This fic is doing much better than I expected, proving that this fandom has awesome taste. 😌
Heed the warnings, and enjoy a lil preview [SFW] if you want!
Morty licked his plate clean. The meal was amazing. His dad had been a great cook for a long time, but he was somehow still getting better every day. And he went all out this Christmas Eve, creating a sea of tastes that Morty previously couldn’t even imagine.
Looking up from his plate, Morty noted that he was the first one to finish his meal. He slowly reached for his glass – he got apple juice, even though his mom offered him wine or whatever Summer was drinking – and drank it. He tried to pace himself, but out of habit, he ended up draining it all within seconds no matter what he did.
“Do you want more juice, Morty? Or wine?” Beth asked, tipping her bottle toward him. Her face was relaxed, even though he could see worry in her eyes. He ignored it.
“No, thanks,” he said, covering his glass with a hand. “I think I’ll just, I’ll just go now,” he declared, standing up. “It’s about time I go back. Uhm, thank you for the meal, Dad, it was delicious!”
“Thanks, Son!” Jerry smiled uneasily, giving his wife a look. He knew his reasoning stood no chance here, but he still hoped that hers would.
“Morty, it’s Christmas,” Beth argued lightly. “Don’t you want to stay with your family for a bit? You should sit down and relax; you haven’t stopped for a full hour in three months, and for what?”
Even though her little speech chipped away at his resolve, Morty was steeled in his decision by the last sentence. His face hardened, his posture tensing. “For. Rick.”
Just those two words. They ended the argument, and he could finally leave the room. It was suffocating for him to be there. He needed to return to the underground.
Fey Rick and Human Morty. Rick keeps meeting Morty even though he shouldn't. Usually, humans are considered so below Fey, and Morty is fucking stupid, but there is something about this human that makes his stupidity endearing instead of annoying.
One day, Morty is being chased by Fey hunters. The accusations that he's friends with a Fey have spread too far. He's running through the forest where he usually meets Rick, but he's running in the wrong direction, away from Rick and not towards him. Rick assumes that's because Morty is fucking stupid.
Thankfully, he gets there in time, catching up and protecting Morty with his own body, but damn, those hunters are surprisingly good. They wound him, and all he can do is create a portal, using all of the magical energy left in him, and get them out of there. On the other side, he passes out, leaving Morty alone in the land of Fey.
When Rick wakes up, they are surrounded by Fey. They didn't attack Morty - they wouldn't dare - but they are holding food and offering it to the boy. Rick panics, still exhausted and barely conscious, and implores Morty, asking if he ate anything they offered him, but Morty says he was too scared to touch it. Rick breathes in relief. Whoever eats Fey food, even just a small bite, will never be able to eat human food ever again. Morty would either be stuck in the realm of the Fey, or wither away miserably in the human realm.
Rick doesn't want to keep Morty there for long. It's not a good place for a human. The few humans who have fallen for Fey tricks and are forced to live in their realm are slaves, and even though there is a constant smile on their faces, they aren't doing well. Rick wants Morty back in his own world asap, but Morty is determined to stay. He might even try to sneak a bite from Rick's plate in order to get stuck there too.
Rick's only been with the Smith family for a year when RaM starts, but he has this memory of picking up toddler Morty. I have a theory that Rick visited Prime's reality to take revenge on his family, but Beth happily introduced him to his grandson, and he couldn't hurt the Smiths when he saw him.
It took Rick 10 more years to finally settle down, but this is the reason why he chose Prime's reality, out of them all. It wasn't a bait. It wasn't a lingering hunger for revenge. It was this one, single memory of his grandson. Sure, they were all the same. But this one he held.
I love AUs where Rick has a house, and only he and Morty live there. My masochistic ass likes to imagine Rick would get a big house, because that's what he knows. A house needs a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, master bedroom, two bedrooms for kids... Ouch.
It's only when he's standing in the middle of the too big house, alone, that he realizes that he has nobody. He lost his family and wasn't able to keep a relationship since, and now he has this house to fill with pointless inventions in order to pretend that he's not so freaking lonely.
But it weights on him. Until finally, he comes across Morty. He's hesitant to let someone into his miserable life, but he's also selfish. He will drag Morty to the bottom with him if he has to, just to feel some warmth on the way.
I like the theory that Rick had a crush on Birdperson, because it feels so... normal? Relatable, I dare say? He lost everything, he was stuck in an endless chase, and for the first time in a loooong time, he had someone he could trust, who he considered equal, who was cool and who also didn't view him as a widower but as a partner in crime.
To BP, Rick was just Rick, and being himself was a concept that has slipped away from him the moment that bomb went off in his garage. Of course his feelings grew so big he no longer felt like it was a friendship.
Falling in love with the first friend he got since Diane is so neurodivergent of Rick, and I love it. Did he have friends before? He was probably hard to deal with when he was young, but Diane knew how to tame him. Maybe they had common friends?
Maybe they came to him after the "accident". “Condolences, such horrible news, can we help?” But looking at someone who is in shock, grieving, developing PTSD, is hard, especially if he wasn't accepting of their help. They quickly stopped trying and left him alone.
Rick must've been a loner for years when he left Earth. He was smart enough not to trust anyone out in the universe. Being alone was healing. He was losing hope but finding out that it didn't matter anyway and he could just enjoy life. He met BP at a festival.
He had been lonely for years, telling himself that he wanted to be alone, but this man had been married once. He had a child. Obviously, loneliness wasn't his thing. He's a different kinda Rick.
So, as soon as someone came near his heart, he fell blindly in love, desperate to replace/recreate what he once had with Diane. He tried to cram BP into a very specific wife-and-child shaped hole, and when BP refused, it sent him down a spiral. Killed whatever was left of hope and left only a bitter old man. At some point, he returned to Earth and tried to forget everything.
But the Council wouldn't leave him alone, so he had to get up again, move, and when all that (the Citadel) was said and done, he could've gone back to his wallowing, but he was so tired. Loneliness clearly didn't work for him. So he chose a (not so random) Smith family and crashed there.
Rick and Morty from a dimension where everyone looks like either Rick or Morty to varying degrees. Thanks to that, they are very good at telling even two identical "standard" Ricks/Mortys apart. Evolution, adaptation, you know.
When they visit the Citadel for the first time, it is certainly an experience, but visually it's not that mind-blowing. They don't stick around because the Citadel is not for them, but they visit occassionally, make trades, delliveries, etc. People (Ricks) know about them.
The ability to tell identical Ricks apart is very handy, so when RaM refuse to stay and be helpful, someone gets Rick "out of the way" and kidnaps Morty, forcing him to work for the council. He thinks his Rick is dead.
At some point, C-137 learns about this special Morty and tries to get him to help him find Rick Prime in exchange for freedom, but the Morty is so broken and gaslit, forced into pretending he's there willingly, he doesn't even want to get out, just says he doesn't want to leave the Citadel.
But Morty C-137 is compassionate and smart. He tells Rick that he thinks this Morty is not there willingly, and maybe if they free him, he might be willing to help. At first, Rick thinks it's too mcuh work and doesn't want to, but Morty threatens to go and do it alone.
So, they get this poor Morty out and he promises to be on the look out for Prime, but he just wants to return "home". Surprise surprise, his real Rick is there!
He stood no chance against the whole Citadel, but he kept trying to get Morty out. It was him who told C-137 about this Morty's ability, keeping the fact that he had the same ability to himself. So, happy reunion happens, but they have so much healing to do now!
