For Your Flesh Do My Curtains Part.

Highly Sophisticated Science Lab

The phone rang, and Rick, who was holed up in his little treehouse on Birdperson's planet, wondered who on Earth could be calling him. The war had ended several years before, the Intergalactic Government having retreated. Rick and Ford's technology had driven them out. So Rick had settled there, in a small treehouse resembling that of a squirrel's, in one of the many thousand-foot-or-above trees, with trunks wider than a football pitch. It was like living in multi-storey flats.

Ford had left straight after the war, and as far as Rick knew he was doing the exact same as he was; holing himself up somewhere secluded and cosy, never leaving, never speaking to anyone and working on his inventions practically 24/7. It was a life Rick had always pictured for himself, yet there was a certain emptiness to it. Rick pulled off his transparent blue goggles and picked up the human phone. He had no idea he could actually get reception on this planet. "Hello?" He asked, bored.

"Rick!" He knew that voice anywhere.

"Lee?! What the he-UUURRRPPP-hell are you calling for?!" The estranged couple hadn't spoken in the better part of ten years.

"Look Rick I-I need ya,"

"What? What do you m-mean?" Rick asked, sitting up from the soft, mud-brown carpet he had been sleeping on, feeling the bristles stick in his hair. "Did I tell you man that I-I had a daughter?"

"Heard through the great vine. Congrats. Look some, some weird shit's happened Rick, fucked shit. I need ya' Sanchez. I'll send ya' my coordinates,"

"No need," Rick dismissed. "I'll track 'em," he hung up the phone, flopping back down on his back. Lee...

BirdPerson, who had been listening from the doorway, approached his old friend, looking down at him. The hybrid didn't quite understand such behaviour. Rick had been, from what he had observed, hurt by Stanley, yet he had agreed to help him. And now was having second thoughts. What a strange development.  "Rick. Do you really think it is a good idea to assist your ex sprite mate when you are in such a fragile mindset?"

"You don't know anything," Rick spoke sadly, but with some acknowledgement that BirdPerson was probably right. He had just had a daughter. To be honest, a daughter he really didn't want. Hadn't planned for. "I n-need to help him. I still fucking l-love him," Rick admitted, and it pained him to do so.
BirdPerson however, was very confused.

"Rick, he physically harmed you. Here when ones spirit mate harms them in such a way, they are apprehended and punished severely, and the victim no longer loves them,"

"Y-You don't know anything," Rick held his tears back very well, but BirdPerson still suspected them. "I'm a h-human, and that was Earth. You don't get it. I'm going,"

As Rick walked towards the door to the treehouse, BirdPerson sadly advised. "Good luck, my friend,"

"Sh-UUURRRPPP- sure," Rick slammed the door behind him. He could have just gotten a portal, but he didn't want BirdPerson to see him let out a choked sob before hopping into the portal. Once he came out however, all emotion was shoved to the side in favour of curiosity. What a strange place!

Rick knew about hick towns in the South, after all he and Stanley has stayed in Utah for a few months. But he didn't know that in the middle of a not- really-Southern state like Oregon, and especially in the middle of the forest, there would be a hillbilly town like this one. The whole place was a tourist trap, but hat didn't really bother Rick. He knew whole planets that were tourist traps. Everything here was wholesome, rugged but with a family-friendly feel. Rick had to admit he admired their dedication.

The House in front of him was odd, like something you'd see in a 1950s Disney Film. Snow White came to mind. "Le- uh... Stanley?" He asked uncertainly, pushing open the creaking door. He expected shambles, a mess, maybe an alien invasion blew the place to shit. But inside was a highly sophisticated sterile science lab. with fermenters taller than he.

"No way this place is Stanley's," Rock grumbled. He heard footsteps clunking on old wooden stairs, and just as he was about to activate his cyborg, mechanical augmentations as a defend mechanism, the figure which emerged from the darkness was not some Gorgon Pnomogalaxion, but his ex boyfriend.

"Lee?!"

He hasn't changed much, except now he had long hair in a mullet. Rick preferred his short hair by far. He had also grown a little overweight, not fat exactly, but his muscles were sagging with lack of exercise, a stomach swollen from drinking light beer. "Rick, fuck, you gotta help me!"

Stanley ran up, grasping Rick's hand and yanking the much thinner and physically weaker man downstairs. Rick had also lost a lot of muscle, but that was from lack of food rather than lack of exercise. He did plenty of that. "Calm the fuck down, what's-"

Rick was made awestruck by what he saw. The outer shell, towering above him with enough charisma to put a pyramid to shame, of a very basic portal device. Rick knew Ford had been working on inter-dimensional travel, but like always Rick was one - well in this case ten - steps ahead. He knew this was the time to be smug, but he couldn't help it. "Rick, Rick you gotta do something! Ford is...fuck, I pushed him and he fell in and I don't know where he went!"

"You brought me here to help Ford," Rick sneered, bitterness and haw disguising his hurt. He knew Stanley had wanted his help, but he didn't know it was because of that bastard that he needed him. "I'm s-sorry Lee, but I'm done being your fucking errand boy you call every time you need someone to get you out of debt or do your taxes. You're o-on your own!"

"Rick, you're my last hope man!" Stanley pleaded as Rick sauntered out. Yet just as he said that Rick noticed something, a tattered book in the other man's hands.

"What's that?" Rick pointed to it.

"I dunno," Stanley shrugged sheepishly. "It's Ford's,"

"Lemme see," Rick really just wanted to see it to snoop on what the other scientist was working on, but as he flicked through the pages his eyes ignited with flames of wonder. He handed it back to Stanley. "I may be your last hope, but you're on your second to last,"

"Huh?"

"That j-journal, Lee," Rick gestured. "That's how you'll save Ford. You need to learn to do shot on your own,"

And Rick portalled out, Stanley left clutching the journal, gazing at the spot there the green spiralling orb had swallowed his lover. Thank