Tristan had tossed the decorator and the workers out of the apartment earlier that day, leaving piles of materials in the front foyer and several of the rooms in the beginning stages of being torn apart. After he'd been certain they were all gone and had talked to Hal on the forums, he'd ventured out to his studio, gathering up canvas, stretcher bars, paint, and brushes, throwing that in the foyer as well when he returned. He was in the process of moving things up to the master bedroom when he heard the knock on the front door. It was likely he would have missed it otherwise.
At first he thought it might be one of the workers returning from earlier, and he was prepared to yell some more if need be. He pulled open the door with a jerk, looking as harried as he usually tended to, hair in all directions and pale skin with relatively dark bruises of sleeplessness beneath his eyes even with the days of sleeping he'd recently had.
The figure on the other side of the door wasn't what he was expecting, however, and the confusion read on his face for a long moment until pictures from past newspapers and television clips pushed their way to the front of his mind. "...Mr. Brandon?"