"Who wants to know?"

You eye the gentleman standing at your door warily. This all seems suspicious. "Who wants to know? Why?"

In reply, the man sighs and tries again. "My name is Reginald Baxter. I'm an attorney. As to the specifics, I cannot divulge the purpose of my visit here to anyone other than Noah Rossum without his express permission. So I ask again - are you Noah Rossum?"

The bottom drops out of your stomach as your once-sleepy mind snaps awake. An attorney? "Shit, are you suing me?" The words fall out of your mouth, almost unbidden, and an almost imperceptible upturn appears on the lawyer's mouth in response. Fuck! Now he knows it's you.

"Nothing so severe, Mr. Rossum," he says reassuringly. "My office represents wills and estates - not litigation. I would suggest we discuss this further inside." He looks around at the doors surrounding him in the hallway, then glances back at you in a silent expression with clear meaning: you want this to be private.

"Wills and estates? But... who died?"

The stern, quiet visage of the lawyer on your doorstep offers no answer. Instead he simply nods towards your door. "May I?" With a frown, you step back from your doorway and gesture for the man to enter.

"Sorry," you find yourself sighing, as your well-dressed visitor steps into your main room. "I wasn't expecting anyone today."

"...So I see," Mr. Baxter responds flatly, looking around him. "It is no matter. We won't be long. I just need you to get properly and fully... clothed, if you don't mind... so that I can bring you to your inheritance and finish signing papers there."

You look down at your half-naked body, feeling suddenly and entirely embarrassed. "Right. Sorry." You pull a can of generic energy drink out of the fridge as you rush past it into your bedroom, cracking it open and chugging it down as you dig through drawers and hangers. "Feel free to help yourself to something if you'd like!" you call back into the room, almost in afterthought, mid-way through yanking a shirt over your head.

The lawyer, for his part, appears to have found your dining chair - and he is currently sitting in it, clutching his briefcase to his chest as a talisman of protective civilization, as if expecting something to leap out of the detritus and clutter at any given moment. "I'm fine, thank you," he responds at last - curt, perhaps, but polite. You can see where his training lies.

"So you said you're representing an estate?" you ask, hopping from one leg to another as you pull on a clean pair of pants. Where are your nice shoes?

"...Yes," Mr. Baxter answers slowly - pointedly avoiding looking in your direction, but evidently grateful to finally be talking business. "I represent the estate of one Mr. Harold Rossum, recently deceased."

"Who?" You try to plumb the depths of your mind as you dig through the bottom of your closet, looking for your dress shoes. You don't recall anyone by that name ever coming up, even in the lengthy "family stories" of your grandparents growing up.

"I am not surprised," the lawyer replies. "He was, at best, a distant relation. However, his estate was willed to family - and as he left no living ancestors nor any descendants, it has fallen to my office to locate living members of the Rossum line to fulfill his final wishes." He stands with barely-restrained relief as you once again enter the main room, pushing your hair into something resembling respectability with your fingers. "All I need to do now is show you what you will be claiming possession of and have you sign off on claiming it. Whenever you're ready."