Work Text:
“What universe am I from?”
Rick Sanchez was, largely, used to being asked stupid questions. It was partially because, when you’re the smartest thing in every conceivable universe, most questions ended up seeming pretty stupid. It was also, however, because he often found himself in the company of people who asked stupid questions. Namely, the worthless excuse for a son-in-law that he was somehow, despite all this time, still putting up with. Sure, sure, it’s all ‘there are no stupid questions’ until fucking Jerry is asking him if the microwave will give him cancer. As if, after all of the multiversal hitchhiking the idiot had taken part in by this point, the microwave was what he needed to be afraid of.
He had to admit, though, this was not what he’d been expecting when Jerry had awkwardly shuffled into his garage, tried to start a sentence a few times, ignored his command to go away, and then fell silent for several minutes.
“S-seriously?” Rick grunted out. “You’re still here?” He glanced over his shoulder to see Jerry’s response, noting the irritated huff he let out. Of course, Rick hadn’t actually forgotten he was there. As a matter of fact, it had been nearly all he could think about for the past however-long-it-had-been, feeling that oppressive, crushing weight of having another human being in the vicinity while he was trying to work.
It wasn’t that his work was private, or that he was embarrassed to show it or whatever. It was just hard to fucking enjoy what he was doing when he could practically taste someone else’s CO2 clogging up his workspace. Especially when that someone else was Jerry.
“Yes, Rick, I’m still here,” Jerry said finally.
“Yeah. I-I can see that. Dipshit.” Jerry clearly went to say something, then realized just a bit too late that Rick was deliberately trying to get a rise out of him and cut himself off, resulting in a rather impressive coughing fit. “Don’t cough on this shit, I’m not fixing you if it explodes,” Rick muttered, gesturing vaguely to the project in front of him.
“You- I- Rick!” Jerry stumbled out. “We talked about this! Not in the house!”
“Right. B-because your authority means soooooo- much to me,” Rick replied. He wasn’t actually working on anything all that dangerous at the moment. The pile of various metals in front of him would eventually, once Jerry got out of the damn garage and let him focus again, be those invisibility-capable earbuds Summer had asked him for. In his opinion it was a step down from some of her other requests, seeing as she could hide earbuds just as easily by just… wearing her hair down. But, she had been keeping up with her chores and Rick was a man of his word. Generally. When it was convenient.
Of course, Jerry didn’t need to know anything, because Rick wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of supposedly following one of his ‘rules.’ And because watching Jerry stare at inert wiring as if it might shoot him was always funny.
“It’s not actually going to explode, is it?” Jerry piped up. Rick rolled his eyes behind his goggles.
“Are you gonna keep being stupid?”
“Hurtful,” Jerry noted.
“Jerry, j-just get out of the garage and go jerk off on the roof or something,” Rick muttered, deliberately picking his tools back up in the hopes that Jerry would finally get the damn message.
“That’s not what I- Rick- Come on-” He heard Jerry’s hands clap together, followed by a sharp inhale. Crucially, what he did not hear, was the sound of Jerry getting the fuck out of his garage. “Just answer the question, Rick.”
“It’s not gonna explode,” Rick admitted, “so y-you don’t have to piss yourself.”
“Jesus- Not that one!” Jerry snapped. A sharp clunk echoed through the garage as Rick threw his tools down on the workbench in frustration.
“Jerry, I know you’re too unemployed to get this, but I have shit to do,” Rick snarled, finally spinning his chair to actually face the man.
“I have a job now,” Jerry reminded him.
“A-advertising isn’t a real job.”
“It’s a legal contract where I trade my labor for payment. Hence: job.”
“Fuck off,” Rick replied, with his usual tact and grace. What? He wasn’t going to waste time arguing about whether Jerry’s job counted as real work (it didn’t) or if it actually provided any value to society (it didn’t). He just wanted the idiot out of his garage.
Unfortunately, Jerry seemed to have picked up on this, thought it over, and taken the entirely wrong conclusion from Rick’s very subtle hints.
“Not until you answer my question,” he declared, crossing his arms definitively.
“Seriously?” Rick demanded.
“Seriously,” Jerry confirmed. He stepped forward, fully intruding on Rick’s work area now, and planted himself at the edge of Rick’s workbench defiantly. “I’ll just stay right here.”
“Y-you don’t have anything better to do?”
“Well, seeing as my job apparently doesn’t count as real work,” Jerry said pointedly, looking down his nose at Rick, “no, I don’t. I’ve got allllll the time in the world.” It was bullshit, obviously. He would leave eventually, either because he ran out of stamina for this standoff or because it would be morning and would have to go to his ‘job,’ which he definitely cared about enough to forgo whatever this was. It was less a threat and more of a challenge. ‘Can you tolerate me being here for longer than I can tolerate waiting around?’
“Fine,” Rick grunted.
“Really?”
“If it’ll make you leave.” Jerry’s face lit up instantly and Rick shot up from his chair, poking a grease-stained finger into his son-in-law’s chest. “Don’t look at me l-like you won. Th-this isn’t you winning. This is me having b-better things to do than- than get in a pointless dick-measuring contest.” He drew back, crossing his arms and consequently getting the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt dirty. He decided that he didn’t give much of a shit. “Wh-which I’d win,” he tacked on, seeing as Jerry didn’t look sufficiently humbled.
“Of course, of course,” Jerry acquiesced, holding his hands up in a motion that looked more placating than actually apologetic. Rick grimaced, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead so he could properly rub the Jerry-induced irritation out of his face. It didn’t particularly work. And also there was grease on his face now. Fuck a guy for trying to procure his own raw materials. Mining on Kleptocon IV was more trouble than it was worth. Maybe he wouldn’t bother cleaning the material and let Summer get grease in her ears. See how she liked it.
“Why do you wear goggles?”
“That was the question?” Rick asked. Jerry’s face paled instantly and he jumped back, waving his hands in panic.
“No! No, wait! That’s not what I meant!” Rick looked his son-in-law up and down, barely suppressing the amused smile that threatened to break out across his face. The scene was objectively funny, but he was going for a more judgemental perception at the moment. He leaned back instead, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for Jerry to re-gather his composure. “It’s just… aren’t you all, like… cyborg-y?”
“Cyborg-y?” Rick echoed in disbelief.
“I don’t know! Robotic and stuff!” Rick glared down at the man, suddenly almost painfully aware of the feeling of the goggles digging into his head.
“I-I don’t have invincible eyes!” He did, actually, probably. He was fairly certain he’d enhanced his eyes enough that he didn’t really need to wear goggles. But that was besides the point. Just because he had bionic eyes that could technically handle most regular lab issues didn’t mean he wanted to have to fix the damn things all the time. “You try w-welding shit without goggles and let me know how being blind goes.”
“Well you don’t have to be mean about it,” Jerry muttered, even though both of them knew that he definitely did. He hadn’t tried it, but Rick was fairly certain that being nice to Jerry for too long might actually make him go into cardiac arrest.
Rick let out a long sigh, pulling his goggles off his head and tossing them down onto the workbench before they pissed him off too much. Now that Jerry had drawn attention to them he was focusing far too much on the sensation of wearing them, and there was only so long he could focus on that sort of thing before he lost it. He grabbed his labcoat off the back of his chair, considered putting it back on, then decided he didn’t want to have long sleeves at the moment and tossed it onto the floor instead, just to look like he’d moved it intentionally instead of back-pedalled halfway.
“Y-you gonna ask your question and leave me alone?” he asked finally, seeing as Jerry had let the silence stand without leaving for just a bit too long again. Jerry’s demeanor shifted almost instantly at the reminder. His mouth twisted down into a grimace, feet shuffling as he wrung his hands. “J-Jesus Christ, if you’re about to fucking ask me out-”
“Rick!” Jerry shrieked, his voice rising to an almost impressive pitch.
“Wh-what? That’s what you look like,” Rick commented.
“Oh my god,” Jerry breathed, but at least he quit fidgeting so much in his indignation. Rick raised a brow.
“Well?”
“Okay, okay. Just…” He took a deep breath, bracing himself for whatever he was about to ask. Holy shit, what could possibly have him this worried? It was Jerry, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t like Rick’s opinion of him could somehow get lower. He had nothing to lose here. “Um. What universe am I from?”
Now that he said it again, it faintly registered in the back of Rick’s head that this was the thing he’d asked at some point earlier. Seriously?
“That’s it?” Rick asked.
“What!? You got a problem with that?” Jerry demanded, making the bold decision to step closer and poke his nose dangerously close to Rick’s face. It was essentially all instinct that had Rick’s hand planting itself firmly on his son-in-law’s face to push him away, leaving a bunch of black smudging on the other man’s forehead.
“Ew,” he muttered, shaking his hand off.
“You- You’re the one covered in grease!” Jerry shot back.
“A-at least grease provides value to society, Jerry.” Jerry raised a finger, opening his mouth to counter before realizing that he didn’t know enough about grease to push this argument any further.
“Whatever,” he said finally. “Can you just tell me?”
“What?”
“My universe, asshole!”
“Oh. Yeah,” Rick said blandly, pointedly not actually answering the question. “Wh-why do you even wanna know? You wanna go- go back or somethin’?” Jerry’s face paled instantly.
“No! No, of course… not.” He was looking at the floor now, chewing his lip with more force than he probably should be. His hands were white-knuckling the bottom of his shirt, tugging it down as far as the stiff fabric would allow. Rick’s head tilted as he took the unexpected reaction in, adjusting his internal model of the situation to account for these new factors. This whole thing was bizarre, frankly. Why would Jerry be so weird about this? As unimportant as it was, it wasn’t exactly unexpected for people to want to know their universe codes once they knew they existed. Why the fuck was he being so damn awkward about it?
He didn’t actually want to go back, did he?
“Uh… huh,” Rick said slowly.
“Would you please just tell me?” Jerry asked quietly. He still hadn’t looked up, instead staring holes into the floor.
“Why’re you being weird about it?” Rick tossed back. “Y-you wanna go back, that’s on you. I don’t give a shit. G-go back for all I care.” Was his heart beating faster than usual? Definitely not. It was mechanical and operated on a very consistent algorithm. Nor was his breathing getting a little harder to control. “At least it’ll- it’ll be less stupid around here. W-we can raise the collective IQ by at least 10 points. You wanna go back? I’ll j-just get the portal gun and-”
“Fucking christ, Rick, I don’t wanna go back!” Jerry snapped, jerking forward with the force of the outburst. Rick turned back around to face the man just in time to see him very noticeably grab at something by his waist, pressing one arm sharply against his body as if holding something in place. As if he’d had to catch something.
“Whazzat?”
“What?” Rick gestured towards where Jerry’s arm was still wrapped conspicuously around his midsection. His eyes dropped downwards to see what Rick was referencing, his face dropping in horror. “Nothing,” he said, convincingly.
“Uh huh,” Rick said. He tapped his foot lightly and a panel in the floor opened, grabbing Jerry by the ankle and yanking him off the his feet.
“Hey!” Jerry yelped, desperately grabbing whatever object he was hanging onto with both arms as he was dangled upside down.
“No- no contraband in the garage, Jerry,” Rick informed him, directing the arm to bring Jerry closer so they could see eye-to-eye. “C’mon.”
“Rick! Put me down!” Rick raised a brow, giving Jerry a small flick with the arm and watching him curl in on himself in a panic. “Please?”
“Nice try,” Rick replied. He gave Jerry just a second to see his malicious grin before the arm began to thrash about the garage, shaking Jerry like he was a particularly stubborn beetle that had landed somewhere it wasn’t supposed to.
“Rick- Stop it- I get seasick- Riiiiick- Jesus- Wait-” Jerry was abruptly cut off as finally something small and solid fell out from under his shirt, dodging his desperate attempts to grab ahold of it and hitting the floor with a resounding thud. Rick allowed the arm to cease its shakedown, focusing his attention on his prize instead. “Rick, please…” Jesus he was pathetic.
Rick ignored the pleas of the man still suspended next to him and made his way over to the contraband Jerry had dropped. Looking closer revealed it to be a little brown notebook, too small to be a regular journal or diary but too big to be a pocket notebook. Which probably explained why Jerry kept it under his shirt instead of, y’know. In his pocket.
“Seriously, can you just- just leave that alone?” Jerry pleaded. Rick glanced over his shoulder to find the man attempting, unsuccessfully, to bend himself over enough to try and pry the clawed hand off of his ankle. He turned back to the notebook and plucked it off the floor. “You’ll get grease on it!” Jerry wailed. Rick turned around, glaring up at him in irritation. He reached up, wiping one hand clean on Jerry’s shirt before swapping the notebook and wiping his other one too. Jerry stared at him, utterly dumbfounded.
“See? Don’t shit your b-britches.”
“Britches?” Jerry echoed. Rick raised a brow. That’s what you’re going to focus on? He decided not to bother with a verbal response, instead choosing to examine his prize. He flipped the book open, idly scanning the pages to see how much was written down. It was about half-way full, so he returned to the first half and selected a random page. “Rick-”
“Dude. R-rule number one of having a diary is to hide it,” Rick informed his companion. “You brought this shit into the garage. F-free real estate, big man.”
“It’s not a diary,” Jerry ground out.
“Relax,” Rick assured him. “Th-there’s nothing in here that could make me think less of you than- than I already do. What, you write, like, sick fantasies in here?” Jerry didn’t respond, instead choosing to go limp in defeat where he hung. Rick shrugged, returning to the notebook, expecting boring, juvenile notations about his new job, or maybe complaints about how ‘no one understands me.’ It was… not that.
Summer C-131’s favorite color is yellow. She claims she doesn’t have one, but always picks the yellow piece in board games. She wears yellow when she wants to switch up her wardrobe and be more fancy/pretty.
Beth C-131 is right-handed for most things, but throws with her left.
Beth C-131 pretends she hates soap operas, but she watches Grey’s Anatomy. She skipped seasons 5, 7, 8, and 13 and jumps around episodes because it’s funnier that way. Her favorite genre is horror. She’s been getting more into sci-fi.
Morty Prime likes his grilled cheese a little over-cooked, just enough to make the bread really crunchy.
“What the fuck?” Rick breathed. He glanced up to see that Jerry had given up entirely, doing his best to twist the angle he was dangling at so Rick couldn’t see his face. Rick’s eyes slipped back down to the notebook and he flipped a few pages back, finding even more notes of the same variety.
Space Beth C-131 acts like she has a higher spice tolerance than Beth, but she’s actually just better at acting like it doesn’t bother her before sneaking into the kitchen to drink half the milk.
Morty Prime likes early Taylor Swift music but not the later stuff.
Beth’s full name is Bethany.
Page after page, all containing the same strange, mundane notes. Tiny details, random facts, analyses of behavior that Rick wouldn’t have even pictured Jerry noticing.
Rick C-137 fidgets with his left hand more often than his right. When he’s in company he sits sprawled out, but when he’s alone or really focused, he hunches over and brings his legs up.
Rick C-137 has a slight accent when he speaks Spanish. He only uses it occasionally and always under his breath.
“Jerry,” Rick began slowly, turning back towards the other man without looking back up, unable to quite tear his eyes away from the page. He flipped the book all the way to the beginning, to the very first page Jerry had written on.
Rick Sanchez - C-137
Summer Smith - C-131
Beth Smith - C-131
Space Beth Smith - C-131
Morty Smith - Prime
Jerry Smith -
“What the fuck is this?”
“I-it’s not what it looks like!” Jerry yelped. Rick snapped his hand up and the mechanical claw released him, plopping him unceremoniously on the ground in a heap. “Ow.”
“What does it look like?” Rick snarled, bending one knee so he could get closer to Jerry’s level.
“I-I don’t know!” Jerry wailed. He shrank back, covering his head with his hands as if expecting to be hit. “You just looked like it made you mad!”
“Y- Me!? You’re the one b-being suspicious about it!”
“I’m sorry.” Rick reached out, grabbing Jerry by the arm and yanking him to his feet. “Hey! My leg fell asleep!” Miraculously, despite stumbling for a good few seconds, Jerry managed to stay on his feet once Rick released him.
“Well?” Rick demanded, waving the notebook in Jerry’s face.
“It’s nothing!”
“Nothing!?” Rick growled. “You- You’re taking notes about- what, about o-our lives? You gonna sell us out, Jerry!?” He’d done it before. He would do it again. That was the thing about Jerrys. They were stupid and worthless and parasitic, but they could also grow out of control when left alone. Like mold in the ceiling or carpenter ants in the walls. Leave it alone for too long and that harmless pest turns into an actual threat.
“No!” Jerry insisted. “That’s not what it is!”
“Then what?” Rick demanded, his face directly in Jerry’s, noses nearly pressed together.
“I-I can explain, just give- Just give me a minute,” Jerry asked desperately.
“Fine.” Rick pulled back, taking the notebook with him as Jerry breathed out a sigh of relief. He made his way over to an empty space on his workbench and sat down directly on the table. He wasn’t in the mood to sit in a chair right now.
Jerry remained where he’d left him, rubbing his arms as he tried to get his circulation back to normal. He was looking at the floor again, in a way that definitely seemed suspicious now. If Rick were to examine the situation more carefully, compare it to his other files on human behavior, he might say that Jerry looked less guilty and more embarrassed.
“Well?” Rick asked when it became clear that Jerry wasn’t going to start without prodding.
“Okay. Okay,” Jerry breathed. He stepped closer to Rick and sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged across from the table. He was curled in on himself, hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “It’s… stupid.”
“Mhm,” Rick prodded.
“It’s just… Back when portal travel was broken and you sent us all back to our original universes, I started thinking.” Rick opened his mouth but Jerry cut him off before he got a word out. “I don’t wanna go back! That’s…” He turned away, his head hanging shamefully. “I really don’t wanna go back.” Rick’s mouth turned downwards, brow furrowing as he tried to factor all of this into his understanding of Jerry’s motives.
“S-so what’re you hassling me for?”
“I don’t know, Rick!” Jerry said, still looking away. “I just wanted to know, okay? Everyone else knows where they’re from and I don’t. I…”
“Okay. Fine. Say I believe you,” Rick said. He brought one of his legs up onto the table and leaned forward, using it to prop up his chest as he let his arms dangle, one still loosely holding Jerry’s notebook. “S-still doesn’t explain this.” He gave the notebook a small wave and Jerry let out a miserable sound and somehow managed to curl in on himself even further. Rick was honestly surprised he hadn’t activated his pillbug protocol yet, with how small he was trying to make himself.
“You’re gonna think it’s stupid,” Jerry said. Rick’s brows shot up.
“I think everything you do is stupid,” he reminded his son-in-law. Jerry finally looked up at him, meeting his gaze out of the corner of his eye. From this angle it was hard to tell, but it looked like Jerry’s eyes were a little watery.
“I just… I didn’t even realize I wasn’t in my original universe,” Jerry began slowly. “I-I got swapped around and passed over and nobody even noticed it! I mean, if portal travel never got broken, if that whole thing never happened, we still wouldn’t know!”
“Yeah?” Rick wasn’t quite sure where this was going. Was he really that torn up over not being in his original universe? From what Rick could tell, his original universe sucked. Or, well, was about equivalent to this one.
“And I was thinking, what if things were different, but I was just such a shitty husband and father that I didn’t notice! I mean, it can’t all be identical, right? S-so, I thought, if I just start paying more attention, if I make sure I-I don’t miss anything, then… then…” Jerry trailed off, hugging his knees to his chest and tucking his head down. Rick stared at him, dumbfounded for reasons he couldn’t quite get his internal monologue to write out.
“That’s what this is about?” he asked finally. Jerry’s only response was a tightening of his grip on his legs. “Y-you’ve been spying on us for however long ‘cause-”
“It’s not spying to notice things about your family,” Jerry mumbled, the sound nearly lost in the fabric of his jeans. Rick glared at him.
“So… what? You scared w-we’d mix you up and nobody’d notice?” Rick asked. The tone he said it with was demeaning enough that it hopefully contained no lingering traces of guilt. Which it wouldn’t because Rick wasn’t guilty and actually didn’t give a flying fuck if they’d accidentally swapped their Jerrys because they’re Jerrys. Jerry’s insecurities were his own. “It’s y-your own fault for f-fuckin’ hitchhiking. J-just stay out of my car and you’ll be fine.” He paused, frowning as he considered the timeline more closely. “Or w-whatever you did to get dropped off. I don’t care.”
“That’s not what it’s about,” Jerry said quietly.
“Huh?” He wasn’t even trying to be dense that time. He was genuinely caught off guard.
“I’m not worried that you’ll, I don’t know. Drop me off at Jerry daycare again and then take a different Jerry home and not realize.”
“Then what are you worried about?” Rick pressed. Jerry uncurled, finally, looking back up at Rick with slightly red-rimmed eyes.
“I’m worried that you’ll drop me off at Jerry daycare again and then take a different Jerry home and I won’t realize.” Rick opened his mouth to respond, maybe with some variant of ‘huh?’ or ‘what?’ or ‘that’s stupid,’ but something stopped him. He slowly shut his mouth again, just… watching Jerry, waiting for him to continue. Eventually, after what felt like way too long to be sitting still across from each other in the garage, he did.
“Rick, I spent years living with a different version of my family, and I didn’t even notice anything was wrong. S-sure, I was worried about it for a bit right after, but I just- I mean, everything seemed the same, so I just assumed-” He broke off running a hand through his hair.
“I-I mean, yeah. Infinite universes,” Rick reminded him. “O-obviously it was the same.”
“But it’s not,” Jerry insisted. “I-if it was then my family back h- Back in my original universe would’ve been the same as this one, but they weren’t. Wh-which means that Jerry C-131 was different from me, which means I’m different, which means- I mean, it was different! M-maybe not by a lot, but it was. And I didn’t…” Jerry let out a long sigh, waving to the notebook still in Rick’s hand. “So I started paying attention. Because I don’t want to just… wake up in a different universe one day and not even realize.”
Rick stayed where he was, watching his son-in-law from a new angle as he absorbed this new information. His first instinct, which was usually correct, was to make fun of Jerry for being stupid, file this information away for later, and carry on with his life. What did he care if Jerry was having an existential crisis about hopping universes? Most people who still thought shit mattered did that. It was nothing special, and this was hardly the worst coping strategy Rick had ever seen. Still weird though. Deeply weird.
“I know you think it’s stupid,” Jerry said, an educated guess about what Rick was thinking that just generally had a high probability of being correct. Rick pursed his lips, avoiding meeting the other man’s gaze for no reason in particular. “I just can’t stop thinking about it.” He sighed, letting his legs slide back out. “I don’t wanna go back.”
“Jesus, I get it!” Rick snapped, hopping off the table so abruptly that he almost shattered his ankle on the side of it. “You can have your stupid stalker notebook back.” He tossed the aforementioned notebook into the air, leaving Jerry to scramble to try and catch it. He managed, but just barely, and only after hitting it back up into the air three times.
Jerry began to hesitantly get back up and Rick turned away, returning to his previously abandoned project to avoid looking at his son-in-law. He stood over it, hands clutching the side of the table instead of picking up his tools and getting back to work, his eyes staring at the materials strewn on the surface without really seeing them.
“Thanks, Rick.” It was quiet. Hesitant. Uncalled for. What was he thanking him for? Giving back the notebook. That’s what it was. “I, um. I’ll leave you alone now.” Finally. This time he heard the sound of Jerry’s footsteps retreating. Heading towards the door. Out of the garage. Away.
He heard the doorknob start to turn.
“5126.”
“Huh?” Jerry asked. He didn’t turn to look, but he could picture it clearly, Jerry’s hand frozen on the doorknob as he turned to look, eyes wide in that classic confused puppy way of his.
“You wanted to know what your universe was,” Rick reminded him. “5126.”
“Oh. Oh!” Rick squeezed his eyes shut against the urge to look. He was probably grinning like an idiot now, pleased to have won even this minor victory. “No letters or anything?”
“Nope,” Rick ground out.
“O-okay!” Jerry affirmed. The doorknob turned slightly, then stopped again. “Thanks, Rick. I appreciate it.” Rick didn’t respond.
The door opened and closed and the feeling of another person clogging up his space was gone. He tried to take a breath of clear air. Tried to unclench his hands from the workbench. Tried to look somewhere else instead of staring ahead blankly, unable to force himself to move.
He stayed where he was.