Chapter Text
He knows what they are from the moment they start: memories. They’re his memories, he knows, can tell from the moment he sees a very different version of Addam run up to him in the first one. The man scoops what must be a much younger version of him out of the mud and debris of destroyed buildings, carrying him away to a safer place, one without destruction.
He only becomes more certain when Mythra starts showing up. This version is just as bratty and just as terrible at cooking, but there also seems to be an air of uncertainty to her. She doesn’t know who she is, nor does she seem to want the power she barely understands how to control in the first place.
He doesn’t recognize the rest of them, but that’s okay. That is, until this other version of him befriends another boy. He’s blond and quiet, with big blue eyes that look like they’ve seen far too much for such a young child. They quickly grow inseparable, so much so that he almost never sees a memory without the boy afterwards.
He never manages to catch the boy’s name, but he doesn’t mind. Maybe another version of the boy exists in his world, too, just like Addam and Mythra. How he’ll ever figure that out, he doesn’t know.
_______
He stares out the window.
A man wanders down the street, looking rather lost, a plastic cup of what he guesses is coffee clutched in his hand. He stops, looking around the street and then down at the offending drink. He turns around, heading straight for the nearest trash can. He pulls the top off and pours the coffee into it, before following that up with the cup and lid.
He frowns. Addam would've had a stroke seeing someone not recycling.
_______
Mythra invites him to the beach one day. “It’s hot and I’m bored,” is her reason. They attempt to invite Addam, but he’s too busy, so they go alone, just the two of them.
They sit next to each other in awkward silence. He can’t help but feel like it looks like he’s sitting next to his younger sister, which isn’t entirely incorrect, but still. He doesn’t even want to begin to imagine what she thinks they look like, though she’s thankfully engrossed with scowling at the ocean instead of at him for once.
He eventually hits his limits of strained quietude though. “I’m gonna take a walk,” he says to her as he gets up.
He can’t tell if she looks at him when she jerks her head in acknowledgement, eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses.
He wanders along the edge of the surf, watching as little birds with stick legs run along it. He passes children playing in it, even spots one throwing clumps of wet sand like they’re snowballs. He pauses when he sees a man a short distance away from the water. He’s hunched over a mound of sand, looking like he's trying to mold it into a castle but failing miserably due to his lack of tools. Blond hair falls into his face. He lifts it slightly, frowning before rising to his feet. The man looks familiar, but he can't quite place how.
He kicks the mound and it collapses anticlimactically. That only seems to upset him more, as the look on his face sours further before he stalks off.
He watches him leave, staring at his back and wondering if he bothered to put sunscreen on.
_______
He sees a memory while he's out with Mythra, watching her study a collection of shirts in the mirror.
The other version of him is looking down, focused upon embroidering the little patch of fabric in front of him. He doesn't recognize the design, but it looks complicated. He does that for a while before lifting his head and handing it to the boy. He takes it tentatively, mouth pressed shut and eyes wide. His other self says something to him and a hesitant smile forms on his face.
He blinks and looks around.
Mythra is looking at him, eyebrows scrunched and frowning. Her hands are still full of shirts. "Did you hear me?"
He shakes his head slowly.
She huffs and lifts one of the shirts. "I asked if you like this one."
"It's great. Lovely."
Mythra considers the shirt, nose wrinkling.
_______
It's odd. The memories stopped after that. They didn't last very long, barely two months at most. It almost felt like they left off on a cliffhanger, like he would never get to know what happened to all those people.
He eventually found himself wondering just that. What happened to the other Addam? Did he live a happy, fruitful life? What about Mythra? She'd never looked too happy in those memories.
What about the boy?
That was really what he wanted to know. Why'd his other self become so close to him?
"Hey!" Mythra called.
He lifted his head.
She stood in front of him, a wooden spoon in hand. He glanced at the kitchen, grimacing. Addam had given her special permission to cook that night, part of a ritual they did each month to make her less annoying. He'd thought her cooking was bad, but then he'd seen that other version's disasters and suddenly it seemed gourmet in comparison.
"What's up?" he asked.
"I want you to taste for me."
Maybe he was wrong. "A-alright."
_______
"Addam says he needs help at the shop," Mythra said to him over the phone.
"Why can't you go?" he asked.
"Can't. Busy." It sounded like she was eating.
He rolled his eyes. "Fine."
"Thanks pal," she said, immediately hanging up.
He put his phone down and went searching for his apron. Addam insisted they wear them at all times while working at his garden center because god forbid they get a speck of dirt upon their clothes. Mythra liked the rule a lot.
_______
He leaned forward, lifting a ceramic pot full of some spiky plant. "It's a bromeliad," Addam had corrected when he'd called it a pink pineapple.
He paused in his journey, watching from a distance as Addam helped an elderly woman move a flat of petunias onto her cart. He flashed his signature smile at her, and he could've sworn he watched her swoon.
"Stop pinching those," he heard someone behind him scold.
He turned. A woman with the longest black hair he'd ever seen stood in front of the shelf of snapdragons. Mythra would’ve been jealous.
"Why?" a man to the other side of her asked. He couldn't see him- the black-haired woman blocked his view. "It's fun."
She shook her head, scoffing. "Dumbass." She turned on her heel, headed in the direction of the bulbs.
The man watched her go, cutting blue eyes narrowed. His hair was blond and pushed back. A few errant curls rebelled, falling against the side of his face. He couldn’t have been more than twenty, probably around the same age as him. He shrugged, pulling his hand away from the flowers and following after the woman.
It was the same man he'd seen wandering around the street, the same man he'd seen at the beach.
It was the same boy he'd seen in those memories.
The pot slipped from his fingers, shattering at his feet in hundreds of little clay shards. He stumbled backwards, staring at the carnage, and then at the man's receding back. He was already too far away to have heard.
"Woah!" Addam shouted as he came up behind him. He grabbed his shoulder, peering around it. "What happened here?"
_______
“Do you have anything I could draw with?” he asked Mythra later that day.
She peered up at him from her phone. “Like what?”
He shrugged. “Pencil, maybe something with color.”
She looked back down at her phone. “There might be some crusty crayons I stole from a restaurant in one of the kitchen drawers. Maybe a pen too.”
He didn’t bother asking her before walking away why she would steal “crusty crayons” from a restaurant. Nonetheless, he does manage to find a pen and a collection of the aforementioned crayons. He glanced around the kitchen afterwards, grabbing a paper towel to draw on and placing it squarely on the counter.
He drew the hair first, as best he could remember. It was almost the same as the man’s had been, though maybe shorter and a little more tame. Next were the eyes, big and blue. He paused when he went to grab the corresponding crayon, realizing with a sinking heart that he didn’t have the correct shade. He settled for the singular blue he had, though that did nothing to chase the frown away from his face. He did have the right shade of red and black for his clothes though, which he drew haphazardly. He couldn’t quite remember what they looked like, unfortunately.
“Who’s that?” Mythra suddenly asked. “Your imaginary friend?”
He jumped, hand frantically moving to cover the paper towel. His other snapped the fragile crayon it still held. He whirled around. “Mythra! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
She took a bite from her granola bar and frowned, chewing a bit before replying, “You’re being weird.”
“And you’re talking with your mouth full again,” he snapped back. “Addam told you to stop that.” He shouldered past her, the paper towel now crumpled in his hand.
“Who is it?” she called after him. “Do they have a name?”
“I don’t know his name,” he called back.
_______
“So Mythra mentioned something about you drawing?” Addam said to him a few days later, while they were at the garden center.
He blanched. “She did?”
Addam nodded. “Said you drew a little kid on a paper towel the other night with some of her crayons.”
He moved a plastic cup of basil onto the pallet in front of him.
“Are you interested in doing art?” Addam continued. “I could buy some actual drawing supplies for you if you’d like.”
“No, it’s fine.” He paused to pick up another cup of basil. “It was a spur of the moment thing.”
Addam hummed. “Well, if you ever change your mind, lemme know.”
He moved the pallet to the side and grabbed the next empty one.
“What did you draw?” Addam probed a few minutes later. The silence was probably too much for him.
“Some kid,” he replied.
“Some kid?”
“Yeah.”
“What was so special about this kid that made you draw him?”
He paused. The little plastic pot suddenly felt very flimsy between his fingers. “How do you know it was a boy?”
Addam smiled tightly. “Mythra told me.”
“Of course she did.”
“Is it bad? Was I not supposed to know?” he asked, peering at him, golden eyes wide like a puppy.
“No, it’s fine,” he replied, voice clipped. He placed the pot on the pallet and began grabbing the next one.
“Mythra said you acted strange when she found you drawing it,” Addam said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” he snapped back. “Everything is fine!” His grip on the pot tightened, so much that it burst in his hand, sending soil spilling onto him and the floor.
Addam watched, completely frozen. It took him a few moments to put his own pot down gently. He took his hand, now balled into a fist, slowly loosening it and extricating the remains of the little basil plant. He placed that beside the pot too. “What happened?” he asked him, voice just as gentle as his motions, like he was talking to a flower that had just gotten trampled.
He blinked. A singular tear rolled down his cheek.
Addam watched it. He bent forward slightly, arms open, welcoming.
He fell against him, not caring that he would most definitely be getting dirt on his face. He pressed it into Addam’s chest.
Addam hugged him and rubbed gentle circles on his back. “Whatever happened, it’ll be okay. I promise, Milton.”
_______
It happened too fast. The blast echoed across the Titan, destroying and upending buildings.
“Mikhail!” Milton shouted as he ran out of the hotel.
The blond boy stood in the middle of the street, staring in shock at the sky, still as a statue.
He ran up to him, grabbing and shaking him. “Mikhail, we have to move! Now!”
Mikhail stared at him, eyes just as wide as they always were.
Milton swallowed thickly. “Mikhail?”
Another blast reverberated through the ground. He could hear the Titan roaring in the distance, screaming its pain. He turned to look, just in time to see more shrapnel hurtling towards them.
Milton pulled the other boy to his chest, turning his back to the onslaught. Mikhail clung to him weakly, life suddenly returned to his small form. He could feel wetness seeping into the front of his shirt.