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Morty stares at his own grave.
The one he buried himself in. He can still feel the cooling skin of this dimension’s Morty, feel the blood stick to his fingernails as he dragged him. It makes him feel sick.
He’s sitting idly in the back garden, the rain making the mounds of dirt look sludgy and soggy. Water drips down his face, but he finds he doesn’t really care.
It’s been a few days since they came to the new dimension, and overall it’s been fine. Except, the only ice cream you can buy here is strawberry. Weird. And now his family aren’t really his family anymore. Also weird.
Just weird, Morty thinks numbly. Nothing wrong at all with leaving a dimension you ruined; with replacing a dead version of yourself.
He sighs audibly. Nothing happens.
Morty suddenly wishes Rick had never came back to his family: everything was going fine before he came. He doesn’t know if he means it or not anymore.
He just wants whatever this weird, empty feeling is to go away. It’s making him feel drained in the morning, even after a good sleep. Maybe it’s because the bed he’s sleeps in now isn’t really his, is it?
He understands more and more each day why Rick drinks, why Beth drinks.
He promises himself he won’t. He’ll express his feelings another way: he’ll paint, or sing, or something.
He won’t be like them.
He’ll be better.
—
His grip on the doorknob is tight.
Beth half sits on the couch, half lays on the floor, asleep. A wine bottle rests loosely in her hand, almost precariously tipped on the carpet. Some TV show drones on in the background, the colour dancing along her face, makeup smudged and ruined.
Morty pretends, pretends it’s fine. Pretends he can’t see the black tear streaks down her face from her mascara. Pretends she isn’t obviously blackout drunk, as if he can’t see the empty bottles strewn around her.
It’s easy, too easy, to slip the bottle from her hand. The glass is cold to touch, and the liquid bitterly sweet against his tongue: burns as he swallows.
He knows, knows that he shouldn’t, knows it’s a bad idea. It won’t help. It may for a second or a minute or a few hours, but eventually he’ll be back to that same, empty feeling. If anything, the example of why he shouldn’t is right in front of him. He has seen what it can do, how it can affect people.
He has seen Rick come into his room in the middle of the night, blindly drunk, too many times now. Sometimes, he’s shouting. Sometimes, he’s almost nice. Sometimes, he has a weapon.
It never ends well.
He needs something though. An escape, a feeling, anything but the strange emptiness he’s been feeling recently.
Rick and Beth seem to drink alcohol to cope, so why can’t he? Just once. One night, and that’ll be it. He promised himself he wouldn’t make it a thing, that it’ll help temporarily.
Morty downs the rest of the bottle. He ignores the acrid sting, and the sickly feeling of regret in his stomach.
Beth won’t even miss it; there was hardly any left. She won’t notice its absence; when she wakes, she’ll think she drank it.
He places the bottle carefully back into Beth’s loose hold. Morty swallows a dry cough. The wine seems to blur his vision, and Beth’s image becomes fuzzy. It takes the edge off, a little.
It’s not enough, Morty thinks, briefly, but he shoos the thought away. Nothing is enough anymore.
“Sorry,” he whispers, but nobody listens. Beth probably couldn’t wake, even if she wanted to. He’s let himself go. It won’t be just one night, he realises. Of course it won’t be. He doesn’t remember letting it get this bad. “Good night.”
Morty grips the side of the sink. He doesn’t remember going upstairs, much less to the bathroom. He stares at his foggy reflection. He doesn’t recognise himself; doesn’t recognise the bloodshot eyes or the bags underneath them.
He brushes his teeth, but they don’t feel clean.
—
In the morning, he stills feels a little dazed.
Beth and Jerry argue over something meaningless he doesn’t even care to know. Rick and Summer eat their breakfast as usual, and Morty is stunned with the normalcy. He suddenly feels mundane.
How does everything just carry on, like normal?
Every day is the same, Morty realises. The only change in his life is going on adventures with Rick; the only thing that isn’t predictable.
“Morty, stop staring at your food,” Beth says, offhandedly, still arguing with Jerry. They’re getting louder. “It’s going to get cold.”
He nods numbly, and he suddenly wishes for quiet. He wishes it was silent. Summer seems unbothered by the arguing, though. He wishes he could be, too.
Morty wishes everything wasn’t meaningless.
—
Morty breathes, the sickly sting of smoke burning his lungs. It catches in his throat; black sludge blocking his airways. He can’t seem to breathe around it, and chokes out an exhale.
He takes another drag, anyway.
He blows the grey smoke out of his bedroom window. He pointedly ignores, this time, the graves only a few feet below him.
He’s sitting on the windowsill, legs dangling over the ledge. An empty, lonely ashtray sits beside him. The twinkling, dark sky is the only witness to his crime; everyone is asleep by now. A cricket barely chirps.
It’s silent.
It’s been a few days since he drank the wine. It really, really wasn’t enough. He knows it won’t ever be enough, no matter how much he drinks. It had been, almost, for a second, but the feeling vanished. It wasn’t enough.
Morty hopes Summer won’t mind a missing cigarette.
He knows he shouldn’t. Of course he does; his school always droned on about how smoking kills, he had seen the ads.
Yet, a cigarette burns bright between his fingers. Its smoke curls dangerously in the crisp air, but the toxic smell is almost calming.
He exhales, the taste disgustingly burnt on his tongue.
The grey in his life seems to melt with each sour drag, each choked inhale. His family comes to mind. Summer, Jerry, Beth. He feels he’s letting them down. He probably has already let them down, the short time he’s known them. He feels like he’s betraying them by succumbing to something he said he would never do.
The next drag softens the guilt.
Maybe he’s desensitised. A year ago, hell, a few months ago, Morty would never have thought about doing something like this. About drinking, about smoking; about blatantly throwing his health, his well-being, just for a temporary calm.
He wonders, briefly, if Rick would be proud. The thought is gone as swiftly as the smoke from his mouth disappears.
A quiet nicotine buzz seems to fill his veins, and time almost slows with it. His shoulders slump, and Morty indignantly ignores the black hole that still permeates his heart. The thought clears with the cigarette fog filling his mind.
The embers flicker faintly, dying in his hand. Morty takes his final puff from it, and stubs it messily in the ashtray beside him. The feel of something more boxy than his phone taunts him from his pocket.
His first, and last cigarette. He promised himself. He holds onto the promise unsurely.
He had always felt a little grossed out when Summer told him about drugs, surprised the first time he saw her doing them, but he gets it now. He understands. He hopes he won’t tomorrow. Just one night.
Morty slips the box back into Summer’s jacket pocket, cleans the ashtray discreetly—returns it to its place in the garage, using the dim light of his phone’s flashlight to see. He hopes, by morning, any trace of smoke coming off him leaves. He hopes brushing his teeth is enough to remove the tobacco smell.
He hopes they don’t notice.
—
No one notices.
Everything is normal. Normal. Beth and Jerry just chat casually over breakfast, this time. Summer is on her phone, languidly eating her pancakes. Rick doesn’t really pay him any mind, and just enjoys his food. Like usual.
Morty pretends it doesn’t bother him. Of course, it doesn’t bother him. This is what he wanted, right? For no one to notice what he did. For no one to care.
Even after school, Summer doesn’t say anything about the missing cigarette in her pocket.
Why don’t they care? Morty thinks. The feeling is like being left out, like watching someone talk badly about you behind your back: stupidly, it hurts.
This is what he wanted. Right?
—
Morty finds himself in his room, sitting on the windowsill again. He pretends he can’t feel the guilt of his own too many broken promises. Dusk sits on the horizon from his view outside, and Morty can faintly hear the TV downstairs. It would almost feel normal, if not for the cigarette in his hand, the wine bottle in his other.
He can still see the graves outside.
Sprouts of grass have started to shoot out from the dirt. Eventually, there won’t be a trace of a past Rick and Morty’s presence here. Eventually, this dimension’s Rick and Morty will just be dry bones.
Of course, Beth and Jerry and Summer don’t know that. They don’t know the Morty, the Rick they speak to every morning isn’t the one they’ve known, all this time. They couldn’t, they shouldn’t. Morty surely wishes he didn’t right now. Not when he’s taking a bitter drag, washing it down with something barely sweeter.
The mix of drugs amplifies the wine’s effect, makes him hiccup with nerves. He knows he shouldn’t, he always has, but he feels a little lighter wth each drag, each drink. It clears his head more than they did separately; together, they create an emotional bliss.
Yet, that God awful emptiness still rests heavy in his heart. No substance could make it go away. Sleep is his only relief from it.
The bliss dampens a little with the realisation. He’s getting himself wasted, taking a risk for nothing.
Of course it’s for nothing, Morty bitterly thinks.
Suddenly, the smoke clogs his airways again. It suffocates him, steals the oxygen from his lungs. His stomach churns, empty aside from the wine. He feels like he’s going to be sick.
Morty stubs the cigarette, equally messy as his first, but more quickly. The flame is snuffed, and it crumples sadly. The bottle wobbles as he sits it on his nightstand. He heaves a little, dryly. He bites the bullet, and clumsily runs as fast as he can to the bathroom.
The rejected contents of his stomach stare grossly up at him from the toilet: it looks like blood. He flushes it, and queasily stumbles to his feet. He grips the sink, hard, to ground himself.
Morty’s reflection swims before his eyes, and he feels like he’s looking at one of those silly mirrors that change how you look. Except, his pupils are ginormous, and he looks a sickly pale. The regret in his frown doesn’t make him look any better, either.
He grips his hair harshly. He looks just like Beth, like Rick, whenever they’re drunk out of their mind. He slumps a little against the sink.
“O-Oh shit,” Morty slurs. The words are half-formed jumbles: he’s almost incoherent, even to his own ears. “Wh-What have I done?”
He has to clean up his room, clean up the evidence, but he’s in no state to. He’d probably break something: his hands are shaking as is, and would probably shake even more trying not to drop the heavy wine bottle.
It would end in disaster. Someone would come rushing to his room, probably, if they heard something shatter. (Morty pretends he isn’t being hopeful, that someone would care enough to check on him.) They’d only need to take one look at his room to know what he had been doing.
Even if he could keep his hands steady enough to brush his teeth, change his clothes, going downstairs would be a bad idea. It would be virtually impossible to go undetected. He’d probably still smell of tobacco, or his drunken wobbles would give him away. He chose to do this far too early in the day.
Morty realises he is well, and truly, fucked.
—
Morty had slunk awkwardly back to his room, bumped into a few things on his way there. His crimes still sat on the windowsill and nightstand, a blatant reminder of what he had just been doing. He didn’t feel well enough to hide them yet.
He’s now sat against the locked door of his bedroom, a trash can nearby, just in case. There’s a draft coming from the open window, but Morty doesn’t trust his legs enough to support him to go and close it.
He sinks heavily against the door, almost enjoying the strange, mixed buzz from the alcohol and drugs.
Morty startles at the sharp raps from the other side.
“Mo- Morty! Morty, I gotta show you something. Yo-You’ve got to see it, Morty!” Rick says, drunkenly, rattling the doorknob.
Fuck. Morty thinks, eloquently. Everything’s a mess in his room, and most importantly of all, he’s not exactly sober, like he should be. It won’t take Rick long to figure out why.
Rick can’t come in here. He can’t see me like this.
“Uh, R-Rick? I’m, uh, busy!” Morty stammers. He hopes Rick’s too drunk to realise he’s drunk, too. “C-Come back later, okay?”
Rick doesn’t reply. Morty quietly breathes a shaky sigh of relief, until he hears some rustling and fumbling. He can’t focus completely on the sound, his head is far too foggy. The familiar, distinctly sci-fi whirr of a portal opening startles him.
Morty staggers to his feet, instincts kicking in. His stomach flips violently, but he quickly shoves the ashtray under his bed, indiscreetly throws the wine bottle out of his bedroom window. He cringes at the shatter, and shuts his window.
Just in the nick of time, a portal appears in the middle of his room. Rick comes stumbling gracefully out.
“I-I totally coulda’ done that in a cooler way, Morty,” Rick huffs, the portal closing behind him. He hasn’t looked at him yet. Morty still had time to enjoy the calm before the storm, before Rick looks his way. “I coulda’ phased through your door, or something, Morty.”
“Uh, yea-yeah. Totally, Rick.” Morty says dismissively, awkwardly sitting on the edge of his bed. He barely swallowed a hiccup. He can still feel the pleasant thrum coursing through his veins, but it feels risky now that Rick’s here.
“I-I gotta show you something, urrrp-it-it’s-“ Rick turns to look at Morty, but freezes as soon as he sees him. He looks disheveled; Morty flinches at his stare. “Morty, you- you look like- like shit! Are you fucking- drunk?!”
The harsh sound grates on his ears, and Morty briefly squeezes his eyes shut. Stupidly, tears start to well in them.
“I swear-hicc-swear I-I didn’t mean it, Rick!” Morty breaks a little, and he tries to discreetly rub his eyes. He swallows dryly—Rick’s stare tells him that he can see straight through the lie. “Don’t- don’t shout, p-please.”
“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” Anger stains his words, but Rick softens his voice a little. “Have you been smoking, too? You fucking reek.”
Morty stares in horror at the cigarettes he stole from Summer, sat very clearly out in the open on his nightstand. Rick frowns at the box, as if it offends him. Shit, Morty thinks. I forgot to hide them. Morty suddenly feels twice as sick as Rick’s glare shifts to him.
Rick opens another portal, and he gestures to it tensely. “Go. Now.”
Morty anxiously goes through, tripping on his feet a little. It’s the garage, and Rick follows through behind him. He opens a drawer, and tinkers with something that Morty doesn’t feel like asking about right now. He fiddles with the edge of his shirt.
It’s too silent. Usually, Rick would be enthusiastically telling him about an invention, or asking him to help in some way or something. I guess this situation is anything but usual, Morty solemnly thinks.
Rick’s back is to him. Morty suddenly feels like saying sorry, or apologising, or anything but this silence.
”Uh, R-Rick, I-“ Morty starts, an attempt at an apology, an explanation, something. A plastic bottle is thrown at him, though, and he barely manages to sluggishly catch it. It’s a clear liquid. Morty looks to the back of Rick’s head questioningly.
”Tell m-me later.” Rick casually suggests. He sounds less angry, but Morty can’t tell when he can’t see his face. “Just drink-urrrp-drink that.”
Morty takes a tentative sip. He hopes it’s something that can cure the mess he’s got himself into, rid him of the weird emptiness. Instead, though, Morty doesn’t feel any different. It just tastes like water.
“Rick, is- is this supposed to h-help?” Morty asks, gingerly.
“Yes, Morty, it’s water,” Rick answers, the edge returning to his voice. “It’ll help sober your dumb ass up.”
“Sure- surely you have s-something else that can actually help?” Morty hiccups dejectedly. Rick continues working. “Why, why can’t you fix me l-like normal?”
“Because, Morty, this isn’t normal. You have to learn your actions have consequences.” Rick spits, angrily. Morty can deal with that. He can deal with angry. Yet, there’s a hint of something else, “I-I can’t have you pulling this shit again.”
Morty almost doesn’t notice it: beneath all the anger and disappointment, there’s a soft, maybe protective tone to Rick’s voice as he says it. Now that he thinks about it, he swears Rick’s stare earlier was worried. He looked concerned. About him.
Or maybe, Morty’s drunk. Maybe Rick is being indifferent as always, and the alcohol and drugs are making him more emotional. Maybe his supposed concern from earlier is just impatience, and he’s bored and tired of Morty’s antics.
Yet, a strange feeling blooms in his chest. It feels as warm as the sun.
Rick suddenly stops working. He rubs his temples, and turns to face him, leaning against his workbench. “Alright, Morty, tell me what the fuck you’ve done.”
“I- uh,” Morty pauses, his vision swimming. Rick raises half of his unibrow as Morty chugs half the water. He takes a moment to right himself. “I drank. A-And smoked.”
”I got that already, dipshit,” Rick frowns impatiently. “Tell me what you’ve took, and how much.”
“Well,” Morty scratches awkwardly at his head. “I had some of Mom- uh, Beth’s w-wine and- hicc a cigarette.”
Rick closes his eyes, and Morty takes a step back at the brief look of hurt that flashes across his face.
It’s gone in an instant.
“Listen, Morty,” Rick says, quietly. He sounds tired, and weary. It’s unfamiliar, and Morty decides he doesn’t like it. “You- You don’t wanna’ go down that route, kid. It doesn’t help, it never does. It’ll only make everything worse. Life doesn’t just gain some meaning from it. It doesn’t miraculously take your pain away, or whatever; it makes you forget about it.”
Rick almost sounds sober: there isn’t a slur to his voice in sight, and every word is clear.
”That-That’s what I wanted to do.” Morty whispers. There’s a thousand more things he wanted to add, but another wave of vertigo weakens his knees. This time, it doesn’t leave.
This time, clear as day, Morty sees the concern on his grandpa’s face. Sees the worry etch into the creases of his forehead. He feels the tears again, and reaches warily for him as his legs finally give out. Rick seems to sober even more at his confession, and the hard edges of his stare soften. Rick catches him before he hits the floor.
The hug is gentle: it isn’t mean or constricting, but freeing and warm. He feels understood. The empty feeling subsides, a little. It makes him smile into Rick’s lab coat.
“Okay, kid, let’s-let’s go get some ice cream.” Rick says warmly, but Morty notices the tense line of his jaw, the hunch in his shoulders. “You want ice cream?”
”Yeah, yeah sure, R-Rick,” Morty says, but quickly tacks on, “You- You know this- hicc- isn’t your fault, right? It-it’s all me, man.”
Rick lifts him carefully, and takes him over to the passenger side of the spaceship. It’s almost as if Rick didn’t hear him, as he’s sat down onto the seat.
As Rick sits in the driver’s seat, he strains to hear Morty’s quiet plea.
“Don’t leave me, please.”
This time, Rick is startled. He looks to his drunk, hiccuping mess of a grandson, and sees the worry that he’ll get left behind. The tiredness in his eyes looks wrong on him, and Rick can see the wear this life is starting to have on him.
“I won’t, I promise.” Rick says seriously, but the promise is bitter on his tongue. His fingers twitch for his flask, but he ruffles Morty’s hair instead. “Now, let’s go get some ice cream, bitch!”
Morty beams, just a little, but it still makes Rick feel better. Maybe, they will be okay.
Maybe, this time, he can stay.