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Rick’s first thought about Stanford Pines, was that he was hot. Like, seriously, that ass, nice.
His second thought about him, was ‘what the fuck is this human doing in a demon dimension?’
Just to be safe, he thought he’d ask.
“H-h-hey there, my guy, um… watcha doin?”
The guy was sitting around a campfire after Rick had gotten lost in the woods and wandered over in that direction. He startled, looking at Rick with wide eyes, and taking long enough to answer that Rick drunkenly stumbled into a spot on the log next to him with a little sigh. He was way too wasted to figure out why some random human was in a demon dimension. As far as he knows, he’s the first human to ever discover dimensional travel in his own dimension, but they weren’t in his dimension, and he’s pretty drunk right now, so he’s not sure what’s going on.
He was sprawled out against the log next to him, a bottle of tequila in his fist, mostly sitting in the dirt while he sighed, looking up at the alien stars.
“Are you real?”
There was a sudden poke to his face, and Rick growled a little, batting at the fingers. “Fuck off, you ever heard of personal space? I m-mean, you’re cute, but lay off, you know?”
Stanford pulled his hand back, but not before Rick got a good look at it, and he lifted the tequila bottle up to take another swig in thought. “Is that normal where you come from? Were you born here?”
Stanford shook his head, and Rick watched him from where he had his own head tipped back, looking at him through fuzzy eyes. It was making him a little dizzy. “Is poking people normal where I’m from? I… don’t know how to answer that?”
Rick blinked at him twice. “What?”
“You asked me if that’s normal where I come from?”
Rick snorted, shaking his head. It made him even more dizzy. “I meant y-your hand. You have six fingers.”
Stanford looked down at his hands, and for a second, Rick could have sworn he looked… scared, maybe? No, maybe apprehensive. “No, where I come from people have five.”
Rick nodded again. “Thought so. N-nothing wro-ong with it, I’m just trying to puzzle out what-what, which dimension you’re from.”
“What dimension?”
Rick shrugged. “Well, if you weren’t, if you weren’t born here, it’s likely you’re in the wrong dimension. This whole universe has been t-taken over by demons, pretty fucked up shit.”
Stanford kept looking at him funny for a moment. “Where are you from?”
“Dimension T-49’\.”
“...I’m not sure what that means.”
Figures. Most people outside of other Ricks don’t know what the numbers mean. “It’s how you know what dimension you’re from. Assign it a number or s-some shit, I dunno. The numbers v-vary, depending on how far away they are from each other.”
Stanford seemed to think that over for a moment. “Does that mean there are other… uses , in this universe?”
Rick snorted. “What part of this whole dimen-dimension is run by demons don’t you unders-undertand? Chances of us being alive in this universe a-a-are so slim that if there existed a universe where it did happen, we probably wouldn’t have acc- we couldn’t get there because it would be s-so inconceivable that my portal gun couldn’t reach it.”
“What?”
“No. We only e-exist in front of this campfire.”
Stanford sighed, leaning back a little so he could rest against his right hand. His left arm was bandaged up, like he’d gotten in a fight with something big recently. Rick nudged his arm with the tequila bottle for a moment till the guy took it from him. “You look like you could u-use a drink. What happened to your arm?”
The guy took a sizable chug of the bottle, and Rick couldn’t help but grin a little. “ A universe filled with demons happened. ”
“Jesus. If they hate you so much, w-w-why’re you alive even?”
Stanford looked at him for a long moment, and Rick sighed.
“Listen buddy, I don’t really care what your tragic backstory is. You a good guy? Have yo- have you ever molested a child? Killed someone?”
Stanford’s eyebrows pulled together. “What? No!”
“Ever ruined someone’s life irreparably beyond measure?”
Stanford wasn’t so quick to answer that one, and Rick finally sat up again, a deep sigh. “Oh boy, t-t-that’s some deep shit, huh? Well, whatever it was, you look guilty about it. T-t-think you could fix it if I got you back home?”
“I can’t go back home.”
Rick rolled his eyes. “Ugh, more of this ‘I can’t go home, I ruin everything I t-touch’ shit, I mean, i-if you w-want to go home, j-just do it. Whenever people pull that ugh shit on their f-family, chances are, they a-arn’t really as h-hated as they think they a-are, just go home, appologize, I’m sure whoever it was will f-forgive you.”
Stanford looked almost amused for a second, before his face fell again. “I’m not hiding here because I’m scared my family hates me, I know they want me back. I can’t go back because there’s a demon in my head who will take over Earth if he gets his hands on it.”
Rick stared at him for a long minute, unblinking. “That’s some shit.”
“You think?” He took another swig of the tequila, this one a little longer. Rick sighed, feeling bad for the guy.
“W-w-wait here a minute, okay, I’m gonna go get something that w-will help.”
“You think you can pull a demon out of someone’s head?”
Rick shrugged, not caring all that much to be honest. Either he could, or he couldn’t and he’d find an alternate version of himself who can. “Fuck it, I once said I’d try anything once. Of course, I was talking about sex at the time, but the s-sen-se, the idea’s the same.”
He pulled out some weird glowing gun and before Stanford could stop him, he was gone through a glowing green ring of goo. For a moment, Stanford realized that this might all actually be real and he might have just lost his only chance to get out of here. It took him a few seconds for it to sink in, but around the time that his breathing was starting to get a little heavy, another green ring appeared a foot away from where the last one had been, and the man stepped through again.
“Who the hell even are you?”
He plopped down on the log he’d been leaning against just a minute before, looking a lot less drunk this time, and started hooking up weird electrodes to Stanford’s face. “Rick Sanchez. The guy who’s selflessly trying to get you out of this hell.”
Stanford blinked at him a few times as he started up a handheld device and the electrodes started tingling. “Oh. I’m Stanford Pines.”
“Well then, Stan , how’s that feel? Can you even feel this guy in your head, or whatever?”
“Ford.”
“What?”
“Not Stan, Ford.”
Rick rolled his eyes, not caring. “Okay, Ford , what’s that feel like?”
“Like you’re pissing Bill off and making my head itch.”
Rick frowned. “Shit, I spent three days on this and that’s all it’s got?”
“You’ve been gone for seconds .”
“Three days. I time traveled backwards to meet you here so I wouldn’t lose you.”
Ford reared back, looking horrified. “It took me years to figure out the portal to get here and you’ve got a time traveling, dimension hopping gun? ”
Rick snorted. “Did this demon, by any chance, show you how to get here himself?”
“Yes.”
“Buddy, you got gipped. Big time.”
Ford grit his teeth, both at the jab, and the way that he could feel Bill getting pissed inside his head. He didn’t like this. “What the fuck did you even come here for in the first place?”
Rick thought about that. He’d been very drunk when he’d gotten there. “Quiet place to drink and scream. Instead I found a giant headache with a headache of his own. Sit still, I’ll be back in a second, I need to get a scanner.”
He was up and through another portal before Ford could grab at him to bring him back, and he grit his teeth together at the pain getting worse. As soon as Rick got back, he ripped the electrodes off Ford’s head, using a handheld scanner instead. “Shit, he’s a-a-a pissy little thing, isn’t he?”
“Yes, and I think he’s trying to rip my insides, so if we could move this on a little faster-”
“Alright alright, I got y-your scan, by the w-way you have a fractured rib, we’ll get that fi-ixed when you get home, I’ll be back in another second with the cure.”
And again, he was gone, Ford barely had to breathe through the pain for more than a few seconds before another portal opened, but this time he was in too much pain to open his eyes again. Something fell in front of him, and he wanted to know what it was -anything to take his mind off the burning- but he could only breathe a little faster, a little heavier, painful with a fractured rib, and even more painful when he leaned against his left arm and sent pain spiking up his spine. Something was pressed against his forehead and he shuddered as Bill screamed, suddenly realizing what was happening and trying to claw his way out of his body.
It didn’t work, and after a half a minute, the screams died away, and he could suddenly breathe again. He sagged down, falling against his right side and off the log, curling up in a little ball as he tried to breathe through the pain in his arm and rib cage. It was pretty bad.
“Ugh, h-h-how long have you been out here? It took me ten days to figure out that cure.”
Ford took a good minute to get himself together, pain bouncing through his body until it felt like the same buzzing throb that it had been before Rick had shown up. “I dunno, a year maybe?”
Rick sighed, leaning down to help the guy up from the ground. “That’s shit, well let’s get you home.”
***
Rick and Ford stepped out of the portal and into a grassy area. Ford was still in too much pain to really walk on his own, but Rick nudged him a little. “H-hey, dude, I did you have a bunch of weird signs all over your house when y-you left? If not, I think someone bought it.”
“You can’t sell the place, I-” He looked up and raised an eyebrow before it turned into a scowl. “Stan, you asshole!”
“I thought you were Ford ?”
“No, Stanley, my twin.” He grit the words out like poison, and Rick couldn’t help the grin spreading over his face at that.
“Twins, huh?”
“Oh shut up.”
Rick was almost bouncing in place, but refrained. To be honest, he wasn’t all that big of a guy, and Ford had at least fifty pound on him, the only thing keeping the two of them up right now was cybernetically enhanced limbs.
He helped the man slowly get through the grass towards the house, when suddenly the front door opened. Rick swore in that moment he could hear a pin drop it got so quiet. Oh great, family drama. You know, this is exactly the reason he’d been looking for a nice quiet place to drink himself stupid and scream when he’d found Ford nearly two weeks ago now. Two weeks… half an hour, um, sort of the same thing.
Well, I guess this is as good a time as any for him to go get some bone repairing drugs, you know, from that one dimension where medicine has evolved so far that bone mending drugs are a regular drugstore thing? Yeah, he’s pretty sure Ford’s rib has moved from a fracture to a full on crack through all that incident with the pain and the crying back in the demon dimension.
“Um… so this is awkward.”
The twins both looked at him now, Ford with a frown, and Stan with honest confusion. “Who’s he?”
Ford stared at Rick for a long moment before sighing. “Some drunk guy that came out of nowhere. He’s weird.”
Rick looked between the two of them for a second before taking a step back, almost making Ford fall over without support. “Um, hey, he sorta needs some help and I need to… uh… go get something…”
“Is it going to fix my rib, you said you’d help with that.”
Rick bristled a little bit. “I said I would, and if nothing, I’m not that much of a jackass. If I was going to abandon you I’d have done it over a week ago.”
Ford sighed, looking pained. “Thank you, for not abandoning me.”
Rick tried to take another step back but Ford really wasn’t standing on his own, so he turned to the other twin, the one that looked like he was in shock. “Hey, help him, will ya, h-he’s sort of, ya know, f-fucked up.”
He waited until Stan was supporting Ford instead before he pulled out his portal gun and disappeared again.
“Did he just-”
“Yeah, he does that.”
Stan blinked a few more times, looking between his brother and the shack again. “Uh… are you real, because I’ve had this dream a few times already-”
“Yeah, I’m real.”
“Good, because I don’t know who that guy was, and that would be a weird addition to my nightmares.”
Ford looked at Stan for a long moment. “Just help me get inside.”
“Alright.”
***
Rick came back through the same spot he’d left about twenty minutes later, and started up the porch to the front door, shouldering it open with a bag of medical supplies hanging around one wrist, and a bag from a liquor store around the other.
“Alright, I came back-”
He frowned as he walked through what looked like a gift shop towards the sound of arguing, body tensing up a little. He hadn’t been kidding when he said the reason he left home was because of the arguing. He sighed, stepping down into a living room where Ford was gingerly laying back on a couch.
“Hey, jerks! Sh-shut up or I won’t fix you, y-y-you think I came here to listen to more assholes in a dick measuring contest, I could have j-just stayed home if I wa-anted that shit.”
He sat down next to the side of the couch on what looked like a dinosaur skull, shoving the medical bag into Stan’s hands while the guy looked at him with confusion and wonder. He pulled out a bottle of vodka from the other bag and opened it up, taking a long swig of it before thrusting it at Ford. “Drink this. I can fix your rib but I think your arm needs stitches.”
“How is it that you’re willing to fix a rib but you can’t mend skin?” Ford chugged at the bottle anyways, but he didn’t look away from where Rick was pulling out a needle now. Rick didn’t waste any time sticking it in his arm and pushing down the plunger. For a second, it felt like his insides were being rearranged and he yelped, but the pain in his chest was ebbing.
“Well, bones are easier to f-fix I guess. L-listen, you don’t want the side effects t-that come with instant skin mending, I swear it was like gonor-gon, it was like the clap times ten. All over. E-e-even my eyeballs were in pain for days.”
Ford looked between the two of them for a minute after Rick helped him get out of his coat and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt. He took in the slightly traumatized look on Stan’s face, and the way that Rick was threading a needle with an almost bored look, and lifted up the bottle of vodka again for another drink. He had the feeling he was going to want to be drunk very soon.
***
“I can’t believe you turned my home into a tourist trap, Stan.”
“I didn’t know what else to do, I couldn’t lose the house and risk someone finding your lab if I was going to try to get you back!”
Ford threw a pen at Stan from across the living room. It bounced off the side of his head. “You asshole, I told you not to turn the portal back on, it was dangerous!”
“H-hey, if you don’t want that portal, can I cannibalize it for parts? You got some-some really go-od shit in there, h-honestly.”
Ford sighed, looking up towards the ceiling, almost pathetic. “You know what, fine, fuck it, go destroy three years of my life’s work, thanks, I’m glad you can use it as spare parts .”
Rick grinned at him. “Hey, you said it, not me. A-and I’ll just-I’m gonna take that as a yes. Besides, three-three years of you-ur life’s work al-almost got the whole word destroyed, so.”
He left through the basement passage with a grin and both of them watched after him for a minute. “He stutters a lot.”
“I thought it was just a drunk thing at first. He was really trashed when I met him.”
Stan nodded, looking a little dreamy. “It’s kinda cute.”
Ford looked at him for a long moment with a disgusted look on his face. Honestly, he didn’t want to admit it, but the two of them were probably made for each other. He let out an equally disgusted noise, dropping his head into his hands.
***
A half a day later Rick came back through the front door of the shack, startling both brothers from their glaring match. “I thought you were in the basement?”
Rick held up his portal gun with a raised eyebrow. “Listen, my guys, so like, my mother is being an asshole right now since I t-took apart the tv t-t-to make that demon killing thingamagig or whatever, I’m not sure, I wasn’t listening v-very hard, I tune out most of h-her rants. So I went to go find a liquor store to pass the time, or a drug dealer, something hard, y-y-you know? But I found this instead.” He pulled a gnome out of his bag with a gardening glove covering his right hand, which is good, because the annoyed little thing immediately started biting him.
Stan screamed and threw another pen at it, but Ford just got up to inspect it. “Eh, that’s Steve. He’s weird.”
The little gnome looked up and stopped biting Rick, before climbing up the guy’s arm and sitting down on his shoulder. “Ford, you asshole! You said you’d stop doing experiments on us if we stopped stealing women!”
Ford looked entirely unimpressed. “One; that wasn’t our deal, I never said women, I said prepubescent little girls. You guys gotta cut that out, they’re children , they’re not gonna consent to being your queen. And two; does it look like I’m the one holding you?”
Ford looked at Rick with a frown. Rick was patiently poking at the thing till it fell off his shoulder, grinning like a moron the whole way. “Why’d you take that thing home, it’s covered in squirrel fur.”
Rick picked it up with the gardening glove again, setting it on a table. “It’s a gnome!”
“Yes, I know that.”
“It’s not from this dimension. I was wondering if you knew they were here. I could probably find a way to send them back to their original dimension, well, I’d have to figure out their original dimension first, but I could send them back.”
“I really doubt they want to go back to their original dimension. The gnome king or whatever said their world was the demon world.”
Rick dropped the gnome with a wince, gently scooting it away with his foot. “That’s unfortunate. Alright, well, there’s a raccoon man wandering out in the woods who keeps trying to kill them all, so I thought I’d ask.”
Ford frowned. “Raccoon man?”
***
The three of them got in Stan’s truck and went to the other side of town where the ‘racoon man’ was last seen. Ford was practically buzzing in his seat but wouldn’t tell them why. Rick was in the front, rolling a joint. It was a little bumpy to roll in, but he’s done it in worse.
“Hey, Stan, have you ever gotten cross-faded in the woods with a raccoon man and some scientists?”
Stan looked at Rick with narrowed eyes. “I’m not sure I want to get high with you. You’re on some other level, honestly, last night I watched you chase a shot with cheese puffs. And by a shot, I mean the whole bottle you chugged.”
They stopped just outside the woods on the other side of town, and Ford got out of the car with a disgusted noise, slamming the door behind him. Rick just grinned and waved the joint in his face. “Come on, it’s good shit, trust me.”
Stan took the joint from him and pulled out a lighter while Rick made a little cheering noise. “I trust nothing about you, but I’m willing to try.”
Rick just cheered again, looking like a kid in a candy store.
Outside, Ford was cautiously approaching a man sitting on a log with a raccoon in his lap. He sat down next to him on the log with a little sigh, still cautious of his healing left arm. “Hey.”
Fiddleford looked up at Ford with a little frown on his face. It took him a minute but he seemed to recognize him. Ford just wondered if what he’d seen in the portal had driven him mad. Fiddleford had always been the more rational one of the two. Finally, he sighed, looking down at the raccoon in his lap again.
“Her name is Matilda. She’s my best friend.”
Ford sagged a little. “Oh. Got any other friends?”
Fiddleford shrugged, looking a little sad… no, scared. “Just one. I don’t remember his name anymore though. I thought I saw him back in the woods one day, but he said he didn’t know me.”
Ford looked back towards the car, where he could see Stan and Rick laying out on the hood of the car, passing a joint between them. He figured Fiddleford must have met Stan at some point. “You don’t remember anything? Not even his name?”
Fiddleford shrugged a little, picking something up off the ground that blended in with the leaves. Ford breathed hard. Amnesia ray. Fiddleford had originally made the design with the hopes of helping PTSD patients, since so many of them got sent to asylums, instead of treated like they should be.
“Fidds, what have you been doing?”
Fiddleford shrugged again. “I don’t rightly know, I reckon, just didn’t… you went away, and I saw things in that there light portal, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I don’t even remember what I saw anymore. I don’t… I don’t remember much…”
Ford just reached over and pulled the man into his side, one of his hands closing around Fiddleford’s. “You don’t need to use that anymore. Please don’t use that anymore.”
Fiddleford leaned against him a little sadly. “I’ll try not to.”
***
In a little under a year and a half, Ford had gone from fighting with his lab assistant, getting into a fight with his brother, and letting a demon into his head; to helping his lab assistant remember his name, finally agreeing to let his brother stay with him, and possibly adopting a slightly crazy, possibly always drunk scientist who snorted crystals he found in the forest and said he could see the entire universe afterwards.
Also, they have a raccoon named Matilda. She bit ankles sometimes, but she also scared away salesmen, so that was good. It wasn’t that bad, really.
Of course, he could also hear screaming coming from the other side of the house right now, and he’s pretty sure Stan was basically cheating tourists out of their money with very shady sales, but that’s normal now. He thinks.