Work Text:
It doesn’t snow in the winter where Morty goes to school, just torrential downpours. It’s mildly alarming to see at least a foot of white when he touches down in late November. He’s reminded of the time six years ago when he and Rick went to an entire planet made of ice and its inhabitants, aggressive vapors that tried to freeze Morty from the inside out. Rick had woken him up, shaking his shoulder, one warm hand on his face that Morty had curled into instinctively.
He hasn’t thought about that trip in a long time.
“Yeah,” Dad says, after their initial hellos and a quick, too-tight hug. “We’ve been having a nasty storm for the past week or so, it’s really been coming down. Nothing says ‘welcome home’ like a blizzard, hey, champ?”
“Ha, yeah, you said it dad,” Morty says a little weakly. It’s ten in the morning and he hasn’t had coffee yet, didn’t sleep on the flight, and he’s rapidly realizing that his dad is a specific brand of boring he’s afraid he’s becoming. “Hey, can we get some coffee before we head home?”
He gets a tall drip, and Dad gets an iced caramel macchiato like it’s some kind of rare treat. They grab Morty’s suitcase from the luggage carousel before heading out to the parking lot.
“Your mom is so excited you’re coming home for Thanksgiving,” Dad says, for maybe the millionth time when they’re in the car. “It’s gonna be nice to have uh, have a family holiday.”
Morty’s stayed away all summer like always, just this time he spent three months trying to wash away the feeling of Rick’s hands on him with other people; he let Geoff fuck him the second day school was out, and at least twenty times since then, at least once during office hours with the door unlocked since classes resumed. He’s gotten off maybe five desperate times. Geoff works for it, and Morty wishes he didn’t have to, wishes that he could just lay back and take it and not think about how Rick felt inside him, wishes he didn’t have the muscle memory to search for Rick in other people.
“Yeah,” he says, taking a slow sip of his coffee, staring out the window as they move away from the airport and towards the suburbs. With the snow, every well-worn road and home they pass feels like looking in on a dream, his surroundings just off enough to not seem familiar anymore. Maybe it’s the distance too, maybe Morty isn’t the only one who changed while he’s been gone. He doesn’t think about how Rick felt and sounded foreign in all the wrong ways last spring when they pull up to the driveway, tries not to think about Rick at all.
The thing is, the thing that Morty forgot, the thing that always used to surprise him when he was younger, is that home has a smell. When he steps through the threshold, he’s hit with a wave of warmth and sweetness that’s permeating the house that reminds him of a long tucked away part of himself. His suitcase slips from his hand awkwardly as he takes it all in for the first time in years.
“We’re ho-ome!” Dad singsongs next to him, mouth cupped in his hands. There’s a clink of dishes and silverware from the kitchen in response, and Morty finds himself being tugged excitably by his dad towards the noise of family.
He thought he was being brave coming home, facing Rick, forcing himself past the shadows of what he considers mistakes, or maybe just his most deep set flaws; he realizes as Dad pulls him toward the kitchen that he never grew into the bravery that Rick tried to instill in him as a teenager. He is afraid, and he is sick with himself. He doesn’t want to see anyone here. He wants to go home, back to school, and get fucked until he cries. He wants to fade away until no one can touch him or see him ever again. He wants a lot of things, and none of them feel good.
Mom’s in the kitchen, mimosa half-finished in a wine glass to the left of her while she does the dishes, Summer bringing in the rest from the dining room. Rick is nowhere to be seen.
“Baby,” Mom says when she sees him, wiping her hands off onto her sweats before pulling him in for a hug. She’s shorter than he is now, and he likes the small comfort of resting his head on her shoulder and closing his eyes. “It’s so good to finally have you home.
“It’s good to be home,” he says, even though it’s not.
“Hey, nerd,” Summer says behind him, but then she’s hugging him too.
He and Summer are still close, though maybe not as close as they were when Summer left for college. She’s been a lot quieter since moving back in with Mom and Dad after graduating, maybe because she’s always been a little bit more obvious about her shame, and maybe Morty’s lost some ground with her having not failed in any clear way that she can relate to.
“Hey,” he says, like it’s been strangled out of him. Something in his stomach is trying to settle. Distantly, he reminds himself, that he isn’t here for his family.
“I can’t believe it’s my baby’s last year in college,” Mom says, pulling away to cup her hand around his face. She’s got a pride in her eyes that Morty knows he could destroy in seconds. He thinks of Rick’s hands on his face again after nearly freezing to death almost a decade ago, and he flinches against her palm. “Are you surviving okay? We never hear from you.”
“I-i-it’s a lot,” Morty says, trying to laugh and worm his way out of Summer’s embrace. Summer lets go and grabs at her own mimosa that’s slick with condensation on the island countertop. He tries to not act relieved. He tries not to think about how complicated school has become since he started fucking Geoff; he tries not to think about just going over his thesis abstract late in his office and the smell of Geoff leaning in too close, the taste of his neck, the desperation that courses through Morty’s veins to prove himself when he’s alone with his professor. He tries to think about the long summer before college instead, or the last time Summer came to visit; they had watched movies and talked about nothing, and if there’s one singular thing he loves his sister for, it’s her ability to share a comfortable silence with him when he needs it. “I, uh, you know. It’s all one big blur right now. All those years uh, pulling late nights in high school, you would think I’d be ready for college all-nighters. Ha.”
It’s a weak attempt at a joke, but Summer hums appreciatively into her drink, and Mom and Dad look at each other with broken smiles.
“I remember going through vet school,” Mom tries, picking up her own glass and gesturing to it with a nod. “You know how I got through that?”
“Ha ha, yeah, uh, same,” Morty says, thinking about Geoff’s legs laced with his own at some crusty bar just far enough away from the college that they didn’t have to worry so much, Geoff pouring him a glass of wine in his own apartment that cost more than the three buck chuck Morty springs for sometime. He thinks about Rick handing him his flask for the first time, the warmth behind his eyes and in his chest that seemed to bloom the more he drank, whenever Rick would brush discretely against him, pin him against some metal paneled wall in an interstellar ship ward to keep him safe.
“I was always more of a coffee guy,” Dad says, failing to hide how uncomfortable he is, but trying admirably.
“Dad, you went to the University of Arizona,” Summer says, “online.”
“That doesn’t make my diploma any less valid, Summer,” Dad replies. He doesn’t have a drink of his own to glower into, so he folds his arms a little defiantly across his chest instead. Mom absolutely does not try to hide her smile by downing the rest of her mimosa.
Morty’s about to say something else, but then Rick brushes against him from behind entering the kitchen.
“Morty,” he says, walking straight past him to get to the fridge. He pulls out a can of beer, taps three times on the lid before cracking it open.
“Rick,” Morty says, proud of himself for not stumbling over the name. He is here to be brave, he reminds himself, he is here to--to--
Rick takes a big swig of beer, and Morty’s brain short circuits watching the muscles in his throat move, the stretch of it, the curve of his neck. Rick leaves without saying anything else, shouldering past him a second time back to wherever he came from.
“Wow,” Mom says, blindly reaching for the half-empty bottle of champagne open on the counter. “That was awkward, but, I mean, it could have been worse. Ever since the, you know, the him-drunk-driving-his-ship-into-your-professor thing, freshman year.”
“Well,” Morty says, rubbing at his elbow, trying not to think too loudly about all the things they don’t know, “I mean. I really hated that professor, so over time, you know, he probably did me a favor.”
“I wish grandpa had run over my shitty professors,” Summer admits, and both Mom and Dad turn to her with annoyed, tight-lipped expressions. “What? Fine, whatever, I need to go to work anyway.”
She hands her glass to Morty like she knows how dry his mouth is, and stalks out of the kitchen. Morty can hear her climb the stairs a little too-loud to her room.
“Summer uh,” he says, bringing the rim of the glass to rest under his bottom lip, “Summer’s got a job, huh?”
“Yeah, really putting that liberal arts degree to use as a bartender!” Dad says loudly, like he’s personally offended by it for some reason. Maybe he is. Morty takes a drink.
“God, Jerry, stop, it’s barely even noon,” Mom says, hitting him lightly in the chest with the back of her hand. “Besides, Morty, look--we’ve been wanting to sit down with you, have a one-on-one talk.”
Morty nervously takes another sip of mimosa. His initial instinct is that they know, that they somehow found out what has transpired between him and Rick, and have just been waiting for him to come home and stage some kind of grandpa fucking intervention. The second thought is, no, it’s probably something about him not moving home after he graduates to become Summer 2.0, or even more likely, they’re getting a divorce.
“Are you guys getting a divorce?” He asks, anxiously chewing on the orange pulp in his drink.
“You fucking wish!” Summer calls from upstairs. “And yeah, dad, I totally heard that!”
“Goddammit,” Dad says.
“We’re not getting a divorce, sweetie,” Mom says, ignoring whatever is going on between Summer and Dad. “We, uh, well maybe we should sit down.”
Summer comes stomping back downstairs dressed entirely in a basic black work uniform, a neat button up and skinny slacks, with a well-worn pair of sneakers to match. She eyes the dregs in Morty’s glass, and gives him a sympathetic glance, reaching a hand up to squeeze his shoulder. “Look, I would drink the rest of that, but you’re gonna need it. Also my boss says if I come to work with wine breath again, I’m basically fired. Anyway, mom and dad are fucking the same guy, and it’s weird, and he’s gonna be at dinner tomorrow. Welcome home.”
“What?” Morty says, looking at her. With a cruel smile, Summer shakes him where she’s got him by the hand before turning around, tying her hair up into a ponytail as she heads for the door. He turns back around to Mom and Dad, repeating himself, “what? You--you guys are--what?”
“Look,” Mom says.
“Morty,” Dad says, “When three people love each other very much--”
“Oh my God,” Morty says, because this is almost as bad as anything he could have imagined.
“Or, you know, when two people love each other very much, but maybe they get like, tired of each other, or don’t think they’re sexually compatible anymore,” Mom continues.
“Oh my God,” Morty repeats, leaning back against the kitchen wall for support. “For real? You guys are for--for fucking real?”
“Morty,” Dad says again, with a little laugh at the end like he thinks it will alleviate how uncomfortable the situation is, “look, we’re all adults here. We just want to be honest with you and Summer about the nature of our relationship, and we want you to know that right now? This is the happiest we’ve ever been.”
“Because you’re both fucking the same guy?” Morty asks, taking a shaky swig of his drink. Mom kindly hands him the champagne bottle with silent understanding, and he refills the glass until the beverage is just a cloudy yellow.
“Look, Davin is--” Dad tries.
“Davin?” Morty repeats. “From the horse clinic?”
“Davin is--” Dad tries again, while Mom just says, “yes, Morty, that Davin, how many Davins do you think we know?”
“Aw geez,” Morty says, falling back against the wall, head hitting the plaster a little rough. “I, I, I should’ve stayed home again.”
“Sweetie,” Mom says. “We want you here, we really do. We miss you being a part of the family. We just, you know, we want to be honest with you. About the family being a little bigger now than it used to be.”
“Is he living here?” Morty asks, swirling his glass a few times habitually before taking another drink.
“God, no,” Dad says. “We don’t want to rush into anything, and you know. We’re kind of waiting for your sister to move out. She’s not very uh, well, she’s not very understanding.”
“Summer’s experiencing a, um, a sort of arrested development,” Mom says delicately.
“W-w-well, well, you uh, you fucking think!” Morty says abruptly, thoroughly grossed out, his voice getting pitchy as it raises. “Be-being raised by two totally normal, functioning adults like you, you know, I don’t u-u-understand how any of us could have problems!”
“Are you having problems, Morty?” Dad asks, which is absolutely the wrong thing to take out of the conversation, but whatever, Morty was done before it started.
He’s still half-tempted to tell them he’s getting fucked by someone three times his age just to make them squirm a little, see how they feel, but some quieter, softer part of him reigns him back, doesn’t want to go where that conversation would head. “I,” he says, “I’m kind of tired from the flight. Can we--talk later, or something? I’m gonna, gonna go take a nap.”
Both Mom and Dad seem a little disappointed at the very least, like they had higher expectations for a serious talk with their son about entering a polyamorous relationship. Their defeat is in their silence, but eventually Mom nods.
“Yeah, yeah, Morty, that sounds, you should probably go do that,” she says resigned into her glass. Dad is breathing through his nose a little defensively, and he won’t look at Morty, and honestly, Morty doesn’t want him to. He turns to go upstairs, but Mom stops him first with a hand on his wrist. He turns back to see what she wants, but she simply pulls him in for a hug. “I am, you know, happy that you’re here. I really am.”
He nods, a little numb. “Yeah. I--” he doesn’t know what to say. “Yeah.”
She lets him go, and he picks his bag back off the floor with his free hand as he walks through the foyer to get upstairs to his old room. All the same stairs creak on the way up. All the same pictures still hang on the wall. Morty feels as lost as ever.
His room smells stale when he opens the door, not cozy and familiar like the rest of the house. He considers opening the window before being reminded of the aggressive snowfall outside, and wearily climbs into his old bed instead. The sheets don’t smell or feel clean, which is fine. He finishes the rest of the mimosa he’s still clutching with his back propped against a few pillows, scrolling through his phone absently like there’s something he’s looking for. Geoff hasn’t texted him since last night, and he’s trying to feel good about it. They fought last weekend about Morty going home, and Geoff had accused him of keeping secrets, and being emotionally immature. Morty had said, what the fuck do you expect, I’m twenty-two, and, and, and running on three hours of sleep a night, you think someone emotionally stable and functioning at my age would be dating his professor? And Geoff had said he’d let it go, they’d talk later, and they still haven’t.
After five minutes of aimlessly fucking around on his phone, he genuinely starts to feel tired. He eases himself down to lie on his side. Downstairs, he can hear his parents fighting, their voices raised and sharp, but he’s not sure what they’re saying. He’s not used to listening through the walls of this place anymore, or maybe he just doesn’t care as desperately as he used to when he was younger and had wanted a normal family.
He lets his eyes close.
x
He wakes up to an empty house.
It’s mid-afternoon when he sits up with drool drying on the corner of his mouth to the silence of a house caught in the middle of a snowstorm. The TV isn’t even on downstairs, which it always used to be when Mom or Dad or Summer were home back before college, even if it was just as background noise. He briefly considers staying tucked inside his room for the rest of his stay here, requesting all meals to be left outside his door on a tray like a prisoner, but cringes inwardly when he realizes how fucking melodramatic that sounds.
Besides, the house is almost guaranteed to have one other person if his parents or Summer aren’t home.
He came here to be brave.
He still isn’t sure about what.
Sometimes, he’s mad at Rick for just fucking him in the first place, for giving into whatever had remained unsaid between them. Sometimes he’s mad at himself for the same thing. Sometimes he’s not mad at Rick for fucking him, but he’s mad at Rick for leaving him in the dark to pick up the pieces of himself and continue on existing like it hadn’t happened. Sometimes he’s mad at Rick still, because he knows Rick is responsible for the way he feels in a way he will probably never fully know, and he’s mad at himself for being such a vulnerable, selfish little shit, for wanting so much.
The path from his bedroom to the garage is the most well-worn path in the house. Even after years away he knows he could still do it blind, or in his sleep, or in the dark. It’s easier not to think about it as he gets out of bed and heads downstairs. The door to the garage is closed, but it isn’t locked. He doesn’t knock before letting himself in.
There’s an industrial space heater making the entire place feel uncomfortably hot. Rick’s got his jacket off and the long sleeves of his shirt are rolled to the elbow, layered under an uncomfortable looking pair of thick, black gloves that seem to be assisting him in manipulating a metal ball flying a foot overhead. Rick’s fingers move to the right and the ball follows his movements, floating casually to where he points.
“Huh,” Morty says.
“Prrretty neat, huh, Morty,” Rick says, not looking away from the ball. “C-close the door, would you? That ball is made out of a, a very rare alloy, Morty, and it only reacts to the even rarer mineral salts I’ve washed into these stupid gloves i-i-in temperatures over ninety degrees.”
Morty absently closes the door behind him, and watches as Rick continues to point in different directions. The ball corresponds with his movements overhead, to the side, shoot across the room and come flying back to his hand.
“Think about it, Mmmorty,” Rick continues, opening his palm to let the ball float out of his grip back toward to the ceiling. “If I could, if I could figure out how to apply this sort of teEEUGHchnology to bullets, Morty, I could retire. I could, I could buy myself whatever planet I wanted Morty, with that kind of money.”
“Wow, I mean,” Morty says, thinking about the ball tearing toward him at four thousand feet a second. “Is that what you would want?”
“What I would want, huh?” Rick repeats, keeping his attention on the ball, which twists in circles as he moves his hands around each other in half moons. “Is that why you came down here, Morty? Why you came back home, you wanna talk about what I want?”
“No, I,” Morty starts, hands clenching uncontrollably at his side. “I didn’t mean, I didn’t mean that.”
“I, I, I’m trying to do my job here, Morty, this is important science that’s gonna make grandpa very rich, so unless this is important, I’m gonna need you to be-e-at it,” Rick says, circling his pointer finger to make the ball repeat the same pattern against the ceiling.
“Fine,” Morty says. He wants to say, you fucked me, deal with the consequences. He wants to say, I hate myself because of how you make me feel. He wants to ask, why did you just leave, you didn’t even, you didn’t even come back, I waited for you to come back. I stayed up another night aching for it, he wants to say.
Instead he says, “I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t know why he’s apologizing. The only person he’s sorry for right now is himself. It’s the wrong thing to say.
“Oh my God,” Rick says under his breath. He pulls off one glove, and Morty watches the metal ball fall into his hand like Rick just cut its strings. He says, “Morty.”
Morty’s knuckles are white from his fists being balled up so tightly. He doesn’t say anything in response. Rick puts the ball on his workbench and tugs the other glove off with his teeth looking more than a little annoyed. Something uncomfortable stirs in Morty’s stomach at the sight.
“You think you’re being real cute right now, don’t you,” Rick says, walking over to the space heater only to kick it off with his foot. The room instantly feels ten degrees cooler without the open flame. “Th-th-think again, you little shit. Whatever guilt trip you’re trying to lay on me, Morty, don’t.”
“Or what,” Morty says without even thinking about it. “What’re you gonna do, Rick, fuck me again?”
“Jesus,” Rick says, grabbing at a series of beer cans on his workbench, shaking each one before finding one with enough liquid in it to take a pull. “Are-are you trying to tell me, because you very clearly said, you said you wanted it, you wanted me to, like, like I haven’t known for years, b-bu-u-u-t you fucking said it, Morty.”
“Just because I wanted it doesn’t mean, you know, it doesn’t mean that I want to want it,” Morty says a little furiously, feeling stupid and angry all at once.
“Yeah, and I feel real fucking ble-ESSed because I want to fuck my grandson, this is really great for me,” Rick replies stone-faced, rattling the can in his hand again, crushing it in his fist when it sounds empty. “I-I’m really not sure what you want from me here, Morty. As, as good as it was, if you’re gonna, gonna ask me to be your boyfriend or some shit like that, Morty, I’ve gotta say, hard pass. N-o-o-o-o thank you.”
It’s unexpected, like getting the air knocked out of him in the weirdest, most unexpected way, because it’s not what he was going for at all. It sounds even more outrageous said out loud, and Morty, preparing for a fight, finds himself laughing suddenly and uncontrollably. He actually wraps his arms around his stomach and bends over, half afraid he’s going to piss himself, feeling absolutely hysterical.
“Y-yeah? You think that’s uh, you think that’s funny?” Rick asks a little unevenly, taken aback by Morty’s reaction.
“Oh my God, Rick,” Morty chokes out, wiping at his cheeks, which are wet with tears. “Could you imagine? Telling mom and dad? Jesus Christ, after whatever weird shit is going on with them.”
“Tell me about it!” Rick says, waving his hands in the air. “I-i-it’s, it’s weird, they keep a schedule of when I’m off-planet so they can take turns fucking their boyfriend as, as loudly as they want, which is--Morty, having lived with your parents for too many years of my life, I, I never thought they could have loud sex, Morty. I, I honestly thought Beth might have asexually reproduced to make you, because I just don’t like thinking about it, Morty, but no, no, they do it, and it sounds weird and gross, and it’s loud enough to get me the fuck out of here,” Rick says, tone serious, eyes wide with horror. It almost gets Morty to buckle over laughing again.
“No,” Morty groans, leaning against the metal support beam of a storage shelf, “I don’t, I don’t need to hear this, that’s fucking gross, Rick.”
“You don’t need to hear it? Try actually hearing it sometime, Morty,” Rick says ominously.
“Like you said, uh, what was it, hard pass,” Morty says, and Rick smiles at him sideways in a completely uncensored way that makes Morty’s heart scream against his ribs. He rests his head against the shelf and closes his eyes. “Jeez, Rick this is so fucked. This is so fucked up.”
“I, I, I, what do you want me to do about it, Morty? Do you want me to kick you out, Morty, can you not, can you not control yourself around me, is that it? I-i-is that what you’re asking here, I, I don’t know what you want,” Rick admits. Morty looks up at him mournfully, because he isn’t sure either-- he hates wanting this, he hates that the only guy he can get it up for is his grandpa, that he feels imprisoned in it. He wishes it were anyone else. Rick sighs and takes a step forward. “Jesus Christ, Morty, I don’t know if you want me to push you away or kiss you.”
“I mean, I’m kind of seeing someone, you know.” Morty doesn’t look him in the eye when he says it.
Rick wraps an arm around the same shelf leg that Morty’s using as a crutch, and leans into it so they’re standing a few inches apart. He brings a hand up to comb through Morty’s curls, and Morty lets him. “That professor guy?”
“Yeah,” Morty says.
“Is it good? He make you feel good, Morty?” Rick asks, a little soft, dangerously.
Morty shrugs, smiles a little bitterly to himself. “He’s uh, you know. He’s not you.”
“Gonna give me a coronary, kid, I swear,” Rick says. “I, I, just tell me what you want already, you drive me crazy, Morty. Do you, do you want me to tell you it’s okay? Do you want me to kiss you, Morty, do you want, what, do you want me to fuck you?”
Morty doesn’t respond but Rick leans in and kisses him anyway, and Morty finds himself gulping Rick down, desperately like he’s drowning. His free hand finds Rick’s waist and he pulls Rick against him through the man’s belt loops, and they go tumbling back into the wall. Rick’s hands go for his face, like he doesn’t know how to keep Morty still, what the best place is to pin him down by. Morty groans into it, knees buckling, and he holds himself up by clinging to Rick’s waist for dear life. The kiss is a lot of teeth and dry mouth, and Rick tastes like fucking battery acid, and despite himself, Morty is starving for him, moans coming out shaky and soft and uncontrollable at the way Rick wrenches his mouth apart with his own.
Rick’s hands smooth themselves down Morty’s chest and sides to grab at his ass and support him that way, squeezing at him needily. He’s a lot stronger than he looks, and if Morty were feeling more coordinated he would wrap his legs around Rick’s waist and beg to get fucked against the wall. Arousal is churning thick and hot at the base of him, and his pulse beats loudly in his ears at the thought of getting off with Rick in a way that he aches for with anyone else.
“He make you feel like this?” Rick asks rough against his mouth, the stubble on his face harsh against Morty’s cheek as he moves to nip and suck at Morty’s earlobe, which goes straight to Morty’s dick.
“No-o-o,” Morty whines, his fingers digging under Rick’s shirt to feel skin. “You, j-j-just you, Rick, God.”
Rick smiles against him. “Good,” he says. “I wanna put your dick in my mouth, Morty, wanna watch you fall apart.”
“Yeah,” Morty agrees breathily.
“Yeah, but, concrete isn’t gonna work for my ancient knees, Morty,” Rick says, slowing down a little, biting at his jaw, pressing a languid kiss against his mouth.
“Oh,” Morty says, “You-you want to, uh, upstairs?”
Rick’s already groping for the garage door next to him, and pushing Morty through it when he gets it open. It’s all the answer Morty needs, and he keeps his hands on Rick as he steps out backwards, lets Rick guide him back the way he came, fumbling up the stairs and running into walls no fewer than four times. He’s gonna have a bruise on his knee when he wakes up tomorrow and he doesn’t even care, doesn’t even flinch, because Rick is licking into him and pulling his shirt off clumsily and thumbing his fly down for relief.
Morty thinks they’re headed for Rick’s room, but Rick pushes him back into his own.
“Let an old man indulge in some well-worn fantasies,” Rick says, backing him up until his knees hit the edge of his unmade bed. Morty falls back on it easily, and Rick kneels with his legs on either side of Morty’s thighs so he can tug Morty’s pants down. Morty arches up a little for ease and gasps a little when his dick springs out of his boxers exposed. Rick’s quick to take it in hand and give him a few rough jerks, Morty wincing as he deftly drags his dry hand up the shaft and over the head. “G-o-d Morty, like that, w-w-want you just like that.”
Morty is pinching at his own skin, the heel of his hand rubbing above the base of his dick, not knowing what else to do and crazy with the sensation of Rick touching him, Rick makes his way off the bed delicately, knees hitting the soft carpet, hands not leaving Morty. Morty leans up uncomfortably to get a look at him, and from this angle it looks like Rick is in a place of worship, ready to pray, which, “fuck,” he chokes out. He’s an absolute mess, already coming apart.
The last time they fucked, the first time, the only time, it was in the dark of an abandoned classroom, and Rick had just been rough angles caught in the reflection of some streetlights, more touch and taste and smell than sight. it had made the entire experience feel more like a fever dream that Morty failed to wake up from. Now every inch of Rick is vivid and tangible under the white light of his overhead lamp and the cool grey of winter afternoon filtering in past his bedroom blinds. Morty can’t get enough, savors the sight of him.
Rick doesn’t look away when he finally gets his mouth around the head of Morty’s dick, but he makes a noise at the back of his throat that suggests he’s absolutely savoring it, a noise that guts Morty. He doesn’t even move for a second, just stays there, trapping Morty in the wet, unrelenting heat of his mouth, tongue pressed against the underside of him like a warning.
“P-p-please, Rick, I want it, please,” Morty begs, thrusting up a bit uncontrollably. Rick groans around his dick again, slowly moving down on him, mouth tight and slick. He’s got his fist curled around the base to greet his mouth as he sucks Morty deeper and Morty wants to cry about it. His first blowjob was at Junior Prom with Jessica in the back of his dad’s station wagon, and she sucked his dick for probably thirty minutes before it hurt too much and he lost wood completely. Between the sight of him drooling and desperate on Morty’s dick, and his deftness, Rick makes Morty feel completely untouched; it’s incomparable, and he would surrender to it if there wasn’t a lurking fear that he would shoot his load down Rick’s throat in fifteen seconds if he did.
“Rick, you’re gonna, gonna make me come, Rick, if you keep going,” Morty admits, throwing an arm over his face and hiding it in the crook of his elbow to keep himself from watching any longer. Rick hums, and Morty’s almost afraid he isn’t going to stop, and Morty doesn’t necessarily feel inclined to make him, except he doesn’t want this to end. But then Rick pulls off with an ugly, wet noise and Morty feels like he can breathe again with the loss of wet heat. His chest is heaving a little when he says, “oh my God.”
“Morty,” Rick says, rolling his shirt off and wiping a little at the thick spit that’s spilled down his chin. He’s beautiful, Morty thinks dumbly, vellum skin and skeletal frame confident and all his. “God, look at you, just waiting to be fucked. Y-y-you gonna let me fuck you again, Morty?”
“Are you gonna make me beg for it?” Morty replies, kicking his pants the rest of the way off. His dick leaks against his belly with anticipation, just the thought of being torn apart by Rick again, feeling complete. He’s felt empty ever since.
“Yeah,” Rick says, slowly undoing his belt. “Yeah, I want you to beg, Morty.”
Morty’s hot all over with it, Rick’s neediness, his want, his gaze. Rick lets his pants drop to his ankles, and Morty can see where he’s clearly hard with a small, soaked patch in his briefs where he’s been leaking for Morty too.
“Please,” Morty tries, “p-p-please, Rick, God, fuck me.”
“Where,” Rick says, running a casual, teasing hand up the length of him, “you want me to fuck y-y-your mouth, Morty? Your ass, Morty? W-w-where do you want me to stick my dick, Morty?”
“Ass,” Morty says, distantly aware of how fucking dumb he sounds. He scoots himself toward Rick on his heels. “J-j-just fucking,” he’s so ashamed, “I need you to f-f-fuck my ass, Rick, I need you in me so bad, God, I, I, I.”
“Here?” Rick asks, dragging a finger up the bed to Morty’s ass as he climbs over him, pressing down when he finds the hole.
Morty nearly chokes. “Yeah,” he says. “There. Want you to fuck me there. Want--want, need you there, Rick, p-p-please.”
“Where’s your lube?” Rick asks, right when he sinks a finger into Morty, and Morty can’t answer because he’s too busy biting his lip, mewling. There isn’t anything in his room, he knows, because he didn’t know lube intimately until he was nineteen, pledging for a frat.
“Don’t have any,” Morty says, “it’s--it’s fine, I’m fine.”
“I mean, it’s fine for you, maybe,” Rick says. He stops teasing Morty with his finger, withdrawing completely. It’s lewd the way he says, “I wanna feel you, Morty.”
“Oh,” Morty says, every inch of him wanting.
“Oh,” Rick repeats, withdrawing. “I, I, I’ll be right back, Morty.”
He walks away too easy for Morty’s comfort in just a pair of black briefs. Morty is still achingly hard, starting to really hurt with it. He needs to be fucked, like, yesterday. He palms at himself, hissing at how sensitive he’s getting. He wants to roll over and fuck the bed, almost; his entire body is curling in on itself with want.
“Needy,” Rick chides when he comes back into the room less than five minutes later, rubbing his hands together with a swift, slick sound. Morty stops touching himself absently, mouth open, so fucking riled up and ready. “God, you-you-you look like you need this so bad, Morty.”
“Yeah,” Morty agrees, watching Rick reach into his briefs with a lube-coated palm to grease up his own dick. “Yeah, I, I need you, Rick.”
“Fuck,” Rick says, peeling back his briefs, his dick jutting out angry and red and wet. “Take off your shirt, Morty, wanna, wanna see you, Morty, all of you.”
Morty struggles out of his own t-shirt, and as soon as he’s got it overhead, Rick is reaching out one oily thumb to slide against his nipple and Morty keens into it, mouth open and breathing heavily. Rick smiles crooked at his reaction, the way his breath hikes at the sensation of Rick’s fingers all over him, inside him; Rick’s angling his dick until it’s thrusting in the crease of his ass like a promise.
“We-we gonna dance all night?” Morty asks, airily, toes curling with the sensation. “Or are we gonna fuck?”
“Oh, Morty, you done did it now,” Rick says, staring down at his hole, gripping himself in one hand so he can line his dick up expertly with Morty’s opening. “You, you really want this, huh, God, you’re so desperate for my dick, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” Morty agrees, his hips stuttering up with need to meet Rick’s cockhead.
“Tell me you want it,” Rick says, dick already pressing into him, making him flex instinctively, like he wants to pull Rick inside, keep him there.
“I want it,” Morty promises, “I want it so badly. I, I, I, God, Rick.”
Rick dips down and inwards to get both of Morty’s knees situated over his shoulders before he truly starts fucking into him; it’s a sensation that Morty feels like he’s been waiting for his entire life, so vulnerable and exposed all at once. At first it’s just Rick pushing past his cheeks and inside him, shallow thrusts to mark his territory, say hello, like a reminder.
“Good,” Rick says, eyes closed, head thrown back. He mouths at Morty’s calf messily. “So goddamn good, Morty, you have no idea. How do you stay so fucking tight?”
“I, I,” Morty says. He doesn’t like to think about it. His ass clenches at the reminder, and Rick lets out a deep, “oh,” at the sensation. Morty reaches for his dick instinctively and Rick slaps his hand away, grabs it and pins it over his head, fucking down deeper into him.
“Not,” Rick breathes out between his teeth, “not yet, Morty, not yet, don’t want you to.”
“Don’t want me to what?” Morty asks, like a challenge. He presses into Rick’s hold experimentally, but Rick keeps his wrist down easy.
“You know,” Rick says, leaning forward to nip at his neck, his collarbone. He thrusts even deeper, thick and staggering, so much so that Morty thinks he’s gonna choke on it from the wrong end. “W-w-want this to last a lifetime, Morty, one hundred years, just, you and me, Morty, you and me, right here.”
“P-p-please,” Morty begs. He wants to feel this way for the rest of his life, the stretch of Rick breaching him, filling him. Rick picks his other arm up from his side and pushes it overhead with the other, rendering him immobile, all while rapidly thrusting into him .
“You think y-y-you can last, Morty,” Rick asks, leaning in and biting at his collarbone. “You wanna be mine?”
“I am,” Morty says, Rick ripping into him quicker now, a deep, dull pain in his ass tearing him apart. Getting fucked, having an older man’s chest sweaty against his own, wrists bruised from being held in place overhead, it’s not new. It isn’t new to feel the burn inside him, to be stretched out, to feel someone’s dick start to rub precariously over his prostate. It isn’t new to have his dick caught between his stomach and someone else, fucking for purchase on whatever part of another body he can find. But, be mine, Rick says, and Morty can’t imagine being anyone else’s.
“Want you to ride me, Morty,” Rick hisses. The thought of being on top, Rick fucking up into him is almost too much. He shakes his head.
“I, I, I don’t think I can make it that long,” he says, wanting it so badly. His legs are slipping down Rick’s arms and whenever he tries to right himself Rick slides against the most sensitive part of him, making his jaw drop and breath come out choppy, his toes curl.
“Baby,” Rick says, and just that word alone almost undoes him completely, “baby, you need to get off?”
Morty nods, biting his lip so hard he thinks it’s gonna bleed. Rick lets go of Morty’s wrists, and Morty’s legs slip from his shoulders completely as he rolls back onto his heels, thrusts slowing.
“Go on, Morty, touch yourself, lemme, lemme see you get off,” he urges, his own voice going throaty and choked up. He fucks his hips forward with more precision in a way that makes Morty’s eyes roll back in his head. “C’mon Morty.”
“Yeah,” Morty agrees. He doesn’t even recognize his own voice at this point. He reaches a shaky hand down to his dick and it feels like heaven on earth in his palm. “Oh fuck.”
“Yeah, Morty, just like that,” Rick says, penetrating him slow and deep now to match Morty’s pace, Morty just trying to keep himself from coming as long as he possibly can. “I, I, wanna come with you Morty, wanna fill your tight ass up as soon as you blow your load.”
“Jesus,” Morty whines, and he’s lost it, he’s gone, coming past his hand all over his chest. When Rick comes he throws his head back and lets out a groan like his orgasm is getting punched out of him. His hips stutter into Morty, and Morty tries to search past his own come fugue for the feeling of Rick unloading inside him.
It’s usually his favorite part, his ass leaking with someone else, the ache of afterwards, except when Rick pulls out he gracelessly falls next to him on the bed, and Morty realizes, no: this is his favorite part. Rick is covered with sweat and his chest is rising and falling, and Morty can’t stop himself from curling around the heaving, disgusting mass of him, careful not to graze against his oversensitive dick.
“God, Morty, you little freak,” Rick says, eyes closed, still a little winded. “That was, that was some good shit.”
“Yeah,” Morty says, burying his face into Rick’s collarbone, breathing in the cheap smell of him, boozy sweat and motor oil.
“Woulda loved--loved you to ride my dick though,” Rick says, one eye opening to stare pointedly down at Morty. “God, that’s how I wanna go.”
“Next time,” Morty says, “next time I’ll ride you.”
“Next time, huh?” Rick says, and then he does scoot a little out from underneath Morty. “You planning on this happening again, Morty?”
“Well,” Morty says, because he had thought-- “well, yeah. Who, who are we trying to kid here, Rick, you can’t tell me i-i-it doesn’t feel good.”
“It feels fucking great, Morty,” Rick says, rolling onto his side so he can face Morty, bring a thumb to his hip bone gently. “B-b-u-ut it’s not sustainable. I, I said I wasn’t gonna be your boyfriend, Morty, I’m not, we’re not, this isn’t--”
“You said,” Morty says, “just now, you said--”
“Morty,” Rick says, very crisp and serious, “Morty. I, I, I, you, people say a lot of shit when they’re fucking each other, but it’s never fucking honest. Listen to me, Morty, you hated me for this a half hour ago, and you’re, you’re gonna hate me again for it soon. This isn’t, it isn’t healthy. You know that. I don’t want to, I don’t want to ruin you for the rest of your life.”
Morty is suddenly very aware of how naked he is as a chill settles over his skin, and his vision tunnels. He thinks he’s gonna puke. “I know it’s not healthy, Rick,” he says, because he does. Rick has been twisting his insides for so long that he knows he’s got shame stained into his bones. He feels so small. “Like, like I said, it’s not like I want it, I just figured--”
“Don’t,” Rick says. “Don’t figure, don’t think about--i-i-it’s easier said than done, Morty, but you gotta push yourself past this.”
“You were just fucking me!” Morty spits back, tearing Rick’s hand off of him. “How--how can you say this shit when you were just fucking me, Rick?”
“This isn’t premeditated fucking, Morty, and I don’t like the idea that it could become that,” Rick says. “I know, I know this feels like the answer to whatever awful questions you have in you, but Jesus, Morty, it isn’t, okay?”
“Stop talking to me like I’m the only one who wants--” he stops himself, because he doesn’t, “like I’m the only one who needs this. You don’t think I haven’t tried getting it up for other people, Rick? I can barely get hard for the closest thing that comes to you, which, God, I just cheated on someone, Rick!”
“Jesus Christ, Morty, calm down,” Rick says, but Morty’s already leaning over the side of the bed for his pants, the underwear that he had kicked off desperately.
“No!” Morty says, refusing to take in Rick still calm, spread out on his childhood bed like he owns it, like he’s slept here every night that Morty’s been gone. “You--you make me feel like a bad person, Rick.”
Rick narrows his eyes at Morty, scratches at the matted down trail of hair at his navel. “Maybe,” he says, “maybe you are a bad person, Morty, you ever think of that? You ever think maybe you’re just not a good person? Because I know I’m not a good person Morty, I, I, I’m the goddamn devil as far as you’re concerned but at least I’m honest about it.”
It knocks the wind out of Morty. His fists are clenched at his sides again, and for a second, he thinks he’s gonna throw a punch. He feels so naked, so naked, and rotten at the very heart of himself. Every ounce of shame he shed when Rick pushed him into the mattress is coming back in folds, and his hands are shaking as he starts to pull his clothes back on.
“Yeah,” he finally says after he’s pulled his shirt on over his head. Rick’s still naked on the bed, watching him, unreadable. “I do think I’m a bad person, Rick. But, but you made me this way, okay?”
Rick looks unimpressed. He sits up, toes over the edge of the bed for his own clothes. “You done?” he asks, pulling his briefs on one leg at a time first, then his pants. “You say what you wanted to say? You finished, Morty?”
Morty’s never gonna be finished with Rick. Knowing this hurts the most.
“Yeah,” he says anyway. He can’t look at Rick anymore. “Yeah, I’m fucking done, Rick. I’m done.”
“Good,” Rick says, and he’s pulling his shirt on. He rolls the sleeves back to the elbows, folds the fabric neatly with his thumbs. “Be-because this isn’t just on me, okay. And nothing I can say will make it okay.”
He doesn’t look back to Morty before he gets off Morty’s bed and steps out of the room. Morty listens to him go, every step on the stairs until he can hear the garage door open and shut one floor down.
The first thing that Morty does as soon as Rick is back to work is punch the wall so hard the plaster caves in.
The second thing he does is grab his old winter jacket hanging in his closet.
x
Morty ends up walking a half mile in a blizzard to get to the neighborhood bar he remembers never actually having stepped inside. His feet are soaked to the skin by the time he arrives, and he’s just thankful the place is still open. It always looked cozy when he was younger, a converted home with neon signs warming the windows, tables outside that had red and white umbrellas over them in the summer.
The place is packed for late afternoon. It feels good, because he wants to get lost in a crowd of people. He doesn’t want to be seen right now, because he feels like, if anyone looked at him? What would they see, he wonders, would they know what his insides looked like? He fishes his ID out for the guy sitting on a stool by the door, and tries not to let the shame well up and out of him.
He needs to get drunk. He needs to get annihilated.
He gets through approximately three whiskey cokes at the bar in a short period of time, before he feels someone’s hands on him, and almost loses his shit. When he turns around he sees Summer.
“Morty?” she says. She’s holding a tray defensively against her chest.
“Summer?” he asks, relaxing a little. He’s buzzed, maybe, at least trying to get there. “What are you doing here?”
“This is where I work, loser,” Summer says. She looks around. Morty’s at the bar by himself, strangers on either side of him. “Are uh, are mom and dad not here? Rick?”
Morty shakes his head, rubs a nervous hand down his leg. “Uh, no, they uh, they kind of had a fight and left the house for awhile. Not sure when they’re gonna be back.”
“It’s probably weird being in the house with just Rick, huh,” Summer says. She’s trying to be conversational and she knows him better than most people, even if he never told her about the ugly truths between him and Rick. It’s the wrong thing to say though, even if she had no way of knowing. Morty’s hand tightens around his drink, which is almost empty. Summer eyes it. “Want another? On the house.”
“I,” Morty says, because he shouldn’t with Summer here, but at least she’ll keep him from laying down in the snowfall outside and surrendering to it, “sure. Yeah.”
She steps behind the bar and checks his tab before making his drink. The drink she slides across to him tastes like it has a lot less coke in it than the first three.
“Special treatment,” she says, smiling a little painfully at him. “You look like you need it, honestly. I’m um. I’m off in a little over an hour, if you wanna catch up then? We need to talk about the weird shit going on with mom and dad.”
“Sure,” he says, before taking a big sip of his drink.
In the time it takes Summer’s shift to end, Morty doubles his drink count. His tolerance is impressive, at least that’s what Geoff says, but it doesn’t keep him from being messy drunk now. He switches to beer after the fifth whiskey coke, and Summer finds him slumped over sucking absently at the lip of the glass.
“Home sweet home, huh?” she says, taking in the ugly sight of him. He wants to cry. She’s got her own beer in one hand and a big bowl of chips in the other. She slides it over to him. “Eat up.”
He grabs a chip, but just holds it, doesn’t bother to eat. He’s been stewing in Rick’s last words to him, repeating them in his head until it’s all he can hear anymore.
“Summer?” he says slowly, looking at the chip he’s cradling in his hands.
“Hmm?” she asks, answering a text on her phone.
“Am I a bad person?” the words slip out of his mouth clumsy and sad. She looks up from her phone, shocked.
“Is this about--like, not being into the weird threeway mom and dad are having? Because you’re allowed to be grossed out, Morty, it’s gross,” she tells him, but he knows that she knows there’s something else he’s asking.
“No,” he admits. Briefly, he thinks he could tell her. Maybe someday he will. She probably wouldn’t understand, but out of everyone, she would at least probably try. The drunk asshole part of his brain wants to spill his guts out now, wants to tell her he’s still got Rick leaking out of him, that she could probably smell him if she got too close; he wants to roll up his sleeves and point out the red marks fading green and blue on his wrists and say, Rick put those there and I asked him to.
She takes another slow, cautious sip of her drink, before setting it down carefully on a coaster. She puts her phone away completely. “Morty, you took a bullet for me on Venus when you were fifteen. You accidentally killed the homecoming queen with a mutant bacteria from Andromeda my senior year, making me the default queen instead. You were the first person to make me laugh after I broke up with Jason three years ago, and you were the only person that didn’t make me feel like I had failed when I moved back in with mom and dad.”
“Yeah,” Morty says, still looking at the chip in his hands. Summer slips it out of his fingers and folds her hand over his fist.
“Morty, you’re the best person I know,” Summer says, “and I don’t know what mom or dad, or Rick--” she pauses, looks at him, and he wonders if she doesn’t know after all, “--I don’t know what any of them have said or done to make you feel this way, but you’re good, okay? You are so good.”
He can feel the tears welling up in his eyes despite himself, the hot pinpricks rushing up his face, from his ears to his eyes. “I don’t wanna,” he says, “I don’t wanna sit at a table with them all tomorrow. I can’t even look at--I can’t even look at some of them.”
“They suck,” Summer agrees, and she’s smiling, and she’s trying to get him to smile too, he can tell. “But I’ll be there. And you can kick me under the table like you did when you were little, and we can take turns getting high in the upstairs bathroom and pretending we’re fine.”
Morty slumps into the table. “I, I, I don’t know if I can, Summer.”
“You gotta, kid, sorry,” she says, even though she seems to realize it sounds a little mean. “You came back, and that, that would take a stronger person than most, honestly. And tomorrow is gonna be hard. But you’re gonna get through it, Morty, and then you get to leave.”
“You should come with me,” he says into the uneven countertop. “You’re the only person in this stupid family I, I don’t wanna punch in the face.”
“That’s really not as flattering as you probably think it is,” Summer says, “but yeah. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it. Getting out of here.”
Outside, the snow is coming down in thick clumps and the street lights are flickering to life. It looks so cold, colder than anything Morty has known in a long time, and isn’t that something. Inside, it’s warm, and Summer is here trying her fucking hardest, bringing him chips and talking him down from an edge she can’t see. He scoots his drink towards hers and toasts their glasses together.
She makes him promise to try and survive through Thanksgiving dinner the next day after half-carrying him the entire way home, but he’s too hungover and the second Davin shows up, he excuses himself from the house to find his way back to the bar. It’s a lot emptier the second time around, without the warmth of other people or his sister’s company, and he finds himself wondering why his body aches in certain ways, and then he remembers, oh.
He’s rubbing over the fingerprints Rick left on his wrist when the chair next to him is pulled out, and Summer sits down next to him.
“I, I don’t even know why I tried,” she says. “They’re so-- they’re so fucking stupid, all of them, and I keep thinking I have to suffer for these people, but, God.”
She grabs his drink and takes a big sip, and he looks at her with thinly lidded eyes, still waiting for the ibuprofen and hair of the dog to catch up with his headache.
“So, what do you say?” She says, ringing the car keys looped around her fingers. “I got a car outside and a suitcase in the trunk. You wanna help me get outta here?”
He looks up at her, and she doesn’t look at his wrists, just at him.
“Yeah,” he says, tugging his sleeves down. "Yeah."