Logs:Wrong One

Wrong One
Dramatis Personae DJ, Steve
In Absentia	2020-11-18 "You're not him." (Set immediately after Riftsplosion.)
Location <NYC> NYPD 121st Precinct - Staten Island
The 121st Precinct station house is one of the newest in the borough, its unique top-heavy outline eyecatching where it perches at the top of its hill. There are no police officers in sight now, though, nor any cruisers out front, though some remain in the actual parking lot in back. There are instead quite a number of commercial vans (Strategic Pest Control and Mold Remediation, they read, beside an incredibly generic geometric logo) parked in the circular driveway, and workers in coveralls coming and going at regular intervals. Here in the holding area of the 121st Precinct, time has probably not stopped. There are definite indications that it has not stopped -- the blinking lights on the array of complicated machinery around the room, the output on the console chugging unflappably along in its monitoring duty, the continued loud blare of music (I'm on my way to the promised land) that indicates that whatever it might feel like, time is still passing, if not even all that much of it. But, for all that, there's a moment, breathless and frozen, where DJ just melts into the firm hold of Steve's arm. Breath caught, eyes slipping closed, a heartbeat elapsing before his mouth presses back hard to Steve's. And then the moment shatters in a sharp gasp, a flutter that leaves Steve's arms empty once more. DJ's eyes are narrowed, his hand dropping to his hip (though the small pouch at his belt looks hardly threatening.) "What the hell?" Steve whimpers softly when DJ kisses him back, though once the teleporter blinks away he's taking a step back, too. His breath comes fast and hard, his eyes automatically darting to the hand reaching for -- a weapon? Then to DJ's neatly trimmed beard. Then his prosthetic left arm. Back up to his face. Tears fill his eyes, but he blinks them back. "You're not him," he murmurs. "You're the -- other Flicker. Oh God..." He presses his knuckles to his mouth, shoulders tense, swaying unsteadily again. "I -- I'm sorry. This is going to come as a terrible shock, but you're -- this is -- a parallel dimension." "I'm not what," DJ replies, sharp, and on the heels of that, "Steve's dead, you really need to try harder if..." He trails off, eyes still flickering about the room. To the equipment, back to Steve. The small twitch of his fingers at the flap of his beltpouch is almost too quick to catch, too, but his hand is now curled closed in a tight fist at his side. "Who are you." "Try harder --?" Steve's lips press together tightly. "I know your Steve is dead, but I'm -- not him. Exactly." He looses a frustrated groan. "This is very hard to explain, but there is a rift between our worlds we were trying to close from this side. Clearly something went wrong." That twitch of Dawson's fingers is not lost on him, and he slowly raises his hands in a placating gesture. "I'm not going to fight you," he says, calm and even. "God knows I'd lose before I even started. I don't know how I'm to prove it, but I am Steve Rogers." "Between worlds." DJ does not seem terribly convinced, look flat and tone flatter. His gaze skips from Steve's face around the room again. Back. His eyes narrow, and it's very slow as he lowers his hand, a faint shifting rattle coming as he tips the contents of his palm back into the pouch. "Not him." It's quiet, and the only thing he says before, in a familiar blur of motion, he disappears from the station.