Work Text:
“Sooooo...Morty’s been quiet lately.”
Summer leaned against the doorway to the garage, phone in hand. If it weren’t for the tone of her voice, everything about her would lead one to believe that she didn’t care about the topic at hand; her shoulders slumped, face passive, even blasé. One would be wrong about that assumption, however, and recognize that immediately once they heard the tautness of her voice. She crossed one leg in front of the other to properly wedge herself between the hardwood and the doorframe, hitting ‘send’ on a text before looking up at her grandfather.
“Yeah, and?” If Summer didn’t care, Rick really gave no fucks. Hunching over the worktable, squinting at something that Summer couldn’t see from her vantage point. She knew he was squinting, though. He always squinted when he was working.
“ Aaaand, he’s been quiet ever since the night of the dance. You know, with the whole cronenberg disaster that you started.”
One very well maintained eyebrow quirked up pointedly, but Summer’s nose was back in her phone after a cursory glance. Rick didn’t reply for a second. From the stiffness of his posture Summer correctly guessed that something had caught his eye and that he’d reply when he’d finished picking at whatever little bug had irked him. Mostly correctly, anyway - he didn’t end up replying. It was like he’d forgotten Summer was standing there at all.
That’s fair, Summer thought to herself. I’m being quiet and he’s a narcissistic bastard.
She cleared her throat. Rick groaned.
“Ugh, what. ”
“Are you going to tell me what happened to Morty then or do I have to tell Mom that you traumatized him again.” Cutting straight to the point. Rick turned, eyes narrowed, looking Summer up and down. Summer pocketed her phone, folding her arms over her chest and giving him that laser-focused glare Rick would otherwise be proud to say was from his side of the gene pool.
So it was a battle of wills, then. He glared her down as well, but in the silence it was becoming increasingly obvious that Summer wasn’t backing down from this. She actually cared.
With a surrendering, aggravated noise Rick threw his arms up and swiveled back in his chair to face his desk. “Listen, Summer, I don’t have time to-- to, to constantly make sure his fragile psyche is still holding together. If you want to tell your mother, I-I-I don’t give a shit, she won’t do anything about it anyway. She’s too scared I’ll run off again.”
He pounded on his chest in the middle of the sentence, forcing out a loud belch. Summer wrinkled her nose and scoffed.
“Whatever.” It wasn’t exactly the most stinging of dismissals, and Summer knew it, but she wasn’t about to fight with Rick over whether or not he should feel remorse or heaven forbid, empathy. Whatever he’d done to fuck Morty up this time, she wasn’t about to get him to see that it was probably his fault. He’d never see it, not in a million years, and most likely in a few months’ time Morty’s going to have it repressed as usual.
Honestly, Summer had no idea why she even bothered sometimes. Clearly their parents had stopped trying long ago. She turned, not bothering to close the door as she went back down the hall to the living room.
Morty was there, as usual. He’d been there for a while now, easily since before breakfast. Always that same look - the mouth slightly agape, staring somewhere just a few feet up and to the left of the TV screen instead of actually at it. His homework sat on his lap, not even touched - not even the classic dicks and doodles 14-year-olds would normally spend time procrastinating on. Summer felt a cold clench in her chest to see him sitting there with the thousand yard stare of someone who’d seen a lifetime of war. He’s just a kid.
How did her parents not notice this?
Rick was right, in a way, she supposed as she passed the living room and headed into the kitchen to get a drink. She turned the tap, staring through the kitchen window and to the outside where Jerry was obsessively cutting the weeds, again. After a while, her eyes became glassy and she, too, stared off into the distance, lost in her own thoughts. Beth was too scared to stand up to Rick for fear of him leaving and Jerry was….well. Summer loved her father but he was what he was and nothing would change that. He’d never do anything to jeopardize his clearly failing relationship with Beth, and that meant letting Rick steamroller over them both and continually break their son over and over.
Cold water flowed over Summer’s hand and it shocked her so badly out of her reverie that she squeezed the glass too tightly, shattering it in the metal sink.
“Summer?” Morty’s voice even cut through the air a little weaker than it used to. He sounded like an old man, frail and weak and barely having the strength to talk. It wavered with more than his normal stutter and Summer’s eyes stung. “Are you okay?”
Are YOU okay? She wanted to ask, wiping her eyes. Jesus christ, did I forget my meds today? I don’t usually get this weepy. Morty’s going to be fine. I’m just overthinking it.
Right?
“I’m fine,” She called. "I just dropped a glass, that's all. Clumsy me, haha." The laugh came off as forced but she knew he was too out of it to notice. Lowering her hand from her face, she realized she’d cut it on the glass. The smell of iron clung to her nose from where it wafted from the stain under both her eyes. She could hear Morty’s footsteps coming into the kitchen, coming to check on her. Shit.
Summer grabbed a dish towel and viciously rubbed her face clean, wrapping up her hand just as Morty came in. If he had anything to say about the redness around her eyes, he said nothing. His own eyes slid from her towel-wrapped hand to the still bloody shards of glass in the sink. He turned, leaving the kitchen again.
“Oh. I-I’ll get a first aid kit.”
Summer stood there, stunned. He’d never really been queasy for just a little blood, it took a lot to really freak him out nowadays when it comes to gore, but the way that he simply shut down and didn’t react in the slightest scared Summer. It sent a chill up her spine.
No person in their right mind just sees that much blood and doesn’t even care. Something whispered in Summer’s mind. He’s NOT okay. Do something-
“Morty--” Summer called. There was shuffling, and Morty poked his head around the kitchen doorway again before coming in with the large first aid kit from the broom cupboard.
“Yeah, Summer?”
Summer faltered as he opened the plastic case, pulling out bandages and antiseptic. He motioned for her hand, making a ‘gimme’ motion without looking at her that she’d seen Rick do to him a million times. It made her stall, and Morty looked up at her.
“Are you okay? Are-- are you going to faint o-or something…?”
He’s already so much like Rick.
“Uh….no.” Summer mumbled. She held out her hand. Morty said nothing, peeling back the towel that was now thoroughly stained a deep red. He didn’t even flinch, not a single wrinkle in his blank expression to show that he acknowledged it.
“This is going to hurt.” He said instead, picking up the antiseptic spray and pausing for a moment. He looked up at Summer for the barest split second, and Summer caught the concern in his eyes, in the way he frowned. The way he waited for permission.
Her chest hurt. Why are you so worried about me? What the hell happened to you, Morty? Are you even Morty anymore?
“It’s fine. Go ahead.” She said, then winced as the alcohol hit her open cut. Morty bandaged it quickly and tightly, doing a much better job than Summer could have ever expected from him. As he tied it off and cut it, making sure the gauze underneath was in place, she stared at him. Something in the very back of her mind wondered how often he’d had to bandage himself, or others, or even Rick.
The thought left a bad taste in her mouth. “...Thanks.”
“No problem. Now clean up the glass, that’s your own damn fault.” There it was, just the tiniest spark of life. Hope flared up in Summer that maybe he wasn’t totally broken just yet, but then the spark died as he went back on autopilot aand put the leftover bandages back in the kit.
Summer watched him pack the kit away, leave the kitchen and sit back down on the couch. Task accomplished, fugue consuming him once more, he’d forgotten what he was doing and left the kit by the arm of the couch where he sat. His homework reclaimed its spot on his lap as if he had never gotten up, and he resumed staring at the not-TV screen with that blank, slightly agape look on his face. Summer watched him for a good five minutes but he just...didn’t move. Not even to scratch.
Her chest hurt as she turned back to the sink, slowly picking up the broken shards and throwing them away.