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Morty asked Rick what love is, and he couldn’t reply all at once.
Just like the emotion, it takes time to formulate. Some consider it a virus, others view it as divine. Some regard it as a universal feeling we all hold as humans. They say despite everything we’ve gone through, we still have love. But when someone asks, “What is love?” Do you think of familial love? Romantic? Platonic? He’s spent so long considering the answer, he forgot what his first initial thought was.
Is love the feeling of holding your grandson in the middle of the night on the bathroom floor, the boy apologizing for getting his blood on your clean shirt?
Is love the feeling of stumbling upon an abandoned spaceship, realizing you’re the only human in the world that’s found the artifact deep in the woods after abandoned, considering it quaint?
Is love the feeling of delving into your disorder, your condition, with someone you don’t know? Realizing on a whim that maybe they could possibly understand your humanity in your world of one? How their eyes don’t hold pity, disdain, but understanding, their whites opaque with familiarity upon vocal recognition?
Is love the feeling of an old man gently rubbing his thumb in circles on the back of his grandson’s nerve dead hand? The cyclical process that he has to see, scab on scar, brown, singed skin in circles littered across the shaking flesh?
Is love the feeling of your wife meandering into your room with the subconscious intent to suffer, your things unmoved, wishing she could have hid the rope better?
Is love the feeling of your back that’s aching from a massive heart you carry? Realizing you backstabbed and burned those who protected you? That they hear their name in your death rattle once you have sewn your eyes shut and exposed both your lungs, open and honest?
The heart cannot afford to be exposed, it's faulty by nature whereas your other organs are clean, perfect working machines. They do their job, they do it right, and yet you starve them from their purpose. The self damnation of your own negligence towards yourself has crafted a cross fixed between your shoulder blades. It hangs you high, heavy, for your family to see. But just like the apostles, they watch you instead of helping you down.
Is love the acceptance of letting them?
…….
Rick sat on a chair in his garage, looking at Morty with dull eyes.
“There’s no such thing as love, Morty.” He stated after an extremely long silence, shaking off all of his previous thoughts.
“B-But- that’s, that’s not true!” The boy argued the point to his apathetic grandfather, who was hoping to change the subject.
“Morty, with all due respect-” Rick started on a facetious rant.
“Did the pitiful human you call your father teach you about love before he left? Did you witness it between your parents, Morty? Huh? Did they seem happy to you, Morty? And S-S-Summer with her- her stupid string of ex boyfriends?”
The kid just stood there, fingers twitching by his sides as he looked at Rick.
“There’s no such thing as love, Morty. Focus on better things, like handing me a screwdriver.”
“No! I-I-I don’t...I don’t accept what you’re saying!”
Rick just looked at him blandly.
“You’ve-You’ve had to love a-atleast one person...right…?”
Rick locked his bored eyes with his grandson’s pitiful ones. He had a complicated facade turned simple and cyclical as he kept it up everyday. The genius pulled out his flask and took a swig, rolling his eyes before putting it back.
“I mean...I mean...you love...me...right…?” Morty looked at him with a hopeful, apprehensive gaze.
“Morty, w-w-why are you even asking me this? D-Did Jessica hurt your feelings?” He snapped, starting to turn back to his desk.
There was a short pause.
“Rick…” Morty’s unusually soft voice wavered.
“What.” The old man sneered as he turned back to the kid, his facial features softening once he beheld him.
Morty was trembling, his eyes glazed over with liquid as his breath hitched.
“N-No one in th-th-this shit family loves me!” He wailed, burying his face in his hands. “I-I just wanted- wanted someone to say it!”
Rick opened his mouth to speak, but closed it as his grandson cut him off before he could start.
“All you say to me is how worthless I am! How I’m a burden, stupid, a-a human shield instead of a family member!”
Morty was trembling violently, his hands balled up into fists as he bit his bottom lip harshly. Drops of salt water rolled down his flushed cheeks, his face scrunched up in emotional pain.
“Can you tell me how you feel and look me in the face?!”
Rick gazed up at him, the corner of his mouth twitching for just a moment. He nervously tapped his fingers on his thigh, the old man exhaling loudly through his nose.
After a long silence, he spoke.
“I’m scared to because...if I admit it then...I’m scared I’ll lose you. L-L-Like you’ll turn me away once I tell you, you’ll get hurt, disappear, o-o-or mock me.”
Morty stood silently, stiffly in front of his grandpa, waiting for him to continue. Rick closed his eyes, either deep in thought, or he just simply didn’t want to read his grandsons expression. Neither of them could tell.
“I’m...I... feel, things. Clearly. I’m human. It’s just, hard. But...you make things, uh...ehm...easier for me. Softer.” Rick awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.
“I feel...safe. With you. I-I feel safe with you. I can...think clearer, uh...and…” He sighed softly, rubbing his temples.
“Look. And listen. Because I don’t like repeating myself. Got it?”
Morty hummed brokenly in acknowledgment. Before he could overthink and stop himself, Rick followed through.
“I love you, Morty. I love you. More than myself, more than my work, more than the friends I’ve grown up with. More than my accomplishments. I hate that I have to be drunk to even broach this topic because I’m so emotionally compromised and awkward that it’s...difficult not to feel bad for saying this.”
“My emotions have always been thrown back in my face, okay? Morty? And if someone says they don’t care about anything, they care about someone, or something, very, very, deeply. No one is that heartless. Even...me. I say I don’t care about anything, and...well. The thing I care about so deeply is...is you.”
“People act like you’re a burden. Like you’re a sack of meat and bones fumbled into an array of backwards life. You’re not heavy, you’re my grandson.”
Rick heard Morty suck in a sharp breath. There was a moment of silence before the boy spoke up.
“Oh…” Morty’s voice wavered, his fingers twitching as his bottom lip trembled.
“Y-Yeah, well-” Rick oof’ed loudly as his grandson flung himself onto the old man, hugging him tightly.
Rick’s frame naturally stiffened in shock, but he soon relaxed after as he realized the human holding him was the only person he trusted.
“I-I love you t-too…!” Morty sobbed into his neck, the genius holding him tightly, a hand stroking his hair.
“I know.” He huffed softly in amusement, rolling his eyes as a small smile manipulated his lips into a grin.
And Rick found his heart to be tender. And Rick found himself accepting these words.
And the two found themselves stuffed full of love that filled every crevasse in them.