"Almost forgot, I still need to take your temperature. Stick it under your tongue and try to not find a way to make this a problem too, please." Morty sighed, handing Rick the thermometer.
"Well, I could *Cough!* *Cough!* say something about how outdated it is – seriously, do we not own a touch free model? Who doesn't these days? Or point out that I have built-in sensors that can detect any changes in my body temperature." Rick said, turning the thermometer over in his hands repeatedly. Noticing the glare that earned him from Morty, he added, "But I mean, even if it's not exactly cutting edge tech, this thing is adequate for the job it's designed to do. And I hate to admit this, but my sensors might not be working at the moment, so…" Without further stalling, he finally put the thermometer in his mouth.
"Let me see." Morty said flatly when it beeped a moment later. Wordlessly, Rick handed the thermometer back to him.
"100° even. That's not great, but I don't think it's too bad, either. Weird question, but your normal temperature is like, the same as anyone else's, right? With all your implants and modifications, it's not super high or low to begin with, is it? I just realized this might not be as useful as I thought." Morty said, studying the thermometer. Rick alternated briefly between looking at Morty and down at his own hands. He hadn't expected that question, much less for it to strike the nerve it had.
"Great. An existential crisis about my humanity is just what I needed right now. And since when do I give a fuck?... Ugh. Stupid fever, stupid cold. I really can't think." he mumbled. Then he realized Morty was staring at him worriedly – what the boy had been able to decipher of Rick's muttering was both concerning, and not an answer to his question.
"In spite of all my modifications, Morty, yes. At the end of the day, for better or worse, I'm still human."
"I wasn't saying you aren't…"
"'Worse' including still being susceptible to bullshit like the common cold. *Sniff!* So yes, you can take the number on that thing at face value. Obviously, there's some variation – some people's baseline is higher or lower than the 'standard' 98.6° Fahrenheit, 37° Celsius. I *COUGH!* normally run low myself, but not to an inhuman degree."
"Okay. That's good. It means your fever isn't that bad. Not like, dangerous or anything. Phew." Morty said, still a little puzzled by Rick's reaction to what he'd thought was a harmless question. No answer from Rick, who was both still lost in thought… and starting to feel the effects of having downed the nearly full medicine bottle, then chasing it with an also nearly full flask.
Finally registering the fact Morty had said… something to him, he mumbled, " *URP!* ever you say, Morty. Uhh, remind me, what did you just say?"
"I said it's a good thing your fever doesn't seem bad, and ummm, you doing okay? You don't look so hot." Morty answered, noticing how unfocused Rick's gaze had become.
Rick struggled to reply. Morty's voice was echoing all around the two of them, but also sounded far away. It didn't help that the walls appeared to be spinning. And melting. It wouldn't have been so bad if it were just one or the other, but the combo was brutal.
"Shit. M-Morty, do the walls look normal to you? I know it's hard to tell since they won't stay still, but…" he slurred, closing his eyes and trying to fight off a wave of dizziness.
"The walls? *SIGH!* Rick, the walls look fine. You, on the other hand, look terrible." Morty replied, realizing exactly what was happening.
"Gee, it'd be great if everyone could stop telling me that! *COUGH!* *COUGH!* I'm sick, okay? Let's see you or Summer win any beauty contests while you feel like you're being suffocated by your own snot." Rick whined, punching the bed and opening his eyes just enough to glare at Morty.
"God, you're a drama queen, Rick. You know what I meant. Or at least, you would if you weren't seeing what, a dozen of me?" Morty said, rolling his eyes.
"Don't give yourself so much credit, Morty! There's only 5, maybe 6 of you at most. Ohhhh. I think, I think I might've made a slight error in judgment with the, with the medicine there, Morty." Rick snapped, forcing his eyes open the rest of the way to get an accurate count of just how many Mortys were lecturing him. That led to instant regret. The sight of 5-6 annoyed, eye-rolling grandsons, combined with the melting, spinning walls, made the dizziness multiple times worse. Rick quickly shut his eyes again and sat stooped over, cradling his head in his hands.
"Gee, you think? Easy, pal. It's okay. You're gonna be okay. You uh, think you need to hurl?" Morty sighed, rubbing Rick's back with one hand and holding a small trash can in front of him with the other.
Rick thought it over once he was able to process the question, finally answering, "N-no. Ugh, maybe. No. I just, just think I need to sit down."
"Rick, you are sitting down." Morty informed him, still holding the trash can firmly in place.
"Really?" Rick, cautiously opening his eyes just a little to check, was clearly surprised by that information.
"Uh-huh."
"In that case, I think *ACHOO!* I need to lie down now. Like, right now. Goodnight, Summer." Rick groaned. With that, he fell forward on the bed, landing flat on his face, and was instantly out like a light.
"Seriously?! I've seen you barely get a buzz from huffing crystals that killed a guy made out of boulders and 10 times your size! Plus, you did twice as much as him, so he might as well have been 20 times bigger than you! I swear, if after everything, you've managed to OD or give yourself permanent brain damage with over-the-counter cold medicine…" Morty yelled, tossing the trash can aside and shaking Rick by the shoulders.
"Come on! It's not even one of the kinds they keep locked up at the pharmacy. It's shit you'd buy next to like, vitamins and deodorant! Pretending to be asleep so you don't get a lecture you deserve isn't funny. And I'm not falling for it, Rick! Rick?" Morty's voice turned timid and a little scared when he realized Rick was still much too quiet and not moving. He was about to call for help, when the loud snoring started.
"Okay. You're sleeping. Sleeping is good. You need to rest, and I could use a rest from, well, you." Morty mumbled, clearly relieved. He let go of Rick's shoulders, causing him to land face down on his bed again.
Morty stood there for a few minutes, observing Rick. He was not a quiet sleeper to begin with, and his snoring was currently much louder than usual due to his congestion. But he seemed to be breathing normally otherwise, so that was good. With minimal effort, Morty rolled Rick onto his left side so he wouldn't choke if he did throw up. He also put the small trashcan in front of him, just in case. He tried fixing the tangled mess of blankets, which was easier said than done, eventually managing to get Rick mostly covered. Since his grandfather had passed out at the wrong end of the bed and the nightstand was by his feet, Morty placed the tissue box next to Rick's head.
Listening to the increasingly loud snoring, Morty took a look around the room to see if there was anything else he could do, anything Rick might need. Nothing jumped out at him, but he saw something Rick definitely would not be needing today -the portal gun. Morty grabbed it tentatively, expecting an alarm to go off, or maybe a robot arm to snatch the gun out of his hand. Nothing happened, and the only sound was still Rick's snoring. Before that could change, Morty hurried out of the room.
Summer was standing in a mile-long line at the Space Wal-Mart just past Neptune.
"Seriously? Why is there only one register open?! This store is like, half the size of this whole planet! Seems like pretty terrible planning to me." she complained. Similar sentiments were being echoed by various alien creatures throughout the line.
"Yep. It's shitty, alright. This place purposely understaffs and overworks its employees to an insane degree, despite the fact it continually breaks its own profit records. It works – barely – when they're 'fully' staffed. But then you get days where they have callouts, one cashier gets eaten by another, everyone else is busy either breaking up brawls or helping at the broken self-checkouts, and well…" Space Beth observed, tapping Summer's shoulder and gesturing to the chaos.
"Mom! What are you doing here? Don't tell me Grandpa had a list of bullshit errands for you to run, too." Summer exclaimed.
"No. Well, I suppose technically yes… Your other mom filled me in on what's happening, so I'm here to help."
"Cool. This list is so long. And boring. And dumb. Clearly Grandpa's had it for ages and has just kept adding more shit to it that he doesn't want to do because this sucks." Summer complained, pulling the notebook from her pocket.
"That sounds like him. So, I hear you won this charming prize by calling him out on his bs and figuring out he has a cold, not the scary sounding alien disease he told you he has." SB commented. She grabbed the notebook from Summer's hand and started flipping through the pages.
"I knew it! Did Home Mom figure it out, too, or get him to come clean after I left? Oh em gee, if it was Dad, Grandpa Rick must be furious!" Summer giggled.
"Actually, he sent her off to work right after you had to leave on this little field trip. She called me to ask what I knew about the terrible illness Dad supposedly has, and…" Space Beth explained with a shrug, adding, "As for Jerry and Morty, there is a very good chance they still believe Dad and are waiting for him to stop sneezing and break out in horns or some dumb shit. But it's fine. The three of them can work all of that out on their own."
"Totes. So, how do you want to divide this thing? Besides everything else lame about it, it's not even in any sort of order. If we go from first page to last, we'll be bouncing back and forth across galaxies for days. I mean, it says 'Return books to First Library of Saturn', followed by 'Hardware store on Gear World for replacement finger screwdrivers', and then 'Martian cell phone store to dispute charges for calls to the Planet of the Apes'. Ugh. It makes no sense." Summer complained.
"Yeah, deciphering this mess could be an all-day project in and of itself. Unless of course, I do this." Space Beth agreed. She put on a visor and pressed a button on the side of it while flipping through the notebook pages. It scanned the incoherent mess that was Rick's list, and a few seconds later, two smaller, neater lists printed from the device on her wrist.
"There. Now that everything that was written multiple times has been filtered out, and we don't have to decipher the scribbles Dad calls handwriting, this is looking much more manageable. So, you wanna handle everything in this solar system, and I'll take care of everything outside it? Looks like a pretty even split." Space Beth said, holding the two lists out to her daughter. Summer grabbed one, along with shoving the original back into her pocket.
"Thanks, Cool Mom. Ugh, this line still isn't moving. Any ideas for making this suck less?"
"Hey, I already cut your lameass chore list in half. I'm not a miracle worker."
"That's fair."
The two of them looked around at the chaos. The line was now out the door and wrapping around the building. Several fights and at least one fire had started.
"Look, I wouldn't normally encourage this sort of behavior, but if a major corporation like this can't show enough concern for either its employees or customers to prevent all this from happening, maybe they deserve to, I don't know, have a shopping cart full of random shit stolen from them?" Space Beth suggested.
Summer looked a little surprised by the idea, so SB continued , "Or maybe… it's very important you get all of this back to your poor sick grandfather on Earth right away, and there's no time to be standing around here."
Seeing that her daughter was intrigued, but still skeptical, she quickly added, "And just think, if you get caught, you'll be banned for life, so Rick can never make you come here again." Those were the magic words.
Already charging for the exit, Summer shouted back, "Half of this is alien junk food, and the rest is stupid crap Grandpa saw commercials for and won't even remember why he wanted. None of it is important at all, but everything else you said is spot on! Now come on, bitch! This was your idea! Run for it!" Space Beth immediately ran after her.
"Yeah! 10 finger discount, assholes! I am outta here!" a large, red alien with 10 digits per hand shouted, picking up his overstuffed cart with one arm while pumping his other fist in the air triumphantly. With that, all the customers who weren't busy fighting each other or vandalizing things ran for the exits.
"No! Wait! Stop! Security! I need Security, NOW!" the sole cashier, a petite, blue-green alien with 3 eyes and long purple hair yelled. She was brandishing a fire extinguisher in each hand, one to actually put out a fire, and the other to club someone trying to sneak up behind her to steal cigarettes.
Three very muscular security guards, similar to the red alien but more orange in color, appeared and proceeded to be no help whatsoever. One grabbed all the candy they could hold -which was quite a bit, considering the large, 10-fingered hands – and made a run for it. The other two looked at each other for a few seconds, then jumped on the conveyor belt and started making out. Another fire started at the next closed register.
"You know what? Fuck it! I'm better than this job, anyway. I quit!" the tired cashier exclaimed, throwing her two fire extinguishers aside. She tossed her apron on top of the making out security guards, and easily picked up a vending machine several times larger than her small body. Then it was her turn to run.
At the exit, Summer paused to smile directly at the security camera, making sure to hold up her driver's license for good measure. Space Beth didn't do all that, but did wave at the camera. And then they were out the door, never to set foot in Space Walmart again.