Chapter Text
Rick is a terrible influence.
Morty was beginning to learn that he too has his vices, and some of those involved substance abuse. Morty was a little more subtle about it; he always found ways to justify it to himself. Everything he did was over the counter, (honestly it wasn’t even really that bad because he only did it when he didn’t have any other way to handle.) It was just one thing… that was it! It wasn’t like Rick, who would throw back whatever he could get his hands on!
Morty had only one, specific, tiny, little problem… and it was Nyquil. Or… Zzzquil… Benadryl… Unisom… Midnite… and really any other sleep aids he could squirrel away without someone giving him dirty looks. Mostly he stopped into the CVS once a week, bought another box or two. He tried to do it once a week. Once in the morning, once a lunch, and once at night. That way no one really quite remembered him from their shift. He knew this was a red-flag. But, really, he told himself that he just didn’t want to get a reputation, that was all! A reputation for what? For exactly what he was doing.
Sleep was as rare to come by as quiet in Morty’s life. He was graduating from high school. A slim 18 something with the same round baby cheeked face he’d always had, with thicker curlier hair that hadn’t changed much. He tried to change from yellow t-shirts to yellow polo shirts but Rick kept finding ways to destroy them. So there he stood, in the bathroom of his home, gripping the sink counter with bare white knuckles, same shirt and same shoes, just a size or three bigger than before.
He’d already taken two ‘shots’ of ZzzQuil (you know, the non-habit forming sleep aid, for people who didn’t have habits) and he was contemplating a third. Sleep wasn’t hard to get, he was feeling heavy and droopy and cranky from being up past when his now medicated body wanted him to be. But it was the dreams that were starting to become a problem. Dreams of being torn apart. Dreams of being chased. Shocked. Dreams of faceless monsters stalking him in his own home, all of them forcing Morty to want to be so tired he couldn’t dream.
That’s about the time Morty decided to finally seek out Rick. Rick had to have something right? Something to make sure that his dreams would be left way the hell alone from all the residue of every adventure they went on. The walk down the stairs was hard. He did not want to wake up anyone in the home and he wasn’t even sure if Rick himself was awake. He had to admit that he needed something to help him sleep, something he hadn’t really been too keen on.
Morty wasn’t interested in hearing Rick’s cruel jabs at his constitution. He didn’t want Summer to try and find a way out for him, like he wasn’t smart enough to do it on his own. But he was less interested in reliving the night Rick had gotten him trapped in pitch black air duct, the sound of a rusted fan and the skitters of something menacing as his only form of claustrophobic company.
Low and behold Rick was missing, his room cracked open with an empty bed, and no sign of him in the garage. Morty even tried the subterranean level only to find it dark and lifeless. Curious though, Morty hadn’t explored this part of Rick’s space too much. Usually Rick demanded he be there when Morty came down. For good reason. Rick usually had some kind of terrible thing down here that was barely contained, or he had a kind of chemical that might burn his lungs out if he didn’t take a three second pause in between each inhale.
After a bit of exploration though, Morty did find what looked like a shelf of different liquids. Green, blue, neon pinks, some that glowed, others that pulsed. One particular one was a gas that moved back and forth as though trying to escape the vial it was in. Another looked to be a thick fur that vibrated when Morty reached out to touch it. There was a black one that absorbed all light, and a white one that had a blue glow around it. Labels lined each and every one of them, most of them saying, “????” All of them were on different colors of tape. Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. Serendipitously enough Morty found a vile labeled ‘SLEEP’ on a blue taped label. It seemed safe enough. A deep purple color with a black shimmer to it, thick looking, clinging to the walls of the glass vial long after Morty swirled it around. He double checked a piece of paper taped to the side of this cabinet to make sure Blue meant ‘Safe’. Thankfully, it did.
Morty sat with the vile in his hands, slowly swirling it back and forth for ten minutes, contemplating everything that could go wrong with throwing this back into his mouth. He was also getting more and more hazy, the Zzzquil curling it’s hands around his waking state and demanding it be given it’s pound of flesh that Morty had been depriving it. It was safe, and there wasn’t much in there. He could take half of the bottle and leave the rest for Rick to use on whatever. A pressure was building on his eyelids and the threat of waking up in some new nightmare was the deciding factor to him taking a small swig of the liquid.
It tasted bitter and minty all at once. It had the same thickness as pepto bismol and coated his mouth the same way. He coughed when swallowing it and was able to cap the bottle before stumbling back from the counter. It stung in his throat, it was cold, and felt like raw ice going down in droves. Morty panicked about the idea that it might kill him, that his might be how he dies. It was a very real possibility that suddenly hit home as the room’s edges got darker and darker. Morty closed his eyes and opened them again, facing another part the room. His heartbeat was in his ears, in his mouth, as he tried to grab for more air and scream. He didn’t remember closing his eyes, but when they slowly opened again he was looking at the ceiling.
Rick wasn’t sure what he expected.
He’d found Morty on the ground of his lab, passed out with the vial of one of the toxins he was working to synthesize into a party drug, broken and spread out all over the floor. Morty had it smeared on his lips and chin, so Rick was well aware the little idiot threw it down his throat for who knew what reason.
“You’re... You’re gonna be able to help him right Grandpa?!” Summer was frantic behind him, looking around for some kind of quick fix she hoped Rick had on standby for just such an occasion.
“Y-Yeah no I can fix this... Y-you’re dumb ass brother took some heavy shit though a-and it’s baAAUUusically put him into a coma. All I gotta do i-is go into his gross head and wake him up in the dream. I-It’ll pull him out of it and he’ll be fine. B-but the shit he took, it keeps you under until you can pull yourself out of it.” Rick was leaning over Morty, checking a few simple things (pulse mostly) while explaining himself to Summer.
“I mean.” Summer started, watching Rick pick up Morty and take him over to what seemed to be some kind of operation table. “That sounds biologically... really stupid, but,-“
“S-S-Summer, who.. who- Look at me!” Rick snapped when Summer started to roll her eyes and walk away.
“What Grandpa Rick?”
“Who’s the super scientist here huh?”
“Ugh, you are. Ok, I got it. Just make sure you don’t kill Morty, and I’ll cover for you from Mom and Dad..”
Rick smirked and nodded before clearing his throat and getting back to work, hooking Morty up to a machine that displayed his dream. It looked fuzzy and shifted around a bit, completely unstable looking.
“Yikes, here I was hoping for some kinda cum addled Jessica sexcapade...”
“EW! GRANDPA RICK!” Summer yipped from the base of the ladder to the hatch in the garage.
“What?! I-it would have been easy, this looks like some dumb ass existentialism nightmare trash a-and I just, didn’t you haAUAAave somewhere else to be Suuummer?” drawing her name out like an insult.
“Ugh, fine, just don’t kill and replace him Grandpa, I’ll be pissed..”
“And unaware of it if I did...” Rick muttered.
“I HEARD THAT!”
“I MEAN YOU TO!”
Rick had not meant for this to happen though, and when Summer was finally out of eyesight and earshot, he let out a small shaking breath.
“Why the fuck Morty…” The TV fuzzed in and out for a moment, and left Rick just rubbing his temples. It wasn’t until much later that Rick had diodes attached to his own temples and a small pill in hand. Summer wasn’t there to have to explain the machine or the pill or the science behind any of it to, which was good enough for Rick. He didn’t want to justify his bullshit science to anyone, he wanted to get Morty out.
Once in, what Rick found was something a little outside of what he thought he might get. Assuming the blurry images he saw were something along the lines of him being captured or hauled away against his will... Rick was displeased to find himself dressed up in a Counsel of Rick’s uniform, only to be inches away from another Rick dressed normally, hovering around next to his Morty.
“A-a-aw jeez Rick... A-Are you sure we’ll be able to get out of this?” Morty was whispering but Rick was close enough to hear him.
“Y-Yeah baby don’t worry… I-I-I’ll get us out of here… T-They won’t take us. Me...” Dream Rick grumbled back, leveling his portal gun and firing off a blast. Rick heard the distinctive sound of a portal opening, and was there to see Morty being pulled through by the hand. Something was chasing them, and the only way he’d get a grip of Morty was if he followed the snot around.
Once through the portal, he landed on a planet he’d once been with Morty a few years ago. It was after he’d gotten back from his little incarceration, but not since Morty had been starting his post-graduation plans. It was the same planet Morty discovered a small orphan alien who was the host to a deadly spore. They had to shoot her in the end, at her request, to keep her people safe.
“Stop right there, Rick” Dream Rick snapped, “Hands in there air you piece of shit…”
“O-O-oh-ho ho!” Rick turned slowly, hands in the air for long enough to put them across his chest and sneer back at the other “Yeah, I’m real intimidated by a shitty made up version of me that my hormone addled grandson made up. W-whaAAUut are you gonna do? S-shoot me?”
A blast rang in Rick’s ear so loud he winced, there was a familiar heat of a phasor blast that grazed his cheek. The shot from Dream Rick literally missed only because he willed it.
“WOAH-HO-HOLY SHIT I-I-I DIDN’T EVEN PULL A GUN ON YOU!” Rick screamed as he snapped a hand to his cheek to check to see if he was bleeding. “Christ!”
“Yeah, buUUAOuut I know me. You wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”
“Sure, but I-I-I don’t really care about you, I came here to grab Morty and go.”
“Yeah, which isn’t gonna happen pal.”
“I-I-I’m happy with my Rick. I-I don’t want you to take him, me, I don’t want to leave him...” Morty muttered out from behind Dream Rick. He had a hand on his labcoat, something that Morty stopped doing just this year.
“Yeah, ok, Morty, but you don’t know what makes you happy half the time. Y-y-you’ve been shitting yooOOUorself this entire year about what you’re gonna do when you graduate. D-Don’t act all hiIEECUr... high and mighty with me about what makes you happy...” Rick sounded increasingly bored about the line of conversation.
“Look, pal, I’m not letting you take him away from me caAUAuse you don’t like what we’re doing.” Dream Rick snapped, mostly to get Rick’s attention, which had been waning.
“Ugh, fine, look. What you’re worried I’m gonna tell the counsel on you, huh?” Rick watched both Morty and Dream Rick eye him, “Sure, probably, that sounds about stupid enough for Morty to base his dream around. Here,” Rick shifted around a bit, pulling the rifle off of his back, laying it on the ground, the same with his side pistol and kicked it over. Then took off his coat and laid it on the ground “Here, I’ll even put this down huh, that way you know I’m not fucking around...” Rick took out the portal gun holstered to his leg. It would do him no favors here anyway, all for show and nothing more.
Morty nodded to Dream Rick who picked the loot up, looked Rick up and down and shrugged “Fine, s-sure, but you’re coming with us.” Dream Rick finally grumbled.
“Sure, fine, sounds great.” Rick muttered back.
“Good, glad you’re up for it” Dream Rick snapped.
“Yeah, it’s perfec-“
“LOOK, C-Can we just get going!” Morty broke up what was turning out to be an infinite feedback loop of sass that he honestly had no time for. “We can probably hunker, hunker down somewhere... You know?”
“Sounds like a plan Morty, w-what sounds like a good place to you?” Dream Rick asked, reaching to grip Morty’s shoulder. Something twisted in Rick and it stayed tense for longer than he cared to internalize. Nice to know Morty made up some sweet, nice version of him. Nice to know he just put up with the bad parts.
“I-I-I don’t know maybe uh, maybe to some kinda, like-“ Morty started, a small smile on his lips that coiled up around the knot in Rick’s body.
“Could always just hop dimensions till you loOOuoos them...” Rick snapped.
“Fine... Yeah, t-that makes sense...” Morty nodded “We did that once before so, it should work again.”
“Yeah. yeah, you’re right. Fine, everyone hop in.” Dream Rick leveled the portal gun and fired away.
Each new place was like tripping into the worse parts of Morty’s memory. They walked past parts of Morty’s life Rick didn’t remember, it’d been so many years, so many nights black out drunk away that he didn’t have it in him to hold onto them or file them away like Morty did...
They walked through a scene of Morty sitting in the car, head hung low as he held a pair of sullied pants, his face red and Beth going on how it made sense that Summer did this, it was a medical problem. Small bladder, but, God damn, Morty, you’re 14! You’ve done this three times now! How?!
It played like a movie on a wall that they were walking in front of. Dream Rick made another portal and they were once more in front of another movie, large and towering and playing next to them.
Morty was just standing outside next to his grave. Well, the grave of the Morty he’d buried. He looked back towards the house and then back down at the mound of dirt. Morty lifted his foot and kicked away at some of it before he turned around, ran inside, and threw up. Jerry came in to ask if he was feeling alright, only to have Morty push past him and run into his room. There was a journal that Morty grabbed for in his desk. It had a check list.
“I am Morty. I am alive. I came from another dimension. This is still my family. It’s ok.”
It was written on every page.
Rick grimaced and continued to follow through more of these portals, one after another.
Morty watching the sea of his other selves going home. Coming home to look out of that window at his own body again and writing C-137 in big, bold, black letters on a scrap of paper he kept in his wallet.
Morty coming down to the basement to just look at the empty tubes where Rick’s clones used to be.
Morty finding that small candy wrapper and hoarding it in a box, pulling it out for a while to check to make sure that it was, indeed, him having a terrible character flaw.
Morty coming home to a house he didn’t recognize, sneaking past Beth who was so drunk Rick was impressed and scared all at the same time. Sneaking into Rick’s room and stealing one of his sweaters, ferreting it away in his room and, for a week, or so pulling it out to smell. He slept with his arms around it, his whole body curled around it like maybe it might somehow shield Rick from all he was going through.
“I-I-I hate to be THAT asshole” Rick snarled, stopping everything in its tracks, that tense something in his body getting ready to snap in some ugly way if they lingered too much longer. “But none of this is really getting us anywhere…”
Dream Rick didn’t say anything as he pulled the trigger to another portal. This one landed them in a shitty motel Morty and Rick had been to after a job had gone sour just a few nights ago. Rick had been pissed something fierce at Morty for fucking up the deal by mixing up two simple people. He didn’t really remember much of that night either, but it had Morty looking abysmal.
“Don’t... Look, hey...” Dream Rick leaned down a little lower than Morty, the kid was almost as tall as him, a head smaller maybe, so getting down on his knee was a little unneeded. “M-Morty hey I’m sorry, I just picked what was last in the portal gun ok?” He smiled and pulled Morty into a hug “It’ll be fine baby, we’ll leave here soon... Sorry I screamed at you.”
Rick watched and then finally, his hackles on a full rise, came unhinged, that tension in his stomach, heart, throat, it was all over and it rubber banded, trashing back around on something sore and angry in him.
“I-I-Is this some kinda double ended fucked nightmare for the both of us huh?! Did you come in here to teach me some kind of lesson and somehow didn’t think you’d be stuck here!?”
Morty looked confused and Dream Rick just glared.
“I told you if you don’t like it pal you caAAUan leave, the doors right there..” Dream Rick pointed behind Rick.
“No, fuck you, you sappy sack of shit, Morty is this the version of me you really want? I got news for you, you clingy dingus, it’s never gonna happen, there’s no version of me out there that’s EVER going to treat you like this!” Rick hissed,
“H-hey, c’mon, I know it’s not… normal but, I mean, it’s not the worst thing either.” Morty blushed and looked to his feet... His hand reached out to grab Dream Rick’s hand who took it in his own without a second thought, like it was reflex.
“Yeah, well news flash, it is. It’s not what you’re going to get, it’s just some stupid fantasy you made up to make yourself forget all the shitty things that I do… or… something, I’ve got no clue, but it’s fake and I-I-I’m for one, am sick of it, C’mon Morty, time to go..”
“W-w-what?” Morty asked, scooting closer to Dream Rick who, held him closer, even learned down to press a small kiss on his head.
“Alright, fuck this, Morty, we’re going. Now.” Rick wasn’t playing around anymore, holding a crisp tone to each word, making sure to end all discussion about the matter.
“R-Rick?” Morty turned to Dream Rick continued to try and kill Rick with a stare.
“G-God dammit, Moooorty, that’s not a real Rick. It’s a dream, this is all some fucked dream you’ve trapped yourself in and I’m sick of this a-hoOAAaole being some goody-goody-gum-drop version of me. He’s a piece of shit-“
“SHUT UP! Y-you don’t get to call him that! O-o-ok!?” Morty snapped, stepping forward his hand still tangled in Dream Rick’s. It shut Rick up for a moment as Morty laid into him. “I-I-I’m fine with us, what we are! I don’t care that he’s older than me o-o-or that... Or that the Counsel thinks it’s some kinda violation, i-i-it’s none of their business since Rick’s not even PART of your thing...” Rick just watched him, getting a little more confused by the second. “I don’t care that you know… That he’s my grandpa...” He blushed a deep shameful red and wavered, still holding onto Dream Rick’s hand, “I.. I-I-I really love him... I know what that means a-and... I don’t give a shit anymore...”
There was a silence that filled the room as Rick finally put two and two together. Morty was about to continue before, very slowly and very plainly Rick finally spoke.
“Yeah, but, it’s still fake Morty.” Was all Rick said. “This guy knows it… “
Dream Rick just sneered, and when Morty turned to look at him, said nothing.
“G-go on and tell him. Tell him that you’re real and it’s all fine and you’ll be space Bonnie and Clyde.”
Dream Rick said nothing.
Morty just stood there numb for a moment, his fingers finally starting to slip out of Dream Rick’s own.
“C-Cmon, Rick, you said... we’d...”
“Yeah, and it’s the end of the line Morty... Wake up. It’s all a bunch of bullshit...” Rick muttered.
“N… But that means…”
“Yeah, it’s me, it’s the Rickest Rick, here to come save the Mortiest Morty, from yet another coloOOAAUoossal and embarrassing fuck up...”
“Ooh. Oh god... N-no...” Morty looked back to Dream Rick who just wasn’t there anymore. When he went to look at Rick, the motel was gone, replaced with just white, empty and endless space... Morty turned to look behind him and there was nothing but white space back there as well. “Rick I-I-I…”
“I don’t care Morty... It’s fine... Let’s get you home...”
Summer came back downstairs an hour later only to find Rick holding a sobbing Morty.
“Erm... D-Did I come back at a bad time?” She whispered, Rick shook his head, holding Morty who was, at the sight of his sister coming in to see him sobbing, tried to contain himself.
“I-I just got Morty out of his stupid nightmares.” Rick muttered.
“Shit.” Summer reached out to pet at Morty, who winced but didn’t say anything. “Jeez, Morty, I didn’t know they were that... bad?”
“They weren’t... He’s just over emotional. I-i-it’s a side effect of the sleeping poison. It’s long winded and boring to listen to and I’m sure you’re just gonna call it bullshit science again Summer so...”
“God damn, Grandpa Rick, sorry.” Summer balked and rolled her eyes “I-I’ll talk to you later Morty ok?”
Morty nodded and hid his face again.
“You’re... Y-y-you’re not gonna tell her?” Morty whispered.
“No…” Rick hugged him closer.
Morty was quiet and shook.
“You’re… not going to… Not gonna, I mean... You don’t think I’m…-“ he was starting to choke up again, shaking in Rick’s arms as he gripped harder at Rick’s shirt.
“No. I don’t hate you, o-o-or think you’re grooOOUooss. It’s fine.”
Morty just nodded and stayed there for a while. When he was able to get a grip of himself Rick followed him up to his room, took each and every single pill he’d had stored away under his bed, and took them for himself. Morty shook a little, alone there with his own thoughts, about what Rick had learned, about what Rick had admitted to him.
Rick went down to his own room and flavored what was left of that Zzzquil with as much Everclear as the container would hold.