rick stops getting touchy with morty because he's slowly getting conscious of the things he's doing.

when they're alone watching tv in the living room or floating aimlessly out on space inside the ship, rick starts having idle thoughts of touching morty more. https://twitter.com/avreramis/status/1294540875637243906

from 'idle' thoughts it becomes more and more intrusive, to the point he can't stop thinking about it.

he gets the thoughts of lust. he has that all the time for other people, and sometimes they don't even have to be 'people'. it's not new to him to have fantasies of fucking.

sex was a primal need. it was important for the survival of species. a kind of hunger not to be ashamed about.

he always had fun with it though. he treated it like a sport, treated his body like an instrument of pleasure, the long list of beings he satisfied can attest to that.

so when he gets easy fantasies of bending morty over a desk and fucking him until his pretty little brown eyes roll back, rick isn't alarmed.

what bothers him though is his growing desire to get close.

he gets the need of not just to tug those curls with his fists to make morty gag on his cock, but to also run his fingers through his hair gently, until he's breathing softly, sound asleep.

he just doesn't want morty's back against his chest, sitting on his lap to screw him-

rick wants him to sit there while he's driving the ship or watching tv because he can't ignore the gnawing feeling that says that's where morty exactly belongs.

beside him, against him, on top of him, under him.

rick doesn't care as long as he's anywhere.

anywhere close.

one day, they're sitting on the blue verdant grass of Salexison, the flamebugs skittering around, glowing like miniature people set on fire.

rick lays his back on the ground, pretending to watch the purple skies but in truth he's watching morty from the corner of his eyes.

"rick can i ask something?"

morty says suddenly, cool and casual, his gaze not leaving the flamebugs he's following.

rick holds his breath.

has he found out? he's found it out right? even a blind man could. what should he say? what excuses could he make?

"do i smell?"

"𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵?"

"i'm asking if i smell bad or something," morty continues on, and rick thought he looked reflective earlier but it's just pouting all along, "just tell me already if i have body odor or something."

"what the fuck made you think that?"

"the way you're acting!"

"you've been sitting so far from me on the couch nowadays like i have space aids or something, you've stop hanging by my shoulder when we're walking, and the way you look at me- yo-you always have this perpetual frown on your face like i pissed you off without knowing about it."

"you see??? you're laughing! oh my god why didn't you tell me??? what if jessica-"

"morty shut the fuck up right now or i'm gonna combust."

"rick-"

"shut up, morty," rick says, wiping his eyes and panting for more air. the flamebugs running from his thunderous laughter.

holy shit he's been imagining fucking him in six different positions and morty thinks rick's looking at him like that because of his 𝘩𝘺𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘦?

𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘵.

rick opens his mouth and struggles to explain but the second he does only laughter comes out from his lips.

he focuses on calming himself down before morty overthinks some more and get his ass offended.

"morty it's a lot of things but it's not that. y-yo-you don't smell bad."

"ha ha," he says dryly, "very reassuring."

despite the obvious tone of annoyance, morty sits back down on the ground and plays with the blades of grass with his fingers.

"speaking of jessica, god i wonder how our first kiss will be like."

"like that's going to happen."

"i could dream," morty says wistfully.

"and even if it ever happened, which i know it won't because it's impossible, your virgin mouth wouldn't know what to do with a girl."

"but i watch-"

"yes i know you watch porn, morty. 𝘪'𝘮 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘳𝘦𝘴."

it slips out from rick before he realizes how suspicious that sounds so he plays it off swiftly by talking more.

"nothing beats real experience. you're young. you can find another loser like you who needs some training wheels before they ride the whole motorcycle."

yes that's right.

he could just pretend this is all casual talk by implying morty can do it with anyone, not like rick's going to secretly wipe the existence of the poor bastard who's going to steal morty's first kiss.

"yo-yo-you'll figure it out eventually."

"it's not like i have other friends rick, or have the opportunity to make them especially when you're always dragging me 24 hours a day to steal whatever thingamabob that caught your eye that week."

"that's your problem then. use a pillow."

"or i could just use you."