’t want to go back to the way things were. But now…it’s like…suddenly Dr. Wong is telling me that he has complex PTSD and recommending a psychiatrist to prescribe anxiety medication, and—”
“So…what?” Rick’s voice was tense. “You think it’s my fault?”
Is it?
“I don’t know.” She met his gaze, and there was a hardness in her expression he wasn’t used to seeing there. Not directed at him, anyway. “But if he’s ignoring you, maybe there's a reason for that. Right now, he needs stability. And…no offense, Dad, but you’re the opposite of that.”
* * *
Later that night, in the garage, Rick muttered ferociously to himself as he tinkered with his latest invention and drank.
“Fuckin’ Morty. Fuckin’ little—b-brainwashed school-worshipping conformist piece of shit. Little pussy-ass wet blanket motherfucker.”
And Beth. Jesus, when had she gotten so—direct? He’d counted on her support for so long, and now suddenly it was gone. She and Jerry—everyone in the family, it seemed—had allied against him. She was telling him that he was the reason Morty was so fucked up.
Am I?
Maybe the problem wasn’t simply that Morty was outgrowing him. No. It went deeper than that.
Morty—his grandson, his partner in crime, his best friend—had gotten to know Rick too well. Those hazel-green eyes—so like hers—now looked at him with jaded contempt. He saw the person Rick truly was and he was disgusted.
Why did Rick even care? Why did it matter so much?
He told himself that he wasn’t lonely. He mentally listed all the numerous friends that he could call up if he felt like it, people who would (he told himself) undoubtedly be thrilled to hear from him.
But of course, most of those people were from the distant past. People who had lives and families of their own now. Automatically he started to dial Bird Person's number, then remembered that he was dead. He tried Squanchy and it went to voicemail.
He kept drinking until he was drunk enough to pick up his interdimensional cellphone, dial a number he’d promised himself he would never dial, and stammer out, “H-h-hey, how’s it—how’s it goin’?”
“Rick Sanchez,” said the deep, rumbling voice. “I did not expect to hear from you again.”
“Yeah. So, uh, h-hey, been a while, you wanna—you wanna go get a drink or something? Maybe…do a little soul-bonding?”
There was an awkward pause. “I’m in a monogamous soul-bond now.”
“You? Really?”
“You don’t have to sound so shocked,” Balthromaw replied drily. “People change.”
“Well…whatever. You wanna just get high? Fly around? Cause some damage?”
“We shared a brief moment in time, Rick. You were a worthy adversary and a fine friend, but that time has passed. We live in different worlds.”
“Okay, okay, fine, I get it. Sheesh.”
“I wish you well, but—”
“I get it!” He hung up.
This was a new low point: getting rejected by the sluttiest dragon he’d ever known.
He drank some more, marinating in self-pity. To distract himself he put in his earbuds and scrolled through some music. Maybe it was the conversation with Balthromaw but he found himself thinking of the song “Puff the Magic Dragon.” He brought it up and played it.
It was sentimental sixties twee pabulum, but something about the ending had always hit him in a certain way, because it felt real. The kid—Jackie Paper—grew up, decided magic was bullshit, and abandoned his dragon pal. And Puff sank into depression. “Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave. So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.”
You were expecting another verse after that, one where the grown-up Jackie’s son or daughter showed up in Honah Lee and Puff forged a new bond with the next generation, but…nope. It just ended. Jackie wasn’t replaceable, and Puff never got over him. Fucker was molting scales from the grief and stress. And that was where the song left him.
After a while Rick blacked out. He woke up face-down on the cold cement floor of the garage in a puddle of drool and vomit with “Puff the Magic Dragon” still playing on loop.
Rick groaned, head pounding, and pulled the headphones off. He wiped his mouth, and strings of foamy greenish saliva clung to his sleeve.
He felt…sick.
He picked himself up off the floor and wandered into the house, into the bathroom, where he washed out his vomit-tasting mouth. He wanted a shower, so he stripped—and paused, looking at himself in the mirror.
Scrawny, age-spotted body. Prominent ribs and concave stomach and knobby spine. Old, puckered white scars and white hairs and saggy, withered skin. Pale, wrinkly dick and balls hanging there with all the charm of a dead plucked turkey. His complexion had an unhealthy grayish tone. Even his eyes, once a penetrating steely bluish-gray, now had a kind of washed out look, the irises fading into the whites.
He looked like shit. He looked like a seventy-year-old man who didn’t take care of his body. Like a sloppy, gross old drunk who—if not for the accident of his staggering IQ and the generosity of his family—would probably be homeless. Just another twitchy-eyed old loony ranting and raving on a corner somewhere. Given the way he lived, it was amazing he’d survived this long, even with the mechanical upgrades he’d given himself. He wondered if he would even make it to eighty.
This is you. This is what it all added up to. Doesn’t get any better.
His throat felt suddenly tight. He turned away from the reflection. He was shaking.
Fuck it. Fuck it. Who cares?
He turned on the water and stepped quickly into the stall so he could tell himself that the wetness on his cheeks was shower-spray.