Chapter Text
Blood coats his hands, clinging sticky-wet to his skin and soaking into his clothes. He presses his hands to the wounds in a vain attempt to staunch the flow, feeling torn flesh and sinew squelching beneath his fingers.
Saliva gushes into his mouth, a sour sensation curdling in the pit of his stomach. He holds his breath against the sick-sweet iron tang of blood in the air, swallowing convulsively until the urge to puke disappears.
“S-shit,” he mutters, panic roiling in his gut as blood continues to gush freely from the wounds, unhindered by the clumsy press of his fingers. The skin beneath his hands is hot and clammy, his fingers too slippery, and he can’t think, he doesn’t know what to do…
The body beneath him is still and silent, save for the rasp of shallow breaths rattling past parted lips. A pained wheeze precedes a fresh spurt of red across his hands, frothy red spittle mixing with the remnants of alcohol and saliva.
His brain goes into overdrive, thoughts darting through his mind like wisps of smoke, too numerous to name, too fast to grasp. He needs a hospital, needs help, needs time, but the blood isn’t stopping, still gushing out over his hands and drenching his jeans, making the material cling dark and heavy to his thighs, and oh god, he thinks, please don’t die.
A stray thought flickers through his head while he struggles to calm down, find a solution, and he sucks in a breath as he stares at the beaten, bloody body in his arms. It could work, couldn’t it? He’s thought about it before, in moments of weakness and stupidity, quickly discarded and forgotten after he’s been dealt a heavy dose of reality, but if there’s a chance – if it could work, he has to do it. He has to try.
He needs to calm down first, needs to think, because if he’s really going to do this, he can’t fuck it up.
It takes a few tries; his breath keeps sticking in his throat, his vision going fuzzy until he finally manages to pull in a lungful of the alien air. He breathes in, breathes out, using time he can’t afford to calm the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He curls his fingers around temples that have grown grey and ashen, touching his forehead to a clammy brow in an attempt to ground himself in the moment, to remind himself of what – of who – he’s trying to save.
This close he can feel each short, rattling breath leaving the thin, battered body, and tears brim in his eyes as his fingertips brush against thin cheeks, mixing with the caked-on dirt, sweat, and blood that mars his face.
“Please don’t die,” he repeats, voice a hoarse croak as he closes his eyes, forcing himself to concentrate, to remember everything he’s ever learned about this process – in school, from his parents, from the Internet. He’ll try everything, just so long as something works.
For a moment there’s nothing – just empty space, the rasp of breath struggling through punctured lungs, and the rapid beat of his pulse pounding in his ears. His mind’s too full. He clenches his eyes tighter, forcing everything else out, away, all of the panic and the fear and the smell of blood clogging his nose, so that he can concentrate on reaching, searching for something, anything –
Where are you? he thinks desperately. Please, you have to be here. The alternative is unthinkable. The alternative leaves him alone, and he can’t think about that, can’t handle it.
And then he feels it – a flicker, like the spark of a flame pushing gently at his subconscious. It’s faint, far away, but it’s there, and he prods at it, careful, careful –
A wash of blues and electric greens crashes over him, driving a startled breath from his lungs and crackling like a storm across the expanse of his mindscape. It’s violent and hot and alive, and he nearly sobs with a mixture of joy and relief as he imagines curling his fingers over the swelling tempest, drawing it closer and closer until he can feel it rolling like a wave over his own red-orange, vibrant thoughts, melding, blending together.
He doesn’t think about what he’s doing, doesn’t allow himself to question his actions. There’s no time for thought now, only action.
So he reaches out, and he grabs.
//
Morty wakes with a start, breathing hard as he stares through the darkness at his bedroom ceiling. He waits for his heart to calm, curling a hand over his chest before glancing at his night stand. His clock reads 3:28 a.m. He sighs, passing a hand over his face and grimacing at the sweat matting his curls to his forehead. He feels gross, tired, but he knows he won’t be getting any more sleep tonight.
He heaves himself out of bed, making his way a little unsteadily through the dark on legs that don’t seem to want to hold him steady. He hisses out a curse as he bangs his hip against a bedpost, groping for his dresser while he rubs gingerly at the swelling bruise. He digs out a fresh pair of boxers and a clean t-shirt before making his way out into the hall, the house dark and silent around him.
Summer’s door is shut tight, as is Rick’s, but his parents have taken to leaving theirs open at night. Morty tip-toes past their doorway, catching Jerry’s faint snores from within, and ducks into the bathroom.
He wiggles out of his clothes once he’s inside and slips into the shower, turning the knob all the way to the left. The hot water does wonders for his tight shoulders and aching muscles, pounding into his skin and driving the tension from his body, but it does little to distract him from his dream.
Not a dream, he reminds himself. A memory.
He chews his lip as he passes a bar of soap over his body, moving on autopilot while his thoughts run rampant. He doesn’t like to think about it – the blood coating his hands and soaking into his jeans, the panic and fear and desperation roiling in his gut, the thin body lying limp in his arms. Doesn’t like to think about what he’d done. It had been stupid, reckless, an impulsively Morty move, but at the time he’d thought he had no choice. He hadn’t even known it would work, or if he’d screw it up somehow and make things worse. And even afterward, he hadn’t had the luxury to worry about the consequences of his actions, had simply punched in the coordinates to the nearest hospital and prayed that he’d bought enough time to make a difference.
And he had. He’d saved a life that day, and he’d spent every moment afterward paying for it.
He feels sick, thinking about it, though that’s nothing new. He’s felt that way for months now, ever since he sat by Rick’s hospital bed and felt the newly forged connection between them pulsing hotly in his mindscape. He’d nearly been forced into one of those beds too; he’d been doubled over in pain by the time he’d landed the ship and dragged Rick’s nearly lifeless body into the lobby, and he’d had to fight through the agony flaring through his insides to make sure the alien nurse at the front desk took care of Rick first before seeing to him. He hadn’t known how to explain what he’d done, wasn’t sure the life-forms on that planet even knew about soulbonds, what they were, how they worked, so he’d kept his mouth shut and whimpered through the pain until Rick was sedated and patched up. Only when his grandfather was pumped full of painkillers and sedatives had Morty been able to breathe a little easier, slumping sweaty and exhausted into his seat by Rick’s bed.
The nausea is bearable now, and has little to do with Rick being in pain. It’s the sickly-sweet delirium that Morty has grown to associate with his mad scientist grandfather sleeping off a bender, and he resigns himself to a headache and cotton mouth in a few hours, knowing there’s little he can do to counteract the effects but suffer through them in silence. At least he can handle them now – rather than being confined to his bed in a haze of nausea and pain, he can function relatively fine on his own.
He doesn’t really have a choice about it, either way. No one else knows about what he did, save Rick, and Morty has a better chance of actually scoring a date with Jessica than he does of getting the man to talk to him about any of this.
Just don’t think about it, he tells himself, stepping out of the shower and reaching for one of the towels hanging on the rack. It’s ironic that he’s adopted the same mantra that Rick has always touted, but hey, whatever works, right? It’s better than running himself ragged trying to fix what he’s done; every time he tries Rick shoots him down, his usually acerbic comments turning sharper, meaner. Their bond doesn’t help matters – Morty has to contend not only with Rick’s uncanny ability to make him feel about two inches tall but also with all of the rage and annoyance that comes with it. He can deal with Rick being an asshole, an extra thick layer of skin the benefit of spending the past two years in the old man’s company. What he can’t handle is feeling the contempt and disdain that Rick has for him; it filters through their connection no matter how hard Morty tries to block it. There are ways to do that, ways that they could help each other, make this easier, but Rick won’t try. He’d rather deal with the indignities than put Morty out of his misery, and Morty knows why. Rick is angry at him, and he wants Morty to feel it.
Morty feels stupid for letting that get to him, feels like he’s fourteen again and competing with Summer over who gets to be Rick’s favorite. He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, taking in his tired eyes, his damp curls, the line of his jaw. His face has grown a little leaner in the intervening years since Rick appeared in their lives, though there are still traces of baby fat clinging to his cheeks. He’s still smaller than most of the other boys, more gangly than anything else, and though a couple of years of traipsing after Rick across the galaxy has packed a little muscle onto his lean frame, he still looks scrawny. Overall he looks – well, like a Morty.
He sighs, running his towel over his damp hair once more before pulling on his clothes. He’s sick of thinking, at any rate, and if he’s not going to get any sleep he can at least spend the next few hours being productive. He slips out of the bathroom and heads toward his room, trying to remember where he’d left his 3DS. A few hours of mindless entertainment will be far more beneficial to his state of mind than worrying about –
“Christ, watch where you’re going, Mo-OOUGH-orty.”
Morty freezes, his toes digging into the carpet as he peers through the dark at his grandfather. Rick’s standing just a few inches in front of him; apparently Morty had been about to collide with the man, so caught up in his own head that he hadn’t even noticed that he was no longer alone in the hallway. He can’t see Rick’s face in the dark, can’t really determine how drunk he is by the state of his voice. Their bond crackles in the air between them, like a bridge of static, and Morty feels the hair on his arms stand on end.
“O-oh, h-hey, Rick,” he says, keeping his voice soft so he won’t wake the rest of the house. “I was just – just heading back to bed.” He makes to move past the old man, intent on not touching him, but Rick’s voice stops him in his tracks.
“I’ve got something – an errand to run in the morning. Real – real important shit, Morty.” There’s a pause and the swish of liquid as Rick no doubt takes a pull from his flask, and Morty holds his breath as he waits for the rest, sure that Rick can feel his nervous anticipation through their bond.
Sure enough, Rick scoffs, a flicker of exasperation and something else flashing through their connection, but all he says is, “B-be ready. I won’t wait around for – D-don’t keep me waiting fo-URGH-r you.” He stumbles off down the hall before Morty can say anything, the bathroom door shutting with more force than absolutely necessary behind him.
Morty stands in the empty hallway for a moment, staring at nothing. They haven’t gone out since – since the last time, when Rick had gotten hurt, and Morty had thought – well, he’d thought that was that, that they wouldn’t have any more adventures at all. His parents had noticed, thought it was weird that Rick wasn’t taken him gallivanting across the galaxy anymore, and Morty had been too ashamed and embarrassed to tell them why.
What was Rick getting at, anyway? Was he – was he trying to trick Morty in some way, inviting him out only to leave him in the dust in the morning? It sounds like something he would do, to be sure, but Morty doesn’t see the point. Rick has been doing a pretty good job of humiliating and alienating him in the last couple of months, anyway.
He shakes his head, stepping into his room and closing the door softly behind him. He tells himself that there’s no use obsessing over it. He’ll just have to wait until morning, see what happens then.
He slips back into bed, digs under his pillow for his 3DS, and flicks it on with his thumb. All the while his mind whirs, but he doesn’t allow himself to focus on anything beyond the flashing lights and music spilling from his game system.
Don’t think about it, Morty, he reminds himself, thumbing the A button as the opening menu pops up. Just don’t think about it.