AN: A bit of fluff, flirting, and banter during some down time rather than a life or death situation; some thirsty/NSFW thoughts from Rick.

That's right, another Rick chapter, whoop!

…

After The Party, As Time Stands Still

Rick expected exhaustion. He expected sore muscles and aching joints. He expected a throat dryer than the Sahara. He expected a magnificent migraine, nausea, chills. He expected to wake up on the cold, hard floor, collapsed on the ground, or dumped on the couch. He did not expect to wake up nearly pain free, sans headache, soreness, or aches, tucked under something warm and nestled into something soft. He did not expect to feel a soft, warm hand holding his own.

He opened his eyes slowly to spare himself the misfortune of being stabbed in the eyeballs with light only to find the room he laid in dark. As his eyes adjusted, he realized he was in his own bedroom and not the hallway or living room, familiar papers pinned to the grey walls. Someone had laid him on his bed and placed a spare blanket over him. Part of him absentmindedly noted that it was the ugly one with the duck on it. He turned his head to the side and immediately noticed that the person holding his hand, who happened to be Phoebe, was sitting in a bean-bag chair next to his bed, a little slumped over from falling asleep. She had another blanket from the hall closet tucked around her, a pillow supporting her shoulders and neck, and seemed to be in her own pajamas. Her hair was wrapped up for down time. He had no idea how long she'd been there, nor did he understand why she was until he flexed his hand in hers.

He looked down at his hand with a frown, noticing that someone had inserted a port into the back of it. His eyes followed the tubing to the side and up to catch sight of an IV bag set to slow-drip hanging from an IV pole. He narrowed his eyes, slowly tracing them over the tubing in reverse until he reached his own hand again, which stood out like a splash of snow against the sunshine yellow of the blanket and almost sepia tone of Phoebe's hand, which looked as if it were sculpted from dark, polished amber: smooth, warm-toned, rich. Had she done this?

His hand flexed again, more noticeably this time, then squeezed hers and intertwined their fingers. The small movement seemed to wake her. Her eyes opened, the haze of sleep retreated, and she seemed almost instantly alert, her other hand briefly tightening on a dagger laying across her lap as she assessed the room for threats with a wary, darting gaze. When she found none, her eyes focused in on their hands, where his thumb started tracing a lazy line along the underside of her wrist, then on his face. She smiled at him, and it lit up her whole face, her eyes shining. It also made something twist and turn and burn in his chest. Rick ignored it in favor of giving her his attention.

"Whose idea was it to hook me up to an IV?"

Phoebe smirked, and damn, just damn. How did she not know? How did none of them know?

Instead of answering, she decided to tease him. "I take it that you slept well, then, if you feel well enough to be an ass."

Rick scowled, but he knew that they both knew he didn't put any heart into it. "Yeah, because you're always such a ray of sunshine," he sneered.

Phoebe snorted. "Go fuck yourself." From Phoebe, it sounded familiar and fond. She stretched and sat forward, laying the dagger on his bookstand. She set her elbow on the bed next to him and propped her head up with her arm, hand under her chin. She wrinkled her nose playfully. "You were having a pretty rough time—actually, who am I kidding, you looked like death warmed over, so I thought I'd help alleviate your idiocy-induced illness."

"Wow, honey, you say the sweetest things," Rick drawled sarcastically.

Phoebe continued without responding to that remark. "I set you up with a combination electrolyte replacement, anti-nausea, and pain-relief solution."

Rick thought with rather vicious glee about how all the 'poor Phoebe-less bastards,' as he called the Ricks without Phoebes in their lives, must be waking up in their own timelines—the ones who also partied, anyway. Must be a hell of a thing to not have her and to have to crawl out of the dark, anguished pit that was coming down from a high and having a hangover at the same time. Well, and waking up at all.

"Thank fuck for that." He groaned, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment. "What would I do without you?" What would he do without her, now that he'd known her.

"I don't know, perish?" She got up with another stretch, her spine arching like a cat after a nap. The blanket fell off of her body into a messy lump on the floor, revealing a pair of forest green pajama shorts with a matching short-sleeved shirt. She leaned over him, concern clear on her face. He could usually catch a faint whiff of her scent, a swirl of skin and hair creams, oil, and her body-wash mixed with her biochemistry, but that close it washed over him.

She smelled...different. There was still the soft scent of sweet almond oil and hair cream mixed with something inherently her, but something else was off that he couldn't quite put his finger on yet. It was…familiar…but out still out of place. His eyes narrowed imperceptibly. If he didn't know any better, he'd say she'd used his body-wash instead of her own, and foregone her routine moisturizing. The scent of her skin, unmasked of its usual cover, and his soap mingling together sent a thrill through him. He could feel his heart start to beat faster at the thought, which wouldn't have mattered if he didn't feel her fingers wrapping around his wrist at the pulse-point to measure his bpm.

He tried to appear nonchalant, working to calm himself so he could continue to appear casual and avoid making his heartrate go even faster. After a few seconds or so of her fingertips pressing into the underside of his wrist this way and that, she frowned, removing her fingers from his skin and instead pressed them ever so gently into the pulse-point at his throat. "I couldn't find it," she explained. Rick forced himself to lie still, stifling another thrill of arousal as Phoebe counted just under her breath, all the while peering at him for any damage. He decided that her hand on his throat was everything.

"Your heartbeat feels strong, if a little fast," she murmured after a minute or so had passed. Her hand mercifully—mercifully, because he needed to stay calm, damnit— left his throat and settled on his forehead. "You feel like you're a normal temperature, but I can't be sure without measuring it." She sat carefully on the edge of his narrow bed, her body turned toward him. Totally deadpan, she added, "I'm sure you're fine. Knowing how much abuse your body's probably seen, I don't think whatever you did will kill you anytime soon." Her hand flexed against his forehead. "May I…?"

He wasn't sure what she wanted permission for, but he knew she wouldn't try and kill him. "Knock yourself out."

She slipped her fingers into his hair, slowly combing them through to the end. She then repeated the motion, massaging as she got to his scalp. Rick felt his eyes slide closed in contentment, found himself relaxing more and more into the bed. As jaded as he was, he was still touch-starved, and it was Phoebe touching him. If he were anyone else, he would be openly melting.

"So what did you take?"

Rick's eyelids cracked open. "Doesn't matter," he grunted. He really didn't want to talk about the why or what he'd seen the night before in his dreams. He'd taken it with the hopes of lowering his inhibitions, not of bleeding old wounds.

Phoebe pursed her lips in worried irritation. "Right, that's why you were such a mess, because it doesn't matter."

Rick shrugged, somewhat amused as he drawled, "Cute, the person who gifted me Peyote is worried about me taking a little Blue Fire."

The hand holding his let go, going up to cover the upper part of her face, her fingers sliding over the edge of her scarf. "Damnit, Rick, do I look like I'm being fucking cute with you?" Phoebe muttered, exasperated, "I know it may come as a surprise, but I actually give a damn, you ass."

Rick smirked. "I know."

Phoebe's hand dropped away to reveal a half-hearted glare. "I know you weren't in actual danger, but would it kill you not to exhaust and dehydrate yourself? If I didn't give you this miracle bag you'd be miserable all day."

"Eh," Rick shrugged. He was used to pain, after all. What was a little more?

Phoebe sighed, her other hand still in his hair. The warmth and pressure against his head felt comforting in and of itself. Softly, she said, "Pain isn't the only way to exist, you know. There can be more to life than pain and covering up pain." Rick felt exposed when she looked at him then, so he turned his head toward the wall. As much as he usually had an iron-clad control over schooling his features, he didn't completely trust himself at the moment.

Rick fell back on a lesson he'd learned thoroughly through experience, through seeing the universe chew people up and spit them out in its often senseless cruelty. "Pain is just a fact of life, Pheebs. Nothing can change that."

A single knuckle ghosted over his cheek comfortingly. "I know, but I'm saying that it isn't all there is—or at least, that it doesn't have to be."

Rick chuckled humorlessly. "Right, try telling that to someone with some horrible, incurable disease and see how they feel about it."

Her knuckle didn't falter, gliding down over his jaw then up over the ridge above his eye. "You think their lives aren't just as full and meaningful as yours or mine?"

"I think everything means nothing, in the end."

"Oh?"

There was something in her voice. Did she want to matter to him the way he craved mattering to her? No matter how much he didn't want to show weakness, he couldn't let her think she didn't matter to him. Rick reluctantly turned his face to her again. Given access, her trailing knuckle traced slowly over his lips, which involuntarily parted slightly at the touch. Damn. He'd have to work on that.

"Do you know what I really think, Rick?" She leaned into him, her lips just brushing the shell of his ear, her warmth suddenly so very close. He could reach out and run his hand down her side, if he really wanted to. If he turned his head just a few centimeters he'd probably be close enough to press his face into her breasts, and as it was the collar of her shirt was gaping a bit, allowing a view of cleavage. As those observations registered, Rick nearly stopped breathing. What he wouldn't give to be able to pull her on top of him just then, or to slip his hand underneath her shirt. "I think you have to believe nothing matters because otherwise everything matters too much."

Gods. How much did she see and not let on at the time?

"Or maybe, Phoebe, I think nothing matters because there are infinite timelines and infinite iterations of any given thing."

Phoebe rose from her position, eyes sparkling with passion in the way that meant she was going to challenge whatever assertion he'd just made. This close Rick could see that her brown irises had dark hazel flecks in them. She uncurled her fingers, letting the tips drift over his cheek. "Infinite iterations means infinite possibilities. It means infinite trajectories, infinite outcomes. It means that nothing is a given, that new variables enter into the equation, that everything isn't predictable down to the letter, and therefore that every detail matters."

As she finished speaking, her palm curved into his jawline. Rick changed course. "Pain is still a constant. Everyone lies, everyone screws up, everyone will disappoint you at some point, and pain is inevitable." And inescapable.

A cheeky energy sparked in her. "Oh? You've expanded your list of constants now, have you?"

Rick scowled, though no heat or animosity lay behind it. "It was always on the list, Phoebe."

Phoebe snorted. "Well excuse the fuck out of me, then."

"There aren't enough excuses in the history of excuses." Instead of thinking of something cleverer he was still internally completely absorbed in her, staring at the unmarred expanse of her throat, at the curve of her lips, at the ridge of her collarbones. He wanted to measure the distance between them with his lips, to drop a few kisses between her eyes.

Her forehead wrinkled in a frown. "Rick?" Phoebe ventured. "You have that...look...again."

Rick immediately became more guarded. "What look?"

"The same one from the party last night. Like you're going to, I don't know, eat me or something."

Rick smirked. "That could be arranged." He paused, then amended his statement with, "If you'd like, that is."

Phoebe blinked, hand going to lightly pushed at his shoulder. "Wow, you really are shameless aren't you?"

Smirk still in place, Rick carefully raised one hand—the one not connected to the IV—to tentatively caress her jaw. "You know it."

Phoebe sighed dramatically, complete with an arm thrown over her forehead. "The ways I've suffered to discover this."

Rick braced both hands at his sides and carefully sat up. "Right, suffering, that's what they call experiencing things beyond your wildest dreams." He was pleased to note that Phoebe didn't immediately scoot away from him or get up to leave.

Instead, she dropped her arm from her pose and gave him an amused, fond look. "Humility has never been your thing, has it?"

Rick shrugged, unable to look away from her. Her lips looked as soft as they'd felt the night before—or had it been the night before? How long had he been down? How long had she been waiting? "Never saw a use for it."

Phoebe snickered. "I can tell." She planted her hands onto the bed on either side of her, one of her hands just brushing his.

"It can be an important quality," he drawled, seeing surprise bloom on her face. "Especially if you're wrong a lot," he finished, eliciting an exasperated groan from her as the surprise dissipated. "Of course, when you're right, self-doubt doesn't help anybody, does it?"

"I guess not." She bit her lip and looked into her lap as if she were trying not to laugh.

Rick took to opportunity to slowly edged his hand the rest of the way over and laid it over top of hers. "So...about last night."

The laughter evaporated, the earlier banter and teasing forgotten as Phoebe's face grew more serious, though not unhappy. "Yes?"

"Are we gonna talk about it? You—you said you didn't want to pretend it didn't happen. Well, here's me not pretending." It had taken everything not to make the first move the night before, or when he first suspected she might be interested in him in the same way. Rick wouldn't mind them skipping the discussion and getting straight to the very naked resolution, but he wanted to get it right. He had to get it right. He knew that as much as he spouted off about the Multiverse, and as much as he generally wouldn't give a damn, he had no room for error. As far as anything having to do with Phoebe was concerned, he wouldn't get infinite chances, and he sure as hell couldn't bring himself to alter her memories as an alternative.

Phoebes were different. The ones that bonded to their Ricks bonded to their Rick and only their Rick. They generally wouldn't pick another if something happened to or with theirs, even if that something was death. Council Phoebe was a shining example, and for the most part they were all the same in that one regard without fail—determined not to treat Ricks as interchangeable, expendable, replaceable. As ruthless as they could be in defending their Rick or their Morty, that was also their weakness.

He had been reluctant to check and see if his dimension had a living Phoebe, worried the answer would be in the negative, or worse, that she had already died, or she lived, but would grow to hate him. He still clearly remembered Rick K-11's downward spiral when he looked for his version of Phoebe only to find out she'd been killed when she was twelve years old by a drunk driver, and S-29's eyes after he met his and she wanted nothing to do with him. Not all Ricks were lucky, even if their timeline had a version of Phoebe in it.

Phoebe gave their overlapping hands a curious look, then abruptly got to her feet. "Pause," she said, "hold that thought." At first braced for second-thoughts and rejection, Rick quietly watched as she closed off the tubing, unhooked the over half-way empty bag, and disconnected the tubing from him. With a murmur about coming right back, she left the room with both, no doubt to dispose of them. A minute or so passed after her footsteps faded away, then the sound of running water reached his ears and she returned shortly afterward wearing gloves and carrying sterile gauze and medical tape. Before he knew it, she'd removed the IV catheter and he had clean gauze taped to the back of his hand over the place where the IV had been.

Slightly thrown off by her actions, Rick drawled, "Did you really have to do that now, Phoebe. I'm trying to—I'm trying to open up, here."

Phoebe sat down next to him, this time much closer than when she had gotten up minutes before, with a smug look on her face. "Sorry, I just didn't want it to get in the way and get yanked out when I did this." She didn't give Rick time to speculate on her actions, as she'd immediately followed up her words with more action. She had one open hand pointing upward as it lay flat on his back, with her left arm wound around his side. She had the other hand on his head, her fingers worked carefully back into his hair.

Rick forced himself to be still a few more moments as she touched their foreheads together, their noses grazing each other and her eyes searching his. He was sure he looked exactly as she said he had earlier and the night before. He certainly felt as he had then, when his emotions had shown through despite his attempts to keep them in check. He usually felt similar during those times when their hands brushed, or that one memorable time when she'd embraced him after their near-death experience at the hands of the alternate Rick, but when she first kissed him it had become all consuming, a spark that rippled into an inferno. Rick didn't do mushy, but still, mixed in amongst the yearning and the lust, the sentimental side of his nature got the best of him and he felt himself warm with affection for her, for Phoebe.

A few things happened in quick succession: a small, satisfied grin flickered on her lips; an answering warmth and fondness bloomed in her eyes; she bowed forward into him, her mouth connecting with his; and then she was kissing him again and he was slowly dying in the best possible way. He knew that without the now-tenuous grip on his emotions and on his every impulse to move that he would be trembling, would be moving too fast. He allowed himself to meet her half-way, to match each press of her lips, to cradle her cheek as if it were a newborn and to clutch her shoulder as if it were made of fine china. The kiss lasted an eternity, and it lasted less than half a second. It seemed to go on forever, an infinite moment, until Phoebe gently disengaged from it. Then it became blatantly obvious that it hadn't lasted nearly long enough. She nuzzled his cheek with hers, keeping him close.

"Fuck," Rick exhaled in a shaky breath before he could stop the word tumbling from his lips. He thought he quite possibly looked insane now, as wild with need and alive with feeling as he felt. A large part of him didn't care. Who else would know but Phoebe? It was their moment, untainted by the bluster and idiocy of the outside world, especially now that they'd frozen time.

Phoebe laughed softly, sounding breathy herself. "I realize that wasn't exactly 'talking about it', but I really, really wanted to do that again." She studied him quietly for a moment. "Should we do...I don't know, pros and cons?"

Rick could tell she was only half-serious about starting the discussion that way, but reasoned that she needed to lighten the mood. He arched an eyebrow. "Cons? What possible cons could there be?"

"Yeah, you know, like...you're an ass, you snore, you drink all the OJ…"

As much bravado as Rick displayed, Phoebe could have crushed him then and there depending on what she said. He felt something in him relax marginally. He snorted softly. "Yeah, maybe if I'm auditioning to be your roommate."

Phoebe rolled her eyes. "They're just examples. Well, the last two are. You clearly actually are an ass, but I think I can overlook that since I'm kind of a dick myself given the right set of circumstances."

Deadpan, Rick remarked, "And don't forget selfish."

Phoebe scoffed, immediately countering. "And you're not?"

Rick continued, still deadpan. "Not nearly as much."

Her reply dripped with sarcasm. "Right, and I'm Mary-Fucking-Poppins." She tipped her head and caught his lips again, and he could only hope she missed his hitched breath slipping out, could only hope it would be swallowed in the kiss. She lightly bit his bottom lip, then let him go again. "Can we get back to the issue at hand? Pros and cons." If she was going to keep kissing him that way for misbehavior, maybe he should stall?

Rick shrugged. "Eh. I still don't see any. What reason could you possibly have for not living with me? In case you haven't noticed, you already kind of do."

Phoebe made an amused sound in her throat. "Fine, we'll come back to it. What we should talk about is what this means and where we want it to go like responsible adults rather than jumping in with both feet and thinking about it later."

Rick made a show of very deliberately catching her eye. "It means what you want it to mean. We'll take it—we'll take it wherever you want." Did he mean that?

He realized he did, despite his lack of faith in the existence of love outside of a chemical cocktail occurring in the brain. Phoebe was the type of person who might want to go there, who might very well already be on her way there—to love, that is. No matter his personal thoughts on love, he wanted Phoebe, wanted to be with her for anything and everything. Sure, he wanted to be inside of her, but he also wanted to wake up with her in his arms, to sleep in and eat pancakes with her on a lazy morning, to have her next to him working in the garage on their next project or going on adventures, to hear her sleepy voice whisper his name with affection before she nodded off for the night. He wanted to smell the soft skin of her sepia neck, to hold her to his chest and not let go unless she asked him to, to run a hand through her hair, to go out with their friends for drinks hand in hand, to suck on her nipples, to slide between her thighs and taste her. He wanted her in every aspect of his life, to have her by his side, but he also wanted her, darkly, wholly.

Rick dipped his head at an angle, lightly brushing parted lips along her jawline and pleased to hear an almost inaudible gasp when he dipped just below it to plant a soft kiss on her throat. Her voice was...rough, he supposed he would call it, when she spoke. "What do you expect out of this, Rick? How do you see it ending?"

"I don't," he murmured, taking a chance and licking her neck in the spot he'd just kissed. "I don't see it ending unless you want it to. I want—I just want…"

He knew he would start babbling if he elaborated, so he stopped, his mouth snapping shut. He was being stupid: emotional, vulnerable, reckless in an entirely different way than when he took the Blue Fire, drove his liver into overdrive with his drinking, barely crawled from situations by the skin of his teeth. He had ridiculed others for feeling too much, investing too much, and yet here he was. He was a Rick, goddamnit. He was the Rick, for fuck's sake….

Nothing anyone said or did mattered...until it did. It mattered when his alternate self bruised Phoebe's knees, and it mattered when her fingers brushed his while they worked in the garage. It mattered when she held his hand at their own funeral; when they made scrambled eggs and toast in the kitchen; when she stood up to Jerry, her own brother, for her right to spend time with him; when one of the military Ricks from the Citadel twisted her arm and nearly broke it. It mattered that she'd washed her body with his soap, a mental image that nearly made him moan; that she'd cared for him throughout the night, going so far as to sit a vigil at his bedside; that she sat on his bed still looking at him with those eyes of hers, like two bottomless umber wells. Somehow everything that happened with her mattered even when nothing else did—that it would even if there were infinite versions of her spread across the Multiverse.

How could Phoebe not know how she made him feel? How any Phoebe made many a Rick feel? How could he feel this way, believing what he did about the universe, about life; how could he after what happened with Máte? He was the guy who always saw the big picture, so what was he doing now?

He knew even the idea of love made people stupid. He'd watched it time and again as it seemed to erode all reserves of common sense and self-preservation in the most ruthless or intelligent of people. His own daughter and her affection for the bumbling idiot Jerry came to mind as a prime example. Surely she loved him at one point, or thought she had, to end up mired in their pathetic, failing marriage, unplanned pregnancy or no.

Attachment and affection were no better. They compromised you in their own ways, made you do idiotic things you never would have considered otherwise. And yet. And yet. God, how he wanted her—in his life, in his arms, in his bed. He was already in deep enough that if she went back on her earlier words and decided they were better off leaving things at a last kiss and never speaking of it again, it would punch a hole in his chest.

He'd deal, of course. He wouldn't rage at her, he wouldn't insist otherwise, he wouldn't turn violent or make a nuisance of himself or curse her. He'd mercilessly hack apart his hurt feelings, swallow that bitter pill, and suffer in silence until his liver turned into vodka and his eyes didn't revert from being bloodshot any longer. Things would go back to normal, mostly, except he would smother his desires, his hopes, if he were honest with himself, to avoid making her uncomfortable or driving her away. He would rather stifle his feelings and keep her close than push them and lose her completely. He couldn't lose her. He'd already lost so much.

God, he was done for—no wonder some of those other Ricks who lost their Phoebe looked so dazed, so hollow, so haunted. Phoebes took up a lot of space in their lives. With their Phoebe gone, there would be such an aching void with nothing to fill it. Not that they didn't already have a void from Máte, from everything else that fueled their self-loathing.

"Oh…." Rick refocused on her to see satisfaction in her features. She chuckled nervously. "And here I was worrying you'd reject me or refuse to acknowledge your feelings."

Maybe it was the Blue Fire still lingering in his system, or maybe it was his own traitorous feelings getting the better of him, but Rick found himself unable to hold his tongue. He stared at her in disbelief as words tumbled from his lips unbidden. "You've got to be joking. Do—do you—do you know how long I've wanted you?" Internally he cringed. He'd let her know more in that little slip than he meant to expose.

Phoebe's eyes sparked with emotion. "No idea." The hand in his hair slowly slid down his body: over the side of his head, over his jawline and neck, over his collarbone, coming to rest on his chest. Rick hesitantly let the hand on her shoulder travel down her arm, fingertips just grazing the side of her breast. He watched her eyes darken with desire, though she refrained from outwardly reacting. "But we can't just—"

"Can't we?" Looking for any sign or protest, he let his fingertips graze her again as he drew his hand back to her shoulder. He was rewarded with the slightest indication of arousal, its shape clear through the fabric of her shirt. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. If he let his mind run away with that thought, he'd be hard before he knew it. He carefully detached himself from it to avoid that—at least for the moment.

"We don't—we don't have a clear idea of where this is going yet."

"I—I told you. Wherever you want it to, let's just start going there."

Phoebe worried her bottom lip with her front teeth in contemplation. "You said you're going to follow my lead, that you'll go along with what I want, but there has to be more to it than that."

Rick's mouth set in a firm line. "No, not really."

Phoebe sighed, then lightly pushed against his chest where her hand lay. While there was no real force behind it, Rick, understanding, still went backward. Phoebe followed him down, lying beside him with her back to the edge of the bed and one arm propping up her head. There wasn't much room, so their bodies brushed up against each other. Rick felt his heartbeat quicken again. Was this it? She tenderly touched his face with one hand, her words coming out in a whisper. "I just think that before we do something we can't take back that we should at least give ourselves a moment to think."

"I thought we had?"

Phoebe touched her forehead to his again, burying her hand in his hair. He traced around her lips with his index finger. She turned her face into his hand and pressed a kiss into it. "I just want us to be able to look back and have no regrets about whatever this is."

"No regrets, huh?" He closed his eyes. "I think I can manage that…" He angled his head so that he could find her lips. Phoebe had stolen so many from him; he wanted one of his own. Unable to see, he missed her mouth, but kissed across her face until he found it.

As his lips met hers one final time, the door burst open, banging into the wall. Morty and Summer's arguing voices reached their ears.

"Summer, you didn't see him pass out! We shouldn't bother him!" Morty was saying. "Phoebe'll tell us when he's feeling better!"

"And I think we should check and make sure that the only person who knows how to restart time in our world isn't in a coma!"

Rick's eyes snapped open and he glared over at them at the same moment that they froze in the doorway.

Shock showed on both their faces.

Summer's mouth hung open for a moment. "Oh. My. GOD. Aunt Phoebe? What—?"

Morty's eyes couldn't get wider. "Phoebe? Rick? What—what are you doing?"

"What's it look like, genius?" Rick snapped.

"It looks like you were making out," Summer deadpanned.

At his side, Phoebe spoke up. "Making out implies feeling each other up—and tongue, maybe some partial nudity. There was none."

Morty flapped his hands. "But you were—y-y-you were kissing! You were kissing each other!"

"Yes," Phoebe agreed patiently.

"Obviously," Rick sneered, annoyed.

"On his bed," Morty continued.

"Yeah, Morty, sometimes kissing happens in bedrooms. I'm sure some of it led to you being born, now get out," Rick drawled.

Morty threw his hands into the air, waving them erratically, not unlike Rick. "Eww, Rick, that's disgusting! Why would you say that? Now I can't unsee it!"

Rick shrugged. "Don't think about it."

Summer crossed her arms. "Okay, but what does this, like, mean?"

"That's what we're trying to sort out," Phoebe told her.

"Okay, well, next time can you hang a sock on the door or something? There's not enough mental bleach to erase seeing my grandpa and my aunt making out."

Morty gave his sister a horrified look. "Summer! How can you be so okay with this?"

Summer shrugged. "They're adults and they're not related to each other by blood. It's weird, but what's not weird about this family? I mean, I'm sure the three of you have seen and done weirder on your adventures." Summer paused, then winced. "That last part came out wrong."

Morty's mouth opened and closed repeatedly like a fish out of water. It would have been amusing if he weren't inconveniencing them by interrupting their...whatever they were doing.

Rick waved his hand impatiently. "We all know what you meant, S-summer. Now get the hell out."

Summer crosses her arms. "What about cleaning? I can't blog or text or watch dumb YouTube videos with everything frozen, and I'm getting super bored."

Phoebe sighed, her exhaled air rushing against his neck. She sat up and gave him a look of, well, what can you do. "She has a point, Rick. We can't keep the world frozen indefinitely."

She sighed again and ran a hand over her wrapped head. "I'll start spawning more Mr. Meeseeks, and you two tell them what crap you still need done that you don't want to do yourselves. They've already had a head-start getting the dishes, spills, and trash. Let's see what else needs to be done." She swung her legs over the side of the bed and got to her feet.

Rick sat up reluctantly. He shot a sour expression at Summer, who shrugged indifferently, and Morty, who wouldn't look at him. "You two are real killjoys, you know that?"

Summer gave him a falsely sweet smile, her words just as sugary. "We wouldn't be your family if we weren't."

Rick flipped them off as Phoebe retrieved the Meeseeks box and handed it to Summer. The teen accepted it without fuss and grabbed Morty's arm. "Come on, Morty. Let's give these two some space." She dragged her protesting brother from the room, much to Phoebe's apparent amusement, if her entertained expression was anything to go by.

Phoebe's hand descended on his lower arm. "We should help them."

Rick glowered as he got up to join her, muttering all the while about 'pain in the ass grandkids'.

Phoebe nudged him playfully. "Hey, don't get bent out of shape. We have all the time in the world."

Rick groaned. "Really, time puns? I'm too sober for this shit."

Phoebe grinned mischievously, barely able to keep a straight face over what she said next. "Guess it's—guess it's a bad time?" She waggled her eyebrows comically.

Rick rolled his eyes, a reluctant but fond smile forming on his lips. "Those puns are a crime. Y-you owe me for—for subjecting me to cruel and unusual punishment."

Phoebe slung her arm around him. "You're just a little upset that they killed the mood." She shook her head in false commiseration. "It's reality moments like these that time stands still."

Rick huffed as he slipped out of the partial embrace, going across the room to grab a fresh sweater, fresh underwear, fresh trousers, and fresh socks. "I'll be out after my shower. Cleaning without Meeseeks help has to be less tortuous than listening to you make another time joke." It was clear to anyone that could hear him that he was teasing. Mostly.

Phoebe snickered to herself. "All right, I'll just—" she paused dramatically after gathering up her things— "give you some alone time." She grinned cheekily then stuck her tongue out at Rick, summoned a portal (presumably directly into her room), and stepped through, all the while ignoring him as he flipped her off.

…

Yes, in one piece of dialogue I may have borrowed a few lines from Dr. Gregory House, but it was totally a Rick thing to say.