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hazelnut-u-out · 2 years

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Ring of Fire - 1

this is the first chapter of my space cowboy revenge era birdrick au!

i'm eventually going to post this on my ao3, too, just because it's about to be a monster of a multichapter fic.

anywayyyy, get to know the boys! not a very tense chapter, but they’re coming, don’t worry. >:)

Synopsis:

Rick and Birdperson are wanted outlaws, listed amongst the Galactic Federation's "Most Wanted" and currently investigating leads on the red sand planet of Blindrock Terminus- an Old-Western-Style planet populated by an alien race with strict religious customs.

Rick is struggling with balancing his blossoming feelings for his partner in crime and their respective senses of loss. Does his companion feel the same way? What plot is waiting to reel them in?

-2342 words

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“Rick,” Birdperson huffed, his warm breath skittering along the bare skin of his friend’s back as he leaned in closer to examine his work. “Do you think you could at least try to stay still? This isn’t exactly the best light source. You’ll end up with misshapen lines.”

“Hmmf…” Rick let out in hushed agreement, shivering at the contrast of the heated gust against his skin that had been previously chilled by the night air. “I think you care more than I do. Plus, you-you’re not exactly bein’ gentle.”

It was a handsome night, the three moons hunkering in a low and lurid display to the terrain, and the sand of the campsite lay littered in cigarette butts and whiskey bottles. The rocks and logs they’d set up had long since absorbed the essence of their pastimes into the nature of their existence; and what a taught existence it was.

Rick quite fancied Blindrock Terminus. It was similar to what he knew, in an odd way- shaded canyon roads; shanty towns; rolling hills and layers of burgundy rock, soil, and stone- though, he wouldn’t recommend seeking out refuge on a planet with such a strict set of religious customs.

The pair had risked a trip into town earlier that day- something they never would have done if not absolutely necessary. Birdperson had been insistent that they go to the Zorpantheon Rattle, claiming he’d done some midnight detective work before Rick had made the executive decision to decrease the base into a pocket ship and stay out on a campsite to avoid detection.

Shitshow, to say the least. Rick had never seen more Federation guards lurking around something quite as inconspicuous as a bar, and it didn’t help that the alien company wasn’t something Rick didn’t find unsightly.

His partner had cursed him as they fled back to camp- taking a more round-about route to shake the last few remaining guards tailing them- and Rick couldn’t even deny, for once, that it would’ve been worth it to keep his dick in his slacks. He hoped BP simply assumed that Rick had a decent reason for letting the guards slip out of his grasp.

Now, the crimson desert trembled in shades of orange in the crackling dance of the firelight, and Rick loathed the uncomfortable scratch of the red sand against his stubble. He winced, arching upward again, when his companion came down with a particularly aggressive poke on his lower back.

Birdperson snorted, allowing Rick time to settle back down atop the sand before returning to his work.

“I’m startin’ to think you’re doing that on purpose,” Rick grumbled, his voice gravelly in sonority, as he turned to lay his other cheek against the ground and look up at BP through the gaps in his tangled mess of powder blue hair.

His companion was an oasis amongst the dry rolling landscape surrounding them- soft and delicate; just the perfect temperature where most things existed in a limbo of too hot or cold. Birdperson was the image of focus- sat on his knees, hunched over and engrossed in his task. His tongue perched tautly between the left side of his teeth, nearly the same peachy salmon shade of his undone button-front. His frame was a russet statue, tendrils of wavering shadow lapping at his harsh angles and his eyes dusky beneath the brim of his ebony hat.

Rick almost forgot about the tender ache of his lower back, a lazy smile snaking its way along his face in a crawl as he opened his mouth in a quiet utterance of outward thought.

“This light flatters you.”

The other man’s stare flicked up to meet his compliment’s momentarily, tarrying Rick’s heart with a gentle tremor of his lashes. He smiled a bit, a playful glint toying with the glimmer in his eye, and he sat his instruments down on the leather pad at his right.

“What do you mean, Sanchez?” Birdperson whispered, and something sultry played along the canyon air that carried his voice to the man laying below him.

“Um…” Rick nearly froze in place, his breath involuntarily catching in his throat. “Y-You look chiseled, is all.” Suddenly, his voice was barely more than a murmur over the rustle of the fire. He watched as Birdperson slowly leaned closer to his face and reached one hand behind Rick’s head, his wingspan arching out overhead and blocking out the shimmering rays of flame. Rick’s eyes fluttered closed.

The smack of short-trimmed felt against his face startled Rick’s eyes open and Birdperson’s coarse laugh rang out overhead in a jovial pierce of the stoic night air.

Rick scowled, pulling his cattleman down just enough to peer over the brim shyly; his cheeks flushed and heat thrumming along the tips of his ears.

“Chiseled from what?” BP asked, clutching his side as if it hurt. “Cotton?”

“Rude,” Rick whispered in an attempt to sound angry, but it came out silky and sweet-tempered. His accomplice suited laughter so beautifully.

“Shut up and let me finish this tattoo. It’s almost done,” Birdperson said dismissively through a chuckle, moving to pick up his instruments once again.

“Hey- Hey!” Rick tutted, tossing his hat to the side and twisting away from BP’s chasing grip. “L-Let me adjust! My armitas are ‘causing a mean denim wedgie.”

Dust stirred up around him in minute scarlet clouds as he shuffled, bunching up his discarded flannel beneath his chin and finding a more comfortable position for his hips. The sand beneath them scraped along Rick’s bare chest, no doubt getting stuck in the tufts of hair along his abdomen, and his belt buckle kissed his naval.

His friend made to cover up his small container of ink with his hand, shooting Rick a glare.

“Do you want dust in your wound, you heathen?!” Birdperson chastised with a coy grin that told Rick his counterpart would not at all be opposed to the possibility as a fitting punishment.

“I-I’ve already lost one bet tonight, compadre. You’ll have to set up another- and get me drunker to-to give me a red tattoo,” Rick said through gritted teeth, burying his face into the fabric and taking in a deep breath through his nose- heavy with the lingering scent of whiskey.

“Well…” Birdperson quipped, trailing off as he focused on sticking a particular spot for a few moments. “If you hadn’t let them get away, I would have been too preoccupied with torturing Federation agents to even bother with cashing in your debt in the first place.”

Rick winced, fumbling around with one hand without looking to try and find his flask. After a long spell, his fingers finally closed around the cool metal of the container and he lifted his head, unscrewing the cap.

“T’was hardly my fau- OW! Watch it, man- shit!” Rick started, his body involuntarily trying to lurch away again, but BP placed a calloused hand along the center of his back, holding him in place.

“Hush now, I know you like it,” BP teased, offering a comforting stroke along Rick’s spine that was probably meant to be a soothing platonic gesture, but only made Rick’s stomach blossom into a cacophony of fluttery. “I saw you with those Warekins at the bar.” Rick suddenly felt feverish, his cheeks growing hot as he tried to mitigate the flicker of embarrassment that ran through him. He hadn’t known his friend had seen him with those aliens.

“Heh.” Rick tried to feign disinterest, letting the warmth of the whiskey settle down into his belly and careening the flask towards his companion, who simply leaned over and opened his mouth.

It did nothing to qualm Rick’s blush to pour the lukewarm spirit into his friend’s slack jaw, nor did it help when trembling hands resulted in some of the liquid spilling over Birdperson’s cerise lips- still swollen, Rick noted, from his eariler kissing session with the butt of that Federation agent’s gun.

He wondered what it would be like to collect the droplets with his own lips- if he would be able to taste the liquor on the other man’s tongue. If he only leaned in…

Swallowing thickly, Rick attempted to speak without a waver in his tone. “Hardly relevant. Th-That had nothin’ to do with pain.”

“Don’t they have special cells on their fingers that shock you?” BP mused, swallowing.

Rick chortled, taking another sip from his flask.

What must have been Birdperson’s taste- syrupy and smokey- lingered on the lip of the container and mixed with the heady wallop of liquor. It swarmed Rick’s head, and he thought it was more the closeness of his partner than the spirits that made him feel all the more intoxicated.

“No,” he said sportively, bending his knee to nudge the other man’s leg with the tip of his boot. “It-It’s not a special cell, it’s nerve fibers. They flood their fingers with electrolytes n’ shit to promote an electric current.”

“Either way, that shit must hurt.” BP stopped working suddenly, and Rick could hear him shuffle backwards on the sand, allowing his heart rate to finally begin to slow. “Done!”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, buddy,” Rick said with a wink, sitting the flask aside and trying to twist his body backward at an unnatural angle to get a look at what his friend had sealed into his skin.

“Hold on, hold on,” Birdperson sang, as if appealing to a child. “I’ll get your camera.”

Feeling the lull of the alcohol on the inside of his skull during his frenzy to stand, Rick had no interest in protesting against an opportunity to return to his previous position. He settled back down, crossing his arms and propping his gruff chin onto the corded muscles of the lithe appendages. Birdperson’s fumbling rolled over the sand like a working man’s hands along a sheet of silk, and Rick looked up to observe the two equore they had tied to a rock about fifteen feet away.

They were enormous, spindly creatures- their orchid-scaled skin glistening beneath the light of the trio of indigo planetoids that haunted the sky above.

Horses, Rick thought. Reptile horses that drink blood and have three eyes.

A distinct ‘click’ resounded from behind him and he could see the flash of light take up both sides of his peripheral vision.

“W-Waste of film, ya know,” he fussed, but turned towards the whirring of the device with budding anticipation. Rick wasn’t one to normally care about what was going to mark his body. He could keep fighting and fucking until they put him down in the dirt, and the worms would eat it all indiscriminately- but something about this moment had him… excited.

It was that excitement that had him pushing himself up onto his knees and snatching at the slip of paper just as Birdperson began to shake it.

“Le-Lemme see!”

“I’m not an artist, but I’d say I did a pretty decent job,” his friend said softly, shifting and leaning back onto one of the gray sleeping bags the two had laid out parallel to the fire, hands behind his head and his shirt falling open to reveal the whole of his stalwart torso. His wings twitched as his feathers dragged along the sand, leaving miniature crests and hollers in their wake.

The image on the front of the paper was developing slowly, much to Rick’s disdain, and he groaned in frustration, plopping down onto his rear. After a lengthy pause, the image started to come into focus as he leered down at it through a demanding squint.

“Angel wings,” he breathed.

Birdperson let out a hearty laugh, and Rick shot him a questioning look- not sure what was funny.

“No,” his partner said agreeably. “My wings.”

Birdperson said it as if it were nothing- something casual and obvious- but Rick’s throat threatened to close in on itself as his heart swelled three sizes too large to be trapped within a measly human rib cage.

“Huh.” Rick muttered as he slumped forward, eyes wide as he drank in the photo before him. The utterance wasn’t as if he were bewildered, nor was it condescending or taut. It was more a noise of awe- of adoration- and Rick couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be marked with, someone he’d rather be branded by, until death.

“You hate it,” BP said dejectedly.

Rick’s head shot up, and he shook it incredulously.

“No! No, man. I-I… I love it,” he insisted, lifting his bum to take out his wallet and shoving the photo inside for safekeeping before leaning back against a large rock and kicking off his boots. Rick flexed his toes along the outer edge of the fire, blistered hands reaching for his battered guitar. “High time Rick Sanchez got a tramp stamp.”

“You’re just saying that,” BP prodded, his eyes wandering up to peruse the stars.

“Lo juro,” Rick replied sternly, his gentle plucking on the strings as he tuned the instrument little notes tiptoeing along the smoke that rose above them. “I hope that when they take me out, they skin me and tan my hide- make me into a real nice leather. Be some boot licker’s saddle, but my tattoo might stick around.”

“You’re sick!” BP laughed out, and Rick couldn’t help his wandering eyes. As his friend took inventory of the stars overhead, Rick counted the imperfections- scars, freckles, and moles- that he could make out along his sun kissed skin. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess my mind drew a blank when I realized I had to pick something. It’s not like we’re- well, you know.”

Rick’s heart sank, but he couldn't identify the home of the blade that flayed him.

“Mhmm…” he hummed, dropping his attention to his guitar and toying with a woeful little tune. His eyes burned as if he’d been looming over a hearth.

“First watch?” Birdperson asked after a bit, his words drowsy and slurred.

“Sure,” Rick offered. “Long day of kicking bug ass tomorrow.”

“The life of wanted men,” his counterpart sang sweetly, smile in his voice, over the purr of Rick’s melody.

______

#rick and morty #birdrick #rick sanchez #birdperson #ring of fire #my fic

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