Work Text:
“Rick? Hey, Rick? Grampa Rick? C-can you come look at something?”
“Whrrr…?”
Rick moaned as his grandson shook him into cruel consciousness, somewhere between hung over and still drunk. A few hours ago he’d passed out on the couch watching ALF reruns. Again. A bottle of something sweet, clear, and illegal on fifty-nine planets was still tucked comfortably in the crook of his arm.
“Rick?”
“Mor—brrp—Morty, someone better be dead.”
“Wh-what? Why?”
“‘cause I’m gonna kill you.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know, Morty, obviously I’m not awake enough to, to be co-coherent right now. Might have somethin’ to do with the fact that it’s four in the goddamn morning, Morty.”
“I-I’m sorry, Rick, but there’s, there’s someone in your garage. Or maybe, like, something? I dunno, but I think he came out of the basement.”
Rick squinted at last night’s bottle as Morty’s words settled into his fuzzy brain. From the basement, huh? That couldn’t be good. And this bottle was empty. Dammit. He let it fall to the floor.
“Whasit look like?” he asked.
“He looks like a normal old guy, except, um, he, uh…” Morty held his hand up, fingers spread, like a little kid counting to five. “He has six fingers. Or-or I guess that would be twelve…?” He held both hands in front of his face and blinked at them.
“Alright alright, don’t strain yourself.” Rick winced as he sat up. “Did he have normal eyes?”
“Uh, I dunno, Rick, what does that even mean?”
“Are you shittin’ me right now, Morty? How else am I supposed to phrase that question, Morty? What, what am I supposed to draw you a picture of what a normal human eye looks like?”
“Gee Rick, I, I didn’t know if he was human, so you don’t have to—”
“Just answer the question, Morty, Jesus…” Rick rubbed his eyes.
“I think they were, uh, normal…”
“Then we got one of the boring versions of him. Just, just go back to bed. I’ll get rid of him.”
“Are you sure, Rick? I think he was messing with your goggles that let you look at other universes. That, uh, that can’t be good, right? So, are you sure?”
“Yep.” Rick stood with a grunt and headed into the kitchen to grab his first six-pack of the day. “This isn’t an adventure, Morty. It’s… it’s just depressing.”
“But most of our adventures are depr—”
“Go to bed, Morty.”
“No, don’t… Don’t—blast!” Ford whispered, grip tightening on the glass bottle in his hand. Normally he didn’t indulge in the kind of bottles he found in Rick’s refrigerator, but tonight felt like the right occasion.
For the past half hour or so he’d been watching himself—or rather, different versions of himself—through Rick’s interdimensional goggles. Thanks to the bottle in his hand (and the empty one on the floor) he’d already lost count of how many he’d seen: More than five, he was sure, but, could it be as many as eight? What he did know was that every last one of them made the same mistake.
Some things never change…
“Sixer!”
Ford yelped and fumbled with the goggles, his heart racing. It took several more seconds than it should have, but at last he removed the goggles and straightened his glasses, bringing Rick’s garage into focus. Standing in the doorway with a beer in one hand and the rest of the six-pack in the other was Rick. Of course it was Rick. Why would it be anyone else? Ford felt silly for being startled.
“Hello, Rick,” he said, smiling nervously. Rick looked less than happy to see him. “I’m, ah, sorry if I woke you.”
“Morty woke me,” said Rick. He stepped into the garage and kicked the door shut behind him. “He saw you in here and thought you—brrp—thought you were an invader from another dimension or something.”
“Oh. Sorry about that. What was he doing in your garage at this hour?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
Rick yawned and then took a long pull from his half-empty beer bottle, ultimately finishing it off. Ford took a sip from his own bottle. Rick dropped the empty and squinted at him.
“Wi—brrrrrrrp!—wine coolers, Ford? Really? Really, Ford? Wine coolers. Ford.”
Ford rolled his eyes and put the goggles back on, turning the dial so he could watch yet another Ford fail. As a new universe filled his vision he asked, “How can you reasonably mock me for drinking something I found in your fridge?”
“They’re not mine, they’re Beth’s. They’re wha—brrp—what she drinks when she gives up alcohol for Lent. Because they don’t count.”
“Are you calling me a lightweight?” Ford peeked out from under the goggles to fiddle with the screen of a thick, tablet-like device he’d attached to the goggles with a couple of cables.
“And a girl. What are you doing here, Ford?”
“Last time I came to see you I told you I’d be destroying my portal to keep Bill out of my dimension. Then you used your portal gun to make a portal to my dimension in your basement. You never bothered to close it, and I could do little more than conceal it on my side, so it’s still there.” In the goggles Ford watched himself talking to Bill. Bill looked so sympathetic, so understanding, so ready to help…
“Yeah,” said Rick, “Great recap, but that still doesn’t answer the question of why you decided to come back and mess with my stuff.”
“I needed to borrow your goggles. I also made a couple of modifications, if that’s okay.”
“‘Needed’ to?” said Rick. Ford heard him pull a chair up to the workbench and plop himself down. Then a rustle and some tapping like he’d pulled his phone out and started playing with it. “Why? Did—brrp—did you fuck up your universe so bad you gotta go find another one with a dead Ford you can replace?”
“Wh-what?” Ford pushed the goggles up on top of his head to gape at Rick. “No! Of course not. That’s the most ghastly thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh,” Rick said with a shrug, “Too bad. Last week I wrote an app that’ll do that for ya aaaa—brrp—and I’ve been waiting for a chance to test it out.” He dropped his phone back into his pocket. “So what do you ‘need’ my goggles for, Ford? And what the hell did you do to them?” He picked up the tablet-looking-thing on his workbench between two fingers and frowned at it like he wasn’t sure he should be touching it. Really Ford was lucky he didn’t just yank the cables out first thing.
Snatching the tablet back, Ford explained, “I added a time-focusing mechanism so I’d be able to skip or rewind to moments when my alternate selves interacted with their versions of Bill.”
“Straight to the interesting parts, huh?” Rick raised his eyebrows. Beth and Jerry would still be playing with the damn thing if it’d been able to do that when he showed it to them. “How long this ‘modification’ of yours take to do?”
Ford checked his watch.
“Two and a half hours, give or take.”
What? Rick almost spat out his latest swig of beer, but he wasn’t one to waste booze.
“Oh sure,” he drawled once he’d recovered, “You do that in a couple of hours, but it still took you years of work and selling your soul to the Devil or whatever to build one portal? What are you, like, an idiot savant?”
Ford shook his head and slipped the goggles back on just in time to see himself shaking hands with Bill. With a heavy sigh of frustration he knocked back the rest of the drink in his hand.
“So you’re creepin’ on yourself and whasisname because…?”
“Because of something he said…” said Ford distantly. He closed his eyes and pushed the goggles up again. The dream was still fresh and raw in his mind: The shadowy forest, the smell of ash, those blinding triangular windows into other worlds, and the sound of that familiar, awful laugh. Some things never change, Sixer… But it was just a dream, right? He opened his eyes.
“I mean, it couldn’t have really been him…” he murmured, twisting the cap off another Fuzzy Navel, “I watched him die, I—I watched…” He shuddered to recall it, the blue-white flame blazing behind his brother’s eyes while the memory gun’s beam pulsed into his face. At the time he thought he was watching Stanley die too, but Stan had fully recovered now. Could that mean Bill may have survived as well? He took a long gulp.
“I have to prove him wrong,” Ford concluded, clumsily mashing a couple of buttons on his tablet’s screen, “There’s infinite variations of me; surely, surely one of them…”
“Ford, you’re drunk.”
“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle Rick?”
“No, Ford, it isn’t, because, because me being drunk isn’t the same as you being drunk, ‘cause I know how to be drunk.”
“What?”
“You always freak out, Ford. Do they not have alcohol in your dimension or something?” Rick reached for the tablet in Ford’s hands, but Ford saw him coming and hugged it to his chest before Rick could grab it.
“What are you doing?”
“Trust me, Ford, you don—brrp—you don’t wanna creep on whasisname while you’re like this. It’s jus’ gonna lead to awkwardness.” He snatched up a nearby bottle-opener and cracked open his third beer. Or was this his fourth?
“‘Awkwardness’? What even—who do you think I’m talking about, Rick?”
“Your ex, right? The one that… likes triangles.”
“He is a triangle. I mean, was.”
“Tomato, potato.”
“And he’s not my ‘ex.’”
“Wait a minute, what do you mean he is a triangle? That’s stupid. How would the two of you even…” Rick trailed off into a hand gesture Ford chose to ignore.
“Rick, do you listen to anything I tell you?”
“Not really. Hey. Hey, can that homing-in mod you did home in ooo—brrp—on collectives? Y’know, like, entities that assimilate entire civilizations—instead of just one body like your guy? Askin’ for a friend.”
“Of course,” said Ford, “You’d just need to look up one of Unity’s cities with this.” He peeled the tablet away from his chest and pointed at one corner of the interface.
“No one said we were talkin’ ‘bout Unity, wise guy.”
Ford gave a non-committal hum and pulled the goggles down once more.
“Man, what did I just tell ya?” Rick asked as he turned the dial.
“If you don’t have anything helpful to say, why don’t you just drink quietly?”
Either Rick took this advice to heart or he’d gone into a sulk; his commentary ended and at last Ford could concentrate on the tinny audio from the goggles.
He’d landed on a familiar scene, one he’d lived and one he’d watched play out a handful of times already: His alternate self was about to pass out at his desk. He was in the midst of working the equations that would let him construct the portal, exhausted beyond belief and painfully behind schedule. In that dark blue twilight between the consciousness he fought to keep and the sleep his body craved, Bill Cipher was free to visit him. Before this he’d only seen him in his dreams. Then again, who was to say this wasn’t a dream?
“Oh. It’s you,” said the alternate Ford upon spotting Bill, and his tone of voice gave Ford pause. He didn’t sound happy to see his muse, like most versions of him would be this early in their respective timelines. Instead he sounded wary, guarded. Ford’s pulse quickened. Could it be he’d finally found the version of himself smart enough to see Bill for what he was before it was too late? To at least have suspicions?
Bill’s side of the conversation went the same way it always did: He expressed his pity for Ford, so unfairly limited by his body’s need for sleep, and then he made his offer. All Ford had to do was shake his hand, and he’d be able to get a full night’s sleep and wake up to find his equations completed. All he had to do was let him…
“…take control of my body?” Ford sounded uncomfortable.
“It’d only be for a few hours,” said Bill, his little arms spread wide in a conciliatory gesture, “And it’s not like you’re doin’ much with it right now.”
“But—”
“Look, Sixer, I just wanna help. You’ve had a rough couple of years out here, and the grant money they gave you to get your Theory of Weirdness together…” Bill’s body turned green, and the pupil of his eye stretched and twisted itself into a dollar sign. Then the tip of his top corner turned black, and then that blackness spread downward, the green depleted by increments until it was all gone. The dollar sign in Bill’s eye turned red.
“Yes, well…” Ford ran a hand through his hair. “I—”
“Of course it’s never about the money when it comes to guys like you,” Bill went on, returning to his normal look, “Real geniuses got more important stuff to worry about, right? I get that. I don’t think that dumb school of yours does, though.”
“They haven’t—”
“What I’m tryin’ to say here is, I know you’ve got it in you to finish that portal, but I’m scared of the rest of the world givin’ up on you before you get there.” Bill clasped his hands and his eye got comically large and shiny, like he was about to burst into tears. “It breaks my heart to say it, Fordsy, it really does, but…” He snapped back to normal and his eye narrowed. “…at this rate you’re gonna be remembered as the man who almost changed the world, but never quite got around to it.”
Ford could think of nothing to say to this, and the Ford behind the goggles felt his heart sink. Perhaps there really was no universe where Bill didn’t know exactly how to play him.
“Just let me show them what you can do.” Bill held out his hand.
There was a beat of hesitation, but then, for what felt like the thousandth time, Ford watched himself reach for that tiny black hand engulfed in cool blue flame. He reached more slowly than usual this time, for all the good that did him. This copy may have been more hesitant, but it looked like he wouldn’t back down after all. Ford sighed and reached for the dial on the side of the goggles, prepared to go try his luck with a different Ford, but, before he made the switch, his vision—this Ford’s vision—shook and swam, the blue dreamscape around him dissolving into blurry blackness before his hand could reach Bill’s.
“Hey,” came a familiar murmur, “Hey, Ford…”
“Wh-wha…?”
“Stanford,” Stanley’s voice was heavy with exasperation, “You passed out at your desk again. These late nights are gonna kill ya, Sixer.”
“I…” Ford sat up gingerly, peeling off a page of equations stuck to his clammy face. His head throbbed and his neck popped painfully as he straightened his hair and adjusted his skewed glasses. He could only imagine how his face must look right now, unnaturally creased and inked with backwards copies of last night’s notes. To think these late nights might’ve been over…
“Hey,” said Stan, “Are you alright?”
“O-of course, I’m just, ah, tired…”
“Right…” Stan grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it up to Ford’s desk, sitting perpendicular to him so he could try to get a look at his face. Ford avoided his eyes. As his gaze darted about, looking anywhere but his brother, his distant, tipsy, counterpart noted that this was indeed his workshop in the basement of what eventually became the Mystery Shack. But why would Stanley be there during that time?
“Ford,” Stan said, “Are you… Are you having the dreams again?”
Ford’s gaze stopped darting around, but he still refused to look at Stan, instead focusing straight ahead, on the wall beyond his desk.
On that wall there was a framed photo of the two of them in matching Backupsmore University sweatshirts, carefree and smiling as if they weren’t wearing symbols of failure and disappointment. So in this timeline he clearly still hadn’t made it into West Coast Tech, but, just as clearly, he didn’t blame his brother for some reason. (No peanut bag to tip him off? Or perhaps something else damaged his machine before Stanley got to it? He supposed it didn’t matter.) Without that blame driving a wedge between them, they must’ve stayed together, this entire time. Ford tried to picture it: Stanley sleeping in his dorm room while he and Fiddleford stayed up late checking each other’s Fifth-Dimensional Calculus homework, Stanley helping him carry his stack of degrees off the stage at graduation, Stanley following him in that flashy red car of his all the way up to Gravity Falls, helping him build his lab, weather-proofing the shack for the winter, and…
Ford finally turned his eyes to Stan and took in the Mr. Mystery uniform he knew so well: The suit, the tie, the fez, and even the eyepatch, hanging loosely around Stan’s neck.
…and, when the years wore on and the grant money ran low and Ford still had no Grand Unified Theory of Weirdness to show for it, finding a way to keep up the mortgage payments so he could continue his research. It hurt to see Stan settled into being a charlatan so young. What happened to the Stan o’ War? If there was no perceived betrayal in this timeline, then why should they both have to give up their dreams?
“I…” Ford spoke up at last, “I saw him again, yes, but this time it was… different.”
Ford could hardly believe what he just said. Not only had he and Stan stayed together in this timeline, but he’d told Stan about Bill?
“Different how?” Stan asked.
“Usually he’s just… nice. He’ll just want to talk, or play chess, or help me with something I’ve been stuck on. He’s never wanted anything from me before, but, this time…”
“Told ya he’d ask for something eventually.”
“Yes.”
So that was the difference that made him so hesitant a moment ago, where other Fords had shaken Bill’s hand without a second thought. He should’ve guessed the second he heard Stan’s voice.
“So what’d he want?”
Ford’s eyes fell away from Stan’s again.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “I—I said no.”
“What, seriously? Just tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ford repeated, reaching under his glasses to rub his eyes.
“C’mon, what’s wrong?”
“I said leave it, Stanley!”
“Stanford…”
Ford risked a quick sideways glance through his fingers at Stan. He looked more worried about Ford than upset by his outburst.
“Look man,” Stan said, “I haven’t seen you this upset since the Stan o’ War sank.” Ah. Perhaps she wasn’t as sea-worthy as they once thought. “What happened?”
“He… he said he could take over my body, complete some of my work for me while I slept.” Ford’s hands dropped from his face and he looked to Stan. “No more sleepless nights, and I could finally get back on schedule, complete my work…”
“Take over your body?” Stan repeated, brow furrowing, “Uh-uh. You made the right call, tellin’ him no.”
“…right.” Ford looked away again.
“Hey, I mean it, Ford. You don’t… you don’t just give something like that to… someone like him.”
“Was he really asking for anything, though? He said he just wanted to help me; all he’s ever done is help me…”
“It was a trick. Don’t let him wear you down on this one.”
“But how do you know?”
“C’mon, who do you trust more, Stanford? Him or me?”
“Half the time I’m not even sure he’s real,” Ford confessed, voice cracking, “What if he’s purely my imagination, and this just means I’ve finally snapped? I feel like I’m losing my mind…”
“Hey, don’t even say that. You ain’t crazy, okay? This town is crazy. Crazy enough for some freaky triangle—”
“Muse.”
“Whatever.”
“It’s what he is, Stan.”
“Is it? Whatever he is, I bet he knows how to lie, and I dunno if I buy this whole ‘muse’ bit.”
“But it stands to reason. If there really are muses who choose geniuses to inspire, then why wouldn’t one choose… stop looking at me like that.”
“Do you hear yourself right now? Don’t let him con you into defending him.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Look, I get it, alright? Even to a smart guy like you, this whole ‘muse that inspires geniuses’ pitch sounds real convincing. Heck, it sounds convincing because you know you’re the smartest guy in the world.”
“So wait, are you saying you do believe him about that part?”
“No, Ford—”
Ouch.
“—I’m sayin’ this guy’s got you pegged and knows how to make a pitch.”
“I see…” Ford muttered.
“Hey, look…” said Stan, leaning in closer across the desk, trying to get eye-contact again, “You are the smartest guy in the world, Poindexter. I believe that part. Can you just… Can you promise me you won’t get stupid?”
Ford chuckled softly.
“I suppose someone has to be the smart twin.”
“Great,” said Stan, rolling his eyes. With a grin, he added, “Now how about you go get some real sleep? Y’know, in a bed? I’ll tell the tourists to be quiet so they can hear the ghosts or whatever.”
“But if I go to sleep I might see him again.”
“If that happens, you just tell ‘im you’re too smart to fall for his bit.”
“But what if—”
“And if he still keeps bothering ya, just punch ‘im! Right in that big ol’ eye of his!” Stan mimed his own infamous left hook. Ford snickered in spite of himself.
“Alright,” he said, “Sounds like a plan. Good night, stupid.”
Stan stuck his tongue out at him.
“Good night, stupid.”
“So, liii—brrp—ike, fifty years later…”
Ford jolted in his seat, one hand flying to his pounding heart. He’d gotten so wrapped up in the other universe he’d completely forgotten about the one he currently occupied.
“…are you done with my damn goggles yet?”
“Sh! No, I’m not. I think I’ve found a timeline where I don’t fall for Bill’s tricks. If I’m right, it will all be thanks to Stanley…”
“You say that like I, like I have any idea who that is.”
“My brother.”
“Oh right! The good twin.”
“Sh.” In the other universe, Ford had taken Stan’s advice and headed for bed. He’d just closed his eyes and would likely be dreaming again within seconds.
“You know which twin that makes you, right?”
“Hush!”
There was some sullen muttering and the sound of Rick opening another beer. Meanwhile in the other universe, just as Ford predicted, he was dreaming again and Bill Cipher had returned.
“Hey there, Sixer! Where’d ya go? I was worried.”
“My brother woke me.”
“Oh, well, if he sent you right back to bed I guess that means he’s on board with our little arrangement?” Bill held out his flaming hand.
“Actually…”
“What? Oh, I get it,” said Bill slyly, “Say no more, Sixer. Nothin’ but my best Ford impression around Stan!” He let his triangular form morph into the shape of a six-fingered hand for a second before morphing back. “It’ll be our little secret.”
“I—no, Bill. The truth is I came here to rest, not to talk to you. Stan doesn’t think I should take your deal. And I agree.”
“Oh, really…” The flame in Bill’s hand went out.
“Yes.”
“Because Stan said so?”
“Yes. I mean, I trust his judgment.”
“Do you now? I mean, I’m just tryin’ to help you succeed, meanwhile he’s tellin’ you to sleep on the job and throw away your best shot at stayin’ on track. Just sayin.’”
“He wants me to succeed just as much as you do,” Ford protested, “He’s just worried about me.”
“I dunno,” said Bill, crossing his arms thoughtfully, “Sounds a lot like a jealous brother to me.”
“Stanley isn’t like that…” said Ford, but his voice was uncertain, his own tone a better argument than anything Bill could’ve said.
“Look, I’m not tryin’ to put you on the spot or anything,” Bill lied, “But I gotta know: Who do you trust more, Stanford? Me or him?”
Ford held his breath, every muscle in his body still and tense as if the slightest movement might dislodge the goggles and keep him from learning what happened next. Would this be it? If his one victory across the entire multiverse came only with Stan’s assistance, he’d take that. Gladly. But if even his brother’s help wasn’t enough to overcome Bill’s flattery and lies, his own stupid ego—
“Alright, Ford, playtime’s over.”
Before he knew what was happening, Ford’s vision of the other universe was ripped away and replaced with the blurred-past-recognition view of Rick’s workbench. His glasses came off and clattered to the floor as Rick roughly yanked the goggles the rest of the way off his head from behind.
“N-no! Rick!” Even though it put a knot in his stomach to know his glasses were on the floor where either of them could easily step on them, it was the goggles Ford reached for. Rick lifted them up high, beyond his grasp, and Ford stood and spun around, toppling his chair.
“Give those back!”
“They’re mine and I’ll do what I want with ‘em!”
“Rick, you don’t understand!” They stood toe-to-toe now, Rick needing to lean back and stretch his arms as high as he could to keep the goggles out of Ford’s hands.
“Oh, I understand, Sixer. You think watching one of you dodge a bullet will some—brrp—somehow make you feel better about the other ninety-nine percent.”
“Rick, please…”
“Point nine repeating.”
Ford stood on tiptoe, making another grab for the goggles. He was bigger than Rick and had him against a wall; surely he’d be able to—
In a move far too fast for Ford’s tipsy brain and half-blind eyes to follow, Rick twisted around and sucker-punched him right in the gut, hard. Ford doubled over. As he wheezed for air, Rick pushed past him, grabbed a metal dissection tray from one of his shelves, slammed it down on his workbench, and dropped the goggles in it. Then he reached into his labcoat and pulled out a small plastic bottle. Or at least a bottle-shaped blur.
“What are you…?”
Rick squirted the goggles with the fluid in the bottle. It smelled kind of like…
“Rick.” Ford straightened up with a pained grunt. “Tell me that isn’t—”
A distinctly lighter-shaped blur appeared from somewhere in the recesses of Rick’s labcoat, and next thing Ford knew the goggles went up with a muted whoosh!
—lighter fluid. That was the smell.
Rick bent to retrieve Ford’s glasses from the floor.
“Rick,” Ford growled, fists clenching, “I can’t believe you just—”
“Yeah yeah,” said Rick, “We gonna fight, or do you want your glasses back?”
There was a pause.
“I mean,” Rick added, “If you were sober I might be worried, but right now I can take you.”
“Just give them back,” Ford muttered petulantly, holding out his hand.
“Good call. That lens crack was totally already there, by the way.”
“I know,” said Ford, putting them back on.
“Oh. Uh, good.” Rick coughed.
Ford coughed too. The smell of burning wires and plastic was an acrid stab in his lungs. Staring sadly at the melted, smoldering mess in the tray, he whispered, “Why?”
“Look,” said Rick, “I’ve invented some stupid shit, Ford, I mean, just, I don’t even know, man. Ford, one time I got bored and speeee—brrp—ent like, a week, building the perfect toaster, that’s how stupid we’re talkin’ here. But this thing?” He poked at the edge of the flaming tray. “This is the dumbest.”
“But the things we could learn fro—”
“No. You wanna ‘learn’ what makes other dimensions different, go watch their TV.” Rick hooked a thumb in the general direction of the living room. “I installed an inter-dimensional cable box. You wanna talk to other Fords, then build—brrp—build another stupid portal, or, y’know, don’t, because, trust me, you really don’t wanna get involved with your other selves. You wanna spy on your brother, then go home, Ford. The only thing anyone ‘needs’ these goggles for is, is to obsess over themselves like—”
“Rick I wasn’t watching to stroke my ego, I, I just wanted to see—”
“Yourself, from a different angle. Don’t act like you thought there was anything else in that universe worth lookin’ at. You were ‘stroking’ something, alright.” Rick pointed at the dying fire. “It’s basically assisted narcissism, Ford. I get why my dumb family couldn’t get enough of it, but, but I thought you knew better.”
“I… I should go.” Ford shuffled toward the still-open hatch in the floor that led to Rick’s basement, fists clenched and shoulders tight.
“…yeah, guess you, guess you should. Bye, Ford. Sorry we didn’t get enough time to talk about you. Guess I should’ve penciled in what? Fifteen hours?”
“Bye, Rick,” said Ford coolly, “Tell your grandson I’m sorry I startled him.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Rick sneered back, “It’s—brrp—s’not the first time he’s walked in on an old man masturbating.”
Ford made no reply to this as he started haltingly down the ladder.
“Just lock the door next time!”
Ford had left his tablet-looking-thing behind. Maybe he forgot it after it got knocked to the floor in their scuffle, or maybe it was useless without the goggles. Either way, it was Rick’s now. Score. It wasn’t even damaged from the fall.
The goggles were a different story, but not as different as Ford thought. Rick had built those goggles to survive way worse than his periodic boredom-fire. It might take an hour or two of work, but he’d get them up and running again. Not like he had anything better to do.
Okay, that was bullshit. He had loads of better things to do. He could literally pass out in front of the TV again and still be doing something better, but he knew he’d get drunk or bored or pissed enough to come back around to this eventually; might as well get it out of the way now.
By sunrise he was ready to test them out—pretty sure Ford’s modification was working too—and had just strapped them on when he heard a knock on the garage door. Dammit Morty.
“Ri-rick? Are you in there? Did you, uh, get rid of that guy? How come the door’s locked?”
“Yeah, he’s gone. And right now Grampa needs some alone time, Morty.”
“Aw gross, again?”
“Yeah, and ‘gross’ is right, so, so fuck off, Morty.”
Rick listened to Morty’s retreating footsteps until he was sure the kid had fucked all the way off. Then he sighed and switched the goggles on.
“Gross is right.”