XVIII

"What's wrong? What's wrong? Why won't you tell me?" Jerry pleaded, legs clutched around Gary's compressed form on the forest floor, arms wrapped tightly around his beloved..

"Nothing," Gary mumbled, "Nothing. Just tired. Really tired."

"Fine! You're tired! You can take a nap! But why not in bed? Why'd you leave the house?"

"I…" Gary struggled, "I don't know. I don't want to be a bother. Don't want you to see me like this."

"Like what?" Jerry cried, head on Gary's shoulder punctuating his outburst with a kiss on Gary's neck.

"You need to stop worrying about me. This happens. I just get tired and… you all need to just go on doing what you want. I'll be okay."

"We're really worried, Uncle Gary. Something's wrong. We need a doctor," Morty said, standing behind his dad.

"No. No doctor. I'm fine. Just going to sleep out here," Gary said, then he lifted his head and opened his eyes to look at his fiance, "Besides, you silly people. This dimension has no doctors that can help me. Parasites here aren't nursed back to health."

Morty rolled his eyes, "Okay, we'll get Doofus rick to get us back to A-567 and get a doctor there. The point is, you're acting very strangely and you have us all worried sick."

"It's not a problem, really. I'll be fine. Just need to sleep," Gary yawned.

"You sleep every two hours, Uncle Gary. It's your entire character, but you've never started wandering out to the middle of a forest to lay down. Why now? Why this?" Morty grilled his future stepdad sternly.

"I don't know. Didn't want to bother anyone. I…" he trailed off groggily.

"Dad, you need to call Doofus Rick now. I don't know how parasites get sick, but if he were human, I'd be calling an ambulance," Morty said.

"Yeah," Jerry muttered glumly and reached for the interdimensional beeper.

"How old is he?" Dr. V&'Lazi~ asked, circling the examination table, checking pliability of the flesh at the ankle and ribs.

"Um, less than a year," Morty said.

Jerry sat limply in a chair to the side, Doofus Rick with one arm around him.

Dr. V&'Lazi~ looked up from Sleepy Gary's slumbering form curled up on the exam table, "Well, that's no surprise, I mean how many months? How long has he got left?"

Morty's face pinched, "Isn't that what you're supposed to tell us?"

Dr. V&'Lazi~'s eye tentacles squinted, "I suppose I could guess reasonably well if I performed tests, but generally checking your receipt will be a lot cheaper."

"I didn't buy them," Morty muttered, then switched his glance to Jerry and Doofus Rick.

"Nine months 7 days," Doofus Rick answered, reading from his portal gun log.

The doctor resumed the exam, lifting Sleepy Gary's nightgown up his leg and running a tentacle down it, in a zigzag pattern, "A little young, I guess, but not entirely unexpected. I know it's possible to get close to pets. Are you close to this one?"

"Oh god!" Jerry gasped, lower lip trembling.

"Yeah, a little bit," Morty said.

Dr. V&'Lazi~'s eyestalks flickered shut and open again rapidly, "Oh dear. You… you never had a parasite before? How can… did you… I'm so sorry. Did they give you handling instructions? What did you feed him?"

"Oh, God," Morty wheezed, ":I didn't know there was special food."

Dr. V&'Lazi~'s eyestalks shook side to side violently, "How could you not? The bags are right next to the tanks of spores, clearly marked. Hundreds of them. You don't have to get the crazy organic stuff."

"We…" Morty bowed his head, "We can't read your language. God, doc, we poisoned our parasite. Can you help? Can you save him?"

"I'm not sure," Dr. V&'Lazi~ said,.reaching a tentacle hilt-deep down Uncle Gary's throat, two of his tongues probing the sides of his lips in concentration, "How much protoplasm has it leaked, so far? Teaspoons? Quarts?

"Uh…" Morty stammered, "I haven't seen him leak at all."

Dr. V&'Lazi~ stopped probing, "None? OK. He's not poisoned. I'm concerned this is just natural. Old age. Nine months is young, but not that young."

"Oh my god," Morty said, "The goddamn fuse."

"What fuse?" Doofus Rick asked, doing his best to comfort Jerry who'd all but collapsed in tears.

"Rick said every parasite had a fuse lit at birth," Morty answered, "He must know parasites from A-567 had short life spans. This dimension has laws against parasite sentience. The short life span is probably a second safeguard, which is why they're kept as pets here. That's why Rick didn't worry about them. He figured the problem solved itself."

Dr. V&'Lazi~ extracted himself from Sleepy Gary's body cavity and backed away from the table, "Well, yes. What did you think you were getting into? How did you not know that when you bought them?"

Morty gave Dr. V&'Lazi~ a stink-eye, "What does it matter? He'll be gone in what? Hours? Days?"

"Generally when they start sleeping and you have a hard time waking them, they're gone in a week. There are a lot of suggestion how you can send him off in a way a lot of people treasure their whole lives," Dr. V&'Lazi~ said, his sympathy somehow evident through the rasping gurgling that was his species' voice.

Jerry rose from his chair, tear-streaked. He dragged himself the three steps to the exam table, picked up Sleepy Gary's hand, then collapsed on top of him, sobbing.