Burn in Hell | C137cest AU

He Remembers - Chapter 16

       Days had passed, and the club hadn't seen Gary. Nobody had heard from him or Gene, either. Folks were curious. First Morty, now Gene. Was somebody out for all of them?

       Of course, Rick could only assume the man was still with Morty. He had asked that they visit frequently, in case the kid woke up, and to bring him things that represented his life. 

        Rick knew that, if anything, he was at least useful to the point where he could tell somebody all about what he knew about Morty, though most of it was just from having watched the kid, having lived with him, having known him, yet not knowing much about him. 

       The kid hadn't started out so hot. His family life was troubling to anybody, really. His parents fought, he never was included, and they tended to abuse him, even if they were aware of the fact that what they were doing qualified as such. He tried, from what Rick remembered, before he just dropped out of high school. It was probably the last thing he wanted to do, but from the short stories he told Rick, he couldn't take it anymore.

       And then he had that filing job. Rick didn't know much about that other than it was the only reason he was ever able to get a job at Schwifty's. Without the filing job, he never would have been in this part of Miami, and he never would have seen that flier at the grocery store. He never would have been here without that filing job. Never.

       Morty was so excited to get a nice job. He had saved up and bought an apartment with cash from his filing job, when he'd worked longer hours, and came in with a big grin and some sort of experience. 

       He was always so precise, even when he had just begun working. Always so careful, really.

       Rick could tell people the little things he had observed, and the small things he could remember the brunet telling him, but he couldn't tell you his favorite snack food, what his teen years were really like, what he wanted to do with his life. He couldn't tell you Morty's favorite place to go when he was deeply troubled, or his favorite pastime. 

       Out of everything Rick couldn't tell you, the worst was he couldn't tell you much about the brunet's personality, other than he was extremely psychopathic. He must have had some sort of personality disorder because that shit was wack. 

       But it's the little things that get you. And Rick struggled to remember if he even knew some of the little nitpicky things about Morty. And that probably hurt worse than anything, really.

       It was funny watching all the dancers mill about. Rick heard reports from the bouncers, having told them to report anything said about Morty. All the dancers, they were regretful. They were all - all - talking about Morty, about how they felt stupid for not getting to know him, for hating him because he was so loved by the public. They were all telling one another things like, "It's okay, I felt the same way" when somebody would bring up how they just couldn't stand some baby-face coming in here and stealing all the attention. 

       But they all came together on one thing; they wanted to tell him they were sorry. They just didn't know how.

       And Gary had even notified some of the old bouncers. They were all more than a little heartbroken, but not one of them was able to come out and visit Morty. Surprisingly, though, there were only three of the old boys left. The other bouncers were either off grid or buried, which only made Rick think about the possibility of his death nearing even sooner. He wasn't some sprightly twenty year old anymore, that was certain.

       Don had offered to help the two cope with losing their kid, should Morty wake up and Rick want to accept the fact that AJ was just as much his kid as Morty's at the point before he died, but Rick had declined. He wasn't one for unnecessary sympathy, and this was all too much for him, so he went to one of the few places he could go to escape it all, leaving the club around noon on a Friday.

       The old cemetery was more foreboding than a beautiful final resting place anymore. It was hard to find your way around, really. 
       Rick parked his vehicle on the gravel path, nearly overgrown by simple grass and weeds. Most headstones were covered in moss, the older ones worn by weather and some destroyed entirely. But he knew where he had to go.

       There was a single patch of Black Eyes Susie's that grew in one area only, and that always brought a sad chuckle to Rick's lips. He marched along the overgrown path until he found where he was going, sitting on the grass to the right of the grave. He was one for superstition around the dead, that much was certain. 

       "Always a stickler, right?" Rick questioned softly, trying to trace the letters on the headstone. They were hard to follow at this point in time. The gravestone had stood here for nearly thirty years, after all, and time wasn't always gentle.

       "Despite all of our arguments, we stuck through. We'd fight about the dumbest things, remember? And . . . and somehow we would always end up just fine, for a little bit, though you still hated me. Sometimes I wonder if I'm going through that again, or if I have something different with this kid, y'know?" Rick sighed, adjusting his seated position before he went back to making some sort of attempt at tracing the words. 

       "What was it that kept us together? Because I honestly forgot. But whatever it was, I don't have it with this kid anymore. I used to, but he don't care no more. He wants something normal, but I was never able to give anybody that. Nobody wants fast and crazy anymore, and I wish I hadn't learned that so late in this life, you know?"

       Rick stared up at the sky for a moment, seeing storm clouds rolling in. They hadn't had a good storm for a while, and he couldn't help but smile. Morty used to love the smell of rain, and Rick found he did, too. It was calming yet hectic, in all actuality. Sweet and gentle, all the same, though.

       "I don't know why you had to be so stubborn, even in death," Rick muttered, tracing the broken name "Diane Trudeau" on the headstone. "You refused to take my name to the grave, just like you refused it until we were drunk. Good to know you never changed." 

       As the rain began to gently patter against the earth, Rick said a final goodbye to the woman buried beneath the earth that he had tried to love at some point in his life. To this day, there was only one thing he ever wanted carved into her headstone.

       "Stubborn bitch."