goldxnclara·:
“knock yourself out.” clara nudged the cup along the bench towards gowan. “it’s a cold day out, the least i can do.” she tapped the top with a finger, showing it was fully sealed; a valuable lesson she had learned since one of her early meets when an overly-suspicious informant had opted to dump the coffee over her instead.
a jogger came down the path towards them, and clara looked down, pretending to busy herself with her phone so she could hide her face. she waited until the footsteps had faded into the distance, then turned to the person beside her.
the first thing that struck her was how young he looked. his mismatching clothes weren’t flattering, either, and only strengthened the sense he gave off of a kid playing dress-up in his father’s closet.
the next thing she realised was that this wasn’t the first time she’d seen him. she’d seen that awfully young face not too long ago; barely a week ago, in fact, when she was in omnia and that desert at the same time, looking out over the expanse of sand at the other people, something she’d never seen before.
clara shook her head, snapping back to the present. she needed to get what was hers first. “so. to business.” she managed a smile.
“thanks,” he said, bringing the plastic cup to his lips. he saw it as a good sign, gifts instead of threats were always a good sign. his sip was cautious though, he didn’t trust easily when in this environment. when he looked up, she was entrenched in her phone, finding something so interesting until the jogger on their right’s footsteps had faded.
however, when she looked up, he couldn’t help but furrow his brow, just for a moment, gone quickly so she wouldn’t notice. however, the realization that he had seen her before stuck with him. she was in the waking dream that came to him in the early hours after omnia. his mind was moving quickly now, trying to decide whether or rationalize or compartmentalize until later.
rationalize? he had heard once that the human mind couldn’t create faces from nothing, and that every face you saw in your sleep was someone you had passed; your brain had remembered them even if you did, bringing them back to populate your dreams. they lived in the same city and, even if it was large, was it completely unreasonable that maybe he had just seen her in passing before today and, more importantly, before last week?
compartmentalize? gowan was always angled towards the paranoid, a curious and questioning soul by nature that gained an acute sense of distrust over the course of his life. last week didn’t feel like a dream, and he wasn’t sure the same rules applied. if he had seen her, it wasn’t an accident. he should gain every scrap of information he could while she was in front of him to aid him later to figure out why.
as he tried to make a choice between the two, clara’s voice cut through his thoughts. his eyes focused, looking at her with an intensity before he blinked and began looking calm as he could.
“yeah,” he replied nodding, reaching into the pocket of his hoodie and producing a ziplock bag. the clear plastic bag held a plain black flash - drive, one that looked like a million others. the boy carefully pulled apart the seal, before gesturing for clara to hold out her palm to accept it.
