Chapter Text
Today was a long day.
Well, every day had seemed unbearably long for a while now, so the fact that the day felt ‘longer than usual’ was actually becoming the norm for Morty Smith.
He didn’t quite understand why, but no matter how much sleep he got these days he always felt tired. It made him feel older than he really was. As a sixteen year old, he felt like he was seventy— and he might as well already be that old with everything he’s been through.
He’s almost died, he’s killed people and aliens, been to space, gone to and escaped from prison, saved alien princess, started and ended wars on other planets, flown spaceships, been to the city of Atlantis, fought alongside superheros, been physically mutated and then put back to together, stolen from banks, had limbs severed and grown back, had his heart stop for a few minutes on several separate occasions, saved the Earth from alien invasions, killed clones of himself and everyone in his family, and so much more.
He was a fugitive, byproduct of being his grandfather’s grandson, known across the universe as an intergalactic criminal. He was both known for horrendous crimes, and heroic acts. He couldn’t even remember how many planets and dimensions he’d visited throughout his life.
To think that he was only sixteen years old said a lot about how much he’d been through.
It was no wonder he never felt like he was young anymore. He felt old and worn down— constantly exhausted, even when he managed to not have a nightmare that night and got a full night’s rest.
It took him a while to realize that not everyone felt like this every single day of their life, and it took him an even longer time to realize that he hadn’t always felt this exhausted all the time.
He hadn’t felt this way before Rick had shown up in his life— he loved the man, and he absolutely did love the adventures (not the ones where someone got hurt, though) but it really had taken a toll on him over the past three years.
Actually, it had probably been more than three years. Morty didn’t even know how old he really was anymore. He and Rick had been in multiple situations where time had been all fucked up.
One time, he and Rick had been stuck inside of the Ship’s car battery for a couple of months, but in the real world it had only been a couple of hours. It was a bunch of stuff like that, that made Morty completely unsure of his own age anymore— sometimes they were in a situation where time moved too fast compared to the real world, and other times that it moved too slowly.
He could actually be younger than sixteen, or maybe he could be way older— it hurt his head to think about it sometimes. He was just thankful he didn’t look like he was way older than sixteen, which would be his age right now if he hadn’t been though all of those weird time-manipulation situations.
Sometimes he looked at himself in the mirror, trying to figure out how old he looked like he was. He wanted to say he was younger. He was still very short, and a bit of baby-fat still seemed to stubbornly cling to his cheeks. He looked like a child, and he couldn’t deny that.
His voice was still in that phase where it wasn’t quite deep yet, and it cracked pretty horribly at times— all of that screamed younger to him, and his stutter only seemed to exasperate the effect.
But when he looked at the small scars he had in a few places Rick hadn’t been able to fix properly in tough situations, he thought he looked older— and, mentally, he had to admit he definitely felt older.
He could never truly tell his own age, though, and he felt something within him break each time he thought about it.
It somehow made him feel less human, less real— like he didn’t really exist, and it made him all that more aware of how little he mattered to everything and everyone.
But at this point, did his age even really matter anymore? Nothing really seemed to matter in the grand scheme of things.
Speaking of, he glanced down at the report card he was holding carelessly in his hand, staring at the letters that were supposed to tell him exactly how smart he was.
——————
Smith, Mortimer
Sophomore
Age 16
Int. Math II — F
Physical Science I — C
English II — F
Homeroom — N/A
Spanish I — F
Drivers Ed. — D
U.S. History — F
Mythology — D
——————
He sighed heavily, looking away from the piece of paper carelessly. He didn’t feel all that horrible about his grades. How could he be all that surprised when he completely lacked the motivation when it came to doing homework or completing projects?
He just never managed to get all the way through it before he felt an overwhelming, heavy feeling inside his gut that told him how pointless it would be to actually get it done. School was dumb. Most things were dumb. It wasn’t worth the effort it took to get a good grade. Not many things were worth it these days.
The bell sounded and students began to flood out into the hallways, happy that the day was finally over and that they had a whole two days off before they had to start the week all over again.
Morty waited a few moments before packing his things up and heading out into the hallways. He pushed his way slowly through the masses until he finally made it out the front doors and to the bus lines.
He wasn’t as glad as everyone else was for the weekend to finally be here again. While he felt like shit practically every day, at least school was some form of distraction. When left at home, he closed himself off in his room and spent a majority of his time sulking. He was usually either napping or attempting to entertain himself with YouTube videos or Netflix.
Morty was split between wishing Rick would distract him with an adventure or just leave him be. And honestly, it seemed these days Rick was more likely to just leave the teen be. He didn’t take him on adventures as often as he used to.
Morty was both thankful and resentful of this little detail.
For one thing, he was traumatized less often, and he actually had some form of normalcy and structure now that he wasn’t constantly worried about weather or not today was his last day alive. But for another... he felt ignored and rejected. He was never one to have a big voice. If he got hurt, he stayed quiet about it. And Rick ignoring him most of the time hurt.
And it was all because Rick had invented a machine that could produce a brainwave pattern similar to Morty’s. He never took him on adventures that didn’t involve needing an extra set of hands, and it was sometimes just so... frustrating.
Sometimes, when Morty saw that little bracelet around Rick’s wrist— the one that was metal, and had the words ‘Morty-Wave’ etched onto the side of it— every time he saw it, a little part of him wanted to rip it off of Rick’s wrist and smash it on the ground under his shoe. He wanted to scream at Rick, grab him by the labels of that stupid lab coat of his and shake some sense into him.
But he knew he wouldn’t, even if he could. Rick, for some reason, took a lot of pride in the device. Even if he hated it, Morty could never take something away from the old man when he seemed so happy about it.
Maybe it was because he finally proved he didn’t actually need Morty, or maybe he was just happy that he didn’t have to drag him around the universe with him anymore— as if he had only been a ball and chain to him this entire time— that the friendship and experiences they shared together only meant something to Morty, and not Rick, all along. Morty didn’t know why he couldn’t seem to squirm his way into Rick’s heart, and at some point, he stopped caring about it, too.
Sure, he missed hanging out with Rick. He missed going to Blitz and Chits, and going on adventures across the cosmos, but ever since he invented that damn bracelet, they’d been doing that stuff less and less. But just like Rick left everyone, he was leaving Morty, too.
It was weird for Morty to feel jealous of a simple machine. For one thing, it did him a favor— it stopped Rick from using him like he was the machine. Because before all of this, that’s all Morty had been to him— Just a machine that produced a stupid enough wave to cancel out his own.
But he was jealous because, somewhere along the way, even if the whole time Rick had only been using him, he grew to love the adventures. How could one not fall in love with the rest of the universe once they saw it?
But now he hardly ever even saw Rick or his precious Portal Gun. He probably loved that thing more than he loved anyone.
He didn’t feel as hurt about it as he had about four months ago, when he’d invented the damn bracelet. Now he just... sorta felt numb to pretty much everything. He hardly saw his unrequited best friend these days anyway.
He stepped onto his bus as it arrived and sat in the third seat down. It was the perfect spot because it wasn’t too far back, where the rowdy kids sat, and it was just far back enough that you didn’t have to deal with accidentally pulling the emergency lever should you decide to lay your head on the window, or not have room for your legs because of the wheel bump.
He ignored the kids that tried to get his attention and threw balls of paper at him. Bullying was a common thing that happened to him, but it was easy to ignore once he stopped caring about a lot of things. It used to effect him a lot more. He had, more than a few times, cried himself to sleep because of things other kids had said to him.
But now the words and insults only rolled off his back like water off of a duck because he’d heard it all before. It was always the same, no matter where he went.
The rest of the ride home went by in a fuzzy haze. He almost hadn’t realized it when he actually made it home, and the bus driver had to snap their fingers in his face to get him to focus on the real world again.
The other kids on the bus laughed at him as he got off. Morty shrugged it off. It didn’t matter what they thought of him, even if sometimes it did hurt when they insulted him.
His backpack felt unbearably heavy as he entered his almost unwelcoming home. His mother was passed out on the couch, a half empty bottle of wine sitting on the coffee table. She was still dressed in her work clothes, and upon further inspection, her lipstick and mascara was smudged across her face.
Morty sighed as he trudged his way up to his room and deposited his backpack at the foot of his bed before returning to the living room.
He kneeled in front of his mother on the couch and gently shook her shoulder. “Mom.” He said quietly. “Let’s get you to bed, yeah?”
Beth stirred awake, mumbling a few unintelligible words that Morty just didn’t quite catch. Upon seeing her son, Beth’s lips stretched into a watery smile. “Morty, baby.” She slurred, reaching out to him with an uncoordinated hand.
“H-Hi, mom,” Morty smiled weakly back at her, taking a hold of her outstretched hand. He had to help her to bed like this more often than he’d like to think about. “I’m g-gonna help you to bed, alright?”
She was completely wasted, but it wasn’t all that abnormal of a sight for him. He was sad to realize such a thing.
Alcoholism seemed to somehow run in the family, even if it wasn’t technically genetic.
Morty’s been drunk before in the past. He’d snuck a bottle or two (well, more like five, on five separate occasions) back when he first started adventuring with Rick and things became too much for his innocent little heart to handle.
The thing that made stealing the bottles so easy was the fact that Rick and Beth drank so much that they could hardly keep up with how much they had left. It wasn’t all that surprising to them if they ‘forgot’ how much they’d had, or couldn’t remember how many bottles they had left. Therefore, if a bottle or two was taken, they’d just think they forgot about it.
You just had to make sure not to take too much of it.
It was actually harder to steal from Rick, and he’d only managed to steal one bottle from him; he got caught and lectured pretty damn badly the second time he attempted to steal from the old man. So, he’d stuck with just stealing his mother’s wine.
Summer caught him once and they climbed up onto the roof and drank half of the bottle together. It was the only way he could get her to keep her mouth shut about it, and he’d actually had a little bit of fun talking with her that night.
Now, however, Summer was off in some dorm for the collage she was going to. He didn’t get to talk to her anymore, except on holidays when she came to visit. Morty was kind of envious of how she’d managed to escape. Home was home, but it was toxic, and everyone who stayed ended up falling apart. Morty was already well along the way, but he still had a couple of years to go before he could try to escape like Summer managed to do.
It had actually been two whole years since Morty’d had a single drop of alcohol, though. Seeing his mother in the condition she was in right now reminded him why he made that secret vow to himself— to never drink. Maybe along the way, he’d let a few slips— a shot on a holiday, a quick sip from someone’s flask if offered. Maybe a couple of nights at a bar for fun.
But he made a secret promise to himself to never drink to get drunk— never drink in an attempt to suppress his pain. He never wanted to end up like his mother, and he feared ending up like Rick.
As much of a genius as that man was, and as much as Morty looked up to him, he’d never wanted to actually be him. He wanted to be better than him— to be happier than he ended up. He loved him, but the man was completely withered and disturbed at this point in his life.
Morty didn’t want that. He’d already seen how parts of him had become similar to Rick, like his apathy, and his occasional lack of empathy. Some of his morals at this point were just... gone. They’d been washed away, and for a while, Morty hadn’t even noticed.
One day he scared himself when he held a laser gun to a man’s head and pulled the trigger without question when Rick instructed him to do so. His blood and brains had splattered all over the wall, decorating it with a vibrant red— the color was forever seared inside Morty’s memories. His body had spasmed for a moment before it collapsed on the ground at his feet. His eyes had been wide open, but they were empty. Dead.
Morty had even got blood on his white sneakers, unable to wash the stains out for weeks, and he’d felt nothing. No pity, no pain or sorrow or guilt. He’d felt absolutely nothing for the man that he’d murdered in cold blood, nothing for the family that would surely grieve over his absence in life. He didn’t even know why Rick had wanted him dead— for all he knew, the man could have been entirely innocent, but he hadn’t cared.
That had been the first time he’d felt no remorse for murdering someone, and he’d never been more terrified of himself before in that moment. Terrified of what he could do, who he could kill, how he’d lose everything that he once was.
He feared losing himself more than he feared anything, and that’s why he had to do everything he could to break they cycle of his family’s history.
He didn’t want to feel nothing, didn’t want to be desensitized to seeing a pair of empty eyes that lacked the soul of the person who once lived inside that corpse. He wanted to feel the guilt and the hurt like he once did all that time ago, because at least, if he did, he would be able to tell wether of not he’d fucking lost his shit yet.
“Bed?” Beth questioned, pulling Morty from his thoughts.
Morty took a moment to force his eyes to focus on his drunken mother, trying to pull his mind back to reality. It seemed his mind had made a habit of spacing off recently. “Y-Yeah, mom.” He said. “C’mon, I’ll-I’ll help you up the stairs.”
He slowly helped his mother stand and guided her carefully up the stairs and to hers and Jerry’s room. She collapsed on her side of the bed in a heap, and Morty slowly and carefully tucked her in. “You’re such a good son, Morty. ‘M proud to have you as my son.” Beth slurred, looking at the brunette with tears forming in her eyes. Despite the praising words, she looked like her heart was breaking inside her chest. “‘m srry ‘m such a bad mom.”
Morty sighed, patting his mother’s shoulder in a reassuring away. He didn’t hold any blame to her. “You’re not a bad mom. I-I love you, okay? Remember that.” He knew she wouldn’t remember— she was far too wasted. But he felt better asking her to remember; it helped him pretend that she would. That tomorrow, she wouldn’t feel like a bad mom.
Morty truly and honestly didn’t blame her for his own hardships. He was so broken inside, but he knew his mother was broken, too.
Beth shook her head, reaching a hand out to cup the side of Morty’s face. “No, I am a bad mom. But you’re such a good kid, Morty. Promise you’ll never be like me, Morty. Never be like Jerry. Never be like your grandpa.”
Morty felt an emotion bloom inside of him for the first time all day. Sorrow, longing, hope. It was so weird for his mother to ask for such a thing. He could understand why she didn’t want him to turn into herself or Jerry, but it was turning into Rick that really confused him.
Beth has always held Rick on a pedestal, no matter how horrible he could be to everyone in the family. She threw so much away just to keep him at the house. It was surprising and almost... relieving that she didn’t want Morty to end up like him.
He placed his hand over hers, feeling his own eyes brim with tears he wouldn’t be letting go of anytime soon. “I-I promise.” He said. “I-I’ll be different.” He meant every word, and even though the chances were that Beth would never remember this, Morty would.
He’d remember this moment until the day he died. He would remember his promise to be be different.
The smile on Beth’s face was almost radiant, if not for how shaky and strained it was. But at least it was genuine. Almost immediately after, her eyes drifted closed and she passed out once again.
Morty carefully pulled away from her, positioning her arms comfortably on the bed. His heart was heavy and his mind was swirling with the lingering emotions of the moment.
‘I’ll be different,’ He promised himself.
Even if he didn’t get good grades, even if he knew he was clumsy and stupid, even if he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, even if he was already broken in so many different ways, he was going to be different. He wasn’t going to fall into anyone’s footsteps but his own. He wasn’t going to let himself fall like everyone else in his family has.
He wasn’t going to kill, he wasn’t going to drink, he wasn’t going to let himself completely unravel.
He wasn’t going to make the same mistakes.
‘I’ll be better.’ He promised himself once again as he left his parent’s bedroom
And he could only hope that he’d be able to keep that promise.