A/N: I've been rewatching the show, and after Look Who's Purging Now... geez. Somebody get this kid some psychiatric help.

Takes place between Look Who's Purging Now and the Wedding Squanchers.

Morty knew he had changed.

Sure, he was fifteen now, and kids changed as they grew up, but this wasn't just growing out of a phase, it was like growing out of his skin into someone- something- new and strange and not entirely wanted.

You'd have to be made of stone to not be remolded from hanging out with Rick as much as he did, and Morty Smith was not made of stone.

It was in the small things. The way that his stomach turned at certain foods because they smelled like a planet he'd killed someone on, or how he could barely hold himself back from beating the shit out of anyone who looked at him funny, or how he'd always been twitchy but now he couldn't sit still for more than five seconds.

He drummed his fingers, tapped his toes, skimmed through class work he half-comprehended because really, who cares about history when your planet is such a small part of the infinite dimensions of infinite galaxies?

He didn't want to think this way. He wanted to try at school. He wanted to make his parents proud of him.

But, some tiny part of him that sounded suspiciously like his grandfather, said if it was going to be harder for you anyway, why even bother? You can have grand adventures, or learn algebra that you'll never use.

Who wants to be normal? Who wants to struggle to read textbooks that aren't written for people like you when you can be traversing the galaxy and learning how life really is?

Once you learn how small of a box you live in, it's difficult to crawl back in.

He'd been all over the universe. Hell, he'd thrown up in more places than most people even thought existed. Earth was home, but it was also very, very small.

He was different now. He wasn't as callous and casually cruel as his grandfather, but he wasn't the stick-thin, easily cowed child he was a year and a half ago either. Instead, he was stuck somewhere in the middle, a quagmire of aggressive, perverted teen hormones and horrifying experiences that would tug at anyone's sanity.

Deep down, he wondered if Rick even knew how much he was warping him, as he ran a hand over the wrapper that declared it was 'Now Purgenol Free' and curled the other around the rim of a bottle of vodka.

Morty knew he'd changed, but as he crinkled the wrapper in his fist and lifted the bottle, he hoped he could forget.