A Preference for Rare Pairs

“Come on, guys, where are you?” Larry muttered to himself as he peered into corners in the hallway. He’d swept through most of the first floor so far, searching for any oddities the exhibits had missed cleaning up before they returned to their displays for the day.

More specifically, searching for a certain pair of miniatures who hadn’t made it back to the diorama room.

While it wasn’t unheard of for miniatures to get caught outside the dioramas when the sun rose – the miners’ camp in the Hall of Gems had been especially fun to explain – but Jed and Octavius were reliably back in the diorama room or at least waiting for Larry in the entrance hall at the end of the night. But here it was, nearly half an hour after sunrise and no sign of either cowboy or Roman since they’d picked up their car.

Finally, Larry found the car parked just outside the Kaufmann Theater; he almost hadn’t checked as no one ever really had any reason to go there outside of movie nights, but he’d run out of places in the main halls they could be. The car was tucked neatly next to the theater’s doors, light glinting off metal in the front seat. Larry relaxed.

“Guess we’re having a talk about losing track of time…” Larry trailed off as he lifted the car up to eyelevel. Octavius’ armor was piled in the front seat, Jed’s hat and gloves tossed on top. The backseat was mostly blocked from view, but he could see Jed’s hands pushing up Octavius’ tunica and Octavius’ bare leg curled over Jed’s hip, and he jerked the car down before he could make out anything else.

Larry stared at the top of the car, torn between embarrassment and oh, good, they figured things out for a long moment, before a door slamming in the distance shook him from his surprise. Another moment, and he tucked the car under his arm and headed for the security office. He’d hide the car in its usual spot – maybe covered with a blanket – and hopefully no one would check it.

And maybe tomorrow’s talk would be less about losing track of time and more about finding a room.

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