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She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
“Daddy?”
The hazy form at the end of the hall wavered precariously, barely succeeding in staying upright, before blindly reaching out a hand for the wall. A black duffle bag - only half filled and fraying at the edges - hit the carpet with a soft whump, long fingers going slack at his side. There was a strangled sigh as the tall, lanky, and familiar figure righted and turned around.
There is no other explanation for what the man is about to do, but neither is there another way out. The ones watching over the house know this, and they also know the significance of this moment. But the child - dressed in red pj’s, clutching a stuffed horse - and the man - silver hair standing on end, worn leather jacket framing his bones - wouldn't understand for a long time. Instead, father and daughter stood there silently in the hallway of a neglected home, searching for answers that neither of them had. The hands on the man were shaking.
The hands on the clock were slipping past 3am.
His knees buckled, hitting the carpet with a dull thud. There were tears gathering at the edges of his intelligent eyes as he stretched out his arms. “Come ‘ere, ‘Beth.”
The child buried her face into her father’s soft blue t-shirt, her hands finding the buttery-soft lapels of his jacket. She could feel the outline of his silver flask under the material as it rested over his heart - cold and alive. He smelled as he always did, of alien aftershave, motor oil, and chemicals, but it brought her little comfort in the moonlight. She was old enough to know what it meant when your parents started fighting, she had known the day would come when her father would leave. She was still young enough to hope it wouldn't happen.
“Can I come with you?” her small voice was pleading and muffled. His shoulders collapse forward, arms wrapping tighter around the small body that changed his life - his heart - forever.
“I'm just going out for ice cream,” the lie sounds hollow even to his ears.
One sinewy arm finds its way between their bodies, brushing over the countless hidden pockets of the jacket to find the device he needed. The Memory Eraser is cylindrical, no longer than a standard pen, and he pushes back curly locks of blonde hair to place the metal against her freckled ear.
There's a small flash of lime-green light and a whir, and then the man's arms are the only thing keeping the child upright. He carefully carries her back to bed, kissing her forehead and quietly shutting the door. His footsteps echo in the silent house, the front door closing with absolute finality.
She broke his heart
It’s better this way, he tells himself.
It’s easier if she hates me.
She’ll be able to move on if she remembers him leaving in a flurry of hateful words and slamming doors. There’s a clear break with anger. A scar will form with the pain, but it will heal over. Ignored but never forgotten.
But regret? Compassion? Sentiment? Those made sure there would be splinters and scar-tissue and damage.
He had never meant to have a child. He had never meant to get married. He had never meant to allow himself to fall in love. He had never been very good with other humans and their stupid feelings, always preferring the unmerciful universe and it’s vast number of less-fragile beings.
But for her, he had tried to be better.
The child had changed him, made him soft and vulnerable. The long days cooped up within the same four walls had made him antsy and reckless. The woman he had fallen for figured out how truly despicable he was. The life he had tried to build for himself had begun falling down around his ankles, trapping him.
The Galactic Federation would catch up to him and then what? His girls would be taken hostage. Birdperson and Squanchy would be dead meat. No, he had to leave. He had the entire multiverse to conquer. All he needed was his flask and his portal gun.
Love, he snarled, only leads to heartbreak. The real mistress is science.
As the sun slides over the edge of the planet, lighting up the rear view mirror in farewell, the blue haired scientist rockets off into the vast expanses of space. Into the stars. Into the unknown. It was him against the multiverse in a homemade ship weighed down with a few worldly possessions, the knowledge he would never be welcomed back home, and a guilt he would never shake. He had no idea where he would go, no idea what he would do. There were no friends to turn to. The Citadel would offer no comforts.
The scrap-heap of a spaceship came to a stop amid the lonely darkness of space, drifting like the soul of the hollow-eyed man at the wheel. There was no passing ship to offer him comfort. There were no distant stars to guide him. There was no distant planet that could be his destination.
He laid his head on the steering wheel, and cried.
He spent his whole life trying to forget
"Daddy?”
Twenty years later, she still looks the same.
Except for the stress lines around her eyes brought out by the two teenagers staring at him from the couch - a red haired girl with phone in hand, and a curly brown-haired, slightly younger, boy. And the cheap diamond ring from the idiot that got her pregnant on prom night. And the bottle of whiskey she throws back before having the courage to look at him again.
To the grown daughter of the brilliant man standing in the middle of her living room, he looks every bit of the ‘mad scientist’ her mother had cursed him. Unnaturally silver-blue hair stands on end as if he had just been struck by lightning or been caught in an explosion. Pale cerulean eyes constantly shifting with panic or paranoia, but burning bright as stars nevertheless. White lab coat brushing his shins, filthy with god-knows-what. Soft blue sweater hiding his bones. His hands were shaking, although they were more scarred than she remembered. He never had worn a wedding band.
Though she had held onto to hope, she had never really thought he would come back to earth, back to her. He still smelt the same, for the most part. The alien aftershave had been replaced by something far more familiar - alcohol. Though she guessed that was probably alien in origin too.
Angry? Yes.
Confused? Definitely.
Relieved? She needs to get drunk before she before figures that one out.
“You can't come waltzing back into my life after all these years and expect me to… to forgive you. You left! You were just gone one morning, no note… just took all your stuff in the garage and…” she trails off, and turns back to the bottle. “I know you and mom had issues but did you have to completely abandon us? Do you have any idea what I had to live like after you left? I mean… mom did her best to give me a normal life, but… damn it, Dad!”
Twenty years apart couldn't change genetics, he mused numbly.
“Summer, go to work. Morty, help your grandfather move his stuff into the garage. Jerry, with me. We're clearing out the guest room.”
“You’re letting him stay here? And not just for a few days, he’s moving in? An hour after he shows up on my doorstep? Unbelievable. ” For the first time since her father had walked in the door, her unemployed husband spoke up.
“Jerry, I really don't care what your opinion is at the moment. Just help me clean out the guest room, it’s not like we were using it anyway.” Bottle in hand, she starts down the hall, her feet slightly shuffling as the alcohol begins to take effect.
Her husband reluctantly follows, complaining the whole way.
Her daughter rolls her eyes and heads out the front door, swinging her keys and texting like nothing life changing had just occurred.
Her son trails on the heels of a strange man, the scent of motor oil and chemicals and something indescribable enticing him into adventure.
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
Moving into the garage was easy enough. There wasn't a whole lot in there to begin with - some miscellaneous items, a few shovels, a weedwacker - and Rick could only fit so much into his conglomerate spaceship.
The months ticked by in a grandiose manner, the Smith family falling into patterns alongside their newest addition with surprising ease. The son had taken a strange liking to his previously unknown grandfather; there was something about him that was alluring to the young boy, even with the scientist’s sociopathic tendencies and cutting remarks.
“So, Morty… does your mom usually drink, or is just when I'm in town?” Rick bites at the smaller male, not needing to look up from his tinkering to sneer with his voice. Morty is standing at his shoulder, watching his hands move with rapt fascination. If he was being honest with himself, he liked being studied like that. It made him feel important, and the silent, unquestioning companionship was nice. He would never be able to forget the horrors he had seen, the things he had done, but at least his grandson from another dimension cared enough to put up with his bullshit.
“Sh-sh-she likes… drinks w-wine, but the c-c-cabinet is topped o-off with… there’s other s-stuff...” Oh god, the stutter... my stutter. The older man stops what he's doing and pulls out his silver flask from a pocket of his lab coat. He takes another swig of the alien alcohol with drool running down his chin. Please do shut up, he grunts in response and returns to his tinkering.
“G-g-gets that from… bec-cause of y-you, huh?”
His cold heart shattered with his grandson's words.
There was the distant sound of breaking glass, an electronic sparking, a stuttering-fluttering-human whine. It didn’t quite reach his brain. No, instead there was nothing but screaming between his ears and he must have growled out some sort of caustic response because suddenly there was a hateful grumble and stomping footsteps and the sound of a slamming door ringing against the concrete and metal and inertness in the claustrophobic space of the garage.
He didn't mean it like that… It wasn't meant as an insult, his head tried to whisper, but the heart he tried desperately to forget he possessed was bleeding all over the table. Only a stupidly curious boy questioning the grandfather he didn't know he had. War and life in general had turned him bitter and jaded, but in a few words, this seemingly incompetent boy had knocked at the very core of his being.
There would be no amount of alcohol in the multiverse to numb the guilt he felt.
But he never could get drunk enough to get them off his mind
Little by little, the garage filled up. Shelving was bought, boxes were gradually piled to the brim, junk was shuffled around so what was needed most often was at the front. The flooring became more stains than concrete and a trapdoor just… appeared one day. The house slowly, and with much stubborn resistance, started to feel like home.
“G-geez, Rick. Do you h-have to… we’re going to c-crash into a planet…” The boy tries to grab the steering wheel but he’s shoved roughly and ungracefully back into his seat. “Can’t you s-stop drinking for just one s-second!?!” No, the scientist thinks acidically, but he can't seem to convince his tongue to form the truth. The truth wouldn't change anything. If he couldn't save Beth, he sure as hell won't be able to save Morty.
“G-geez, Morty. Do you h-have to c-care?” he knew his mocking stung, but he was way too drunk to consider the kid’s delicate sensibilities when choosing his words. He was way too drunk to remember this conversation in the morning.
“B-because I care about you, Rick. And you… y-y-you know what. Drive us into a-a sun, it wouldn't matter anyhow. No one would m-miss me.” The boy couldn't remember a time that he had felt more alone than he did in that moment, sitting with his knees to his chest in the passenger seat of his estranged grandfather's junk-pile spaceship. Empty bottles clanked and clattered under his feet as the ship sputtered to a halt amid the vast darkness.
The scientist wipes at the drool that has slid down his chin. His eyes won’t focus so he stares out into the stars, into the random arm of the Milky Way that is painting his windshield, undermining the caring he was trying to show. “Don't you ever say that, Morty. Never.” Even completely plastered, Rick could comprehend that the kid needed him.
“Why, R-r-rick?” Morty refused to look at his grandfather. It would only cause his chest to ache more. If he was being honest with himself, he was only in this dark mood because Rick had almost let him die. Again. And for what? Some scrap metal and a few seeds?
“Because I would miss you.”
Until the night
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
They were laid out on a tattered quilt underneath an alien sky. Lilac grass danced in the wind, strange phosphorescent birds called out to each other in the distance. The air had just enough bite to warrant the lab coat to be spread out over them like a blanket, for Morty to lay his head on Rick’s chest, for the older man to wrap his arm around thin shoulders as a means to prevent shivers. They were just far enough away from it all to allow their fingers to brush occasionally as one pointed something out to the other, to allow themselves a moment of mutual comfort in just knowing someone else was there.
“Look at all those stars, Morty.”
“Yeah, Rick. T-they’re stars.”
“No, Mort. Look at them. Really look. What do you see?”
“S-stars, Rick.”
“You’re lucky I already love you, because you are hella stupid.”
“Love y-you too, grandpa Rick. For a hundred years.”
“Y-yeah. A hundred years.”
And finally drank away their memory
He laid down on the floor of the garage, the world spinning around him. The floor matching his cold, concrete heart as it thundered against his ribs. What would it feel like to die? Why did he want to die again? He couldn't remember.
Everything was planned. The note was written - he would leave a note this time. He wasn't going to make anyone forget the atrocities he had committed, he would just make himself forget. It wasn't a permanent fix, but the Galactic Federation was closing in and he was running out of options. They would leave his family alone if he was out of their lives.
Or so he hoped.
There was nothing left for the scientist to do but wait. Wait for the opportune time. Wait for no one to care. Wait for the courage that he couldn't gain from Whiskey.
Life is short but this time it was bigger
“... But then I think, you know, in a lot of ways, I'm not a high-school senior from the planet earth. In a lot of ways, what I really am is a deep-cover agent for the galactic federation, and you guys are a group of wanted criminals, and this entire building is, in a certain sense, surrounded.”
Morty. Be th. Birdperson. Squanchy. Summer. Jerry.
Morty!
“Everyone here is under arrest for crimes against the federation.”
It was always about family.
“Drop the portal gun. Slide it to the center of the room.”
He had to save them.
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
“Why are we doing this for someone that would never do anything for anyone but himself?”
“That’s not the point, dad, we love, Rick! F-f-for the most part.” That got the old man’s attention, even if he was currently avoiding them, using the floorboards as a shield from their words.
“Yeah, you don't love people in hopes of a reward, dad. You love them unconditionally.” That's very good, Beth. You’re a better parent than I ever had hope to be.
“That’s very good, kids. I'm proud of you.”
“So, so let me get this straight: for the rest of your lives, no matter how much it hurts you, no matter how much it destroys our children’s futures, we’re going to do whatever Rick wants, whenever he wants?”
“YES!”
“Why?!?”
“Because I don't want him to leave again!”
That was it. The only words in the entire multiverse that could undo him.
So he let himself come undone.
“Hey, uhh, I was gonna hop over to the Glopydrop system, get some ice cream.”
“Y-you want me to come with? D-don't you need my brain waves, for camouflage, or something?”
“I’ll be okay. Bye Morty.”
“R-rick? You’re not leaving, right?”
“Yeah, Morty, I am. To get ice cream.”
“So, you're coming back?”
“Morty, if you go to where there’s a bunch of ice cream and then you don't come back, you haven't actually gotten ice cream, you've just gone where ice cream is.” There you go, history repeats itself.
“Rick. I can handle it if you go, but you would break mom’s heart. And I won't forgive you for that.”
He didn't need to be forgiven. What he was about to do didn't require forgiveness.
“Where’s the van, Morty?”
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love you till I die
“Yeah, there’s a body at the Motel off route 16… No, I did not put the body there… Yeah, I knew him… I'm Morty Smith. Rick Sanchez is dead.”
At least he was kind enough not to ruin his own bed, Morty found himself thinking bitterly amid the myriad of blinking lights. The orange blanket laid across his shoulders by the EMT’s warned everyone he was in shock. He would blame his absolute calm on that.
The Smith family had just arrived back home after an exhausting day in intergalactic customs. Why had Morty felt the need to fly his grandfather’s spaceship to this particular seedy motel on the edge of town as the clock on the dash slipped passed 3am? The multiverse was cruel and unmerciful, and something in his heart had told him to.
His hands did not shake.
The Galactic Federation agreed to let them hold a service, much to everyone’s surprise. Maybe the bureaucrats felt some semblance of sympathy. It was more likely that now the great and bastardly Rick Sanchez was dead, they just didn't give a shit.
As far as funerals go, this one would be simple. No pastor, no bugles, no casket. An unmarked grave on an unmarked hill overlooking an unmarked town. Birdperson, Squanchy, Beth, and Summer would made up the mourners. Jerry would show up for a minute or two, but would leave before the others could see him cry, then stay the night at an unnamed bar in the city nursing a heartful of shame.
Morty’s pocket felt heavy with the note that no one but him would ever read.
He allowed himself to hope.
And when we buried him beneath the willow
... A hundred years...
Morty, for the most part, kept it together long enough to convince his family he was okay. It was Morty's idea to not call in the cavalry, like his mom wanted. It was Morty’s idea to carry him up to the cliff overlooking the city. It was Morty's idea to lay his body in the ground, unprotected - what would Rick say if he came back to life and found himself stuck in a box for eternity? Probably that caskets were an archaic tradition continued by sheep or that he wasn't worth the price of the wood.
Our city, our hill, our tree. It was the only place that felt right, if burying your grandfather could ever feel right.
Rick had brought Morty here anytime he wanted to get away. He had always said that he had taken extra precautions so no one would be able to find them up here. Morty had never figured out what he meant by that, but it didn't matter now.
The rest of the family had gone back to the tiny house in the suburbs to talk their pain away, Morty stayed behind with his grandfather’s memory and a bottle of whiskey. He sat with his legs over the edge of the precipice, his back to the willow tree that they used to climb, laughing about how ridiculously childish they were being. This is where they would sit and watch the familiar stars - the stars that told them they were home - the lights of the city twinkling beneath their feet, close enough to provide light to see but far enough away to not dim the fairy lights that paint the sky. This is where Morty had first realized that, despite his grandfather's constant stream of insults and erratic behavior that endangered his life, he loved the man. He had become the one constant in Morty’s life, the one thing he could count on never changing.
The house has never felt so empty, his home is empty. There is an empty space in his chest where something used to live. Probably hope, but that had been held in the empty hands of his grandfather as he lowered him into the empty, hollow ground.
… a hundred years… The air tastes of empty promises.
Look at us now, Rick. Draining the last of the bottle, he takes in the night sky almost empty of stars swirling above his head, just out of reach. With a scream that undoes his body and tears his heart out of his chest, the empty bottle is thrown into the empty space between him and the rest of the planet.
As empty as my heart, Morty muses numbly.
The mouth of the silver flask feels like home against his lips.
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby
Be good, Morty. Be better than me.
The rumors flew
Time flew by. The garage and Rick’s room remain virtually untouched, by hands at least. His death was front page news of every newspaper in the universe, even some in the multiverse. The Citadel of Ricks ignored it all together. The Galactic Federation never released an official statement, even though it was popular belief that he had been given a choice: you or them. But there is always crazy conspiracy theories surrounding the death of a Rick.
Beth and Jerry faded into the background. They lived out the rest of their lives in relative peace under G.F. protection, slowly drinking their way into an early but content retirement. It was anyone’s guess why they stayed together, but in the end it doesn't really matter all that much.
Morty grew up. He finished high school and moved out, taking all of Rick’s things with him. Each box was meticulously gone through and put to use, or stored for latter use. The piecemeal spaceship served him well throughout his travels, with the needed upgrades and replacement parts from time to time. The portal gun was revamped time and time again, but he could never find it within himself to replace it completely. For awhile, life was okay. He found work as a contract researcher and bounty hunter for the Citadel. It wasn't fulfilling, but it was exciting and filled some of the emptiness that had been scoured into his life. Wherever he went, whispers followed: he was the Rickless Morty that had learned to survive on his own.
Summer moved on with her life. She finished her undergrad studies and married the boy she had been dating on and off in high school. They started a life together in New Mexico, working with turquoise. She was the only reason Morty kept coming back to earth.
Well, not the only reason.
But nobody knew how much he blamed himself
For years and years
He hated hospitals, they reminded him of his grandfather’s toxicating ability to keep him distracted from real life and his father’s selfish insecurities that were too much like his own. Sitting in the waiting room of the painfully plain earth hospital that catered specifically to humans, he was aware of how out of place he was, even if he had just graduated from high school. The Council of Ricks had already been in contact with him about a… discrete job offer, he knew it was only an excuse to keep an eye on him but he couldn't find a reason to care. It was only a matter of days before he would have the paperwork he needed to leave this hunk of breathing rock and fly off into the stars.
“Mr. Smith?” a nurse called out cheerfully, her scrubs pastel blue with little pastel yellow rocking horses on them. Neonatal nurses, he rolled his eyes as he stood up. No doubt the nurse was expecting anything but the young man that answered her summons. After his grandfather had permanently retired, he had exchanged his “normal” clothing for something a little darker - black jeans, black high top converse, black bandana, and a dark brown leather jacket he had found in one of the boxes from Rick’s old room - but had kept the nauseatingly yellow t-shirt that Rick had always teased him for, and had let his hair grow into a mop of untamed curls that brushed the collar of his jacket.
The name on the door, written in his sister’s flourishing calligraphy, was his own. The cold metal band that had refused to let his heart feel anything since his grandfather’s passing snapped in half.
A tiny screech of hello greeted his ears as soon as the door opened into his sister’s room. A tiny hand curled around the finger he offered up. A tiny pair of eyes captured his own mossy green ones, the same piercing blue Rick’s had been.
… a hundred years…
It took three years, but he had finally found a reason to stop withering away into nothingness.
He tried to hide the whiskey on his breath
It’s no wonder Rick had stayed drunk all the time. It is easier to shoot the enemy when your body is so flooded with alcohol it isn't really affected by adrenaline. It’s also easier to fly your nephew around space when your mind isn't screaming at you to steer into a sun.
It’s been seven years and he still sees his grandfather’s dead body every time he closes his eyes, that’s the reason why he can't - won't - stop drinking. He’s slowly destroying his liver, and livers may be easily replaceable nowadays, but if he dies from liver failure Morty will have a better chance of forgetting him. It’ll be a cleaner break than getting shot on the job or shooting himself.
The kid was amazing, he really was. Super smart but somehow really charismatic too. He was even okay with the stutter, it didn't make him self-conscious at all. A real mop of curly brown hair was growing in, and the kid loved the color yellow. Summer reminded him that Morty looks more like him with each passing birthday. Expect for the eyes - Rick’s eyes.
At least the kid is smarter than I can ever hope to be , he thinks, watching the preschooler totter about his loft looking at all of the new and exciting things. Most of it should be far beyond his cognitive capabilities, but the kid understands the concept behind the multiverse so who knows how much he truly understands.
“Where do you want to go, little dude? We’ve got the whole weekend to do whatever you want, since your parents are meeting with clients in Texas.”
“A-arcade!”
“Blitz-and-Chips?”
“And G-gear World!”
“Oooh, maybe not this time, buddy. Uncle M may have made a few people there a bit angry.”
“Is makin’ p-p-people angry you’re j-job?”
He laughs and gets down on one knee to meet the boy's eyes, “Would you still love me if it was?”
“F-for a hundred years!”
He finally drank his pain away a little at a time
“Come on, man, you can't do that.”
“Think again.” There’s a blast of soft blue light as the particle ray turns the form in front of him into stardust. If anyone was there to witness the scene, they would have noticed how blank the face of the bounty hunter was, harshly illuminated from below. But alas, there was only the darkness and a few mutated cockroaches left on the alien mothership, all the others had fled or faced the consequences.
His throat constricts painfully, still in the habit of clamping down on the urge to call out all these years later.
Combat boots sound on the metal floor with a dull thud as he walks around the deserted ship, gun on his hip primed even if his stride is languid. A door ascends with a soft whir, and he enters the room without curiosity. Empty eyes alight on the bar, recognizable in every version of the multiverse. There’s an internal battle that lasts all of half a second before he slides over the counter to admire the stock of alien liquor. Finding a brand he recognizes for its strength, he downs half the bottle in one gulp before hopping over the counter with several randomly selected bottles in hand to straddle a chair.
Here’s to ten years,
he muses numbly.
People had said he would get over it, that one day he would wake up and just be okay, but he was still waiting for that day to come. He was still waiting for the guilt to turn into forgiveness.
Just anything else but this, really. At this point he would settle for anything other than guilt. Or regret, or anger, or self-hatred.
His grandfather’s spacephone rang out, harshly vibrating against the metal walls. It’s Summer.
“Hey, bro.”
“Hey.”
“How you doing today? Get that case wrapped up?”
“Yeah, just finished the job fifteen minutes ago,” he completely ignores the first question, electing to take a swig of random alien liquor instead.
“Alright. Just wanted to let you know I’m thinking of you. Mort got first in his school for that science fair project you helped him on. The one about different types of alien goop. He wants you to take him out to that burger joint that you told him about for his birthday, the one with the flies in the ice cream…” he lets her talk on, telling him all about their business ventures and the major and everyday goings-on of Earth. The picture he keeps in his breast pocket - the one he had fused together - is propped up against his empty flask.
One half is Rick holding him as an infant, the other is of he and Morty on their first outing to space.
He can't help but notice how much he is starting to look like Rick.
And how much Morty is starting to look like him. There you go, history repeats itself.
Summer rattles on to keep out the encroaching silence, but the whiskey keeps out the pain.
But he never could get drunk enough to get him off his mind
He knew that he needed to clean himself up, he was a mess. He smelt like alcoholic vomit and alien chemicals and motor oil, he hadn't changed clothes in three days, this lab coat needed to be disposed via hazmat unit, the floor of his small loft couldn't be seen for all the garbage. But that’s how he lived between jobs.
The warm water cascading down from the shower head is sobering.
It takes him three hours to tidy up the loft. He wouldn't have even been awake if it wasn't for Birdperson coming over to haul his dead-to-the-world ass off the floor by his workbench and demanding he get sobered up because he was leaving to pick up Morty. The washer, dryer, and dishwasher are still humming when a bump on the roof lets him know the spaceship has landed. He wonders if Birdperson ever had to do stuff like this for Rick.
Probably, he thinks numbly.
The newly refilled silver flask in the pocket of his newer lab coat rests over his mechanical heart, another layer of protection. Whether it was for his own protection against the outside world or protection for everyone else from him the multiverse only knew.
“Guess how… how old I am t-today, Uncle M!” the kid’s stutter was getting better, maybe if he kept working with the kid it would disappear altogether.
“Ummm… I dunno kid. Forty-three?” the grin that blossoms over the kid’s features is contagious. Even Birdperson’s lips curl upward slightly against his biology.
“N-n-no, stupid, I'm ten!” He knew how old the kid was, it was hard to forget when he had been born on the third anniversary of his grandfather’s death, but the boy got such a huge kick out of telling him.
“No way! You know what that means?”
“I get to d-drive grandpa Rick’s spaceship!”
His stomach suddenly got the brilliant idea to empty its various questionable contents on the rug, and it took all his willpower to fight that drunken urge. There would have to be a conversation with Summer in the near future about her telling the kid about Rick. Turning away from the other two people in the room before they see the pain that he knows is dancing across his face, he grabs a half-empty bottle of whiskey and drains it.
“Yeah, kid. Yeah you do.”
Until the night
Be good, Morty. Be better than me.
I let you down, Rick.
… a hundred years…
I failed.
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
The ceiling of stars swirled above his head, making the world spin under his spine. His heart was beating against his ribs, and he laughed as he imagined the organ pushing its way between the cage-like bones to meet whoever it was determined to meet among the stars. He was drunk, more so than he had been in a long time. Years maybe. Hell, maybe even since the days following… who was it that died again? Is that why we wanted to drink until he died? He couldn't remember.
Everything was planned. Maybe it had been for fifteen years. He would transfer everything to Morty - all he had to do was make a few calls. He wasn't going to let the kid forget what this crazy multiverse had chosen for him to accomplish, he just didn't want to remember the atrocities he had committed to make sure those accomplishments happened. It wasn't a permanent fix, but the kid was smart and the older man’s options were limited. The brilliant boy would be able to do anything he wanted once he was out of his life.
There was very little for him to do, but wait. Wait for Morty to be old enough. Wait for the Citadel to stop caring. Wait for the courage he couldn't gain from Whiskey.
… a hundred years…
No. He wouldn’t do that, he wasn’t Rick.
Morty. It was all about Morty. He had to keep Morty safe.
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
They must have painted quite a picture - the thirty-something in black jeans, black high top converse, yellow t-shirt, and brown curls streaked with blue-silver sticking up from his moss green eyes and the fourteen year old boy sitting on the counter in jeans and an old blue sweater that matches his eyes - in the loft’s upgraded kitchen.
“So… w-who taught you to cook, Uncle M? Since y-y-you’re teaching me, and all.”
He was just tipsy enough, and high off the kid’s happiness enough, that the words tumbled out of his mouth before he could think to stop them. “Grandpa Rick. Although his protege was way cuter than mine,” he snarks, flipping some of the sauce from the pan he had been stirring into the face of his nephew. The sputtering reply was worth the ache in his chest. He tried to put on a brave face for the kid, tried to pretend he wasn’t slowly turning into Rick, even without the liver-and-brain-cell-killing levels of drinking. Tried to pretend that he wasn't just waiting for the inevitable day he became dispensable.
“I was your age when I first met Rick. And on that day I vowed to never become him. But, as I got older, as he showed me more of the varying facets of the multiverse, I came to realize that he wasn't the worst thing I could become. Yeah he was vile, he was egocentric, he was mad in more ways than one - he sold weapons to intergalactic bounty hunters, shot anyone that became an inconvenience, and I know your mom has told you stories about all the crazy situations she would walk into the middle of - but he saved me. I was lost and alone when he just... walked into our house one day and set up shop in the garage. He showed me how unforgiving, how disturbing, how utterly without mercy a universe could be, but he also showed me how unique, and how beautiful they could be too. And before I knew it…” There’s suddenly a catch in his throat, the words refuse to be said.
“You loved him.” … a hundred years…
There’s no use denying it. He knows the kid can see the truth written in every move he makes, in every decision he has made. Despite what everyone else thought, Rick had always shown him that he was, in fact, a human with feelings. “He acted all pissed off and self-righteous, but he always did the right thing in the end. He gave me something that only one other person ever has. Hope. I know he had his reasons, but… It’s been seventeen years since he left us - left me - and I still haven't forgiven him for that.”
“Who’s the… the other person?”
“You.”
We found him with his face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
There’s nothing about seeing your brother’s dead body lowered into the ground that should make you happy, but a large part of Summer’s heart sings with joy at the sight. Maybe now he would finally be able to find peace.
She had tried contacting Birdperson and Squanchy, but they hadn't answered. Maybe they had been permanently retired, too. She supposes in the end it doesn't really matter all that much. Her parents had gotten drunk at the airport bar and missed the flight to get here, not that she had expected them to make it anyway. It was better this way, she mused numbly. Her and Morty were the only people who had really cared for her brother in a number of years.
There hadn’t been a living will filed with the G.F., but he didn't need one. It probably would have been conveniently lost by the time they transported his body back here, anyway. She still remembered their last conversation. He had taken her to this planet with lilac grass and phosphorescent birds, and they sat on the hood of the ship and laughed for hours. By the time he dropped her back home, she knew that he thought something was going to happen. The loft that he had bought for himself on earth was in Morty’s name, as were his countless hideouts across the multiverse. The money he hadn't found a use for was in a bank account offworld, and would be transferred to an account in Morty’s name when he no longer had a use for it. The stars only know where the spaceship and portal gun were stashed.
Morty and her took turns covering his body with shovelfuls dirt. He finally looked happy, after twenty years of wandering among the stars. They had decided to leave the picture he kept in his breast pocket in his hands, so they weren’t empty. As the sun rose, mother and son stumbled off down the hillside leaving the gravesite smelling of whiskey… a full bottle half pushed into the freshly overturned earth as a headstone.
They can be together, forever.
… a hundred years…
We laid him next to him beneath the willow
From time to time, Morty finds himself coming back to this spot. This strange willow tree on this strange hill overlooking the strange town his mom and uncle grew up in. Every time he comes, the decision he was struggling to make doesn't seem so difficult or important. Should he finish high school? Yeah, why not. Should he go to college? At least get an undergrad. Should he marry his girlfriend? Rise above, chose science. What should he do now? Go to the willow.
The stars seem unusually bright tonight, brighter than they have in a long time, laughing down at the young man who has flown among them and heard countless stories of the wonder they hold. There’s a note pinned to the tree with a set of keys. As he contemplates the scrawling words, the keys buzz in his hand and in a flash of lime-green light a flying saucer shaped vehicle appears on the hillside.
The note flutters to the grass, forgotten.
It’s time to find your own Rick…
As the scrap-heap of a spaceship rockets off into the stars, two figures can be seen standing under the willow tree: a tall, blue haired man in a white lab coat and a shorter curly haired boy in a yellow t-shirt.
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby
… Be good, Morty. Be better than me.