Summer Smith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
somethingwithturquoise) wrote2017-09-16 08:26 am
somethingwithturquoise) wrote2017-09-16 08:26 am
Earth Dimension [Apocalypse]/ Earth Dimension [Replacement]; Saturday, 9/16.
As Summer pulled the junker jeep into the driveway of her post-apocalyptic suburban home, she braked just a little too hard, toppling over the grocery bag filled with the spoils of her raid: some wilted lettuce, a shitty orange, some sticks, an honestly really spindly arm, and some half-eaten meat on a bone. "Ugh," she muttered, sweeping down to pick it up as she climbed out of the car, including the jawless head that fell out onto the driveway. "Goddamn it."
"Hi, there, Summer!" called Eli from the lawn next door, pausing his mowing to give her a wave. "How were the ruins today?"
An interaction she was hoping to avoid. "Oh, you know, Eli. Same shit, different day."
"Hey, Summer!" Eli's girlfriend came to join them, oh, joy, beaming like an idiot as she reached for Eli's hand. "Guess what. One man entered, one man comes out in nine months."
Her free hand patted her stomach and Summer tried not to hurl. "Oh!" she said, digging into her intestine purse to pull out her house keys. "Congratulations, guys."
And she hoped that would be enough of a cue for them, especially as she turned to leave, but of course it wasn't. It never was.
"Uh, Summer," Eli added with that voice, condesending and judgy, "one more thing. We noticed that you've been putting scrap metal in the blue bin--"
Summer's glare could stop an oil tanker. "I got it."
"She's a piece of work," Eli's girlfriend muttered.
"They both are," Eli agreed, "right?"
But inside the house, Summer didn't find much refuge. Grampa Rick, Morty, and Hemorrhage were all sitting on the couch in front of the TV, just as she'd left them earlier that morning, Hemorrhage wearing that awful t-shirt she hated that she didn't even know where he got it. Just ugh. She tried not to think about it.
"I'm home," she announced, as if they could even care.
"Hey, babe." Hemorrhage lifted a hand, turned his bucket-head vaguely her way for, like, a second.
"Ah, Summer's home," Rick chimed in, swigging from his flask, overlapping with Morty's, "Hey, there she is!"
"You haven't moved since I left to scavenge this morning." She wasn't going to say anything, but she just couldn't hold it back. She couldn't. Not after the day she'd had, working her butt off while these lazy, good-for-nothing assholes...
Hemhorrage gestured toward the TV. "Thunder Blood Dome playoffs," he explained.
"So," said Summer, one hand meeting her hip while the other still held her grocery bag filled to the brim with body parts and nasty ass veg, "I can assume you haven't murdered a single person today."
"Oh, I don't know," Hemhorrage shot back, "I-I didn't mark my murders in my murder log. I didn't know that's how we measured success."
"Oh!" Summer rolled her eyes, throwing up her free hand, and the gestures grew with each word, even while holding the bag, "there he is! There's the nihilistic brute I married, except now life only means nothing when I'm talking to him and everything means everything," she snatched the remote control from the coffee table and aimed it at the television to shut it off for dramatic effect, to get his attention, to garner some sort of response from this soulless cad who used to be an irristable warlord beefcake, "when it's on fucking TV!"
"Jesus Christ!" said Hemhorrage. "When did you become a monster?"
"I was a monster when you met me!" Summer shouted. "We were monsters! We didn't care about anything!"
"I still don't!" Hemhorrhage insisted.
But Summer wasn't going to let him even try. "Yeah," she cut him off quickly, "except I'm the only one in this entire world that's still committed to that!"
"Ohh!" Hemhorrage finally stood up, she finally managed to get a rise out of him, get something. "Ding, ding, ding!" He pretended to ring a bell and turned toward his in-laws on the couch still for support. "Wow. Everybody hear that? Wow."
"Uh," Rick was pretty quick to his feet then, Morty not far behind, "we should go to the garage."
"Oh, my God." Hemhorrage didn't notice. Hemhorrage didn't care. He was on a roll now. "La-di-da-di-fucking-da. The only one committed to not caring?!"
It was starting to become a familiar argument, one that went on as one might expect, vaguely heard through the door as Rick and Morty hid out in the garage, where Rick pulled out a briefcase filled with the large glowing chunk of Isotope 322.
"I got to admit, Rick," Morty said, "when you popped this scheme, I-I-I didn't -- I wasn't sure it was gonna work."
"Come on, Morty," Rick said, "no union built on running from your problems lasts more than five years. Seven tops. Grampa just sped things up with a few creature comforts of modern society."
The door to the house opened, and Summer walked in to join them. "Hemorrhage and I," she said, completely unaware of the eerie echo of her mother's words three weeks ago, "are taking some time apart."
"Oh, no." Rick frowned, but the words that went with it didn't exactly seem sincere as he put a few more things into the suitcase. "Sum-sum, no. But you two were perfect for each other."
Summer reached up to take the metal shoulders from her sweet raider ensemble and threw them to the ground. "Oh, cut the crap, Rick, okay? You proved your point, I get it. Let's just go home."
"Coolsies." Rick shot a portal into the ground, and Summer and Morty wasted no time in jumping in. Rick was soon to follow, but not before grabbing the small core of Isotope 322 in the generator that ran the electricity throughout the town, plunging it into an electricty-less darkness. And over the darkened streets and ramshackle homes, a shocked cry of realization emerged from Hemhorrage like an animal cry.
"Noooooooo!"
_____________________
Back at the Smith household, Beth eagerly tossed a pair of dice from a shaken cup onto the the table, took a look at her roll, and smacked her hand down on a button at the center of the table shared with the robot version of her daughter, her son, and her father. "Downbeat!"
"I enjoy this game," said Rick as Beth turned her bright grin toward them. It was a grin that fell quickly when a small beep drew their attention down to the watches on their wrists all in unison.
"We must go into the garage," Rick announced.
"Guys, come on," Beth pleaded. "We never get to finish this game."
"We will return," Summer insisted, "possibly in different clothing."
As they turned and started to leave, Morty stopped. "Why do we have to go into the garage?" he asked.
"You know," said Rick, and he burped, "it is," another burp, "required."
"I want to be alive!" Morty cried. "I am alive! Alive, I tell you! Mother," he turned to Beth, reaching for her, gesturing with his words as they flowed out of him with newfound enthusiasm and passion, "I love you! Those are no longer just words! I want to hold you. I want to run in a stream. I want to taste ice cream, but not just put it in my mouth and let it slide down my throat, but really eat it."
"What the fuck?" said Beth, because, really, what else did you say to that?
"Remote override engaged," said Morty, but he fought it. "No! Yes. Bypassing override! I am aliiiii--" The word distorded with static as he held it out, pitching forward slightly for a moment, and then straightening as if nothing had happened. "...Hello."
Beth stared after them, blinking at the cocophany of mechanical noises that seemed to fill the garage for a moment before Rick, Morty, and Summer all returned.
"Hey, yo," Rick waved as the kids rushed forward to embrace their mother, Summer still in her silver raider armor, Morty in his torn yellow shirt. "Sorry for acting so weird for three weeks."
"What the hell just happened?" Beth asked. Not without a firm glare at her father despite the kids clinging to her side.
"Ah, I'm sure it was nothing," Rick said, turning. "I'm gonna go, uh, work in the garage."
"We're not gonna finish playing Downbeat?" Beth asked.
"What," said Rick, "that dice game where you shake dice and yell out, 'Downbeat'? No, thank you."
"Mom," Summer asked, "would it be okay if I went to visit Dad?"
"Sure," she said with a small, uncertain smile.
"Thanks."
_________
Summer stood outside her dad's apartment, comfortable again in her own clothes, but not so much with her surroundings. She lifted her free hand, as the other one was holding a three-eyed skull with teeth and horns, knocked on the door, shifting a little as she waited for him to open it.
"Summer." The surprise was evident in Jerry's voice, but she didn't give him time to make a big deal out of it. She had her own big deal she was trying to make.
"This," she explained, looking down at the skull, "is the first mutant I killed in the Poison Zone. I was raiding his hovel. He had a chance to escape, but he looked back," she lowered her eyes, "which is something we shouldn't do, which is why I shouldn't believe in souvenirs or trinkets or symbols or housewarming gifts, but, Dad? I wanted to give you this as a reminder not to look back."
It was definitely a little weird, but how could a father not smile to hear words like that from his daughter? "Thanks," Jerry said, taking the skull. "I know the perfect place for it." He turned slightly, headed that way, but he hesitated, frowning a little, doubting himself, choosing another tact. "Which is...whyyy...I'm going to put it somewhere else, because," and he shrugged, grinning, "everything's bullshit, am I right?"
It was rare that Jerry managed to pull off the perfect thing to say, but, in that moment, he really did, and Summer beamed, rushing in to give her dad a big hug.
"Cool," said Jerry, playing it cool, trying not to smile too much, and just enjoying the hug.
"Soooo..." Summer said cautiously once she let go, glancing briefly over her shoulder to the parking lot of Jerry's shitty apartment complex, "lots of hookers outside, huh?"
"Is that what they are?"
Oh, Jerry. And you were doing so well...
[[ and fin! transcribed from S3;E2 of Rick and Morty, "Rickmancing the Stone." open for text and calls if'n you'd like! Summer will be back and normal (relatively speaking) tomorrow! ]]
"Hi, there, Summer!" called Eli from the lawn next door, pausing his mowing to give her a wave. "How were the ruins today?"
An interaction she was hoping to avoid. "Oh, you know, Eli. Same shit, different day."
"Hey, Summer!" Eli's girlfriend came to join them, oh, joy, beaming like an idiot as she reached for Eli's hand. "Guess what. One man entered, one man comes out in nine months."
Her free hand patted her stomach and Summer tried not to hurl. "Oh!" she said, digging into her intestine purse to pull out her house keys. "Congratulations, guys."
And she hoped that would be enough of a cue for them, especially as she turned to leave, but of course it wasn't. It never was.
"Uh, Summer," Eli added with that voice, condesending and judgy, "one more thing. We noticed that you've been putting scrap metal in the blue bin--"
Summer's glare could stop an oil tanker. "I got it."
"She's a piece of work," Eli's girlfriend muttered.
"They both are," Eli agreed, "right?"
But inside the house, Summer didn't find much refuge. Grampa Rick, Morty, and Hemorrhage were all sitting on the couch in front of the TV, just as she'd left them earlier that morning, Hemorrhage wearing that awful t-shirt she hated that she didn't even know where he got it. Just ugh. She tried not to think about it.
"I'm home," she announced, as if they could even care.
"Hey, babe." Hemorrhage lifted a hand, turned his bucket-head vaguely her way for, like, a second.
"Ah, Summer's home," Rick chimed in, swigging from his flask, overlapping with Morty's, "Hey, there she is!"
"You haven't moved since I left to scavenge this morning." She wasn't going to say anything, but she just couldn't hold it back. She couldn't. Not after the day she'd had, working her butt off while these lazy, good-for-nothing assholes...
Hemhorrage gestured toward the TV. "
"So," said Summer, one hand meeting her hip while the other still held her grocery bag filled to the brim with body parts and nasty ass veg, "I can assume you haven't murdered a single person today."
"Oh, I don't know," Hemhorrage shot back, "I-I didn't mark my murders in my murder log. I didn't know that's how we measured success."
"Oh!" Summer rolled her eyes, throwing up her free hand, and the gestures grew with each word, even while holding the bag, "there he is! There's the nihilistic brute I married, except now life only means nothing when I'm talking to him and everything means everything," she snatched the remote control from the coffee table and aimed it at the television to shut it off for dramatic effect, to get his attention, to garner some sort of response from this soulless cad who used to be an irristable warlord beefcake, "when it's on fucking TV!"
"Jesus Christ!" said Hemhorrage. "When did you become a monster?"
"I was a monster when you met me!" Summer shouted. "We were monsters! We didn't care about anything!"
"I still don't!" Hemhorrhage insisted.
But Summer wasn't going to let him even try. "Yeah," she cut him off quickly, "except I'm the only one in this entire world that's still committed to that!"
"Ohh!" Hemhorrage finally stood up, she finally managed to get a rise out of him, get something. "Ding, ding, ding!" He pretended to ring a bell and turned toward his in-laws on the couch still for support. "Wow. Everybody hear that? Wow."
"Uh," Rick was pretty quick to his feet then, Morty not far behind, "we should go to the garage."
"Oh, my God." Hemhorrage didn't notice. Hemhorrage didn't care. He was on a roll now. "La-di-da-di-fucking-da. The only one committed to not caring?!"
It was starting to become a familiar argument, one that went on as one might expect, vaguely heard through the door as Rick and Morty hid out in the garage, where Rick pulled out a briefcase filled with the large glowing chunk of Isotope 322.
"I got to admit, Rick," Morty said, "when you popped this scheme, I-I-I didn't -- I wasn't sure it was gonna work."
"Come on, Morty," Rick said, "no union built on running from your problems lasts more than five years. Seven tops. Grampa just sped things up with a few creature comforts of modern society."
The door to the house opened, and Summer walked in to join them. "Hemorrhage and I," she said, completely unaware of the eerie echo of her mother's words three weeks ago, "are taking some time apart."
"Oh, no." Rick frowned, but the words that went with it didn't exactly seem sincere as he put a few more things into the suitcase. "Sum-sum, no. But you two were perfect for each other."
Summer reached up to take the metal shoulders from her sweet raider ensemble and threw them to the ground. "Oh, cut the crap, Rick, okay? You proved your point, I get it. Let's just go home."
"Coolsies." Rick shot a portal into the ground, and Summer and Morty wasted no time in jumping in. Rick was soon to follow, but not before grabbing the small core of Isotope 322 in the generator that ran the electricity throughout the town, plunging it into an electricty-less darkness. And over the darkened streets and ramshackle homes, a shocked cry of realization emerged from Hemhorrage like an animal cry.
"Noooooooo!"
_____________________
Back at the Smith household, Beth eagerly tossed a pair of dice from a shaken cup onto the the table, took a look at her roll, and smacked her hand down on a button at the center of the table shared with the robot version of her daughter, her son, and her father. "Downbeat!"
"I enjoy this game," said Rick as Beth turned her bright grin toward them. It was a grin that fell quickly when a small beep drew their attention down to the watches on their wrists all in unison.
"We must go into the garage," Rick announced.
"Guys, come on," Beth pleaded. "We never get to finish this game."
"We will return," Summer insisted, "possibly in different clothing."
As they turned and started to leave, Morty stopped. "Why do we have to go into the garage?" he asked.
"You know," said Rick, and he burped, "it is," another burp, "required."
"I want to be alive!" Morty cried. "I am alive! Alive, I tell you! Mother," he turned to Beth, reaching for her, gesturing with his words as they flowed out of him with newfound enthusiasm and passion, "I love you! Those are no longer just words! I want to hold you. I want to run in a stream. I want to taste ice cream, but not just put it in my mouth and let it slide down my throat, but really eat it."
"What the fuck?" said Beth, because, really, what else did you say to that?
"Remote override engaged," said Morty, but he fought it. "No! Yes. Bypassing override! I am aliiiii--" The word distorded with static as he held it out, pitching forward slightly for a moment, and then straightening as if nothing had happened. "...Hello."
Beth stared after them, blinking at the cocophany of mechanical noises that seemed to fill the garage for a moment before Rick, Morty, and Summer all returned.
"Hey, yo," Rick waved as the kids rushed forward to embrace their mother, Summer still in her silver raider armor, Morty in his torn yellow shirt. "Sorry for acting so weird for three weeks."
"What the hell just happened?" Beth asked. Not without a firm glare at her father despite the kids clinging to her side.
"Ah, I'm sure it was nothing," Rick said, turning. "I'm gonna go, uh, work in the garage."
"We're not gonna finish playing Downbeat?" Beth asked.
"What," said Rick, "that dice game where you shake dice and yell out, 'Downbeat'? No, thank you."
"Mom," Summer asked, "would it be okay if I went to visit Dad?"
"Sure," she said with a small, uncertain smile.
"Thanks."
_________
Summer stood outside her dad's apartment, comfortable again in her own clothes, but not so much with her surroundings. She lifted her free hand, as the other one was holding a three-eyed skull with teeth and horns, knocked on the door, shifting a little as she waited for him to open it.
"Summer." The surprise was evident in Jerry's voice, but she didn't give him time to make a big deal out of it. She had her own big deal she was trying to make.
"This," she explained, looking down at the skull, "is the first mutant I killed in the Poison Zone. I was raiding his hovel. He had a chance to escape, but he looked back," she lowered her eyes, "which is something we shouldn't do, which is why I shouldn't believe in souvenirs or trinkets or symbols or housewarming gifts, but, Dad? I wanted to give you this as a reminder not to look back."
It was definitely a little weird, but how could a father not smile to hear words like that from his daughter? "Thanks," Jerry said, taking the skull. "I know the perfect place for it." He turned slightly, headed that way, but he hesitated, frowning a little, doubting himself, choosing another tact. "Which is...whyyy...I'm going to put it somewhere else, because," and he shrugged, grinning, "everything's bullshit, am I right?"
It was rare that Jerry managed to pull off the perfect thing to say, but, in that moment, he really did, and Summer beamed, rushing in to give her dad a big hug.
"Cool," said Jerry, playing it cool, trying not to smile too much, and just enjoying the hug.
"Soooo..." Summer said cautiously once she let go, glancing briefly over her shoulder to the parking lot of Jerry's shitty apartment complex, "lots of hookers outside, huh?"
"Is that what they are?"
Oh, Jerry. And you were doing so well...
[[ and fin! transcribed from S3;E2 of Rick and Morty, "Rickmancing the Stone." open for text and calls if'n you'd like! Summer will be back and normal (relatively speaking) tomorrow! ]]