tramitem_log | [closed]

Who: Erik and Elliott
What: First Meeting
When: August 31st
Where: NY somewhere, underground train
Warnings: none for now

Elliott headed underground to catch the train home. He thumbed through train schedules and routes on his phone as he waited. School was starting back up in just over a week, and his hours at work would be changing to the late afternoons, but he needed to settle on specifics for his manager soon..

He glanced up, shifting out of the way as people passed him by. His eyes alighted on blue hair, briefly musing on the unique color choice, and glanced back down at his phone just as the crowd finished passing through. He’d only glimpsed the man’s face for that split-second, but it was enough to merit a quick second look. And sure enough, there had been something recognizable about him.

The modern clothes were different, but his blue hair and sharp, blue eyes were the same.

Elliott stared, all other considerations forgotten in favor of watching the stranger with his friend’s face. His name- or the name he’d known him by in another time- left his lips before he’d given it any real thought.

“..Erik..?”

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Erik walked his bicycle towards the stairs, head down, dodging a group of clueless tourists who decided it smart to stop last minute mid-platform to check their map and gather their party...disrupting the flow of foot traffic. It'd been a long day. Maybe a pizza kind of day. His bike still felt a little off from the crash the other day and it'd been a struggle. Time to go home, kick up his feet--

Except now Erik was the asshole stopped in the middle of the walkway as he turned to look for whoever called his name. He didn't recognize the voice, so he wasn't sure what face to look for, if they even meant him at all...

Well, shit. He recognized the face, even if they had never met. It was one of the kids from his memory. So much for it all being a weird concussion dream.

He leaned against his bike and regarded the kid with an easy quirk of his lips. Kid was young, maybe Erik's age, maybe still a high-schooler. He had the same haircut as he did in that 'memory,' but the outfit was different. Erik wasn't sure why he expected the kid would be in the weird purple fantasy tunic, but he was almost disappointed he wasn't.

"That's the name."

Elliott colored, realizing he didn't have anything to follow it up with because he hadn't been thinking, and right now his brain was preoccupied with trying to decide whether or not Erik recognized him.

"I, ah- sorry, my name is Elliott. You uh, look like someone I kn-" He stopped, brows creasing and belatedly picking up on something. "Wait, your name really is Erik?"

He hadn't expected to have his name questioned. Were they entirely other people in that other life? Now that he thought about it, he couldn't really remember now if the voices called him Erik. He thought so. Didn't...actually question it. He just knew they were talking to him, whatever they'd called him.

He tipped his head to the side and rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "I mean..." If they weren't filling out legal documents here, sure, his name really was Erik. Was that what his parents put on his birth certificate? Sort of. Technically, sure, it was on there.

"What," he gave a little laugh, "you just go around shouting random names at strangers to see if they'll answer to it? Kinda a weird Marco Polo game, pal. But you do you."

"No!" he defended, reddening further. "Just.. Sylv's name is different, so- I mean-"

..What did he mean? If Erik didn't recognize him, then he probably sounded really weird.

Elliott groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. "Sorry, just.. you really do look exactly like someone I knew- know. His name is Erik, so that's why.."

He wasn't trying to be mean, not really but the kid was trying so hard to dance around the crazy bullshit scenario they found themselves in and Erik wasn't going to throw him a bone quite yet. It was more fun like this.

Sylv, though. Which one of those faces belonged to a Sylv?

"Wait, so I got a doppelganger hanging around somewhere with my name? That's gonna get really confusing if we ever run in the same circles." Imagine looking just like someone else and sharing your name; pretty sucky identity situation.

Elliott grimaced, hope wavering. It was too much to be a coincidence of course, but either Erik didn't have any memories, or he didn't have any yet that involved him.

"I, uh, don't think that'll be a problem. Sorry, if I'm being weird."

Still, he couldn't just let him go without knowing for sure. "Did um, anything really strange happen to you recently?"

Alright, he wasn't going to tease the kid forever. After all, the kid was just so ...earnest.

"If you're trying to ask me if you're familiar too, the answer's yeah. Now, I didn't have a name to put to the face, but--" He gave another shrug. "Look, I'm not sure what we're expected to do with this information--the stuff from the Bureau or the ...whatever that was."

Erik looked away, over his shoulder and then lowered his voice. "'M not sure how I feel about some guy in a suit or some mysterious disembodied voice telling me what I should do, you know?"

Elliott nodded swiftly, although he wasn't quite sure what Erik meant by a disembodied voice. Still, he could ask about that later; right now, all he really cared about was that Erik recognized him- that he'd found someone else he knew. Another person he felt instantly connected to.

"It's a lot," he agreed, "But um, I- I've had.. a lot of memories if.. I dunno, you want to talk about them sometime. A-and Sylv's here, too! I don't remember if you guys were close, but.. well, I hope we can all be friends again."

To be honest, Erik wasn't entirely sure about the disembodied voice either.

"Sure, yeah." He started to pull away and then stopped. He should really go, put all this behind him, but there was that earnestness again that made Elliott seem naive and far too trusting. Friends. They'd barely met and under the weirdest circumstances and he wanted to be friends. Somebody had to look out for this kid or he was going to make friends with the wrong person and get hurt. How was he to know Erik was a good guy, or anything like whatever his memories had said he was supposed to be like. Erik in the memories was some kind of hero-type person. Who even was that in real life?

Someone was going to have to look out for this silly kid. Someone...

"Alright," he agreed, less dismissively if a bit exasperated, and dug into his pocket for his phone. "If I give you my number, you've got to promise not to abuse it. But...yeah, if you want to discuss this thing sometime, I guess I could be down for that."

Elliott grinned, his entire expression lighting up.

"I promise," he laughed, excitement churning through his chest. Elliott unlocked his phone and pulled up his contacts, typing in Erik's name and number with glee.

"I'll send you a text so that you have mine.." The text simply read From Elliott.

He knew he probably looked ridiculous, but he couldn't stop beaming. "Thank you so much. It's really cool to meet you."

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