Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13896390.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Rick_and_Morty
  Relationship:
      Rick_Sanchez/Morty_Smith, Morty_Smith/Morty_Smith
  Character:
      Rick_Sanchez_(Rick_and_Morty), Morty_Smith, another_Morty
  Additional Tags:
      interdimensional_internet, Kind_of_fluffy, Angst_too, sorry_about_the
      chapter_titles, and_Everything_else
  Stats:
      Published: 2018-03-07 Updated: 2018-03-29 Chapters: 6/? Words: 26704
****** ~*~*~Proud Rickmate~*~*~ ******
by Lassenby
Summary
     C-137's Morty finds out about a disturbing new trend among Mortys.
***** too many fucking 21 pilots references *****
The forum was the best thing to come from Rick’s arrival in Morty’s life.
Before, he’d had no friends, at least nobody he hung out with outside of
school. No-one to confide in.
Rick had become...friend-like. Friend adjacent. They hung out a lot, even had
fun sometimes. But Morty didn’t feel relaxed around him. Rick would pick apart
any dumb remark Morty made, belittle him for any superstition or weakness.
Morty never felt like he could just talk around Rick.
But then he found out about the Citadel of Ricks, and on a flyer he’d pocketed,
the forum’s web address. At Morty’s request, Rick had set up interdimensional
internet on his laptop.
‘Be careful, Morty,’ Rick had warned him. ‘The porn on here, it’s great, Morty,
it’s the best, but you have to be smart about it. Stay away from the real gonzo
stuff. That deep web shit will turn your brain into chowder, your eyes, Morty,
they’ll skin themselves like grapes-’
He’d rambled on like that for awhile. But Morty hadn’t wanted the
interdimensional web for its porn- Not to say he didn’t make use of that, too,
plenty of times, always careful to stay away from ‘that deep web shit’.
It was the forum he’d wanted. And since then, he’d returned there every night.
Sometimes he just lurked, other times he posted on topics; occasionally he’d
even get wrapped up in a conversation, staying up half the night talking.
In an all-Morty forum, Morty made friends he could be himself around.
It was almost like having cheat codes for life. Mortys posted which classes he
could pass without doing the homework, and which girls at school would agree to
go out with him. Only one Morty had to test the waters for the rest to learn
from the results.
Mortys shared movie and video game recommendations. After all, he could always
trust his own tastes. They uploaded their favorite music from their own
dimensions. 21 Pilots were big, as were 20 Pilots, 22 Peanuts, and Smeventy-one
Shmilots.
It was good. For once in Morty’s life, he’d found a place where he belonged. He
never could have guessed how quickly this happiness could turn to horror.
It happened one night when he was browsing the forum, same as usual, when he
noticed an unfamiliar term come up a few times, once in a post and twice in
different Morty’s signature bars. On the forum, they had their own lingo and
plenty of inside jokes, but Morty rarely came across any he didn’t know. He
logged more hours than most Mortys on the site.
So he typed into the forum’s search field; ‘Rickmate’ and began to scroll
through the results.
After skimming two topics, he’d read enough. He leaped out of bed.
His laptop crashed to the floor, but Morty didn’t check to see if it was
broken. He just stood in the center of his room, arms wrapped around himself
while violent shudders wracked his body. A cold pit of horror yawned in his
stomach.
He felt frozen, waiting to feel okay enough to move. Eventually he did thaw
enough to go downstairs in a dream-like stupor, even though he felt far from
okay.
Maybe nothing would ever feel okay again.
He found Rick slumped on the couch, a nearly empty bottle dangling in one hand.
The lights were out. It was dark, but television’s blue light washed over Rick.
He barely looked up when Morty came in.
“Hey,” he grunted. “You’re up late.”
Morty almost decided to keep quiet about what he’d seen. If it had been
daytime, the living room bright and normal, and the rest of his family milling
around, he would have slunk back to his room and left this secret to fester in
the dark.
“I saw something terrible, Rick,” Morty blurted out.
“I warned you about that deep web shit,” Rick said. “You uh, you puked the bed,
now you gotta lie in it.”
“No, that’s not- that isn’t how the saying goes. And it wasn’t porn. Well, some
of it ventured into that territory.” Remembering some of the things Mortys had
said, the lurid details they divulged, gave Morty’s stomach a sick lurch that
was mostly revulsion but with a twinge of...something else. “I was on this all
Morty forum, where they, we-”
“Sounds like a real circle jerk.”
“Would you shut up for a second? You’re a- a real jerk.”
“Good one, Morty. Really cut me to the quick there.”
“Rick! There are versions of you...they, they uh...their r-r-relationships with
their Mortys…”
“Spit it ou-eugh-t already, damn.”
“They have sex with Mortys!” Morty exploded, his face flushed.
Rick barely twitched. If he were surprised, he didn’t show it.
“Oh, those guys. Fucking animals. They can’t even wait for you to turn sixteen?
I mean, I know I’m pretty fucking- pretty screwed up, but you gotta have some
standards.”
“You....you already knew- Wait, sixteen? That’s the reason you think it’s
wrong?” Morty’s voice was growing shrill.
“Right and wrong are social constructs, Morty. Th-th-they’re just rules made up
by sheep, followed by sheep who don’t want to get kicked out of the flock. But,
sure, sixteen seems like a pretty good cut-off.”
“You’re unbelievable, Rick!” Morty trembled all over. “So you were just waiting
for me to get older, and then you were going to, what, make your move?!”
“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this, Morty.”
“So it’s true. Oh man, oh geez…”
“I probably wasn’t,” Rick said, boredly flipping through the channels, not even
looking at Morty. “It’s not-” he belched, “Not that high on my to-do list, you
know?”
“I’m not high on your to-do list?!” Morty’s voice reached that dangerously high
pitch, and Rick winced.
“Sheesh, kid, if it means that much to you, I can move you up a little. How
about you come over here and sit on grandpa’s lap, huh? We’ll watch some
interdimensional cable, see where the night-”
Morty didn’t hear the rest. He’d passed out, folding into a heap on the ground
with a soft thud.
 
===============================================================================
 
Morty woke up in his own bed. It was still night, and his lights were out. His
head swam with confused thoughts.
A soft clicking sound made him realize that he wasn’t alone in his room. He
glanced down and saw Rick sitting on the floor with his back against Morty’s
bed, long legs stretched out and Morty’s laptop in his lap. From that angle,
Morty could look over his shoulder and see that he was scrolling through the
forum.
Rick lingered on a photo. In the selfie, some Morty was kissing their Rick on
the cheek while their Rick smiled indulgently into the camera. Morty thought
he’d never seen his own Rick smile like that.
When he scrolled down to the Morty’s signature, Rick scoffed. “Shmeventy-one
Shmilots is the worst. More like Shmeventy-one Sell-outs, am I right?”
Morty didn’t answer. He tried to breathe evenly, so Rick would think he was
still asleep.
“I know you’re awake,” Rick said.
Maybe he did, or maybe he was just guessing. He wouldn’t know for sure as long
as Morty feigned sleep. After a long stretch of silence, Rick went back to
scrolling.
“I lied,” Rick admitted, so easily that Mordy thought he misheard him at first.
“Who gives a fuck if you’re sixteen? It’s incest with my grandson, it’ll never
be less fucked up. You know why I didn’t make a move?”
Morty wanted Rick to shut up. Or he did want to know, more than anything. A sea
of confusion tossed him between the two thoughts. But it didn’t matter, because
he was pretending to be asleep.
“I didn’t want to screw this up.” Rick snorted humorlessly. “But I guess it was
inevitable. Wouldn’t have m-mattered anyway, huh? You wouldn’t have been into
it.”
What would have happened, if Rick had made a move before? Would Morty have
*~*~Proud Rickmate~*~* in his forum signature now?
No. No way. Morty didn’t feel that way about his own grandfather. There had
been a few dreams, but all teenagers had messed up sex dreams. And that
fluttery feeling whenever Rick complimented him or put a hand on his shoulder.
No matter how bad Rick treated him, Morty idolized his brilliant grandpa, so of
course any glimmer of affection had a strong effect on Morty. That was normal.
Right?
“M-m-almost all Mortys have a crush on me by now. A harmless little, hero
worship thing.”
It was so pompous that Morty almost blew his cover with a snide remark. But he
bit his tongue and watched in silence as Rick changed his forum icon to a
Sesame Street character with a dick photoshopped over its nose.
“Most Ricks just go for it. Well, you saw. Some of them get freaked out and
leave, some of them never get your appeal.”
Which kind are you? Morty wanted to scream. The quiet in the bedroom was
suffocating.
“But I’d never heard of a Morty who wasn’t interested at all. You’re-” he
paused to belch- “One of a kind. J-just my fucking luck. I don’t know why
you’re different. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I called you an idiot too many times, or
you can't get over that time I puked in your bed without telling you. The thing
I’m most pissed off about is, I’m actually disappointed.”
Morty’s belly did more of those revolted/excited flip-flops.
“Whatever. It’s better this way. Now I can just do a little…” Rick made the
shape of a gun with his hand and made a ‘click-click’ noise. “And everything’s
back to normal.”
Rick’s grip tightened on the laptop.
“I should have...” he said. “E-e-even if it killed me, I could have taken you
to the dimensions you wanted, or let you pick the radio station. I should have
said nice shit to you sometimes. Would that have made a difference? Probably
not.”
“You could try,” Morty croaked. He hadn’t meant to say anything, but it had
slipped out before he could stop himself.
Rick didn’t answer right away. Nearly a minute later, he still hadn’t said
anything.
“Are you trying to think of something nice to say to me? It takes you that
long?” Morty asked.
“No. I’m a dick, so this stuff isn’t easy,” Rick said quietly. “You’re
important to me. Is that what you want to hear?”
Now it was Morty’s turn not to answer. He wasn’t going to bail Rick out. If he
wanted to be decent for once, he could figure out how to do it.
“Well, you are important. And not just because of your brainwaves. You realize,
if you were as annoying as Jerry, every Rick in the central finite curve would
have invented something to take your place already, right? I could whip up a
rudimentary artificial intelligence that would emit the same kind of brainwaves
as you in a few hours.”
“Good to know I’m so replaceable,” Morty said bitterly.
“Fuck, that’s not what I- would you give me a break? This is why I don’t do
this kind of stuff. No, dumbass, listen to what I’m saying! Ricks don’t really
need Mortys, we want them. You. I want you.”
Morty’s heart skipped a beat. “Y-yeah?”
“When we’re on an adventure, I can always count on you. And you’re not a huge
pain in the ass. Well, not always. You can be, uh, pretty cool. Fun to be
around.” Rick was still scrolling idly through the forum, and he happened on a
downright filthy photo. “Oh, and I hear you give great head.”
“Geez, Rick!”
“I’m just saying. Obviously I wouldn’t know firsthand.” Rick closed the laptop,
plunging the bedroom into darkness. Weak starlight from the window etched a
silver outline around Rick’s hair.
“What I’m trying to say, Morty, is that I love you.”
Morty touched Rick’s head in the dark. Rick jolted, then relaxed as Morty
silently petted the the flyaway fluff of his hair. He let his head fall back
onto the bed, saying nothing as Morty traced the lines on his forehead.
“Aren’t you kinda old to be sitting on the ground?” Morty asked, trying to keep
the shakiness out of his voice. “You can come up here, i-if you want.”
Rick obediently got up, his hips and back popping audibly. The bed creaked as
he crawled into it. The mattress was a twin size, too small to comfortably fit
two people, but Morty had known that. He hadn’t wanted an appropriate amount of
space between them.
What he wanted was for Rick to lay down beside him, close enough for their
elbows and knees to brush. Close enough to feel Rick’s breath on his cheek and
smell the boozy sour smell of him. It had never been a good smell, objectively,
but now Morty realized that it had always stirred something in him.
Finally, Morty let himself understand what that feeling meant.
He worried that Rick would try to get handsy. That would be too much- Morty had
only just started to think of him that way, or accepted those thoughts. But
Rick didn’t touch him, except to tangle their fingers together in a
surprisingly sweet gesture.
Morty didn’t know how long they laid that way before he fell asleep.
In the morning, Rick was gone. It would almost be possible for Morty to believe
he had dreamed the whole thing. It was crazy enough to be a dream. But his
laptop was still lying on the floor beside the bed, where he wouldn’t have put
it.
Morty picked up the laptop.
His profile on the forum bore the evidence of the previous night’s hacking. He
changed his icon back to the picture of Snuffles. As he was about to close the
tab, he noticed that his bio had been changed, too. He read it.
‘Morty-
What I said last night was true. But I won’t talk about any of it, ever, until
you bring it up. Things don’t have to change unless you want it to. Either way,
I’ll be happy as long as it’s still Rick and Morty, forever and forever. A
hundred years, us.
PS- I got into a flame war with some dicknut who wouldn’t admit that
Schmeventy-one Shmilots are the fucking worst, so you have two strikes against
your account now. Sorry.’
***** do you even fucking care about floobles? *****
Morty came downstairs to an ordinary morning scene. His family was having
breakfast, a platter of waffles piled in the middle of the table beside a bowl
of fruit, syrup and butter. Someone had set a plate for Morty in his usual
place. This morning, it felt like either a blessing or a curse that Rick sat
all the way across the table from him. He wasn’t sure which.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Jerry said as Morty slid into his seat. “Stay up
late last night?”
“I guess,” Morty mumbled as he forked waffles onto his plate.
He watched Rick in darting glances. If Jerry’s question had registered to him,
or if he’d even noticed that Morty had entered the room, he didn’t show it. He
chewed a bite of waffle with a zoned out expression.
Morty ate in silence, barely able to track the small-talk going on around him.
He kept waiting for a sign from Rick. Anything to prove last night was real. A
lingering gaze or a wink, or a double-sided statement that would seem innocuous
to the rest of the family, or-
“Do I have crap on my face?”
“Huh?” Morty blinked.
“Y-y-y-you’ve been staring at me like a little creep,” Rick said
“You always have crap on your face, Grandpa,” Summer said. “That old man drool
in the corners of your mouth? It’s disgusting.”
“Summer!” Beth snapped. “Someday you’ll get older and-”
She continued lecturing, but Morty had tuned out again. His eyes dropped to his
plate.
Rick said in his note that he wouldn’t say anything about last night until
Morty brought it up. But since when did Rick keep his promises? Especially when
he wanted something? Morty’s brain churned over two horrible possibilities;
Even though he hadn’t seemed it, Rick had been blackout drunk last night. Maybe
he didn’t remember what they had talked about.
Or worse; Rick did remember, but he’d changed his mind.
After Rick swabbed his last bite of waffle through syrup, downed it with a swig
of black coffee and complimented the Beth on her cooking, he went off into the
garage. Morty watched him go with disappointment.
But a few seconds later, he skidded back around the corner.
“H-holy shit, Morty, I just picked up a distress call from a planet on the
brink of tectonic destruction. The place is full of unhurped floobles, Morty!”
Morty leaped up from his seat. “We’ve got to hurp those floobles, Rick!”
“That’s what I just said, but sure, we can pretend it was your idea if that’s
what you gotta do. Now hurry, Morty, there’s no time to waste!”
Summer banged her fists on the table. “Hurp! Those! Floobles!” she said in time
with each thump. Soon Beth and Jerry joined in too.
Their combined chant of “Hurp those floobles,” followed Rick and Morty to the
garage, until Rick closed the door between them.
Morty’s pulse hammered. This was it- Rick’s dumb excuse to get him alone had
worked perfectly, and now Morty would have to make up his mind. What was he
supposed to do? Maybe he should have been thinking about his next move over
breakfast instead of waiting for a sign.
“You gonna get in the damn ship, or what?” Rick snapped. “Those floobles aren’t
going to hurp themselves.”
“Wha...?”
“Jesus, Morty, it’s like you don’t even give a shit about floobles.”
Morty was still half convinced Rick was fucking with him, even after they got
into the ship and flew for half an hour to a gray planet splintered by a web of
red, spidery cracks.
They hurped for hours, hurped until their fingers were raw. There was no time
to dwell on whatever was going on between them. It was tedious, backbreaking
work, but eventually they had hurped every last flooble. They climbed back into
the ship, exhausted down to their bones.
The ride back to Earth passed in silence. Morty dozed, slumped in his seat, as
stars striped past the windshield. He jerked awake when the ship clunked down
in the garage.
“I’m gonna go take a shower,” Morty announced as he stumbled of the ship.
Without meaning to, he made the statement open-ended, so it sounded like a
question.
Rick just grunted. He’d already dropped onto his stool and was hunched over his
desk, tinkering with some gadget.
“Goodnight,” Morty said.
Rick just gave a dismissive half-wave with one hand.
Morty didn’t end up taking the shower. The long day had sapped all his energy,
and he fell into bed without even kicking off his shoes. He was plagued by
confused dreams all night, in which he closed his eyes with breathless
expectation, thinking that Rick was about to kiss him, only to be horrified by
the touch of a flooble’s cool, gelatinous flesh instead.
 
===============================================================================
 
 
The next day was much the same, with Rick acting like nothing had happened and
Morty too anxious to ask about it. The idea of making a move on his own
grandfather seemed ludicrous by the light of day. That night, though, Morty
risked a return to his old stomping ground.
He worried that the forum’s appeal would be ruined by what his recent
discovery. But to his surprise, it felt great to scroll through the familiar
rants and raves. It was only slightly tainted by the recent in-fighting.
The Mortys had split between Rickmates and those disgusted by the idea. Morty
couldn’t help wondering if those disgusted ones actually felt the same way he
did, with attraction running deep under a layer of denial and shame. Arguments
broke out in every topic. Mods had their hands full locking threads and issuing
bans.
Some of the haters were former Rickmates whose Ricks had screwed them over.
Morty read their stories, even though it hurt. Some made it hard to look at his
own Rick. But Morty always understood that those awful Ricks weren’t the same
as his. His Rick could be shitty, even downright evil, but he’d never do
anything that bad to Morty.
At least, that’s what Morty told himself. Maybe he even believed it a little.
He read the Rickmates stories, too. About how things changed between Mortys and
Ricks, when they noticed the spark of attraction, how they first kissed, where
they first fucked. Morty read the latter accounts with squirmy excitement.
And then there was the cam-Morty. He was a popular Morty in the community,
known for posting lots of selfies, pics, and (usually hilarious) short clips.
He and his Rick had started fooling around a few months back, and recently,
he’d uploaded a video- a video that Morty quickly had memorized. After seeing
it the first time, he was irresistibly drawn back. He watched it every night
for a week.
The video went like this:
A Rick laid back on a bed, shirtless. His hair even more fucked up than usual.
The camera wobbled, held in an unsteady hand.
“Am I boring you?” Rick asked. “You got a, uh, important game of Candy Crunch
you just can't miss?”
“It’s a video.” The Morty’s voice came from off-screen. “I just wanted to- just
for me.”
Rick laughed. “You think you’re being pretty clever with that phrasing, huh? I
know you’re going to put it on that Morty circle-jerk website. Don’t lie to
me.”
“Y-you got me, Rick.”
“Want me to impress your friends? What do kids like these days?” Rick lifted
his arms in an awkward dab, the best he could pull off laying on his back.
“Maybe I’ll do like, a fidget spinner trick. Spin it on my dick, something like
that.”
“Whatever, Rick,” the Morty said, sounding wounded. “Forget it.”
“Give it here,” Rick demanded. “Amature twink like you, you won’t know how to
film this.”
The Morty stammered. His Rick reached toward the camera, and there was a whirl
of colors and thumping as he took the phone and turned it around. Now the
screen showed Morty, sitting on Rick’s lap completely naked.
He squirmed with discomfort. “C-come on, Rick, nobody wants to see me-or, them,
you know? I could just look in a mirror if- A-ah!” Whatever else Morty was
going to say was cut off by a gasp as Rick silenced him a sharp upward jerk of
his hips.
(The first time Morty watched the video, he hadn’t noticed until then that the
Rick was already inside the on-screen Morty. The headrush made him feel faint,
realizing that the whole exchange had taken place with the Morty impaled on his
Rick’s cock.)
Guiding Morty with one hand on his hip, Rick fucked him for the camera.
With the phone closer to Rick’s mouth now, it was easy to hear each grunt and
ragged breath. Through headphones, Morty felt like Rick might have been making
those sounds directly into his ears.
The best was Rick’s voice growling, “ah, fuck- just like that, yeah,” and
practically purring, “That’s it, you’re doing so good, fuck, Morty…” while
jerking off the Morty in his lap. Morty lifted off Rick’s cock and came back
down, taking him all the way--an appreciable feat the made the Morty watching a
little nervous--sometimes slow, then faster, until the Morty’s hips start to
give arrhythmic little jerks. A few more strokes from his Rick’s practiced hand
and the Morty spurted all over Rick’s belly.
The times when Morty could hear him over the pulse-thundering deafness of his
own orgasm, it was a funny sensation. He felt second-hand embarrassment
listening to his own high, reedy voice, his building whimpers and the shout as
he came- ‘Rick!’ It sounded annoying and immature.
But the Rick in the video didn’t seem to mind. He thrusted twice more into his
Morty, gripping his hip hard enough to press white indents into his skin. If
Morty hadn’t already finished by this part in the video, Rick’s long, rough
groan as he came was always enough to push him over the edge.
The afterglow never lasted long when Morty jerked off to the video. In its
wake, a jumble of conflicted feelings came rushing in. Shame and anticipation
got all tangled up.
For two weeks, Morty lived a double life. During the day he followed Rick on
dangerous, often unpleasant adventures. It was the same old, same old: Rick
bullied him, swore at him, called him a pussy for any shred of morality or
self-preservation he showed.
But every night, another Morty’s Rick crooned into his ears; “That’s it, baby,
just like that- you’re doing so good.”
Once, while fleeing from pissed-off aliens and gunfire whizzing all around
them, Rick yanked Morty into cover. Morty yelped, and Rick put a hand over his
mouth to silence him. They waited in close confinement for their pursuers to go
past. With Rick’s lean body pressing his against the wall, Morty nearly came in
his pants before they could slink back to the ship.
He couldn’t go on like this. That night, he started a thread in the new
Rickmate section of the forum. In as much detail as he could remember, he
explained what had happened between himself and Rick, and asked for advice on
the situation.
 
canoncompliant: oh geez... o////////o
miamislut: if it were me, i would blow him rn. and u are me! so go suck that
geriatric old dick and take lots of pics
tehRealmorty: Gross! :^/ You’re lucky nothing happened. Ask out jenny fallon
from math, she lets you get to third base on the first date. You’ll forget
about Rick in no time ;^)
blurryxmorty: fuck you and scum like you for even thinking about it
miamislut: dont listen to blurryxmorty, fugly m-fer just mad because i sucked
off his rick in the blips and chitz parking lot. lol!
that420kid: Go for it if you want, he’ll just erase your memory if he fucks up
too bad. pretty much a win-win
ohgeezerlvr69: link to the video??????
 
There were three pages of similar comments, but none were especially helpful.
Except for one.
killurmind: I had a thing like this with my Rick...we had this chemistry, idk
how to describe it. well, I guess you know. i could tell Rick felt it too, like
he’d touch me too long, if he put a hand on my shoulder or something, he would
just leave it there forever. and sometimes I would catch him staring at me in
this way, like?? hard to describe, sorry. hard for a lot of reasons
It was like that for, almost a month i think..everyday i was fighting with
myself. i wanted to kiss him, it was all I could think about ALL the time, but
that was before I heard about other Mortys feeling that way so I thought iw as
some kind of freak. Of course now I wish I had just done it.
My Rick died three months ago. Ill never even know what happeend, some kind of
accident in his lab. I dont know what he was working on. I was in the house and
heard the blast, i went to check and, it was bad. I'll spare u the details.
I still imagine what it would be like to kiss him, but now its impossible.
I cant decide for you...but maybe that’s dumb to say, because like that other
morty said, we’re all Mortys. So I can tell you for a fact: if you let this
chance get away, you’ll regret it. dont make the same mistake as me.
sorry for getting so heavy on your thread. good luck man
 
===============================================================================
 
 
Morty read the response twice, swallowing the lump of emotion in his throat. He
was on his feet and padding downstairs through the dark house before he even
decided to go. In the garage, he found Rick standing at his table, staring down
at some holographic blueprints on a screen. His back was to Morty.
“Rick?” Morty asked in a choked voice.
Rick grunted. “Yeah? What do you want?”
That was a complicated question. But at the moment, Morty knew exactly what he
wanted.
He crossed the garage in a few long strides. Rick turned to look and found
himself grappled by the kid, fingers tangling in his shirt and pulling him down
into a kiss.
After the first clumsy bump, teeth clacking behind lips hard enough to draw
blood, Rick wrapped one arm around Morty and pulled him close, one hand on his
cheek to steady him. Morty’s hands drifted to cup Rick’s face as well, thumbs
charting wrinkles as fingers combed through fly-away hair. Rick’s skin felt
almost papery, delicate under his fingers.
Whatever else Morty thought kissing Rick might be like, he'd imagined bad
breath: Booze overlaying chronic old man breath. He was glad to be wrong.
Even when Rick opened his mouth more deepen the kiss, and Morty accepted the
invitation with shivery excitement, Rick didn’t taste like much of anything.
The only smell was the air from his lungs, an innately Rick smell that drove
Morty crazy.
They kissed for long minutes until Morty finally broke away to suck in a long,
shaky breath.
Rick frowned. “Jeez, wow, that took you awhile, huh? I thought you'd pussed
out. Thought maybe you were gonna live vicariously through less wimpy versions
of yourself.”
“Shut up,” Morty said, grinning as he pulled Rick down into another kiss.
Rick’s hands were everywhere, sliding up Morty’s shirt and under the waistband
of his pants, ravenous for every inch of skin he could reach. His touch sent
electricity tingling along Morty’s nerves.
They made out until Morty’s lips were numb and his jaw ached.
Panting, his expression glazed with lust, Rick asked; “Y-y-yyou wanna keep
going? Take this party a few blocks south?”
“You’re asking me?” Morty asked, blinking.
“Did I stutter?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
Rick scoffed. He grabbed Morty around the back of the neck and dragged forward
to kiss his forehead and the top of his head.
“Go to bed,” he ordered.
“What?” Morty yelped. “Is it because I m-made that lame joke about stuttering,
because-”
“Look, Morty, maybe you haven’t noticed this, but I’m old as balls. If you’re
gonna, you know, act out on me with your teenage hor-eurgh- hormones, you’ve
gotta warn me in advance so I can sleep off this whisky dick.”
“Oh,” Morty said, blushing.
But when Rick pulled him into his arms for a thorough kiss goodnight, Morty
felt the evidence of Rick’s lie pressed against him. He got the impression that
Rick had lied because he didn’t want to rush him. Which was absurd, of course.
When had Rick ever cared about Morty’s comfort?
Still, Morty felt oddly grateful as he flopped down into his own bed. The green
numbers on his alarm clock blinked 3:23. His body was full of live-wires,
sparking and spitting. He was more turned on than he had been in ages.
He thought about getting off to the video like he usually did, but in an absurd
way, it felt unfaithful to his own Rick. Recent memories were enough to get the
job done, anyway, combined with the thought that Rick might be in his bed at
the same moment, touching himself to thoughts of him.
Morty came so hard he nearly passed out. It was late on a school night, and
orgasm had left him feeling boneless with contentment, but he still had one
important task. He pulled out his laptop and typed up a private message to
killurmind. He thanked the other Morty, explaining that it was his comment that
finally spurred him into action.
He considered writing more detail about what it had been like to kiss Rick,
since the other Morty had never gotten to, but that might have been cruel, so
he kept the message short.
Even though he was exhausted, Morty laid awake for a long time. His head seemed
full of cotton candy- sweet, cloudy thoughts that spun over and over. Sometimes
a bolt of shame or disgust would strike him, but the recent memories of Rick’s
mouth pressed hard against his was enough to send his worries scattering.
It was well past four am by the time Morty finally dropped off to sleep.
 
===============================================================================
 
 
Rick rushed through breakfast the next morning. He looked as tired as Morty
felt, but after bolting down his food, he excused himself with some mumbled
nonsense about floobles and dragged Morty off into the garage.
They’d barely left the atmosphere before Rick was all over him in the close
confines of the ship. He pulled Morty into his lap, fingers curled into Morty’s
hair and tugging his head back to expose the smooth arc of his throat. His
adams apple bobbed nervously, and he squeaked when Rick nipped it.
“C-come on, Rick, take it easy,” Morty begged, as if he wasn’t already
painfully hard and rutting against Rick’s lap.
Rick made a halfway apologetic sound and his mouth turned soft against Morty’s
neck, kissing a line up to his jaw. The way he ravished him made Morty
feel...well, amazing. But kind of like a dopey kid, too, who didn’t know what
to do with his own hands and mouth.
Nerves made his hands shake as he reached down to Rick’s hips, sliding up under
his shirt. He felt along Rick’s lean sides and up to his chest. He was nervous.
It was one thing for Rick to manhandle him, but how could Morty measure up?
This was Rick- a brilliant, experienced older man. He wouldn’t be easily
impressed by Morty’s fumbling teenage moves.
But when his trembling fingers toyed with Rick’s nipple, his rough gasp gave
Morty a swell of confidence. His hands roved over Rick’s body more boldly as
they started making out.
They pawed at each other like teenagers in the front seat off the ship for
awhile, until Morty got a cramp and twisted to try and relax it. His foot
kicked something on the dash. The ship jerked- then fell.
As they plummeted through the atmosphere, the force of their acceleration
slammed Morty back against Rick.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Rick yelled.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” Morty agreed.
“Morty, you idiot, get off of me so I can save your stupid ass!”
“I can’t,” Morty yelped. Their breakneck speed kept him pressed against Rick.
He wasn’t strong enough to push himself off.
“Goddammit!” Rick reached awkwardly around Morty to fumble blindly at the
controls.
They were close enough to see individual trees by the time he flicked the right
knob to auto-pilot them home and slow their descent. The ship slammed down
hard, bouncing them at against the hatch. They fell in a heap across the seats
as the ship crunched to a stop against the garage door. A muddy trench marked
their skid across the lawn.
Morty groaned as he extracted himself from Rick.
“This was great, really the way I wanted this to go,” Rick griped. “When most
teenagers mess around, its like, 'whoops, I came in my shorts', or, 'sorry I
got jizz in your hair'. I should have known you’d take screwing up to the next
level.”
“Hey, this wasn’t my idea. I would have said, you know, let’s do it somewhere
nice, like a bed or something.”
“A bed, Morty? Seriously?”
“Fuck you, Rick,” Morty grumbled. He crawled over Rick’s prone body, making
sure his knees jabbed into Rick’s pressure points. He spilled out of the ship
and started back toward the house.
“Wait,” Rick said. He caught up to Morty and spun him around.
“What?” Morty snapped.
Rick reached up to Morty’s face. Morty thought he was going to kiss him again,
until a starburst of pain exploded just below his eye. He hissed and jerked
away.
“That’s a shiner,” Rick remarked mildly. “M-might be broken. You better let me
check it out.”
“So you’re a nurse now?” Morty snipped, clutching his throbbing face.
“I’m a genius, Morty. You think nurses are geniuses? I could knock out that
much medical training in an afternoon.”
The ship was embedded in the garage door, crumpling it in half, so Morty let
Rick lead him through the house and into the garage. Nobody interrupted them as
Rick gently applied healing ointment laced with nanites on Morty’s cheek. This
time Rick did kiss him, leaning in with his thumb still rubbing circles of
ointment on the bruise.
The nanites went to work at once, tiny robots repairing on a cellular level. It
stung bad enough to bring tears to Morty’s eyes, but Rick’s lips parting softly
against his was a good distraction.
When his face was mended, they checked the house to make sure no one was home.
Then they went to Rick’s cot--”A bed, Rick? Seriously?” Morty teased--and
picked up where they left off.
 
===============================================================================
 
 
That night on the forum, there was a message in Morty’s inbox from killurmind.
The other Morty wanted to know if things were weird between Morty and Rick now-
- something he had been worried about. Did Rick act different toward him?
Morty told him no, it wasn’t weird. Yes, Rick was still an asshole. That was
alright, though, because Morty wouldn’t want things to change much. He added
that, although Rick was still a dick, he could also be surprisingly sweet.
Morty hadn't realized it before, how badly he'd craved Rick's affection.
He told killurmind about what happened that day, about fooling around in the
ship and nearly falling to their death.
To his surprise, killurmind wrote back after only a few minutes. He wanted the
details Morty had been hesitant to share, worried he would make the other Morty
jealous. What was it like, kissing Rick? How far had they taken things? But
since he asked, Morty answered honestly.
They messaged back and forth for an hour before Morty went to bed.
 
A week passed. During one family movie night, Morty shared a blanket with Rick
on the couch and they held hands were nobody could see, fingers laced together.
Another day, Rick showed up at Morty’s school and sucked him off in a bathroom
stall.
Later, or maybe some other afternoon, Rick took Morty to Blitz and Chips and
played a multiplayer round of Roy, couples mode. (They got a high score despite
the untimely death of their young son, who had drowned in the family pool,
which was followed by a devastating divorce. They got back together after two
decades and spent their twilight years in happily married bliss, which was
worth like +100 points for some reason.)
They made out like teenagers in stolen moments, always glancing around first to
make sure they weren't seen.
Every night, Morty recounted these moments to his new friend. Killurmind always
asked Morty to describe things in more detail. He wasn’t shy in telling Morty
that hearing about their sex life turned him on, and what he did with the
information.
It didn’t bother Morty. It was his own body, in a way. Hearing that some other
Morty jerked off to thoughts of him and Rick was basically the same as thinking
about himself.
Except it was more than not bothering him. In some narcissistic way, it gave
him a weird thrill to know what his stories did to the other Morty.
One night, when Morty was with Rick, he only half-jokingly brought up the idea
of visiting the other Morty for a threesome. He was surprised when Rick got
weird about it. He tensed up, pulling away.
“Not a good idea,” Rick said.
“I-I-I was just joking, jeez,” Morty said. He forced a laugh. He hadn’t
expected Rick to take the suggestion so badly.
Rick relaxed, but still looked wary. “Oh. Well, obviously,” he said, as if he
knew Morty hadn’t meant it. But when he went back to necking, he was rougher
than usual, sucking and biting hard enough to make Morty whine.
 
At the kitchen table the next morning, Summer gasped. “Oh my god, is that a
hickey?”
Morty stammered and tried to pull his shirt collar up higher.
“It is! I can’t believe my lame little brother is getting some, and I'm still
single,” Summer complained.
“Oh, geez,” Morty moaned, trying to disappear into his shoulders.
“Way to go, son,” Jerry said. “I think it’s great that you’re finally living up
to your old man’s legacy. Who’s the lucky lady?”
“It’s really not- I mean, I didn’t-”
“What are you waiting for, Morty? Tell us about your incredible girlfriend.”
Rick said, smirking. He looked so unfazed watching Morty sweat and writhe under
scrutiny, it gave Morty a hot flash of anger.
“I-I’m actually thinking of breaking up her her,” Morty snapped.
The smirk fell of Rick’s face. “Oh yeah?” he asked, glaring.
“Yep. It’s like, she’s a senior, and she thinks she’s so much smarter than
everyone else. But you know what, Rick? She’s really just a bitch.”
Rick’s hands tightened into fists. “If I w-w-were you, Morty, I would just be
grateful. It could be a long time before aa-a-anyone else throws a bone to a
whiny little turd like you.”
Morty leaped up from his chair, slamming his hands down on the table so their
dishes jumped.
His cheeks flushed with anger, he opened his mouth to say something- then
stopped himself. “Excuse me,” he said through gritted teeth.
He stormed upstairs to his room and slammed the door.
Rick didn’t call after him, and didn’t come up even as the minutes wore into
hours. Eventually someone rapped on his door, but that was just Beth, who asked
through the door, “Do you want to talk?”
“Go away, mom,” Morty said.
Quietly, as if to herself, Beth said, “Thank god.” Followed by footsteps
growing fainter as they retreated down the hall.
Finally, when the sun had gone down outside his window and it was clear that
Rick wasn’t coming, Morty turned to his usual source of moral support. He
logged into the forum and was glad to see killurmind online. He had quickly
become Morty’s closest friend on the forum.
 
mortysmith: rick being a dick today
killurmind: oh no! what happened?
Morty summarized the situation as well as he could. It took awhile for
killurmind to reply.
killurmind: idk it sounds like you hurt his feelings?
mortysmith: What the fuck, man
killurmind: haha sorry, i dont mean to take his side, but you were kind of hard
on him. Seems like he just lashed out because he felt defensive
mortysmith: maybe
mortysmith: probably
mortysmith: fuck, yea, I guess. i’ll talk to him later. anyway I meant to ask u
the other day, have you heard the new shmeventy-one Shmilots single?
killurmind: no? They suck
killurmind: should have called themselfs shmeventy-one sell-outs, haha
 
A cold feeling settled in Morty’s fingertips. The tip of a horrible idea
prodded its way into his mind, but he resisted it. Plenty of people didn’t like
that band. Except…
Except for Morty. Mortys loved them. In fact, he knew one person with that
particular opinion of Shmeventy-One Shmilots. A person who would also be quick
to excuse the way Rick had acted at breakfast.
The same person who might keep a promise about not forcing an issue...until he
figured out another way to pressure Morty.
Morty was shaking all over, but he tried to play it cool, typing back some
generic ‘lmao yea’ response. He knew he should say something else, ask another
question to keep “killurmind” occupied, but his fingers trembled too much.
Quietly, Morty got up and set the laptop on his bed. He crept out of his room,
down the hall, and out to the garage. The lights were out but the reflective
glow of a screen etched a blue outline around Rick. Facing away from the door,
he didn’t see Morty creeping up behind him.
Morty was scared the thundering of his heart would give him away. But Rick
didn't hear him, and he got close enough to peer over Rick’s shoulder, dreading
what he might see.
Usually the forum’s banner with his own dopey, smiling school-picture on it was
a comforting sight, one that meant he was among like-minded Mortys. Now, seeing
it on Rick’s tablet, it turned his blood to ice.
“You f-fucking bastard!”
Rick whirled around so fast he practically slid off his stool, wide-eyed as a
deer in headlights.
“I can’t believe I was such an idiot!” Morty cried.
Rick tried to stand up, but Morty shoved him hard, and he crashed back against
his table, knocking things off the shelves. “What the hell, Morty?” Rick raised
his arms in defense against a flurry of blows.
“Y-y-you..!” Tears stung Morty’s eyes, lashing down his cheeks when he squeezed
his eyes shut. “I should have listened to the other Mortys. They knew you
would, well, not this, but their Ricks… Fuck!”
A lucky punch connected with Rick’s cheek, and suddenly his grandpa turned
serious. He grabbed Morty’s arm and twisted it enough to hurt.
“Jesus Christ, Morty, knock it off,” Rick ordered, grabbing his other arm as it
tried weakly to strike at him. “Take a deep fucking breath, okay?”
But Morty couldn’t take a deep breath. His chest was hitching, his head hung as
shameful tears dripped off his chin. It felt shitty to cry in front of Rick
right now, which only fueled his anger. A painful welt of emotion swelled his
throat shut.
Rick just held his wrists and waited for him to calm down.
After several long seconds, Morty glared up at Rick through red-rimmed eyes.
“Admit it.”
“Admit what? I didn’t do shit. Or, you know, I do a lot of shit, but you’ll
have to be more specific.”
“You know what I’m talking about!” Morty snapped. “The fake profile, the reply
on my post. You talked me into…” Morty trailed off as his stomach lurched. It
was all he could do not to puke on Rick’s shoes. How could he have been so
blind? Even with the truth in his face, he could still barely believe Rick
would trick him into sex.
Rick had the gall to look confused. “No idea what you’re talking about, Morty.”
“If you really don’t know, then show me your tablet,” Morty said. “Since you
have nothing to hide.”
“Uh…About that, I don’t think...that’s personal property, you know? A man’s
gotta have his own, personal business.”
“You're evil," Morty said, almost whispered.
A look of hurt flashed across Rick’s face. “F-fucking, snoop through my stuff,
then, if it means so much to you.” He let go of Morty’s arms and snatched the
tablet off the desk, practically throwing it in Morty’s face.
Morty fumbled but caught it. He looked down at the screen...then frowned,
confused.
“Rick lover sixty-nine?” he read aloud, although it was spelled ‘rcklvr69’.
“In the flesh,” Rick said.
“But...your username is Kill your mind. Like the song lyrics.”
Rick scoffed. “Pff. No way. Lyric names are so tacky.”
Because a name like ‘Rcklvr69’ was so classy. But Morty was too dumbstruck to
say that, or anything else. He clicked the envelope icon and discovered a long
list of old private messages. The gist seemed to be the same in all of them-
Rick asking for nudes. Some Mortys had actually sent them.
Morty clicked on message after message, skimming past dozens of selfies that
showed his own body with slight variations, in different states of undress and
arousal. He glanced up at Rick. The older man was chewing his lip, but he
straightened up and crossed his arms when he saw Morty looking at him.
“What?” he asked defensively.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“Listen, I’m not the first Rick on there. Half the- half those Mortys are
secretly Ricks just trying to get real Mortys to send them nudes.”
“That’s- that’s probably not true. And if you wanted nudes, you could have just
asked me.”
“Obviously I like seeing you naked. But nobody wants vanilla ice cream all the
time. Sometimes, you get a craving for pistachio gellato or uh, whatever that
shit is with the toffee chunks. You know what I mean?”
Morty glared.
“What I’m getting at is, you’re fine, but you don’t have cat nipples, or three-
balls, or-”
“That’s a GOOD thing,” Morty huffed.
Rick shrugged. “Sure. If you like vanilla.”
“Well, maybe I’ll take vanilla off the menu, then.” Morty spun around, but felt
relieved when Rick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
He should have have been more mad, but he was just so glad that Rick hadn’t
pretended to be a Morty to lure him into a sexual relationship, this lesser
infraction seemed almost funny. It was easy to let Rick turn him around to face
him.
“Okay, okay, no more nudes. I’ll stay off your precious forum. I-I’d give up
whatever you asked me too, Morty.” Rick looked like he meant it, which sent a
warm flurry of emotion all the way from Morty’s head to the tips of his toes.
“Put me on that all-vanilla diet.”
“You know you suck, right?” Morty said.
“I can, if you want,” Rick promised with a sly grin.
Morty actually wanted to punch him again, but instead he wrapped his arms
around his neck and stood up on his toes to kiss Rick’s horrible, traitorous
mouth. He took him up on his offer, too, and even let him go further than they
ever had.
Afterward, while they were laying boneless in Rick’s cot, with Rick propped up
over Morty’s prone body and laying little appreciative kisses along the side of
his face and neck, he suddenly chuckled.
“Hey, you know, vanillas not so bad. You can’t have a banana split without
vanilla. G-get it, Morty?”
“I get it.”
“Obviously you don't, or you would have laughed. See, it’s funny because you’re
the vanilla, and then my dick is the banana, and I split y-”
Okay, Rick, thanks! I got it.”
 
===============================================================================
 
art by my_wonderful_best_friend!!!
***** Shitterday the Fuckteenth *****
Morty’s palms were sweaty as he checked the webcam settings on his laptop. The
jagged trip of his pulse made him realize how anxious he was. It was silly to
be nervous, but he couldn’t help it. After procrastinating for a bit longer,
checking and unchecking boxes in his settings, he clicked back to the video
chat window.
He smoothed back his hair and took a deep breath. Then he pressed ‘call’.
The other Morty, aka ‘killurmind’, answered right away. Morty had expected it
to be like looking into a mirror, like that unsettling moment when your screen
goes black and you can suddenly see your own reflection. But the Morty on-
screen didn’t look much like him. His shaggy hair curled to nearly his
shoulders, buzzed short on one side; Morty wasn’t sure, but he thought it might
be called an undercut. It was also strawberry blond—red, really—instead of his
natural brown.
The other Morty grinned, revealing a mouthful of studs.
“You have braces,” Morty said, idiotically. He blushed when the other Morty
laughed.
“My Jerry got a job with better dental,” the other Morty said. “Y-you look
exactly like the picture on the uh, the forum. Morty classic.”
“Morty classic,” Morty snorted. “Does that make you Braces Morty?”
“Aw, c’mon, man, that sucks. How would you like it if I called you Crooked
Teeth Morty?”
Morty clapped his hand over his mouth self-consciously.
“I’m kidding! Geez, I forgot how bad our self-esteem is.” The other Morty
brushed his hair back behind his ear. “Maybe my dentist is just taking my
family for a ride, anyway. Like when you take your car in for a tune-up, but
then the mechanic says you need a new carburetor and the uh, you know, your
headlights or something? Maybe our teeth are fine, but my dentist works on
commission.”
“Maybe,” Morty agreed. “Hey, uh, thanks for this. I’m really glad you’re
not...you know.”
“I still can’t believe you thought your Rick catfishing you.” the other Morty
laughed. “Sorry. I know it’s not funny.”
“It’s...a little funny.”
“Well, I’m happy it gave me an excuse to talk to you. I was thinking it would
be cool if we could hang out, like, in person.”
Remembering Rick’s reaction at his joke about a threesome with the other Morty,
he said- “Oh, um. I don’t think Rick would-”
“I remember how Rick is,” the other Morty said. “It’s fine. This is great,
too.”
For the first time, Morty noticed one of the things that made the other Morty
look so unlike himself, despite their identical faces.
“Are you wearing make-up?” he asked.
“Oh, geez. Just eyeliner.” The other Morty nervously tucked his hair behind his
ear again. “The thing is, after Rick...after the accident, I actually made some
friends at school, since I was spending so much time there.”
“That’s cool,” Morty said unconvincingly. A twinge of jealousy twisted in his
gut.
“They’re awesome,” the other Morty agreed. “And they’re really progressive.
They encouraged me to, like, explore my identity and be open to other sides of
myself, so I did some soul searching, and now...maybe I’m genderfluid?” Nervous
chuckle. “Still figuring it out, actually.”
“Whoah. Okay.”
“You’re freaked out. I freaked you out.” The other Morty looked disappointed.
“It’s just a lot to take in. Like, if you’re...whatever, does that mean I am
too? Since we’re both me?”
The other Morty shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. If you don’t want to open that
can of worms, uh, it’s got a long shelf life, you know? No expiration date on
self-discovery.”
“I’ve got enough worms right now,” Morty agreed, thinking about Rick. Since
realizing he had a crush on his own grandfather, then entering into a sexual
(and maybe romantic?) relationship with him, sometimes Morty felt like he was
up to his neck in metaphorical worms.
“Morty!” Rick appeared in the doorway as if summoned by Morty’s thoughts. He
barged inside. “Come on, Mo-eurgh-rty, we gotta get these, go to the crystal
temple and collect some sweet, sweet shards.”
“I-it’s late, Rick, and I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can’t we go in
the morning?”
“In the morning? By then the crystals will all be gone, Morty! Snatched up by
those filthy scavengers!” Rick grabbed Morty’s arm and hauled him to his feet,
making his laptop tumble onto the bed.
“Hey, quit it! Sheesh, fine, I’ll go get crystals with you.”
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” The other Morty’s voice was faint, the speaker
muffled by the blanket.
Rick flipped the laptop up. The other Morty gave a shy wave. “H-h-hey, Rick.
Long time, no see.”
“Pretty sure I’ve never met you. I would remember a haircut that bad. You do
that to yourself?”
The Morty’s smile fell. “Same old Rick.”
“Rick, what the fuck? You can’t talk to my friend like that.”
“It’s okay,” the other Morty called as Morty was being dragged out the door by
Rick. “Talk to you later?”
Morty wanted to answer, but Rick had already whisked him out of his room.
 
===============================================================================
 
“BOOM, haha, in your fucking face! Did you see that, Morty?” Rick's voice
echoed across the crystalline cavern. He dangled from an energy tether, the
kinetic grappling hook in one hand and a smoking blaster lifted in the other.
The crystal golem he’d just shot wobbled a little, a massive hole blasted out
of its head. It finally teetered backward and smashed against the ground,
exploding into shards.
The crash made Morty look up from his phone. “Huh?”
“For shit’s sake, Morty! Would you pull your nose out of your own ass for one
second? Jesus Christ.”
Shards skittered and pinged off the glassy surfaces. A million yellow eyes
appeared, drawn by the noise.
The cavern was like a hall of mirrors. A couple dozen scavengers became an army
in the kaleidoscope of crystal all around them. Swaddled in filthy rags,
tumorous and sore-covered, the scavengers poured into the cavern. Their lips
pulled back to show long, yellow teeth as they closed in on Morty.
“Oh geez,” Morty whined.
“Grab the crystals!” Rick shouted.
Morty bent down and picked up a handful of crystals, which he stuffed into his
folded shirt. He tried to grab more but it was hard to focus with the
scavengers sliding toward him, racing on all fours. His hands shook and he kept
dropping shards.
“Oh man oh man oh man oh man,” he said under his breath.
“If I want something done right, I have to do it myself,” Rick snapped,
dropping down beside Morty. He quickly stashed crystals until his pockets were
full to bursting.
Morty screamed as a scavenger lunged at him.
There was a zing, and Rick’s arm wrapped around his waist. They whipped
straight upward right as the scavenger would have hit him. It sailed harmlessly
beneath Morty's feet.
The scavengers swarmed as the energy tether bore them upward. At the top of
their ascent, Rick kicked off the ceiling, shooting a new tether and swinging
them down into an offshoot.
They slid down the tunnel at breakneck speed. Morty howled with terror, while
Rick whooped. “Yea-hah-haaaa!”
At the bottom of their descent, a pit full of jagged crystal spikes yawned
below. Rick grabbed the portal gun out of his coat and shot a glowing green
portal directly in their path. They plunged through and tumbled into the safety
of their garage.
Morty sat up, groaning. Crystals spilled out of his shirt and pooled around his
legs.
Rick started gathering them without offering to help Morty up. “These are going
to be really important for my work, Morty. This was a good haul.”
“Great,” Morty said distractedly. He took his phone out of his pocket.
Miraculously, it hadn’t broken.
Rick snatched it out of his hand. “I’m dying to see what’s so much better than
watching me take down a crystal golem.” He flicked open the lock screen.
“Hey, give it back,” Morty demanded, clambering to his feet.
“Pronouns?” Rick raised an eyebrow- or, half of his eyebrow.
“I-I-I was asking my friend what pronouns he prefers. Not that it’s any of your
business.” Morty tried to snatch the phone back, but Rick held it over his head
like a schoolyard bully.
“This is the friend you were talking to earlier? He’s a Morty, right?” Rick
peered at the phone.
“Well, yeah. But he’s been going by Rory lately.”
Rick scoffed.
Against his better judgment, Morty asked, “What?”
“Rory, Morty, what’s the difference? All of this, these identity politics,
they’re a total load. Your friend is just bored because he doesn’t have a Rick
to take him on awesome adventures, so he’s making drama for himself.”
“I can’t believe you,” Morty fumed, his face burning. “You don’t even mean
that. Y-y-you’re just saying it because you’re jealous.”
“Oh, yeah,” Rick said, tossing Morty’s phone back to him. “I’ve always wanted a
bad haircut and teenage friends pressuring me into bullshit, made-up gender
confusion.”
“You’re jealous because I have another friend,” Morty corrected. “And it’s a
bad- a real ugly look on you.”
Rick turned his attention to the crystals he had dumped on the table, picking
through them. “Whatever, Morty. See you tomorrow.”
Morty stuffed his phone into his pocket and stormed out.
He had to wake up for school in a few hours, so he went to his room and passed
out as soon as he hit the bed.
An indeterminate amount of time later, he was roused by Rick crawling into bed
with him. The smell of alcohol radiated off him in waves. At first Morty mewled
protests, struggling weakly, but he was only half awake, and too tired to fight
off Rick as he ensnared him with long arms and legs.
Rick’s breath was furnace hot against Morty’s neck and face, but his roving
hands were cold. Goosebumps rippled in their wake as they skated across Morty’s
back.
“Couldn’t...can’t leave it like that. Y-you hate me, don’t you, Morty? But you
can’t go. Don’t ever leave me. If you ever, if you don’t want me anymore, I-I-
I’ll, I’ll blow my brains out,” Rick slurred into Morty’s ears, between sloppy
wet kisses. “Morty, baby, you’re the only good- g-good thing in the universe.”
His words made Morty stiff with dread, frozen like a statue in Rick’s embrace.
As apologies went, it was a terrible one, and Rick still had to get shitfaced
to deliver it.
But Morty allowed Rick to paw at him and ooze honeyed, horrible words into his
ears until he passed out. There was a sick satisfaction in even this kind of
affection; these drunken, doting half-threats.
Morty would take what he could get.
 
===============================================================================
 
A pinned thread on the Morty forum:
Hey! It’s that time of year again, you all know what I’m talking about! It’s
secret Morty time! Reply here if you want to join in the fun, and at the end of
the registration period, a mod will PM you with a username of another Morty
that you’ll be giving a gift to. (spending limit $30) Have fun, everybody, and
happy birthday to us!
 
===============================================================================
 
When the message popped into Morty’s inbox containing the identity of his
assigned Morty, his stomach gave a flutter of anticipation. Though unlikely, he
hoped it would be Rory. He crossed his fingers as he clicked on the message.
His heart sank as he read the username. Not killurmind. Apparently he would be
buying a birthday present for miamislut, who didn’t seem too bad; his only
crime was not being Rory. Morty found miamislut’s reply on the Secret Morty
sign-up thread and followed a link to his wish-list.
With all the bright colors, shapes and attachments, at first Morty didn’t know
what he was looking at. Then he blushed. Apparently, miamislut wanted sex toys.
Morty tried to skim the list while peeking through his fingers. He’d never
bought a sex toy before, and didn’t intend to start now.
Further down, he found a few pairs of skimpy underwear. Morty clicked through
to a hot pink thong and bought it with Rick’s credit card number, since his
parents would see if he used theirs. Hopefully Rick didn’t look at his
statements.
Morty decided to buy something for Rory, too. After nearly an hour of
deliberation, he picked a nice choker necklace. He thought that Rory would like
it, because he liked it- he could imagine wearing it if he didn’t feel so
pressured by social expectations. He guessed it would look cuter on Rory,
though.
 
===============================================================================
 
“Happy birthday, Morty! Have I got a, a fun day planned for you, motherfucker.
Fifteen! You’ve earned it!”
“Since you stopped time for six months, I’m basically fifteen and a half now,
right?” Morty asked.
“That’s weird slang for ‘thank you, grandpa Rick, for working so hard to make
my birthday special’. Sheesh. Ungrateful.”
“Also, my birthday isn’t until tomorrow.”
“I know, and yikes, right? Everything cool is closed tomorrow. Nobody opens for
business on a shitterday.”
“Sh-shitterday? You mean Saturday?”
“Only on Earth, Morty. By the galactic calendar, you were born on Shitterday.
Shitterday the Fuckteenth.”
“...I have no idea if you're messing with me.”
Rick hooked an elbow around Morty’s neck. “Come on, Morty, don’t poop on your
own party! This is a good thing. M-means you get to celebrate a day early.”
“Yeah...yeah, okay!” Morty said. “So what did you plan?”
“First thing, we’re gonna go pod racing, Morty, just like in Star Wars. It’s
real, Morty! Not the other stuff, none of the cool, like, jedis, and
lightsabers and stuff, but the pod racing- That part’s real.”
“Geez, Rick. That sounds dangerous.”
“Oh, it’s extremely dangerous. That’s why we’re going to have nano-fiber
defense mesh under our racing stripes, so if things go tits up--and they
probably will, these courses are, they’re a nightmare, Morty--we won’t get
decapitated by our steering wheels. The suits will deflect any physical damage,
so you won’t, you’re not going to have a bruise or a scratch on you. The
important thing to remember is-”
Morty zoned out a little while Rick rambled about nano-whatevers, thinking of
the wrapped gifts in his dresser. He hoped Rory would like the choker. But what
if he thought it was weird of Morty to buy him a gift? Maybe he didn’t even
rank among Rory’s friends, and Morty had massively overstepped?
Still, he had to send it. If nothing else, he’d find out where he stood.
“Rick, before we go, I have to- there’s a thing I need your help with.”
After a cursory amount of bitching, Rick entered the dimensional coordinates
Morty read off to him into the portal gun, and Morty dropped the presents
through. It was an imprecise art; he was glad neither of the gifts were
fragile.
With that task out of the way, they suited up with defense mesh and pulled on
desert-ready racing attire over that, complete with goggles and scarves that
would protect their faces from stinging sands.
Rick opened a new portal, grabbed Morty’s hand and pulled him through.
Morty squinted in the blinding light on the other side. The desert sun bleached
the sky an eye-watering white. Waves of heat poures off the sand like a fever
dream. Rick led him into the shade of some market stalls.
They made their way through a network of alleyways, weaving around aliens which
grumbled and snorted indignantly at their passing. Strange, pungent smells came
at them from all sides.
Morty thought of how this would have gone only a year ago. Rick dragging him by
the arm while Morty moaned anxiously and asked a bunch of dumb questions, only
to be berated for his ignorance. But not anymore. Now he walked beside Rick, if
not as an equal, at least as a partner who could hold his own.
They reached a large fenced in lot. Beyond the fence, heaps of junked ships
towered up in soaring stacks. A familiar looking alien hovered in the shade
outside his shop, arms crossed as he glared at the approaching humans.
When they reached him, the alien spit in the dirt. He barked something at them
in an alien language.
“Holy cow, Rick, it’s that guy from the movie. Greeboo or whatever. He’s real,
too?”
“He’s real,” Rick confirmed. “Real ugly.”
The alien was hideous. It had been a few years since Morty watched the Star
Wars prequels, so he wasn’t sure if this guy had such a phallic nose in the
movie, or such a scrote-like chin with a scattering of pubic stubble.
“You think he’s ugly?” Morty asked innocently. “Because, you know, b-b-based on
your internet history, I thought you would like his face.”
“Haha, alright, Morty, you got me there. Hey, I bet this guy, bet he puts a
new- a different spin on a girl sitting on his face.”
“Gross!” Morty laughed. “Anyway, he seems more like the kind of guy who sends
unsolicited, uh, mugshots to girls.”
“Ha! Because his nose looks like a dick.”
The alien, Greeboo or whatever, had been glaring at them throughout the
exchange. “Nice puppet, Rick. I can barely see your lips move,” the alien
sneered. “But you got your hand up his ass pretty far, eh?”
Morty blanched. “I thought he didn’t speak English!” he cried to Rick.
“Kind of a racist assumption, Morty. And I thought you were the progressive
one.”
Morty wrung his hands. “Geez, s-sir, I’m sorry about-”
“Don’t apologize, Morty, this guy’s an greedy hunk of shit rip-off artist who
owns slaves. You don't have to kiss his ass.”
“And you are my best customer. What does that say about you?” the alien said
with a chuckle that made his nose bounce disgustingly.
“That I’m a sucker. Now, listen, I need two pods for today’s race…”
 
===============================================================================
 
The world was a smear of colors around Morty as his pod hurled down the track,
the engine’s scream drowning out everything else. He clutched the wheel with
white knuckles, hands made numb by the violent juddering.
Pods screamed past or fell away as he pulled ahead. Which meant, by some
strange chance, he hadn’t fallen to the end of the pack.
An outcrop of rust colored rock thrust into his path. Morty yanked the wheel,
yelping into his scarf. His pod turned so hard it almost swung completely
around, but Morty corrected in time. He wobbled down the right track.
A vehicle pulled up on his left, but didn’t pass him right away. Morty risked a
glance.
Rick grinned at him from the other pod. When he saw Morty looking, Rick flipped
him off and sped away, laughing.
Morty fumbled with his own controls, trying to remember the brief lesson he was
given him before they’d started. He clunked up through the gears and caught up
to Rick before the end of the straightaway. They jockeyed for position and
lunged ahead by inches. The wing-like stabilizers scraped together, shedding
sparks.
After a bad jolt when Rick bumped his pod too hard, Morty scowled and dropped
back, allowing Rick to pass.
Another tight turn dropped them into the gullet of an underground pass. A
stretch passed in blackness, following the fluorescent strip of green that
marked the track. Strobing bars of sunlight flashed by; gaps open to the sky
overhead.
Then they were out, exuberant engines yowled as they exploded back into
sunlight, racing along the wide, shattered plain. For the first time since the
starter pistol’s crack, Morty began to understand the appeal.
At first, pod racing had seemed like a selfish Rick idea. But with adrenaline
thrilling through his body, and his pod eating up the miles like a living,
screaming beast, wake of red dust billowing behind them, Morty felt wild with
happiness.
At least he did, until a pod ahead of him spun out of control. Instinctively,
he jerked the controls hard left as the pod fishtailed right, close enough for
Morty to see the wide-eyed terror of its driver.
It crashed into a rock pillar behind them, consumed by a cloud of flame-marbled
smoke.
“F-fuck!” Morty turned his focus on the track, trying not to wonder if that
alien had his own equivalent of nano-fiber defense mesh.
Alongside came a roar and spray that rattled his pod. A second geyser exploded
up ahead. All around the track, disturbed by the pod’s propulsion, white
frothing sprays burst from the cracked plain.
One pod was caught in a blast. It shot up in a halo of spray, hurled high into
the air before spinning back to earth, crashing down behind Morty’s. It
vanished quickly in the rear-view.
Morty was blinded as a geyser sprang up directly in his path. He blasted
through it, but his pod was rocked up on its axle. It slammed back down,
reeling wildly as Morty fought to regain control.
He found himself on a straight away, the wide expanse suddenly narrowed. On his
left, the world fell away. A gut-droppingly steep cliff opened into a ravine.
On his right side, there was a lake. Steam billowed off its surface, whipped by
the winds of passing pods.
Something blew in the pod’s engine with a loud bang. Smoke poured off the
front. The pod bucked even harder. Morty wouldn’t make it to the end of the
narrow pass; the only question was which side to veer off to.
In a split-second decision, with his pulse deafening in his ears, Morty jerked
the wheel hard enough to send the floundering vehicle into the lake. That would
be better than a hundred foot drop, right? He could unbuckle and swim-
Too late, he realized what the steam rising off the water meant.
The important thing to remember is…
Rick’s warning hadn’t registered at the time, but it came rushing back as
Morty’s skin began to prickle.
Heat’s fine, and water’s okay--well, you can still drown, but I trust you not
to, you know, drown. Just stay away from water over two hundred and fifty
degrees, Morty. I haven’t worked out all the kinks with this stuff yet, and it
can’t deal with water much over the boiling point.
The nano-mesh shorted out.
Morty tried to scream, but pain ripped the air out of his lungs. His skin
blistered under the suit, turned red and peeled away. He’d never felt worse
pain.
Suddenly, Rick was with him, struggling with buckles and straps and shouting at
Morty for being such a moron.
Morty dropped into merciful unconsciousness.
 
===============================================================================
 
He woke up without pain, shrouded in such softness that he thought maybe he’d
died and gone to heaven, where angels swaddled him in clouds. But no. It was a
comforter that lay across him- luxuriously fluffy and white. There were no
pearly gates, either. Just a lavishly decorated bedroom, eggshell white with
silver accents, that Morty didn’t recognize.
“Rick?” he called weakly.
He sat up, letting the comforter fall around his waist. He had been stripped
down to his underwear, and the air felt sharp against his skin. The burns were
gone, but the patches of regrown skin were still pink and sensitive.
Rick sat at a table in the center of the room. The contents of a nearby mini-
bar lay strewn across the floor, empty booze bottles littering the table. Even
though Morty had called him, Rick didn’t lift his head from his hands.
Morty rose from the bed on shaky legs. He went over to the table, wrapped his
arms around Rick’s shoulders and bowed his head into the crook of his grandpa’s
neck. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
Rick grunted.
“I should have listened better. But you, you saved me, right? You did some
science, something on my burns? Thank you. It doesn’t hurt now.”
“Great,” Rick said. But when Morty tried to kiss his neck, Rick jerked away.
“Don’t.”
Morty stood back up, annoyed. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Aside from the sycophant little fucking kid trying to crawl into my pants?”
Rick growled. “Y-you don’t want- not this. Not me.”
His words felt like a slap. Morty couldn’t even answer for a moment. “I...I do
want you.”
“You don’t know what you want. You’re a lonely, needy kid-”
“Stop calling me a kid!”
“-Who just wants some of your grandpa’s attention. I-if I wasn’t such a hunk
of, such a piece of shit, I would just ruffle your hair and say, good job,
Morty, I’m real proud of you. You shouldn’t have to suck my dick to earn
grandpa's love.”
“Shut up,” Morty demanded. “Just, shut the fuck up, okay?”
Rick lurched to his feet. Morty flinched. He was surprised to see how shitfaced
Rick looked, lids hanging crooked over bloodshot eyes. Rick swayed unsteadily.
He gestured down at himself. “L-look at me, Morty. This is really what yo-
eurgh-ou want?”
“Yes,” Morty said. He sounded more certain than he felt at that moment.
Rick’s face crumpled. Tears swelled in his eyes and tumbled down his gaunt
cheeks, racing along age lines.
Morty rushed forward to wrap his arms around him- partly because he couldn’t
stand to look at Rick like that. He felt better with Rick’s face buried in his
shoulder, where he could feel tears and snot and drool, but at least they were
out of sight. Rick shook with the force of silent sobs in Morty’s arms.
“Y-you almost died,” Rick moaned into Morty’s shoulder. “That pod racing shit,
that was stupid, fucking idiotic. I could tell you didn’t want to. But you, you
did it. And you almost died. Fuck!”
Morty hushed him, kissing the side of his head.
It bothered him that Rick was right. If Morty had a backbone, he would have
insisted they do something else. It was his damn birthday. But Rick had seemed
so excited about the race, and Morty hadn’t wanted to disappoint him. That
alien had called Morty a puppet. Rick called him a little kid, desperate for
his grandpa's attention.
The thoughts left Morty cold. Maybe he'd been so starved for Rick's approval,
he'd twisted his own feelings into attraction. Maybe Rick was taking advantage
of his naivety.
It was all Morty could think about as Rick's crying slowed and his lips roved
along Morty's shoulder and neck, teeth scraping gently along his throat. His
hands clutched desperately at Morty's hips. He didn't seem to notice when he
kissed Morty's lips, that the boy's mouth was slack and yielding, not quite
kissing back- or else he didn't care.
The bed was just a few feet away, but somehow they wound up on the floor. Morty
squirmed, pinned under Rick’s larger body as Rick kissed his neck and mouth
greedily.
It started too fast, with too little foreplay. Morty yelped when Rick pushed
into him, nails biting into his shoulders. Rick only let out a shuddering groan
and began to thrust.
While they fucked, Morty was struck by a sense of deja-vu. Rick loomed over
him, spittle dripping from his lip and wobbling with each thrust. He looked
crazy- like a rabid old dog. Desperate words spilled from his lips.
“It’s gonna be like this forever, Morty, just you and me,” he growled, pinning
Morty’s wrists as his hips slammed against his ass. “Just this forever, a
hundred- a million years, Morty, until the sun dies...until all the suns blow
out and it’s just you and me, Morty, getting our dicks sucked in the dark.
Fuck, Morty, you feel so good- you’re so fucking good.”
Morty didn’t finish—he was barely even hard, by the end—but Rick didn’t seem to
notice.
Rick went away for awhile. The sound of running water came from an adjoining
room. Morty stayed on the floor. A heavy depression had settled over him, and
he couldn’t move beneath its weight. He felt empty and used up.
Something wet hit his belly with a slap. Morty blinked down at the damp
washcloth, then glared up at Rick.
“Thought you might want to clean up,” Rick explained.
A shower would have been better, but the amount of steps was prohibitive in
Morty’s current misery, so he wiped himself off with the washcloth. The act
seemed so dirty and sad, a lump of painful self-pity rose in his throat. It was
all he could do to keep from crying.
Rick popped another bottle from the minibar. As he raised it to his lips, Morty
snatched it away.
Morty drained the faintly sweet alien alcohol in a few long, burning swallows.
He threw the empty bottle against a wall. It smashed in a satisfying spray of
glass.
“Fuck yeah!” Rick said. “Now it’s a party. If you really want to f- learn to
fuck up a hotel room, I’m your senpai, baby.”
There was an overnight bag on the floor that Morty hadn’t noticed before, but
now Rick rummaged through it. He pulled out a huge bottle of what looked like
champagne, with the distinctly alien flare of an octopus floating inside the
golden liquid. In his other hand, he held a bottle of pills.
“I booked us this room for your birthday,” Rick said, popping the top off the
pills. “Here, hold out your hand- there you go. This place is run by Ricks, for
Ricks, which, you know, I’m not that wild about, but they don’t give a shit if
you destroy the rooms, so there’s that. And there’s a casino downstairs.”
Morty swallowed the pills Rick gave him without protest. They kicked in so
quickly, Morty’s eyes widened with surprise.
“Good shit, right? They’re expensive as fuck. D-don’t say I never spoiled you.”
From Rick’s return to form, Morty guessed he’d already popped a few in the
bathroom. A warm current trickled all through Morty’s limbs. He could feel a
tendril of relaxation coil up his spine, and when it reached his brain-stem, it
was like a balloon of honey colored bliss burst in his head.
Morty stumbled into Rick’s arms in slow motion, laughing. It was like wading
through syrup. This room was beautiful, more than Morty had noticed before, but
he wanted to get out of it.
It took them forever to get dressed, though it probably wasn’t as long as it
felt. Time oozed rather than flowed. The drug made Morty’s body floppy and
ineffective, which might have been frustrating, but instead it just seemed
hilarious. He and Rick spent nearly an hour laughing and struggling with their
clothes, punctuated with swigs from the octopus bottle.
The last clear thoughts Morty had was stumbling out of the hotel room. He
walked straight into a maid in the hallway. She winced as Morty grabbed her
shoulders, steadying himself and wheezing with laughter.
“Oh geez, sorry, that was, that was my bad,” Morty said. “I’m just a
little...uh…”
He trailed off as he recognized the maid’s face. She looked scared, and as soon
as his fingers loosened, she twisted out of his grasp and hurried away. Morty
watched her go.
Rick staggered out of their room. “Fucking, tell a guy. I thought you were in
the bathroom.”
“Was that m- a Morty?”
Rick followed his gaze in time to see the maid disappear around the corner.
“Hotel’s run by Ricks, for Ricks. Make sense if there’s a-” he belched. “Morty
or two wandering around.”
But the maid had clearly been a girl. Definitely Morty’s face, but on a girl.
From birth? Or like Rory?
Rick wrapped an arm around Morty’s waist and pulled him close, and Morty put
that can of worms back on the shelf for now.
The rest of the night was a blur of drinking and gambling, shouting and
clanging and colorful lights. Pervading throughout, Morty was filled with that
bubbling, sticky serenity. Those were good pills. Their high spirited Morty
along for hours, until it finally began to wear off later in their hotel room.
Morty found himself mystified that they’d even found their way back. Somehow,
they had even stripped out of their clothes.
Rick’s fingers tangled with Morty’s, his other stroking the back of Morty’s
hand.
“I used to look like you,” Rick said, with only the slightest twinge of
resentment. “N-nice and pink.”
“New skin,” Morty explained.
“Nah. No, look, when you get old, it’s like you turn into a ghost, Morty. You
fade. Y-your hair, and then, your skin gets all ashy and gray, and your eyes-
they get that film, those uh, cataracts.” Rick visibly shuddered. “Not me,
Morty. I’ll gouge them out and replace them with robot eyes, and when my dick
stops working, I’ll buy a robot dick. What do you think, Morty? I’ll let you
pick out the model.”
Morty laughed, petting a tuft of hair down around Rick’s temple. “Sure, Rick.”
“Will you still love me when I’m a cyborg, Morty?”
“Of course,” Morty answered without hesitation. “Will you still love me when
I’m old an d turning into a ghost?”
Rick made a fart sound. “Really had you going, dummy. A cyborg. Can you
imagine? No, I’m just gonna, you know. Die.”
“D-die? Rick, that’s not funny. You’re not-”
But Rick interrupted with a snore. At first Morty thought Rick had faked it to
show he wasn’t interested in what Morty was saying--it wouldn’t be the first
time--but Rick had actually fallen asleep. Gusty snores rattled out of his
slack mouth.
Morty sighed.
He wriggled closer and rested his head on Rick’s chest, ear pressed over his
heart to listen to its steady thrum. The comforting sound lulled him to sleep.
***** even more 21 pilots references that nobody asked for but don't worry, I
actually know dick and shit about them *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Morty woke up, and for a blessed two seconds, everything was okay. Then the
pain caught up to him. He clutched his head and curled into a fetal position,
moaning. A headache slammed in his temples with every heartbeat, and his
stomach was a sour knot. He’d felt better yesterday after nearly boiling to
death.
“Rick,” he whined.
But Rick wasn’t around. With a miserable groan, Morty dragged himself out of
bed to investigate the bathroom, but Rick wasn’t in there, either. He spotted a
note pinned under the mess on the table.
 
Morty-
Back soon. If you’re hungover, take one of the blue pills. (Morty swallowed one
dry before he even finished reading the note. The relief was immediate.) I left
a spare portal gun under pillow. Use only for emergencies!!
Happy birthday, baby. I love you.
 
Morty was torn. It annoyed him that Rick would abandon him in an alien hotel on
his birthday, but he also couldn’t stop the tickle of happiness from reading
the ‘I love you’ at the end of the note. Rick didn’t throw that around, even
when he was drunk and rambling.
Morty read the note a few more times until the novelty wore off. Since he had
time to kill, he decided to try out the ritzy shower.
He turned the knob until the water was hot enough to turn his skin pink and
fill the bathroom with billows of steam. Disconnected memories of the previous
day drifted through his head. The screaming, thrumming pod. Being called a
puppet by that dick-faced alien salesman. The girl in the hallway; A Morty? Or
just a drug-addled delusion?
But his mind returned again and again to Rick. Rick caustic over a bottle, Rick
repentant with his wet face pressed to Morty’s skin. Rick humping Morty like a
dog on the floor, selfish and rough. Rick tapping pills into his hand. Rick as
a ghost, a cyborg, a corpse.
Morty shook his head to clear the thoughts. He forced himself to dwell on
happier times. With his eyes closed, he imagined a more sober Rick holding
Morty’s face in both hands like it was something precious, kissing him slowly
and thoroughly.
After a minute, Morty realized his lips were moving against thin air. He
blushed even though there was nobody to see.
He turned off the shower, left the bathroom and flopped down on the bed, naked
and dripping. There was a television in the suite. Since the hotel was run by
Ricks, it was outfitted with interdimensional cable, including a catalog of
movies you could rent for an extra charge. Some of it sounded like porn,
although most of it was alien enough that Morty couldn’t be sure.
His steamy thoughts in the shower had left him with an itch. Well, Morty
figured, if Rick wanted to keep him waiting, he couldn’t bitch about the extra
charge.
For awhile, he tried to get off to rented porn, but the movies were too weird.
Most of the actors weren’t even human. After a particularly slimy, lumpy
actress lurched into the mix, Morty turned off the tv.
Lying back with his eyes closed, fantasies unfolded on the inside of his
eyelids.
Morty pumped his cock with one hand and tweaked a nipple with the other,
imagining it was Rick’s fingers instead of his own. Then Rick’s mouth, hot
breath ghosting over sensitive skin. He always drove Morty crazy with that
shit, suckling and nipping, never long enough to be uncomfortable. Morty raked
fingers over his own thighs and thought of Rick’s possessive clutching.
He took his time, jerking himself in languid strokes. He half-hoped that Rick
would come back and catch him like this. Maybe he wouldn’t let Rick join in,
except to fawn over him, to grope and kiss and watch him hungrily.
No matter how slowly he went, Morty couldn’t make it last. He bit his knuckles
to keep quiet as he finished. For awhile, he simply laid there, bare limbs
akimbo and ribbons of cum drying on his belly. A lazy morning drowsiness sapped
him of the will to move.
After awhile he got up the energy to wipe himself off and get dressed in his
own clothes, which he found in the overnight bag. At least Rick had packed
something more practical than drugs and booze.
Remembering the drugs, he checked the mess on the table and found the bottle,
cap missing and spilling its contents. Morty plucked up a few of the scattered
pills and put them in his pocket. He didn’t know why, only had a vague idea
that he might want them later.
He waited for Rick. Watched some interdimensional cable. Waited. Ate snacks out
of the mini bar for less-than-balanced breakfast. Waited some more. Took a
restless nap and woke up sweaty and disoriented. Waited. His patience wore away
with every passing minute.
His phone said it was four o’clock when his patience finally ran out.
“Where the fuck is that asshole?” Morty asked nobody in particular, pacing
around the room with his hands bunched into fists. He threw the pillows off the
bed.
True to Rick’s word, a portal gun was lying there. Morty picked it up. Such a
familiar object had never felt so strange in his hands. Rick had never taught
him to use the thing. The only time Morty tried, it had been a disaster.
But he hadn’t known the address then. Now he knew exactly where he wanted to
go, and the address saved on his phone. He inputted the dimensional coordinates
into the gun, which he knew how to do from watching Rick do it so many times.
He aimed; then hesitated.
“I’m not gonna wait forever,” he argued with nobody. Rick had abandoned him on
his birthday- which was really starting to feel like a Shitterday the
Fuckteenth. Why should Morty stay?
He squeezed the trigger. A glowing green portal ripped through middair, and
with a steadying breath, Morty stepped into the vortex.
 
===============================================================================
 
 
At first, Morty thought he’d done something wrong. He was standing in front of
his own house.
But of course it only looked like his house. It wasn’t really his, and he
realized it when a gaggle of teenagers tumbled out the front door, laughing and
pulling on each other. He recognised the kids from school, though he’d never
talked to them. The heavyset girl in the band tee was in his math class.
Among them was Rory. Morty’s heart skipped a beat when he saw him. He raised a
hand to wave, feeling like a dweeb.
Rory’s eyes fell on him. Recognition was followed by a huge grin. “No fucking
way!”
He rushed over to Morty and flung his arms around him like they had been
friends for years, instead of just weeks. Morty blushed as he returned the hug.
“Whoah, Rory,” one of the teenagers said. “You have a twin?”
Rory laughed and snatched Morty’s hand. “This is my cousin, uh…” He glanced at
Morty.
“Morty.” Idiot! That had been his cue for a fake name. If Rick were here, he
would rub his nose in it.
The teenagers looked confused. “Isn’t that, uh…?”
“It’s a family name,” Rory lied. “Morty, these are my friends- Rosa, Spike, and
Khalid.”
“H-hey,” Morty said, with an awkward smile. “Nice to meet you.”
What had he been thinking, coming here? Of course Rory was busy, hanging out
with friends on his birthday. Rory wouldn’t be like him; alone, abandoned,
waiting around like a dog for his flaky Rick.
“Listen, guys, I totally forgot Morty was going to be in town today. I promised
my mom I would show him around.”
The teenagers gave a collective groan. “He could come to the underpass with
us,” Band tee suggested.
“I wish. I have to take him to, uh, you know, the sights. Show him the sights.”
“Do you want us to come?”
“Nah, it’s cool, guys. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”
Rory’s friends slid past in a tumble of affection, hugging and slugging and
ruffling the birthday boy’s hair. Khalid even clapped his hand into Morty’s,
slid it out and fistbumped him.
When they’d started down the street, Rory turned his full attention on Morty.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered with conspiratorial glee. “I
thought you’d be with your Rick today.”
“He, uh...We were, but…” Morty shook his head. “He ditched me, I guess.”
Rory looked horrified.
“Not like, forever. I-I-I think he just got busy with something.”
“Still a dick move. Does he know it’s your birthday?”
“Yeah. I guess birthdays are another meaningless event in a meaningless
universe, in Rick’s- as far as Rick’s concerned.”
“Well, I’m glad you came. Check it out.” Rory pulled something out of his
pocket and handed it to Morty. They were tickets to a Twenty One Pilots
concert, for today, and playing locally; or, at least, local in some dimension.
Morty looked up at Rory with wide eyes.
“They were my Secret Morty present,” Rory explained. “I wasn’t going to go
because I don’t have a portal gun.”
“These were definitely more than thirty dollars.”
“Yeah, um, I think J-c43 has a crush on me. He s-splurged a little. His Rick
found out, though, I don’t think he'd let him go with me.”
Morty frowned. “Let him? Rick’s can’t...they’re not our bosses. Your friend can
do whatever he wants.”
Rory shrugged. “Yeah, but you know how Ricks are. He’d make life hard for him.”
It made Morty guilty to think that some other version of him had spent money on
the tickets, but was going to be bullied out of using them by his Rick. And
worse, Morty was swooping in to see the concert with Rory.
“Don’t feel bad,” Rory said, as if he’d read his mind. “I wouldn’t have been
able to use these anyway if you hadn’t showed up.”
“I don’t know how to make this thing go- go to the place,” he admitted, pulling
out the portal gun to show him.
“We can try and figure it out. Two heads are better than one, you know?”
They sat on the curb together, close enough that their knees touched. Morty
looked over the portal gun in his lap while Rory used his phone to find out the
coordinates of the concert venue.
“Better make it a couple blocks away,” Morty said. “I don’t wanna cut anyone in
half.”
“Good point.”
It took awhile to mix the coordinates with the dimensional address, but
eventually Morty thought he had it right. There was only one way to check. He
blasted a glowing green portal right onto the driveway, took a steeling breath,
and stuck a hand through. When his fingers didn't get chopped off or melted,
his face slowly unpinched.
“I think it’s okay.”
They stepped through into a quiet alleyway between two yards, a gravel path
crunching under their feet. A dog saw them appear and barked at them through a
chain link fence.
Rory looked around, frowning. “This doesn’t look right.”
But when they searched the nearest cross street on Rory’s phone, it turned out
they weren’t far. Google estimated an hour’s walk.
“S-sorry,” Morty said, wringing his hands.
“Don’t worry? It’ll be nice to walk and talk.” Rory linked arms with Morty and
started off the way the phone recommended. “Why do you act like I’m gonna bite
your head off, anyway?”
Morty thought about it for a moment. “You know that voice inside your head, how
whenever you screw up, it tells you that you’re an idiot, and a-a-
a...worthless?”
“Yeah?”
“I have two of them. One on the inside, and Rick. I’m always kind of surprised
when I don’t get my head bit off.”
Now Rory was quiet for a long moment before he answered. “Are you okay? Things
with Rick sound kind of…” Rory shrugged. “Do you want me to kick his ass?”
Morty laughed. “No! I’m fine with Rick. I- I know how to deal with him.”
“Well, let me know if you change your mind. When he used to bag on me, I
thought it was, it didn’t really bother me, but now I think it m-m-messed with
my self-worth. He’s a genius, so when he tells you- when he calls you names,
it’s hard not to believe it. But he’s wrong, you know. You don’t deserve it.”
“I’m fine,” Morty insisted. “I promise.”
He was relieved when Rory dropped the subject. If he’d continued to ask, Morty
thought he might have started crying.
They talked about other stuff; School and video games and music. Talking to
Rory was easy. As natural as being by himself. The walk passed quickly as they
made their way arm in arm.
By the time they arrived, afternoon was stretching into evening. The sun kissed
the venue’s roof, and the sky was the color of smoke and striped by tawny
clouds. The parking lot was packed. It wasn’t hard to see where the entrance to
the venue was; multiple lines of waiting people curved away from the doors.
Morty hesitated. Rory turned back to look at him. “W-w-what’s wrong?”
“N...nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Don’t worry, I-I’m stupid, too. You can tell me.”
“You’re not- you aren’t stupid. And…” Morty’s eyes scanned the throngs of
people. “I've been all over the universe, you know? Me and Rick, we get into
some real dangerous situations. So I shouldn’t be nervous about a concert.
But...it looks like, you know, like it might be crowded.” He blushed. “I told
you it was stupid.”
Rory laughed. “Oh my god! I was f-feeling the same, nervous. Should we go
somewhere else?”
Morty was looking forward to the concert, but the thought of slipping into that
tide of human bodies made his heart race. Suddenly he remembered the pills in
his pocket. He fished them out and offered a couple to Rory.
“A birthday present from Rick,” Morty said.
Rory studied the pills suspiciously for a moment, but when Morty swallowed his,
he followed his example.
“What do they…” Rory’s eyes widened. “Whoah.”
“Right?” Morty said, grinning. Amber warmth had already begun to trickle
through his limbs, dripping down his spine. From the goofy look settling over
Rory’s face, Morty knew he must be feeling it, too. Morty grabbed his hand. “C-
come on.”
Up close, the other people weren’t intimidating anymore. The crowd shifted in
constant movement, like a creature breathing, in an exciting patchwork of
colors and textures. Morty resisted the urge to touch people's clothes as they
passed.
The lines moved briskly. At the door, someone scanned their tickets and stamped
their hands with glow-in-the-dark ink. The tide of the crowd carried them along
into the venue.
Excited chatter echoed through the high-vaulted ceilings. Food smells assaulted
them from the variety of vendors, while merchandise was sold at other booths.
Since the show hadn’t started yet, Rory and Morty drifted around and looked at
things. They stopped at a table selling shirts.
“I want it,” Rory said about one of the folded squares on the table. “Let’s get
matching shirts, okay?”
They fumbled around, pooling together loose bills long enough for the merchant
to get annoyed. Eventually, they’d scraped enough together for one shirt: only
one. That caused another hold-up while they weighed their options.
“I got it,” Rory announced at last. “I know what to do.”
A few minutes later they stumbled into the auditorium, wearing the same XXXL
shirt and staggering like they were in a three-legged race. Their faces were so
close that Morty could feel the tickle of Rory’s breath against his cheek.
It seemed hilarious to him- to both of them. They could barely see through
their tearful hilarity. An usher had to help them find their seats.
Concert things were happening. There was a mic-test, and maybe an opening band.
But Morty found himself distracted by Rory’s proximity. Wrapped up in one
shirt, Rory had to sit halfway in his lap to get comfortable, and they spoke
directly into each other’s ears to be heard over the noise. Every word Rory
said sent a tingle through Morty. Had his own voice always been so cute?
It was weird to get turned on by himself. But Rory wasn’t him; Rory was a
pretty redhead sitting in Morty’s lap, lips moving against his ear.
They each had one arm free through the sleeves of the shirt. Morty’s other arm
was wrapped around Rory’s waist. They both wore their original shirts
underneath, but Rory slipped a hand under Morty’s, pawing at his bare hips and
back. Soon Morty was doing the same.
They barely noticed when the concert started. Morty watched the band on-stage,
but his expression was glazed, attention fixed on Rory’s hand tracing circles
on his back.
“HEY!” A girl’s voice startled Morty out of his trance.
A brunette teenager was standing directly in front of him with her hands on her
hips, looking like she’d been trying to get his attention for awhile. Behind
her, a boy who looked like a male version of her was trying to disappear under
his hat.
“You’re twins, right?” the girl demanded.
“Uh...yeah,” Rory lied. “How could you tell?”
The girl squealed. “I’m amazing at spotting twins! Are you identical?”
“Conjoined.”
“What!! Really?”
“N-nah, sorry. I was just- that was a joke. A dumb joke. So, uh, is that your
brother?”
The girl introduced herself and her brother, but the song really began thumping
at that moment, so Morty missed their names.
“Come on, nerds! Let’s check out the moshpit!” she shouted to be heard over the
music.
Rory gave a lopsided shrug and hopped up, yanking Morty so their heads smacked
together, and they laughed. The girl dragged her reluctant brother by one hand
and the conjoined, cackling Mortys by the other.
Nobody was doing much moshing in the pit. Most kids had their phones held over
their heads, filming the band. The girl twin wouldn’t be deterred, through. She
danced and crashed into everyone around her. Morty was pretty sure he saw some
guy’s phone get bumped out of his hand.
Her brother tried to look like he didn’t know her, but when she grabbed his
hands and pulled him over to dance with her, he let himself be led.
Jostled by the press of human bodies on all side, Morty was glad he couldn’t be
accidentally separated from Rory. The crowd soon shifted and cut them off from
their new friends. The twins vanished from sight.
Strangers closed around them like a curtain, giving the illusion of privacy.
Morty’s heart thundered as he pulled his arm into the sleeve hole and slid both
hands up Rory’s shirt, making him gasp.
Rory withdrew his arm into the shirt as well, wrapping both around Morty’s
waist. Blunt fingernails trailed lightly against his skin. Under the alien
drug’s influence, Morty’s nerves lit up like sparklers. His hands were more
sensitive, too. He loved the flicker of Rory’s heartbeat under his palm.
The music pounded, vibrating up all the way through Morty’s body. The lights
strobed. Time seemed to stutter the same way. Somehow Rory’s mouth had come to
press against his. They kissed like kids, fumbling and laughing. Morty was
dimly aware of the the band singing about a car radio.
The world skipped again. They kissed deeply now, clutching each other close
under the baggy shirt. Rory’s erection dug into Morty’s hip.
Morty’s moan was drowned out by the music. I’ll fall down and I’ll break down
and I’ll fake you out.
Rory’s hands weren’t anything like Rick’s. His touches eager and unpracticed,
never lingering long enough in one place, but it felt good anyway. Morty
wondered if this was how Rick felt when they fooled around.
Suddenly the band was playing Migraine, and Rory had a goofy grin on his face.
He clutched Morty’s arms and jumped up and down.
“This is my song!” Rory shouted.
Delirious with joy, they bounced up and down and belted out the words along
with the band.
Morty blinked, and the world had blurred forward again. He and Rory were
shouldering their way through the crowd. Rory was leading him somewhere, but
Morty forgot where they were going.
Morty blinked...and stared into his own eyes. Under the bright fluorescent
lights, he looked haunted; sweaty and pale. They’d stripped off their too-large
shirt but Rory was still plastered against him, kissing his neck. Morty’s
reflection stared at him over Rory’s shoulder in the chipped bathroom mirror.
The lights buzzed and the bass rumbled like distant thunder from the
auditorium. Morty’s high had drained away, replaced by a sour feeling. His
flesh crawled under Rory’s lips.
He flinched away. “W-wait, stop,” he moaned.
“What’s wrong? Is it- are you worried about Rick?” Rory asked.
Rick. Rick had been the furthest thing from Morty’s mind, but now Morty missed
him with a pain worse than pain. If Rick were here, Morty’s pulse wouldn’t be
jagging in his wrists. He wouldn’t be shaking and on the verge of tears.
When Morty didn’t answer, Rory tried to kiss him again. Fingertips brushed
Morty’s hips and sent a sick surge of panic through him.
He shoved. Rory stumbled back, his back smacked against a stall and rattled the
door. A hurt look crossed his face.
“J-just, don’t, okay?” Morty begged, clutching himself. “Not here.”
“Um, okay. Maybe we can go back to my place?”
Morty understood what Rory wanted to do, to continue doing, back at his place.
Rory’s touch had excited him before, bumping around in a dark ocean of bodies.
But now the thought made Morty feel like puking. Despite the names Rick called
him, Morty wasn’t a complete idiot; he knew why he felt this way. He understood
why the sight of stalls and sinks and mirror, illuminated by the same shitty
fluorescent lights as every public bathroom in the universe, had sent him
spiraling into revulsion. Horrible memories swelled too close to the surface,
breaking through.
The first time he’d needed to use a public restroom after what had happened--
what had nearly happened--Morty had asked Rick to go with him. What are you,
like, five? You need me to hold your hand while you...oh.Morty had watched
Rick’s expression change. Rick knew. He’d forgotten for a second, but then
remembered. Sure, Morty. I have to piss anyway.
After that, Morty never had to ask again. If he excused himself, Rick would
too. It was stupid to feel safe around Rick. The man attracted danger wherever
he went. But having him nearby was somehow the only way Morty could go into a
public bathroom.
Why had he let Rory lead him here? How could he even begin to explain, when he
felt dangerously on the brink of tears?
He shook his head. “L-let’s just...I don’t feel good. I’ll send you home now,
okay?”
“Oh,” Rory said. The hurt in his voice made Morty want to take it back, but he
just couldn’t. “Okay.”
With shaking hands, Morty set the portal gun to Rory’s dimension. He shot a
portal into the wall.
Rory awkwardly tucked his hair behind his ear. “I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah,” Morty said. He forced a smile and choked past the lump in his throat;
“S-sorry to bail on you.”
When Rory was gone and the portal sealed behind him, Morty trembled harder.
Tears spilled from his eyes and his breath came in panicky little gasps.
Through blurred vision, he set the gun to his own dimension and lurched
through, out of the bathroom and into the safety of his garage.
He longed to see Rick at his workstation, but the garage was dark and empty.
Rick wasn’t in his tiny room, either.
Morty sank down to sit on the edge of Rick’s cot. He buried his face in his
hands and sobbed. As panic washed out of his system, a deep sadness filled its
place. He curled up with his head on Rick’s pillow, breathing deeply the smells
lingering there, Rick’s hair and skin and a faint whiff of sour drool.
He must have dozed. The next thing he knew, Rick was shaking him awake.
“What the fuck, Morty! I said that portal gun was for emergencies only. I’ve
been looking everywhere for…” Rick’s brow furrowed. “Have you been crying?”
Morty covered his face to hide his red-rimmed eyes. “No,” he lied.
Rick’s voice was softer when he spoke again. “Listen, Morty, you can’t run off
like that. You scared the fucking shit out of me. You’ve got no idea what kind
of messed up stuff can happen to a Morty out there out there, lost out in the
universe, you know?”
“You were gone,” Morty accused.
“Yeah. And for my part, for whatever it’s worth, I should have come back
sooner. I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Not okay!” Morty’s voice cracked. Fresh tears stung his eyes and he launched
himself at Rick, who wrapped his arms around him. Morty cried hard against
Rick’s chest.
“Shhh, it’s okay. I’ve got you. Shhhhh, baby,” Rick murmured. He stroked
Morty’s hair. “I’m here.”
Morty hated him for leaving in the first place. He hated Rory for ruining the
night, even though he couldn’t have known. Something must have gone differently
in his dimension. Maybe he and his Rick hadn’t been arrested, and never found
themselves in that tavern set into the courthouse stairs. How could he know
what effect the public restroom would have on Morty? But still, Morty hated him
a little for it.
But most of all, he hated himself. For being so weak. For needing Rick so
badly, now and always. For how quickly he would forgive him for abandoning him
on his birthday. Most of the anger had already washed away.
“Soooooo,” Rick began. “Is this because I ran out on you this morning, or
something else? Did you just watch one of those, you know, those videos where a
soldier comes home and reunites with his dog?”
Morty hiccuped. “Huh?”
“You know, those videos you see online sometimes. The guy comes home in his
military clothes and his dog sees him, and its tail starts going, just really
wagging hard. And the soldier gets down on his knees and hugs his dog, and the
dog’s, like, licking his face? It’s the most, the purest thing in the universe,
in all the universes. Those dogs really love their owners, Morty. It’s
beautiful.”
“Geez, Rick. Are you crying?” Morty asked.
“I’m a fucking human being, aren’t I? I have a living, beating heart, Morty,
not like some kind of, some sort of statue.”
“Okay, you don’t need to get defensive.”
“So is that why you were crying, Morty? Did you watch a video about a dog
reuniting with its owner?”
“...No.”
“Oh. Okay. So it was the ‘abandoning you in a hotel on your birthday’ thing,
huh?” Rick rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
To admit the real reason for his breakdown, Morty would have to tell Rick the
rest of it; about the concert, and how he’d gotten carried away with Rory. He
imagined Rick wouldn’t like that part. He might even--as Rory had ominously
foreshadowed--make life hard for Morty.
So he lied.
“Y-yeah. That’s about, uh, that’s the gist of it.”
“Would it make you feel better if I told you I spent the day trying to get your
birthday present? It was a bitch and a half, but I did it.”
“Really? I thought the pod racing and th-the hotel was my present.”
Rick waved dismissively. “That was your party! Come on, I got something for you
in the garage.”
Morty followed him into the garage.
A large white box topped with a ribbon sat on the worktable. The box was
moving.
“What,” Morty said flatly.
“Don’t you trust me? Actually, don’t answer that. Go on, just open it already.”
Morty untied the bow carefully, ignoring Rick’s impatient foot tapping behind
him. When he lifted the top off the box, he was met by two luminous green eyes
blinking in the shadows. The top of the box was bumped out of Morty’s hands as
a furry face sprang up underneath. The feline’s whiskers bristled.
“Oh!” Morty said, delighted.
“Nice to meet you, Meowster! I’m sure we’ll get along purr-fectly!”
“Oh,” Morty said, less enthusiasically.
“It’s like one of those, uh, the cat things in that dumb video game you’re
always playing. You wont believe it, Morty, but I found a universe almost just
like it. Big, nasty monsters to murder, and these weird cats to help you do
it.”
“That’s amazing, Rick.”
Rick frowned. “You hate it, don't you?”
“No! It’s really- it’s great, honestly.” Morty hesitated. “I mean, it’s kind of
weird that it can talk. It seems unnatural, you know? And the cat puns are kind
of lame.”
Coming over to stand beside Morty, Rick patted the cat creature’s head. “Don’t
be a dick, Morty. You just want a mute sidekick who does whatever you say and
never, doesn’t ever talk back?” Rick belched. “Actually, that sounds pretty
good.”
“Come on, Rick, that’s not what I meant. Don’t worry about it, ok?”
The feline struck a nyah~ pose. “That’s right, Meowster! Let’s all get along!”
“Ugh. You’re right, that sucks. I could, uh…” He made a drilling motion with
one finger against the side of the cat’s head. “Retard it a little?”
“No! Jeez, Rick.” Morty lifted the cat out of the box, holding it as far away
from himself as possible. “I love it. Thank you for the present.”
“It’s a bad gift,” Rick insisted. “It’s bad and you hate it.”
“I don’t- Hey!” Morty cried as Rick snatched the cat creature out of his hands.
Rick shot a portal into the ground and dropped the cat through. It yowled until
it splashed through the rift.
“What the hell!” Morty dropped to his knees and plunged his face into the
portal to look through.
He was staring down through treetops at the face of a massive, pink t-rex
monster. A worm lashed it its jaws. Suddenly, Morty realized it wasn’t a worm,
but a furry tail; the palico’s tail. The t-rex slurped it into its mouth,
swallowed, and unleashed an earth-shaking roar that scared Morty back up into
the garage.
The portal winked closed while Morty was catching his breath. “That...” Morty
wheezed. “Oh, man. I think I'm gonna be sick.”
Rick helped him to his feet. “Listen, Morty, the truth is, I was gone so long
because I don’t know what to get you. You’re a, a good kid, you deserve a good
birthday. Better than this.”
“Ah, geez, Rick.” Morty wondered if he looked guilty. He and Rick had never
talked about exclusivity, but he knew what he did with Rory today was over the
line. He didn’t feel like a good kid.
“What do you want for your birthday? I’m Rick fucking Sanchez, I can get
whatever, anything you want. Just name it.”
“Uh...anything?”
Rick grabbed Morty and pulled him forward, so he tripped into Rick’s arms.
“That’s what I s-said, baby.” Rick wrapped Morty up in his arms, lips pressed
to the top of his head. “I missed you today,” he mumbled into his hair.
“Missed you, too,” Morty said, choking up a little. His fingers clutched
desperately at the back of Rick’s coat. “For my birthday, maybe, uh...okay,
well, you’ve been all over- all around the universe, right? Can you take me to
the most beautiful place you’ve ever been?”
Rick snorted, ruffling Morty’s hair. “Really, Morty? I tell you that you can
have anything, and that’s what you pick?”
“You don’t have to heckle me.”
“I know I do. Now get in the ship. Let’s go see some sights!”
 
===============================================================================
 
A few minutes later, they were sitting in the ship with stars smearing past
outside the windshield. Rick pulled a crank to decelerate and they slowed
nearly to a stop. The ship drifted aimlessly.
Morty looked around to catch a glimpse of where Rick was taking him, but there
were no planets near enough to be their destination. Just space: an endless
inky void, cut through by milky ribbons of stars.
He frowned at Rick. “Uh...so where are we going?”
“Here.”
“Here? But th-this- there’s nothing around.”
Rick leaned over to pop the lever on Morty’s seat, so it dropped backward into
a reclining position. He did the same to his own seat. Laying back and staring
up through the domed roof of the ship, the sky sprawled out endlessly overhead.
“Don’t tell me you’re already so jaded, you can’t appreciate the natural wonder
of the universe, Morty. You know how many humans get to see this? To gaze out
up-eurgh-on the infinite cosmos all around them?”
“When you put it like that…” A million stars reflected in Morty’s eyes. “Yeah.
I see what you mean.”
Without being asked, Rick reached into the back to retrieve Morty’s blanket.
They had it for long trips. Anytime they’d be in the ship for longer than an
hour, it was routine for Rick to ask- ‘Nap?’ And if Morty said yes, Rick would
shake the blanket out over Morty so he could doze. He needed the rest, since
between school and Rick’s adventures, he didn’t sleep much at night.
He had no intention of sleeping now, but the warmth was nice.
“This is really the most beautiful place you’ve ever been to?” Morty asked.
Rick glanced over at him. His hand found Morty’s, their fingers lacing
together. “Yeah. Now that you’re here.”
Morty laughed. “Oh, wow. That’s a bad line.”
“I’m trying to be romantic, dick.”
“Right! Sorry.”
Rick sat up for a moment to switch on the radio. One of Morty’s favorite songs
came on, and he hamboned along on his belly until Rick shot him a glare.
They stargazed in silence while Rick’s thumb traced slow circles over the back
of Morty’s hand. It really was an awesome sight; one Morty had been taking for
granted. So many wonders had become commonplace in his life. Lately, he didn’t
even glance at the sky.
The song ended and the next one came on. “Hey, I love this song,” Morty said.
“Duh. It’s a Morty Mix. All the, all of your favorites.”
“Oh.” A warm glow flushed in Morty’s cheeks. He didn’t know Rick had a list
dedicated to him. That he even knew enough of Morty’s favorite songs to put it
together made Morty feel he had earlier, re-reading the ‘I love you’ on the
note over and over.
After awhile, Rick took out his flask and took a few swigs. He belched and
wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“It’s a weird thing about stars, Morty. They look, you know, close together,
like they could almost touch.” Rick held up a hand in a pinching gesture,
squinting at the stars between his fingers, as if he would crush them into
dust. “But there’s a vast distance between them, Morty- they’re millions of
lightyears apart.”
“Yeah, Rick. Everyone knows that,” Morty said, confused as to why Rick was
giving him an insultingly basic lesson in astrology. “I’m not an idiot.”
Rick ignored him. “Space is a cold, cold- a lonely place, Morty. But it’s
beautiful. It all looks simple from far away. Simple and not, not as lonely,
not so far apart.”
“The stars…” Morty frowned. “Most of them have planets, right? The planets are
pretty close.”
“You know what happens to a planet that orbits too close to the sun? It burns
up, Morty. They always burn up.”
A stretch of silence passed between them.
“Uh. This is a metaphor, right? Like, you’re the stars, and people are other
stars, but some people are actually planets? Or something?”
Rick sighed. The only sound was rattling and chugging as he unscrewed his flask
for another swig. “Astute as always, Morty.”
“It’s dumb. Dumb metaphor.”
“Excuse me?”
“People aren’t stars, and I’m not a planet stuck in orbit around you.”
“Well, Morty, I assumed you knew what a metaphor is, but apparently I
overestimated you.”
“I understand metaphors,” Morty snapped. “What I meant is, you're not alone. If
you feel alone, it’s just because you don’t let people close.”
“You want me to be honest with people? Confess all my feelings, have a good cry
about futility of life and the meaningless, cruel march of the universe? I’m
not a complete dick, Morty. I-I’m not gonna make my problems- infect other
people with my problems. Most people are stupid and happy. Let them stay that
way.”
“Such a load,” Morty grumbled. “You just keep telling yourself all those
stories, if- so you never have to do anything hard, okay? So you never have to
make yourself vulnerable.”
“Jesus, Morty, are you some kind a psychologist now? Jesus Christ.”
“I doesn’t take a-a-a psychiatrist to see through your bullshit, Rick.”
“Why the fuck would I want to open up? I say one little thing about stars, and
now you’re up my ass, trying to tear me down with some sophomore grade
psychology bullshit.”
That hit Morty like a bullet. Rick was right. He’d tried to say something
honest about himself, and Morty had called it dumb. On the other hand…
“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” Morty said. “Feeling like you can’t say anything
without the most important person in your life calling you an idiot.”
“Point taken.” Rick looked over at him. At first his gaze was hard, but it
softened as he regarded Morty. His dark eyes were full of reflected stars.
“I’ll...try to be nicer.”
“Aww. Geez. That’s the best birthday gift I could have asked for.”
“That’s nothing. This was your gift, remember?” Rick gestured up at the cosmos
beyond the domed roof. “The most beautiful place in the universe.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but stargazing gets boring fast. Wanna, like,
take me somewhere else?”
Rick leaned across the seats to brace himself over Morty, to kiss him gently,
like a question, which Morty answered by wrapping both arms around Rick’s neck
and returning the press of lips more fully.
They put up the seats and climbed into the back, an undignified, laughing
tangle of limbs, unable to keep their hands off each other for a second.
With enough room to stretch out and pillows for a moderate amount of comfort,
Rick proceeded to take Morty somewhere else. He worked him slowly, reverently.
At first with tenderness and then with bruising insistence, Rick took him
apart, until Morty was a quivering, mewling, incoherent mess of raw nerves.
Lips around the base of his cock, one finger curling against his prostate, Rick
made him see stars for the second time that night.
 
Chapter End Notes
     SORRY about the concert gosh. maybe its not obvious but I dont go to
     a lot of (any) concerts. :'^) Sorry the Rory stuff ran on so long,
     too.
***** I'm tired of naming chapters, but this one has a shower scene *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Morty leaned back against the counter with an enormous, impractical looking
sword propped beside him. He watched Rick rummage through the fridge.
“Hungry for apples?” Rick asked.
“Sure,” Morty said, and caught the apple Rick tossed to him.
They didn’t notice Jerry in the doorway until he cleared his throat. “Mocking
me behind my back, I see. Real classy.”
“Come on, Jerry, I wasn't mocking you. It’s just something I say. Like some
kind of, you know, like a catchy slogan.”
Jerry blinked. “You think my slogan is catchy?”
“It’s embedded in my brain, isn’t it? I said the stupid thing.”
“Oh. Well...thank you, Rick.”
“Don’t mention it,” Rick said dryly.
Jerry tried to say something else, but Rick turned his back on him, taking a
big bite of apple and chewing noisily, giving some muffled explanation of where
he and Morty were going. Morty stumbled out to the garage after him, dragging
the big sword and waving goodbye to his dad.
They didn’t waste any time. Rick grabbed an oversized crossbow, shrugged the
strap over his shoulder, shot a portal in front of himself, and strode through.
Morty followed, tripping over the sword.
Rick plucked him up out of the dirt on the other side. He pressed something on
the sword’s handle and handed it back to Morty. With both hands, Morty hefted
the sword- too hard. Whatever Rick did had made it light enough for Morty to
lift.
Rick dodged around the overzealous swing. “Jesus, Morty, watch it with that
thing!”
“Sorry, Rick. Wow, this is pretty cool, huh?”
“Cool? It’s incredible, Morty, and it should be, because I designed it. But we
won’t know for sure until we find a guinea pig.”
Morty looked around as he followed after Rick. A dense jungle pressed in around
them. Slick, muscular trees coiled around each other, fighting to reach the
sky. The distant canopy was a blur of shifting blue-green, filled with the
hooting of alien creatures. Vines as thick as Morty’s waist hung in snarls
overhead.
Sunlight fell through the canopy, stenciling a patchwork of shadow and light
across the ground.
Rick kept up a brisk pace, but Morty kept tripping, too busy looking at the
wonders around him to watch his feet.
“H-hey, Rick? Why were you nice to my dad this morning?”
Rick shot him a venomous glance. “I’m not a complete asshole, Morty. I’m
capable of being nice to children and idiots.”
“No, you’re not,” Morty said.
“True. Hurry up and watch where you’re going, or I’ll have to strap you to my
chest like the helpless, idiotic baby you are.”
“Hey,” Morty said, wounded. “Oh! I get it. Because I said- wait, are you
calling me an idiot, or a child?”
“Yes,” Rick said simply.
“Come on, seriously. Why did you tell my dad his slogan was catchy? You, like,
made his whole day.”
“Listen, if it's such a big deal, I can go back right now and tell him the
truth; that I quote his slogan ironically, because it’s dumb and terrible.”
“No! You were- it was nice.” Morty shrugged. “Just out of character for you.”
“It’s easy to be nice when you don’t feel like shit. Lately, I’ve been...” Rick
tossed the apple core into the trees. “Happy.”
Morty leaned against Rick’s side, butting under his arm like a cat. “Oh yeah?
Why’s that?” His smirk evident in his voice.
“It’s probably because I spent fifteen minutes and now I’m saving fifteen
percent on my insurance, thanks to Geico. Fifteen percent, Morty!”
“You’re impossible.”
“Now that’s a good slogan. Geico must have a-”
Rick was interrupted by Morty’s mouth pressed against his. The boy’s arms came
up to wrap about his neck, pulling him down into the kiss. Rick pushed Morty up
against the tree as they made out. When his hands roved under Morty’s shirt,
Morty made a soft, gratifying moan into his mouth.
They kissed for a long stretch of seconds, until Morty’s clothes felt too tight
and his skin was hot under Rick’s touch. Suddenly, a twittering sound made his
eyes snap open.
Behind Rick, a creature was sitting up on its haunches. It looked like a
mongoose had a baby with a lizard-dog, and as Morty stared at it, it regarded
him with a slow, uneven blink.
Rick was kissing Morty’s neck, oblivious to the creature. Morty gave his hair a
tug.
“What?” Rick’s voice was impatient and slurry.
“Look.” Morty pointed.
Rick looked. “So?”
Morty clicked his tongue. “Hey there, little guy,” he cooed. “You’re a handsome
boy, a-a-aren’t you?”
“It’s not a dog. It’s a, some kind of ugly snake. Go on, get out of here!” Rick
barked at it.
The creature cocked its head.
“Look, it just wants to be friends.” Morty held a hand out to the creature.
“It’s okay. We’re not gonna hurt you.”
“Speak for yourself.” Rick kicked a stone at the creature--a jagras, Morty was
inclined to call it, since it looked just like the ones from the video game--
and it leaped aside.
“Grandpa Rick,” Morty whined.
“Jesus, Morty, you haven’t called me that since we started screwing around. Is
it weird that it’s kind of working for me?”
“You scared it away.” Morty watched the jagras dart away into the ferns.
“Good. Now, where were we?” Rick tried to kiss Morty, but Morty turned away so
the kiss landed against his cheek instead its intended target. “Come on, Morty,
it was just a...Did you feel that?”
“How could I- of course I felt it. You’re always pressing it against me,” Morty
sulked.
“Not that,” Rick snapped, though he did step back so his erection wasn’t
digging Morty’s belly anymore. “It felt like-”
A thump shook the earth. The vines trembled, then went still.
“Like that,” Rick said.
Another, harder thump. “R-Rick?”
“What happened to ‘Grandpa Rick’? I could really get used to that,” Rick
smirked.
Morty squeaked, his eyes fixed on the giant, toothy maw poking through the
foliage. Rick turned to see what he was looking at.
“There’s our guinea pig!”
Morty stammered as Rick grabbed his arm, pulling him just in time to avoid
being smashed between the monster’s head and the tree. The trunk shattered,
splinters of wood stinging the back of Morty’s neck as they dove out of the
way.
“G-get your- hit it with your sword,” Rick barked, hefting his crossbow. “Go
for its head or tail if you can reach, Morty, or its ankles if-”
“I know the anjanath’s weak spots, Rick,” Morty said, ducking to avoid a swing
of the creature’s massive tail. “I was playing the game before you found this
dimension, remember?”
Rick scowled and pumped his crossbow to stake a mine into the dirt. Then
another nearby, while Morty ran at the beast, sword raised.
The anjanath swung around. Its tail hit Morty’s chest and sent him flying back.
He slammed against a tree, the air woofed out of him.
Morty was too stunned to move as the anjanath charged. Through double vision,
he watched the earth explode beneath the beast's feet as it stepped on one of
Rick’s mines. It staggered.
“Now, Morty!”
Morty lurched forward, still dizzy. He swung clumsily at the beast’s ankles.
The blade bounced harmlessly off leathery hide.
Crossbow bolts thunked into the anjanath’s skull. It shook his head like a
horse trying to dislodge flies. Rick led the beast away from Morty, strafing
backward around blinking red mines. The anjanath was pinballed between
explosions.
It crashed onto its side, powerful legs thrashing.
Morty got in a few good blows this time. By the time the anjanath struggled
back to its feet, its belly was scored by several deep cuts. It made an
unexpected lunge toward Rick. Its massive teeth closed around him, scooped him
into the air and it shook him in its jaws.
“Ahhhh! Fuck!”
“Rick! H-hang on, I’ll get you out of there!”
Morty charged, slid between the beast’s legs and thrust his sword up into its
tail. The anjanath loosed a roar that shook the earth, dropping Rick. He hit
the ground hard.
Rick groaned and rolled onto his back. “Fucking shit,” he wheezed.
Morty helped pull him to his feet, but soon they had to leap apart as the
anjanath charged through where they had just been standing.
"The vines," Morty said. He pointed up to the tangle of vines suspended right
over the anjanath.
“Good thinking, Morty!" Rick aimed and shot a crossbow bolt straight up into
the vines. The whole mess dropped down like a net. Morty rolled out of the way
just in time, but the anjanath didn’t. It roared as thick vines tangled around
its legs and neck.
“Come on,” Rick ordered, scrambling up one of the vines up to a branch.
After a second of hesitation, Morty climbed after him. It was difficult one-
handed, since he was still holding the sword, and he slipped a few times, but
Rick’s hand wrapped around his wrist and hauled him up onto the branch.
“Okay, see the back of its neck there, were the spinal cord connects to its
brain stem?” Rick asked.
“Yeah? I think so,” Morty said, frowning at the trapped, furious beast below
them.
“Good. Aim for that.”
Rick kicked him out of the tree.
Morty howled in terror, but somehow managed to turn the sword so it was aimed
downward, his weight bearing down on it. The blade sunk deep into the
anjanath’s neck. It lodged there, and Morty held on tight as the beast
thrashed.
It didn’t thrash for long. It gave a shuddery, pathetic roar, then collapsed
forward, ripping vines apart.
Rick slid down one of the dangling vines and dropped down beside his wide-eyed,
panting grandson. He put a hand on Morty’s shoulder.
“Nice job, Morty. You really-” he belched. “You tested the shit out of that
weapon for me.”
“Is it dead?” Morty asked, still a little stunned. “Are we supposed
to...harvest it, or something?”
The jagras they saw earlier had already scurried out of hiding and begun its
own harvest, ripping violently at the anjanath’s hide. Rick went over to yank
the sword out of beast’s neck. It jerked free with a wet ‘pop’. He prodded the
great jaws open with the blade.
“I could probably pry out these teeth, if you want a souvenir.”
“Uh.” The thought make Morty’s stomach lurch. “No thanks.”
“You sure? Cos, you know, if you wanna bring home some body parts, like a, you
know, some kind of serial killer, I can use this thing like a saw-”
“Really, I’m good. I just want a shower.”
Blood, viscera, and plant pulp were drying in Morty’s hair and all over his
body. The smell was eye-watering.
Rick blasted them a portal. They stepped through, and Morty was pleased to be
standing in his own bathroom. He started to undress. Beside him, Rick shrugged
off his coat.
“What are you doing?” Morty asked.
“I need a shower, too. Unless you think I'm pulling off this look.” Rick
gestured down at his own gore stained clothes.
“But my parents might be home. Or Summer.”
“Gosh, Morty, if only I’d invented some kind of mechanism that could keep
people out of a room while I tended to private business. Oh wait! Someone
already been invented that, and it’s called a lock.” Rick turned the lock on
the bathroom door. “There. Are you happy now?”
“Do you always have to be a dick when you’re right?”
“I think we both know the answer to that.”
Rick turned on the water the way Morty liked it, almost too hot for comfort.
Apparently he’d inherited the preference. They finished undressing and stepped
into the shower, surrounded by the hiss of water and billowing steam.
Rick rinsed himself first, then slid past Morty so he could do the same. Morty
sighed with relief as grime ran off him and down the drain.
He picked up a bottle of body wash and turned it over in his hands. “Who bought
this? Is it new?” he wondered aloud. He hadn’t seen the brand before. But if it
was new, someone had used a lot already; it felt mostly empty.
Rick ignored his question but took the bottle from him. He shook a glob of soap
into his palm. “Turn around.”
Morty obeyed, turning to face the shower wall. He heard wet squelching as Rick
lathered the soap between his hands.
Even though he’d known what Rick was doing, he still jolted when Rick touched
his hips. Rick gave a rusty chuckle and kissed the back of his neck.
Soapy fingers trailed up Morty’s sides, leaving lavender scented foam in their
wake. Morty sighed and melted against the wall as Rick’s strong hands rubbed
circles across his back. Rick pressed harder with his fingers splayed, kneading
Morty’s tense muscles until the boy was a puddle, moaning loud enough to be
heard over the water’s hiss.
Hands roved down to squeeze his ass. Morty gasped when Rick’s wet body pressed
flush against him. Rick sucked on his neck, his arms wrapping around Morty’s
slim body. Soapy rivulets streamed down his belly as Rick played with his
nipples, one hand coming up to wrap possessively around the his throat. Morty’s
pulse flickered fast against Rick's palm.
His cock pushed into the gap between Morty’s legs, sliding along his taint and
balls. Morty started to spread his legs, but Rick nipped his ear admonishing
and clawed at Morty’s thighs.
Morty gasped and squeezed his thighs together around Rick’s cock, earning a
shuddery moan into his ear. Rick gripped Morty’s hips, rutting hard against his
ass. Reaching down past his own aching cock, Morty found the head of Rick’s
poking between his legs. Rick hissed as Morty teased the slit with his fingers.
“Fuck, baby, you’re so fucking hot,” Rick said in a thick, lust-strangled
voice. He nuzzled the side of Morty’s face, causing goosebumps to prickle down
the boy’s neck.
Rick wrapped a hand around Morty’s cock, and he yelped loud enough that Rick
covered his mouth with his other hand, muffling the sound. “You want someone to
hear you, Morty?” Rick growled directly into Morty’s ear. “You want Summer to
come in here and catch you like this, whining like a slut for your grandpa’s
cock? Is that what gets you hard?”
No, Morty couldn’t say with Rick’s hand still clamped over his mouth.
Apparently his cock disagreed, because it twitched in Rick’s hand. A dribble of
precum was quickly rinsed away by the spray.
“Thought so,” Rick said. He began to thrust slowly, pumping his cock through
Morty’s soap-slick thighs. Morty squirmed, the pressure against his taint and
sac driving him to hump into Rick’s fist, but no matter how Morty jerked his
hips, Rick kept up the maddeningly slow pace.
The hand over his mouth dropped back to his throat. It didn’t squeeze, but
curled hard enough against Morty’s throat that his vocal cords buzzed. “Oh
god...feels good, Grandpa Rick,” Morty moaned in a voice that came out a little
choked.
The choice of words was intentional, and it hadn’t been easy to force past his
lips. His cheeks burned with embarrassment. But Rick’s response was immediate
and gratifying. His hips slammed against Morty’s ass, and he made a broken
sound into Morty’s ear. “F-fuck,” he gasped. “That shouldn’t do that to me.”
“Face it, Rick. You’re a gross- a nasty old man,” Morty teased, then gasped as
Rick gave his throat a punishing squeeze.
There was a rap on the bathroom door. “Dad? Are you in there?” Beth’s voice
said. Morty’s heart skipped.
Rick cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, sweetie.”
“Are you okay? Your voice sounds weird.”
The bathroom door rattled like someone was trying to open it. Morty flailed in
panic and slipped on the soapy bottom of the tub. Rick tried to catch him, but
Morty’s arm slid through his grasp. The tub made a cacophony of thumps as he
fell.
“What was that?” Beth asked. “I’m coming in.”
Morty scrabbled in the bottom of the tub as he heard the lock click. He looked
up at Rick with pleading eyes. But it was too late. In the next moment, the
shower curtain was yanked open and Beth was standing there, lips pursed with
worry.
Morty watched her concern transform into confusion, and then horror. He wanted
to say something. But there was no believable excuse for what she was seeing:
her son lying in the tub, wide-eyed with terror, and her father standing over
him with his dick still half hard. Morty just stammered idiotically.
“Oh my GOD, dad!” Beth cried. She flailed around at the same time yanking the
curtain closed. Morty could hear her retching into the conveniently nearby
toilet. “Why is Morty...what were you-” she was cut off by another hurk and
splash.
“M-mom, it’s okay,” Morty tried weakly.
To his surprise and horror, Rick pushed the curtain open and stepped out of the
tub. “Sorry, honey. I really didn’t mean for you to see that. Good luck with
the, uh, trauma. And again, really sorry.”
He pulled the portal gun out of his coat and fired into the bottom of the tub.
All of a sudden, Morty was lying butt naked on the cold garage floor. Rick
followed a moment after, stepping over him with as much dignity as he could
while wearing nothing but his lab coat. He pulled a pair of khakis out of a
drawer in his work table, shook them out and stepped into them.
Morty burst into tears.
“Whoah, hey, what’s with the waterworks?” Rick asked.
“We’re fucked!” Morty wailed. “She saw us! How can you be so calm?”
“Because it’s not a big deal?”
Morty barely heard him. His mind was spinning. “I guess we could jump
dimensions again, right? I know we can’t do it a bunch of times, but I- we
can’t stay here. Not with...not when Mom saw-” The rest of the sentence was
choked off by a sob.
“Hey, hey, come here,” Rick said, kneeling beside Morty and pulling him into
his arms. “There’s nothing to worry about, baby.”
“What are you talking about?” Morty demanded. “She saw us together! She knows
what we’ve been doing.”
“Alright, so that Rick is in pretty deep shit, and that’s on me. But I’m sure
he’ll figure a way out of it. I would if it was me, and he IS me, so I can
confidently say that he’ll be fine.”
As usual, Morty felt dumb and confused, floundering ten mental steps behind
Rick. “...huh?”
“You didn’t think that was our Beth, did you?”
Morty gaped.
“Jesus, Morty, do you think I’m stupid? If I’m gonna fuck my grandson in the
shower, I’m not going to do it in the only shower where it could ruin my life.”
“The soap,” Morty stammered. “I-I-I...it wasn’t ours.”
“The Beth from that dimension must buy a different brand,” Rick confirmed. He
sniffed Morty’s hair. “She’s got good taste. Good, nice stu-eurgh-uff. Smells
great.”
“Oh my god,” Morty moaned, clutching his face.
“Now what are you bitching about? You should be relieved.”
“It’s called having a conscious, Rick! You should try it.” Morty jerked out of
Rick’s arms and scrambled to his feet. “Y-you- We probably ruined that family,
you know. My mom...she must be totally messed up.”
“That’s why I didn’t do it here,” Rick explained with thinly veiled impatience,
as if trying to teach a particularly slow child. “It could have been us. But
it’s not, so you can relax.”
“Relax? You’re telling me to relax?” Morty wailed shrilly.
Rick grabbed Morty’s wrist and pulled him close. “I can help you with that,
Morty. We can finish what we started, I’ll pound the tension right out of you.”
Morty shoved him away. Rick let him go, and he stumbled.
“You insensitive...unbelievable...I can’t fucking believe you!”
Morty stormed out of the garage, slamming the door behind him. He was lucky
that nobody was in the kitchen to see him stomping naked through the house. It
seemed like none of his family was home. He and Rick wouldn’t have been caught
if they had done it in their own dimension, after all.
This time.
As Morty shut his bedroom door and leaned back against it, eyes squeezed shut,
he was all too aware of how quickly their luck could run out. Next time it
could be his own mom staring at him with that stricken look. He couldn't get
her expression out of his head.
How could he ever risk it again?
Chapter End Notes
     i have poor judgement about when I need to write out a scene so have
     a looong fucking monster hunter fight. hey! That's a good alternate
     chapter title. :^D (also I forgot to describe wahat an anjanath looks
     like, hopefully you googled it if you didn't know. Sorry!)
***** Crush *****
Morty could practically count down to when Rick would show up, drunk, horny,
and full of empty apologies. It was like clockwork. It happened that night
after the rest of the family was asleep, and Morty was sitting up in bed, his
laptop open to a video chat.
“What was that?” Rory asked, talking about the sound of Rick trying to open
Morty’s locked bedroom door.
“Shh,” Morty whispered. “He might go away if he thinks I’m asleep.”
“Du-don’t even try and pretend you’re- that you fell asleep, Morty,” Rick
slurred, his voice muffled through the door. “I know you’re probably looking at
your own dick on that dumb website.”
“Oh, geez. I’m sorry about this,” Morty apologized.
“Can’t you just tell him to go away?” Rory asked.
Morty didn't answer, just gave Rory a skeptical look.
“Right. You can, but he won’t listen,” Rory answered himself. “How does anyone
put up with that asshole?”
“Mooooorty, let me in,” Rick begged, his fingers scrabbling against the door.
“Please, baby, I’m sorry about earlier. I just wanna-” he hiccuped loudly. “I
wanna make it up to you. Let grandpa show you how sorry he is.”
“Ugh,” Rory said.
“I know,” Morty said, covering his face to hide his blush. He couldn’t believe
that just a few hours ago, he’d been whimpering ‘grandpa’ with Rick’s hand
wrapped around his cock. It was like that had been some other teenager, one
whose motives Morty couldn’t understand.
“You can’t keep me out, Morty, I have a, a portal gun. I can rip a hole in
space-time just to get to you. But I won’t, because I respect your inder-
inbepende- you. I respect you too much to do that.”
That was a lie. Luckily, Morty knew it, so he was standing ready at his bedroom
door with the laptop under his arm when the green rift appeared in his room.
Quickly and quietly, he unlocked the door and slipped out.
He padded downstairs in the dark. Where could he escape to? The bathroom,
maybe; but Rick would find him there. And it was too cold to flee outside.
Morty heard a bang like someone bumping into walls in the upstairs hallway,
followed by Rick cursing. He ducked into the coat closet and closed the door
behind him.
The closet was actually pretty roomy. Morty sat among the shoes and old purses,
hiding behind a forest of coats. For awhile, he left the laptop closed. Rick
would see the blue light coming under the door. Morty waited until he heard
Rick crash by, once, then again. He waited a few more minutes for good measure
before opening the laptop.
He thought Rory might have given up waiting for him, but he hadn’t.
“Are you okay?” Rory asked.
“I’m fine. I just don’t feel like dealing with Rick's drunken bullshit, so I
snuck out.”
“Where are you?”
“In a closet.” Morty grinned at the absurdity of it, but Rory didn’t seem to
think it was funny.
“That fucking sucks. You know that, right?”
Morty chewed his thumbnail. “I guess?”
“It sucks,” Rory assured him. “That’s fucking, psycho behavior, breaking into
your room like that.”
“That’s Rick for you.”
“Can I kick his ass now?” Rory asked.
“I-I’m warming up to the idea. Was your Rick so…” Possessive? Disrespectful?
Abusive? “Was he like this?”
“Probably. He didn’t- I didn’t see that side of him much, you know? Like, we
weren’t in a, that kind of relationship, so…” Rory trailed off. “Well. There
was this one time.”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t remember if I told you, but I went on a couple dates with Jessica last
year,” Rory said.
Morty glazed over. “Wow,” he squeaked. “What was it like? Did you get to touch
her boobs?”
“And more.”
“Wow,” Morty repeated.
“Don’t get too excited. We didn’t work out- didn't click. But anyway, that’s
not the point. I was gonna tell you what Rick did. You know how jealous he
gets.”
Memories of Rick snatching his phone and belittling Rory despite not even
knowing him came to Morty’s mind. “Uh-huh.”
“He got completely shitfaced one night after I went out with Jessica. It was
late and I was sleeping, so I-I-I had no idea what he was up to until I hear
this crash. It woke me up out of a dead sleep. Then I hear Rick outside,
yelling, but I can’t hear what he’s saying, so I go to the window. When I open
it and look out, I see that Summer’s window is broken and Rick has a big-ass
rock in his hand.”
“He broke Summer’s window?” Morty asked, confused.
“Only because he thought it was mine. He was trying to get my attention.”
“Oh.”
“When he saw me, he started blasting music on this stupid old boombox, holding
it over his head like in that old movie, you know? He was playing Jessie’s
Girl. Only he was singing ‘Jessica’s Boy’.”
“Nooo.”
“Yes! At the top of his lungs, belching every other line. He didn’t finish the
song because he threw up. I think he passed out on the lawn, but I’m not sure
because I went back to bed after that. Good thing his singing was so bad.
Nobody else could understand him.”
Rory laughed. It was contagious, and Morty had to cover his own mouth to keep
quiet as his shoulders shook with laughter. He tried to shush Rory, but it just
sent them both into a fresh bout of giggles.
Rory covered his face. It took Morty a moment to realize that he’d stopped
laughing and begun to cry.
“Oh no,” Morty moaned. “I- I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry,” Rory said, wiping his eyes. “It’s not your fault.
Sometimes when I think about Rick, even bad memories, I just...” He shrugged.
“You miss him.”
“Fuck! I’m so stupid. I know that if he was alive, he’d be torturing me just
like- the same way yours does, but I can’t help it.”
“I know,” Morty said gently.
Rory rubbed his face, smearing eyeliner. “Can we talk about something else?” he
asked. “Did you see Miami’s new picture?”
“I don't think so?”
“Hang on. I’ll send it.” After a minute, an attachment blooped into the chat.
Morty’s eyes widened, his mouth dropping open. The Morty in the picture, aka
Miamislut, was wearing a very familiar necklace.
“There,” Rory said, oblivious to Morty’s surprise. “Isn’t that necklace
adorable? It was his Secret Morty present.”
“I...I got it for him.”
“No way! Can you get me one, too?” Rory blushed and stammered. “Uh, I-I mean,
not like, you don’t have to pay for it. I’d pay you back.”
Morty’s embarrassed blush mirrored Rory’s. “Actually, I meant to- that necklace
was supposed to be yours.”
“Huh?”
“I must have mixed up the addresses. I was supposed to send a present to Miami
for Secret Morty, but uh, I wanted to get something for you, too, since we were
talking so much, and...yep.”
“Ohhh. Oh, geez.” Rory sunk down on the screen like he was trying to disappear.
He covered his face with one hand. “No wonder you flipped out at the concert.
The gift you sent- I thought you were sending signals. Oh, god. I acted like a
total slut!”
“No, you were fine,” Morty said, laughing. “Really. I was totally into you, so
that, no mistake about that, you know? That’s not why I freaked.” Morty chewed
his lip. “What happened...It’s some kind of PTSD, I guess? I don’t really want
to talk about it. But the reason I ran out had nothing- it was nothing that you
did, okay?”
Rory flopped backward on the bed, out of the camera’s view.
“Rory?”
He was on a phone rather than a laptop, so he just lifted the phone over his
face, haloed by red hair against his sheets. “I’m fine. Better than fine. I
thought...I guess I should have asked about it sooner. I thought I went too far
and scared you off.”
“We both got carried away. B-but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed
after- after. When things ended like that.” Morty’s heart thumped hard as he
made the confession. He hadn’t allowed himself to think much about what he and
Rory did at the concert, and what else they might have done if Morty hadn’t
stopped.
“Ye-yeah? It doesn’t have to be the end.”
“You think I should come over again?” Morty asked.
“Only if that’s something, if you want to. I know you and Rick are a thing.”
Rory’s meaning was obvious. If they got together again, it was likely they’d
end up messing around. Morty knew he was right. Just thinking about it made his
pulse quicken and his pants feel tighter.
He should say no. If Morty found out that Rick were fucking some other Morty,
or even another Rick, it would make him feel shitty. Then again...Right now,
Rick was sloppy drunk and horny, stalking the house like an animal- hunting for
his teenage grandson. Did Morty really owe him anything?
“M-maybe sometime. If I can slip, slip away, okay?” Morty said.
“Sounds good. Hey, I want to show you something. You’re going to laugh.”
Rory angled the phone down so the screen showed his waist and hips. He hitched
up his shirt with one hand, then teased down the hem of his pajama pants enough
to reveal one hip and the strap of his underwear. It was the thong Morty had
meant to send Miami.
“You’re wearing it,” Morty said dumbly.
Rory turned the camera back on his face. “They’re surprisingly comfortable. And
I can wear skinny jeans without-- you know how sometimes you get those weird
underwear lines? Not with these puppies, babies.”
“W-wow,” Morty stammered. “Can I, uh, see the rest? How you look in them?”
Rory’s face turned bright pink, and Morty thought he’d made a mistake.
“You don’t have to-”
“No, it’s okay! I want to show you. Let me just lock my door first.”
There was a tumble thump as Rory got up and went off-screen to lock the door.
The click sounded loud, as did the mattress springs’ squall as Rory jumped back
into bed.
“Don’t expect, like, a strip tease or anything. I’m not like a- I don’t usually
do this stuff. And I don’t know if I can get fancy with the camera on this
phone.”
“No problem,” Morty said. His voice came out squeaky, and he cleared his
throat.
In spite of Rory trying to lower his expectations, Morty couldn’t help the
tingle of excitement as Rory wriggled out of his pajama pants. He wasn’t
disappointed, either, as Rory panned the camera down across his body- his shirt
pulled up to expose his belly, and below that, the skimpy thong leaving little
to the imagination. With so little coverage, Morty could clearly see the
outline of Rory’s swelling erection.
“Oh,” Morty said idiotically. “W-wow.”
Rory laughed nervously. “Geez. This is embarrassing.”
“No, it’s great. You look- they look great on you.”
“Sorry I’m...um. I’m a teenager, you know? I pop a boner if the wind blows the
right way.”
“I know what you mean,” Morty agreed. “Those stiff breezes are really, they’re
pretty dang sexy, huh?”
Rory giggled. “Alright, so you’ve probably seen enough?”
Morty thought he could stand to see a lot more, actually. “Do you have a, like
a mirror?”
Rory panned the camera around to show the full length mirror near his window,
exactly the same one Morty had. In its reflection, Rory’s face was flushed deep
pink. Lying back on the bed with his yellow shirt askew, skinny legs bare, hair
a mess, he looked unbearably sexy to Morty.
“Can I see the back?” Morty asked.
“There is no b-back, you perv,” Rory accused, though he was grinning. “You just
want to look at my butt.”
“Is that a problem?” Morty’s own face must have been even more red than Rory’s.
He couldn’t believe he was being so forward.
Rory didn’t seem to mind. He climbed out of bed and stood so he was visible in
the mirror, twisting around to show the back of the thong- or the lack of one.
“There. Satisfied?” he asked.
“Very cute,” Morty confirmed. “Gu-guess those went to the right Morty after
all.”
“You should show me something, too,” Rory said. “It’s only fair.”
“Like what?”
“Have you, uh, felt any good breezes, lately?”
“What?” Morty asked. “...Oh. You really want to see that?”
“I mean, if I want to see our dick, I guess I can just look at my own, but
that’s not really as fun.”
“It’s dark in here,” Morty warned. But he rearranged the laptop on the floor in
front of him anyway, until the smaller window in the corner of his screen
showed his own tented crotch, illuminated by the monitor's blue glow. His
fingers were shaking with excitement and nerves as he unzipped his jeans.
“N-nice,” Rory stuttered, watching Morty push his underwear down under his
painfully hard cock. The compliment made it twitch, and Morty made gave an
embarrassed groan.
“I’m not usually so, you know. It’s been a long day. A lot of, uh, stimulation,
but things kept getting in the way.”
“Aw. So that’s not because of me?”
“Oh, it’s mostly you,” Morty assured him. “Honestly? It was hard not to start
rubbing one out as soon as you took your pants off. B-but you could see my
face, so that might have been bad.”
“I would have been flattered,” Rory admitted. He perched on the edge of the
bed, still holding the phone up to show his full reflection in the mirror. With
his eyes fixed on the phone--watching him, Morty realized with a tingle--Rory
reached under the waistband of the thong and started rubbing himself slowly,
base to tip. The outline of his fingers moved up and down beneath the thin
material. The tip of his cock poked out the top, glistening wet with pre.
Since Morty’s laptop stayed propped open, he had both hands free, one to rub
his own cock and the other to cover his mouth- more an embarrassed gesture than
to stifle the small moans he was making. He hadn’t been especially stealthy in
the first place.
His breathing was heavy and his face burning hot as he jerked off, watching his
friend do the same. The smell of teenage musk was thick in the small closet.
Morty jerked slowly, showing off for the webcam. Precum drooled across his
fingers and pooled in a spot on his bunched underwear. If he’d done it like
usual, full-fisted and fast, he would have come already. Watching Rory was
almost too much even this way.
“I wish I was there with you,” Rory murmured, twitching the fabric down to show
off the full, turgid length of his cock. “What would you let me do to you?”
“Anything,” Morty breathed. “Everything.”
It wasn’t great dirty talk, but it was true- he would have done anything Rory
wanted if he were there in that closet with him. Just thinking about what else
they could be doing made Morty feel light-headed, perilously close to the edge.
“Fuck, Rory, oh my God,” Morty whined. He kept his eyes open until the last
moment, watching Rory while his hand moved more frantically along his cock, and
then he was blind and deaf as his orgasm slammed home, making his hips twitch
jerkily. A strangled whimper emerged from his throat as hot spurts of cum
landed over his knuckles and lap.
“Holy shit,” Rory murmured appreciatively.
The closet door squeaked as it began to open. With the head-rush of climax
still making him woozy, all Morty could do was slam the laptop shut. He didn’t
have time to cover up before the door swung all the way open.
Rick stood in the doorway, swaying slightly. His regarded Morty for a long
moment, though his face didn’t register surprise at the sight of his red-faced
grandson sprawled on the closet floor, post-messy orgasm.
“H-hi, Rick.”
“Morty.”
“I was just, uh…”
“Yeah, I can see that. Quick question, Morty. Did you jerk off in a closet just
to spite me? And, follow up question: Do you have any shame?”
“Yeah, that’s- that’s about right. And I guess I don’t.” Morty pulled his shirt
down over his crotch, too late to hide anything. “Sorry.”
“You do you, Morty. You do you.”
Rick closed the door, leaving Morty in the pitch dark to consider, whether Rick
knew it or not, how accurate those parting words were.
 
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