A dude who has destroyed galaxies and has the power of the multiverse at his fingertips still gets this soft and clingy over a fake version of his wife after all these years....
Something's off. It's becoming more and more apparent the more that Lucifer talks, and it causes Rick to wonder how he's handling it beyond this painfully obvious facade that's out on display before him. If it's anything like his own, it's masking nothing but grief, pain, and despair that's damn near suffocating. Though, perhaps it's of less intensity.
After all. His family is all still alive. Allegedly.
Or he's in denial.
Still, that sympathy washes ashore within Rick's heart. But he refuses to let the weight of burden that doesn't belong to him rest upon his shoulders and take residence in his conscience like it owned the place. He's got enough of his own problems, thank you very much.
The shift of conversation is a relief for them both by the sounds of it, as Rick happily follows Lucifer's lead, giving a nod with a mouthful of pancake. He swallows before speaking again.
"Yeah, no fucking kidding. Probably the best I've ever actually had, come to think of it, and I've been places."
And that wasn't a lie, for the record. There's full sincerity loaded in his words.
"You could make a business out of this if you wanted to. Could make a killing on the surface."
"You uh... you got anything to drink, by any chance?"
Come on, get a grip; don't make this awkward. You can have a normal conversation about the family you completely destroyed to someone. Ha ha, fuck.
⸺ ❝ It's fine, uh. My daughter, Charlie, is just a young adult now doing ... young adult things! And my wife she's⸺on vacation. So, they've been gone, a while. ❞ A long while.
After his first accidental hiccup, he tried maintaining his facade and did his best to stay active in the conversation, even if it was a little hard on some subjects. He didn't want some stranger he didn't even know learning too much about him. Time to deter the conversation, for his own sake. He said enough. As he finished up his plate, he spoke again,
⸺ ❝ Anyways, how's the pancakes? Good right? I'm a connoisseur for the finer things. Ha ha! ❞
"I can do all SORTS of things with my genius. I just don't WANT to. If I did, I'd have every single person at my door trying to get shit fixed."
"And that's not my job. Half that shit is whatever the fuck the government should be doing if it were worth a damn. And it isn't. So."
But that's always a discussion for another time. Olivia's heard Rick ranting enough about how he hates the fucking government. He's out here with this HORSESHOE CRABS. And her. Of course. Last thing he needed was his cortisol levels rising.
"I might take you up on that offer. Maybe doing it with the crystals can prove interesting. Might alter some chemicals in their blood. Or something. I dunno. Worth a shot."
He lets her lean against him, going so far as to lean on her in turn too, watching these ancient creatures merely slink across the ground.
"Found a few of them flipped over on their back this morning when I came to check on them."
"I've heard of that. Well about the Earth ones. I didn't think that was for all horseshoe crabs. These li'l guys.... mmm, I'm sure their blood could do much better than what our Earthly ones could do."
She's intrigued by what Rick says but what doesn't Rick say that doesn't bring out her curious side? Now not all of his hobbies (or adventures) caught her attention as usually they involved making money or pawning off to the 'losers' of the universe, but when it came to certain genres... Rick himself knew it would catch Olivia's attention.
Leaving the horseshoe crabs to their snack, she strides over to stand next to Rick, leaning against his arm a little, giving him a little smirk.
"Somethin' tells me yer gonna use a growth ray on 'em." The bigger the animal, the more blood to take. "In the forest where I live we've got height alterin' crystals. Ya could use those if yer feelin' lazy about it." Olivia's certain Rick knows about them as he's probably seen the miniature bears and bus-sized ladybugs wandering around.
"Is that all yer gonna use 'em for? Ta sell? I figured you'd make a cure for somethin' with that kinda genius."
i’m gonna only get to a few replies tonight because i’m tired but i’ll chip away at the others tomorrow i was a very busy girlboss today chairing 4 meetings that lasted hours