Erich’s not sure what draws him to the strange, out of the way ruin; from the outside, it doesn’t seem all that different from anywhere else in the ruined landscape, just one more toppled building amongst many, even if it is far from any other building or structure. There’s nothing that should make it stand out in his mind, nothing that should make him want to return, especially not on his own, and yet…

And yet here he is, picking his way slowly up the broken remnants of stairs and over odd, toppled logs that seem too smooth to be just tree trunks but that he doesn’t know the purpose of.

Here he is, ducking through the shattered remains of a doorway and into the ruined building itself.

Here he is, climbing carefully over little piles of rubble as he takes the former interior in.

It’s still not much, still nothing too different from everywhere else in the Gaol of the Red Mist, just ruined walls and a missing ceiling and a jagged rip through the ground that’s clearly swallowed an entire wall and some of the building itself. The rubble he’s climbing over has a few tattered bits of long-faded art and some splintered wood, a pile not too far away has some very dented metal in it, and there are shattered tiles everywhere. It’s not twisted-metal-and-ruined-concrete like the old city, but it’s just as ruined, just as unrecognizable as everywhere else.

(Just as empty of memories—)

(No.)

Interestingly, though, there aren’t any Lost around. Not on the climb up, not in the clearing around the building, and not even in the building.

The only places he’s seen so systematically clear of Lost have been various human shelters and Louis’ base. Not even the distant, snowy mountain where Nicola hid was free of Lost, and yet this place, this lone, sheltered, mistle-less location has none?

There should be revenants here. The air isn’t exactly clear of miasma, not enough to be safe to breathe without a mask, but… there’s no Lost around. There’s no Lost around — no signs of Lost ever being around — and he’s seen enough desperation in the past few months to know exactly how much even a temporarily safe place is fought over by all the broken, homeless revenants out there.

And yet Yakumo hadn’t spared the path up a single look — hadn’t even seemed to notice it — when he and Erich had passed it earlier in the day.

It’s… curious.

And yet, and yet…

There’s nothing about the place that stands out. Nothing about the place that’s different…

Except, Erich decides as he pauses atop one of the piles of rubble and slowly turns to take the whole area in, except that it’s all different. Not to his physical senses, perhaps, but… beneath that, in his twisting-crawling-writhing heart, where code after code after code winds like tangled rope, where flames lick and ice freezes and blood boils and memories-not-his-own whisper— 

(Whisper and whisper and whisper, and under it all another whisper, a darker whisper, a murmur like a nightmare just beyond his reach, a chill up his spine like vicious, dripping poison, louder near thorns and fainter in Louis’ base and—)

(And impossible to hear, here in this strange, ruined building with it’s strange, missing Lost and strange, strange feeling of weight, impossible to pinpoint but still present, and—)

“Maa, it’s been a long time since anyone came here,” a voice cuts through his twisting thoughts and he spins, bayonet leaping into his hands and rising to point at—

A man, maskless and unassuming, sitting atop one of the larger piles and leaning against a shattered wall, a strange, striped hat atop his head and an even stranger outfit on his body, a strange, thin stick with a handle in one hand and both hands settled atop it. His eyes are shadowed and his mouth is quirked up in something Erich hesitates to call a smile and his chest moves with every breath and yet… and yet…

Erich lifts his head slightly and takes a deep breath, hunting for even a single whiff of the scent of human blood; it’s a fool’s thought, and a fool’s action, because the man is clearly uninjured and his sense of smell is good but he can’t smell unspilled blood, and he’s only met a bare handful of humans, all thin and desperate and hurting and this man is not, is the opposite, so why would he think he could tell, but—

But there’s something not right going on. 

The man makes a soft noise and one hand lifts from the stick, pulling a— a something from his sleeve and flicking it open to cover his mouth. “Maa, maa, so wary!” he declares, shadowed eyes narrowing in another smile-but-not motion. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Rerugen-san!”

The breath freezes in Erich’s throat and his hands tighten around his bayonet, mind swirling with thought-possibility-wonder as he tastes the name, turning it over in his mind, on his tongue, but— “Am I supposed to know you?” he settles on as the name rings hollow and the man before him remains a stranger. 

(Not that he was expecting otherwise, but it would have been nice, would have been wonderful, but—)

(His heart beats with stolen strength and his mind is full of whispers-not-his-own and even Jack — Jack who knew him, who fought at his side, who killed him — is only a fragment of memory in a sea of Other and none of them, none of them knew this man in the memories he’s collected.)

The man stares at him, knuckles going white around the handle of the thing he’s using to cover his lower face, and then his eyes flicker away, so shadowed Erich can barely seen them. “Ah, forgive me, forgive me. I must have mistaken you for another—”

“Unlikely,” Erich cuts the man off, lowering his bayonet and letting it fade back into the sideways space where his equipment always rests when he’s not using it. “I have a total of six or seven months of consecutive…” he pauses, considers that, considers how many times he’s been dispersed and reformed and the seeping, insidious way that revenant memory loss works, and amends his words with, “Of probably consecutive memories, along with a single fragment from Operation Queenslayer, and nothing else. If you knew me before any of that… I no longer remember. And likely never will.”

“Ah,” the man murmurs, voice twisting the way Jack’s sometimes does when he can’t bear to look Erich in the eyes, when his memories are too much and the weight of it all settles around him like rubble trapping him in place. “I… see.”

Erich eyes him thoughtfully, then scans the ruins around them again; he doesn’t know how this man — this person who apparently knew him — managed to sneak up on him, but it speaks to the reason this area is clear of Lost.

(And maybe to why it’s clear of revenants, too.)

(A human who can take on Lost?)

(Unheard of.)

(And yet…)

“I can leave, if you want,” Erich settles on after a moment, turning his gaze back to the man. “Even if you once knew me, I’m… no longer that person. It’s understandable if—”

“No, no, you don’t have to leave just because— just because you’ve forgotten,” the man hastily forces out, straightening up from his slouched seat to lean forward. “It’s— it’s fine! I promise.”

Erich fixes the man with his most unimpressed stare, then lets his gaze drift pointedly down to the white-knuckled grip the man still has on the thing he’s holding up to his face. Then further, to the equally white-knuckled grip on the stick’s handle. “Whoever I was is as good as dead, and there’s no guarantee I’m in any way like him,” he says pointedly, ignoring the aching sensation of claws tearing at the inside of his chest, ignoring the desire to know, to question, to beg— “Don’t force yourself.”

“Ah,” the man whispers — whimpers? — like Erich’s just stabbed him through the chest. “I’ll admit, it’s… it’s a bit odd hearing you tell me not to force myself to be around you,” he forces out after a moment. “You were always the one more wary of me. Though I suppose… I suppose if you no longer remember me, then you no longer remember why you’d want to avoid me.”

“Were you… not a friend, then?” Erich asks warily, running the past few minutes over in his mind again in search of any hints he’s overlooked; he can’t see any indication of anything aggressive, though, or any sign of hatred, but… but he’ll be the first to admit that he’s still not great at understanding people or their emotions. 

“We were friends,” the man hastily reassures him, then pauses, shoulders tensing and head dipping towards his chest as he mutters, “Or… I believe we were. You were always… you held your opinions close to your chest, but I think we were friends. At the very least you tolerated my presence better than most?”

Erich turns those words, those hints of who he once was, over in his mind, before shrugging and setting them aside in order to say, “Regardless, there’s no reason for you to force yourself to speak with a stranger in your dead friend’s form.”

The man barks a rough, aching, painful laugh and doubles over, hat tumbling from his head and shoulders shaking with the force of his broken laughter. He even drops the stick and wraps both arms around his stomach like he’s trying to hold himself together, his limp blond hair falling in front of his face like a curtain.

It’s not enough to hide the tears slipping down the man’s cheeks.

Erich hesitates, fingers twitching and mind curiously blank as he stares at the man; he hadn’t meant to cause such pain with his words, but… it makes sense, doesn’t it? His presence is forcing this man, this stranger, to confront the fact that his friend is not only dead, but that his body is still walking around. It’s… he should probably leave. He should probably leave and never return, because… because he’s doing nothing but causing pain just by existing and he’s never wanted to do that.

He tries to force himself to turn, tries to force himself to go, but instead…

Instead he slowly steps closer, down the pile of rubble he’s on and then up the pile the man is sitting on, making sure that every step can be heard. 

The man… does nothing. Or, not precisely nothing — his painful laughter slowly fades into quiet sobs as Erich approaches — but nothing to indicate that he wants Erich gone, which Erich takes as permission enough. Except, as soon as he reaches the man’s side he’s at a loss for what to do next; no matter how many times Yakumo helps him sort his emotions out, or how much time he spends around the group, emotions are still not his strength. 

So Erich stares down at the man’s hunched, trembling body, and wonders: what would any of the others do? What does he feel comfortable doing? 

(What would he want one of them to do, if this were him?)

Vague ideas flit through his mind, and he takes a moment to consider each, turning them over in his mind before discarding them one after the next, but— but he can’t just stand here, looming like this. He needs to make up his mind, needs to do something…

His left hand settles on the man’s shoulder before he can think better of it, and the man shivers at the touch, pressing into it even as the rest of his body tries to lean away and oh— oh, Erich knows those actions, knows what the man is probably feeling and…

(‘You tolerated my presence better than most.’)

(Oh dear…)

It makes a twisted sort of sense that the man is touch starved, especially if he was just… waiting for proof of Rerugen’s fate. 

(Does he even have anyone else…?)

Erich readjusts his grip so he can brush the tip of his pinky against the man’s bare skin, feeling the way the man tenses under him, muscles twitching as he tries to decide if he wants to lean in or pull away. Erich just hums, lets his hand remain steady, lets the offer remain open, waits— 

“Erich! Hey, Erich! You up here?” Yakumo’s voice calls, echoing up from the ruined path below.

The man jerks upright, eyes wide and shoulders rigid at the sound of Yakumo’s voice. There’s tear tracks down his cheeks and a glassy look in his eyes and something akin to fear in his expression and he—

“Wait! That’s just—”

Runs.

Erich hisses in exasperation as he lets his hand fall to his side. As rubble shifts and clatters down the pile. As Yakumo ducks through the ruined door and blinks up at him in surprise.

“Woah, hey, what happened?” Yakumo asks as he sweeps his gaze over the piles of rubble. “And who were you talking to just now?”

“Someone who I think knew me, once,” Erich settles on as he steps down the pile of rubble and kneels to pick up the man’s dropped hat, then searches carefully for the stick the man had dropped as well. That he doesn’t find any evidence of — perhaps it had been closer to hand? Or more important to the man than just a hat? — so he straightens up and carefully dusts the striped hat off.

“Uh… not that I don’t believe you, but…” Yakumo trails off with an awkward shrug.

Erich snorts and makes his way back to the entrance where Yakumo is standing. “It’s unlikely, I know,” he agrees as he reaches Yakumo, then casts a glance over his shoulder at where the man had been sitting and adds, “But somehow, I don’t think he was lying. And even if he was… I think he needs help.”

Yakumo considers him for a moment before nodding. “Alright, if that’s how you feel, then that’s fine by me. Just… try not to wander off on your own like that, okay? This place doesn’t have the greatest of reputations, though a revenant hiding out up here might explain some of it…”

“He didn’t have a mask,” Erich corrects with a small shake of his head. “I don’t think he was a revenant…” he pauses, considers the odd weight that was in the air while the man was present, a weight that vanished when the man did, and continues with, “I’m… I don’t even know if he really counts as human either. There’s just something about him that felt… different.”

(Humans can’t move as fast as the man did, but revenants can’t survive without a mask…)

(So which is right?)

Yakumo’s brows furrow. “That’s not exactly a great sign. Only person I know of who could make someone who’s neither human nor revenant would be Mido, and, well…”

“Yeah,” Erich agrees softly, then sighs and steps past Yakumo. “There’s no point in worrying about it right now,” he decides as he ducks through the ruined doorway and heads out. “He ran when you shouted, and I didn’t see where he went, so… for now, let’s just go home.”

“Probably best. Give the guy some space and come back in a day or so,” Yakumo suggests as they make their way down the steps. “And uh… actually tell whoever you’re with where you’re going, so they don’t barge in like I did.”

Erich hums in agreement, mind already running through the options; while it would be reassuring to have Louis or Yakumo nearby, simply because he still doesn’t really get people, something about that doesn’t entirely sit right. 

(‘You tolerated my presence better than most.’)

(He’ll need to talk with Louis and Yakumo to be sure, but tolerated doesn’t seem like a healthy descriptor…)

And maybe he’s being selfish by attempting to force his presence on the man, but even he can recognize the pain in the man’s words and actions. Between that and how clearly desperate for touch the man is, the thought of just leaving the man alone without at least trying is… painful. 

(Besides, the man can clearly hold his own, given how fast he appeared and disappeared.)

(Erich has no doubt that the man can just vanish forever if he wants to.)

(So he refuses to feel guilty for trying.)

(He might not be the man’s old friend anymore, but…)

(He can be a new one.)