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elvis moreau

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It's not as if Mindy's forgotten that Danny's little brother has a doppelganger in the city, it's just that it's been pushed to the back of her mind to make room for everything else: for new motherhood, for new singledom, for balancing a medical practice on top of it all.

So when she spots him in the park her heart starts to beat a little faster. It's not like she knew Richie all that well, beyond meeting him once or twice and Danny's constant comments about how well he was doing, but that part doesn't really matter. It's still a reflection of a connection to a guy that she's trying so hard not to miss so damn much.

"Richie?" she says, then, in spite of knowing better. She practically collides into another passerby, she's that caught up in not!Richie's appearance. It's only been a month and a half, but it brings grief to the surface all over again, and she finds herself grateful that Leo isn't around this time to see her fall apart.

Or, at least, to try not to.

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It isn't as if Elvis is any stranger to people in Darrow looking like others. He's been mistaken for someone else himself on at least one occasion, and Gwen's had classes before with a girl who could practically be her double, except for different hair. While it may not be uncommon, though, that doesn't make it any less surprising to be on the receiving end of it, and it takes him a moment to register that the question is even directed at him, brow raising sharply when he does and turns to look at the woman.

The name itself is actually distantly familiar, but he can't place it, so he doesn't think much of it. Instead, he just shakes his head. "Uh, no," he says, shifting his weight awkwardly. "I think you've got the wrong guy."

"Right," Mindy says, shaking her head because she did, she did know better. And the right thing to do is apologize and move on and reflect on it later, but she can't seem to pull from this piece of Danny's past. Or at least what reminds her of it.

Of him. Which, she's aware, is super pathetic.

"Sorry. You just... it's really weird, you look exactly like the brother of this guy I know. Knew. I have no idea."

"Oh," Elvis says, and it's not a dumbfounded answer, but rather one of pieces starting to fall into place. That explains it, he thinks, why the name sounded vaguely familiar; it's because he'd been called the same before, by someone who'd mistaken him for a brother or something, nearly a year ago now. Normally he doesn't think much of that shit, but it was one of the more awkward conversations he can remember having, and definitely memorable. "Shit. I remember that guy."

"Right," Mindy says, nodding. "That guy. Short, sweaty... super Catholic." With those words, it's impossible to tell just how much she misses him, but the way she feels hasn't changed. She doesn't just miss the romance and all of the sex, she misses the guy who had somehow gone from her enemy to one of her closest friends. She misses all that they shared in and from New York. She misses their Ken Burns marathons. "He probably freaked out on you?"

None of the descriptors really mean anything with what Elvis remembers of the guy in question, their conversation being a brief one, but in response to the question, he nods. That's putting it mildly. "Yeah, somethin' like that," he says, huffing out an exhale. "Kept actin' like I was the crazy one, even though I'm definitely not who he thought I was." He probably could have handled it better himself, but he'd been upset in his own right, too. It was hard hearing someone else talk about their mom when his own has been dead for so many years.

"Yeah, he really loves his brother," Mindy acknowledges with a further nod. She adores Rishi and misses him pretty much all of the time (hell, she'd been paying his tuition for him back in New York, who would do that for someone they didn't even like?) but their relationship still wasn't like Danny and Richie's. "But he's gone now. He disappeared, like, a month ago," she adds before inhaling softly. "So you don't have to worry about him freaking out on you again. Or whatever."

Sympathy isn’t something Elvis has ever been much good at. He can fake it a lot of the time, dealing with people at work, or at least come close to it, knowing how to handle grieving people, but in general, it’s not something that comes easily to him. He’s been through too much himself for that. So while he can guess that the disappearance of the man in question is one that affected her, he’s not really sure what to say about it, if he should say anything at all. "I only saw him the once," he says, shrugging. "It wasn’t too big a deal."

Mindy has no idea how that can not be a big deal, but she's harassed this random guy enough that she decides not to press. Which is so very much not her (a quick glance at her criminal record back in New York reflects that), but she figures that she's changed some in the wake of Danny vanishing. "That's cool," she says, glancing down and knowing she should really go. "That he didn't keep bothering you. I thought maybe he might have."

"Yeah, no, he didn't," Elvis says, shaking his head. This might have been a slightly different conversation if that weren't the case, but as it is, he's pretty glad not to have run into that guy again, the whole thing too uncomfortable for him. He's got more than enough baggage of his own. The last thing he needs is to take on someone else's problems, or hear about the life this guy who looks like him had. "Might not've seen me anywhere again or somethin'."

"That's good," Mindy says, uncharacteristically kind of awkward. This whole thing is awkward, though, the fact that this random guy's face can mean so much to her and hers literally nothing to him. "Sorry to, you know, have bothered you?" she offers, knowing the whole interaction has been kind of selfish. "I'll let you go. But, uh, for the record... I'm Mindy. Former girlfriend of the brother of the guy who looks just like you."

It probably shouldn't be very surprising. If anything, it explains a lot, how weird this has all seemed to be in a way he hasn't quite been able to put a finger on. That, and why he's felt like he should apologize or something when she'd mentioned the guy having disappeared. Even having it put into words, though, Elvis doesn't do so. Instead he just nods. "It's okay," he says. "You didn't bother me." It's about as generous as he gets with people who aren't his girlfriend.

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