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"D-do you think you've lived a fulfilling life?"
Rick had his hands behind his head, and back against the makeshift bed he haphazardly made on the rear of the spaceship. Morty was sitting down, knobby knees to his chest while he traced patterns on the dilapidated pillowcase. Rick chuckles, throwing him a look. "Where the fuck did that come from?"
Morty replies with a meek gentle smile at Rick's cursing. He knew Rick didn't like these kinds of questions and he wouldn't have brought it up in the first place if they weren't half high and half tipsy. "Ms. West told us to interview the elderly for this school project. Something about gaining wisdom and perspective and stuff..."
"Do I look like someone you can gain wisdom from, Morty?"
"Well... you're old."
"I'm the last person you know who acts like an old fart."
"Rick. You're 70. No amount of adventures or partying is going to change that."
"Jeez Morty what a way to make a man feel conscious about his age," Rick says good naturedly, rolling his eyes.
"You even told me not to call you grandpa the first time we met."
Rick looks up at the transparent glass, not really seeing the stars but probably remembering the first time they met, "Yeah I did... didn't I?" he says, wistful.
"Well do you want to start now?"
Morty snorts. "No."
"Come on, just try it. Summer says it all the time."
"Rick-"
"Come on, Mortyyy. Stop being so 'inappropriate' and start showing me some respect. J-just call me grandpa."
Morty exhales, arranging the syllables in his mouth.
"G-grandpa Rick."
Rick raises his brows as if telepathically asking, 'you see?'
Morty shakes his head, eyes down. "You're right... it sounds so wrong for some reason."
"I don't know, Morty. You're so keen on categorizing me in that age group. Next thing I know you're going to volunteer to give me a massage for my 'arthritis'"
"Y-you still haven't answered my question, Rick..."
He sighs like he got caught. "Fine." He pats the empty spot next to him. "Get over here. I don't feel like sharing when you're over there. It fucks up with my line of sight for some reason."
Morty follows his order, lying down on his back. Their shoulders touch at the proximity. "Fulfilling life, huh..."
To Morty's surprise, Rick is actually thinking about the question instead of giving his usual "nothing matters" sermon. He waits patiently, distracting himself by looking up the sight of the emptiness of space, stars dotting the cosmos like freckles. "The people who ask and answer that question, Morty, are the same ones who are fixated on death cause they're not smart enough to figure out a way to escape it."
"And you have.... because you're smart enough," Morty says, knowing where Rick is going with this. "You've seen me die. Once or twice."
"You don't stay that way though."
"One day I will." He gives Morty a momentary glance, and Morty doesn't want to think about that day, let alone experience it.
"-But I'm not done yet. There's still so much to do, so many places to go. I was your age when I figured out what I wanted to do my whole life. It's a long story of how and why, but I just knew I always wanted to be here. No one believed in me of course. They thought I was crazy or something. They even thought I was too 'slow' to be an astronaut. Jokes on them I never wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to study and investigate space, but not in that boring humdrum way where I spend ten years to go somewhere just so I could take home fucking rocks for other people to study. They were the ones who were 'too slow' for me. I wanted to explore without taking light years to go from one place to another."
"Hence the portal gun."
"Greatest invention of my life... Maybe even the greatest invention mankind ever had invented."
Morty agreed that it wasn't an exaggeration. It was really the greatest. Other people wouldn't question the fact that Rick has had a fulfilling life. Maybe he experienced enough for ten different lifetimes after everything.
But Morty knew that for every aspect someone excelled, they had to sacrifice another part of their life just to get there. "W-what about mom? Isn't she one of your greatest creations too?"
Rick didn't answer for a moment and that silence told Morty something he instinctively understood.
"I loved them both you know? Your mom and..."
Rick didn't really say her name often.
"-her mom," he finishes. "It's just-" Rick tries to finds the words to describe a lifelong story of disappointment, heartbreak, and abandonment.
"You just loved this more?"
He nods, confirming Morty's statement with a faraway look.
"This was everything I've ever dreamed of."
He starts gesturing all over the air, swaying his arms like he was trying to organize his thoughts and emotions. "I didn't- I didn't even expected to be a dad, let alone a husband."
Morty holds his breath.
It felt like they were never going to talk about this again. "Diane." Rick finally says her name. "Y-you know why I married her?"
Morty shakes his head. His mom never told him about that, probably because she didn't even know herself.
"She promised me she would love me unconditionally."
Rick turns to his side and Morty turns to face him too. It was as if they were children staying up past their bedtimes, hiding under the blankets, to tell each other confessions.
Rick laughs bitterly, and Morty can smell the liquor on his breath with how close they are. "I guess that's what you say when you love someone very much... and that's what you think you feel at the moment without knowing the weight of those words. I believed her. And can you believe it? We even actually got married at a church," Rick says, shaking his head. "I liked it at the start. I loved her so much that the domesticity didn't bother me. I wanted to be with her all the time and she didn't want to be going on out in space... so I stayed home for years. I tinkered, invented, created. She even made me make a toaster for chrissake. It was the best fucking toaster in the world, Morty. I almost didn't want to let her keep it when we got divorced. Jesus Christ."
"You can just make it again."
"Well, I could. But it just wouldn't be the same."
"Why not?"
"Because it doesn't matter to me anymore, Morty."
"I made the best toaster in the world to impress my wife because for the first time in my life I learned how not to be selfish. Making her happy made me happy. There were some nights that I even thought that hey, maybe I could stay here. Maybe this was how my life was supposed to be like. But then I remember, didn't she promised me she'd love me unconditionally? Why was I supposed to make a sacrifice? She told me at the start I could have both. I could have her and I could have space. And it was like that for a time. We made it work for a while until..."
"Until?"
"Until she got pregnant."
"...She... made you choose."
"It was them or it was my dreams. You know how this story goes. You know how it ended."
"Do you regret it?"
"Yes," Rick says firmly, "but I know I'll always make the same choice. I'm... I'm selfish."
Morty wanted to do something. He wanted to touch him at that moment, maybe reach out to place a palm on his cheek or to even hug him close. Anything. Anything not to see Rick this sad again... this guilty.
Rick rarely ever looked so guilty, the emotion didn't belong to his face. He doesn't do anything. Instead he settles on words.
"I don't think you're selfish."
"You don't have to console me Morty I-"
"No, I mean... she promised you at the start. Unconditionally. But then she made... conditions. She made you choose. She told you she wouldn't love you if you didn't become a good father."
"And that's pretty reasonable," Rick says solemnly, "even to my standards."
"It is," Morty agrees, "but it isn't what you agreed upon. If she really loved you... she should have known who you were. She should've known what you wanted to do and what you were going to do. She should've known that ultimatum wouldn't work. You're Rick. You've always wanted to be here and there's nothing in the universe that's going to stop you from being here."
"This is your grandma, Morty."
He reminds him, like Morty forgot that he was supposed to be kinder, like he was supposed to be on her side.
"I know," he says simply, "but-"
"And what do you think she should have done?" Rick asks him, probably to make Morty listen to what he's saying so he could shut up. "She should've come with you." Rick doesn't have an answer to that so Morty continues on, not realizing it's an accidental prelude to the most important epiphany they will both have in their lives.
No one really knows when an important moment will happen until it has happened. There are no forecasts, no estimations or prognostications.
It just happens.
Life just always work that way. "That's what you just told me right? When you love someone, you would want to be with them all the time. You go wherever they go, and you stay wherever they stay. It doesn't really matter what you do, be it shooting gromflomites or attending a PTA meeting- going on an adventure, or toasting bread in the world's greatest toaster. It doesn't really matter as long as you're together." Morty blushes, noticing the earnestness in his tone. He turns on his back, looking up the stars again, not wanting to look at Rick for some reason. "But that's just what I think. Maybe I don't know better. I'm young. I haven't been disappointed by a lot of people yet."
He tries to downplay it but he knows the damage is done (if he really could call it damage in the first place), Rick is already smiling smug like an asshole. He closes his eyes, embarrassed, waiting for Rick to strike, to tease him or say something mean to shut him down. Rick didn't like sappy shit like this. He always made it a point to disarm statements filled with emotions.
Morty holds his breath, waiting. "Well... if it wasn't so obvious already- you're the reason why I came back."
What?
Morty didn't notice he said that out loud until Rick rolled his eyes.
"What do you think I'll be back for Morty? To see Jerry fuck your mom with his small unemployed dick? I haven't been inside a human home for decades when I came back. Decades, Morty. Maybe two or three. Most likely three but that's not the point. The point is, I was really gone for a long time because I had no reason to be there. I was satisfied with always just watching. Checking up on your mom from time to time, as she grew up by herself. She did okay. Impressive even. She didn't need me to raise her. When she had Summer, I saw that she and Jerry did their best. I didn't had to intervene. Besides, it would have been awkward as fuck to come back after being gone for so long. I didn't had a role to play. I had no business to be there. Beth didn't need a father anymore, she was a wife and a mother now. Summer wouldn't be interested in meeting her long lost grandpa."
"I came back because..." Rick says, pausing for a moment, his eyes flitting back and forth but never leaving the space of Morty's face as if he didn't know where to look so he just looked everywhere. "...God this is so embarrassing." He presses a palm to his eyes.
Morty didn't know why he felt like there wasn't oxygen left in the air. "Tell me."
"Remember the day some kids at school called you retarded? For- shit I don't really remember much- but I think it was because you got a zero at math or something?"
Holy shit. Rick had been watching him. "Yeah... yeah right. That." He says as if the memory is becoming clearer and clearer to him. "Jesus, Morty, when they waved your test sheet all around and threw pens and erasers at you... And that one kid who threw a puncher at you? Like who does that? Who fucking does that? I wanted to portal there and wring their little necks. Goddamn. And I think I would've, if I wasn't so fucking drunk I couldn't walk."
Morty was thankful he didn't, no matter how appealing it was to get a guardian angel (angel? more like devil) to exact vengeance in his stead. "And Jerry? Fucking, Jerry." Rick says angrily, gritting his teeth. He sounded like he wanted to spit on the man and maybe hurl him across the room. "When you came home that day and told him what happened to you, instead of being enraged like I don't know- a good father?"
"....He justified their actions," Morty finishes for him.
"He fucking agreed with them, Morty. He's so fucking weak and stupid, he let other children get away with hurting you and making you feel like shit. That was the last straw. I- I couldn't watch you growing up like that."
He felt so oblivious. He should've known it wasn't an accident that one of the worst days he ever had was followed by the coming of his favorite person in the whole wide world.
The moment he saw Rick, he knew he was supposed to be by his side forever.
He just didn't know why. "I saw myself in you. I... I didn't had anyone to believe in me too, and it hurt. It hurt to see that history was fucking repeating itself again but this time the odds were more against you."
A tall shadow eclipses from where Morty is lying down as Rick moves on top of him. "I came back because I knew you needed me to be there, baby."
He's too close. He's too close and he's too honest, Morty's mind is racing to keep up with everything, overwhelmed by what he's hearing, by what he's seeing. It made no sense but simultaneously, it was the only thing that made sense in the chaos he called his life. Rick laughs, like he's pissed at Morty for making him feel something he didn't expect to feel.
"You fucking," he says, tense and trembling, "you fucking tied me down. Do you know that Morty? Do you know what kind of fucking man you made out of me?"
Morty doesn't need to answer that. He already knows.
He's the one who closes the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Rick's back and pulling him down to give him a kiss.
Doing this never even crossed his mind this morning, this week, this month, this year. And now... now he understands why Rick never wanted him to call him grandpa. Because he didn't come back to be one. He came back to be a friend, to be a best friend, a confidant. Someone who didn't underestimate him. Didn't pity him. Didn't call him slow.
Someone who understood. Morty feels the ship wobble, teetering from side to side, because of their entanglement. It was awkward and new to them both. They spent a long time watching each other kiss other people that it didn't really prepare them both for the time they'll be the ones who are kissing. "Woah, woah, baby," Rick murmurs against his lips, "why are you crying?"
"I don't know," Morty says closing his eyes, "I'm just- I'm just so happy," he confesses, his voice breaking at the end. He laughs shakily, his throat feeling tight. "I thought- I thought I was going to be all alone. I thought it was always going to be like that and I didn't even ask for this, but I got it. I got- I got you."
He pulls Rick, trapping his head over his shoulder because he can't really look at him right now.
He'll combust. "I love you so much and yo-you don't even have to stay. I'm not going to give you any conditions. I'm going wherever you want to go. Y-y-you can take me anywhere, Rick. That's how- that's how much I love you."
Rick presses his palm against the floor to get up but Morty stop him. "Please don't get up. I don't want you to see me."
"Okay... okay, baby," Rick says, turning his head to kiss his neck anyway. Morty can feel the ghost of his smile over there.
"Let's just," Morty sighs, "let's just stay like this for a while."
"Okay, Morty."
They stay like that for a while until their bodies don't only share the same temperature but also the same tempo of breathing. When Morty's chest rises, Rick's compresses.
Morty could feel himself finally floating down on the ground, the dizziness getting away when Rick speaks. "I feel like I want to make you a toaster."
He feels Rick bounce against his chest by how hard he laughs.
"Yo-you don't have to make me one."
Morty lets Rick finally sit up but he doesn't go far, bracing both of his forearms between his head, smiling mischievously down at him. "Well what do you want, baby? A ring?"
"That... that doesn't sound too bad."