In which Rick has a pissing contest with Mr. Needful, aka 'The Devil', and Phoebe helps him achieve his goals. OR, in which there are feels for Phoebe and Rick. TW mention of attempted suicide without going into detail (Mr. Needful scene), TW for Rick's use of the word r*t*rded.
...
April
Phoebe carefully parked the cruiser that she, Summer, Rick, and Edana had used to return to Earth from Gazorpazorp. After completing her morning exercise routine, she had gone out to do a bit of maintenance in the garden for a bit, then hit the showers. As soon as she had emerged from the bathroom, she had gotten into the cruiser to pick up some groceries. Now she was returning with them. She raised the top and hopped out, neatly arranging the plastic bags so that each side balanced the other's weight. Phoebe locked up the cruiser and struggled inside with her hands clenched around all of the bag handles.
"Hey, could someone lend a hand!" Phoebe called into the house as she kicked the door open the rest of the way. "Edana, a little help!"
"Edana's busy!" Rick's voice called faintly from the direction of the garage.
"Ugggghhh, fuck you, Rick," Phoebe shouted back. Fingers crying from the direct pressure, she maneuvered her way to the kitchen as quickly as possible, where she set everything on top of the kitchen table with a sigh of relief. Still grumbling, she peered through the open door of the garage. Edana and Rick were both turned toward some project of his. "Rick, Edana," she greeted, "What the hell are you doing that's so important?"
"Summer's—" belch "—Summer's working for The Devil and he gave me some kind of—" belch "some kind of cursed microscope. I used it to build a device that will allow me to detect evil. Or, at least, it should. I was just doing some finishing touches on it."
Phoebe froze, overtaken by a wave of worry. "You have a cursed object? Did you touch it?"
Rick waved a hand dismissively, which worried her even more until he spoke, and then she worried some more. "You have to —" belch "—use the item for the curse to take effect."
"But you're still keeping it to for experimentation," she objected. "What if proximity is enough? Did you think about that, Rick? Are—are you sure that thing doesn't have some sort of compulsion on it to make you want to use it once you touch it?"
She stepped fully into the garage, groceries temporarily forgotten behind her.
"Eh. Technically I never touched it with my bare skin, so I should be good," Rick muttered as he and the android continued working on his device. A golden microscope sat on top of a cardboard box that in turn sat on top of a stool. Near it, an empty blue storage crate supported his laptop, which connected to Rick's device set up directly in front of the microscope. It appeared to be a tripod camera with robotic scanning arms and a reaching claw hand. As she watched, he murmured to Edana and she made adjustments to the microscope and the angle of the device.
"What, you just happened to wear gloves when you got it?" Phoebe fretted, coming to stand closer to Rick. "You have Edana to manipulate it now, but what about before?" She snatched one of his arms by his lab coat and brought his hand close to her face for examination. For all intents and purposes, it looked fine, mostly unmarred besides the calluses and a few pale scars. She dropped it, relieved both that Rick had let her examine it herself without protest and that there appeared to be no visible markings from a curse.
"I may have a few...cybernetic enhancements," Rick admitted, going back to work. Which meant no direct skin-to-object contact. He tightened a bolt, checked the connecting cables, and started up a program. As he did so, Phoebe heard movement in the kitchen as someone dug through the plastic bags on the kitchen table. Turning her head slightly, she spotted Morty removing the fruit roll-ups from one of the bags. Rick had apparently turned at the sound as well, as a moment later he called out to the teenager. "Hey, Morty, lemme—" belch "— lemme—" belch "—ask you a question real quick. Does evil exist, and if so, can one detect and measure it?"
Morty walked into the garage still holding onto the box. "Um…" he muttered uncertainly as he opened it and plucked a single-serve packet off the top.
Rick rolled his eyes, then pressed a button on his computer. "Rhetorical question Morty. The answer is yes, you just have to be a genius."
As Phoebe watched, the device finished scanning the microscope, data appearing on the screen, including information about what curse the microscope apparently contained. Her forehead wrinkled into a frown as a bar measuring intelligence flashed into existence on the laptop screen. She saw that it dropped near zero and her heart nearly stopped. If Rick had been cursed, it would have made him developmentally disabled. He would have a lower intelligence level than Jerry, who was already such a far cry from his current level of intelligence. Fuck.
"Cute," Rick scoffed sarcastically, directing his comment to Morty. "Your sister's boss gave me a microscope that would have made me retarded." He made a few more adjustments to his device, typing away at his laptop.
Though an apt description, Phoebe still flinched at the word.
She ended up not having to say anything, though, as a moment later Morty mentioned his own discomfort. "Ooh, oh boy Rick, I don't think you're allowed to say that word, you know?"
"Uh, Morty, I'm not disparaging the differently abled," Rick retorted, "I'm stating the fact—" here he clapped his hands together for emphasis— "that if I had used this microscope, it would have made me mentally retarded." He gestured at his own forehead for more emphasis.
"Actually, you would have been way past the minimum for being medically considered developmentally disabled," Phoebe disagreed. "This cursed microscope would have given you intelligence lower than a fetus a day before delivery."
Rick gestured at Phoebe in a way that clearly meant See, I'm right. Phoebe's eyes rolled to the ceiling for a moment. Rick loved being right about things.
"Okay, yeah," Morty conceded, shrugging, "but I don't think it's about logic, Rick. I think the word's just become a symbolic issue for powerful groups that feel like they're doing the right thing. Plus, there are alternatives to saying retarded, like what Phoebe used: developmentally disabled, or whatever."
"Well that's retarded," Rick snapped, crossing his arms, clearly cross about Morty pushing the issue. Phoebe sighed but let it go—for now, anyway. She'd tried, after all, and would get nowhere right now with the mood he was in from Morty's probing. Just then, the garage door lifted open from the outside, revealing Jerry. His eyes narrowed in suspicion at both her and Rick, and Phoebe wondered what new reason he had for regarding them that way. "What are you guys talking about?" Jerry blurted, a paranoid tone to his voice.
"Apparently nothing," Rick grouched, arms still crossed.
Jerry stomped over with a scowl in place, eyebrows drawn down in either anger or betrayal, placing his hands on his hips as he hissed at Morty, "You asked them if Pluto's a planet, didn't you?"
"No!" Morty denied instantly, and really, they hadn't been discussing anything remotely planet related, let alone whether or not Pluto should be considered a planet.
"It's not," Phoebe, Rick, and Edana responded at the same time, glancing at each other as soon as the words left their mouths. "Not anymore, anyway," Phoebe muttered under her breath, still upset about the change herself.
"Shut up, Rick, no one asked you," Jerry growled aggressively. Phoebe, a single brow arched in exasperation and hip cocking up to the side, gave him a look that said Really? He had snapped only at Rick despite her and Edana being in agreement with him.
"Whoa," Rick held up his hands as if physically fending off an attack, clearly not expecting such aggression from Jerry. Usually Jerry acted far more pathetic.
"It is the simple truth," Edana corrected Jerry cheerfully. "Pluto's size reduction disqualified it."
"I don't care what anyone says," Jerry snarled, "If it can be a planet, it can be a planet again." He finished his short, petulant rant, punctuated by furious gestures, by chanting the word planet four extra times, then stormed out as angrily as he came into the garage, but not before Phoebe called out to his retreating back, "That's not really how it works, Jer."
Rick rolled his eyes again, adding his own sarcastic remark to the end of her exasperated one. "Stay scientific, Jerry."
Jerry pretended not to hear either of them and was gone. Rick turned to Phoebe, the light of challenge suddenly entering his eyes. "Since you seem to know so much about curses, why don't you help me develop a serum that counteracts the effects of one?"
Phoebe, who wore a troubled frown on her face in reaction to Jerry's behavior, instantly brightened. "Sure, why not. It's dead useful to be both a biochem major and a practicing witch—" Morty opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, Phoebe cut him off to add— "and no, before you ask, not the Harry Potter kind, the real kind, with crystals, candles, graveyard dirt, railroad spikes."
"Ooh, gee, Phoebe, that sounds cool," Morty said, "I—I remember your crystal collection, but I didn't know it had another purpose besides being a hobby."
Rick gave her an utterly disbelieving look, the arch of his eyebrows giving her a Really? this time instead of her giving one to Jerry. "You know that witchcraft isn't exactly scientific, right, Pheebs?"
Phoebe smirked, her hand coming up to clasp his upper arm. "And yet," she said, stepping closer to him, "you made a machine that detects curses, suggesting that magic, or whatever you want to call it, maybe directed energy, is a measurable and predictable force." She gave Rick a shit-eating grin as he scowled first at her, then at Morty, and finally across the room, eyes locking onto the cursed microscope. "Face it Rick, you just proved magic exists in some form, that it's quantifiable, and that it can be manipulated." She patted the same area of arm she'd been clasping in mock consolation. "Now, about removing the curses…"
Rick's eyes returned to her face. "Fuck it, whatever, let's do this." He smirked. "I have a devil to thwart."
"That sounds sorta dangerous, Rick. Don't you think—don't you think maybe he might take offense to that?"
"I don't give a shit if he takes offense to it, Morty. The Devil can suck my dick," Rick spat.
It was once more Phoebe's turn to give Rick a look. "So curses and magic aren't scientific to you, but you want to get into a pissing contest with The Devil, who apparently exists despite your insistence that gods and magic don't."
Rick shrugged. "I'm not going to out-curse the bastard, I'm going to prove that science is far superior to magic and defeat him with logic."
Phoebe tossed her head, hands going to her hips as she said smugly, "Mmhm, all right, I guess you don't want to hear about using biologically safe, non-toxic counter-curse or curse-breaking materials to counteract the effects of his malevolent magic, then?"
Rick's eyes narrowed at her, then he smirked. "That's just applying scientific principles to magic."
Phoebe smirked right back at him. "I never said we couldn't combine the two. Now, let's get cracking, Rick." She turned to Edana, who had watched the three of them in silence. "There are some things I need you to get from my room, Edana. Morty can show you, but first I need you two to put up the groceries…"
XXX
"I need your help again," Rick said as he returned to the garage. "I want to drive that devil douche out of business."
"Ah, yes, spite is a powerful motivator," she said wisely, setting down her notebook and pen, which she had just used to jot down her ideas about the manipulation of bio-electricity as a means of 'mind control'. Knowing that all brains run on electrical impulses, if one could interrupt, direct, or produce impulses, one could effectively control another individual. She realized it would be a joint project for her and Rick. Rick would see the tech potential and conceptualize what sort of device they would need, and Phoebe would look at it from her angle. Part of her wondered if they should open that, as far as the ethical implications went, can of worms, wondered if they should do something just to see if, or because they knew that, they could.
"Why not let hate and the need to sabotage drive your actions?" Rick leaned his lean body against the shelves, one hip and one shoulder pressed into them.
"Right?" Phoebe got to her feet and slid her hands into her pockets, grinning at Rick. "So, the serum works, huh?" His answering grin told her it had.
"Unfortunately for one evil asshole—" belch "—yes," Rick said in satisfaction, eyes gleaming. He might not be quite happy to swallow the pill about magic existing, but if it helped him crush an enemy, apparently he could learn to live with it—however grudgingly.
"All right, so what now? What's your next step? I mean, what are you going to do, uncurse every cursed object he owns?"
Rick pushed off of the shelves. "I'm going to do you one better than that, Phoebe. We're going to make money while we do it. I want to start a business across the street doing just that."
Phoebe facepalmed. "I was kidding, but if you're determined, I'll help you. It shouldn't be too hard to straighten everything out within a week."
"A week, Phoebe? No, we're doing everything by Saturday."
So they did, few days though that they had. They rented the empty storefront across from Mr. Needful's—as he was calling himself—shop, Needful Things. Phoebe roped Edana into helping them, and soon they had a functioning store, with stations for analyzing and uncursing the objects. In the meantime, they paid for advertising for a commercial about Curse Purge Plus, the business specifically started to fuck with Needful Things and Mr. Needful. As soon as they opened and their commercial aired on Thursday afternoon, their shop was stormed with people coming directly from Needful Things. Friday afternoon, they accomplished Rick's goal of driving the shop out of business.
As Rick worked with a client who brought in a set of cursed boxing gloves, Summer stormed in with a box full of items in her arms and a scowl on her face to rival any Phoebe or Rick ever wore. "Looks like we've got… haunted boxing gloves that will make you the heavyweight champion, in 1936 and then you'll be trapped there winning the same fight for eternity. We can take out the eternity, and the padding, and then you'll have some time travelling mittens," Rick was saying.
Phoebe, who was going over the intake list with Edana to process a new string of items, looked up when Summer slammed the box onto the counter by Rick, who greeted her with, "Oh, look, it's Rosemary's baby! How's business?"
"Here's the last of our inventory. We're going to file chapter 11 and do some restructuring," Summer replied, voice tight.
"Sounds like code for 'You win, Rick!'" Rick gloated.
"That was important to you, wasn't it?" Summer glowered.
"Nope, it was important to your dumb devil friend. To me this was all just a bit like when Bugs Bunny fucks with the opera singer for twenty minutes."
Phoebe snorted in amusement at the thought of Rick emulating the famous, well-loved rabbit trickster, finally drawing Summer's attention to her.
"You think this is funny, too, Aunt Phoebe? He tried to kill himself, you know."
Phoebe tilted her head to the side. "Is that even possible? He's an immortal supernatural entity." Instead of feeling panic over his attempted suicide like she would for any normal, mortal person, she felt only curiosity.
"Yeah, apparently it is," Summer replied waspishly.
"Seriously? Holy crap. Holy crap." Rick sounded delighted, which would be far more disturbing had this been a normal person and not a fallen archangel.
"But you know what, Grandpa Rick and Aunt Phoebe?" Summer cut in, gesturing. "He's strong. And he's never going to give up."
"Yeah, that's kind of his thing," Phoebe commented with an eye roll. "He's HaSatan, 'The Adversary', of course he's a persevering motherfucker."
"Uh huh, yeah, I don't care," Rick commented with a shrug.
Summer's eyes narrowed at Rick, her hands on her hips. Rick mirrored the pose. "Oh, I know." She threw her arms up in the air. "Everyone knows you don't care."
"Summer, that's not entirely fair—" Phoebe started.
"So?" Rick challenged, tossing his hands.
"So… have fun not caring," Summer finished.
"I always do," Rick responded, leaning forward.
"Good."
"Yeah, it is—" belch "—good. It's the best."
"I'm sure it is. Bye." She turned her back on them and walked stiffly toward the doors.
"Later!" Rick called after her, not sounding sorry in the slightest that things had taken the turn they had. Summer left without another comment or a backward glance. A customer came up just then, a ticket in hand. "I'm here to pick up my undead cat and child." Phoebe blinked at him. They really did end up with an odd selection of newly uncursed objects.
"Yeah, uh, gimmee a sec," Rick told him.
"The pickup counter is over there," Phoebe directed the man.
As he left, an employee came up to them, waving a stack of papers at them. "These are the forms for the employee health plan."
"All right, yeah, uh, put 'em on my… eh." At her side, Rick slumped. Phoebe reached for the forms, but Rick stopped her hand with his own. With his other he reached under the counter for a can of gasoline, then dropped her hand. "Phoebe, can you get Edana and then the two of you clear out the register of today's profit?" His requested sounded alarmingly calm, but Phoebe went to fetch their android companion and gather their most recent earnings. Upon her return to his side, she witnessed as he started to pour gasoline on the floor. He then promptly set it on fire, the flames leaping up hungrily. "I just got bored. Everybody out."
"Rick, what the fuck!" Phoebe screeched, horrified. "We could have just closed down!"
Rick threw down the now empty gas can and grabbed her wrist. She grabbed Edana on reflex and Rick led them toward the exit as smoke filled the room.
"That would take too damn long," Rick sneered. "This way is faster, cuts cost and operation time."
"It's also dangerous," Phoebe muttered mutinously.
"But effective," he returned, opening the door and shoving her, and by proxy, Edana, out in front of him. He stepped out without a backward glance to the burning store as former customers rushed out left and right. "Let's get dinner," Rick suggested. "I'm thinking tacos or fajitas?"
Phoebe facepalmed and cradled her forehead in her hand for a moment. "Tell me again how we got here?"
"Accor—" belch "according to you, pack-bonding." From anyone else it would likely translate to 'because we're friends.'
He set off down the street. "I'm buying, just throwing that out there."
Phoebe straightened up with a sigh. "Well, at least I'll get tacos out of this."
XXX
When they got home, Phoebe and Rick each holding a to-go bag, they found Morty waiting for them.
"Um… listen," he started nervously, "Can you help me do this stupid science fair project?"
"Sure," Phoebe smiled at him. "All you had to do was ask."
"Whatever," Rick shrugged.
In the end, Morty decided to take a little robot that Rick apparently built for the sole purpose of passing the butter. Morty seemed to be very done with Jerry for the day and wanted to be alone as soon as possible. He retreated to his room with the robot, relieved to have something to take to the science fair the next day. Phoebe allowed Rick to drag her into the TV room to watch a little interdimensional cable, though first they went into the kitchen to make popcorn and grab some candy. Rick turned the lights off so that it felt a bit more like a movie theater.
"It's a sad day when even Morty abandons me," Rick sighed, settling into the couch. He stretched one arm out along the back of it, letting his hand dangle over the other side of the couch.
Phoebe bumped her shoulder against his, careful not to knock any popcorn out of the large bowl in her hands. "Hey, fucker, watch it. I haven't left you."
Rick, slightly taller than her, smirked down at her as she got comfortable. "I guess you haven't."
"And I won't," Phoebe promised, quite serious. Without looking at him, she added, "You know I care about you, right? You're my best friend."
A flurry of emotions passed over Rick's face before he pulled them all down beneath the surface. "Care about me, huh?" Rick sneered. "You know what I think about those kinds of emotions."
Phoebe glanced up at him and shrugged one shoulder. "It doesn't matter whether you try to break down emotions and experiences to only their biological counterparts, Rick. They're still real. When the human body releases Ghrelin we get hungry. Serotonin deficiency causes depression. Who cares if our lives are based around chemical reactions? The feelings and experiences that accompany them are still real."
She smiled and sidled up close to Rick, offering him some popcorn and clearly ending the discussion. Rick frowned thoughtfully at the top of her head when she wasn't looking, though eventually his eyes returned to the screen. They watched programs in the dark, passing the enormous bowl of popcorn between them without another word being spoken. By the time Summer came home, tear-tracks through her makeup, Ball Fondlers had come on. Summer flipped the light switch, causing Phoebe to flinch and forcing her to quickly close her eyes so that she could adjust to the light without pain. "Fuck," she murmured.
"How's your pretend grandpa doing AKA the devil?" Rick drawled as Phoebe opened her eyes again.
"He dumped me," Summer sniffed. She'd clearly been crying.
"Ooph, sorry," Rick said.
"Sounds rough," Phoebe agreed. She scooted down the couch a little. Rick copied her. Summer shakily made her way over to them and sat down on Rick's other side, wiping at her face. Phoebe plucked the Kleenex box off of the end table and passed it to her.
"Did we learn a lesson here I'm not seeing?" Summer wondered.
"What, 'don't assume you can be pettier than Rick Sanchez?'" Phoebe joked, offering the now half-full bowl of popcorn to her.
Rick elbowed Phoebe gently in revenge. "Hmm, not sure," he replied.
"Maybe in a much bigger way, Mr. Needful gave us both what we really wanted?" Summer ventured plucking a few fluffy pieces of popcorn off of the top of the remaining pile. "Because I was always jealous of you hanging out with Morty and Phoebe, and you didn't realize how much you valued my approval?" She popped the popcorn into her mouth.
"No, that's dumb," Rick objected at the same time that Phoebe said in surprise, "You're jealous of me and Morty?"
"You're right, it's not satisfying," Summer agreed. She glanced at Phoebe. "And yeah. I'm not going to say it twice, though."
Rick's eyes lit up with another idea that could only mean trouble for Mr. Needful. "I'll tell you what though, if it's satisfaction you're after, I think I might have an idea…." Rick leaned over to whisper in Summer's ear. Phoebe strained to hear but didn't catch anything he said to the teen. Summer seemed to be listening intently. "Uh huh…" she said at several intervals, then "Totally? let's do it!"
"Do what?" Phoebe questioned her.
"Oh, just a grandfather-granddaughter thing," Rick waved away the question. "Nothing you need to worry about."
"Hey, Aunt Phoebe," Summer said suddenly. "Mr. Needful says you're a practicing witch. Is that true?"
"Yes." Phoebe nodded for emphasis.
Summer's face split into a grin. "Great! Could you maybe curse Mr. Needful?"
Phoebe considered it. "I could certainly try, though I think it might be more productive to set up wards that specifically keep him from entering the house and to bless you so that you're more successful in your endeavors. Also, cursing the devil sounds like a distinctly bad idea."
"Cool. That's all I wanted," Summer said, sitting back into the couch with a satisfied smirk on her face.
Between herself and Rick, Phoebe was sure that Summer would serve Mr. Needful his own ass on a platter very soon.