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Casual engagements, although they occupied a lighter (arguably trivial) side of politics, were for Garamond as necessary as any other social obligation. The face of circle seven, Garamond handled his public relations smartly. He attended as many events as his schedule permitted, delegating the rest to representatives. This particular event, however, required Garamond in person. The invitation had been extended to him by a large corporate head and political lobbyist. Dudbar Trolt was a businessman with his claws deep in politics. To say he was a puppeteer was to put it lightly — This guy had his politicians on a noose.

The event was Trolt’s fourth marriage. The venue was a luxurious space aboard the Lunessa, a modern entertainment vessel used for meetings and conventions. It travelled around the inner Solar System to wherever it was summoned. The impromptu announcement of the wedding had forced Garamond to make quick arrangements. He’d spend the prior day cancelling and rescheduling meetings and handing out tasks to lower management. He’d packed the next morning and, after finding out his son would be unable to attend due to his pooch having an illness, plucked Calibri out of the lab without warning.

Two white suits and three hours later, they were aboard the Lunessa, waiting in a grand ballroom with upwards of a hundred others. The room was square with a high, arched ceiling. The ceiling panels looked like they opened up to reveal a window, doubtlessly to let in a view of the stars when the lights were dimmed. There were bars set up at every corner of the room and long tables with hors d’oevres. The minimalist décor on the Lunessa was the only thing that kept the environment a step away from gaudy. People shuffled about, making idle conversation and snacking. They stayed in groups of two or three, mostly. The fact that it was an hour before the wedding ceremony and that no one had much drink in them probably contributed to the lack of mingling.

Garamond, not quite sure what to do with the unexpected hour of free time, had sat down at a bar and was nursing a small glass of bourbon and ice.

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"More so than your story, hopefully," said Calibri with about as much extra dryness as he could muster to spare into his already dry tone of voice.

It was, of course, not Garamond's fault that the crowd was perhaps the most droll collection of persons found on this side of the galaxy because, honestly, what did they expect when attending an affair of this nature? But the laugh that the Boss had worked so hard to elicit had really been nothing more than a quite murmur of amusement, quarter condescension and quarter obligation, passing through the crowd like a tapering breeze.

Calibri watched almost all in attendance take a sip of their drinks, some more generous than others, maybe because they were also trying to pass the time quicker than it stubbornly wanted to go. Predictably, the smaller and slighter of the men and women came first, evidence in the heightened rate of blinking, the incremental hitch of their smiles. Those symptoms were like volatile chemicals, waiting in the bottom of their tubes.

They only needed a trigger.

Calibri tugged on Garamond's sleeve without turning back. "Do something else they'd find funny," he said, almost looking eager. It was sheer bull-headed adherence to decorum that kept the entire hall from exploding into laughter right now. It was like walking on egg shells. Once one person laughed, once they let out that first bark, the entire hall would surely follow suit. "Do you have another story?"

"I could tell another story," Garamond said as he tossed the punch out over his shoulder. "But if you'll bear with me, I think I can do better."

That was the only warning Calibri got before a flaky custard tart collided with his face. Garamond ground the pastry into the side of Calibri's face. A few seconds later the custard had spread over his hair and glasses, and the sticky crust of the pastry was clinging to his suit, droopy and deflated. Garamond quickly passed the tray of confections to the nearest attendee.

"Oh dear!" he said in what sounded like the least convincing voice he could manage, and made a grand gesture to Calibri: "Who threw that? How dare you!"

There was a very, very long silence. The party-goers directly around them looked like wide eyed animals. They were frozen in confusion. They all knew Garamond had been the offending tart flinger. They'd seen him. But they were all either too bewildered or too terrified to accuse him. Then, after a few seconds of stunned silence, one of them laughed. The scene had been so ridiculous that eventually his laughter had lost to his fear of Garamond, and it had slithered out like a long snort and then exploded into a guffaw. The two adjacent to him were the next to fall, succumbing to a fit of laughter.

"Think it's funny?" Garamond menaced, and the man in the center looked all of the sudden looked so petrified he may as well have been a very shocked looking statue.

As Garamond stalked up to him his bones were shaking in such a way that you might think his skeleton was planning on leaving hia body behind.

"Let's see how you like it, then."

Splat.

The man, now obviously high off his ass, broke down into tears. A fist full's worth of sashimi tumbled down his head and off of his coat, each hitting the floor with its own little isolated 'plop.' And while the man had been scared to the point of crying like a cornered baboon, he was also laughing. He was releasing huge wails of it. Sashimi still shaking off of his shoulders, he bowed down on his knees, and it was impossible to distinguish anymore if he was incredibly sad or incredibly amused.

The people next to him also began to cry.

The fit of laughter spread like wild fire. Around Garamond, there was nothing but bright red faces and watery eyes. Even many that hadn't partaken in the punch were howling.

And then came the eclair.

It wasn't clear where it had been thrown from, but it sailed a good ten feet above the crowd, attracting. Whoever responsible had impeccable aim, because it cut through the air like an eel in water, and when it landed, did so chocolate side up, flat on Garamonds face.

Hidden behind flaking layers of an impeccably baked tart crust, Calibri huffed out a breath. It sounded like a short-lived laugh, but then again, it could have as well been a breath of disbelief that someone would retaliate, or a breath of vindication that he was avenged by means of cream and chocolate, or it might just have been a particularly pronounced exhale that he might have been holding after being taken by such surprise.

But it might have been a laugh.

He reached out to where the nearest food attendant was stock still with confusion and disbelief, wondering just how such chaos had broken out considering the relative little Garamond had actually done (and what he had hadn't all been funny). The waiter's shock served Calibri well enough - it made the dish of little tiramisu squares not even an arm's reach away. It was all too easy for Calibri to grab one delicately with his thumb and forefinger, and then pelt it into the crowd where it landed half in a woman's mouth, open wide with laughter, and half smeared across her cheek.

With not one but two proverbial bullets fired, the entire hall all but dissolved into a laughing, food-flinging frenzy as poor aim and, in some cases, lack of aim entirely made for a free-for-all in the center of the room.

Picking up an oblong pot lid, Garamond held it up over his forearm as a makeshift shield. He flattened his other hand against Calibri's chest, maneuvering the both of them backwards out of the crossfire. He had the smile of a trouble-maker on his face. It was the kind that, even with its obscuring veil of chocolate frosting, would give him away as the mischief maker in an instant if someone where to take notice to him. Now, though, not a soul was focused him. The hall had erupted into a full blown food fight. And despite the trouble it would no doubt cause, and the mess, and the possible consequences it could incur, Garamond looked at the moment like he had been freed from a thousand responsibilities.

A more sentimental man would have taken a moment to appreciate it for what it was - a second where sixty people high on laughing serum could relieve even the head of the System's largest organized crime organization of his worries, a second where he was having a genuine bit of fun (even if it was at the expense of others). A more wise man would have let it last for as long as possible, knowing that the pressures of the outside world would all too soon rush back in for the beat-down, that it was worth hoarding these precious seconds when you could, considering they were in such short supply.

But because Calibri was neither of those things, he ruined the moment anyway by smashing the last custard cake he had managed to nab on the way back into the underside of Garamond's chin - the closest part of the man's face he could reach at his height.

They stood staring at each other for a second after that, with Calibri watching his handiwork dribble down his superior's chin. "I believe that makes us even, sir."

Garamond looked reasonably shocked for someone who had been assaulted with a fistful of custard. The shock, however, was not actually linked to the cream filling, but to the fact that Calibri, usually a slope-shouldered textbook bundled up behind an oversized labcoat and a pair of glasses, was playing along. A grin quirked the line of his lips when he looked at Calibri, but his brows were still scrutinizing.

"You're supposed to be on my side," he huffed.

Under the canopy of Garamond's makeshift shield, suddenly it sounded like hail on a tin roof, and bits of biscuit came crumbling down around the pot lid. They missed Calibri narrowly. Garamond had taken him into it like it had been an umbrella. Garamond used his unoccupied wrist to wipe his face, and lowered the lid once the pelting had forfeited. His knuckle stayed on his lip when his glance then left Calibri.

A few men in security suits had shuffled through the door. Unable to deploy their typical arsenal of taser guns and batons, they began sedating guests with fire extinguishers. A frothy fog slowly spread out around the ballroom floor, and foamy liquid expelled from extinguisher to party guest, doing little to quell the chaos but a lot to add to the mess. From the looks of it, Dudbar had gotten wind of what was going on. And in all truthfulness it would be hard not to notice. The volume of the room had been rising at such an alarming late that the live band had been drown out long ago (and had been forced to stop playing out of fear that their equipment would fall to victim to the flying carbohydrates).

Garamond anchored a custardy hand on Calibri's shoulder. "How about you and I duck out of here for a bit?"

"A reliable course of action," Calibri agreed, eyeing the hand but not bothering to remove it. After all, it was a lost cause anyway - despite how custard-coated Garamond's fingers were, Calibri's suit and appearance were already a lost cause that he hadn't cared much about to begin with.

Flicking a piece of mousse off his glasses, Calibri followed Garamond as the man, surprisingly stealthy even with his size, maneuvered around the frenzied crowd and slipped out of the hall before they, too, could be hosed down with fire extinguishers. (The crowd could have just as easily been subdued using minute amounts of neuro-tranquilizers. The fire extinguishers were just a superfluous waste of compressed chemicals.) Once or twice, he had to hold onto the slippery cream-splattered tail of Garamond's suit jacket to avoid getting lost in the still shuffling crowd, but they eventually managed to escape the premises none too worse for the wear...in a matter of speaking.

The valet staff looked appalled to see them.

"Is it human custom to carry around vials of laughing serum at weddings?" Calibri asked mildly.

"Of course not," Garamond said, slipping generous bills into the staffer's hands before they left the premises.

"Hungry?"

Calibri, covered from head to about knee-level in all sorts of edible delectibles, stared.

Or at least he gave a valiant effort at trying to. About three-quarters of his glasses were smeared with cream or jelly of some nature, but rest assured - the bottom half of his left eye was definitely staring.

Garamond smiled back at Calibri, offering an unapologetic shrug.

"Didn't have much of a taste for the Hors d'oeuvres."

"I suppose you expect us to walk into a food service locale like this?" he asked, illustrating his point of 'this' by raising a soppy arm. A piece of jellied maraschino cherry rolled off the top and splatted on the floor.

"Why not? We're paying customers," Garamond hailed a cab.

"Rather a change of clothes first?"

"Yes," Calibri said shortly, pushing his glasses for the umpteeth time up his creamed nose. "I am becoming increasingly aware that certain parts of me are beginning to congeal and I don't think that would be conducive to the rest of your...plans."

"You could be more convincing, but I'll fold," Garamond said as a taxi rolled up. He opened the backseat door, stepping aside for Calibri to enter first.

"We'll take this too the station and head back from there."

Calibri was mildly surprised anyone had pulled up at all. The statistical evidence given the contributing factors seemed to suggest otherwise, but Calibri supposed that homo sapiens sapiens were easily swayed to do just about anything if one waved enough currency bills in their face. Either way, he slid in gratefully, considerably less grateful about the squish of pastry against his back as he sat back in the leather seat.

"To the docking station," he said authoritatively once Garamond closed and he locked the door. Once the vehicle took off, he glanced sideways at Garamond. "And then to the cleaners, sir."

While the driver didn't look incredibly pleased to have his seats scummed with frosting, he didn't say anything. Either he was a very polite driver or he was reassured that, judging by the quality of the suits under the layer of whipped toppings, these customers would come with a worthy tip. Just so there were no misunderstandings, Garamond paid it upfront before giving the mam coordinates. However, It wasn't the kind of money that said "sorry for the mess," it was the kind of money that said "if you tell anyone about this encounter we will effectively silence you."

"Well, that was fun," Garamond said. "Shame to duck out early."

Calibri paid no need to the driver either way. As long as the man followed through with their temporary and social contract, what the man thought really didn't register anywhere near Calibri's list of things worth thinking about. Instead, he busied himself with wiping the lenses of his glasses off on the back of the passenger seat, oiling the faux-leather covering with fatty but exceptionally light-whipped cream.

"Will the patrons think poorly of you for making an early exit?" Calibri asked. Truthfully, he didn't much care for what the patrons thought either, but if Garmaond had thought it worth his time to make an appearance, then they must be of some standing to him, and what was important to the Boss should be important to all his subordinates. "Is this an appropriate time to send..."

He trailed off, looking thoughtful. What was it that humans did in situations like this? Their customs were so odd and illogical.

"...An apologetic fruit basket?"

Ah, yes, that was it. Humans did like sending each other bananas and apples.

"Dudbar's an understanding man. I'm sure he won't take it too hard if we skimp on the fruits," Garamond said, scrolling through the planner screen on his communicator.

"In the meantime, it appears I have the luxury of a free afternoon."

Dutifully, Calibri looked up at Garamond and was exceptionally quick to remind, "Well, sir, if that's a problem for you, there are some Balorean accounting checks you could look over before we send it to the budget department for approval-"

"It can wait," Garamond excused himself just as quickly. "In fact, I would say today's events pose no problems at all. It's a perfect opportunity to take the day off."

Calibri's brow knit tighter, a regular sea of wrinkles and consternation in the middle of his forehead. "But that would be a severe waste of time."

The cab rolled to a stop and Garamond stepped out, holding the door for Calibri. "On the contrary, I think bailing out a failed business is a waste of time. The Balorean private banking system is more or less owned by us already."

Edited 2012-12-30 00:14 (UTC)

Human courtesy and customs never really registered on Calibri's senses of recognition, regardless of how finely tuned they were in other cases. He neither noted them nor thought the absence of them were of any real consequence, so he stepped out of the car with neither thanks nor surprise at the admittedly not uncommon gesture from his superior.

"Then what do you propose we do instead?" Calibri said, looking around with mild interest. This definitely wasn't the Balorean Economic Consulate. In fact, it looked more like...an entertainment district?

The hotel Garamond checked them into was of standard quality, but it was good enough for showers and getting suits delivered. The clerk, a cephalopod creature looking to be a young adult, looked on suspiciously at the two men covered in melted cream. That look turned into pure incredulousness when Garamond asked for a rest period.

"Can I see you ID, sir?" The clerk asked, looking pointedly at Calibri.

Calibri looked pointedly back or, at least, he would have, if his vision hadn't been so thoroughly blockaded with a layer of thick, frothy cream. It must have been that, then, that kept the clerk from being put off by his death stare at all. Being covered by about five pounds of pastry apparently had a negative effect on his powers of intimidation - how disappointing.

So, instead, he chose the next most efficient solution to the problem, which was to, in fact, rummage in his suit jacket pocket until he found a relatively untouched wallet - untouched until the moment he found it, of course. The black polished leather didn't quite escape the ghastly fate of its owner the moment Calibri's oily fingers touched it, but at the very least, he didn't seem to care much about the maintenance of high-quality goods like imported Penesphean leather.

He handed an ID chip-embedded card to the put-upon-looking clerk. It was, of course, as illegitimate as the rest of his livelihood, but no system in colonized space would be able to tell.

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To* stupid iPad autocorrect <-- omg it just autocapitalized that p frickin sassy ass tablet

LOL

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