(Untitled)

[wasblindbefore]

Bruises fade. It's a simple fact, of course, just the way of the world, nature doing its job or some shit like that, but in this case, it's proven to be a fascination, too. Elvis has watched carefully as they've faded, the marks at his throat, the places where his knuckles went raw from pulling at coarse, unyielding rope. Now, it would be

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[pylean_cow]

Fred's headed down that same patch of boardwalk when the breeze blows through, blowing some of the papers she's carrying onto the ground too. It's mostly doodles, diagrams and theories, but some of the best ideas can come from idle thought, she thinks.

"No, no, it's okay," Fred says, as she leans over to try and grab her own pages, "I think some of those are mine, sorry."

[wasblindbefore]

It's suddenly more confusing than it really ought to be, pages being carried from a separate source and mingling with his own. Elvis sighs - it is an interference, he can't deny that, probably couldn't even if he were the sort to want to - but shakes his head, easy, dismissive. It isn't her fault any more than it's his, and nothing to really get upset over.

"I'm guessin' yours are the ones with more than just words on them?" he asks wryly, fingers closing around a page with some drawings on it that he couldn't identify, definitely not belonging to him. At least it isn't likely that they'll get any of their papers confused.

[pylean_cow]

"Yeah, some of them," She picks up one that's not in her familiar loopy handwriting and holding it out to him. And maybe it's not the most polite thing to do, reading what he's written on his, but it's not the easiest thing to keep from doing, considering the circumstances.

"Is this a story?" she asks.

[wasblindbefore]

"Goin' to be," Elvis says, ignoring the sudden spark of what he supposes has to be self-consciousness at the idea of someone else reading any of his writing, a stranger or otherwise. He's only ever shared them with his father and Anabelle, and never meant to change that. At least she doesn't seem to be judging him too hard for it, though; he'll take what he can get.

Simultaneously trying to reach for the page and sift through the ones he's holding for any not his own, a move that nearly ends with the rest of them on the boardwalk again, he manages to hold out what he thinks belongs to her. "S'just a hobby. And yours are, um-?"

[pylean_cow]

She isn't really reading any of the pages as she collects them, but the pieces that she does manage to see while she's figuring out whether or not the writing is his or hers are enough that she picks up on what it might be.

"Just half thought-out illustrations of the island's laws of multiverse theory," she says, as she takes the page and adds it to her own growing pile of papers, "It's a hobby of mine, too."

[wasblindbefore]

"Hell of a hobby," Elvis says, eyes widening a little. A couple of weeks ago, he probably wouldn't have even known what that meant; now, if nothing else, it sounds impressive to say the least, and more than a little daunting. He'd never have done anything like that for fun, but then, he's been able to say that about a lot of things these days. (He still doesn't get Anabelle's fascination with the trampoline.) "How's, uh - how's that working out for you?"

[pylean_cow]

"There's still work to be done," she replies, because if it was going well at all, then she would be back in her home dimension already. While working with Dr. Bishop has offered some fascinating insights, she's really no closer to getting home than she was just after she arrived on the island.

"I'm Fred, by the way."

[wasblindbefore]

"Elvis," he answers, shuffling pages around until he can hold out a hand. Mostly, they're still in a state of disarray, but he's at least pretty sure that he has only and all of his own papers. "So, uh, you been here long?" Given the sound of what she's working on, he can only guess that it's been a while, but then, it's impossible to say for sure.

[pylean_cow]

"Like Presley?" Fred immediately asks as she shakes his hand, brightening. That is, at least until she realizes that her response is probably the last thing she'd want to hear if her name was Elvis.

"Sorry, I bet you either get that all the time and hate it, or your name actually is Elvis Presley. Either way, this has got to be kinda weird, huh?" She cringes.

[wasblindbefore]

"Yeah, I get it pretty often," Elvis says, with what isn't quite a smile, but does come close. He gets this a lot, too -- the people who make the connection and then realize how often the same thing must be said -- but he prefers it this way to the ones who act like it's some brilliant revelation, or just like it's weird. "S'alright. My last name isn't actually Presley, at least."

[pylean_cow]

"Well, that's a relief. It'd just be confusing, otherwise," Fred replies, and she still feels almost mortified for asking him if his last name was Presley. But it was a fair question, given the properties of the island's dimension. There was a possibility that she could have been talking to Elvis Presley from sometime before he was famous.

Even if this Elvis doesn't really look like The King at all.

...the logic here is flawed.

"I get the whole 'isn't that a boy's name' thing, so i know how it is."

[wasblindbefore]

"You know, I wouldn't have even thought that," Elvis admits with a huff of a laugh, gaze dropping briefly towards his feet. Now that she's pointed it out, of course, it's obvious, and he's pretty sure he's never so much as heard of another girl named Fred before, but then, around here, it's hard to find too much of anything strange. The island itself has enough of that to outweigh everything else. "They do the same sort of thing with you, where they act like it's somethin' you've clearly never heard before and they've got to be the first to've thought of it?"

[pylean_cow]

"Not so much back home, but just about all the time, here," Fred replies. Maybe it's because it had been so long before arriving in this dimension since she'd met a bunch of new people all at once, but it's definitely something that had caught her off-guard.

It's like other people's dimensions don't have nicknames or something.

[wasblindbefore]

"Weird," Elvis says. "You'd think it might be different in a place like this where plenty of people have really bizarre names." Not that he knows any off the top of his head, but with residents from different worlds, different universes, there could easily be much stranger things than a girl being named Fred. Or him sharing a name with a famous musician.

[pylean_cow]

“You’d think that, wouldn’t cha?” Fred replies, wrinkling her nose at his comment, “But most of the people here are pretty much from similar dimensions, it seems. Even if we’re all from different countries and times, most of us are from Earth. Well, unless we’re surrounded by non-corporeal beings not from Earth, which isn’t completely unlikely.”

For all she knows, Phantom Dennis might even be on the island by now. Though, he probably would have made himself known, at least to her, by now.

[wasblindbefore]

"Around here? I'm not sure anything would surprise me," Elvis says, one eyebrow arched. Back home, of course, he'd scoff, not believing in spirits or anything like that, but here, they don't even know what's controlling this place. It seems as likely as anything else, as the fact that they could all be brought here with no warning the way they were. Rare as it is that he really bonds with people, let alone wants to, that's at least one common ground they all have. "And who knows how they'd think."