Chapter Text
The cold of the night crept in through the kitchen window, running down Morty's spine like an unpleasant chill.
Rick and he had just returned from one of their many adventures. This time, they had traveled to a nearby planet to pick up the drugs the old man had made to order for an alien who bragged about his extensive connections to the mafia of a neighboring galaxy.
Of course, that went terribly wrong.
After the purchase, the giant octopus-shaped alien accused his grandfather of scamming him —which was clearly something he'd do, Morty thought— and, in a desperate move, the dealer decided it would be a great idea to inform the organization that he'd been robbed.
The rest ended in explosions, thousands of weapons being fired, and half the intergalactic organization reduced to a mass of flesh and blood in the middle of the black market.
Obviously, Morty was traumatized.
Again.
He made his way into the kitchen for a glass of water. That adventure had left his mouth dry and, to his misfortune, there wasn't a single bottle on the ship.
Despite the ordeal that had left his body aching, he felt unusually energetic. Maybe it was the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, as if he were still on the battlefield, fighting for his miserable life.
His hand began to feel damp and cold as he sank deeper into his own thoughts. Water started spilling over the rim of the glass, prompting Morty to quickly shut off the faucet and, consequently, drink from the glass to lower the water level before it could spill any further.
However, his attempts to drink were in vain. A loud crash against the floor made his lips slam hard against the glass, leaving them sore for more than a second.
When he turned around, a completely wasted —and probably high— Rick was waiting for him on the floor by the garage entrance. Drool trickled down his chin and onto the floor, his lab coat was halfway off, and his eyes held a look of resentment.
Morty could do nothing but wait for the scolding:
“Moooortyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” he shouted loudly.
“I can't get up, Mortyyy!”
The old man reached one hand toward the boy in the yellow shirt, who stared at him with an unusually serious expression. Perhaps a habit he'd picked up from a certain eyepatch-wearing kid over the past few days.
Rick, who wouldn't accept a negative answer to his silent demand, shouted his name even louder.
His mother would've surely come downstairs by now after hearing Rick throw such a tantrum, if anyone had actually been home.
As far as Morty could tell, Summer would be staying at one of her friends' houses until the following morning and, well, his parents were probably busy fucking his space mom after that hurried goodbye over the phone.
Of course, he could only deduce it was Space Beth thanks to the enormous spaceship that had parked in the garage that morning.
After helping his annoying grandfather to his feet and getting him to his room, he felt a small urge to check his phone.
It had been quite a few hours since he'd received a message from Evil Morty or, as he liked to call him, Em. As the first few hours of the day passed without his usual morning good-morning text accompanied by a little smiley face, he began to feel forgotten.
It wasn't as though his evil counterpart never skipped those messages when he was working on some big personal project, but Em was particularly fond of sticking to routines and, ever since their strange relationship had begun, he'd never stopped sending Morty daily messages. So, when he found no messages in his inbox all day, a little pang in his heart refused to go away.
Still, he wasn't thinking of messaging him just yet. He didn't want to bother him while he was busy with something important, only for Em to get mad at him afterward.
He'd learned a long time ago that an angry Em was not a pleasant experience. Thanks a lot.
So, slipping his phone into his pocket, he headed to his room with no other plan in mind than to play video games. All night, if possible.
A great plan, if you ask him.
A weary sigh escaped his lips. His to-do list kept growing longer and longer, and he had absolutely no control over it.
The robot butler stood beside him, offering his tenth cup of coffee in the past three hours. Surprisingly, the butler had survived all that chaos. He'd only picked up a few scratches on his metal plating, nothing that couldn't be fixed in minutes.
After the destruction of several of his collectible artifacts and various inventions of his own, he had no choice but to try to rebuild them from scratch. Unfortunately, most of the items had been lost in the explosion that had rocked his storage room that morning.
He picked up a small screwdriver and used it on the metal sphere he held in his hands, beginning to tighten the little hatch through which some kind of gunpowder was leaking.
Rick had really fucked him over. Again.
While he slept peacefully after a long night spent trying to come up with a nice, no-strings-attached gift for Morty, a horde of flying robots had appeared at the entrance to his luxurious mansion, destroying everything in their path.
How did he know it was Rick?
The alcoholic idiot had decided to leave a very clear message using one of the robots.
Honestly, he didn't want to talk about it. Thanks.
And, to make matters worse, the gunpowder turned out to be highly explosive. The eye-searing shade of blue should've tipped him off, but he really hadn't expected it to blow up at the slightest touch.
Another mess to clean up. Great…
On the other hand, after the major battle they'd fought in the Bunker Dimension, the resentment between them still hadn't faded. Rick was still nursing his wounded pride, and Em remained furious about having been arrested. So, when he found out Em had managed to escape, his reaction was, to put it mildly, entirely predictable.
Since then, the two had continued chasing each other like a pair of rabid dogs, looking for any excuse to fight and attack one another all over again.
His eyes were beginning to feel heavy, and a slight burning sensation at the base of his neck was starting to get on his nerves. He didn't want to spend another day fixing things. It was eating away at what little sanity he had left.
With the robot beside him cleaning up the initial mess and another cup of coffee down, Em decided to move on to another one of his broken projects: a mini incubator. Don't ask. He'd had it since an interdimensional trip.
Unfortunately, the capsule had a minor fault in its heating circuit.
After managing to escape the time prison, Em had the brilliant idea of going to annoy Morty. Sure, it wasn't the same as annoying Rick, but his real plan was still taking shape. Even so, Morty had been naive enough to fall for his blackmail.
Em knew just how much the old man cared about his grandson —something he envied terribly—. So, as his friendship with Morty grew considerably closer, he enjoyed all the consequences that would bring down on Rick just as much.
None of them good, of course.
However, everything went straight to hell when he realized he found his other self ridiculously attractive. Not because of his looks, obviously. They had the same anatomy and, now that he thought about it, that was incredibly narcissistic.
But no. The difference lay in the little gestures and in the way they reacted to the same situations.
At first, Em hated him. Looking at Morty was like being reminded of everything he despised about himself: a pathetic being who kissed the ground Rick walked on like a little masochistic lapdog.
He tightened the screw.
He really didn't understand it.
That toxic relationship that would eventually leave Rick and Morty in ruins; all those arguments, blackmail, and torture a Morty had to endure were cruelly unnecessary.
And he hated it. He hated that kid for staying somewhere so… dangerous. He had every opportunity to get out, to join him the moment he'd offered.
His hand tightened around the tool.
And then he told him to fuck off.
An angry click of his tongue escaped his lips.
And despite all that hatred, being by his side was comforting. Sure, he acted like a love-starved idiot, couldn't even understand a simple division, and always had the most dramatic reactions, but Em couldn't help worrying about him.
He'd never thought about his sexuality in any conventional way, don't get him wrong, but just a few months ago, he would've rather died than admit he found Morty Prime more attractive than anyone else in the entire universe.
The feeling kept growing, his heart tightening in his chest whenever Morty crossed his mind or stood beside him. It was nothing like when he'd been crazy about Jessica; this was softer, more logical somehow, and yet it attacked his thoughts like hungry piranhas fighting for his attention.
Of course, Morty was far from perfect. In fact, they argued often. But that was something he planned to change over time.
One night, a gentle touch of their lips had given him the green light to take this strange and complicated love-hate relationship with the kid a step further. It was a complicated choice, sure, but nobody could take away the good times they spent together.
A small feeling of relief settled in his heart. Brief but substantial, only to be replaced by that same burning sensation.
He'd finished fixing the incubator. A few adjustments to the wires, a little soldering at the base, and it looked as good as new.
Now he'd have to deal with the hundreds of missing parts.
Now, it was painfully obvious that Rick absolutely knew nothing about this secret “friendship” they had going on.
Both Em and Rick enjoyed making each other's lives miserable, but the eyepatch kid was certain the old man would end up taking Morty away from him if word of this ever reached his ears.
He wanted to spare himself that headache.
Yes.
That was all.
Faint sparks of light illuminated his face as he continued soldering another one of his projects. He no longer even cared what they were.
A wave of discomfort churned in his stomach. The acidity from all that coffee threatened to rise into his throat at any moment. He knew Morty wasn't to blame for what had happened, and yet he refused to send him a message. At least, not yet.
It was a small way of letting off steam. Seeing Morty's face after this disaster would make him lash out at him… or so he thought.
A thud against the table caught his attention. The robot butler —who'd been helping him the entire time— dumped a pile of scrap metal from its robotic arms, the pieces crashing together with a loud clatter. A screw from one of the battered components rolled across the table until it brushed against his arm.
Em glanced at it before picking it up. He needed exactly one more screw to finish the device resting in his hand. With a satisfied smile, he fitted the screw into place and finally tightened it with a lazy twist.
Despite everything, things were going pretty well for him.
He set his project aside. He'd been working on it for a while, so you can imagine how satisfying that little accomplishment felt. He paused for a moment to patiently crack each of his fingers, leaving him with a small, addictive sense of relief.
Before continuing, he decided to take a quick look at the wreckage beside him. Small metal pieces, shards of glass in every color, and oddly shaped fragments of glass made up the pile. Nothing useful beyond salvaging its components.
He rummaged through the pile with both hands, looking for anything valuable or intact that he could salvage. It took only a few seconds for him to spot the faint golden glimmer coming from the very bottom. When he pulled it out, he could finally get a good look at his invention.
A portal gun.
Well, not exactly. It was a device that looked similar to one, except for one important difference: it could only take you to places you'd visited before. And according to Em's calculations, the device would reduce fluid consumption by at least twenty-five percent. Quite the breakthrough, if he could finish it.
He turned it over in his hand, somewhat concerned. He still had no idea why the gun had ended up in that pile of almost completely destroyed scrap.
In his frustration, he noticed that the gun was low on fluid. Although, well, that was the first thing he'd noticed. What he couldn't see at a glance was the thin crack running across part of the glass and metal that made up the gun.
The tiny crack leaked a thick, black liquid along with what appeared to be remnants of portal fluid.
Seriously, this day was a complete shitshow, wasn't it?
He lowered his head in despair. One of his legs began bouncing anxiously, making the chair he sat in squeak faintly.
The remnants didn't seem to pose a threat. After all, they hadn't caused any disasters despite forming a mini portal straight to God-knows-where. Based on that, and considering how tiny the droplets were, touching the liquid seemed fairly safe.
But yeah, the gun was beyond repair in that condition. He could only assume the explosion had happened too close, and the impact had ended up splitting it apart like that.
“Rick is definitely going to pay for this!”
That was the last coherent thing to come out of Em's throat for several minutes.
A desperate scream filled the room. He raised the hand holding the gun and hurled it against the wall, causing it to finally split in two.
Em had finally reached his breaking point. The gift he'd spent so much time carefully preparing for Morty had been destroyed thanks to a completely unreasonable old man.
The sleepless nights. The endless calculations. The headaches and stress that kept him from enjoying those nights together. The fine details and the customization of the gun's software.
All that work was going straight into the trash.
He himself had put up with all those tantrums to keep things from escalating. He didn't want to fight Rick, especially not after Morty's request during that trip they'd shared. The prison hadn't been bad, but he certainly didn't want to go back and cause an even bigger problem.
A screwdriver went flying. In what direction? Who cares? He was so pissed off at that moment that he wouldn't have minded destroying his entire garage all over again.
His tantrum was interrupted by the sound of a notification. And although he wanted to finish punching the Rick-shaped inflatable, something told him it was important.
With his mouth dry and a little sweat on his forehead, he sat down in his work chair. His limbs ached a little. He waited for his robot butler to hand him a glass of water before pulling out his phone and checking who dared to interrupt his venting session.
To his surprise, there was only one simple message in his inbox:
Are you busy?