Archive of Our Own

Packed tightly in the train car, Rick D-831’s only reprieve from the heat was the failing AC. The citadel's climate control made it so that most days it was a nice seventy degrees, but for the past week, the cooling machines in the lower district had been broken, with no word from the council on when they would be fixed.

The vehicle came to a stop, and Ricks hurried out of the train car. This stop was D-831’s favorite. He took a swig from his flask as he looked out the window opposite his seat. The shiny bare chest of a Morty on a holo-billboard was in clear view. He was lounging on the beach, and grasped in his hand was Rickade— now with 30% more Hormian crystals. It was so hot that if he looked close enough, he could see the world through wavy lines. Behind the alcohol and extreme heat, the world wobbled, and with it, the image of the Morty's outstretched hand. He could almost imagine this shirtless version of his grandson waving him goodbye sweetly. The train started up again. With what little wiggle room he had, he reached for his flask. 

Next to him, he heard his own voice say: “Maybe we should try out those Rickades. I heard the FlimFlam flavor is halfway decent.” There was a pause. A halfhearted hum in response from another Rick. It was strange to know other Rick's ability to consider a Morty so coldly. Most Ricks he had met maintained a nonchalant veneer when discussing them. No Rick wanted to talk about how good it felt to touch one. He was of the opinion that they must all be in agreement about it on some level. Ricks loved to take; always touching, always pulling. His Morty was long gone. He had to get his thrills from a gentle hand graze as he took the change from a cashier Morty, or being pressed against a Morty's warm body on a crowded train.

The next stop was his. He and a horde of other Ricks exited onto the platform.

The sun beating down on him made the short walk from the train station to his workplace an ordeal. He fanned himself, hobbling along in a shirt damp with sweat, already dreaming about his sanitized, dry, cleanroom suit.

Rick waited as a horde of his doubles funneled into the facility's doors. The cloning plant where he worked was divided into four main parts. People entered through the foyer, and would then step into Unit one. Unit two was where most of the Ricks worked, and Unit three housed the vat farm. In the building's foyer, right before the area where Ricks had to scan their IDs, was a mural: a lineup of Mortys with the words ‘ready-made for any Rick ready’ written in bold lettering above their heads. It was erotic gold. But when it turned nights darkness would shadow the Mortys. Their figures would become black obelisks watching him leave. It reminded him of resting his head down on the table and peering up at rows of bottles left in the wake of a bender, eyesight darkened from whatever the hell he had been drinking that night. He wondered if his coworkers had looked up and felt the same thing.

Unit 1 was considerably small for how many Ricks occupied the room. Its concrete was a dingy looking grey. There was a windowpane with a clear view into the workspace to the right and the door to the sanitation area on the left. On the walls were skinny lockers, and in the middle of the floor rows of benches facing the window which were packed so close that there was no room to extend his legs as he suited up. All the Ricks were forced to perform an upright contortionist act as they put on their cleanroom suits. Rick pulled out his suit from his locker and walked to the bench.

As he pulled his white uniform on, through the window, he could see Ricks already hard at work with the conveyor belts. Like it was the witness room's view into an execution chamber, he stared on with morbid resignation

The loud click and slam of lockers was ruining the good buzz he had going. He kept his flask with him. They were supposed to keep outside belongings in the lockers. The entire facility had to be kept sterile, lest the biomass that created the Morty's tissues be contaminated, but he was sure other Ricks did it too. 

There was a nudge on his arm. Despite his entire body being covered in a white suit, he could tell it was B-73. 

“You're already wobbly on your feet. You drunk?” B-73 said

D-831 shot him a look.

“Ok, dumb question. Are you too drunk to work properly? You know how the boss gets.”

B-73 hated the boss more than anyone else. Many factory workers hours were being cut more and more recently. It was all clear build up to them inevitably being replaced by machines.

“Ehh, I’ll manage.”

The lattice of rebar and piping extended onto the area of the airlock in such a complicated knot that the handwheel to open it was hard to spot. It all seemed like a needlessly complicated facade for such a simple process. Something foreboding to remind employees to stay on their toes. 

Once everyone was ready, the supervising Rick opened the door. The Ricks packed in tight like sardines. Rick D-831 could feel the airlock engage when his ears popped as the pressure equalized. A sterilizing aerosol spray rained down on them, then the outer door opened, and the horde of Ricks stepped into the work area. The sound of the air locks heavy door closing, and the noisy air release of the hydraulic interlocking system bounced off the walls. Past the entrance, everything was white.

Unit 2 was a concrete box the size of an airplane hangar. Parallel rebar and piping extended from the ceiling onto each wall. The only area lacking this lattice was the clone vat farm, a space pushed to the farthest end of the facility, which could only be accessed by specific employee ID cards. It was where the actual cloning and quality checking happened. D-831 had seen it only once. The area was fairly large, but it was dwarfed by the vast expanse of Unit 2 and felt pretty compact as a result.

All the Ricks beelined to their stations. All day, they would stand at the slow moving conveyor belts, sorting and filling specimen bags of tissues and cells, checking for any irregularities. Around the room there was little movement. Paired with their white suits, it reminded him of marble statues. Entirely focused on the products passing by, they worked with precision. Their arms moved, but did so with total disconnect of force to action, so that no other part of their bodies seemed to acknowledge the limbs were in motion. He wondered if the other Ricks viewed him the same way. B-73 had stopped appearing to him like that over time; he had the benefit of knowing him. 

Ricks were paired in twos at each section of the line. Most Ricks did not care to know the person who stood opposite them. On D-831's side of the line, sterile bags were brought towards him, which he would inject with whatever tissue was labeled. He would then pass the precariously closed bag to B-73, who would then heat seal the opening and attach the tube, which allowed the contents to be siphoned into the cloning machines. B-73 had been the one to strike up a conversation first. From there, they had developed a friendly relationship of exchanges, covering for one another when they had to step out.

On the second floor was the boss’s room. The door to his office connected to a walkway and some stairs. On the walkway, there was a digital clock which he stole longing glances at throughout the day. Under the whirring of machinery, there was the slamming of a door followed by softly echoing footsteps. It was the boss's Morty coming down. It was a common occurrence to see him walking around the facility running his Rick's errands, or in the breakroom grabbing a coffee for him. D-831 watched as he walked down the stairs. He was cute. He was wearing a Morty-yellow button up with an ID lanyard around his neck. Tucked under one arm was a small box filled with paper, and in the other a notepad. Mortys always looked so mousy, even in places they frequented, they had a way of folding in on themselves nervously. It was incredibly charming. He took another sip from his flask.

He turned his focus back to work, filling the bags with as much precision as his drink hazy mind would allow. On the best of days, there was little chatter, and today there was even less. The sound of Morty's foot falls, and the higher pitch of his voice stood out as he diligently went around talking to a few Ricks and presenting letters. Filling the specimen bags became an afterthought as he watched the Morty.

Over Rick’s heads, he could see Morty’s brown hair peaking through the top. Occasional glimpses of his yellow shirt were like lovely beams of light peeking through the clouds. It was extremely refreshing. His old Morty was constantly on the move too, adjusting poorly to the citadel after being used to a high paced life of adventure. 

The sound of footsteps stopped close by, and when Rick looked up, there was Morty standing across from him. The boss’s Morty searched through the box, then pulled out a yellow paper from the stack. 

“Excuse me, uhh, Grandpa Rick told me to give this to the Rick at station 46?”

B-73 snatched the letter from his hand. He skimmed the letter, a look of displeasure quickly overtaking his face.

“What the hell, my hours are getting cut again?” the boss’s Morty had already turned around, ready to fulfill the rest of his Rick's errand. He found that diligent side of Morty's very charming.

“Hey, Morty c’mere.” B-73 grabbed his wrist with more force than necessary. Reason should have told any Rick that they should not be touching another Rick's Morty like that, let alone their boss’s. 

“You go tell your Rick to stop fucking with me— ahem, not like that exactly, but ask him why the hell he’s cutting my hours again.” B-73 had stopped sealing the bags entirely. D-831 hoped the Ricks down the line could pick up the slack.

“Aw jeez… I can try.”

“Well try.” Rick's focus on Morty did not waver. “Please,” he tacked on very quickly.

Morty seemed to take pity on the pleading look eyes. D-831 knew that being the boss’s Morty meant he had to deal with frustrated Ricks daily; he was surprised he maintained so much empathy. His own Morty had become jaded and snippy after living on the citadel.

Rick's grip on his wrist had begun to loosen. The Morty extracted himself from the hand “Ok Rick, I’ll try and put in a good word… What's your dimension number?”

“B-73. Um, thank you, Morty.”

Morty looked momentarily stunned, but then his eyes softened. “No— no problem, Rick. I, uh, hope everything turns out well.”

He quickly jotted down the dimension number in his notepad in a Morty's charming chicken scratch before scurrying off to tend to the rest of his errands.

“The boss has done this before, same song and dance, different day. His Morty asks for my dimension number each time, some Mortys can't recognise a Rick that isn't their own for shit… He's a good kid though, that one,” B-73 muttered as the Morty walked away.

D-831 took a sip from his flask. “Hmm. Say what, what, you will about— EEeeurp—  the boss, but his Morty…” D-831's voice fizzled off. He wasn't entirely sure where he was going with the sentence. His Morty is fine? His Morty is empathetic? His Morty is a good kid? Looked good enough to stare at, to want to fondle, to feel his legs wrapped around Rick's waist and lick every inch of his skin, made soft with prepubescent sweat. He was feeling pleasantly buzzed. He took another sip from his flask.

“You can't get that here. Cloned Mortys,” B-73 paused. It was clear he was waiting for Rick's attention to settle back onto him. It was already hard to sort through specimen bags as they came up on the conveyor while loopy. It took extreme effort to focus on both that task and the Rick next to him “They’re shit— too much variation… the only thing some have in common with the average Morty is saying ‘aw jeez’ when prompted sometimes.” 

The clones felt like the average Morty, at least. Only once before had he touched a production line Morty. From the loudspeaker, a voice identical to his own had said “Rick D-831 to unit 4, please,” and he had stepped in to do quality control. He went to the empty station of whichever Rick he was filling in for, and laid out on shiny operation tables were Mortys. Like an eager child at an aquarium's touch tank, he had fondled the tacky skin of the newly de-vatted Mortys with fresh interest. 

He looked up at the clock which rested right below the boss's office on the second floor. There were still so many hours left in the workday. As he watched it, he could almost feel himself being pulled off kilter with every shift of the clock's hand. He was already achy from standing on the hard concrete in his regulation shoes, and his jumper was still powdery on the inside from when it had last been cleaned. More than anything else, he was bored. 

“I, ehm, hear the, uhhh…  the Super Rick Fan Morty variants are popular this quarter. Cloned Mortys can't be all that bad.” He felt so out of his head that, in between sips from his flask, he had begun to simply pick up the specimen bags and hold them rather than inspect them properly.

“Hmmm, makes sense. What tasteless Rick— EEuurrpp— wouldn't want a yes man who has no choice but to think every one of their ideas is great.”

He grabbed another bag and considered the prospect. A Morty whose purpose was to be a fan of Ricks, to love them and serve them. He found the idea infinitely arousing. He was hoping the rooms cold air would sober him up a bit, but it didn't help. He still felt sloshy inside. His mouth moved quicker than his brain, resulting in a garbled and mumbled mess of sibilants. He struggled to focus, but his drunk brain craved to be understood. Before he could think otherwise, he said:

“It's sexy.” The words shocked his sluggish mind. Whatever he had put in his flask the previous night had made him loose lipped. ‘It's sexy’ came out as is..exyy, fading out at the tail of the Y. 

There was a pause. To Ricks, it felt natural to force a Morty's attention onto themselves rather than have it settle naturally, but Ricks liked to keep each other waiting. It was cold in the factory, probably making up for the busted climate control outside, and he felt suddenly like he was in a freezing ocean, the attentive Ricks at their stations his school of identical fish. His center of balance was being pushed and pulled with the current; he could barely focus or still himself long enough to see Rick B-73's careful consideration of him through his warped vision.

He saw him open his mouth to respond, but D-831's head hit the floor before he could hear it.

………………………………….

When he woke up, it felt like there was a nail being driven into his head. Rick looked around, up at the blinding LED light, to the tile at his sides. He was lying on the floor of the employee bathroom. The other Rick was sitting on the toilet. As his eyes adjusted, the cigarette's glowing cherry briefly seemed a red warning light. B-73 turned to him as he shifted on the ground, snuffing out the cigarette on the wall.

“Whattt… ehm… what are we doing here?”

“You passed out. Hit the— Eeeurp— bottle a bit too hard before work, huh?” Rick took a moment to comb his fingers through his hair. “Boss told me to haul you out, too much paperwork if you die on the floor apparently.”

“Hmm” 

He was still sloppy from the drink and the pain in his forehead. He felt a stab of panic before his mind, still sluggish, could process why. It's sexy, his mind supplied.  He searched in B-73's face for any hint of judgement, a hint he had heard or remembered.

“Filled my flask with Forgins last night. When it's fermented it hits you harder, good shit— definitely not for the workplace though.” He was looking everywhere but B-73's face. He stood up from where he lay against the wall. 

“Heh, damn straight.” B-73 seemed more amused than anything else. “You feeling better now? Sobered up?” 

“Eh,” passing out drunk and waking up drunk wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for any Rick. He had drunk too hard and too fast for his body to metabolize what he had put in it in that short amount of time he spent knocked out.

“Good enough, C’mon.” he motioned vaguely to the door. “We’re definitely getting our pay docked for this little impromptu break.” There was something accusatory in his tone. D-831 could tell he would be coming back to cash in this IOU. Working at a fast pace was essential for a work line like this. Two Ricks stepping out at the same time was bound to harm the day's quota.

“You? Didn't he tell you to take me away” D-831 said

He responded with a shrug, “Eh, you know how he is. The fuck nut pinches pennies harder than a Plethinpath.”

“That ‘fuck nut’ is you.” he chuckled.

“Yeah? Well, I can kiss my ass.” B-73 reached for the door. “You coming?”

“You head out. I need a minute.”

“Hm. Well, it's your wallet.”

The door clicked shut, and D-831 got up. He stood at the sink and splashed himself with water. ‘It's sexy.’ What the hell was he thinking? He had never opened up about that side of himself to another Rick and never planned to— most people didn’t want to hear about how your grandson made your dick hard. When he had first come to the citadel, he was worried the other Ricks would look at him, and they would somehow instinctively know. He walked the streets with his head hanging low, waiting for another Rick’s eyes to light up with recognition as D-831 glanced at his Morty. The rug pull never came. He had carried on like that till now, and had gotten too comfortable.

B-73 had not seemed like he had heard what he said. There was not an eyebrow raised or a lip downturned in discomfort. He could come out and ask. Say it was a misunderstanding, that the Forgins had twisted his tongue and made him say something he didn't mean. But bringing it up if B-73 had no clue what he said to begin with might seem suspicious and overly defensive. He could play it off as a joke, but only if B-73 brought it up first. 

Best to just continue working as normal.

But, it was possible that it would be less suspicious to ask. Most people would want to know what they had said while they were loose lipped from drinking. A lack of curiosity might have implied that the person was well aware of something they were hiding, and that it was the only thing they could have possibly said. Or maybe not. Maybe B-73 had not heard a single peep out of Rick as he hit the ground, and now stood diligently working at his station.

He walked out of the bathroom and was hit with another sanitizing aerosol. At his station, B-73 was already diligently at work. Ricks loved taking the piss, and B-73 took extra delight in it. If he had heard— which he hadn’t— he would have mentioned it as soon as he woke up; D-831 could picture clearly the knowing look he would get in his eyes. The way his mouth would tilt up in delight.

He glanced up at the clock. It was 6 o’clock on the dot, still five hours before they could go home. He occupied his time by watching the boss’s Morty doing his rounds. He diligently watched the staff at work, jotting down notes occasionally. No matter how professionally they held themselves, Morty’s always seemed stunningly childish. The slight aversion of the eye, the stilted speech; there, the kiddie quality of his person always shone through. Even the Mortys in Mortytown with their less-than-zero morals. 

The job always became more tolerable when there was a Morty in view. After moving to the citadel, he saw there was no shortage of Ricks wanting Mortys. Working at a cloning facility seemed like a promising career. He thought there would be an unending supply of Mortys to stare at and keep him company while he worked. Instead, he ended up being hired for the assembly line, where the most frequent glimpses of a Morty were whole fingers or ears that had not been milled properly for the specimen bags.

They were probably about half of the way to their daily quota of three thousand bags. Often, he felt he wouldn't be able to stand the monotony for much longer. Really, he should be grateful that anything happened at all today.

………………………………….

When the day ended, B-73 had left the work floor a bit early. He always did, preferring the extra work to a problem for tomorrow's him, while D-831 stayed behind to finish off a few extra bags. 

He walked out of the airlock and into the changing room. Behind the sea of white bodies, leaning up against his locker was B-73. D-831 waved at him cordially, and B-73 nodded in kind. B-73 was already out of his cleanroom suit and silently watched him claw his way out of his cocoon-like uniform. The room was silent, save for the pitter patter of footsteps as other Ricks at the end of their shifts trickled out from the main floor. B-73 kept opening and closing his mouth like he wanted to say something, but the words were muted as soon as they left his mouth. It reminded D-831 of a beached fish. He pretended not to notice as he gathered his stuff from the locker.

B-73 continued to eye him, but it could have just been his impatience. It was not uncommon for B-73 to wait for him after a late shift. Sometimes, he would give D-831 rides home if he was feeling kind enough, it could have just been one of those days, and it was not uncommon for them to gather their things in silence either. D-831 closed his locker. He took a quick swig from his flask to calm his nerves. 

“So. it's sexy, huh?” B-73 said casually. D-831 stood in stunned silence, he could feel his grasp on the flask slipping from the shock. B-73 pulled it out of his hand and took a sip. “One of those Ricks, huh. Can't say I’m surprised— oh, this is strong shit”.

A cold icicle of fear stabbed through him. B-73 looked very content as he sipped the last remnants of the stolen flask. 

“Come with me,” he said casually.

The death march to B-73's car was silent. His head was already swirling with images of what his life would be like after today. Ostracization and knowing looks. Ricks were aloof, coldhearted bastards who did not need anyone. Until they did. He hated to think that after uprooting his life coming to the citadel to no longer be alone, he would be right back at square one. In the parking lot, he could hear the final words Ricks spoke to each other before they left for the day, and the slam of car doors. Even the quietest of them made him flinch.

D-831 got in on the passenger side of the car. He was barely settled before B-73 started talking.

“I know you don’t have a Morty.” B-73 said it was like the sky was blue. 

D-831 reached for the door.

B-73 grabbed his wrist. “Ah ah, slow down, buddy.”

“Cloned Mortys are expensive, a quality one anyway. They're not for waged Ricks like you and me.” B-73 continued “Scooping up a Morty from Mortytown seems easy, right? But there's too much baggage. Each one of the little fuckers is gonna be thinking of their old Rick, and if they're not, they’ve got their head up their own asses— too busy spiraling about trauma to be a proper Morty. Now the boss's Morty, he's pampered. He's been on the citadel more than he's been out in the multiverse, I guarantee he's got no bite.” 

B-73 paused, eyeing his companion. “Well, maybe enough bite to be sexy for you.”

“Shh! Lower your voice.” D-831 looked around at the other Ricks in the parking lot. No one seemed to be concerned with them. He was sure two Ricks sitting in a car made an incredibly normal picture, but his nerves were still frazzled. “You’re telling me this because?

“I’m sure you’ve got some things you wanna try out. You get what you want, I get mine, then we return him. No harm, no foul.” B-73 drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Even in the dark of the car, he could see his eyes darting across D-831's face, see the nervous twitch of his brow. D-831 was sure that same look was mirrored in his own face.

I get mine, whatever the hell that meant. D-831 knew what was assumed he would gain from this, a fresh, unadulterated Morty to hold and have his wicked way with. 

But, B-73 hadn't given any indication that the feeling was mutual at all. If he was taking the Morty for ransom, Rick, knowing himself, would have mentioned it as an incentive. Whatever B-73's ‘mine’ was eluded him.

“No– no, harm no foul?? And what if the little shit blabs?”

“You think he could pick us out in a lineup? Open your eyes, we all look the fucking same.”

They did. 

“Yeah? Well open your ears, you sound insane!”  D-831 hurried out of the car before B-73 could say anything else. B-73's clipped “Hey” as D-831 slammed the door was the last thing he heard.

The entire train ride home, his mind was blank, buzzing with static. He kept his head down. His irrational fear of somehow being known, more intense than ever. Rick knew easily that B-73's idea was a bad one, but his heart fluttered at the thought.

B-73 wasn't a mortyphile. He was almost sure of it. There was a certain enthusiasm and appreciation he lacked when interacting with Mortys. A mortyphile knew to appreciate the precarious balancing act of childishness and pubescence in a fourteen year old's body, and would catalog every detail with their mind's eye. B-73 didn't have that critical look in his eye. Ricks who were able to look at a Morty with casual fondness were incomprehensible to him. The entire train ride he thought of reasons B-73 would do this, how he could benefit, why he would even tell D-831. He was confounded.

D-831 could easily benefit. He had tried fucking a Morty from Mortytown once. Rows of Mortys lined up on the street waiting for a Rick to pick them up. Even in a Morty's knobby ankle, there was seduction; to be surrounded by so many all at once felt pornographic. In the Morty leaned up against a building, he could see “jerking off my grandson's hairless cock”. In the group of Mortys sitting on the stoop of an apartment, there was “1 RICK 10 MORTYS PUMPED FULL OF CUM”.

He had heard it crudely put before, that some Mortys are to know, and some Mortys are to fuck, but D-831 found it particularly hard to do either. His own Morty had resented him. Moments of fun were always undercut by the knowledge that he would eventually go back to being pissy. He had still loved his Morty, though, only ever touched him the way a grandpa should. In an ideal world, he humorously thought, he would have two Mortys. One to call him grandpa sweetly, and one to warm his dick.

The Mortys in Mortytown looked attractive, but they were shiny red apples hollowed out by worms. D-831 wanted something fresh. He wanted so desperately to be the Rick to do the hollowing. The unique appeal of a Morty was being their first everything. Once they had done something with a Rick, even the simplest of activities like sharing a laugh, would become the blueprint to which all their future experiences would be compared. It was a Morty's malleability that appealed to Ricks above all else.

Despite it all, he had bought forty minutes of a Morty's time for ten dollars. It had been his first and last time. Behind a dumpster, there was a Morty on his knees in front of him. Looking down, it felt like he had finally reached the peak of a mountain, and was now enjoying the beauty of the view below. The Morty had only sucked the tip of his penis for a minute before he shot his load.

………………………………….

The next day at work, B-73 did not greet him in the changing room. As Rick put his white jumper on, his mind was racing, sure that B-73 decided to go through with the plan, and that in a week's time he would see him on the news in an electric chair. Just as easily as the thought came, it went away. He remembered B-73's hours had been docked. They weren't sharing a shift today. Despite logic explaining away his absence, there was still a heavy anxiety pressing on him. He hadn't drunk nearly enough last night, not wanting to risk his job by repeating the previous day's incident. His uniform was suffocating against his skin, and he felt claustrophobic inside the airlock. 

Once at his station, he was able to calm himself with the repetitive motions of filling and passing the bags. The rhythm was easy to get lost in, but once he became aware of it, the serenity would disappear. Usually, when the boredom was truly unbearable and all else failed, he could talk to B-73 to chase it away.

He did not know the dimension number of the Rick who was stationed with him, and he looked identical to all the rest. Everything at work was incredibly bland. He halfheartedly wished the anxiety from earlier would surface again, just to stop the mind numbing feeling. He looked around for any glimpses of a yellow shirt, sure that a day couldn't be so boring, so long, without interruption. He was half convinced he must have missed the sound of the boss’s Morty coming down the steps.

There was no brown head of hair and no yellow shirt making its way around the room. He wondered what B-73 was up to and was surprised to realize he had no way of contacting him. They had never exchanged numbers, it had felt like there was no need to when they were in such close proximity all the time. 

He stared at the clock. They were almost finished with their daily quota. Soon, the Ricks working the next shift would be pouring in. He had been clamoring to get home, but he wasn’t sure what was waiting for him there which he was so eager to return to. Rick removed his cleanroom suit with a heavy feeling still inside him. He kept his eyes glued to the floor as he walked out of the foyer. He didn’t want to look at the mural, didn’t want to think about anything at all till tomorrow.

He looked up when he finally left the building. Pulling into the parking lot was B-73’s busted car. Rick’s better judgment told him to keep walking towards the train station. It was only a two minute walk, but in that time his head could properly clear. He could think straight again. His heart was beating hard against his chest, as if trying to fight him in disagreement. He thought about the Mortys he would see at the train station, and how wonderfully charming it would be. He thought about the Ricks that would be glued to them.

He rushed over to the parked car. At a distance, he could see B-73 blankly staring into the distance, taking big swigs out of a bottle. He knocked on the window. B-73 startled.

B-73 rolled down the window and eyed him skeptically. “Hey.” Despite the look on his face, buried in his tone was the happiness of seeing a friend.

“I thought about the thing.” D-831 blurted out quickly. He felt that if he didn’t violently expel the words they would never come out.

“That thing.” He could tell B-73's voice was picking up in interest, but he still kept it low.

“Yeah, that thing.”

“And?”

“I agree. Cloned Mortys are expensive, and only trash lives in Mortytown.”

B-73’s eyes widened in surprise, but his mouth remained a flat line. Then, he opened his mouth, holding the bottle in front of his chin like a boozy microphone “Why the change of heart?”

With his Morty, he had tried to be a proper grandpa. Thinking back on it, Rick had wondered if he really loved him. Even his fondest memories were obstructed by the regret of how passive he was. He would've, he should've, he could've; very rarely did he think he simply enjoyed Morty's presence without thinking that. He had been good, and he wasn't sure what it had gotten him.

D-831 thought for a moment, "Suddenly seemed like a good idea” he shrugged “Good enough anyway”

………………………………….

At the end of their shift the next day they did not go home. Shift changes always meant tons of foot traffic as ricks exited and entered, D-831 hoped it would allow him to go unnoticed as he followed the Morty to the breakroom. B-73 was pulling his car around to the back. It was a Thursday, which meant shipments would be coming in through the loading bay soon. They would have to work quickly, but he felt a great sense of calm. The Morty was facing away from the breakroom door. He was at the counter, mixing sugar into a cup of coffee. He didn't look back as Rick crept up behind him. He could already see how dark the coffee was. Must be for his Rick then, a Morty's childish taste buds would never enjoy something without creamer. 

He gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Morty.”

Rick felt him jerk under his touch. Most Mortys would have been trained after many adventures to sense someone coming up from behind them, to not flinch when someone touched them. Even the Mortys who had only known the citadel were hardened by mistreatment and danger. As B-73 said, this Morty was sheltered. 

Morty turned around, and Rick reluctantly took his hand off his shoulder. 

“Boss said he wanted you to meet him at the loading dock. 

“Really? He just told me to bring– bring this to his office.”

“Well, he wants you to bring it to the loading dock now. Something about itemizing everything being delivered.”

“Telling me to go here then to go there, you Ricks can be r–real capricious sometimes y’know.”

“I know, I know. You better hurry, though. Don't want to keep him waiting.” Rick said. The boy nodded, then scurried off, coffee in hand.

Now Rick could only wait and hope that B-73 would properly execute his part.

He waited a minute before exiting the breakroom. He didn't want to be seen trailing directly after him. As he exited the building he felt very light; he swore his footsteps barely made a sound, that they barely touched the floor, even. His life till then had been a cycle of chiding himself for being attracted to Mortys and hedonistically giving in to it, but now, it felt like he no longer had to teeter between the two. He could now fully enjoy whatever the hell was wrong with him. 

The loading area was at the back of the facility. The space was relatively small, sandwiched between two buildings with just enough room for an 18-wheeler to back into it. He could see movement and the silhouette of a car at the far end. His heart lit up with anticipation. As he got closer, he saw the Morty fighting against B-73's grip. B-73 had a hand pressed over his mouth and nose, and with the other hand was pulling the Mortys lanyard tight against his neck. The struggle grew into a slow, gentle rocking as he was deprived of more and more oxygen, until all movement stopped completely.  

“Great,” B-73 stared at Morty's serene expression. D-831 wondered what he was thinking. He wondered what the average Rick thought about Mortys at any given moment, since they were incapable of appreciating a Morty's eroticism. “I’m driving. You load him into the back seat,” B-73 continued.

That was easy enough, Mortys weighed next to nothing. D-831 stayed in the back and rested the boy's head on his lap. His hair was incredibly soft. He hadn't been able to indulge himself leisurely touching a Morty in so long. His old Morty didn't mind being close to Rick, but he was never a big fan of snuggling. The rare occasions when he was so tired that he would fall asleep in Rick's arms on the couch would have his heart beating out of his chest. 

He carded his hand through the Morty's hair, down the base of his neck, and. Oh. Of course. Any Rick worth their salt would have a tracker in their Morty. The chip in his neck was probably a quality long distance one, but it was sloppily inserted. Slotted right below his dermis and easily palpable against the top ridges of the spine. Rick could easily remove it. Having money made Ricks overconfident and careless. They never thought anything was gonna happen to their property or their Mortys.

“You got anything sharp back here?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Tracker.”

“Shit. I suspected as much. There should be a pocket knife in the cup holder back there.”

Even more grateful that Morty was knocked out, D-831 got to work on their impromptu surgery. He prodded at Morty's neck to gauge where the chip began and ended. He jammed the knife down into his neck, quickly hitting the metal. The chip was fairly small, only being half an inch on all sides. He couldn't tell how thick it was yet. Peeling around the skin, then sticking the knife up under the chip to leverage it made it pop out with ease. Rick held it in his palm. It was about as thin as a fingernail.  Just as he's about to crush the chip in his hands, B-73's eyes meet his in the rear view mirror.

“Wait! Don't crush the chip, that's expensive tech right there.”

“Yeah? And what's that matter if it gets us caught! Can't spend money from jail.” D-831 gave him an incredulous look.

“We won't get caught, just– just gimme a sec.” B-73 leaned over and rummaged through the glove compartment. When he found what he was looking for, he grinned and tossed it into the back seat. “We use this, and we’re in the clear.”

Landing with a soft thud onto Morty's back was a signal blocker. It was compact, appearing more like a ring box than advanced equipment. Very illegal, very hard to make and to procure. No manufacturer on the citadel sold the parts needed to construct one for fear of cases like these. Rick slotted the chip into the box. The snap as it closed rang out in the car, severing their boss’s last connection to his Morty. He could easily imagine the initial shock that would shoot through him once his Morty's absence was felt. A few minutes without Morty bringing him his coffee could be excused as incompetence, but an hour… he had felt that same shock before. Each minute without him would become a strange pendulum, rapidly swinging between eerie calm and extreme anguish.

When they reached B-73's apartment, D-831 felt his spine relax. He had been pin straight the entire ride he had been paranoid. He would rub his hand in the Morty's hair, feel his soft legs, and get a calming sense of satisfaction. Then, he would look at the wound at his nape and get intensely paranoid that there was something in Morty they had missed. That surely, each strand of soft hair had its own unique honing device, and that in the divot felt where his thigh met his pelvis there was a honing device so deep it couldn't be felt. The twisting knot in Rick's stomach would appear again. In his entire life, D-831 had never felt as relieved as he did when B-73 parked in front of the building. The area B-73 lived in was dingy, bordering Mortytown. There was grey smog covering everything. It made it look illusory, as if D-831 would suddenly wake up in his bed, no Morty at his side.

He took one last look at the Morty's unconscious body before he put him in the duffel bag and reached the point of no return. 

“Quit ogling him and focus on getting him in there.”

If he stopped ogling him then, for him, all of this would have been for nothing. He had wondered before in passing, how different B-73’s life as a Rick had been.

“Calm down, I know how the hell to zip a bag, it's— it's not a fucking neutreno bomb.” Gently, he folded the Morty and placed him in the bag. The zipper closed over his body very easily.

D-831 guided him past the front of the building and instead towards the back. He assumed that it was a ploy to avoid neighbors, but after going in through the back and down a short flight of stairs, it was apparent B-73 lived in the basement apartment. The first thing he noticed about B-73's living quarters was how warm it was. Mortys usually ran hot, and Ricks would concede to their Morty's desire to keep the thermostat low, despite most Ricks running cold. The second thing was how well maintained the small space was. With a Morty, even in the neatest of places there would be a little sock thrown on the floor somewhere, a turned over white shoe, and snacks left out despite their Ricks complaints, but there was none of that here. It looked like he did not have a Morty either.

He laid the duffel bag on the ground, then unzipped it and pulled the Morty out. They sat on the couch in silence, staring at his limp body. For most of his time on the citadel, D-831 wanted to pour out his soul to another Rick. To him, wanting to lather affection all over a small body made sense; he wanted people to know this, and accept him. Yet, sitting there with a Rick who knew exactly what he wanted to do to the Morty in front of them, he felt a warm shame. It felt extremely one sided. He had some clue that B-73 was slightly money motivated, but selling the tracking chip seemed more like an afterthought than his main goal. Hidden beneath the shame was a growing curiosity.

From the floor, the Morty had begun to show signs of life again. His eyelids were rapidly twitching, and soon enough, he was attempting to lift himself up.

“Shit, we should’ve had something ready for him when he woke up.” B-73 rushed to the kitchen.

By then, he had gotten himself upright, and was leaning against the coffee table. The groggy look on his face pulled at Rick's heart.

B-73 sat back down. D-831 had assumed he was getting some type of binding, but in his hand was a glass of orange juice. D-831 made a questing noise, but was quickly shushed.

“So Morty, what do you like to do for fun?” B-73 asked.

“Uh…” There was a long pause. He was clearly still very uncomfortable and disoriented.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to tell me right now.” B-73 passed him the orange juice. “Here, maybe this will make you feel better.”

 The Morty accepted it with shaky hands. His hesitant sips from the cup were incredibly endearing.

“You like interdimensional cable, buddy?”

B-73 continued peppering him with questions. He seemed overjoyed by even the smallest of answers, and D-831 recognized a great longing to be with a Morty. It was almost embarrassing to watch. Even though they didn't want Mortys in the same way, D-831 felt a spark of camaraderie and was beginning to clue in. B-73 kidnapped a Morty to play house. B-73 was wringing his hands with a nervousness more akin to first day of school jitters than adrenaline from a kidnapping; he wanted a Morty to soothe the nerves out of him. All of a sudden he felt like he was intruding on a private moment. He got up and moved to the kitchen, looking at the strange scene as a voyeur. As time passed, the Morty became more withdrawn. B-73 wasted time trying to get to know him, and D-831 couldn't understand why. There was not much to know about Mortys. Their purpose was to be complementary to Ricks, that baseline knowledge was all anyone needed. With each question, he continued to curl further and further into himself, and with each lackluster, one syllable response, he could see B-73 growing frustrated. 

“You ever been anywhere interesting outside the citadel?”

Again, like all the other questions, he responded with a hum.

It was grating for D-831 to listen to, the only saving grace was being able to see his grandson's little body shake with anxiety. It brought out a mix of paternal feelings and heady arousal, already imagining him trembling beneath Rick as he showered him with kisses, enjoying the thrum of his quickening pulse beneath his skin. B-73 didn't have that benefit. He had no mental framework to engage with a Morty's image outside of what was presented to him, or at least not in the same manner as him. D-831 knew it had to be irritating to engage with. 

After a few more failed conversation starters, B-73 walked over to the kitchen. He looked like a kid who just got his balloon popped. D-831 fought the urge to chuckle.

“Whoaaa, such riveting conversation.”

“I don't think the little shit likes me too much.”

“Thinks, he says.”

“Yeah yeah, I get it” he paused “Don't hurt ‘em too bad, ok?” There was a look of wariness on B-73's face.

His eyebrow knitted as D-831 called his grandson over. He was not used to seeing this side of B-73. He grabbed his grandson by the shoulder. B-73's face looked pained to have released a Morty to another Rick, whether it was the discomfort of knowing what D-831 was gonna do to him, or a Rick's usual possessiveness, he wasn't sure. If he wanted to play house, he should be extra grateful D-831 was there. The crueler he was to the Morty, the easier it would be for B-73 to swoop in and play good grandpa.

He guided his grandson into the bedroom. It was dark. The sun had set, and the moonlight struggled to filter in through the basement apartment's slim window. It was pitch dark in the room aside from the bed, illuminated by a lamp on the nightstand. 

He was finally gonna have proper sex with a Morty. Rick was almost scared to move and ruin the euphoric spell of anticipation. He could hear Morty’s nervous breaths.

They sat on the bed. He was looking everywhere but at Rick’s eyes.

Rick pulled him closer to his chest, so tight, he could tell the Morty was struggling to breathe. All that could come through his nose was high, creaky wheezes. They vibrated against Rick's chest. It reminded him of the final squeaks scrapped projects in a hydraulic press made as the metal gave out. There was a light feeling in his chest. A soft, fresh Morty. This Morty had been pampered— had no clue what to do if a Rick was dangerous except to accept them with slight apprehension. At his sides, Rick could feel his grandson’s arms moving hesitantly. They would inch up before falling back down to his sides.

From outside the room, he could hear B-73 turn on the TV, hear the click of the remote till as the volume was maxed out, presumably to drown out the noises that would soon be filtering in through the door. Definitely not ‘that’ kind of Rick, then. Rick rubbed gentle circles on his grandsons back. He took deep inhalations of his smell, it had been so long since he was able to be that close to a Morty. 

“Are you um… ah jeez… are you gonna, y’know?”

“Just a bit.” 

Through the door, he half heard a muffled advertisement for a new kind of penile augmentation for Ricks with erectile dysfunction.

He unzipped the Mortys fly. A boy's white briefs truly were a thing of wonder. The lily white fabric made the youthful flush of their skin pop even more. His own skin looked dull next to it. When he had finally shimmied the Mortys pants completely, he drew a blank. This was the thing that occupied his mind at all times. Visions of touching Mortys, loving them, had built up to be insurmountable; when presented with one in front of him, he was so overcome with options that his body stood still.

Looking down at his briefs, he was suddenly bombarded with the memory of his Morty. On a hot day, Rick had sent him on an errand with a push out the door and the words “Here's some, here's some— EEeurpp— schmeckles, go down to the store and buy grandpa some Jers. And, no Morty, Jermers and Germeers vodka are not ‘Basically the same’”. His grandson had returned covered in sweat. He looked exhausted, even smaller and younger as his wet clothes clung to his body. Rick had been swamped with fondness. A desire had emerged to rub himself all over his Morty and feel the tackiness of his damp skin clinging to his own. Smell his astringent sweat filtered through the scent of his fabric softener. Now, he could finally act on it.

He buried his face in his crotch. There was a clipped gasp above him. He was pleasantly warm, most Mortys were. His briefs smelled heavy and damp, and pressed so close he could feel the thrum of blood in Morty's penis.

B-73 was still watching TV, and through the door he could hear him flipping through channels. D-831 decided that, between the two of them, he was easily having the better time. Rick pulled his briefs down, then took off his own pants and boxers. Running his hands up and down the Morty's waist he knew every other experience would pale in comparison. Nothing in the multiverse had ever felt as warm or as soft, even his pubes delicate peach fuzz left a pleasant buzz on his fingertips. Rick had the pressing urge to squeeze him hard, as if that could somehow expel all other interactions he had had with any Ricks. In one fell swoop he would be the only Rick on his grandson's mind. Instead, he settled for digging his nails into the skin of his hips. He shied away from the touch.

“Your Rick ever put megaseeds up here, buddy?” Rick never put megaseeds up his own Morty's ass. He knew that after seeing Morty bent over, his tiny hole struggling to take in the girth of seed, it would ruin him for all the shoulder touches and brushes of skin he sated himself with, and he would go on to something bigger. He thought about it often.

“...no.” The Mortys eyes did not meet his. He loved the docile parts of a Morty. Rick hummed with satisfaction. He would be the first Rick.

“What's it matter… Like you–you’d be gentler if he hadn't." That came as a surprise. He loved the snippy side too.

And, no, he supposed not. He was going to receive whatever Rick felt like giving, regardless of his experience. He knew he probably should have stretched Morty out a bit. But, this would be the first and last time he would be able to touch the boss’s Morty. In front of this Morty, he could express himself honestly and Rick wanted to see him struggling.

His eyes were getting watery with tears, it made Rick want to be even crueler to him. In his mind he could always imagine the ideal Morty, who he was free to pamper and torture and love as he pleased, but this Morty could never respond in kind. He could fantasize about a Morty, but all of the Morty's reactions would be Rick's own. Having a Morty underneath him, readily expressing sadness, was extremely arousing. He gripped Morty's hips tighter, almost in disbelief that the image in front of him wouldn't disappear. He wanted to catalog every moment of this in his head before he became too drunk on sensation and would lose discernment. On the nightstand was a tub of Vaseline. He lathered it on his already sensitive dick.

“Ok, baby, now, you've got some work to do. You're gonna hop up and take me for a ride.”

“Huh?!”

“C’mon, Mortys watch porn all the time, you know what to do.”

Rick leaned back against the pillows. Morty looked hesitant, his eyes darting around the room for some reprieve. Mortys, despite their tantrums and moods, always felt they could rely on their Ricks. With the tracking chip out there was no one inside or outside who was coming to save him. Morty had to know that on some level. Rick's work on his neck had been a rush job, surely he was feeling the ache of what was removed.

Morty hesitantly crawled onto his lap. Rick grabbed him by the hips and began pulling him down. Morty let out a choked sob. His body was never meant to take something so big that quick. His insides hugged Rick's cock with the tension of a rubber band, so tight he was sure he was gonna tear. When he was fully seated on his dick, he saw stars. His grandson felt like a furnace inside. He wondered why he had not done this sooner.

“God… oh jeez…” Morty sniveled. “It hurts, Rick.”

The view was great. He liked how Mortys bodies came in rudimentary shapes, entirely sexless and undeveloped. Their stomachs still had a small amount of a child’s stomach pudge that made him fun to squeeze.

“Don't worry baby, it’ll start feeling good. Don't just sit there.” Rick pulled him up by the hips like a lifeless sex doll.

“You should call me grandpa, baby. Ricks like that. I'm sure yours would too.” A look of disgust at the mention of his own Rick briefly flashed across his grandson's face. He wondered how often he even called his Rick grandpa. His old Morty referred to him as anything but.

Morty still wasn't erect, his soft cock bobbed with every uncoordinated bounce. His inexperience gave it a broken rhythm and Rick could tell he was already getting tired. He had his eyes screwed shut, probably trying to imagine anyone but his grandpa underneath him. Rick pinched his side, to grab the boy's attention, but also just to have something to grab. More than anything else, he was worried he would become spoiled with stimuli, and that the sniveling and the squelching would become pleasant, but easily tuned out background noise, the same way a bird song, or grass rustling in the wind would. Irrationally, he was scared to even blink and miss something. He wanted to enjoy everything to the fullest.

“C’mon, what did I just say.” he could tell Morty was already tired, his short legs didn't allow him to go up far with each bounce, but somehow each drop seemed to knock the wind out of Morty's lungs, and he would need to pause for a breath. His inexperience was sent wave after wave of arousal to his crotch. As Morty paused, Rick pinched him harder.

“C’mon, Morty.” Just one ‘grandpa’ would be enough to sate him for the rest of his life. 

Morty's eyes were still screwed shut, but tears were beading out of them. Rick didn't understand why he was holding them in, thought he should cry to his heart's content while he could still muster the emotion. 

There was one loud, achy sob. “Grandpa” Rick could have died then and there.

It was extremely overwhelming to have everything he had fantasized about delivered to him all at once. A wave of heat shot from his dick to his head, it left him swimming with a pleasant wooziness. He pulled Morty down to the hilt and held him there as he came deep inside him.

He pulled Morty down to the hilt and held him there as he came deep inside him.

Morty's penis was so small that the entire length of it fit snug in Rick's hand. Rick rubbed his thumb over the head gently, and felt Morty's legs quake harder at his sides. He felt a slight twitch of life in his penis, and the thrum of blood picking up. Rick stroked him in a frenzy. He was sure most Ricks could relate to wanting to pull reactions out of Morty, bringing him to Blips and Chitzs, showing him the stars, it was all just an offshoot of that desire to watch. If a Morty wasn't there reacting, then there would be no reason to do anything at all. In whatever mutation made him a pedophile, that impulse still remained. 

Rick's face was aching. He hadn't realized it, but he had been smiling. Morty had stopped bouncing entirely and instead devolved to grinding on Rick's softening dick; he was clearly exhausted but was too scared to stop without being told. Rick continued stroking him, switching from rubbing the tip to slow strokes on his shaft. His grandson folded over, and shot a warm pearly rope of cum onto Rick's stomach. 

He remained folded over for a few seconds, heaving into Rick's shoulder. When he finally lifted himself up, there was clear hate in his eyes. This is what the Mortys in Mortytown could not provide. The fire in their eyes had long burnt out to uncaring ash. He would trade a hundred blowjobs from experienced Mortys for just one smoldering look. Rick hoped that Morty would replay this moment in his head for the rest of his life, see it reflected in every Rick's face.

Mortys were all bird boned, he felt like almost nothing on Rick's lap. Rick kept his hands resting on grandsons stomach, still riding off the euphoric wave, and was reminded suddenly of the first time he had gotten drunk as a teen. Morty pulled himself off and hesitantly laid next to him.

D-831 felt utterly satiated, and sleep caught him easily. The once hard mattress felt like cotton candy fluff beneath him, and the quietly sniveling Morty beside him pleasant white noise. He was already dreaming of getting to touch Morty again tomorrow. As he drifted off, somewhere far away and fuzzy, he heard the squeak of a door. The patter of footsteps and the sinking of the mattress as someone settled into the bed with the two of them. The mattress moved more. Sobs got louder, and he did not have to open his eyes to know the Morty was cradled in B-73's arms, being rocked silently. Rick slept like a lamb that night.

………………………………….

He had woken up to soft sobs. He didn't need to open his eyes to know his grandson was still there. At his side, his body was Rick's own miniature sun, his warm skin making him sweat under B-73's threadbare sheets. Rick didn't move, sleeps comforting waves still cresting and collapsing over him. Through his sleepy fog, he listened harder to the noise, and had begun to realize that it was completely divorced from Morty's body. His shoulders didn't jerk from sadness with each sob like they had the day before. Morty was as still as the dead. 

Rick opened his eyes and sat up, careful to keep his movement to a minimum. Even in Morty's sleep his face looked pained, his cute features scrunched up from fitful dreams. On the other side of the Morty was B-73. What had woken him up was not sobs, but his throaty laughter. It was a strange, unpleasant sound; he briefly wondered why any Smith family would try to make their Rick happy, if this was the sound it produced. 

“What…” he paused. In his confusion, he had forgotten to whisper. A big part of him didn't want to wake Morty, wanted to study the minutiae of his face when he had no control over it. “What's got you so pleased?” he continued in a whisper.

“Mortys… they're so small… he felt like a warm blanket in my arms,” B-73 whispered, seemingly having the same idea as him. He seemed happy, but there was sadness in his eyes when he looked at Morty's sleeping face, as if he was looking into a loved one's open casket rather than a kid who looked good enough to eat. At once, he felt a sharp longing to be understood. B-73 was so close to him, only separated by Morty's tiny body, but might as well have been a galaxy away, as far as they understood each other. Any connection they had would be undercut by the knowledge that, even as Ricks, they were fundamentally different, and would see Mortys fundamentally different. 

D-831 looked at his face. B-73's eye bags were deeper and darker, it looked like he had not fallen asleep the entire night. He took a moment to appreciate how lucky they were to have a Morty both to know and to fuck. It was strange to know B-73 could never appreciate the full breadth of that fact.

D-831 sighed, “I know.”

He really did; with his original Morty, he was always surprised at how easily he could be pulled along, how the resistance felt more akin to tugging a small stubborn dog than a person. He didn't want to get out of bed. But he felt he really shouldn’t go back to sleep. They had gotten lucky this time, but Mortys were light sleepers, and there was always the possibility of him waking up first and sneaking away.

B-73 was already drifting off, he could tell. D-831 resolved not to go to sleep. He stared at his grandson. On average, he felt the same about most Mortys. Certain things about them could be both attractive and annoying, how childishly whiny they could be. Maybe it was the ephemeral aspect of it which appealed to him the most. Ricks craved interesting experiences, but their senses had been so flooded with synthetic drugs and their bodies with machinery, that the only thing left to appeal to them was natural process. The fleeting in-between stage of adolescence seemed especially interesting. In some Ricks, that enjoyment just manifested in different ways. D-831's terrible multiversal luck just happened to make him find it incredibly sexy.

The same desire from last night flooded in him, to reach out and touch Morty before he somehow faded away; a desire to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, yelling in his ear to please, never grow old. He put a hand on Morty's chest. Mortys were all so warm. His original Morty hadn't liked how there were no changing seasons on the citadel, no winter snow. Rick missed him, but it felt strange, as he never had the desire to be a grandpa, kinder, or more caring, than the average Rick. He had kept his Morty at a distance, ordering him around more than anything else. He preferred to keep himself an arm's length away emotionally. He desired to be better at being a Rick than at being a better grandpa. Wanted to want to abuse Morty in the average way. He had missed his opportunity to casually pull Morty along, yell at him.

He trailed his hand down Morty's stomach. His pubes were a clean feeling peach fuzz that was fun to brush his hand over. He felt a slight twitch as Morty began to wake up. His eyes were groggy, taking in his surroundings lethargically, as if yesterday had been a bad dream. His eyes shot open, remembering.

“Looks like he's up,” D-831 muttered.

“Mhm.” B-73 opened his eyes, back from his dozing. He sat up, lying on his side and resting his head on his fist. With B-73 fully present, he removed his hand from his stomach.

“Morning, Morty,” he said it so casually it put D-831 off. “You dream about anything?”

Morty was still groggy, but he could already see the panic building on his face. His eyes squeezed shut and he let out whines so high pitched that they sounded more like the squeaks from a door's hinge than a person.

“It's ok Morty.” B-73 patted him on the head. This only made the sobs deeper, louder. The look of grief on his face made him look especially young. Like a child throwing a tantrum, his face was stained red, and his eyes were clenched shut. He could already see the beginnings of a trail of snot coming from his nose. It was incredibly exciting.  He felt a wave of heat go to his groin. 

“Calm down. Look at me, Morty” B-73 clearly didn't feel the same. He could already see frustration building in the wrinkles on his face.

“God damn it calm the fuck down!” Seeing him yell at Morty, D-831 felt oddly satisfied. Glad that he was not uniquely good. 

B-73 grabbed Morty's wrist and hauled him off the bed. “You’ll feel better after you eat, C’mon” Like a proper doting grandpa, he led Morty to the kitchen. D-831 stayed in bed, watching from the open door as B-73 riffled through the fridge. B-73 seemed keen on making him feel comfortable. He wondered how he felt about having his grandson lying in bed with his molester. Ricks hurting Mortys seemed like a natural part of any dynamic, maybe to him it was just a necessary evil to make him feel at home.  

He had pulled out milk and eggs from the fridge and was now mixing them in a bowl with the box mix. Morty stood a distance away from B-73, watching him work. His face was still red. “Uh. I um, didn't”

B-73 whipped around, turning his full focus onto Morty. “Huh?”

“I didn't, uh, dream about anything. Sorry.”

“Don't be sorry, Morty.”

There was a clear desire to be interesting for B-73. D-831 didn't know what moment they shared as he slept, but he immediately felt jealous. It felt weird to kidnap a Morty only to be kind to them. They were supposed to be taking out their impulses on him, and if B-73's darkest impulse was to be nice to a Morty, then he was weirder than D-831 could have imagined.

D-831 pulled himself out of the warm bed where he had made his first proper memory with a Morty. As D-831 walked in the boy got noticeably more tense. He chose to sit on the couch rather than stand in the kitchen with the two of them. In the short amount of time they would have it would probably be impossible to get Morty to like him, but that was ok. He wasn't doing all this to be liked.

The pancakes smelled about done. He could already hear the clattering of dishes as B-73 began to plate them.

Morty doused each bite with syrup. “These are good. I think my Rick uses the same mix” Morty said into his pancakes

At the mention of his Rick, he saw B-73's face harden. He said nothing in response. There was a prolonged silence. Morty immediately looked up, searching for any signs of harm about to come. He stopped fidgeting and instead was stiff like a spooked animal.

“That's uh. Not why they're good though. They're good cause you made them” He immediately tried to backtrack.

B-73 still did not respond to the placation. He instead turned to wash the dishes that had piled up in the sink. A Rick's silence was never a good thing. Before, B-73 had tried to constantly occupy the air with some noise, something to keep Morty's mind off his circumstances. It seemed to have worked poorly, but it was better than nothing. In the silence, Morty seemed even more anxious. He took smaller, hesitant bites of pancake, looking up at B-73 between each one. Again, he felt satisfied. He hoped Morty was regretting his preference for B-73s. D-831 would've been easier. Pedophiles, he imagined, were probably easier to read, easier to please. D-831 should've been the one Morty was stealing glances at.

There was a hard knock at the door

Morty immediately shot up. He dropped his plate, eyes widening and darting between the door and them. “HEL—” D-831 lunged for the TV. 

Having Morty Troubles in the workshop?

Already at maximum volume from last night, an advertisement deafened his grandson's shout for help

Uh-huhs and mhms filled the room as the Ricks on TV nodded in agreement

The knocking continued. Morty was already being restrained, his back pressed against B-73's stomach and a hand was over his mouth. He jerked violently as he struggled against Ricks hold “Stay still you little shit—”

The little shit keeps passing you the wrong tools? More uh-huhs and mhms

“Grab the fucking duct tape, it's in the—” 

Well, you don't need ‘em!

B-73 quickly removed his hand before D-831 began to wrap layer after layer of tape. Messy, rings covered the entire bottom half of his head, from his mouth, to the back of his neck, to his chin. They wouldn't be hearing a peep out of him for a while.

Tinker Tool can do the work of twenty Mortys. It can sense which tool you will need intuitively, it will never bring you an incorrect one. 

The knocking continued, getting heavier as it went on. It was still barely audible underneath the deafening TV, but still steadily there. Morty's eyes were shiny with tears, his face flushing red. It was a great look. B-73 took the duct tape from him and began to tape Morty's wrists to his ankles in a hog tie. The way he dropped Morty onto his stomach was hard and fast, he was sure it hurt. He didn't feel too bad about it, more than anything, Rick was sad he was unable to see the cute look on his face anymore.

It's been given glowing reviews, Rick tested and Rick approved. 

B-73 quickly carried the Morty to the bedroom and shut the door. There was shuffling then silence. D-831 rushed over to the door and looked through the peephole. It was a cop.

As soon as he opened the door the cop gave him a wary look “What took you so long?”

“A man can't take a shit anymore? Sorry I don't spend my days waiting at the peephole for someone to arrive”

The officer's jaw tightened “Yeah yeah, in the bathroom huh? So the TV just turned itself on then?”

“The piece of trash is old, it does that sometimes. Can't be bothered to fix it”

“Well turn it down, I can barely hear my own voice”

He opened the door fully and the cop stepped inside.

“Some rich pricks Morty went missing. His tracking chip last pinged at a cell tower near this area so we’re going door to door” he yawned. Rick supposed there were Mortys going missing every day. This was business as usual for him.

The cop sighed as he looked around. 

“Ugh… what a fucking waste of time” D-831 heard him mutter. In his hands was a small note taking tablet

There weren’t many places to look in the sparsely furnished space. The open concept left a clear view into the kitchen which the cop beelined to. They hadn't left anything out, he was sure. The signal blocker his mind supplied. He had no clue where B-73 had hidden it, if the cop found them with illegal tech they would already be screwed. If he opened it and saw the chip inside, then… 

D-831 hadn't moved from where he stood at the door. He held his breath. It felt like a strange game of hide and seek, that neither the cop nor D-831 was in the loop about. D-831 had no clue how B-73 could effectively hide both himself, and a Morty in such close quarters. He fought the urge to tap his foot. The cop riffled through each cabinet, searching for anything, a piece of fabric, a bloody knife, and prayed silently that B-73 wasn't dense enough to hide the blocker in plain sight.

The cop was rifling through the cabinets, dumping their contents onto the kitchen counter. “You ever heard of a fucking washcloth” dull thunking against the wall could be heard as he looked for secret compartments at the back of the cabinets. B-73 didn't have any, to the best of his limited knowledge. Once satisfied, the cop moved on to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, there wasn't much wiggle room. Sitting on the toilet there was only about an inch of space between the tub and his knees. With it sharing a wall with the bedroom, and the outside of the building, there would not be nearly enough space for any hiding spots. The cop headed towards the bedroom. He seemed to be getting impatient, having hundreds of more apartments to do the same searches on. He quickly swung the door open. It slammed loudly against the wall. The shoddy craftsmanship of some construction worker Rick left it unable to open completely, instead meeting the wall in a triangular shape. 

The officer glanced around the apartment's only room. The living area was pretty well organized, but the bedroom was a different story. Against the wall was a table with all sorts of paperwork piled up on it, and the floor was a mosaic of unfinished schematics. 

The cop beelined for the closet. Extreme dread filled his body. His pulse quickened, sounding like a hammer being banged inside his ear with how strong it was. 

The cop yawned. He seemed unaware of D-831's turmoil, but that could just be standard procedure to make sure suspects didn’t get spooked and run. He pulled on the door, but it didn’t budge. If B-73 hid them in such an obvious spot D-831 would kill him before they had a chance to be carted off to jail.

“Goddamn it” the cop rubbed his forehead in exasperation. “Why’s everything gotta be a fucking chore.”

He rattled the door a couple more times “Come unlock this thing”

There was no keyhole on the door or locking mechanism on the knob. He imagined B-73 behind the door, crouching in darkness, and breaking out in a cold sweat as he pulled against the door with all his body weight struggling to keep it closed. 

“Uh… the door isn’t locked, just broken”

The cop sighed “So is everything in this building apparently”

The rattling and yanking at the door continued, it sounded like his jangled nerves. 

After enough pulling the noise had stopped. the door had been opened. He hadn’t realized it, but his eyes had been glued to the floor. He was afraid of what he might see if he looked up. A cop pointing his gun between the two Ricks as he hoisted the bound Morty’s body over his shoulder. He forced himself to look. To his surprise, there were none of those things.

Its refusal to open seemed to be due to nothing more than a misaligned door jamb, and scrapped projects jammed under the bottom. There was no sign of a Morty or Rick hiding inside.

The cop backed up and did one last half-assed preliminary search around the room. 

“Ok, I think we’re good to go.” he yawned and stretched.

D-831 was so relieved he was afraid if he responded all that could come out was a long sigh. He nodded instead, and walked the cop to the door. But just as he was about to close it, something was in the way. He looked down and saw the cops steel toed shoe wedged between the door and frame.

“One last thing before I leave”

In his head, he started calculating how many years in prison kidnapping and owning illegal tech would get him. Each year seemed worth it for the experience he got.

“What's up with the two plates?” 

fuck. He had forgotten about that. One sitting on the counter and one ruined on the floor, syrup splattering like a blood stain. 

“...I was testing out a cleaning bot. Didn't work. Obviously”

The cop nodded understandingly. 

“Can I get your dimension number? So I can mark you off the list.”

“B-73” D-831 said.

“Great. Thank you”

D-831 waited a few minutes after hearing the police car pull off before he returned to the bedroom. It was dark and messy inside. Still no sign of B-73 or the Morty.

“B-73?”

He walked over to the closet, examining its contents. It was barely big enough to fit a Rick, let alone a Rick and a Morty. He felt the walls for any secret compartments the officer might have missed. Aside from cracks in the landlord's shitty sheet rock, there was nothing. There was a window in the apartment, but since it was in the basement it was small. Still, they were both fairly skinny. Even with Morty tied it would only be a slight struggle to pull him up and out the window. It seemed like the only plausible answer. The apartment was empty, save for D-831

He was backing out of the closet when the creak of a door sounded out from behind him. A spike of adrenaline ran through him. Had the officer come back because something seemed amiss? D-831 ran the details of the living room through his head, searching in his memory for an overlooked detail the officer could have noticed. 

He turned around, but saw no blue uniform.

Standing in the triangle formed where the open door met the wall was B-73.

“Boo. Did I scare you?”

Relief flooded through him “Fuck off” “Why the hell would you hide there? It's so fucking obvious” he laughed.

“Worked, didn't it?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just grab Morty so we can figure out what to do next, wherever the hell you put him…” 

B-73 leisurely walked to the bed and motioned him over. He moved the messy bundle of pillows and blankets pushed to the corner of the bed. There was Morty, pressed tight between the mattress’s steel bed frame and the wall. He had been crammed so close, that neither he nor the officer was able to spot the gap with the pillows and blankets atop it. B-73 went to grab Morty, when D-831 put a hand on his shoulder.

“Let's leave him”

“Huh?”

D-831 packed the pillows and blankets back in, then shoved the mattress hard against the wall to make sure Morty was packed in extra tight.

“Mortys get spoiled easily, and this one was already pampered. If we take him out too quickly he’ll never learn to respect us. He’ll pull that shit from earlier again” 

They settled on the couch. His sourness was temporarily remedied by the beer. His grandson would have to learn the hard way to ignore his own instincts and give in to Rick's whims. Once they were done with him, he was free with his choices. The Ricks drank beer after beer from the fridge, feeling better with each one till the world faded to black.

………………………………….

B-73's loud exclamation of “FUCK” was what woke him up.

His face was crusty from dried drool. As he hoisted himself up he looked around. They had passed out drunk on the couch. Outside the window was pitch black, they had slept till deep into the night, leaving Morty unsupervised for hours. they had given him the perfect opportunity to escape. B-73 ran to the bedroom, and D-831 ran to the door. His breathing quickened as he checked the latch and the deadbolt. Both were in place, but that didn't mean he hadn't left some other way. The only window was in the bedroom. He raced over to the room.

As he walked in, he saw B-73 frantically pull the mattress and bed frame back, then removed the jammed pillows and blankets from around.

“Oh thank god he's still here, haha. Guess it would be hard to get out in a position like this, huh buddy?” B-73 reached down to pull him out, but there was a pause “Shit, shit, shit!”

D-831 rushed over. “What? What is it?”

“Feel him!” B-73 shouted.

He put his hand to Morty's neck and jumped back. Immediately, he grabbed Morty's shoulders and shook him violently.

He felt Morty's neck. He was cold. There was no pulse.

“God damn it!”

Wondering where it went wrong, he thought back to earlier. When B-73 had revealed the spot Morty wasn't moving then either. It could have been fear of punishment that kept him still. Or he had suffocated from the tape on his mouth, the compression on his body from B-73's hiding spot preventing his lungs from expanding. preventing his nose from taking in air. It must have been scary packed tight against the wall as the police officer searched. Or maybe he was alive, counting the seconds off till he was released on each shallow breath. Maybe, it was the wait that killed him.

D-831 was the first to break the silence. “God, we are so fucked.”

B-73 paced around the room, his rapid footsteps punctuation to D-831's racing thoughts. The smartest men in the universe and they didn't consider positional asphyxia. 

“What a great hiding spot that was,” D-831 scoffed

“Yeah? Well it was your bright fucking idea to leave him there”

They briefly locked eyes. Regret was palpable in B-73’s. D-831 wondered if that same look was reflected in his. He did regret that Morty had to go so early. That he couldn't fuck him one last time. Maybe if they had let him out earlier he would be alive.

B-73 let out a loud sigh. “What does it even matter. The bastard makes enough to buy a new one, hell, buy a hundred new Mortys.” 

They stared at each other, and knew that despite the truth in his statement, any Rick would want his original above all else.

“Right now his Morty is assumed missing! If we got charged with kidnapping we would've already been in hot water. Now, when he never comes back and turns up dead, what the hell do you think is gonna happen?!”

B-73 plopped down on the mattress and let out a loud groan “Ok, ok, you’re right”

“Well replace his Morty with a cloned one. Simple fix”

“Yeah? All cloned Mortys have a bar code branded on their foot before purchase, we’re geniuses, you think he won't check that”

“Well, then we won't buy one. Wouldn't be good to leave a paper trail anyway”

“Are you suggesting…”

“Well” B-73 placed a hand on Morty's prone body “we got all the DNA we need to make our own right here”

When he had come to the Citadel he had expected things to be different. He thought the overwhelming sense of ‘Rick’ would straighten him out. Floating on an artificial metropolis in space there would be no enemies to worry about. No families to look after. He would become so uncaring, so Rick-like, that there would be no need to have a Morty. 

“Jesus” D-831 groaned

“What?”

“I just never thought I’d have another dead Morty on my hands”

B-73's eyes widened for a moment, but his face went neutral so quickly it almost seemed like a trick of the light.

“When he died it was an accident. The little shit never wanted to listen to me, was tired of having me boss him around all the time… he snuck out one night and got himself killed.” he continued “Now, there's this, good obedient Morty dead. I guess their temperaments really don't matter huh”

“Don't feel too bad” That was all the comfort B-73 could offer him. It was probably for the best, he didn't deserve comfort. When his original Morty died, he hadn't taken the time to properly grieve him. Instead, he had cruelly grieved the things he had been too chicken shit to do to his grandson, and now could never do.

“Toss me that box cutter” he nodded. B-73 caught it in his hand easily. He slid the blade out, and got to work cutting a tiny chunk out of the boss's Morty. Weirdly, he felt nauseated. It was nothing he hadn't seen before. On TV there were uncensored crime scene photos readily available from the comfort of a Rick's couch, hell, he had seen Mortys bleed worse in porn that got a bit too rough. That little chunk was nothing. Even so. It had to be nerves.

B-73 got up and presented the piece of Morty to him. It was no bigger than the first joint of his pinky.

“This ought to be enough,” he said, dropping it into a ziplock bag

Again, D-831 felt embarrassed. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“C’mon, I basically open my chest and show you my bleeding heart and you’ve got nothing to say?” he tried to joke. He did not feel any levity. After a certain point, his life was just a series of waiting to be humiliated

“You wouldn't be interested anyway.” B-73’s looked calm, but it was a poker face he had seen mirrored in hundreds of Ricks, in himself.

“I'm sure I would,” D-831 insisted. He needed to know he was not alone.

“I never had a Morty. Uninteresting, like I said.” 

“Huh?”

“I'm a clone. Never had my own Morty. That's all.”

He wasn't sure how to respond. B-73 being a clone didn't mean the same to him as it would for a Morty. Rick's form and function could be easily replicated. A Morty, however, was more than just aesthetics, their existence hinged on an emotional connection that was hard to replicate. Easy cloning cheapened the feeling, for D-831 at least. A cloned Morty could be so uncanny that even the most standard looking one would give the impression of something else entirely. Ricks already struggled to form connections; there was no connection lost with a Rick clone. He looked over at B-73. He didn't seem like he was awaiting a response. He had already gotten to work stripping the Morty and zipping his clothes up in the duffle bag. Don't think about it. 

What he wanted to know more about B-73 was how much he enjoyed his first experience being a grandpa to a Morty. If he thought a couple hours of pleasantries was worth the dead Morty on his floor. D-831 thought it was; he had gotten his fill.

“Bring me the chip.” D-831 said.

“Huh? That's our paycheck right there.”

“We can't take any chances, this needs to be as believable as possible. The tracking chip needs to go in the clone.”

“Yeah? How do I know you're not gonna pocket it and keep the cash for yourself?”

D-831 gave him a look. “I'm not you, B-73,” he said.

“Yeah, you’re just a Mortyphile, I’m sure that’s so much better.” B-73 rolled his eyes, then walked off to grab the signal blocker.

………………………………….

The ride to their workplace was the safest he had ever seen B-73 drive. He entered the restricted back area of the facility using Morty's ID. He had never been inside the building after hours, its darkened, empty halls seemed more like those of a catacomb.

In the breakroom, he had heard two maintenance Ricks talking once. They said it had been getting too expensive to pay another company to store all the security footage due to the sheer volume of it. The Facility had switched to storing it all on site, and set them to auto delete at the end of every week. It was Friday, everything was hinging on this breakroom talk being true.

The boss was always sending his Morty on errands, his ID card allowed D-831 to enter areas that his own ID card would usually block. Using his newfound unlimited access, he scanned himself into the vat farm. The ziplock holding the chip and the slice of Morty's skin felt heavy in his pocket. The actual cloning area looked so different from the work floor. There were rows and rows of vats, some empty, and some holding Mortys at incomplete stages in development. The sterile energy of the conveyor belt area did not exist here. The room was poorly lit, each glowing vat stood out as its own floating structure in the darkness, rather than interconnected machinery

He walked up to an empty vat. Rick hadn't handled the machines directly, but he could piece together how they functioned from secondhand knowledge. Where the specimen bag tube would usually be inserted to feed the source vial, he placed the slab of skin onto it manually. The machines only needed about a gram of Morty mush to sequence the DNA, so it was more than enough. Siphoning the little piece of Morty into its analyzer, the machine got to work.

The first thing to form was the nervous system

He never considered those parts of a Morty. A Morty's form and function dictated that they would be companions for Ricks. As a whole, it was something they were specialized to do. Broken down into his parts, it felt strange to think about his body having functions outside of pleasing them. Despite logically knowing otherwise, he had half expected Mortys to be hollow, subsisting off nothing but love for their grandpas. His cardiovascular system had begun to form, he could already see his little heart pumping. Each beat was erratic, as if panicking, struggling to understand why there was no muscle or skin to deliver blood. Next to develop was his digestive system, then muscles and bones, and finally, his skin.

Suspended in the vat was a fully formed Morty. The bottom opened up and the clone was flushed out the bottom, sliding through a slot like a gumball from a machine.

By this point in the process, there would be a Rick on standby ready to quality check the Morty then cart them away. He didn't want to touch the Morty any more than he had to, didn't want to think about it. The one time in the past he had been allowed to do quality control for a Morty had been enough to hold him over for a week, but now any arousal he felt was soured by his unease. Under his hand, he could feel the rise and fall of the clones breathing, to the touch everything seemed to be in place. 

Gently, Rick flipped him onto his stomach. He removed the chip from the signal blocker, and placed a hand on the back of the new Morty's neck. Their skin was always so delicate when they were fresh out of the vat, its resistance against the knife feeling more like playdough than skin. The knife slid easily into the back of his neck, carving a small open box shape was quick work. He delicately peeled back the slab. A newly cloned Morty's cells would not reach their final stage of maturation immediately. Their cells were still rapidly dividing on the inside. They weren't supposed to leave the lab for at least a day after being made, but their malleability meant the wound on his neck would heal quickly.

He didn't know yet how B-73 was going to dispose of the original Morty's body, but it would probably go unnoticed. A dead, unclaimed Morty was old news, and once the clone was safe in their boss's arms there would be no one to question who that Morty belonged to. He wondered what kind of relationship the boss had with his Morty. He was always on the outside looking in when it came to those sorts of things, he had never fully connected to his grandson, always worried that if he got too close he would do something he would regret.

He folded the clone into the duffel bag and made his way towards the exit. He had an overwhelming amount of love in his heart for Mortys. Their small bodies, their frantic eyes, even the peak of pink tongue when they opened their mouths was cute and arousing. Despite all that love, he didn't hold a lot of care. It was probably for the best that his Morty died, Mortys were hard work; he should've been smart enough to think about that before he started feeling horrible. But, he had started feeling horrible and hadn't stopped since. For the Morty in the bag at his side, he felt nothing and applauded himself for it.

He looked up at the mural as he left the building, ready-made for any Rick ready. He wondered if his boss would see the difference in this Morty; assumed halfheartedly that it was something felt more than seen anyway. Above all else, Ricks drilled a Mortys replaceability into their heads. He felt this oppressive truth at work especially: ready-made for any Rick ready rang in his ears every day. After losing his Morty his days were filled with longing, and he came to realize, as he stood on the work floor sorting through bags of biomass which would eventually become companions, that Mortys were made special by Ricks wanting them. No Rick was so Rick-like that he would not reach out for his Morty in a crowd, not feel satisfaction at the weight of his little hand in theirs.  

D-831 got into the back of the car. B-73 started driving before he could even fully close the door, pulling the fresh Morty out of the bag he felt distant. He could appreciate his naked body, but a fully blank slate like this possessed none of a Mortys charm. He pulled the yellow button up and his jeans onto his limp body. Mortys were already so light, and with the complete lack of resistance his body put up his weight barely registered in Rick's lap. If he closed his eyes he could imagine nothing was there, like he ceased to exist if Rick wasn't looking at him. He could imagine the black space between blinks, where nothing was felt, was real life. There was no clone in his lap, and there was no dead Morty.

D-831 peered out the window. Groups of shabby looking Mortys lazed around, each with a look of dejection in their eyes. B-73 had driven them deep into Mortytown.

“We’ll drop 'em here. When the tracker comes back online they should find him quickly” B-73 drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. 

D-831 could see movement from within the bag. He unzipped the top of it.

“Hey buddy” he spoke to the sliver of Morty's face he could see.

“What's… w–what's going on”

“You had an accident. Screwed with your memory. Be sure to tell your Rick when you see him, ok?”

All Morty was able to respond with was a lethargic groan before D-831 tossed him out of the car. None of the Mortys even looked up. As they drove off, D-831 closed his eyes. He knew how freshly de-vatted Mortys felt. Their connective tissue, their skin, their joints, all were soft and malleable to an unnatural degree before they firmed up. He wondered if his boss would feel his Morty's hand and know. Wondered if he would even care. 

He and B-73 had each gotten an experience they wanted. D-831 had been satisfied at least. He had learned ages ago that a Morty's autonomy was incidental when it came to a Rick's enjoyment. As he drifted off in the back seat, he imagined a horde of cloned Mortys all gathering around him to shower him with love. Their warm bodies would press against him so tight, and D-831 would be smothered; hopefully, it would kill him.