"Run!" Rick said as the parasite Ryder jumped on me, and the rest piled on him.

I tried to banish the other me with my TK only for it to copy me, slamming me against the metal wall with a painfully crash.

"Morty, do it! Hit the button now!"

"I can't do it, Rick! They're my parents, sister and uncle!"

"Morty, I already told you it's not your family!"

"They're not us!" I agreed, as the Ryder tried to stab me in the neck, dropping back as I grabbed a hold of him, I flipped over the possessed Ryder with a boot to his stomach.

"They're clones from an alternate reality, possessed by demonic alien spirits from another dimension's future!" Rick roared as he was still struggling against the possessed version of our family, he could've easily killed them but he really wanted the spirits so he was willing to scar Morty to get them, "Do you need a mnemonic device or something?"

I shanked the Ryder, killing him and confirming Rick just wanted the spirits as he sent me a glare when I dropped the body, rushing over I slammed the button down as the Beth approached Morty proclaiming her love for him.

"Oh my god!"

Rick ignored Morty as he grabbed the containment device that now possessed the spirits, "Good job Ry. You know, these demonic alien spirits are really valuable." He then opened a portal back to the garage.

Morty then pressed himself to the corner of the garage and puked his guts out, "You okay, Morty? I told you not to trust that tuna."

"I just watched my family die, of coure I'm not okay!"

"I don't know, Morty. That's a pretty cathartic exercise, and plus its not like you did the deed, you don't see Ryder bitchin'."

I raised a hand up, "Hey, hey, don't speak for me, killing you or me, I'm down for it, killing versions of Beth or the kids is something I want to avoid."

"What about dad?"

"What about Jerry?" I asked much to Rick's amusement.

"Don't be a pussy Morty," Rick said with a chuckle.

"You know what, Rick? That's it!" Morty shouted with a huff, "I'm done with these insane adventures!"

Really? Its still going down this road. I suppose I should just throw a wrench in the plans but then again, it'd be good for Rick and Morty if the little guy some say in the adventures we went on. Ah well I'll stop it when it goes too far.

"That was really traumatizing! I quit! I'm out!" Morty stood his ground.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Rick seemed alarmed, either the lack of a Morty shield, the fact he thinks Prime will come knocking for his Morty, or the genuine enjoyment of Morty's presence was at risk of leaving… nah it was just a toss up between the first two. Rick was a dick who only liked himself, and even than there were days his self-loathing was intense, "Come on, Morty, don't be like that. The universe is a crazy, chaotic place."

"You're the one that's crazy and chaotic!"

"He's not wrong." Rick sent me a warning look.

"Adventures are supposed to be simple and fun."

"Oh, yeah, Morty, yeah." For whatever reason that seemed to hit a nerve for Rick, but then again whenever something was easy and simple with Rick, it was boring, the man lived on chaos and to be fair so did I, I tried living the simple life, and it was beyond dreary, "Yeah, that, that, that's real easy to say from the sidekick position." He jabbed at Morty, "But, but, uh, how about next time... you be in charge, and then we'll talk about how simple and fun it is?"

That pushed Morty on the back foot for a moment, "Seriously, Rick? You'll, you'll let me call the shots? Okay, yeah, fine."

"But let's make it interesting," Rick hummed putting on the pretence as if he was thinking about it, and not as if this wasn't one of his convoluted back up plans, "If your adventure sucks and we bail halfway through it, you lose the right to bitch about all future adventures. Plus, you have to do my laundry for a month."

"What the fuck, is this about laundry?" I asked genuinely baffled, "Why not just make a bot to do it for you?"

"Ryder, I…" Rick looked down for a moment, "Why don't I…" He shrugged his shoulders, "Whatever I'll make a bot after Morty does it for a month."

Morty scoffed, "I'm not gonna have to, I'll win, and if my adventure's good... I get to be in charge of every third adventure!"

"Every 10th."

"Deal. All right." Wow Morty sucks at haggling, "Well, come on, let's get going."

Beth then sticks her head into the garage, "Dad, the dishwasher's doing that thing again."

"Washing dishes?"

"Yes Rick, Beth just wanted to tell you that," I shrugged my shoulders and put on a faux grin that screamed fake, "by the by, the toilet did that flushing thing too,"

"Eat a fart, Ryder."

"Can either of you fix it?" Beth said as she rolled her eyes at me and Rick.

"Uncle Ryder, can you help me with my science homework?" Summer walked in.

"Hey, Rick, you got some kind of hand-shap-" I cut off Jerry by grabbing the jar and twisting it open with little resistances, all the while sending him a blank look.

"All right, Morty, let's put a pin in this. We've got to help your pathetic family."

Morty just smirked at Rick, "Oh, that sounds like something a chicken would say. Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk."

"Oh, Morty, you done did it this time."

"Really Rick, are you five?"

"It's on Ryder!" He then turned to Morty with narrowed eyes, "It's on. I can't wait to watch your adventure lay a huge fart." He then turned to the family, "As for you dingdongs..." He grabbed a familiar box from the selves, "This is a Meeseeks box. Let me show you how it works." He pressed the button on the top, "You press this."

A blue gangly alien popped into existence, "I'm Mr. Meeseeks! Look at me!"

"You make a request." Rick turned to the creature, "Mr. Meeseeks, fix the dish washer."

"Yes, siree!" He rushed into the kitchen and the sound metal clanging, followed by the sound water sloshing, he returned just to pop of reality.

"Oh, my God, he exploded!"

"Trust me, they're fine with it."

For good measure I added my own piece of advice as I looked Jerry dead in the eye, "If they can't complete a request, they go all psycho."

"Knock yourselves out just keep your requests simple. They're not gods."

Morty then passed the box to Summer and pushed the family out, "Get out of here now! Everybody out of here! I got a bet to win!"


"God, Morty, what a boring start to an adventure." Rick bitched and moaned the moment we stepped through the portal, "Why didn't we just go to Kentucky?"

"Rick, this is a fantasy-type world with creatures and all sorts of fantasy things." Morty snapped back, "We're going on a quest, okay?"

"Can't wait." Rick rolled his eyes.

"Give him a break, Rick," I told the older man, "You never bitch this much when I decide." Why didn't he? I wasn't against this fantasy type shit, but then again I stuck my dick into a variety of 'fantasy' based creatures.

"There's usually rhythm or reason to your madness Ry."

"The fuck there is." I rolled my eyes, Rick of all people should know I was full of shit, a sex pest at most, that only was only ever good for beating the shit out of people.

"Ahem. Excuse me!" Morty puffed out his chest as he climbed up onto a box, "We are three humble heroes in search of adventure!"

"Oh, my God, so embarrassing." Rick groaned into his hands. Even I was hard pressed to defend the kid here.

"At last! Three heroes! You must help us!" A man who looked like he hasn't bathed in weeks stepped forward, "This village is terribly poor," He then motioned to a beanstalk, "yet the giant that lives in the clouds above has untold treasures!"

"You know what?" Morty turned to smirk at Rick before turning to the man, ignoring the odour coming from him, "I accept your call to adventure, good sir, kind sir."

"Come on, guys." He marched off, "There's a giant in the clouds!"

"Yeah. Beginner's luck."

"Don't be sour Rick, its not a good look."


After climbing the stalk, we entered a large room, "All right, Morty. We're in your stupid giant's castle." Rick waved his hands with a bored look on his face, "What do we do next?"

"Would you just relax, Rick?" Morty was getting tired of Rick's attitude, not that I blamed him, "All we got to do is find the treasure room, okay? It's nice and simple. You know, I'm sorry everything's going so smoothly and adventurously."

Something out there seemed to hate Morty, because as soon as the words left his mouth, the giant table we were on shook as we heard the booming sounds of footsteps approaching.

"Uh-oh, Morty." Rick schooled his face to blank and bored, but it was clear he was loving things going tits up on Morty's adventure, "Startin' to get a little hairy. What do you want to do, boss?"

"Come on, hurry." Morty grabbed our arms and dragged us, "Behind this cookie jar."

And thus, proceeded events as they went in the show, or how I remembered them at least, with the giant slipping and dying, getting captured and arrested, going on a bogus trial, and then subsequently being released as the trail was classed as a mistrial, due to our rights not being read.

I kind of tuned it all out and went on a sort of auto-pilot mode, much to Morty's annoyance. Not quite sure why, its all worked out in the end.

We got our stuff returned to us as we left the giant courthouse.

"Hey, it all worked out, though not thanks to either of you." Morty said to the both of us, but he gave me a pointed look.

Is he being a bitter because I wasn't giving any idea's in getting us out?

"All right, Morty, looks like the portal gun's still working." Rick said as he inspected the world-shattering device he usually kept in his lab-coat pocket, "You ready to head home?"

"Oh, yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Again, a pointed look, and a hint of betrayal, "Well, you know what? We're not bailing out just yet. You know, we're gonna go find some treasure or something and, and we're gonna bring it to those villagers."

"Morty, cut your losses." Rick narrowed his eyes, "This is obviously awash."

"Yeah, you were saying that back when we first got arrested, but here we are, you know, walking down the courthouse steps."

"Giant courthouse steps, I should probably remind you both," I said as I gazed down at the endless drop as we stood before the top of the steps.

"Oh, boy, Morty." Rick smirked, "What do you say, Morty?"

Morty clenched his fists, as he stepped forward and lowered himself to climb down, "I say give me a hand, sidekicks."


"Yeah, Morty, this is the part of the story everybody loves scaling down 650,000 oversized steps." We climbed down the steps all the while Rick goaded Morty.

"All right, okay, you know, if this was a story, this part wouldn't be included, stupid." Morty snapped before he pointed at the tavern, "Hey, Rick, what do you know? Look down there. Looks like some kind of tavern or something built right into the side of the step."

"Why does this place even exist?" I asked in confusion, "It doesn't make sense, this is still part of the staircase for the giant courthouse. Like how much foot traffic would it get."

"Plenty, uncle Ryder." Morty bite out again as he waved around at the colourful array of beings at the tavern, "All kinds of crazy characters. This place is great, you know? You don't need to needle it. It's whimsical and fun."

A staircase with a face sent us a dirty look enraging Rick as he walked over and slammed his hands against the table, "What are you looking at, mother-"

"Easy, Rick." Morty pulled away Rick and sat us down at an empty booth.

"Pay them no mind." A buxom tavern wench walked over with a notepad and pen, "Those stair goblins can be moody. Now, what can I getcha? We've got skarlog poppies, flurlow, halzingers, bloogies, juicy time babies." It seems like she would've gone on and on, if we let her, thankfully Rick's patients snapped before mine did, Morty's dirty looks were driving me on edge.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, how about some scotch whiskey?"

"Rum." I added in for myself.

"You got any of that around here? Or just a bunch of nonsense words?"

"Guys... We'll have three bloogies, please." Morty ordered for us as he sent us a chiding look, "And, uh, we were wondering, is there a faster way three heroes could get down these stairs?"

"Y'all need to ride down the stairs?" A large slug-like alien said with a dopey look on his face, "My name is slippely-slippery stair." He slid out of his booth to reveal a harness on his back, "I'll take you down there for 25 shmeckels."

"25 shmeckels? I don't know how much I don't know what that is. Is that a lot? Is it a little?"

"That's exactly how much I spent on my big fake boobies."

"Hi, I'm Mr. booby buyer." A snake-like alien with hands said as he suddenly appeared next to the wench, "I'll buy those boobies for 25 shmeckels."

"It's a tempting offer, but I'm gonna have to decline."

"Rats! What a shame." He then scurried off like a spider.

"Morty, your adventure's in a spiral."

"Yeah," I rubbed the bridge of my nose, I don't remember it being this annoying but then again my memory of a show I stopped watching and now living is pretty hazy, "This isn't even fun wacky, just plain annoying."

"For real, man, time to pull out." Rick agreed… or I did with him, I wasn't sure at this point.

"You keep heckling my adventure, Rick! And you're not even trying Ryder, just sitting there being judgemental.

"Being judgemental?" I said in an icy tone.

"Oh boy." Rick shuffled to end of the booth we were sitting on.

"I pull our asses out of the fire when needed, but I ain't going to bother to waste energy to stop a flop."

"Well then, maybe you shouldn't. You always sit around and judge and try to fix everything but acting as if you know what's going to happen, maybe you should stop worrying so much, because all it seems is that you're petty."

"Petty, huh?" Fine, I'll just let Morty go with the flow, consequences be damned.

"And you." Morty then pointed at Rick, "You know, how many times have I had to follow you into some nonsensical bull crap? I always roll with the punches, Rick. Why can't you?"

A heavy silence washed over our booth, so Morty stood Rick and I glared at him," Look, I got to take a leak, and when I come back, if you two haven't learned how to lighten up, don't be here!

"Whatever."

We watched Morty walk away with huff, "Snappy little dick."

"Amen." Rick then looked to his side and spotted a group playing a rendition of poker he was plenty familiar with, "I'll make some money. So, we can get this shit over and done with."

"I'll go kill the paedophile that followed Morty in the can."

"Paedophile?" Rick then shrugged, "Whatever, just make sure to hide the body in a locked stall so we can bounce."

"Not my first time killing someone in a seedy bathroom." I shrugged my shoulders and walked into the bathroom, catching the tail end of the conversation Morty had with the Jellybean, damn the consequences sure, but this wasn't something I'd ignore, after this whatever came next was on Morty.

"You're right. Everything's going fine. I just got to relax and go with the flow." Morty's face soured as he saw me.

"Still around, huh?"

"Shut up Morty," I then pointed at the exit, "Rick is getting the shit show of a currency for us so this crapfest can be over."

"Whatever," Morty dried his hands and walked out. The silent Jellybean watched with a thinly hidden leery grin as his eyes were glued on Morty's backside.

"Teas-" I slammed my fist into the side of his head the moment the door shut behind Morty. Quickly grabbing his mouth in a rough handful, my fingers digging into his sticky-mess of flesh, I silenced his pained screams, as I violently pushed him into a stall.

"He's a little shit, and I want to smack him upside the side for today, but it sure as hell doesn't mean I'll ignore scum like you sniffing around him."

Pulling out my knife, I thrusted it into the gut of the jellybean, and dragged the jagged knife upwards. A muffled squealing escaped him as his entrails poured out.

Dropping the corpse, I washed off the equivalent of his blood off my hands, before closing the stall and locking it with the tip of my knife.

Walking out I spotted a scowly Rick and Morty, with a pile of money. Morty was clearly less traumatised, yet no one was happy, even still we paid the slug, got back to the village and handed them over Rick's winnings.

My eyes met Ricks for a moment, and we conceded Mort his victory, as long as it kept him from bitching and moaning all the time, we could bear with these adventures of his.

"You win Morty," Rick said with a bored voice.

"Let's go home."

"What the hell happened to this place?"

The place was trashed, and a haggard looking Beth and Jerry sat on the sofa, though they were quick to stand up to confront us in anger.

"Uh, your Meeseeks box happened." Jerry said with an almost vindictive glee.

"They went crazy when they couldn't take two strokes off Jerry's golf game. He felt terrible." Beth said.

"Your hair looks nice Beth," I said disarming the angry woman, as she blinked at me in surprise, her hair looked different. And I wasn't lying anyhow.

"Oh really." She said with a bashful smile.

"Ryder did warn you Jerry." Rick said as he looked around at the destroyed living room.

"Yeah," Beth said as her mind seemed to be going back to my warning in the garage, "He did." She sent Jerry a reproachful look.

"You said keep it simple." Jerry said in his defence.

"Whatever." I walked off towards the garden, I sure as hell wasn't going to clean this place.


A week later

I am as petty as Rick, I've learnt to accept that about myself. And as it turns out that when you are provided with the infinite expanse of the multi-verse. Things like mortality became optional.

Infinite was something people knew but never truly understood.

Infinite didn't mean limitless, it meant endless, same meaning between them of course, yet when you slowed down for a moment and thought about it, your mind turned to mush as you tried to comprehend it.

So, if the world burned, so Morty could think about his words, so be it, at the end of the day, we didn't need to sit in the shit he'll create.

That was the backup plan anyhow, but even still I was willing to let him screw up to prove my point... Or was it just to hold his words over his head? Probably the latter of the two.

I sat back and watched Morty approach Rick about creating essentially a date rape drug, to get Jessica to fall in love with him.

Perhaps I should've warned Rick about flu season, but ah well, Morty did say I should stop worrying so much.

"What's with the petty vindictive grin of yours?" Rick asked not looking up from his workbench.

Bringing up my mug to my lips, hoping that it hid my smirk, "Vindictive grin?"

Rick rolled his eyes and pushed back from his bench and locked eyes with me, "You're my kid Ryder, soft as your mother sure, but when it comes down to it, you're spiteful as me… cold blooded too."

"Fuck you." I said in a whisper, because at the end of the day, he was right.

"Whatever," He headed towards the main house, "You want watch crappy movies?"

"Sure," I said as I thought about how far I've come, how far I've let myself go down his road, and why despite knowing this wasn't the person I started as I just stopped caring so much.


Jerry, was pacing in the living room, "She's gonna be alone with that guy all night."

Quintessential teenage response Summer rolled her eyes, "Yeah, dad, digging around the insides of horses. It's not a very romantic setting."

Rick uttered in boredom, "Well, Summer, there's always the possibility that she made the whole work thing up. Maybe Davin's digging around in her insides."

"Grandpa, so gross!" She groaned, "You're talking about my mom."

"Well, she's my daughter, Summer. I outrank you."

"Then you should be more disgusted than her," I yawned trying to watch TV despite my mind still going a hundred miles per second.

"Family means nothing," Rick said and I swear it was pointed at me in this situation, in infinity of our lives he wasn't wrong, yet here we were still around each other's OG Rick and Ryder... I think.

"She's not responding to my texts!" Jerry whined pitifully.

"Careful, dad. Jealousy turns women off."

"Well, isn't that convenient?" I'm sure Jerry is an expert in that field.

"Not for the men they cheat on, no."

"Okay, I'm... going to go out... for some ice cream. And maybe stop by the hospital... to support my wife... with my confidence."

"God, grandpa, you're such a dick." Summer said with a judgemental tone.

"I'm sorry, Summer." Rick said not the slightest bit fazed, "Your opinion means very little to me." He then stretched out and regarded her with confusion, "How come you're not at this stupid dance everyone loves so much?"

"Screw that." She said in tedium, "I don't want to get sick. It's flu season."

Rick's eyes found mine and almost instantly he understood what was going on, "Cold blooded."

"Let's go." I groaned out and shuffled off the sofa.


Entering the gymnasium, I used my TK to push away the bawdy jock he was pressing himself against Morty while everyone else was trying to paw at him.

"Morty!"

"Come on! We got to get you out of here." Morty rushed our way as we took off sprinting, "You're not gonna believe this because it usually never happens, but I made a mistake." Yeah, for sure that was directed at me despite us running away from the swarms of super horny teens and teachers.

The principle and Morty's math teacher appeared from an office, they tried to plead Morty into a threesome, though they were both severely out of shape so we outpaced them before they could completely scar Morty.

As we clambered outside we rushed into Rick's ship, and just in time as people on the streets as well as the students and teachers swarmed it, "I didn't realize when I gave you that serum that Jessica had the flu you know, t-t-t-t-t-t-t-that might have been valuable information for me, Morty."

"What the hell is going on?"

"What does it look like?"

"The serum is piggybacking on the flu, as well as mutating it, making everyone super horned up." I said as I made the ship hover up and away from the horde of people ready to murder us to get to Morty.

"It's gone airborne, Morty."

"Oh, crap." Morty cried as he looked out at the herd, "What are we gonna do, Rick?"

"It's gonna be fine, Morty, relax." Rick pulled out a green vial as he programmed the ships extractors to pour out the contents of the vial, "I whipped up and antidote."

"Woah, Rick stop!" I shouted out to the man, alright I let this shit-show run its course long enough, "Tell me you took the time to analyse that before deploying it?"

Rick scowled my way, "Fuck you Ryder, I know what I'm doing, at least I'm trying to fix this fuck up, you knew it was flu season and still let this happen."

"What!?"

"Yeah, and fun is fun, but there's no need to make this worse."

"I know what I'm doing, it's based on praying-mantis dna." He then deployed it despite my protest, "You know, praying mantises are the exact opposite of voles."

"So, fucking what, you don't splice animal DNA with humans!"

"They mate for life," Rick uttered out as he pointed down at the horde that seemingly calmed down with a smirk, "Uh, by the way, Morty, I know you didn't ask or anything, but we're not interested in having sex with you. These serums, they don't work on anybody related to you genetically."

I watched the people below turn into a praying mantis human hybrid's that wanted to suck off Morty before killing him, "I can't help but think this was about forty percent my fault."

"Okay, well, sometimes, science is more art than science, Morty. A lot of people don't get that."


And thus, I watched the world burn, I knew Rick, knew him well enough to know he was out of his depth, he was good at fucking things up, destroying shit, and whatnot, but there was a reason why we didn't stick around most of the time when an adventure was done.

Cleaning up wasn't his forte.

Its why I didn't bother to stop him as he rattled to Morty about his half-conducted serum, "Its koala mixed with rattlesnake, chimpanzee, cactus, shark, golden retriever, and just a smidge of dinosaur. Should add up to normal humanity."

"I don't... that doesn't make any sense, Rick. How does that add up to normal humanity?"

Rick got angry as he ignored the chaos around us, "What, Morty, you want me to show you, my math?"

"I'm sorry a-are you the scientist or are you the kid that wanted to get laid?"

I sent him a pointed look but Rick doubled down and stared me dead in the eyes as he poured the half-baked concoction.

"You know, we could we could just enjoy it for a little bit. I mean, l-l-l-look at how crazy it is. I mean, w-w-when's the next time you're gonna see something like this? I mean, soak it in, you know? It's, it's pretty neat. It's pretty interesting.

Morty winced as Rick continued to ramble on, and eventually he had enough and rached for lever, activating the extractor system.

"W-what do we have here, Ryder?" Rick asked as he stared at me with a victorious grin, but I just put on a show on my fingers counting down, with one being my middle finger, though I timed it wrong, and a couple of extra seconds passed before Morty spoke up.

"Oh, Rick, something's not right."

Rick sighs, "Yeah, you two. You're not right ever.

"No, no!" Morty panicked as he forced Rick to look outside, "Look, you idiot!"

Rick destroyer of worlds. And I wasn't any better. The world was filled with Cronenberg creatures.

"I bet you're loving this." Rick accused us, "This must be the best day of your life. You get to rule the town of I told you so."

"Eat a fat one Rick." I leaned back with an angry huff, looking out at the world and knowing what was to come next.

'Our lives are bound to continual existence, don't get so attached, it's all meaningless in the end.' I was reminded of the words Rick once told me when I was young and hesitant to leave a dimension where we spent a decent chunk of time in.


We sat on top of a building as we watched the world adjust to its newly formed residents.

"Boy, Morty, I really cronenberged the world up, didn't I? We got a whole planet of cronenbergs walking around down there, Morty."

We had just flew his ship here after we had just checked in at home due my instances, but the girls weren't there, and neither were the stash of weapons I kept in my house, looks like they picked the place clean and moved on to survive.

Knowing Rick we weren't going to look for them considering the endless dimensions where the amount of quote-on-quote 'same' Summer and Beth there were.

"A-at least they're not in love with you anymore, though. That's a huge step in the right direction."

"Oh, my god!" Morty whimpered, "It's a living nightmare! How could you both be so irresponsible?"

"I did what you asked and chilled." I bite out.

Rick took the louder approach, "Me irresponsible?! You. All I wanted you to do was hand me a screwdriver, Morty! You're the one who wanted to be wanted me to buckle down and make you up a... roofie-juice serum so you could roofie that poor girl at your school. I mean, g w-w-w-w-w w are you kidding me, Morty? You're gonna try to take the high road on this one? Y-y-y-y-you're a little creep, Morty. Y-you're, a, you're, you're, you're, just a little creepy... creep person.

"All right, fine." Morty admitted with a hard look on his face, "I should have just listened to you when you refused to make the serum." He said to Rick and then turned to me, "And I shouldn't fault you for being cautious."

He let out a sigh, "I'm willing to accept my part of the blame for this, Rick, Ryder. But I'll tell you something you know what? You both got to accept your part of the blame! I'm not the one who fouled up the serum!" He pointed at Rick, "And you knew better." A finger was in my face.

"I'm not the one who, who, who, who, haphazardly, you know, mixed a bunch of nonsense together and created a bunch of cronenbergs! You got to fix this, Rick!"

Rick waved his hands and met gaze as I shrugged my shoulders, "All right, all right, Morty. You know, w-w-w-we are in a pretty deep hole, here, but I do have one emergency solution that I can use that'll kind of put everything back to normal, relatively speaking."

Rick handed me a pack, as he put on the scout goggles, "You know the drill Ryder."


Stepping out of the portal, the stench of burnt flesh lingered in the garage, scorched blood covered the place as a dead Morty and Rick was in a crumpled mess at the other end of the garage, all the while a wounded Ryder on the cusp of death breathed out a curse when he spotted me.

"Well shit."

"Yeah," I said in an even voice as I knelt down, and plunged my blade into his skull.

"Oh, my god, Rick!" Morty breathed out, "Is that us?! W-w-w-we're dead! Uncle Ryder just killed himself. What is going on, Rick? I'm freaking out!"

"Calm down, Morty! That Ryder was done for anyhow. Look at me! Calm down, Morty!"

"No, I can't deal with this!"

"Morty. Calm down," I tried to ease the boy before he went on to have a panic attack.

"I can't deal with this, Ryder! W-w-w-w-we're ripped apart!"

"Shut up and listen to me! It's fine. Everything is fine." Rick commanded, as he moved the corpse of himself, "There's an infinite number of realities, Morty, and in a few dozen of those, I got lucky and turned everything back to normal." He reasoned, "I just had to find one of those realities in which we also happen to both die around this time."

Hoisting the beaten and battered corpse of my alterative self, I let out a groan, I was too tired for this, "Now we can just slip into the place of our dead selves in this reality and everything will be fine. We're not skipping a beat, Morty. Now, help us with these bodies."

"This is insane." Morty looked shell shocked at he stared dead head at the corpses of ourselves.

"Look, Morty, house rules, we bury ourselves. Its how Ryder and I have always done things. I mean, t-t-t-that seems fair to me I mean, that seems like a fair way to divvy it up."

"What about the reality we left behind?" Ah, the old argument I used to use.

"What about the reality where Hitler cured cancer, Morty? The answer is don't think about it. It's not like we can do this every week, anyways. We get three or four more of these, tops. Now, pick up your dead self and come on. Haste makes waste."

Rick then looked at Morty with a hint of assertion, "I-I-I don't suppose you've considered this detail, but obviously, if I hadn't screwed up as much as I did, we'd be these guys right now, so, again, you're welcome."

Morty just looked on with a sicken dread, "Uncle Ryder, I-I-I…"

"This is how we do things, Morty," I said without a hint of emotions, "And we cope with it in our own ways." Leaning dead Ryder against my side, I placed awkward hand on Morty's shoulder, "Sorry kid…" Sorry for everything.


A/N - Published 2024/03/13

Yo thanks for the support shown to this story so far

Kinda of annoyed at myself that I didn't deviate at all from the canon, but also didn't want to do a massive skip of sections because of that reason also, so I decided to post the 2 episodes as one.

Though to clear up the air, just in case, Ryder showing his Rick colours by being a petty bitch was fully intended, though like Rick it spiralled out of his control quickly.