The room he had left behind him once before, that day two years ago he had left the Nexus by mistake and found himself dumped back into the strange modern world he had left behind, was not the same he had walked into upon his return. He had expected that it would be, of course, but as ever expectation had been unsteady in the face of reality (however it might be described when set within a world with doors that led to other dimensions of life and of thought, where not even his identity was certain on the other side of a doorway).
It was at once both like and unlike the apartment he had made for himself and abandoned (after a string of gunfire and a man dying across his boots and in his hands, the fact remained, although he left it unspoken). His bed was still tucked tight enough to be able to bounce a quarter off its sheets, his clothes and shoes carefully put away (his uniform at the back of the closet but still well within easy reach - his stash of files hidden in a space beneath the floorboards just beneath his bed). But the proof of who he was was scattered in pieces throughout the wide open room, the curtains thrown back from the wide window to allow sunlight to stream in.
His shield leant against the wall just behind the door. His jacket left thrown across the back of a chair at the desk with its neat stack of notebooks and few loose sheets of sketches left scattered in exact contradiction to the care taken in aligning the covers of the notebooks and the set of pastels in their case in right angles to the edges of the desk.
It was with care that he did not look back at Barnes standing in his room, half-certain the other man might spook if he moved too fast or paid too much attention to him when he should be retrieving the memories he'd offered to share, captured in paper and cheap pencil. He moved toward the desk, but bent to pull open one of the drawers to pull out a small stack of battered notebooks (cheaper and far more worn than the few on top of the desk). He sorted through them for a second as he straightened before he turned back, holding one out to the man who had been the lynchpin of his whole world for so much of his life. "Here," he offered, lips kicking up into a hint of an encouraging expression.
no subject
It was at once both like and unlike the apartment he had made for himself and abandoned (after a string of gunfire and a man dying across his boots and in his hands, the fact remained, although he left it unspoken). His bed was still tucked tight enough to be able to bounce a quarter off its sheets, his clothes and shoes carefully put away (his uniform at the back of the closet but still well within easy reach - his stash of files hidden in a space beneath the floorboards just beneath his bed). But the proof of who he was was scattered in pieces throughout the wide open room, the curtains thrown back from the wide window to allow sunlight to stream in.
His shield leant against the wall just behind the door. His jacket left thrown across the back of a chair at the desk with its neat stack of notebooks and few loose sheets of sketches left scattered in exact contradiction to the care taken in aligning the covers of the notebooks and the set of pastels in their case in right angles to the edges of the desk.
It was with care that he did not look back at Barnes standing in his room, half-certain the other man might spook if he moved too fast or paid too much attention to him when he should be retrieving the memories he'd offered to share, captured in paper and cheap pencil. He moved toward the desk, but bent to pull open one of the drawers to pull out a small stack of battered notebooks (cheaper and far more worn than the few on top of the desk). He sorted through them for a second as he straightened before he turned back, holding one out to the man who had been the lynchpin of his whole world for so much of his life. "Here," he offered, lips kicking up into a hint of an encouraging expression.