Chapter Text
Summer Smith is an unlucky girl.
She thinks her bad luck must have began the day her deadbeat grandfather crash landed his ship into the Smith’s garage. Or maybe it was when she realized Rick was always going to choose Morty over her. Or maybe it was when she entered high school and got called “butterface” her entire first year. Or maybe it was in middle school when she got bullied for playing the flute. Or maybe it was even earlier than that. Maybe it started when she was born to two young wide-eyed high schoolers who weren’t at all ready to shoulder the weight of responsibility, just lost in the moment of a groovy slow-dance at prom, or drinking cheap liquor behind the school from the only flask Beth had to remember her father by.
She doesn’t really know the details. All she knows is she now happens to be a very unlucky girl on one particularly unlucky night.
Sharp pain shoots up her ankles with each step. She’s limping unsexily, muttering under her breath as the same tucked strands of hair once again insist on being in her face. After tripping for the hundredth time, she huffs and leans down, ripping her heels off and carrying them in one hand, the cool asphalt of the road meeting her bare feet. She can already feel blisters forming on the surface of her calloused skin.
Rick was meant to pick her up from prom, but he’s either on an adventure with Morty or blackout drunk, because he’s not answering his phone. Jerry, Beth, and Space Beth are gone on some kind of weird couples retreat to spice up their collective sex life in a fleeting attempt to salvage the shreds of their marriage. It turns out, Ethan’s been hooking up with Tricia Lange (again), and this time, Summer is really over it. She spilled some contraband liquor on her dress, and the mild head buzz she has going on from stolen vodka isn’t quite making an effort to soothe her, as much as it contributes to her clumsiness.
The comforting but bitter thought passes through her mind: At least I’m not pregnant. Summer one, mom zero.
She keeps stepping on the end of her dress now that the heels aren’t suspending her in the air. Dirt begins to track onto the glittery fabric, but she doesn’t care. She stopped caring when she dropped one of her pasties in the school toilet.
She stops in her tracks as a small bead of water lands on her cheek.
The clouds begin to roll in and crowd around her, shy droplets of rain scattering along the road, gently dotting her face. Great. Just great.
This is such a nightmare.
Her street sign shows itself in the distance, dimly lit under a flickering street lamp. The house is just a block away, and for once, she’s relieved to see it.
Morty and Rick either won’t be there or will be on the couch, mindlessly flipping through channels of interdimensional cable. It doesn’t really matter. It’s not like she would want to seek them out.
The ship’s in the driveway. They’re home.
Her fingers twitch haphazardly for her vape, the tantalizing sweet, sweet anticipation of a nicotine head-high already easing the tension in her shoulders as she cuts across the lawn to the front door. It’s in my room somewhere.
Her knuckles meet the wood, rapping on it in three quick beats. She didn’t bother bringing her keys. She waits impatiently, foot tapping the itchy doormat, mindlessly wiping the dirt off her feet. The strand of hair falls into her eyes again, and she blows it away with a sharp exhale, rubbing away the mascara streaking her cheeks with a stray finger. I can’t wait to get this shit off my face.
Finally, the peephole darkens, a silhouette blocking out the light from the dining room. “Ugh, finally.” She mutters through her teeth, getting ready to just push past whoever this is to get away from her stupid family (or what’s left of them).
The door swings open, Summer’s eyes meeting the thin frame of her grandpa. Only, he’s wearing an uncharacteristic pair of tall, steel-toe combat boots. Her eyes travel up his navy blue pants, utility belt, and a purple-blue Marino wool vest. Interesting.
She’s about to make a comment about a bad Han Solo cosplay, but the words die on her tongue as her eyes finally meet his.
It’s not Rick.
Well it is Rick, but he looks almost…healthier. His typical eyebags are missing, although he’s still wearing his age. His skin is soft with time, small wrinkles formed around his mouth and eyes where they usually are. His features are softer. It’s almost unnerving. His hair is short and dark, (although she can’t tell whether it’s just the backlight cast on him, making it hard to decipher his features fully) a spiky mullet. Not a bad look, but just not Rick.
Summer has met other Ricks. She recalls her experiences with Toxic Rick, the Counsel of Ricks on the Citadel, and random working Ricks of the citadel hunting down her grandpa. Right, much like her own grandpa, they were all complete dickwads. So she doesn’t take too kindly to this apparition of her grandpa.
A small shiver runs down her spine as she notices, now, that this Rick is smiling expectantly. His lips are pulled back in a long, yellowing grin. His eyes are upturned, blown wide and excited. Not a rare sight, but just a confusing one. This can’t be her Rick.
Right. “What the fuck?” She blurts.
“There you are! We’ve been expecting you.” He gives her a once over, taking his turn to judge her appearance. A chuckle. “Wow, rough night?”
She’s never really been shameful around her grandpa, even when he’s firing off on her, but she can’t help but feel a little extra scrutinized under this Rick’s sharp gaze.
“Prom sucks tits.” She answers simply, crossing her arms, shifting weight to one hip. “I’m just gonna let grandpa Rick deal with whatever this is.”
She starts to push past him when a hand unsettlingly meets her ponytail.
His grip tightens around her hair, yanking her back with a frightening amount of force Rick’s never used on her. She sobers up instantly, the shock pulling her out of her self-pitying wallow as a pained cry rips from her throat. She clumsily plants her feet, a dull but blunt ache forming at the base of her neck.
“Woah woah woah, hey, easy now.” He holds her head a little low, forcing her to crane down a bit to keep it attached to her neck. “Summer, right? Heh, never really got familiar with the concept. My granddaughter.”
He says the word almost endearingly, with a voice so warm you wouldn’t know he’d never met her. He doesn’t have a Summer?
“Let me go, you creep!” She manages. She twists her neck in an attempt to straighten her head from this awkward angle, but it only sends a sharp painful jolt up her neck. An insult sits on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t manage to spit it out as he pulls her head back with a pained, choppy breath, forcing her to face him.
She swings her blocky heels into his head like a pair of nunchucks, but it doesn’t seem to do much damage as they clatter against his head and fall to the ground.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“What, grandpa doesn’t talk about me? I’m hurt.” The man feigns offense. “I’m his arch nemesis. Rick Prime, baby!”
Her head is starting to ache, a fluttering pulse flaring in her temple. His hand moves down and grips the back of her neck, and he pulls her through the kitchen doorway. Her fingers reach up and claw at his cold, spindly digits, but they’re locked tight around her neck like a vice. Her nails dig into his cuticles. He doesn’t react.
Just as he’s reaching for the doorknob leading into the garage, her face lights up with an idea.
“Go-go ponytail secret move!” She shouts.
Her hair, now with a mind of its own, snakes past his fist, disconnecting it from her neck. It stuffs itself into his mouth, strands forming a thick rope of disassembling fibers that fire upon his insides. The hair travels down his throat, branching out into his organs and ripping them to shreds. He makes a horrible gurgling sound, and Summer backs away uneasily as her hair begins to catch on the masses inside him.
Her hair stops and pulls away, slipping out of his mouth with a wet sound as he drops to his knees, coughing up a lung, blood dripping down his lips and nose. He covers his face with his spidery hands, digits clamping around his snout beneath his wide eyes, as if trying to keep the blood in.
He’s making this repetitive, breathy sound, as if he’s choking on the blood filling his throat. No, that’s not it. He’s breathing.
Miraculously, and much to Summer’s horror, he begins to stand. He’s laughing.
She can almost hear the fibers sewing themselves together inside him, the soft and wet sound of his organs shuffling into place emitting from his throat and through his open mouth. He wipes blood away from his face and onto his sleeve as he places a hand on his stomach where most of the damage was done. At his full height, he almost seems to tower over her now more than before, having survived the single card she had up her figurative sleeve.
Her ponytail sluggishly retracts, hair shortening to its original length, soaked with dark organ-blood. Her shaky hand reaches up and covers her mouth.
“Wow, badass!” Prime praises. “He added that?”
He sticks his tongue out and pulls out a few strands of her hair that clung inside his mouth.
“Maybe you’re more special than I thought, Summer. Didn’t know you were upgraded.” He spits the word like she’s a product, a new and improved model in a line of Rick’s grandkids.
She backs away, stumbling as she trips on the skirt of her prom dress. Again.
“Where’s Morty? Where’s my grandpa!?” She plants her hands against the garage door behind her. Her eyes dart around nervously for some kind of blunt object in the kitchen, but she’s too afraid to look away from him long enough to concentrate.
She isn’t quite sure whether to believe him when he says he’s Rick’s real nemesis (the last time someone claimed to be Rick’s nemesis, he threatened to pee on her and subsequently got his ass handed to him by Jerry). She can vaguely recall Rick’s crybaby backstory. This has to be the real thing; he’s not just any pissed-off alien, he’s a Rick.
“Well, before you interrupted,” He flicks a bloody chunk off of his shoulder. “I was just on my way to show you.”
He gestures to the garage with a proud, outstretched arm, one hand politely resting behind his back, like he’s a waiter guiding her to her table. She steps out of the way, looking at the ominous garage door.
Her hand fidgets at her side, heart beating loudly in her chest.
“Go on.” His voice is low, much closer now, hovering around her like a pesky fly. There’s no smile in the way he speaks, for the first time his tone is cold and joyless. She squeaks as the thin tip of a pistol brushes against her back.
It’s normally an anomaly she’s expecting to find when she enters, so she’s never truly prepared for whatever her grandfather gets up to. It could be anything from open-heart surgery on an alien to Morty coaxing Rick down from a bender.
But this time, she feels truly helpless as she reaches for the doorknob.
—
The ship pulls into the driveway, lowering with a sputtering, dying whirr. It lands with a heavy, metallic thud, along with the clink of empty bottles and cans of beer. An even heavier silence follows.
Rick and Morty don’t often agree.
From an outsider’s perspective, they aren’t even really very good for each other. God knows why they keep up with their adventures. Maybe it was just the innate need for purpose, a routine they’d fallen into and never knew how to stop. A ride Rick was always on, one where the safety belt was too tight for Morty to ever escape. A ride where the operator fell into a deep sleep a long time ago. This ride will go on forever. This ride cannot be controlled.
Wasn’t it obvious? Don’t they see that they could never truly love every part of each other? Only aimlessly seeking to control one another?
Rick’s breath picks up suddenly, and his sharp inhale makes Morty’s shoulders tense, even more than they already always are. He knows what’s coming; he always knows.
“When I tell you to shoot, you shoot. Do you think you know better than me? What the fuck is with this hero shit?” Rick’s voice fumes like steam spewing from a kettle. This is their routine.
Morty doesn’t know why they drove the entire way home without just doing the screaming match in the car. He finds himself only slightly grateful that now he can leave whenever he wants, though he doubts anything would’ve stopped him from just jumping out of the ship in orbit, Lady Bird style.
“You don’t get to lecture me about having a moral compass when you’ve never had one!” He huffs.
“Morty, you wish I were lecturing you. Then maybe you’d be smart enough to listen, i-if you kn-uuurp-ew what was good for you.” Rick mutters angrily, pulling the parking brake a little too hard, emitting a painful creaking sound.
“Good for me?” Morty scoffs. “You’re drunk.”
Rick was so sick of hearing that. Maybe because it was true. It was true all the time.
“Don’t—Don’t you fucking think I know what’s good for us?”
Morty clenches his jaw, a shaky finger directing itself at Rick’s chest like a heat-seeking missile. “Us? Y-you only ever do what’s good for yourself. You don’t even care about me! Y-y-you bet on my life like I’m a racehorse! You brag to other Ricks about how well you control me! You don’t care what I go through.”
“Care? Care? All I do is coddle you, Morty! Do you know how much data I’ve lost just—j-just saving your sorry little ass?”
“If I’m such a pain, why do you even bring me on adventures? You-you could just get another Morty, and m-m-m-maybe I could get a gr—a Rick that gives two shits about me!”
“You know what? I don’t want another Morty. I’d rather bring my fucking butter-robot because at least it has a shred of competence.” Rick clumsily shoves his flask back into his pocket, missing the hole twice as he fumbles awkwardly with his lab coat. He’s spitting words he doesn’t mean for no satisfaction, knowing he can’t take them back. “I-I wouldn’t subject another Rick to your entitled attitude, it-it-it’d be like offering him a big warm bite of dogshit.”
“Fuck you, Rick. You know, I-I-I’d say you treat me like a footstool, but at least most people don’t verbally abuse their furniture. Unless they, like, stub their t-toe or somet—”
“Fuck you, Morty, a footstool fulfills it’s purpose without doubt!” Rick spits, ripping the keys out of the ship’s ignition. He turns to Morty, catching his gaze furiously. “Any other Morty would just listen and do what he’s told, like the pet he is. You know why you’re abused? It’s because you’re pathetic!”
Morty flinches back at the harsh words, spit like acid.
He swallows the lump in his throat. It goes down painfully.
“I get it. I’m expendable.” He kicks the door of the ship open. “Call me when the replacement’s here. Or don’t.”
He storms into the house as Rick calls another insult after him that he can’t hear.
Rick is an apathetic piece of shit, Morty thinks. It’s our routine. Why do I let myself feel angry? I know I’ll just end up forgiving him. I always do. It’s our routine.
It’s exhausting.
He kicks off his shoes, angrily slumping at the end of his bed. His back meets the soft fabric of his comforter, and he closes his eyes and tries to steady his breaths.
Morty sometimes finds himself in a position where he needs to remind himself why he loves his grandpa. What, family? Like that means anything at all? There’s an infinite amount of Morty’s shitty family in the universe.
The air in the room is still and stuffy. His clothes are gross and suffocating, sweat sticking fabric to his skin as it rides up on his back from the way he’s laying down. Some substance on his shirt that he’s trying to forget is alien-baby blood flattens the garment against his stomach, now cool and dry. He just lets it all be for a few minutes, more than willing to stew in discomfort just to collect himself.
—
Rick is angry-working.
His ever-present self-made stupid adventure schedule usually keeps the omnipresentunendinggriefspiral at bay. That, and maybe a rich bottle of Hennessy Cognac XO.
So he’s hacking away at an aimless project which, for all intents and purposes, serves no purpose.
He singes the tip of his finger. He doesn’t even flinch away, just rubbing the burnt skin off on his coat.
Times like these kind of leave Rick and omnipresentunendinggriefspiral to their devices. Angry-working is his poor attempt at staying occupied in hopes of being able to ignore omnipresentunendinggriefspiral, like how you snub your wife when you’re angry at her but not interested in arguing, even though she really wants to talk about what’s bothering you and you don’t want to say things you don’t mean. It’s like she always said, ‘you shouldn’t go to bed angry’. So you talk it out, and feel so much better afterwards, especially when she cups your cheek with the soft pads of her fingers and smiles at you so fondly you want to get married all over again. Why didn’t I just talk to her sooner? She’s still my best friend, the woman I married.
…Fuck.
He fishes in his coat habitually for his flask, taking a long sip.
A familiar, warping portal sound rings out from behind him, startling him out of his omnipresentunendinggriefspiral. Great, he thinks, sarcastically. A Rick.
He looks over his shoulder, eyes widening as a single steel-toed combat boot playfully sticks itself through the center of the portal.
His stomach drops.
A lanky figure steps into the room, backlit by the green light emitting from the portal. As Rick’s eyes move up, he reads over the navy blue pants, utility belt, and purple-blue Marino wool vest, before finally landing on the familiar, shit-eating grin plastered on his face like some kind of Joker rip-off. There he stands; Rick’s darkness. The wound he will carry for the rest of his life.
He tries not to let his emotions fester. Red, pulsing anger rushes through his bloodstream, but there’s something else too. A quiet fear. An icy, sharp fear that splits him down the middle in a thin line. He hates himself for it. His throat swells, and he clears it.
“You.” His voice somehow comes out steady.
“Wife guy!” The last person he’d ever want to see lifts his arms to his sides gloriously, as if he’s expecting applause or an embrace. “That is you, right? Dead Wife Rick?” He asks awkwardly, head swiveling to scan the garage as if to confirm this is the dimension he intended to land in.
Rick is unamused by his antics.
He pulls his laser pistol out of his coat, shooting right between Prime’s eyes. The bullet is subsequently absorbed by an invisible capsule-shaped force field.
“You knew that would happen. But you can’t help yourself, can you?” Prime shrugs with a light smile.
Rick just stuffs the pistol back into his coat. Prime is truly the only person he can’t always manage to have a witty response to.
“I heard you were looking for me, and to be honest, I was getting bored without you.” Prime admits, sauntering over to Rick’s workbench. “What took so long?”
“You didn’t exactly make it easy.” Rick’s voice is gritty and low.
“Don’t give me that bullshit. You wanted a challenge. This is our game!” Prime smiles proudly.
“We don’t have a game. W-w-what kind of clique shit is that?”
“No? I watched you destroy yourself for me.”
Rick cringes at the romanticism. Geez, do I really sound like this much of an ass?
“It wasn’t for you. And d-don’t fucking touch my stuff.” He slaps Prime’s hand away.
“Fiesty.”
He doesn’t know how he’s staying calm.
It’s almost mechanical, the way he’s forcing his heart to beat and his stomach to stop its circus act. His body is going haywire, a dull ache thudding in his chest where everything was ripped away all those years ago.
He’s ashamed to admit it even to himself but when he sees Prime, he doesn’t think of Diane, or Beth.
He thinks about himself. He thinks about killing himself across infinity. When he sees Prime’s face, sometimes he can only feel, not think, not react. Feel shame that burns so bright he’s already ashes. Feel himself rotting when he drinks himself to death.
Feel the pain so fully, there was never room for anything else.
Speaking of, Prime is surveying the garage with prying eyes. The spectacle of years of built up junk and empty liquor bottles seems to amuse him. He kicks over an empty green bottle with the tip of his boot.
“This is just sad.”
“Why are you here?” Rick asks, trying to convince himself he’s already bored of this conversation.
“You…” Prime wags his finger in a very Jerry-like manner. Gross. “I can’t help but feel like you don’t listen. I tried to teach you. I tried to show you.”
”You tried to recruit me.”
”I loved you.”
”A-a-ar-are you fucking kidding me? You think I’d believe that shit?”
”Ahh, you’re right. But you enjoyed yourself, for a little while.” Prime looks off, as if he were reminiscing.
”If you…loved me, you would’ve fucked off. I gave you what you wanted.”
“I wanted you to join me. This…” Prime held up the portal gun. “We did this together.”
Rick remembers everything. It’s the one thing no amount of alcohol could wash away.
Rick’s face screws into a scowl. “You’re fucking pathetic.”
“Pathetic…” Prime samples the word, letting the flavor sit on his tongue for a moment, looking off thoughtfully. “Is…Is that the vocab word of the day? I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with my grandson.”
Rick does not like his grandson entering this conversation.
“What does the kid have to do with this?” He crosses his arms defensively, which he immediately regrets because Prime raises a particularly judgmental eyebrow at this change in posture.
Prime chuckles incredulously. “I can’t believe this. You’ve gone and played house with my grandson and a random assortment of Beths, Summers, and Jerrys? That is pathetic. Just waiting for me to come home like a loyal lap dog.” He crosses his arms, a twisted mirror. He oozes confidence. “But oh… what’s this? What did you do to my daughter, Rick? What kind of world did you leave her in?”
“Oh, stop acting like you care about any of them. I mean—W-w-what difference does it even make?” Rick can feel his temper rising, and he stomps down the peak his voice attempts to rise to.
“Makes you a hypocrite.” Prime says smugly. “You think I’m lonely? Who needs friends when you have yourself! Here you are, trying to eat your cake and have it too. Again.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You get to play happy family, or you get to be the most powerful man in the universe. I thought you already learned you can’t do both.”
“Watch me.”
“Oh, I’ve been watching. I’ve watched you self-medicate, wallowing in this pitiful state you call divinity. I’ve watched you forget exactly who we are.”
Rick loathes how clique he’s become. Having some big grand nemesis gave him a goal in life, and if he was being honest with himself, he was always a little scared of completing that goal.
“A husband? A father? A grandpa?”
But the way Prime smiles at him, those yellowing teeth stretching into a grin so cruel it makes Rick question the way his own mind could corrupt so deeply, clarifies everything.
“No, no. Now, you’re the most miserable and pathetic piece of shit in the galaxy. That’s no good, baby.”
Anything that makes Rick’s faith in himself falter just can’t remain.
Rick lurches forward, punching Prime square in the jaw. It’s a pointless action and he knows it, as Prime’s head instantly snaps back into place with a fist following close behind.
Rick’s spent a lot of time augmenting himself over the years, tweaking his cybernetics for both convenience and safety. But it always sort of toed the line, just barely keeping him “human”, depending on who you ask.
Prime has perfected himself.
Rick can only assume that Prime, without his own friends, adventures, family, or omnipresentunendinggriefspiral, has had all the time in the world to create a perfect vessel for himself. Knowing how many Ricks he ruined the lives of probably didn’t ease his conscience over the years, and you always gotta look out for number one.
Where Prime’s skin sews itself together, Rick’s tears open. Blow after blow to Rick’s head makes him dizzy, but adrenaline keeps him on his toes.
His brain divides, part of him channeling years of rage and misery into each blow, and part of him wondering, really wondering how he’s going to get out of this situation. It dawns on him that he’s unprepared. He’s had all of 30 years to conjure a plan for this asshole’s return and he’s unprepared. He mentally beats himself up, before realizing there’s no point in it as Prime does the punishing for him.
Prime elbows him in the face, the hand attached reaching into his own jacket and yanking out his portal gun. Before Rick can even react, a portal’s been opened beneath his feet and he falls through.
It’s a harsh landing. He opens his eyes, jumping to his feet faster than his brain can catch up. A dull ache blooms across his head as his vision slowly clarifies. His hands are wet with mud.
He surveys his surroundings. It’s a void, the sky unnaturally bright. There are clouds overhead, but the ground is a long stretch of dirt, with what must be nothing else for miles. Some kind of arena?
He jumps to his feet, a wicked grin spreading across his face as his body works overtime to catch up with his eager beating heart. Blood rushes to his fingertips as he clenches them into two tight fists, nails burrowing in the thin skin of his dirty palms. “Let’s do this then.”
“Oh, Rick. I won’t be joining you.” Prime coos, voice treading on something like pity, or maybe remorse. His voice is crackly, emitting from some kind of speaker.
Rick’s hands reluctantly retreat to his sides as a panel opens up from below him, a monitor emerging with Prime’s face on it. Rick raises half his brow, unamused as Prime casually adjusts the framing before stepping back, bringing a finger to his lips. He presses an ear against the door leading into the house.
Rick’s hand plunges into his coat, fingers finding their place around the neck of his portal gun. He pulls the trigger, and much to his dismay, the gun sputters as its green glow fades out, inoperable.
“Your tech’s no good here.” Prime chides.
It’s a pocket dimension. An isolated area of space-time, engineered for Rick’s imprisonment.
Ooookay. Wow. I might be fucked.
Rick just watches dumbly as Prime knocks over a tank of gas, causing a loud thud.
“Morty, y-y-y-you gotta help me apprehend this attractive redhead! Get in here!” Prime yells. The stutter sounds pitiful on him, and for the first time Rick feels an inkling of insecurity about it. “He’s into those, right?” He asks off-handedly.
“No! God—It’s a trap! Morty, don’t you fucking—!”
He realizes Prime must have muted him on the device he’s communicating with, because Morty completely ignores his protests and swings the garage door wide open in a triumphant effort. He’s almost proud.
But he’s not. “Damn it, Morty! Y-y-you’re a little idiot!” He’s so helpless.
”Rick, I-I’m still mad at you.” Morty says, before a beat passes where he presumably puts two and two together. ”…Oh.”
There’s an off-screen scuffle, and Rick tries to pick apart the scene from the audio alone. He doesn’t have to for long before Prime drags Morty into frame.
“You gotta understand, I wish you could be here for this. But, credit where credit is due, you’re a smart guy! I couldn’t risk letting you get the upper hand.” Prime chuckles.
“What the fuck, Rick? Why is he here? And…why are you in Silent Hill?” Morty squints at the display, clearly more irritated than terrified. He squirms a little, his arms pinned behind his back by Prime. It dawns on Rick that Morty truly has no idea what this monster is capable of.
Rick grits his teeth, watching the monitor with a deep pit of dread bubbling up inside him like tar from a pit.
“W-Why are you dragging him into this?” A question so genuine is masked by his boiling disdain.
“Why do you think? Don’t play dumb, Rick. It doesn’t suit you.” Prime chastises.
Blood rushes to Rick’s head, loud as a roaring river. He can’t even hear himself think, planting two hands on the sides of his head and clutching his thin, blue hair. His eyes snap to the screen as he hears Morty struggle.
Prime is tying Morty to an old dentist’s chair he dragged out of the corner of the room. “This’ll do nicely.” He says casually.
Droplets of rain fire upon Rick, cold and wet splotches bursting on the surface of his skin and clothes. The sky angers, darkening with soot-colored clouds and rolling wind. A shiver runs up his spine.
“I know how much you love a haunting atmosphere, so, I made sure it’s nice and sulky in there for you.” Prime says, laughing to himself.
“Wow, what a showrunner. Real Tarkovsky of you. W-what is this, Stalker?”
“Everyone knows about your garage-AI, dipshit. You get off on the tragedy of your pathetic existence, so, you’re welcome.”
“Great. Thank you.” Rick pinches his brow. “You’re just loving this, aren’t you?”
“It could be better.” Prime says casually, picking up a randomly assorted laser pistol off of a shelf and dusting it off. He toys with it, weighing it in his hands, turning it over and studying the craftsmanship. Rick never let his work be scrutinized by what he knew to be an inferior, so why does he feel so shameful? He grits his teeth.
The psychopath shoots a round straight through his palm, testing the weapon with a loud warping sound. The skin is blown open with a frying sound, leaving a clean quarter-sized hole. It slowly sews itself together, and he holds his hand up in front of his face, framing Morty in the center of his new piercing.
“Ohohoho, sweet.” He laughs. “Whatcha think, grandson?”
“I-I think you can kiss my ass.” Morty retorts, stupidly.
“Morty,” Rick’s warning tone crackles through the monitor.
“I expected better.” Prime comments idly, finger tracing the trigger as he walks up behind the dentist chair.
“Wait,” Rick swallows thickly. “Just wait—”
“Aw, I thought you learned your lesson about irrational attachments.” Prime narrows his eyes. “How much is it gonna take for you to understand how pointless it all is? How much these people don’t matter? You and I, we’re Gods.”
“I don’t care what we are.” Rick’s voice quivers with emotion, desperation tearing through his throat. I sound so pathetic, the thought storms through his mind, He makes me sound pathetic.
“Ouch. That’s familiar.” Prime chides.
“W-What the fuck kind of lesson are you teaching me that I haven’t already had a multi-episode arc for?”
“Let me put this in a way a simple Rick like you might understand.” Prime says simply. “This is my grandson. My daughter brought him into this world. Well, not this world. You get the point. We both left her.”
Prime pinches Morty’s cheek affectionately, to which the boy pulls away.
“He’s my blood. And yet… I don’t feel anything toward him.” Prime grabs Morty’s chin, harshly now, tilting his head up. He makes a small, pained sound. The cool tip of the gun meets his temple.
“He’s just another meaningless thing in the universe.”
”Stop.” Rick grits.
”Isn’t it awful, how easily you could lose him? And worse, it wouldn’t matter even a little bit.”
“That’s not true. I-I m-matter.” Morty manages.
A muffled knocking stops him in his tracks. The three freeze for a moment.
“About time!” Prime chimes, the gun leaving Morty’s head for a moment as he tucks it into the back of his pants. “Sit tight, buddy.”
He makes his way into the house.
“Rick, th-th-that’s Summer!” Morty squirms, voice rising in a panic.
“Just let me think, Morty. God… Fuckin’ Christ…” Rick massages his temples, angrily muttering to himself. “T-t…trapping me in this fucking shithole…”
Through the door, Morty hears his sister yelling, followed by a thudding sound.
“Rick!”
“Listen, Morty. I’m gonna find a way out of here, but i-i-it’s gonna take some time. I-I-I don’t know what’s gonna happen.” Rick rambles, a small part of him hoping this is somewhat reassuring but not really committing to the assurance. “Things could, uh…get ugly.”
“H-he’s…he’s gonna kill us, isn’t he?”
“It’s not gonna matter whether or not he kills you, Morty! T-t-that’s not what I’m—I’m worried about.”
“Then what?”
Before Rick can answer, the groan of the garage door hinges fills the silence, light spilling into the garage from inside the house. Summer’s silhouette lingers in the doorway, Prime hovering behind her.
“The gang’s all here!” He leads her into the garage with one hand on her shoulder, the other gripping the pistol against her back. She already looks like shit; mascara streaming down her cheeks, neck red with the force of his hand and her ponytail soaked through with blood.
Rick’s stomach turns. Shit.
“Summer…” Morty’s voice emerges hoarsely. There’s nothing to say. He can’t warn her, because he doesn’t even know what’s going to happen.
“Morty! What’s going on?” She squints. “…Why is grandpa in Silent Hill?”
“Shut up, Summer!” Rick snaps. His anger is so misguided he’s misfiring all over the place. Get it together Rick, he chastises himself.
“Poor thing. Looks like she had a hard night.” Prime feigns sympathy. “I’ll make this quick.”
Without warning, Prime fires a shot into her foot.
There’s a loud singe and a scream, the top of her foot now a gaping hole where the laser had blown clean through. It happened so fast.
She crumples onto the floor, sobbing and holding her leg close. She’s never felt anything like it, despite all the pain her grandpa’s put her through on his adventures. These kinds of isolated events and fatal injuries never really mattered. Rick could, and at least sometimes would, fix anything within a few minutes.
It’s never been like this. She’s never been so scared. The possibility of this being just a nightmare is a slowly thinning reality, and she sobers up to the realization that she could actually die.
The room quickly grows crowded with noise. She can hear Morty shout something that sounds like her name, but it’s hard to tell as the ringing in her ears has only just begun to subside. She tries to look at her foot but she can’t. It looks fake, even with the white-hot pain coursing through her body.
“Oh, oh God, Summer—!”
“Jesus Christ—! Did—A-are you fucking kidding me?”
Prime steps close to her, watching with amusement as she writhes in pain. She looks up, hair messily dangling in her vision. He hovers over her, blocking the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
His boot raises, pressing on her torso in the middle of her chest.
“You know, you really remind me of your grandpa. Always abusing this body with substances for fleeting joy. Whoring yourself out to people who don’t treat you well.” Prime says, tilting his head. “Every single Summer leads the same, sad life. And yet, they all think they’re special.”
His boot digs into her chest, eliciting a whimper.
“Poor, unlucky Summer. You tell yourself it’s everyone else. It’s not your fault you’re not popular.” He laughs incredulously. “What are you afraid of? Do you actually think you wouldn’t be replaced within a day? Before your stupid parents could even notice? I wouldn’t even bother erasing you from reality because your existence makes that little of a difference.”
She can’t breathe.
She rears her good leg back and kicks his standiung shin with as much force as she can manage. The sound of impact is soft, but he falls back due to his thin, spindly nature. She knows by now that fighting is pointless, but she’d be lying if she said it didn’t give her an inkling of satisfaction. She drags in a ragged breath.
“Right, thank you.” He says, irritably. “Got me monologuing again.”
“Yeah, kick his ass, Summer!” Morty shouts.
“Enough.” Prime snaps, standing and grabbing Summer off the ground by her bicep, throwing her into the old office chair across from Morty. It rolls a little, and he catches it on his foot, yanking her hands behind the chair and wrestling them into his fist, tying them together with a cable. The silicone cord burns, pulled taut against her skin.
”I think I’ve said enough. I just have one more thing to take care of.”
Prime grabs an axe off the wall, unlocking the sub-basement hatch with some kind of USB embedded in his fingertip.
“W-what are you doing?—Rick, what’s he doing?” Morty asks frantically.
Prime descends the ladder almost giddily. Only moments later, the sound of shattering glass and fleshy pulp emits loudly from the hatch, spliced with his grunts and laughs between each impact.
Rick’s blood runs cold. “He’s destroying the clone vats.”
“The b-back up clones?” Morty can barely hear himself speak over the sounds. “Then, w-where…will Summer…”
Eventually, Prime climbs up the ladder gleefully, blood soaking his boots and jacket as he tosses the axe aside with a noisy clatter.
“Can’t have you making backups.” Prime shrugs, walking up to the girl. He puts his hands behind his back and leans down expectantly. “How does it feel, Summer?”
“Why are you doing this?” Summer asks, trying to catch her breath.
He unfolds to his full height like a switchblade. A small smile grows on Prime’s face. Simple. Nothing sinister about it, not really. It’s his words that really petrify her.
“For fun.”
Summer lets out a shallow, pitiful sob that she’d been holding in.
“Please…please stop. I don’t want to die. Please.”
She hates resorting to begging. She already knows it isn’t going to work. The stupid, ditzy, wide-eyed grandpa’s girl inside her wants to believe he’d reconsider.
“Summer, don’t.” Rick’s strained voice emerges from the speaker. For the first time, it sounds like he hates to hear it as much as she hates saying it, if not more.
“Aww,” Prime laughs a wicked and horrible laugh, one that is truly genuine. “She sounds just like Diane.”
Two cold hands meet the sides of her head, thin fingertips brushing against her cheeks. She looks down slowly, eyes tracking over her dirty, wet prom dress. She sees little specs of glitter from her dress on Prime’s hands.
Summer is beginning to understand, now, that she is only one of an infinite number of unlucky girls. An infinite number of Summer Smiths. Maybe her life never really mattered to begin with. It certainly doesn’t feel like it, as the air is absent of any protests on her grandpa’s end.
She glances at the monitor, where Rick’s just pinching the bridge of his nose in defeat, eyes averted. Like he’s given up. He’s giving up…on me.
Prime smiles gleefully, the way you smile before you tell a crowd-pleasing joke. He tilts her head to one side gently.
Her voice emerges, watery. “Grandpa?”
Her neck is snapped with a sharp, resounding crack.