Adventures in Babysitting

[pugsmuggler]

It was uncharacteristically early when Garamond decided to stop by Calibri’s lab. The installment was still relatively new to the first circle’s queen ship. The counters were still glossy-tiled and free of chemical burns, the utensils all shiny and unused, and while it accommodated for plenty more than just Calibri’s research, no one really had the nerve to go in there with it being consistently occupied by the circle’s finest poisons expert — No one except for Garamond. From Garamond’s perspective, Calibri had acclimated himself to life on the ship quite well, and handled his responsibilities aptly. This particular morning, however, Garamond had decided to hand Calibri a responsibility that extended slightly beyond what Calibri had signed on for.

Ten-year-old son at his side, Garamond let himself through the laboratory doors and into the. He found Calibri, after a brief trip around the countertops, curled up asleep underneath a desk. Calibri was equipped with a stylus and notebook in hand as if he had fallen asleep scrawling notes. Garamond, not visibly surprised by the scenario, crouched down to Calibri’s level, perching himself on the toes of his loafers.

“Ah, there you are,” Garamond announced himself. “I had a favor to ask.”

Comments

[pugsmuggler]

Garamond, seemingly unfazed by the corpse-like stiffness that Calibri exhibited when he slept, unclipped a pen from his inner pocket and gave Calibri a jab under the ribs.

[tactician]

The reaction was extremely delayed.

About thirty entire seconds after the jab, Calibri quietly rolled onto his stomach and curled into a ball, propped up on his knees and forehead, all without opening his eyes once. After about thirty more seconds in that position, he finally pulled himself into a seated position, slow enough that you might have even heard the joints creaking as he did so, stopping only when the crown of his head hit the underside of his desk.

He turned to blink sleepily at Garamond, glasses askew and hanging off one ear.

"...Boss."

[pugsmuggler]

"Good morning," Garamond smiled promptly after saying.

Gathering himself into a stand, Garamond pulled Danny to his front, giving the child a firm clap on the shoulder once he was grounded in front of Calibri. He then proceeded to converse with the disheveled Calibri as if he were perfectly awake and composed: "As I was saying, I have a favor to ask of you. I have important business to tend to today, and Danny here is short his usual caretaker."

[kobacake]

Danny eyed Calibri warily from his position a few feet behind Garamond. His previous few run-ins with Calibri had been less than pleasant (see also: Horribly Traumatizing) and, though he'd never been to the lab before now, he'd been dreading getting trapped in Calibri's lair. Who knew what kind of stuff Calibri was going to do to him in here? What if he used him as an experiment for his weird poisons? WHAT IF CALIBRI TURNED HIM INTO A GROSS MONSTER?!

When Calibri didn't wake up, Danny thought maybe he'd gotten himself off the hook. Great, the creepy guy was dead and he wouldn't have to stay with him after all! But no, eventually Calibri started to rouse and all Danny could think was that he looked like some sort of weird.. gross... zombie.

Danny almost tripped when Garamond pulled him forward, and he winced at the strength of his hand (though this part, at least, he was used to). His mouth flattened out into a line as he watched Calibri, and shudder ran through his body. No... no, no, nope. He definitely did not want to stay here. He looked up at Garamond. "Boss...? Can't I just go with you?"

[tactician]

Calibri turned his head that minute fraction required for him to look at Danny. Then, he stared - stared with the despondent look of the dead, a look that could have been promising eons of eternal damnation, for all Danny knew.

[pugsmuggler]

"Sorry, son. Too dangerous," Garamond said.

He then turned his attention back to Calibri. "Glad you understand the situation. I should be back this evening. Have fun."

[kobacake]

"Boss!!" Danny cried out more panicked this time once he saw Calibri's stare. Oh, god. Oh god oh god ohgod. Whatever Garamond was doing it couldn't have been half as dangerous as staying here!!

[tactician]

"Be careful, Boss," Calibri said sleepily, reaching up with labcoat sleeve-swaddled hands to push his glasses back into place. Even in the shade of the desk, the reflective surfaces of the lens still managed to take on a foreboding sheen, flashing like Danny's life before his juvenile eyes.

Like a monster heaving its body up from a white swamp of coat fabric, Calibri slowly staggered onto his feet, climbing out from under the desk like a creature emerging from its cave to hunt its prey. Danny might have been ten - a whole double-digit number and a good three or four years after his initial run-in with a now-twenty-year-old Calibri, but there were few men in the galaxy who didn't succumb to intimidation in the young poison-aficionado's presence.

"I will supervise your son, rest assured," said Calibri, new enough in the organization that he was still trying his best to impress the higher-ups. A hand as cold as ice settled onto Danny's shoulder, heavy like the presence of Death.

[pugsmuggler]

"I'll send someone to deliver breakfast shortly," Garamond said as he dismissed the two with a wave. He was already heading towards the door when Calibri finished his last words, not even sparing a glance back as he left Danny in Calibri’s grip. The metal laboratory doors hissed as they unsheathed, and Garamond was on his way. There was only the sound of grating metal as the entrance sealed itself again and the airtight lock activated. After that, complete silence.

Danny Garamond was completely alone in a poison’s testing lab with Nathaniel Calibri.

[kobacake]

"Boss!!!!" Danny cried out, hand outstretched towards his father and the door, but it was too late. Garamond disappeared, the door shut, and the heavy rock called Despair settled uncomfortably in the pit of Danny's stomach.

He let his arm drop uselessly, hands clenching into fists at his side as he took a deep breath. Ok.. ok it wouldn't be so bad, right? He'd just... turn back and look at Calibri and--- OH GOD. The way the light reflected off his lenses and his coat seemed to swallow him whole, Calibri really did look like one of the dreaded Angaerians. Was Calibri going to spit acid at him and eat his bones once the skin melted off just like they did?? He was sure he would.

Danny twisted out of Calibri's grip, pointed an accusatory finger. "I-I WON'T LET YOU EAT ME!!"

[tactician]

Calibri tilted his head, slipping his hands back into his lab coat pockets, where no doubt he was secretly rummaging around for indescribable tools of great terror to disembowel and then delicately stir-fry Danny with?!

"Why would I eat you?" he asked mildly, raising an empty (for now) hand to take off and clean his glasses using the tail end of his coat, where his cheek had smashed into the lens for the majority of the night. "Your father said he was sending up breakfast, did he not?"

[kobacake]

As soon as Calibri removed his glasses, the illusion disappeared. O-oh, right. He wasn't a scary Angaerian after all. It was just Calibri. (That thought was only slightly comforting.) Danny straightened up, crossing his arms and puffing out his cheeks a little in defiance as he looked away. "Yeah.. He said it was gonna be something really yummy."

[tactician]

Calibri's mouth twitched. "I hope he is aware that your cheese-bread-meat concoction is not actually nutritionally valuable for breakfast."

Omg no i'm laughing too hard in the middle of work

[kobacake]

Danny stared at Calibri again, brows pinched together and mouth slightly open. "Are you stupid?! No one eats cheeseburgers for breakfast!"

[tactician]

"It seemed to be your meal of choice," Calibri said placidly, placing his glasses on his face and once again donning the horrific visage of Doom Personified. "Either way, there was no such food on my planet, and if you really wanted to break down the elemental components of your 'cheeseburger, you would come to the conclusion that no one should be eating them at all."

Even at twenty, Calibri really only stood about a head and three quarters over Danny at ten, but that didn't stop the aura of pure danger from emanating from his frame. He swept toward the boy and caught hold of Danny's shoulder with a hand (a deadly claw of torture and despair), pulling the boy to one end of the room, where there seemed to be an empty chair and desk. (A holding cell?!) Curiously enough, there were no straps or iron bindings anywhere in sight (though there was a pair of scissors sitting innocuously on one end of the table).

"Wait here."

[kobacake]

"Dinner and breakfast are two totally different things!" Danny rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the shiver that made its way down his spine once Calibri donned his glasses again. He was always surprised to hear that wherever Calibri came from, they didn't have completely normal, sensible things like cheeseburgers and probably other delicious foods as well. He had no idea what Calibri meant by 'elemental components' and all that, but the idea that no one should eat a cheeseburger, well, that was just stupid!

Danny tensed as he felt Calibri's hand on his shoulder. (Oh god, seriously why were his hands this cold? He could feel the chill through both his t-shirt and the collared shirt he wore above it.) When he was led to the chair, he looked around with eyes full of suspicion, as if he expected something to reach out and grab him at any moment. (Really, with what he'd seen and all the rumors he'd heard, it wouldn't be that crazy if it happened!!) He crossed his arms again (though this time it looked much less stubborn, and much more like he was bracing himself out of fear), leaning back against the desk once he was sure nothing was waiting underneath it to devour him, and kept his eyes on Calibri. If Calibri was going to go fetch something to chop him up with, he wanted to be able to run at the first sight of it.

[tactician]

Calibri, usually so oblivious (or simply uncaring) as to the reactions he garnered around people, strangely noticed the glare - maybe because this was his superior's son, and even he was aware that humans were strangely illogical creatures that persisted on emotions. If he didn't treat Danny correctly, it didn't really matter how well he performed in the workplace.

"What is it?" he asked, frowning at Danny's unwavering stare. His eyes flitted quickly back to the tables, all with harmful substances in tubes and bowls and petri dishes littering their surfaces. "Did you touch something poisonous?"

[kobacake]

"W-What?!" Danny whipped around, quickly pulling himself away from the table. Of course, he thought Calibri had meant he had touched something poisonous merely from leaning against the desk, and now he began to panic. "Oh god am I gonna die?!?!?"

[tactician]

"I would have to take a blood sample to know for sure," Calibri answered, calmly pulling an empty syringe and alcoholic sterilizer pad out of his pocket, as if those were entirely normal things to keep on one's person at all times.

[kobacake]

"W-W-WHAT?!" Danny squeaked out, holding his arms up in front of him, palms flat and facing Calibri."No way. NO WAY AM I GONNA LET YOU STAB ME WITH ONE OF THOSE!!"

[tactician]

"I can numb your arm," Calibri offered, cleaning off the needle of the syringe, which was really very, very long.

[kobacake]

"T-That won't even fit in my arm!" Danny shook his head violently, backing away from Calibri much like a small animal trying to make an escape from a predator.

[tactician]

"Of course it will," Calibri said, a little dip forming in his brow at Danny's obtuseness. His hand shot out and caught the hem of Danny's shirt, moving with a quickness that only made itself known at rare times. Usually, the poisons chemist did everything so lethargically and with such to-the-point purpose, it was sometimes jarring to know that he could move that fast. "The diameter of your arm is much thicker than the diameter of the needlepoint. There's clearly no way that it won't fit."

calibri is like a snake.....

[kobacake]

If there was one thing Danny was (one thing that he would always continue to be, even when he was older), it was fast. He was more than just a little startled when Calibri caught the hem of his shirt, not just because of Calibri's sudden speed, but because seeing Calibri standing there with every intention of stabbing him with a giant needle was absolutely terrifying. This seemed to jump start something in Danny's brain, a survival instinct perhaps, and he screamed, twisting around so that he could shed the collared over shirt that Calibri had latched onto. It was only too lucky that Danny hadn't buttoned it up like he did some days.

Without hesitating Danny jumped back a few steps to put distance between himself and Calibri, before making a mad dash to the opposite side of the nearest lab table. At least now there was an obstacle between them. Maybe he'd make it out alive after all.

his pokemon is snivy too-

[tactician]

For that entire display, Calibri really only looked mildly confused. Shirt dangling from his hand and syringe still in the other, he turned in the direction Danny had retreated to, but didn't move to chase the child past that.

"Why are you unclothing yourself in my laboratory?"