everyday - starrbitez - Rick and Morty [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter Text

Slick had lived on the Citadel his whole life, without a family, without a consistent Rick, without anything but a small home to go back to. There were many times where he was close to getting trapped in Mortytown, almost flunking out of school, or getting dumped there by a previous Rick. Every Rick he had was also from the Citadel, or a planet where they did not stay with their families, so Slick never got to meet a family of his own, and even if he did, he would have to replace a different Morty. Slick had all the memories of his family and childhood that any standard Morty would, knowing who his family was but never able to see them. Oftentimes when he had these memories, he felt as if he was watching a movie, watching someone else’s life play out before his eyes. And he was, that was the unfortunate part of being a clone, one clone of millions. Of infinite clones, Slick was only one.

Like every other Morty who was alone on the Citadel, all he was able to do was fall in line. He would go to the academy, graduate one year, spend six months with Rick, who would die. It was a cycle, and Slick had the unfortunate memory of each and every Rick, all five deaths circling in his mind, all five timelines of adventure. He reminisced and stared at the ceiling about the good moments, and curled up and hid from the bad ones. From the academy he would retreat to his home, or an abandoned Morty daycare where the majority of Mortys without Ricks or families lived. The Citadel was hell.

It was a hell that Slick wished would change. It was all he wanted. He needed the cycle to break, he needed things to get better because there had to be something better than everything that had happened to him, there had to be.

So, when Slick jumped into the wishing portal, he wasn’t scared. If life could change for everyone else, it didn’t matter if he died. It didn’t matter anyway, he was just a clone after all. A clone that needed to escape from his past, who wanted nothing more than to forget the identity he was tied down by.

Slick came out of the portal on the other end, landing in a giant pile of trash that extended for miles. He wasn’t on the Citadel. He was on another planet floating in space, a planet that had become unfortunate enough to become the trash can of infinite pompous Ricks. On a symbolic level, Slick empathized with the sad pile of trash, he was the same way. Another failure of the Citadel spat out into another collection of useless sh*t, clones were trash anyways, as most Ricks would say (even though they took full advantage over the mass manufacturing of Mortys). On the other hand, Slick was free. He had escaped hell, and even though he had landed in a literal garbage dump, he was free.

He didn’t mind it much at first, digging through the trash Ricks had tossed, most of it actually things of value, half-scrapped inventions and tossed Citadel Merchandise, and of course the plenties of half-eaten food and empty wrappers or rotting fruit. There was the occasional body, and Slick’s worst day was when he had found the rotting corpse of another Morty, laying slack, covered in a pile of trash. In the Morty’s arms was a disgustingly dirty plush, a dinosaur that the other boy had likely dug out of the trash for some sort of comfort before he died. There was a gaping wound in the boy’s leg, too, likely dumped by a Rick who was too lazy to deal with the inconvenience of a broken Morty, instead opting to buy a brand new and fresh clone to brainwash. Clones were always the most vulnerable to Ricks, hardwired to have unwavering loyalty and trust, no family to defend them or comfort them, no structure of school, no homes to go back to except for their drunken grandfather. Slick had managed to make a shelter, because for some reason this planet had a climate that consisted almost entirely of rain and wind, which only made the trash wet and stinky, and Slick twice as much as the trash. He would try to clean himself with the water, but the only thing it did was make his skin muddy with the wet dirt and crumbs from the ground. There was a fair amount of stale food that he had stockpiled, and some tools as well. He had a blanket and a soft plush to lay on, a tent of sheet metal over his head. Maybe it was worse than the Citadel, and maybe he was miserable and hungry and had come close to crying far too many times, but he was alone and the rain made peaceful pattering on the ground outside. At least the air was warm, and Slick was away from the torturous cycle of Rick.

He almost missed having a Rick. There had been lots of bad moments, many worse than others, and some Ricks worse than others. He did have one good Rick, though, but he died after a month. It was all Slick’s fault too.

”Holy sh*t! Rick, Rick help!”

His fourth Rick is shooting some alien hoard, trying to shut down some sort of drug ring. Not out of kindness, of course, he just wanted the money and drugs, so he could sell the drugs for more money.

“Don’t be dramatic Morty, k-keOURP-ep it together!”

He sighed. His Ricks never took him seriously. Suddenly, he’s pushed backwards by one of the aliens, held over the edge of the cliff. He screamed as loud as he could, sharp and loud like a horror film from the 90’s. He had watched some with Rick, groaning at the cliches with his grandpa. His grandpa who kills the last alien, whipping around with shock when he sees his (cloned) grandson dangled over the side of a cliff, meeting the face of the smug alien.

”W-What the f*ck!” Rick roars, and Morty is shocked at the reaction from the man, figuring he would let him fall, bone shattering—his other Ricks would’ve done that. Rick races towards the alien, grabbing it by the skin as it shoots wildly at Rick with its one free hand, Morty still screaming over the edge. The alien shoots, Rick shoots back, and Morty falls.

He’s screaming as loud as he can, he’s going to die and it’s not going to mean anything. He wasn’t ready! Suddenly, a metal claw grasps his shirt, and drags him up to the surface, his eyes meeting the sight of a dead alien, and a bleeding Rick. Oh god, the blood.

The blood was everywhere. Rick’s shirt was soaked, and Morty could barely choke a word out. “R-Rick..” the boy inches closer, crouching by his dying grandfather, desperate to do something, anything. “Wh-What can I do?”

”I-It’s okay, kid. I’m fine! Just, Just a little bullet in my body y’know.”

”N-No, Rick, pleas-please don’t die!” Morty put his hands on Rick’s bicep, grabbing harshly, shaking the man lightly as if it would make his fate go away. Rick’s hand comes up and he moves one of Morty’s large waves of hair to the front of his face, smiling. His grandfather is smiling.

”Beth had big waves of hair like you, Mort. Just like this.”

Morty blinks at his grandfather.

“You’re a g-good kid, I-“ Rick stops, and coughs, blood pouring from his mouth. Morty has to resist crying. “Rick and… Rick and Morty, a hundred years, yeah?”

Morty holds Rick’s hand tightly, the man’s eyes fluttering shut in an oddly peaceful way, the calmest and most content he had ever seen the man. He didn’t know there were Ricks like this, and now he was gone.

”Y-Yeah. Rick and Morty a hundred years.”

When the Morty Scouts picked Morty up from the planet, he screamed when they tried to pry Rick’s body from his hands. He couldn’t do this again. But one of the Scout Ricks shot a tranq dart straight into Morty’s chest, and when he woke up, he was on the Citadel again, the one Rick who could’ve actually loved Morty dead and gone, cold on some alien planet.

That was the last time any Rick, or anyone for that matter, had called him Morty. He wasn’t a Morty, he hadn’t felt like one ever, really. He felt like he was someone else in a Morty’s body, just another cog in the clone machine, but tortured with the knowledge that he was not the same as the Mortys that Ricks sought, he was broken. But Slick likes his nickname, for the individuality, the separation from the other clones of himself. He wasn’t like other Mortys, and he didn’t want to be. The nickname was the best thing to come out of the Citadel, and now that he was away from the label of Morty, he was free in that manner as well. Slick kept his curled hair in the front of his face, the one connection to a real family, to his mother and his grandfather. He could still smell the sweetly sick iron scent of blood on his clothes.

Yet, when the familiar spaceship landed during sunrise on trash planet, Slick had a sliver of hope in his heart. Beyond that, his stomach flipped and clenched, practically about to throw up. Slick watched stealthily behind his tent, watching the blue-haired man stretch,

”Alright, time to search this f*ckin’ trash planet for that stupid amulet thing.”

It sounded like Rick, but he looked about 40 years younger, with long hair and stubble, a leather jacket and black jeans. The man even sounded sober. Slick had heard of other dimensions that had younger Ricks, it was always an interesting time when one was on the Citadel. They had said in school it was some type of anomaly, where certain dimensions developed before others or slower than others. It was mostly an unknown and underdeveloped theory, because Ricks had better things to worry about than a version of themself. It was a world where every Rick fended for themself (and the Morty’s suffered), that's just how it was.

The strange Rick begins digging around in trash, and Slick isn’t sure if he should stay hidden or reveal himself, he worries that either way he would end up dead. He resigns himself to sitting in his metallic tent, picking at the rocks wedged in the ground. If there was one thing he had learned throughout his ‘life’ and his five Ricks, it was that the best thing to do was ignore the weird and bad sh*t that was happening. Go with the flow, or whatever.

Turns out, maybe ignoring things isn’t the best route, because after a few hours, his metallic tent is broken apart with a clang, falling inwards and banging Slick on the head.

”Ouch! What the f*ck?” He groans and heaves the metal off of him with an annoyed huff. He stands and rolls his eyes, backing up into a firm and warm wall. He whips around and grabs a sharp rock he has in his pocket, mostly to use against the demonic rats that lived in the trash piles. They were really annoying, but made good protein when he was in a pinch.

”Woah—Jeez, are you a Morty?” The Rick asked.

Slick just blinked at him in mild surprise, and before he could think, words tumbled from his mouth. “Uh- My friends call me Slick. And, uh, why are you, like, 30?”

Rick erupts in laughter, nearly doubling over, seemingly just as dramatic as Slick. It was almost funny, the man was actually grinning, genuinely laughing.

”Oh, yeah, I forgot, probably not common for you kids to see young Ricks, huh?” The man mutters something along the lines of Slick, funny name. Cool.

Slick shakes his head.

”What’re you doing on this planet, kid?” Rick fidgets with a watch on his wrist. “You live here or something?”

“Yeah.” Slick replies, shrugging simply. No point in lying now, not when Rick was standing right in front of him.

”Oh sh*t, really? Man, I was joking.”

Slick sees something in the man’s eyes, a realization perhaps, a thought about what to do with the stray, abnormal Morty. Slick starts to panic, but he tries to speak calmly, “Please don’t take me back to the Citadel.” He looks up at Rick, who stifles a giggle once more.

”The Citadel? Dude, I’d rather bang a gromflomite than ever step foot there.”

Slick, whose muscles are still tense and prepared for the worst, manages to allow a small grin to cross his face, the image of a sexy gromflomite too much to bear.

”You busy with anything?” The man asks.

“Does it look like it?” Slick retorts.

Rick shrugs. “Fair enough. Wanna help me look for a cool cursed amulet?” The man suggests, hands clasped together in front of his chest in excitement, as if an amulet is the equivalent of a giant thing of cotton candy to an eight year old.

Slick squints his eyes, thinking for a moment. “What’s in it for me? What happens if I touch the amulet? Is a demon gonna pop out and cut my body open and eat my intestines like spaghetti?”

”Geez, dramatic much?” Rick chuckles, taking a small device out of his pocket. Slick flinches. There’s no way the guy could know, he didn’t know. “First off, the amulet will not kill you, second off, how about a place to stay?”

His eyes move to train themselves on his shoes. Slick speaks quietly, already ruining his chances at maybe having a purpose. Of maybe getting out of this hell. “I probably shouldn’t. It’d be bad luck for you… I’ll just stay here, thanks.”

The man looks astounded. “The f*ck do you mean ‘bad luck’? Were you cursed by, like, an evil witch version of me? Is that a thing? That’d be pretty cool.”

“I—” Slick doesn’t usually stutter, or hesitate. Where other Mortys were anxious or insecure, Slick was dramatic and impulsive (the perfect sacrifice, always ready to jump in front of a bullet). Every Morty had their flaws, it just depended on how the Ricks built them. His face is red with embarrassment at the whole situation, his nervousness just making it worse. “I’ve had five Ricks…I’m just not a great Morty I guess.”

”Pfft, who cares. We all die at some point. Just let me get you off of garbage planet after this, ‘Kay?”

Slick shrugs again, and takes the device that Rick holds out.

“This is like a metal detector. But for cursed sh*t. So just scan a random pile of trash until you find the thing or whatever.” Rick waves him off and begins to do his own thing, moving to search an area he hadn’t touched before.

Slick begins his own search, a mix of excitement and anxiety twisting in his stomach. This Rick was weird; different. And he reminded him of that Rick. Slick twirls the curl in front of his face with his index finger, and takes a deep breath. He presses the button on the device.