You and Rick sat on his rundown couch, a vapor trailing from your lips as you breathed heavily in the frigid garage. You were both beaten, bloodied, and studded with various black and blue spots after a horrid adventure on Gazorpazorp. Rick looked over to you just in time to see one of the strands fall from your loose bun, and fall across your sullen eyes. He felt his chest tighten as his heart began to beat a bit louder.
Long, long before Rick was joining his grandson on dangerous adventures, he was sending you out on some of the most treacherous errands known to man. It didn't matter if you were going on Cannibal Island to fetch an exotic party drink, or cult-ish planet, Borgismorg, to bring back a multicolored bong, Rick would send you, often with curtness, and would refuse to retrieve you. Once, you were fighting off a hoard of a pack of green colored, cyborg elephants while calling Rick, begging for rescue. As soon as you heard his gruff voice belch into the phone, you frantically screamed your locations and for Rick to bring as many weapons as he could - only for him to ask if this was the pizza man, calling to apologize about Rick's missing beer, and hang up when you said you weren't. You ended up coming home with alien elephant liver in your hair, and the realization that Rick was perfectly willing to let you die. But then this mission happened.
The crummy delivery ship Rick had built you crashed on the planet Gazorpazorp: a place you were far too aware of it's dangers. You didn't even try to call Rick before a herd of Gazorpians grabbed you and dragged you, kicking and screaming, back to their clan. Luckily, for no particular reason, Rick felt that something was wrong and, lazily, looked at the tracker he had placed on your delivery ship. Choking on his flask, he realized where you were and ran into his ship, without a second thought.
And now, even on the couch, he wasn't sure how you two had managed to escape. He had crashed landed his ship into the largest hut there, killing a few Gazorpians, and found you, standing before a crowd of them, shimming up a long pole so as to escape their grasp. The two of you had used guns and bombs and your fists to fight them off, even headbutting a few. But you could still taste the blood on your tongue, and feel the teeth you had swallowed moving down your gut. Your rib had a stabbing ache, while your temple had a dull pain to it. While you were counting your lucky stars that the Gazorpians hadn't gotten what the originally wanted, Rick was staring at you.
You felt his gaze, and turned to see a drowning, deep sadness in his dark eyes. In all the years you had worked together, never before had you seen so much emotion on his face. And, yet, here he was, his eyes beginning to water slightly. And even though you two had fought so many times before about his rudeness, his coldness, his selfishness - the thought of him actually showing something other than the consistent personality you had always seen…terrified you.
"Rick, don't look so sad. Everything's going to be alright." You said, letting out a nervous laugh. He smiled slightly, but the look of guilt of was still in his eyes.
Briefly, his eyes looked away from yours, and, instead, focused on your hands. Your knuckles, which had received the most of the violence, were purpled, swollen, and radiating pain. He took them in his hands, enwrapping them in a soft warmth that broke through the frigid cold air, and lifted them up to his lips. You were so shocked, that, even if you wanted to speak, you couldn't, as your throat had tightened to a point of muteness. He placed soft, warm kisses on your bloodied knuckles, his eyes closed and the breath of his nose falling on your hands. His lips trailed up your arms. And, before they lingered in the crook of your neck, you found yourself closing your eyes, and letting out a shaky exhale. You felt him inhale the scent of your hair, and his shoulders relaxed as he did. And then, his kisses, leaving the line of your jaw, finally latched onto your lips. His hands, rough and sore as well, cupped your cheeks and glided through the strands of your hair. He pulled you into the kiss, hungrily almost, as your own hands softly fell onto his chest. You could feel a tear stream down his cheek against your own blushing face, and, from the placement of your palms, the vibrations of his beating heart pulsed against the contact. Abruptly, he tore away from the kiss to tightly squeeze his arms around you and bury his head in your shoulder.
There was silence for a long time, and all you could hear was your own heart pulsating in your ears. Despite the nervous fluttering of butterflies in your stomach, and the sweating of your palms, and the searing heat of your face, all you felt was a sopping sort of tenderness to the lanky drunk crying into your shoulder. The fact that there was a soft jelly beneath his rough, jagged exterior - one that felt pain and longing and, maybe, even desire - just intensified the honor of having such a vulnerable inside be shown to you. You were so welled up with gratitude, flattery, and sympathy, that you couldn't even move. You felt so much on the inside, that you went a bit numb on the outside. And, God, it was so good.
You felt him slowly unravel around you, his eyes not looking up to your's. Until, finally, he sat up straight, turned to reach his flask, chugged it, let out a belch, and then turned back to look you dead center in your eyes. As if he hadn't just passionately kissed you, and none of this had happened, he said, "I'm fine, bitch. J-just -urp- fine. Now stop being such a mother hen and focus m-more on not fucking up so much on the next job, okay? I d-don't wanna have to save your defenseless ass again."
Despite his sudden change in behavior, you knew the truth. That the tenderness he had shown for you wasn't gone, it was just disguised. And, as you suspected he would, he joined you on every single trip after.
