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This was not, in fact, how Hazel typically behaved. But there he was, foolishly bashful and floundering. His formality faltered, left him scrambling to pull himself together so that he didn’t seem incapable of the job they’d been tasked with. Because he was completely capable, thank you very much. It was an alarming sort of sway, though. Daunting in its unfamiliarity.[break][break]
“That is understandable,” he replied with a sigh, “though sometimes it is the company one is with that allows something tired to be refreshed.” A new lens or perspective offered, so to speak. He watched Hugo, completely curious. Endlessly fascinated with what he might uncover beyond the night they’d previously shared.[break][break]
Hazel tutted lightly. “Don’t be silly, Mr. Darcy. It’s strictly professional. An asset in our favor if you know the layout.” Even as he said this, however, there was a playful lilt to his voice. The subtle implication that he wouldn’t be too put off by a welcome distraction.[break][break]
But he should have been. The were not here to dally and explore one another. He huffed again, and attempted to recenter his focus. Somehow Hugo made that difficult. Typically when it came to work, he was fixated in a manner that likely bordered on obnoxious to most everyone around him. He hadn’t decided yet if Hugo’s apparently natural ability to derail that was a good thing or not.[break][break]
“I was connected to the Galarian branch,” he clarified, “I have familial ties to the group.” He felt strangely forthcoming. Or perhaps, he’d always been eager to tell someone about himself once someone offered their interest. The hallmark of lonely kid latching onto friendliness or curiosity. “As for this, well, it’s a more suitable task for someone like me.” That, he didn’t fully elaborate on. His poor constitution, his inability to carry out more physical tasks demanded of someone at his rank.[break][break]
“We shall.” A soft smile flit across his mouth as they stepped through the grand threshold to the museum. It opened up to a wide entry hall where guests littered the space—mingling, enjoying the offered drinks, observing the pieces in display cases. Though these were no more than a precursory taste of the actual exhibit on display with its elaborate centerpiece.[break][break]
Despite the fact that personally Hazel very much wished to see said exhibit and enjoy the finery of it all, it was of course no more than a distraction for what they were actually meant to lift. With so many people flocking into the building, it would be far easier to make their own attendance discreet. As discreet as it would be to slip away to one of the lonelier wings.

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“I should be able to accommodate that, certainly!” While he might not have had the buffest team, he could at least attest to the fact that it was comprised of natural foils to fighting types. It lifted his mood considerably—something to look forward to in the coming weeks.[break][break]
Though his enthusiasm curbed as Frank went on to explain. “That’s a terrible stroke of luck,” he murmured, still listening as the whole ordeal expanded into something significantly impacting.[break][break]
Opportunity, however, stirred in Hazel’s mind—a consideration of what options Frank might be able to take. But he kept his civilian life quite separate from his affiliations. His ties to Rocket not quite as well known as others might’ve been. So to speak of them with Frank was a risk.[break][break]
It wasn’t often that Hazel found himself friends that he considered himself fond of. They might not have been too alike in many ways, but he found himself reluctant to risk the loss of that connection should he find Frank vehemently against the likes of the organization.[break][break]
His fingers toyed with one of the photographs, the pointed edge poking at the pad of his pointer finger as he hummed in thought. “I suppose then, it’s a matter of what lengths you’re willing to go in order to avoid that.”[break][break]
When he looked up again, he smiled, not unkindly. “I can understand, though. The risk of disappointment is a terrible feeling.” One he grew up with and knew like a bedfellow.

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A soft laugh follows Remiel’s confession and he gives an acquiescing nod of his head. “Of course, I can u’snderstand the desire to be recognized for what you do rather than the familial ties that make your name known. Apologies.” It was the Galarian in him, he supposes, that makes it difficult to skirt around that royalty line. “That is not to say, though, that I haven’t read any of your work.”[break][break]
He looks up again, a mild smile slipping across his face as his attention moves from the crown prince toward the rippling distortion around them. “Your papers have passed through the hands of many in the history and humanities at the university.” Hazel’s among them.[break][break]
Hazel listens to the carefully laid out answers to his questions with keen interest. Sharp eyes study the remnants of the world left behind by people who no longer walked these grounds. “You’re absolutely correct. It would be up to us to uncover that meaning now. I suppose I was just curious to see how you would answer.”[break][break]
Another laugh slips free, brighter and more amused than the first. “Oh, I’m not sure I’d class myself as a treasure hunter, though I suppose in a way that is true enough. I’m an archivist.” Historian, scholar, whatever. Though if he were to be wholly honest, that furret tendency to hoard interesting things he came across definitely did exist in some capacity.

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Hazel watched Frank add the milk to his coffee, a brow lifting in amusement. “I think you prefer cream with a splash of coffee, actually,” he teased lightly, laughing as he idly dunked his teabag a few times to stir the flavor and allow it to diffuse a bit more.[break][break]
His fingers slipped down to rest on the table, tapping idly as his chin dropped into his other hand. “I suppose you’re right about that,” he said on the edge of a sigh. He had come to expect that much of his process was an exercise in baby steps. Which, for Hazel, was a bit of a challenge.[break][break]
But Frank was right. It might have been monotonous, but at least he was up and moving rather than facing that tedium while ill, and stuck in bed.[break][break]
The photos, however, were a welcome distraction. This was what he would have liked to be doing in his spare time. Very much so. Hazel visibly brightened, bit by bit as he sifted through the shots that Frank had procured. “Oh! These are so fascinating. You got so many!”[break][break]
At the offer, his hands clapped together and his eyes rose to meet Frank’s with the sort of delighted fervor that could probably only be found in a complete and total nerd. But of course, Hazel had always known that about himself. “Yes! I would enjoy that greatly—this would be exactly the breath of fresh air I’ve been looking for.”[break][break]
He faltered a bit, though, at the added remark. A small frown pulled at his mouth and he sipped at his tea for a moment, head tilting. “What do you mean? I thought things were going well?”

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Hazel remains silent as Cillian Quinn reprimands the other man. He only watches with mute curiosity to see what Howard might do, but he seems to take the cue and scrams not long after. He lets out a short breath, amused and exasperated all in one. "What a mess." It's not the pile of TMs and TRs he's referring to, though he supposes that those don't help matters much either.[break][break]

"Fair point," he remarks, continuing to stack the mess of tms into neat piles. Sorting them by types so that they can be returned to the shelf with quicker ease. The storm outside lashes with angry fury. As if trying to hasten them to figure it all out sooner rather than later.[break][break]

He eyes the empty spot, "That has to be important, right? Maybe we should have checked that breloom's stats before we handed it over." That only makes sense, right? That the pokemon hiding there was taught the mystery move?[break][break]

Hazel glances over his shoulder at Victoria Beckett as she approaches them, less subtly than the first time. He takes the offered TM and carefully slots it back into place. "Maybe this is a fighting move then," he muses as his brows furrow. Again, he tapes the empty space. "Or maybe it's the opposite?"

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[attr="class","text"]"I would have hoped to visit with you again in more opportune circumstances," he converses easily as he begins to sift through the TMs, interrupted only by a murmured thanks as Cillian steps back. He pauses curiously on the empty space where one should be fitted. Years of etiquette have been bred into his system, and small talk comes naturally.[break][break]

He has only just begun to fixate on that empty space again when someone crashes into it and sends them scattering across the floor. The noise makes Hazel wince, shoulders hitching up to his shoulders as he winces at howard slayte. He does well to hold his tongue from reprimanding the man's clumsiness - it seems that Cillian Quinn's reaction is more than enough to send him into a flow of apologies.[break][break]

"Well, there's nothing else to be done about it, is there?" he muses idly in responses to the underboss' sharp remark. A forlorn sigh sags his shoulders again as he looks down at the mess. It's too much of a disarray to leave cluttered on the floor, isn't it?[break][break]

Hazel stoops to sort through the pile along with the rest, glancing up at Howard's theorizing after a moment. His brow rises, "A fan of mystery novels, I take it?" He looks back down at the stack he's neatly piled all together, carefully resorted by type. "How can you be certain this isn't an elaborately crafted red herring?"

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[attr="class","text"]It seems his plans have done a swift 180 twist. The distortion comes down quicker than Hazel can grasp the situation. His phone is freed from his pocket, but as he attempts to dial Hugo Albrecht, a dead line is all he is met with. His hand shifts to the pokeball that holds his espeon, and it’s strangely…gone.[break][break]

Concern flares further when he drifts to the source of commotion— unfamiliar sight of the old manse coming into view, Hazel begins to realize he is not quite where he once was. Though he can’t say he’s experienced a distortion quite so reality shifting before.[break][break]

The declan walsh here is markedly not the one he’s become more familiar with during his long winded tenure within Rocket.[break][break]

Guard up, he follows the rest and does as he often does well…blends into the background. Being a lifelong wallflower allows him that range of mute observation, and if he seeks to get out of here, it is swiftly decided that he won’t do so by running amok or leading the charge. Worry gnaws at the back of his mind for his companion, the espeon never usually far out of reach. More fretting follows in the hope that his husband won’t note his absence for long.[break][break]

Instead, though, when he spies the familiar face of an old friend, he follows Cillian Quinn out of the main hall and into the gym. “Strange weather we’re having,” he jokes dryly in a low murmur to announce his arrival alongside the underboss. Pale eyes warily note the unfamiliar faces of Victoria Beckett and Ambrose Hendrix as they too, wander into this particular room as well. Scattered among the exercise equipment and benches, he feels decidedly out of place.[break][break]

Still—[break][break]

“May I?” he asks, head nodding toward the TM CASE that Cillian had been looking through in indication.

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[attr="class","text"]Nicodemus humored the offering of pets. The feline’s head tipped up, chin stretching on his neck to show that he would like his scritches there, please.[break][break]

Hazel glanced back again to eye the espeon with amusement. “He must’ve taken a liking to you, he doesn’t usually warm easily. Took months for him to come around to Hugo.”[break][break]

He poured the coffee from its pot at the response given, then turned to grab a small carafe of milk from the fridge. “Sugar’s right there already,” he nodded at the ceramic container in the center of the table. He offered the mug of steaming liquid out to Frank before going back for his own cuppa.[break][break]

There was a brief pause as his eyes lighted on the envelope that had been set out—keen with interest. But it could wait, he could be patient.[break][break]

Sliding in the seat opposite, he let his hands curl around the mug to warm his cold fingers against the radiating heat. “Better than I was before,” he relented, a somewhat exasperated sigh slipping free. But then again he was prone to exasperation wherever his health was involved. “Nothing interesting has happened, unless you count grading midterm papers as the pinnacle of entertainment.”[break][break]

A small laugh followed, no more than a scoff, really. “But what about you? I’m certain you’ve had much better luck than me.”

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[attr="class","text"]This made matters invariably more complicated.[break][break]
A short lived smile graced his mouth for a moment. “I like it. It was a nice touch,” he murmured in response. Quiet as to not betray the fact that this wasn’t his actual name. He needed to get it together. Pull that part of him who had thoroughly enjoyed Hugo’s company and thought of him often back into the center of his chest and lock it up.[break][break]
He was always professional on jobs. He couldn’t slack on that now. But how could he not feel thoroughly weak-kneed when Hugo was… well, Hugo. No, no. This was not the time to let his thoughts run away from him.[break][break]
For a moment—and unfortunately there seemed to be a lot of these moments in the few minutes they’d linked up, Hazel forgot that they were there to burglarize the place. “Why is that a bad thing? To me, it sounds as though I have a new guide who is familiar with the layout of the building.” He glanced up, meeting Hugo’s eye briefly. “You know all of the quieter, darker corners, I would wager.”[break][break]
There was not a coy lilt to his voice. Not at all…[break][break]
“I do admit, though, that it’s nice to be accompanied by a familiar face as well. Relieving. What part are you curious about? The fact that I share similar affiliations, or that I was tasked to this in particular?” Despite the fact that he knew better, he let the arm wound through Hugo’s squeeze lightly to keep them closely joined. The sort of affection that befit new sweethearts and not those assigned to carry out a theft at high level.[break][break]
“Perhaps, then, you will learn more about me tonight than you did the last.” Granted, they’d spent plenty of time learning each other in different ways on that aforementioned night. Amusement brightened his eyes. A brief glimmer before he looked out across the main hall where it opened up to the museum. Patrons filtered through the area, at leisurely pace as they made their way to the new exhibit.[break][break]
But of course, the opening was only a cover for where they actually needed to go. And he should behave himself. Disappointing his uncle with the report of a shoddy job was not something to be tolerated. Should, being the key word.

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