After June knocked on the door, the sounds of items clanging against the ground and cursing could be heard from inside the apartment. To complete the choir of sounds, a massive CRASH rang out. A few moments later, a man opened the door, with a severe case of bed-head and bags under his eyes.

Howard had lost a fight with his apartment as he ran towards the door. His apartment was cramped, yes, but it wasn't dirty. Yet it seemed that whenever he needed to get somewhere in a hurry, rare items tried to obstruct him at every opportunity. If he decided to run, a rare vase excavated in Unova's Desert Resort and Relic Castle would appear by his foot. A kettle from his survival kit would teleport onto the ground, or his entire backpack would decide that it was time to fall over.

Maybe it was the universe laughing at Howard for his profession. Maybe it was his terrible budgeting skills coming to bite him in the ass. No matter what it was, Howard had tripped, fell, and slammed into a slew of different objects on his way to the door.

His haste was understandable. If there was someone at his door, it was one of two things: Team Rocket was at his door with a mission, in which case he would weep, or there was a delivery, in which case, he would also weep.

With the door open, Howard blinked once. Twice. Thrice. No, this was no person from Team Rocket. Her words confirmed it, and a smile broke upon his face. "Excellent. I've been waiting for this piece. One moment." Howard shut the door, and June could hear the sound of muffled whooping.

Howard opened the door again. "Right I assume I have to sign? Come in, come in." Howard left the door open as he slipped within.

---

june sleigh

Howard took a seat on a table that was covered in old coins. He had been carefully cleaning and sorting them. He would send out most to Team Rocket to be sold on illegal markets, while keeping a few for his own private collection. He would then likely bid on any auction with the money he earned, and the process would repeat itself until Howard was forced to foreclose on his apartment.

Against all odds, it hadn't happened yet.


"Thank you. I have a..." Howard grasped for a word that wouldn't make the delivery girl think he was insane. Obsession? Fancy? Poor financial management skills? "...interest in the field." Yeah, he definitely did. Interest was far too tame of a term, though. It was a problem.

If you weren't a fan of artifacts, that was.

Howard took a pen from his draft of an article for Archaeology Monthly, which would hopefully get him the funds he needed for a few artifacts from Galar's Darkest Day. Oh, and rent. That was pretty important, too. After a moment, he looked up at June. She had already offered him a pen. He casually tossed his to the side, cursing his scatterbrained behavior.

"By making very poor financial decisions. And almost a decade of collecting." Howard chuckled drily. "Granted, the first thing I ever collected was fake, but it's pretty easy to trick an eighteen year old starting college. I'm glad you like my collection, I'd like to show it off more."

With the click of June's pen, Howard began signing his name. After a moment, he looked up.

"Don't you do deliveries? You've seen a bunch of crazy stuff on them, I wager. Please don't tell me I'm the most deranged person you've given a package to. I might go and cry afterwards if that's the case."

---

june sleigh

Ah. That'll do it alright. From the sounds of it, Mr. Slayte was simply doomed from the start. Getting invested in pricey merchandise was one thing, but to have it be the thing you study for a few years at a place of higher education... would drain anyone's wallet. Especially one like this. June nodded along to his explanation, her eyes glued to a particularly interesting piece.

It wasn't anything particularly crazy, just an old-looking vase. Perhaps nicer looking than the rest of the artifacts, but the main appeal were the numerous glyphs carvings into the upholstery. She pondered what could be so important as to mark into such an item, and more importantly, how it felt to her skin. There was always the undeniable urge to touch stuff like this, but she refrained from acting on said urges. 

After Howard's plea, she shuddered. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I wish this was the worst it got. Not that what you got here is particularly bad, but... ugh."

But which one was the worst? There was that one person who was unhealthily invested in those animated figures on those streaming services, another who had a bajillion jars of preserved pokemon parts, a half-dozen people who offered obscene amounts for her to stay the night, but none of them--

"Ah fuck," June shuddered, "No, you're pretty tame. Just remembered a time when... actually, probably shouldn't say anything about that. For legal reasons and, well, personal ones. Anyway, change of topic, you got any idea what these symbols mean? On this jar?"

---

howard slayte

"Oh thank god." Howard seemed to inflate as he realized that while he was positively deranged, he wasn't the king of that particular mountain. He just s little hill that surrounded the mountain, drawing little attention. In fact, June's reaction was a realization that those who worked in the service industry—whether that be retail, food, or delivery—had to deal with some real whackjobs for what was likely very little pay.

Even though Howard was constantly on the brink of debt, he liked what he did. He didn't have to deal with the most plentiful scourge in the world: people.

With the mention of the vase, Howard perked up in excitement. He very rarely got to splurge about his subject, especially in Team Rocket, where most grunts could barely string a few words together, let alone appreciate the value of archaeology as a field.

"It's Unovan, from the Desert Resort's Relic Castle. It's written in the Language of Ideals. My acting theory is that this vase is a gift to the ruling king of the time." Howard said, ignoring that June called the relic a vase. If he bashed the head of every single person who got something wrong about the field, there would be nobody left to learn about it. "It reads as an idealized depiction of the king's reign, which was relatively peaceful. Since it's written in the Idealized font, it's a flowery depiction of events. It's like..."

Howard trailed off as he tried to think of a way to explain it to the delivery girl. What was something that someone who delivered packages would understand.

"Got it." Howard snapped his fingers. "It's like if someone wrote a super elaborate and detailed review of your service, and gave you a five star review, instead of simply saying 'good service' and giving you five stars all the same."

---

june sleigh

"Oh, that makes sense!" June said. While she would personally prefer a shorter review, the analogy got the point across all the same. "Who knew these 'vases' could be so... nice? I guess?"

However, that brought another question to the forefront of her mind: how the hell did they know this guy was actually a good king? And how the hell did they even figure out this language? How long ago was this? Did anything those people did matter in today's world? 

As June's head spun she leaned on the table, careful not to touch anything on it. "Geez, this stuff seems complicated. And hard. Where did you go to school? How the hell do they teach you stuff like this? And how did those people learn how to teach you this sort of stuff? How the hell do you learn a language no one speaks?"

Unfortunately for Howard, there was a little more to June not asking questions about the stuff she delivered: she had a tendency to get distracted. Very easily, as it turned out. This girl had been in the apartment for maybe five minutes and was already starting to try to learn more about things that even he himself didn't think about! Splendid! He got the feeling that the bombardment of questions wouldn't end here if he decided to play along-- though, maybe that wasn't a bad thing.

---

howard slayte

"I know, right?" Howard beamed in her direction, before it became clear that he was actually beaming at the vase. He had priorities. "If they weren't so fragile, I'd keep them around to just... use, you know? I mean use as in actually use. Not use as in..." Howard gestured around the room vaguely, where artifacts were piled and sorted.

"...use." He coughed into his fist. He was fortunate that June delivered discretely. It was unfortunate that she also was a bit of an airhead, had a caffeine addiction, or had consumed several lattes before coming here. She jumped from one thing to another with the excitement of a Jumpluff.

"Languages are hard." Howard said simply. "There's not exactly a dictionary out there for a lot of them. We simply have to trace how languages evolved from then to now. If you've ever been in a literature class, you've probably read that Galarian writer Wilhelm Shooksword. His stuff sounds kinda like our language, but not the same. It's like that, but with multiple steps. Sometimes, artifacts have multiple languages on them that all say the same thing. Easy mode. Other times..."

Howard swallowed. "We guess. A lot." Did they ever. "I went to Rustboro University, where they have a geology and archaeology course courtesy of Devon Corporation. They taught me a lot. It's a shame that this field pays like dogwater. That's enough about that, though. I don't want to remember college. Is there like a delivery school you have to go to, or something?"

---

june sleigh

"I see..." June trailed off. Sounded like a massive pain in the ass, the way Howard explained it. It also sounded like he knew the pains of the process plenty well enough. That bit about the one writer and 'literature class' went way above her head, though. Not terribly interested in those sorts of books.

Speaking of, she simply shrugged her shoulders in response. "Don't need a class to learn how to deliver a box. Only hard part was getting my name out there and to the right people. You can pay people to figure out the legal stuff, which took care of most of the problems. Pay is pretty fine, though, since I do it all myself."

Of course, she also didn't have the crippling obsession to ancient artifacts, but that felt like an elephant in the room more than anything else. On that note, the delivery girl crossed her arms. "And since we're being honest, it's a little odd that a person like you would ask for a person like me to deliver something I presume is like the dozens of other things you have in here. You read my ad, heard about the stuff I can get from point A to B, yea? That or you got a fuck ton of drugs in this box. Or some grenades Or a sack of rocks. Get fake orders with a sack of rocks often. Anyway, point is, if it is another artifact for the collection, why not just send that stuff through the regional post office?"

Man did she hate the fucking fake orders of rocks. How the hell did they even get her contact info, and why was it always rocks?

---

howard slayte

Damn. Why did the woman who ran a shipping service that dabbled in the criminal underworld have to have a modicum of critical thinking skills? Couldn't she simply let him sign the form, get the package, and run out the door? It seemed pretty simple, if you asked Howard. Asking questions was a great way to get throttled in the underground world of Hoenn.

Unfortunately, Howard wasn't some upper brass or thug who would simply make someone asking questions disappear. He was an archaeologist. A scholar. He made money for the organization, and they paid him to bring them valuables. It was pretty simple, given that Team Rocket was the only place that would accept Howard as a member. In a way, he figured that he owed them.

He also made sure to keep himself relatively quiet. His record was spotless within the League's criminal database.

"I don't trust the HPS with anything. They slap a fragile sticker on a box and then throw it into a truck with the rest of the fragile boxes. That truck then flies off a cliff and explodes. My package is ruined. Drugs? Hell, girl. The closest thing I have to a drug addiction is taking Adderall to finish my thesis in college." Howard sighed, and rubbed his temples. Maybe she would buy it, maybe not.

"Tell you what, June." Howard clapped his hands together. "If I open the package and show that it is indeed not filled to the brim with drugs, will that be sufficient to prove that I'm not some criminal mastermind?"

Well, he was a member of Team Rocket, but that wasn't exactly the level of a 'criminal mastermind'. All it proved was that Howard wasn't very smart, or desperate, or both. "Rocks?" Howard thought to himself. Maybe they were really nice rocks. If they were shiny, he could relate. It was human nature to collect cool things, and sometimes rocks were at the top of the list.

---

june sleigh

June rolled her eyes, unamused by Howard's descriptive idea of what an average HPS delivery went like. Not that he was wrong-- if anything, he got it nailed down all the way to them driving off a cliff-- but she didn't particularly care. Not any meanness or cruelty to the plight of Howard, but she had heard the exact same argument before. "Oh, please June, you believe in the HPS to get anything done at a reasonable time and safely?" They always said.

So far, her count made it 6.86/10 that after someone said that, they revealed a package filled to the brim with either narcotics or a really bad ass weapon. The former had a massively higher fee depending on product and the latter she didn't deliver for a god damn reason. People liked to think themselves clever, for better or worse.

"I don't mind delivering for so called 'criminal masterminds', I care that you might try to stiff me," June explained. Unlike Howard, she did not have to worry about some looming figure constantly over her shoulder at every waking moment. In return, she tended to look the other way to those kinds of people. Sometimes. "So please do. I don't know if you read it on my ad, but narcotics average around a shit ton more than the normal fees."

While Mr. Slayte opened the package, the delivery girl would simply stand where she had planted herself and watch. Hopefully the threat of financial ruin would keep the guy honest. Did that classify as cruel and unusual punishment? Probably. Oh well.

---

howard slayte

"Hon, listen to me." Howard rolled his eyes into the heavens as he glared at June. "I am financially irresponsible, not inept. I don't get anything out of stiffing someone who can turn me into the cops. Howard trailed off as he imagined himself and Shred Zeppelin stuck in a cell together, whaling on each other with spiked clubs. After a moment, he blinked and returned to reality.

When he had been recommended June's services, he had never expected her to be this nosey. Maybe she had a wire? Oh well. It wasn't like this purchase was illegal. Well, it was, but few people would recognize it to the point where they would view it as illegal.

With a grunt, Howard produced a cutting knife from his pocket and deftly cut the package open. It looked like an ancient tribal mask. It was ominous, but unless Howard's mysterious drug stash was mixed into the mask itself, it seemed perfectly ordinary. It was. However, it was purchased illegally from an Alolan auction, and wouldn't be allowed through Alolan customs.

It was a crime to take Alola's cultural heritage outside its borders without consultation. Therefore, what Howard had purchased was absolutely illegal. Team Rocket wanted it, though. Who was he to judge?

No, the better question was whether or not June would say something? The piece was illegal, but it wasn't like every person in Hoenn knew about something as mundane as interregional customs practices, right?

"You want to give it a quick sniff?" Howard said drily. "To check if there's cocaine mixed into the nasal region? Maybe if you wear it and take a few puffs, you'll fly higher than a Minior reentering orbit."

---

june sleigh

"I start turning people in, I start losing business," June snapped back. While a majority of her deliveries were not ones that contained illicit or otherwise dangerous things to deliver, enough of them were to mean she knew when to speak up and when to keep her mouth shut. Word traveled quickly, and she tried to make sure certain words got to the intended targets and not just about everyone. A tightrope act, to advertise her services to as many people as possible but not to people that would try to get herself thrown into prison. 

It also made it necessary to be an asshole sometimes. Like right now!

Sure, it felt really awkward as Howard unboxed what looked to be an ordinary mask. Ordinary in the sense that it fit in with everything else in the room. The way he rubbed in felt even worse as he chided her into taking a whiff of the old paint that looked like a stiff breeze away from going all over the place. Yet there was a niggle in the back of her mind, a hook that just wouldn't come loose no matter how hard she pulled and tugged at it. Why specifically get her for something as whatever as this?

Probably some artifact smuggled in, she concluded. Her knowledge of customs for 'important' goods was faint but the circumstances deemed it an appropriate guess. Not the first time someone got an item from another region and brought it in secretly, and items like that needed a third party to deliver it. Like her. 

Did it even matter? This wasn't drugs labelled as something else, and it wasn't a weapon. She had gone far enough in this query despite her desire to know more. Too far in honesty. 

"Alright, alright, I get it. Sorry. Sometimes I get bad feelings about stuff and need to cover my bases," June said. A held breath escaped her lungs as her shoulders relaxed. "Can't ever be too careful, and nothing personal. Besides, do I look like the type to care if you got illegal stuff? I've delivered plenty worse to shadier people. Got a few regulars that are from Team Rocket even."

The delivery girl either had more trouble keeping her mouth shut than advertised or that last part was a targeted slip up aimed at Howard. Blackmail or a desire to keep him as a regular customer?

If it wasn't obvious, a bright grin replaced that slight frown from moments ago. "And hey, since I sort of ruffled your feathers, how about the next delivery is half off eh? Next time you want something from... somewhere far away, I'll make sure it gets here nice and discreet so it can sit on your shelf and gather dust."

---

howard slayte

"Your apology is accepted. I'm sorry too." Howard mumbled as he looked away. "When you operate outside the law, it's really hard to know who to trust. It's really easy to make a bad deal and regret it all the way to jail. Especially with bail." Howard shuddered. With June's whole business, she could probably make any drug smuggling bail or pay any parking ticket she wanted. If Howard went into the slammer, his existence was over.

If anything, he should've been more careful than June. He had gotten far too excited over having someone to tutor in the way of artifacts. It was a wonder that Howard hadn't been arrested yet.

"Team Rocket? You seriously have them as clients?" Howard said casually as he screamed internally. Shit, shit shit shit. If June mentioned him to any Team Rocket lacky in the area, they would know it was him. He was an oddity in Team Rocket, after all. "They're pretty bad people, aren't they?"

Smooth, Slayte. Brilliant observation, Team Rocket Grunt. Howard thought to himself as he blinked at June.

"Oh! Um..." Howard trailed off. He was annoyed, admittedly, but it would've been far too easy for June to turn around and get him arrested. Being mad at someone capable of blackmailing you wasn't a wise thing. While Howard's brain entertained whether or not this was a trick, his mouth spoke for him.

"Yes, that sounds splendid. Thank you for being so understanding."

Idiot. Dumbass. Tool. Howard flung insults at himself as he stood up. "Let me get my checkbook, one second." Howard walked past June, before slowly turning around. "I may have just realized that writing you a check is a stupid idea. Here." Howard opened his wallet and began counting out bills. He opened out his hand. "Here you are."

---

june sleigh