Work Text:
On nice days, Samuel Oak struggled to focus in the lab. He would pour himself a glass of iced tea and look at the tasks he could do outside, then bring his laptop and papers out with him to work on one of the neat patches of grass surrounded by the pokemon preserves.
With Gary, working outside was also preferable. He was only 3 years old, and inside, he was frequently underfoot, wandering around the lab and likely to knock down expensive glass equipment or rare samples. With how silent Gary was, there was often little warning before a loud crash and crying, and a huge mess for Samuel to clean up. Samuel loved his grandson, but he was far, far easier to manage outside, in a little playpen Samuel could set up on the grass.
Samuel glanced over at his grandson from his folding table. A butterfree had landed inside of the playpen, and Gary was watching it with huge eyes.
“Butterfree is friendly,” said Samuel, “If you’re gentle, you could try and pet it.”
But Gary continued to watch the pokemon in silence. He leaned to the side to observe Butterfree more closely. Perhaps, thought Samuel, Gary would go on to study pokemon in depth. Though he was cautious around them, his grandson seemed to have a fascination with pokemon that reminded Samuel of himself. Maybe, thought Samuel, he would give his grandson a lab book and some markers next time they came out together.
He returned to his work. Without an intern in the lab, some of the duller tasks fell to him—like plotting goldeen schools as graph coordinates. It reminded Samuel of his own days as a young researcher, and he was grateful for the power of computing, even if his laptop began to chug with larger amounts of data.
After ten graphs, he stretched. The joint in his neck clicked as he turned his head, and Samuel grimaced—he needed a break. He stood up and looked to the playpen. “Gary, would you like a cup of juice–”
The playpen was empty.
Samuel looked around frantically. The playpen was just tall enough that Gary couldn’t get out unless he climbed, but the store had claimed that would be impossible as well. He called Gary’s name and ran towards the edge of the field when he finally thought to look to the sky.
The figure was a bit far, but it was unmistakable. The silhouette of a skarmory was outlined against the sun—and in its talons, a human toddler-shaped figure. Samuel’s heart stopped in his chest for a few seconds. As it started again, so did a mantra: “Stay calm. Stay calm.”
Skarmory were not common to Kanto. As such, there was only one skarmory that lived on the ranch, and Samuel knew where its nest was. If he got there quick enough, he would be able to find his grandson in one piece—so long as Gary held on to Skarmory and didn’t try to fight his way out of the pokemon’s grip. The main trouble was the location of the nest: up high in a crag that Samuel preferred to have an assistant walk out to when he needed to check on Skarmory. It was not impossible to reach without climbing, but far from easy.
Samuel didn’t bother to put his work away. For a moment, while he ran down from the little hill the lab sat on to the main preserves, he hoped his papers would not get blown away—but Gary was more important. His legs were not what they used to be, but he could still see the figure of the skarmory in the air for a time.
But it had to reach its nest eventually. Samuel lost sight of the pokemon, though its trajectory indicated his hunch about its destination was correct. It wasn’t long until he could see across the cliffs that skirted the west end of the preserves. They were low ridges of dirt that rose from a scrubbier area with less vegetation—just barely high enough to be considered cliffs in the first place. His property ended at the top of the cliffs, but he never had any problem using the strip of land along the edge.
And there was Skarmory. It sat in its nest among the high rocks, peering down into its large bed of woven sticks and scrap fabric. Samuel couldn’t see inside of it, and as he approached, a nausea grew in his stomach. If Gary wasn’t in the nest, there was only one other possibility for what had happened to him. The dread mounted in Samuel as he grew closer and closer, taking shaky steps along the edge of the cliff.
He saw the nest, and he let out a shriek.
Gary was sitting in the center of the nest, with his clothes and hair disheveled but otherwise unharmed. And surrounding him were four baby skarmory, by the size of them only just hatched. One of them was preening at Gary’s hair, while the toddler smiled and pet the one in front of him.
The adult skarmory appeared perplexed. Every so often, it would nudge Gary with its beak towards one of the chicks. As cute as the scene was, Samuel had an idea of what the adult skarmory had intended: an easy-to-catch meal that was large enough for its clutch. The baby skarmory clearly had not picked up on this, but Samuel was sure that, had he taken longer, Skarmory would have decided to demonstrate for them what to do with prey.
He approached the nest. “Hello, Skarmory,” he said, dropping to all fours to keep his balance so close to the edge of the cliff. “May I have my grandson back now?”
Skarmory turned to look at him, its eyes narrowed. It probably wasn’t happy to have its meal taken away. Samuel wished that he had had the foresight to bring a fire-type with him. “If I can take him back, I’ll find something better for you and your clutch, okay?” He asked, continuing his crouched approach. Gary stood up and walked unsteadily to the edge of the nest, then sat, with one of the baby skarmory under his arm. The adult skarmory moved between them, its wing raised.
“You don’t want me to take your baby, do you?”
It gave a quiet half-screech. “That’s why I’m here too, you know,” said Samuel. He sat cross legged above the nest, not yet reaching down to pick Gary up. “I need my grandson back. You understand that, right?”
Slowly, Skarmory lowered its wing. Samuel smiled. “I’m only going for Gary,” he said, as he bent to lift Gary from the nest. Gary silently reached for the baby skarmory. “You’ve made a friend!” said Samuel, pulling Gary back from the edge of the cliff. Gary continued his silence. “Thank you,” said Samuel, nodding to the Skarmory. “I’ll be back with something you can actually eat, okay?”
Then, to Gary. “And we can visit your new friends again, too.”