OK I'm crying. I didn't mean for this to get so emotional, but it did. It so did. I hope you like the quotes at the beginning of each chapter, I spent a long time picking them out. I'm sorry this is sorta late, but I have a lot of hate directed towards me by my family. I think that's why I wrote this chapter so painfully.
"Hurt me with the truth, but never comfort me with a lie."
Unknown
Dying for a Cause
Rick rolled out of bed at seven. Stirred to consciousness by gray sunlight filtering through the curtains. He sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, recalling the events that took place over the past few days.
It had been a week since Rick had returned to Earth. The majority of the time was spent moving his lab into the garage. It was a time consuming task, that would have been made easier if Rick's warehouse had some semblance of organization; important inventions and materials were mixed in with all walks of useless garbage. He had used the Meeseeks box to summon a dozen of the aliens to help sift though the piles, but it still took countless hours to find, discard, and move, all of the worthwhile equipment through the portal.
This week had been one of the most stressful of Rick's life, Morty seemed hellbent on inducing a brain aneurysm through idiotic stunts. The kid had nearly given him multiple heart attacks, he was like a magnet attracting trouble wherever he decided to wonder. A total of three of these incidents had occurred over the span of days. Rick ran a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes shakily.
The first mishap occurred the afternoon after meeting Morty. Rick had opened a portal from the garage to his warehouse, leaving it open so he could move between the dimensions more easily. Morty was left in the dining room with his lunch. Rick's shoes crunched the broken glass that littered the cement floor. The clear and green shards glittering under the synthetic lights.
Rick had spent nearly an hour searching for the Meeseeks box, grumbling curses under his breath. Finally he had found the box under a white tarp, buried beneath what seemed like a ton of junk. He lifted the box from the ground, brushing some dust off of the valuable instrument. He heard some glass brushing across the floor. Rick assumed it was the wind, so he rolled his shoulders and continued his inspection of the device.
As Rick turned around, his shoes crunching some of the powdered glass, his eyes lifted from the box to settle on a horrifying picture. "HOLY SHI – MORTY!" The box fell from Rick's hands as he scrambled forward, it hit the cement with a metallic clang. Rick stumbled over his own feet in haste, barely able to right himself as he sprinted to his grandson. He skidded to a stop, nearly toppling over Morty, and crouched down to snatch him up. Rick secured the boy, holding Morty an arm's length away from his body.
Blood was dripping from Morty's bare feet, a trail of red footprints leading from the bright green portal to about halfway inside of the warehouse. The stupid, stupid boy had blindly entered the portal – not even thinking about where it could lead – to trail after Rick like a lost puppy. He hadn't put on a pair of shoes before starting off on his little exploration, walking right into the sharp glass.
Rick sat Morty down on his desk, the child's eyes were sort of glossy, but he didn't cry. Rick assumed after Morty made it through the portal, he had spotted Rick fiddling with the Meeseeks box. After that, it was obvious that the boy continued on to get to his grandfather. The decision was so stupid, that it hurt. It literally, physically hurt Rick to think about it. Smart my ass, Birdperson must be going senile with age. Rick groaned and took a long swig from a bottle that was sitting next to Morty on his work table.
Rick retrieved the Meeseeks box, and pressed the button twice. A duo appeared in a puff of smoke, with cries of 'I'm Mr. Meeseeks look at me!' Morty gasped, but remained silent after a glare from Rick. "Look, I, I, need you on the riOOUUGHHght," the Meeseek's eyes shined brightly. "To watch my, my asinine grandson while I get bandages. Ya, you on the left," he pointed at the Meeseek. "Cle, clean up this glass and blood. Since some, someone," he narrowed his eyes at Morty. "Can't be trusted to use COMMON SENSE, and put on some goddamned SHOES, before trapeasing into the UNKNOWN."
A joint 'Can do' echoed off of the metal walls, further grating on Rick's nerves.
Forty-five minutes later, the glass shards were all removed and Rick went back to work. The day winding to an end, while Rick thought about how high the kid's pain tolerancy really was.
The second mishap occurred two days after the first. Rick had been working on welding a spaceship together in the garage after breakfast. Morty was sulking in the corner after Rick refused to allow him more food. The kid would make himself sick if he ate too much, but he was too young to understand malnutrition. He simply thought that Rick was being mean for the sake of being nasty.
Rick would openly admit that he wasn't supervising Morty the way he should have been. He should have put any potentially harmful substance on higher shelves like his weapons. But he hadn't thought that Morty would eat from a jar of glowing, green salve. Rick remained blissfully unaware of Morty's immanent danger, until he heard the clinking of glass.
Rick felt the tension in the air before he knew what was going on. He slowly rotated his swivel chair to face Morty, spotting the kid with a jar of ectoeco in his hands; the cap unscrewed and glowing goo covering his face. He flew from the chair and quickly pulled the container from Morty's stunned hands.
Rick's heart was beating out of his chest as he scanned the warning label, desperately wracking his mind for the proper translations. The lettering was a mass of animal footprints organized in various succession. Qwern? No. Tweanarian? No. Maybe a deviation from the Poi language...RITZ! yes it was Ritz. Rick looked down at his grandson whose pupils were blown, leaving only a sliver of coloring.
Damn, damn, damn! What was the use of being a genius, if he couldn't remember languages at the drop of a pin? He finally deciphered the label. It read in emboldened letters: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. Well, he'd already crossed that bridge. SIDE EFFECTS AFTER INGESTION INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO: TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, EYE DIALATION, SEZURES, MUSCLE SPASMS, VOMITING... the list continued for a while, before Rick reached the bottom. ALL SIDE EFFECTS ARE NON-FATAL, AND RECEED WITHIN MINUTES.
Rick jolted when Morty fell to the floor, his body convulsing in a seizure. Fear clawed it's way into his body, but he forced himself to remain calm. He knelt to rest beside his grandson, waiting for the seizure to subside. Within seconds Morty stilled, his eyes cloudy and unfocused. Rick pulled the boy into his arms, standing slowly in case Morty went into more spasms.
Rick briefly thought of going to an inter-galactic hospital, but disregarded the idea as the symptoms were temporary. They only were supposed to last minutes, meaning that the trip would be futile. The ectoeco would be out of his system before a doctor would even catch a glimpse of the boy.
Rick sat in his swivel chair, and rocked Morty in his arms until the salve had finished running it's course.
Morty didn't touch anything in the lab without Rick's permission after that day. The kid learned quick, and he was lucky that his lesson did not kill him. Rick had been ready to slap the boy silly after he regained his sense, but softened at Morty's guilty expression. He had been through enough. He didn't cry or make a sound throughout the entire ordeal.
The final incident was purely on Rick's shoulders, his burden to bear. The previous day, Rick had made them both dinner, carelessly using whole-milk in some instant oatmeal. He was exhausted after another long day of constructing his new lab, watching Morty like a hawk, (because the Meeseeks were too passive for proper babysitters) and building a spaceship out of scraps.
They were sitting at the table and eating in their places, Rick making conversation with his mute grandson. It was all one-sided, but it was nice to talk to someone; even if they barely understood English. Rick believed that Morty would catch on to the language quicker if he was exposed as much as possible.
"Been another long day Morty, sue, soon we'll be abOOUUGHHle to go explorin'. Ya, you'd like that, right Morty?" Rick glanced over at Morty, the boy was eating quietly while swinging his feet back and forth.
"Ya, you know, your my little buddy. We, we're gonna go on soooooooooo maOOUUGHHny adventures Morty. I, Imma gonna show you the universe." Rick made a wide arc with his arms, "We, we're gonna get into all kinds of shenanigans. Ha, have so muOOUUGHHch fun that, you, you'll forget all about your dickwad of a dad. Don't really know how he could make somethin' as great as you though. And I know a lot of things." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, before shrugging it off.
"Well you are Beth's son. Anything she had a hand in creating must have droOOUUGHHwned out Jerry's idiocy. You, you're a good kid Morty. Reeeeeeeeeal good Morty. Beth must have inherited my penchant for being attracted to things that are the opposite of what people refer to as good. I hope it skips ya, your generation Morty. Don't need anymore pain. Already have too much as it is."
Rick just happened to glance over at Morty, the boy as turning a sickly color and clutching at his abdomen. Rick's eyes widened as he realized his mistake. Morty stumbled out of his seat, and ran in the direction of the bathroom. Rick face-palmed as he heard the doorknob slam into the wall, followed by the sound of violent retching.
God was punishing him. Torturing him through all this mushy comforting and mild panic-attacks. This kid's going to to the death of me. Surprising, considering everything else he survived by the skin of his teeth. Botched suicides, wars, imploding planets, black holes, marriage... the list went on and on. Rick groaned as he got up from the table, idly slipping his hands in his pockets as he made his way to the bathroom.
Rick leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed, as he watched Morty empty his stomach. At least he made it to the toilet. Morty finished after a while, curling up on the floor and sobbing. Rick went over to him and rubbed soothing circles in Morty's back until he had cried himself to sleep. Rick had then dropped the boy off in his bed before retreating to his own room to get drunk.
He was dozing in his armchair, sipping from a bottle of hard liquor. He wondered why Morty reacted to vomiting with tears. The boy had walked through glass and had been poisoned, but came out of the ruts like nothing abnormal had happened. Rick had come to learn that the boy had never cried from physical pain, only emotional. What bad memory set the boy off? What had made getting ill so traumatizing?
Morty had a pain tolerancy that rivaled Rick's own; brushing off agony like a bothersome mosquito. This kid took suffering in strides, enduring injuries that would cripple most. He applauded the kid's resiliency, his strength. Morty's emotional stability, was a whole other story. Morty cried when Rick yelled or ignored him or scared him. He cried over trivial things, but didn't bat an eye when a monkey wrench fell and hit him in the head.
It was disturbing. Morty didn't act like a child. He acted like an old man who'd seen too much, who'd felt enough to know what to expect from the universe. Whose mind was so broken from all the trouble he'd seen, who hurt so much, but knew there was nobody who he could tell. Nobody who'd understand what it was like. The things he'd seen, been forced to do, forced to endure. They had made him cynical and bitter towards the world, his intelligence mocking a shattered sense of reasoning. All the emotions and love numbed away. The demons that he hid so well, coming to the surface to torment him.
Was he still talking about Morty? Rick wasn't so sure anymore, so he finished his liquor and went to bed. Another horrible day wasted away.
Rick shook his head, finished reminiscing. He glanced at the alarm clock, it's numbers reading 7:11. Time to get to work. Today was going to be his first outing with Morty. A few concerns floated across his mind as he got up to get dressed. Would this Morty's brainwaves even shield him? Was his mind too broken and fractured to line up correctly with his own? Could this Morty even handle such a trip? Sure, the kid had put on weight and stopped cowering over nothing; but could he survive in a desperate situation?
Rick decided to throw caution to the wind, they had to go. Rick knew that he had to retrieve some flowers from what he considered, a fairly mellow planet. There were no other sentient beings on the planet, so that would keep Morty from folding under the pressure of pushing through crowded streets. The animals were somewhat passive when it came to people, save for the occasional viscous beast.
Well, he'd just have to jump right in and do his best to avoid said beasts. They were running on borrowed time, and Rick had allowed Morty a week of procrastination before the inevitable journey. He'd hoped to let the boy settle down and get accustomed to the freaky things he did, before throwing him headlong into the chaos. Rick had no other choice, he needed to retrieve some flowers from the Qasdef Galaxy to power the hovering systems installed in his new ship. He needed the ship in the event that he lost charge on his portal gun, and to move out of Jerry's house if things went haywire.
Rick shoved his window open, a light, warm breeze filling the curtains, swaying them peacefully. The sun was beginning to faze through the clouds, fog lifting from the damp roads. He had missed these mornings when he abandoned Earth, but hadn't had the time to reflect on his sabbatical while he was away. He wouldn't realize how much he took simple scenery foregranted, until he looked up at the night sky on his first night back, and watched the dew drip from long blades of grass in the mornings. There was so much he missed, but reversing time wouldn't fix things. It was a band-aid, that covered up failure. After slipping his coat on, he took a sip from his flask.
Rick made his way to the kitchen to make breakfast, wondering what he was going to do about food. For the time being they were good in the shelter aspect, but he wasn't so sure how long that would last. He assumed that Jerry was paying the bills, mortgage, and avoiding outright eviction by police force because he was bribing Rick to keep silent about what happened to Morty.
Rick had every intention of making Jerry suffer, but for now he had to wait. Patience was a virtue, right? Rick did not have a suitable place to live right now, and he couldn't subject Morty to anymore misery. The warehouse he was living in didn't even have basic necessities, every time he needed food he had to go to the Counsel, and all they had to offer was unhealthy fast-food or alcoholic products. It was constantly cold and wet, the only source of heat was his small space heater. It was no place to raise a child.
He would find housing on another world soon, but for now his hands were tied. Rick pulled a box of oatmeal from the cabinet, and some bacon from the fridge. For the past week he and Morty had been living off oatmeal, rice, potatoes, and a pound of bacon. Today was their final day of rations, and Rick had to figure out what to do.
Rick had no Earth currency, and there was no exchange for his off-world money. After he got his ship running, they may have to go shopping at a Federation market, where there was a chance someone could recognize him as a terrorist. He would see what happened over the next twenty-four hours. He heated the oatmeal in a pot, making sure to use water this time. The bacon sizzled in the hot pan, a fantastic aroma wafting through the house.
Rick scooped the bacon from the pan with a spatula, dropping it on a plate. He turned the stove on low to keep the oatmeal warm, while he went to wake his grandson.
A big thanks to Ginger Ally for the meseeks idea. Like and review for more! If you have anything you want me to add to the story, send me you idea! they're all welcome! Happy (Late) Halloween!